Turning 18 gave me the opportunity to vote in the UK General Election, I won’t say who I voted for but the person I did vote for let all the young people who voted for him down, we called it the Anakin/Vader effect.
We believed he would make a difference & now he’s kissing the emperor’s butt. It’s extremely disappointing.
Maybe capitalism stepped in, paid him alot to shut up & play good or maybe the lure of authoritative control warped his mind. I don’t know.

Shall continue with my random conspiratorial posts mixing in with sporting ones.
Hope you enjoy & revel in the truth.

Stage design was incredible. The LCD screens accompanying them were stunning, it was difficult at times to not look at them.

A mention to the support band which for the whole UK tour has been The Big Pink, honestly they weren’t very good, instrumentally hey were average and vocally nobody could hear a word the lead singer was singing. Also two strobe lights kept flashing for 30 monutes straight. Bad on the eyes. 5/10

Setlist from the Muse gig:

1.Uprising
2.Resistance
3.New Born
4.Map of the Problematique
5.Supermassive Black Hole
6.MK ULTRA
7.Interlude + Hysteria
8.Nishe
9.United States of Eurasia
10.Cave
11.Guiding Light
12.Helsinki Jam + Undisclosed Desires
13.Starlight
14.Plug In Baby
15.Time Is Running Out
16.Unnatural Selection
17.Exogenisis: Symphony Part I (Overture)
18.Stockholm Syndrome + War Within a Breath riff + riff
19.Man with a Harmonica intro + Knights of Cydonia

Intro was incredible. Muse stood on their levitating stage from Uprising to New Born coming down from the satge to perform Map of the Problematique. Incredible sound. In came Supermassive to Hysteria which was Brilliant. Everyone was going ionsane. Especially staning at the front. Everyone though was very good to each pther giving space & saying sorry if you got pushed too hard. Community spririt if you will. Downer of the night was during Hysteria when someone near me was punched in the face & was put unconcious. Felt extremly sorry for him. Was carried over the gate & out.

The weakest part of the gig (from an incredible night) was Nishe to Undisclosed. With the exception Of United States of Eurasia each song was lacking something. Especially next single Undisclosed Desires which didn’t have the kick the single has. Slightly bland.

After this though was when thing Tured insane. From Starlight to the closing song Knights of Cydonia moshing began (despite the signs saying no moshing) and ballonns buring Plug in Baby. Popping one was a good feeling. Strangely.

From Plug in Baby to Time is Running Out was incredible + Exogenisis (Part 1) which sounded alot better than I was expecting. But Stockholm Syndrome & Knights of Cydonia stole the night. Incredible performance with all the band clearly giving everything for the crowd.

Overall it was an satisfying gig with Muse being at their best despite some criticism over song selection, personally I thought it was brilliant, their performance established why their the best live band around. 10/10

Uprising

Hysteria

Undisclosed Desires

United States of Eurasia

New Born

Starlight

Unintended

Knights of Cydonia

The story begins at Yale, where three threads of American social history — espionage, drug smuggling and secret societies — intertwine into one.

Elihu Yale was born near Boston, educated in London, and served with the British East India Company, eventually becoming governor of Fort Saint George, Madras, in 1687. He amassed a great fortune from trade and returned to England in 1699. Yale became known as quite a philanthropist; upon receiving a request from the Collegiate School in Connecticut, he sent a donation and a gift of books. After subsequent bequests, Cotton Mather suggested the school be named Yale College, in 1718.

A statue of Nathan Hale stands on Old Campus at Yale University. There is a copy of that statue in front of the CIA’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Yet another stands in front of Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts (where George H.W. Bush (’48) went to prep school and joined a secret society at age twelve).

Nathan Hale, along with three other Yale graduates, was a member of the “Culper Ring,” one of America’s first intelligence operations. Established by George Washington, it was successful throughout the Revolutionary War. Nathan was the only operative to be ferreted out by the British, and after speaking his famous regrets, he was hanged in 1776. Ever since the founding of the Republic, the relationship between Yale and the “Intelligence Community” has been unique.

In 1823, Samuel Russell established Russell and Company for the purpose of acquiring opium in Turkey and smuggling it to China. Russell and Company merged with the Perkins (Boston) syndicate in 1830 and became the primary American opium smuggler. Many of the great American and European fortunes were built on the “China”(opium) trade.

One of Russell and Company’s Chief of Operations in Canton was Warren Delano, Jr., grandfather of Franklin Roosevelt. Other Russell partners included John Cleve Green (who financed Princeton), Abiel Low (who financed construction of Columbia), Joseph Coolidge and the Perkins, Sturgis and Forbes families. (Coolidge’s son organized the United Fruit company, and his grandson, Archibald C. Coolidge, was a co-founder of the Council on Foreign Relations.)

William Huntington Russell (’33), Samuel’s cousin, studied in Germany from 1831-32. Germany was a hotbed of new ideas. The “scientific method” was being applied to all forms of human endeavor. Prussia, which blamed the defeat of its forces by Napoleon in 1806 on soldiers only thinking about themselves in the stress of battle, took the principles set forth by John Locke and Jean Rosseau and created a new educational system. Johan Fitche, in his “Address to the German People,” declared that the children would be taken over by the State and told what to think and how to think it.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel took over Fitche’s chair at the University Of Berlin in 1817, and was a professor there until his death in 1831. Hegel was the culmination of the German idealistic philosophy school of Immanuel Kant.

To Hegel, our world is a world of reason. The state is Absolute Reason and the citizen can only become free by worship and obedience to the state. Hegel called the state the “march of God in the world” and the “final end”. This final end, Hegel said, “has supreme right against the individual, whose supreme duty is to be a member of the state.” Both fascism and communism have their philosophical roots in Hegelianism. Hegelian philosophy was very much in vogue during William Russell’s time in Germany.

When Russell returned to Yale in 1832, he formed a senior society with Alphonso Taft (’33). According to information acquired from a break-in to the “tomb” (the Skull and Bones meeting hall) in 1876, “Bones is a chapter of a corps in a German University…. General Russell, its founder, was in Germany before his Senior Year and formed a warm friendship with a leading member of a German society. He brought back with him to college, authority to found a chapter here.” So class valedictorian William H. Russell, along with fourteen others, became the founding members of “The Order of Scull and Bones,” later changed to “The Order of Skull and Bones”.

The secretive Order of Skull and Bones exists only at Yale. Fifteen juniors are “tapped” each year by the seniors to be initiated into next year’s group. Some say each initiate is given $15,000 and a grandfather clock. Far from being a campus fun-house, the group is geared more toward the success of its members in the post-collegiate world.

The family names on the Skull and Bones roster roll off the tongue like an elite party list — Lord, Whitney, Taft, Jay, Bundy, Harriman, Weyerhaeuser, Pinchot, Rockefeller, Goodyear, Sloane, Stimson, Phelps, Perkins, Pillsbury, Kellogg, Vanderbilt, Bush, Lovett and so on.

William Russell went on to become a general and a state legislator in Connecticut. Alphonso Taft was appointed U.S. Attorney General, Secretary of War (a post many “Bonesmen” have held), Ambassador to Austria, and Ambassador to Russia (another post held by many “Bonesmen”). His son, William Howard Taft (’87), is the only man to be both President of the United States and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

Article by Kris Millegan

HAARP stands for High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) which is an investigation project to “understand, simulate and control ionospheric processes that might alter the performance of communication and surveillance systems”. Started in 1993, the project is proposed to last for a period of twenty years.

The project is jointly funded by US Air Force, Navy, and University of Alaska. It is said that the project is similar to numerous existing ionospheric heaters around the world, and has a large suite of diagnostic instruments that facilitate its use to increase scientific understanding of ionospheric dynamics. Though many have expressed fears of HAARP being used as a nefarious weapon, the scientists involved in aeronomy, space science, or plasma physics dismiss these fears as unfounded.

The HAARP Site in Alaska

The project site is near Gakona, Alaska (lat. 62.39Ÿ N, long 145.15 W), just West of the Wrangell-Saint Elias National Park. An environmental impact statement led to permission for an array of up to 180 antennas to be erected. HAARP has been constructed at the previous site of an over-the-horizon radar installation.

