WASHINGTON: The “war on terrorism” just got a little more complicated with the indictment of an average white American female dubbed “Jihad Jane” on charges of plotting with Islamic radicals, bringing even the so-called soccer moms under the radar.
Colleen LaRose, 46, a Pennsylvania native, has been charged with trying to recruit Islamic fighters and plotting to assassinate a Swedish cartoonist who made fun of Prophet Muhammad, according to a federal indictment unsealed on Tuesday.
What is striking about the case is that Colleen LaRose, who called herself Fatima La Rose, is a regular workaday housewife. Blonde and green-eyed, she would have easily slipped under scrutiny that typically focuses on non-whites.
In 2008, LaRose allegedly posted a video on YouTube calling herself JihadJane and stating she was “desperate to do something somehow to help” ease the suffering of Muslims, a move that attracted the attention of law-enforcement authorities.
According to the indictment, in email exchanges with five unindicted and unnamed co-conspirators in South Asia, Eastern and Western Europe, LaRose allegedly agreed to recruit people for jihad, to raise money for fighters. She also agreed to one jihadist’s request to marry him to enable him to get inside Europe.
This is the first time a white American female has signed up for jihad. According to the indictment, in March 2009, shortly before she made the You Tube video, LaRose allegedly received a directive from her jihadist contacts to “go to Sweden… find location of (resident of Sweden)… and kill him… this is what i say to u”. The target was identified as Lars Vilks, a cartoonist who had drawn Prophet Muhammad with the body of a dog.
LaRose was instructed to kill Vilks in a way that would frighten “the whole Kufar (non-believer) world.” She was arrested in October 2009 but the case was kept under seal as authorities pursued leads to track down her jihadist contacts.
The indictment was unsealed on Tuesday after the arrest of seven Muslims in Ireland, in a case that was said to connect “Jihad Jane” to the plot to kill Vilks.
(Pshh, more fear-mongering. SUSPECT EVERYONE! TERRORIST SOCCER MOMS!!)
A toy that reads your brain waves to manipulate a foam ball sounds fun — until said toy begins manipulating other things, too. Like your body’s pain receptors. Doesn’t sound too thrilling to us, but a few geeks apparently thought it’d be a great idea.
According to GeekoSystem, some folks at Harcos Laboratories took Mattel’s Mindflex and hacked it to deliver a painful electric shock to the user. Strap the device on your head, and challenge yourself not to think — not even a little bit. If your brain is a little active, you’ll get a little shock. The more activity inside your head, the more intense of a shock you’ll feel. If you’re into this kind of thing, there’s a step-by-step how-to on the Harcos blog. Attempt at your own risk.
Editor’s Note: The Huffington Post’s editorial policy, laid out in our blogger guidelines, prohibits the promotion and promulgation of conspiracy theories — including those about 9/11. As such, we have removed this post.
Lawmakers working to craft a new comprehensive immigration bill have settled on a way to prevent employers from hiring illegal immigrants: a national biometric identification card all American workers would eventually be required to obtain.
Under the potentially controversial plan still taking shape in the Senate, all legal U.S. workers, including citizens and immigrants, would be issued an ID card with embedded information, such as fingerprints, to tie the card to the worker.
The uphill effort to pass a bill is being led by Sens. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) and Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), who plan to meet with President Barack Obama as soon as this week to update him on their work. An administration official said the White House had no position on the biometric card.
It was an experiment that didn’t set out to demonstrate how mind control techniques used by cult groups can work effectively in practice. But that’s one of the results from a behavioral study done to test whether elderly people isolated together could so completely convince themselves they were young again that their bodies actually would begin to morph ‘backward’ in resonance .
What Harvard University psychologist Ellen Langer wanted to know was whether the body clock of a group of men in their 70s and 80s could be re-set to 1959 by their collective mindset.
After just a week, those in this experimental group (compared with a control group of similar aged men) measured significant physical and mental changes in a range of areas: —They had less arthritis; —More joint flexibility; —Improved posture and gait; —Better hearing and eyesight; —Sharper minds and better performance on mental tasks; —Elevated spirits and optimism about life.
The World Future Council was founded by the Swedish writer and activist Jakob von Uexkull in reaction to politics across the world being dominated by short-term, economic thinking. The idea for a global council was first aired on German radio in 1998. It hit a chord, with German TV immediately expressing an interest in broadcasting the Council’s sessions. In October 2004 the organisation was officially launched in London with funding from private donors in Germany, Switzerland, USA and the UK. Since 2006, the organisation is based in Hamburg, where the World Future Council is registered as a charitable foundation. Further offices are located in London, Brussels, Delhi, and Washington D.C. The Council met for the first time in May 2007 in Hamburg.
an interesting group of policy makers and social engineers.
