statism watch

Flashback: Atlas felt a sense of déjà vu

George Washington’s Blog
March 12, 2009

Barron’s is finally admitting what few in the mainstream have been willing to acknowledge: the Austrian school of economics was right.

The Austrians have been saying for well over a hundred years that big bubbles lead to big crashes, and that – if you want to avoid depressions – you have to avoid the bubbles.

In today’s article, entitled “Ignoring the Austrians Got Us in This Mess”, Barron’s agrees:

The credit crisis and the ensuing global economic contraction have failed to make an impression on academe, where free-market orthodoxy still reigns supreme, the New York Times asserted in an article in arts section recently (“Ivory Tower Unswayed by Crashing Economy,” March 4.)…

What definitely is ignored in academe is the Austrian school of economics, especially for baby boomers brought up on Samuelson’s economics text, which was pure Keynesian orthodoxy. I did not learn the names von Mises and Hayek or their ideas until a decade or more after graduation (with a degree in economics, by the way.)

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Listen to the man.

By Sean Poulter, Daily Mail
March 12, 2009

The inventor of the world wide web has launched a damning attack on plans to spy on the internet browsing habits of millions of households.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee warned such technology was even more sinister than allowing companies to install TV cameras in our homes, and said the details revealed could be used by stalkers or foreign agents wanting to blackmail British politicians.

Internet providers BT, TalkTalk and Virgin Media are all considering a system known as Phorm, which would track the web pages that their 11million customers look at.

The potentially lucrative system creates an anonymous profile of a surfer’s interests which is then used by retailers to target them with relevant adverts.

Phorm insists it is far less intrusive than the existing tracking and profiling of surfers by internet search engines such as Yahoo and Google. It says there is nothing to link a name or address to the profile and customers can also opt out.

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Ugh. You want communism? You’re certainly going to get it the way things are going. And it won’t be pretty.

Duncan Campbell, The Guardian
March 12, 2009

The hottest ticket in London this weekend is not for a pop singer or a football match but for a conference on communism which brings together some of the world’s leading Marxist academics. The international financial crisis has led to a resurgence of interest in a philosophy that many claimed had been buried with the collapse of the Soviet Union.

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The possibilities – and consequences – of an injection or a pill that could erase human memory, or even simply negate emotional affect (as is the intention of SSRI class antidepressants), are extremely far reaching. In fact, there is a growing body of research in pursuit of this goal: the Toronto Hospital for Sick Children is not the first medical institution to find a mechanism for memory erasure. And it likely won’t be the last.

Flashback: Vets Sue CIA Over Mind Control Tests | Brain implant for depression shows promising 1-year results: study | Remembering Brainwashing | Canadian MKULTRA project mind control victim to tell of pills, shocks, brainwashing

Joseph Hall, Toronto Star
March 12, 2009

A scene from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

A group of researchers at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children have erased brain cells in mice that store fearful memories, holding out the hope that terrifying memories in humans may one day be erased before causing conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder.

While the sights and sounds of a terrifying blast or crash would stay intact, the memory of the fear it caused could conceivably be erased, the researchers suggest. Their work appears today in the journal Science.

“You wouldn’t want to completely get rid of all aspects of a memory,” says Dr. Michael Salter, head of the Neurosciences & Mental Health program at the hospital.

“To help people with these kinds of post-traumatic stress disorders ….. you might just want to minimize the emotional association between the memory and the highly disruptive and negative emotions that people have in this context.”

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Flashback: Halifax thinks again about subjecting applicants to lie-detector tests | ‘Pre-crime’ detector shows promise | India’s use of brain scans in courts dismays critics | Brain will be battlefield of future, warns US intelligence report

Ian Sample, The Guardian
March 12, 2009

Researchers use brain scans to read people’s memories

Scientists have used brain scans to read people’s memories and work out where they were as they wandered around a virtual building.

The landmark study by British researchers demonstrates that powerful imaging technology is increasingly able to extract our innermost thoughts.

The feat prompted the team to call for an ethical debate on how brain imaging may be used in the future, and what safeguards can be put in place to protect people’s privacy.

The study was part of an investigation aimed at learning how memories are created, stored and recalled in a part of the brain called the hippocampus.

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Flashback: Ottawa balks at travel permit for man trapped in Sudan | Family of Canadian stranded by no-fly list to make public appeal

CBC News
March 12, 2009

Abousfian Abdelrazik remains on UN anti-terror blacklist

A group supporting a Montrealer once labelled an al-Qaeda operative has bought the man a plane ticket to return to Canada, in defiance of federal law.

