Obama’s support of the international criminal court: Worrisome

Typically looking through a narrow slit in the perennially short-sighted prism of American interests, Nino Saviano writes for The Hill's Congress Blog:

The recent UN Security Council Resolution authorizing the International Criminal Court to investigate Libya’s Gadhafi boasted unprecedented U.S. support for such a potential prosecution. The United States is not a signatory to the ICC treaty. In a similar vote in the past – when the Security Council referred Sudan’s Al-Bashir to the ICC – the United States abstained. That was during the administration of President George W. Bush.

President Obama’s positive support of ICC action in the Security Council on February 26 can have very important ramifications for the United States in terms of its standing and credibility within the world community. It could possibly even carry implications for our country’s national sovereignty.

The United States rejected the ICC treaty for reasons of vital national security interests. Given our significant military involvement overseas, the Pentagon would never want to place its soldiers at the mercy of a potential political witch hunt by ICC prosecutors. It is to this effect that the Obama administration included a clause in the recent resolution exempting U.S. military in the Libya case – should they be drawn into the conflict there.

Such a clause, however, carries no absolute guarantee that no attempt would be made to draw the U.S. military, or any of its affiliates (i.e. contractors) into some legal or prosecutorial battle. The complexities of military action are too wide and deep for such a guarantee – a type of assurance that has never been tested before in international law.

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Libya Strike: Air warfare hours away?

Squatting is to be a crime: Police will be able to turf out intruders

From Jack Doyle at the Daily Mail:

The era of squatters’ rights is to end, the Daily Mail can reveal.

Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke is to scrap existing ‘soft touch’ laws and make occupying a private property illegally a criminal offence.

It will mean the police can enter a property by force and evict the occupants within days.

Offenders will face prosecution and even a jail term if found guilty. In Scotland, where squatting is already illegal, they can be jailed for 21 days.

Thousands of properties every year are ‘taken hostage’ by gangs of aggressive squatters, but homeowners and landlords complain they are powerless to take them back.

Astonishingly, property owners can even face criminal prosecution themselves simply for forcing their way back into their own homes.

Landlords’ groups and MPs have long called for a change to the practically non-existent squatting laws. A senior Whitehall source said making the changes was now an ‘urgent priority’, as Mr Clarke seeks to end the nightmare of homeowners being locked out of their own properties.

The source said: ‘Ken has had enough of seeing homeowners battle to get squatters out.

‘He is determined to use the full force of the law to save people from the nightmare of having to fight to get their houses back. The days of squatters’ rights will be over.’

It is thought there may be up to 10,000 active squatters in England and Wales, who often move between properties with impunity.

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Revisiting Kansan1225 and Klumology

Kansan Klumology

There is a guy who goes by the name "Kansan" on usenet who has been around awhile. I used to get a kick out of reading his weirdness on alt.magick. He has a whole psuedo-religious world view that revolves around super model Heidi Klum.

The way he strings together occult beliefs, politics, and personal delusion is a good example of what to avoid in "conspirology" or "parapolitical research."

Anyway, it's sort of kooky and fun for awhile, but his ramblings do get boring. It is hard to tell whether he is an honest-to-goodness kook, or a prankster who has woven a magnificent tapestry of joke conspiracy.


I used to live in Wichita, Kansas, from 1988 to 1993.

Because of the intense, continuing, and enduring general interest about me, I think I should reiterate the basics of my biography. My name is Nick Kaffes and I was born in Volos, Greece, on December 25, 1952. That is what the "1225" part of my screen name stands for, my birthday, December 25.

Since you mention the FBI, my immediate family was always under the surveillance of the Greek Security Police (Asphaleia), because my father Alexander had been an operative of the Greek Communist Party (Kommounistikon Komma Ellados, KKE) early in his life. As a matter of fact, the Greek Government imprisoned him for two years in the late 1940s, during the Greek civil war, because of Communist insurgency activities.

