As the Publisher of MensNewsDaily.com, I must make decisions that in my sole judgment are beneficial to the long-term health and well-being of this publication.

Back in 2002, MND became a charter member of  Google News when that service was in beta. MND’s article archive on Google News reaches back to May, 2002. Since that time, MND has endeavored to maintain its status as an international source of news, information, analysis, and opinion for Men’s Rights Activists (MRAs) around the world.

Through Google News and Google Alerts, MND reaches a global audience of MRAs across North America, Australia, India, Africa, Europe and Asia. In fact, this publication is a lifeline for MRAs in every corner of the globe.

Over some 8-years of continuous operation, on rare occasion I have made editorial decisions that have curtailed the expression of some of our commentors and authors. These decisions helped keep MND in line with the  standards and language common to the Google News aggregation, as well as with the common language of civil discourse.

I have never made such a decision lightly, but I intentionally err with caution when the downsides are high, noting that MND is the only MRA-oriented website indexed by Google News.

That said,  it is now necessary to make public the details of MND’s recent encounter with Google News.

On August 24, 2009, the following post (”Circumcision No AIDS Protection For Gay Men”) was made to MND’s Sex & Metropolis blog by author David Usher:

The most effective form of HIV prevention is to decide to stop living the gay lifestyle. We are not creatures driven blindly by wants or urges (but it is so easy to believe that is the case).

Darwin and nature control this situation. Being gay is not hip, it is not cool, regardless of what gay advocates pretend.

Guys, even if it is slightly inconvenient, it is far better to make your decisions wisely, above the belt line. That is what supposedly differentiates man from the animal world.

ATLANTA – Circumcision, which has helped prevent AIDS among heterosexual men in Africa, doesn’t help protect gay men from the virus, according to the largest U.S. study to look at the question.

The research, presented at a conference Tuesday, is expected to influence the government’s first guidance on circumcision.

Two days later, I received the following note from Google News:

Hi,

Upon recent review of your site, we found articles that do not meet our content guidelines, such as
http:// mensnewsdaily.com/sexandmetro/2009/08/25/circumcision-no-aids-protection-for-gay-men/.

Please be aware that we currently don’t include sites that contain hateful comments in Google News. If we’re made aware of articles that display this type of material, we’ll remove them, and repeated violations can result in the removal of your site from Google News.

Thanks for your interest in Google News.

Regards,
The Google News Team

After reviewing David’s Sex & Metropolis post, in my judgment this language is not hateful.

At worst, the language too-closely captures the author’s opinions about the topic, and does not adequately convey the factual elements of the story.

These last were valid reasons to put the post under review and I withdrew David’s post in due diligence.

I also asked MND’s new Editor-in-Chief, Paul Elam, to review the site for anything that might be construed as “hateful”.

Paul pointed out at least one instance wherein a potentially “hateful” word was identified. The author was Bernard Chapin. I agreed the word would be inflammatory to an urban sensibility. I informed Bernard then that the post would be deleted.

In protest, MND’s former Managing Editor asked to have his Siege Engine archive deleted from the site. As requested, the Siege Engine archive was removed. Bernard specifically requested that his old MND archive circa 2003 – 2006 be retain on the site. Thus, his old archive is still available on MND here.

Likewise, David was unhappy with being “censored”, and has left this publication. David’s MND articles are archived here and here.

As a result of these events, MND has issued new and explicit guidelines for authors and commentors on the site.

Men’s News Daily recognizes the diversity of voices in the world community and seeks to act as an inclusive and unbiased platform for the dissemination of ideas. Therefore, it is the policy of MND that any content, present in the publication or presented for publication, interpreted as hateful or inciting toward any group based on race, creed, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, political ideology or political affiliation will not be tolerated.

As the Editor-in-Chief, I am confident Paul Elam will commit himself to a fair application of this policy.

With respect to Google News, though their email did spark an internal review, their threatening message remains deeply troubling.

While I appreciate that the use of certain words or phrases may meet the standard for “fire” in a crowded theater, I am also certain that no “hateful” comments were uttered in the post cited by Google News.

Therefore I must conclude that Google News issued its threat for non-transparent reasons. One can only speculate, but it seems plausible that the threat was issued by Google News as the result of a complaint from a lone Google News consumer. GN’s overstatement of the case that the post was “hateful” might then be attributed to the personal prejudice or predilection of the Google News employee who sent the email to me. On the other hand, Google’s corporate environment might well encourage or at least support the ideological cleansing of news sites too far out of step with the current Urban Zeitgeist.

Google’s willful misuse of the term “hateful” is chilling. For a monopoly like Google News, the temptation to control the flow of “inappropriate ideas” must be great. And now it is demonstrably easy for a single Google News employee to force content providers into perfunctory compliance with even the most mundane ideological assumptions of feminist postmodernism.

In the end, it is my judgment that a head-on fight over this issue could end badly for this publication. MND’s first purpose is to provide an information lifeline to the world’s population of MRAs. Google’s email directly threatens the Prime Directive.

The new editorial guidelines have been implemented to help protect MND from future claims of “hateful” speech.

Finally, I would like to thank both David and Bernard for their past contributions and good works. MND wishes them the best in their future endeavors.

I won’t tell you want happens next. But I can tell you that Clear Harmony conveyed every audio nuance in the soundtrack. The ears of my iPod never sounded this good.

Able Planet’s Active Noise Canceling Clear Harmony headphones are a single top-of-the-line solution that works with your computer and most a/v portable devices, including the iPod and iPhone. It also comes with a black travel case, and a dual-pin audio adapter for use on airline flights.

The sleek black design is surprisingly light-weight and fully adjustable. The ear pads have a pillow-like feel, and when your ears are enfolded,  extraneous sounds take on a muffled, background quality. Even your own voice is heard more as a vibration in you throat than a sound in your ears.

That’s just the start, of course. Because on top of that easy silence, the sound produced by your favorite a/v player becomes crystalline and subtle.

Able Planet says the secret is their proprietary Linx Audio™ technology. Originally designed for high-end hearing aids, Linx Audio™ uses frequency harmonics to clarify the butter of sound your ear usually receives on an airplane or public transit.

At $299 these phones aren’t for the bargain shopper. But if you’re ready for your best pair of headphones ever, they’re here.

‘Knowing the unpredictability of his personality,” Chapin tells us, “I was somewhat skeptical regarding the merits of his new book… Luckily, my fears proved unfounded. The book is strong and will serve everyday Americans admirably in their attempt to defend themselves against the noxious and self-righteous utterances of those Democratic drones that surround them.”

Cool. Beck’s a little emotive for my taste, but I think his heart’s on straight.

Our friend David Usher has contributed a chapter to a new book titled “Gay and Lesbian Families”, by Gale publishing.

“Feminism is actually a Eugenics movement,” writes Usher. “And same-sex marriage is the goal modern eugenicists intent to achieve to fully end the participation of men in marriage, family, society, and economy.”

Usher continues to advance his theory that Same Sex Marriage institutes three inherently unequal classes of marriage, wherein men suffer unconscionable legal discrimination.

“…same sex marriage would result in severe societal stratification. It would place dual-female marriages-of-socioeconomic-convenience at the top of the socioeconopolitical diaspora, heterosexual marriages in the middle, and gay men at the very bottom.”

MND reader Eisuke writes,

“Dear Men’s News Daily,

I highly recommend you to use Twitter, the popular free message update service. www.twitter.com , because this way you can reach many people around the world at once. It’s important that people are aware of Men’s Issues and such.

I noticed that Bernard Chapin is using twitter at the moment for MND at www.twitter.com/mnd , however it would be much more effective by having the latest articles on MND rss feeded to the twitter account.”

Good idea. Actually BC is offering a twitter channel for mnd right here: http://twitter.com/MensNewsDaily

From the ONION:

AUDIO Large Hadron Collider Detects Elusive ‘Lady Particle’ Gender Particle Theorists In Shock – Mon, Jul 06 2009

From might-as-well-be-Onion:

Parasites May Have Had Role In Evolution Of Sex – Science Daily

WWW.MENSENEWS.ORG

A new newsletter and website devoted to issues concerning men is now available! MensENews.org will post current news stories from around the nation on our website daily. MensEnews.org is offering a free newsletter service where you can get your news delivered right to your email. There are four unique newsletters to choose from on a wide variety of topics. Choose one or sign up for them all. You pick the topics of particular interest to you. There is also a lively and user-friendly forum section on the website where you can discuss the articles with others, a library of topics, valuable links, and much more!

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Part I of this transcript available here.

Audio: (part 1) (part 2)

Hello,

This is part two of a two part podcast explaining where I am coming from and casting some light on my approach as a Men’s Rights Advocate.

As with part one, this one will bear listening to several times to ‘get’ all the points I will raise, and not just the last one you hear. There are quite a few points.

As you will have gathered from part one my focus is not on women and feminism –although they come into it – so much as on we men. It is men who have to determine what Men’s Rights we Advocate and not simply in reference to women.

We have seen how Young Percy carried his Mother’s lessons with him into the world,
and how he was under the delusion that wearing armour, an outer shell, made him a man. What is worn on the outside is very different from the man inside. He needs a quite different sort of armour in there.

Percy finds the Holy Grail and loses it almost immediately. He has a lot yet to learn. He fails to ask fundamental questions.

This podcast will look at them.

Parzival spends the rest of his life trying to find it again. A long and arduous life, with its ups and downs, successes and failures, material gains and losses.

He meets other men on his travels and fights them. Women’s rules. He defeats most, but instead of killing them, he sends them to serve his King. He has intuitively learned part of the lesson, but he has to practice it. An understanding is starting to arise in him. Just as manhood did. He is starting to modify his mother’s rules. He is starting to question his actions and learn what is the purpose of his manhood gifts.

