Mr Newman is a brilliant and explosive mixture: comedian, historian, anarchist and activist. His show about oil is intelligent and insightful. You might learn more about this dark substance and it’s political influence than watching a whole year of CNN and the Discovery Channel together.
And it’s bloody funny too!
Don’t forget to visit Mr Newman’s great website and buy some of his stuff?!
*Update: This is a repost, because the old video was deleted.*
I am sure this guy "fighting" Chris Matthews isn’t really dumb - but it was really dumb not to say "I don’t know". I love this kind of media coverage …
A new study shows that ancient humans used shoes already 40.000 years ago. Wow! So before the Iron Age we had the Shoe Age. So maybe the woman’s obsession with shoes goes way back …
Adam Curtis / documentary / ca 44 minutes
From Wikipedia:
An insight into the history of nuclear power. In the 1950s scientists and politicians thought they could create a different world with a limitless source of nuclear energy. But things began to go wrong. Scientists in America and the Soviet Union were duped into building dozens of potentially dangerous plants. Then came the disasters of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl which changed views on the safety of this new technology.
More? Pandora’s Box Series
Adam Curtis / documentary / ca 44 minutes
From Wikipedia:
A look at how former Ghanaian leader Kwame Nkrumah set Africa ablaze with his vision of a new industrial and scientific age. At the heart of his dream was to be the huge Volta dam, generating enough power to transform West Africa into an advanced utopia. But as his grand experiment took shape, it brought with it dangerous forces Nkrumah couldn’t control, and he slowly watched his metropolis of science sink into corruption and debt.
More? Pandora’s Box Series
Adam Curtis / documentary / ca 44 minutes
From Wikipedia:
A modern fable about science and society, focusing on our attitude to nature. Should we let scientists be the prime movers of social or political change when, for instance, DDT made post-war heroes of American scientists only to be put on trial by other scientists in 1968? What kind of in-fighting goes on between rival camps before one scientific truth emerges, and when it does emerge, just how true is it?
More? Pandora’s Box Series
Adam Curtis / documentary / ca 44 minutes
From Wikipedia:
Thirty years ago, a group of economists managed to convince British politicians that they had foolproof technical means to make Britain great again. Pandora’s Box tells the saga of how their experiments have led the country deeper into economic decline, and asks - is their game finally up?
More? Pandora’s Box Series
Adam Curtis / documentary / ca 44 minutes
From Wikipedia:
Focusing on the men of the Cold War on whom Dr Strangelove was based. These were people who believed that the world could be controlled by the scientific manipulation of fear - mathematical geniuses employed by the Rand Corporation. In the end, their visions were the stuff of science fiction fantasy.
Curtis most recent documentary ‘The Trap’ also comes back to these think tanks featured in this documentary.
More? Pandora’s Box Series
Adam Curtis / documentary / ca 44 minutes
Once again Maestro Curtis delivers some excellent insights into modern affairs. This time he reports about the inner workings of the Soviet Union and why it’s economy failed. This is once again highly recommended to anyone who wants to understand our present world.
Important note: some minutes of the end are missing. Nothing really essential. Just don’t be surprised if some final statement is abruptly ended. The rest is still brilliant!
More? Pandora’s Box Series
BBC 4 / documentary / 3 episodes each ca. 1 hour
This is what I would consider basic knowledge or better say insight what happened in recent history.
I can recommend watching all parts - but number 2 is especially important, because it shows that Racism was one of the driving forces in America that swapped over to Europe (again) in a scientific disguise and supported the old idea of the Masterrace, which suited the Nazis perfectly.
Beginning by assessing the implications of the relationship between Europe, Africa and the Americas in the 15th century, it considers how racist ideas and practices developed in key religious and secular institutions, and how they showed up in writings by European philosophers Aristotle and Immanuel Kant.
Looking at Scientific Racism, invented during the 19th century, an ideology that drew on now discredited practices such as phrenology and provided an ideological justification for racism and slavery. These theories ultimately led to eugenics and Nazi racial policies of the master race. Some upsetting scenes.
The third and final episode of Racism: A History examines the impact of racism in the 20th Century. By 1900, European colonial expansion had reached deep into the heart of Africa. Under the rule of King Leopold II, The Belgian Congo was turned into a vast rubber plantation.
