“ALL THE EXCITEMENT OF COMIC BOOKS WITH A LOT MORE SUBSTANCE”
-Tome Tender
“DOES NOT DISAPPOINT!”
-Author Brittany Seguin
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“IT’S THE HUNGER GAMES MEETS THE WALKING DEAD!”
-Anime Reporter
“THIS BOOK WAS AMAZING!”
-Reading My Reality
There are no reports of casualties as a result of the strike on Ain al-Assad, which follows last week’s U.S. drone strike in Iraq that killed Iranian military commander Qassem Soleiman
There were no flying cars and domed cities, as promised in Popular Science; rather, there was a dumbing down of the population engineered by right-wing politicians, televangelists, and Madison Avenue. I called what we saw “De-evolution,” based upon the tendency toward entropy across all human endeavors.
A rapid global shift to clean energy is needed to prevent runaway climate change, says António Guterres
“By failing to adequately limit population growth, reassess the role of an economy rooted in growth, reduce greenhouse gases, incentivise renewable energy, protect habitat, restore ecosystems, curb pollution, halt defaunation, and constrain invasive alien species, humanity is not taking the urgent steps needed to safeguard our imperilled biosphere.”
Roughly half of the workforce in the UK and the US are likely to eventually lose their jobs to robots, as technological automation trends spread across all industries and service sectors, the Bank of England’s chief economist has warned.
“The conflict in Ukraine – a prelude of World War III, and the Minsk talks – this is the only alternative.”
“This is a prelude to World War III. A lot of people know this. For example, Zaporizhia nuclear power plant just 160 kilometers away from the fighting. You can imagine what a disaster could happen if there will get a shell? We have an alternative to the Minsk talks? We can declare war Moscow to conduct a swift operation? No. Because in this case the cruise missiles will fly tomorrow to Kiev “, – said the diplomat.
That old standby, the honeytrap:
The paper, obtained by the Sunday Times,gives detailed instructions that the Russian intelligence, the FSB, may try to compromise and blackmail foreign agents “through knowledge of marital infidelity or sexual activity the target may wish to hide.”
While researching an article on this subject I found other studies from neuroscientists that suggest it may be true. The issue is the development of the frontal cortex of the brain, which is not fully cooked until about age 25. Marijuana may interfere with the connections being forged in that region. It is always better to be safe than sorry and to keep your substance abuse to a bare minimum. Young people may be significantly more at risk, and so be warned.
Frequent marijuana use can have a significant negative effect on the brains of teenagers and young adults, including cognitive decline, poor attention and memory, and decreased IQ, according to psychologists. “It needs to be emphasized that regular cannabis use, which we consider once a week, is not safe and may result in addiction and neurocognitive damage, especially in youth,” said one expert.
Rereading this (2019), there is sufficient reason to be skeptical:
“These findings remained even after researchers controlled for major medical conditions, prenatal drug exposure, developmental delays and learning disabilities, she added.”
Oh–What didn’t they control for? Not a trick question. No mention (again) of anti-depressants, such as those that deliberately interfere with structures of the brain and their SSRIs. No control for environment, schooling, alcohol, or pretty much anything! The medical industry has a vested, major financial interest in not finding problems with the pills they prescribe.
That means it was assumed that any differences had to be the sole fault of cannabis consumption. You know what happens when we assume.
The phrase “even after” is even more damning, as it suggests they didn’t want to control for anything, and like other bogus “studies” just wanted to blame cannabis for any problems they could quantify. That’s not science.
Press Release – First Letter from Julian Assange to Benedict Cumberbatch Over The Fifth Estate
Wednesday 09 October 2013, 15:25 UTC
More articles …
– Press Release: Secret US Embassy Cables
– Groups to contact for comment
Today WikiLeaks publishes the first letter from Julian Assange to Benedict Cumberbatch regarding “The Fifth Estate”, a Dreamworks movie about WikiLeaks set to open in the UK on Friday 11 Oct, and in the US on Friday 18 Oct. The press release about this letter is here. The letter was sent to Benedict Cumberbatch after he made overtures to contact Julian Assange in January this year, immediately before principal photography commenced.
Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2013
From: Julian Assange
To: Benedict Cumberbatch
Subject: Message from Assange
Dear Benedict,
Thank you for trying to contact me. It is the first approach by anyone from the Dreamworks production to me or WikiLeaks.
My assistants communicated your request to me, and I have given it a lot of thought and examined your previous work, which I am fond of.
I think I would enjoy meeting you.
The bond that develops between an actor and a living subject is significant.
