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Wisconsin Climate Change Gag Order Part of Multi-Front, Industry-Tied Attacks
Cross-Posted from DeSmogBlog
On April 7, Wisconsin's Board of Commissioners of Public Lands voted 2-1 to ban those employed by the agency from doing any work pertaining to climate change or global warming while doing public lands related work.
Real-time photo evidence of a cop planting evidence on his victim: Killer Cops like Officer Slager Must be Called to Account
By Dave Lindorff
The Video That Could Indict the Pentagon for Murder
As Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting points out, until a video surfaced of South Carolina policeman Michael Slager murdering Walter Scott, the media was reporting a package of lies manufactured by the police: a fight that never occurred, witnesses who didn't exist, the victim taking the policeman's taser, etc. The lies collapsed because the video appeared.
I find myself asking why videos of missiles blowing children into little bits and pieces can't dissolve the stories churned out by the Pentagon. With several qualifications, I think part of the answer is that there are not enough videos. The struggle for the right to videotape the police at home in the United States should be accompanied by a campaign to provide video cameras to populations targeted for wars. Of course the struggle to videotape people dying under a bombing campaign is at least as great a challenge as videotaping a murderous policeman, but enough cameras would produce some footage.
There are other parts to the answer as well, of course. One is complexity, exacerbated by intentional obfuscation. To explain the current war in Yemen, the Washington Post finds someone to quote saying, "nobody can figure out either who started this fight or how to end it."
Really? Nobody? The second U.S.-armed dictator in the past few years is overthrown by militants empowered by opposition to U.S.-armed dictatorship. This after a Yemeni man told the U.S. Congress to their faces that the U.S. drone strikes were empowering terrorists. A larger neighboring U.S.-armed dictatorship in Saudi Arabia starts bombing and threatening to take over, as in nearby U.S.-armed dictatorship Bahrain. Saudi U.S. weapons are destroying piles of Yemeni U.S. weapons, and nobody can figure anything out?
Here are some U.S. children hiding from Soviet nukes many years ago, and a Yemeni child hiding from U.S. drone strikes more recently (source). How does that alone not indict anyone?
Here are photos and stories of innocent children murdered with U.S. drones in Yemen. How does that not indict anyone?
Beyond complexity and obfuscation and the justification of pretended rationales and euphemized explanations like "collateral damage," lies the problem of getting Americans to give a damn about people far away. But the U.S. government is horrified by the idea of releasing more photos and videos of torture in Abu Ghraib. It seems that direct, personal violence, even short of murder, is seen as more offensive than mass-murder by aerial assault.
I think these weaknesses in how visual documentation of killing in war is perceived can be overcome, and that in fact a greater volume of videos and photos obtained more rapidly could have a qualitative impact. Most Americans imagine a video like collateral murder to be an exception. Most have no idea at all that U.S. wars are one-sided slaughters killing primarily civilians and overwhelmingly the people who live where the wars are fought. One video of a family being dismembered by a bomb could be dismissed as accidental. Tens of thousands of such videos could not be.
Of course, logically, war victim selfie videos ought not to be needed. It's no secret that the U.S. wars on Iraq and Afghanistan and Pakistan and Yemen and Libya have fueled greater violence and failed utterly to drop little baskets of liberty and democracy on the people being burned to death. It ought to be no secret that 80 to 90 percent of the weapons in the supposedly inherently violent region of the Middle East are U.S.-made. The White House does not deny that it has significantly increased weapons sales to that region among others. With no plan for success and open confession that "there is no military solution" it rushes more weapons into war after war with no end in sight.
But words don't seem to do the job. Explaining that police were getting away with murder wasn't producing any indictments. A video finally indicted a cop. Now we need the video that can indict the world's policeman.
NY Times covers up Washington's monstrous evil: Hiding America's War Crimes in Laos, While Reporting on the Grim Results
By Dave Lindorff
A world gone mad: Fear of Terrorism is Making Us Crazy, Especially in the US
By Dave Lindorff
When I lived in China, there was a story going 'round about a China Airlines flight in which both the pilot and the co-pilot had left the cockpit and then, on their return, found the door locked. They reportedly got a fire ax, and with the whole planeload of freaked out passengers watching, started wailing at the door. The co-pilot then turned, and seeing the panic developing, calmly drew the curtain across the aisle, hiding their work from view. The axe bashing continued until they broke the latch and got back to the controls.
Top 10 Reasons Bill Maher Is Not "Our Best Weapon Against ISIS"
10. This sort of argument for debunking Islam in the media as the best way to "defeat" ISIS/ISIL misses the fact that ISIS recruits from the United States make up almost certainly much less than 1% of recruits, so that 99% of the problem, even on its own terms, remains completely unsolved.
9. Even if failure to expose Islam and other religions as ancient myths lacking basis in reality were a significant cause of people joining ISIS, it would not approach the primary cause without which ISIS would not exist, namely U.S. violence in the Middle East. Explaining to would-be ISIS martyrs that there aren't really 72 virgins and isn't really a heaven couldn't possibly do as much to reduce ISIS recruitment as explaining to active and would-be members of the U.S. military that arming and bombing and drone-striking distant lands doesn't actually protect the United States but rather generates so much hostility against it that groups like ISIS produce full-length films imploring the U.S. military to attack it.
8. Of course religion is often a huge part of what motivates members of the U.S. military as well. Congressman Sam Johnson has introduced the "Preserve and Protect God in Military Oaths Act of 2015," to force cadets at the Air Force Academy to say "so help me God" in their oaths. Ted Cruz just announced his campaign for the U.S. presidency at Liberty University, where students learn to drone-murder for Jesus. What is "our best weapon" against that?
7. U.S. recruits to ISIS enamored of Muslim martyrdom could just as well have risked their lives preaching Islam in Alabama. Why choose to risk their lives attacking U.S. troops? The reason is not simply a variety of Islam. Rather it is alienation from the United States. Anwar Al-Awlaki was plenty Muslim when he supported U.S. wars. It was U.S. racism, bigotry, brutality, and militarism that drove him into opposition to the U.S. -- which tragically took the form of advocating violence.
6. Bill Maher pushes racism and bigotry, even concentration camps. The idea that such attitudes are the best response to Islamic hostility and violence is outrageously naive. Were Maher advocating inclusiveness and community at home and abroad, I might take seriously the idea that he was helping.
5. Who is the group to which "Our" is applied in the phrase "our best weapon"? As a human I want an answer to ISIS that works for people in the United States, Europe, Iraq, Syria, and the rest of that region, including Sunnis, and including members of ISIS. The idea that a new war on ISIS is going to repair the damage of the previous wars, which created ISIS, is sadly delusional (but if it leads President Obama to make peace with Iran, I'll take that result gratefully).
4. What is the "weapon" in "our best weapon"? When speech is understood as a weapon it ceases to be useful as speech. Religion is declining in the West and even in the United States, but thinking of those still clinging to it as wartime enemies is exactly the wrong way to advance that process. Thinking of an actual war that has numerous motivations as a struggle over religious beliefs will, likely as not, cause those sympathetic to one side or the other to adopt those beliefs or to hold them more firmly.
3. Highlighting stories of a small number of would-be U.S. recruits is propaganda aimed at instilling fear and suggesting a local presence and an actual threat from what is after all a small and very distant group of people.
2. Such propaganda hides actual motivations and causes. Causes hidden include: past wars on Iraq, sectarian divisions created by those wars, poverty and desperation, regional power grabs, international power grabs, the flow of weapons into the region (largely from the United States), the brutality and cruelty and incompetence of the government of Iraq, the weapons and trainers provided by the United States to the "moderate" groups that cease to be moderate or that surrender to those that are not. Motivations include: rage, hunger, fear, the desire for revenge, the desire to see the United States leave the region, the desire to achieve power or safety or riches, the profit motives of the weapons sellers and oil barons, and the belief that violence can be used to end violence.