Men, women and children who failed to gather their latex quotas would have their limbs dismembered. The country became the scene of one of the century’s greatest racial genocides, as an estimated 10 million Africans perished under colonial rule.
One amazing documentary about India, early human development and culture. Highly insightful! It deals with the first big cities and settlement, as well as the story of the Arians and other early cultures.
More? Some background on the mentioned early cultures Sindhi and Indus Valley.
If you society only imports technology it lacks the experience of reinventing the wheel and the progress of adapting this new idea.
Many inventors were far ahead of their societies, but because nor the public or the elite could understand the invention and it’s glory they got forgotten.
Improving society by invention is also about communication, education and integration. That is why progress takes time - ideas, change and technology needs time to take roots.
So the wheel has to be reinvented again and again, so we understand the process, learn from it and appreciate it.
Furniture is relative new invention of human culture (and bloody interior designer, Martha Steward and Feng Shui consultants as well).
Before bookshelfs, comfy chairs and pull out sofas our ancestors were pretty happy with simple tables and chairs, slept on the ground and used simple boxes or a sack to put their stuff into …
Max Planck is one of the godfathers of modern physics - like Einstein. Together with Niels Bohr he worked on the breathtaking quantum theory. I am still trying to wrap my head around it’s implications.
More? Wikipedia entry
I guess only the complicated western mind could develop such a crazy system of eating utensils? While other cultures are happy with a a knife, spoon, some bread and maybe chopsticks to pick up their food - Europe indulged into a complicated system of silverware.
From Wikipedia:
Cutlery refers to any hand utensil used in preparing, serving, and especially eating food. It is more usually known as silverware or flatware in the United States, where cutlery can have the more specific meaning of knives and other cutting instruments. This is probably the original meaning of the word. Since silverware suggests the presence of silver, the term tableware has come into use.
The major items of cutlery in the western world are the knife, fork and spoon. Traditionally, good quality cutlery was made from silver (hence the U.S. name), though steel was always used for more utilitarian knives, and pewter was used for some cheaper items, especially spoons. From the nineteenth century, Electroplated Nickel Silver (EPNS) was used as a cheaper substitute; nowadays, most cutlery, including quality designs, is made from stainless steel. Plastic cutlery is made for disposable use, and is frequently used in fast food or take-away outlets and provided with airline meals.
Two forms of utensil combining the functionality of various pairs of cutlery are the spork (spoon / fork) and knork (knife / fork). Cutlery gets its name from the term for a person skilled in making knives, a cutler. The Worshipful Company of Cutlers was one of the London livery companies, reflecting the importance of this trade in the Middle Ages.
Cutlery gained prominence during the Middle Ages.
There are not many guns and rifles a normal person will know by name (unless you are a gun nut anyway). The Magnum .44 is something everybody knows - and the famous Winchester Rifle, which appear in any old western movie.
But capitalism is able to bring down even well armed icons. The company Winchester that produces the gun has moved abroad and no longer wants to manufacture this gun (BBC article here). It’s simply not profitable.
I wish that would happen to all guns and riffles!
More? Winchester Rifle @ Wikipedia and the movie Winchester 73
He certainly is one of the real giants of the last century. He formulated and created a new way of looking at ourselves and exploring humanity. Many of his theories are now proven wrong - but Siegmund Freud wouldn’t mind that. He based his work on empirical evidence, not dogmas. He changed his several of his theories several times.
Too bad many people turned his theories and observations into dogmas - especially in contrast with the terrible events of world war II. Freud’s work gave many people the reason to believe that the human animal is bad, driven mostly by his deep sexual desires and needs. This is certainly a part of the human equation, but not the whole story.
Especially evolutionary biology has shown that the ‘selfish gene‘ in us is much more altrustic and pragmatic then Freud and many other prophets of doom want us to believe.
Simply mentioning the word ‘UFO’ either provokes a smile or some awe - depending on which side of the discussion you stand. There are four big camps here: the Esoteric UFO nuts, the Conspiracy Experts, the total Deniers and the serious Researchers.
Here are some thoughts about each group. And think about yourself: do you like UFOs, because you want some nice alien alternative to our earthly madness or do you deny their existence, because you are a super sceptic?