A large structure, built to house the OTH now houses the HAARP control room, kitchen, and offices. Several other small structures house various instruments. The Ionospheric Research Instrument (IRI) is the primary instrument at HAARP, which is a high-frequency (HF) transmitter system used to temporarily modify the ionosphere.

Study of this modified volume yields important information for understanding natural ionospheric processes.During active ionospheric research, the signal generated by the transmitter system is delivered to the antenna array, transmitted in an upward direction, and is partially absorbed, at an altitude between 100 to 350 km (depending on operating frequency), in a small volume a few hundred meters thick and a few tens of kilometers in diameter over the site.

The intensity of the HF signal in the ionosphere is less than 3 microwatts per cm2, tens of thousands of times less than the Sun’s natural electromagnetic radiation reaching the earth and hundreds of times less than even the normal random variations in intensity of the Sun’s natural ultraviolet (UV) energy which creates the ionosphere.

The small effects that are produced, however, can be observed with the sensitive scientific instruments installed at the HAARP facility and these observations can provide new information about the dynamics of plasmas and new insight into the processes of solar-terrestrial interactions.

The HAARP site has been constructed in three distinct phases.

The Developmental Prototype (DP) had 18 antenna elements, organized in three columns by six rows. It was fed with a total of 360 kilowatts (KW) combined transmitter output power. The DP transmitted just enough power for the most basic of ionospheric testing.

The Filled Developmental Prototype (FDP) had 48 antenna units arrayed in six columns by eight rows, with 960 KW of transmitter power. It was fairly comparable to other ionospheric heating facilities. This was used for a number of successful scientific experiments and ionospheric exploration campaigns over the years.

The Final IRI (FIRI) will be the final build of the IRI. It has 180 antenna units, organized in 15 columns by 12 rows, yielding a theoretical maximum gain of 31 dB. A total of 3600 KW (3.6 MW) of transmitter power will feed it. The total effective radiated power (ERP) will be 3,981 MW (96 dBW).

As of the summer of 2005, all the antennas were in place, but the final quota of transmitters had not yet been installed.Each antenna element consists of a crossed dipole that can be polarized for linear, ordinary mode (O-mode), or extraordinary mode (X-mode) transmission and reception.

Each part of the two section crossed dipoles are individually fed from a custom built transmitter, that has been specially designed with very low distortion. The ERP of the IRI is limited by more than a factor of 10 at its lower operating frequencies. Much of this is due to higher antenna losses and a less efficient antenna pattern. HAARP can transmit between 2.8 and 10 MHz. This frequency range lies above the AM radio broadcast band and well below Citizens’ Band frequency allocations. HAARP is only licensed to transmit in certain segments of this frequency range, however.

When the IRI is transmitting, the bandwidth of the transmitted signal is 100 kHz or less. The IRI can transmit continuously (CW) or pulses as short as 100 microseconds. CW transmission is generally used for ionospheric modification, while short pulses are frequently repeated, and the IRI is used as a radar system.

Researchers can run experiments that use both modes of transmission, modifying the ionosphere for a predetermined amount of time, then measuring the decay of modification effects with pulsed transmissions.

Stated objectives

The HAARP project aims to direct a 3.6 MW signal, in the 2.8-10 MHz region of the HF band, into the ionosphere. The signal may be pulsed or continuous wave. Then effects of the transmission and any recovery period will be examined associated instrumentation, including VHF and UHF radars, HF receivers, and optical cameras.

According to the HAARP team, this will advance the study of basic natural processes that occur in the ionosphere under the natural but much stronger influence of solar interaction, as well as how the natural ionosphere affects radio signals.

This will enable scientists to develop techniques to mitigate these effects in order to improve the reliability and/or performance of communication and navigation systems, which would have a wide range of applications in both the civilian and military sectors.

The project is funded by the Office of Naval Research and jointly managed by the ONR and Air Force Research Laboratory, with the principal involvement of the University of Alaska. Fourteen other universities and educational institutions have been involved in the development of the project and its instruments, namely the University of Alaska, Penn State University (ARL), Boston College, UCLA, Clemson University, Dartmouth College, Cornell University, Johns Hopkins University, University of Maryland, College Park, University of Massachusetts, MIT, Polytechnic University, Stanford University, and the University of Tulsa.

The project’s specifications were developed by the universities, which are continuing to play a major role in the design of future research efforts. There is both military and commercial interest in its outcome, as many communications and navigation systems depend on signals being reflected from the ionosphere or passing through the ionosphere to satellites.

The HAARP project offers annual open days to permit the general public to visit the facility, and makes a public virtue of openness; according to the team, “there are no classified documents pertaining to HAARP.”

Each summer, HAARP holds a summer-school for visiting students, giving them an opportunity to do research with one of the world’s foremost research instruments.

HAARP controversy

Numerous parties have found reasons to suspect that HAARP is more than the government claims it to be. Various theories draw on brain waves, confusion of the ionosphere with the neutral atmosphere, and over-stated claims of HAARP supporters. Many of the concerns about HAARP have been presented so as to be dismissed as “conspiracy theories” by some, while seen as proof of nefarious governmental plotting by others.

HAARP’s Critics

Waste:
The cost of building HAARP has exceeded the dollar-adjusted cost of similar facilities around the world. HAARP was constructed at the site of an obsoleted over-the-horizon radar facility for political reasons, but its location was less than ideal from a scientific perspective. Some believe that it was constructed as a pork barrel project for Alaska by Senator Ted Stevens.

Weapon:
The objectives of the HAARP project became the subject of controversy in the mid-1990s, following claims that the antennas could be used as a weapon. A small group of American physicists aired complaints in scientific journals such as Physics and Society, charging that HAARP could be seeking ways to blow other countries’ spacecraft out of the sky or disrupt communications over large portions of the planet. The physicist critics of HAARP have had little complaint about the project’s current stage, but have expressed fears that it could in future be expanded into an experimental weapon.

These concerns were amplified by Bernard Eastlund, a physicist who developed some of the concepts behind HAARP in the 1980s and proposed using high-frequency radio waves to beam large amounts of power into the ionosphere, energizing its electrons and ions in order to disable incoming missiles and knock out enemy satellite communications. The US military became interested in the idea as an alternative to the laser-based Strategic Defense Initiative.

However, Eastlund’s ideas were eventually dropped as SDI itself mutated into the more limited National Missile Defense of today. The contractors selected to build HAARP have denied that any of Eastlund’s patents were used in the development of the project.After the physicists raised early concerns, the controversy was stoked by local activism.

In September 1995, a book entitled Angels Don’t Play This HAARP: Advances in Tesla Technology by Nick Begich, Jr., son of the late Congressman Nick Begich, claimed that the project in its present stage could be used for “geophysical warfare”.

HAARP has subsequently become a target for those who have suggested that it could be used to test the ability “to deliver very large amount of energy, comparable to a nuclear bomb, anywhere on earth”, “changing weather patterns”, “blocking all global communications”, “disrupting human mental processes” and mind control, communicating with submarines, and “x-raying the earth”.

In April 1997, the then U.S. Secretary of Defense William Cohen publicly discussed the dangers of HAARP-like technology, saying “others are engaging even in an eco-type of terrorism whereby they can alter the climate, set off earthquakes, volcanoes remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves… So there are plenty of ingenious minds out there that are at work finding ways in which they can wreak terror upon other nations… It’s real, and that’s the reason why we have to intensify our efforts.”

This quote derives from an April 1997 counterterrorism conference sponsored by former Senator Sam Nunn, quoted from “DoD News Briefing, Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen, Q&A at the Conference on Terrorism, Weapons of Mass Destruction, and U.S. Strategy,” held at the University of Georgia-Athens, Apr. 28, 1997.

Russians – In August 2002, further support for those critical of HAARP technology came from the State Duma (parliament) of Russia. The Duma published a critical report on HAARP written by the international affairs and defense committees, signed by 90 deputies and presented to President Vladimir Putin. The report claimed that “the U.S. is creating new integral geophysical weapons that may influence the near-Earth medium with high-frequency radio waves … The significance of this qualitative leap could be compared to the transition from cold steel to fire arms, or from conventional weapons to nuclear weapons. This new type of weapons differs from previous types in that the near-Earth medium becomes at once an object of direct influence and its component.” However, given the timing of the Russian intervention, it is likely that it was related to a controversy at the time concerning the US withdrawal in June 2002 from the Russian-American Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

This high level concern is paralled in the April 1997 statement by the U.S. Secretary of Defense over the power of such electromagnetic weaponry. Russia owns an ionospheric heater as powerful as HAARP, called ‘Sura,’ which is located in central Russia, roughly 150 km from the city of Nizhny Novgorod.

