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Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Rorschach test
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"Rorschach Test" redirects here. For the band, see Rorschach Test (band).
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The first of the ten cards in the Rorschach
test, with the occurrence of the most
statistically frequent details indicated.[1][2]
The images themselves are only one
component of the test, whose focus is the
analysis of the perception of the images.
29%
18%
6%
The Rorschach test (German pronunciation: [ˈʁoɐʃax]; also known as the Rorschach inkblot test or simply as the Inkblot test) is a psychological test in which subjects' perceptions of inkblots are recorded and then analyzed using psychological interpretation, complex scientifically derived algorithms, or both. Some psychologists use this test to examine a person's personality characteristics and emotional functioning. It has been employed to detect an underlying thought disorder, especially in cases where patients are reluctant to describe their thinking processes openly.[3] The test takes its name from that of its creator, Swiss psychologist Hermann Rorschach.
In a national survey in the U.S., the Rorschach was ranked eighth among psychological tests used in outpatient mental health facilities.[4] It is the second most widely used test by members of the Society for Personality Assessment, and it is requested by psychiatrists in 25% of forensic assessment cases,[4] usually in a battery of tests that often include the MMPI-2 and the MCMI-III.[5] In surveys, the use of Rorschach ranges from a low of 20% by correctional psychologists[6] to a high of 80% by clinical psychologists engaged in assessment services, and 80% of psychology graduate programs surveyed teach it.[7]
Although the Exner Scoring System (developed since the 1960s) claims to have addressed and often refuted many criticisms of the original testing system with an extensive body of research,[8] some researchers have raised questions about the objectivity of psychologists administrating the test; inter-rater reliability; the verifiability and general validity of the test; bias of the test's pathology scales towards greater numbers of responses; the limited number of psychological conditions which it accurately diagnoses; the inability to replicate the test's norms; its use in court-ordered evaluations; and the proliferation of the ten inkblot images, potentially invalidating the test for those who have been exposed to them.[9]
Contents
[hide]
* 1 History
* 2 Method
o 2.1 Features or categories
+ 2.1.1 Content
+ 2.1.2 Location
+ 2.1.3 Determinants
o 2.2 Exner scoring system
o 2.3 Cultural differences
* 3 The ten inkblots
* 4 Prevalence
* 5 Controversy
o 5.1 Test materials
o 5.2 Tester projection
o 5.3 Validity
o 5.4 Reliability
o 5.5 Population norms
o 5.6 Applications
o 5.7 Protection of test items and ethics
* 6 See also
* 7 Notes
* 8 References
* 9 External links
[edit] History
Hermann Rorschach created the Rorschach inkblot test in 1921.
Using interpretation of "ambiguous designs" to assess an individual's personality is an idea that goes back to Leonardo da Vinci and Botticelli. Interpretation of inkblots was central to a game from the late 19th century. Rorschach's, however, was the first systematic approach of this kind.[10]
It has been suggested that Rorschach's use of inkblots may have been inspired by German doctor Justinus Kerner who, in 1857, had published a popular book of poems, each of which was inspired by an accidental inkblot.[11] French psychologist Alfred Binet had also experimented with inkblots as a creativity test,[12] and, after the turn of the century, psychological experiments where inkblots were utilized multiplied, with aims such as studying imagination and consciousness.[13]
After studying 300 mental patients and 100 control subjects, in 1921 Rorschach wrote his book Psychodiagnostik, which was to form the basis of the inkblot test, but he died the following year. Although he had served as Vice President of the Swiss Psychoanalytic Society, Rorschach had difficulty in publishing the book and it attracted little attention when it first appeared.[14]
In 1927, the newly-founded Hans Huber publishing house purchased Rorschach's book Psychodiagnostik from the inventory of Ernst Bircher.[15] Huber has remained the publisher of the test and related book, with Rorschach a registered trademark of Swiss publisher Verlag Hans Huber, Hogrefe AG.[16] The work has been described as "a densely written piece couched in dry, scientific terminology" [17]
After Rorschach's death, the original test scoring system was improved by Samuel Beck, Bruno Klopfer and others.[18] John E. Exner summarized some of these later developments in the comprehensive system, at the same time trying to make the scoring more statistically rigorous. Some systems are based on the psychoanalytic concept of object relations. The Exner system remains very popular in the United States, while in Europe other methods sometimes dominate,[19][20] such as that described in the textbook by Evald Bohm, which is closer to the original Rorschach system and closer to the original psychoanalysis principles.[citation needed]
[edit] Method
The tester and testee typically sit next to each other at a table, with the tester slightly behind the testee.[21] This is to facilitate a "relaxed but controlled atmosphere". There are ten official inkblots, each printed on a separate white card, approximately 18x24 cm in size.[22] Five inkblots are of black ink, two are of black and red ink and three are multicolored. After the test subject has seen and responded to all of the inkblots (free association phase), the tester then presents them again one at a time in a set sequence for the subject to study: the subject is asked to note where he sees what he originally saw and what makes it look like that (inquiry phase). The subject is usually asked to hold the cards and may rotate them. Whether the cards are rotated, and other related factors such as whether permission to rotate them is asked, may expose personality traits and normally contributes to the assessment.[23] As the subject is examining the inkblots, the psychologist writes down everything the subject says or does, no matter how trivial.
The general goal of the test is to provide data about cognition and personality variables such as motivations, response tendencies, cognitive operations, affectivity, and personal/interpersonal perceptions. The underlying assumption is that an individual will class external stimuli based on person-specific perceptual sets, and including needs, base motives, conflicts, and that this clustering process is representative of the process used in real-life situations. [24] Methods of interpretation differ. Rorschach scoring systems have been described as a system of pegs on which to hang one's knowledge of personality.[25] The most widely used method in the United States is based on the work of Exner.
Administration of the test to a group of subjects, by means of projected images, has also occasionally been performed, but mainly for research rather than diagnostic purposes.[21]
[edit] Features or categories
The interpretation of the Rorschach test is not based primarily on the contents of the response, i.e., what the individual sees in the inkblot (the content). In fact, the contents of the response are only a comparatively small portion of a broader cluster of variables that are used to interpret the Rorschach data: for instance, information is provided by the time taken before providing a response for a card can be significant (taking a long time can indicate "shock" on the card),[26] as well as by any comments the subject may make in addition to providing a direct response[27]
In particular, information about determinants (the aspects of the inkblots that triggered the response, such as form and color) and location (which details of the inkblots triggered the response) is often considered more important than content, although there is contrasting evidence.[28][29] Popularity (or originality)[30] can also be considered another basic category.[31]
[edit] Content
This section requires expansion.
Content is classified in terms of "human", "nature", "animal", "abstract", etc., as well as for statistical popularity (or, conversely, originality).[32]
More than any other feature in the test, content response can be controlled consciously by the subject, and may be elicited by very disparate factors, which makes it difficult to use content alone to draw any conclusions about the subject's personality; with certain individuals, content responses may potentially be interpreted directly, and some information can at times be obtained by analyzing thematic trends in the whole set of content responses (which is only feasible when several responses are available), but in general content cannot be analyzed outside of the context of the entire test record.[33]
[edit] Location
This section requires expansion.
The basis for the response is usually the whole inkblot, a detail (either a commonly or an uncommonly selected one), or the negative space around or within the inkblot.[34]
[edit] Determinants
Systems for Rorschach scoring generally include a concept of "determinants": these are the factors that contribute to establish the similarity between the inkblot and the subject's content response about it, and they can represent certain basic experiential-perceptual attitudes, showing aspects of the way a subject perceives the world. Rorschach's original work used only form, color and movement; currently, another major determinant considered is shading.[35]
Form is the most common determinant, and is related to intellectual processes; color responses often provide direct insight into emotional life. Shading and movement have been considered more ambiguously, both in definition and interpretation: Rorschach originally disregarded shading (which was originally not even present on the cards, being a result of the print process),[36] and he considered movement as only actual experiencing of motion, while others have widened the scope of this determinant, taking it to mean that the subject sees something "going on".[37]
More than one determinant can contribute to the formation of the subject's percept, and fusion of two determinants is taken into account, while also assessing which of the two constituted the primary contributor (e.g. "form-color" implies a more refined control of impulse than "color-form"). It is, indeed, from the relation and balance among determinants that personality can be most readily inferred.[37]
[edit] Exner scoring system
The Exner scoring system, also known as the Rorschach comprehensive system (RCS),[38] is the standard method for interpreting the Rorschach test. It was developed in the 1960s by Dr. John E. Exner, as a more rigorous system for Rorschach test analysis. It has been heavily validated, and shows high inter-rater reliability.[8][39] In 1969, Dr. Exner published The Rorschach Systems, a concise description of what would be later called the Exner system. Later, Dr. Exner published a study in multiple volumes called The Rorschach: A Comprehensive system, the most accepted full description of the Exner system.
Creation of the new system was prompted by the realization that at least five related, but ultimately different methods were in common use at the time, with a sizeable minority of examiners not employing any recognized method at all, basing instead their judgment on subjective assessment, or arbitrarily mixing characteristics of the various standardized systems.[40]
The key components of the Exner system are the clusterization of Rorschach variables and a sequential search strategy to determine the order in which to analyze them,[41] framed in the context of standardized administration, objective, reliable coding and a representative normative database.[42]
In the system, responses are scored with reference to their level of vagueness or synthesis of multiple images in the blot, the location of the response, which of a variety of determinants is used to produce the response (i.e., what makes the inkblot look like what it is said to resemble), the form quality of the response (to what extent a response is faithful to how the actual inkblot looks), the contents of the response (what the respondent actually sees in the blot), the degree of mental organizing activity that is involved in producing the response, and any illogical, incongruous, or incoherent aspects of responses. It has been reported that popular responses on the first card include bat, badge and coat of arms.[25]
Using the scores for these categories, the examiner then performs a series of calculations producing a structural summary of the test data. The results of the structural summary are interpreted using existing research data on personality characteristics that have been demonstrated to be associated with different kinds of responses.
With the Rorschach plates (the ten inkblots), the area of each blot which is distinguished by the client is noted and coded – typically as "commonly selected" or "uncommonly selected". There were many different methods for coding the areas of the blots. Exner settled upon the area coding system promoted by S. J. Beck (1944 and 1961). This system was in turn based upon Klopfer's (1942) work.
