In a release from Secretary of State Clinton, it was said that the sanctions were backed by China and Russia. Immediately after the release however, China released a statement that they also back the agreement initiated by Turkey and Brazil. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said his government believes the efforts by Brazil and Turkey will “aid the process of peacefully resolving the Iran nuclear issue through dialogue and negotiations.” (from here)

As Russia seems involved with the ‘alternative’ agreement as well, it seems like the US is once again working on its own and seeing the fact they run the IAEA more or less by themselves, it’s validity is (mildly put) debatable.

I’m growing a little tired of this supremecy of rightousness by the US. Indeed Iran (or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad more so) is claimed to have stated that they/he wishes to wipe Israel off the map. The level of controversy of the translation didn’t get the press, the initial translation did get, and as such this is taken for granted, but let me re-visit this little bushfire;

The translation presented by IRNA has been challenged by Arash Norouzi (involved with this and the article here on Huffington Post) , who says the statement “wiped off the map” was never made and that Ahmadinejad did not refer to the nation or land mass of Israel, but to the “regime occupying Jerusalem”. In his own words:

So what did Ahmadinejad actually say? To quote his exact words in Persian: “Imam ghoft een rezhim-e ishghalgar-e qods bayad az safheh-ye ruzgar mahv shavad.” That passage will mean nothing to most people, but one word might ring a bell: rezhim-e. It is the word “Regime”, pronounced just like the English word with an extra “eh” sound at the end. Ahmadinejad did not refer to Israel the country or Israel the land mass, but the Israeli regime. This is a vastly significant distinction, as one cannot wipe a regime off the map. Ahmadinejad does not even refer to Israel by name, he instead uses the specific phrase “rezhim-e ishghalgar-e qods” (regime occupying Jerusalem).

So this raises the question.. what exactly did he want “wiped from the map”? The answer is: nothing. That’s because the word “map” was never used. The Persian word for map, “nagsheh”, is not contained anywhere in his original Persian quote, or, for that matter, anywhere in his entire speech. Nor was the western phrase “wipe out” ever said. Yet we are led to believe that Iran’s President threatened to “wipe Israel off the map”, despite never having uttered the words “map”, “wipe out” or even “Israel”

The full quote translated directly to English: “The Imam said this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time”.

Word by word translation: Imam (Khomeini) ghoft (said) een (this) rezhim-e (regime) ishghalgar-e (occupying) qods (Jerusalem) bayad (must) az safheh-ye ruzgar (from page of time) mahv shavad (vanish from)..^[12][13]

Arash Norouzi further adds that the The Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) translation is the source of the confusion:

One may wonder: where did this false interpretation originate? Who is responsible for the translation that has sparked such worldwide controversy? The answer is surprising. The inflammatory ‘wiped off the map’ quote was first disseminated not by Iran’s enemies, but by Iran itself. The Islamic Republic News Agency, Iran’s official propaganda arm, used this phrasing in the English version of some of their news releases covering the World Without Zionism conference. International media including the BBC, Al Jazeera, Time magazine and countless others picked up the IRNA quote and made headlines out of it without verifying its accuracy, and rarely referring to the source. Iran’s Foreign Minister soon attempted to clarify the statement, but the quote had a life of its own. Though the IRNA wording was inaccurate and misleading, the media assumed it was true, and besides, it made great copy.^[12][13]

Then there are Muhadinejad’s own reactions to the whole thing;

Speaking at a D-8 summit meeting in July 2008, when asked to comment on whether he has called for the destruction of Israel he denied that his country would ever instigate military action, there being “no need for any measures by the Iranian people”. Instead he claimed that “the Zionist regime” in Israel would eventually collapse on its own. “I assure you… there won’t be any war in the future,” both the BBC and AP quoted him as saying.

(I stole this from Wikipedia btw.)

My point is this; I am not here to defend Iran, I know there are shitloads of issues at hand in the country that do not allign with how I would see fellow humans being treated. (such as; this, this, this, and this.) The thing is though, that supressing and sabotaging the economic development will not target the higher echelons of the country, only it’s people.

This kind of ideological diplomacy is nor for the benefit of the people, or the safety of the world. It is about maintaining the status quo, and I’ve kind of had it. Looking at India or Pakistan that are actually developing nuclear weapons and the lack of press coverage as well as ‘sanctions’ (related to the nuclear subject), I find it doubtful and am simply sick and tired of it.

The nuclear weapons threat is one that has been exploited for years and years now. The stupidity of it has been surpassed by it’s lack of transparency and one-sidedness of decision making. (which in itself is sort of transparent, yet not the kind of transparency I’d personally like to see.) But I think it would be a good idea to considder the arguments thrown at you by Western media.

Peace and pancakes.

The story gets more and more interesting by the day. Yesterday NY Times published a series of letters to and from bishops and archbishops on two continents, what makes this correspondence ‘special’ is that it also features ‘his holiness’ Pope Benedictus – the devout Roman Catholic formerly known as Ratzinger. The letters addressed the ‘undesirable issue’ of Father Lawrence Murphy having been ‘engaged’ with over 200 deaf children in an inappropriate way. He (his holiness that is) did not respond, yet the fact his name shows up in this series is an interesting one.