Why are some people afraid of contrails? Why would the appearance of water vapor in the exhaust of a jet inspire feelings of illness and dread? It all began in the 1990s when “investigative journalists” like William Thomas began describing purported plots by the government to inject poisons into the atmosphere via the exhaust trails of jet planes. Chemtrails are defined on the Web site of Internet pundit Jeff Rense (formerly of the “Sightings” Web radio show, which was connected to the “Sightings” television program produced by Henry Winkler):

Chemtrails (CTs) look like contrails initially, but are much thicker, extend across the sky and are often laid down in varying patterns of Xs, tick-tack-toe grids, cross-hatched and parallel lines. Instead of quickly dissipating, chemtrails expand and drip feathers and mare’s tails. In 30 minutes or less, they open into wispy formations which join together, forming a thin white veil or a ‘fake cirrus-type cloud’ that persists for hours. . . . (Thayer 2000)

“Chemtrails” have been described as either a means of carrying out biological warfare upon the citizenry of the United States or as a method of weather modification, perhaps related to mitigation of global warming. The subject was popularized by late-night radio host Art Bell over a decade ago and is still hyped as a daring and dangerous conspiracy by numerous Web sites.

In 1999, the New Mexico Attorney General’s office contacted New Mexicans for Science and Reason (NMSR) member Kim Johnson to help answer questions from constituents regarding the alleged dangers of “chemtrails.” After his investigation, John­son told the Attorney General,

I have viewed a number of photos purporting to be of aircraft spraying the chemical or biological material into the atmosphere. I have also discussed these letters with another scientist familiar with upper atmospheric phenomena from Sandia National Laboratory and a retired general and fighter pilot who is an Air Force Hall of Fame Member. . . . In summary, there is no evidence that these “chemtrails” are other than expected, normal contrails from jet aircraft that vary in their shapes, duration, and general presentation based on prevailing weather conditions. That is not to say that there could not be an occasional, purposeful experimental release of, say, high altitude barium for standard wind tracking experiments. There could also be other related experiments that occur from time-to-time which release agents into the atmosphere. However, not one single picture that was presented as evidence indicates other than normal contrail formation. . . .

“Chemtrails” are said to last much longer than normal contrails from before 1995, but proponents are curiously oblivious of photographs of long-lasting contrails from as far back as World War II. The supposedly ominous “grid patterns” of contrails are easily explained as the expected effect of wind movement across frequently used east/west and north/south aircraft travel lanes. And one of the defining characteristics of “chemtrails”—gaps in the trails, supposedly caused by turning the “sprayers” on and off—is quite simply explained as normal humidity variations in the atmosphere. The sky often displays varying levels of humidity with spotty clouds, and the same conditions apply to the clouds condensing from jet trails. And, as far as attacking the populace with biotoxins, what dispersal vehicle could be less effective than a craft spraying indiscriminately at 35,000 feet? A low-altitude crop duster or a land truck spraying for mosquitoes would be far better at such a task.

One of the most strident promoters of “chemtrails” is Santa Fe’s Clifford Carni­com, who maintains the “Aerosol Operation Crimes and Cover-Up” Web site (Carni­com). His site is a frantic hodgepodge of pictures of alleged spray attacks, appeals to media and government officials to take the issue seriously, and detailed “analyses” of metals like barium in the “trails.” While Carnicom bemoans the fact that the media won’t give him his due, he turned down a 1999 invitation to speak to NMSR, which could have attracted some of the media attention he was demanding so shrilly. Incensed that NMSR had published a joke linking “chemtrails” to the threat of “Dihydrogen Monoxide” (i.e., H2O), Carn­icom refused to even acknowledge the invitation. Anyone who doesn’t buy into the conspiracy theory is treated as an active member of that conspiracy. Conversely, anyone who signs on to “chemtrails” is em­braced as a fellow traveler, no matter what their other beliefs. And so, Carnicom has formed a mutual admiration society with “Naturopathic Doctor” Gwen Scott, who writes on Carnicom’s site,

My interest is, primarily, finding natural medicines that can help ALL people mitigate the devastating effects of a multi-leveled assault on human health. Mr. Carni­com has provided immeasurable help in identifying contents so that I may design some natural medicine protocols around them . . . it is important that you understand one of the founding principles of natural medicine . . . Herring’s Law of Cure. This law presents that your body will rid itself of anything unwanted (diseases, etc.) from top to bottom, from the inside to the outside, and in the reverse order in which it entered your system. As you will see, much of the work on my own body follows this law exactly. . . . (Scott 2008)

Since NMSR hosts some skeptical articles on chemtrails (Thomas), I often get e-mails from angered readers. One person demanded that I watch a YouTube video of a November 9, 2007, “Chemtrails” report by Louisiana station KSLA, in which investigative reporter Jeff Ferrell discussed tests the station had conducted on supposed “chemtrail residue” collected in a bowl by a farmer outside his house. Ferrell said, “KSLA News 12 had the sample tested at a lab. The results: A high level of barium, 6.8 parts per million, (ppm). That’s more than three times the toxic level set by the Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA.” I had to inform my angry correspondent of a problem—the actual video clearly shows 68.8 µg/L (micrograms per liter), or equivalently, 68.8 ppb (parts per billion). The reporter overestimated by a factor of one hundred, because he read the “68.8” as “6.8,” and also confused million with billion. The measured levels were far less than EPA limits. When I asked my correspondent why I should be convinced by such poor reporting, he just repeated his insistence that I take down my “stupid website.”

Large containers connected by tubes, accompanied by the exclamation that “This is the spraying equipment!” But these photographs turned out to be pictures of ballast tanks used in flight testing of new airliner designs; the tubes simply allow water to be pumped from tank to tank, simulating passenger motion in the cabin for the aircraft test. Kennedy assassination and 9/11 conspiracy theorists are mere pikers compared to “chemtrail” buffs. You will rarely find a more virulently self-deluded group, anywhere.

“Bell Canada and TELUS (formerly owned by Verizon) employees officially confirm that by 2012 ISP’s all over the globe will reduce Internet access to a TV-like subscription model, only offering access to a small standard amount of commercial sites and require extra fees for every other site you visit. These ‘other’ sites would then lose all their exposure and eventually shut down, resulting in what could be seen as the end of the Internet,” warns a report that has spread like wildfire across the web over the last few days.

The article, which is accompanied by a You Tube clip, states that Time Magazine writer “Dylan Pattyn” has confirmed the information and is about to release a story – and that the move to effectively shut down the web could come as soon as 2010.

People have raised questions about the report’s accuracy because the claims are not backed by another source, only the “promise” that a Time Magazine report is set to confirm the rumor. Until such a report emerges many have reserved judgment or outright dismissed the story as a hoax.

What is documented, as the story underscores, is the fact that TELUS’ wireless web package allows only restricted pay-per-view access to a selection of corporate and news websites. This is the model that the post-2012 Internet would be based on.

People have noted that the authors of the video seem to be more concerned about getting people to subscribe to their You Tube account than fighting for net neutrality by prominently featuring an attractive woman who isn’t shy about showing her cleavage. The vast majority of the other You Tube videos hosted on the same account consist of bizarre avante-garde satire skits on behalf of the same people featured in the Internet freedom clip. This has prompted many to suspect that the Internet story is merely a stunt to draw attention to the group.

Whether the report is accurate or merely a crude hoax, there is a very real agenda to restrict, regulate and suffocate the free use of the Internet and we have been documenting its progression for years.

The first steps in a move to charge for every e mail sent have already been taken. Under the pretext of eliminating spam, Bill Gates and other industry chieftains have proposed Internet users buy credit stamps which denote how many e mails they will be able to send. This of course is the death knell for political newsletters and mailing lists.

The New York Times reported that “America Online and Yahoo, two of the world’s largest providers of e-mail accounts, are about to start using a system that gives preferential treatment to messages from companies that pay from 1/4 of a cent to a penny each to have them delivered. The senders must promise to contact only people who have agreed to receive their messages, or risk being blocked entirely.”