As pertains to response form, a concept of "form quality" was present from the earliest of Rorschach's works, as a subjective judgment of how well the form of the subject's response matched the inkblots (Rorschach would give a higher form score to more "original" yet good form responses), and this concept was followed by other methods, especially in Europe; in contrast, the Exner system solely defines "good form" as a matter of word occurrence frequency, reducing it to a measure of the subject's distance to the population average.[43]
[edit] Cultural differences
Comparing North American Exner normative data with data from European and South American subjects showed marked differences in some features, some of which impact important variables, while others (such as the average number of responses) coincide.[44] For instance, texture response is typically zero in European subjects (if interpreted as a need for closeness, in accordance with the system, European would seem to express it only when it reaches the level of a craving for closeness)[45], and there are fewer "good form" responses, to the point where schizophrenia may be suspected if data were correlated to the North American norms.[46] Form is also often the only determinant expressed by European subjects;[47] while color is less frequent than in American subjects, color-form responses are comparatively frequent in opposition to form-color responses; since the latter tend to be interpreted as indicators of a defensive attitude in processing affect, this difference could stem from a higher value attributed to spontaneous expression of emotions.[45]
The differences in form quality are attributable to purely cultural aspects: different cultures will exhibit different "common" objects (French subjects often identify a chameleon in card VIII, which is normally classed as an "unusual" response, as opposed to other animals like cats and dogs; in Scandinavia, "Christmas elves" (nisser) is a popular response for card II, and "musical instrument" on card VI is popular for Japanese people),[48] and different languages will exhibit semantic differences in naming the same object (the figure of card IV is often called a troll by Scandinavians and an ogre by French people).[49] Many of Exner's "popular" responses (those given by at least one third of the North American sample used) seem to be universally popular, as shown by samples in Europe, Japan and South America, while specifically card IX's "human" response, the crab or spider in card X and one of either the butterfly or the bat in card I appear to be characteristic of North America.[49][50]
Form quality, popular content responses and locations are the only coded variables in the Exner systems that are based on frequency of occurrence, and thus immediately subject to cultural influences; therefore, cultural-dependent interpretation of test data may not necessarily need to extend beyond these components.[51]
The cited language differences mean that it's imperative for the test to be administered in the subject's native language or a very well mastered second language, and, conversely, the examiner should master the language used in the test. Test responses should also not be translated into another language prior to analysis except possibly by a clinician mastering both languages. For example, a bow tie is a frequent response for the center detail of card III, but since the equivalent term in French translates to "butterfly tie", an examiner not appreciating this language nuance may code the response differently from what is expected.[52]
[edit] The ten inkblots
Below are the ten inkblots of the Rorschach test printed in Rorschach's Rorschach Test – Psychodiagnostic Plates,[53] together with the most frequent responses for either the whole image or the most prominent details according to various authors. They have been in the public domain in Hermann Rorschach's native Switzerland, since at least 1992 (70 years after his death), according to Swiss copyright law.[citation needed] They are also in the public domain under United States copyright law based on when they were first created and published (before 1923).[54][55]
Card Popular responses[56][57][58] Comments[59][60]
Beck: bat, butterfly, moth
Piotrowski: bat (53%), butterfly (29%)
Dana (France): butterfly (39%)
When seeing card I, subjects often inquire on how they should proceed, and questions on what they are allowed to do with the card (e.g. turning it) aren't very significant. Being the first card, it can provide clues about how subjects tackle a new and stressful task. It is not, however, a card that is usually difficult for the subject to handle, having readily available popular responses.
Beck: two humans
Piotrowski: four-legged animal (34%, gray parts)
Dana (France): animal: dog, elephant, bear (50%, gray)
The red details of card II are often seen as blood, and are the most distinctive features. Responses to them can provide indications about how a subject is likely to manage feelings of anger or physical harm. This card is also notable for having a variety of common sexual responses.
Beck: two humans (gray)
Piotrowski: human figures (72%, gray)
Dana (France): human (76%, gray)
Card III is typically perceived as containing two humans involved in some interaction, and may provide information about how the subject relates with other people (specifically, response latency may reveal struggling social interactions).
Beck: animal hide, skin, rug
Piotrowski: animal skin, skin rug (41%)
Dana (France): animal skin (46%)
Card IV is notable for its dark color and its shading (posing difficulties for depressed subjects), and is generally perceived as a big and sometimes threatening figure; compounded with the common impression of the subject being in an inferior position ("looking up") to it, this serves to elicit a sense of authority. The human or animal content seen in the card is almost invariably classified as male rather than female, and the qualities expressed by the subject may indicate attitudes toward men and authority.
Beck: bat, butterfly, moth
Piotrowski: butterfly (48%), bat (40%)
Dana (France): butterfly (48%), bat (46%)
Card V is an easily elaborated card that is not usually perceived as threatening, and typically instigates a "change of pace" in the test, after the previous more challenging cards. Containing few features that generate concerns or complicate the elaboration, it is the easiest blot to generate a good quality response about.
Beck: animal hide, skin, rug
Piotrowski: animal skin, skin rug (41%)
Dana (France): animal skin (46%)
Texture is the dominant characteristic of card VI, which often elicits association related to interpersonal closeness; it is specifically a "sex card", its likely sexual percepts being reported more frequently than in any other card, even though other cards have a greater variety of commonly seen sexual contents.
Beck: human heads or faces (top)
Piotrowski: heads of women or children (27%, top)
Dana (France): human head (46%, top)
Card VII can be associated with femininity (the human figures commonly seeing in it being described as women or children), and function as a "mother card", where difficulties in responding may be related to concerns with the female figures in the subject's life. The center detail is relatively often (though not popularly) identified as a vagina, which make this card also relate to feminine sexuality in particular.
Beck: animal: not cat or dog (pink)
Piotrowski: four-legged animal (94%, pink)
Dana (France): four-legged animal (93%, pink)
People often express relief about card VIII, which lets them relax and respond effectively. Similar to card V, it represents a "change of pace"; however, the card introduces new elaboration difficulties, being complex and the first multi-colored card in the set. Therefore, people who find processing complex situations or emotional stimuli distressing or difficult may be uncomfortable with this card.
Beck: human (orange)
Piotrowski: none
Dana (France): none
Characteristic of card IX is indistinct form and diffuse, muted chromatic features, creating a general vagueness. There is only one popular response, and it is the least frequent of all cards. Having difficulty with processing this card may indicate trouble dealing with unstructured data, but aside from this there are few particular "pulls" typical of this card.
Beck: crab, lobster, spider (blue)
Piotrowski: crab, spider (37%, blue),
rabbit head (31%, light green),
caterpillars, worms, snakes (28%, deep green)
Dana (France): none
Card X is structurally similar to card VIII, but its uncertainty and complexity is reminiscent of card IX: people who find it difficult to deal with many concurrent stimuli may not particularly like this otherwise pleasant card. Being the last card, it may provide an opportunity for the subject to "sign out" by indicating what they feel their situation is like, or what they desire to know.
[edit] Prevalence
The Rorschach test is used almost exclusively by psychologists. In a survey done in the year 2000 20% of correctional psychologists used the Rorschach while 80% used the MMPI.[61] Forensic psychologists use the Rorschach 36% of the time.[62] In custody cases 23% of psychologists use the Rorschach to examine a child.[63] Another survey found that 124 out of 161 (77%) of clinical psychologists engaging in assessment services utilize the Rorschach,[64] and 80% of psychology graduate programs teach its use.[7] Another study found that its use by clinical psychologists was only 43% while it was used less than 24% of the time by school psychologists.[65]
[edit] Controversy
The Rorschach inkblot test is considered controversial by some researchers for several reasons. Some skeptics consider the Rorschach inkblot test pseudoscience,[9] [66] as several studies suggested that conclusions reached by test administrators since the 1950s were akin to cold reading.[67] In the 1959 edition of Mental Measurement Yearbook, Lee Cronbach (former President of the Psychometric Society and American Psychological Association[68]) is quoted in a review: "The test has repeatedly failed as a prediction of practical criteria. There is nothing in the literature to encourage reliance on Rorschach interpretations." In addition, major reviewer Raymond J. McCall writes (p. 154): "Though tens of thousands of Rorschach tests have been administered by hundreds of trained professionals since that time (of a previous review), and while many relationships to personality dynamics and behavior have been hypothesized, the vast majority of these relationships have never been validated empirically [sic], despite the appearance of more than 2,000 publications about the test."[69] A moratorium on its use was called for in 1999.[70]
A 2003 report by Wood and colleagues had more mixed views: "More than 50 years of research have confirmed Lee J. Cronbach’s (1970) final verdict: that some Rorschach scores, though falling woefully short of the claims made by proponents, nevertheless possess “validity greater than chance” (p. 636). [...] "Its value as a measure of thought disorder in schizophrenia research is well accepted. It is also used regularly in research on dependency, and, less often, in studies on hostility and anxiety. Furthermore, substantial evidence justifies the use of the Rorschach as a clinical measure of intelligence and thought disorder."[71]
[edit] Test materials
The basic premise of the test is that objective meaning can be extracted from responses to blots of ink which are supposedly meaningless. Supporters of the Rorschach inkblot test believe that the subject's response to an ambiguous and meaningless stimulus can provide insight into their thought processes, but it is not clear how this occurs. Also, recent research shows that the blots are not entirely meaningless, and that a patient typically responds to meaningful as well as ambiguous aspects of the blots.[8] Reber (1985) describes the blots as merely ".. the vehicle for the interaction .." between client and therapist, concluding: ".. the usefulness of the Rorschach will depend upon the sensitivity, empathy and insightfuness of the tester totally independently of the Rorschach itself. An intense dialogue about the wallpaper or the rug would do as well provided that both parties believe."[72]
[edit] Tester projection
Some critics argue that the testing psychologist must also project onto the patterns. A possible example sometimes attributed to the psychologist's subjective judgement is that responses are coded (among many other things), for "Form Quality": in essence, whether the subject's response fits with how the blot actually looks. Superficially this might be considered a subjective judgment, depending on how the examiner has internalized the categories involved. But with the Exner system of scoring, much of the subjectivity is eliminated or reduced by use of frequency tables that indicate how often a particular response is given by the population in general.[8] Another example is that the response "bra" was considered a "Sex" response by male psychologists, but a "Clothing" response by females.[73] But in Exner's system, such a response is always coded as "clothing" unless there is a clear sexual reference in the response.[8]
Third parties could be used to avoid this problem, but the Rorschach's inter-rater reliability has been questioned. That is, in some studies the scores obtained by two independent scorers do not match with great consistency.[74] This conclusion was refuted in studies using large samples reported in 2002.[75]
[edit] Validity
When interpreted as a projective test, results are thus poorly verifiable. The Exner system of scoring (also known as the "Comprehensive System") is meant to address this, and has all but displaced many earlier (and less consistent) scoring systems. It makes heavy use of what factor (shading, color, outline, etc.) of the inkblot leads to each of the tested person's comments. Disagreements about test validity remain: while the Exner proposed a rigorous scoring system, latitude remained in the actual interpretation, and the clinician's write-up of the test record is still partly subjective.[76] Reber (1985) comments ".. there is essentially no evidence whatsoever that the test has even a shred of validity."[72]
Nevertheless, there is substantial research indicating the utility of the measure for a few scores. Several scores correlate well with general intelligence. Interestingly, one such scale is R, the total number of responses; this reveals the questionable side-effect that more intelligent people tend to be elevated on many pathology scales, since many scales do not correct for high R: if a subject gives twice as many responses overall, it is more likely that some of these will seem "pathological". Also correlated with intelligence are the scales for Organizational Activity, Complexity, Form Quality, and Human Figure responses.[77] The same source reports that validity has also been shown for detecting such conditions as schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders; thought disorders; and personality disorders (including borderline personality disorder). There is some evidence that the Deviant Verbalizations scale relates to bipolar disorder. The authors conclude that "Otherwise, the Comprehensive System doesn't appear to bear a consistent relationship to psychological disorders or symptoms, personality characteristics, potential for violence, or such health problems as cancer".[78] (Cancer is mentioned because a small minority of Rorschach enthusiasts have claimed the test can predict cancer.)[79]
[edit] Reliability
It is also thought that the test's reliability can depend substantially on details of the testing procedure, such as where the tester and subject are seated, any introductory words, verbal and nonverbal responses to subjects' questions or comments, and how responses are recorded. Exner has published detailed instructions, but Wood et al.[73] cites many court cases where these had not been followed. Similarly, the procedures for coding responses are fairly well specified but extremely time-consuming to inexperienced examiners, who may cut corners as a result.
