Moral Volcano is the (now abandoned) web log of V. Subhash. It was started when the HUMOUR section of Virtual V. Subhash (www.vsubhash.com) started overflowing. The name Moral Volcano is from the short story Journalism in Tennessee written by the American writer Mark Twain.
Moral Volcano is not a real volcano; just the name for this website. This site has absolutely no information on morals or volcanoes. You need to improve your search skills. Select this link to find information about real volcanoes. If you were looking for ideas for a class project, then try How To Build a Volcano at About.com. For stories with a moral, visit the site maintained by Srinivas Padmanabhuni. Bye-bye.
MORAL VOLCANO IS UNSAFE FOR CHILDREN AND PREGNANT WOMEN. ADULTS MAY EXPERIENCE DISCOMFORT WHEN READING MORAL VOLCANO. SYMPTOMATIC TREATMENT IS RECOMMENDED.
Any good search engine will bring you here if you type in "moral volcano".
Think George W. is bad? Wait till you read about his father!
Inheritance of Nazi fortunes, financial scandals, coups, assassinations, links to drug trade, and coverups; - all make the former CIA Director and later U.S. Vice President and President George Bush Sr. an unmatchable piece of work.
Buy this book from Amazon.com .
Or, read the free online version at www.tarpley.net
In Jerzy Kosinski's novel Being There, a middle-aged man called Chance Gardener, who has the mental age and development of a six-year-old, goes on to become the President of United States with the help of a few powerful friends while he himself is blissfully unaware of the situation. Peter Sellers chose this novel to make his final film (his masterpiece). Both the novel and the movie were released years before George W. came to the White House. Read my review here.
Gobbledegook! All the time he talked gobbledegook! An' it's for sure a White man's world in America. Hell, I raised that boy since he was the size of a pissant an' I'll say right now he never learned to read an' write - no sir! Had no brains at all, was stuffed with rice puddin' between the ears! Short-changed by the Lord and dumb as a jackass an' look at him now! Yes, sir - all you gotta be is white in America an' you get whatever you want! Just listen to that boy - gobbledegook!
Guess Who Came
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Head For The Exit!A Nut Has Brought
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In 1983, Donald Rumsfeld went to Baghdad as Ronald Reagan's special envoy and met Saddam Hussein, despite evidence that Iraq possessed chemical weapons and had used it on civilians in Iraq and on soldiers in Iran. After his return, Rumsfeld successfully lobbied for financial and military aid for Iraq's war with Iran. Chemical and biological intermediaries and labs were provided by the US to Iraq. Other western countries followed suit. Predictably, Saddam used the weapons in the Kurdish north. In one instance, a set of Hughes helicopters provided by Ronald Reagan was used in a chemical attack that left 5000 dead in a Kurdish village called Halabja. Following this, the US Senate passed a Prevention of Genocide Act, which would have imposed sanctions on the Hussein regime but the Reagan White House blocked it.
Between 1983 and 1988, Saddam used chemical weapons 195 times against Iran killing about 50,000 of their soldiers. In 1987, an Iraqi Exocet missile hit an American destroyer, the USS Stark, in the Persian Gulf killing 37 crewmen. Incredibly, the United States excused Iraq for making an unintentional mistake and instead used the incident to accuse Iran of escalating the war in the gulf. The American tilt to Iraq then became more pronounced. U.S. commandos began blowing up Iranian oil platforms and attacking Iranian patrol boats. In 1988, an American warship in the gulf shot down an Iranian Airbus killing 290 civilians. Within a few weeks, Iran, fearing American intervention, gave up its war with Iraq.
George Bush Sr., as Vice President and later as President, used a number of covert and overt schemes to help with Baghdad's WMD programme. Strangely enough, Israel was one of the countries that helped in the transshipment of banned weapons. Saddam was so encouraged by this level of support that he thought he could get away with an invasion Kuwait. Sam Gejdenson, chairperson of a subcommittee in the US Congress investigating US exports to Iraq, disclosed that between 1985 and 1990 the US government approved 771 licenses for the export to Iraq of $1.5 billion worth of biological agents and high-tech equipment used for military applications.
To build the case for the war against Iraq, the Bush administration used the anthrax scare to frighten lawmakers into submission. The US Secretary of State Colin Powell, accompanied by CIA Directory George Tenet, even gave an anthrax demo in the UN Security Council. Interestingly, the anthrax found in Capitol Hill was found to be the same grade as those in the stocks of the US military.
US envoy Bill Richardson with Taliban leaders (circa 1998). See the BBC report for that day.Taliban played host to top US officials including former US assistant secretary of state for South Asia Robin Raphel, her successor Karl Inderfurth, deputy secretary for political affairs Thomas Pickering, and the then-US ambassador to the UN, Bill Richardson. Within hours of Taliban's capture of Kabul, Washington moved quickly to announce that it would establish diplomatic relations with the Taliban government. However, the rash statement was quickly retracted. Afghanistan continued to be officially represented at the UN by the defunct government headed by Banruddin Rabbani and the Taliban greatly resented this. Robin Raphael went to the UN to lobby the international community to ignore the extremist threat posed by the Taliban and recognise the government headed by the group. Contrary to popular belief, Afghanistan has significant oil and gas deposits. During the Soviets' decade-long occupation of Afghanistan, Moscow estimated Afghanistan's proven and probable natural gas reserves at around five trillion cubic feet and production reached 275 million cubic feet per day in the mid-1970s. Nonstop war since has prevent further exploitation, but that soon changes. According to the Houston Chronicle, the country may also have as much copper as Chile, the world's largest producer, and significant deposits of coal, emeralds, tungsten, lead, zinc, uranium ore and more. |
In 1989, the former Soviet Union was forced to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan after fighting a prolonged guerilla war with the Mujahideen. The Mujahideen grew opium, which was then marketed in Europe and North America. Law enforcement agencies in these countries also turned a blind eye to the trafficking business. Proceeds from the trade were then used to buy weapons for the Mujahideen. The Russians left behind a government headed by the former intelligence chief Najibullah. The breakup of the Soviet Union made Najibullah's position weaker and he offered to step down in March 1992. This news triggered a wave of defections by Uzbek and Tajik militias, which were allied to his government. In April 1992, a prominent Mujahideen commander Ahmed Shah Masood (Lion of Panjshir valley) moved into Kabul. Najibullah then took refuge in the UN compound in Kabul. Between 1992 and 1996, Afghanistan was in semi-anarchy, as the country was carved into individual fiefdoms by the warlords.
In 1996, Unocal of the U.S. and Delta Oil of Saudi Arabia became interested in mineral wealth of Central Asian republics of the former Soviet Union. The ideal route to bring oil from the Caspian sea and gas from the Daulatabad gas field (in Turkmenistan) would have been via Iran. Because of US policy of isolating Iran, Unocal and Delta oil thought of building a pipeline via Afghanistan.
Unfortunately for them, Afghanistan did not have a strong regime in place, which could guarantee security for the pipeline. For this purpose, Pakistan created the Taliban with funds from Saudi Arabia and UAE. They took into their rolls thousands of Pasthuns who had enrolled in madrasas adjoining Afghanistan. Because these men had never taken part in war, they were secretly trained and led by officers from the Pakistani army. Arms and ammunition including tanks, howitzers, and other military vehicles were provided Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. In 1996, The Taliban crossed the border into Afghanistan. Initially, they were dismissed as a joke but in September 1996, they had captured Kabul. (Also, see Amnesty International reports on Taleban atrocities.)
However, the Taliban could not occupy all of Afghanistan. (They did occupy 90% of it at one time.) At one point when the Taliban was overstretched and the Northern Alliance was poised to attack, the Clinton administration despatched UN envoy Bill Richardson and Assistant Secretary of State Karl Inderfurth to Afghanistan to broker a ceasefire and an arms embargo. While the Northern Alliance was being bamboozled, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan sent several planeloads of arms and ammunition to Kabul and managed to fully rearm the Taliban. Soon after, the ceasefire failed. This was six months before the US embassies in Africa were attacked and two months after al-Qaeda issued a declaration of jihad to "kill the Americans and their allies - civilian and military."
In 1998, the Al-Qaeda attacked U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Despite this, money continued to flow. Both the Clinton and the Bush administrations gave hundreds of millions of dollars to the Taliban under the guise of aid. As late as July 2001, Christina Rocca, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, met Taliban officials in Islamabad and announced $43 million in food and shelter aid, bringing to $124 million the U.S. contribution for that year alone. The U.S. government did not insist on knowing how the money was spent and the flow of dollars did not stop until the attacks on the World Trade Center occurred. It is quite possible that that American taxpayers' money was used to finance the attacks.
To save serious embarassment to the Bush administration, the U.S. media, led by the New York Times, Washington Post, Newsweek and others, has created a notion that the Taliban fought Soviet forces in Afghanistan by tracing its origins to the Mujahideen. The truth however is that the Taliban was not in existence at that time. Taliban was created to fight the Mujahideen, not the Soviets. For more, read CIA and a Blowback World by Tom Engelhardt and Chalmers Johnson.
