Reply from a Robot

As regular HPANWO-readers will know, I've been involved in a minor issue regarding an unpaid mobile phone bill about which I recently posted an update, see: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/give-me-back-my-debt.html. I've received a reply from both O2 and also Lowell Portfolio I; strangely enough, even though there has been a delay of almost a month since I wrote to them, both letters arrived in the same post. This also happened last time they replied to me.

Here's O2's (with my comments in brackets):

Hello Benjamin, (Benjamin!? Nobody has called me that for years! My mother used to when she was angry with me.)

Telefonica O2 UK Ltd are registered under the FSA (Financial Services authority) and the deed of assignment will be in the terms and conditions that the customer agreed to where the contract was taken out. They were hold of personal copy of this themselves (sic) which was posted when the account was opened. If you'd like to review your copy please visit the O2 website.

02 are not bound by the CCA (Consumer Credit Association) like a bank or credit agreement and therefore do not have to issue a default notice or deed of assignment. This account has now been sold on to Lowell and we are unable to deal with your query.  Please contact Lowell directly in relation to this account.

Regards

O2 Debt Management Team.

So they're refusing to address the points I made in my original letter; they're simply hiding behind some clause of the FSA handbook which allows them to breach basic contract law and the fundamental rules of economics.

Let's have a look at the letter from Lowell:

Dear Mr Emlyn-Jones,

Thank you for taking time to contact us recently.

I confirm that your complaint has now been passed to the Customer Relations Department who will carry out a thorough investigation. We will investigate this as quickly as we can and we may need to contact you for further information to provide you with an update. If we can contact you by telephone, we will be able to discuss your concerns directly with you and hopefully agree a resolution with you verbally; this is the quickest and easiest way for us to resolve this for you. I would like to assure you that your account will be placed on hold, and we will stop all collections activity whilst dealing with your complaint. We enclose a copy of our internal complaints procedure for your information. Please take time to read this, as it explains following the steps we will follow in responding to your complaint.

In the meantime if you have any queries please do not hesitate to contact my team by calling the free telephone number which brings you directly through to the Customer Relations Department.

Yours sincerely,

(name)

Head of Compliance. Lowell Portfolio I Ltd

(The signature attached the name is printed)

Head of Compliance? Goodness, that sounds scary! Does he carry a whip and electric baton? This is quite clearly just a template letter with my name inserted. They send them off to anybody who initiates any kind of grievance against them. Clearly they're not going to answer my questions at this time.

What strikes me about both these letters is that I don't feel I'm dealing with a living person. The tone makes me feel I'm addressing a soulless machine. I wouldn't be surprised if I am, especially with the second letter. Of course I could always phone their helpline as they advise me to, but even then, how do I know I'm dealing with a human being? This chilling YouTube video demonstrates that I cannot know, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22ZaKbxmEMA. You can bet the programmers are right at this moment updating the software to make the voice able to say the words: "I am not a robot". 

One of my favourite films is Terry Gilliam's Brazil, see here for more details: http://hpanwo.blogspot.co.uk/2008/12/hanged-hangman.html. Our real world is becoming more and more like the setting of that film. The machine is run by humans, but those humans are being encouraged to behave like machines; until such time as machines are sophisticated enough that they no longer need us. I don't believe there'll ever be a matrix-like situation in which machines willingly take over by themselves. There will always be people... or Reptilians... at the top of the heap and those machines will be merely the tools of those people. However, the control structure at the moment is still dependent on human acquiescence. Apart from David Icke, the thinker I most often like to site in my own literature is George Orwell. His novel Animal Farm was written as a fictional allegory of his viewpoint on the Marxist revolution in Russia, but it contains many more general themes that foresee his later work 1984. The setting is a farm in which the animals rebel against the farmer and his human staff; and they take it over and run it themselves, trying to make it a plentiful and just society. However their efforts fail because of corruption within the new regime. The pigs slowly but surely become the new controllers of the farm until they reach the point where they are indistinguishable from the pre-revolutionary human tyrants. One of the most interesting and poignant scenes is when an elderly cart horse, and the hardest working animal on the farm, falls ill. Instead of recognizing his dedication, arranging veterinary treatment for him, and looking after him for the rest of his life, the pigs sell him to a butcher and he is taken away to the abattoir. In the scene where the horse is driven out of the farm, the vehicle the butcher uses is a horse-drawn one. I found this curious because the book was written in the early-1940's when lorries were in common use. However there's a distinct reason why Orwell chose to make the horse's death-wagon a horse-drawn van. The other animals realize what's happening and call after the vehicle warning the horse and urging him to escape. But they also appeal to the two horses pulling the vehicle: "Comrades, comrades! Don't take your own brother to his death!" But the two horses pulling the van just keep on trotting along, obediently doing their jobs. And isn't that just like humans? That was Orwell's entire point. Imagine if those two horses had realized what they were doing and refused to pull the van. That is what we must all do if we're going to cast off the yoke of the New World Order and have our own "Animal Farm".