The first wave will simply attempt to price people out of using the conventional Internet and force people over to Internet 2, a state regulated hub where permission will need to be obtained directly from an FCC or government bureau to set up a website.

The original Internet will then be turned into a mass surveillance database and marketing tool. The Nation magazine reported in 2006 that, “Verizon, Comcast, Bell South and other communications giants are developing strategies that would track and store information on our every move in cyberspace in a vast data-collection and marketing system, the scope of which could rival the National Security Agency. According to white papers now being circulated in the cable, telephone and telecommunications industries, those with the deepest pockets–corporations, special-interest groups and major advertisers–would get preferred treatment. Content from these providers would have first priority on our computer and television screens, while information seen as undesirable, such as peer-to-peer communications, could be relegated to a slow lane or simply shut out.”

Over the past few years, a chorus of propaganda intended to demonize the Internet and further lead it down a path of strict control has spewed forth from numerous establishment organs:

Time magazine reported last year that researchers funded by the federal government want to shut down the internet and start over, citing the fact that at the moment there are loopholes in the system whereby users cannot be tracked and traced all the time.
The projects echo moves we have previously reported on to clamp down on internet neutrality and even to designate a new form of the internet known as Internet 2.

In a display of bi-partisanship, there have recently been calls for all
out mandatory ISP snooping on all US citizens by both Democrats and Republicans alike.

The White House’s own recently de-classified
strategy for “winning the war on terror” targets Internet conspiracy theories as a recruiting ground for terrorists and threatens to “diminish” their influence.

The Pentagon recently announced its effort to infiltrate
the Internet and propagandize for the war on terror.

In a speech last October, Homeland Security director Michael Chertoff identified the web as a “terror training camp,” through which “disaffected people living in the United States” are developing “radical ideologies and potentially violent skills.”
His solution is “intelligence fusion centers,” staffed by Homeland Security personnel which will go into operation next year.

The U.S. Government wants to force bloggers and online grassroots activists to register and regularly report their activities to Congress. Criminal charges including a possible jail term of up to one year could be the punishment for non-compliance.

A landmark legal case on behalf of the Recording Industry Association of America and other global trade organizations seeks to criminalize all Internet file sharing of any kind as copyright infringement, effectively shutting down the world wide web – and their argument is supported by the U.S. government.

A landmark legal ruling in Sydney goes further than ever before in setting the trap door for the destruction of the Internet as we know it and the end of alternative news websites and blogs by creating the precedent that simply linking to other websites is breach of copyright and piracy.

The European Union, led by former Stalinist and potential future British Prime Minister John Reid, has also vowed to shut down “terrorists” who use the Internet to spread propaganda.

The EU data retention bill, passed last year after much controversy and with implementation tabled for late 2007, obliges telephone operators and internet service providers to store information on who called who and who emailed who for at least six months. Under this law, investigators in any EU country, and most bizarrely even in the US, can access EU citizens’ data on phone calls, SMS messages, emails and instant messaging services.

The EU also recently proposed legislation that would prevent users from uploading any form of video without a license.

The US government is also funding research into social networking sites and how to gather and store personal data published on them, according to the New Scientist magazine. “At the same time, US lawmakers are attempting to force the social networking sites themselves to control the amount and kind of information that people, particularly children, can put on the sites.”
The development of a new form of internet with new regulations is also designed to create an online caste system whereby the old internet hubs would be allowed to break down and die, forcing people to use the new taxable, censored and regulated world wide web.

Make no mistake, the internet, one of the greatest outposts of free speech ever created is under constant attack by powerful people who cannot operate within a society where information flows freely and unhindered. Both American and European moves mimic stories we hear every week out of state controlled Communist China, where the internet is strictly regulated and virtually exists as its own entity away from the rest of the web.

The Internet is freedom’s best friend and the bane of control freaks. Its eradication is one of the short term goals of those that seek to centralize power and subjugate their populations under tyranny by eliminating the right to protest and educate others by the forum of
the free world wide web.

17. Black or unmarked helicopters
The concept became popular in the American militia movement, and in associated political circles, in the 1990s as an alleged symbol and warning sign of a military takeover of part or all of the United States. Rumours would circulate that, for instance, the United Nations patrolled the US with black helicopters, or that federal agents used black helicopters to enforce wildlife laws. In Britain, a similar conspiracy theory known as “phantom helicopters” has been reported since the mid 1970s. This concept relates phantom helicopters to UFOs and alien invasion rather than to martial law.

18. Harold Wilson was a Soviet agent
Soviet defector Anatoliy Golitsyn is thought to have claimed that Wilson was a KGB spy. He further claimed that Hugh Gaitskell was assassinated by the KGB so that he could be replaced as Labour leader by Harold Wilson. Furthermore, former MI5 officer Peter Wright claimed in his memoirs – Spycatcher – that he had been told that Wilson was a Soviet agent. MI5 repeatedly investigated Wilson over the course of several years before conclusively deciding that he had no relationship with the KGB. On the BBC TV programme, The Plot Against Harold Wilson, broadcast in 2006, it was claimed that the military was on the point of launching a coup d’état against Wilson in 1974. Wilson himself told the BBC that he feared he was being undermined by MI5 in the late 1960s after devaluation of sterling and again in 1974 after he narrowly won an election against Edward Heath.

19. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
Despite being utterly discredited for at least 100 years, belief in this document has proved remarkably resilient on the internet. The text takes the form of an instruction manual to a new member of the “elders,” describing how they will run the world through control of the media and finance, and replace the traditional social order with one based on mass manipulation. Scholars generally agree that the Okhrana, the secret police of the Russian Empire, fabricated the text in the late 1890s or early 1900s but belief in it still persists – particularly in the Middle East.

20. The peak oil conspiracy
Peak oil (a theory in itself) is the supposed peak of oil production during and after which demand for oil outstrips supply sending prices through the roof. The peak oil conspiracy theorists believe that peak oil is a fraud concocted by the oil industries to increase prices amid concerns about future supplies. The oil industry is aware of vast reserves of untapped oil, but does not utilise them in order to maintain the illusion of scarcity, they claim.

21. Pearl Harbor was allowed to happen
Theorists believe that President Franklin Roosevelt provoked the Japanese attack on the US naval base in Hawaii in December 1942, knew about it in advance and covered up his failure to warn his fleet commanders. He apparently needed the attack to provoke Hitler into declaring war on the US because the American public and Congress were overwhelmingly against entering the war in Europe. Theorists believe that the US was warned by the governments of Britain, the Netherlands, Australia, Peru, Korea and the Soviet Union that a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor was coming and that, furthermore, the Americans had intercepted and broken all the important Japanese codes in the run up to the attack.

22. The Philadelphia Experiment
Popularised by the Charles Berlitz novel of the same name, conspiracy theorists believe that during an experiment at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard in October 1943, the US Navy destroyer Eldridge was rendered invisible. According to some accounts, the scientists on the experiment found a way to bend light around an object but that the experiment went wrong and Eldridge was transported through space and time, reappearing at sea. Several sailors, it is said, were badly hurt when the experiment went wrong and some were melded into the ship’s superstructure. The US Navy has denied that the experiment ever took place.

23. Pan Am Flight 103
Pan Am Flight 103 was Pan American’s third daily scheduled transatlantic flight from Heathrow to New York John F. Kennedy International Airport. On December 21, 1988, the aircraft flying this route – a Boeing 747 – was destroyed by a bomb, killing all 259 people on board and 11 people on the ground. The remains landed around Lockerbie in southern Scotland. A popular theory for which no evidence has been produced suggests that the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had set up a protected drug route from Europe to the United States – allegedly called Operation Corea – which allowed Syrian drug dealers to ship heroin to the US using Pan Am flights. The CIA allegedly protected the suitcases containing the drugs and made sure they were not searched. On the day of the bombing, terrorists exchanged suitcases: one with drugs for one with a bomb. Another version of this theory is that the CIA knew in advance this exchange would take place, but let it happen anyway, because the protected drugs route was a rogue operation, and the American intelligence officers on the flight had found out about it, and were on their way to Washington to tell their superiors.

