TURN ON COMPUTER // TUNE IN TO FREED SPIRIT OF INTERNET // TAKE OVER!

 

 

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Get UP!  Stand Up For Your Rights! (and everybodys too of course! :)
u cant understand the world without innerstanding yourself
UP! 242 // 07
LA- LA- LA- LAP-TOPPLING DA SYSTEM!
u cant innerstand yourself without understanding the world
  Get UP!  Dont Give Up The Fight! (only we dont mean violence, ok? :)

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.. contents...

p.01 'There Is NO War On Terror'

p.02 Barack Obama for President? I Dont Think So!

p.03 THE GREAT TIME TRAVEL EXPERIMENT!

p.04 Cynicism Linked With Heart Disease - more proof of Goddess?

p.05 Denmarks Christiania Free Town Faces New Era

p.09 in memoriam The Passing of Robert Anton Wilson

p.10 The Top 9/11 Anomalies - some of the most glaring anomalies

p.12 FEEDBACK readers on Biocosm

UP! ATTORNEY: Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to a deposition notice which I sent to your attorney? No, this is how I dress when I go to work.

 

 

'There Is NO War On Terror'

- Director of UK Crown Prosecution Service

The UK director of public prosecutions, Sir Ken Macdonald, put himself at odds with Downing Street this week by denying that Britain is caught up in a "war on terror," and calling for a "culture of legislative restraint" in passing laws to deal with terrorism.

 

Sir Ken warned of the pernicious risk that a "fear-driven and inappropriate" response to the threat could lead Britain to abandon respect for fair trials and the due process of law.

 

He acknowledged that the country faced a different and more dangerous threat than in the days of IRA terrorism and that it had "all the disturbing elements of a death cult psychology".

 

But he said: "It is critical that we understand that this new form of terrorism carries another more subtle, perhaps equally pernicious, risk. Because it might encourage a fear-driven and inappropriate response. By that I mean it can tempt us to abandon our values. I think it important to understand that this is one of its primary purposes."

 

The director of the Crown Prosecution Service pointed to the rhetoric around the "war on terror" - which has been adopted by Tony Blair and ministers after being coined by George Bush - to illustrate the risks.

 

He said: "London is not a battlefield. Those innocents who were murdered on July 7 2005 were not victims of war. And the men who killed them were not 'soldiers', as in their vanity they claimed on their ludicrous videos. They were deluded, narcissistic inadequates. They were criminals. They were fantasists. We need to be very clear about this. On the streets of London, there is no such thing as a 'war on terror', just as there can be no such thing as a 'war on drugs'.

 

"The fight against terrorism on the streets of Britain is not a war. It is the prevention of crime, the enforcement of our laws and the winning of justice for those damaged by their infringement."

 

Sir Ken told members of the Criminal Bar Association it should be an article of faith that crimes of terrorism are dealt with by criminal justice and that a "culture of legislative restraint in the area of terrorist crime is central to the existence of an efficient and human rights compatible process.

 

"We wouldn't get far in promoting a civilising culture of respect for rights if we set about undermining fair trials in the simple pursuit of greater numbers of inevitably less safe convictions. On the contrary, it is obvious that the process of winning convictions ought to be in keeping with a consensual rule of law and not detached from it. Otherwise we sacrifice fundamental values critical to the maintenance of the rule of law - upon which everything else depends."

 

Sir Ken referred to the government's opt-out from the European convention on human rights to pass the detention law - possible under the convention only if the "life of the nation" is threatened. Everyone here will come to their own conclusion about whether, in the striking Strasbourg phrase, the very 'life of the nation' is presently endangered," he said. "And everyone here will equally understand the risk to our constitution if we decide that it is, when it is not."

 

The criminal justice response to terrorism must be "proportionate and grounded in due process and the rule of law. We must protect ourselves from these atrocious crimes without abandoning our traditions of freedom."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,1997246,00.html

UP! ATTORNEY: This myasthenia gravis, does it affect your memory at all? Yes. ATTORNEY: And in what ways does it affect your memory? I forget. ATTORNEY: You forget? Can you give us an example of something you forgot? (from Disorder in the American Courts, taken down and now published by court reporters.)