Believing in UFOs has become a substitute religion for some people. Some odd cults followed leader either chosen by aliens or who have claimed they are aliens themselves. There is no coherent believe system in this group - it ranges from Inca gods to UFO references in the Bible. Anything goes.
I am the super intelligent life form from Sirius and here to save you my true believer …
Arguments: There is life out there. Aliens brought life to Earth. Aliens are our beloved cosmic ‘parents’ and watch over us.
Material: UFOs in the Bible (video), Erich van Däniken (video) and his Wikipedia entry
These are mostly people who want to believe ’something’. Aliens, Gods and Angels in shiny flying objects is just such a tempting vision not to resist. It is the perfect fantasy for a ‘nice’ future in your head.
A God’s Chariot in the Sky = Alien in a spaceship …
Most of all it’s religious escapism: someone will chose you and take you away from this miserable planet to the heavens. You are a true believer, therefore an Überbeing will reward your faith and give you something special no one else gets. Since ‘God is dead’ (thanks Herr Nietzsche) living aliens are the best ‘mental sugar to fulfil this desire.
Hey, I am just a weather balloon!
The essence of this group can be easily summed up with one question: If Aliens would have visited us, why haven’t they simply made officially contact with us? It makes no sense to fly a gazillion kilometers through outer space to scare some Redneck in Arizona or mutilate cows in Texas.
There are also many serious people out there who have debunked many sightings are natural phenomena or simply aircraft sightings.
Argument: We want a complete UFO and Alien to dissect and study - anything else is not enough to prove their existence.
Material: UFO debunking website, Top Ten Alien encounters debunked, Larry King special with a ‘debunking battle’ at the end (video), fake alien autopsy (video), Roswell Wikipedia entry.
I personally strongly agree with a skeptical approach, since people often love to SEE things that are simply not there. Plus it’s always good to remember the literal meaning of UFO: unidentified flying object - simply something that flies in the sky and you don’t know exactly what it is. It does not automatically imply little green man or an alien god coming for you.
But the Anti-UFO camps often seems to eager to deny everything - that is why so many Conspiracy Experts like to label Debunkers as agent of the dark and secret government.
We need these skeptical minds, because people are willing to believe almost anything, especially the esoteric types and many of the mad conspiracy ideas need to be challenged most of the time.
Heil Alien! (Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Alien!)
UFOs built by Nazis? The existence of UFOs well known and hidden by the Government? Secret technology abused by the rich and powerful to keep us mere mortals enslaved? The Government is building secret weapons based on alien technology?
Sounds all like an episode of the X-Files, right?
But you are in for a shock. Although some Conspiracy Nerds are nuts, some of their points are actually true.
Nazi Germany did experiment with many weird and outstanding technologies back then. The flying wing - like today’s B2 bomber -was one of these concepts.
The Gotha Horton was in the early design stages shortly before the war. It was way ahead of it’s time - and is the forefather of the B2 Bomber.
The same is true for flying saucers. The German Andreas Epp actually developed the concept of flying saucers for use as target drones for the German Luftwaffe.
This research was first used by the Russians and later by the Americans. So military flying saucers are no fiction, there were actually several declassified projects developed like the Cypher and the Avrocar.
But not all these points have a solid foundation like the Nazi flying saucer. A lot - and I mean a lot - of crazy ideas, suspicions and rumors get mixed together in this camp. Any wild idea ranging from Hitler’s secret bases in Antarctica, Freemasons on the Moon to Aliens disguised as humans in our Governments are included.
Some old construction plans from 1956 - based on work during the war.
These outrageous stories illustrate the biggest weakness of the Conspiracy Nerds - that they love to develop one big theory that explains and connects anything to everything. Their own vivid imagination is their biggest enemy. And there still is a big difference between connecting different theories and having definitive proof. Too often vague ideas seem more interesting to them than solid facts.
Arguments: We know that something is going on! We have figured it all out! The Government is hiding everything!
Material: Interview with Andreas Epp (video in German), German Saucer (video) and an article excerpt about the German saucer experiments. UFO conspiracy Wikipedia entry. Some more about Andreas Epp. If you have a lot of time then watch this hardcore video about “Nazi UFOs - how they fly” (video), which mixes Tessla Coils and Nazi UFOs together …
We do need these Nerds to dig deep and connect the wildest ideas and drive out in the desert to shot images of secret military projects. Only a nutty nerd would do that - normal citizens stay at home and watch American Idol.
