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Cult

Best of the Web: Hold that Thought, I've got to go to the Al Qaeda

The first thing I want to say is that there is no al-Qaeda; not in the way we understand it to be. The only al-Qaeda ever found is this one and given the fact that there are now more Al Qaeda outlets than there are McDonald's makes it all the more absurd. On Friday, unknown gunman attacked the Israeli Embassy in Mauritania and once again it was Al Qaeda. A bystander said the colors were melting from the flag flying from the getaway car.

al-Qaeda means The Toilet ...think a little people and add this in to what we know about 9/11.

Alarm Clock

Best of the Web: The Care and Feeding of the Practical Psychopath



©Sott.net

Every generation has its challenges, its wars and its peculiar identity. Every generation replaces the one in front of it and gets replaced by the one behind it. The enemy of each generation is always the same. It changes its clothes and terrain. It moves in and out of political ideologies and religious dogmas but it's the same enemy.

Defining the enemy isn't an easy thing. You're dealing with continuous shape-shifting. You think you are confronting it in front of you when it is actually leaning over your shoulder and advising you. You find that it agrees with you and is on your side only to discover that it has used its seeming alliance to discredit what you believe in; to misrepresent what you believe in.

Document

Best of the Web: Ponerology: The Study of Evil - Interview with Marian Wasilewski

What is this evil? If we recognize it to be the root of all suffering, then even the Buddha dealt with it in his own way, yet it keeps harassing us. While living in the USA, I had the privilege of meeting Andrzej Lobaczewski, a clinical psychologist who coined the term ponerology from the Greek word for evil. He used this term to describe the results of his many years of research, which can be said to supplement ethics from the psychiatric point of view. Unfortunately he was not always able to get his message through, and the better part of his work was never published as far as I know. Closer contact with Andrzej Lobaczewski encouraged me to familiarize myself with other problematics on similar topics smuggled out of the Soviet Union and Hungary. Since I gave a series of interviews at that time (namely 1984) in connection with the publication of my work The Psychological Roots of Communism, I decided to devote an additional radio interview to this very subject. The statements made therein had been jointly formulated beforehand with Andrzej Lobaczewski, who didn't disclose his name at that time. Although this was all quite a long time ago, I believe the topic deserves wider renown.

Comment: According to the National Institute of Mental Health:
9.5 percent of the U.S. population age 18 and older suffer from Mood Disorder

6.7 percent of the U.S. population age 18 and older suffer from Major Depressive Disorder

1.5 percent of the U.S. population age 18 and older suffer from Dysthymic Disorder

2.6 percent of the U.S. population age 18 and older suffer from Bi-polar disorder

1.1 percent of the population age 18 and older suffer from Schizophrenia

18.1 percent of people in this age group in a given year, have an anxiety disorder.

2.7 percent of people age 18 and older suffer from panic disorder

1.0 percent of people age 18 and older suffer from Obsessive-compulsive disorder

3.5 percent of people age 18 and older suffer from Post Traumatic Stress disorder

3.1 percent of people age 18 and over suffer from Generalized Anxiety Disorder

6.8 percent of people age 18 and older suffer from Social Phobia

0.8 percent of people age 18 and older suffer from Agoraphobia

8.7 percent of people age 18 and older suffer from marked and persistent fear and avoidance of a specific object or situation

0.5 percent to 3.7 percent of females suffer from anorexia

1.1 percent to 4.2 percent suffer from bulimia (The mortality rate among people with anorexia has been estimated at 0.56 percent per year, or approximately 5.6 percent per decade, which is about 12 times higher than the annual death rate due to all causes of death among females ages 15-24 in the general population.)

4.1 percent of adults, ages 18-44 suffer from ADHD
Accounting for comorbidity, "An estimated 26.2 percent of Americans ages 18 and older - about one in four adults - suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year." Notice that psychopathy and personality disorders such as narcissism and borderline personality disorder, are not even included in this list. Either mental illness is on the rise, or different criteria were used to come up with the figures cited by Wasilewski.


