Circle of 13: 02/20

Once upon a time in the West
...The seeds of anti-establishment and anti-elite sentiment were planted decades before Trump and Brexit. Trump and the Brexiteers tapped into the schism between the “anywheres” and “somewheres”, described by British publicist David Goodhart as the few elites who live without traditional constraints and everyone else who depends on the West’s status quo values.
...
‘Westlessness’ is both a phenomenon and a symptom. A phenomenon describing a world in turmoil and a symptom of the lack of communication between the governing classes and the governed.

If the West wants to find itself again, it first needs a language its own people can understand again...

Is Bloomberg an Oligarch? We Asked an Oligarchy Expert
...On Monday, Bloomberg’s team tweeted a bunch of sick photos of people spray painting things like “oligarch” at his campaign office in Ohio and taping little signs that say “eat the rich” at the one in Flint, Michigan.

Bloomberg’s campaign manager called this “derogatory language” and “an act of hate,” which, honestly, is exactly something an oligarch would say...

The U.S. Intelligence Community Intervenes in 2020 Election By Leaking on Sanders
...Sanders rejects much the national security agenda that the intelligence community has pursued both in the Cold War and the war on terror. In the era of endless wars, Sanders’ position is increasingly attractive to voters and thus increasingly threatening to the national security elite that yearns for the pre-Trump status quo...

Thirteen witnesses in the MH17 crash case will remain anonymous as their life may be at significant risk.

Supreme Court Bars Parents From Suing Border Agent Who Killed Their Unarmed Teen Son

Couple fell to deaths over cliff while doing U-turn on dirt buggy
At their inquest, attended by the BBC, Milly’s father Steve Coulson said it was a comfort to know their ‘last minutes were spent having fun’.

Franchise Workers Lose Some Power to Challenge Labor Practices

Trump looks to kill student loan forgiveness program

Did The Simpsons also predict coronavirus? Fans claim storyline about flu outbreak spreading from Japan to the US bears eerie similarities to deadly outbreak

Michael Bloomberg Confirms He Used Prison Labor To Make 2020 Campaign Calls

U.S. prepares for coronavirus pandemic, school and business closures: health officials

Chinese Workers Refuse To Go Back To Work Despite Beijing's Demands

No Surrender
After Police Defend a Gas Pipeline Over Indigenous Land Rights, Protesters Shut Down Railways Across Canada

"We Can't Stop This": Japan Rolls Out New 'Harm Reduction' Policy Aimed At Limiting Virus-Related Deaths

Europe’s Fear of Migrants Makes for Bad Foreign Policy
Paranoid about migration, the EU is an easy target for extortion by governments and militias.

Becoming gold: Alejandro Jodorowsky’s ‘The Holy Mountain’

Jewelry based on Alejandro Jodorowsky’s cult classic ‘The Holy Mountain’

A Beginner’s Guide to Alejandro Jodorowsky, the Magus of Cinema
Alejandro Jodorowsky is a true treasure of the modern world—a master of both film and magick. Here’s how he progressed on the occult path.

Operation Paperclip
Operation Paperclip was the code name for the 1945 Office of Strategic Services, Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency recruitment of German scientists from Nazi Germany to the U.S. after VE Day.

President Truman authorized Operation Paperclip in August 1945; however he had expressly ordered that anyone found “to have been a member of the Nazi party and more than a nominal participant in its activities, or an active supporter of Nazism militarism” would be excluded.

Ex-Black Panther freed after 43 years in solitary confinement

Mullahs Moving More Menacing Munitions to Yemen

Can Ankara’s sudden change of heart on NATO save the day in Idlib?

Has Erdogan Finally Lost His Center?

Cairo takes steps to establish Arab security front to halt Erdogan's ambitions

Will the Assads & House of Saud Make Up?

Earliest Mallorca settlers possible Eastern European roots

Incredible ancient stone structures still standing today

In a bid to counter Russia, Libya seeks US military base

Black Athena and the Incredible Whiteness of Being
Louise Hitchcock, Professor of Aegean Bronze Age Archaeology in the Classics and Archaeology Program concludes that Near Eastern cultures had a enormous influence on classical Greek civilisation

How Albania remained true to Stalin until the late 20th century

Israeli Historian Michael Goldelman Challenges the Accepted Chronology of the Kingdom of David

Alternative Facts Aren’t New (Check Out Ancient Greece)

Volunteer Tourists Are Still Showing Up at Greek Refugee Camps. Are They Really Helping?

Greece readies sweeping shutdown in case of virus outbreak

Nineteen groups appeal to PM to protect unaccompanied child migrants

Open Letter to Greek Prime Minister [EN/EL]
The Greek State has a moral and legal obligation to actively protect the fundamental rights of unaccompanied minors in Greece according to international and national legislation.

Greek islands shut down in strike as locals protest migrant camps

Largest Greek solar power project set to be the biggest in Europe

Turkey's Erdoğan Even Alienates Turkish Cypriots

Pakistan accused of cover-up over fresh polio outbreak
Source claims government plans secret vaccinations after 12 children fall prey to disease

'Grand Challenge' review stresses global impact of microplastics

Ring Continues To Pitch Facial Recognition To Law Enforcement While Claiming It Won't Be Adding Facial Recognition To Its Cameras

US Biowarfare Act Author: Studies Confirm Coronavirus Weaponized!