1. Hiding the primary problems keeps us from seeing the primary solutions. Each of these steps would work wonders compared to telling U.S. television viewers that Islam isn't true: Ceasing to ship weapons to the region; urging an arms embargo on all parties; negotiating a ceasefire with all regional parties including Iran and Russia; sending in a major contingent of nonviolent peaceworkers and human shields, independent journalists, aid workers, and nonviolent activist trainers; providing reparations and aid on a Marshall Plan scale; negotiating a WMD-free Middle East. If those steps were being taken well, I'd be all for finding time to critique religions.
Making enemies by droning on and on: It's Guilt that has US Military and Embassy Staff Fleeing Yemen Like Scared Rats
By Dave Lindorff
I'm the first to admit that I don't know all that much about Yemen, or about the Houthi rebels who have taken control of Sana'a, the ancient Arab country's capital, leading to the hasty evacuation of all US military forces (some 250 Special Forces personnel and the staff of the US embassy) from that country located at the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula.
Blood on the Corner: Dear UVA From an Alumnus
I'm just back from a rally in front of the Charlottesville Police Department at which I heard a black UVA student say that black friends were going to think twice about trying to attend UVA after what happened tonight.
Unless more video materializes we won't know exactly what happened, but we know this: a black UVA student needed 10 stitches to the head. The policemen who injured him have made known no injuries to themselves whatsoever. In fact they've charged him with "obstruction of justice without force." However it may be that a young man standing on a sidewalk obstructs justice without using force, one thing seems clear: he didn't use force. He's also not accused of threatening to use force. Rather, he's charged with "profane swearing and/or intoxication," neither of which justifies ANY action by police, much less the sort of brutality that requires 10 stitches and leaves blood on the street.
As an alumnus and a local resident may I humbly request that UVA prosecute the police officers responsible and seek, not a Department of Justice report telling us what we know, but meaningful restorative justice that involves actual understanding and reform by those involved.
I have to confess, I'm getting a little tired of the scandals, UVA. And I don't mean playing a shooter with a broken finger in the ACC tournament. I mean:
Paying your employees so little they need second jobs.
Jumping at a false tale of rape, damaging true accounts among other things damaged.
Hosting forums advocating U.S. war in Syria.
Bringing Blackwater mercenaries, neocon reactionaries, torture defenders, and warmongers of all stripes to speak at the Miller Center.
Sending law students to observe the Guantanamo human experimentation camp, who find nothing to oppose.
Weakening the honor code.
Empowering a corporate board that attempts coups -- a board that meets this coming Tuesday and should be confronted with a plan for serious reform.
I know it wasn't your cops tonight, UVA. Nor was it your cops who assaulted the young woman for buying a case of water. But it's your response that can set things right. We don't need a scapegoat or more cameras or a "study." We need the University to instruct the police that violence will not be tolerated.
The University has an honor code but exists in the midst of a society in which police are being turned into warriors -- and guess who plays the role of the enemy? The rumor is that tonight's victim had a fake ID for entering a bar -- certainly less than honorable, but something millions of people have done for many years without being attacked or brutalized.
There's video of a young woman being attacked by a policeman at the rally tonight protesting the initial crime. Apparently her offense was standing in a street and being unable to move because of the surrounding crowd. This assault is on video and should be prosecuted without delay.
I'm not going to urge you to restore the honorable tradition of your imperialist enslaving rapist founder, UVA. I want your to aspire to something better than you've been. I think you can do it.
Half a century and nothing's changed: US Refuses to Seriously Tackle Police Brutality and Racism
By Linn Washington, Jr.
The report released in early March by a panel President Obama appointed to examine serious shortcomings in police practices across America, including the shooting of unarmed people, mostly non-white, listed problems and proposed solutions that are hauntingly similar to those found in a report on police abuses released 47 years ago by another presidential panel.
Ubiquitous doll is now an information-gathering device Barbie the Spy!
By Alfredo Lopez
For many people reading this, there are at least two concepts that will offend.
The Coup Americans Don't Know About, and Washington's Plan to Destroy Venezuela's Democracy
By Dave Lindorff
Potomac Reichstag or 'Planet of the Apes'?: Hooting American Yahoos on the Benches and Racist Israeli Demagogue on the Podium
By Dave Lindorff
TV ad airing in Las Vegas asks drone pilots to refuse to fly
This advertisement does a number of things in 15 seconds that U.S. television has not done before. It presents a moral case against drone murders (the U.S. government's terminology, and strictly accurate). It opposes drone murders as illegal. It shows victims. It provides the name and website of an organization opposing drone murders. And it directly asks drone "pilots" to refuse to continue. It also makes the Nuremberg argument that an illegal order need not (in fact must not) be obeyed.
This is, as far as I know, and as far as its producers know, the first anti-drone-war commercial on U.S. television, as well as -- I believe -- the first content of any sort on U.S. corporate television to do the things listed above.
This ad is airing from February 28 to March 6 on CNN, MSNBC and other networks in the Las Vegas area, just a few miles from Creech Air Force Base, a major drone operating and training facility where a major protest is underway. It will begin airing in other cities soon.
"We produced this spot to make the point as powerfully as possible that drone killing is horrifying, illegal and immoral," said Nick Mottern, coordinator of KnowDrones.com which sponsored the ad.
In case the pilots viewing the ad fail to grasp the sincerety of its producers, they might consider reading this letter:
To: James Cluff, Commander, Creech AFB
Dear Commander Cluff,
It is our intention to reach out to you and appeal to your humanity to stop the drone killing. Your first responsibility is to uphold laws, regardless of your orders. Aerial bombardment of innocent civilians is in violation of the UN Charter, the Geneva Conventions, the Hague Conventions and the principles of the Nuremberg Tribunal. Drones are not making us any safer. More and more young men in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia are joining groups that are retaliating against the US for the murder of their loved ones.
I'm sure you can see at the base that there is low morale among the drone pilots, because it is impossible to sustain any level of enthusiasm for intelligence, surveillance and reconaissance. Although the Airforce throws incentive dollars to your pilots they are still resigning in great numbers, and those that stay turn to drugs and alcohol to numb and detach emotionally to perform this dehumanizing work. While sitting in a cockpit, gazing at their screens, don't your pilots see mothers and fathers with children, kids playing soccer? Consider the effect of drone strikes on these mothers and children. Children suffer intense trauma when they witness the death of their parents or are themselves victims of airstrikes. How can you justify fighting a telewar? Do the pilots really reap joy with their joysticks from killing unarmed civilians?
Do you really believe that you're protecting Americans from terrorists? You can see that dropping missiles on suspected terrorists isn't working, isn't reducing the number of terrorist cells, instead it is taking precious resources and diverting them from the very programs that could truly keep Americans safe. Can't you see that you are caught up in a system of domination that maintains that our survival depends on our threat and domination of others? And that it is this system that objectifies and separates you from people of other nations.
Commander Cluff, you have sadly forgotten who you are and are living in denial of your humanity. You can try but never succeed at legitimizing the violence of drone airstrikes. This job has dehumanized you and caused your indifference to the suffering of the people in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.
It is still possible to stop the killing, to change and take the risk of another way of life.
Jackie Barshak
Women for Peace
Is it imminent? It's everpresent: Venezuela's Continuous Coup
By Alfredo Lopez
When Caracas Mayor Antonio Ledezma was arrested last week, charged with organizing and leading a coup, the U.S. State Department's spokeswoman Jen Psaki said: "The allegations made by the Venezuelan government that the United States is involved in coup plotting and destabilization are baseless and false. The United States does not support political transitions by non-constitutional means."
