1. Whistleblower – Former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds, previously gagged by the Bush administration, blew the whistle on government corruption when she testified under oath about former and present congressmen accepting bribes from Turkish lobbyists. She previously claimed that the US maintained ‘intimate relations’ with Bin Laden, and the Taliban, “all the way until that day of September 11.”
2. Whistleblower – Former FEMA videographer Kurt Sonnenfeld, currently living in exile in Argentina, went public about his persecution at the hands of U.S authorities after he refused to hand in the 29 tapes of “disturbing material” he filmed at Ground Zero.
3. Scientific evidence – an international team of independent scientists discovered a military-grade explosive, nanothermite, in the dust from the World Trade Center – Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe (.pdf)
4. Pentagon Eye Witnesses – A 3-year independent investigation into the attack at the Pentagon revealed that the actual flight path of the aircraft was considerably different to the “official” path. Learn why this is significant here.
5. 800+ Architects and Engineers – The number of architectural and engineering professionals who publicly support the controlled demolition theory has surpassed the 800 mark.
6. 9/11 Commissioners Admit Stonewalling – Actor Charlie Sheen recently wrote an open letter titled “Twenty Minutes with the President” which described a fictional interview with President Obama. In it, he correctly points out that “60% of the 9/11 commissioners have publicly stated that the government agreed not to tell the truth about 9/11″. Read their individual statements and those of other credible people here.

On this eighth anniversary of 9/11, I support the NYC Coalition for Accountability to get an independent, impartial investigation into the 9/11 attacks, and having read point 6 above, everyone else should, too.

So why is that 99% of everyone I know perceives the new president differently from me? The only way to find out is to give my reasons for doubting Mr. Obama and hope for some feedback.

Fact: He voted for the Wall Street bailout.

Me: The constitution doesn’t give the government the power to bail out private companies.

Fact: He voted for the FISA bill.

Me: He therefore legalized George Bush’s warrant-less eavesdropping powers, which were both illegal and unconstitutional.

Fact: He plans to increase the size of the Army by 65,000 soldiers and the Marines by 27,000 troops.

Me: I would have expected the $1 trillion U.S debt would have encouraged him to reduce the size of the military.

Fact: Unlike the French president Sarkozy, Obama has not admitted that Georgia were the aggressors in the South Ossetia conflict.

Me: I think it was shameful how the Western media reversed the story and labeled Russia the aggressors, and even more so that Obama supported a $1 billion aid package to the country that started the conflict.

Fact: The CIA has no proof that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, yet Obama says Iran is “a threat to all of us”.

Me: I think it’s irresponsible for a president to make such statements without proof. The run up to the Iraq war was much the same.

Fact: He plans to send two more combat brigades to Afghanistan.

Me: This just makes me angry. Why does everyone think this war is justified? It’s absolutely not.

So those are some of the reasons I’m not jumping for joy about Barack Obama being elected president. People can disagree with my opinions, but you can’t argue with the facts. Of course, everybody is different, so if you agree with Obama’s past actions and stated policies, then I respect that.

I hope this clears up any confusion, and people respect my views.

I bring this up because of a recent teenage suicide in the U.K. A 17-year old boy, threatening to leap from the roof of a public building, was goaded into jumping by youths in the street below. The article I read, but won’t link to, gave an in-depth analysis with full color pictures of the victim and location, and the title included a disgusting quote from one of the youths in the street below. It may have been a quote, but it is stuck in my head and keeps reminding me of the article.

The story has triggered the usual public criticism of modern society in Britain, with the government, the education system and the parents being handed the blame. Yet all this publicity, as David Phillips showed, is only likely to encourage more suicides.

Are we to believe the media don’t know they influence copycat incidents? That can’t be the case because many countries have journalism codes to control the reporting of suicides. No. We have to accept that the media is well aware of the consequences of its actions and is putting profit before people, and that is simply unforgivable.

A musical composer from Iceland is offering $15,000 to anyone who can provide a single piece of evidence that Muslims were involved in 9/11.

Having researched the available forensic proof, M. Elias Davidsson is now offering 10,000 Euros (+/- $15,000) to whomever can step forward and deliver legal proof that ONE Muslim was involved (Source).

What makes this so interesting is that instead of being made to prove his belief that 9/11 was an inside job, he is turning the tables and asking for someone, anyone, to prove that it wasn’t.

As a self-described “independent scholar in international law and human rights”, Mr. Davidsson is clearly quite confident that no such proof exists. By comparison, the U.S. government is so confident that muslims were involved that it has put a $50 million bounty on Osama Bin Laden’s head.

You can read more about Elias Davidsson here.