Goblin in a Suitcase scares Cops

An unsettling and intriguing incident has been reported in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. On Wednesday the 15th of January a family turned up at a police station near the Tshabalala district of the city with a suitcase that they say belonged to a lodger at their house. They were accompanied by a "traditional healer", which I assume means a native African shaman, a sangoma like Credo Mutwa, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdZHCVvZbTY. They opened the suitcase and the police gathered round to look. It contained what's been described as a "bottle of blood" from which a "goblin" leapt out. The creature ran around the police station causing mayhem; police officers and members of the public fled the building. Some had to climb out through windows. The entity was overpowered by the shaman who then burnt it to death. Nobody knows what become of the body. There are no photographs or CCTV images of the creature that have been so far published, but witnesses describe it as being dog-like with a reptilian appearance; all witnesses agree that it gave off a terrible stench. Bulawayo's police spokesman, Assistant Inspector Bhekimpilo Ndlovu released an official statement that the event did in fact happen. The suspicion at the moment lies with a criminal gang involved with witchcraft and the public were urged to stay vigilant. The lodger who owns the suitcase has disappeared. This story was reported in a number of mainstream and alternative media outlets that can all be traced back to this story from a local journal: http://bulawayo24.com/index-id-news-sc-local-byo-41479.html.

This is just one of a number of incidents involving strange creatures that have been reported from Africa in the last few years. This photograph was put online in August 2012 by a group of hunters from Namibia who shot the strange creature they're displaying: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4C0db0vF5ac. This alarming entity is vaguely humanoid, but it could be an ape or monkey suffering from a deformity. However there was apparently a forest lair of four similar creatures; could four apes all be identically afflicted? Unfortunately the camera is badly focused; see how the man in the background is much clearer. The people took the body to the police who confiscated it; a "full forensic investigation" is supposedly underway, but there have been no updates since. So what was it? An extraterrestrial being? A hybrid of some kind? A cryptid? Or the product of some horrific experiment in a government laboratory? All these possibilities should be taken seriously. African folklore is packed with legends about unearthly monsters coming from the depths of the forest or conjured up by black magicians. One of the best known is the Tokoloshe of Zulu mythology; it is the theme of a controversial video Evil Boy by the South African rap band Die Antwood, see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbW9JqM7vho. So does this connect with what appeared in that suitcase in Zimbabwe last week? Maybe. The "bottle of blood" might have been the container a sorcerer would need to blend the ingredients from which he could engender the beast. Alternatively it might have been a laboratory flask from a secret military base filled with suspension fluid or nutrient mixture in which a mutant was bred; the lodger could have been an ex-employee of the base on the run. This would make the "goblin" story very similar to the chupacabra or the products of Dulce Base, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzWGsO0F3b8. In the video linked above, Credo Mutwa reports how he was abducted and held at a deep underground military and/or extraterrestrial base on the South Africa-Mozambique border. It's difficult to know what is behind this peculiar occurrence at the police station. But we do know something very unusual has happened and maybe the police will release more information in due course. I'll be sure to let you know if they do

Hilder the "Hater"

Anthony J Hilder has recently come under attack in the online social media over some statements he made about gay rights. This is a man who was fighting the New World Order long before Alex Jones was born, and David Icke was still keeping goal for his school football team in those days. See here for his YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/mranthonyjhilder, and his Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/anthonyjhilder?fref=ts. I've met Mr Hilder once at AV3, see: http://hpanwo.blogspot.co.uk/2009/11/alternative-view-3-part-1.html. The allegation was that Mr Hilder had uttered hate speech about homosexuals that incited homophobia. What he actually said, if you read through his Facebook posts, is that the "gay rights agenda" is a part of the New World Order because it's encouraging people of the same gender to get married and therefore have fewer children; this is in line with the plan to depopulate the world (See here for background: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/earths-population-reaches-7-billion.html). I differ from him there. A minority of people are homosexual; they always have been and they always will be. I can't see how these people getting married to each other will impact birth rates. I have no interest at all in what consenting adults get up to in the privacy of their bedrooms and I don't understand why some people have. What is definitely impacting birth rates are things like vaccines, chemtrails, GMO food etc. That's where Mr Hilder's focus should be.