During the right-wing military dictatorship that was instituted in Greece on April 21, 1967, this surveillance by the Security Police intensified and included me, a high school student at the time. I was questioned by them on a number of occasions, but never arrested.

In 1970 I came to the U.S. and while I was in Wichita around 1990 I came to accept a conspiracy theory point of view. I started out as a left-wing conspiracy theorist, influenced by my father's Communist leanings, and in 1991 I started publishing a bimonthly newsletter titled "Contemporary Indications of a Conspiracy". One of my newsletter's targets back then was radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh, whom I used to call "Rausch Limbach", i.e., the "Poison from Limbach".

Rush became concerned about my writings and had the FBI investigate me around 1992 to 1993. Nothing came of it, because I am a very law-abiding and peaceful person, even though my opinions can be unpopular and/or obnoxious at times.

From 1993 and 1998 I used to live in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. During this time my views shifted towards the right and when I came back to America (to Houston this time) I started my newsletter again in 1999 with an extreme right-wing point of view. I stopped publishing my newsletter in 2001.

Since that time I have become a sui generis, i.e., a very idiosyncratic
conspiracy theorist, beyond political party considerations. By now I am the world's most eminent Klumologist and my theories have more of a religious flavor, along with speculations about space aliens.

My latest evolution is wholly due to the kindness that Heidi has shown towards me and she has made me look at the world with a much more optimistic attitude. She has changed my perspective and in the Summer of 2002 I publicly apologized for the many rash statements I had made as an extreme right-wing conspiracy theorist.

By now, I also appreciate Rush Limbaugh's great talent and his work as an entertainer, even though I do not share his views.

The FBI is very much aware of where I live, because I have contacted them on a number of occasions here in Houston. I think they are doing a good job, as well as can be expected.

When I went to Saudi Arabia, I was also investigated by the Saudi
authorities for any links to international terrorist organizations (especially pro-Palestinian; they consider them a threat to the royal family) and was found to be clean. Even though I have lived under repressive regimes, i.e., the Greek dictatorship and the Saudi royal government, I have never been arrested anywhere. I am a very mild-mannered person, who just happens to have ideas different from most people and expresses them.

Heidi and I are on very good terms and she knows my address and telephone number. She has mailed to me beautifully autographed photographs of hers on three separate occasions upon my request. She knows what to expect of me and we trust each other. I always let her know of my moves concerning her in advance.

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.magi ... this+group

~ ~ ~ * ~ ~ ~


Kansan1225

The initial appearance of 'Kansan1225' on the alt.freemasonry usenet newsgroup (and apparently his first usenet posting) was on February 6, 1999 wherein he began his anti-Masonic tirade. His 'shtick' has changed marginally since then and is now overshadowed by his obsession with Heidi. That initial post revealed a totally bizarre conspiracy-filled world-view with contrived connections in a 'shoot the arrow/draw the target' tactic the likes of which has rarely been duplicated. It also showed the extent of his prognostication abilities when he spoke of the then problems relating to US President William Clinton:

... At the present time, the Impeachment Trial, a re-enactment of the Death and Resurrection of Hiram Abiff, is scheduled to be completed on Friday, February 12, the birthday of the ritually murdered Abraham Lincoln. The Trial will conclude with the Raising (Acquital) of Brother Bill from the Floor of the Senate."

Masonicinfo Note: You actually did get something partially right. The impeachment concluded that day - as was widely predicted - although there was NO "acquital" (or acquittal): the Senate simply voted down the articles of impeachment. However, the sentence in your subsequent paragraph seems to have put you in the category of all those other 'seers' of the future when you wrote:

"Therefore, expect Brother Bill to continue in a zombie-like state (similar to that of Masonic Brother King Hussein), until some untoward development removes him permanently from the Presidency, or even from the world of the living. Expect this removal to take place before the seventh month of 1999...."

