Noam Chomsky on Ariel Sharon's death

With his typically brilliant wit, Chomsky sums up Sharon's existence in one sentence.

“[T]here is a convention that you’re not supposed to speak ill of the recently dead, which unfortunately imposes a kind of vow of silence because there’s nothing else to say–there’s nothing good to say,” Chomsky said.

Alan Turing has been pardoned...sixty one years too late

Crack the Enigma code and enable the allies to defeat the Nazis?  Nope, not good enough.

Inventing modern computing?  Nope, not that either.

The only gross indecency was the false conviction and hypocrisy by his own government.

And as for "suicide", even that is debatable and questionable.  I won't be surprised if it's someday revealed that he was murdered.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/alan-turing-granted-royal-pardon-for-gay-sex-conviction-1.2474916

Alan Turing granted royal pardon for gay sex conviction

Mathematician Alan Turing, who helped Britain win the Second World War by cracking Nazi Germany's "unbreakable" Enigma code, was granted a rare royal pardon on Tuesday for a criminal conviction for homosexuality that led to his suicide.

Hypocrisy, thy name is America, part 1: CIA spies are exempt from laws

When countries spy on the US - from WITHIN the US - you'll Americans get into a tizzy and whine about "treason", despite the fact that only citizens can be traitors.  Foreigners who do it are spies, effectively engaging in acts of war.

So why is it when Americans spy on other countries, commit crimes within other countries on the US's behalf, they're "not criminals" and should be returned to the US?  Then again, the US is the country which whined about the Lockerbie bombers while protecting Orlando Bosch, a CIA stooge who bombed a Cuban airliner, killing 75 civilians.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/12/robert-levinson-iran-missing-cia-secret

American missing in Iran since 2007 was working for the CIA

Never "thank" an ex-soldier for his military service

"Thanking" ex-soldiers is not about showing gratitiude, it's about smug self-satisfaction and flag waving by those "thanking" them. If people really cared about them, they would be offering condolences for their lost innocence and their dead friends.

In May 2013, a series of pictures hit the news showing the faces of British soldiers - before they ever seeing combat, during, and after. You can see the lost hope, joy and innocence in their faces and especially their eyes.

http://12160.info/forum/topics/mesmerizing-photographs-of-soldiers-faces-before-and-after-a-war

Sacrifice to the fallacy that war can end

The enscription on the gravestone of 2nd Lieutenant Arthur Conway Young, who died on August 16, 1917, reads thus:

"Sacrifice to the fallacy that war can end."


The corpse worship that goes on every November 11th is not a call to end war, it is a call for blind support of war. And those who call for it the most are often the profiteers of war. In England, BAE (the biggest supplier of military equipment in the country) is the principal "sponsor" of the British Legion.