PICTURED: Prince Andrew's millionaire friend Peter Nygård is seen with scantily-clad women in Bahamas compound where the fashion exec is accused of raping ten teens after plying them with alcohol and drugs

South Korea Confirms 169 New Cases As Total Surpasses 1,000; China Reports Drop In Deaths
Seoul took on a more morbid tone Tuesday following reports in the local press that a civil servant from the Ministry of Justice's Emergency Safety Planning Office jumped off a bridge in Seoul at around 5 am local time Tuesday.

The official was one of several individuals charged with overseeing the government's response to the virus. As cases soar and hysteria mounts, we suspect this news won't exactly help quiet the public's nerves.

USA is pulling nukes out of Turkey

How to Organize Your Workplace Without Getting Caught

YouTube moderators are being forced to sign a statement acknowledging the job can give them PTSD

You’re Likely to Get the Coronavirus
Most cases are not life-threatening, which is also what makes the virus a historic challenge to contain.

How ‘Show, Don’t Tell’ Turns Readers Into Voyeurs
For the poet Cathy Park Hong, writing about racial trauma requires analyzing its effects in a way that readers can’t leave behind.

The Postal Service Fired Thousands of Workers for Getting Injured While Delivering and Processing Your Mail
USPS forced out 44,000 workers who got injured on the job.

Suckers List: How Allstate’s Secret Auto Insurance Algorithm Squeezes Big Spenders
Insurers are supposed to price based on risk, but Allstate’s algorithm put a thumb on the scale

Swinging the Vote?
Google’s black box algorithm controls which political emails land in your main inbox. For 2020 presidential candidates, the differences are stark.

India is building nuclear submarines and ICBMs. That’s a $14 billion mistake.

'Go back to school and look at the map!' Twitterati hammer CNN as it draws non-existent SHARED border between Germany & Italy

Bosnia war veterans become peace messengers as threats to stability rise

Human rights, not corporate rights
Human rights offer a powerful framework for challenging corporate hegemony and creating a more just and sustainable world.

A key FBI photo analysis method has serious flaws: study

My mistress Melancholy
In The Anatomy of Melancholy, Robert Burton gave his life to charting a Renaissance disease both alluring and dangerous

Why Hawaii Continues To Keep Fluoride Out Of Its Drinking Water

The US Government Has Sanitized War
We are reminded of our endless wars only when the government wants to invoke patriotism without criticism.

Greek gov’t “awards” companies for migration centers construction, bypassing…

K-Holing: Why Ketamine Causes Wild Hallucinations
“If you imagine an orchestra as an analogy for the brain, LSD takes away the conductor and allows all the different musicians to play their own tune. Different sub-groups can develop within the orchestra, so that would explain the connectivity between sight and sound or taste and sound. With ketamine, it’s almost like the instruments [themselves] would be disorganised.”

Scientists Discover the First Animal That Doesn’t Breathe Oxygen to Live
The parasite yet again expands our horizons for the possibilities of life on Earth.

NYT: $100 million US phone surveillance program produced two unique leads
The USA Freedom Act is up for renewal next month.

Porn site offers free access to people living in coronavirus-affected area (which areas are they?)

Delhi Riots: Intelligence Bureau Employee Killed, Body Found In Drain In Chand Bagh Area

Secret House of Commons doorway from 17th century discovered during restoration works

What is the "Westless" global order?

The Truth About Alligators in the Sewers of New York
Sightings over the decades have lent an air of legitimacy to the century-old urban myth. Here’s how it all started.

A top US health official say the US needs 300 million face masks for healthcare workers

‘The one where we ousted a dictator’
President Duterte may look like he is merely copying the atrocities of the Marcos dictatorship. But a deeper scrutiny shows the system that allowed the Marcos dictatorship to rise prevailed even after his ouster.

Marmite goes subliminal for Mind Control campaign
This is the second part of Marmite’s Mind Control campaign, following on from the end of last year when the brand launched a hypnosis film that it promised would convert viewers into fans

Spy or saint? The Buddhist monk who brought Russia closer to Tibet
The British believed he was a Russian agent influencing the 13th Dalai Lama. How accurate was this suspicion?

China’s blood donations dry up as coronavirus outbreak quells giving

FAIR USE NOTICE

This blog may contain videos with copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in an effort to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

Credo

"A paranoid is someone who knows a little of what's going on. A psychotic is a guy who's just found out what's going on."
~ William S. Burroughs (1914-1997)

"A people who would begin by burning fences and let the forest stand!"
~ Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

" I would prefer not to" - Bartleby the Scrivener
~ Herman Melville (1819-1891)

"The imagination is not a state: it is the human existence itself"
~ William Blake (1757-1827)

"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."
~ Hunter S. Thompson (1937-2005)

"On a planet that increasingly resembles one huge Maximum Security prison, the only intelligent choice is to plan a jail break."
~ Robert Anton Wilson (1932-2007)

"Only after the last tree has been cut down. Only after the last river has been poisoned. Only after the last fish has been caught. Only then will you find money cannot be eaten."
~ Cree Prophecy

"Theology is just a debate over who to frame for creating reality. What we imagine is order is merely the prevailing form of chaos."
~ Kerry Thornley (1938-1998)

"Money can buy everything, it is said. What is not said is what it takes to buy money."
~ A ballad against work - Kamunist Kranti

"What does the money machine eat? It eats youth, spontaneity, life, beauty, and, above all, it eats creativity. It eats quality and sh*ts quantity."
~ William S. Burroughs

"The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words you can control the people who must use the words."

~ Philip K. Dick (1928-1982)