Area 51 Warnings - a total Nerd magnet!
As much as we need the skeptical debunkers on one side, we need the overactive minds and patience of the Nerds to put all the pieces together. Even when many ‘results’ are weird or false, because sometimes they are right! And conspiracies DO HAPPEN. Sometimes Governments do lie and dangerous people in power will do anything to hold on to power or increase their influence. And it’s not just the Nazis that would do weird and evil stuff …
Hey, I saw something in the sky - and it was not a peanut!
In recent years there is a growing movement of ’serious’ people, who want the governments to more open about UFOs in general. First let’s look at my claim of ’serious’: one wouldn’t consider Shirley Maclain are serious expert, especially since she has been very ‘new age’ and hardly qualifies as an technical expert. But one would consider military and civilian pilots as well as former government officials as ’serious’ or experts on either Government dealings or things that fly.
But just seeing something unidentifiable in the sky is no proof of anything - especially not any government involvement. But these people often have seen unexplainable phenomena close up or on their radar screens - AND have experience their governments murky response to it (like denying it ever happening or confiscating documents). Any such behaviors fuels of course suspicions.
It looked like a flying triangle …
Many ‘Black Projects’ like the F-117 and the B-2 Stealth Bombers certainly look like flying saucers when viewed at certain angles. And they are supposed NOT to appear on the radar screen. So it would be no surprise that the American Government would deny or suppress any sightings or ‘proof’ of these once top secret weapon projects.
This is less about little green man, it’s more about Government secrecy.
Argument: We want some proof and the government to deal openly with this.
Material: former Pilots and Official ask the US Government for reopening UFO investigations (BBC News article) and video
Disinformation, secrecy and smokescreens are pretty normal political tools for any Government. We can’t expect the Government to be open about everything. Secrecy is important and black operations are needed to deal with enemies within and outside the country. But this is not a carte blanche to do anything.
Especially in our days and the hyped up fear about terrorism it’s necessary to watch all governments even closer. It doesn’t matter if it is about UFOs or something else, the people at the top need to be controlled, military projects and spending have to be regulated as well.
Click image for a larger execution.
The drama, the tears, the brutality! I am actually surprised that so many old paintings are pretty bloodless. You rarely see gory scenes like in modern movies. This is especially surprising since those times were pretty bloody, so horrific scenes have been pretty normal to those people - not like us, who see violence and war only mostly on TV or made up movies.
I am making here a little fun of the historical concept of Absolutism.
One of the major underlying difference between so called left/liberal and right/conservative (plus fundamentalist) dogmas is the conflict between ‘relativism’ and ‘absolutism’.
In a dogma of absolutism you have ‘true’ and solid values and ‘points’ in your world view that are not negotiable. (Wikipedia on political and moral absolutism.) Some of it’s heads are: Thomas Hobbes, Immanuel Kant and Aristotle.
With a relativistic world one thing leads to another, you hardly find solid positions to navigate, but a mere set of ideas that keep a network of borders that constantly shift. (Wikipedia on moral relativism.) Some of it’s heads are: Karl Marx, Jean-Paul Sartre and Martin Heidegger.
Absolute concepts and values are of course easier to understand and present, since their set of rules is less wobbly - hence the word absolute.
Karl Marx - bloody relativist communist scummmmm …
Here are some statements about Absolutism by Mr. Richard Hooker (taken again from here):
Political philosophers attempted to extricate themselves from these matters through two different, contradictory approaches: “natural law” or “the Divine Right of Kings.” According to natural law political thinkers, there were immutable natural laws which should govern states and their relations to their citizens and to other states. According to the doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings, a system of thought derived ultimately from medieval theories of kingship, certain kings ruled because they were specifically chosen by God to be kings. Surprisingly, both of these approaches could yield the same result: the idea that the best form of government is an autocracy, or rule by a single person. This person was not to be questioned or disobeyed; this became known as “absolutism,” since the monarch ruled with “absolute” power, that is, unshared power.
