Let’s start off with a little-known fact that emerged from watching a stunning new documentary called The Corporation (which examines the structure of corporations and their impact on the world, and ultimately shows that the nature of all corporations is technically psychotic).
Did you know that the Coca Cola company in the mid-1930s was failing in its attempts to market Coke in the Third Reich, because of the growing Nazi anti-American sentiment — and so the German wing of Coke created a special Aryan-friendly drink called “Fantasie” — shortened to “Fanta”. So, all of you Fanta guzzlers out there, feel special, given that the orange-tasting muck you drink comes to you direct from Hitler’s Third Reich.
Read Fanta’s Nazi Origins. Then cross-check the information at The Fanta Clause. And in case you think it’s all a plot, read the brief mention at the Jewish World Review.
Cross-check again with the ever-useful Wikipedia on Fanta’s Nazi Past. Finally, just for a laugh, take a look at how the Coca Cola company itself carefully neglects to mention precise details of the origin of its orange drink on its own official homepage. I love the phrase it uses to obscure the reality: “A favourite in Europe since the 1940s.” So were some other things they neglect to mention at the Official Smokescreen Page.
Gear change. Now that you have discovered you’ve tasted the same drink that was made for a genocidal supremacist ideology, how about monsters of a different sort? Take a look at this bizarre creature that washed up on a beach recently, with a seal’s body, fins, claws and sharp teeth. Let’s hear the silence from official science as they avoid explaining what this thing is and, more importantly, where its mommy might be: Mini Monster Washes up on Beach.
Fake terror is always useful for authoritarian regimes, to allow them to implement the policies they want without any protest. (Take a look at our own so-called “crime” problem as an example. Elsewhere you’d call it “widescale civil unrest” — but here, it’s “crime” and seems to serve a useful social function in order to keep all citizens huddled at home at night, trying to preserve their possessions, rather than protesting about anything.) Gosh, I just bored myself, sorry. As an example of “fake terror” in action, almost 40 years ago, read the declassified documents showing just how far the United States military was content to go in order to manufacture a war with Cuba. Go to Operation Northwoods.
US President George Bush made a truly bizarre statement this week, talking about how gynaecologists should be allowed to “share their love for women”. I’m not kidding. I first heard it on Howard Stern a few days back — and here’s a news report of the utterly incomprehensible statement by Bush. Have a look at Bush Says Obgyns Should Be Allowed to Share Their Love for Women.
Staying with the fake terror theme. Recall the two Russian airliners that crashed recently? It’s not getting much publicity that one of the supposed “suicide plane bombers” happens to still be alive. Just like a number of the alleged 9/11 hijackers. Read Russian Suicide Plane Bomber Still Alive. Speaking of 9/11, read How to Steal an Airliner and Fake a Hijacking.
Then, just to celebrate the anniversary of 9/11, go look at some silly attempts to make jelly versions of the WTC towers, complete with Spider-Man. Take a spoon and go to Jelly WTC.
Back to Russia and fake terror — it’s not common knowledge that President Vladimir Putin came to power thanks to a wave of apparent “terrorist” attacks in Moscow. So the “terror” tool has been around and used for a long time. Now it just happens to fit conveniently in with the US’s endless “war on terror” tactic. Read this very interesting article that shows a glimpse of a reality that doesn’t quite fit with the official view: Poisoned by Putin.
And you’ll no doubt have been expressing shock and horror, along with the rest of the world, at the recent school siege. But there is a complexity behind the story that generally wasn’t reported in the mass media, who were quite happy to paint broad, easy-to-digest ideas of simply “bad terrorists” and “trapped children hostages”. Let’s take you deeper; settle in and read The Real Story Behind the Beslan School Siege.
Now that your viewpoint has been widened a little to go beyond the stereotypical “terrorists” idea, read Terrorists Got Orders from Abroad and Didn’t Speak Chechen. Then read this under-reported item from the Irish Examiner, titled Local Police May Have Helped Terrorists, and cross-reference with Police Suspected of Complicity with Terrorists.
To get a view from inside Russia that doesn’t quite fit with the official party line, consider Russian Nationalists Don’t Believe Putin’s Propaganda.
Gear change. The Olympics are fading from memory, thankfully, and the various countries that participated are counting the PR gains and telling their athletes how wonderful it all was and how much it helped (fill in local reason here). For a look under the glitzy media spin of the rather silly concept of the Olympics, read What Happened to the Stray Dogs of Athens.
