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megatripolis@forever
"all for one & free for all!"

THE TIMEDANCING POLITICO-SPIRITUAL FUTURE HISTORY ENOVELLA FROM
Fraser Clark
[INCLUDES 20 flyers from legendary London rave clubs Megatripolis & The Warp Experience,
much frequented by Megatripper timedancers on their inward/outward journeys.]

http://www.oneworldnet.co.uk/ebooks/index3.php

“I didn’t ‘get’ it until about half way through and then IT FUGGING started to blow my mind!  It still is!  I have never read anything like it and am now reading it again and i missed so much the first time!  I can’t wait for the movie!”  Roz, Tokyo.
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u cant understand the world without innerstanding yourself
the up! 0026 // jan 26, 06
la- la- la- lap-toppling da system!
Zippies Sweep Asia and Far East!
u cant innerstand yourself without understanding the world
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Across the Megaverse
Leonard Susskind, in his new book "The Cosmic Landscape," says the latest version of String Theory (now rechristened M-theory ) yields a gargantuan number of models: about 10 to the 500th power  the "Megaverse."   Each potential model, he suggests, corresponds to an actual place - another universe as real as our own.
New York Times January 15, 2006
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THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS:
When
The Singularity Is More Than A Literary Device
Is the Singularity a spiritual or a technological belief system?  Perhaps it’s the bringing-together-again of both, says science fiction author Cory Doctorow. 
“After all, this is a system of belief that dictates a means by which we can care for our bodies virtuously and live long enough to transcend them.  It's no wonder the Singularity has come to occupy so much of the science fiction narrative in these years.  Science or spirituality, you could hardly ask for a subject better tailored to technological speculation and drama."
http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/artRedirect.html?artID=625&m=5435
UP!

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it looks like the zippy meme is spreading Big Time through the new young cyber generations of india china and japan!   check this article from the New York Times!  


Zippies Sweep Asia and Far East!
Zippies are techno-hippies with suss. 1990s technoperson, in contradiction to yuppie. The Zippies were an attempt by Fraser Clark and others, to create a unique subculture that combined the 1990s techno hemisphere with the 1960s earth person. The result was not always what one would expect. Various incarnations of Zippies exist, usually armed with smiley badges and outspokenly anti-Yuppie. They are mainly found in China and Japan, where various youth groups have taken up the banner left behind by the earlier groupings. They listen mainly to dance music, hang-out at clubs and drink smart drinks and fruit juice. Every now and then they come across other Zippie Tribes from across the planet and exchange music samples and leaflets.

THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN in the
New York Times

Bangalore, India:
We grew up with the hippies in the 1960's.  Thanks to the high-tech revolution, many of us became yuppies in the 1980's.  And now, fasten your seat belt, because you may soon lose your job to a "zippie " in the 2000's.

"The Zippies Are Here," declared the Indian weekly magazine Outlook Zippies are this huge cohort of Indian youth who are the first to come of age since India shifted away from socialism and dived headfirst into global trade, the information revolution and turning itself into the world's service centre. 

Outlook calls India's zippies "Liberalisation's Children," and defines one as "a young city or suburban resident, between 15 and 25 years of age, with a zip in the stride.  Belongs to generation Z.  Can be male or female, studying or working.  Oozes attitude, ambition and aspiration.  Cool, confident and creative.  Seeks challenges, loves risks and shuns fears."  Indian zippies carry no guilt about making money or spending it.  They are, says one Indian analyst quoted by Outlook , destination driven, not destiny driven; upwardly mobile, not stuck-in-my-station-in-life.

“Like all successful memes, Zippy confers advantages on its host:
Those infected suffer attacks of optimism, strong feelings of community, lowered stress levels,
and outbreaks of "pronoia" - the sneaking feeling one has
that others are conspiring behind your back to help you.
If these were not sufficient to ensure the meme's continued spread
in this mutating, anxiety-inducing age of ours, add the effects of unselfconscious dancing till dawn,
a strong dose of underground hipness, and a belief that technology can - indeed, should 
be put to the furtherance of hedonistic and spiritual goals.
What we have here is a major player in the cultural meme pool,
and a loose-knit movement of folks who aim to change the world
 - while having the best time of their lives.”
  Jules Marshall, Wired magazine.