Hanks and Gary Goetzman will act as executive producers, and Hanks hopes the adaptation will air in 2013. He believes the public has been snookered into believing that Lee Harvey Oswald was framed. “We’re going to do the American public a service,” Hanks says. “A lot of conspiracy types are going to be upset. If we do it right, it’ll be perhaps one of the most controversial things that has ever been on TV.”
What can we expect? If he is already out to show alternative researchers they are wrong, then how can he do anything other than tow the company line? Hanks will probably pretend to be objective on the Warren Commission report’s findings to show he is a ‘tough investigator’, but there will be nothing ultimately that will make entrenched power structures/brokers look bad.
The disciplining force of society is at its most effective when its human origins are denied or covered up. The admission that society - with all its prescriptions and proscriptions, rewards for obedience and punishments for veering off the line - rests ultimately on man-made choices and decisions invites critical scrutiny, dissent and resistance: What has been done by humans can be undone by humans. No wonder that throughout the modern era, attempts were made and continue to be made to represent the grounds for the demands of power-holders as beyond human capacity.
At a time when there isn’t anything to give you confidence beyond yourself - you live in the “empire of the self” - then it is inevitable that you will seek those like you, because it will give you a sense of collective purpose. It will give you a sense of collective security.
And that’s exactly what the internet is about - “If you like this book, others before you have bought these books…” And it works to create those little circles. All those little radio stations which tell you, “If you played this, other people have played this…”
On the internet, you’re constantly monitoring other people’s choices to see what those people who you think are like you do, and they say, “OK I’ll do that to be like that”. And what that leads to, again, is Balkanisation.
And it’s what advertisers rather like, because it gives them a definition.
Like Joe Stack and Amy Bishop, J.Patrick Bedell’s story goes deep into the weird. After Coleman’s mention of Bedell’s reading habits and interests he goes on to make the very important note of the ridiculous politicizing and right wing co-option of the shootings:
Wikipedia appears to have already taken down Bedell’s self-authored page; however Bedell’s web footprints are being gathered by some rightwing bloggers who are trying to tie Bedell’s actions to a bizarre brand, in their thoughts, of “liberal” mindset (e.g. here, here, and here).
As Cashmore explains, the human brain acts at both the conscious level as well as the unconscious. It’s our consciousness that makes us aware of our actions, giving us the sense that we control them, as well. But even without this awareness, our brains can still induce our bodies to act, and studies have indicated that consciousness is something that follows unconscious neural activity. Just because we are often aware of multiple paths to take, that doesn’t mean we actually get to choose one of them based on our own free will. As the ancient Greeks asked, by what mechanism would we be choosing? The physical world is made of causes and effects - “nothing comes from nothing” - but free will, by its very definition, has no physical cause. The Roman philosopher and poet Lucretius, in reference to this problem of free will, noted that the Greek philosophers concluded that atoms “randomly swerve” - the likely source of this movement being the numerous Greek gods.
“Conditional Free Will” is likely a better way to put it. We do have to power to choose, but usually the options that are socially condoned whether we want to believe it or not.
The way to achieving a stable economy is along the path of peace. War and economic crises play off of one another, and are systematically linked. Imperialism is the driver of this system, and behind it, the banking establishment as the financier.
Peace is the only way forward, in both political and economic realms. Peace is the pre-requisite for social sustainability and for a truly great civilization.
The people of the world must pursue and work for peace and justice on a global scale: economically, politically, socially, scientifically, artistically, and personally. It’s asking a lot, but it’s our only option. We need to have ‘hope’, a word often strewn around with little intent to the point where it has come to represent failed expectations. We need hope in ourselves, in our ability to throw off the shackles that bind us and in our diversity and creativity construct a new world that will benefit all.
No one knows what this world would look like, or how exactly to get there, least of all myself. What we do know is what it doesn’t look like, and what road to steer clear of. The time has come to retake our rightful place as the commanders of our own lives. It must be freedom for all, or freedom for none. This is our world, and we have been given the gift of the human mind and critical thought, which no other living being can rightfully boast; what a shame it would be to waste it.
noting both the yin and yang of futurity, watching cover ups as they happen, fighting back, and wooking pa nub in all de wong places. that's what i do.
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[the Other Outposts]
EuroTrash Utility Belt
EuroTrash Films, Local Bands, Hard To Find Recordings, and secret notebooks.