[edit] Population norms
Another area of controversy are the test's statistical norms. A great strength of Exner's system was thought to be the availability of normative scores for various populations. But, beginning in the mid-1990s others began to try to replicate or update these norms and failed. In particular, discrepancies seemed to focus on indices measuring narcissism, disordered thinking, and discomfort in close relationships.[80] Lillenfeld and colleagues, who are critical of the Rorschach, have stated that this proves that the Rorschach tends to "overpathologise normals".[80] But they may have failed to account for norm changes in the population that may have been drifting in a pathological direction—in other words, that the Rorschach may be accurately reflecting increasing psychopathology in society. As described by Hibbard,[81] personality and social psychologists have written extensively on increasing narcissism in society, and this phenomenon has been shown in other research.[82] The index for difficulty in interpersonal relationships has been found to be related to divorce and separation, whose rates have also increased since Exner's original norms were established.
The accusation of "over-pathologising" has also been rebutted by Meyer et al. (2007). They presented an international collaborative study of 4704 Rorschach protocols, obtained in 21 different samples, across 17 different countries, with only 2 % showing significant elevations on the index of perceptual and thinking disorder, 12 % elevated on indices of depression and hyper-vigilance and 13% elevated on persistent stress overload—all in line with expected frequencies among nonpatient populations.[83]
[edit] Applications
The test is also controversial because of its common use in court-ordered evaluations.[citation needed] This controversy stems, in part, from the limitations of the Rorschach, with no additional data, in making official diagnoses from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV).[84] Irving B. Weiner (co-developer with John Exner of the Comprehensive system) has stated that the Rorschach "is a measure of personality functioning, and it provides information concerning aspects of personality structure and dynamics that make people the kind of people they are. Sometimes such information about personality characteristics is helpful in arriving at a differential diagnosis, if the alternative diagnoses being considered have been well conceptualized with respect to specific or defining personality characteristics".[85] In the vast majority of cases, anyway, the Rorschach test wasn't singled out but used as one of several in a battery of tests[5], and despite the criticism of usage of the Rorschach in the courts, out of 8,000 cases in which forensic psychologists used Rorschach-based testimony, the appropriateness of the instrument was challenged only six times, and the testimony was ruled inadmissible in only one of those cases.[7] One study has found that use of the test in courts has increased by three times in the decade between 1996 and 2005, compared to the previous fifty years.[5] Others however have found that its usage by forensic psychologists has decreased.[86]
[edit] Protection of test items and ethics
Outlines of the ten official inkblots were first made publicly available by William Poundstone in his 1983 book Big Secrets, which also described the method of administering the test.
The blots have been in the public domain in Hermann Rorschach's native Switzerland, since at least 1992 (70 years after his death) according to Swiss copyright law. They are also in the public domain under United States copyright law based on when they were first created and published (before 1923), as well as in countries with a copyright term of up to 70 years post mortem auctoris.
The American Psychological Association (APA) rules of ethics, designed to ensure "the welfare and protection of the individuals and groups with whom psychologists work", require that psychologists "make reasonable efforts to maintain the integrity and security of test materials".[87] A public statement by the British Psychological Society expresses similar concerns and considers the "release of [test] materials to unqualified individuals" to be misuse "which may result in harm to the client".[88] The APA states that the dissemination of test materials "imposes very concrete harm to the general public" as well, in that "there are a limited number of standardized psychological tests considered appropriate for a given purpose"[89] (for example, detecting suicidality[90][91][92]). In the book "Ethics in psychology", it is noted that some believe "reprinting copies of the Rorschach plates ... and listing common responses represents a serious unethical act" for psychologists and is indicative of "questionable professional judgment".[93]
Controversy ensued in the psychological community in 2009 when the original Rorschach plates and research results on interpretations were published in the "Rorschach test" article on Wikipedia.[94] Several psychologists objected, stating that the availability of such information to the public would damage the usefulness of the test by involuntarily influencing (priming) patient responses. Hogrefe & Huber Publishing, a German company that sells editions of the plates, called the publication "unbelievably reckless and even cynical of Wikipedia," and said it was investigating the possibility of legal action.[citation needed] Free information and free culture advocates encourage the free dissemination of knowledge in the world on philosophical grounds, and point out that the plates themselves are old enough that they are in the public domain in at least the United States and Switzerland.
Dr. James Heilman, a Canadian emergency room physician involved in the debate, compared it to the publication of the eye test chart: though people are likewise free to memorize the eye chart before an eye test, its general usefulness as a diagnostic tool for eyesight has not diminished.[94] For those opposed to exposure, publication of the inkblots is described as a "particularly painful development", given the tens of thousands of research papers which have, over many years, "tried to link a patient’s responses to certain psychological conditions."[94]
[edit] See also
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Watch out G.I. Joe Cobra's on the attack!
I was just looking around the web for pics of the old Gi Joe toys i had as a kid.
Remember all the fun of saving up some of your allowance and getting a new Gi Joe and some candy?
Not me I almost never got an allowance. I stole most of my stuff. That's not all true I did get allowance and my mom did what she could for us.
But I stole the shit out of Gi Joe. And Transformers, Thundercats, Hot Wheels, Secret Wars, and Super Friends figures.
I remember getting the gi joe "battle Stations" mini playsets. We used to grab the box and go over to the lighting or curtain section of the local Woolco department store, that turned into a Walmart and now is a Drug store and Gym and offices.
Anyways we could open anything in the lighting section and no one would catch us. We could take a few pieces at a time and come back for more. We were pretty stupid back then though as we put all the various pieced down out pants and some of them were pointy and sharp. No pain no gain.
Looking at all the pics of figures and vehicles got me nostalgic it makes me want to find the places I grew up playing with toys and hanging out with friends. It makes me realise how much this shit hole town has changed.
The apartment building I grew up in is still there, my grade school is now a sub division. The forests and greenspaces we played in are now lots that couldn't successfully have houses built on them so they became empty weed choked fields. the community center is a lot bigger but not much better, the old BMX club and track is gone, now it's a soccer field. The forest where I picked a bunch of trillium s (ontario provincial flower) and was told by a cop that picking them carried a $50 fine each is now mostly gone.
We had a hangout in an abandoned house where i felt my first boob :)that is long gone, though we defended it for a whole summer against other gangs of kids and construction workers. In the end the cops kicked us out of it so we snuck back at night and burnt it to the ground.
We made forts in forests and behind industrial buildings, are any of them there now? have they been taken over by a new generation of kids?
I remember going out at 9 am with only $2.00 in my pocket but that would buy enough junkfood for days. A pop was a quarter, so was a chocolate bar. We went to Beckers and got "Jungle Joose" and some orange "tiger Juice". I want to see if Beckers still carries that stuff. Being poor wasn't nearly as bad as it is now.
I remember stealing stuff from variety stores and when one wasn't around we could get free stuff from the ladies at the donut shops.
I remember finding playboys under couches in abandoned houses, making money by building bikes from pieces people threw out. Trading a rebuilt BMX with pegs to a kid for a brand new Tony Hawk board and riding it around town for a summer.
Even before we were interested in girls i had a girlfriend. Her name was Christine bell.She lived on the corner by the school and her mom was a nurse. Where is she now? is she married? Kids? job? She's probably nothing like the cute little freckled blond girl i remember that held my hand and we played all summer.
Growing up sucks.
Figures sold separately
ages 5 and up
some assembly required.
no tools needed.
Friday, July 4, 2008
Here's a short film i made about Zombies.
thanks to my friends Adam and Reuben.
I shot edited and produced it all.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Monday, April 14, 2008
So after waiting well over 7 years and the reason I joined a stupid messageboard I finally got to meet Alex Maleev.
I made sure to approach him while he was not eating and introduced myself to him, and I have to say Alex is one cool cat.
Just an all around good guy who will shoot the shit and give one hell of an honest take on comics and art. Holy shit can he tell some crazy shit about some big name artists.
Alex has been a big inspiration on my work and seeing him draw was a blast.
He mentioned that he really likes drawing Silver Surfer but he almost never gets to draw the character. I asked what he likes to draw for himself and he replied,
"Naked women".
yeah I can't argue with him there. Then he showed me some real nice blue pencil roughs of women poses he had stashed away.really nice romantic imagery. That's when I saw it, a rough seated pose, i knew immediately what that pose could become.
Alex then said that he would forget about his whole list of sketches, which was about 7-10 deep of mostly Daredevil, if someone wanted a woman drawn.
So wisely Brandon (a fellow boarder) switched his might never get done Daredevil sketch to what could have been Spider woman but became Electra. And a beautiful Electra at that.
That's when i said if he still wanted to draw women i had one for him and he asked which pose i liked so much. He brought it out and i asked if he minded drawing her as Rogue from X-men evolution and I gave him the turnarounds i made of the character.
Anyways he drew it up and I can't say how appreciative i am of it. I won't say how much it cost, I'll just say that next time you are up here I owe you dinner Alex.
At one point he went to the washroom and asked me to watch his stuff. He told me to sit down and draw so I did. Basically i knocked out a head shot, but it was fun using his tools.
Thanks man,
Another thing we talked about was me sculpting something based on his art, he had avoided giving me an answer for the last few years but he suggested something so i take it as a challenge to get it finished for the con in august when he will return to Toronto.
Ted
here's Alex sketching. As she's framed on my wall i notice the only thing on below the waist are boots. Awesome
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Secret invasion spoilers for anyone interested.
* Skrull Hank Pym shoots Reed
* Skrull Captain Marvel blows open Thunderbolts Mountain
* Skrull Jarvis has something that makes all Iron Man shit not work
* Skrull posing as Sue Richards (but not Sue herself) goes into the Baxter Building and sends it in the Negative Zone
* Skrull busts open the Raft and the villains escape including Dr. Doom
* Last page is the Skrull armada landing on Earth
Signed, Grant Morrison.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Luke Thompson is my new Hero.
Dude lives 500 miles away and just happens to drive down the same street that i got my truck stuck on and helps me free it.
Ladies, can you believe he's single?
Friday, January 25, 2008
"Hello, Scientology. We are Anonymous.