Natural law yielded absolutism in the work of Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), who believed all things, including human society, could be understood using principles of geometry. Hobbes’ central argument was that all humans are driven by two and only two impulses: fear of death and desire for power. If left unchecked, human beings would act on these impulses and live violent, brutish, inhumane, and solitary lives. In order to keep these impulses in check, human beings, according to Hobbes, drew up a social contract, which ceded authority to a single person in exchange for a level of security. The single ruler would control the violent and selfish impulses of individual members in a society through brute force; individuals would lose their liberty, but they would gain security and community. Hobbes didn’t care what form this single rule might take, whether a monarch or a dictator, only that absolute power was required to keep society together.
Relative guilty? Absolute Guilty? Relative dead? Absolute dead?
This is of course a nasty rhetoric trick from my side, to mix modern conservative thinking with an 17th century ideology. But I can’t help the feeling that the overall attitude is very similar?!
But it is about time that we leave dogmas behind us as political tools and aspire to use whatever is the best idea for the problem. But that would again imply that that solutions are relative to the problem and it’s circumstances. So is life in the end relative and not absolute? Can one defend absolute ideas in the end? Read this christian refutation of Relativism.
The ‘invention’ - the AK-47
The original German Sturmgewehr
Usually I am don’t give a peep about nationalistic sentiments - but it just drives me nuts, when history gets abused. Mr Kalashnikov recently bragged about his invention and how much American soldiers loved his AK-47. Well, I am no weapons expert, but you can read about the AK-47 reliability in any recent war reports. The American M-16 never seems so popular - since it has hardly improved since it was introduced 30 years ago.
BUT … the AK47 is a perfect of the German Sturmgewehr 44, which was introduced in the last battles at the eastern front and deeply impressed the Soviets. No surprise they endorsed further developments of these fast firing attack weapons and even adapted their infantry doctrines to reflect this.
Although this is a very health conscious generation - we are even more addicted to coffee then any generation before us: soda drinks with caffeine, water with caffeine, energizer drinks with caffeine, the normal cokes and Pepsis, latte’s and cappuccinos.
Plus we pour huge amounts of sugar, sweetener and also milk into these drinks (maybe not into a cold coke) - not very healthy either. It’s a mad generation Starbucks and Diet Coke rolled into one big global addiction. You find no country without coffee shops and cooled coke dispensers. There is even a Mecca Cola.
You have to turn to Mecca before you take a sip.
Here are the basics about coffee from Wikipedia:
Coffee is a beverage, usually hot, prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant. These seeds are usually called coffee beans, although they are not technically beans. Coffee is the second most commonly traded commodity in the world, trailing only petroleum. A total of 6.7 million tonnes of coffee were produced annually in 1998-2000, forecast to rise to 7 million tonnes annually by 2010 FAO figures. Coffee is one of humanity’s chief sources of caffeine, a stimulant. Its potential benefits and hazards have been, and continue to be, widely studied and discussed.
The word entered English in 1598 via Italian caffè, via Turkish kahve, from Arabic qahwa. Its ultimate origin is uncertain, there being several legendary accounts of the origin of the drink. One possible origin is the Kaffa region in Ethiopia, where the plant originated (its native name there being bunna). Coffee beans were first exported from Ethiopia to Yemen. One legendary account (though certainly a myth) is that of the Yemenite Sufi mystic named Shaikh ash-Shadhili. When traveling in Ethiopia he observed goats of unusual vitality and, upon trying the berries that the goats had been eating, experienced the same effect. A similar myth ascribes the discovery to an Ethiopian goatherd named Kaldi. Qahwa originally referred to a type of wine, and need not be the name of the Kaffa region.
Consumption of coffee was outlawed in Mecca in 1511 and in Cairo in 1532, but in the face of its immense popularity, the decree was later rescinded. In 1554, the first coffeehouse in Istanbul opened.
Largely through the efforts of the British and Dutch East India companies, coffee became available in Europe no later than the 16th century, according to Leonhard Rauwolf’s 1583 account. The first coffeehouse in England was set up in Oxford by one Jacob or Jacobs, a Turkish Jew, in 1650. The first coffeehouse in London was opened two years later in St. Michael’s Alley in Cornhill. The proprietor was Pasqua Rosée, the Ragusan servant of a trader in Turkish goods named Daniel Edwards, who imported the coffee and assisted Rosée in setting up the establishment. The coffeehouse spread rapidly in Europe and America after that, with first coffeehouses opening in Boston in 1670, and in Paris in 1671. By 1675, there were more than 3,000 coffeehouses in England.
