Paid propaganda – outrage from some, silence from others

The past week has in many respects, been a very exciting one. It has seen the beginning of the end of the Gadhafi regime.The end game in Libya began in earnest last weekend with the very swift fall of Tripoli.

Even though there were hints to be found in news reports coming out of Libya, we were not aware (and with good reason) that there were sleeper cells in Tripoli. These cells that consisted of young professionals and students were secretly trained and secretly armed with weapons. Imagine for a moment, that these people actually paid the Gadhafi regime soldiers up to $1500 for their guns back in February. In truth that is a sign that those soldiers who sold their weapons had not taste for the killing of their own people.

The battle for the government of Libya has been one where there has been a lot of propaganda. Libya’s candidate for the Baghdad Bob award is Moussa Ibrahim, a relative of Gadhafi. He was the one put in charge of telling the journalists kept at the Rixos hotel what was mostly a bunch of lies. Right from the start of the NATO action the Gadhafi regime has lied. Oddly enough, the majority of the Libyan people never fell for the lies, and they continued their resistance. The revolutionary National Transitional Council has not been much better with the level of its own propaganda. Their most amusing propaganda has to be the announcement that they had captured Saif al-Islam, who then turned up three days later. That little piece of propaganda was actually very effective because it helped to stir up the people of Tripoli to get on with the job of ousting the Gadhafi family once and for all.

During the whole period I have not been seduced by the regime propaganda because the lies were indeed quite transparent. This included the first claims of civilian deaths caused by NATO bombing. It was very obvious that the regime was lying. The truth happened to be that the regime was taking bodies from the hospital (those bodies were people they had killed) and scattered them at sites that had been struck by NATO bombs. The regime could not even get a good crowd to the funerals for the alleged victims and then, on top of that there was photographic evidence that the graves of those supposed victims remained empty!! 

What I had noticed is that there was a steady trickle of people, both on the left and right who had started waging their own propaganda war against NATO. The propaganda came from Venezuela, Cuba, South Africa, and other African countries. It is no surprise that the propagandists were either friends of Gadhafi or they were recipients of largesse from Gadhafi (African nations). Then there were the dopey individuals who were constant commenters at various news sites. Some of them have exaggerated the number of deaths within Tripoli over the past week, but they fail to mention that the majority of those deaths (which is probably a third of what is now being claimed) were due to Gadhafi goon snipers. For example a little girl was shot through the head as she rose from her bed and her mother was shot in her shoulder when she went to help the child. Yes, the sniper was trained upon the open window of that particular house. Then there are the children (mostly young boys) who were shot and killed by snipers in the streets. The picture that I saw was of a young boy with the pre-Gadhafi regime flag on his face. Hundreds were killed inside Abu Salim prison prior to their guards fleeing. In another location at least 50 were killed by members of the Khamis brigade before they fled. Some of those killed at that location were soldiers who had obviously refused to fire upon their own. The whereabouts of up to 50,000 people remain unknown.

The Gadhafi goons had tried to think of everything to try and turn the tide against the NATO action, including plans to pay certain individuals to start up or even step up their propaganda. It is understood that the American Dennis Kuchinich was approached, but he did not travel to Libya because of the danger, and on the British side a number of names have been mentioned including a member of the House of Lords, Lord Ahmed, who has laughed at the idea of being paid for propaganda against NATO. On the other hand, the lawyer, Sir Geoffrey Nice was prepared to step up to the ICC and try to prevent the moving forward of the warrants for the arrest of Gadhafi, his son Saif, and his brother in law al-Senussi. The law firm had been made $350,000 for work done up until the end of July.

One of the Gadhafi regime methods was to try and establish a think tank, but David Holie, who was named in those documents that have been found denies that he has been paid anything from the regime.

Some of the people mentioned really do seem to be willing to sell their souls to help Gadhafi, but others, despite their visits to Tripoli have remained on the outside. None of them seem to have been in the slightest bit curious about the level of repression within Tripoli.