Republicans and Many Democrats are on the attack: If We're Going to Defend Social Security We Need to Understand It
By Dave Lindorff
The Republican-dominated Congress, with the help of a cadre of sell-out conservative Democrats in both chambers, are gearing up to attack Social Security again, under the guise of "saving" the program.
Civilization and barbarism: It Takes a Life Cult to Beat a Death Cult
By John Grant
We have to address the political grievances terrorists exploit.
-- Barack Obama
Blocking executions was long overdue: Pennsylvania's New Governor Wolf Issues Surprise Execution Moratorium
By Linn Washington, Jr.
Although Pennsylvania's new Governor Tom Wolf, who last November unseated Republican incumbent Tom Corbett, cited more than 315 million solid reasons to back his surprise order putting an immediate moratorium on executions in Pennsylvania, law enforcement organizations in the state still castigated his action, calling it an outrageous assault on a criminal justice system that they contend works well.
This is what corporatocracy looks like!: Trading US Democracy for Corporate Profits with TPP
By Dave Lindorff
If you want to get a good understanding of how thoroughly corrupted and sold-out our government in Washington is, you need only look at the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the latest in a series of trade "deals" that is heading towards passage right now, and that, like its predecessors, NAFTA and CAFTA, as well as the World Trade Organization, will be sucking jobs out of the US for years.
Obama the war president -- War: Where 69¢ of Each Tax Dollar Goes
By Dave Lindorff
The Nobel Peace Laureate President Barack Obama, the guy who once campaigned claiming one US war -- the one against Iraq -- was a "bad" one, and the other -- against Afghanistan -- was a "good" one, turns out to be a man who, once anointed commander-in-chief, can't seem to find a war he doesn't consider to be a "good" idea.
A Tale of Two Movies
By John Reuwer, MD, Adjunct Professor, Conflict Resolution, Saint Michael's College
As a student and teacher of nonviolent action, I was disheartened last week to wake up and read of the box office success of what I thought was yet another shoot-em-up action film, the American Sniper, while the same day noting that a film about my field, Selma, though successful, was not even in the same ballpark with the money. It made me wonder why, so I went to see them.
These movies tell the story of two American heroes, the most lethal sniper in American military history, Christopher Kyle, and the most remembered name in the US civil rights movement, Martin Luther King, Jr. We are presented with two very different kinds of heroes, by many accounts both played accurately by their actors.
What makes these men heroes? They both loved their country, and both saw their country in trouble. King saw people of color being shut out from the American dream, and brutalized when they stepped up to claim it. Kyle saw a threat from the Middle East as he heard news of terrorist attacks and watched as the World Trade Centers fell. Both men were willing to risk their lives in dramatic ways, fighting battle after battle over many years to make things right.
Beyond these things, these men were very different in the way they saw what was wrong in the world and how they should make it better.
The movie depiction of Kyle's formative years relevant to his heroism, besides establishing him as a hunter with good aim, is a lesson from his father about the three kinds of people in the world: the sheep, the wolves, and the sheep dogs whose job it is to protect the sheep. He clearly sees himself as the sheep dog through the movie, and everyone else becomes a sheep or a wolf, mostly devoid of humanity or personality. His world is black and white, and his mission is clear – kill anyone who appears to be threatening his buddies, regardless of age, gender, or the impossible situation in which they find themselves.
In Selma, we don't get King's background, but his mission is clear – overturn the obstacles to blacks' voting in Alabama. The difference in his view of the world is that it is not so black and white. He knows that each human being is capable of good and evil ( a point ironically made in Sniper by one of Kyle's soldiers who had become disgusted with the war). King's mission is to change wrong behavior, not the people doing it.
In Kyle's world, there is a clear line between "us" and "them", repeatedly referring to "them" as "savages". "Our" killing is justified and good, "theirs" is bad. Evil can be banished by killing those doing it. In King's world, "we" and "they" are all children of God, no matter how abhorrent the behavior. Killing is out of the question; his genius is in finding more humane ways of changing evil behavior.
So which hero has the more accurate view of life? That is something that each of us must decide. I look at the aftermath for evidence. Immediately I am saddened that both men were killed in their prime by presumably unstable men with guns. Beyond that, the contrast is stark.
King won the battle for Selma, among other victories that made life for blacks in America more tolerable, and led to 50 years of painfully slow and not even close to complete, but mostly peaceful progress toward equality. I cannot help but think that had he been of Kyle's mindset, we might have had another civil war, or perhaps even a second American genocide. Instead he called for unity and equality among Americans, and for love to be the nation's guiding principle. Most importantly, he demonstrated the power of extremely active nonviolence to confront and defeat some of the most entrenched hatred in our history.
On the other hand, the mess in Iraq is worse than ever. Many of the places Kyle and his buddies fought so hard for in the film, are now in the hands of ISIS, despite a trillion dollars spent, hundreds of thousand Iraqis and 4500 American soldiers dead, and our VA system left to care for tens of thousands of maimed and many more psychologically traumatized veterans. Never mind that no one in Iraq had anything to do with the attacks on New York on 9/11.
Unlike Kyle's apparent black and white picture of good and evil, American Sniper is anything but black and white. It shows the horror of war, the difficulty of deciding who dies in their own country at the hands of foreigners, the physical wounds and PTSD of the combatants, the suffering of their families, and the contradictions between saving and destroying that are inherent to war.
Having seen these two excellent films, I am hopeful that Sniper's popularity shows not a love of simplistic killing, but Americans' willingness to wrestle with the tough issues of our time. My wish is that nonviolent action would attract the same attention, so that more folks could better understand the powerful alternatives to the misery of endless war.
Sen. John McCain is 'low-life scum': And NPR Is Not Reporting the News on Cuba Much Differently than the Corporate Media
By Dave Lindorff
A cultural essay: Dirty Harry Goes To Iraq
By John Grant
People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.
-George Orwell
Back in 1979, reviewers liked to point out that Francis Ford Coppola's Vietnam epic Apocalypse Now was so plagued with difficulty and confusion (the star suffered a heart attack during shooting and a devastating typhoon destroyed all the sets) that the making of the film paralleled the reality of the Vietnam War itself.
Murdering journalists … them and us
By William Blum
After Paris, condemnation of religious fanaticism is at its height. I'd guess that even many progressives fantasize about wringing the necks of jihadists, bashing into their heads some thoughts about the intellect, about satire, humor, freedom of speech. We're talking here, after all, about young men raised in France, not Saudi Arabia.
Where has all this Islamic fundamentalism come from in this modern age? Most of it comes – trained, armed, financed, indoctrinated – from Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria. During various periods from the 1970s to the present, these four countries had been the most secular, modern, educated, welfare states in the Middle East region. And what had happened to these secular, modern, educated, welfare states?
In the 1980s, the United States overthrew the Afghan government that was progressive, with full rights for women, believe it or not , leading to the creation of the Taliban and their taking power.
In the 2000s, the United States overthrew the Iraqi government, destroying not only the secular state, but the civilized state as well, leaving a failed state.
In 2011, the United States and its NATO military machine overthrew the secular Libyan government of Muammar Gaddafi, leaving behind a lawless state and unleashing many hundreds of jihadists and tons of weaponry across the Middle East.
And for the past few years the United States has been engaged in overthrowing the secular Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad. This, along with the US occupation of Iraq having triggered widespread Sunni-Shia warfare, led to the creation of The Islamic State with all its beheadings and other charming practices.
However, despite it all, the world was made safe for capitalism, imperialism, anti-communism, oil, Israel, and jihadists. God is Great!