Interviewer: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into war and looked to provoke it?
Brzezinski: It isn't quite that. We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.
Interviewer: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against a secret involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, people didn't believe them. However, there was a basis of truth. You don't regret anything today?
Brzezinski: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter: We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.
Interviewer: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic fundamentlaism, having given arms and advice to future terrorists?
Brzezinski: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?
After Libya revealed that it had sourced components and technology for its clandestine nuclear weapons program from a worldwide network of nuclear arms dealers, Dr. A. Q. Khan, the father of the Islamic nuclear bomb, was named as one of the prime movers in this network. On February 4, 2004, Khan confessed on Pakistan's national television that he had hawked Pakistan's nuclear weapons secrets to other countries and begged forgiveness. With American blessings, Gen. Musharraf wasted no time in granting a pardon for Khan. Gen. Mush also claimed that Mr. Khan acted alone and that no one else was involved in the transfer of the technology, which went to Iran, North Korea and Libya.
No action will be taken on Libya because the Bush administration has shown interest in oil wealth of the country. With the exception of Iraq, Libya is the only OPEC country with spare oil capacity. The two Libyan intelligence officials who were suspects in the Lockerbie bombing are under house arrest and not in prison.
Curiosly, a BBC Scotland news report says that a former Scottish police chief had come forward with the information that the key evidence in the Lockerbie bombing trial was fabricated and planted by the CIA. In another bizzare happening, the Amsterdam court that had tried Khan in absentia has claimed that it has "lost" the Khan case files. Before coming back to Pakistan, Khan worked as an engineer in the Netherlands at Urenco, an uranium enrichment plant in the 1970s from where he is suspected of stealing nuclear secrets.
As revealed by former premiers Benazir Bhutto and Nawas Sharif, the Pakistani military establishment including President Musharraf are part of the nuclear trade. North Korea made shipments of missile components to Pakistan in exchange for shipments of wheat from Pakistan. Similarly, China had made shipments of ring magnets and other nuclear eqiupment to Pakistan. But illegal trade in nuclear and missile technology and components is not limited to the Third world. During the Clinton years, US aerospace companies (Loral/Hughes) provided China with technologies that were originally banned for export. The clandestine Israeli nuclear weapons programme was aided by voluntary/involuntary transfer of men, material, and technology from the U.S., Britain, and several other European countries.
The prediction that when Nazism goes to America it will be wrapped in an American flag has become a reality. Nazis believed that if you kept on repeating the same lies again and again, the masses would eventually accept them as truth. Yet again, the Nazis have been proved right. The American people have accepted blatant falsehoods as the truth not because they have been presented with some really great evidence but because they have been repeatedly lied to. And the campaign by faux journalism and the resultant faux news is not limited to the U.S. It is being applied all over the world where phoney revolutions have been staged to put phoney democrats in power. From Lebanon to Ukraine to East Timor, falsehoods have won. The strategy may seem to have failed in Brazil, Venezuela and Bolivia but the setbacks are only temporary. In important countries like Mexico, elections are conducted by private American companies and the electoral rolls are also maintained by them. As there is no paper trail, it is easy to fix the elections.
American diplomats decide who should win elections in Eastern Europe and Third World countries. Western consultants manage everything on the ground - from running opinion/exit polls (so they can claim election fraud) to training volunteers, journalists, and more importantly "pro-democracy protestors" (vital for any regime change that does not involve the U.S. military). Billions of dollars of U.S. government funds are pouring into the coffers of opposition parties and local non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Their mandate is simple - bring down the current dispensation and put pro-Western stooges in power.
Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) such as Freedom House (run by billionaire George Soros) play an important role in all this. If U.S. media claims are to be believed, Soros is a philanthropist who "promotes democracy movements" in Eastern Europe. However, funds for these activities come from the American government - mainly from USAID (United States Aid for International Development). Perusing the USAID Yellowbook for 2001, one will be surprised to note that one of the many Ukraine contracts received by Freedom House is worth almost $2 billion. This is interesting because, among other things, USAID even refuses funds for AIDS treatment in Africa. Reason for this anomaly becomes clear if one reads USAID's mandate - to promote U.S. "stategic interests" worldwide.
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Apart from USAID, a wide range of semi-government and non-governmental institutions are involved to promote U.S. strategic interests - National Democratic Institute (NDI) of the Democratic Party, International Republican Institute (IRI) of the Republican Party, U.S. billionaire George Soros' outfits Open Society and Freedom House. The role of intelligence agencies and diplomatic corps requires no mention. The role of the media is curiousy naieve.
Politicians who have take money are identified as "liberals," while those who have not done so are simply called "hardliners." The result is that artificially created protests are considered by the outside world as spontaneous and indigenous. History then gets replaced by the faux news.
American officials openly ask the U.S. Congress for money to "promote democracy" in other countries. (This happens in between demands for huge budget cuts in social spending for American citizens.) No one in America seems to find it odd that democracy could be promoted with money from a foreign country. What is all the more ironical because it was an American who said democracy is by the people, for the people, and of the people.
During the Cold War, intelligence agencies were entrusted with the task of distributing money. Mark Almond, who describes himself as an old cold war swagman who carried tens of thousands of dollars to Soviet-bloc dissidents alongside much better respected academics, is nostalgic about how things have changed. In an article in Guardian he says:
Back in the 1980s, our media portrayed Prague dissidents as selfless academics who were reduced to poverty for their principles, when they were in fact receiving $600-monthly stipends. Now they sit in the front row of the new Euro-Atlantic ruling class. The dowdy do-gooder who seemed so devoted to making sure that every penny of her "charity" money got to a needy recipient is now a facilitator for investors in our old stamping grounds. The end of history was the birth of consultancy.
In many countries, it is not just the manipulation of elections; civil war is encouraged by exacerbating ethnic or religious divisions. One side is provided with with arms and ammunition and the other side is provoked into causing enormous casualities on civilians. Western government, NGOs and media then allege genocide. UN "peacekeepers" arrive, a referendum on secession is held, and a nation is born. What is not mentioned is that the new country is so weak financially that they can't even afford to open embassies in other countries. West-backed politicians who run the country prefer to listen to foreign investors than to their own people. In the end, "poor people" become more poor and less free. The application of "genocide revolutions" found great success in East Timor and is now being actively pursued in Darfur (Sudan) and several other places.
East Timorese people languish in extreme poverty because their government gets very little in revenue. The government has just one purpose - provide security to Western diplomatic corps and foreign investors (made up of solely oil companies). It has no money either for development or for providing essential services. East Timor, it must be noted, has huge reseverves of gas and oil. It could have easily become a rich country but foriegn oil companies have other plans. Australia has claimed that its maritime border extends for 85% of the 600-mile sea separating the two countries. Under international laws, the border should have been drawn halfway between the two countries, which would have given East Timor 100% of its petroleum resources including the oil-rich Greater Sunrise field. In March 2003, tiny East Timor was forced to cede 79.9 percent of the Greater Sunrise oil and gas field to big nieghbour Australia. The entire worth of the field was an estimated $50 billion.
Also, read
Back when I was in school, there was this program on TV called Race To Save The Planet. Every Sunday, it had this wonderful chick, clad in T-shirt and jeans, sitting on a tree stump with her arms around her knees, talking seriously about future climate change. Climate change? Well, it was supposed to take longer than a lifetime to notice any changes. Only future generations were going to be seriously affected. Unfortunately, climate change seems to have arrived earlier than expected. We have seen some very unprecedented floods induced by torrential floods in various parts of the country and even around the world. (circa 2005) The floods were also preceded by periods of unusually hot weather. My guess is that extreme weather conditions are going to be the norm in future but with increasing severity.
The rise in greenhouses gases in the atmosphere and the consequent rise in global temperatures was expected to cause a slow melting of the ice caps. But, scientists have noted that the area under permafrost around the Arctic circle is fast receding. When peat bogs under the permafrost gets exposed, they start releasing new amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. As this picks up momentum, global temperatures will not just rise but will attempt a high jump.
And, the transition from ice to water occurs over a few degrees. So, the ice cap will not just melt, it will break apart! Large sheets of ice will suddenly break off the North pole and swamp countries in its wake downstream. This ice will break off in such huge proportions that countries near the poles will experience doomsday-size floods that will last for several months. Worse, there will be several floods like that; some of them going on simultaneously. And, that means goodbye to countries like Canada and most of Europe. Large parts of the U.S. and Russia will also dissappear. Antartica will only melt because it is on land and does not float on water like the Arctic. Still, large portions of low-lying land in the southern hemisphere will be eaten away by the sea, leaving hundreds of millions without land under their feet.
Possible Solution: Jaime Pressly |
The treatment that our society gives to rape requires drastic change. Instead of considering rape as a form of physical assault, unnecessary emotional baggage is added to it. In our stupid feature films, if a woman is raped, she has to commit suicide. Or, worse, marry the rapist (if it is the hero guy). But real rape victims cannot commit suicide or marry the rapist! Sadly, our society places a high high value on a woman's character. Feminist propaganda does not help either. The lesbians want death sentence for rapists, making it incumbent on rapists to also kill their victims!