24. Fluoridation
Fluoride is commonly added to drinking water as a way to reduce tooth decay. However, there has been some evidence that there could be some harmful side effects from fluoride and conspiracy theorists believe that this information is known and recognised by those responsible for adding the fluoride, but that they continue the practice regardless. Drug companies have been targeted as possible beneficiaries, as they will profit from a population with ill-health. Another motive is that fluoride lowers mental abilities thereby “dumbing down” the entire population.

25. The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami
A popular theory in the Muslim world is that the tsunami could have been caused by an Indian nuclear experiment in which Israeli and American nuclear experts participated. Several newspapers in Egypt and the Middle East alleged that India, in its heated nuclear race with Pakistan, has acquired sophisticated nuclear technology from the US and Israel, both of which “showed readiness to co-operate with India in experiments to exterminate humankind,” beginning with the heavily populated Muslim regions of southeast Asia, where the bulk of casualties took place.

26. Plastic coffins and concentration camps
Just outside Atlanta, Georgia, beside a major road are approximately 500,000 plastic coffins. Stacked neatly and in full view, the coffins are allegedly owned by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema). Conspiracy theorists believe that Fema has also set up several concentration camps in the US in preparation for the imposition of a state of martial law and the killing of millions of Americans. They suggest that the financial crisis will be used to justify the imposition of a police state.

27. HAARP
More than 200 miles east of Anchorage, Alaska, is the Pentagon’s High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program, officially an enormous experiment to heat the ionosphere with radio waves. But conspiracy theorists believe the project is a weapon to bring down aircraft and missiles by lifting sections of the atmosphere, cause earthquakes or even a huge weather modification machine.

28. The Aids virus was created in a laboratory
Based on the theories of Dr William Campbell Douglass, many believe that that HIV was genetically engineered in 1974 by the World Health Organisation. Dr Douglass believed that it was a cold-blooded attempt to create a killer virus which was then used in a successful experiment in Africa. Others have claimed that it was created by the CIA or the KGB as a means to reduce world population.

29. Global warming is a hoax
Some climate change doubters believe that man-made global warming is a conspiracy designed to soften up the world’s population to higher taxation, controls on lifestyle and more authoritarian government. These sceptics cite a fall in global temperatures since last year and a levelling off in the rise in temperature since 1998 as evidence.

30. Chemtrails
Chemtrail conspiracy theorists believe that some contrails, which consist of ice crystals or water vapor condensed behind aircraft, actually result from chemicals or biological agents being deliberately sprayed at high altitude for some undisclosed purpose. The staple of right-wing radio shows in the US, there is fevered speculation that the chemicals being sprayed are part of a wider plot that involves the so-called New World Order and is being directed by shadowy forces within the government. The existence of chemtrails has been repeatedly denied by federal agencies and scientists.

At the milder end of the spectrum are the theorists who believe that the US government had prior warning of the attacks but did not do enough to stop them. Others believe that the Bush administration deliberately turned a blind eye to those warnings because it wanted a pretext to launch wars in the Middle East to usher in another century of American hegemony. A large group of people – collectively called the 9/11 Truth Movement – cite evidence that an airliner did not hit the Pentagon and that the World Trade Centre could not have been brought down by airliner impacts and burning aviation fuel alone. This final group points to video evidence which they claim shows puffs of smoke – so-called demoliton squibs – emerging from the Twin Towers at levels far below the aircraft impact zones and prior to the collapses. They also believe that, on the day itself, the US air force was deliberately stood down or sent on exercises to prevent intervention that could have saved the lives of nearly 3,000 people.

2. The assassination of John F Kennedy
The 35th President of the United States was shot on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas at 12.30pm . He was fatally wounded by gunshots while riding with his wife – Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy – in a motorcade. The ten-month investigation of the Warren Commission of 1963 to 1964, the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) of 1976 to 1979, and other government investigations concluded that the President had been assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald – who was himself shot dead by Jack Ruby while in police custody.

But doubts about the official explanation and the conclusion that Oswald was the lone gunman firing from the Texas Book Depository overlooking Dealey Plaza where Kennedy was hit surfaced soon after the commission report. Footage of the motorcade taken by Abraham Zapruder on 8mm film supported the growing belief that at least four shots were fired – not the three that the Warren Commission claimed. The moments of impact recorded on the film also suggested that at least one of the shots came from a completely different direction to those supposedly fired by Oswald – evidence backed up by testimony of several eye witnesses. Many believed that several shots were fired by gunmen hiding behind a picket fence on a grassy knoll overlooking the plaza.

The assassination is still the subject of widespread speculation and has spawned numerous conspiracy theories, though none of these has been proven. In 1979, the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) found both the original FBI investigation and the Warren Commission Report to be seriously flawed. The HSCA also concluded that there were at least four shots fired and that it was probable that a conspiracy existed. However, later studies, including one by the National Academy of Sciences, have called into question the accuracy of the evidence used by the HSCA to support its finding of four shots.

3. A flying saucer crashed at Roswell in 1947
The event that kick-started more than a half century of conspiracy theories surrounding unidentified flying objects (UFOs). Something did crash at Roswell, New Mexico, sometime before July 7, 1947 and – at first – the US authorities stated explicitly that this was a flying saucer or disk – as shown by the splash story on that day’s Roswell Daily Record, pictured. Numerous witnesses reported seeing metallic debris scattered over a wide area and at least one reported seeing a blazing craft crossing the sky shortly before it crashed. In recent years, witnesses have added significant new details, including claims of a large military operation dedicated to recovering alien craft and aliens themselves, at as many as 11 crash sites, and alleged witness intimidation. In 1989, former mortician Glenn Dennis claimed that he was involved in alien autopsies which were carried out at the Roswell air force base.

The conspiracy theory has been fanned by the US military repeatedly changing its story. Within hours of the army telling reporters that it had recovered a crashed saucer, senior officers insisted that the only thing that had fallen from the sky had been a weather balloon. A report by the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force released in 1995, concluded that the reported recovered material in 1947 was likely debris from a secret government program called Project Mogul, which involved high altitude balloons meant to detect sound waves generated by Soviet atom bomb tests and ballistic missiles.

A second report, released in 1997, concluded that reports of alien bodies were likely a combination of innocently transformed memories of military accidents involving injured or killed personnel, and the recovery of anthropomorphic dummies in military programs like Project High Dive conducted in the 1950s.

Since the late 1990s the debate about Roswell has polarised with several former pro-UFO researchers concluding that the craft was, indeed, part of a US military project and that it was, most likely, some sort of weather balloon. But further evidence has emerged – notably a signed affidavit by Walter Haut, the Roswell Army Air Field public affairs officer who had drafted the initial press release on July 8, 1947. Haut says in the affidavit -signed in 2002 – that he saw alien corpses and a craft and that he had been involved in a military cover up. Haut died in 2005.

4. Nasa faked the moon landings
People who think that the Apollo moon landings were not all that they seemed at the time believe that Nasa faked some or all of the landings. Some of the theories surrounding this subject are that the Apollo astronauts did not land on the Moon; Nasa and possibly others intentionally deceived the public into believing the landings did occur by manufacturing, destroying, or tampering with evidence, including photos, telemetry tapes, transmissions, and rock samples; and that Nasa and possibly others continue to actively participate in the conspiracy to this day.

Those who think that Nasa faked some or all of the landings base their theories on photographs from the lunar surface which they claim show camera crosshairs partially behind rocks, a flag planted by Buzz Aldrin moving in a strange way, the lack of stars over the lunar landscape and shadows falling in different direction. Many commentators have published detailed rebuttals to the hoax claims, and these theories have been generally discounted but belief in them – particularly on the web – persists.

5. The Illuminati and the New World Order
A conspiracy in which powerful and secretive groups (the Illuminati, the Bilderberg Group and other shadowy cabals) are plotting to rule mankind with a single world government. Many historical events are said to have been engineered by these groups with one goal – the New World Order (NWO). The groups use political finance, social engineering, mind control, and fear-based propaganda to achieve their aims. Signs of the NWO are said to be the pyramid on the reverse of the Great Seal of the United States, inset, strange and disturbing murals at Denver International Airport, pictured, and pentagrams in city plans. International organisations such as the World Bank, the IMF, the European Union, the United Nations, and Nato are listed as founding organisations of the New World Order.