He meets his half-brother, his Father’s and Belcane’s son – the piebald Fierefiz, the half-cast.; the man who is ‘different’. A man as Good and as Honourable as himself and carrying the same Father’s genes. He fights him. Of course.

We do that too. All men are our brothers and we automatically fight them. Women’s rules. “let’s you and him fight. It is something we must stop doing. We must VALUE men. If we don’t , women won’t.

How many men are Manginas, not because they want to support women’s rights, but to Lord it over other men and steal their armour. Their ‘High Moral Ground’ is just a hillock of quicksand they stand on. Manginas play a main role in the women’s game of ‘Let’s you and him fight’.

We can fight them. We have little choice. How we fight is our choice. The purpose of the fight is in our purview. But we must defeat them to recruit our fellow men and put them to good use. Serving the King.

We have recruited at least half of the women who come to men’s rights forums to see what we are about. They come with challenges and mouth, but we use masculine power of argument and reason and facts, and we overcome. Many are women who fight just as well as many men and far better than some.

Percy fails to defeat Fierefiz but they part as equals. It is an equality of failure to overcome their own hubris. We must do better. We must refuse to play the game in order to win the prizes. We must play a different game with men’s rules for different prizes, conscious of what effect we have.

Our consciousness of self is barely better than the old Greeks. We as men, must become more conscious, so that we greet our brother and ride alongside him, despite our mother’s baggage.

Young Parzival suffered profound disappointment all of his life. He travelled widely but he struggled with a ‘native’ immorality largely inherited from women but constantly and deleteriously re-inforced by most of the men he encountered. He tries hard to be a man and serve his King. It is his Duty. His Purpose. He had ‘expectations’, but no internal moral ‘Map’.

He lived in a world in turmoil that had no maps. The human heart is the landscape he travelled through which was, and still is beset by war. It is the same war that goes on inside us all. He journeyed painfully. As all men do. And he rarely had another man to trust enough to teach him the right paths to travel.

Or a good woman who rises above simple gender.

You see, ‘Good’, Integrity, Morality, Purpose, aren’t ‘gender-specific’ concepts. They are transcendent.

I chose the word ‘disappointment’ for Percy deliberately. Yes there is a moral judgement aspect to it but I meant it as a feeling. That dissatisfaction and disappointment are as easily projected onto others as female guilt is projected onto men. We men MUST be careful to own our own feelings and not cast them onto others.

This happens in our modern psychobabble era. It is all very well saying that I have expectations and therefore open myself to disappointment but that smacks too much of a pseudo-guru-speak to me. We all have expectations and most are perfectly reasonable.

I generally expect no more of others than I expect of myself, and most often a little less. I expect a little more, too, from people I look up to and those who claim a position that impacts upon me. That is a man’s way.

I get disappointed, as Parzival was, because I am an emotional being. All men are. We get angry and we love. It is our anger and our love. Men’s emotions are real, and an integral part of us. Not the ersatz ‘sentimentality’ so often seen in immature women.

Just look at the real sorrow of a firefighter who carries out a dead child from a building. It is genuine tears he sheds. Men’s tears from the heart. Look at the soldier who repels an attack and cuddles a bereft child on his knee. He cries with her. They do their job by controlling their emotions, deploying that emotional power usefully. Who does the Grail serve? An emotionless man is a psychopath.

That women are emotional creatures and we have to adapt to them is also a demand that women try to force us to wear – for their own purpose. But it is a cop-out. It has no higher purpose.

By casting that responsibility to adapt onto men it allows women licence.

I am a man and I have emotions too. I laugh and cry; I can be affected by a sunset and a song. Men cry when their children are stolen by the family Courts. Our tears are not seen because we hide them. We feel the total waste of our life’s efforts when we are dispossessed. We see men cry but only when we allow them to.

Of course we adapt to one another’s emotional states. Of course we have to recognise emotion. But it is neither a one way street (how many times do you hear women talk about men’s emotions or try to adapt to them?) nor is it a highway to happiness.

The issue is not adaptation by men that damages us but the use of emotion – by modern women – to blackmail, manipulate and coerce, instead of enliven one another or comfort another or empathise with another. Men must not follow these “women’s rules’. And men must not allow the downgrading of emotion by armoured Knights wielding swords and not wanting to cry at the futility. Parzival learned the hard way.

Men’s emotion can colour our world lively with exacting brush-strokes, finely discriminating shades of detail and a pallette of hue. But modern women – and quite a few men too – use emotion like Jackson Pollock used buckets of shit. It isn’t adult.

Too many men reject emotion altogether and don armour to hide within. MRAs must harness their emotion. Who does the Grail serve?

We MRAs vent to one another but the public does not see our righteous anger. It does not see it as valid, because we don’t show it. It is women’s rules are that men’s anger is not to be expressed.

I say ‘adult’. I have a model, fuzzy albeit, in my mind of what an adult is. Parzival only had his mother. I expect people of a particular age to behave as adults. I expect them to guide children and contribute to society. I do not expect adults to act like children – although some child-like aspects can be endearing – and react strongly (with emotion as well) when adults are childish.

A major aspect of adulthood which is a significant ‘missing in action’ factor is this issue of morality. It was an aspect in Percy’s life that he found only by being beaten near unto death and being cared for in the forest by an old Hermit. Another Old Man. A compassionate old man.

How many of our younger MRAs, raised through Institutionalised Feminism, listen to old men? Old men have healing power.

Is it only through such hardships that we gain Character? Over his life, Percy developed ‘Character’. Today people are lauded for ‘being characters’, like wise-guys and spivs and celebrities. I am making a judgement here. A moral judgment.

I am told that I do that. Feminists tell me that I have no right to judge and morality is just a patriarchal means to oppress women. More women’s rules to hamper men. Far, far too many men say the same thing but with a variety of other self-serving rationales. Characterless people.

I – and you – have EVERY right to judge. It is a higher-order adult skill and ability and necessity. You have a DUTY as an MRA to understand what morality is and abide by moral standards upon which Judgment depends. It is a significant part of an adults ‘journey’, a Man’s journey, to explore with morality like a navigator of old and through its substance, understand the world.

And we must judge ourselves if we are to develop ourselves.

The total rejection of morality by society in general, led by this ‘adaptation’ to childish non-adult self-centred emotiveness based on pseudo-women’s demands, manipulations and coercions is the ground in which feminism and attendant/other evils grow. It is laying waste to the souls of men.

By rejecting -even denying the existence of – morality, we give ourselves licence. It is a ‘free-pass’ to make our own rules and damn the consequences. We can become ‘characters’ instead of developing Character. Like Britney Spears with or without dicks. Nonebrities. It is the rejection of morality that plays men into the hands of women.

Good people love freedom. Bad people love licence. Morals produce Character. License destroys it.

Well folks, Reality just doesn’t work the way of the bad people, despite their imaginary, fantasy success. Or the innocent ignorant ones like young Percy with his armour stealing success.

The mediocre Navigator who does not chart and know the tides soon hits the rocks that he has also ignored. He never finds his port because he doesn’t ‘feel’ like being constrained by latitude and longitude and the mathematical calculating and other such ‘male’, ‘patriarchal’ rules for finding his way around. He never looks at the stars let alone sights them. He has no sextant and if one appears he scoffs at it. It is too difficult for his mediocre brain.

The crew suffers. Our society is on the rocks.

Men – even those ‘going their own way’ – need to navigate. Morals are the navigator tools of the soul. Young Percy had no idea where his steed took him. But he had to learn or get lost.

Our society is disappointing to me in this aspect far more than any other.

We have, as nations as well as individuals, capitulated to a childishness, a demand for ‘my way or the highway’, when we could be road-builders of the soul, navigators of the spirit, discoverers of riches in ourselves – some quite gender-specific – and a creators of wonderful trading relationship between adult men and women.

Instead what we have – just one current problem among others – is raiding armies of women who invade ‘men’sland’ to pillage. It is an army of ‘ordinary women’, who steal (moral issue), Lie (moral issue) and excuse themselves (intellectually dishonest – another friggin’ moral issue).

Even Hera taught Psyche how to access masculine power without destroying herself. Modern women do not heed even their own old lessons.

I expect more of adult women.

It is a reasonable and reasoned, adult expectation.

I expect as much from men, too.

More so. I am a man.

My disappointment is not a feeling that I have lost out. It isn’t related to what I could have had but didn’t get. It isn’t because what I want has been blocked.

My disappointment is FOR women. And FOR men. I have unmet expectations of MRAs that await too.

I am sad to the soul – a real emotion – for my preferred companions, for the fact that they have lost their way. Our Fleet is separated and I fear for them. I have a sinking feeling.

Most of the chaps in the MRM are somewhere along the path that Percy takes. Some are right at the start. They are young with hot blood and a huge chip on the shoulder and a load of hubris on their backs. This is not useful armour. Many young men have been cruelly served. Some have had that moment of Total Insight in their late teen years, felt the Power of manhood and fulfillment of child-promise only to have it snatched away by their own innocent ignorance and lack of male models and male guidance.

Some men, I see them all around, are deep in the forest, bleeding and bruised, their bones broken. I would that all men had a wise old hermit to bring them back to health or an old, tired King with a healing draft.

Men are increasingly ‘leaving home’. It used to be to explore the world and discover. We have satellites for that now. For ten thousand years we have been making homes for women. Because we Love women. Men and women need to make homes for one another. They belong in each others world. But modern woman is not interested in making a home for men anymore and men are not coming back until women learn some home-making skills.

So, sometimes I write as that foolish boy, Percy, the younger man and the middle-aged man, who found it all and lost it all and struggles on, angry and tired, searching. He is and always was a Warrior. His sword is part of his arm. He used it until he, too, was quite old. People – men – can identify with Percy as I do with them. He learned from life, living it poorly and ignorantly, as I have.