Women's activists portray rape as some kind of unbelievably horrible crime that is simply beyond human nature. Flawless as they are made up to be, women DO commit serious crimes! It has been reported that it is usually a woman who harrases her daughter-in-law for more dowry. Many a woman has handed over the matchbox when her son douses his wife with kerosene. And who do you think snuffs the life out newborn girl children? WOMEN!!!
And, they keep on asking when all women will be safe. It is an incredibly stupid question! Will households ever be safe from burglars? Burglaries will occur just as some marriages will end in divorces. Rapes will occur just as some murders are going to be committed. Deviancy is part of any society. It is an inescapable fact of life, unless of course your marooned on uninhabited island.
What can be done is placing necessary measures to ensure speedy justice; not just for rape but for all crimes. Instead, a fuss is created. Names are published. Photos are printed. In the end, the victim wishes she did not have to survive the trauma. Should not rape victims be able to recover from the incident like from a minor road accident? More than the actual crime itself, it is the way society receives the victim that seems to have a lasting effect.
| Trauma | Victim | Victim's Family |
| Road Accident | gets sympathy | finds social support |
| Sexual Assault | gets a stigma | loses social standing |
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Why is the U.S. very much against labelling GM food? In the U.S., we have a policy. If you have a final product that is a substantial equivalent to a conventional product, you need not have to label that it contains GMOs [genetically modified organisms] just because it is a product of GMO; it is a process involved. At the end of the day, it is considered equivalent to the conventional product and so we don't believe in labelling. On the other hand, if you have nutrient enhanced product or a product that contains allergens or toxin, then labelling is required. So we don't believe in process labelling and that is the difference between the U.S. and other countries.Same day as this interview was published in The Hindu, the newspaper's supplement Metro Plus carried the following information in Health Capsules (a syndicated American newspaper cartoon feature):
How do I know if my fish or shellfish is wild, not farm-raised? Beginning in April 2005, all retail fish and shellfish [in the U.S.] were required to be labelled farm-raised or wild-caught and with their country of origin.
A kid who hates freedom. |
"I am not even interested," said Charlie Chaplin when asked whether he was going to have his latest film shown in the U.S. Why, what was wrong? "There is nothing wrong with the American people. It is the top who decay and putrify!," Chaplin explained. Harsh words, no doubt but why? The movie A King In New York was set in New York and yet here was Chaplin (in London, circa 1956) refusing to release the movie in the United States. What made him feel so disgusted and angry? Welcome to the the land of the free.
What many people see of America is not really America; it is Hollywood. Not just foreigners, even Americans see America through the eyes of Hollywood. Take World War II. Many Americans think that it was they who saved the world! (It was actually Russia, led by like-it-or-not Stalin, which was the first to inflict a defeat on the Nazis, free a host of countries from occupation, enter Berlin and take charge of Hitler's bunker.)
Not many know that not until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, America had never entered the War on the side of Britain and France. Or, more correctly, they have absolutely no idea of the significance of this decision. Like the grandfather of George Bush, America was busy trading with Nazi Germany. Many, like Bush family patron William Farris (of Standard Oil, now Exxon), were making their fortunes off Nazi slave labour. The U.S. had also closed its gates to European Jews wanting to flee persecution; (forcing them to go to Palestine where they established Israel and have since remained in conflict with the original owners of the land and with their Arab neighbours.) Franklin Roosevelt spent much of his time assuring his nation that he would NEVER send "their children in harm's way" - certainly a poor foil alongside real heroes like Winston Churchill, Charles de Gaulle or even Josef Stalin. It was precisely this geographic and political isolation from the conflict, which drew people in the war zone like a magnet to the American continent.
"DO YOU WANT TO DENY YOURSELF THE RIGHT TO BE A MAN?" reads this psy-ops leaflet, dropped by Americans in Vietnam. You don't see RAMBO dropping leaflets like these! He he he! |
So, after sheep-faced Americans joined the war, films like Casablanca were released, which had Americans showing hitherto unseen courage and sparing no effort to save hapless Europeans from evil Nazis. Sure, these films helped sell a lot of "war bonds" to aid the war effort but "war films" continued to be made even after the real war was over - all of them showing Americans as the selfless saviours of the world; all of them conveniently ignoring the enormous sacrifices made by the Russians and the heavy losses made to bear on civilians in the Axis nations. During the War, American soldiers like good soldiers everywhere went about raping and pillaging when they were not busy fighting. In almost all of the war films, Americans GIs were models of good behaviour. It is this image that generations of Americans have believed in, rather than in what history books would have had to offer.
In his book Know Thine Enemy, Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former CIA man who worked in the US consulate in Istanbul during the 1980s, provides an insight into how Freedom™ typically operates. Gerecht's job was to debrief would-be Iranian defectors:
"I'd let hundreds of desperate Iranians languish in Turkey. People who'd given me insights never found in books. I'd watched mothers with children drop to their knees and beg for my help... They didn't want money, just a little kindness, a visa out of their personal hell ... [they met] a sympathetic man waiting in a warm room full of food, coffee, tea, alcohol and cigarettes. A US official who'd politely strip them of all their memories and every corpuscle of information and then reopen the street-side door."
Rambo II, starring Sylvester Stallone, has Islamic fighters in Afghanistan portrayed as brave freedom fighters, quite in line with government policy at that time. By the time True Lies starring Arnold Schwarznegger was made, the "freedom fighters" had become "terrorists" both on screen and in the real world! Movies that romanticises military life (aiding recruitment, usually from poorer sections of the American society) such as Top Gun or Black Hawk Down get active cooperation (and under-publicised editorial input) from the U.S. military while others that question military postures have to rope in a foreign government for using their military hardware.
AVERAGE VOTER IN A DEMOCRATIC COUNTRY IS A MORON! |
In May 2003, an Iraqi boy who suffered burns all over his body, had his arms amputed above the elbow, and lost 20 members of his family after an American missile hit his home became subject of a media frenzy. Although the boy refused American offers of free medical treatment, Hollywoood went ahead and made a movie starring George Clooney with an expectedly different story ending. In the Balkans, American soldiers have been indicted of raping women and forcing them into prostitution but that did not stop Hollywood from making a movie, which showed the opposite - an American soldier killing another soldier to prevent a rape from happening! George Bush and 9/11 was also subject of a movie. However, it featured no pet goat. In sharp contrast, Micheal Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, which attempted to come to terms with truth, was received with unrepressed hostility.
With every war, the deception continues to grow. Even though the fall of the Saddam statue in the middle of Baghdad or the rapturous welcome given to Ahmed Chalabi on his return to Iraq or the daring rescue of Private Jessica Lynch are considered as classics among military psy-ops films, Hollywood remains unbeaten in their effort at perpetuating myths for the U.S. government.
FAKE NEWS = FREEDOM NEWS? |
Sure, Hollywood has no designs on the world and they are in it with the American war machine only because it is a mutually rewarding relationship. However, truth becomes a casualty - not just in war but also in peace. This blackout is made complete by sanitised coverage of world events by the American media.
In Iraq, for example, news reports are solely based on the version provided by the U.S. military spokesman. American journalists rarely leave the safe confines of the fortified "Green Zone" in Central Baghdad. However, to fool the American public, videos shot by Iraqi journalists are placed in the background. The American journalist wears a bullet-proof vest, stands in front of the camera and then files his "report." A white screen (not seen by viewers) placed behind this brave journalist allows video technicians in a New York or Washington D.C. studio to be able to seamlessly mix the two videos, creating the illusion of the journalist having actually visited the scene. With this kind of deception, the American military remains free to drop bombs on houses of innocent people.
Several decades ago, Jawaharlal Nehru remarked,
"They shoot and kill and destroy only for the good of the people shot down. The novel feature of the modern type of imperialism is its attempt to hide its terrorism and exploitation behind pious phrases."
His words remain true to this very day. And, "they" continue to do it with the approval of the American people. Yet, when a 911 happens, you will hear Americans asking, "Why do they hate us so much?"
THIS IS NOT A JOKE. There were actually two pages on the CIA website under the title Iraqi Rewards Program offering rewards for information regarding Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). One web page was in English (at http://www.cia.gov/cia/english_rewards.htm) and the other was in Arabic (at http://www.cia.gov/cia/arabic_rewards.htm, still present.) The CIA removed the English version after a short time. I had saved a copy of the English version, I put it up here and later moved it to www.vsubhash.com. I also added a timeline of the Iraqi Rewards Program.
In case you are wondering, rest assured that the cia.gov domain is used only to host their website. The domain ucia.gov (unclassified CIA) is used for other unclassified purposes. You can see their updates page for references to ucia.gov.
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In India, we think that anyone who can speak English is a well-educated person. As a result, we assign people in the West with a lot of wisdom. Our newspapers, for example, pay a lot of money to reprint articles from leading American and British newspapers such as the The New York Times. How smart are these foreign pundits? The manner in which the "KGB spy" poisonging scandal was covered can be a test case. Every one from The Times of London to tabloid The Sun said he was a James Bondy-style spy, when the guy very little spying because his job in the KGB was like that of the Denko character that Arnold Schwarznegger played in the film Red Heat.