You constant readers (as Stephen King tends to refer fondly to you regular readers) will recall last week’s column mention of a rather nasty military sound-weapon that was to be readied for use against protesters in the streets of New York. Lest you think it was all merely a thumbsuck, take a look at the pix and info of this weapon, which was in place and ready to burst eardrums, should it have proved necessary: Photographs of the Acoustic Sound Weapon.
As the US is pretty much the modern version of imperial Rome in action, it’s always interesting, sitting out in an outlying area that’s on the edges of the empire and watching the goings-on between the Romans themselves. Naturally, given that we’re relatively geopolitically insignificant in terms of Rome’s own desires and requirements (oil and minerals), it’s fairly safe to sit quietly and watch the senators stab each other — and instigate fake wars to take over those nations that have resources the US wants. Point to this being, keep an eye on what’s happening back in Rome at US Election Coverage.
Then, tying in neatly with the psychotic nature of corporations, it’s no real surprise to discover that both John Kerry and Bush are receiving money from the same donors. So much for there being a difference between “Republican” and “Democrat” — go read about this and more at The Buying of the President.
Staying with the US elections — and specifically the ongoing joke about a draft-dodging, drunken driver and cocaine user with a history of failed companies trying to sell himself as being of value to the electorate — CBS was perhaps taken for a ride recently after being fed faked documents “proving” that Bush wasn’t awol during his military service. Read the geeky discussion on fonts at Was CBS Duped with Fake Memos?.
Try this nice article from Fisk, covering the meltdown smokescreen known as the war on terror. Read Can’t Blair See that this Country is about to Explode? Can’t Bush?.
Given that we’re just a few weeks away from both a flyby by Toutatis (a city-sized asteroid that’s heading towards us as we speak) as well as growing whispers about a super-9/11, coincidentally in the same time period — of September 26 and 27 — it’s interesting that a European Space Agency scientist happens to speak up saying that Earth needs a “Noah’s Ark” on the Moon.
Another gear change. Here’s a little-mentioned medical anomaly that might be of interest to folks locally, given the malaria connection. Something seems to have emerged with the dosing of troops with anti-malarial drugs — read Pattern of Suicide and Violence Discovered with Anti-Malarial Drug.
Illuminati time. Maybe. It’s one thing to find a stash of dirty blankets in underground caverns, where homeless folks might be sleeping. It’s another thing, entirely, when a fully equipped underground cinema, complete with comfy chairs, screen, stocked bar and more is discovered. Read the exceedingly weird news item Underground Cinema Found Beneath Paris.
As to the truth of the matter, whether this was a real glimpse into something that normally remains literally and figuratively below the radar of human society is unknown. But here is a follow-up story, also from The Guardian, which suggests that the entire cinema and structure is all part of some avant-garde film-geek club. It seems possible, but I reserve judgement. (It has to be them lizards, I tell you!) Follow up on Underground Cinema.
Someone had a sense of humour back at the wine-gum factory, and someone else had way too much time on their hands, and decided to put a pic online showing The Strangely Shaped Wine Gum.
Then you get stalkers of all shapes and sizes — including ones who really like doing things in a high-tech way. Get some cool ideas at The GPS Stalker.
Photoshop time. There’s an old saying: you can’t make sausages without breaking some pigs. So just to make you go “huh?”, followed by “awwwwww”, have a look at Tiger Piglets.
What’s more fun than building a huge model airplane? The answer is, of course, building a huge model airplane and then crashing it! Go see how it all ends at The Model B-52.
I thought I was alone in hating where I happen to be in the world, but it seems that other people in other countries also have a similar discontent and grumbling dislike for their own countries as well. For instance, take a look at what some folks in Malta have decided to put online as a reason for hating where they are: Only in Malta.
I noticed, thanks to posters in the streets of Johannesburg, that the no-talent moron known as 50 Cent was to be appearing here sometime. In the United Kingdom, they have a lovely technique for dealing with poseur wankers, which would be a wonderfully sensible thing to adopt here as well. They fill plastic bottles with urine and then throw them at the stage. Go watch 50 Cent trying to continue his rapping as the pee comes flying at him from an audience who aren’t impressed: 50 Cent Gets Bottled.
Finally, no porn this week — after all, I’m sure you folks know exactly where to get your visual fixes of choice. Instead, it’s the ultimate in geekyness. Imagine having a cat that tends to bring in unwanted dead things from the garden through the cat flap in your door. Well, it’s no use talking to the cat — so instead, how about rigging up image-recognition software to the cat flap, which refuses to let your cat in if it’s holding something in its mouth? Go stare in awe and amazement at The Intelligent Cat-Flap Anti-Dead Thing Device.
Until the next time, if Fanta Nazis don’t get me.