The last two years of the decade while Europe enjoyed a rich fat afternoon, were the quietest. Nineteen-ten was peaceful and prosperous; with the second round of Moroccan crises and Balkan wars still to come. A new book, The Great Illusion by Norman Angell, had just been published, which proved that war was impossible. By impressive examples and incontrovertible argument Angell showed that in the present financial and economic interdependence of nations, the victor would suffer equally with the vanquished; therefore war had become unprofitable; therefore no nation would be so foolish as to start one. Already translated into eleven languages, The Great Illusion had become a cult. At the universities, in Manchester, Glasgow, and other industrial cities, more than forty study groups of true believers had formed, devoted to propagating its dogma. Angell's most earnest disciple was a man of great influence on military policy, the King's friend and adviser, Viscount Esher, chairman Of the War Committee assigned to remaking the British Army after the shock of its performance in the Boor War. Lord Esher delivered lectures on the lesson of The Great Illusion at Cambridge and the Sorbonne wherein he showed how “new economic factors clearly prove the insanity of aggressive wars.” A twentieth century war would be on such a scale, he said, that its inevitable consequences of “commercial disaster, financial ruin and individual suffering” would be “so pregnant with restraining influences” as to make war unthinkable. He told an audience of officers at the United Service Club, with the Chief of General Staff, Sir John French, in the chair, that because of the interlacing of nations War “becomes every day more difficult and improbable.”

Germany, Lord Esher felt sure, “is as receptive as Great -Britain to the doctrine of Norman Angell.” How receptive were the Kaiser and the Crown Prince to whom he gave, or caused to be given, copies of The Great Illusion is not reported. There is no evidence that he gave one to General Von Bernhardi, who was engaged in 1910 in writing a book called Germany and the Next War, published in the following year, which was to be as influential as Angell’s but from the opposite point of view. Three of its chapter titles, “The Right to Make War,” “The Duty to Make War,” and “World Power or Downfall” sum up its thesis.

[pp. 24-25 THE GUNS OF AUGUST, Barbara Tuchman]

"Personally, if I do get a nuke or several dropped on or near me -
which is reasonably likely if I don't relocate off Oahu - and if I'm
not, y'know, vaporized - I'll use broken glass to sever an artery.
Once thing about suburban rubble, you'll be able to find shards of
broken glass, and it's the sharpest edge there is; it's what they use
to cut cells in half for electron microscopy. Broken plate glass has
a single-molecule edge, I think. And I can attest that bleeding to
death is not only painless, but even slightly euphoric - I lost 60+%
of my blood once to an arterial bleed."

-DJ

A youth must have seen his blood flow and felt his teeth crack under the blow of his adversary and have been thrown to the ground twenty times. Thus will he be able to face real war with the hope of victory. Without practice the art of war [does] not come naturally when it [is] needed.

- Roger of Howden, 12th Century

"I'm in show business, why come to me?"

"War is show business, that's why we're here."


- "Wag the Dog" (1997 film)

‘People skills’, by the way, just means they smile while they lie.

- Elberry

Have a helluva dieoff everyone.

- Richard

Export Land Model of Oil production. Everyone knows about it but look at the ramifications

In just 5-10yrs we could be looking at an almost total cessation of oil exports. And from what I've read the US might only be producing 3MMBD instead of the current 5MMBD.

That is the end of America. Period.

And people here argue about whether there will be war soon. You can bet your firstborn there will be war. BIG WAR. When this fucker kicks off it will be the last BIG war of mankind. Nukes and all. Everyone will give it all they got because whoever is left standing at the end will get the prize....oil. The losers will starve.

- Korg

One of my favorite books on remote viewing was written just three years later (1930). This book is titled Mental Radio and was written by the American novelist and social activist, Upton Sinclair. It describes a series of experiments he conducted over a period of three years with his psychic wife, Mary Craig Sinclair (MCS). Although the Sinclairs refer to the phemonenon they studied as telepathy, modern readers will recognize it as pure RV. Mental Radio has descriptions of over 100 sessions the Sinclairs conducted. Chapter 21 of this book provides a detailed description by MCS on her method for remote viewing. It can be summarized simply as relaxing the mind and body and entering a slighty-meditative state and then simply describing the mental images one develops.