People in the U.S. and Britain are just like those in India - the average citizen is a moron. Nothing illustrates this better than the brazen manner in which Bush was able to shift the war on terror from Afghanistan to Iraq. So, I started writing this web log. It is useless. Although it seems to have got serious attention in some very high places, ordinary folk have stayed away. When they came, they came in search of porn. Why these fools won't buy regular porn DVDs and be done with? Why do they have to search the web for mms clips of Mallika Sherawat is something I will never understand.
Every week I travel from Bangalore to Madras I look at the logs - all I see are porn search requests. I am giving up. It is a waste of time. I used to buy only one computer magazine every month. Now, I buy three - digit, Chip, and PC World - but I don't have time to read any one of them completely. My family members have to ask me for permission before they can speak to me. I don't like to be disturbed while I working on the blog - which is all through the weekend.
Yet, I don't even get to complete any one post. There are lots of them here that are marked "yet to be completed." They will remain that way and I am quitting. Before I go, I am making some predictions.
Americans have no savings in their bank accounts. Instead, they have a lot of debt on their credit card. Many American families have taken advantage of the rising housing market and mortaged their homes, thereby "using their homes as ATM machines." On a higher level, the U.S. economy is in a bad shape thanks to a huge negative trade balance - it imports more than it exports. The U.S. Federal Reserve (American central bank) is said to be considering lowering interest rates, which will only increase money supply! Their printing presses are already busy printing more currency to pay for imports. Instead of collapsing under the strain, the U.S. manages to survive because exporting nations to the United States plough back their dollars into U.S. assets such as U.S. Treasury Bills (T-Bills), stocks, etc. Leading these nations, China now has $1 trillion in forex reserves. However, they can't keep accumulating this mountain of money for long because the dollar has been slowly but surely losing value for quite some time. They can't easily dump the dollars because that would only increase the supply and weaken the dollar value even further. If they don't replace their hoard with more valuable assets, then that mountain of dollars will become worthless. The only choice before the Chinese government then would be to give $1000 to every one of those billion Chinese as high-quality toilet paper.
Why do people buy dollars in the first place? Answer is oil. Oil is denominated in dollars. So, everyone needs to buy dollars in order to buy oil. That brings up the question why oil is denominated in dollars? Oil-producing countries in the Persian Gulf are monarchies. These oil monarchies are supported by the U.S. military. No democracy here though. Democracies are too volatile and American policy makers can sleep easy at night if these countries are ruled by democrats. The ruling families have established a very strict code of Islamic rule, which takes care of Islamic fundamentalists. A serious threat to this cozy arrangement came when Saddam threatened to invoice his oil in Euros. This was why that country was invaded in the first place. Thats why everyone supported the invasion of Iraq? No, different people had different reasons to support the war in Iraq.
| Interested Party | Interest |
| Arms manufacturers (Eg. Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics) | For these merchants of death, the end of cold war only brought them more prosperity. With a war, they are happiest people on the planet. |
| Private Equity | Private equity funds are created with big investments from high-net-worth individuals, big corporations, and other PE funds. These funds bought several key Pentagon military hardware suppliers and military services contractors. When the war started, their investments started giving them multifold returns. |
| Big Oil (Eg. Chevron, ExxonMobil, BP, Shell) | Oil |
| Oil services Companies (Halliburton) | Oil services contracts |
| Contract Engineering Companies (Eg. Bechtel) | Reconstruction contracts (reconstructing what was deliberately chosen by them to be destroyed in the war). There are more American contractors in Iraq than their solidiers. |
| Media | Many of them are owned by Big Business that benefit from the business of war. Besides, if they did not follow the crowd, they would have been left behind. Where Fox News goes, NBC and others follow. |
| Pentagon (U.S. military) | Convinced by U.S. Dick Cheney's Energy Task Force report that warned that the U.S. was faced with a debilitating energy situation unless an oil-rich country such as Iraq was in the bag (no pun intebded). |
| Israel |
Israel's influence on the U.S. government is not a much-talked-about topic but it is definitely an inevitable all-pervasive force.
Israel employs armies of people as lobbyists, officials, and spies to influence American policy and actions.
Many American officials are more Israeli than American.
From their perspective, invasion of Iraq paves way for
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| American politicians | An American politician will sell his mother if the price was right. He is a slave to those who provide him with campaign funds. Campaign funds are routed by lobbying firms (lobbying is a fancy American name for organized corruption) represented by vested interests, dominated by Wall Street and Israeli/Jewish organisations. |
| American public | Traumatised by the 911 attacks and frightened by anthrax scares, Americans looked up to their leaders for assurance. With Patriot act and faux news, neocons took advantage of the situation and became the most successful salesmen of snake oil of recent times. |
Paul Wolfowtiz, the leading Bush administration neocon behind the Iraqi invasion, says that the threat from an possible Iraqi WMD program was the only thing that everyone would agree as a dire situation. And, for that reason, they pursued that line! They took it to the United Nations Security Council. Failure at the U.N. did not mean they were stopped; they just went ahead with invasion.
Yet, the most compelling reason for the invasion and occupation of Iraq was to safeguard dollar hegemony. It is in this light that current threats to Iran must be seen. Iran's WMD capabilities are no threat to Israel and yet Israel has been convinced that it is. This is why so many Israeli-Americans who were stoking Iraq fire are now doing the same over Iran's alleged weapons program. By putting Iran under sanctions, the new Iranian oil bourse that will deal oil only in Euros will become a non-starter.
No matter how this problem is tackled, it is without doubt that dollar's days are numbered. I suggest you put your savings in gold.
Seems pretty bleak. Either terrorists start a nuclear holocaust or the Arctic breaks up and destroys half the planet. I am going for the mountains with a do-it-yourself book on terrace cultivation.
Microsoft has implemented so many precautionary measures in Windows Vista that it will be very difficult and expensive for users to use it. Ideally, market forces would have made Vista an instant failure. However, Microsoft is such a big and powerful monopoly that a failure if it happens can only be a protracted one. Vista makes not just the software difficult and expensive to use, it also makes hardware more difficult and expensive to use.
In Communist countries, propaganda is delivered as news by the propagandists themselves. In democratic countries, this job has been taken up by the free press. Suppose that a newspaper wants to have a public debate on whether to legitimise prostitution. It may choose to invite a prostitute to write in the op-ed column so that opinions of those directly affected by the issue can be aired. But, what if the paper's journalist starts writing a prostitute? Where is the debate? In the U.S., the Bush administration paid money to some PR companies who created promotional material disguised as actual news videos so that a positive buzz was created around the administration's policy. When it was revealed that the news journalists and interviewees were really paid actors, the Bushmen repsonded with an Orwellian "it is consistent with modern practices in media relations" defence line. Actually, this sort of charade is all over the place. Why do terrorists commit acts of terrorism? Because "they hate freedom!" What does Microsoft call its piracy-check program? Windows Genuine Advantage! (Microsoft says it is for your advantage.) What's the name of the controversial concept of providing hardware and software manufacturers the ability to disable the product you have bought from them and one that violates your privacy? Trusted Computing!
I am a die-hard capitalist. Capitalism is built on the foundation that bad ideas will die a natural death and smart ideas will survive in their place. If in the West, you switch on a light there is always light or you open a tap there is always water, it is because they have allowed smart ideas to flourish. If in India, you can never be sure if there will be electricty or water supply, it is because we put stupid ideas permanently on life support. The problem started with Nehru who put India on a socialist path and gave birth to the licence-quota-permit raj with the state at the commanding heights of the economy. I am not blaming Nehru or saying that he was wrong. (Pakistan became an independant state at the same time as India. Its economy was managed by economists and experts from the U.S. just like banana republics of Latin America. And, just like banana republics of Latin America, its economy creates no manufactured goods. Pakistan imports everything, exporting only terrorists to the rest of the world.) I am only saying the problem started with him. When Nehru closed the economy, prices of commodities spiralled and he had to place price controls. Gandhi condemned the price controls and suggested that people should instead be forced to work harder. His advice was not followed. Job creation was not done in the private sector but in the public sector. When Nehru's daughter Indira came to power, she greatly added more people on the government payroll by nationalising private banks. Today, we have a very big bureacracy and an extremely corrupt one. Government employees do no work and demand huge salaries. The huge salaries have no effect on corruption. All government employees are eligible for generous loans and advances. (You can be in the middle of the desert and still get a home loan claiming that your house was washed away by floods.) After the repayments are made, there remains very little of the salary. This is why government employees put so many unnecessary administrative difficulties and extract huge bribes to get things going. Politicians encourage this just so they can carry on with thier own scams. The solution it appears is privatisation. However, today's industrialists are not capitalists. They don't like to work hard or take risks. They want it easy - easier than say the government employees. Enron's Dabhol power project is an example. Enron did not want want to take risks. They wanted the government to take care of risks so they demanded guaranteed profits written into the contract. The Congress was agreeable to all this but Shiv Sena and BJP created a fuss. However, it was 13-day BJP government that gave Central Government guarantees to Enron and passed the project. This sort of privatisation of profits is happening all over the country and all over the world. What we have are lazy bastards masquerading as capitalists and corrupt politicians pretending to be saviours who want to force people to pay for everything - for water, for roads, for everything.