With 54% of India under the age of 25 - that's 555 million people - six out of 10 Indian households have at least one zippie, Outlook says.  And a growing slice of them (most Indians are still poor village-dwellers) will be able to do a westerner’s white-collar job as well as you for a fraction of the pay. 

I just arrived here in Bangalore, India's Silicon Valley, to meet the
zippies on the receiving end of U.S. jobs.  Judging from the construction going on every block here, the multiple applicants for every new tech job, the crowded pub scene and the families of four you see zipping around on a single motor scooter, Bangalore is one hot town.

The potential speed and scale of this outsourcing phenomenon make its potential impact enormous and unpredictable.  As we enter a world where the price of digitising information - converting it into little packets of ones and zeros and then transmitting it over high-speed data networks - falls to near zero, it means the vaunted
"death of distance" is really here.  And that means that many jobs you can now do from your house - whether data processing, reading an X-ray, or basic accounting or lawyering - can now also be done from a zippie's house in India or China.

Time to get real.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zippies

“Zippy stands for Zen-inspired professional pagans,
according to 50-year-old Fraser Clark, shamanic zippie spokesperson,
 club manager and editor of Encyclopedia Psychedelica (EPi),
 the magazine that first identified the "hippies with zip."
According to Clark, a zippie is
"someone who’s trying to balance
 their hemispheres to achieve a fusion of the technological
and the spiritual - in themselves and on their planet.
The techno-person understands that rationality, organisation,
long-term planning, consistency and single-mindedness
are necessary to achieve anything solid on the material level.
The hippie understands that vision, individuality, spontaneity,
flexibility and open-mindedness are crucial
 to realize anything on the spiritual scale.
Harmonise these hemispheres and you’re a Zippy.”
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T EXT J OCK EY // TJ PHRASER (Fraser Clark) & THE MEDIA EVOLUTION
mixing the tracts live on the keyboard @ a media-meme rate of 160 IPP *
* Ideas Per Paragraph
TO SUBSCRIBE, WRITEI wanna get UP!” TO fraser@parallel-youniversity.com
TO UNSUBSCRIBE, HIT REPLY WITH REMOVE IN THE SUBJECT BOX
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wotta mad mad world we live in, eh?  bliar is pushing for a massive expansion of nuclear while girding his loins to back bush and israel in their ‘war’ with iran for doing exactly the same.

but oh, it’s
much much madder than that.  you see, since Day One, everyone i knew has struggled and protested against the british nuclear bomb and warned that, if we developed it, then other countries would be bound to do the same  by ‘bound’ i mean they would be threatened by us if they did not (and any politician’s first duty is to protect his population, right?

we do accept this, don’t we?).

but, since the morons whose political offspring rule us today had their own dinosaur views (and got elected because their fathers had well brainwashed the general population!),
WE ARE NOW SUPPOSED TO WORRY THAT IRAN GETS THE BOMB TOO!  i mean of course it’s deeply worrying, but the position remains the same:  the solution doesn’t lie in iran, it lies HERE, with US.

to say nothing about the terrifying racist depth of many western people’s viewpoints on other cultures on the planet.  as is outlined in
The Brainwashing Of America below,  iran has “an alienable right” (even by the signed agreements of all members of the IAEA) to develop their own nuclear technology.  indeed the same agreements legally bind us to share our knowledge and expertise freely with them!

and it’s about time someone in the West stood up and openly said it: 
why the hell should iran NOT develop its nuclear defence?!   the “Iran Crisis” is being daily cranked up all over the west, the demonisation process.  louder and louder mutterings come from israel that iran must be stopped (read:  attacked, and only not invaded because they’re too strong militarily). 

iran sits between
nuclear pakistan and india to its east, nuclear russia to its north, and nuclear israel to its west.  nuclear america, britain and other ‘white’ nuclear allies are presently occupying and conducting war inside TWO countries on their other border  that’s the america which backed saddam hussein in his 1980 invasion of iran…  AND YET THEY’RE SUPPOSED TO SIT BACK as Amerika develops the next generation of their nuclear weapons (bunker busters, depleted uranium weapons causing cancerous ruin for generations of iraqis to come etc etc)  WHY THE HELL SHOULD ANY SELF-RESPECTING NATION OR PEOPLE BE EXPECTED TO ACCEPT THAT?!

