As the nation turned its attention to a college admissions scandal that swept up celebrities and other wealthy parents who paid for their kids to get into elite schools, the Harvard Graduate School of Education released a report explaining how the high-stakes pressure to get into college leads to a culture that condones a whole host of unethical practices.
The report, titled "Turning the Tide II: How Parents and High Schools Can Cultivate Ethical Character and Reduce Distress in The College Admissions Process," makes the case that an intense focus on academic achievement has squeezed out serious attention to ethical character in many high schools and families, especially in middle- and upper-income communities.
With a narrow focus on high achievement and admission to selective colleges, parents in these communities often fail to help their teens develop the critical cognitive, social and ethical capacities that are at the heart of both doing good and doing well in college and beyond. Many parents also fail to be ethical role models to their children by allowing a range of transgressions — from exaggerating achievements to outright cheating — in the admissions process.
Published by the college's Making Caring Common project, the report builds upon a 2016 report that sought changes at the college level. This follow-up report shifts the focus to the role of families and high schools in college admissions.
The report describes the results of a new #CommonGood campaign that has engaged 189 high schools and middle schools nationwide in promoting Turning the Tide's goals and supporting high schools in developing students' ethical character.
Michael J. Roe, principal at Polytechnic High School in the Riverside Unified School District, was among the early leaders in this campaign.
Roe recently told Deseret News that the college admissions process and an emphasis on standardized testing are sending the message that achievement is more important than authentic learning.
Turning the Tide II includes actionable guideposts for parents and high schools for putting young people's ethical character and well-being at the center of a healthier, more sane college admissions process.
Set ethical expectations with families. Most parents are responsible in their college admissions-related interactions with schools. But many parents, including those who genuinely want their child's school to promote ethical character, neither model ethical character nor support schools in promoting it in the college admissions process. To establish what it means for parents to be a member of a caring, ethical community, schools can create a "compact" or agreement with parents, an active document that should be referred to throughout the year, that spells out the school's and parents' obligations in promoting ethical character, leveling the playing field for economically disadvantaged students, and reducing achievement-related distress in college admissions.
Create opportunities for authentic student service and contributions to others. High school students in some communities are caught up in a kind of community service Olympics, a contest to see who can get an edge in their applications by tackling the most formidable problem, often in a distant country. But what is most important to many colleges is whether an experience is immersive, sustained, chosen based on authentic interest, and provides students opportunities for reflection with both peers and adults. High school counselors and teachers can explore with students the kinds of community service or contributions that are likely to be meaningful and seek to provide students with a wide range of service experiences and other ways to contribute to their communities, such as working to prevent students from being bullied or isolated in their own school.
Use the admissions process as an opportunity for ethical education. Like parents, high schools should explore with teens the many ethical questions that the admissions process raises, such as why the admissions process often advantages certain students such as athletes and children of donors, why large inequities in the process exist and what can be done to remedy them, why well-intentioned people participate in unfair systems and how to both express oneself authentically and "play the game," making oneself attractive to colleges. High schools, like parents, might also ask their teen to imagine what a fair, equitable admissions system would be and consider with teens what needs to change for this system to exist.
Focus students on daily acts of character and provide evidence of character in applications. Schools have a crucial responsibility to promote cultures and relationships that cultivate concern for others and other key ethical capacities in students, and the endorsers of Turning the Tide underscore that a student's daily conduct "is critically important" in admissions. At a minimum, schools might provide guidelines to school counselors and teachers that both help them assess the capacities that comprise ethical character and that guide them in describing these capacities in recommendations. Schools might also develop deeper and more comprehensive ways of capturing these capacities by, for example, using assessments that draw on the input of students' peers, teachers and other adults.
Guide students in reporting their substantial family contributions and challenges. Many teens are unable to engage in community service or activities outside the home because they spend substantial time supporting their families — such as working to provide family income or supervising a younger sibling — and these ongoing responsibilities may be far more likely than community service to promote key ethical and emotional capacities such as compassion, selflessness, perseverance, and respect. Schools should guide teens in reporting not just community service and contributions but these responsibilities.
Focus students on a wide range of colleges. At the core of excessive achievement pressure in middle- and upper-class communities is one fundamental myth: Only a small number of highly selective colleges will position students for success. Students who are convinced that these colleges are the key to success will continue to be hounded by fears of disappointing or shaming their parents and themselves until they and their parents embrace the reality that there are a wide ranges of colleges that are just as likely to lead to success. High schools can reduce the focus on a small number of highly selective colleges by presenting facts about job satisfaction and general well-being reported by students who attended colleges of varying selectivity; exposing students to colleges that vary in selectivity and to alternative pathways to careers; encouraging parents and students to avoid commercial college rankings; focusing on meaningful outcomes (such as student satisfaction) rather than selectivity when communicating to parents and prospective students about the colleges attended by graduates; and launching an awareness campaign with neighboring schools elevating a wide range of colleges and alternative pathways to careers.
Create limits on advanced courses and discourage students from overloading on extracurricular activities. Schools need to have comprehensive and mission-driven conversations about what is a healthy and balanced academic load for their students. Educators might consider creating clear guidelines that prevent students from overloading on high level (AP/IB/Advanced) courses each year. As part of this effort, schools should intentionally survey students, faculty, and parents on an ongoing basis to assess homework loads, pace of life and student well-being and engagement. Based on the results schools should establish appropriate limits that reduce stress and lead to more meaningful engagement in courses and activities and adapt these limits as needed.


text:
Milan, Venice, Florence & Rome
Begin in the city of Milan where its Duomo is the third largest cathedral in the world; it took four centuries to finish, whereas one of the city's new fashion collections changes in a season. Most people are not aware that in the early days of Milan, the whole city was linked with canals, similar to Venice, the next stop on this trip. Venice has a dreamy quality with its ancient buildings lining the canals and bridges. The ornate St Mark's Basilica was named after the patron saint of Venice and is one of several must see destinations in this city on the water. Florence's Duomo is a UNESCO World Heritage site and the largest brick dome ever constructed. Observe the high level of craftsmanship of Ghiberti's bronze doors and the over forty stained glass windows. In Rome it will be difficult to decide among so many options, shopping or gelato breaks, Roman ruins or churches, the Pantheon or the Colosseum….. throw a coin in the Trevi fountain and make a wish that you can do the whole trip again!
Flights: New York-Milan, Rome-New York¹
2-nights hotel accommodations in Milan
2nd Class Rail Milan to Venice
2-nights hotel accommodations in Venice
2nd Class Rail Venice to Florence
2-nights hotel accommodations in Florence
2nd Class Rail Florence to Rome
2-nights hotel accommodations in Rome
Italian City Taxes are not included.
Milan in One Day Walking Tour
Highlight: See all of the Finance capital's top attractions with a private on a full day tours of Milan, ideal for travelers short on time. Duration: 7 hours Departure Time: 11AM Tuesdays
Shared Gondola Ride 3:00PM
Highlights: Enjoy a shared gondola ride along the Venetian canals (Santa Maria della Salute and Fenice areas) as you discover the unusual reality of this atypical city and relax with the boat gently floating on the water.
Duration: Approximately 30 minutes including embarking and disembarking
Departure: 3:00pm daily
Shared Gondola Ride 11:00AM
Departure: 11:00am daily
Discover Venice Walking 3:30 Tour
Highlights: Outdoor guided walking tour of the area between Piazza San Marco and the Rialto Bridge, passing by some special places: Teatro la Fenice, Scala del Bovolo, Rialto Bridge.
Duration: Approximately 1 hour 15 minutes
Departure: 3:45 pm daily (April-October)
Murano, Burano and Torcello Morning Tour
Highlights: Cruise the canals of Venice. You will visit the picturesque island of Burano, as well as a stop at Murano, which is known throughout the world for its glass manufacturing industry.
Departure: 9:30 am daily (March-early November)
Murano, Burano and Torcello Afternoon Tour
Departure: 2:30 pm daily (March-early November)
Cicchetti & Wine Walking Tour in Venice 11: 30 AM
Highlights: On this walking tour you will be exposed to some Venetian history and culture as you sample cicchetti dishes and local wines at bars and taverns.
Departure: 11:30 am and 5:15 pm daily except Sunday (February 16-December 14)
Cicchetti & Wine Walking Tour in Venice 5:15 PM
Best of Tuscany
Highlights: This tour takes you to Siena, San Gimignano and Monteriggioni including visits to a winery and cellar. This is the real Tuscany with a very small group, olive groves, vineyards, amazing medieval hilltop towns, stunning frescoes and iconic views.
Departure: 8:30am Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday (March-November)
Italian Passions: Food & Wine Tour in Florence
Highlights: This small group tour will provide you with the opportunity to taste over 15 foods such as cheeses, balsamic vinegar, fresh baked bread and gelato plus wine.
Departure: 9:45AM Monday, Tuesday and Friday only (mid-April through October except August)
The Original David Walking Tour
Highlights: Learn about the most famous sculpture in the world while hearing about its creation, Michelangelo's life and his other famous works.
Duration: Approximately 1 hour
Departure: 5:00pm Tuesday-Saturday (March-April and November); Tuesday through Sunday (May-October)
Departure: 2:30pm daily except Sundays
Ancient Rome Walking Tour
Highlights: Take a complete walking tour of the Colosseum, Roman Forum and Palatine Hill led by a professional guide. Enjoy skip the line entrance to the archaeological area. Important Note: Backpacks, rucksacks, large personal bags and luggage are banned inside the Colosseum, Palatine Hill and Roman Forum.
Cooking Class in Mazzano - Small Group from Rome
Highlights: Live a gourmet experience far from the beaten tracks in the ancient village of Mazzano Romano. Learn to prepare a menu with an appetizer, first course, second course and dessert.
Duration: Approximately 7 hours including transportation
Departure: 8:30am daily except Sundays
Morning Food Tasting Walking Small Group Tour in Rome 10:00AM
Highlights: Go on a walking tour to markets, grocery stores and gelaterias with tastings in the different locations as you learn about Italian food traditions.
Departure: 10:00am daily except Sundays
Rome by Night Bus Tour with Dinner
Highlights: Enjoy a panoramic motorcoach city tour with a walk around Trevi Fountain. As part of the tour, you will enjoy dinner at a typical local restaurant. (It is kindly requested to dress in a suitable manner.)
Departure:6:45PM daily except Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday
Borghese Gallery Walking Tour
Highlights: On this guided tour through the Borghese Gallery you will see Bernini's Apollo & Daphne and David, paintings by Raphael and Caravaggio, Canova's Pauline Bonaparte as Venus Victrix and Titan's Sacred and Profane Love among many other masterpieces. After the tour of the gallery, there will be a 30-minute stroll through the Villa Borghese Gardens.
Departure: 2:30pm Sunday, Tuesday and Friday
July August September October November December January February March April May
$999*See Price