Link to Moral Volcano's End Of The Road For Moral Volcano
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Link to Moral Volcano's Strange Search Requests - XVII
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Actor Aamir Khan offered some vocal support for Narmada Bachao Andolan activists and Hindutva proponents enforced a boycott of the star's films inside the state of Gujarat. That is all okay because, in a democracy, anyone can express dissent or engage in boycott as he/she pleases. Of course, it requires no mention that the neither Narendra Modi nor any of his ilk would dare to boycott actors such as Sanjay Dutt whose links to the mafia are worn like badges of honour.
However, the important question is not whether the ban was justified. Instead, it is about who should we ban next; not from their main vocation of acting or playing but from their appearance on those annoying TV commercials. There was a time (old Doordarshan days) when people would have liked more film-based content on TV. Not anymore. Today, everything on TV is about films or cricket. Even news channels such as NDTV, Headlines Today, and CNN-IBN have not been immune to this contagion. Sure, these channels have a long way to go before they can be compared with the slick production values and professional finesse of CNN or BBC. But, at least they used to hound politicians all the time, making mountains out of molehills and zeroes out of heroes. Unfortunately, degeneration is all you see. Now, it is all about the softness of the pitch and whether it is alloo-gobi or my-foot-up-their-freaking-derrière on the menu of some vain actor's party.
So, here is an array of them little pricks (appellation not applicable to Mallika Sherawat but certainly to all the others - Shahrukh Khan, Sachin Tendulkar, Priyanka Chopra, Kareena Kapoor, Aishwarya Rai and Aamir Khan) who give people watching TV no end of their annoyance. Just click on the one you think most deserves to be banned. Votes are instantaneously updated. Voting started on 3 June 2006.
| SINGLE-CLICK ONLINE POLL - Which Star Needs It Most To Be Banned From TV Commercials? | |||||||
Click on a star in this image to make your vote. |
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| BAN | Shahrukh Khan |
Sachin Tendulkar |
Priyanka Chopra |
Mallika Sherawat |
Kareena Kapoor |
Aishwarya Rai |
Aamir Khan |
| Votes So Far | 26 | 23 | 54 | 0 | 54 | 52 | 100 |
UPDATE (13 August 2006): The New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) recenty publicised results of a study it conducted to ascertain levels of pesticide residues in cola drinks. Results were not much different from a similar study conducted last year, when the cola companies and the government assured that public trust would be restored. That time, some reports even said that farmers had begun using Coke and Pepsi in place of regular pesticides with surprisingly good results. This time around, the cola companies have in their defence compared their products, which are non-essential, to essential products such as drinking water and food products. Many states have taken the lead in banning these junk food items, although in a ham-handed manner, which means that the "pesticolas" will be back after a court order.
UPDATE (3 December 2006): I took down the poll today (from the blog template to this new post). The final results are as above. A total of 209 votes were cast indicating an average of just over one vote per day. Both Priyanka Chopra and Kareena Kapoor are neck and neck with 54 votes each, taking roughly half the votes between them. With 52 votes, Aishwarya Rai is not far behind with another quarter of the votes. Sharukh Khan and Sachin Tendulkar are about only half as much disliked as the women. Aamir Khan's votes were kept at a constant 100 right from the start and visitors could not vote to ban him because he already a real ban in Gujarat. Visitors were also not allowed to ban Mallika Sherawat because I did not think she was as ubiquitously annoying as the other three women.
An analysis of visitor logs shows me that a number of voters were originally looking for pornographic images of these ladies. (I don't have them so don't ask me.) Sometimes, they clicked on the images of the women they were searching for and sometimes they clicked the others.
Link to Moral Volcano's A Proposal To Ban On Film/Cricket Stars From Appearing In TV Commercials
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* - This post will be completed in the near future.
Link to Moral Volcano's Iraq's Impending Balkanisation
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Other wild animals should |
Quite some time ago, Discovery channel had a programme featuring James Cameron, the director of The Titanic. He was a guest on an expedition to find the wreckage of the real Titanic. Although the expedition team had spent considerable amounts to find the wreck, the diving team did not salvage anything from the seabed. They left it in the same state as they found it because they wanted to respect the memory of the dead. It was a mistake. Using the information provided this expedition, some Net-Age gravestone stealers hired a boat and some divers, went to the location of the Titanic wreck, and brought up everything they could. Most of the recovered items became part of a travelling museum. Special items were auctioned off. The propellers of the Titanic were melted and made into golf clubs for the filthy rich.
See the problem? If you are going to waste your time on high ideals and principled practices, some joker is going to come along, undo everything and make you obsolete. And, the world fetes the joker and pours scorn on you. It's the same case with "wildlife" television programming. Film makers who never crossed the line have been forgotten but clowns like Steve Irwin are being portrayed as great "naturalists."
As a small kid, I had often wondered why wildlife filmmakers would never intervene to save a poor prey from being eaten by a predator creature. The film makers were very much aware that they were tresspassing into the private world of the animals and took great pains not disturb anything. When photography was first invented, getting a picture of a charging lion or an elephant was considered a huge thing. Even as technology developed by leaps and bounds, wildlife photographers and film makers kept a good distance from their quarry.
Then came jokers like Steve Irwin and Jeff Corwin. Imagine for a moment that you are in bed with your wife/girlfriend/husband/boyfriend. Suddenly, a gorilla barges into your room, jumps on your back, ties a roll of tape around your mouth, ties up your hands and legs, and thrusts your head in front of a bright light and a camera. Now, imagine the opposite. What you have is "wildlife" TV programming. Harrassing animals is what these clowns do for a living.
Another joker who is |
And, they do it all in the name of "conservation" of Nature. It is a big big charade, no matter which way you look at it. If you have watched a lot of Animal Planet or Discovery or National Geographic, you may have seen WWF advertisements where a Japanese or Chinese celebrity figure asks people not to eat food or use drugs made from endangered animals. But, the biggest threat to wild animals and to Nature at large does not come from Asia but from countries in the West. Apart from creating the greatest share of pollutants that is destroying the environment, people living in the West are responsible for most of the trade in endangered and other wild animals.
Why do Westerners need wild animals? Well, they like to keep them as pets. To show them off to neighbours and visitors - to reflect on their Ooohs and Aaahs - to soak in all that admiration. Some people have no limits - everything from boa constrictors to leopards - the more exotic the better for their backyard. It is one of the biggest great tragedy of our times.
Many of the animals do not make the journey to destinations like the United States. Animals that that manage to survive the journey don't fare much better. The U.S. is the biggest market for the illegal trade in endangered and other wild animals. Ordinary people can legally keep wild animals in their homes. better. I remeber one particular NatGeo programme about South American parrots living in the concrete jungles of the U.S. The parrots had become so traumatised in their captive conditions that they pluck out all the feathers on their head and were sporting bald tops!
Private zoos in America are not a new phenomenon. They have been in existence for long. However, interest in keeping exotic pets has received a massive boost lately thanks to TV shows featuring "naturalists" like Steve Irwin. Instead of showing wild animals in the wild, captive animals and in many cases animals in the wild are shown in close contact with humans. While the animals' personal space is violated, the sorry circus is portrayed as helping animals.
Zoos and animal enclosures do not help wild animals. Animals need to be in the wild. More forests or natural habitat is what they really need. Humans should use less resources and stop destroying the environment. The death of Steve Irwin is a loss for the entertainment industry. The so-called conservation efforts that people like him promote are no different from circuses. They use animals to benefit humans.
Link to Moral Volcano's Steve Irwin's Death Is Not A Loss For The Animal Kingdom
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Manmohan Singh recently took money from the U.S. to use his intelligence setup in Nepal to create a people's revolution against King Gyanendra. Revolution was a success - for the Maoists that is. Everyone else - Nepali people and political parties, and for their trouble India and the US - lost. Now, the Maoists are poised to establish their dream of a "corridor" stretching from the Himalayas to the Arabian Sea. Our pseudo commies, the Left, has been a big facilitator. Why did Singh agree to this? The Americans played on his vanity and convinced him that India had was an island of stability in a region littered with failed states. A number of strategically placed studies, research papers, and newspaper articles were used to buttress this idea.
Isn't this ironical? In Bihar, hundreds of Maoists sacked a jail and looted the armoury. Large parts of Andhra Pradesh continue to be out of bounds for the State, as thanks for Maoists "cooperation" to the Congress during the state elections, which brought down Chandrababu Naidu. Ditto for much of central India. Unable to fight Maoists on their own, the government has pitted tribals against tribals (Salwa Judum). It is a colossal failure. Tribals are being mass-murdered. The Prime Minister has promised all help. The useless fellow means nothing.