And sometimes I write as Old Amfortas, knowing what it is that I have charge over – that Insight and Consciousness and Morality. A glimps of it at any rate. I see it paraded before me, going to the even greater Man in the back rooms. Few have that. Very few. I teach. People call me a Fool. They would do better to ask the questions. Few do.

When the story was written, Wolfram’s society was struggling its way out of the dark ages and civil life was starting to bloom. It was actively seeking ‘Life’, Meaning.

We are at an opposite juncture.

Our society has become de-coupled from life.

It has crept up with a roar.

Two world wars; a fascist slaughering of innocents, east and west; a communistic slaughtering on a world-wide scale; several generations of Good, sound men removed from the gene pool; women moved from home to work, to replace men away – or dead; The wars of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries saw mass murder at an unprecedented scale. Men died in the hundreds of thousands. The millions.

Are we seeing women suiciding in sorrow?

The ‘miracle’ of the pill; the encouragement and advocacy of wide-spread abortion; the wholesale destruction of family.; the abject failure to protect and nurture our children and the casting of our young people into drugs and promiscuity, crime, selfishness, ignorance and narcissism.

Is this not suicide?

At street level we live lives without the Authenticity of Love.

We abort babies. We no longer ‘make love’; we ‘have sex’ with no intention or possibility of making children and when one ‘happens’ we kill it.

We have vasectomies; we tie tubes; we destroy potentiality and maim with hysterectomies; we have contraceptives.

A man and a woman, two human animals, do not permit themselves to authentically experience their natures. Or each other’s.

We meet, we ‘hook-up’, we ‘fuck’, but it is not authentic. It is false.

We are busy creating a world of unfeeling faux-humans. We even look forward to machine people. Robots. Some MRAs wax lyrical about robots. I am astonished and dismayed. Women, those who profess to lerve ‘nature’, orgasm on millions of plastic penises.

When a man and a woman ‘Love’ as in the act of Love, they ‘know’ if the other is ‘there’ or not. Fully there in all their humanity, warts and all.

We Sense it.

We know when the one we are with isn’t real, Isn’t there.

Women are turning away from men. They sense the deficit of authenticity in so many men. They have been busy insisting that men change into something a whole lot less than men instead of more than men currently. Men are turning away from women. There are hardly any adult women who love life to be found. We MRAs see – and talk incessantly about – our sensing of the inauthentic women. The hate-filled women. Women who are destroying all that was brilliant about women.

We sense the decline in Integrity; we see the lack of our own Integrity. We don’t want to see it though. We deny. We revel far too much in our power to deny life and deny the Integrity and authenticity of people as though it were smart. Slash with that sword, my hearty fellows.

We are ceasing even to love ourselves, preferring to have ’self-esteem’. An image. A fantasy that replaces the authentic.

We see the armour and not the man inside it.

Feminism is a bad dream; a nightmare result of our Inauthenticity. And we men, mostly, are inside the same nightmare.

We must become Conscious, before we lose ourselves altogether. Wake up.

Our world, Humanity, is at a critical phase in the development of a fully human consciousness that has been in evolution for 5 million years. It is the phase-transition of human development at which we have arrived. Just as the old Greeks were at that other transition when man gained ‘Mind’ and needed ‘Heart’ too

We, though, are failing.

The Fully human being may be still-born. Or aborted.

I will end this podcast here.

We need to know Parzival’s life and journey because we are setting out into deep and dangerous human psychic landscapes just as he did with the same past-its-use-by date lessons.

We need to find Old Amfortas and the Holy Grail.

Before he dies.

Is there another Amfortas out there in the MRM?

This is Percy and my third pocast in a series, answering questions put to me by John Dias regarding Men, Going Their Own Way.

I took a while answering the first one as it was so very personal, but here I answer the other 15 far more briefly. It will still take about twenty minutes though so get a drink and settle down.

Q. Was there ever a defining moment that motivated you to advocate for men in this culture? If not, what was the catalyst that prompted you to get involved?

A defining moment probably exists but is lost in time. It is more a gradual awareness that crystallized at a point. I was aware of the problems being generated back in the late sixties and early seventies but barely spoke out. I was busy fighting my Nation’s wars. I was busy making a career. So many of us oldies were, just as so many of our young men are.

I saw a need for equality, not just at feminist demand and definition, but for the clear imbalance in expectations upon adults. that were dependant on their genitals. Men in general welcomed women into the adult world where they were supposed to grow up and work alongside us instead of us working to support them like the dependant children of Tradition. That’s what women said they wanted. Hah !

In the 80s I had changed career to become a psychologist and was dealing with equal pay issues in Industry, and I was noticing the hypocrisies and denials. I was speaking out quite loudly by then. My divorce in 1991 after 22 years of marriage was absolutely devastating and introduced me to Family Court bias. I lost my beloved daughter, even to this day. I was fortunate though in building a firm relationship with my son. In the early 90s I was running a men’s group in Melbourne, Australia and contributing to a nascent Men’s Rights effort. Then came the Internet and my perspective was broadened immensely. I have been active in various ways ever since. But I am getting knackered.

Q. What would you say is the most painful loss that men have suffered over the last half century?

For most men there has been a loss of Trust in society in general and women in particular. This provides a base level of pain upon which many different personal losses are caused and built. For some men it is their children; others their careers; others their marriages. For some the devastation of their meager treasuries has been most painful. For most men, the loss of any sort of stable future is the major loss. But from a ‘gender’ perspective, the Law has been THE major loss. It used to be equal for all but have been stolen by Feminists and Marxists. Along with the law has gone Truth, Justice, Equality, innocence until proven guilty, habeas corpus et al. Our education Institutions are a wasteland. Workplaces have become mired in hysterical Women-only laws. Much of our Western Culture has been buggered with a hot poker.

There are things which we rely upon that we take little notice of – until it is missing or taken away. Solid ground; gravity; air. Who takes any notice of them. Our family legal systems are generally not the subject of discussion in the pub. Societal fairness has all but disappeared but doesn’t get noticed when we are busy on an X-box or wiping babies bums or dealing with hot wires and cold cement at work.

To me, personally, the most painful loss is Trust in women. I have always loved women. I fell in love first when I was five, with an older woman. She was six. They were always strange beasts but one could usually find one that was trustworthy; one that you could love; one that you could forgive weaknesses and foibles in. One in whom you could explore difference. But they have all but died out.

Those women that one could, possibly, trust, nevertheless have a sawn-down shotgun in their handbags. It is hard and stupid to trust someone with such a weapon that she could use at any time and against you as the primary target. There is an Industry of rent-seeking scum that convinces women to use that shot-gun. They are the only ones that gain. Men don’t; women don’t; our children don’t.

Q. If you could go back in time and start life over again as a 21-year-old, what would you do differently if you could carry the lessons that you’ve learned?

It is natural but unfortunate that 21 year olds are as thick as two short planks and make the same mistakes 14 times before lessons sink in. The cradle-marks are still on their arses at that age. I was certainly like that, though of course I didn’t know it at the time. I was in the military back then. I would not be looking forward to marriage and children anywhere near so much, if I had my time again and knew what I know now. Perhaps I would be maximizing my ‘Fuck You’ funds.

Every young MRA, especially those GTOW, needs ‘Fuck You’ money. Enough to last a few years without income or depending on anyone. It takes a while to amass enough and it must be held in secret.

As it was I was having a whale of a time and trying hard to survive and conquer (on someone else’s behalf) in the Jungle against an enemy who was trying to kill me. It was Great fun. I could, with application, have been a General (Indeed, I was for a very brief moment).

I eventually changed career when I was thirty eight, having devoted more time to family than career aspirations, but again, were I to now make a choice I would go into a Monastery or become a scientist – or both. I would have made a passable Jesuit, I think. Or a Benedictine . Or Cosmologist. I am blessed with a remarkably high intelligence. But I have no Fuck You funds at all. Bugger !

Q. Many of us criticize the way the State has curtailed our options and freedoms as men. What do you think is behind the State’s erosion of our liberties, and what should men be doing to counter it?

Corruption. Greed. And Power. I see Feminism as just one of many roads to perdition, and currently the most pressing for men and boys. It is also a curse on women although they do not realize it. Our Western Civilisation is at phase-end and I doubt very much that we can do anything about it , but survive as Individuals with Integrity.

Unfortunately Integrity is lacking in most people. It is something to gain quickly, early on and hold onto. The Parzival problem that I spoke of earlier. So we as men, as MRAs should be seeking that Integrity, that Holy Grail. Along with it is Truth, Clarity, Understanding, Transcendance of our Human limitations. And freedom from corruption, greed and power urges that can only be achieved from a sound and pure base.

Q. The MGTOW philosophy promotes femininity in women and masculinity in men. Can you describe what masculinity means? It seems that the messages that we get from cultural traditions and the media portray masculinity in such a one dimensional or unflattering manner. If authentic masculinity were to reassert itself in our culture, how would we know it?

Masculinity as defined by our culture is, as you say, one dimensional so it is hardly surprising that it is portrayed that way. It has unflattering aspects which our corrupt culture accentuates.

Many younger MRAs seem to revel in some of these unsavoury aspects and see it in a one dimensional way too.

A truly masculine man is almost identical to a truly feminine woman in the issues that matter. They differ in behaviours and approaches to biological limitations and attributes that are determined by their bodies – and they fit together very well – but both have equal ability to reach mature adult status living in Truth, Reality and Integrity, as Fully Conscious human beings.

Mature adults are rare beasts though and life is a journey, hopefully toward becoming mature. For ‘Authentic Masculinity’ to assert itself we would need to understand why the one-dimensional didn’t work at anytime in the past and stop doing it, and stop it doing so much damage in the future.