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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This product has reached EOL.
Rapidly develop hardware and software based on a GPS receiver module with the SG Series or SR Series master development system. It comes with two development boards for benchmarking and prototyping, each of which is populated with a GPS receiver and an OLED display for viewing satellite data. A large prototyping area gives you a place to develop circuitry. To help you get started, the system also includes an extra module, demonstration software and a USB interface for connecting to a PC. The SG Series system includes an antenna. SG Series or SR Series receivers let you add GPS to your device. They're ideal for applications involving navigation, tracking or surveying. Each module determines its position on the globe by tracking up to 20 satellites at once. Its high sensitivity (up to -159dBm) allows the module to find its position even in dense foliage and urban canyons. Its low power consumption (46mW) helps maximize battery life. The SG Series includes five GPIOs that let you attach input or outputs without using a microcontroller. The SR Series includes an onboard antenna.


text:
using System;
using xClient.Core.Networking;

namespace xClient.Core.Packets.ServerPackets
{
    [Serializable]
    public class DoDownloadFileCancel : IPacket
    {
        public int ID { get; set; }

        public DoDownloadFileCancel()
        {
        }

        public DoDownloadFileCancel(int id)
        {
            this.ID = id;
        }

        public void Execute(Client client)
        {
            client.Send(this);
        }
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
module.exports = function(app, hook) {

  var setDefaultHeaders = function(RestangularProvider) {
    // Set default application headers
    var authToken = hook.auth.getToken();
    var headers = {
      'X-App-Id': hook.app_id,
      'X-App-Key': hook.key
    };
    if (authToken) { headers['X-Auth-Token'] = authToken; }
    RestangularProvider.setDefaultHeaders(headers);
  }

  app.config(function(RestangularProvider) {
    setDefaultHeaders(RestangularProvider);

    hook.auth.on('login', function() {
      setDefaultHeaders(RestangularProvider);
    });

    // // custom template
    // app.customTemplate(function(viewName) {
    //   console.log(viewName);
    //   // if (viewName === 'ListView') {
    //   //   return myTemplate;
    //   // }
    // });

    // Customize request via RestangularProvider
    RestangularProvider.addFullRequestInterceptor(function(
      element, operation, what, url, headers, params, httpConfig
    ) {
      var q = hook.collection('dummy');

      //
      // don't send 'password' when it doesn't have a value
      //
      // TODO:
      // remove this when password field features is complete
      // https://github.com/marmelab/ng-admin/issues/526
      //
      if (what === "auths" && operation === "put" && !element.password) {
        delete element.password;
      }

      // sorting
      if (params._sortField) {
        if (params._sortField=="id") { params._sortField = "_id"; }
        q.sort(params._sortField, params._sortDir.toLowerCase());
      }

      // pagination with offset / limit
      if (params._perPage) { q.limit(params._perPage); }
      if (params._page > 0 && params._perPage) { q.offset(params._perPage * (params._page - 1)) }

      // quick filters
      if (params._filters) {
        for (let field in params._filters) {
          if (typeof(params._filters[field]) === "object" &&
              params._filters[field].operation) {
            q.where(field, params._filters[field].operation, params._filters[field].value);

          } else {
            q.where(field, params._filters[field]);
          }
        }
      }

      // ng-admin hack to use JSON on query string
      var obj = {},
          query = JSON.stringify(q.buildQuery());

      if (query !== "{}") {
        obj[""] = "&" + query;
      }

      return { params: obj };
    });

    // Display only 'error' field of exception responses.
    RestangularProvider.setErrorInterceptor(function(response, deferred, responseHandler) {
      if (response.data.error) {
        response.data = response.data.error;
      }
      return true;
    });

  });

};


Connect the DisplayPort output of a computer to the HDMI input of a HDTV or projector. This adapter cable is an ideal solution for connecting the DisplayPort output of a laptop to a HDTV or projector which accepts a HDMI input. This cable carries a digital audio/video signal, supports up to a 1080p resolution and meets the requirements of high performance applications.


If you're thinking of trying vintage and classic car rallying but are not sure where to start, then this book on vintage and classic car rallying is for you.
This handy A5-sized 112-page guide is packed with expert guidance and practical advice for novices and enthusiasts alike.
In this guide you will discover the difference between Regularity and Jogularity, the importance of knowing who is 'God 1', what a 'Sweep' is, and why you must never forget your Poti!
In addition to providing you with an essential jargon-buster, you will also discover top rally tips, how to prepare both yourself and your car, what you MUST do before the event, and what you must NEVER forget on the day.
You will learn about the most important spares and equipment, vehicle shipping, rally navigation, timing, etiquette, health and safety, and a great deal more.
Everything you need to know is right here in this book.
So now you can put your mind at ease, and make sure your next rally is a truly memorable and enjoyable experience.
Pick up your copy of The Introduction To Vintage and Classic Car Rallying now for just £13. 50 plus postage and packaging (£17.75) and let the adventure begin.