Newspaper

Best of the Web: The Mass Media - Neutral, Honest, Psychopathic: Reviewing David Edwards and David Cromwell's "Guardians of Power"



©MediaLens
David Edwards David Cromwell

David Cromwell is a Scottish writer, activist and oceanographer at the National Oceanography Centre in Britain. David Edwards is also a UK writer who focuses on human rights, the environment and the media. Together they edit an extraordinary "UK-based media-watch project" called Media Lens. It "offers authoritative criticism of mainstream media bias and censorship, as well as providing in-depth analysis, quotes, media contact details and other resources."

Today, the media is in crisis, and a free and open society is at risk. Fiction substitutes for fact, news is carefully filtered, dissent is marginalized, and supporting the powerful substitutes for full and accurate reporting. As a result, wars of aggression are called liberating ones, civil liberties are suppressed for our own good, and patriotism means going along with governments that are lawless.

The authors challenge these views and those in the mainstream who reflect them - the managers, editors and journalists. Their aim in Media Lens and their writing is to "raise public awareness" to see "reality" as they do, free from the corrupting influence of media corporations and their single-minded pursuit of profit "in a society dominated by corporate power" and governments acting as their handmaiden. They note that Pravda was a state propaganda organ so "why should we expect the corporate press to tell the truth about corporate power" and unfettered capitalism when they support it? They don't and never will.

Bulb

Best of the Web: U.S. Senate Report: Over 400 Prominent Scientists Disputed Man-Made Global Warming Claims in 2007

Over 400 prominent scientists from more than two dozen countries recently voiced significant objections to major aspects of the so-called "consensus" on man-made global warming. These scientists, many of whom are current and former participants in the UN IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), criticized the climate claims made by the UN IPCC and former Vice President Al Gore.

The new report issued by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee's office of the GOP Ranking Member details the views of the scientists, the overwhelming majority of whom spoke out in 2007.

Magnify

Best of the Web: The Iran Agenda: The Historical Truth of Our Relations with Iran



©n/a

In this excerpt from his new book, The Iran Agenda, veteran independent journalist Reese Erlich challenges the conventional wisdom on Iran's nuclear ambitions.

Comment: While the author's historical analysis on the relationship between the U.S and Iran is very valuable. he is extremely naive in his recommendations of what the U.S should do. It is imperative that normal people, including the author, understand that most of governments in the world have been infiltrated by psychopaths who have no conscience. Therefore, normal reasoning and moral standards cannot be applied to them.

What we should be doing now is to spread knowledge about the nature of the psychopaths to a majority of human beings in the world. That is the only hope for us. Read the following article for more information: Hope.


Sheeple

Best of the Web: Origins of Agriculture - Did Civilization Arise to Deliver a Fix?



©n/a
Is hierarchical civilization a mad dream of drug addiction?

Introduction

What might head a list of the defining characteristics of the human species? While our view of ourselves could hardly avoid highlighting our accomplishments in engineering, art, medicine, space travel and the like, in a more dispassionate assessment agriculture would probably displace all other contenders for top billing. Most of the other achievements of humankind have followed from this one. Almost without exception, all people on earth today are sustained by agriculture. With a minute number of exceptions, no other species is a farmer. Essentially all of the arable land in the world is under cultivation. Yet agriculture began just a few thousand years ago, long after the appearance of anatomically modern humans.

Crusader

Best of the Web: Snakes in Suits: Sense of moral superiority can lead to unethical acts, study finds

Morally upstanding people are the do-gooders of society, right? Actually, a new study finds that a sense of moral superiority can lead to unethical acts, such as cheating. In fact, some of the best do-gooders can become the worst cheats.

Stop us if this sounds familiar.

When asked to describe themselves, most people typically will rattle off a list of physical features and activities (for example, "I do yoga" or "I'm a paralegal"). But some people have what scientists call a moral identity, in which the answer to the question would include phrases like "I am honest" and "I am a caring person."

Past research has suggested that people who describe themselves with words such as honest and generous are also more likely to engage in volunteer work and other socially responsible acts.