6. The Jesus conspiracy
The theory that launched a blockbusting novel (The Da Vinci Code), a film of the same name and a plagiarism battle in the courts (with the authors of the Holy Blood and holy grail). Those who believe in this – and they seem to number in their millions – think that Jesus married Mary Magdalene, had one or more children, and that those children or their descendants emigrated to southern France. Once there, they intermarried with the noble families that would eventually become the Merovingian dynasty, whose special claim to the throne of France is championed today by a secret society called the Priory of Sion.

7. Diana, Princess of Wales, was murdered
Why won’t this one go away? Despite an official inquiry that found no evidence of a plot by MI6 or any other entity to murder the princess and Dodi Fayed in 1997, fevered speculation continues. The theory is that rogue elements in the British secret service decided that Diana’s relationship with Fayed was a threat to the monarchy and, therefore, to the British state. A plot was hatched in which a white Fiat Uno carrying agents was sent to blind and disorientate driver Henri Paul as he sped through the Paris underpass pursued by photographers. Later, Paul’s blood was switched with a sample of somebody who had drunk a lot of alcohol. The trouble with the theory? Not a shred of evidence exists to support it.

8. Elvis Presley faked his own death
What can we say? A persistent belief is that “the King” did not die in 1977. Many fans persist in claiming he is still alive, that he went into hiding for various reasons. This claim is allegedly backed up by thousands of so-called sightings. The main reason given in support of the belief that Presley faked his death is that, on his grave, his middle name Aron is spelt as Aaron. But “Aaron” is actually the genuine middle name for Presley. Apparently, either Presley or his parents tried to change the name to “Aron” to make it more similar to Presley’s stillborn twin, Jesse Garon Presley. Two tabloid newspapers ran articles covering the continuing “life” of Presley after his death, in great detail, including a broken leg from a motorcycle accident, all the way up to his purported “real death” in the mid 1990s.

9. Operation Northwoods
A genuine conspiracy involving a plan by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to launch a fake Cuban terror campaign on American soil to persuade the US public to support an invasion against Castro. The plan involved bombings and the simultaneous hijacking and blowing up of American airliners. The operation was quashed by President Kennedy leading many to speculate that it was linked to his assassination a year later. The plan has also been linked by theorists who believe that the September 11, 2001 attacks were a so-called “inside job” because of the use of airliners.

10. MK-ULTRA
The code name for a covert mind-control and chemical interrogation research programme, run by the Office of Scientific Intelligence. The programme began in the early 1950s, continuing at least through the late 1960s, using US citizens as test subjects. Project MK-ULTRA was brought first to wide public attention in 1975 by Congress and by the Rockefeller Commission. Investigative efforts were hampered by the fact that CIA Director Richard Helms ordered all MK-ULTRA files destroyed in 1973. Although the CIA insisted that MK-ULTRA-type experiments were abandoned, CIA veteran Victor Marchetti has stated in various interviews that the agency routinely conducts disinformation campaigns and that CIA mind control research continued. In a 1977 interview, Marchetti specifically called the CIA claim that MK-ULTRA was abandoned a “cover story”.

Conspiracy theorists believe that MK-ULTRA was behind many so-called black-ops: Lawrence Teeter, the attorney for Sirhan Sirhan, the man convicted of the assassination of Robert Kennedy, pictured, believed Sirhan was operating under MK-ULTRA mind control techniques. Furthermore, Jonestown, the location in Guyana where members of the Jim Jones cult and Peoples Temple committed mass suicide, was thought to be a test site for MK-ULTRA medical experiments.

11. North American Union
The North American Union (NAU) is a theoretical regional union of Canada, Mexico and the United States similar in structure to the European Union, sometimes including a common currency called the amero. Theorists who believe that the three countries are planning for this believe that it is part of a global conspiracy to set up something called the New World Order (NWO). Officials from all three nations have repeatedly denied that there are plans to create a NAU although the idea has been proposed in academic circles, either as a union or as a North American community as proposed by the Independent Task Force on North America. The amero received support in 1999 from Canadian economist Herbert Grubel, a senior fellow of the Fraser Institute think-tank, in a book entitled The Case for the Amero. Robert Pastor, vice-chairman of the Independent Task Force on North America, supported Grubel’s conclusions in his 2001 book Toward a North American Community, stating that: “In the long term, the amero is in the best interests of all three countries”.

12. Shakespeare was somebody else
Who really was the English language’s greatest writer? Among the numerous alternative candidates that have been proposed Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlowe, William Stanley (6th Earl of Derby) and Edward de Vere (17th Earl of Oxford), are the most popular. Theorists believe there is a lack of evidence proving that the actor and businessman sometimes known as Shaksper of Stratford was responsible for the body of works that bear his name. Very little biographical information exists about Shakespeare.

13. The disappearance of Shergar
On February 8, 1983, a group of men wearing balaclavas and armed with guns turned up at the Ballymany Stud Farm in Co Kildare, Ireland and took a hostage – Jim Fitzgerald, the stud’s head groom. “We’ve come for Shergar,” they said. “We want £2m for him.” Shergar was arguably the greatest racehorse to have ever lived. But 25 years after he was kidnapped from Ballymany the mystery of exactly what happened to him after he was snatched that night still lingers. The theories are numerous with the IRA, Colonel Gadaffi and the Mafia featuring among the most lurid. One story suggests that the IRA kidnapped the horse for Gadaffi in return for weapons. Another suggests that the New Orleans mafia took him.

14. Paul is dead
“Paul is dead” is an urban legend alleging that Paul McCartney died in a car crash 1966 and was replaced by a look-alike and sound-alike. “Evidence” for McCartney’s death consists of “clues” found among the Beatles’ many recordings. Hundreds have been cited at various times by various people. They include statements allegedly heard when a song is played backwards, symbolism found in obscure lyrics, and ambiguous imagery on album covers. A few of them are well known, such as the fact that McCartney is the only barefooted Beatle and is out of step with the others on the cover of Abbey Road, pictured.

15. The July 7, 2005 Tube bombings
One of the supposed mysteries surrounding the 7/7 attacks is this image, used by several news outlets, of the bombers entering Luton station on their way to London at around 7.20am on July 7. Theorists claim this image is fake because the man in the white hat – believed to be Mohammed Sidique Khan – has been electronically placed on the picture after it was taken. They claim that it shows his arm behind a railing while the rest of his body is in front and that the bar behind his head goes across and in front of his face. Theorists postulate, among other things, that the bombs which went off on the Tube trains were actually under the floors of the vehicles and not in the alleged plotters’ back packs.

Check out part 2 which continues the list from 16-30 Enjoy!

This is one for the conspiracy buffs but after reading it was fascinated by the sheer madness but also the real possibility behind it. Here is a description of this theory taken from listverse.com.

Go to any genealogy website and you can track down any family line that has been entered into the database. Yours, Tom Cruise’s, or Obama’s. Some purport to show a logical progression of names from President Barack Obama to the Merovingian Dynasty of ancient France.

The Merovingian Dynasty was founded by Merovech, aka Merovius I (410-459 AD). This line of royalty leads directly to the Carolingian Dynasty, founded by Charles “the Hammer” Martel, whose grandson was Charlemagne. I will not bother with a detailed bloodline, according to any of these sites. You can check them out. The weak point of this theory is that most of the sites are user-created and –edited, like Wikipedia, which means you should take what you read with a grain of salt until you can corroborate it with another source, preferably a more reputable one.

But the strong point of the theory is extremely intriguing. The fact is that Obama’s bloodline is truly laid out, without any gaps, all the way back to Merovech. Believers of this theory commonly believe the Jesus bloodline theory, which states that Jesus, through his daughter, leads directly to the Merovingian Dynasty, and from there to Obama.

It gets MUCH better. From the Merovingian Dynasty, not only is a direct path traceable to Jesus, but all the way back to Adam and Eve, but by a different line: this site has some very thorough databases, even if they might contain some errors, which trace Merovech directly back to High King Priam of Troy (the one from Homer’s Iliad), and from Priam to Judah, son of Jacob, son of Isaac, son of Abraham. And from Abraham to Adam.