finally (i could go on and on) why should we worry about iran having the bomb?!   ok, sure, on one level, the brainwashed racist one, i confess to an occasional panic myself.  but then i apply some cool factual objective thinking to the subject and i immediately remember that
a)      i never woke up from a dream that iran was invading us.  (many arabs and muslims have done dreamed the yanks were coming  and many found it was true!) 
b)      iran’s civilisation is much much older than ours
c)      iran hasn’t invaded any country this century and shows ZERO signs of imperialistic expansion
d)      we, on the other hand,
have invaded scores of countrieshave troops stationed in more than half of all the countries on the planet .  have used nuclear bomms on more than one occasion with gruesome loss of life (still continuing and for generations to come even if we see the error of our ways).

and, besides, their missiles couldn’t reach Rome, let alone washington or london.  and they know they’d be committing utter mass suicide  why would they want that?! 

no, there’s
ONLY ONE REASON iran would ever use a nuclear bomm against us.  IF THEY WERE BEING ATTACKED .  WHICH IS WHY THEY WANT THE NUCLEAR BOMM!!!!  or, in the words of the Dinosaurs, iran wants its own Balance of Terror.  Mutually Assured Destruction.  remember?  our leaders told us for decades that both sides having the bomm guaranteed Peace!  and u don’t get more M.A.D. than that.

no, the bitter truth is that WE are the threat, and are extremely tempted to use our advantage in every way we can.  if i was an iranian leader, the moral i would draw from iraq is…
DON’T, under any circumstances, DISARM!
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The Brainwashing Of America
R U GOING TO FALL FOR IT ALL OVER AGAIN?

Iran offered to forego a complete fuel cycle
if the Europeans got the US to reverse the campaign
of denial, obstruction, intervention, and misinformation."

Saudi King Dares To Suggest
a
Nuclear Free Zone In The Middle East
[obviously his days are numbered]

Let’s get one thing established.  Iran has an "inalienable right" to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes such as the production of electric energy, and the enrichment of uranium for its nuclear reactors.

Article IV of the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which entered into force in 1970, states: 
1.
Nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination and in conformity with Articles I and II of this Treaty.

2. All the Parties to the Treaty undertake to facilitate, and have the right to participate in, the fullest possible exchange of equipment, materials and scientific and technological information for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy.  Parties to the Treaty in a position to do so shall also cooperate in contributing alone or together with other States or international organizations to the further development of the applications of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, especially in the territories of non-nuclear-weapon States Party to the Treaty, with due consideration for the needs of the developing areas of the world.

Thus, not only does Iran have an "inalienable right" to use nuclear energy, the NPT obligates the nuclear powers to "further development of the applications of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes."   Iran has gone beyond its obligations under the NPT to assure others of it's peaceful intentions.

That’s right.  According to Dr. Gordon Prather, a nuclear physicist who was the top army scientist in the Reagan years, Iran had signed an Additional Protocol to its Safeguards Agreement in December, 2003 and had volunteered to cooperate with the IAEA - pending ratification by the Iranian Parliament - as if the Additional Protocol were actually "in force."

Iran also offered, says Dr. Prather,
"to voluntarily forego a complete fuel cycle . . . if the Europeans would get the US to reverse the campaign of denial, obstruction, intervention, and misinformation."

The International Atomic Energy Agency has found no "smoking gun" in Iran that would indicate a nuclear weapons program, says Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, the director-general of the IAEA.

30 years ago, Iran developing a nuclear capacity
"caused no problems for the Americans because, at that time, the Shah was seen as a strong ally, and had indeed been put on the throne with American help", says Tony Benn, Britain's secretary of state for energy from 1975-79.

With world oil production approaching a peak it makes sense for Iran to look toward alternative means for generating electricity, and to reserve its oil supply for other purposes including increasing revenues from the export of the additional oil not used for electricity production.

Yes, given the technology and knowledge, Iran could develop a nuclear weapon.  But
"under the current regime, there is nothing illicit for a non-nuclear state to conduct uranium-enriching activities . . . or even to possess military-grade nuclear material," says ElBaradei.  35 to 40 countries possess this capability.

Israel - not a signatory to the NPT - is believed to have several hundred nuclear bombs, the missiles to deliver them to Iran, and it’s no secret that it’s been threatening strikes on Iran's nuclear electric power plant - just as it launched an illegal attack on Iraq's in 1981.