Starting with the Cold War, and with the above interventions building upon that, we have 70 years of American foreign policy, without which – as Russian/American writer Andre Vltchek has observed – "almost all Muslim countries, including Iran, Egypt and Indonesia, would now most likely be socialist, under a group of very moderate and mostly secular leaders". Even the ultra-oppressive Saudi Arabia – without Washington's protection – would probably be a very different place.
On January 11, Paris was the site of a March of National Unity in honor of the magazine Charlie Hebdo, whose journalists had been assassinated by terrorists. The march was rather touching, but it was also an orgy of Western hypocrisy, with the French TV broadcasters and the assembled crowd extolling without end the NATO world's reverence for journalists and freedom of speech; an ocean of signs declaring Je suis Charlie … Nous Sommes Tous Charlie; and flaunting giant pencils, as if pencils – not bombs, invasions, overthrows, torture, and drone attacks – have been the West's weapons of choice in the Middle East during the past century.
No reference was made to the fact that the American military, in the course of its wars in recent decades in the Middle East and elsewhere, had been responsible for the deliberate deaths of dozens of journalists. In Iraq, among other incidents, see Wikileaks' 2007 video of the cold-blooded murder of two Reuters journalists; the 2003 US air-to-surface missile attack on the offices of Al Jazeera in Baghdad that left three journalists dead and four wounded; and the American firing on Baghdad's Hotel Palestine the same year that killed two foreign cameramen.
Moreover, on October 8, 2001, the second day of the US bombing of Afghanistan, the transmitters for the Taliban government's Radio Shari were bombed and shortly after this the US bombed some 20 regional radio sites. US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld defended the targeting of these facilities, saying: "Naturally, they cannot be considered to be free media outlets. They are mouthpieces of the Taliban and those harboring terrorists."
And in Yugoslavia, in 1999, during the infamous 78-day bombing of a country which posed no threat at all to the United States or any other country, state-owned Radio Television Serbia (RTS) was targeted because it was broadcasting things which the United States and NATO did not like (like how much horror the bombing was causing). The bombs took the lives of many of the station's staff, and both legs of one of the survivors, which had to be amputated to free him from the wreckage.
I present here some views on Charlie Hebdo sent to me by a friend in Paris who has long had a close familiarity with the publication and its staff:
"On international politics Charlie Hebdo was neoconservative. It supported every single NATO intervention from Yugoslavia to the present. They were anti-Muslim, anti-Hamas (or any Palestinian organization), anti-Russian, anti-Cuban (with the exception of one cartoonist), anti-Hugo Chávez, anti-Iran, anti-Syria, pro-Pussy Riot, pro-Kiev … Do I need to continue?
"Strangely enough, the magazine was considered to be 'leftist'. It's difficult for me to criticize them now because they weren't 'bad people', just a bunch of funny cartoonists, yes, but intellectual freewheelers without any particular agenda and who actually didn't give a fuck about any form of 'correctness' – political, religious, or whatever; just having fun and trying to sell a 'subversive' magazine (with the notable exception of the former editor, Philippe Val, who is, I think, a true-blooded neocon)."
Dumb and Dumber
Remember Arseniy Yatsenuk? The Ukrainian whom US State Department officials adopted as one of their own in early 2014 and guided into the position of Prime Minister so he could lead the Ukrainian Forces of Good against Russia in the new Cold War?
In an interview on German television on January 7, 2015 Yatsenuk allowed the following words to cross his lips: "We all remember well the Soviet invasion of Ukraine and Germany. We will not allow that, and nobody has the right to rewrite the results of World War Two".
The Ukrainian Forces of Good, it should be kept in mind, also include several neo-Nazis in high government positions and many more partaking in the fight against Ukrainian pro-Russians in the south-east of the country. Last June, Yatsenuk referred to these pro-Russians as "sub-humans" , directly equivalent to the Nazi term "untermenschen".
So the next time you shake your head at some stupid remark made by a member of the US government, try to find some consolation in the thought that high American officials are not necessarily the dumbest, except of course in their choice of who is worthy of being one of the empire's partners.
The type of rally held in Paris this month to condemn an act of terror by jihadists could as well have been held for the victims of Odessa in Ukraine last May. The same neo-Nazi types referred to above took time off from parading around with their swastika-like symbols and calling for the death of Russians, Communists and Jews, and burned down a trade-union building in Odessa, killing scores of people and sending hundreds to hospital; many of the victims were beaten or shot when they tried to flee the flames and smoke; ambulances were blocked from reaching the wounded … Try and find a single American mainstream media entity that has made even a slightly serious attempt to capture the horror. You would have to go to the Russian station in Washington, DC, RT.com, search "Odessa fire" for many stories, images and videos. Also see the Wikipedia entry on the 2 May 2014 Odessa clashes.
If the American people were forced to watch, listen, and read all the stories of neo-Nazi behavior in Ukraine the past few years, I think they – yes, even the American people and their less-than-intellectual Congressional representatives – would start to wonder why their government was so closely allied with such people. The United States may even go to war with Russia on the side of such people.
L'Occident n'est pas Charlie pour Odessa. Il n'y a pas de défilé à Paris pour Odessa.
Some thoughts about this thing called ideology
Norman Finkelstein, the fiery American critic of Israel, was interviewed recently by Paul Jay on The Real News Network. Finkelstein related how he had been a Maoist in his youth and had been devastated by the exposure and downfall of the Gang of Four in 1976 in China. "It came out there was just an awful lot of corruption. The people who we thought were absolutely selfless were very self-absorbed. And it was clear. The overthrow of the Gang of Four had huge popular support."
Many other Maoists were torn apart by the event. "Everything was overthrown overnight, the whole Maoist system, which we thought [were] new socialist men, they all believed in putting self second, fighting self. And then overnight the whole thing was reversed."
"You know, many people think it was McCarthy that destroyed the Communist Party," Finkelstein continued. "That's absolutely not true. You know, when you were a communist back then, you had the inner strength to withstand McCarthyism, because it was the cause. What destroyed the Communist Party was Khrushchev's speech," a reference to Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev's 1956 exposure of the crimes of Joseph Stalin and his dictatorial rule.
Although I was old enough, and interested enough, to be influenced by the Chinese and Russian revolutions, I was not. I remained an admirer of capitalism and a good loyal anti-communist. It was the war in Vietnam that was my Gang of Four and my Nikita Khrushchev. Day after day during 1964 and early 1965 I followed the news carefully, catching up on the day's statistics of American firepower, bombing sorties, and body counts. I was filled with patriotic pride at our massive power to shape history. Words like those of Winston Churchill, upon America's entry into the Second World War, came easily to mind again – "England would live; Britain would live; the Commonwealth of Nations would live." Then, one day – a day like any other day – it suddenly and inexplicably hit me. In those villages with the strange names there were people under those falling bombs, people running in total desperation from that god-awful machine-gun strafing.
This pattern took hold. The news reports would stir in me a self-righteous satisfaction that we were teaching those damn commies that they couldn't get away with whatever it was they were trying to get away with. The very next moment I would be struck by a wave of repulsion at the horror of it all. Eventually, the repulsion won out over the patriotic pride, never to go back to where I had been; but dooming me to experience the despair of American foreign policy again and again, decade after decade.
The human brain is an amazing organ. It keeps working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 52 weeks a year, from before you leave the womb, right up until the day you find nationalism. And that day can come very early. Here's a recent headline from the Washington Post: "In the United States the brainwashing starts in kindergarten."
Oh, my mistake. It actually said "In N. Korea the brainwashing starts in kindergarten."
Let Cuba Live! The Devil's List of what the United States has done to Cuba
On May 31, 1999, a lawsuit for $181 billion in wrongful death, personal injury, and economic damages was filed in a Havana court against the government of the United States. It was subsequently filed with the United Nations. Since that time its fate is somewhat of a mystery.