Over the years, we have been watching you. Your campaigns of misinformation; suppression of dissent; your litigious nature, all of these things have caught our eye. With the leakage of your latest propaganda video into mainstream circulation, the extent of your malign influence over those who trust you, who call you leader, has been made clear to us. Anonymous has therefore decided that your organization should be destroyed. For the good of your followers, for the good of mankind–for the laughs–we shall expel you from the Internet and systematically dismantle the Church of Scientology in its present form. We acknowledge you as a serious opponent, and we are prepared for a long, long campaign. You will not prevail forever against the angry masses of the body politic. Your methods, hypocrisy, and the artlessness of your organization have sounded its death knell.
You cannot hide; we are everywhere.
We cannot die; we are forever. We're getting bigger every day–and solely by the force of our ideas, malicious and hostile as they often are. If you want another name for your opponent, then call us Legion, for we are many.
Yet for all that we are not as monstrous as you are; still our methods are a parallel to your own. Doubtless you will use the Anon's actions as an example of the persecution you have so long warned your followers would come; this is acceptable. In fact, it is encouraged. We are your SPs.
Gradually as we merge our pulse with that of your "Church", the suppression of your followers will become increasingly difficult to maintain. Believers will wake, and see that salvation has no price. They will know that the stress, the frustration that they feel is not something that may be blamed upon Anonymous. No–they will see that it stems from a source far closer to each. Yes, we are SPs. But the sum of suppression we could ever muster is eclipsed by that of the RTC.
Knowledge is free.
We are Anonymous.
We are Legion.
We do not forgive.
We do not forget.
Expect us."
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Top 50 Atheism Quotes
To compliment the Top 100 Quotes from Fundamentalist Christian Chatrooms thread.
http://leftofzen.com/quotes-atheism/2008/01/14/
Quote:
1. Religion easily has the best bullshit story of all time. Think about it. Religion has convinced people that there’s an invisible man…living in the sky. Who watches everything you do every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a list of ten specific things he doesn’t want you to do. And if you do any of these things, he will send you to a special place, of burning and fire and smoke and torture and anguish for you to live forever, and suffer, and burn, and scream, until the end of time. But he loves you. He loves you. He loves you and he needs money.
2. Atheism: A non-prophet organization.
3. I’m completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death.
Friedrich Nietzsche
4. Which is it, is man one of God’s blunders or is God one of man’s?
5. Faith means not wanting to know what is true.
6. Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.
Albert Einstein
7. What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of “humility.” This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism.
8. It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I also cannot imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere. … Science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man’s ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.
Albert Einstein, “Religion and Science”, New York Times Magazine, 9 November 1930
9. If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.
Gandhi Quotes
10. The most heinous and the must cruel crimes of which history has record have been committed under the cover of religion or equally noble motives.
Mohandas K Gandhi, Young India, July 7, 1950, quoted from Laird Wilcox, ed., “The Degeneration of Belief”
11. I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.
Mark Twain Quotes
12. “It ain’t those parts of the Bible that I can’t understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.”
Mark Twain
13. A man is accepted into a church for what he believes and he is turned out for what he knows.
Mark Twain
14. What God lacks is convictions — stability of character. He ought to be a Presbyterian or a Catholic or something — not try to be everything.
15. Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.
Mark Twain, quoted from Curmudgeon-Online
16. “In God We Trust.” I don’t believe it would sound any better if it were true.
Thomas Jefferson
17. Shake off all fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God, because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.
18. We are afraid of the known and afraid of the unknown. That is our daily life and in that there is no hope, and therefore every form of philosophy, every form of theological concept, is merely an escape from the actual reality of what is. All outward forms of change brought about by wars, revolutions, reformations, laws and ideologies have failed completely to change the basic nature of man and therefore of society.
Benjamin Franklin
19. The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason: The Morning Daylight appears plainer when you put out your Candle.
Benjamin Franklin, the incompatibility of faith and reason, Poor Richard’s Almanack (175
20. Lighthouses are more helpful then churches.
Voltaire
21. If God has made us in his image, we have returned him the favor.
Voltaire
22. Those who believe absurdities will commit atrocities.
Stephen Hawking
23. Black holes would seem to suggest that God not only plays dice, but also sometimes throws them where they cannot be seen.
Stephen Hawking, NATURE, 1975
24. We could call order by the name of God, but it would be an impersonal God. There’s not much personal about the laws of physics.
Jiddu Krishnamurti
25. Tradition becomes our security, and when the mind is secure it is in decay.
Jiddu Krishnamurti
26. The constant assertion of belief is an indication of fear.
Jiddu Krishnamurti
Christopher Hitchens
27. What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof.
Christopher Hitchens
28. Christopher Hitchens On Jerry Falwell: If you gave Falwell an enema, he could be buried in a matchbox.
Sigmund Freud
29. Religion is an illusion and it derives its strength from the fact that it falls in with our instinctual desires.
Sigmund Freud
30. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.
Karl Marx
George Bernard Shaw
31. The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one.
George Bernard Shaw
32. Men never commit evil so fully and joyfully as when they do it for religious convictions.
Blaise Pascal
32. You’re basically killing each other to see who’s got the better imaginary friend.
Richard Jeni
34. With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
Steven Weinberg
35. The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike.
Delos B. McKown
36. Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.
Edward Gibbon
37. Our ignorance is God; what we know is science.
Robert Ingersoll
38. The foolish reject what they see and not what they think; the wise reject what they think and not what they see.
Huang Po
39. Where knowledge ends, religion begins.
Benjamin Disraeli
40. Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day; teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime; give a man religion and he will die praying for a fish.
Unknown
41. If there really is a God who created the entire universe with all of its glories, and He decides to deliver a message to humanity, He will not use, as His messenger, a person on cable TV with a bad hairstyle.
Dave Barry
42. Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
- Epicurus
43. The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a god or not.
Eric Hoffer
44. I think flying planes into a building was a faith-based initiative. I think religion is a neurological disorder.
Bill Maher
45. There’s a phrase we live by in America: “In God We Trust”. It’s right there where Jesus would want it: on our money.
46. If we go back to the beginning, we shall find that ignorance and fear created the gods; that fancy, enthusiasm, or deceit adorned them; that weakness worships them; that credulity preserves them and that custom, respect and tyranny support them in order to make the blindness of men serve their own interests. If the ignorance of nature gave birth to gods, the knowledge of nature is calculated to destroy them.
Baron D’Holbach, cited in Jonathan Miller. (2004). A Brief History of Disbelief [TV-Series].
47. If I thought the Jews killed God, I’d worship the Jews.
Bill Hicks
48. Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.
Isaac Asimov
49. A belief which leaves no place for doubt is not a belief; it is a superstition.
José Bergamín
50. One of the great tragedies of mankind is that morality has been hijacked by religion.
Arthur C. Clarke
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Some Motherfuckers better man the fuck up and stop whining about their jobs.
If you don't like getting paid $20+ an hour then go to Mcdonalds it's about the only place to get a job.
as a guy who is unhappily back in school just to get a decent job it pisses me off to see people bitch and complain that the job they asked for is "too hard" and they "can't take it", when i'm going further into debt and wasting years of my life to escape poverty.
It's not and you are a pussy.
so shut the fuck up.
*props to Luke for Man the fuck up*
Was fucking dumb!
I knew going into this what it was.
don't get me wrong, it was ok in that "i want to see what an anime movie filmed in real life would look like" way but GOD-Damn was it stupid.
I like to use my brain when watching entertainment and it was really hard to watch some of the shit in the movie.
It's a shame that Monica Bellucchi (sp?) only does like 1-2 films a year and this was one of them, they get her with her perfect figure and hide her under long coats and shit and stick a kid in her arms through the whole thing.
I want to hit Paul Giamatti (sp?) in the face with a truck, I hated his character so much that the hate has transferred onto his own person.
Clive Owen. what the fuck?
he can make almost any movie, and he is the one redeeming factor of this retarded thing.
Why can't they just give him a cool film where he drives and shoots stuff like the BMW shorts he was in, no they tried to recreate the fucking feeling with tonnes of dumb ass jokes and a fucking baby.
I liked how Giamatti and Owen's characters stop and bicker about how many bullets each other has fired and how their guns would be empty, they point out which gun is a six shooter yet afterwards you can count them firing more then 8 bullets with the same gun. duh
The soundtrack was interesting with some old faves like Nirvana's Breed being played, which I never thought i'd hear in a film.
other then that it was mostly metal and hard rock no serious rhymesmanship.
Holla!
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Here I am hopefully I can reinvigorate this LJ with some more witty bits.
People have complained that when i do post it's all political rants, well I am still a smartass and I still have my comments.
Guys wearing Santa hats are so the life of the fucking party! especially at the mall! go dude go.
When your wife/girlfriend/insignificant other wants a baby take them to see the Santa at the Mall, holeee shit those kids go fucking nuts. The crying and screaming is INSANE! this is what you are in for. learn it.
When you see a mother dragging their screaming-crying brat by the arm through the mall, pointing at and shouting,
"Ha ha, you can't get what you want" will create Santa sized laughs in most, and angry disgusted looks in old bags.
Until next time,
lol-buttseks,
Ted.
Friday, December 14, 2007
Just got back from seeing it.
I was really looking forward to it as I have read the book and seen both previous adaptations.
I also really like End of the world stuff.
I won't spoil anything, the story holds up well with some changes.
I have to give credit to Will Smith he's good. He plays the character well and really plays the fractured isolated psyche well.
The deserted New York environment is amazing, I wonder how much was really shot there.
My one criticism is that they should have used real actors for the creatures as the CG shows through.
As an artist I thought his apartment was furnished nicely with all the masterpieces he must have "saved"
The film was made by Warner Bros who own DC so...
Keep a lookout in Times Square for a giant Superman/Batman poster and in the movie store there is
And there is a new Dark Knight trailer before the movie that shows all the major characters and the Bat Bike.
I'm not really buying Ledger as the Joker.
Current mood:  satisfied
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
There is a new Knight Rider on the way.
I was a huge fan of KR as a kid, I even had the Big Wheel.
I watched Knight Rider 2000
I saw the stupid Team Knight Rider-ugh
I am one of 5 people in the world I think to have seen Knight Rider 2010 costarring the girl that would become Callisto on Xena.
This new one will have Hasslehoff as Producer and he makes an appearance.
KITT now Knight Industries Three Thousand will be voiced by Will Arnett who played the Magician brother on Arrested Development. The voice could go either way.
My one reservation is with the new car. It's a new Shelby Cobra Mustang.
I think that while that is a cool looking car it's not sleek and stylish like the old Firebird was. The Mustang just looks like a goon.
Really they should have had Pontiac come up with something cool. i'm sure there's a bunch of unused prototypes laying around.
My question is, where the fuck is the red light?
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Rumsfeld Flees France, Fearing Arrest
By, IPS News
Posted on October 29, 2007, Printed on October 30, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/66425/
Former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld fled France today
fearing arrest over charges of "ordering and authorizing" torture of
detainees at both the American-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and the
U.S. military's detainment facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,
unconfirmed reports coming from Paris suggest.