The U.S. news media's timidity was a significant factor in the launching of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.  This invasion has claimed the lives of over 2000 U.S. soldiers and over 180,000 Iraqis.  It has left uncounted others wounded and maimed, it has destroyed much of Iraq's - indeed the world's - cultural heritage, and is likely to cost U.S. taxpayers
"between $1 trillion and $2 trillion, up to 10 times more than previously thought," according to a report written by Joseph Stiglitz - recipient of the 2001 Nobel Prize in economics.

John Ward Anderson of the Washington Post wrote on January 13:
"The foreign ministers of Britain, Germany and France called Thursday for Iran to be referred to the UN Security Council for violating its nuclear treaty obligations."  Neither he nor the editors or ombudsman at the Post have responded to our request to identify which "nuclear treaty obligations" is Iran violating.

Writing in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Jack Boureston and Charles D. Ferguson say, "In pursuing a civilian nuclear program, Iran has international law on its side. . . . The best way to know the full extent of Iran's nuclear doings is to offer it help."
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Iran Accuses Britain
Western Zionist Terrorist Acts of bombing have now started in Iran.  Remember the two British soldiers who were captured in Basra dressed as Arabs with bombs in their car, last year?

Bombs are a favourite tool of these Western Terrorists
-  9/11, Oklahoma, Madrid, Indonesia, London.
 
No doubt they will have recruited some "
Iranian " dissenters this time, opposed to their Govenrment  you know, people like Chalabi and Iyad Allawi, sociopaths who work AGAINST their people and Nation rather than protect it at all costs!!!  

Zionist Sayanim are on the loose in Iran, no doubt hiding behind  German and British pasports!!  And we are coming very close to the PURIM period.  This bombing is a precursor to bigger things to come for the Iranian people when the mad dog Israel is let loose, with American, British, European, Canadian, Australian White Blessing!!
 
It will be one more RACIST Terrorist STRIKE against a Muslim Nation
Sherazade, Teheran.
UP!


I don't think I ever met a tripster who had his/her shit together as much as you do!
>> goddess i reeally had to hear that:)  like a club promoter i tend to see only what's not working.

may the gods be you!
>> naw that's 2 much even 4 moi :)
Andre Kohler, Berlin.
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the UP! is a global edutainment round-up, broadcast weekly to =[13,781]=
Alternative// Activist// Zippy// Trance// New Age// Peace folks
recommended to the Parallel YOUniversity// Megatripolis Dance Dept as
 
"showing signs of life".
Since recipients forward it widely to their own lists & sites,
we conservatively estimate
50,000+ direct recipients.
A further 40,000 read it on the YOUniversity's site.
And,
because of its 'mix' of 'specialist' & 'general' content,
it's increasingly being posted on a variety of sites worldwide,
making an estimated total weekly readership of =[275,000]=
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the great wail?
was the whale swimming up the Thames, past the Houses of Parliament, trying to bring it all home to us?  particularly when you realise that there was one in Tokyo Bay the same week! 
and the tender care the humans offered it?  very touching and showing signs of hope.  only 50 years ago, in 1955, Mike Mclure wrote "Point Lobos: Animism," a poem
"to protest the thrill-killing of a pack of whales by Nato troops."  a poem!  which only 10,000 people read!  yes, the human species is mad, but it’s getting saner very rapidly :)
or, as the oldest hippy in the world suggests, was the whale checking out where all this shit was coming from?
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Libby Lawyers To Subpoena Reporters In CIA Leak
Lawyers for a former top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney plan to issue subpoenas to journalists and news organisations for documents to be used at his trial involving the leak of a CIA operative's name.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/FILLDATE.shtml
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Psychedelics Not So Bad After All?
UK Home Secretary Charles Clarke has ordered a sweeping review of drug laws which could lead to the effective downgrading of Ecstasy and LSD.

Clarke, who downgraded
cannabis and then resisted reactionary pressure to reclassify it, said the current system of classifying drugs could be torn up.

He is considering a new system which would take into account the
'social' consequences of each drug, including links to muggings and burglaries. 
up!