The media is an incredibly powerful tool for social control, so I’ve been wondering if a similar situation exists in Japan…

On November 12th 2004, The Japan Times reported that the Yomiuri Shimbun group had a stake in 42 media firms…

The Yomiuri Shimbun Group Honsha admitted Thursday that it effectively owns stocks in 42 media organizations under the names of third parties.

Yomiuri said its shareholdings in 12 of the 42 firms violate the limits set by the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry.

The 42 firms include 24 local television broadcasters and 18 local radio stations, said the holding company of Japan’s largest newspaper.

The owner of Yomiuri Shimbun is the 82-year-old businessman, Tsuneo Watanabe, who Wikipedia describes as having “great influence on Japanese sports and Japanese politics”.

That Wikipedia article links to two articles with highly promising titles:

Shadow Shogun Steps Into Light, to Change Japan, from the New York Times, 2006, and The Most Powerful Publisher You’ve Never Heard of, from The Economist, 2007.

The first article includes some interesting quotes that go some way to answering the question, who owns Japan’s media?

He has recently granted long, soul-baring interviews in which he has questioned the rising nationalism he has cultivated so assiduously in the pages of his newspaper, the conservative Yomiuri — the world’s largest, with a circulation of 14 million.

So he used his newspaper to cultivate nationalism. That’s quite an admission.

Indeed, the paper was a main force in pushing for the more muscular nationalism now emerging in Japan. Shortly after becoming editor in chief in 1991, Mr. Watanabe set up a committee to revise the American-imposed pacifist Constitution. If MacArthur’s Constitution emasculated Japan by forbidding it to have a real military, Mr. Watanabe’s Constitution, published in 1994, restored its manhood.

A media mogul with the power to rewrite the constitution? How did he manage that?

Mr. Watanabe joined The Yomiuri newspaper in 1950 and made his mark as a political reporter. Political reporters in Japan tend to succeed by becoming close to a particular politician. …Mr. Watanabe ingratiated himself so much with one Liberal Democratic heavyweight, Banboku Ohno, he became the gatekeeper at his house. Politicians seeking favors from Mr. Ohno would ask Mr. Watanabe to put in a good word. One young politician helped by Mr. Watanabe was Yasuhiro Nakasone, the future prime minister. They remain close.

Such was Mr. Watanabe’s power that by the 1980’s, he helped broker major political deals.

The Economist article gives us an even closer insight into Tsuneo Watanabe’s political influence. For example, it describes how Mr. Watanabe mediated opposition party leader Mr. Ozawa’s first contact with Mr Fukuda about forming a grand coalition last November. It also says that after former prime minister Shinzo Abe’s sudden resignation, “Mr Watanabe convened the crucial meeting of party kingmakers where Mr Fukuda was persuaded to run for the LDP presidency.”

Mr Watanabe is more powerful than almost any government minister in Japan could ever hope to be. Privately, Yomiuri journalists tell you that they have no choice but to follow the editorial line Mr Watanabe lays down. They are nowhere near as forthcoming to their readers.

Not only have the Yomiuri’s readers been kept in the dark about these events, so largely have those of the paper’s four national rivals. All that has appeared so far is just two editorials politely questioning Mr Watanabe’s involvement.

It seems Tsuneo Watanabe and the Yomiuri newspaper’s series of attacks on former prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, played a large part in his eventual resignation. And after that series was published, Mr. Watanabe was quoted as saying…

I think I can change all of Japan.

Maybe he already has? His newspaper group dominates the media and he’s incredibly powerful in politics. Before you base your opinions on what you read in the paper or see on TV, consider that your opinions might actually be based on Tsuneo Watanabe’s opinions, disguised as facts!

Now, if I can find a connection between Mr. Watanabe and the American media, we’ll have the makings of a global media monopoly!

“It is, quite simply, our nearly obsessive desire to be (and to appear) consistent with what we have already done. Once we have made a choice or taken a stand, we will encounter personal and interpersonal pressures to behave consistently with that commitment. Those pressures will cause us to respond in ways that justify our earlier decision.”

“Psychologists have long understood the power of the consistency principle to direct human action. Prominent theorists such as Leon Festinger, Fritz Hieder, and Theodore Newcomb have viewed the desire for consistency as a central motivator of our behavior. But is this tendency to be consistent really strong enough to compel us to do what we ordinarily would not do? There is no question about it. The drive to be (and look) consistent constitutes a highly potent weapon of social influence, often causing us to act in ways that are clearly contrary to our own best interests.”