Some believers of this conspiracy theory believe that this strengthens the possibility that President Obama is Satan or the Antichrist. In this context, according to the theory, the Priory of Sion (which actually doesn’t exist except in Dan Brown’s imagination – see here, item 6), of which you are sure to have heard, has bribed, cajoled, assassinated minor figures, including JFK, Jr., coerced, threatened, framed, including Ted Kennedy, by means of the Chappaquiddick incident, and blackmailed various political figures throughout the last third of the 20th Century, all in order to set up the Presidential reign of Barack Obama. But why? The Priory of Sion is said to be the official guard of the truth about the Jesus bloodline. Well, they also believe in the Revelation’s depiction of the End Days, in which case, hastening the Antichrist’s reign will hasten the (more or less) happy ending

Hello. The release for Dan Brown’ new novel The Lost Symbol has arrived so for a little bit of speculative fun here is Dan Brown’s 20 worst sentences that have appeared in his 4 novels (note none from Digital Fortress). Original article by “The Telegraph”. If you have any sentences that defy linguistic or grammatical beieve comment. Many more I’m sure. Enjoy.

20. Angels and Demons, chapter 1: Although not overly handsome in a classical sense, the forty-year-old Langdon had what his female colleagues referred to as an ‘erudite’ appeal — wisp of gray in his thick brown hair, probing blue eyes, an arrestingly deep voice, and the strong, carefree smile of a collegiate athlete.

They say the first rule of fiction is “show, don’t tell”. This fails that rule.

19. The Da Vinci Code, chapter 83: “The Knights Templar were warriors,” Teabing reminded, the sound of his aluminum crutches echoing in this reverberant space.

“Remind” is a transitive verb – you need to remind someone of something. You can’t just remind. And if the crutches echo, we know the space is reverberant.

18. The Da Vinci Code, chapter 4: He could taste the familiar tang of museum air – an arid, deionized essence that carried a faint hint of carbon – the product of industrial, coal-filter dehumidifiers that ran around the clock to counteract the corrosive carbon dioxide exhaled by visitors.

Ah, that familiar tang of deionised essence.

17. Deception Point, chapter 8: Overhanging her precarious body was a jaundiced face whose skin resembled a sheet of parchment paper punctured by two emotionless eyes.

It’s not clear what Brown thinks ‘precarious’ means here.

16. The Da Vinci Code, chapter 4: A voice spoke, chillingly close. “Do not move.” On his hands and knees, the curator froze, turning his head slowly. Only fifteen feet away, outside the sealed gate, the mountainous silhouette of his attacker stared through the iron bars. He was broad and tall, with ghost-pale skin and thinning white hair. His irises were pink with dark red pupils.

A silhouette with white hair and pink irises stood chillingly close but 15 feet away. What’s wrong with this picture?

15. The Da Vinci Code, chapter 4: As a boy, Langdon had fallen down an abandoned well shaft and almost died treading water in the narrow space for hours before being rescued. Since then, he’d suffered a haunting phobia of enclosed spaces – elevators, subways, squash courts.

Other enclosed spaces include toilet cubicles, phone boxes and dog kennels.

14. Angels and Demons, chapter 100: Bernini’s Fountain of the Four Rivers glorified the four major rivers of the Old World – The Nile, Ganges, Danube, and Rio Plata.

The Rio de la Plata. Between Argentina and Uruguay. One of the major rivers of the Old World. Apparently.

The Da Vinci Code, chapter 5: Only those with a keen eye would notice his 14-karat gold bishop’s ring with purple amethyst, large diamonds, and hand-tooled mitre-crozier appliqué.

A keen eye indeed.

13 and 12. The Lost Symbol, chapter 1: He was sitting all alone in the enormous cabin of a Falcon 2000EX corporate jet as it bounced its way through turbulence. In the background, the dual Pratt & Whitney engines hummed evenly.

The Da Vinci Code, chapter 17: Yanking his Manurhin MR-93 revolver from his shoulder holster, the captain dashed out of the office.

Oh – the Falcon 2000EX with the Pratt & Whitneys? And the Manurhin MR-93? Not the MR-92? You’re sure? Thanks.

11. The Da Vinci Code, chapter 4: Captain Bezu Fache carried himself like an angry ox, with his wide shoulders thrown back and his chin tucked hard into his chest. His dark hair was slicked back with oil, accentuating an arrow-like widow’s peak that divided his jutting brow and preceded him like the prow of a battleship. As he advanced, his dark eyes seemed to scorch the earth before him, radiating a fiery clarity that forecast his reputation for unblinking severity in all matters.

Do angry oxen throw their shoulders back and tuck their chins into their chest? What precisely is a fiery clarity and how does it forecast anything? Once again, it is not clear whether Brown knows what ‘forecast’ means.

10. The Da Vinci Code, chapter 4: Five months ago, the kaleidoscope of power had been shaken, and Aringarosa was still reeling from the blow.

Did they hit him with the kaleidoscope?

9. The Da Vinci Code, chapter 32: The vehicle was easily the smallest car Langdon had ever seen. “SmartCar,” she said. “A hundred kilometers to the liter.”

Pro tip: when fleeing from the police, take a moment to boast about your getaway vehicle’s fuel efficiency. And get it wrong by a factor of five. SmartCars do about 20km (12 miles) to the litre.

8. The Da Vinci Code, chapter 3: My French stinks, Langdon thought, but my zodiac iconography is pretty good.

And they say the schools are dumbing down.

7 and 6. The Da Vinci Code, chapter 33: Pulling back the sleeve of his jacket, he checked his watch – a vintage, collector’s-edition Mickey Mouse wristwatch that had been a gift from his parents on his tenth birthday.

The Da Vinci Code, chapter 6: His last correspondence from Vittoria had been in December – a postcard saying she was headed to the Java Sea to continue her research in entanglement physics… something about using satellites to track manta ray migrations.

In the words of Professor Pullum: “It has the ring of utter ineptitude. The details have no relevance to what is being narrated.”

5. Angels and Demons, chapter 4: learning the ropes in the trenches

Learning the ropes (of a naval ship) while in the trenches (with the army in the First World War). It’s a military education, certainly.

4, 3, and 2. The Da Vinci Code, opening sentence: Renowned curator Jacques Saunière staggered through the vaulted archway of the museum’s Grand Gallery.

Angels and Demons, opening sentence: Physicist Leonardo Vetra smelled burning flesh, and he knew it was his own.

Deception Point, opening sentences: Death, in this forsaken place, could come in countless forms. Geologist Charles Brophy had endured the savage splendor of this terrain for years, and yet nothing could prepare him for a fate as barbarous and unnatural as the one about to befall him.

Professor Pullum: “Renowned author Dan Brown staggered through his formulaic opening sentence”.

1. The Da Vinci Code: Title. The Da Vinci Code.

Leonardo’s surname was not Da Vinci. He was from Vinci, or of Vinci. As many critics have pointed out, calling it The Da Vinci Code is like saying Mr Of Arabia or asking What Would Of Nazareth Do?

Uprising

Resistance

Undisclosed Desires

United States of Eurasia

Guiding Light

Unnatural Selection

MK Ultra

I Belong To You

Exogenesis Symphony Part 1 (Overture)

Exogenesis Symphony Part 2 (Cross Pollination)

Exogenesis Symphony Part 3 (Redemption)

Reading 1994:

Reading 2009:

Kings of Leon

Placebo

Faith no More

Arctic Monkeys

Florence & The Machine

Noel Gallagher has announced he is quitting rock band Oasis because he can no longer work with his brother Liam.

Noel, the founding member of the band, made the statement on the band’s website. He said a series of rows with his brother led to the decision.

The guitarist said: “It’s with some sadness and great relief to tell you that I quit Oasis tonight.

“People will write and say what they like, but I simply could not go on working with Liam a day longer.”

“Apologies to all the people who bought tickets for the shows in Paris, Konstanz and Milan,” he added.

Earlier it was announced the band had cancelled their second gig in the space of a week because of “an altercation within the band”.

They had been expected to play the Rock en Seine festival in Paris, but fans at the concert were told by the support band that Oasis would not be performing.

Many of the crowd thought it was a joke – until screens at either side of the stage showed the message “as a result of an altercation within the band, the Oasis gig has been cancelled”.