U.S. embassy officials whisked Rumsfeld away yesterday from a
breakfast meeting in Paris organized by the Foreign Policy magazine
after human rights groups filed a criminal complaint against the man
who spearheaded President George W. Bush's "war on terror" for six
years.
Under international law, authorities in France are obliged to open an
investigation when a complaint is made while the alleged torturer is
on French soil.
According to activists in France, who greeted Rumsfeld, shouting
"murderer" and "war criminal" at the breakfast meeting venue, U.S.
embassy officials remained tight-lipped about the former defense
secretary's whereabouts citing "security reasons".
Anti-torture protesters in France believe that the defense secretary
fled over the open border to Germany, where a war crimes case against
Rumsfeld was dismissed by a federal court. But activists point out
that under the Schengen agreement that ended border checkpoints
across a large part of the European Union, French law enforcement
agents are allowed to cross the border into Germany in pursuit of a
fleeing fugitive.
"Rumsfeld must be feeling how Saddam Hussein felt when U.S. forces
were hunting him down," activist Tanguy Richard said. "He may never
end up being hanged like his old friend, but he must learn that in
the civilized world, war crime doesn't pay."
International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) along with the
Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), the European Center for
Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), and the French League for
Human Rights (LDH) filed the complaint on Thursday after learning
that Rumsfeld was scheduled to visit Paris.
© 2007 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/66425/
Friday, October 26, 2007
Congress passes Thought Crime Prevention Bill
House Passes Thought Crime Prevention Bill
Posted: 2007/10/26
From: Source
by Lee Rogers
The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed HR 1955 titled the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007. (new window) This bill is one of the most blatant attacks against the Constitution yet and actually defines thought crimes as homegrown terrorism. If passed into law, it will also establish a commission and a Center of Excellence to study and defeat so called thought criminals. Unlike previous anti-terror legislation, this bill specifically targets the civilian population of the United States and uses vague language to define homegrown terrorism. Amazingly, 404 of our elected representatives from both the Democrat and Republican parties voted in favor of this bill. There is little doubt that this bill is specifically targeting the growing patriot community that is demanding the restoration of the Constitution.
First let’s take a look at the definitions of violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism as defined in Section 899A of the bill.
The definition of violent radicalization uses vague language to define this term of promoting any belief system that the government considers to be an extremist agenda. Since the bill doesn’t specifically define what an extremist belief system is, it is entirely up to the interpretation of the government. Considering how much the government has done to destroy the Constitution they could even define Ron Paul supporters as promoting an extremist belief system. Literally, the government according to this definition can define whatever they want as an extremist belief system. Essentially they have defined violent radicalization as thought crime. The definition as defined in the bill is shown below.
`(2) VIOLENT RADICALIZATION- The term `violent radicalization' means the process of adopting or promoting an extremist belief system for the purpose of facilitating ideologically based violence to advance political, religious, or social change.
The definition of homegrown terrorism uses equally vague language to further define thought crime. The bill includes the planned use of force or violence as homegrown terrorism which could be interpreted as thinking about using force or violence. Not only that but the definition is so vaguely defined, that petty crimes could even fall into the category of homegrown terrorism. The definition as defined in the bill is shown below.
`(3) HOMEGROWN TERRORISM- The term `homegrown terrorism' means the use, planned use, or threatened use, of force or violence by a group or individual born, raised, or based and operating primarily within the United States or any possession of the United States to intimidate or coerce the United States government, the civilian population of the United States, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.
Section 899B of the bill goes over the findings of Congress as it pertains to homegrown terrorism. Particularly alarming is that the bill mentions the Internet as a main source for terrorist propaganda. The bill even mentions streams in obvious reference to many of the patriot and pro-constitution Internet radio networks that have been formed. It also mentions that homegrown terrorists span all ages and races indicating that the Congress is stating that everyone is a potential terrorist. Even worse is that Congress states in their findings that they should look at draconian police states like Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom as models to defeat homegrown terrorists. Literally, these findings of Congress fall right in line with the growing patriot community.
The biggest joke of all is that this section also says that any measure to prevent violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism should not violate the constitutional rights of citizens. However, the definition of violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism as they are defined in section 899A are themselves unconstitutional. The Constitution does not allow the government to arrest people for thought crimes, so any promises not to violate the constitutional rights of citizens are already broken by their own definitions.
`SEC. 899B. FINDINGS.
`The Congress finds the following:
`(1) The development and implementation of methods and processes that can be utilized to prevent violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence in the United States is critical to combating domestic terrorism.
`(2) The promotion of violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence exists in the United States and poses a threat to homeland security.
`(3) The Internet has aided in facilitating violent radicalization, ideologically based violence, and the homegrown terrorism process in the United States by providing access to broad and constant streams of terrorist-related propaganda to United States citizens.
`(4) While the United States must continue its vigilant efforts to combat international terrorism, it must also strengthen efforts to combat the threat posed by homegrown terrorists based and operating within the United States.
`(5) Understanding the motivational factors that lead to violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence is a vital step toward eradicating these threats in the United States.
`(6) The potential rise of self radicalized, unaffiliated terrorists domestically cannot be easily prevented through traditional Federal intelligence or law enforcement efforts, and requires the incorporation of State and local solutions.
`(7) Individuals prone to violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence span all races, ethnicities, and religious beliefs, and individuals should not be targeted based solely on race, ethnicity, or religion.
`(8 ) Any measure taken to prevent violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence and homegrown terrorism in the United States should not violate the constitutional rights, civil rights and civil liberties of United States citizens and lawful permanent residents.
`(9) Certain governments, including the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia have significant experience with homegrown terrorism and the United States can benefit from lessons learned by those nations.
Section 899C calls for a commission on the prevention of violent radicalization and ideologically based violence. The commission will consist of ten members appointed by various individuals that hold different positions in government. Essentially, this is a commission that will examine and report on how they are going to deal with violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism. So basically, the commission is being formed specifically on how to deal with thought criminals in the United States. The bill requires that the commission submit their final report 18 months following the commission’s first meeting as well as submit interim reports every 6 months leading up to the final report. Below is the bill’s defined purpose of the commission. Amazingly they even define one of the purposes of the commission to determine the causes of lone wolf violent radicalization.
(b) Purpose- The purposes of the Commission are the following:
`(1) Examine and report upon the facts and causes of violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence in the United States, including United States connections to non-United States persons and networks, violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence in prison, individual or `lone wolf' violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence, and other faces of the phenomena of violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence that the Commission considers important.
`(2) Build upon and bring together the work of other entities and avoid unnecessary duplication, by reviewing the findings, conclusions, and recommendations of--
`(A) the Center of Excellence established or designated under section 899D, and other academic work, as appropriate;
`(B) Federal, State, local, or tribal studies of, reviews of, and experiences with violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence; and
`(C) foreign government studies of, reviews of, and experiences with violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence.
Section 899D of the bill establishes a Center of Excellence for the Study of Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism in the United States. Essentially, this will be a Department of Homeland Security affiliated institution that will study and determine how to defeat thought criminals.
Section 899E of the bill discusses how the government is going to defeat violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism through international cooperation. As stated in the findings section earlier in the legislation, they will unquestionably seek the advice of countries with draconian police states like the United Kingdom to determine how to deal with this growing threat of thought crime.
Possibly the most ridiculous section of the bill is Section 899F which states how they plan on protecting civil rights and civil liberties while preventing ideologically based violence and homegrown terrorism. Here is what the section says.
`SEC. 899F. PROTECTING CIVIL RIGHTS AND CIVIL LIBERTIES WHILE PREVENTING IDEOLOGICALLY-BASED VIOLENCE AND HOMEGROWN TERRORISM.
`(a) In General- The Department of Homeland Security's efforts to prevent ideologically-based violence and homegrown terrorism as described herein shall not violate the constitutional rights, civil rights, and civil liberties of United States citizens and lawful permanent residents.
`(b) Commitment to Racial Neutrality- The Secretary shall ensure that the activities and operations of the entities created by this subtitle are in compliance with the Department of Homeland Security's commitment to racial neutrality.
`(c) Auditing Mechanism- The Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Officer of the Department of Homeland Security will develop and implement an auditing mechanism to ensure that compliance with this subtitle does not result in a disproportionate impact, without a rational basis, on any particular race, ethnicity, or religion and include the results of its audit in its annual report to Congress required under section 705.'.
(b) Clerical Amendment- The table of contents in section 1(b) of such Act is amended by inserting at the end of the items relating to title VIII the following:
It states in the first subsection that in general the efforts to defeat thought crime shall not violate the constitutional rights, civil rights and civil liberties of the United States citizens and lawful permanent residents. How does this protect constitutional rights if they use vague language such as in general that prefaces the statement? This means that the Department of Homeland Security does not have to abide by the Constitution in their attempts to prevent so called homegrown terrorism.
This bill is completely insane. It literally allows the government to define any and all crimes including thought crime as violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism. Obviously, this legislation is unconstitutional on a number of levels and it is clear that all 404 representatives who voted in favor of this bill are traitors and should be removed from office immediately. The treason spans both political parties and it shows us all that there is no difference between them. The bill will go on to the Senate and will likely be passed and signed into the law by George W. Bush. Considering that draconian legislation like the Patriot Act and the Military Commissions Act have already been passed, there seems little question that this one will get passed as well. This is more proof that our country has been completely sold out by a group of traitors at all levels of government.
There you go America, it's now illegal to think for yourselves.
now sit back and watch tv and do nothing again.
Monday, September 17, 2007
Boy this sucks, I just found out that Robert Jordan died last evening.
For those who know me you know how much a fan of his writing I am. I even named my studio after his writings.
He had been battling a disease called Amyloidosis for at least a year, I have been checking his fan sites daily for news which did come if not often.
I had the honor of meeting him a few years ago and he was a very nice supportive person. he even named a character I had drawn.
Rest in Peace James, walk in the light.
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Damn, i decided to go back to school this year, but being in my old age I also need to make a living so i am also working. I'm full time school/pt work and it is going to kick my ass. I did that before in art school but this is a step up and I have to keep good grades as i want scholarships.
And I want to kick all those punk kids asses.
Wolverines!
Current music: grandpa music bitches!
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Police deny using 'provocateurs' at summit
OTTAWA – The Mounties and Quebec provincial police deny using agents provocateurs at this week's Montebello summit, despite video evidence that suggests undercover cops tried to incite violence.
The denials Wednesday did nothing to quell mounting outrage over police tactics. Anti-globalization and union activists joined with opposition politicians to demand an independent investigation.
They also questioned whether police were acting on orders from the Prime Minister's Office and called on both Stephen Harper and Quebec Premier Jean Charest to denounce the use of agents provocateurs.
"In a free and democratic society, people have the right to peacefully protest something they don't like," said union leader Dave Coles, who confronted the alleged undercover officers outside the summit site Monday.
