Letter written by Thomas Jefferson to the son of a friend, who was also a namesake (thanks to JS for this):

“TO THOMAS JEFFERSON SMITH

Monticello, February 21, 1825

This letter will, to you, be as one from the dead. The writer will be in the grave before you can weigh its counsels. Your affectionate and excellent father has requested that I would address to you something which might possibly have a favorable influence on the course of life you have to run, and I too, as a namesake, feel an interest in that course. Few words will be necessary, with good dispositions on your part. Continue reading →

Brilliant investigative reporter  Anne Williamson on the World Bank’s global plantation, its serfs and overseers:

“For the well-positioned second-raters that people the Bank, there’s no advantage in trading in a country club existence and perfumed reputation just to browbeat and bludgeon troops out of poor nations in return for dollar grants. It’s so much more agreeable to posture as a helping-hand, hiding the nasty imperial bits in the loan covenants. True, the policies the loans require often lead to public riots, and to resource, land and territorial wars among their clients, but the mainstream media never connects the loans to their bloody consequences. At worst, details of the borrower’s thievery leak out. Continue reading →

What does it cost to set up a twitter account and when you see a blog post you dislike and want to discredit, to “twitter” it preemptively? When other people see that only a weird porn site or ‘hate’ site has twittered your post, they back off, even though they might like your content and even though your content might be neither racist nor pornographic.

I’ve noticed this happens whenever I post something positive about the orthodox church. Posts on alternative spirituality don’t attract this kind of negative attention.

Anyway, I’ve noticed a couple of weird things like this on Twitter and I’ve noticed that Digg can be manipulated too.

So much for the view that the ‘Net will carry all before it. They said that about TV when it came on the scene. And look where that got us.

AP reports on a suspected Russian spy ring arrested in the US:

“Ten people have been arrested for allegedly serving as secret agents of the Russian government in the United States, the Justice Department said Monday. Continue reading →

Libertarian classic by the great Billy Joel from the 1978 album, ’52nd Street.’

My Life

Got a call from an old friend, we used to be real close,
Said he couldn’t go on the American way,
Closed the shop, sold a house, bought a ticket to the west coast,
Now he gives them a stand-up routine in LA

I don’t need you to worry for me ‘cos I’m alright,
I don’t want you to tell me it’s time to come home,
I don’t care what you say anymore, this is my life,
Go ahead with your own life, leave me alone Continue reading →

Update 4: The very positive New Yorker piece on Wikileaks that I cited is by one Raffi Khatchadourian who happens to be an alum of the Johns Hopkins Nitze School of International School, a hotbed of neoconservative policies, which hosts, among others, Francis Fukuyama, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Eliot Cohen. Of course, I studied there for a while too, so that doesn’t say anything definitive by itself.

But Khatchadourian also wrote strongly in support of the Iraq war…

Update 3 (June 27) A blog called Civilities discusses the Bank Julius Baer case, in which whistle-blower Rudolf Elmer uploaded financial information to Wikileaks that included tax information that’s private under Swiss law, as well as personal information. Civilities draws a somewhat negative conclusion about the “full-transparency” model Wikileaks promotes and the writer Jon Garfunkel makes the point that Wikileaks works better as a source for original documents than as journalism, because it lacks accountable editing. It simply uses the signature Wikileaks, which conceals the identity of the editor.

However, Garfunkel, who is also a Wikipedia editor, seems to think Wikipedia is a perfectly transparent and objective information source. That makes you wonder if he has the experience to make a credible judgment on this issue. Anyone who thinks Wikipedia is always balanced or objective clearly isn’t too familiar with Wikipedia or has a motive to misrepresent it. In his case, the first explanation seems the right one. Continue reading →

“At the time of Christ the sun was in about seven degrees of Aries. Five hundred years were required to bring the precession to the thirtieth degree of Pisces. During that time the new church lived through a stage of offensive and defensive violence well justifying the words of Christ: “I came not to bring peace but a sword.” Fourteen hundred years more have elapsed under the negative influence of Pisces, which has fostered the power of the church and bound the people by creed and dogma. Continue reading →

Contact: jbrenttuttle@gmail.com

www.spillfighters.com

Harassing 10 year old’s and their pets – that’s your tax-dollars at work, nobly  defending the country from such dangerous threats to life and limb as a 2-inch turtle. AP reports, June 25, 2010.

“A caged, 2-inch turtle traveling with a 10-year-old girl caused a crew to turn around a taxiing plane, take the girl and her sisters off the flight and tell them they couldn’t bring their pet along. Continue reading →

From the Glenn Beck show:

“i’m going to talk to you now about the energy reform — reform that no one wants. In fact, reform that even Spain’s media is warning the Americans about, saying, “Obama is about to push America over the green cliff.” Continue reading →