text:
Tag Archives: Bill Gates
sixty years of Bilderberg and all that…
Throughout the last decade and longer, the news media has been leaking the story of a new kind of global technocratic leadership. Often this has revolved around talk of "Davos Man", a new taxonomic sub-group (or rather super-group) which evokes (in my own mind at least) the image of a silhouetted yet still pinstriped figure leading our ancestors out of the primordial sludge and striding forth at the head of that catwalk procession of ever more erect hominids. Java Man, Peking Man… you know what's coming:
Davos Man is most publicly embodied in Bill Gates, the ubiquitous chairman of the Microsoft Corporation. He appeared recently, as do all main speakers at the gathering, both in person and blown up on a huge television screen. Mutterings were heard from some techies in the hall as the giant head spoke; they find the quality of Microsoft products mediocre. But to most of the executives, he is a heroic figure, and not just because he built a huge business from scratch.
That comes from an article published by The Independent as far back as 1998, which provided one of the first reports on the annual Davos shindig in the Alps – officially known as the World Economic Forum – and from whence "Davos Man" cometh. The article tells us that:
Along the main street a snake of limousines writhes in front of the conference hall, where there are guards, police dogs, and metal detectors. Each of the 2,000 people who descend on the village need an electronic security badge to enter the hall, but the badge does more than keep out riff-raff. It has an electronic code which allows the bearer to read and send messages on an elaborate computer system, and so to arrange meetings and to cut deals – in the coffee lounges, on the ski slopes, or at the exquisite dinners whose seating plans are frequently disrupted by the press of business.1
With regards to these early sightings of Davos Man in the flesh (so to speak), Richard Sennett the author of the piece, explains how these "monarchs of capitalism [who] assembly their courtiers and meet to plot all our futures" prefer to see themselves. Like Gates, our new crop of plutocrats are "ruthless and greedy", but unlike the older crew, they are more "flexible" with a greater "tolerance for fragmentation" (whatever that means precisely) and, most importantly, these guys are properly connected – not that the old guard wasn't.
A more recent article published by the Financial Times (in 2011) offers, however, an alternative view of the rise of Davos Man, pointing out how "As the World Economic Forum grew in importance and prominence, so outside observers [i.e., the corporate media] began to identify a new creature – 'Davos Man'" Although the label itself was originally intended as a pejorative, apparently:
The phrase was coined by political scientist Samuel Huntington (of "Clash of Civilisations" fame). Huntington was no fan of "Davos man", whom he regarded as elitist and loyal only to his own financial interests and to his international peer group. The delegates at Davos, Huntington later wrote disapprovingly, "have little need for national loyalty, view national boundaries as obstacles that are thankfully vanishing, and see national governments as residues from the past whose only useful function is to facilitate the elite's global operations."2
This is interesting because Samuel Huntington is someone very much on the inside track. Closely connected with this same "elite" (his word), Huntington is most renowned for his forecast of a coming "Clash of Civilisations", whilst he also co-authored a notorious report – produced by another globalist group known as the Trilateral Commission – entitled "The Crisis of Democracy", in which Huntington frets about future problems arising from "an excess of democracy" in the western world. The solution, he (and his fellows) advise, is to ensure we (Homo plebeians) are far too disorientated and beleaguered to organise any serious or sustained challenge against the powers-that-be.
Here is what Noam Chomsky wrote about the Trilateral Commission and Huntington's report back in 1981:
The Trilateral Commission was founded at the initiative of David Rockefeller in 1973. Its members are drawn from the three components of the world of capitalist democracy: the United States, Western Europe, and Japan. Among them are the heads of major corporations and banks, partners in corporate law firms, Senators, Professors of international affairs – the familiar mix in extra-governmental groupings. Along with the 1940s project of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), directed by a committed "trilateralist" and with numerous links to the Commission, the project constitutes the first major effort at global planning since the War-Peace Studies program of the CFR during World War II. […]
The Trilateral Commission has issued one major book-length report, namely, The Crisis of Democracy (Michel Crozier, Samuel Huntington, and Joji Watanuki, 1975). Given the intimate connections between the Commission and the Carter Administration, the study is worth careful attention, as an indication of the thinking that may well lie behind its domestic policies, as well as the policies undertaken in other industrial democracies in the coming years. […]
The report argues that what is needed in the industrial democracies "is a greater degree of moderation in democracy" to overcome the "excess of democracy" of the past decade. "The effective operation of a democratic political system usually requires some measure of apathy and noninvolvement on the part of some individuals and groups." This recommendation recalls the analysis of Third World problems put forth by other political thinkers of the same persuasion, for example, Ithiel Pool (then chairman of the Department of Political Science at MIT), who explained some years ago that in Vietnam, the Congo, and the Dominican Republic, "order depends on somehow compelling newly mobilized strata to return to a measure of passivity and defeatism… At least temporarily the maintenance of order requires a lowering of newly acquired aspirations and levels of political activity." The Trilateral recommendations for the capitalist democracies are an application at home of the theories of "order" developed for subject societies of the Third World.
In Short, "The Crisis of Democracy" provides a blueprint for our current race to the bottom and politico-economic subjugation. As Chomsky details at the end of the same article:
The crucial task is "to restore the prestige and authority of central government institutions, and to grapple with the immediate economic challenges." The demands on government must be reduced and we must "restore a more equitable relationship between government authority and popular control." The press must be reined. If the media do not enforce "standards of professionalism," then "the alternative could well be regulation by the government" – a distinction without a difference, since the policy-oriented and technocratic intellectuals, the commissars themselves, are the ones who will fix these standards and determine how well they are respected. Higher education should be related "to economic and political goals," and if it is offered to the masses, "a program is then necessary to lower the job expectations of those who receive a college education." No challenge to capitalist institutions can be considered, but measures should be taken to improve working conditions and work organization so that workers will not resort to "irresponsible blackmailing tactics." In general, the prerogatives of the nobility must be restored and the peasants reduced to the apathy that becomes them.
This is the ideology of the liberal wing of the state capitalist ruling elite, and, it is reasonable to assume, its members who now staff the national executive in the United States….3
You can read my own fuller critique of Huntington's "The Crisis of Democracy" in the lower half of this earlier post.
Huntington is himself well connected and part of the big club which Davos is just a smaller and supposedly more cuddly offshoot. So all this brouhaha about the rights and wrongs of Davos Man is really nothing more or less than internal bickering about the proper way for plutocrats to tyrannise. Naturally, the Financial Times are keen to play up this supposed schism (just as chocolate manufacturers are keen to bring out tantalisingly novel candy bars), and especially so when provided with the opportunity to pour scorn on an editorial, "In Praise of Davos Man", published by their immediate competitors at The Economist. Oddly, the author of the piece which challenges The Economist's "paean to Davos Man", Gideon Rachman, concedes in his own article (parenthetically) "I was working for The Economist at the time, but did not write the editorial in question". He might just as well have added "Splitters! Splitters…!"
Which brings me at last to the main point of my own piece – that Davos Man plus Trilateralist Man [Left Twix and Right Twix, as the advert puts it] are gathering again and under cover of that more perennial darkness which cloaks the premier confab of all globalist confabs – the annual Bilderberg meeting, which kicks off tomorrow in Copenhagen. Founded in 1954, it is precisely sixty years to the weekend since "the great and the good" first secretly convened at the Hotel de Bilderberg in Oosterbeek in the Netherlands.
Sixty years is a long time in (geo-)politics, and so the poisonous fruits of their clandestine bargaining are scattered and rotting all around – from the banking crisis and "austerity" to mass surveillance; and from dismantlement of the NHS to privatisation of the post office (and everything else besides). Neo-liberal policies that have opened the way to the success of racist Marine Le Pen's Front National and to the lesser gains of neo-Nazis Golden Dawn in Greece, combined with directly neo-conservative assaults that have deliberately aided the spread of Islamist fundamentalism and inflamed wars across the Middle East and beyond. This has all occurred under Bilderberg's watch – and yet Bilderberg takes little blame, because they are unaccountable. The media makes sure they remain so.
Last year I joined the protests when the Bilderbergers met at Watford and witnessed for myself the enormous state protection afforded this "private meeting". There were an estimated three thousand of us coralled within the 'free speech paddock' staring out across a canal and about half a mile of rolling Hertfordshire parkland to the hotel on the hill. A steel cordon had been erected in the distance, just to make sure. As a helicopter buzzed overhead, the police and G4S security guards all faced us, although the criminals were behind them of course – Henry Kissinger, the world's greatest living war criminal, enjoying five-star hospitality and the chance to impart wisdom to the likes of Peter Mandelson, George Osbourne, Ed Balls — there was also a surprise appearance by our illustrious leader David Cameron.
I shot the video below, which features activist Charlie Skelton and Labour MP Michael Meacher speaking at Watford:
This year I can't make it and so will look out for analysis from across the alternative media, keeping an eye out for Charlie Skelton in particular, who will be reopening his annual Bilderblog. Here are a few extracts from Skelton's first article of this summer, in which he pries into the Bilderberg connection to the Transatlantic trade deal known as TAFTA (and also TTIP). He begins:
Next week, at the Marriott Hotel in Copenhagen, the annual trade and policy summit held by the Bilderberg Group will throw open its doors for three days of top level talks, from May 29th to June 1st. I say "throw open its doors"… the doors will remain, as ever, firmly closed to the public and press. Unless you happen to own a newspaper, or run a publishing conglomerate, or be the Executive Chairman of Google, chances are you're not going.
It's remarkable how many bank bosses and corporate CEOs manage to clear their diary, every year, for a full three days of conferencing at Bilderberg. Last year, BP sent its Group Chief Executive, the Michelin Group sent its CEO, while HSBC was represented by both the Group Chairman and the Vice Chairman. From Goldman Sachs came two board members, including their Vice Chairman. And Royal Dutch Shell left a skeleton crew back at headquarters: the company sent its Chairman, CEO, and CFO – and in case that wasn't enough, they also sent along a director, Josef Ackermann. Who's also on the board of Investor AB, the £20 billion asset management company. Which also sent its CEO and Chairman. You get the picture.
All this corporate brass spending three days conferencing with media moguls and billionaire investors wouldn't matter so much, but for the fact that quite a few of the participants who get locked away with them are politicians. And senior politicians at that.
In 2013, the Bilderberg conference was attended by seven Finance Ministers, three Foreign Ministers, two deputy Prime Ministers, and two serving Prime Ministers: Mark Rutte, the PM of Holland, and our very own David Cameron. With them: the President of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso; EU Commissioner, Viviane Reding; the head of the IMF, Christine Lagarde; and various other politicians and policymakers.