 

 

Barack Obama? I Dont Think So!

by Michael Donnelly

All along Ive been amused by the Barack Obama spectacle. The very idea of a half-white Hawaii multi-millionaire passing himself off as a black man from Chicago seems more sitcom than Senate plot. The all-Celebrity/all-the-time press swooning over the rookie senators announcement that he is in the presidential running has seemed to me to be just the latest flavour-of-the-month distraction, merely using Obamas considerable vanity to keep restless Democrats on the Reservation; with Obama to be swiftly benched once the starting team is anointed. Oh, I guarantee the stated reason will be his lack of foreign policy experience, though that was obviously never an issue with Bubba, Shrub or any of the other non-Senators who have won every presidential election since JFK.

 

But, since Obama is now riding high, Ive been looking into various progressive analyses of him. As usual, Counterpunchers lead the pack. Alexander Cockburn...

>> remember him? the guy who wrote about the 9/11 Nuts?

 

called him Senator Slither. David Sirota has flat-out de-pantsed Obama in more than one missive. Joshua Frank recently noted that while Barack may not have much foreign policy experience, he certainly is adept at parroting the pro-Israel/anti-Iran Middle East line as he marches in lock-step with the neo-cons. And Ken Silverstein, writing for Harpers, exposed the unseemly coalition of corporate interests that have already funnelled an astonishing $21 million into Obamas campaign coffers.

 

Meanwhile, Republican pollster and Ross Perot confidante Frank Luntz fawningly calls Obama, the definition of the American Dream. Luntz notes that conservatives like him because he is clean-cut and businesslike; moderates like him because he is seen as a problem solver; and liberals like him because he is multicultural. Anti-Imperialist radicals? Well, we know better.

http://www.counterpunch.org/donnelly01182007.html

UP! ATTORNEY: This myasthenia gravis, does it affect your memory at all? Yes. ATTORNEY: And in what ways does it affect your memory? I forget. ATTORNEY: You forget? Can you give us an example of something you forgot?

 

 

london

What Is Anarchism?

Starting off a series of meetings on anarchist theory, the London group of the Anarchist Federation is holding a public meeting on What Is Anarchism? There will be time for discussion and questions. Refreshments will be provided. FREE. Disabled accesss.

@ 7pm, Thurs Feb 8th at Marchmont Community Centre, Marchmont Street, London WC1. (Russell Square tube)

http://www.eventsandissues.bravehost.com/

UP! ATTORNEY: Doctor, how many of your autopsies have you performed on dead people? All my autopsies are performed on dead people.

 

 

london

FRI NOV 9: ENTER HERE (AT YOUR OWN RISK)

FOR THE GREAT TIME TRAVEL EXPERIMENT

SYNERGY proudly announces a pre-launch READING of Chapter 1 of the MEGATRIPOLIS@FOREVER series of sci-fi club radio plays by the legendary counterculture impresario, FRASER CLARK, inventor of the UKs most trend-shattering clubs MEGATRIPOLIS (@ Heaven) and The WARP EXPERIENCE (@SeOne).

STARRING: Camden Macdonald, Kate Alderton, Funmi Olowe, Leigh Kelly, Mitch Davies, Luci Boccino. Directed by Viv Glavagna.                                                          
HOST: 'GOODJEFF LASTER has been an Alternative Culture activist from the Sixties to the present, both in America and Britain. He specialises in creating talks and debates on issues of interest to the Counterculture/Rave Generation.

@ SYNERGY, SeOne Club, Weston Street, London Bridge, @ MIDNIGHT in the Small World area (deep blue room).

Online tickets - www.thesynergyproject.org or www.accessallareas.org
By phone - +44 (0) 20 7267 8320

UP! ATTORNEY: So the date of conception (of the baby) was August 8th? Yes. ATTORNEY: And what were you doing at that time? Uh....

 

 

Cynicism Linked With Heart Disease

more proof of goddess?

