19 Dec 2011

Castration Might Bring Us Better Politicians

"The major role of the eunuch in ancient societies was a political one. Eunuchs were the perfect guardians of harems and provided safe companions and secretaries for royal ladies. They could also be entrusted with the very highest offices of state with no fear that they would want to muscle in and start their own dynasties. Less susceptible than other men to corruption and persuasion by sexual means, they were the ideal politicians and civil servants. Their reputations could not be sullied by the accusations of rape, paternity suits and other scandals that so often blight the careers of public figures."
Roman castration clamp"The first civilization deliberately to select eunuchs as officers of state was the Assyrian Empire, which dominated the Near East during the early first millenium BC. The practice was continued by its successors, including the Persian Empire, founded by Cyrus the Great (559-529 BC) who, according to the Greek writer Xenophon, 'selected eunuchs for every post of personal service to him, from the doorkeepers up'. Eunuchs were becoming powerful in China during the same period. They were especially influential under the Han Dynasty (202 BC - 220 AD), when some held tremendous power simply because of their looks, and it was normal for emperors to have as many male favorites as the recommended magical number of wives. But most were of the professional variety, trained for a career in government."
"The Roman civil service also employed eunuchs, despite the bans on castration imposed by various emperors. And, although the custom was condemned by the Church, the zenith of 'eunuch power' in the Roman world actually came after it was Christianized, under the Eastern Roman (Byzantyne) Empire, which ruled from Constantinople (Istanbul) between AD 395 and 1453. Thousands of young men entered public service by being castrated, providing the empire with some of its most distinguished  state secretaries, generals and even Church leaders."
Quoted from: "Ancient Inventions", Peter James and Nick Thorpe, 1994. Image: theRoman castration clamp, an invention that enabled much safer castration than earlier methods by avoiding damage to the penis. Source
Angelo: Of course we would not encourage bias against one gender regarding the above. We would endorse chemically castrated female career politicians too. I would personally not have stood for local election if castration were a qualification  but, perhaps I would also have not felt the need.

Cairo Calling - Military Hijacking the Revolution, Agent Provocateurs in Abundance


A lot of editing due to poor telephone line - but still an incisive report decribing the respective roles of the Military, the Muslim Brotherhood, the police and the people. Here is a rough translation of some of it:
Actually Mubaraks regime is not finishedNothing changed in the last 11 months - the system is the same - the ministers are the sameThere is no rewards (cake) from the struggleThe fight and the struggle continueThe police do not make any violence with uswe also have soldiers and officers in tahrir square [who have joined the protesters]Casualties around 450this is much better than the days of Jan 25thThe soldiers are afraid of uswe saw the soldiers run away from uswe have no weapons - no machine gunswe are not ready for civil war - we do not want thatwe are a destroyed country - like SomaliaThe Muslinm Brotherhood are not joining the protesters
they are not even marching in opposition to women having been raped which they should do - according to Muslim beliefThe Muslim Brotherhood have made a deal with the state and the military (SCAF)they are making a false scenariothey are just pretending to be seen fighting against the military (SCAF) - but it is just a show
The Military is hijacking the revolution - agent provacatuers are in abundance. Civil war is possible.
Scaf is the Supreme Council of The Armed Forces Source

Kim Jong-il R.I.P. - North Korea + Update, Deep Greif

Kim Jong Il, the leader of North Korea has died. He was 69. He died on a train trip, a tearful state television announcer dressed in black, reported Monday. It is believed Kim Jong Il suffered a stroke in 2008 but appeared healthy recently in photos and video from recent trips to China and Russia. Kim Jong Il was groomed for over 20 years to lead the communist nation of North Korea which was founded by his father.News is now coming out of North Korea claiming there may be a behind-the-scenes power struggle or nuclear instability following Kim Jung Ills death. Since the country is isolated from the outside world, there is not much known about the man known as the "Dear Leader."Soviet records indicate he was born in Siberia in 1941.Kim Jong Il, a graduate of Pyongyang's Kim Il Sung University, was 33 when his father anointed him his eventual successor.Kim Jong Il took over in 1994 after his father died. He carried on his fathers tradition of "military first," devoting much of the country's scarce resources to its troops. During this time, millions of North Korean citizens starved. It is reported that North Korea has been unable to feed its own people and is desperate for aid.The news of Kim Jong Ils death will bring some fears to the region concerning the countries stability and nuclear arsenol. This is a developing story Source