He ends:
For now, if we want transparency at Bilderberg, it's going to have to be provided by the politicians. Luckily, many of them who go to Bilderberg are avowed champions of transparency. Like David Cameron (Bilderberg 2008, 2013) who launched a war on out-of-control lobbying in a speech back in 2010, when he attacked the "far-too-cosy relationship between politics, government, business and money".
In that speech, Cameron described lobbying as "the next big scandal waiting to happen." At Bilderberg, that scandal happens every year. This year, it's happening in Copenhagen, at the Marriott Hotel, from May 29th to June 1st.4
Click here to read Charlie Skelton's full article, in which he points to the many conflicts of interest that arise in light of TTIP and the surrounding secrecy of Bilderberg.
We also now have this year's official (and thus almost certainly incomplete) Bilderberg attendee list. Reading down, it quickly becomes evident that this is more than just an out-of-control lobbying group (as bad as that is). So here is just a small selection of famous (or not) names and associations which are indicative of a broader agenda:
Victor Halberstadt – Professor of Economics at Leiden University
Yiping Huang – Professor of Economics at National School of Development, Peking University
Christine Lagarde – Managing Director, International Monetary Fund
Benoît Coeuré – Member of the Executive Board, European Central Bank
Stephen Poloz – Governor of the Bank of Canada
H.R.H. Princess Beatrix of the Netherlands
H.M. the Queen of Spain
And then more worryingly, I feel:
Anders Fogh Rasmussen – Secretary General of NATO
Gen. David Petraeus (as Chairman of KKR Global Institute)
Eugene Rumer – Senior Associate and Director of the Russia Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
John Sawers – Chief of UK Secret Intelligence Service
Ahmet Üzümcü – Director-General, Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons
Just for the record, two other notables on his year's list are:
Martin Wolf – Chief Economics Commentator at the Financial Times…
and, not to be outdone, John Micklethwait – Editor-in-Chief at The Economist.
Let's pray they will at last see eye-to-eye about the wondrous rise of Davos Man… but then, who is more Davos, I wonder – Wolf or Micklethwait. It has to be Micklethwait, doesn't it…?
Oh, nearly forgot… another attendee of some note: dear old Henry Kissinger, who is, coincidentally it seems, also Chairman of Kissinger Associates, Inc.
Click here to read the full (official – and thus incomplete) list of this year's Bilderberg attendees at zerohedge.
1 From an article entitled "The Dizzy life of Davos man", written by Richard Sennett, published by The Independent on October 11, 1998. http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/the-dizzy-life-of-davos-man-1177451.html
2 From an article entitled "What's on the mind of Davos Man?" written by Gideon Rachman, published in the Financial Times on January 28, 2011. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/3a6d0774-2977-11e0-bb9b-00144feab49a.html#axzz331G9ApDa
3 From an article entitled "The Carter Administration: Myth and Reality" written by Noam Chomsky and published in 1981. http://www.chomsky.info/books/priorities01.htm
4 From an article entitled "Bilderberg and transatlantic trade: a lobbying scandal waiting to happen" written by Charlie Skelton published by transparency.org.uk. http://www.transparency.org.uk/news-room/blog/12-blog/917-bilderberg-and-transatlantic-trade-a-lobbying-scandal-waiting-to-happen
Filed under analysis & opinion, Charlie Skelton, Denmark, neo-liberalism, Noam Chomsky
Tagged as "Davos Man", "The Crisis of Democracy", Anders Fogh Rasmussen, "Clash of Civilisations", Bilderberg, Bill Gates, Copenhagen, Council on Foreign Relations, David Cameron, David Rockefeller, Gen. David Petraeus, Henry Kissinger, Samuel Huntington, Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP aka TAFTA), Trilateral Commission, World Economic Forum
Watford, June 6–9: here are ten good reasons to be there…
1. Be witness to the world summit that dare not speak its name
If more than a hundred of the highest ranking politicians, financiers and other major corporate leaders from across Europe and North America were meeting for a conference near London then you might naively suppose that the world's media would be interested to hear about it. If additionally, it transpired that such meeting was not only to be held behind closed doors and patrolled by armed guards, but also conducted under such strict secrecy that attendees were prohibited from speaking about whatever had been discussed or even disclosing the names of other attendees, you would be forgiven for supposing that the press would be swarming outside the gates and banging on the doors to find out more. But, and in the words of the song, it ain't necessarily so…
As this year's Bilderberg meeting approaches, the press and the rest of the mainstream media is instead maintaining its commitment to silence. Indeed, there has barely been a single column inch devoted to the surprise appearance of Bilderberg on our shores, although here is a local exception:
Hertfordshire taxpayers will foot the bill for a major police security operation to protect a shadowy summit of world leaders taking place in Watford next month.
The Bilderberg Group of around 140 influential figures including royalty, politicians and business leaders will meet at The Grove from June 6 to June 9.1
So begins what ought to be regarded as a world press exclusive but published not by Reuters or AP or the BBC, but in the Watford Observer, suddenly finding themselves forced into the vanguard. Well, not quite. The story that this year's Bilderberg chinwag is coming to Watford having first broken more than a month earlier and being soon after confirmed (as initial rumours of Bilderberg appearances have reliably been) by many in the alternative media:
The 2013 Bilderberg conference is now confirmed at the Grove hotel, Watford. A spokesman for Herts Constabulary said:
"I can confirm that the Bilderberg group meeting is taking place at The Grove hotel, Watford, between 6th-9th June 2013″
Watford's finest hotel, playing host to the world's most powerful political summit. A bright day indeed for the Grove.
That was taken from bilderberg2013 and published the day before the more official story was released by the Watford Observer. Those at protest group bilderberg2013 having posted as early as April 12th the notice that:
There is growing evidence that this year's Bilderberg conference will take place in the UK, at the luxury Grove Hotel, Hertfordshire, just north of Watford.
Whilst urging:
"citizen journalists, concerned citizens and interested parties to come along and witness a major international summit taking place."
2. What's to lose by going along?
I consider myself both a "concerned citizen and interested party", and must confess to finding it odd to think there are many who still don't. But then, for some reason (we all know the reason, but I'll let it pass for a moment) Bilderberg has a way of putting blinkers on the public as well as the press – even the minority who have actually heard of the event, perhaps justifiably wary of too much speculation, but also uncharacteristically reticent when it comes to freely expressing their own concerns and objections to this secret elitist get-together.
So I find that many of the kinds of people who are deeply concerned and sick to the teeth with the state of the politics and world affairs, including friends who have previously travelled as far as Edinburgh to voice dissent at a G8 summit, or who regularly take to the streets of London to rage against Westminster, will prefer to turn a blind eye to the annual Bilderberg event.
Incuriously dismissing Bilderberg as insignificant or simply irrelevant is the surprisingly common response I get when I raise the subject. Without presenting a single shred of evidence to support such a contention, they tell me that Bilderberg is just a big talking shop. A place for glad-handing, patting one another on the backs and saying what jolly good chaps they all are…. yes, very probably, but patting one another on the backs about what exactly? Well, about being a part of a damned big exclusive club, they'll insist, and that's all you need to know. This lack of curiosity from those who more generally wish to get to the bottom of things being curious in itself, and also to my mind a little alarming…
For why dismiss something merely on the grounds of its (partial) invisibility? Obviously, the physicist in me protests – most of the really interesting and important areas of physics being ordinarily out of sight, and yet nonetheless driving the rest of the visible universe.
However, I think what the Bildersceptics (to coin a necessary term) are implicitly acknowledging is that "this is just the way the world works", which is almost precisely how the Bilderbergers themselves have tended to justify their "private" gatherings. So to such a response I can only really say: well, didn't you make the great effort to protest against G8 or outside Westminster precisely because "this is the way the world works"? Added to which, what has become of your usually excellent sense of political smell…?
For Bilderberg simply reeks to high heaven, and though special interest deals are, of course, brokered in a great many places, including no doubt behind the scenes at the G8 and the corridors of Westminster, the whiff of that stale, smoky air of corruption appears so much the thicker at Bilderberg. Following a few rounds of golf and a splendid five-star luncheon just what else is there to do stuck together inside a five-star hotel for three days and nights besides sealing deals of one kind or another; the glad-handing and the back-patting all part of the crony favour system.
And beyond the corporate hobnobbing, which is surely smelly enough, might our politicians not indeed be conspiring in a different way? Aligning themselves with some kind of an overarching agenda that very deliberately chooses to remain "private" – although actually 'clandestine' is a word that better serves the purpose; more appropriate because until very recently Bilderberg didn't exist at all supposedly, being merely the paranoid fiction of a few overheated imaginations.
And here is the reason that the pointed finger often becomes unsheathed. Wait for it: I can hear the C-word coming. Oh dear! "You don't believe in any conspiracy theories, do you?" My abrupt reply: "well, what constitutes a conspiracy…?"
And it's funny to think how the pointy finger is so casually aimed towards the very people who sought the truth and found it. Those who insisted that Bilderberg was real when commonsense and logic appeared to be against them. Having been proved correct, they might have expected to hear a few more apologies from those who'd dismissed them as mad. But apparently the pointy finger is harder to shift. There are a thousand ways to kill the messenger.
3. Bilderberg only pretends to be an irrelevant talking shop
Bilderberg is far from irrelevant. To judge better for yourself, however, I recommend downloading a surprising and very much one-off BBC Radio 4 broadcast called "Club Class" from 2003, which is available online: http://wikileaks.org/w/images/5/5d/BBC-bilderberg-2003.mp3
On top of which there are plenty of other clues that have slowly come to light. Such evidence being limited and fragmentary for obvious and unavoidable reasons given the sustained and almost blanket media blackout on Bilderberg. And it really goes without saying that we would know so much more already if the media had probed and investigated as it should. Yet what is already known is surely incriminating enough.
For instance, we can say with certainty and no hesitation that the goal of forming a single world government is one very much desired by Bilderberg's most significant members (and for further details I recommend my first post about the group when it was meeting at St Moritz in 2011 – although these days, Bilderberg's globalist agenda isn't really a secret at all).
Now saying this, I also realise that such plans for global governance may sound attractive to some readers, and especially to those who see themselves on the left of the political spectrum. I too would love to live in a world of ethical international collaboration and global justice. But it is wise to always be careful what we wish for, and so let's not be soft-headed here: the mainstay of Bilderberg Group (head honchos such as David Rockefeller, Henry Kissinger, and our own British contingent being spearheaded by Ken Clarke and dear old "Prince of Darkness" Peter Mandelson) obviously not remotely interested in expanding internationalism in any traditional socialist sense. Their less stated though transparently clear objective – if we judge by actions rather than words – being to consolidate and expand the established corporatocracy.
4. This is a protest that might conceivably achieve its main goal