Being cynical can increase the risk of heart disease, US researchers claim. A study of 6,814 people found that cynical distrust was associated with signs of inflammation which in turn increase the risk of heart disease.

 

The Archives of Internal Medicine study suggests cynical people are more likely to lead unhealthy lifestyles.

 

Researchers from the University of Michigan asked participants to fill out a questionnaire that assessed a person's risk of chronic stress or depression.

 

The strongest and most consistent associations were observed for cynical distrust, which was positively associated with all 3 inflammatory markers.

 

They also took blood samples from participants aged 45 - 84 years, which were analysed for 3 markers of inflammation - fibrinogen, C-reactive protein, and IL-6. Higher levels of cynical distrust were associated with higher levels of all 3 inflammatory markers.

 

Inflammation

Previous studies have reported links between psychosocial factors such as stress and cardiovascular disease. However, the reason for this is unclear.

 

Inflammation is an important pathway in the development of atherosclerosis - a process where the arteries become narrow and hardened, blocking blood flow - and in heart attacks and strokes.

 

When Dr Ranjit and colleagues analysed the findings in more detail they found that much of the increase in inflammatory markers was linked to unhealthy lifestyle factors, such as obesity and smoking. They concluded that cynical people might be more likely to indulge in unhealthy behaviour, and that it was this that could explain their higher risk of heart disease.

 

Vicky Styman, a cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation, said there was insufficient evidence to say that emotion was a significant risk factor for heart disease.

 

"As the authors of this study acknowledge, psychological factors such as stress can often lead to unhealthy behaviours, including smoking, eating an unhealthy diet and physical inactivity - all of which are established risk factors for heart disease."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/health/6289847.stm

UP! ATTORNEY: Now doctor, isn't it true that when a person dies in his sleep, he doesn't know about it until the next morning? Did you actually pass the bar exam?

 

 

Remains of Village Found Near Stonehenge

Archaeologists have uncovered what may have been a village for workers or festival-goers near the stone circle Stonehenge in England. The village was located at Durrington Walls, near Wood Henge, about two miles from Stonehenge.

 

Eight houses have been excavated and the researchers believe there were at least 25 of them, archaeologist Mike Parker Pearson said Tuesday at a briefing held by the National Geographic Society.

 

The village was carbon dated to about 2600 B.C., about the same time Stonehenge was built. The Great Pyramid in Egypt was built at about the same time, said Parker Pearson of Sheffield University.

 

The small wooden houses had a central hearth, he said, and are almost identical to stone houses built at about the same time in the Orkney Islands.

 

Parker Pearson said remains of stone tools, animal bones, arrowheads and other artefacts were uncovered in the village.

 

Remains of pigs indicated they were about nine months old when killed, which would mark a midwinter festival, he said.

 

Parker Pearson said Stonehenge was oriented to face the midsummer sunrise and midwinter sunset, while the wooden circle at Durrington Walls faced the midwinter sunrise and midsummer sunset.

[Associated Press]

UP! MAGISTRATE: Now, Mr O-Reilly, do you have anything to say before I pass sentence? Yes, yer honour: Beam me up, Scotty. (from a newspaper report fraser read )

 

 

Cost of Iraq War Skyrockets to $8 Billion a Month

The steadily rising Iraq war price tag will reach about $8.4 billion a month this year, Pentagon spokesmen said on Thursday, as heavy replacement costs for lost, destroyed and aging equipment mount.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/012007A.shtml

UP! ATTORNEY: What is your date of birth? July 18th. ATTORNEY: What year? Every year. (from Disorder in the American Courts, taken down and now published by court reporters.)

 

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 the UP! is a global edutainment round-up, broadcast weekly to =[14,555]=
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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denmark

Tolerance Fades in Denmark

as Christiania Free Town Faces New Era

by Jacob Wheeler

For decades, the cosy if not somewhat provincial city of Copenhagen has boasted an "anything goes" mentality. Nowhere is this cultural distinction truer than in Christiania, Copenhagen's "free town," where approximately 1,000 squatters, hippies, zippies, social idealists and self-proclaimed deadbeats have lived in the old abandoned Christianshavn army barracks which they occupied in the 1960s (1971 actually) declaring themselves independent of the Danish state around them.