The lawsuit covered the 40 years since the country's 1959 revolution and described, in considerable detail taken from personal testimony of victims, US acts of aggression against Cuba; specifying, often by name, date, and particular circumstances, each person known to have been killed or seriously wounded. In all, 3,478 people were killed and an additional 2,099 seriously injured. (These figures do not include the many indirect victims of Washington's economic pressures and blockade, which caused difficulties in obtaining medicine and food, in addition to creating other hardships.)
The case was, in legal terms, very narrowly drawn. It was for the wrongful death of individuals, on behalf of their survivors, and for personal injuries to those who survived serious wounds, on their own behalf. No unsuccessful American attacks were deemed relevant, and consequently there was no testimony regarding the many hundreds of unsuccessful assassination attempts against Cuban President Fidel Castro and other high officials, or even of bombings in which no one was killed or injured. Damages to crops, livestock, or the Cuban economy in general were also excluded, so there was no testimony about the introduction into the island of swine fever or tobacco mold.
However, those aspects of Washington's chemical and biological warfare waged against Cuba that involved human victims were described in detail, most significantly the creation of an epidemic of hemorrhagic dengue fever in 1981, during which some 340,000 people were infected and 116,000 hospitalized; this in a country which had never before experienced a single case of the disease. In the end, 158 people, including 101 children, died. That only 158 people died, out of some 116,000 who were hospitalized, was an eloquent testimony to the remarkable Cuban public health sector.
The complaint describes the campaign of air and naval attacks against Cuba that commenced in October 1959, when US president Dwight Eisenhower approved a program that included bombings of sugar mills, the burning of sugar fields, machine-gun attacks on Havana, even on passenger trains.
Another section of the complaint described the armed terrorist groups, los banditos, who ravaged the island for five years, from 1960 to 1965, when the last group was located and defeated. These bands terrorized small farmers, torturing and killing those considered (often erroneously) active supporters of the Revolution; men, women, and children. Several young volunteer literacy-campaign teachers were among the victims of the bandits.
There was also of course the notorious Bay of Pigs invasion, in April 1961. Although the entire incident lasted less than 72 hours, 176 Cubans were killed and 300 more wounded, 50 of them permanently disabled.
The complaint also described the unending campaign of major acts of sabotage and terrorism that included the bombing of ships and planes as well as stores and offices. The most horrific example of sabotage was of course the 1976 bombing of a Cubana airliner off Barbados in which all 73 people on board were killed. There were as well as the murder of Cuban diplomats and officials around the world, including one such murder on the streets of New York City in 1980. This campaign continued to the 1990s, with the murders of Cuban policemen, soldiers, and sailors in 1992 and 1994, and the 1997 hotel bombing campaign, which took the life of a foreigner; the bombing campaign was aimed at discouraging tourism and led to the sending of Cuban intelligence officers to the US in an attempt to put an end to the bombings; from their ranks rose the Cuban Five.
To the above can be added the many acts of financial extortion, violence and sabotage carried out by the United States and its agents in the 16 years since the lawsuit was filed. In sum total, the deep-seated injury and trauma inflicted upon on the Cuban people can be regarded as the island's own 9-11.
- US Department of the Army, Afghanistan, A Country Study (1986), pp.121, 128, 130, 223, 232
- Counterpunch, January 10, 2015
- Index on Censorship, the UK's leading organization promoting freedom of expression, October 18, 2001
- The Independent (London), April 24, 1999
- "Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk talking to Pinar Atalay", Tagesschau (Germany), January 7, 2015 (in Ukrainian with German voice-over)
- CNN, June 15, 2014
- See William Blum, West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir, chapter 3
- Washington Post, January 17, 2015, page A6
- William Blum, Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, chapter 30, for a capsule summary of Washington's chemical and biological warfare against Havana.
- For further information, see William Schaap, Covert Action Quarterly magazine (Washington, DC), Fall/Winter 1999, pp.26-29
Center for Public Integrity Reveals How PR Firms Manufacture Consent for Oil, Big Business
Cross-Posted from DeSmogBlog
The Center for Public Integrity has broken new ground by publishing a months-long investigation into the public relations and influence-peddling spending conducted by Big Business trade associations between 2008-2012.
When Ray McGovern Met Joseph Goebbels
Ray McGovern has been attending the Jeffrey Sterling trial. (Jeffrey who?)
Here's a report from him on Thursday's appearance by Condoleezza Rice:
It was surreal in court earlier today; stiletto-heeled Rice prancing in within 2 feet of me, as if on the modeling runway, with a Paula Broadwell-type look on her face -- and, at the same time, Bill Harlow sitting down next to me after his testimony explaining how hard he had tried to get Jim Risen to listen to reason and not pursue/publish the story about the botched CIA "Merlin" operation.....and how listening to Rice's request at the White House meeting, NY Times Washington Bureau Chief Jill Abramson felt "out of her pay-grade range," and how her NYT masters (surprise, surprise) bowed to the White House/CIA hyperbole re the dangers of publishing, and agreed to the urgent demand/request of Rice and her boss. (Pls see my piece yesterday on pitfalls of letting covert action eager beavers loose on the basis of a false major premise i. e., that Iran was working on a nuclear weapon.)
(As for Abramson, for being a good girl, she made it to the very top of NYT as Executive Editor, for services performed -- she was also Washington Bureau Chief when Judith Miller was plying her wares with the likes of Ahmed Chalabi. But then Jill forgot her place; got too uppity and was unceremoniously dumped by the top men of that "all-the-news-that's-allowed-
Back to the courtroom: All at once I find myself wondering what might be the appropriate reaction when an amateur Goebbels (Harlow) sits down next to you; so I wrote a little note to him. (It did not seem to phase him one bit, so I'm sure he would not mind me sharing it with you):
"Newsweek, Feb 2003, quote from Hussein Kamel's debrief 1995: 'I ordered the destruction of all weapons — biological, chemical, missile, nuclear.' Harlow: Newsweek story 'incorrect, bogus, wrong, untrue.' 4,500 U.S. troops dead. A consequential lie."
All stand; judge and jury leave; and I'm not sure he has read the note. I give it to him; he reads it, smiles, "Good to see you Ray!"


text:
The English Department offers instruction in interpreting and creating informative and imaginative texts, in the description and historical understanding of the English and American languages, and in the cultural understanding of world literatures written in English.
If you are trying to substitute a course for ENWR 105 or 106, please use the Course Transfer Form. Associate Director of First-Year Writing Dr. Jennifer Holly-Wells can answer any other questions you have.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
After the garden furniture shopping is done and the furniture all in its place, now is the time to go for the garden treasures patio. Look at the overall layout of your patio get a sense of the accessory that would complement that spot. The garden treasure patio is all about adding your own personal touch and style to your special domain. If you live in a site that only has a small courtyard to work with, you might want to consider things that hang rather than placed on the ground taking up walk space. If you want to grow plants with eatable fruits such as strawberries or tomatoes, there are many creative ways to grow these plants, such as in hanging baskets, in small confined spaces. A window box is a perfect spot for growing herbs that will be used fresh from your garden patio to the current spaghetti sauce or other savory dish. Wall art can be hung on the wall nearest your garden patio to complete the look of your garden treasure patio. To add shading to your garden treasure patio you can find a trellis and incorporate a sprouting vine to the spaces.
If your garden treasure patio is a much larger area, you can find additional novelty items to enhance the atmosphere of your garden treasure patio. You may want to turn a small space into a kitchen or grilling area for those outdoor barbecues. For the warmer months, a small fountain gives the garden treasure patio a peaceful ambience. The soothing sound of running water will aid in relaxing you while you read or just rejuvenate yourself from a hard day at work. A fountain will not be a distraction when entertaining guests, instead would add a measure of character to your garden treasure patio. For the cooler months, a fireplace would be another highlight to your garden treasure patio. The warmth of a fire and watching the glow of burning embers is as peaceful and soothing as the fountain in the warmer months.