As you may have gathered, I certainly intend to trundle down to Watford to stand outside the cordons at this year's Bilderberg meeting and I am hoping that not hundreds, or even thousands, as have attended previous meetings (the protests continuing to grow over recent years), but that hopefully and potentially hundreds of thousands might decide to join us. My fingers are crossed.
Ordinarily, when we venture out to protest, we do so with the near certain foreknowledge that our protest will have been in vain. None of the real objectives having been achieved. We most probably tune in to watch the TV news highlights later, but it is only really to see how extreme the mismatch was between the official police estimate and the number determined by the march organisers. But protesting Bilderberg will be different and for one perfectly straightforward reason: that between June 6th and 9th we're not supposed to be there at all – and just imagine that! Being involved in a protest that hasn't already been officially sanctioned by Ed Miliband, or led from the front by the last leader of the Lib Dems, or else entirely pushed aside from the headline news by another of Bob Geldolf's giant celebrity gigs.
And suppose there are a hundred thousand or more who do steadily gather outside the gates of The Grove in a three weeks time, then the BBC, C4, ITV, Sky and the rest must finally be forced to follow us there, whereas, and without such a determined mass protest, the meeting will again pass off barely reported upon and completely unnoticed by the majority of the world's population. So why hesitate to go when numbers alone might be enough to tear down this veil of secrecy. Isn't this how a free people begins to make itself heard?
We should not allow this excellent opportunity pass. For when Bilderberg are at last forced out into the light of day we will have achieved something – if nothing else, we will have forced the world's media to do its proper job.
5. It's okay to have fun
Unlike the Bilderbergers themselves, I am inclined to believe that as a rule it is better not to mix business and pleasure. But if none of the above has helped in persuading you to join us, then here's an alternative pitch – everything else besides, this is very likely to be the most interesting protest you've ever been involved with – so why not just roll up and:
Enjoy the spectacle, meet new friends, and secure your souvenir picture of a Bilderberg participant gliding into the Grove's grounds in a tinted limo. [also from the bilderberg2013 website]
Protesting, in my humble opinion, ought to be a serious business. When out in opposition against the latest war, or the imposition of further "austerity measures", partying doesn't really help. It is in my view (and apologies for seeming such an old curmudgeon) an unnecessary and unwanted distraction. However, any protest against Bilderberg is significantly different from most other protests. For once, sheer publicity being our overriding aim.
Entertainment, therefore, is all to the better. So here is a little more encouragement to come along offered by the bilderberg2013 protest group, who are also planning to launch their own "Bilderberg Fringe Festival" outside the main event:
The Bilderberg Fringe Festival is a platform for conscious citizens from all over the world to join together at the Grove Hotel, Watford and positively influence global powerbrokers to make the right decisions for our future….. and have a fantastic party.
If you are a musician, poet, artist, speaker, performer, workshop host or have a soundsystem, tent or anything else you would like to bring to the party, get in touch at bilderbergfringe [at] yahoo.co.uk. We would love marvellous art to be created around the perimeters of the Grove hotel to drench the area in joy and creativity!
We will be providing the infrastructure for any individual or group wanting to get involved, plus a media tent and press centre to facilitate much-needed coverage of the Bilderberg conference itself.
Together let us make this a historic occasion for freedom and democracy.
6. Henry Kissinger and his partners in (war) crime
This is what Watford's elected mayor, Dorothy Thornhill had to say about the staging of this year's Bilderberg conference on her doorstep (from the same article in the Watford Observer):
"I have my concerns about it because it does attract people who can and do cause violence and disturbance."
How very well said Mayor Thornhill; never a truer word spoken…just scan your eyes down the guest lists of previous Bilderberg meetings and you'll see exactly what she means:
Blair, Anthony (1993)
Powell, Colin (1997)
Rice, Condoleezza (2008)
Perle, Richard (2011)
Kissinger, Henry (1957, 1964, 1966, 1971, 1973, 1974, 1977, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012)
Indeed, Henry Kissinger, who is one of the grandees of Bilderberg, has alone been responsible for more "violence and disturbance" than just about anyone else alive on the planet today. Responsible for the overthrow and murder of elected leaders like Salvador Allende in Chile, as well as the instigator of more widespread murder and mayhem, for example, with the formation of Operation Condor which directly led to millions of people being tortured and "disappeared" across much of Latin America. Then there is Kissinger's role in the war crimes carried out in Indochina; his commitment to covertly spreading the 'scorched earth' tactics of the Vietnam War with the carpet bombing of Cambodia and Laos under Operation Menu. And that barely scratches the surface of all of Kissinger's crimes and misdemeanours, so here are a few lesser known instances:
Take, for example, the case of former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and East Timor. Declassified documents reveal that after the Timorese declaration of independence from Portugal in 1975, Kissinger and President Gerald Ford, fearing that the new country would become a communist outpost, gave Indonesian President Suharto the green light to invade the island in a Jakarta meeting the day before the invasion.
The United States was then supplying Indonesia's military with 90 percent of its arms, and Kissinger himself described their relationship as that of "donor-client." As the civilian death toll from the invasion climbed into the tens of thousands and the reports of atrocities mounted, Kissinger ensured that US arms continued to flow to the invading forces despite Congressional strictures. Estimates of those who died from military action, starvation or disease range from 100,000 to 180,000—roughly one-seventh to one-fourth of the entire population of East Timor.2
But then, as Henry Kissinger once candidly explained [from wikileaks]:
"The illegal we do immediately; the unconstitutional takes a little longer."
Speaking at this year's World Economic Forum – that more public globalist confab at Davos in Switzerland – Kissinger also chillingly warned that a crisis involving a nuclear Iran in the "foreseeable future" could lead to a nuclear war and "a turning point in human history". And with Kissinger still so close to the strategic helm, there's good reason to pay heed to his words – especially when he also adds so grimly and predictably that "no option is off the table":
Well, it is very possible that we will see Kissinger in Watford all too soon. So maybe we can arrest him for his many crimes, and before it's too late. Certainly on the occasion that he does attend, the many charges laid against him might reasonably be brought to the attention of senior officers of the Hertfordshire Constabulary who will otherwise be inadvertently protecting a wanted man. As a matter of fact, there is a rather interesting precedent here:
The latest move to question Kissinger was by Peter Tatchell, a British human rights activist. While Kissinger was speaking in Britain at the UK's Institute of Directors annual conference on April 24, Tatchell attempted to have him arrested for committing war crimes under the Geneva Conventions Act.
Judge Nicholas Evans at the Bow Street magistrates' court rejected Tatchell's request because Tatchell did not present enough evidence implicating Kissinger to war crimes. However, according to Tatchell, the judge left the door open for future attempts to arrest the former U.S. official if suitable evidence is presented.
According to Tatchell's recent contribution to London's The Guardian, if he is able to "produce stronger evidence of Kissinger's culpability in the killing, maiming, torture and forced relocation of civilian populations in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia in the late 60s and early 70s," then there is a possibility an arrest warrant for Kissinger may be issued in the future.3
Click here to read more in an article entitled "Henry Kissinger, Wanted Man" written by Christopher Reilly, and published in counterpunch more than a decade ago.
7. You never know who might turn up as a surprise guest
Incidentally, the names of Bilderberg attendees I have picked out above were all drawn from what is only a partial and a highly abbreviated list provided by wikipedia. A list that surprisingly fails to record even the name of Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter's national security adviser, and another serial warmonger I have featured many times before on this blog. The funny thing is that although Brzezinski's name is missing from the main list, it is nevertheless registered in one of the many footnotes. A footnote (currently number 68) which reads:
"Western Issues Aired". The Washington Post. 24 April 1978. "The three-day 26th Bilderberg Meeting concluded at a secluded cluster of shingled buildings in what was once a farmer's field. Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter's national security adviser, Swedish Prime Minister Thorbjorrn Falldin, former secretary of state Henry Kissinger and NATO Commander Alexander M. Haig Jr. were among 104 North American and European leaders at the conference."
Alternatively, and if you decide to visit the main wikipedia page about Zbigniew Brzezinski you'll see there is a direct link back to Bilderberg. The same goes for Donald Rumsfeld and also Paul Wolfowitz 4, who though missing from the main list of attendees is actually described on his own page as a former steering committee member of the Bilderberg group. But then the main wikipedia entry for Bill Clinton fails to record his ties to the group and the same goes for Margaret Thatcher – both invited to Bilderberg gatherings prior to becoming national leaders (there is more about this again in my earlier post).
And then there was last year's do in Chantilly, Virginia: "were Mitt Romney and Bill Gates there?" Here's Charlie Skelton (a journalist and also one of the campaigners behind bilderberg2013) writing on his Guardian Bilderblog and answering the question to the best of his ability:
Four eyewitnesses on the hotel staff told me Willard Mitt Romney was here at Bilderberg 2012. My four eyewitnesses place him inside. That's one more than Woodward and Bernstein used. Romney's office initially refused to confirm or deny his attendance as Bilderberg is "not public". His people later said it wasn't him.
So, was he being crowned, or singing for his supper? Will Mitt Romney follow in the august footsteps of Clinton, Cameron and Blair to have attended Bilderberg and then shortly become leader? Four years ago, Senator Obama shook off his press detail and nipped (many think) into Bilderberg. This exact same hotel. […]
The Washington Post saw Bill Gates come in. And I've got three eyewitnesses from inside who confirmed he was here. This is his ear:
You won't see the names Mitt Romney or Bill Gates on the officially released Final List of Participants because, well, the list is a nonsense. It's nothing like a complete list of people who attend Bilderberg. It's a smokescreen, a bit of spin. So can we all, please, stop repeating it as gospel? 5
Click here to read Charlie Skelton's full article.
8. This year offers two events for the price of one
Incidentally, Zbigniew Brzezinski, as I mentioned in another recent post, is also well-known in some circles as the author of what he called the Technetronic Era; a future vision featuring:
'a society that is shaped culturally, psychologically, socially and economically by the impact of technology and electronics – particularly in the arena of computers and electronics.' 6
So he perhaps above all others attending – presuming of course that he does attend (this year's official guest list is yet to be leaked) – may be surprised and delighted to learn that within the secluded 300-acre grounds of the same luxury Hertfordshire hotel, there is going to be yet another "select gathering". A meeting of minds that might also be to his taste:
of new media gurus, political pointy-heads, start-up whiz kids and pop stars awarded the post-chart career title "humanitarian" are meeting to carve up the digital future.
"To carve up the digital future", so what does that involve exactly? Well, according to the article, which was published in last year's Independent, The Grove annually hosts what it describes as "The great Google gathering":
Each year, Larry Page, Google's co-founder and Eric Schmidt, executive chairman, jet into London for the invitation-only annual gathering, at the Grove hotel, where 400 delegates, chosen from the "great minds of our time", discuss topics ranging from technology and the media to politics and the arts.