In the North East, Kuki outfits were raised to fight Naga terrorists. This went on for a while until the Kukis started shooting at the government for perceived lack of support and partiality. Army then had to fight both Kuki and the Naga outfits. While peaceful protestors like those of the Narmada Bachao Andolan are treated with disdain, the government is not averse to dispatch the Prime Minister to swell locations like Davos or London for "talks" with leaders of Naga terrorist outfits. Bureacrats like Padmanabhiah, military officials, and intelligence operatives handle large amounts of cash without any accountability. Terrorism in Nagaland is self-financing because the government has taken into its rolls a large section of the population. These employees do no work but have to pay "taxes" to different terrorist outfits. Apart from the "government" of the terrorists, a parallel form of government consisting of tribal leaders which works under the sole guidance of American Christian churches is running with legal sanction. As a result, an elected state government if there is one is powerless. There is little economic activity and no tax collection. Entire state runs on funds from the Centre. As in Nagaland, in other states in the North East, former leaders of terrorist organisations were invited to form government. It not only destroyed the authority of the State but also failed to restore peace.
In Jammu & Kashmir (J&K), hundreds of youth were tortured in interrogation centres with fancy names like Papa II. Smart a$$es in the military have been imitating what British troops did in Malaya during the World War - a "scorched earth" policy. This policy subjected on our own citizens has played well into the hands of Pakistan, U.S. and China. Almost every family in Kashmir has a member lost to terrorism. Right or not, invariably, they all blame the central government. For the thousands who had died or disappeared, there is no official explanation.
The leading LTTE idealogue indirectly confesses to the killing of Rajiv Gandhi on a national TV network. Yet, supporters of LTTE continue to be in government. Sonia Gandhi, the foriegn-born widow of the late Indian statesman has nothing to say about it. Her "patriotism" to her adopted country and "loyalty" to her late husband's memory remains an unsolved mystery.
List of Blogs Banned by Government of India
That our babus are not a tech savvy lot is no big revealation. But that does not stop our equally tech-stupid journalists from making fun of the babus - a clear case of pot calling the kettle black. It was after several articles that they meandered to crux of the problem. Anyway, here is the list of websites that were blocked by the government on 13 July.
- http://www.hinduunity.org
- http://mypetjawa.mu.nu
- http://pajamaeditors.blogspot.com
- http://exposingtheleft.blogspot.com
- http://www.thepiratescove.us
- http://commonfolkcommonsense.blogspot.com
- http://www.bamapachyderm.com
- http://princesskimberly.blogspot.com
- http://merrimusings.typepad.com
- http://www.mackers-world.com
- http://www.dalitstan.org - I have been to this website before. They have some really fancy theories about Indian history and culture. If you have read commentators such as Gail Omvedt in The Hindu, then dalitstan.org would seem quite familiar.
- http://www.hinduhumanrights.org/hindufocus.html - This is just a web page. I guess it was here that the ISPs became confused about the DOT order.
- http://www.andh.com
- http://www.bloodrovaltriped.com
- http://www.imagesearchyahoo.com (probably http://image.search.yahoo.com)
- http://www.imamalie.com
- http://www.rahulyadav.com
If the sites are blocked, they can be viewed on proxy services such as Anonymizer.com or Anonymouse.org. I have no idea how faithful sites such as these are about protecting privacy. It is quite possible that some of these sites have been put up by the same people who placed the censors or are some nice folks who found a convenient way to spy. (The forms in my websites are suffering a deluge of form spam. I suspect that companies who sell software designed to minimize comment form spam are behind it.) The Google Cache is a nice way of bypassing any kind of restrictions.
The DOT order was fine except for the flaw in the case of www.hinduhumanrights.org website. The list has the URL of a single web page from the site. This would have caused confusion about whether the ban was in relation to the specified URLs or subdomains or whole websites. Many ISPs, led by BSNL, took the last option. Thus, the entire blogspot.com domain became inaccessible instead of just the subdomains mentioned in the Department of Telecommunications (DOT) order. Interestingly, the publishing window blogger.com was still available. So, bloggers could continue to post articles but not view them. This was similar to the situation that prevails in Pakistan. Not that ISI is overrated; like the CIA, they merely specialise in what-the-butler-saw or what's-in-the-trash spying - undeniably $hittiest jobs in the world.
Recently, I was surpised to find what I thought an imitation Moral Volcano on a site called PKBlogs.com. It turned out that it was a censor-bypassing proxy server put by Pakistani bloggers. I thought, "Oh, well, Pakistan is a banana republic."
Link to Moral Volcano's India Is A Failed State
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Bangalore is for rich peopleWant an expensive mobile phone? You will find plenty of shops on every street selling every model on the planet! I was forced to buy a Motorola V3 Razr. Want a simple haircut, you will be hardpressed to find a barber shop. |
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Don't blame the dog. Blame the owner.Foreign visitors think lack of indoor plumbing is the problem. Indian roads are a mess because pavement and slum dwellers don't have much of indoors. Thanks to a pro-active policy by authorities, Bangalore does not have this problem. But, roads are still a mess because nouveau-riche don't have backyards or gardens. The poor rich people. |
A deserted Majestic (Bangalore City) Bus StandA film star died and the city shut down for several days in April. All shops downed their shutters. Bachelors, dependant on bottled water and hotel food, were worst affected. Thousands of people where stranded in the Majestic bus stand, as police banned all buses off the road. |
Microsoft Scientia building covered in sheetsMourning fans wanted to keep a portrait on the premises to help other fans identify the route to the star's house. Permission was denied. Glass panes on the Microsoft India Research Center came down in a million pieces. |
The pocket TV did not lastAfter watching Dish TV in Madras, I couldn't stand ordinary cable in Bangalore. Dish TV has some fantastic channels including Boomerang, TCM, and MGM. I bought a Philips Bahadur short-wave radio. Its superb ergonomics and build quality suggest that it has been built for army jawans. I listen to Jnanavani (IGNOU broadcasts) all the time. Even if I don't understand everything, I learn something new every day. I hate DJ chatter on ordinary FM channels. |
People in Bangalore have been pussifiedI went to a Foodworld store and searched the shelves for a hard-type toothbrush. They had MEDIUM, SOFT, ULTRA-SOFT, and SUPER-SOFT. I was under the impression that by the age of seven your jaws become strong enough to take a direct hit with a hockey stick. So, what is this nonsense about softness? How do you excercise your gums without a hard toothbrush? Fortunately, a pharmacy shop had a product aptly named as Classic. |
A subsidy for the richWhile the BMTC made over 100 crores in profit last year, it has increased bus fares close on the heels of the increase in petrol-diesel prices by the central government. So, where do these collosal profits go to? Buying and subsidizing Volvo buses (each costing Rs. 75 lakhs), whose tickets are too expensive for ordinary people but dirt cheap for workers in the IT sector. |
* - This post is not complete.