However, there's something distinctly Orwellian and culturally Marxist about how Mr Hilder's comments have been interpreted as "hate speech"; somebody is even reporting him to Facebook's authorities. I have never heard Mr Hilder ever utter a single word that could be construed as hate speech. He has never ever suggested that any individual, or group of people, are deserving of violence, hostility, oppression or prejudice simply because of who they are. There is such a thing as real hate speech of course; like here, Julius Malema, a disgusting South African politician, is calling for the murder of white people, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qm9nUhTFYfM. Mr Hilder's critics are using the very same language that aids and abets the Anti-Defamation League and people like Richard Warman to silence campaigners against the New World Order agenda. Here's a film about how Warman and his cohorts tried to gag David Icke, luckily they failed, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2ypYcZ7qfw (It features a shot of Mr Hilder in the title scene). I'd like to be able to tell you there are no racists or anti-gay people in the Truth movement, but sadly there are. However there are far fewer than many would have you believe, and whenever I meet with them I debate with them. One thing I can assure you is that Anthony J Hilder is not one of them.

Polybius

Nowadays computer games are enormously sophisticated, but there was a time, just a short number of years ago, when they were far simpler, using the crude electronics that existed within the lifetimes of even young people. However it's debateable whether that made them any less exciting and enjoyable. I find that some very homespun computer games are great fun. For the entire brief history of computer games there have always been two places where you can play them, at home on games consoles like Playstation or Xbox, or in public arcades where you can just walk in off the streets and play, in exchange for a coin dropped into a slot. A rich culture has developed around electronic games and there are many strange stories that "gamers" will relate whenever you get them talking in a pub, virtual or otherwise. One of those tales concerns a game called "Polybius".

Polybius is said to have been released in a local area as an arcade version in 1981 and withdrawn soon afterwards. There are many people around who claim to have played it, yet there appears to be no record of it ever having existed. In the International Arcade Museum is it listed as: "Manufacturer- unknown. Type- videogame. Cabinet style- upright/standard", see: http://www.arcade-museum.com/game_detail.php?game_id=11344. It was only introduced into some arcades in Portland, Oregon, USA. It was designed by an individual as illusive as his creation named Ed Rotburg; he worked for a company called "Sinneslöschen"; this is a word in German that does not translate completely into English, but it literally means "deletion of the senses". Several people have come forward claiming to have been involved in the game's design and production, but they have produced no evidence to back up their story. The game was enormously popular to the point of addiction. People would queue up to play at each arcade station and there were even fights over who went next. People would spend as much time and money as they could on it. It was never released in a home console format; it would have been interesting to see what would have happened if it had. Some of those who regularly played Polybius also suffered from psychological and neurological problems like personality changes, insomnia, nightmares and memory loss which were blamed on the game. Witnesses who played Polybius describe it as being a 3D "shoot 'em up" in the same vein as Tempest, see: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/ataris-greatest-hits/id422966028?mt=8. It is reputed to have had very elaborate graphics for computer imagery of that era. There are a few images online that claim to be screenshots of the gameplay window, but these are impossible to verify. A website has been created with a reproduction of what the game might have been like based on interviews with those who claim to have designed it, or played it. It also features pictures of a replica cabinet, see: http://www.sinnesloschen.com/1.php. Despite its domain name, it is nothing to do with the original alleged Polybius producers.

The most interesting element to this story is the effect the game seemed to have on those who played it. Could Polybius be some form of electronic mind control? It's well known that electrical fields and currents can have a major effect on brain function. Strobe lights can induce nausea and dizziness if they're shone into your eyes, and they can trigger a seizure in those suffering from epilepsy. Doctors used to run very powerful electric currents through the heads of those suffering from various mental illnesses. This was a very commonplace medical practice in the early 20th century, although it usually did more harm than good, and it was a part of the plot in the film Return to Oz and in Harold Pinter's play The Caretaker. Polybius could have been a government experiment along these lines. There are stories coming from witnesses about men in dark suits watching over the youths addicted to the game, asking them questions, analyzing the highest score screens and uploading data from the system's memory. "Sinneslöschen" is therefore said to be an alias for the US Governments psychological warfare operation, MK Ultra, or even a covert element within the electronics company, and major game producer at the time, Atari. Who knows? Maybe this is just another urban myth that has got out of hand, but mind control is a reality and electronic technology is almost certainly a part of that. Neil Sanders has researched this subject in depth, see: http://hpanwo-radio.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/programme-20-podcast-neil-sanders.html. If Polybius was some kind of mind control experiment and it succeeded in 1981, imagine the level of technology the hidden hand behind the mind control agenda might have developed today!