Dear Fraser, after un-interrupted years of UP!'s nuggets of wisdom, and when I receive unsolicited e mail from both the C.I.A. and the F.B.I. informing me I visit illegal web sites (with friggin' virus attachments) I need your weekly reality check more than ever.
Alistair(Nick) MacDonald, Wales.
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george galloway in the big brother house
i hope nobody’s falling for the middle class spin against the working class finally taking over the cultural controls.  they call it dumbing down i call it dumbing up! of course there's loadsa shit while the masses, whom ‘we’ have kept stupid all these years, catch up to where the midclass/aristos had gotten to (not THAT far). 
and then watch out.  u MUST not miss george galloway MP i think it's historic.

since
megatripolis@forever came out i’ve been involved in several discussions about ‘Plot’.  we’re all hooked on tight plots and punch ups and all the ret of it.  but i’d been picking up signs that the masses were finally getting bored with it all.  i tell you, when i’m watching your regular fairly dumb movie and the fight or chase scenes come on i get up to put on the kettle.  it’s jut too boring!  everything that can be done to make it interesting has been done and it’s now as monstrous a cliché as rock&roll bands! 

and i’d noticed that movie makers were stylising the violence, slowmotioning it, turning it into ballet, making it totally impossible (as in Chasing Dragon uno wot i mean:).  and then, suddenly, a friend said something that suddenly clicked my brain into action.  these tv reality shows ARE ALREADY MASSIVELY POPULAR!  AND THERE ISN’T A SINGLE CAR CHASE OR GUN IN THE WHOLE THING!  and the masses are gobbling it up and it’s all about ‘ordinary’ people doing ‘ordinary’ things. 

so here’s a simple FACT.  where the masses used to watch 40 hours a week of
guns & robbers, they’re now spending at least HALF that time WATCHING reality shows.  THE CUSP HAS ALREADY BEEN PASSED AND THE PLOT ERA IS ALREADY HALF GONE!

so don’t miss Member Of Parliament meets the People :)  u won’t find it anywhere else on the planet!
up!


"The illegality of marijuana rests less on what it is than what it represents: nature, dissent, introspection. It's not marijuana the mildly psychotropic weed we condemn, but marijuana the nemesis of the state."  Ronald Reagan Jr., TV commentator


TALES FROM
megatripolis@forever
"all for one & free for all!"


were zippies the megatripolitans’
immediate ancestors?
[from Confessions Of A Virtual Victor, 2049]

the enthusiasm in those young people, on the several occasions when my Megatripolitan contacts ‘transported’ me to one of the Dream-Ins of the Millennium 2/3 Cusp Era [1965-2012], made it very easy, even for me, an FFA (FreeFloatAtom) as we’re called today, to see that they were the beginnings of the Future Perfect State à la 100th Monkey Principle.

and, naturally, i could often pick out the 'resident' clubbers from the "just passing through" Megatripolitans.  this was especially true in a rave-style club in London actually called Megatripolis, but in several others dotted about the planet from that time on, which were conceived by a loud-mouthed Scottish rave promoter as "the very first appearances of the Future Perfect State as the Old Competitive Culture around us dissolves under the weight of its own contradictions; the beach-head of a benign GroupMind Cooperative Culture mutation in the present which we believe is destined to become the dominant meme."  (I've met him in a couple of his clubs, he goes on a bit, like Caleb, but he means no harm, I suppose.  and, of course, he might be right, I’m not saying he isn’t.)
 
as i say, these kinds of clubs became very fashionable rendezvous points, both for Zippies and for Megatripolitans.  the Zippy lifestyle and philosophy practised there (if you can call it a philosophy since it was designed to be quite simple and therefore accessible to large numbers of people) of balancing the Tecno and Lover hemispheres of the brain and of the planet, seems to also induce the perfect ambiance for Megatripolitans.  they land in it to re-acclimatise to non-time-gravity, connect with friends, lovers, neighbours and colleagues, swap notes, time-addresses and future history maps, shower, change, fill out their travel logs, get high, have a great timedance, and prepare for landing once more in the Future Perfect State just beyond the "absurdly thin veil of Time."
 
lately I've been noticing more Megatrippers every day.  indeed, during one of their Dream-In Raves, when they all gather 'simultaneously', there must sometimes be more of them than us.  take another look.  Caleb reckons there are exactly the same number but, although he completely ignores me when I get into what he calls my "opinionated stuff", I always maintain that, since no census is ever undertaken within the GroupMind of Megatripolis, his view is as much a theory as mine.
 
it would be unfair to finish without this confession (shut up, you Wettertripolitan!  I'm not doing this because you suggested it): at my highest I have sometimes glimpsed that we are actually all Megatripolitans.  in some sense.  already.  whether we realise it or not.  take another look.  doesn't this present 'unfinished state' feel more like the dream, the teaser, the pale shadow of what we've already become?
 
take another look.  and then one more.  (SHUT UP, Caleb!)  doesn't it feel like that quite often, if not most of the time?  and don't most people look like they know who they are but can't quite remember clearly enough?  and mostly because they're surrounded by others who can't remember either?
 