So much for Nick's ability to see the future. These, though, were minor compared to his anti-Masonic diatribes - in profusion. He began a veritable flood of postings that continually accused Freemasonry of Satanism and of manipulating world events. His knowledge of dates and his ability to interconnect unrelated dates and facts in an extraordinary flimflam fashion caused most readers to immediately marginalize his claims. He began writing essays which were posted to a website that he claimed wasn't his (it still exists today - click here, understanding that it's a free Tripod site with MANY pop-up windows) and shows much of the venom and anti-Semitism we personally felt was profoundly disturbing.

Nick obviously wanted to reach a wide audience with his conspiracy theories (although why 'now' is still, five years later, unclear). He would post single, identical messages to multiple newsgroups, most related to conspiracy (including a group for fans of Robert Anton Wilson, one of the authors of conspiracy parody, "The Illuminatus! Trilogy"). He had ostensibly written a book. He also published a newsletter which he would occasionally flaunt and that he'd convinced one single university library to subscribe to. (When that library was contacted about their subscription, they apparently READ it and Nick shortly thereafter seemed to lose his sole customer and discontinued his publishing ventures....)

It took Nick almost a year from that first Kansan1225 post to 'finding' the person he claimed was his "spiritual daughter". On January 17, 2000, he posted about the woman who is now his obsession. Why Heidi Klum, you ask? In Nick's mind, every event that had ever occurred in the history of mankind (and perhaps some outside of it) was somehow manipulated by what he refers to as "Clandestine Luciferian Masons" or CLuMs for short. It only took a year for him to figure out that Heidi KLUM's name fit nicely into his conspiracy theories (much better than Claudia Schiffer and Polly Klass, with whom he had brief imaginary flirtations, for example) and that he could use her popularity and appeal to garner interest in his rants. Her involvement was, he declared, a "spiritual and temporal conspiracy". For Nick, it was a short trip through the paranoia in his weird usenet messages to proclaiming his love for Heidi by writing long messages to her website and devouring every piece of material (and photograph) about her. He definitively proclaimed that she was being used as a 'tool' of supernatural forces ruling the universe and that "the Entities" (which include space aliens) had a master plan for both Heidi and himself.

Nick's anti-Masonic tactics were reasonably unique. Using, primarily, coincidence of dates (but occasionally tossing in things like supposedly similar patterns on flags, neckwear, or whatever), he capitalized on his extraordinary ability to remember dates and historical minutiae to form an imagined connection from any event to any other event - throughout the history of the world and especially in modern times. Among his more bizarre claims was that all of the world's countries are in league with each other, with their leaders secretly manipulating world events - and that they're all somehow secretly connected with Freemasonry. His assertions were so weird as to be dismissed out of hand but the casual reader examining a single internet Usenet posting both then and now often feels compelled to respond, if only because they don't fully understand the enormous fallacy which feeds the concept of Nick's asserted belief system.

One Mason observed that if a person took the listing from the book "10,000 Famous Freemasons" it would result in - on average - some thirty Masons being tied to an event for each day of the year. And, ignoring obvious fact, all of the world's leaders (past and present) are not tied to Freemasonry despite Nick's assertions to the contrary. More astute observers will note that Kansan1225, after his early spectacular failures, rarely makes predictions but simply puts together his conception of connections between events, all controlled by these imaginary CLuMs - and that to date, with but one or two exceptions, each of his predictions has been wrong.

At one point, Mr. Kaffes resorted to virulent anti-Semitic attacks and attempts to sell his books/newsletter. He posted the following on the alt.freemasonry newsgroup:

"Recently the Shabbes Goy Ed King tried to side step my characterization of him as a boot-licking slave of his satanic Zionist masters.

Having lived in the New York/New Jersey area for many years, I am very familiar with the behavioral characteristics of Jews, satanic Zionists, Talmudists, the backward Hassidim, etc. Ed King does not behave like any kind of Jew in my experience.