“To understand why consistency is so powerful a motive, it is important to recognize that in most circumstances, consistency is valued and adaptive. Inconsistency is commonly thought to be an undesirable personality trait. The person whose beliefs, words, and deeds don’t match may be seen as indecisive, confused, two-faced, or even mentally ill. On the other side, a high degree of consistency is normally associated with personal and intellectual strength. It is at the heart of logic, rationality, stability, and honesty. A quote attributed to the great British chemist Michael Faraday suggests the extent to which being consistent is approved – sometimes more than being right. When asked after a lecture if he meant to imply that a hated academic rival was always wrong, Faraday glowered at the questioner and replied, “He’s not that consistent.”"

“Certainly, then, good personal consistency is highly valued in our culture. And well it should be. It provides us with a reasonable and gainful orientation to the world. Most of the time we will be better off if our approach to things is well-laced with consistency. Without it our lives would be difficult, erratic, and disjointed.”

“But because it is so typically in our best interests to be consistent, we easily fall into the habit of being automatically so, even in situations where it is not the sensible way to be. When it occurs unthinkingly, consistency can be disastrous. Nonetheless, even blind consistency has its attractions.”

“First, like most other forms of automatic responding, it offers a shortcut through the density of modern life. Once we have made up our minds about an issue, stubborn consistency allows us a very appealing luxury: We really don’t have to think hard about the issue anymore. We don’t have to sift through the blizzard of information we encounter everyday to identify relevant facts; we don’t have to expend the mental energy to weigh the pros and cons; we don’t have to make any further tough decisions. Instead, all we have to do when confronted with the issue is to turn on our consistency tape, whirr, and we know just what to believe, say or do. We need only believe, say, or do whatever is consistent with our earlier decision. “”

“The allure of such a luxury is not to be minimized. It allows us a convenient, relatively effortless, and efficient method for dealing with complex daily environments that make severe demands on our mental energies and capacities. It is not hard to understand, then, why automatic consistency is a difficult reaction to curb. It offers us a way to evade the rigors of continuing thought. And as Sir Joshua Reynolds noted, “There is no expedient to which a man will not resort to avoid the real labor of thinking.” With our consistency tapes operating, then, we can go about our business happily excused from the toil of having to think too much.”

The Campaign for Liberty is a grassroots movement, founded by former U.S. presidential candidate, Dr. Ron Paul. Its mission statement is quite simply…

…to promote and defend the great American principles of individual liberty, constitutional government, sound money, free markets, and a noninterventionist foreign policy, by means of educational and political activity.

I’m particularly attracted to the bit about noninterventionist foreign policy, especially as both my home and adopted countries pander to the U.S, and my taxes are used to fund wars in the Middle East.

Killing people is not really my thing, so I hope this movement really takes off and the American people can put an end to the corruption in Congress and military madness that is consuming the globe.

Christmas sales and the after-shock

The run up to Christmas is booming business for toy stores, but what happens in the couple of months after they make their record profits? January and February should be the most dismal time of the year for toy stores, right?

Wrong. Here’s the scam:

In the weeks before Christmas, toy stores and manufacturers ramp up their advertising, enticing children to beg their parents for the latest and greatest wonder toy. Parents usually give in and promise their children they’ll buy them that toy for Christmas.

However, toy stores want to maximize profits so they deliberately “run out of stock” of the most wanted items. Instead, they order extra toys of a similar value so parents have no choice but to buy the alternative toys as Christmas presents.

Then, during January and February, they focus their advertising campaigns on the previously out of stock toy, so that the children are once again begging for that toy that their parents promised them for Christmas!

So be warned. Don’t make any promises!

Most viewed videos on Google in Japan, July 2008

1. The Global Warming Swindle
2. Richard Koshimizu Fukuoka Conference
3. The Global Warming Swindle
4. The Global Warming Swindle
5. Loose Change
6. Abe Yoshihiro lecture – Part 1
7. The Global Warming Swindle
8. The Global Warming Swindle
9. Richard Kosihmizu Fukuoka Conference
10. Abe Yoshihiro lecture – Part 5

Conspiracies abound

Five out of the top ten this month are different versions of “The Global Warming Swindle”, a short documentary that argues CO² is not the cause of global warming. I guess there are a lot of Japanese people who are fed up with the incessant propaganda that dominates TV these days, and are researching it for themselves.

Richard Koshimizu and Abe Yoshihro both talk about the New World Order, a shadow government that controls media, politics, business and more on a global scale. If you’re shocked by oil prices, food prices, wars and global warming, documentaries about history’s greatest conspiracy might help you make sense of this mad world we live in.

Finally, at No.5 this month is Loose Change, the original and most popular 9/11 Truth documentary.

Are you interested in these kind of videos? Which ones have you seen and how do you feel about them?

What are your views on the global warming “crisis”?

Here are some questions to prompt discussion:

• Is global warming really caused by CO₂?
• What do you make of all the eco-talk in the nation’s media?
• Are you making an effort to save the world? If so, how?
• Are there any other issues more attention-worthy?