To do that a man must understand where his journey’s milestones are and where he is intending to go. He needs to know what he can expect as he stumbles forward as a masculine creature, incomplete, and what completeness is when he finds it. We don’t teach our boys that. He would have to realize at some stage that he has to integrate a lot more than unidimensional masculinity if he has any hope of gaining Integrity.

You are one of founding members of the Men Going Their Own Way movement. Can you describe how it formed, and how you played a part in its beginning stages?

I would not say I am a founding member. Young Parzival was Perhaps. I try to take a more integrated route while understanding what drives the MGTOW phenomenon. Most MGTOW are on the inside, looking out, and a ‘helicopter view’ is needed.

Who does the Grail serve?

Tell us about some observations you’ve made about specific people who seem to be embracing the MGTOW concept since the formation of this movement. Can you tell us any stories that illustrate how any particular men are going their own way?

I see mainly young men embracing the movement. It is vitally important that older, wiser heads mentor these young men. There are few wise man about. We are struggling. Most young men today have been raised in a Feminist milieux, by women, both at home and throughout their school years. They are reactive but lack direction. Most do not even want to listen to wise heads. They have bought into ‘Women’s Rules’ that older men are ‘Patronising’ – a dirty word to them – when having a Patron is just what young men need.

They are leaving that world, like Parzival, armed with only the ways of women and a desire for something else – but not knowing what it is. They grasp for, say, masculinity, but the models are unidimensional. They seek the ‘company of men’ but have little knowledge of how to differentiate one man from another, the good from the bad.

As such they are in danger of ‘taking’ that masculine armour from someone else, as young Percy did, at the expense of that man’s life. The dark-side of the very same eager intent to grasp ‘power’ results in Family Court Judges and rent-seeking lawyers – so called career-successful men who destroy other men in their headlong rush for personal aggrandizement.

Q. What is makes MGTOW disctinct from being a Men’s Rights Activist (MRA)?

I will leave that to someone who has a firm MGTOW philosophy as ‘self-defined’. Most MRAs (Activist, Advocate) have a short-term and limited social objectives rather than strictly personal. They are outward looking. He wants to change society – a little. Mainly to restore.

I want men to change inside. Become aware of Reality and Himself. A MGTOW eschews society. A man, a full man, wants to make society work to the benefit of all. He wants the Grail to Serve as it should.

Q. What is your reaction to the Pickup Artist (PUA) phenomenon?

A stupid boy doing as his mother wants. Impressing the ladies all over the place without distinction or discrimination and rooting them willy nilly. That was Hertzeloyd’s advice. It impresses some immature men. It is retarded and retarding.

Stop chasing women and find manhood first. Then clever, strong, mature, adult women will come to you.

Q. How should we gauge the success or failure of the GYOW movement?

If it enables a man to achieve Integrity; to live in Truth and Reality, Authentically, as a Mature Adult, it will have been successful. GTOW perhaps has that capacity. But only when the man has answered the fundamental questions: “Who does the Grail serve”?

Q. What literature has had the most profound effect on your attitudes and thinking, and why?

The story of Parzival, of course, but not just in isolation. I could give you a list of a hundred fine books. You could spend a day just looking at the titles on my bookshelves and twenty years reading them.

I was advised at the age of 21 to read a particular book – “ Insight: A Study of Human Understanding” written by Bernard Lonergan SJ) – and it took me until I was 45 to work my way through it. That’s 24 years. It was a big ask for a lad who wasn’t even 24 yet. I had to read several hundred other books along the way just to get past successive pages. That’s a long time and a lot of reading. The trick is to understand what it is that is being taught. It’s no trick of course. It’s damned hard work.

Are young men prepared to do that work?

Then there is’ Faust’ by Goethe: the only story that asks the question (another that no-one bothers to ask) ‘can the Devil be redeemed.’ How can we overcome Evil without becoming Evil ourselves? It is the natural Fourth-Dimensional Man successor to Don Quixote’s three-dimensional man, and as with the old Spanish madman, denotes a change in human consciousness and a broadening of masculinity.

Then there is David Hodgson’s book ‘The Mind Matters’. He is an Australian Supreme Court Judge, by the way, who has a firmish grasp of quantum mechanics. And if you don’t think that QM has any bearing on our MRA matters, then read David Bohm’s work in that field. We live in an Explicate Order of Reality, (as shown by quantum mechanic equations) which is dependant upon a wholly different Implicate Order of Reality. The Princess of Lies comes from that Implicate Order to infect our material world.

For lighter reading, more pertinent to MRA tactical issues, there is Dr Eric Berne’s “Games People Play”, wherein most of the female hysteria-strategies are laid out for all to see. It is a personal defence manual.

And for deep and essential analysis of pretty well every MRA issue a young man MUST read Warren Farrell’s ‘Myth of Male Power’. It is the Strategic Primer. Follow it up with Mark Prendergast’s ‘Victims of Memory’. It is more specific but shows the power of the Lie and Hysteria when applied to men and the utter destruction of our Court processes.

Q. What role can fathers play to ensure that the next generation of males are masculine men who chart their own path?

Teach him to seek, Truth and Reason, Emotional & Spiritual integration, Integrity, above personal ’honour’. In many ‘Men’s Rights’ circles, ‘honour’ is seen as a possession, reflecting on a man’s worth, instead of a tool, like a sword, that he uses to serve his King. Parzival ‘took’ honour’ from another. That other man was an honourable man too. Teach him to ask the question “Whom does the Grail serve’. Teach him to ask “What ails thee, Uncle”. Teach him to ask himself these questions and seek the answers in his life. MGTOW has been a traditional men’s pathway. It is a well trod path. It has pitfalls.

I have noticed that father’s rights advocates often make the assumption that if fathers are allowed to be actively engaged with their kids, that somehow masculinity, character and independence will naturally emerge because of such access. But this is not automatically the case. So when fathers _already have_ an active relationship with their kids, what should they be doing to ensure that their boys will become MGTOW as they grow older?

This is a very pertinent point, if I may say so. There are good dads and poor dads. Frankly, though, almost any dad is better than no dad at all. Masculinity clearly doesn’t arise naturally in a pure and useful form. It takes some effort and application otherwise it can exhibit itself in selfishness, greed, corruption and power grabbing. Usually at the expense of others.

The Father needs to have a firm understanding himself and others. What one notices in stories that people tell of what their dad taught them, or aspects of being a man that they learned from observing or listening to their dad, was that there is (was) meaning behind and beyond whatever it was they were doing that provided the lesson. Articulating that meaning is important.

The daily grind takes men away from their kids far too much still. Finding ways of giving time is very important. I would say that getting into a habit of spending a little time every day one to one without interruption would be ideal. But Ideal is rarely achieved.

Q. Who do you see as rising stars in the movement today?

In the MGTOW movement. I don’t know who is in it. The skies are overcast. I guess people like Darren Blacksmith has been a leading light for a long while. A good value chap. I admire John Dias. He is a top man. I know only one personally and that’s Christian J who is a top chap too.

Q. What do you see as the greatest accomplishments of the MGTOW phenomenon so far?

Focus. Agree with all the tenets of MGTOW or not, the guys that extol the benefits have made a solid presence and done more than a fair share in raising the profile and reach of the MRM. Time will tell if they get their philosophy sorted out along the lines I have mentioned.

Audio (right-click to download): (part 1) (part 2)

Audio: (part 1) (part 2)

Part II of this transcript available here.

Q. Tell us a little about your online name.  How did you decide upon that name?  What significance does it carry?

I have been asked by my friends Christian J and John Dias, well known and respected Men’s Rights Advocates  to speak in my own voice. They have given me a whole list of questions here to answer and I can tell you it goes on and on. I shall confine myself to just the first in this Podcast.

In fact, even to answer the first properly, in my way, as befits men of precision and depth that you all are will take two podcasts.

They ask that I talk about my online name; how I decided upon it and what significance it carries.  I like questions that focus on Meaning – they are few and far between in the MRM. So sit a while, pour a horn of fine foreign bevvie of distinction and settle in for twenty minutes or so.

I write under two names. Percy and Amfortas.   They are related in a Great Allegorical Story of our Western Cultural era and are Archetypes of all men. In that sense they are meaningful as an MRA. All men have their story, no matter how different those men are or what their circumstances are. A man is a man.

Let me tell you about Percy and Amfortas and you will see what I mean.

The Greeks attempted to define what being a man is about through myths and stories but were hampered by an early and barely glowing form of consciousness about the ‘self’. The wholeness and completeness of a man’s life journey was only slowly dawning on them and they had a peculiarly Asiatic tone. They looked East far more than west.

There were many stories about men as it was difficult to pin down his many aspects in just one, and oddly they were all ‘stageless’. He was a ‘complete’, very much one-dimensional being without much discernible growth. It is how many women  quite blindly see men even today. He looked ‘outward, to the world. He was a traveler; and explorer. He barely looked inward at himself.

This was really odd as they had pretty well nailed down all the detail, all the major stages and attributes of a woman’s life in the myths of Psyche and Hera – the girl and the woman. Just two stories and connected. All men would do well to read these two stories as they tell most of what you need to know about women.

Women were well known in all their aspects two and a half thousand years ago.  Personally I think that this is a natural response to the direction of a man’s interest. He looks at her and figures her out, before he has much of an idea about himself.

Men, the gender accused of being incommunicative described women well while women were as incoherent as today. Just as noisy as well, of course. Women were seen as comparatively less complex though quite dangerous and devious.

Men are very complex, ‘bound’ by women, then as now, but seen then as bits and pieces.

So it was another millennium and a half before Wolfram von Eschebach got around to looking very closely at men who were undergoing the transitional period of breaking free from women and their ways.

It is relevant and still going on.  At that time in what we now call the end of the dark ages, men were beginning to discern themselves, just as they were changing. Men were starting to look at themselves and inside themselves.