He does, however, behave like a sycophantic slave, licking the Talmudic excrement off the boots of his satanic Zionist masters.

What do other people think? How would you vote? Ed King: Shabbes Goy or Jew?"

He later posted the following as well:

"Hey, Ed King, what are you doing posting here on a Saturday morning?
You should be at a Synagogue cleaning out toilets."

With the death of conspiracy theorist Jim Keith, Nick attempted to 'tie his star' to another of those who achieved notoriety through weirdness. In September, 1999, he claimed to have received the following message from Mr. Keith:

Read your write-up of the Polly Klass masonic connections in alt.conspiracy and found it very interesting. I'm working on the next volume in the Secret and Suppressed book series, Secret and Suppressed II, and I would be interested in seeing submissions of your writing for possible publication. Looking forward to hearing from you.

As time passed, however, Nick's prodigious talent for memorizing irrelevant trivia seems to have caused him to forget the actual contents of that message because in May, 2001 he wrote:

Many people have been impressed by my writings. One of them was the well-known conspiracy writer Jim Keith. Back in August 1999 he asked me to publish some of my articles in his upcoming book.

In less than two weeks he was dead under suspicious circumstances.

Mr. Keith's request for writing samples "...for possible publication." turned into "...asked me to publish...." and it's delicious to add a hint that his death might have some connection to his having contacted Nick. Curious, isn't it?

Many people believe that Nick is posting only to the newsgroup that they're reading - and those to which he posts run the gamut from the bizarre to the ridiculous. In reality, however, he daily screens multiple sources for information about Ms. Klum's most personal activities and then posts messages to multiple newsgroups, one at a time. When a response is received on any group, it's posted individually to a dozen others. Because of this technique, one is tempted to wonder if some of these 'responses' he receives are simply creations of Nick's very bizarre mind.

In July of 2002, Mr. Kaffes shocked alt.freemasonry (and the several other newsgroups to which he posts) by posting a single message of apology for his anti-Semitic behavior. We're still unsure as to his motivation for this and have added the fact as a footnote rather than a headline. Time will tell whether this apology represents a true change in his behavior or whether it's a ruse for some more egregious activity. We hope that Nick has truly repented of his former positions and encourage him in modifying his behavior. When confronted with his messages to this site's author, he responded with a half-hearted comment that he had already posted an apology for his anti-Semitic behavior and dismissed its egregiousness as being a byproduct of his experiences during a period in which he lived in the Near East, a hotbed for such things.

As of December, 2003, Mr. Kaffes seems FAR more obsessed with Heidi minutiae than before. He had previously claimed that his wife and two daughters had supported him in his fantasies but later wrote that he's not allowed to speak about Heidi. (Small wonder, in our opinion....!). He nevertheless regularly spoke of "the Entities" (which he defined as God, the angels, and extraterrestrial beings including the Masons - in a broad expansion of the Hoagland theories!) and his readers fail to realize that the bizarre conspiracy theories continued unabated.

Nick - who previously claimed that Heidi was his "spiritual daughter" and the sister to his own daughters wrote such bizarre things as:

"Such is the situation today: Heidi's official "lover", Flavio Briatore, doubts the paternity of Heidi's baby and demands a DNA test. Whereas, I, the avatar of Pope Sylvester, have no doubt that I am the baby's father and look forward to his or her birth."

He also wrote that he and Heidi were married at his Church in Houston during Easter weekend. Likely Ms. Klum's whereabouts that particular time are unknown - which Nick knows - and he can thus fan the flames of his fantasies still further. We'll not comment further on the daughter/marriage-father matter; discerning readers can readily see the depths of delusion and depravity that Nick has entered.
He further bragged about going to a neurologist relating to his 'obsessions' at the request of his wife. After a single visit, he provided sketchy information, obfuscated in the normal Kansan style. There followed several weeks of 'stories' about his relationship with the physician and then, suddenly, Nick fell silent and has not been heard from anywhere online since.