Some of the best remote viewers involved in the early RV research at SRI and the government's RV program--Pat Price, Hella Hammid, and Joe McMoneagle--all used unstructured methods. Russell Targ, both in his books (such as Mind Race and Limitless Mind) and workshops (which I have attended twice) strongly advocates a "keep it simple" approach, stating "All that is necessary to remote view is to quiet the mental chatter and describe the images which come to mind."

- Banded Krait

Now when you have that power, the best technique is to ignore all of that discussion, ignore it totally, and to eliminate it, by the simple device of asserting the opposite. If you assert the opposite, that eliminates mountains of evidence demonstrating that what you're saying is false. That's what power means.

- Noam Chomsky

What I took away from this book: The beautiful ugliness with which the CIA and FBI operate. One of the things Sander's book intentionally highlights is the usage of moles and spies who already have questionable histories. It's something that never occured to me, but it explains alot--why people who naysay the government wind up in jail, or easily ridiculed. It's because even though they may be telling the truth, they were all screwed up people to begin with! On the FBI and CIA's part, it's a beautiful scheme.

- somebody's amazon book review

“It has no existence as an independent concrete entity. It designates a highly developed category of Western covert operations designed to secure destabilization through the creation, multiplication, mobilization, and manipulation of disparate mujahideen groups. The evidence suggests that this was certainly the case on 9-11.”

- Nafeez Ahmed (author: The War on Truth), speaking about Al Qaida

BOXING DQ’S FOR SELF-DEFENSE

Boxing AKA the Sweet Science, as we all know, may be a science but it’s not all that sweet. Let’s face it; what’s sweet about a sport that has as its ultimate goal to render you unconscious via blunt head trauma? As sour-intentioned as the “sweet” science is there is an even more unsavory side—the area of illegal blows, disqualification shots (DQs). These DQs have no place inside the ring (sorry, but you’ve got to keep your teeth to yourself, Mr. Tyson) but for the street, well, that’s another story altogether. Pure boxing, with zero illegal shots added to the mix is already a formidable self-defense art; add the DQs and you’ve got a leaner, meaner street ready animal.

Below we set forth a primer on how to take the already efficient standard boxing arsenal and add the bad intentioned shots back into the mix to make it a street-ready self-defense option. We’ll only touch on a few of the higher-percentage shots; for a great deal more information on this topic see our exhaustive instructional set The Complete Pugilist.

1. Location, Location, Location—Just as in real estate, where you land a blow can spell all the difference between man-stopper and a missed opportunity. You can take any of the blows in the standard boxing arsenal (the jab, cross, hook, uppercut) and target “verboten” areas on your opponent and have a nice effect. Aim for the soft targets of the throat and kidneys; these are far easier to hit than most imagine.
2. Below the Belt—Outside the sport rule-set but no need to exclude it from the street arsenal. A well-placed uppercut south of the border is mighty effective.
3. Rabbit Punching—Blows to the back of the head are particularly damaging and forbidden in the sport of boxing, which means this is a prime tool for the street-boxer. Rabbit punches are best delivered while engaged in a clinch. To deliver an effective rabbit-punch, think of a short choppy hook hitting your opponent directly on the back of the head or neck. BTW—The term rabbit punch comes from a technique used to kill rabbits caught in traps. Once the live rabbit is removed from the trap a sharp blow to the back of the neck and our live rabbit is now a past tense live rabbit.
4. Roughing Inside the Clinch—Once two boxers are clinched the fight is strictly regulated for the sportsman, but for the street-boxer a whole new world of hurt opens up. We’ve got the previously mentioned rabbit-punches, knees to the groin and/or thighs, foot stomps, short-choppy head-butts, you’ve even got Mr. Tyson’s ear lobe hors d`oeuvres available. There is a wealth of mayhem to be inflicted inside the clinch; dish it out well.
5. Thumbing—Modern boxing gloves are manufactured with the thumbs attached to the body of the glove to prevent “accidental/incidental” thumbs to the eyes. The street-boxer has no such glove restricting his fifth digit so; he should utilize this opposing appendage with extreme prejudice. Thumb the eye while roughing inside the clinch, fire your jabs with an open palm and your thumb extended targeting the eyes and/or throat. Another nice little roughing use of the thumb inside the clinch is to jam it hard up and into your opponent's armpit—it won’t stop the fight but it’s just one of the many disconcerting multiples you can throw.
6. Combinations, Combinations, Combinations—The best of the best in the sport of boxing throw combinations; the street-boxer would be wise to emulate that tactic. Be overwhelming in your offense—be overwhelming in your defense. Be overwhelming in your counters. Do not look for the Sunday punch or the KO, instead strive to be the proverbial buzzsaw, strike fast, strike often, and then strike again.