Link to Moral Volcano's Why People Love And Hate Bangalore*
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BJP leaders snort heroin at late-night slumber partyVajpayee, Advani, Joshi & Communalism Dead |
Congress Chief Celebrates By Making Another SacrificeSonia Goes To Tirupati, Shaves Head |
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TIRUPATI: Greatly relieved at the unexpected turn of events, Congress president and UPA chairman Sonia Gandhi went to Tirupathi to convey her thanks to the Lord. Ms. Gandhi made yet another "sacrifice" by shaving off her hair on top of her head. Showing his loyalty to the leader, Pranab Mukherjee |
followed suit by offering his hair as penance. Hairless Prime Minister Manmohan Singh surprised everyone by committing harakiri; surprised because few of his colleagues were aware that Singh knew anything about the Japanese ceremony. Rahul Likely To Be Next PMFollowing the grisly exit of Mr. Singh's intestines, Sonia Gandhi's hier apparent Rahul Gandhi is rumoured to take over the reigns as the next prime minister. |
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NEW DELHI: Top BJP leaders including Lal Krishna Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi were declared dead on arrival at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) late last night. Former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee arrived in a critical state but succumbed soon after, doctors said. |
After what seems to have been a night-long slumber party that apparently involved recreational heroin use, the top brass of the BJP has been almost wiped out. Future Of Communalism: Modi Begs To DifferGujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi reassured the nation that communalism was alive and well. And, that as long as leaders like Mr. Modi were around pseudosecular forces will not never fully realise their dreams. |
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Pakistan Nominates Nuclear Peddler A. Q. Khan For U.N. Secretary General PostISLAMABAD: Hours after India announced that U.N. diplomat Shashi Tharoor was India's nominee for the post of U.N. Secretary General, Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Agency's spokesman Brig. Iqbal announced that Pakistan was going to nominate nuclear peddler A. Q. Khan as their nominee for the post. Pakistan said Mr. Khan was popular in many countries, particularly North Korea, China, Libya, and others. |
Lobby effort in Washington most expensive ever mounted by American business!Nuclear Deal With U.S. To Cost India Tens Of Billions Of Dollars |
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BOMBAY: The Indian nuclear establishment works on a shoestring budget of $2 billion. Yet, the Indian government has signed a deal with the U.S. to buy more than eight nuclear reactors with a price tag of at least $20 billion. And, that is only considering reactors from the United States. Other countries such as France, Canada and Russia are also planning to sell reactors to India. So, the entire bill for nuclear reactors alone could be more. Apart from having to buy expensive new reactors, India is also expected to shutdown |
the CIRUS reactor. This reactor was initially built with Canadian government assistance. Canadian workers walked out of the project after India conducted its first nuclear test. However, Indian nuclear scientists did a marvellous job and the reactor eventually achieved criticality. The government spent a great deal of money refurbishing the CIRUS and when the government completed the job in 2004, it was announced that the reactor was good for another 20 years. However, after the deal with the U.S., this reactor is to be dismantled prematurely. |
Not only that, many of the current nuclear facilities may have to go idle once the separation of civilian and strategic programmes is implemented. The purchase of uranium-based nuclear reactors at three times the cost of indigenous reactors also puts a roadblock in Indian scientists' efforts to create the world's first thorium reactor. Ron Somers, President of the U.S.-India Business Council (U.S. Chamber of Commerce), says that the lobbying effort in Washington is the most expensive ever mounted by American business. |
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Free Color TVs To Show Only Sun Group Channels |
Sachin Tendulkar Gives 100%In CommercialsBOMBAY: In stark contrast to his poor form in cricket, master batsman Sachin Tendulkar says he has been able to give 100% in TV commercials. Worried about his long string of single-digit dismissals, Tendulkar said that an easy century against one of the world's lamest cricket teams might silence his critics for some time. |
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MADRAS: "It is purely a cost-cutting move," said M. Karunanidhi, DMK chief and the new Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. Union Communications minister Dayanidhi Maran said, "Sun Group channels provide all-round entertainment and are currently the most popular channels in all the markets they operate. Families below the poverty line do not like to watch other channels such as Discovery or National Geographic as they do not understand English." The |
DMK came to power on promises such as free color TVs and ration rice at Rs. 2. These measures have grave implications on the finances of the state. Hence, it has become necessary to make to make the free television sets as cheap as possible. Currently, Sun group channels have a near monopoly in Madras city, which is the only metro in India to have implemented the conditional access system (CAS). When the previous AIADMK |
regime tried to remove CAS, Sumangali Cable Vision moved the High Court to obtain a stay, saying it would incur a huge loss on the set-top boxes (STBs) that were imported. Hence, viewers in Chennai cannot watch channels like Star Movies or HBO and are forced to watch channels like Sun TV and KTV. If the new Sun-TV-only colour TVs were to be distributed, a similar situation might befall the entire state. |
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Link to Moral Volcano's The Crimes Of India - I
Your Comment
From: Hari Kaimal
To: Moral Volcano
Subject: Blog Comment By: Hari Kaimal about Darlings Of The West - III
Date: Sun, 7 May 2006 14:13:37 +0100It's nice to hear straight comments at least once in a while... and to think of, I stumbled upon your site as I searhed Google for ways to turnoff Active directory on my XP PC. I got what I wanted and a lot more. [This comment does not refer to Darlings of the West - haven't read it]. Apart from being straight... these comments are really detailed and possess enough power in their belly to earn the tag of a structured conspiracy, a larger pulldown programme... Cheers!
The material presented here has been collated from sources (not all of them could be adequately attributed to). Most of the time, I am merely repeating what others have said. The idea is to create a knowledge base on relevant issues.
From: ontango <labald@youra$$.com>
To: Moral Volcano
Subject: Blog Comment By: ontango about Attack Of The Hillybillies
Date: Thu, 11 May 2006 01:33:05 +0100
Referrer: http://search.blogger.com/?ui=blg&q=ltte dravidianDr. Ramdoss should be commended for supporting LTTE. In fact he should be praised and rewarded, although his idea of dividing TN is stupid. He should support annexing tamil areas in Kannada and AP to TN. That would be great. Oh. one other thing. Crossbelt bastards should be bitch slapped.Well, they know it is comming. I personally would do it.Hail Tamil Tigers!
People like you and Ramdoss should be lined up and shot.
From: Thorpe
To: V. Subhash
Subject: Site Comment By: Thorpe
Date: Mon, 15 May 2006 01:21:05 +0100Nice site,* love your up & down arrows. If your interested in making them float with the page let me know. Or you can just visit my site at thorpe55.tripod.com and get it.
The next one is very intriguing. The visitor came to my archive of the now-missing CIA Iraqi Rewards Program web page.
From: JAMES A*****Y D***Y
To: V. Subhash
Subject: Site Comment By: JAMES A*****Y D***Y
Date: Wed, 17 May 2006 02:57:57 +0100
Referrer: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=IRAQI+REWARDS+PROGRAM+IN+ENGLISHI AM IN CLEVELAND OHIO, UNITED STATES. WITH MY COMPUTER I ARRANGED FOR THE ARMED FORCES IN IRAQ TO CAPTURE ABU ZARQAWI. ASK PRESIDENT BUSH. BUSH READS ALL OF MY E-MAILS. I REQUESTED MONEY FOR WHAT I DID. THAT WAS A COUPLE WEEKS AGO. I NEVER GOT PAID. WHY BUSH WON'T PAY IS UNKNOWN TO ME. MY POST OFFICE BOX IS 110335, CLEVELAND, OHIO-44111. I HAVE AN ACCOUNT AT KEY BANK AND ONE AT CHARTER ONE BANK. I DON'T KNOW WHY BUSH IS BEING SO CHEAP. AND AFTER DOING WHAT I DID, I DO NOT SEE WHY I HAVE TO GO HUNGRY. BUSH KNOWS IT WAS ME THAT HELPED. HE THINKS HE IS PROTECTING ME BY KEEPING ZARQAWI'S CAPTURE A SECRET. BUT I NEED TO MOVE TO A SAFE COMMUNITY. PERHAPS YOU CAN HELP. JIM
Sorry to hear that, Jim. Bush knows were to put his money. Abu Musab al Zarqawi requires no capturing. He works from the Pentagon basement. Didn't you notice the latest Zarqawi video? And, how the Pentagon was able to get a copy of the unedited version of the video? The one with the authentic-sounding remark about Zarqawi's new balance tennis shoes? And their harsh comments about how Zarqawi sucks at handling rifles? Man, that must have really hurt. It was them grunts that made him wear the eyesores. I am getting carried away here. Jim, why don't you just watch The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
UPDATE (10/06/06): Your money is gone forever. Now, they claim to have killed your guy! Zarqawi was the patent excuse for all American bombardment of civilian areas. Take Fallujah, for example. First, they said Zarqawi had taken refuge inside the town. After killing almost everyone in Fallujah and destroying all their houses, the American military said to no one’s surprise that Zarqawi had slipped past the elaborate multi-layered security cordon placed around the battered town. The same thing happened with every town or place that was bombed by them.
However, claims about Zarqawi's involvement in the Madrid train bombings in faraway Spain put a permanent question mark over the credibility of the whole Zarqawi story. How could this guy have been everywhere and nowhere? From then on, all news about Zarqawi could only be greeted with suspicion. As mentioned earlier, my guess is that this guy was hiding out in the Pentagon basement. After shooting a new-balance-tennis-shoes promotional video with that unkind remark about his shooting skills, they simply killed him! The poor guy must be given a posthumous oscar for his lifelong contribution to terrorism cinema. Why did they kill him? Maybe the Americans have decided on a pullout. Israel is getting impatient with the U.S. for not yet attacking Iran. American generals must have said, “Hey, if you want us to go Iran, get us out of Iraq first.”
An important purpose Zarqawi fulfilled was to drive a wedge between Sunnis and Shias and take the heat off the occupation soldiers. This was acheived by daily suicide bombings, which also had the neat effect of creating disunity among Iraqi political groups. Led by ambassador Zilmay Khalilzad, Americans meanwhile started taking control of the shape of the future Iraqi government and the proposed constitution. They have also put their stooges in key positions in the government. Provincial governments would have the power to hand over Iraq's oil wealth to foreign companies. There would be no strong central government so the Americans could effect a breakup of Iraq if ever their companies were denied access to the oil.
From: me alva <Christcanbefound@thecatholicchurch.com>
To: V. Subhash
Subject: Site Comment By: me alva
Date: Fri, 19 May 2006 02:10:59 +0100
Referrer: http://search.msn.com/spresults.aspx?q=st+iraneous&FORM=QBPRGod's thoughts are different than the way we think..... He is the Almighty and glory and praise to Him forever....rethink your essay and proofread it...there are many mistakes.... pray that the Holy Spirit may guide you in your journey in finding the truth... I will pray for you as well and may His peace be with you..goodbye..
Please! Oh, please nobody pray for me! I destined for hell and I like to keep it that way. Mark Twain said you go to Heaven for the climate and to Hell for the company. (This visitor had read the writeup Origins of Jesus, Christianity, and the Bible and came up with these comments. I agree proofreading has been a problem though I feel there is no need to rethink the essay though. In fact, I feel inclined to finish a long-pending update about the Great General Councils of the Church including the row between Arius and Athanasius. It has been pending for several months now.