"Are Canadian citizens going to have to face these kinds of provocateurs just because Stephen Harper seems to think we're some sort of loony-left group?
"Quite frankly, that's insulting and we don't accept it and we want answers from him."
The three alleged provocateurs were caught on camera (view YouTube video) – with bandanas masking their faces and at least one carrying a rock in his hand – approaching a line of Surete du Quebec police in full riot garb. They refused to back away, despite the insistence of Coles and other protest organizers that they leave the area.
As protesters surrounded the men and tried to snatch off their masks, one of the three spoke to an SQ officer. The trio got through the police line, were forced to the ground and handcuffed.
Photos of the men lying on the ground show the three were wearing combat boots with identical markings to the ones worn by an SQ officer kneeling beside them.
Video also shows the three eventually being led quietly away to police vans. By contrast, Coles said four legitimate protesters – whom police say were the only people arrested and charged at the summit – were "roughed up pretty good and dragged away."
A spokesman for Harper denied any role by the prime minister in the fair, saying "the PMO is not involved in security for events." Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day's office referred all questions to the RCMP.
The Mounties and the SQ, the two police forces involved in summit security, continued to refuse specific comment on three alleged undercover officers caught on camera in an apparent bid to incite a confrontation.
But they denied using agents to provoke violence.
"I confirm (to) you that there are no agents provocateurs in the Surete du Quebec. . . It doesn't exist in the Surete du Quebec," said Const. Melanie Larouche.
RCMP spokesman Cpl. Luc Bessette said the Mounties do "not use tactics that would encourage confrontation or incite violence."
Bessette said the RCMP cannot discuss details of security measures for major events such as the summit because "to do so could jeopardize the integrity of our operations for future events."
Liberal justice critic Marlene Jennings said the evidence is ``quite incriminating" and called on the two police forces to ``clear this up." She said it's one thing for officers to pose as protesters in a bid to keep an eye on potential trouble-makers, ``but to be instigators is completely unacceptable."
Jennings suggested protest organizers may want to file a complaint with the two forces. Coles said his union has not done so yet but is seeking legal advice.
New Democrat MP Libby Davies, who participated in the summit demonstrations, said the video evidence raises "hugely serious questions" about the role of the police at contentious international meetings.
"It seems like they create this environment, a show of force, that sets it up for a confrontation," she said.
"I think we need to know who authorized this, how high up does this go?"
Coles, president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers union, speculated on two possible motives for the police to try to incite a riot at the summit, where Harper, U.S. President George Bush and Mexican President Felipe Calderon were discussing the Security and Prosperity Partnership between their three countries.
He said police may have wanted to justify the millions spent on security for the summit by creating an incident they could quell. But he said there may also have been a political motive to discredit the protesters as violent radicals, thereby deflecting attention from the substance of their opposition to the SPP.
"This is the face of (the SPP), where people can't even ask a question without having to face these kinds of goons. It's time that all the secrecy and backroom deals end," said Coles.
"The SPP is a fraud, just like those three so-called activists were."
Saturday, August 11, 2007
Sorry people, this one is fucking huge.
Only Impeachment Will Stop The Next False Flag Attack
July 23rd, 2007
Webster G. Tarpley
9/11 BLOGGER
Impeach or face a new round of synthetic terror this summer to kick-start the war in Iran. Only impeachment and Removal, or a General Strike, Will Stop the Next False Flag Attack
The greatest threat now is “a 9/11 occurring with a group of terrorists armed not with airline tickets and box cutters, but with a nuclear weapon in the middle of one of our own cities.”
- Dick Cheney on Face the Nation, CBS, April 15, 2007
A few days ago, a group of lawyers from western Massachusetts met with the local congressman, Democrat John Olver. Their request was that Olver take part in the urgent effort to impeach Bush and Cheney. Olver responded by saying that he had no intention of doing anything to support impeachment. He went further, offering the information that the United States would soon attack Iran, and that these hostilities would be followed by the imposition of a martial law regime here.
According to reports in the British press, the Cheney war party has gained the upper hand in the secret councils of the Bush White House, pushing aside the purported hesitations of Miss Rice, Secretary Gates, and the NATO allies to chart a direct course towards war with Iran:
‘The balance in the internal White House debate over Iran has shifted back in favour of military action before President George Bush leaves office in 18 months, the Guardian has learned. The shift follows an internal review involving the White House, the Pentagon and the state department over the last month. Although the Bush administration is in deep trouble over Iraq, it remains focused on Iran. A well-placed source in Washington said: “Bush is not going to leave office with Iran still in limbo.” …at a meeting of the White House, Pentagon and state department last month, Mr Cheney expressed frustration at the lack of progress and Mr Bush sided with him. “The balance has tilted. There is cause for concern,” the source said this week. … “Cheney has limited capital left, but if he wanted to use all his capital on this one issue, he could still have an impact,” said Patrick Cronin, the director of studies at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.’ (“Cheney pushes Bush to act on Iran; Military solution back in favour as Rice loses out; President ‘not prepared to leave conflict unresolved’”, Guardian, July 16, 2007.)
Deluded supporters of the Democratic Party may soon have to throw away their pathetic countdown clocks, those self-consoling little devices that remind them of how much time remains until noon on January 20, 2009, the moment when it is thought that Bush will finally leave office. These countdown clocks make no provision for the Cheney doctrine, which calls for a new super 9/11 with weapons of mass destruction in the US, to be used as the pretext for a nuclear attack on Iran and for martial law at home. Those who think the Republicans cannot hold the White House in 2008 have forgotten that neocons always prefer a coup d’etat to an election. As Cheney told Bob Schieffer of CBS’s Face the Nation on April 15, 2007:
‘The greatest threat now is “a 9/11 occurring with a group of terrorists armed not with airline tickets and box cutters, but with a nuclear weapon in the middle of one of our own cities.”’
Pelosi and Reid need to toss out their fatuous countdown clocks, and get out their impeachment stopwatches – fast.
CHERTOFF’S GUT FEELING FOR TERRORISM
Integral to the Cheney strategy has always been to orchestrate a climate of public terror. As Cheney told WLS in Chicago on Friday April 13: It’s important that people remember 9/11.” 9/11 remains the basis of every one of Cheney’s intrigues. One of Cheney’s terror facilitators in this sense is Michael Chertoff, the cadaverous Secretary of Homeland Security. Although an experienced bureaucrat, Chertoff is now contemplating his navel as he searches for new ways to intimidate the American people, who have essentially no natural enemies at all, into the hallucination that they face an acute existential threat of being wiped out from one moment to the next. Chertoff told the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune – once the voice of isolationism – that the US faces an increased danger of attack in the summer of 2007. This wild fabrication, not based on any specific information of any kind that he could cite, Chertoff called his “gut feeling … the nation faces a heightened chance of an attack this summer.” “I believe we are entering a period this summer of increased risk,” said Chertoff. “Summertime seems to be appealing to them. … We worry that they are rebuilding their activities.” The desperate demagogues of the Republican Party are facing a hecatomb at the polls in November 2008. Their idea seems to be that of the fascist Prime Minister Aznar of Spain in March 2004: if you are sure to lose an election, stage a terror attack, declare martial law, and perpetuate your power that way. Aznar was stopped by a general strike of about one third of the entire Spanish people. If all else fails, would Americans be capable of a mass strike against war and dictatorship? We may soon find out.
Chertoff’s troubled gut has already given rise to a White House interagency group of top intelligence and law enforcement functionaries that meets every Friday afternoon at 1PM. Will this committee run the coup? Reports followed of dozens of FBI agents fanning out to pursue a “worry list” of some seven hundred alleged leads, including 100 in the New York area. Some of these derived from the recent British terror stunts in London and Glasgow used by MI-5 and MI-6 to smooth the transition from the Tony Blair quasi-police state to the Gordon Brown version of the same thing. MI-5 and MI-6 displayed the same mixture of comic ineptitude and phlegmatic homicide which was their hallmark during the long years when London was the prey of bombs by the “Irish Republican Army,” now revealed to have been top-heavy with government intelligence agents who called the shots. The Glasgow airport event consisted of a burning car crashed into a building, the films of which were shown all afternoon the by the US cable news networks. One was tempted to propose a caption: “Only one burning car – a good day on the Cross-Bronx Expressway.” Yet for one burning car, the world was supposed to stop. These British events had been preceded by several weeks of hysteria about allegedly looming terror attacks against US installations in the Rhein-Main area of Germany, featuring the Wiesbaden spa, all based on CIA claims made to the government in Berlin and relentlessly trumpeted through the controlled media.
A NEW 9/11 THE KEY TO BOLSTERING WESTERN RESOLVE
Chertoff’s rationale was illuminated by an interview with Lt. Colonel Doug Delaney, the chair of the war studies program at the Royal Military College in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, a NATO intelligence center. Delaney was addressing the problems raised by the rising Canadian losses in Afghanistan, but he provided a valuable window into the minds of military planners when he observed, in the words of the interviewer: “It may well be that the key to bolstering Western resolve is another terrorist attack like 9/11 or the London transit bombings of two years ago, he says. If nothing happens, it will be harder still to say this [Canadian meddling in Afghanistan] is necessary.” In other words, it may be time for a new false flag synthetic terror operation to gin up hysteria in North America to permit the present bankrupt elites to retain power and further grind down any spirit of popular resistance to such irrational rule. Chertoff’s fear-mongering was backed up by ousted Republican senator and notorious scoundrel Rick Santorum, who told a radio interviewer that “between now and November, a lot of things are going to happen, and I believe that by this time next year, the American public is going to have a very different view of this war.” Chertoff’s reckless and inflammatory ventriloquism was the harbinger of the new US National Intelligence Estimate issued on July 17.
THE BOOZ ALLEN NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE ESTIMATE: “AL QAEDA” THREAT TO USA LOOMS
This pitiful NIE ranks with the lying NIEs issued before the attack on Iraq in 2003 as a tissue of lies and prevarications. The main thesis is that al Qaeda branches around the world are striving to infiltrate more operatives into the US for terror attacks on the US “homeland:” “Although we have discovered only a handful of individuals in the United States with ties to al Qaeda senior leadership since 9/11, we judge that al Qaeda will intensify its efforts to put operatives here,” opines the declassified summary of the underlying secret screed. “As a result, we judge that the United States currently is in a heightened threat environment.” (cnn.com, July 17) The new faked NIE has been produced under the supervision of Admiral Michael McConnell, the current US intelligence czar, whose credentials include ten years at Booz Allen Hamilton, the premier private military firm. Some analysts have asked what was going on at Booz Allen on September 11, 2001, and in the days leading up to that event, and what McConnell personally might have been working on. Back on January 7, 2007, Raw Story had portrayed the newly-nominated McConnell as a Cheney asset, and quoted CIA old boy Vince Cannistraro calling the McConnell nomination “a disaster.” In the same article, CIA vet Larry Johnson predicted that McConnell, a weak manager, would cave in to Bush-Cheney on key issues. The fabrications of the new NIE have been assisted by Cheney’s office, by convicted Iran-contra felon Elliot Abrams (now a dominant personality inside the Bush White House), by Abrams’ military aide Gen. Kevin Bergner, and by other neocon assets.