The British actually love coffee as much as tea.
Women were not allowed in coffeehouses, and in London, the anonymous 1674 “Women’s Petition Against Coffee” complained:
“…the Excessive Use of that Newfangled, Abominable, Heathenish Liquor called COFFEE […] has […] Eunucht our Husbands, and Crippled our more kind Gallants, that they are become as Impotent, as Age. “
Legend has it that the first coffeehouse opened in Vienna in 1683 after the Battle of Vienna, taking its supplies from the spoils left behind by the defeated Turks. The officer who received the coffee beans, Polish military officer Franciszek Jerzy Kulczycki, opened the first coffee house in Vienna and helped popularize the custom of adding sugar and milk to the coffee. Another more credible story is that the first coffeehouses were opened in Krakow in the 16th or 17th century because of closer trade ties with the East, most notably the Turks.
Turks at the Gates of Vienna: We are only here to deliver the coffee!
The first coffee plantation in the New World was established in Brazil in 1727, and this country, like most others cultivating coffee as a commercial commodity, relied heavily on slave labor from Africa for its viability until abolition in 1888. The success of coffee in 17th-century Europe was paralleled with the spread of the habit of tobacco smoking all over the continent during the course of the Thirty Years War (1618– 48).
One brand to rule them all - and with dark brew to bind them …
For many decades in the 19th and early 20th centuries Brazil was the biggest producer and virtual monopolist in the trade, until a policy of maintaining high prices opened opportunities to other growers, like Colombia, Guatemala and Indonesia. The mother plant for much of the arabica coffee in the world is kept in the Amsterdam Hortus Botanicus.
After so many dry facts I need a coffee myself! 
I find it highly strange and fascinating that some of the darkest visions about the future come from Britain: 1984, V for Vendetta and Brave New World. We consider British society as one of the most liberal and ‘free’ societies on earth - still nightmares of total state control and suppression seem to haunt the British mind. It is also true that Britain has more camera watching it’s citizen then any other country on this planet.
I suspect it’s all connected with the good old class system, the terrible human conditions of the industrial revolution and elitist games. As much we may think of Britain as in Jane Austin terms, witty games of the upper class, there was always a dark and big underbelly in British society. Achievements like the Magna Carta and many modern democratic rights were only granted to the upper class (very much like in the rest of Europe).
We can’t lower our standards.
But since British society was also the first to experience the industrial revolution - it was also the first to encounter the horrors of this new era in human history. Terrible slums with unbelievable conditions, smog everywhere and extreme poverty. Certainly this has happened in big cities before - like in good old Rome. But never to such an extend.
And it was set in contrast to the Age of Enlightenment - new ideas about human rights and social equality. No surprise that Karl Marx (who lived for some time in London) and many other socialist thinkers were deeply influenced by the conditions of the new working class in Britain.
The British Empire of course had an ugly history of colonialism and brutal suppression. Almost any uprising was bitterly crushed. Only a few countries like America escaped the Empire by use of revolutionary force.
George Orwell started his writing career as an investigative reporter. He lived among the poorest of the poor and exposed the social dark side of this new industrial world in his great book Down and Out in Paris and London. But also his book ‘The Road to Wigan Pier‘ digs deeper into the dirt. Both books shocked Britain.
Victorian society slowly woke up to these truths and started to change. But only after social unrest and several waves of infectious diseases threatened their lifestyle too. But also revolutions first in France and later Russia ‘helped’ the upper class to see the need for change.
Oh look Charles, this is really shocking! Those poor people …
Without such minds like Karl Marx and George Orwell Britain might have never developed to such free society (yes, socialism was a big influence in the UK - although Maggie Thatcher cleared most of it out). So every country needs smart system critics as well as pressure from the street and money willing to make changes. Social development doesn’t come for free and doesn’t ‘just’ happen.
The evil image of an totalitarian society as the twin of a great society might be a good way to keep people and politicians on their toes.
I love the irony: a flying human carries the birds who symbolize peace, but are now both used to fly for the great european war. Life is … weird!