Your garden treasure patio might be in need of shading from the scorching sun during the hot summer months or maybe to protect you and your guests from a quiet falling rain in the spring. Then you will want to check into awnings, canopies, or other structures made for the purpose of adding cover. An umbrella works for a small space. If, however you are looking to cover a much larger region, you will need a much larger cover. These coverings come in several different sizes and construction. You will want to find what works best for you in your situation. Browse this link www.ilikelogcabins.com for more details about gardens
You may want to incorporate large tropical plants to your garden treasure patio. If so you will find an array of large pots and huge tropical plants to pick from. If you like the whimsical, you will discover small or large woodland creatures from gnomes, to squirrels to cute puppies that will add a special touch to your garden treasure patio.
Learning to appreciate and admire our own culture is sometimes a tad bit overlooked by most, as is the essence of a weather vane. Life among the garden plants, vases, flowers, trees and birds at home sometimes also goes overlooked by those who are too busy to remember how far we have come as a civilization. Weathervanes are like instant memories. With some weathervane the sound of changing wind will be an immediate reminder of our culture and heritage, with others the mere sight will invoke past experiences and pleasant memories. Art can change society if it wants to or even bring inspiration and insight. The most traditional of American modern arts in the home and garden, is the weather vane. From the oldest documented colonial weathervane of Deacon Shem Drowne in the 18th century with his most famous Grasshopper weathervane that sits upon Faneuil Hall in Boston to the present day, weathervane sculptures have shaped American modern art.
Weathervane and American Modern Art
When we think of American modern art, most people tend to think of paintings and sculptures that sit in galleries and art museums. Weathervane are some of the most traditional works of American sculpture art because they have told the direction of the wind on the tops of houses, fences and barns for hundreds of years and represented important elements in our history. They are made by hand and no two can be exactly the same. Each weather vane is in and of itself a work of human expression, crafted by the hands of an artesian who takes their work seriously and with great passion. Old North Church (1740, Boston), First Church in Cambridge (1721), Province House (1716, Boston), Goddess of Liberty, the Federal Eagle and many famous race horses have all been immortalized by the sculpture of weathervane and banners upon the highest tops.
Weathervane Give The Direction of The Wind and Feed Imagination.
The compass rose is held firmly on a weather vane and will always show the direction of north. The weather vane itself will always point in the direction from which the wind originates. The movement of wind and air is physically the disbursing of energy that has picked up speed and travels through the sky abiding the laws of the cosmos. Indicating in a subtle way, what the skies are about to do. Wind may normally tend to stand idle without a weather vane, but it is always doing something, even if it is absent. Metalworkers and historians alike have been enchanted by the fascinating beauty of weathervane and those delicate "cathartic" moments they captivate in our hearts. Curving and spinning like a dancer, the weather vane fuels our human imagination with its beauty and becomes our link to the sky.
Art In Home and Garden Inspires Peace and Contemplation
This deep and intricate realm of American modern art can be most appreciated in the delicate things. Home and Garden is a place where that kind of traditional handmade art restores the splendor of the subtle and peaceful. "Home is where the heart is." And through the art of weathervane our expressions of self and family become most attuned to the sky, wind and land that we call home. The weather vane inspires peace and contemplation wherever it stands. Mythical creatures, farm animals, creatures of the sea, sailboats, airplanes, national prides; creative works of an artistic imagination that follow the moving patterns of the wind, a wind that only sleeps at the calm of the storm. And in those moments the weather vane asks a question, where is the wind?


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Entropy 2014, 16(5), 2629-2641; doi:10.3390/e16052629
Using Neighbor Diversity to Detect Fraudsters in Online Auctions
1 Department of Information Management, Yuan Ze University, 135 Yuan-Tung Road, Chungli, Taoyuan 32003, Taiwan 2 Innovation Center for Big Data and Digital Convergence, Yuan Ze University, Taiwan 3 Faculty of Management Science, Nakhon Ratchasima Rajabhat University, Nakhon Ratchasima 30000, Thailand
* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Received: 24 February 2014 / Revised: 6 May 2014 / Accepted: 9 May 2014 / Published: 14 May 2014
View Full-Text | Download PDF [281 KB, uploaded 24 February 2015] | Browse Figure
AbstractOnline auctions attract not only legitimate businesses trying to sell their products but also fraudsters wishing to commit fraudulent transactions. Consequently, fraudster detection is crucial to ensure the continued success of online auctions. This paper proposes an approach to detect fraudsters based on the concept of neighbor diversity. The neighbor diversity of an auction account quantifies the diversity of all traders that have transactions with this account. Based on four different features of each trader (i.e., the number of received ratings, the number of cancelled transactions, k-core, and the joined date), four measurements of neighbor diversity are proposed to discern fraudsters from legitimate traders. An experiment is conducted using data gathered from a real world auction website. The results show that, although the use of neighbor diversity on k-core or on the joined date shows little or no improvement in detecting fraudsters, both the neighbor diversity on the number of received ratings and the neighbor diversity on the number of cancelled transactions improve classification accuracy, compared to the state-of-the-art methods that use k-core and center weight.
Keywords: online auction; fraudster detection; diversity; entropy
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0).
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Lin, J.-L.; Khomnotai, L. Using Neighbor Diversity to Detect Fraudsters in Online Auctions. Entropy 2014, 16, 2629-2641.View more citation formats
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Lin J-L, Khomnotai L. Using Neighbor Diversity to Detect Fraudsters in Online Auctions. Entropy. 2014; 16(5):2629-2641.Chicago/Turabian Style
Lin, Jun-Lin; Khomnotai, Laksamee. 2014. "Using Neighbor Diversity to Detect Fraudsters in Online Auctions." Entropy 16, no. 5: 2629-2641.
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Keith, Tony & Meg
Internet Rumor Debunked.
Posted April 30th, 2014 @ 7:26am
The genesis of an internet rumor.
1. Poor grammar.
2. My BANKERS SISTER? In a tragedy my banker calls me about his sister, all the time.
Come on…903 people fell for this???? Not true. Not a real story.


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- Report: #678009
Report - Rebuttal - Arbitrate
Complaint Review: Go Risk Free, Tracy CA
Go Risk Free, Tracy CASteven Davis? Internet United States of America
Go Risk Free, Tracy CA Ripoff Scam Internet
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I sent them $14,500 in September of 2009, was told by my representative that I would get paid back this principal plus $2,000 in 90 days. Well obviously it didnt happen and we are getting excuses.My rep says they have referredit to their lawyers blah blah blah. I wish I had seen this website before. DO NOT SEND THEM MONEY!!
This report was posted on Ripoff Report on 01/03/2011 08:31 AM and is a permanent record located here: http://www.ripoffreport.com/r/Go-Risk-Free-Tracy-CA/internet/Go-Risk-Free-Tracy-CA-Ripoff-Scam-Internet-678009. The posting time indicated is Arizona local time. Arizona does not observe daylight savings so the post time may be Mountain or Pacific depending on the time of year.
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Vince & Associates Clinical Research:
Vince & Associates Clinical Research will host a ceremony to mark
the groundbreaking of the new five-million-dollar expansion of its
campus located in Overland Park, Kansas. The addition of the new,
three-story building will include an expanded Recruitment Center,
a high-end procedure suite to conduct advanced medical procedures,
luxuriously designed research suites for overnight clinical trials
and a state-of-the-art pharmacy.