Tracklisting:
1. “Uprising” 5:06
2. “Resistance”
3. “Undisclosed Desires”
4. “United States of Eurasia/Collateral Damage”
5. “Guiding Light”
6. “Unnatural Selection”
7. “MK Ultra”
8. “I Belong to You/Mon Cœur S’ouvre à ta Voix”
9. “Exogenesis: Symphony Part I (Overture)”
10. “Exogenesis: Symphony Part II (Cross Pollination)”
11. “Exogenesis: Symphony Part III (Redemption)”

Here are 2 reviews (Good & Bad) of Quentin Tarantino’ new film Inglourious Basterds. These reviews were taken from the UK papers “The Guardian” & “The Telegraph” . I havent seen yet & reviews are mixed so it would be nice to hear your opinion!. Thanks

Bad Review
Like the loyal German bourgeoisie in 1945, trying to keep patriotically cheerful despite the distant ominous rumblings of Russian tanks, we Tarantino fans have kept loyally optimistic on the Croisette this week. We ignored the rumourmongers, the alarmists and defeatists, and insisted that the Master would at the last moment fire a devastating V1 rocket of a movie which would lay waste to his, and our, detractors. But today the full catastrophe of his new film arrived like some colossal armour-plated turkey from hell. The city of our hopes is in flames.

Quentin Tarantino’s cod-WW2 shlocker about a Jewish-American revenge squad intent on killing Nazis in German-occupied France is awful. It is achtung-achtung-ach-mein-Gott atrocious. It isn’t funny; it isn’t exciting; it isn’t a realistic war movie, yet neither is it an entertaining genre spoof or a clever counterfactual wartime yarn. It isn’t emotionally involving or deliciously ironic or a brilliant tissue of trash-pop references. Nothing like that. Brad Pitt gives the worst performance of his life, with a permanent smirk as if he’s had the left side of his jaw injected with cement, and which he must uncomfortably maintain for long scenes on camera without dialogue.

And those all-important movie allusions are entirely without zing, being to stately stuff such as the wartime German UFA studio, GW Pabst etc, for which Tarantino has no feeling, displaying just a solemn Euro-cinephilia that his heart isn’t in. The expression on my face in the auditorium as the lights finally went up was like that of the first-night’s audience at Springtime for Hitler. Except that there is no one from Dusseldorf called Rolf to cheer us up.

Pitt plays Lt Aldo Raine, the leader of an anti-Nazi commando unit whose avowed mission is to get 100 Kraut scalps apiece; we see the scalpings in full, gruesome detail, yet that figure is entirely forgotten about by the end. Mélanie Laurent plays Shosanna Dreyfus, a beautiful young Jewish woman whose family were slaughtered by SS Col Hans Landa, played by Christoph Waltz. She got away and (somehow) attained not only a new identity, but also ownership of a Paris cinema which is to play host to the premiere of Dr Goebbels’s latest propaganda movie, in the presence of the Führer himself. Her plan is to incinerate the entire first-night audience by bolting the doors and igniting her vast inflammable stock of nitrate film. Meanwhile Lt Raine has his own plans for killing Hitler at the movie theatre and the Brits get involved too, in the form of suave Michael Fassbender as Archie Hicox, a crack commando making contact with exotic spy Bridget von Hammersmark, played by Diane Kruger.

There are some nice-ish performances, particularly from Fassbender and Waltz, but everything is just so boring. I was hoping for Shosanna at least to get a satisfying revenge on the unspeakable Col Landa. But no. The two Hitler-assassination plots cancel each other out dramatically and the director’s moderate reserves of narrative interest are exhausted way before the end. He should perhaps go back to making cheerfully inventive outrageous films like Kill Bill. Because Kill Adolf hasn’t worked out.

Good Review
“I think this might just be my masterpiece,” says a character at the end of Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, screening in Competition at Cannes. Is this what the director thinks about his film too? Taking its title from a minor 1970s Italian movie, it’s been talked up as a rock ’em, sock ’em ramraid through the conventions of WW2 historical drama. Tarantino’s first picture to be set outside America, with much of its dialogue in French and German, it follows a gang of Jewish-American soldiers roar through wartime Europe taking down and scalping any Nazi they can get their hands on.

The problem is that there’s not enough roaring or headhunting. Tarantino, one of the most exceptional choreographers of blood-ballet working today, should have wielded a cleaver to whole sections of this 154-minute non-epic. There is far too much yakking, some of it thickly accented and hard to follow, most of it without the rhythmic zing of his best work. The violence – Brad Pitt as one of the Basterds wiggling his finger inside Diana Kruger’s wounded leg – comes as a relief. A second plot, in which a Jewish woman whose family was butchered by Nazis organizes a film screening to assassinate Hitler and Goebbels – is more succinctly and powerfully handled.

Casting Mike Myers and pal Eli Roth (director of Hostel) is self-indulgent. Christoph Waltz though, as a cackling and multi-lingual German colonel, makes for a terrific villain. Long-time fans will enjoy the Morricone-slathered soundtrack, and the allusions to Kubrick and Henri-Georges Clouzot. Cannes normally adores Tarantino (he won the Palme d’Or for Pulp Fiction), but this time? It’s not so much inglorious as undistinguished

Hello. Here is an awesome comepition that Muse have set up with 5 leading review mags. Their giving 5 people the chance to review Muse – The Resistance on September 1st 2009 and write a review that will be posted on their site. Hope you enjoy. Cheers!

Here at muse.mu we have teamed up with nme.com, drownedinsound, gigwise, clash and the fly to bring you a fantastic competition. Five lucky muse.mu users along with competition winners from each of the aforementioned websites, will have the opportunity to hear The Resistance before its release on September 14th at an exclusive listening session in a super cool London location. Each winner will then be required to write a review of the album which will be submitted to the websites and published online alongside the official website review of the album. Muse.mu winners will have their reviews posted here in the News section.

To be in with a chance of winning this awesome prize, send us an email at reviewtheresistance@muse.mu and in no more than 100 words, tell us why you should win! The lucky five from muse.mu will be announced next week here on the website. Please also include your full name, age and a daytime phone number.

Don’t forget, you can also enter the competitions on nme.com, drownedinsound, gigwise, clash and the fly to have more of a chance of winning.

http://www.nme.com

http://www.drownedinsound.com

http://www.gigwise.com

http://www.clashmusic.com

http://www.the-fly.co.uk

Please note – this listening session will be held in London on September 1st. The prize does not include transport or accommodation.

Hello and welcome to a “psychedelic” (mind the odd joke) showing of The Beatles Rock Band Setlist + Trailer that will be released for the Xbox 360 & PS3. Of course all 4 members of the band John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harison & Ringo Starr will appear as will all the clothing/albums inspirations for example Sgt Pepper. Hope you enjoy the trailer. A real treat!

Setlist: (27 announced so far out of 45)
Song title Associated venue
“And Your Bird Can Sing” Budokan
“Back in the U.S.S.R.” Abbey Road Studios / Dreamscape
“Birthday” Abbey Road Studios / Dreamscape
“Can’t Buy Me Love” Ed Sullivan Theater
“Day Tripper” Budokan
“Dig a Pony” Rooftop Concert
“Do You Want to Know a Secret” Cavern Club
“Eight Days a Week” Shea Stadium
“Get Back” Rooftop Concert
“Here Comes the Sun” Abbey Road Studios / Dreamscape
“I Am the Walrus” Abbey Road Studios / Dreamscape
“I Feel Fine” Shea Stadium
“I Saw Her Standing There” Cavern Club
“I Want to Hold Your Hand” Ed Sullivan Theater
“I Wanna Be Your Man” Ed Sullivan Theater
“I’ve Got a Feeling” Rooftop Concert
“Octopus’s Garden” Abbey Road Studios / Dreamscape
“Paperback Writer” Budokan
“Revolution” Abbey Road Studios / Dreamscape
“Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” / “With a Little Help from My Friends”a Abbey Road Studios / Dreamscape
“Something” Abbey Road Studios / Dreamscape
“Taxman” Budokan
“Ticket to Ride” Shea Stadium
“Twist and Shout” Cavern Club
“Within You Without You / Tomorrow Never Knows”b Abbey Road Studios / Dreamscape
“Yellow Submarine” Abbey Road Studios / Dreamscape

Hello all. I’m sure you have all seen this image appearing on the web and around certain U.S cities of Barack Obama with The Joker’ makeup. Also is the slogan “Socialism” which I understand is incredibly offensive in America. I’m sure you have your opinion so i wont babble any further about the politics behind it. Maybe it is needed to fully answer the question Is this image Racist?

Check out News sites for a more detailed illustration of the events.
Thanks