The purpose of the article has been misunderstood. It is not meant for people who are already Christian. It is meant for people are thinking about converting to Christianity and those at the receiving end of aggressive and intolerant Christian preaching. Recently, a Christian friend sent me a link about 20 Big Lies in the DaVinci Code retributing some of the assumptions made in the novel by Dan Brown. I did not refer him to my article nor make any new observations to him. You see, I mind my own business. I respect his beliefs. And, I expect everyone else to mind their own. If anyone feels they can't find a convincing reason to do so, then they are invited to read my article Do You Believe That God Exists?, which is about why believers and non-believers need keep their traps shut.
Name: Kevin H******
E-mail: <--deleted-->
URL:
Date: 23/02/06You are lost. That is the source of your anger. Eat in a kitchen of mother Theresa for a week. See the truth for yourself. It will lift that anger that haunts you every day.
From: "Moral Volcano"
To: "Kevin H******"
Sent: Sunday, March 05, 2006 5:51 AM
Subject: Re: Blog Comment By: Kevin H****** about Peddlers Of PovertyHi Kevin,
Mother Teresa claimed she was spending all the money on the poor and needy but instead saved much of it for the wasteful indulgences of the Vatican. This is cheating. She naively believed she would get a permanent place in heaven by blindly following the orders of the Pope. In effect, she made a pact with the devil, not any god. I have seen many Christian missionaries in India who lead a life of poverty but never seek any recognition to their personal sacrifices. Mother Teresa's fame is the result of a deliberate marketing campaign by the Vatican. People don't whip out their cheque books unless they see something deeply depressing, which is what Mother Teresa's institutions provided. Once a sufficient number was on the rolls, rest were sent to government facilities and private charitable organizations. When confronted with facts, Mother Teresa agreed she was not really a social worker but rather a very deeply religious person. My article is only an affirmation of that confession. If anyone wanted to help the needy in India, there are plenty of real charities that make sure every last penny is spent on those it was meant for. However, Mother Teresa's order and "charites" would not be one of them. I want money raised in the name of my country's poor people to be spent on those same people, not the Vatican. What's wrong with that? If an Indian religious organisation raised money abroad in the name of poor needy hungry people and spent it on ceremonies and temples, would you agree? V. Subhash.
From: "Kevin H******"
To: "Moral Volcano"
Subject: Re: Blog Comment By: Kevin H****** about Peddlers Of Poverty
Date: Sun, 5 Mar 2006 15:29:44 +0100Making a point is important to you. People never listened to you. That upsets you. Always has upset you hasn't it. Why is that they never listened? That is but the first question you should ponder on. That wound that bleeds within you but hurts to even think of. Your misplaced anger is within yourself. Can you face that truth of who you are. Can you face yourself.
How easy and common it is to say , mothers fathers, work, religion is why you are not happy. However both religious and non religious will tell you, your unhappiness is masked in anger and the face of your anger, the present victim of your own personal issues, is the vatican.
Look in the mirror with sincere pride and see yourself as completely good. You can't. Because you have never faced nor accepted yourself and you can't love yourself either. How can you. Your not happy. You have not been in a long time. Odd how a stranger can read your words across the globe and see that. Truth. Is a pact with god. It gives you freedom for you don't have to be false regarding anything. Truth is a practice that we must excercise in daily. It starts with ourselves. A pact with the dark side of yourself. Your personal hell. When you can't face your hell you give it to others. That is a pact with evil. That is what you have done. You don't believe this. Course not, but let me show you.
Let me show you the product of your anger. In a non abstract, simple example. The effect your mail has on me. See I only came across it because I wanted to put some money that I have saved for a long time, into a soup kitchen I have had the humble honour to have served in one. It wasn't like the soup kitchens in Bosnia, that I previously worked in, but one in a city. Therein a lot of people that can't afford to eat for one reason or another. In looking up that organization the first hit on google is yours. No love, no gentle remarks; Just doubt, anger. That is what I read. Like all evil, it starts with doubt. Manifests itself with anger. So who made a pact ith the devil ?
A seed of doubt is placed within me. A hungry mouth may not be fed, but that doesn't matter to you. All that matters is you have given a new face to your hell, religion. This time it is the vatician. Doubt is followed by a seed of anger. Anger is the devil within. So in order to handle you with the means in which god would respect it is my duty to point out to you, that your anger has almost stopped starving people from being fed. That is a fact. Several hundred kitchen worldwide feed needy people. Your political mail, will leave several hundred, hungry. Your too busy to work in a kitchen for a day, but have enough time to farm you baddness upon those that do. Drop your crusade and look within; Your heart needs attention.(and now so does mine!). The pathway to hell is paved with good intentions. Go to a soup kitchen, therein you will find a path to truth within. I apologize to you for being annoyed; Sincerely. Kevin
Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 18:02:40 -0800 (PST)
From: "Moral Volcano"
Subject: Re: Blog Comment By: Kevin H****** about Peddlers Of Poverty
To: "Kevin H******"Dear Kevin,
You are turning the truth on its head when you say my article might prevent a hungry mouth from being fed. On the contrary, my article aims that people will find a real charity so that all the money will be spent on the people for whom it was meant to. In other words, I expect more people to be fed. Right now, most of donations is wasted by the Vatican and not spent on the hungry or the needy for whom it was originally meant.When someone sends me a message about an article on Moral Volcano, I usually inform them that the web log is written in a deliberately provocative style. I am sorry forgot to do so in your case. The name Moral Volcano comes from the short story Journalism in Tennesse by Mark Twain. The writing style has to live up to the standards set in that story. You have mistakenly surmised this as "anger." You are not the first one to do this. PC Magazine columnist John C. Dvorak also felt the same and characterized the site as "anti-American." I've given a full explanation in John C. Dvorak Slams Moral Volcano.
Many people donate to charities only to have their names or photos published in newspapers.I don't have to work in a soup kitchen to be of help. Even if I could only clean toilets, I would still prefer to EARN that money and then give some of it to needy people. Besides, you are totally wrong about social service. You do that not because it makes you happy or gives you mental peace or gets you a seat in heaven. You do that simply because, as Einstein once told his wife, PEOPLE NEED HELP. Our philosopy† says that one should do his duty and expect nothing in return.
And, happiness is a mirage that we will chase all our lives. It is those fleeting moments of happiness that makes it special. If you could be happy all the time, you would not like it so much. Many people will lose their will to live. If you think otherwise, you are in denial. V. Subhash.
When people read the four-part article Why Israel Is A Nation of Squatters, they mistake me for a Christian or a Muslim. Now, the article has a clarification that I am neither a Christian to be biased against Jews nor that I am a Muslim to be biased in favour of Palestinians.
From: Mariam
To: V. Subhash
Sent: Tuesday, 01 August, 2006 2:10 PM
Subject: Site Comment By: Mariam
Referrer: Google search for judah+and+mohammedMariam from London responding to article on Israel Palestine:
How can this article claim to be based on historical facts when it is so clearly biased? Palestinians can state their claim to land and so can Jewish people. Both people have suffered. How can we as Muslims be so blind and biased as other people? If they have suffered a Holocaust we cannot as humane people reject this and say they are 'using' it. Maybe they needed somewhere to go. Palestinians also need somewhere to go: land should be shared.
The land is not theirs to share.
* - www.vsuhash.com
† - Bhagvad Gita
Link to Moral Volcano's From My Guestböök - IV
Your Comment
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| What women want? |
Unfortunately for them, it blew up in their face.
Sonia Gandhi herself and several others in the Congress were holding offices for profit.
Following Jaya Bacchan's disqualification, moves were made to disqualify Sonia Gandhi herself.
It was then the government decided to make changes to the 1959 law related to office of profit.
Because the opposition was not going to allow the amendment because it was designed solely to benefit one person (Sonia), the government adjourned the house sine die.
This would have allowed the government to bring the amendment through the backdoor by proclaiming an ordnance.
The opposition went ballistic and finally got its prize - Sonia's head.
Ms. Gandhi accused the opposition parties and "a section of the media" for casting aspersions on her motives.
By "a section of the media", she must of have meant the whole of the media because even The Hindu had to acknowledge that the Congress was subverting the Constitution and the Parliament.
Syncophants in the media have alleged noble reasons for her decision.
Faced with disqualification, Sonia had made a logical decision.
The Pioneer correctly claimed that the resignation was not a sacrifice but a majboori.
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Link to Moral Volcano's Strange Search Requests - XVI
Your Comment
Although the statement "Lies, not love, makes the world go round," was made in the context of human relationships (in the article Bombay Sucks), it symbolises everything that Moral Volcano has been saying. To paraphrase Michael Moore, we live in fictitious times. Lies rule the world.
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* - Conditions Apply
Moral Volcano is written by V. Subhash, a former writer for British magazine The Current Bun, where he was noted for his interest in modified sweat glands, which not being the focus of his employer was contributory to his firing. Currently, the author lives with his wife, children and mistress in Virginia, U.S., where he is an active campaigner for the American Nazi party better known by its official name Republican.
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