This makes me think that Human Rights Watch was paid a sum of money by the Gadhafi regime for some of its reporting, especially its reporting on the numbers that had been killed and wounded in Benghazi and Misrata. Their findings seemed to have been very much on the nose, as they claimed extremely low numbers of people killed that went against what had been reported from various other sources. In fact their numbers were ludicrously low considering that a woman and her 4 children were killed in one incident alone in Misrata. The propagandists have been very careful to play down the threats that were made by Saif al-Islam. They also played down the fact that the tanks had arrived at the outskirts of Benghazi and that the bombardment of the town had commenced at the point when NATO began its action. They also neglected to mention the onslaught in Misrata where hundreds had been killed and wounded, and they failed to mention the mining of Misrata harbour.

Whilst the people fighting in opposition from Gadhafi are far from perfect, and yes there are possible atrocities that need attention, the fact is that the regime atrocities were so bad over the 40 plus years of the Gadhafi regime, that is is possible to forgive those few incidents because the world will be rid of one of the worst terrorists in our modern times.

Yes, Gadhafi is a terrorist who is worse than Osama Bin Laden. His reach into Africa tells most of the story. Libya financed a lot of those actions in Darfur and elsewhere – yes it really was Gadhafi who was sponsoring that terrorism. Gadhafi was sponsoring the actions of Charles Taylor and he propped up a number of the African tin pot dictators with money that belonged to the Libyan people.

The strongest of the Gadhafi propaganda has been the claim that the opposition consisted of members of Al Qaeda. He variously described this opposition as thugs, rats, armed street gangs, and drug addicts. The Libyans are not amused. Yes, there are some fighters who are members of the Islamic Libyan National Front (or whatever the real name is), and yes some actually hired themselves out as mercenaries to Al Qaeda in Iraq. The man who has now declared himself in charge of fighters in Tripoli has been questioned by the CIA. We shall see if this man is true to his word with regards to his own direction. The mere fact that there are Islamists in the ranks has led to a fear that weapons will fall into the hands of Al Qaeda. This was an idea fuelled by the Gadhafi regime, and if any weapons did flow in that direction, then I would suggest that Gadhafi himself was responsible with the intention of placing blame on the opposition. However, were those first rumours even true? There was talk of weapons being sent to Hezbollah but I never saw confirmation of those rumours. They were fuelled by the regimes in Algeria and Chad. How interesting since both of these regimes support Gadhafi.

Then there was another outfit that was posting out of Algeria, and there was a curious claim about a border clash between “opposition people and Algerians”, except that it probably never happened in the first place. I suspect that this was written by Gadhafi regime people and again it was meant to sow doubt in the minds of westerners already suspicious of Muslims.

Whilst I cannot entirely trust the members of the NTC, and I think that they have problems with credibility, I remain firmly on their side. It is not easy trying to look into the background of the conflict. I do think that anyone who stays rooted in the period of the protests against the Mohammed cartoons, is being extremely shallow. Amazingly the people who have in my view presented the worst analysis of the situation have been people who should know better – I am looking at you Diana West and Michael Rosenthal. The shallowness of the last Diana West opinion piece was actually quite breath-taking. I really do expect better out of this particular writer. Both she and Rosenthal failed miserably because they remained rooted in the Mohammed cartoon protests and then tarred everyone with the same brush. They did not seem to care about the long sordid history of repression by the regime in Libya, and that these people were motivated in a very different way from those in Egypt. They failed to understand the reason for protests in Benghazi and they fell right into the Gadhafi trap of writing off the people who were fighting for their lives against a madman who was in control of their country.

Propaganda is a powerful tool in any war. It is who wins the propaganda war who usually has the upper hand. Gadhafi has been proved a liar, and even his successful propaganda about his so called step daughter Hana Gadhafi has been proven false. The little girl that we were told was killed during an air raid ordered by President Reagan, and seen as the reason for the Lockerbie bombing did not die. She is alive and she is now a doctor.

The worst kind of crime: kidnapped children

As the search continues to find the remains of Daniel Morcombe, once again I have been reminded of another kidnap and murder of a young boy. This one is quite personal because the Ross family had been my neighbors for at least 6 months prior to them moving to the north-west of Australia. Gerard Ross plus his brother and little sister had played with my own sons in my old house in Canberra.