There have been subsequent changes over the last thousand years and these were documented in stories too.

The Three Great describers of men as they have moved through two dimensional to three and latterly to a complete four dimensional man are Parzival, The Man of La Mancha and Faust. I recommend any young man reading and comprehending all three before they are twenty. It should be mandatory man-education.

Wolfram’s story ‘Parzival’ is the modern man’s journey, and in it young Percy the ‘Wannabe’ meets, quite briefly, his Uncle Amfortas, a man who holds all the keys to what being a man is for. The story tells what a man is about as well as for.  These are MRA issues. Far more so than Feminism.

We have to wait another eight hundred years to find what a man is, in Faust. It is the first attempt to look into the heart and soul of man and his journey through the landscape of his internal world.

Every man can look at young Percy and see the kernel of his ‘being’ in the world, in him. Any man can. It is a story of the inner ‘Landscape’ of a man.

Percy’s life is one of toil after an initial start of ‘great promise’. He has no Father in his life – like many of today’s boys, regrettably – and is raised by his mother Hertzeloyde  (whose name translates as heart’s sorrow). Mark that. It is an important sign. She does not want him to engage the world at all, but should it befall that she fails to stop him, only on terms that she determines.

She means well; she is a doting mother, but she has created a personal, tight-knit Matriarchy, a ‘Society’ set in a forest, on a farm, a ‘natural’ world, quite deliberately in order to protect him from the world – not so much because she loves her son but because she is heartbroken.

Wolfram makes this point that we all start out under the direct and untrammeled control of a woman, our Mother and that she is a closed-off, sorrowful being. This is our ‘Society’. The one we have with a vengeance, today where cosseted matriarchy rules its childish subjects all through life.  But a matriarchy cannot ‘contain’ a man once a chap attains his true manhood.

I say, she means well, but as with most women what she says and does is not always what she means and Parzival cannot guess the reasons for this ‘society’ he is raised in.  How often do men have to struggle with the female mind that says ‘You know what I mean’ and five minutes later say, ‘That’s not what I meant’.

It was men’s battles, you see, that took her husband, a Great Knight and King, named Gamhuret.  She adored him.  He protected her and provided for her. He gave her a comfortable life with Status. She loved him deeply.  Something all men want. He fought in her name. For her. She was his Purpose and his Comfort. He was hers. As it should be.  But he died in battle for her. This has been the way of men for ten thousand years.

She hated thereafter all that men do, even if it had been for her benefit.

How like feminists today.

Almost Incidentally, but ultimately significantly, there was also another woman in Gamhuret’s life; another wife, Belcane, a foreigner.  It reminds me of the MRA trend to looking at foreign climes for better wives.  It was before he met Hertzloyde.  He had another purpose and another comfort.

Herzeloyde does not trust women. They can all ‘steal’ men from her, even temporarily, just like the world does.  This despite the fact that it was she who took Belcane’s husband.  How very like Today’s woman who is so hypocritical and projecting !

Except today most women push the men away first. Women today, like Carly Simon sings, “Gave away the things they loved and one of them was YOU. Also like the song, they turn it around as an accusation. Women are distrustful of women; They try to control the lives of women, through Feminism and restrict the lives of men, to the point of incarceration.

One wonders about the ‘Heartbreak’ of the Modern Woman. Like then, men fought to protect women and provide for them.

I see the wars of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries having played a major part in the rise of modern Feminism. So many men died or came back maimed.

Women have a huge guilt built up over hundreds of years of men’s clear sacrifice and struggle to provide and protect, and like Herzloyde, it is an unbearable guilt and is projected out onto men.  It is men’s fault !

Feminism’s roots are in female Guilt.  Neurotic and poisonous.

Eventually, as Percy, the ‘Innocent Fool’, untutored in the ways of the world  reaches mid-teens and his manhood arises in him, he ‘sees’ the world of men pass by his farm and determines to break free.

He leaves home, taking with him only the lessons he has gained from his limited experience. This has consisted mainly of play, often against animal ‘prey’ that he hunts and which gives him sound hunter skills. And also those lessons learned from her – lessons, from a woman’s perspective,  which will damage his life.  She has ‘Rules’; one set of  ‘rules’ for him for dealing with men and one set for women – a double-standard if you like. He is to woo and root women, any and every he meets. Very permissive. !  And treat them all as princesses. !

He is not to show compassion for men. Not even ask much about them. No asking ‘What’ or Why’ or even ‘How’. Men’s curiosity should be directed only toward women  she thinks.

She calls her Rules  ‘politeness’, the roots of the Chivalric code as she wants it to be. (Chivalry was being developed at the time of Wolfram’s writing and women had a big say in its detail, which is why it has always worked more for women’s benefit than men’s.)  He is to fight men all his life. So knowing them and recognizing himself in them, maybe even seeing his father in them, is a nono !

(One other thing. He is made to promise to wear his mother’s silk shift under his armour. It keeps the ‘feminine’ between him and the cold steel. It stops the rust chafing his skin. There is possibly sound reason in men having some softness close to them)

Percy has to take manhood, as there is no one around to give it to him. He understands this from his mother, the one who doesn’t like fighting. And he has to fight, literally, to gain acceptance into the men’s world and to maintain his Integrity in it.  He must be his own man.  It is his first step.

Young Percy has no idea how to go about it but with a total lack of finesse he is spectacularly successful right from the start. Successful, after a fashion.

He becomes a Knight in less than a month, through both his own stumbling ineptitude and fortuitous efforts, and it is at great cost to another man, who, on cue, he picks a fight with and kills. Manhood is passed from one man to another, often at great cost.

You see, he has no way of determining one man from another. As with so many boys today he has never been taught about good men. Virtuous men. Even his father’s goodness has been hidden from him. He does not know what a good man is. He sees only armour and strength. The man inside the armour is an unknown to him. He is quite unaware of what is inside himself. He does not know himself.

Young Percy is a farm-boy. The sort one finds all over the Men’s boards. He has no ‘logic’, although he claims its superiority, just as many young men in the MRM are all passion and hubristic  claim but who could not tell a syllogism from pidgeon shit.

Parzival kills a reasonably good man. An honourable man. And he steals his armour. A good man gone, replaced by an untested and rather dim lad. That’s me, once.

Our generation has seen the severe limitation and dismissal of good men and our education system has produced farm-boys.

We all have to start somewhere. But oh, the damage we do. I do not know anything of the men I have killed. Not even their names.

Young Percy is sent out on the Quest to find the Holy Grail.  It is at the Command of the King and so he goes, along with all the other Knights, of course. They, like him, travel alone, independent, to all the corners of the world. Men, Going Their Own Way, but with a common  Duty. They are United in a Brotherhood.  It is the beginning of a Philosophy for him. A purpose in life. It is Divinely ordered. Not much like today. Maybe we are going backwards.

The Grail he is searching for is the Meaning and Power of Life. It is the Light of the Spirit. It affords us Full Consciousness. It can cure all the ills of the world and restore the Kingdom. That is to be the Task of Men. Their task is to find it. It is our task.

It is a journey into ourselves. A discovery of who we are as men. We have to seek out that treasure that lies deep within us. It is a bigger task than defeating Feminism or even Marxism, and defeating those can only be done by fully conscious men.

On the first evening out on the Quest he meets his Uncle Amfortas, who he has never met before, and who is the Guardian of the Grail.  He is the Old Man inside all of us.  Parzival had not a clue about this.

Amfortas is an old man, very wise, slow, careful, dignified, after a long career as a Knight and King, and he is severely wounded.  He has the Male Wound; the same wound all men have.  Few men even recognise that they are wounded.

He is ambulatory, with difficulty (a bit like me), and rarely leaves his rooms (also a bit like me).  At dinner that evening  Percy sees the Grail paraded through the Hall. He sees and takes benefit from the Cornucopia that can feed and sustain the World. All we have is the ‘gift’ that Men provide from their own meager resources.  But were we to discover our real manhood, our deep humanity, we could restore the world.

But young Percy fails to ask two fundamental questions. The first was about his Uncle’s obvious distress (remembering his mothers rules) and this is the first  ‘fault’ that prevents the Grail passing into his possession. Men still do not ask other men the decent question, the compassionate question.

The second, which is what the vast majority of men and particularly for us, what  MRAs fail to ask was “Who does the Grail serve”.  It was vital. Next day everything is gone.

As he leaves the empty Castle the drawbridge snaps shut, clipping his foot.

How many young men shoot themselves in the foot with their own angry certainties and ignorance.

We as MRAs while providing space for ourselves in small internet crevices, rarely ask the fundamental questions. We are only starting to make the space for understanding other men’s pain. It is our own.

And we still have not approached the question of Who does the Grail serve. Is it just YOU?

I will end this first Podcast here and continue in the next one I do. There will be lessons for us all and many questions for us to ask ourselves.

Please send this podcast to another three men.

Right click to download the MP3s

Audio: (part 1) (part 2)

According to Bostrom, one must wonder what to make of the apparent absence of intelligent civilizations in the universe:  the statistical probabilities suggest the universe ought to be teeming with great varieties of Intelligent ETs.

In light of the universe’s great age and scope, it seems mathematically probable that, if the development of intelligent life happened on Earth, it’s likely to have happened somewhere else in the universe  at some finite time in the past. And knowing what we know about how life evolves and spreads, ET ought to have strung the firmament with neon panoply ages ago.

But, still no sign of ET.

So Bostrom wonders — just how freakish can this be, given that the universe is flush with galaxies and habitable planets galore?

Bostrom thinks there must be gating factors — “Great Filters” that reap civilizations before they become spectacularly successful.