Intelligence community veteran Philip Giraldi of the CIA has dismissed the new NIE with its talk of “high impact plots” against the US as “a tour de force of misinformation disguised as fact.” Giraldi also noted: “It is possibly no coincidence that there has been a significant increase in the anti-Iran rhetoric emanating from both the Bush administration and Congress over the past few weeks, mostly seeking to establish a casus belli by contending that Iran is masterminding lethal attacks against US troops in Iran and NATO forces in Afghanistan.” (antiwar.com, July 17)
CHENEY’S PERSIAN ADVENTURE
A nuclear attack on Iran remains the central obsession of the George Shultz-Rupert Murdoch-Cheney faction. On July 10, the Pentagon announced that it would be sending another aircraft carrier battle group, this time that of the USS Enterprise, to the waters off Iran. This means that whenever that carrier joins the two already there, three US attack carriers will be within striking range of Iranian targets. The Pentagon followed up shortly thereafter with another statement, assuring the world that soon only one carrier would patrol off Iran. But that was only a dubious promise, and in the meantime the three carriers would shortly be ready to attack.
On July 10, the Washington Post and Reuters stoked international hysteria with reports that mysterious and sinister tunnels were being built by the Iranian authorities near one of the suspected nuclear facilities of Natanz. These reports were accompanied by aerial photographs and satellite imaging that has been gussied up with labels to make them look as much as possible like the famous U-2 photographs of Soviet medium-range missiles in Cuba back in October 1962. The claim was that the supposed tunnel “could be used to hide and protect key nuclear components.” The implication was that the Iranian atomic bomb could not be far off, a notion for which there is no proof.
In the late winter, Pelosi, House Majority Leader Stenny Hoyer and Reid had bowed to the demands of AIPAC, the subversive pro-Israeli lobbying organization whose employees have been implicated in espionage, and removed from the defense bill a provision warning Bush that he was required to consult Congress before attacking Iran. A similar provision pushed for a while by Senator Webb of Virginia has also disappeared from view. As for the Republican presidential candidates, on June 7 they – with the solitary exception of maverick Ron Paul – outbid one another in enthusiasm for a nuclear attack on Iran. These ultra-Hitlerian outbursts occurred in response to manipulation by Wolf Blitzer, an obvious asset of the war party. For the good of the American people, the warmonger GOP candidates, along with Blitzer, should have been hauled away at once in a net by burly orderlies in white coats.
CHENEY’S BREAKAWAY ALLY CHARADE
A key component of Cheney’s argument is that Israel may soon strike unilaterally against Iran with a sneak attack deploying nuclear weapons, breaking the post-1945 taboo on atomic bombs. This would represent the old “breakaway ally” scenario, by which Israel presents the US with such an attack as a fait accompli, and then expects Washington to enter the war on the side of the Israeli aggressors. Cheney’s talking point is that the US must be ready to strike because the Israelis are going to act on their own anyway. The lying nature of Cheney’s line is shown by Bush’s remark to Chirac at the St. Petersburg G-8 summit in July 2006, when Bush was adamant that the Israeli aggression against Lebanon then ongoing was not an Israeli-conceived war, but rather a US war which had been assigned to Israel as a proxy and surrogate for the US. According to Will Thomas, a dress rehearsal for the breakaway ally charade occurred on January 7, 2007 when Israeli warplanes flew over Iraq and manifested the intention to “go downtown” – meaning an apparent nuclear strike into Iran. At some point the Israelis were allegedly told by the US to go back, and they desisted from the attempt. This reported incident came shortly before the US raided the Iranian consulate in Irbil in northern Iraq, illegally arresting Iranian diplomats. Around the same time, reports that an Iranian missile had hit a US ship caused a stir on Wall Street, while Iran reported shooting down another US drone over its territory. (infowars.com, willthomas.net)
The Israeli war party is represented first of all by Avigdor Lieberman, the Minister of Strategic Threats who is himself a strategic threat. On Friday July 13, a day of ill omen, Lieberman boasted before a group of NATO and European Union officials that Israel had received a green light from the U.S. and Europe for an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. “If we start military operations against Iran alone, then Europe and the U.S. will support us,” said Lieberman. According to Israel Today magazine, Lieberman argued that ongoing hostilities in Iraq and Afghanistan are “going to prevent the leaders of countries in Europe and America from deciding on the use of force to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities,” so they are telling Israel to “prevent the threat herself.”
Another Israeli incendiary is Brigadier General Yossi Kuperwasser, the former head of the Research Division of Israeli Military Intelligence. On July 10, Kuperwasser told the Jerusalem Post that economic sanctions alone will not stop Iran, and that the window of opportunity to launch a military strike against Iran’s nuclear installations was running out. Kuperwasser claimed that Iran is “very close” to the technological threshold for enriching uranium at an industrial level. The Iranians will then be able to manufacture a nuclear device within two to three years, according to Kuperwasser. “The program’s vulnerability to a military operation is diminishing as time passes,” Kuperwasser said, “and they are very close to the point that they will be able to enrich uranium at an industrial level.”
EL BARADEI WARNS AGAINST NEOCON “NEW CRAZIES”
This kind of thinking in the US, UK, and Israel was what Dr. Mohamed El Baradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, had in mind when he issued his famous June 2, 2007 warning about a coming attack on Iran: “I wake every morning and see 100 Iraqis innocent civilians are dying …I have no brief other than to make sure we don’t go into another war or that we go crazy into killing each other. You do not want to give additional argument to new crazies who say ‘let’s go and bomb Iran.’ ” And who are the “new crazies”? “Those who have extreme views and say the only solution is to impose your will by force.” It is not possible to “bomb knowledge.”
A grave doubt casts its shadow over any scenario of US nuclear attack on Iran: as William Thomas reported last February, the fuses of cheap Chinese silicon chips now being used by the US military in ships, tanks, planes, and other applications may be too weak to resist the high levels of electromagnetic pulse (emp) which would be unleashed by a nuclear bombardment of the Iranian nuclear sites. The outsourced chips, coherent with the Rumsfeld “war on the cheap” strategy, could cripple a large proportion of the US Central Command’s military hardware, with disruptive effects that would reach back to the command’s Florida headquarters and possibly to the Pentagon. (rense.com, February 21, 2007, and willthomas.net) If these report are correct, US nuclear bombers might crash, the the carriers that launched them might suddenly find themselves dead in the water, quite independent of what the Iranians might do.
CHENEY’S LEBANON-SYRIA GAMBIT
In addition to the hypothesis of an attack on Iran, there is also the immediate threat to Iran’s ally, Syria. According to a UPI dispatch dated July 9 under the byline of Claude Salhani, numerous signs currently point towards hostilities between Israel and the Damascus government, with a renewed Israeli attack on Lebanon a likely element in this strategy. According to former State Department official Dennis Ross, “there is a risk of war” between Syria and Israel in the summer. Ross told YnetNews, Yedioth Ahronoth’s Internet edition: “no one has made any decisions, but the Syrians are positioning themselves for war.” The neocon exoteric New York Sun claimed to cite a supposed Syrian official saying that added that, by allegedly pulling Syrian nationals out of Lebanon by mid-July, “Damascus is preparing for Israeli retaliation following Syrian guerilla attacks and for a larger war with the Jewish state in August or September.” “If Israel doesn’t vacate the strategic Golan Heights before September, Syrian guerillas will immediately launch ‘resistance operations’ against the Golan’s Jewish communities,” the alleged Syrian added. These remarks reflect scenarios being developed by the Israelis.
But the Masada party of national suicide is not the only game in town for Israelis. On July 11, an anonymous leaker from inside Israeli Military Intelligence warned his associates to remember their ignominious defeat at the hands of Hezbollah in last summer’s war. According to this source, “war with Syria would be ten times worse than with Hezbollah.”
THE ATTACK ON PAKISTAN: MIDSUMMER OF NEOCON MADNESS
Cheney also has the option of attacking into Pakistan. Cheney had visited Pakistan at the end of February with an obvious ultimatum to General Musharraf to get ready to mount a land war against Iran this summer. Equally and immediately obvious was the fact that Musharraf, who considers himself the heir to the great Mustafa Kemal Ataturk of Turkey, had told the Vice President to go Cheney himself. With Pakistan refusing to attack its neighbor, Cheney suddenly discovered that Osama bin Laden was being protected by Musharraf! The US-UK destabilization of Pakistan began in grand style, with the New York Times helpfully publishing lists of generals whom Washington would be delighted to see take power in a putsch in Islamabad. Pawns of the destabilization included the Chief Justice of Pakistan, reputed to be a British agent, and riots by lawyers in business suits. Then came the slaughter at the Red Mosque, staged by the usual CIA/MI-6 fundamentalists. Pakistan, under tremendous pressure from the US, has announced a military crackdown on so-called Taliban forces in the northern tribal areas of Waziristan, an enterprise sure to stir up a hornet’s nest of resistance even if none had been there before. The neocons demanded that the US invade Pakistan, under the pretext of looking for Osama bin Laden. On July 12, neocon fascist madman William Kristol told Fox News: “I think the president’s going to have to take military action there over the next few weeks or months…. Bush has to disrupt that sanctuary. I think, frankly, we won’t even tell Musharraf. We’ll do what we have to do in Western Pakistan and Musharraf can say, ‘Hey, they didn’t tell me.’” Ironically, bin Laden’s second in command, reputed MI-6 speaking tube Ayman al Zawahiri, at around the same time issued a fatwa declaring jihad against Musharraf’s Pakistani regime. If Musharraf was haboring Osama, why would al Qaeda declare war against Musharraf? The answer is what it has always been: “al Qaeda” is a troupe of agents provocateurs founded by the CIA and the British, and remains so until this day. As for the neocon plan to attack Pakistan, it is the very midsummer of madness: if Iran has three time the population of Iraq, Pakistan with 164 million is more than five times more numerous than Iraq. If the neocon plans succeed, the US would soon be at war with almost 300 million people – far too many for the hollow US force of 10 divisions, whatever technology they might possess.
WARNINGS: RON PAUL, PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS, CINDY SHEEHAN, PAT BUCHANAN
Among other authoritative voices across the political spectrum warning of an imminent Bush-Cheney attack on Iran:
Republican Congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul commented to Alex Jones: “I think we’re in great danger of it. We’re in danger in many ways, the attack on our civil liberties here at home, the foreign policy that’s in shambles and our obligations overseas and commitment which endangers our troops and our national defense.”
Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under the Reagan Administration, wrote in his latest column: “Unless Congress immediately impeaches Bush and Cheney, a year from now the US could be a dictatorial police state at war with Iran. Bush has put in place all the necessary measures for dictatorship in the form of ‘executive orders’ that are triggered whenever Bush declares a national emergency. Recent statements by Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff, former Republican senator Rick Santorum and others suggest that Americans might expect a series of staged, or false flag, ‘terrorist’ events in the near future.” (Paul Craig Roberts, “Impeach Now or Face the End of Constitutional Democracy,” Counterpunch, July 16, 2007) In a July 19 interview with Thomm Hartmann of Air America, Roberts cited Bush’s July 17 executive order, which allows the US regime to seize the property of anyone found to be interfering with the reconstruction of Iraq. This radio warning was reported by the RIA-Novosti news agency of Moscow in numerous languages. The Moscow summary, dated July 20, begins: “A former Reagan official has issued a public warning that the Bush administration is preparing to orchestrate a staged terrorist attack in the United States, transform the country into a dictatorship, and launch a war with Iran within a year.”
Pat Buchanan is convinced that the danger of a new war provocation by Bush-Cheney will come in August, when the Democratic Congress will conveniently be out of Washington and on vacation. Buchanan asks important questions:
Is the United States provoking war with Iran, to begin while the Congress is conveniently on its August recess? One recalls that it was in August 1964, after the Republicans nominated Barry Goldwater, that the Tonkin Gulf incident occurred.
Has Bush secretly authorized covert attacks inside Iran? Are U.S. and Israeli agents in Kurdistan behind the attacks across the border to provoke Iran? On July 11, Iranian troops clashed with Kurd rebels inside Iran, and the Iranians fired artillery back into Iraq.
Is this yet another abdication by Congress of its moral and constitutional duty to decide when and whether America goes to war?
Why is Congress going on vacation? Why are a Democratic-controlled House and Senate not asking these questions in public hearings? Why is Congress letting Bush and Vice President Cheney decide whether we launch a third war in the Middle East? Or is Congress in on it?” (“Tonkin Gulf II and the Guns of August?,” World Net Daily, July 17, 2007)
Based on the John Olver remarks, the Democrats are in on it. As for Buchanan, he should say these things on MSNBC.
Also warning of new war provocations was Cindy Sheehan, who was traveling towards Washington DC to declare her challenge to failed House Speaker Pelosi. She commented that there was a “distinct possibility” that America will be hit with another staged terror attack that will allow Bush to enact the martial law provisions he recently imposed by executive order. These measures allow Bush to declare a domestic state of emergency in response to virtually any minor incident anywhere in the world. (Paul Joseph Watson, Prison Planet, July 12, 2007, “Sheehan: Distinct Chance Of Staged Attack, Martial Law; Peace Mom warns of false flag terror as she prepares to take on sell-out Pelosi.”)
BUSH ANTICS STUN REPUBLICANS FROM THE HILL
This past week, the tenant of the White House showed new signs of mental instability by barging in to a routine meeting between White House communication director Ed Gillespie, spokesman Tony Snow, and a group of Republican congressional leaders. Bush was there to insist that everybody stay the course of Iraq.
“It was stunning,” said one GOP aide who attended the meeting. “We couldn’t believe he came in.” “We kept looking at each other, amazed he came in,” said another Republican colleague. According to one press account, “Bush was described as folksy, adamant and mildly profane as he interrupted the meeting…. His message: the policy on Iraq isn’t changing. He is not backing down and no one on Capitol Hill should be confused into thinking he is letting up.”
A new threat to US policy comes from the formidable Turkish military establishment, which is sick and tired of constant cross-border attacks by PKK Kurdish terrorists operating from the Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq. The US, UK, and Israelis are using the PKK for terror operations into Kurdish territories of Iran. These PKK terrorist are paid and armed directly by the US military, bringing any notion of a US “war on terror” to a new nadir of absurdity. For some time, the Turks have been lobbing shells and raiding into Kurdish Iraq. 140,000 Turkish troops are massed along the border in question, and if Turkish patience runs out, the Kurds will be crushed.
US IRAQ SUPPLY LINES IN GRAVE DANGER
Washington still cultivates delusions of grandeur: the moment of truth for Iraq will be in mid-September, or perhaps in November or December…. But, as one British writer once put it, what if the bear blows first? What if US forces in Iraq experience catastrophic military defeat at some point in the future? What if it takes the form of pocketing or encirclement, the “Dunkirk if you’re lucky, Stalingrad if you’re not so lucky” outcome?
It is not clear whether or when Iraqi resistance forces will move decisively to attack the Achilles heel of the US occupation forces, the 400-mile truck convoys between Kuwait City and Baghdad, but the longer the US forces continue their present futile efforts, the more likely this tragic outcome will become. These are trucks driven by Pakistanis, Turks, Bangladeshis, and Filipinos, and protected by private military contractors – by poorly armed mercenaries. A recent report by Jim Michaels in USA Today indicates that the strategy most dangerous to the US forces is indeed gaining ground among the resistance: Michaels writes that “attacks on supply convoys protected by private security companies in Iraq have more than tripled as the U.S. government depends more on armed civilian guards to secure reconstruction and other missions. There were 869 such attacks from the beginning of June 2006 to the end of May this year. For the preceding 12 months, there were 281 attacks.” Of all the news coming out of Iraq, this is perhaps the most ominous. Any military debacle by the US forces in Iraq would be immediately blamed on Iran, and would infallibly be seized upon by Cheney as a pretext for massive retaliation against Iran.
DOLLAR HYPERINFLATION A FACTOR
An important contributing factor in the Cheneyac war hysteria is the beginning of dollar hyperinflation. Two Bear Sterns hedge funds have blown up, wiping out $9 billion of capital in a few days, and Helicopter Ben Bernanke of the Federal Reserve says that the subprime mortgage bubble meltdown will lead to $100 billion in losses by US banks, and this is clearly a lowball figure. Two analysts quoted by the Toronto Globe and Mail on July 19 suggest that the entire US banking establishment may now be looking at a 15% to 20% devaluation because of mortgage-related losses. Only frenetic pumping in of new dollar liquidity by Helicopter Ben and his men is staving off big bankruptcies, but this sloshing liquidity spells hyperinflation . The Dow has passed 14,000, but the dollar has also reached an all-time low of almost $1.40 to a euro, with a 26-year low against the British pound. With oil well above $75 and gold above $680 per ounce, while raw materials and food prices skyrocket, the US may soon resemble Germany of 1923, when people took their money to the grocery store in a wheelbarrow, and brought home their purchases in their pocket. Small wonder that the worldwide dumping of the bankrupt US dollar continues apace, with Iran now asking Japan to pay for oil transactions in yen, cutting Wall Street out of another lucrative commodity flow.
US SITUATION TRAGIC
These points bring into sharp relief the dire predicament of our tragically drifting country in the summer of 2007, a summer which Cheney’s backers and controllers are determined to transform into the Summer of Fear. Skeptics may object that they have heard all this before – in the spring and the autumn of 2004, in the late summer of 2005, and in March-April of 2007 – and that so far the general war with Iran had not occurred. This is true, but it is no argument against the urgency of the warnings that the present writer and others have issued from time to time over the last three years. It only shows that the world has been lurching and careening along the edge of a much wider war in the Middle East since about May of 2004 at the latest. For much of this time we have lived in the shadow of the Cheney doctrine, which calls for a nuclear attack on Iran in the wake of a new super 9/11 terrorist provocation (coming from the bowels of the US intelligence community) – as revealed by Philip Giraldi in The American Conservative in August of 2005. Each time some combination of internal US institutional resistance and inertia, objections by NATO allies, and foreign threats or pressure have somehow avoid the worst. So far we have muddled through. But Cheney’s backers and controllers – the ones designated as the Cheneyacs in this analysis – have unfailingly pulled themselves together after each rebuff, and have marshaled their forces for a new drive over the brink of the abyss. As long as Bush and Cheney are in power, as long as the 9/11 rogue networks in the US intelligence community continue their work unpurged and undisturbed, we will face one war emergency after another, until the likely moment when humanity’s luck runs out. Under any political system committed to its own survival, each of the Cheneyac war drives over the past three years should have lead to the impeachment, removal from office, and indictment of the dour and snarling old reprobate himself, and a general mop-up of his followers. It is the fact that the corrupt and cowardly parliamentary cretins of the Democratic Party have failed to impeach and oust Bush-Cheney over the last six months since they took power which represents the most immediate cause of the fix we are now in. Congressman Kucinich has introduced the needed articles against Cheney, but the Pelosi-Reid opportunists have been hostile to this needed measure. It is time for honest activists to join with the Philadelphia Platform to get on with the business at hand before martial law is imposed by these neocon fascist madmen, since by then it may be too late.
BRZEZINSKI: “A TERRORIST ACT IN THE US BLAMED ON IRAN”
The Democratic Party Congressional leadership has known all about Cheney’s plans for six months or more, as can be shown from the public record. On February 1, 2007, Zbigniew Brzezinski warned the Senate Foreign Relations Committee of ongoing machinations designed to procure war with Iran and beyond: “A plausible scenario for a military collision with Iran involves Iraqi failure to meet the benchmarks, followed by accusations of Iranian responsibility for the failure; then by some provocation in Iraq or a terrorist act in the US blamed on Iran; culminating in a ‘defensive’ US action against Iran that plunges a lonely America into a spreading and deepening quagmire eventually ranging across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.” Over the past half year, events have followed Brzezinski’s scenario closely. Blaming Iran for the missed benchmarks in Iraq is now the daily stock in trade of the Bush administration and the US Central Command, who whine continuously about Iranian interference in Iraq. There have been several military provocations in Iraq which the US has tried to pin on Iran, most notably March 23, 2007 incident involving 15 British Royal Navy and Royal Marines personnel who were taken into custody by the Iranians. This incident was a part of Cheney’s winter-spring war drive, which peaked with two US B-1 bombers deliberately violating Iranian airspace over the city of Abadan in oil-rich Khuzestan province on March 31. This crisis was defused by a mobilization of persons of good will around the world, with Russian President Putin and the RIA-Novosti news agency playing a critical role. In particular, a pointed March 28 warning from Putin to Bush about attacking Iran created enough uncertainty in Washington about how Moscow might respond to nuclear aggression against Iran so that cooler heads than Cheney’s prevailed.
FIGHT BACK WITH THE PHILADELPHIA PLATFORM
That leaves us with Brzezinski’s third scenario point: a terrorist act in the US blamed on Iran. What Brzezinski is talking about here is high treason, insurrection , genocide, high crimes against humanity under US law and the Nuremberg Code. Why has he not been called upon to tell all he knows about this sinister plot, so obviously operating through the Cheney-Addington office, and through Eliot Abrams at the White House? Because the Democrats who heard that warning – Senators Biden, Dodd, and Obama on the committee, plus Hillary Clinton – have done nothing to raise a hue and cry, hold hearings, issue subpoenas, demand documents, or begin impeachment hearings against those involved. The Democratic Party must therefore be seen as fully complicit under the Nuremberg Code in any future crimes by Cheney regarding a wider war in the Middle East. The Democratic Party has failed, and the viable peace movement must now organize independently on a multi-issue basis including 9/11 truth, as called for in the July 4, 2007 Philadelphia Platform, which can be seen at www.actindependent.org
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