 

The christianitter don't pay taxes directly to the Danish government, instead contributing into a common Christiania pool. Many have built unique and impressive houses along the lake in the rural part of the free town, paying no attention to the strict and uniform building codes enforced elsewhere in Copenhagen. And until recently, "soft" drugs like marijuana, hash, and magic mushrooms were sold in the open market on Pusher Street, a narrow cobblestone path near the entrance to the free town with makeshift shanties serving as shops.

 

But Christiania may not have long to live. The drug pushers, many of whom lived outside the free town and left with their profits at the end of every day - thereby compromising the socialist ideals that birthed this community - recently succumbed to both inside and outside pressure and voluntarily burned down their shanties.

 

Grass can still be purchased in Christiania, but now the transactions take place under a cloud of paranoia. At any given time, a patrol of aggressive police officers may march into the free town and search or pat down whomever they choose, even tourists. Before Pusher Street was eliminated, a police raid typically met organised resistance in the form of sounding alarms and rocks the size of fists hurled toward them.

 

Now the right-of-centre Danish government is pushing harder than ever to normalise Christiania.

 

"I applaud the Christianites' decision to clean up the area themselves," says minister of justice Lene Espersen, a member of the right-of-centre Conservative Party currently in power. "But the government's stance has not changed. We want to see Christiania normalised."

 

The Palaces and Properties Agency under the auspices of the Ministry of Finance has drawn up a plan that would replace the free town with modern condominiums and expensive apartments, which would help relieve Copenhagen's current housing glut. The government has sought to involve Christiania in the process, but the free town operates under a consensus democracy, and change happens at a snail's pace here.

 

Perhaps more telling is how Christiania's impending normalisation reflects Denmark, which is no longer seen around the world as a bastion of tolerance.

 

A Tough Year for Denmark

The allusions to the Muhammad cartoon crisis in Queen Margrethe's annual New Year's Eve speech to the nation were not so subtle. Her words hit home for a population still baffled by the images that flashed across their television screens last year as thousands of enraged Muslims burned Danish flags and embassies after the conservative paper Jyllands-Posten published several offensive depictions of the prophet the previous fall.

 

"How can they hate us," Denmark's collective voice seemed to ask, "when we've been a leader in tolerance, foreign aid, and immigrant welfare handouts for so long?"

 

But things have changed in cosy Denmark. A right wing government elected two months after the Sept. 11 attacks clamped down on immigration and asylum seekers. And Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen's decision to join the "Coalition Of The Willing" in 2003 gave Denmark the dubious distinction of being the only Scandinavian country to support the war in Iraq.

 

Some aspects of its culture have begun to mirror the United States. Christmas has become more commercial than ever; economic disparity between rich and poor is growing, whereas Danes once prided themselves on a society of equals; even live telecasts of Sunday night NFL football have caught on in the land of Kierkegaard and Legos.

 

Needless to say, this globalisation and capitalisation of Danish culture doesn't bode well for Christiania.

 

"A place like Christiania couldn't have happened anywhere but Denmark," says Malene Torp, a professor of Danish politics and society at Copenhagen University. "We let a left-wing group move in and take over a military area. Most other countries would have kicked the people out within two days."

>> except Holland, of course.

 

Two underlining Danish traits allowed Christiania to grow, she says: tolerance and conflict shyness.

 

"Tolerance is something you always connect with Denmark on a positive level. But our conflict shyness is more pragmatic. If we don't have to make a decision on a matter, just to avoid a confrontation, we'll sit on it," Torp says.

 

If recent events are any indication, however, Danes are no longer conflict shy.

 

The provocative cartoons printed in Jyllands-Posten, for instance, were an attempt to facilitate debate among the 100,000 or so Muslims living in Denmark, even if they hurt feelings.

 

Christiania, too, may suffer from the country's newfound aggressiveness.

 

"The conservative governments are carrying out populist measures," Torp says. "Citizens are concerned about issues like crime and drugs, so that's what the politicians and the police are addressing."