If the film reaches distribution we will forever be correlated in the public imagination. Our paths will be forever entwined. Each of us will be granted standing to comment on the other for many years to come and others will compare our characters and trajectories.
But I must speak directly.
I hope that you will take such directness as a mark of respect, and not as an unkindness.
I believe you are a good person, but I do not believe that this film is a good film.
I do not believe it is going to be positive for me or the people I care about.
I believe that it is going to be overwhelmingly negative for me and the people I care about.
It is based on a deceitful book by someone who has a vendetta against me and my organisation.
In other circumstances this vendetta may have gone away, but our conflict with the United States government and the establishment press has created a patronage and commissioning market – powerful, if unpopular – for works and comments that are harmful to us.
There are dozens of positive books about WikiLeaks, but Dreamworks decided
to base its script only on the most toxic. So toxic is the first book selected by Dreamworks that it is distributed to US military bases as a mechanism to discourage military personnel from communicating with us. Its author is publicly known to be involved in the Dreamworks production in an ongoing capacity.
Dreamworks’ second rights purchase is the next most toxic, biased book. Published and written by people we have had a bitter contractual dispute with for years, whose hostility is well known. Neither of these two books were the first to be published and there are many independent authors who have written positive or neutral books, all of whom Dreamworks ignored.
Dreamworks has based its entire production on the two most discredited books on the market.
I know the film intends to depict me and my work in a negative light.
I believe it will distort events and subtract from public understanding.
It does not seek to simplify, clarify or distil the truth, but rather it seeks to bury it.
It will resurrect and amplify defamatory stories which were long ago shown
to be false.
—
My organisation and I are the targets of political adversary from the United States government and its closest allies.
The United States government has engaged almost every instrument of its justice and intelligence system to pursue—in its own words—a ‘whole of government’ investigation of ‘unprecedented scale and nature’ into WikiLeaks under draconian espionage laws. Our alleged sources are facing their entire lives in the US prison system. Two are already in it. Another one is detained in Sweden.
Feature films are the most powerful and insidious shapers of public perception, because they fly under the radar of conscious exclusion.
This film is going to bury good people doing good work, at exactly the time that the state is coming down on their heads.
It is going to smother the truthful version of events, at a time when the truth is most in demand.
As justification it will claim to be fiction, but it is not fiction. It is distorted truth about living people doing battle with titanic opponents. It is a work of political opportunism, influence, revenge and, above all, cowardice.
It seeks to ride on the back of our work, our reputation and our struggles.
It seeks to cut our strength with weakness. To cut affection with exploitation. To cut diligence with paranoia. To cut loyalty with naivety. To cut principle with hypocrisy. And above all, to cut the truth with lies.
The film’s many distortions buttress what the prosecution will argue. Has argued. Is arguing. In my case, and in that of others. These cases will continue for years.
The studio that is producing the film is not a vulnerable or weak party.
Dreamworks’ free speech rights are not in jeopardy – ours are.
Dreamworks is an extremely wealthy organisation, with ties to powerful interests in the US government.
I must therefore question the choices and motives behind it: the opportunism, fears and mundanity; the unwritten rules of film financing and distribution in the United States; the cringe against doing something useful and brave.
I believe that you are a decent person, who would not naturally wish to harm good people in dire situations.
—
You will be used, as a hired gun, to assume the appearance of the truth in order to assassinate it. To present me as someone morally compromised and to place me in a falsified history. To create a work, not of fiction, but of debased truth.
Not because you want to, of course you don’t, but because, in the end, you are a jobbing actor who gets paid to follow the script, no matter how debauched.
Your skills play into the hands of people who are out to remove me and WikiLeaks from the world.
I believe that you should reconsider your involvement in this enterprise.
Consider the consequences of your cooperation with a project that vilifies and marginalises a living political refugee to the benefit of an entrenched, corrupt and dangerous state.
Consider the consequences to people who may fall into harm because of this film.
Many will fight against history being blackwashed in this way. It is a collective history now, involving millions of people, because millions have opened their eyes as a result of our work and the attempts to destroy us.
I believe you are well intentioned but surely you can see why it is a bad idea for me to meet with you.
By meeting with you, I would validate this wretched film, and endorse the talented, but debauched, performance that the script will force you to give.
I cannot permit this film any claim to authenticity or truthfulness. In its current form it has neither, and doing so would only further aid the campaign against me.
It is contrary to my interests, and to those of my organisation, and I thank you for your offer, and what I am sure is your genuine intent, but I must, with inexpressible regret, turn it down.
Julian Assange