There are many (many) more illegal shots/inserts that we can cull from the boxing arsenal but these half dozen will serve you well when the game is not inside the ring, there is no referee to stop the fight and the stakes are higher than a mark on your record. Train hard; train safe!

Thanks everyone and have a great weekend!

Mark Hatmaker

That this social order with its pauperism, famines, prisons, gallows, armies, and wars is necessary to society; that still greater disaster would ensue if this organization were destroyed; all this is said only by those who profit by this organization, while those who suffer from it – and they are ten times as numerous – think and say quite the contrary.

- L. Tolstoi

I agree with Scott on this matter.

5 million, or 5 billion people mean nothing, nada, zip to TPTB. They
can control the masses.

It is not even necessary to 'handle' them with all these messy
stuff. Just block the exits and keep the supplies from reaching in.
5 million or 5 billion, the masses die on the vine.

In ancient China, when the pesky peasants rebel every year because
they were hungry, the Chinese Emperor hired Mongol horsemen to quell
them.

And, as I have mentioned before, when the Taiping peasant rebels
tried to overthrow the Manchu dynasty, the Manchus called up Western
troops to silence the masses.

There are lots of trained soldiers around the world who will kill
someone for $5 a pop. TPTB will have no difficulty to find someone
to shoot to the mobs.

P. Kwon of Cal.

“Whereas the prices of oil and wheat measured in dollars have soared over the course of this decade, they have, on the other hand, been remarkably stable when measured in terms of gold — gold having been the foundation of the world’s monetary system until 1971. It is, therefore, reasonable to conclude not that we are experiencing a commodities bubble, but, rather, the end of what might usefully be termed a ‘currency bubble.’”
-George Soros

> This assures a constant motivation for action of some sort and
> with a small amount of discipline the action can be directed
> towards a productive result. Naturally, those having superior
> abilities would tend to rise in rank.

This is not true. The ability to gain and hold power over others is
itself a skill and does not require any other ability. I suggest you
become active in local politics and watch closely.

Jay Hanson

It is inseparable from human nature to HOPE and FEAR. In speculation, when the market goes against you, you hope every day will be the last day – and you lose more than you should had you not listened to hope.

The successful trader has to fight these two deep-seated instincts. He has to reverse what you might call his natural impulses. It is absolutely wrong to gamble in stocks the way the average man does. Instead of hoping he must fear; instead of fearing he must hope.

He must fear that his loss may develop into a much bigger loss, and hope that his profit may become a big profit.

-Jessie Livermore

"I have never seen a wild thing feel sorry for itself. A little bird will fall dead, frozen from a bough, without ever having felt sorry for itself."

—D.H. Lawrence

If one first sees with the eyes, then thinks of it again in the mind, and then launches the counter-attack towards the enemy, it is very seldom that one will not get beaten up.

-Wang Xiangzhai

Whatcha gonna do with 6 or 7 billion hungry people who can't get along under the best of circumstances?

Set them to war against each other.

- Jed Turtle