I bet you think I'm being "poetic", right?
 
ok, Caleb, this one is for you (no I'm not pissed off, it was only an argument, which is what we 20th century denizens enjoy doing): MEGATRIPOLIS FOREVER!  POWER TO THE ANCESTORS!  ok?
UP!


ONE BY ONE THE DINOS FALL
Abramoff
Scandal: Ney Resigns Chairmanship
Rep. Bob Ney, an Ohio Republican implicated in the Abramoff lobbying corruption investigation, said Sunday he will step aside temporarily as chairman of the House Administration Committee.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011606Z.shtml
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Walter Cronkite Says It’s Time
For U.S. To Leave
Iraq As It Did Vietnam
"If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America"  President Johnson. 1968.
Former CBS anchor Walter Cronkite, whose public broadcast that the Vietnam War was unwinnable keenly influenced public opinion then, has announced he'd say the same thing today about Iraq.

"It's my belief that we should get out now," Cronkite said in a meeting with reporters.

Now 89, the tv journalist once known as
"the most trusted man in America," left the "CBS Evening News" 25 years ago.  He once said one of his proudest moments came after a visit to Vietnam during the Tet offensive, when, at his boss’s invitation to give his personal view of the situation, he said the war was unwinnable and that the U.S. should exit.

Then-President Lyndon Johnson reportedly told a White House aide after that,
"If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America" 

"We had an opportunity to say to the world and Iraqis after the Katrina Disaster that Mother Nature has not treated us well and we find ourselves missing the amount of money it takes to help these poor people out of their homeless situation and rebuild some of our most important cities in the United States,"
he said.  "Therefore, we are going to have to bring our troops home."

We should have told the Iraqis that "our hearts are with you" and that the United States would do all it could to rebuild their country.  "I think we could have been able to retire with honor," he said.  "In fact, I think we can retire with honor anyway."
UP!


Scandinavian Update:
Israeli Boycott, Muslim Cartoons
This week the American Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice warned Norway not to boycott Israel and that there would be “serious political consequences” after last week’s declaration by Norwegian Finance Minister Kristin Halvorsen, the leader of the Socialist Left Party (SV), that she never buys Israeli products and supports the commercial boycott of Israel by the Norwegian province of South-Trøndelag.  The Norwegian government parties all voted in favour of the province’s boycott of Israel, but  in order to save Norway’s position as a mediator in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict  they all stress that they did not do so in their capacity of Norwegian government parties.

While the
red-green government coalition in Oslo finds it hard to hide its far-left inclinations, Norway can fortunately take pride in some of its media.  On Tuesday the Christian newspaper Magazinet published 12 cartoons depicting the Muslim prophet MuhammadMagazinet did so to support the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten that published the cartoons last September.
>> see them here and make your own mind up: 
http://www.newspaperindex.com/blog/2005/12/10/un-to-investigate-jyllands-posten-racism/

It has since received terrorist threats and huge international criticism, including pressure from organisations such as the UN and the European Union.  Now Magazinet has received threats via e-mail from around the world.  One of these, sent anonymously through a popular e-mail service in the Middle East, was mailed to the editor, Vebjørn Selbekk, simply stating: “You’re a dead man!”  Other staff members have also received threats.  Selbekk said it looked as if the newspaper’s e-mail addresses were being distributed in an organised campaign.  One of the e-mails Selbekk received contains a couple of pictures showing a burnt body, sent through an e-mail address in France.

Giving in to the threats, Magazinet decided today to remove the cartoons from its website. 
“The e-mail with the pictures of the burnt body is the most frightening.  But I am not afraid.  This is of course unpleasant, especially for a family man.  But I cannot go around being afraid,” Selbekk told the Norwegian daily Dagbladet which also published the cartoons on its website last Tuesday.