This year's guest list includes Goldman Sachs's BRICs expert Jim O'Neill, singer Annie Lennox, and Bill Clinton, who will shoot the breeze with Schmidt at a panel session today.
Arsenal manager Arsène Wenger and model Lily Cole (who boasts a double first from Cambridge, should anyone doubt her credentials) also made the cut at an event previously graced by Prince Charles and Sir Richard Branson.
It certainly sounds like a shindig that's right up Brzezinski's technetronic avenue… but what's this? The same Independent article going on to say:
For conspiracy theorists, the conference, staged by the search engine giant, which reported a 60 per cent surge in earnings to $2.89bn this year, is a cuddlier version of the Bilderberg Group, the supposedly shadowy network of financiers that holds a private annual assembly, recast in the image of our new tech masters. 7 [my own bold highlight added]
A technetronic home from home then! And isn't this all just a little peculiar? That this year's Google's annual Zeitgeist conference (we might call it 'googleberg'), which has been based at the Grove since 2007, will be followed within days by the rather less cuddly Bilderberg proper – most likely with either Kissinger or Brzezinski in tow. Well, no, actually it isn't…
Eric Schmidt, Chairman of Google, has in fact already attended Bilderberg meetings in 2008, 2010 and 2011 (according again to wikipedia). So what should one make of this improbable convergence of "private meetings", aside from the obvious fact that it will be extremely convenient – for Eric Schmidt to name but one…
9. They don't want us (but maybe we can change some minds)
Hold on – sorry, sorry, it would seem that when quoted above I had misunderstood and misrepresented the viewpoint of Mayor Thornhill. Allow me to correct myself.
It's not the alleged war criminals and their hangers on that are bothering the elected mayor… no, not at all, and if only I'd read down just a far as the next line in the Watford Observer I could have presented her opinions more accurately. Now I'll need to go back and quote what she said from the beginning again:
"I have my concerns about it because it does attract people who can and do cause violence and disturbance. [which is not a reference to Kissinger]
"But I am confident the police will be able to minimise that and give them their right to protest.
"I am ambivalent about whether this is a good thing. It's potentially a positive thing as long as things don't kick off."
"I am concerned about the use of police resource but it is very good The Grove has been deemed a prestigious enough venue."
Click here to read the full article in the Watford Observer.
In other words, it is people like me (and hopefully you) she is worrying about and encouraging to stay at home. Exercising our democratic right to free speech and assembly entirely from the comfort of our own living rooms. Not that Mayor Thornhill is alone in this regard, of course.
Perhaps Mayor Thornhill will be reassured if we point out that none of the demonstrations against Bilderberg have ever "kicked off", as she very eloquently puts it. And would she really want Watford to miss out in sharing the proper recognition it deserves? For what's the point in having a "prestigious enough venue" when so few will ever get to hear about it? Put this way, I feel sure Mayor Thornhill will welcome us with open arms. After all, not even Elton John and his millions of pounds was enough to put Watford on the map (even if they did make it to the FA Cup Final in 1984). Whereas just a couple of hundred thousand demonstrators could easily make all the difference…
So maybe you would like to join us, Mayor Thornhill, because please believe me when I say you're not any part of the in-crowd, but much like the rest of us, just another insignificant peasant – in any case, the offer remains an open one.
10. Bilderberg might be even more odious than we imagined
Here's another thing Mayor Thornhill may be interested to ponder over. I wonder if she's heard what the Honorary President of the Supreme Court of Italy, Ferdinando Imposimato, revealed to Articolo Tre little more than a month ago on April 11th. Allegations against Bilderberg that I imagine Herts Constabulary might also be interested to learn more about:
"I found a document that left me awestruck, where when it comes to slaughter it also speaks of the Bilderberg Group. A document in the possession of a terrorist Ordine Nuovo, Ventura. I believe in this document. I made some tests and I can say that behind the strategy of tension and the massacres there is also the Bilderberg Group… " 8
The "strategy of tension" that Judge Imposimato is referring to here, being a series of false flag terrorist attacks carried out across Europe (but especially in Italy) under CIA directions and the codename Operation Gladio.
By adding this note, I can already feel the pointy fingers unsheathed once more and jabbing in my virtual direction. But look, this idea of a "strategy of tension" is not a 'conspiracy theory' at all. It is no more a 'theory' than the lied about proof of Saddam's WMDs or the long denied existence of Bilderberg, but simply another established yet little known historical fact – and one that once again is easily retrievable from wikipedia.
A meticulously detailed exposé of Operation Gladio has even featured as a three part "Timewatch" broadcast on BBC in 1992, and though I have embedded it in an earlier post, I see no reason not to embed it again below – after all, Operation Gladio played a very important part in shaping the destiny of post-war Europe and if we lived in a genuinely free society the truth about Gladio would be taught as part of the national curriculum in our schools:
Oddly, and almost exactly ten years earlier, the Gladio plot was also indirectly alluded to in an episode of BBC's political sit-com Yes Minister. A military insider and whistleblower presenting cabinet minister Jim Hacker with evidence that sophisticated computerised bomb detonators manufactured by British defence contractors were getting into the hands of Italian terrorist groups. I have embedded the episode entitled "The Whisky Priest" below:
As for Ferdinando Imposimato, and aside from being a former Senior Investigative Judge, he was also a Senator who served on the Anti-Mafia Commission in three administrations, and the author or co-author of seven books on international terrorism and state corruption. Added to which, Imposimato presided over a great many terrorism-related cases, including the kidnapping and assassination of President Aldo Moro, the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II, and other political assassinations and kidnapping cases including several against the Mafia.
Judge Imposimato may be wrong about Bilderberg's direct involvement in Gladio, but he evidently believes that the document he has seen is genuine. And Imposimato is an expert witness when it comes to state-sponsored terrorism and particularly with regards to the crimes of Operation Gladio. So with Imposimato's latest allegation, shouldn't we be calling for further investigation?
And here are two more [too late change the title now]:
11. Our time has come…
Summing up then, there will be all sorts of different people and groups gathering to protest against this year's Bilderberg meeting, but in spite of different outlooks we all have a common cause. All equally sick and tired of the way our nations are run solely for the benefit of the one-percent, and fed up with being bullied into line. We don't need to agree on every point to stand side-by-side.
Outside the locked gates of Bilderberg we can join in defiance against "austerity", and against the neo-imperialist wars, and the rise of a police state, and every other assault on our civil rights, our social welfare and our democracies. Those inside Bilderberg are in part responsible, whether they purposefully deliberate on the destruction of our societies, or whether our decline and fall is an inadvertent consequence of their venality and greed. What is happening to all of us is happening under their powerful watch. So there's no need to be a 'conspiracy theorist' to understand why those inside Bilderberg will once again prefer to hide their faces and names and to scurry about in tinted limos desperate to be unseen. And yes, we are going there to shine more light and to shame them all.
Bilderberg is a carbuncle. A recurring and festering sore. Symptomatic of a deep malaise, it bursts forth annually, rarely in the same place twice and hardly ever within touching distance. It comes this close about as a rarely as a new comet, and likewise portends nothing but doom and disaster. Just consider, for instance, what followed in its wake immediately after appearing in Athens (2009) and then Sitges near Barcelona (2010). The timings could hardly have been more striking given what subsequently happened to Greece and Spain. And as Bilderberg moves across to Britain, we also have the coincidence of a Goldman Sachs stooge called Mark Carney preparing to succeed Sir Mervyn King as Governor of the Bank of England. Do you think Carney might be on the guest list? Well, we shall soon see…
So I ask in a spirit of solidarity that in one way or another (and if only by spreading news of the meeting and our protest to friends and associates on facebook, twitter and by old-fashioned word of mouth) you join in our resistance to Bilderberg and everything it so evidently stands for. Lending our bankrupt ruling elites tacit permission to continue operating in the dark won't help the greater cause in any way. For as our freedoms and rights are stolen right from under our noses, we must act with urgency and also in as many useful ways as we can. Taking our protest to the doorstep of Bilderberg being just one such very purposeful way to respond.
Finally then, and though I wouldn't as a rule quote anything by Sebastian Coe, I happen to believe that those remarks he made at the closing ceremony of the London Olympics were never more pertinent than now – for when the limos have driven off back off into the distance, and the police helicopters have stopped whooring overhead, then I hope we might have a tremendous reason for saying:
"When our time came – Britain we did it right. Thank you!"
12. To stand and be counted
But I actually don't wish to end there… hanging semi-ironically on the vainglory of Lord Coe, but to finish instead with a few words truly worth reflecting upon.
Martin Luther King Jr:
On some positions, Cowardice asks the question, "Is it safe?" Expediency asks the question, "Is it politic?" And Vanity comes along and asks the question, "Is it popular?" But Conscience asks the question "Is it right?" And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must do it because Conscience tells him it is right.9
Since I posted the article:
The elected mayor of Watford has written to the Prime Minister voicing concern about the potential impact the Bilderberg security operation will have on the county's police budget.
Dorothy Thornhill penned a letter this week to David Cameron saying she found it "galling" that the Hertfordshire taxpayers could shoulder the cost of policing a meeting for some of "the wealthiest people in the world".
The Liberal Democrat said she also wanted the Government to understand the stresses the secretive conference had placed on the town and its public services.
Click here to read more in the Watford Observer.
1 From an article entitled "The Grove hotel set to host Bilderberg 'secret summit' written by Ben Endley, published in the Watford Observer on May 10, 2013. http://www.watfordobserver.co.uk/news/10411984.Hotel_set_to_host__secret_summit_/
2 Taken from an article entitled "If Charles Taylor Can Be Tried for War Crimes, Why Not Kissinger?" written by Reed Brody, published in The Nation magazine on May 9, 2012. http://www.thenation.com/article/167809/if-charles-taylor-can-be-tried-war-crimes-why-not-kissinger#
3 From an article entitled "Henry Kissinger, Wanted Man" written by Christopher Reilly, published in counterpunch magazine on April 28—30, 2002. http://www.counterpunch.org/2002/04/28/henry-kissinger-wanted-man/
4 Another footnote (currently 110) on the List_of_Bilderberg_participants: "Why is our governor visiting this group". The Augusta Chronicle. 19 June 2008. p.8. "Some of the names on the list are intriguing. Some of the well-known names include:Ben Bernanke – chairman, Board of Governors, Federal Reserve System; Condoleezza Rice – U.S. secretary of state; James A. Johnson – tasked with choosing U.S. Sen. Barack Obama's running mate; Paul Wolfowitz – with the Institute for Public Policy Research. The one name that stands out in my opinion this year is South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford."
5 From an article entitled "Bilderberg 2012: were Mitt Romney and Bill Gates there?" written by Charlie Skelton, published by the Guardian on June 5, 2012. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-news-blog/2012/jun/05/bilderberg-2012-chantilly-occupy