 

A Paradox

Francesco and Luther sit on milk crates in front of an ecological bakery on a sunny Tuesday. One tickles notes on the saxophone while the other puffs on marijuana joint. Then they switch.

 

"Some people call my music jazz, some call it blues or soul. I say it's just free. Christiania music," says Luther, an African American who moved to Denmark years ago because he "met a sweet Danish girl."

 

Francesco's story is not as smooth. He left home at 15 and drifted around until he found Christiania, which has always been home to many vagabonds. Francesco still ties bags of clothing to his bicycle, but today he is not homeless. Christiania, in his eyes, is open and accepts everyone.

 

Or at least it used to.

 

Michel, a Swede who has lived here since 1988, admits that this onetime socialist paradise has become a paradox. Drifters can no longer settle in the free town because it has filled up, he says.

 

"I was lucky, I got a resident card because I told them I was seeking 'humanitarian asylum from the outside world!' "

 

Settlers in the early days built their own houses in Christiania's vast wooded area or renovated the drab old army barracks. Their right to build as they chose epitomised the freedom Christiania has enjoyed. But moving in now is difficult.

 

A Danish documentary filmmaker hammered home that point recently when he turned up unannounced and began building a wooden hut in a vacant area of the free town, just to see what would happen. Sure enough, an aggressive pusher cornered him immediately and threatened to beat him up if the experiment didn't stop.

 

More Than Just Drugs

Christiania has always been known throughout Europe as the "drug haven of the north," and for good reason. Pusher Street's visibility and the way it flaunted Denmark's liberal drug laws was why Christiania became Copenhagen's second most popular tourist attraction before the shanties were hauled away and burned. Pusher Street was also the free town's Achilles' heel, inviting violent Hell's Angels biker gangs, police raids and controversy in the local media.

 

But lost amid the cloud of North African hashish smoke is the reality that Christiania has always been about much more than drugs. In fact, Pusher Street was only a very small part of the free town.

 

To me, a Danish-American who was born in Denmark and grew up in the Midwest, visiting Christiania was a homecoming of sorts. My father left the United States during the Vietnam War and its cultural black hole, and his hippy wanderings led him to Christiania, without a dime in his pocket and sporting a giant Afro. My mother was a social worker, originally from the Danish mainland, who moved to the free town to study the inhabitants and whether this social experiment really could exist.

 

They met at Spiseloppen - probably Christiania's first legitimate restaurant that served more than just junk food for those who were stoned. She was a waitress. He had no papers, so he worked under the table, hauling crates of beer up to the second floor, and toted empty bottles down again. They met, fell in love, and lived in Christiania for about nine months before returning to the outside world.

 

When my parents visited Christiania again decades later, they were amazed at how much culture and non-drug related activities the free town had to offer. My father also laughed at the fact that Spiseloppen is now a classy restaurant, lit by candlelight and including an elevator that would have saved him countless labour hours in the early 70's.

 

There's plenty more entertainment for the visitor who doesn't want to fill his lungs with cannabis. Duck into the Children's Theatre jazz club on a Tuesday or Thursday night and you'll find the mood mellow and inspiring. Bring your own instrument, and you'll avoid paying the $5 cover charge. If you're there in December, visit the charming Christmas Market in the massive Grey Hall, which has been painted over with rainbows since the squatters moved in. A stone's throw away is the communal bathhouse where both christianitter and outsiders sauna together, some caking their bodies in soothing Turkish mud, before they visit the eclectic and inexpensive vegetarian restaurant Morgenstedet across the dirt path.

 

IF YOU GO: The Christiania free town is located on Prinsessegade in the Christianshavn region of Copenhagen. Take the city's new metro to Christianshavn Torv and walk east three blocks or jump on bus number 66. Tours last 1 hour 45 minutes and cost 30 Danish crowns (approximately $5) per person, with a minimum of six people needed for a tour. Call 011-45-3257-6005 or visit www.christiania.org for more information.

 

UP! ATTORNEY: The youngest son, the twenty-year-old, how old is he? Uh, he's twenty.

 

 

You Receive What They Believe You Deserve