The Ross family were Scottish immigrants, and they lobbed into Canberra for a short time whilst Mr. Ross had work within the construction industry. As recent arrivals they wanted to see Australia. I remember seeing Mrs Ross at Mass on the Sunday mornings, but it was their children who had befriended my own children, and they spent many hours together playing in my home. The boys used to get together to play cricket and do those boy things.

The day that I learned about the kidnap and murder of Gerard was quite a shock. By that time we had moved to Sydney. My sons were watching T.V. and on one of those crime shows – it was either Australia’s Most Wanted or Crime Stoppers. They were looking for information regarding Gerard’s disappearannce. My sons were quite literally shocked as they recognized the boy, his brother and the parents on TV and they produced photographs of Gerard that they had taken.

The Rockingham kidnap and death of Gerard Ross, aged 11 has never been resolved. There is almost no mention of Gerard’s death, or the fact that this is an unsolved crime, which has startling similarities to that of Daniel Morecombe. The W.A. police have shown absolutely no urgency in trying to solve the crime and bring this boy’s killer or killers to justice.

Gerard is another child that was taken by a pedophile. In this respect his kidnap and death mirrors that of Daniel Morcombe but it happened several years earlier. There is so much similarity that I find it rather eerie to see a picture of Daniel Morcombe at age 13 because he looks very similar in build to Gerard Ross. There are other similarities since Daniel was also taken by a pedophile, and one of the persons of interest in the Morcombe case was also a person of interest in the Ross case.

The difference here is that the police have now arrested a suspect in the Morcombe case, and they are now looking to find the body so that Daniel’s parents can have some closure. In the meantime, in West Australia, there has been no progress in finding the kindapper, rapist and murderer of Gerard Ross.

After the sensational breakthrough in the Morcombe case I did some Internet searches to see what if anything had transpired with regard to Gerard Ross’s murderer. It was a big, “if anything”, because nothing has happened since his 1997 disappearance and murder. This is when I came across a whole series of unsolved murders in West Australia, including the Claremont serial killings. The police, in their usual fashion concentrated upon the wrong people for the crime. I am thinking that one particular person provided evidence that a possible killer, who was not one of the leading suspects probably was correct about her “ex-partner”. Yet the police refused to follow up on the information that the woman provided. This is another unresolved case.

At the same time, I looked up information on some of the other unsolved crimes, one in particular I remembered because it was close to where I lived in Victoria, which was the disappearance of Eloise Worledge. The police think that the father had something to do with her disappearance because he was in the process of separating from Eloise’s mother at the time, but did they miss other clues? Maybe, maybe not because the fly-wire screen was cut from the inside, not the outside. Still, since 1976 when Eloise disappeared they have not turned up her body, and no one has been arrested.

Then there is the disappearance of Linda Stilwell from St. Kilda beach (I think it was, or was it Elwood or Brighton), and that of the Beaumont children. It has always been believed that those disappearances are somehow linked. All the same, there has not been any progress in any of these cases. Perhaps they really do have the person responsible behind bars. We just do not know because no one is taking the time to resolve those mysteries.

Last Sunday I was really irked upon reading a letter to the Editor in the Sunday Telegraph. This particular fart-sniffing individual thinks it is a waste of money to try and find the remains of Daniel Morcombe. It is obvious that the person either has a loose screw in place of a brain, or has never suffered the loss of a family member due to the horrendous crimes of kindap, rape and murder. Well, I have suffered as a result of such a loss. I saw how it tore my cousin’s family apart as her parents were left grieving for their murdered daughter. My cousin did not reach her 21st birthday. She was a mother of a child who was 2 years old at the time that she was kidnapped, raped and murdered. At least the police did not have to solve the crime because the man killed himself. Yet, the police had ignored my family’s pleas when they notified that she had gone missing from her work-place. They considered the matter as a domestic, which was not the case. My cousin’s husband was not involved in the crime. They did not follow up on the information that my cousin had been kidnapped, put out no alerts, and in the end she died in Merimbula after being kidnapped in Mentone. It has always irked me that the police will often do nothing upon learning that someone has disappeared.

My heart is with the Morcombe family, especially when it has taken so long to find Daniel’s remains and to resolve this mystery. My heart remains with the Ross family who lost their beloved son and brother Gerard.