More than 100 Canadians have donated money to pay for a ticket for Abousfian Abdelrazik, the 47-year-old arrested and detained in Sudan during a visit in 2003.

Authorities released him after finding no evidence to support any charges of links to terrorist organizations.

However, because his passport expired while he was in prison, Abdelrazik has been stuck in Sudan ever since.

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This topic is becoming highly politicized, which is the reason you’ve found it in this journal’s archives. Whatever you may think about climate change claims, it cannot be denied that ‘Global Warming’ is being used as a pretext to chain the citizens of the world with a host of new carbon taxes and onerous legislation. (In fact, many of the scientists whose names are associated with the IPCC report really aren’t – either aren’t scientists, or do not fully support its findings as presented). While that might be an effective way to fill Al Gore’s pockets, it will do little if anything to curb climate change. To do that, take responsibility for your own environmental footprint. This world is beautiful, and if you value that you will tread lightly upon it.

Flashback: Top Japanese Scientists: Warming Is Not Caused By Human Activity | IPCC caught with false figures, doubt cast on accuracy of global temperature record

Jan M. Olsen, Associated Press
March 12, 2009

COPENHAGEN – Hundreds of leading scientists warned today that global warming is accelerating beyond the worst predictions and threatening to trigger “irreversible” climate shifts on the planet.

Saying there’s no excuse for inaction, the nearly 2,000 climate researchers meeting in Copenhagen urged policy makers to “vigorously” implement the economic and technological tools available to cut emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases.

Their stark message came at the end of a three-day conference aimed at updating the findings of a 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change before U.N. talks in December on a new global climate treaty.

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Another patsy takes the fall. Prepare for further degradation of Canadian criminal law and restrictions on everyone’s liberties. As the former head of MI5 pointed out in Britain, people’s fears are being manipulated to restrict liberty. Little has been proved in this show trial other than that legal concepts such as intent – mens rea – can be thrown out the window if it suits an agenda. MI5 was all over the London affair, same setup as the Toronto 18 – just google Operation Crevice and Supergrass, if the details haven’t been memory-holed already. It might have been within the bounds of reason to apply the various existing laws relating to treason or military engagement against Khawaja as a potential combatant in Afghanistan, but that would hardly have served the purpose of making him a test case to boost ‘terrorism law’ in Canada.

Flashback: Khawaja radicalized by insurgent dreams, convicted on terror connections but not intent | FBI Informant in British terror trial given immunity, proceedings raise question of what MI5 knew about 2005 London bombings

Colin Freeze, The Globe and Mail
March 12, 2009

An Ottawa bomb builder today became the first man to be sentenced under Canada’s post-9/11 laws as a judge meted out a 10 1/2-year sentence against Mohammad Momin Khawaja.

Justice Douglas Rutherford of Ontario Superior Court called Mr. Khawaja “a willing and eager participant” in a terrorist scheme.

The Ottawa man’s sentence Thursday means no chance of parole for five years – and it’s in addition to the almost five years he has already spent behind bars.

The 29-year-old Pakistani-Canadian who built a detonator for a British cell of al-Qaeda-inspired extremists was sentenced under Canada’s controversial Anti-Terrorism Act, passed just months after the 9/11 attacks in the United States.

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From the political crimes provisions of the Ba’ath party’s penal code (Chapter 3, Para. 223). Paul Bremer even kept them around (Section 2) during the period of transitional government in Iraq. Guess he thought they might be useful if selectively enforced. Oh, the irony.

Flashback: George Bush shoe-thrower ‘too severely beaten’ for court appearance

CBC News
March 12, 2009

The Iraqi journalist who threw shoes at former U.S. president George W. Bush has been sentenced to three years in prison for assaulting a foreign leader.

Muntadhar al-Zeidi had pleaded not guilty to the charge earlier on Thursday. But the prison sentence was handed down by the panel of three judges after a short trial, al-Zeidi’s defence lawyer, Mohammed al-Abboudi, told reporters.

Al-Zeidi shouted “long live Iraq” as the sentence was read amid tight security at the courthouse, where hundreds had come to see the trial and gather in the streets.

Al -Zeidi has been incarcerated since Dec. 14, when he hurled two shoes at Bush and called him a “dog” during a joint press conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki.

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