A little reference to the Whore of Babylon from the Bible;

“And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication:
^17:5 And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.
^17:6 And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration.” (book of Revelation 17 & 18)

Now, I’m not against people finding solace in religion. If you’re happy; I’m happy. But the organised part of religion is what worries me. The extend of the current ‘misconduct’ brought to light is sick. Sexual abuse of children is something that sickens me to the absolute core and well, let’s just say I’m trying to be a peaceful man but in coming across news like this; my ‘faith is tried’.

The incredible hush-up and denial combined with the rigid and moral superiority outlook on the world of the Catholic Church is -dare I say; diabolical. Seriously, I’ve always thought ‘The Church’ to be backwards in a lot of things, but now my amazement has turned into horror. The sideways connection to a ‘myth’ described in ‘their’ own literature, that of the Whore of Babylon, is one that deserves a good, hard look;

- The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand
+ Might just reference to the Pope

- MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH
+ Mystery = lies? Babylon the great = Vatican?  The Mother of Harlots and abominations of the Earth =  The Father of the Church (i.e. clergy) and thus representative of the Church as a whole.

- Woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration
+  Man who serves wine as ‘the blood of Christ’

A bit farfetched perhaps, yet, I do wonder..

I’m sorry for the possible offence people might take of this post, for I mean no harm to peaceful and harmless human beings -nor to others really, I believe living with the things you have done will take their toll. I take it we all look for meaning in life and we all have our own motivation in order to reach unification with that which we do not understand and possibly even fear. Yet, to systematically destroy the innocence of children, to take away from them the one thing that is so far lost in our world as is, mis-using the faith people have put in you as a spiritual councilor; is disturbing and wrong. Whatever excuse you may find for yourself, whatever God you may choose to believe in; I pray/believe/hope justice will serve you.

My thoughts go out to those who have lost faith in the recent weeks or have suffered from the tyranny of those who claim to be God’s voice on Earth. May you find God’s voice in that one place no one can touch you, within yourself, for it is you who has come to this life in order to experience, and there is no one that can tell you how to do so, but you.

Peace and love to all.

But where are we headed? Is evolution still purely biological or can we argue it has become a conscious development? One about the choices we make, about how we live our lives, what the function of manmade technology within evolution?

The term ‘Uomo Universalis’ -or Polymath (“universal man” or “man of the world”) is a term that may help us with the ‘looking forward’ of evolution. We are in a time (in the West) that we can afford ourselves (and technical support enabled us) to keep learning throughout our lives. Next to that we also see increased social pressure of having to be ‘up to date’ on all sorts of whimsical TV-series, hollow news coverage and gossip of all sorts.

What if we would spend that time on actually finding fulfilment in the ‘search for knowledge’? How would we live, how would the political landscape look? Probably most importantly, how would our educational system be reformed? (I’m saying reformed because I’m quite sure it would, but maybe you think differently?) Would we be happier -or not? Is ignorance bliss? Would we still be feeding our kids Ritalin? Or would we motivate them to put their energy into arts, learning and social interaction? Would we still say; what can I do about poverty, world hunger and political corruption? Or would we group, set up an alternative structure and change the situation? Would there be war? (I mean, even now it seems pretty dumb to think that killing someone stays without reaction right?)

What is the potential of human beings is what I’m really asking here. How can we fulfil the tasks and responsibilities we have and develop ourselves and thereby develop the way we stand in accord to the world?

“A (hu)man can do all things if he will.” (Leon Battista Alberti)

What do you reckon?

Peace and Love

This is all public debate, which we can settle down on and say, well, it’s a hot issue, governmental participation in health-care, in the U.S. it is anyway. That doesn’t mean one ought to disrupt and try to destroy the entire debate by stating such absolute horse-shit (excuse my french), but we’ve seen this before. In Europe we’ve decided some time ago that it might not be a bad idea if (close to) everyone would have a health-care plan. But let’s be honest, and understand that, with media-outlets such as Fox we can count on some less subtle (or blatantly stupid) debates. So it goes.

But what has seriously hit my face with a metal plate was the following video;

WordPress does not support this code; please check it (here)

I mean, is this the country that ought to be in charge (because they are) of the economical reform of our international finance structure? The stupidity of the news-outlets, OK, of the people perhaps, OK, actually no, that’s not OK, in a ‘democratic’ country, but seriously, a senator, are you $%^&* kidding me?! I cannot believe this, really, how can you, being an American citizen, not get up and kick off some sort of revolution? How can you sit there and think, well, what would you think?! I’d get my bags and leave the country. I’m seriously mind-boggled. I have some U.S. based friends, and talking to them didn’t make me wiser, the acceptance, or in-ability to care, is something I can’t understand.

The day before Obama’s speech on health-care something else happened.