Will he reappear at some point with more fantasies? Who knows....


~ ~ ~ * ~ ~ ~


Nikos Kazantzakis and Heidi Klum

Kazantzakis was born in Heraklion, Crete, on February 18, 1883, according
to the Old (Julian) Calendar, corresponding to March 2, 1883, of the New
(Gregorian) Calendar:

http://www.historical-museum.gr/kazantzakis/index1.html

On the 120th anniversary of his birthday, on March 2, 2003, Our Lady
Heidi Klum and Renault Formula 1 team manager Flavio Briatore appeared as a
"secret couple" for the first time, riding her Carnival float in the parade in
Bergisch Gladbach, her hometown, near Cologne, Germany.

Kazantzakis was initiated into Freemasonry in 1907, while a law student
in Athens.

Briatore was born on April 12, 1950, having the same birthday as David
Letterman, who was born in 1947. This date also happens to be the anniversary
of the first human space flight by Yuri Gagarin in 1961.

On the 12th day of April, 2003, on the common birthday of Briatore and
Letterman, Empress Heidi went to the E. 12th Meridian, to Warnemuende, Germany,
and christened the luxury cruise ship AIDA Aura. After the christening, the
AIDA Aura sailed for the Mediterranean to conduct cruises there. Her home port
in the Mediterranean is Heraklion, the birthplace of Kazantzakis.

On June 29, 2003, my wife, Dina Kesmetzis Kaffes, flew from Houston to
Greece for her Summer vacation. Our hometown is Volos, Greece, and she went
there. Her younger sister, Caterina Kesmetzis Doulkeroglou, had arranged for
the two of them and our daughters to go on a trip to Heraklion. They arrived
in Heraklion on the Fourth of July, America's birthday.

Kazantzakis died in Freiburg im Breisgau, in Heidi's homeland, Germany,
on October 26, 1957, the feast of St. Demetrios. "Demetrios" means "devotee of
the Great Goddess Demeter". During the early Middle Ages, my hometown Volos
used to be known as Demetrias, i.e., "city dedicated to Demeter". The main
street of Volos today is Demetrias Street. Dina's father is Demetrios
Kesmetzis and my possible father is Demetrios Alpakis (please see my message
"Is Kansan a bastard?" of September 5, 2003).

The midpoint of Kazantzakis's life, from March 2, 1883, to October 26,
1957, was June 29, 1920, 83 years to the day before Dina left for her vacation
on June 29, 2003.

Flavio Briatore is a "geometra", a "geometrician", i.e., a surveyor, by
profession. The main symbol of Freemasonry is the Square and Compasses, the
tools of a surveyor, with the letter G in the middle. This G stands for
"Geometry".

After his death in Freiburg, Germany, Kazantzakis's body was brought back
to Heraklion for his funeral and burial. On the way from the Cathedral to the
cemetery, the funeral procession through Hearklion's main street passed by a
building with the sign "KOLONIA" on it.

http://www.historical-museum.gr/kazantzakis/index1.html

"Kolonia" means "Cologne" in Greek, Archangel Heidi's hometown.

Cologne's original name was Colonia, i.e., a colony of Romans in Germany.
The colonization of space by humans started on April 12, 1961, with Gagarin's
flight, on the common birthday of Briatore and Letterman and the minus 42nd
anniversary of Goddess Heidi's christening the AIDA Aura, whose base port is
Heraklion, the birthplace and final resting place of Nikos Kazantzakis.

This post was written by Nick Kaffes, aka Kansan1225.

Wilhelm Reich

or watch here.

Can humans alter probability through thought alone?

Scientists at the PEAR laboratories noticed something odd during their work with coincidence: Some humans seemed to influence random numbers with nothing but their thoughts. Could this be pseudoscience, or a scientific breakthrough? Tune in to learn more.

http://www.youtube.com/user/HowStuffWorks