 

Transformation through music

Classical music is good for the soul. There is something very calming and soothing about classical music, although there is some music that can get on one’s nerves.

An experiment in Venezuela might be the way forward when it comes to reforming people convicted and sent to prison. Venezuela has introduced a program of teaching music to prisoners, which could be risky, but these prisoners see it more as a responsibility.

It is heartening to see so many of the prisoners have decided to join the music program and that even when they make it to the outside, at least there is a possibility of leaving the old gang life behind and forging a new career – in this case a young ex-gang member has managed to turn his life around with a new career and is continuing his music lessons.

This is an interesting experiment. It is better than treating the prisoners as if they are not worthwhile, and it gives them not just a sense of responsibility, but also something else – true self-esteem – as they progress with their learning of music.

Compare this to the model prison experiment in England and Australia (it was brought to Port Arthur and the prisoners who were forced into the model prison went insane), where the prisoners were kept isolated, had to wear bags on their heads and were not treated in a very humane way in my opinion. Without a doubt, this program beats something like the model prisons, and without a doubt this is a good way to bring about change in people who have been caught up in the prison system for whatever reason. NOTE: this might not work in the more hardened cases.

Left wing radio personalities are extremely dumb

Unfortunately for me, I currently live in Canberra. The radio station of choice has been Mix 106. Sadly, with Cam and Lisa going off the air for the morning show, the replacement that was touted for too long a time has proved to be lacking total professionalism. This is the Pete and Bugsie show (ok so that is not her professional name, I do not care because she is terrible).

From the beginning I have disliked this woman. She comes across as a know-it-all feminist type who hates the male species, even if she is married. Her whole style is totally negative and it is horrible.

This morning though, the comments that came from her mouth really took the cake for stupidity. Pete was mentioned that we are having a few mild winter days, which is actually quite normal for this time of year. This totally stupid woman, who obviously does not understand weather patterns, then started spouting that an expected top of 21C was… OMG… wait for it… climate change!!  What a load of hogwash.

This is my second stint in Canberra, and I can certainly remember that by early August Canberra did in fact have mild weather as we came into August, but only for a few days, and then we had more cold. At least twice in my memory some Canberra suburbs have had snow, the type that stays for a little while, on the ground. In fact we also had snow in October. The last time we had the stronger flurries where we actually saw the snow in Harrison was about 3 years ago at this time of year. Nothing new. Yet at the same time, along comes August and there is more sunshine and the temperatures start to rise, just like they are doing this week.

The fact is that those who hype this “climate change” are in fact totally clueless individuals who have no appreciation for weather cycles. There is a pattern to our weather. The cycles vary in length – 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 and even 100 years. As an example Parramatta has little plaques up talking about the once in 200 year flood levels. As another example, the extreme high temperatures in late January 2009 were also experienced in 1959, and prior to that in 1939. There was no talk of the alleged man made climate change back then. 

Yet, extremely stupid people, are allowed to tout this garbage on the air, and because it is the government orthodoxy they get away with this kind of stupidity. There is no questioning of this crap. We are supposed to accept the Garbage-In-Garbage-Out propaganda. NO WAY!!

Raising a carbon tax will do nothing to change the temperature variations. It will not stop the once every 100 year flood, or even the once every 40 year flood. It will not stop the bushfires, and will do nothing to change El Nino or La Nina effects. Also, since glaciers can exist without turning to mush with temperatures at 40 degrees C or close to 100 F, then the whole scam needs to be exposed once and for all.

The current hype is nothing more than a big scam. It is designed to be redistribution of wealth by stealth. This is nothing more than a Marxist ploy to gain control over the Australian population.

And yes, I do wish that Mix 106 will review and reconsider that dumb stupid woman who is on during the breakfast show. She is hopeless.

An asthma study – and yes I think the conclusions are bullshit

The Age reports on a study completed in the USA that makes the claim mothers exposed ot vacuum cleaners, hair dryers etc. etc. risk exposing their unborn children to asthma. The study makes the link with exposure to magnetic fields.

As a non-scientist, but also as a mother who has given birth to 3 children, my immediate reaction was to think the conclusion is utter bullshit. Two British doctors agree with my unprofessional opinion.