The news of the North Korea's leader death has put the 24-million population on the verge of insanity, hyped up by unceasing TV broadcast of mass mourning throughout the country. ­North Korea's national flag is flying at half-mast today on every flagpole in the country. Source

Psssst France: Here Is Why You May Want To Cool It With The Britain Bashing - The UK's 950% Debt To GDP


Tyler Durden's picture
While certainly humorous, entertaining and very, very childish, the recent war of words between France and Britain has the potential to become the worst thing to ever happen to Europe. Actually, make that the world and modern civilization. Why? Because while we sympathize with England, and are stunned by the immature petulant response from France and its head banker Christian Noyer to the threat of an imminent S&P downgrade of its overblown AAA rating, the truth is that France is actually 100% correct in telling the world to shift its attention from France and to Britain. So why is this bad. Because as the chart below shows, if there is anything the global financial system needs, is for the rating agencies, bond vigilantes, and lastly, general public itself, to realize that the UK's consolidated debt (non-financial, financial, government and household) to GDP is... just under 1000%That's right: the UK debt, when one adds to its more tenable sovereign debt tranche all the other debt carried on UK books (and thus making the transfer of private debt to the public balance sheet impossible), is nearly ten times greater than the country's GDP. To call that "game over" is an insult to game overs everywhere. So here's the bottom line: France should quietly and happily accept a downgrade, because the worst that could happen would be a few big French banks collapsing, and that's it. If, on the other hand, the UK becomes the center of attention (recall this is the same UK that allows unlimited rehypothecation of worthless assets, and the same UK that unleashed the juggernaut known as AIG-FP's Joe Cassano - after all there is a reason why the UK has 600% its GDP in financial liabilities - financial innovation always goes there where it is least regulated), then this island, which far more so than the US is the true center of the global banking ponzi scheme, will suddenly find itself at the mercy of the market. At that point the only question is whether the vigilantes will dare to take down the UK, as said take down will result in an implosion in the very fabric of modern finance, much more so than what even a full collapse of France could ever achieve, or if due to the certain Mutual Assured Destruction that would follow a coordinated UK onslaught, the market will simply very quietly proceed to ignore the elephant in the room.

Sense & censor ability: Congress defers SOPA vote

Amid heated debates and the uproar surrounding the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act, Congress has postponed its vote. Fears are growing that the law aimed at fighting copyright infringement will ultimately lead to censorship.

As the Obama team travels around the globe preaching the virtues of a free internet, US lawmakers are considering legislation that would make taking down the worldwide web as easy as a walk in the park. The US government would be able shut down any website suspected of hosting copyright material, no court warrant needed.

Programmer and net activist Aaron Swartz says under the new law the government will not be taking down the infringing material; it will take down the site entirely. “And it does it even without a trial, to find out whether it’s illegal or not,” he argued. “Copyright law is extremely complicated, there are lots of things that look like copyright infringement, but turn out to be licensed in one way or another. Even a site like YouTube that has mix of different kinds of content, under this bill the entire site can get shut down.” Companies like Google, Yahoo! and Facebook are furious over the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act. Google co-founder Sergey Brin compared the bill to censorship in China and Iran, saying: “Imagine my astonishment when the newest threat to free speech has come from none other but the United States." Legendary computer scientist Vint Cerf – widely hailed as one of the founders of the internet itself – said the legislation has the potential to bring about unprecedented “censorship” of the web. Swartz himself has been under investigation for sharing bulk files of United States Federal Court documents on the web. In July, he was arrested for downloading roughly 4 million academic articles from a protected computer. He says the laws would make it very easy to silence internet whistleblowers. “By using copyright as a wedge issue, suddenly we are able to put this power in the hands of the government, and then once they have it, it can be expanded to deal with the whole range of other things,” he said. “Anytime a news organization, or activist group, or critics tries to put up some internal documents that were leaked, or things like that…All those documents are copyrighted.” But not only could it affect freedom of speech but also businesses, by potentially giving companies easy tools to shut competitors down. Congressmen are debating legislation – which could potentially shut down their websites under the proposed law – because all host content that was copied from somewhere, like TV news clips. The legislation would give the US government sweeping powers to stifle web sources. So as America preaches internet freedom to the world, at home, it is preparing to censor it.