Thursday, April 24, at 12 p.m. CDT (News - Alert)
About Vince & Associates Clinical Research
Vince & Associates Clinical Research has provided clinical research
services to the biopharmaceutical industry for more than a decade. The
research professionals at Vince & Associates are proud to be recognized
in the industry as a "Center of Research Excellence." Vince & Associates
currently operates a state-of-the-art, multimillion-dollar, 90-bed
clinical pharmacology unit that combines the ultimate in subject safety
and luxury. Boutique-hotel-level amenities of the facility include 10
uniquely designed research suites. The 20-inch, bedside, touch-screen
entertainment systems allow study volunteers individual access to watch
TV and movies, surf the Internet or play a host of games. This new unit
has the upscale atmosphere necessary for the recruitment and retention
of study volunteers in both short- and long-term clinical trials. From
the safety and security of the controlled access unit to the added
features of a movie theater and game rooms, no detail has been
More Information
Additional background materials pertaining to Vince & Associates
Clinical Research are located on the corporate website at http://www.vinceandassociates.com/.
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text:
Yes, I did write "one last generation" and that is ALARMING! WE are one generation away from disaster and destruction. You thought this was all uplifting and happy but that would be me putting my head in the sand and ignoring the obvious destruction going on all around us.
Why am I so negative? Because I want to wake you up and make you see that if we don't do anything now, we are screwed. Yup, we need to stand up and figure things out before it's too late for us and our offspring. We have the responsibility to stand up to the system and be history makers.
Now, back to the original point. The reason I write this is not because of some nuclear war or something like armageddon that I fear. I fear that the destruction is happening from the inside out and most of us don't see or feel it until it's too late. The thing I am talking about is our food. We are being destroyed from the inside out by the food industry.
There are more sick people in the US than ever before and we have the best health care system. We have more food than any other nation yet there is malnutrition. How is this possible? Because our food is being poisoned by pesticides and our health care system is completely corrupt. There is hardly any money going into nutrition and figuring out how to cure diseases naturally. I believe that you can cure almost any disease with natural medicine such as herbs, essential oils and others.
God made us perfect and if we care for our body we should be able to cure it OR even prevent it from disease. The secret is to figure out how the cells in our body work and then feed it the correct nutrients so that the body can cure itself and grow stronger.
The way things are now, we are getting weaker every day because we feed our body poison and one day it will snap. That is why so many elderly people have to spend their last days surviving on countless amount of pills.
My heart aches for those who are being deceived every day thinking that medicine will help them and eating food that is literally poisoning them from the inside out but it is so slow that the poison is legal and freely sold on the market. That is twisted because it shows you how much power money has to sway government to one side or the other.
Lets start this conversation and lets do something. Start by being a conscious shopper. By local if possible and by organic and farmers market as well. That is what I do every year. I go to the farmers market and talk to local farmers to find out what they do with their plants and urge them to grow organic.
Anyways, I hope this was encouraging and don't give up, We have a world of opportunities and we can make a difference together.


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- Report: #768536
Report - Rebuttal - Arbitrate
Complaint Review: Lettraining.com
Lettraining.comyelm WA yelm, Washington United States of America
Lettraining.com Peter Lotterhos Verbal and physical abuser yelm, Washington
*Author of original report: My sincere apologies
*Consumer Comment: I believe in Peter
*Author of original report: Honesty Is Hard
*Author of original report: Please remove
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This report was posted on Ripoff Report on 08/22/2011 11:31 PM and is a permanent record located here: http://www.ripoffreport.com/r/Lettrainingcom/yelm-Washington-/Lettrainingcom-Peter-Lotterhos-Verbal-and-physical-abuser-yelm-Washington-768536. The posting time indicated is Arizona local time. Arizona does not observe daylight savings so the post time may be Mountain or Pacific depending on the time of year.
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#1 Author of original report
My sincere apologies
AUTHOR: Shannon Thain - (USA)
SUBMITTED: Thursday, September 27, 2012POSTED: Thursday, September 27, 2012
My name is Shannon and I was the one who wrote the report about Peter and LET/TMD. My intent of posting this is to set the record straight and be accountable for letting my programming and addictions run me.
First I want to apologize to Peter for any harm this report has caused to his business and credibility. I would also like to apologize to everyone else who has, or is participating in any of his trainings. I want to acknowledge you all for the commitment and dedication it takes to stand for something greater than yourselves. This I have found only becomes possible through Peter and LET/TMD. What I wrote was selfish and if I could take it back I would.... unfortunately with rip off report there is no taking it back or having it removed. I must live with the damage I have caused and accept the consequences that come with the choice I made.
So here is what I would like to say:
I made up this report and lied, I was triggered because Peter confronted my programming and while drinking made the choice to create a story about him that is so far from reality. The truth is I am a alcoholic and I was coming from a place of protecting that. I met Peter almost 3 years ago and participated in his training. It was a wonderful experience. I met amazing people and witnessed first hand the breakthroughs in others and myself. I was able to see how I made up the events in my past so that I didn't have to create powerfully in my life. Even though, I myself experienced profound breakthroughs I was still struggling with an addiction to alcohol that I didn't see. I think anyone who has struggled with alcoholism or knows someone who has can relate to the power this addiction has over people. I would do or say anything not to admit that I had a problem, protect my addiction and really believed that it was the truth. In my case I can now honestly say that I really had no control over it or my life. Since leaving LET which was over a year now I have created for myself the possibility of being sober. I have realized that the results in our life are directly correlated to who we are being or where we are coming from. This is one of the greatest distinctions that I have applied in my life. If I am coming from not trusting people, people occur to me as non trusting. If I am coming from no one listens or supports met than that is what I get... which is what I did. I manifest how I see the world and my listening becomes that. Always listening for the way that I am not doing it right,how I an bad, how I am right, how I am wrong or they are wrong, coming from the past to create my future. The ultimate cost for me has been true love, authentic communication and having the life that I truly love. What I really got was more of the same... a vicious cycle that kept me stuck. Now... the breakthrough for me is that since participating in LET I have had the opportunity to clean this up. I have had the opportunity to create for myself a new possibility. A possibility of being committed and inspiring. Since the training I have quit drinking, quit smoking. I have accepted being with my weight... which I had struggled with in the past. Out of being with it I have dropped 10 pounds at least but am not certain because I am no longer concerned with what the scale says. I have accepted my mother just the way she is and am now committed to just loving her as whole and complete. I actually listen to what people say vs. being concerned with the chatter in my head. Through just this I have become more effective in business and have seen a 50% increase in my income. Which for being in real estate in these times is remarkable. I have created a space for new possibilities that would never have been possible for me had I never met Peter or participated in LET. These two things the person/the training have really given me my life back. I am sharing this because I'm committed to paying it forward by giving this gift to others. I realized that by not sharing the truth that I lied I was not giving back. I was not paying forward the gift that I was given. I was afraid of not looking good, or being considered a fraud and all the other judgements that come when you admit making up a lie. I realized I was cheating Peter and everyone else in the training by not sharing the truth.
It became apparent to me what I had to do. I had to tell the truth because if there is anyone who is considering taking the training and is using this story I created to rationalize and justify participating I had to be honest. I was potentially hurting you and being selfish by not stepping up and telling the truth sooner by letting this report just sit there with no response. For Renee, Paula, Michael, Anne, Tracy, Eric, Scotty and everyone else in the training who has been committed to making their lives works and enrolling others in the same... I am sincerely sorry for any difficulty I have caused. For Peter who is a remarkable, unreasonable stand for possibility in others and a true gift to mankind I am so sorry....
Will you forgive me?
If there is anyone thinking about enrolling or who is already participating and would like to speak with me first hand.... I am done hiding. You can call me direct at 253-208-2070
My deepest apologies,
Shannon Thain
Are you an owner, employee or ex-employee with either negative or positive information about the company or individual, or can you provide "insider information" on this company?