6 From Between Two Ages: America's Role in the Technetronic Era written by Zbigniew Brzezinski, reprinted by Greenwood Press, December 20, 1982., p. 9. You can find it quoted in a review of the book by Stephen McGlinchey, published by e-International Relations on July 22, 2011. http://www.e-ir.info/2011/07/22/review-between-two-ages-america%E2%80%99s-role-in-the-technetronic-era/
7 From an article entitled "The great Google gathering: The search engine is taking its quest for knowledge offline at a secluded British hotel" written by Adam Sherwin, published in The Independent on May 22, 2012. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/online/the-great-google-gathering-7771352.html
8 "Ho trovato un documento che mi ha lasciato sgomento, dove quando si parla di stragi si parla anche del gruppo Bilderberg. Un documento in possesso di un terrorista di Ordine Nuovo, Ventura. Io credo a questo documento. Ho fatto delle verifiche e posso dire che dietro la strategia della tensione e alle stragi c'è anche il gruppo Bilderberg, una specie di Grande Fratello che sta sopra, manovra, si serve di terroristi neri e massoni".
Taken from "Ferdinando Imposimato: 'C'è Bilderberg dietro alla strategia della tensione'" (which translates as "Ferdinando Imposimato: 'there's Bilderberg behind the strategy of tension'" published April 11, 2013. Translation from Bing Translator. Original article: http://www.articolotre.com/2013/04/ferdinando-imposimato-ce-bilderberg-dietro-alla-strategia-della-tensione/159105
9 "Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution" Martin Luther King Jr. (31 March 1968)
Filed under analysis & opinion, Britain, campaigns & events, Charlie Skelton
Tagged as "googleberg", "The Whisky Priest", "Yes Minister", Bilderberg, Bilderberg 2013, Bilderberg Fringe Festival, Bill Gates, Condoleezza Rice, Eric Schmidt, Ferdinando Imposimato, Google, Henry Kissinger, Mark Carney, Mitt Romney, Operation Condor, Operation Gladio, Operation Menu, Peter Tatchell, Watford, World Economic Forum, Zbigniew Brzezinski
from Monsanto with love… lessons on how to rule the world
The trouble with Bond villains is they are all lousy megalomaniacs. They hide out in volcanoes protected only by freakish goons and second-rate ninjas, and there fritter away all hopes of world domination on totally hare-brained schemes. Before attempting to irradiate all the gold in the vaults at Fort Knox or constructing the ultimate death ray or whatever it is, they ought to just take a few steps back and concentrate on what really matters. Just how might they maximise control with the least amount of effort or force? Well they might like to try a more viable and, as it happens, visible approach.
Indeed, they might very well look to some of our leading corporate players as role models. For instance, it has long seemed to me that Monsanto ought to have been cast as a Bond villain, except, of course, that Monsanto is far too villainous even for Bond to take on. But I have ofttimes imagined Monsanto, incarnate, back turned in a leather-upholstered chair, stroking his obligatory cat, and drooling over thoughts of the culmination of his latest and most fiendish scheme. Nothing less than a plan to take control of all of the food production on Earth:
"Have you ever heard of Gurt, Mr Bond? Genetic use restriction technology. Terminator technology. Suicide seeds. Artificial lifeforms that crave for their own extinction. We have broken the circle of life itself, Mr Bond. Want food…? Come to Papa. Beautiful, wouldn't you agree, Mr Bond? Just a few regulations in our way. But that will change. When the people are ready, and they will be, we shall be ready too – with Terminator 2.1 'I'll be back', Mr Bond!"
Bond remains impassive. Surreptitiously, he wriggles his hands a little to loosen the shackles, as Monsanto continues to prowl his penthouse suite HQ (since he hardly needs to hide out in a bunker).
"Do you remember Agent Orange, Mr Bond? Half a million deaths and another half a million birth defeats. Vast tracts of Vietnam are still contaminated thanks to Agent Orange. One of mine, Mr Bond, one of mine… Oh yes, Mr Bond, so much already laid waste and yet so much that remains to be contaminated. Inside the borders of that miserable little green speck you are so proud to call home, you can even find my own inimical calling-card. Thousands of tons of the most deadly toxins but just a taste of what will soon come.2 For this game is now drawing to its inevitable conclusion, Mr Bond. Soon I will have the whole world dependent on my patented GMOs and the pesticides required to keep them healthy. Welcome to the vanguard of this gangrene revolution, Mr Bond. Just a pity you won't be here to see the reign of darkness that is to come when we have complete control your beautiful planet."
I could be mistaken, of course, casting Monsanto purely in the light of its wretched and deplorable environmental record, whilst judging longer term intent solely on the basis of its stealth monopolisation of worldwide seed production. Indeed, there are others who see Monsanto as a manufacturer of the means to banish famine, and of thus opening the way for a much fairer, less impoverished world. This is certainly what well-known mega-billionaire and nice guy philanthropist Bill Gates thinks, although he tends not to advertise the fact:
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which is sponsoring the Guardian's Global development site is being heavily criticised in Africa and the US for getting into bed not just with notorious GM company Monsanto, but also with agribusiness commodity giant Cargill.
Trouble began when a US financial website published the foundation's annual investment portfolio, which showed it had bought 500,000 Monsanto shares worth around $23m. This was a substantial increase in the last six months and while it is just small change for Bill and Melinda, it has been enough to let loose their fiercest critics.3
The article written by John Vidal, and entitled "Why is the Gates foundation investing in GM giant Monsanto", was posted more than a year ago on the Guardian's "povertymatters" blog, which is itself sponsored by none other than the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation!
"The Foundation's direct investment in Monsanto is problematic on two primary levels," said Dr. Phil Bereano, University of Washington Professor Emeritus and recognized expert on genetic engineering. "First, Monsanto has a history of blatant disregard for the interests and well-being of small farmers around the world, as well as an appalling environmental track record. The strong connections to Monsanto cast serious doubt on the Foundation's heavy funding of agricultural development in Africa and purported goal of alleviating poverty and hunger among small-scale farmers. Second, this investment represents an enormous conflict of interests."4
From one of the reports cited in the same Guardian article, that was released in August 2010 by Seattle-based Agra Watch – a project of the Community Alliance for Global Justice.
Another report from the South Africa-based watchdog the African Centre for Biosafety uncovered how the Gates Foundation was also teaming up with Cargill in a $10m project to "develop the soya value chain" in Mozambique and elsewhere. Unfortunately the link from the article (copied above) is now dead, but not to worry here's another report:
The Water Efficient Maize for Africa (WEMA) program was launched in 2008 with a $47 million grant from mega-rich philanthropists Warren Buffett and Bill Gates. The program is supposed to help farmers in several African countries increase their yields with drought- and heat-tolerant corn varieties, but a report released last month by the African Centre for Biosafety claims WEMA is threatening Africa's food sovereignty and opening new markets for agribusiness giants like Monsanto.5
Vidal's article continues:
The two incidents raise a host of questions for the foundation. Few people doubt that GM has a place in Africa, but is Gates being hopelessly naïve by backing two of the world's most aggressive agri-giants? There is, after all, genuine concern at governmental and community level that the United State's model of extensive hi-tech farming is inappropriate for most of Africa and should not be foist on the poorest farmers in the name of "feeding the world".
The fact is that Cargill is a faceless agri-giant that controls most of the world's food commodities and Monsanto has been blundering around poor Asian countries for a decade giving itself and the US a lousy name for corporate bullying. Does Gates know it is in danger of being caught up in their reputations, or does the foundation actually share their corporate vision of farming and intend to work with them more in future?
A year ago, the New York Times described the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation as "the world's principal private funder of agricultural research"6. Nothing so far as I'm aware has changed since, which, reading between the lines, means that it is difficult to draw any clear-cut distinction between the interests of the Gates Foundations and those of Big Agra.
Click here to read John Vidal's full report.
Now, as I was in the middle of writing this, and wondering if I wasn't coming down too hard on the saintly Bill Gates, I came across another piece of news [Feb 6th] about Bill Gates ambitions for bringing change to the world. It was also written by the excellent John Vidal:
A small group of leading climate scientists, financially supported by billionaires including Bill Gates, are lobbying governments and international bodies to back experiments into manipulating the climate on a global scale to avoid catastrophic climate change.
The scientists, who advocate geoengineering methods such as spraying millions of tonnes of reflective particles of sulphur dioxide 30 miles above earth, argue that a "plan B" for climate change will be needed if the UN and politicians cannot agree to making the necessary cuts in greenhouse gases, and say the US government and others should pay for a major programme of international research.
Solar geoengineering techniques are highly controversial: while some climate scientists believe they may prove a quick and relatively cheap way to slow global warming, others fear that when conducted in the upper atmosphere, they could irrevocably alter rainfall patterns and interfere with the earth's climate.7
Click here to read John Vidal's latest report on Bill Gates' environmental lobbying.
Geoengineering. Such a grand sounding name for a subject. Engineering, however, is generally applied to very, very well understood systems – usually ones that we ourselves designed in fact. And it is a subject that always builds safety tolerances into its solutions. What weight does that beam need to withstand? Okay, let's double it just in case. Why? Because in the real world of engineering, unlike the idealised worlds of pure science, you are expected to expect the unexpected.
So what of geoengineering, which is the preferred shorthand for schemes designed for 're-engineering the world's climate'. Well firstly, the climate system is extremely complex. It involves the movement of two different fluids, air and water, around convoluted islands and basins, and the exchange of energy and material between them. Before 're-engineering' it then, we need first to fully understand the movement of those fluids and at all levels: up to the high altitude jet streams and down to the deep ocean currents. We also need to understand how the composition of those fluids varies, the concentrations of salt in the ocean and of the gases (and, most importantly, of water vapour) in the atmosphere, not to mention the distribution and structures of clouds and even the reflectivity of the Earth's surface (or its albedo).
Whilst all of this is happening on Earth, the energy available to drive these interconnected feedback systems arrives only from the Sun. So we must know how the output of the Sun varies, but not only in terms of radiative output (or 'sunlight'), which is helpfully constant (at least over the short term) but in other ways that might influence the Earth's climate. We need to understand how a constant stream of plasma called the solar wind interacts with the upper atmosphere, and what effects changes there might have at lower altitudes.8 To understand long term variations (such as ice ages), we also need to precisely factor all effects due to changes in the Earth's position relative to the Sun. Steady changes in the orientation of the Earth's orbit and spin axis, and more subtle changes in the shape of our orbit around the Sun9.
'Extremely complex' simply doesn't do justice to the enormity of the task involved in fully understanding our climate systems, especially when we remind ourselves that beyond all the physics and chemistry, there is also biology to take into account. Life interacts with the atmosphere and the oceans, no less than sunlight and gravity. Hardly surprisingly, we are only now beginning to understand how all the cogs turn together. Sure there are models of climate behaviour, but these models simply ignore or approximate many of the influences on our weather and ocean systems. They go so far, but should very definitely not be mistaken as the sorts of 'high fidelity' models that exist, say, to test the performance of bridges or to predict the motion of the planets in our Solar System.