But often in life, the line between right and wrong becomes blurry, particularly when it comes to cheating on a test or in the workplace. For example, somebody could rationalize cheating on a test as a way of achieving their dream of becoming a doctor and helping people.

In the new study, detailed in the November issue of the Journal of Applied Psychology, researchers find that when this line between right and wrong is ambiguous among people who think of themselves as having high moral standards, the do-gooders can become the worst of cheaters.

Red Flag

Best of the Web: My Nobel Moment

I've had a lot of fun recently with my tiny (and unofficial) slice of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). But, though I was one of thousands of IPCC participants, I don't think I will add "0.0001 Nobel Laureate" to my resume.

Comment: For the record it was Mr. Christy who made a sign error in his satellite temperature analysis using MSU data. This resulted in an erroneously measured "cooling" instead of an actual warming of the lower troposphere. Perhaps it was this humility which he endured that allows him to write from such a perspective.


Ambulance

Best of the Web: Bush Madness: The scruffy charms of an insecure president


Comment: Psychologist and author, Andrzej Lobaczewski, outlines the characteristics of the Schizoidal psychopath in his book Political Ponerology. He also describes how it is that many people can be taken in and influenced by, such characters. Certainly two people can observe the same behavior and give it entirely different interpretations; an example would be the difference between how a journalist interprets the behavior and how a trained clinical psychologist would interpret the behavior.

Robert Draper seems to have succumbed to the "charms of the deviant" in that he has taken the "critically corrective" approach of the psychologically ignorant layperson to interpreting the character of George W. Bush. See the comments at the end of this article for a fuller explication of this problem.



Biographer Robert Draper explains that Bush has a surprising intellect but is incapable of curiosity and owning up to mistakes.

Revelations from "Dead Certain," Robert Draper's new biography of President George W. Bush, have received marquee play since the book's publication on Sept. 4. The disclosures have ranged from the petty -- Bush, a stickler for punctuality, once locked a late Colin Powell out of a meeting -- to the momentous. Among the more uncomfortable for the White House: Bush's claim that Paul Bremer, head of Iraq's Coalition Provisional Authority, made the disastrous decision to disband the Iraqi army without Bush's knowledge, an assertion rapidly rebutted by Bremer.

Comment: The following are excerpts from Political Ponerology by Andrzej Lobaczewski. After reading Draper's descriptions of Bush's behavior as well as the behavior of those who surround him, I think that the reader can draw their own conclusions as to how close a match we have here.
Schizoidia: Schizoidia, or schizoidal psychopathy From the [early days of modern psychiatry, schizoidal psychopathy] was treated as a lighter form of the same hereditary taint which is the cause of susceptibility to schizophrenia. However, this latter connection could neither be confirmed nor denied with the help of statistical analysis, and no biological test was then found which would have been able to solve this dilemma. For practical reasons, we shall herein discuss schizoidia with no further reference to this relationship.

Literature provides us with descriptions of several varieties of this anomaly, whose existence can be attributed either to changes in the genetic factor or to differences in other individual characteristics of a non-pathological nature. Let us thus sketch these sub-species' common features.

Carriers of this anomaly are hypersensitive and distrustful, but they pay little attention to the feelings of others, tend to assume extreme positions, and are eager to retaliate for minor offenses.

Sometimes they are eccentric and odd. Their poor sense of psychological situation and reality leads them to superimpose erroneous, pejorative interpretations upon other people's intentions.

They easy become involved in activities which are ostensibly moral, but which actually inflict damage upon themselves and others.

Their impoverished psychological world view makes them typically pessimistic regarding human nature. We frequently find expressions of their characteristic attitudes in their statements and writings: "Human nature is so bad that order in human society can only be maintained by a strong power created by highly qualified individuals in the name of some higher idea." Let us call this typical expression the "schizoid declaration".

Human nature does in fact tend to be naughty, whenever the schizoids embitter other people's lives, that is.

When they become wrapped up in situations of serious stress, however, the schizoid's failings cause them to collapse easily. The capacity for thought is thereupon characteristically stifled, and frequently the schizoids fall into reactive psychotic states so similar in appearance to schizophrenia that they lead to misdiagnoses.