I have seen this idea before:  Bill Joy referenced it his article, “Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us.”  He was quoting Carl Sagan from his book, Pale Blue Dot:

It might be a familiar progression, transpiring on many worlds – a planet, newly formed, placidly revolves around its star; life slowly forms; a kaleidoscopic procession of creatures evolves; intelligence emerges which, at least up to a point, confers enormous survival value; and then technology is invented. It dawns on them that there are such things as laws of Nature, that these laws can be revealed by experiment, and that knowledge of these laws can be made both to save and to take lives, both on unprecedented scales. Science, they recognize, grants immense powers. In a flash, they create world-altering contrivances. Some planetary civilizations see their way through, place limits on what may and what must not be done, and safely pass through the time of perils. Others, not so lucky or so prudent, perish.

Bill Joy, Carl Sagan and Nick Bostrom all seem to issue a collective shudder of discomfort over the prospect of humanity’s impending encounter with our own advancing technology.

Somehow this dilemma reminds me of the Vorlons from the television show Babylon 5: an aging, advanced civilization finally realizes that they have outgrown their own galaxy — like fish who have outgrown the sea. Their exodus “beyond the rim” could be analogous to a fish crawling onto the land — or to angels ascending into heaven.

From the point of view of some highly advanced civilization of ETs, the cold comforts of our material, time-bound universe might seem about as inviting as a mud flat or a thermal vent.

Maybe the hidden answer to Bostrom’s question is that Intelligent Civilizations invariably discover Heaven, and once they do, they move there.

Why I Hope the Search for Extraterrestrial Life Finds Nothing
(PDF here),

Reference:

• Bill Joy: Why the future doesn’t need us
• nickbostrom.com
• http://www.nickbostrom.com/extraterrestrial.pdf
• View at Technology Review (requires registration)
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorlon
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_(Babylon_5)

According to Prescott, the report issued by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC),  “found that the meat industry causes more greenhouse gas emissions than all the cars, trucks, planes ships – all of the world’s transportation systems combined.”

Furthermore, said Prescott, the report established that any person who switched from a meat-based diet to vegetarianism would have a greater impact on greenhouse gases than if the same individual stopped using cars.

Wow. Guess those McDubbles are giving me more gas than I thought.

Prescott rubs it in: “There’s another report out of the University of Chicago that found that … just switching from meat to vegetarian food, you could save more greenhouse gas emissions… then you could by switching to a hybrid-car.”

On hearing this news, Beck asked a simple question: Why is Al Gore — who shared his 2004 Nobel Prize with the IPCC — still eating meat?

I’d call it a fair rhetorical point:  Gore is a hypocrite for not upholding his own principles.

Naturally, the compulsively biased  Media Matters for America shortcuts Beck’s argument as part of his “pattern of attacking” Al Gore.

Well, I’ve got one word for Media Matters for America: ManBearPig.

But this isn’t about Al Gore or Glenn Beck:  it’s really a story about principles and religious belief …. and about a self-righteous gaggle of true-believers thumping their UN Reports and Inconvenient Truth DVDs like Sacred Texts.

Beck points up a simple question of principle over hypocrisy:  how can someone believe in human-caused climate change and still eat meat?

If Al Gore – the popular leader of the environmental movement — does not Go Vegan, then why should the throng bother with it?

Al Gore does not practice what he preaches. Therefore, he is a hypocrite.

In fact,  I would go further and call this a moment of denouement for the Nobel Prize-winning environmentalist:  Since Al Gore did not immediately become a vegetarian (or a leading proponent of vegetarianism) when the IPCC report was released, I am forced to conclude that he has no actual principles at all, and that his true profession is political propagandist and environmental hustler.

Beck’s observation is accurate and legitimate, and he was within his rights as a political commentator to offer his opinion to a national audience.  Media Matters for America is out of bounds by offering boiler plate criticism in place of a direct response to this piece.

References:
Glenn Beck and PETA: UN Says Meat Industry Is the Top Contributor to Global Warming, so Why Isn’t Al Gore a Vegetarian?

UN says eat less meat to curb global warming

Livestock a major threat to environment

South Park: ManBearPig (Full Episode online)

Correction:  This article originally stated that Glenn Beck’s interview aired on CNN. In fact, Glenn Beck is a commentator for Fox News Channel.  The copy has been corrected. We apologize for the error.

He broke that promise, and then made another: to protect his daughter from the tumult of his divorce. And then he broke that promise, too.

An alpha male conspicuously privileged by God,  Baldwin would seem to have no need of “father’s rights” or “men’s rights”, or any part of the baggage of human wreckage that goes along with those dangerous terms.

But Alec Baldwin made a promise, and this time he kept his word.

His word is his book: A Promise to Ourselves: A Journey Through Fatherhood and Divorce, written by Alec Baldwin with Mark Tabb.

A surprising number of men in America would be familiar with his story:  a man, a husband, a father, is summarily removed from the life of his child with the first bang of the Court’s gavel. Suddenly and to his utmost surprise, he is re-assigned as a minor stakeholder in the family unit.  Virtually disposable, he is invited to fade away quietly, while still providing a significant portion of his taxable income to be spent by his ex-spouse at her sole discretion.

Like Kafka’s Josef K, Baldwin was burdened for years with uncounted court dates and appearances, made to jump through hoops, and forced into official relationships with a parade of judges, lawyers, social workers, and psychological specialists. And all the while pleading for the only thing that really mattered as it slipped away before his very eyes:  a stable, ongoing relationship with his only daughter.

The child’s mother and Baldwin’s former spouse, actress Kim Bassinger, expresses her anger through hired proxies and formal declarations.  Blinded by her own emotions and empowered by new legal customs, their child becomes her weapon.

She is encouraged to use the legal process to vent her frustration and rage.

And so someone’s childhood is robbed and a family’s fortune is spent, while lawyers, mediators, and court-appointed specialists play their parts at equity rates until the money’s all gone. It’s an old and ugly story that no one wants to hear again, and everyone wants to forget.

But the fleece goes endlessly on. Baldwin put it succinctly:  “Family law is a racket.”

Under the right circumstances, Parental Alienation is a predictable outcome of any prolonged contest heard under the U.S. Family Law system. But, if a mother in a Family Law proceeding raises objections over the father,  his parental rights are likely to be curtailed while an investigation ensues. A series of well-timed allegations made by the mother during a custody proceeding could take years to unwind. Fathers must wait on mother’s due process, while childhoods are stolen in spite.

Outside of the self-interest attributable to those employed by the Family Court industry, what could be the cause of such a gross, widespread and systematic miscarriage of justice ?

According to Alec Baldwin, the answer lies in the frills of feminism’s new and unprecedented supremacy across US civil and criminal law:  Governance Feminism.

In the course of researching the book, Baldwin visited Harvard Law School and interviewed Jeannie Suk, a professor of family and criminal law.  The full interview is published in Chapter 14.

Professor Suk said the term “Governance Feminism” was first coined by her colleague, Harvard Law Professor Janet Halley. The following is an excerpt from Baldwin’s interview with Professor Suk:

JS: … [Governance Feminism is] the idea that feminism, which once criticized the law from the outside, is today actually in charge in many places in the law — among police, prosecutors, lawmakers, judges, and other legal actors. The feminism that often “governs” today is that strand developed by the legal scholar Catherine MacKinnon and that focuses on the subordination of women by men, particularly in intimate sexual relationships. Her influence on our legal system’s understandings of men and women cannot be overstated. If you talk to police, prosecutors, law-makers, and judges about domestic violence, perhaps they have not read MacKinnon, but they often subscribe to the premise that men subordinate women through sex and violence.

AB: And what are some of the results of that?

JS: The rise of this powerful theory has been accompanied by the legal embrace of uniformity, mandatory protocols, and the disfavoring of discretion. … The definition of violence itself has expanded to include a lot of conduct that is not physical violence. ….The theory of subordination makes it likely that any man/woman pair who comes into the criminal system will be viewed in these terms.

In short, Male Fault is now assumed automatically in any case where gender is a factor. As Baldwin discovered, the practical effect of Governance Feminism on Family Law is that the father-child bond has become collateral damage in the quest to protect the rights of women against possible subjugation by men.

Observing that “Men have fewer rights in a family law courtroom than women do,” Baldwin is careful to fix the blame on a self-serving  and self-perpetuating legal system, not the women and men who are subject to it. So, while blowing the whistle on Governance Feminism, Baldwin pulls his punches at the appropriate moments, arguing that the blame must be shared with violent men and with family law professionals who have misused the intentions of the law to exploit families at their most vulnerable moment.

Besides exposing the origins of the legal crisis we face under the assumptions of Governance Feminism, the book also provided a much needed context for a man I have only seen as a movie actor.  I admit readily dissing actors who proclaim their politics like self-righteous cheerleaders, but in this case  I have found that Alec Baldwin is a most informed and able fellow with a genuine thirst for justice. Despite his politics and the taint of Hollywood, his sense of duty is obvious, and the man is a born activist.

The book is highly recommended.

A Promise to Ourselves: A Journey Through Fatherhood and Divorce, written by Alec Baldwin with Mark Tabb. St. Martin’s Press, 2008

Mike LaSalle is the publisher of MensNewsDaily.com

The poll conducted by Pulse Opinion Research also showed Barr enjoyed 36 percent name recognition.

“Bob Barr’s name recognition and voter support are tremendous considering he has never run as a national candidate and has yet to spend any money on advertising,” said Russell Verney, Ross Perot ’s 1996 campaign manager. Now a Barr Exploratory Committee volunteer, Verney thinks Barr’s 36% name recognition will improve his chance being accepted as a serious candidate. “In the event Bob Barr officially enters the race, he will already be half way to qualifying for the fall Presidential debates.”