So Geoengineering is about intervening with something that is far from fully understood, yet at the same time very, very precious, and quite probably fragile (certainly from the point of view of securing continued human habitation). On top of that, it isn't properly engineering at all, and ought to really to be called 'geoexperimenting': an experiment that some experts say "could irrevocably alter rainfall patterns and interfere with the earth's climate." Irrevocably being a very, very long time.
If you were worried about the switch on of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, then you really shouldn't have been, because the fuss about black holes and so forth was really just a load of media hype – quite possibly cooked up by some of the scientists who knew better, of course, but perhaps thought it worthwhile to play the media circus for greater publicity. And for a few weeks, the media couldn't get enough of the LHC. Everyone was talking about hadrons. Geoengineering, on the other hand, which, if ever implemented (and judging by the levels of investment, looks set to be coming), must be considered a genuine threat to our continuing existence on Earth, yet rarely gets a mention.
In June 2010, Democracy Now! hosted an interesting debate between Indian environmentalist and scientist, Vandana Shiva, and geopolitical analyst and columnist, Gwynne Dyer. Here are some of the carefully considered reasons Vandana Shiva gave for rejecting geoengineering solutions:
It's an engineering paradigm that created the fossil fuel age, that gave us climate change. And Einstein warned us and said you can't solve problems with the same mindset that created them. Geoengineering is trying to solve the problems with the same old mindset of controlling nature. And the phrase that was used, of cheating — let's cheat — you can't cheat nature. That's something people should recognize by now. There is no cheating possible. Eventually, the laws of Gaia determine the final outcome. […]
I work on ecological agriculture. We need that sunlight for photosynthesis. The geoengineers don't realize, sunshine is not a curse on the planet. The sun is not the problem. The problem is the mess of pollution we are creating. So, again, we can't cheat.
Well, the first thing is, there's never enough time, but you have to find the solutions. And to use the excuse of immediacy and urgency to take the wrong action is not a solution. In terms of time, we do organic farming, and again, in my book Soil Not Oil, we've shown that a localized ecological biodiverse system of farming could solve 40 percent of the climate problem, because 40 percent emissions are coming from food miles, nitrogen oxide emissions, cutting down the Amazon forest, all linked to a globalized industrialized food system. Tomorrow we can do that. In three years' time, all of the world's farming could be ecological, absorbing the carbon dioxide and putting fertility back in the soil. It's not a fifty-year experiment. It's an assured, guaranteed path that has been shown to work.
Click here to watch the video and read the full transcript on the Democracy Now! website.
So just why would Bill Gates choose to blemish his reputation by getting so deeply involved in an enterprise as controversial as geoengineering? To save the planet from climate change? So he says, although it seems that he does have another incentive too – I wonder if you can guess:
As well as Gates, other wealthy individuals including Sir Richard Branson, tar sands magnate Murray Edwards and the co-founder of Skype, Niklas Zennström, have funded a series of official reports into future use of the technology. Branson, who has frequently called for geoengineering to combat climate change, helped fund the Royal Society's inquiry into solar radiation management last year through his Carbon War Room charity. It is not known how much he contributed.
Professors David Keith, of Harvard University, and Ken Caldeira of Stanford, are the world's two leading advocates of major research into geoengineering the upper atmosphere to provide earth with a reflective shield. They have so far received over $4.6m from Gates to run the Fund for Innovative Climate and Energy Research (Ficer). Nearly half Ficer's money, which comes directly from Gates's personal funds, has so far been used for their own research, but the rest is disbursed by them to fund the work of other advocates of large-scale interventions.
According to statements of financial interests, Keith receives an undisclosed sum from Bill Gates each year, and is the president and majority owner of the geoengineering company Carbon Engineering, in which both Gates and Edwards have major stakes – believed to be together worth over $10m.
Another Edwards company, Canadian Natural Resources, has plans to spend $25bn to turn the bitumen-bearing sand found in northern Alberta into barrels of crude oil. Caldeira says he receives $375,000 a year from Gates, holds a carbon capture patent and works for Intellectual Ventures, a private geoegineering research company part-owned by Gates and run by Nathan Myhrvold, former head of technology at Microsoft.
Click here for John Vidal's full article (which reads like an almanack of conflicts of interest).
Here in Yorkshire, there is a saying that "where there's muck there's money", and when it comes to geoengineering there is muck aplenty. Stuff like sulphur dioxide that we've been scrubbing from our industrial chimneys for many years, in efforts to prevent acid rain and to clean up the air quality of our cities. But here the idea is to spray sulphur dioxide and other muck directly into the high atmosphere in order to 'provide earth with a reflective shield'.10 In other words, to block out the sun by increasing pollution, which is sufficiently hare-brained to have been dreamt up by Blofeld.
All of which now causes me to wonder who is the more dangerous: the more or less openly diabolical Monsanto or such 'eco-friendly' meddlers as Gates, Buffett and Branson to name but a few. Whatever the case, the lesson for those intent on world domination remains the same. And aspiring Bond villains will please take note – Forget about your mountain hideouts and armies of incompetents, what you really need is good publicity, and best of all, the backing of a respectable charitable foundation. Just knock it off with all of that "no, I expect you to die Mr Bond", and try gently rattling a tin instead. "Welcome Mr Bond," you might say, politely adding "have you ever considered making a small donation to save the planet?"
1 "The vast majority of the world's 500m farmers still collect their best seeds each year and replant them. Preventing a process followed since farming began 10,000 years ago has been seen as endangering their way of life.
The problem for Monsanto and other companies is that in developing countries terminator has become synonymous with GM and a symbol of the increasing control of world agriculture by big foreign corporations.
In Monsanto's version, seeds are soaked in the antibiotic tetracycline, which sets in motion a genetic chain reaction that ultimately instructs the plant to kill its own seeds.
Monsanto's chief executive, Robert Shapiro, in a letter to the Rockefeller Foundation in New York which announced the terminator's development, said the company intended to continue research into sophisticated "trait technologies".
These have been dubbed "terminator 2", or "gene-switchers", and would allow a company to develop crops that grow only if sprayed with a regimen of chemicals that include its herbicides or insecticides."
From an article entitled "World braced for terminator 2", written by John Vidal, published in the Guardian on October 6, 1999. http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/1999/oct/06/gm.food2
2 "Previously unseen Environment Agency documents from 2005 show that almost 30 years after being filled, Brofiscin [a quarry in South Wales where Monsanto dumped waste from its chemical works in Newport and elsewhere] is one of the most contaminated places in Britain. According to engineering company WS Atkins, in a report prepared for the agency and the local authority in 2005 but never made public, the site contains at least 67 toxic chemicals. Seven PCBs have been identified, along with vinyl chlorides and naphthalene."
From an article entitled "The wasteland: how years of secret chemical dumping left a toxic legacy – Monsanto helped to create one of the most contaminated sites in Britain", written by John Vidal, published in the Guardian on February 12, 2007. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/feb/12/uknews.pollution1
3 From an article entitled "Why is the Gates foundation investing in GM giant Monsanto? – The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's investments in Monsanto and Cargill have come under heavy criticism. Is it time for the foundation to come clean on its visions for argiculture in developing countries?" written by John Vidal, published by the Guardian on September 29, 2010. http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2010/sep/29/gates-foundation-gm-monsanto
4 From a report by the Community Alliance for Global Justice, posted on August 25, 2010. http://www.seattleglobaljustice.org/2010/08/for-immediate-release-gates-foundation-invests-in-monsanto/
5 From an article entitled "Monsanto and Gates Foundation Push GE Crops on Africa", written by Mike Ludwig, published by Truthout on July 12, 2011. http://www.truth-out.org/second-green-revolutionaries-gates-foundation-and-monsanto-push-ge-crops-africa/1310411034
6 According to an article entitled "The Struggle for Daily Bread", written by David Rieff, published by the New York Times on October 14, 2011. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/15/opinion/15iht-edrieff15.html
7 From an article entitled "Bill Gates backs climate scientists lobbying for large-scale geoengineering: Other wealthy individuals have also funded a series of reports into the future use of technologies to geoengineer the climate", written by John Vidal, published in the Guardian on February 6, 2012. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/06/bill-gates-climate-scientists-geoengineering
8 Over the short term of a few decades, the output of solar radiation is nearly constant (varying by up to about 0.1%), but the Sun also produces a continuous stream of charged particles known as the solar wind, which is far from constant, varying considerably depending on solar activity. Although the stream is deflected by the Earth's magnetic field, some of the particles do nevertheless interact with the Earth's upper atmosphere, producing the wonderful aurora whilst also heating the ionosphere. In addition to this, the solar wind helps to reduce the influx of cosmic rays. Does any of this affect the climate at lower levels in the Earth's atmosphere? The answer is that we simply don't know precisely how processes in the upper atmosphere affect the climate below. There are theories that cosmic rays are important for cloud formation, whilst it could also be the case that changes in the ionosphere can shift the position of the high altitude jet streams. In both cases, the effects on the climate would be very significant.
9 To read more about the theory of how changes in the Earth's movement and orientation affect climate see the wikipedia entry on Milankovitch cycles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles.
10 Sulphur dioxide is noxious enough, but "potential types of particles for injection include sulfur dioxide, aluminum oxide dust or even designer self-levitating aerosols [which are one of David Keith's ideas]…". These would then need to be 'replenished' every year or two years. Replenished because it will all slowly but surely fall back to Earth. In this case of 'aluminium oxide dust' and the 'designer aerosols' this means clouds of nanoparticles that would then fall out over land and sea, building up in concentration in our rivers, our soil and our homes. Could these it toxic? Well, there is still much debate about the toxicity of aluminium oxide, but certainly reasons for concern, and especially given evidence of its adverse effects on the germination of seeds and growth of plants – something that Monsanto could no doubt help out with later.
Read more of these proposals in "Unilateral Geoengineering: Non-technical Briefing Notes for a Workshop at the Council on Foreign Relations", published April 15, 2008. (Quote taken from p.4) https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:b1EPc92sD8UJ:www.cfr.org/content/thinktank/GeoEng_041209.pdf+geoengineering+aluminium+oxide&hl=en&gl=uk&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESih0YswcESwswvLvNdo4BdK-lBPke3qvH6bQ-N8ZxALTs8zbJnXtDkhkhUmE7k6QjjjR5F8ORJ8DHWPhCmm4DTMkdCNiBsz3DGx0ZsBMII7LssnM0bzX2RzLhZyehFzZWRfsA4X&sig=AHIEtbQvJBXXg09zivyqBcyDS52PneIFVw
Filed under analysis & opinion, geoengineering, global warming, GMO, Uncategorized
Tagged as Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Cargill, Council on Foreign Relations, Genetic use restriction technology (GURT), John Vidal, Monsanto, Richard Branson, Vandana Shiva, Warren Buffett