The common factor in the varieties of this anomaly is a dull pallor of emotions and a feeling for the psychological realities of this essential factor in basic intelligence. This can be attributed to the incomplete quality of the instinctive substratum, which is working as though on sand.

Low emotional pressure enables them to develop proper speculative reasoning, which is useful in non-humanistic spheres of activity.

Because of their one-sidedness, they tend to consider themselves intellectually superior to "ordinary" people.

The quantitative frequency of this anomaly varies among races and nations: low among Blacks, the highest among Jews. Estimates of this frequency range from negligible up to 3 %. In Poland it may be estimated as 0.7 % of population. My observations suggest this anomaly is autosomally hereditary.

A schizoid's ponerological activity should be evaluated in two aspects. On the small scale, such people cause their families trouble, easily turn into tools of intrigue in the hands of clever individuals, and generally do a poor job of raising the younger generation.

Their tendency to see human reality in the doctrinaire and simplistic manner they consider "proper", transforms their frequently good intentions into bad results. However, their ponerogenic role can take on macro-social proportions if their attitude toward human reality and their tendency to invent great doctrines are put to paper and duplicated in large editions.

(Or if they become president of the U.S.)

In spite of their typical deficits, or even an openly schizoidal declaration, their readers do not realize what the authors' characters are like; they interpret such works in a manner corresponding to their own nature.

The minds of normal people tend toward corrective interpretation thanks to the participation of their own richer, psychological world-view. However, many readers critically reject such works with moral disgust but without being aware of the specific cause. [...]

The famous utterances attributed to Zionist wise men at the turn of the century start with a schizoidal declaration.

The nineteenth century, especially its latter half, appears to have been a time of exceptional activity on the part of schizoidal individuals, often but not always of Jewish descent. After all we have to remember that 97 % of all Jews do not manifest this anomaly, and that it also appears among all European nations, albeit to a markedly lesser extent.

Our inheritance from this period includes world-images, scientific traditions, and legal concepts flavored with the shoddy ingredients of a schizoidal apprehension of reality. [...]

In spite of the fact that the writings [or actions] of schizoidal [individuals] contain the above described deficiency, or even an openly formulated schizoidal declaration which constitutes sufficient warning to specialists, the average reader accepts them not as a view of reality warped by this anomaly, but rather as an idea to which he should assume an attitude based on his convictions and his reason.

That is the first mistake.

The oversimplified pattern, devoid of psychological color and based on easily available data, exerts an intense influence upon individuals who are insufficiently critical, frequently frustrated as result of downward social adjustment, culturally neglected, or characterized by some psychological deficiencies [of their own]. Others are provoked to criticism based on their healthy common sense; also they fail to grasp this essential cause of the error.

Societal interpretation of such activities is broken down into the main trifurcations, engendering divisiveness and conflict.

The first branch is the path of aversion, based on rejection of the contents of the work due to personal motivations, differing convictions, or moral revulsion. This already contains the component of a moralizing interpretation of pathological phenomena.

We can distinguish two distinctly different apperception types among those persons who accept the contents of such works: the critically-corrective and the pathological.

People whose feel for psychological reality is normal tend to incorporate chiefly the more valuable elements of the work. They trivialize the obvious errors and complement the schizoid deficiencies by means of their own richer world-view. This gives rise to a more sensible, measured, and thus creative interpretation, but is not free from the influence of the error frequently adduced above.

Pathological acceptance is manifested by individuals with diversiform deviations, whether inherited or acquired, as well as by many people bearing personality malformations or who have been injured by social injustice. That explains why this scope is wider than the circle drawn by direct action of pathological factors. This apperception often brutalizes the authors' concepts and leads to acceptance of forceful methods and revolutionary means. [...]

Schizoidia has thus played an essential role as one of the factors in the genesis of the evil threatening our contemporary world. Practicing psychotherapy upon the world will therefore demand that the results of such evil be eliminated as skillfully as possible.