On Thursday, Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Jackson said he was dropping out of the race to endorse Bob Barr. “I have terminated my campaign in favor of full support to Bob Barr and I encourage you to also support Bob Barr,” Jackson announced on the home page of his website.

Barr has been a Libertarian since he quit the Republican party and endorsed the Libertarian presidential ticket in 2004.

Since joining the Libertarians, Barr has abandoned his previous support for the “drug war”, and is now a lobbyist for the Marijuana Policy Project, which advocates regulating the possession and sale of cannabis.

Barr is also an outspoken critic of the Patriot Act, and is a privacy advocate.

The Libertarian National Convention will choose its presidential nominee on May 22 – 26 in Denver, Colorado.

Strachan writes: “There’s a difference in the things that God creates, and the stuff that men and women design, a world of difference, you simply cannot compare the two, it’s like comparing the artistry of Van Gogh with a pre-Kindergarten kid picking up a paintbrush for the first time. ”

It’s a pity this folksie contrast between the relative engineering skills of man v. God does nothing to advance my own knowledge of Intelligent Design or the controversy surrounding it.

If Strachan had taken the time during his travels to consider the relative impact of the Anthropic Principle on the Final Theory of Everything, I might better have enjoyed the time I spent reading his article.

Of course heady stuff like the Anthropic Principle or the framework for an organized Theory of Everything are not fit topics for Pastors, Priests, Rabbis, or Imams, or any other such defender of an Ordered Universe.

Science is practiced by scientists, not by priests. But recently science and religion appear to have become indistinguishable, as for example in their respective institutional intolerance of competing ideas.

The nominal bishops of the U.S. Scientific Establishment, for instance, have declared in a virtual edict that Intelligent Design is the stuff of “magic” — not science.

As good vassals to the establishment, the mainstream media has accepted the responsibility to take science and magic and sunder them separate for the benefit of the laity.

But as Arthur C. Clark noted many years ago in his Three Laws, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

One man’s magic, it seems, is another man’s science.

“Intelligent Design Creationism”
Strachan’s article appeared in my daily Google News Alert on the key words “Intelligent Design.”

My daily crop of the term “Intelligent Design” on Google News usually brings a plurality of articles that have in common a missionary intent to define Intelligent Design as a hands-down flavor of biblical creationism.

It’s almost as though everyone in the Science-as-Public-Opinion business got a YouTube saying something to the effect, “Attention all Science Opinion contributors in the Main Stream Media: The following is an instruction from the Supreme Politburo at Central Command. You are hereby advised that whenever you are forced to use the two words ‘Intelligent’ and ‘Design’ together in the same sentence, you must ALWAYS include ‘Creationism’ as a qualifier. If you have questions about this, please submit them in writing to your supervisor. That is all.”

Here’s a sampling from a recent google news search of the term “Intelligent Design“…

1. “…despite the fact that creationism, along with its uptown cousin “intelligent design,” keeps getting expelled…” – Tornoto Star
2. “Polls have shown some Americans don’t even know the Earth orbits the sun. These same Americans believe in intelligent design creationism which is nothing more than a childish belief in magic. Teaching intelligent design magic is child abuse. This nonsense doesn’t belong anywhere, not even in Sunday School.”- South Coast Today
3. “Young earth creation science and its fraternal twin, Intelligent Design profess that a great supernatural entity (God) created the world and all life on it.” – IndeNews
4. “The National Academy of Science, America’s most prestigious group of scientists, has recently published an update of Science, Evolution, and Creationism that states: “the claims of intelligent design creationists are disproved by the findings of modern biology.” Democrat and Chronicle.

This list goes on and on.

Conflating Intelligent Design with biblical creationism is a facile attempt to mold the minds of people who might otherwise be interested in the topic of Intelligent Design as a stand-alone course of study.

As Institutions, Media and Academia have taken on Intelligent Design with a palpable and sustained ferocity. The results of the Kitzmiller fiasco has also lent a fig leaf of legal legitimacy to the anti-ID movement.

The Prevailing Wind
Based on these current scientific and media biases, it would seem that Richard Dawkins has been appointed our veritable Minister of Science and Chief Defender of the Faith.

And despite the existence of a few intellectual rebels in the media, it should be noted that a majority of academic scientists are known to prefer the simple comforts of Dumb Mechanics over the ugly prospects of Intelligent Intention. Unlikely as it may be, the Orthodox Majority believes Blind Chance to be the Ultimate Cause of the Big Bang and the DNA molecule.

Remarkably, these writers and scientists seem to religiously avoid any discussion of a well-documented Anthropic phenomenon called the Observation Selection Effect (perhaps preferring instead the much easier task of denouncing the ignorance of Young Earth Creationists, or YECs).

But as we may note from the Double Slit Experiment, the simple act of observation may turn out to be a Cause in Itself.

In other words, at some level, observation may be a self-creating process.

If this is true, it follows that collective observation may be required in order for history to have occurred at all!

If the Observation Selection Effect is required for the Universe to exist, could we also infer that a real-time Observer of the Big Bang was required in order for it to have occurred in the first instance?

The Shifting Paradigm: Science as a Text of Human History
If the dissenters eventually have their way — and Intelligent Design becomes an accepted model for the origin of the universe — the current era of Scientific Positivism will itself become history.

In response to this threat, a Popperian Orthodoxy has emerged in the media and across the academic world. Science writers who want the biscuit must always declare a strict separation between science and magic in their public writings on ID. Likewise, Intelligent Design must never be acknowledged as being connected with the former, but always the latter.

And after all – Intelligent Design has no pedigree, as Positivism does. No new paradigm of science could possibly overtake the sainted Karl Popper – at least among the orthodox establishment.

The fabric of reality is the privileged province of a different kind of priest — a highly trained and vetted Priest of Science.

Popper is Challenged
No one doubts that there exists a plethora of Popperian loyalists in the Biological Sciences. But in the fields of Physics and Quantum Mechanics, the Many Worlds Interpretation of the universe — though inherently non-falsifiable — has been well-accepted for decades.

We note, for instance, that National Academy of Science member Leonard Susskind can be witnessed putting down an orthodox Popperian in this 2006 Nature article on the “multiverse” hypothesis:

Since the early 1980s, some cosmologists have argued that multiple universes could have formed during a period of cosmic inflation that preceded the Big Bang. More recently, string theorists have calculated that there could be 10>500 universes, which is more than the number of atoms in our observable Universe. Under these circumstances, it becomes more reasonable to assume that several would turn out like ours. It’s like getting zillions and zillions of darts to throw at the dart board, Susskind says.”Surely, a large number of them are going to wind up in the target zone.” And of course, we exist in our particular Universe because we couldn’t exist anywhere else. It’s an intriguing idea with just one problem, says Gross:  It’s impossible to disprove.  Because our Universe is, almost by definition, everything we can observe, there are no apparent measurements that would confirm whether we exist within a cosmic landscape of multiple universes, or if ours is the only one. And because we can’t falsify the idea, Gross says, it isn’t science.

Susskind, too, finds it “deeply, deeply troubling” that there’s no way to test the principle. But he is not yet ready to rule it out completely. “It would be very foolish to throw away the right answer on the basis that it doesn’t conform to some criteria for what is or isn’t science,” he says. [Emphasis added.]

(Geoff Brumfiel, “Outrageous Fortune,” Nature, Vol 439:10-12 (January 5, 2006).)

Despite Susskind’s apologies, it is obvious that for him, the “right answer” is not dependent on the approval of Karl Popper.

The Occam’s Razor solution for the Double Slit Experiment is also obvious: Many Worlds is the simplest explanation for the evidence.

And if the Multiverse is the True Condition of our universe, then Intelligent Design automatically becomes a viable explanation for its origin and existence.

Offering a Proof
Professor Frank Tipler, a protege of renown American Physicist John Wheeler, is a peer reviewed scientist who favors the Many Worlds Interpretation. Tipler has, in his Omega Point Theory (OPT), developed what is in effect a mathematical proof for the existence of God.

Tipler’s proof has been reviewed and credited by Oxford physicist (and winner of the Paul Dirac Award) David Deutsch, in chapter 14 of his seminal book, the Fabric of Reality.

In his book, Deutsch acknowledged that the OPT is a legitimate model for a universe that could eventuate in a super-computational intelligence.

If professor Susskind in correct that the fabric of reality is founded in the Multiverse, then all of the conditions required for the emergence of the Omega Point are satisfied within the context of the Observation Selection Effect. In other words, in some universe somewhere, God may naturally emerge to Observe Himself. In so doing, He would effect all the possible strands of the Multiverse, and thus bring Himself – and us – into Being.

The above essay is offered as OPINION.

On the subject of academic freedom for proponents of Intelligent Design, IDTheFuture has a great podcast available for download.

The answer to this question can have unanticipated consequences, as Astronomer Dr. Guillermo Gonzalez learned earlier this year after he was denied tenure as a professor at Iowa State University.

Despite a uniquely brilliant and productive career as a scientist, Dr. Gonzalez was denied tenure just three years after the publication of his pro-Intelligent Design book, co-authored with Jay W. Richards, The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos is Designed for Discovery.

Dr. Gonzalez has also published 68 articles in refereed astronomy and astrophysical journals including The Astrophysical Journal, The Astronomical Journal, Astronomy and Astrophysics, Icarus and Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. He also co-authored a college astronomy textbook, Observational Astronomy, second edition.

Gonzalez’s chief defender in this apparent case of academic bias is The Discovery Institute, a group notable for its defense of Intelligent Design.

According to a Discovery Institute report, Gonzalez’s rate of publication in peer-reviewed journals exceeds by 350% the ISU Astronomy department’s standard for tenure.

The report also showed that he has the “highest normalized citation count among ISU Astronomers for publications“, and offered proof of his top rank in the department as demonstrated by a SMITHSONIAN/NASA database.