However, a number of other Norwegian newspaper editors have said they do not intend to follow the two newspapers’ example, claiming it to be an unnecessary provocation.  Arab newspapers around the world have also reacted sharply to the publication of the cartoons.  Selbekk, however, said the purpose for his decision was not to provoke anyone, but
to highlight the status of freedom of expression in Norway.

Magazinet also interviewed two leading Norwegian cartoonists: Finn Graff and Morten M. Kristiansen.  Graff, who was known in the 1960s and ’70s for his satirical drawings of Jesus Christ, said that he does not draw pictures mocking Muhammad.  He does so out of fear for Muslims, and also “out of respect.”  Muslims, he said, are very sensitive about their religion and their prophet, which is something one has to take into account and one has to respect.  Kristiansen said he had received many protest letters in the past whenever he mocked Christ.  The same applies to cartoons about Muhammad, but lately the protest letters from Muslims had increasingly become threats, including death threats in e-mails from places such as Iran.  Unlike Graff, Kristiansen said he will not change his behaviour because of these threats because it is important to defend the right to freedom of expression.

Carsten Juste, the editor of Jyllands Posten, the Danish paper which published the cartoons first, told Magazinet that he does not regret that decision
.  “We cannot regret it.  We live in a country where freedom of expression is recognised and we live and work in Denmark under Danish laws.  The nature of the reactions has shown how necessary this debate is” Juste said.

Asked if Jyllands-Posten had received any support from the Danish media after the decision to publish the cartoons Juste said at first there was not much support.  Most of them believed this was something Jyllands-Posten did just to provoke.  But after all the arbitrary demands that the newspaper apologise for the publication their attitude began to change
.  “Fortunately most people now realise this is an important issue about freedom of expression and, as a consequence, we have been getting more and more support.”  He added that support has come from all over the world, but, unfortunately, threats, too.


WHAT??!!
Meanwhile, the Danish tabloid Extra Bladet got hold of a 43-page report that Danish Muslim leaders and imams, on a tour of the Islamic world, are handing out to their contacts to “explain” how offensive the cartoons are.  The report contains 15 pictures instead of 12.  The first of the three additional pictures, which are of dismal quality, shows Muhammad as a paedophile daemon [
ekstrabladet.dk/grafik/nettet/tegninger40.jpg ], the second shows the prophet with a pig snout [ ekstrabladet.dk/grafik/nettet/tegninger38.jpg ], and the third depicts a praying Muslim being raped by a dog[ ekstrabladet.dk/grafik/nettet/tegninger39.jpg ].  Apparently, the 12 original pictures were not deemed bad enough to convince other Muslims that Muslims in Denmark are the victims of a campaign of religious hatred.

Akhmad Akkari, spokesman of the 21 Danish Muslim organisations which organised the tour, explained that the 3 drawings had been added to
“give an insight in how hateful the atmosphere in Denmark is towards Muslims.”  Akkari claimed he does not know the origin of the 3 pictures.  He said they had been sent anonymously to Danish Muslims.  However, when Ekstra Bladet asked if it could talk to these Muslims, Akkari refused to reveal their identity.
www.brussellsjournal.com/node/668
More on the Danish cartoon case:
node382  Jihad Against Danish Paper, 22 October 2005
node407  Cartoon Case Escalates into International Crisis, 27 October 2005
node413  Out of the Iranian Frying Pan into the Danish Fire, 29 October 2005
node482  Pigs Do Not Fly, 17 November 2005

Bounty Offered for Murdering Cartoonists, 4 December 2005
up!

>> spose i start a religion that bans beards?  FEEDBACK
 
The latest bizarre decree to be announced by Turkmenistan’s autocratic president appears designed to crack down on the individuality of the republic’s youngsters  but may already been doomed to failure.

President Saparmurat Niazov, who likes to be called Turkmenbashi, or Leader of the Turkmen, recently declared that young men were no longer allowed to have long hair or facial hair of any description.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IslamicNewsUpdates/message/4265
john morris, manchester.
heh heh :)
but actually they're free to do what they like in their own country.  the question is:  does he demand that we don't grow mouthstaches here either?
up!

US Catholic Bishops: 'Bring Troops Home'
Declaring that the United States was at a crossroads in Iraq, the nation's Roman Catholic bishops said Thursday the time had come to withdraw US troops as fast as responsibly possible and to hand control of the country to Iraqis.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011306A.shtml
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