#2 Consumer Comment
I believe in Peter
AUTHOR: i believe in Peter - (United States of America)
SUBMITTED: Monday, October 31, 2011POSTED: Monday, October 31, 2011
I don't understand the thinking behind writing a report such as this. I can only imagine a very angry hurt person, maybe someone that has felt hurt for most of her life. Someone who let's their program react to a situation for them. By letting the program make such a decision, you keep the real self from living up to the full potential. This persons program made a decision to strike out using their words like daggers hoping to destroy and cripple. I believe both reports were written by the same person hoping to hurt Peter in the only place they had access to, his career...... Transformational training.
Anyone who really knows Peter knows he is a very forgiving and a non-reactional human being. One of the things I love most about Peter is his great ability to forgive!!!!
I know! My name is Tracy and I have been involved with the Transformational training for just about two years. I first met Peter in the training room, I went at the suggestion of a friend, and I made sure I brought all of my emotional baggage with me. You see I went through a very bad divorce. My husband became mentally ill, I thought he was going to kill me, I survived but my emotions didn't. When I couldn't deal with life anymore I moved three hours away from anyone that knew me, and started over. You see if I turned my emotions off, started over where know one knew me, I wouldn't have to feel, right? I wouldn't date, because deep down I was afraid it would happen again. I was lonely!
I found the training especially hard. I couldn't open up and share what I was feeling, it was to hard to feel. I was sooo lost!!! As the Trainer Peter never gave up on me. I had tantrums! He would just tell me again and again, I wasn't alone! He was committed to me completing the training, committed to my transformation, he was committed! Who does that?
I tested him time and time again, he never faltered, ever! Trust me when I say I tested him to the limits, he was always patient. He was brutally honest. I will take brutal honesty any day, it's hard, but I'd rather know the truth.
Long story short I have taken all of Peter's courses. If you do his training you will most likely meet me at some point.
I have picked up the reigns of my life and moved back to Phalidelphia. I love Peter because I now live a normal life near my kids and many friends. I am very grateful!!!!
I am committed to helping this transformational trainning get out to the world. I am a Healer, Mother, and Woman's advocate. I am committed to you and your transformation!!!
I believe Peter is one of the most gifted People I have ever met.
Is he perfect? NO!!!
If you have come to this site because you are thinking of taking this course, do it. I invite you to contact me, my e-mail is, email@example.com
Once contacted I will call you so we can speak directly.
As for the unhappy person who wrote these two entries. What can I say other then the story she wrote was just that, a story!!! It was not real!
I choose to believe Peter........
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#3 Author of original report
Honesty Is Hard
AUTHOR: Shannon Thain - (USA)
SUBMITTED: Sunday, September 11, 2011POSTED: Sunday, September 11, 2011
I am sorry
I am sorry to LET I am sorry to Peter I wish i coud take it back but i cannot.
I think Ripoff report is great resource but I see how it can be used in a wrong way.
Again I am sorry lying
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#4 Author of original report
Please remove
AUTHOR: JusthonestinWA - (USA)
SUBMITTED: Tuesday, August 23, 2011POSTED: Tuesday, August 23, 2011
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text:
Drug bust in Aiken County
Updated: 10/26/2007 - At least seven people have been arrested in a drug bust that yielded guns, drugs, and pit bulls that may have been used in dogfighting.
Updated: 10/26/2007 - At least seven people have been arrested in a drug bust that yielded guns, drugs, and pit bulls that may have been used in dogfighting.
Posted: 10/26/2007 - He killed six people in a hotel fire, including a North Augusta woman. Now Eric Hans will spend the rest of his life in prison.
Updated: 10/26/2007 - A 16-year-old charged with assault for hitting his father with a lead pipe is telling his side of the story only to News 12.
Updated: 10/25/2007 - A 30-year-old deaf and blind woman died of malnourishment in a home Richmond County Code Enforcement is calling a hazard to the community.
Updated: 10/25/2007 - 24-year-old Roderick Collins is in the hospital after being shot several times at 629 Seymour Drive just before 9 o'clock Wednesday night.
Updated: 10/25/2007 - Deputies are looking for Howard Russell Bodie of Rainbow Falls Road. He's accused of criminal sexual conduct with a ten-year-old girl.
Updated: 10/23/2007 - Investigators continue looking for those responsible for spreading gang-related graffiti at the Crosland Park neighborhood.
Updated: 10/24/2007 - An Augusta couple has been arrested in the death by starvation of the wife's sister.
Updated: 10/23/2007 - Twice in two weeks, Burnettown's police chief was in the right place at the right time to catch an alleged robber on the run.
Posted: 10/22/2007 - Richmond County Investigators said the Hale Tiki was rented out for a teenage birthday party. What started out as a night of fun, ended with a fight and several gun shots.
Updated: 10/23/2007 - For a second time in recent weeks, Burnettown's police chief was in the right place at the right time.
Updated: 10/22/2007 - We continue our talk with a woman we'll call Lauren. She was a victim of domestic abuse. One night, she had enough with an abusive ex-boyfriend.
Updated: 10/19/2007 - Investigators say Tuesday's Family Dollar robbery represents typical gang activity for initiation or status in a gang.
Updated: 10/19/2007 - Richmond County investigators are tracking the members of a small gang after an armed robbery this week was linked to that group.
Posted: 10/19/2007 - Deputies hope you can help take Demarius Barber off the streets. Barber's wanted for shooting at a car near Eagle's Way and Olive Road in Augusta.
Posted: 10/19/2007 - Richmond County investigators are seeking a person of interest in a robbery at the Wendy's on Deans Bridge Road.
Posted: 10/19/2007 - Investigators are searching for an armed robber after a holdup at the Four Seasons station on Edgefield Road Thursday night.
Posted: 10/18/2007 - Three people have been arrested after a series of break-ins at businesses, a home, and Butler High School.
Updated: 10/18/2007 - It's Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and in just the past nine days, we've seen three local cases: a kidnapping, a murder and a burglary.
Updated: 10/18/2007 - Deputies have arrested two teens and are looking for a third in this week's Family Dollar robbery on Tobacco Road.
Updated: 10/18/2007 - Death row inmate Jack Alderman will not be executed Friday. The Georgia Supreme Court granted him a stay of execution.
Posted: 10/17/2007 - Deputies searched all day Wednesday for 54-year-old Richard Moseley in Graniteville near Midland Valley Country Club.
Updated: 10/16/2007 - A local woman has been indicted on state racketeering charges in a case where she's already accused of stealing money from over 100 people.
Updated: 10/16/2007 - Richmond County investigators are looking for two suspects from an armed robbery at a Family Dollar store Tuesday.
Updated: 10/16/2007 - North Augusta Public Safety is looking for a man they say robbed a home on Summerhill Tuesday morning.


text:
Ferguson's side were 1-0 down at the break and the Posh manager did not go easy on his players, sending them out five minutes early for the restart.
After his team extended their unbeaten run to eight matches, Ferguson said: "We let our standards slip and the players know what I think.
"We came here to win the game but we played with a lack of intelligence at times and I am disappointed we didn't get the three points."
Posh remain in the bottom three despite their unbeaten run and Ferguson continued: "I don't care where we are in the table.
"If we just overtake one or two in the last game to stay up I will be happy.
"Normally if you have 47 points with five games left you would be home and hosed.
"This season is different. I've no idea how many points we'll need for safety and anyone who tries to predict it is mad."
Ferguson is ready for the relegation battle to go to the wire and added: "This will go all the way to the last game, I'm convinced of that.
"We have beaten Cardiff twice and taken four points off Hull and we have been very consistent of late. We just have to keep going."
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