Even so, Iowa State University President Gregory Geoffroy declared that Gonzalez “simply did not show the trajectory of excellence that we expect in a candidate seeking tenure in physics and astronomy — one of our strongest academic programs.”

According to the press release available on the website of Expelled: The Movie,

Expelled uncovers that educators and scientists are being ridiculed, denied tenure and even fired in some cases for the fact that they believe there is evidence of ‘design’ in nature, challenging the idea that life is a result of random chance. For example, Stein meets Richard Sternberg, a double PhD biologist who allowed a peer-reviewed research paper describing the evidence for intelligence in the universe to be published in the scientific journal Proceedings. Not long after publication, officials from the National Center for Science Education and the Smithsonian Institution where Sternberg was a research fellow began a coordinated smear and intimidation campaign to get the promising young scientist expelled from his position. This attack on scientific freedom was so egregious that it prompted a congressional investigation.

The growing body of evidence for University witch hunts of ID proponents bothers Ben Stein. “Scientists are supposed to be allowed to follow the evidence wherever it may lead, no matter what the implications are. Freedom of inquiry has been greatly compromised, and this is not only anti-American, it’s anti-science. Its anti-the whole concept of learning.”

Stein put it succinctly: “Big Science,” he says “…has lost its way.”

“The incredible thing about Expelled,” said the co-Executive Producer of the film, Walt Ruloff, “is that we don’t resort to manipulating our interviews for the purpose of achieving the ’shock effect,’ something that has become common in documentary film these days.”

Perhaps. But Expelled doesn’t just interview a few poor scholars famously bullied by the orthodox hoods of the academic street; they take their beef to the leaders of the gang: Richard Dawkins — a strict Darwinist and author of The God Delusion — appears briefly, as does famed atheist blogger PZ Meyers, and Eugenie Scott, head of the National Center for Science Education.

The creators of Expelled are said to have spent two years traveling and interviewing dozens of scientists, doctors, philosophers, and public leaders across the globe.

“People will be stunned to actually find out what elitist scientists proclaim, which is that a large majority of Americans are simpletons who believe in a fairy tale,” said Ruloff.

Expelled: The Movie comes at a good time, and will undoubtedly stir the debate among students about whether Darwin’s theory of “Common Descent” really holds up as the best explanation for the available evidence.

These are dangerous ideas among Darwin’s faithful, and it now appears that good scientists are being punished for sins of heresy – and for no other reason. Fortunately credible scientists around the country have “gone public” in voicing their collective “Dissent From Darwinism.”

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed is scheduled for nationwide release in April 2008.

The US Geological Survey placed the epicenter  some 26 miles South of Hilo, Hawaii.

The temblor occurred at 7:38 PM local time.

Meanwhile, the National Weather Service has issued a Hurricane Watch and a Tropical Storm Warning for the Big Island of Hawaii. Currently a Category 3 Hurricane, Flossie is expected to maintain its strength as it passes within 85 miles of the Island on Tuesday.

The Southeastern coast of the Big Island is expected to see 15 to 20 ft surf on Tuesday. The Island will suffer sustained Southeast winds of 40 to 50 mph with higher gusts, and may see up to 10 inches of rain from the storm.

I have an Associate degree in Geology from Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill, CA, and a Bachelors of Arts degree in History from San Francisco State University.

In the early to mid-1990s, I lived in San Francisco and worked downtown in what would later be termed “Multimedia Gulch”. I attended Graduate School in the History department at SFSU for a term, and I also worked a stint as an editorial intern for the weekly newsletter of The Commonwealth Club of California.

My first job developing online computer systems occurred during my 3-years with MZ Media group, the publisher of (among other things) California Business Magazine. Here I developed the company’s first BBS system and learned the outlines of Mosaic – the first HTML browser developed by Netscape founder Marc Andreessen.

During the period 1996 – 2000, I worked for Pacific Bell Video Services as a Content Manager in support of Pac Bell’s experimental video-on-demand television service hubs in LA and San Jose. (PBVS was later sold off to PrimeOne/Tele-TV, and then to MCI after Pacific Bell was absorbed by Southwest Bell Corp. I still have the T-Shirt: “I Survived the Conversion!”)

In 1998, while living in Marin County, I served as a juror in a high-profile sanity hearing. This hearing lasted 5 weeks, and in the end, I served as Jury Foreman. I mention this because it was the most intensive media experience I have ever been through. In the aftermath of the trial, I was interviewed by the New York Times (May 15, 1998, NYT Reporter Don Terry). I was also interviewed extensively by an anti-death penalty videographer in Marin County. My talking head is available at this link if you would like to see me blabber on about the details of the trial. My bits come in the middle and near the end of the clip.

In October 2001 I launched MensNewsDaily.com. A month after 9/11, I was still in a state of shock, and I felt a need to DO something. On October 12, 2001, Peggy Noonan published a piece in the Wall Street Journal’s Opinion Journal called, Welcome Back, Duke: From the ashes of Sept. 11 arise the manly virtues. In the context of my unfortunate experience with the family court of San Francisco, Noonan’s article gave me the idea that MEN — parodied by metrosexuals or declared useless by radical feminists — were still a necessary ingredient in a functioning society. (Come to think of it, Zell Miller’s speech to the Republican National Convention in 2004 contained many of the same themes as Noonan’s piece – though in his case he was specifically speaking of the US solider. But Noonan and Miller are talking in measure about the same thing: the American Male.)

About a week after I read Noonan’s article, I started MensNewsDaily.com.

MND’s mission is to publish intelligently written opinion of interest to men across the political spectrum. The site is designed to highlight men’s issues from an international and essentially conservative or libertarian perspective. Our purpose is to give men a place to pick up their daily news unfiltered by common political correctness.

At MND you will find stories related to the treatment of ordinary men in the modern world – those walking wallets of family court, or the fathers that Hollywood routinely portrays as dolts and buffoons. But you will also find a wide variety of content on other topics, including world and American politics, international events, science, nature, technology, religion, and even Intelligent Design.

The site’s format has changed over time, but the core mission has always been to provide a broad array of daily world news stories and commentary aimed at adult men and the women who love them.

Mike LaSalle
PUBLISHER, MensNewsDaily.com

Pesci first reversed the image of the famed painting…

By super-imposing the reversed image on the original image, Pesci discovered what appears to be a figure holding a baby (center left). The image also appears to show Templar knights standing at opposite ends of the long table.

“I came across it by accident, from some of the details you can infer that we are not talking about chance but about a precise calculation,” Pesci told journalists during a press conference earlier this week.

Related: Cyber travellers in frenzy over Last Supper theory

Two “naked” female PETA members, wearing nothing but bikini bottoms and body paint held billboards with the slogan, “When plaid goes bad.” The body paint was done in the trademarked Burberry Check plaid design.

Two other PETA members were there handing out leaflets and showing a video presentation. The painted protesters were spattered with far less fake blood than other documented PETA protests in this campaign.

PETA is protesting Burberry for the company’s use of fur in its products and how it is obtained. The group has staged similar protests around the world in its ongoing “BloodyBurberry”-campaign.

The protest took place at the intersection of Westchester Avenue and Bloomingdale Road in front of the The Westchester, an upscale shopping mall owned by Simon Property Group. Burberry has a retail store in the mall.

This corner is far from the mall’s entrances and sees little pedestrian traffic. However, it does see heavy traffic by motorists, before whom the protesters were in plain sight. While Wikinews was on the scene, police and news media were the only other pedestrians.

The police presence was significant, numbering at least two vehicles and two mounted police officers. But since there was no crowd to control, they just hung back. Media was also there in numbers. At least two television crews could be observed.

As far as Wikinews can tell, Burberry has yet to make any public comment about any of the “BloodyBurberry” protests.

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Dr. Gonzalez announced on the USCIS website late last night that the flowers will be forwarded to the injured service members recuperating at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and at Bethesda Naval Hospital.

In response, Immigration Voice, a non-profit organization representing skilled, legal immigrants, said that they welcome the fact that Dr. Gonzalez acknowledged the symbolic gesture of our protest and are overjoyed that these flowers will brighten the day of the injured service brethren.

Immigration Voice also said that it is their sacrifice for American freedom that has made this country great and such a desirable destination for multitude of people from around the world and that they wanted to say “Thank you and god bless you” to the servicemen.

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Currently, the University of Colorado police are not providing further details as they investigate the threats. Police have in the meantime increased patrols around the campus and threatened buildings.

Although the United States has had vigorous debate over the Creation-evolution controversy until now there have been no serious violent incidents, aside from an attack on Paul Mirecki, a professor at the University of Kansas, in 2005.

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During his visit, he met President John Kufuor at the Osu Castle. They highlighted the bonds between Ghana and Italy and past cooperation such as the building of the Akosombo Hydroelectric Dam and AGIP’s involvement in Ghana’s petroleum business.

Napolitano also visited the Parliament of Ghana, where he paid a courtesy call on the Speaker, Ebenezer Sekyi-Hughes. Napolitano said the European Union had a role to play in the integration of Africa. Sekyi-Hughes was pleased that the Italian president had shown confidence in Ghana’s parliament and its young democracy.

Later, he visited the Kwame Nkrumah mausoleum in Accra and inspected work on the Ohene Djan Sports Stadium where Italian workers are engaged in construction work to prepare the stadium for the 2008 African Cup of Nations tournament.

The next day, he visited the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre near Accra. Ghana and Italy affirmed their commitment to the training of civilian personnel attached to various peacekeeping missions. While there, he said “Italy appreciates the level of troop contribution to and for works done by Ghana’s contingents to peacekeeping operations worldwide”. He continued, “We are pleased with your sense of mission and the high level of professionalism being exhibited by your troops on peace missions, and we would continue to support you in your role”.

He was the guest of honor at a state banquet held before his departure.

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