Van Jones, the country’s ‘Green Energy’ reformer has decided to step down from his post after continuous allegations of him being a ‘communist’. Oh, and he signed a petition which suggested that 9/11 was ‘an inside job’. First of all, I thought they’d passed the ‘communist’ thing some time ago and moved towards socialist-allocations. But OK. Next to that, if you’d look at the success of documentaries that suggest ‘the ugly possibility’ of 9/11 one could argue it is an opinion shared by a good majority of the people in the Western World. Taking into account the tactics employed during, and after the 9/11 reports, one cannot conclude otherwise than that the U.S. government was not very eager to reveal ‘the whole truth and nothing but the truth’. ( Here ‘Beck’s report on ‘revealing’ Van Jones please note the use of linguistics and way the video is build-up, oh also, both Marx and Lenin’s thought are mandatory part of Dutch History course)

It’s a sad time in the political sphere of the Western World, with extremist politicians standing up all over the spectrum, an increasing poverty of quality in media and duality increasing on a daily basis. I hope everyone will understand my (quickly) written plead for contemplation.

Peace and Love.

Now, I’m sure I’m not the only one, I talk to loads of people, from all sorts of social backgrounds and current settings that see the same world I do (more or less, perception is reality), and I truly believe Internet is the enabler of the change a lot of us would like to see. Internet is also facing a great challenge in the years ahead though. I might have (if not, I guess I should have) written about the possibility of the American ‘cable-TV-Internet’ bill that has been proposed by the telecom and cable-TV guys over there (AT&T mostly). (some info here, and an active website for net neutrality, which is the key issue for the success of Internet as a carrier/enabler of change, here) The bill would basically persue to annihilate the current freedom of choice we have on Internet. The idea these bright guys have is that the decision of what websites should be available ‘high-speed’ to consumers, should be made in boardrooms, not on the Internet itself, by the users thereof, collectively functioning as a control, relevance, (or push) factor of (web)success.

I’m happy to see that opposed to the current push towards Internet bans, and moderation by governments (here, here (Wikipedia article on general Internet censorship), here, here) are opposed by some good news (here, here in the U.S. for instance and here). The thing is, mostly, that the Internet is bigger than it’s users, because, as a single user, you’re merely a dot in the ‘cloud’, yet as a community, we’re the most powerful institution in the world. Governments with the illusion that they have the ability to control the internet must be drunk on Absinth.

The simple fact of matter is, if you push people into a corner, they’ll dig. They’ll go underground, and you (i.e. governments) won’t be able to find them. Bas has written a good piece on that 2 days ago. His point is, when you push the users of Internet into ‘illegality’ by illegalising the way they use the Internet (and have been using for a very long time), you’ll push them further and further away. His example of the amount of hackers in countries with a strong Internet ‘protocol’ is, to me quite convincing. The number of hackers in countries as such is seemingly much higher than in countries that have relatively free Internet.

Back to that wave of change you’re on. Because, you are too. Whether you like it or not. If you’re using the Internet you are part of the biggest ‘Tribe’ in the world, and thus, part of the change we’re pushing (some a bit more active than others) into this world. Initiatives such as Couchsurfing, provide, except for a cheap way round the world, also the intention and opportunity to meet new people, become more familiar with new cultures, debate viewpoints of the world and, as is the mission of Couchsurfing, “We envision a world where everyone can explore and create meaningful connections with the people and places we encounter. Building meaningful connections across cultures enables us to respond to diversity with curiosity, appreciation and respect. The appreciation of diversity spreads tolerance and creates a global community. With the apparent success, over one million members and growing , Couchsurfing is a vehicle of movement that is here to stay.

Also more ‘hands-on’ approaches of change through Internet, can be found all over. We look at Avaaz, who roam round with a mission that ‘goes a little something like this’;

Avaaz.org is a new global web movement with a simple democratic mission: to close the gap between the world we have, and the world most people everywhere want. Across the world, most people want stronger protections for the environment, greater respect for human rights, and concerted efforts to end poverty, corruption and war. Yet globalization faces a huge democratic deficit as international decisions are shaped by political elites and unaccountable corporations — not the views and values of the world’s people.

In terms of how they work, and what the extend of their reach is, one should sit down for a bit. I’ve spoken about Internet being the enabler and agent of change, and Avaaz has modeled this into a very, very hardcore system, in one year alone, Avaaz went from their Beta verion to 3.5 million members and growing 9,000 a day(!!!), this is what they say about it;

“Technology and the internet have allowed citizens to connect and mobilize like never before. The rise of a new model of internet-driven, people-powered politics is changing countries from Australia to the Philippines to the United States. Avaaz takes this model global, connecting people across borders to bring people powered politics to international decision-making.”

If you’d like to know more about Avaaz or even become a member, please check here.

As said, we’re riding a wave, and the waves is one that weather specialists would call a tidal wave, and it’s not going to stop, we have reached critical mass, we need to realise it.

For now, love and peace for all.