The study did draw one conclusion that is most likely accurate, and that is the first born child of a mother who suffers from asthma is at a higher risk than others. I would think that genetics has a lot to do with this particular fact.

What the doctor, who conducted this study has missed, is that asthma is caused by environmental factors such as: dustmite, tobacco smoke, smoke in general, pollen, airborne chemicals. All of these factors impact upon the immune system.

Observation and experience has taught me that asthma has multiple causes, and this includes having an asthma attack in the middle of winter after having influenza (a one time event for the person involved), or an exacerbation of the asthma (lots of coughing) because the house is too damned cold due to a cold winter and high gas bills.

In other words, the study and its conclusions seems to be very flawed. A study like this can cause panic amongst some people, just like the flawed studies that have led to the global warming crap and panic, where everything is attributed to a natural phenomenon because people are making the link due to the need for research dollars. It is all crap, junk science. The doctor in California needs to re-examine his hypothesis, if he really had one, because his conclusions are totally meaningless with regard to magnetic fields and asthma.

 

Pollution from breathing? Hardly – here is something that is a menace

Here is a report from the UK regarding the use of plastic bags and the way in which plastic bag litter is harmful to the environment.

Whilst I do not accept the crap about man made global warming (it is natural, stupid), I do believe that all of us have a responsibility to help manage our environment. This means:

1. Do not litter our beaches, roads, footpaths etc. etc.

2. Where possible use an alternative to those plastic bags.

3. If you smoke, dispose of the butts in a responsible manner.

There are other rules that are simply common sense in my view, and that includes planting more trees and flowers.

In this case, the report highlights the harm that is being done when the plastic bags are left to litter the beaches, which are then picked up by marine life and by sea birds. It is quite obvious that when this happens the little critters are harmed.

Now, I am not a greenie, but I use the alternative bags, for a different reason. Those plastic bags are very hard on my hands and fingers, and they quite literally fall apart when the bags are filled and heavy. The cloth bags are much better, and I refuse to allow the supermarket people to pack my milk containers in any kind of bag. There are other ways to carry the milk container (especially by the handle) that do not hurt my fingers and my wrists.

Being responsible for the environment does not involve being a smug, self-satisfied fart-sniffing greenie. It means being a responsible person, and it means cleaning up the litter so that others are not being harmed!!!!!

Violence and the role of drugs

Peter Hitchens has a very good article that addresses the role of drug use – legal and illegal – in a raft of violent incidents throughout the world. These drugs include steroids, “anti-depressants” and a range of others including the alleged soft drug cannabis. Just like Hitchens, I noted that Breivik had mentioned the use of anabolic steroids, as well as his use of ephedrine (also known as speed). Hitchens goes on to mention a swathe of these incidents and the kind of drugs that were used by the perpetrators.

There is a real question mark over some of these drugs,and yes I am including the legal drugs. Not all SSRIs work the same way for individuals who are prescribed them. Different brands have different formulas, and when taken in the wrong quantity they can be quite dangerous. I cite a case here in Australia where the man took more than the prescribed amount of Zoloft and then killed his wife by stabbing her to death. Zoloft, when taken as directed is not dangerous in the majority of people. However, if there is a propensity for a reaction then the solution is the person needs to stop the dose and seek help. This is how it should be for any of the “legal” drugs.

Also at issue, and especially in relation to the case in Arizona involving Jared Loughner, there is a real need to re-evaluate the so called “soft drug”, cannabis. For many years it has been alleged that cannabis does not harm people. However, nothing could be further from the truth. There are literally thousands of people who are cannabis users and who now have mental health problems. It is no coincidence. The violence, such as in the attack on Gabriella Giffords by Loughner, is a separate issue. That could just as easily be attributed to the other drugs that he was taking. Those drugs do seem to have contributed to his descent into insanity (and yes he is at the very least criminally insane).

We urgently need more research on the subject of drug taking. We need resarch on the impact of drugs taken by these perpetrators of violence. There needs to be research upon the amount of cannabis that they were using, plus the combination of other drugs (as in Loughner’s case) and the impact of that combination upon the descent into madness. 

It is really time to stop the bullshit and admit that these drugs are harmful to human health. It is time to take a stand, and it is time for a very big push to get people off those drugs once and for all.