Benefit Cuts for MMR-dodgers

The Rt. Hon. Jon Cruddas MP has called for the parents to be refused benefits unless they can prove that their child has had the MMR vaccine, see: http://www.parentdish.co.uk/2013/09/23/mp-jon-cruddas-calls-for-benefit-cuts-for-parents-who-refuse-mmr-jab/. The controversial Measles, Mumps and Rubella vaccine was introduced in 1971 and an article published in The Lancet medial journal in 1998 that showed that the vaccine was linked to serious illnesses in children, including autism. The journal later retracted the article claiming that it was false. The NHS, the US Centre for Disease Control and prevention, and most other overseas medical organizations have published literature reassuring the public that the MMR jab "is safe!". The author of the original article, Dr Andrew Wakefield has been hounded out of his job and struck off the medical register by the General Medical Council. This is supposedly for "fraudulent activity", although it also might act as something of a deterrent to any researchers out there who feel like delving into MMR controversy again. I covered this subject in an article a few years ago; as time has passed I feel that I let Brian Deer off far too lightly and if I were writing this today it would have a much harsher tone, see: http://hpanwo.blogspot.co.uk/2010/05/dr-brian-deer-at-westminster-skeptics.html.

A very open-minded feature film has been made about the MMR autism controversy called Hear the Silence, see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rT-2S7L-N9c. It illustrates the overwhelming support Dr Wakefield received from parents who were concerned for their children. Today Dr Wakefield is standing by his initial research, see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7kbWfsygG4. Officially MMR "is safe!" and it is offered to every child in the UK and many other countries as soon as they are born. 91% of children are given the jab in over sixty countries on every continent. Yet despite the outcry from governments that MMR "is safe!" and that they can prove it, they still find it necessary to use negative incentive and enforcement to maximise the uptake; why can't they just explain it to us? In many countries including the United States, it is compulsory by law to give your child their whole vaccination schedule, including MMR. Dr Paul Offit has called for the MMR jab to become compulsory everywhere and has advised the UK Government to do so as well, see: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-22089485. Now we have Mr Cruddas cracking the whip too. This may not be the same thing as legal compulsion, but with the threat of losing benefits it amounts to it. In fact this is not the first time the Government has used this threat to force us, see: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/tory-boy-wants-more-slaves.html. They know that the benefits system gives them a lot of power. The Shadow Cabinet leader Ed Balls has been on TV to counter the claim that Cruddas' statement will ever be adopted as Labour Party policy, but I don't buy it. Jon Cruddas is a real golden boy of the party and is something of a rising star in politics and we need to check and see if he attends any future Bilderberg Group meetings. Cruddas is a policy coordinator and is in charge of Labour's manifesto for next year's General Election. He has already run for the deputy leadership and has been nominated as a potential future leader, and therefore future Prime Minister. No doubt his current stance on MMR will make him a hero of the Skeptic and atheo-Skeptic movements too, and they are gaining more and more political power every day.

Ship of Rats

They say worst things happen at sea, and that may well be true. A ship that has been adrift in the Atlantic Ocean for almost a year is supposedly about to infect the British Isles with mutant rats, see: http://gawker.com/abandoned-cruise-ship-full-of-starving-rats-headed-for-1507439976. The polar cruise ship MV Lyubov Orlova was originally from Russia and was built in 1975 as a luxury cruise ship for the Soviet regime's officials, before being sold to a private line by the post-communist Russian government; she's named after a Russian film star from the Stalinist era. However she seems to be a somewhat jinxed vessel suffering several accidents throughout her working life. In 2006 she ran aground while visiting Deception Island Base in Antarctica and her owners at the time, Quark Expeditions Ltd, had to employ a tug to pull her loose. She was repaired and sold to a Canadian company, Cruise North Expeditions, but they went bankrupt in 2010 and the ship was seized by the government as collateral. She languished in St John's harbour, Newfoundland for two years and then was sold to an international merchant who cashed her in for disposal in 2012. However, in January 2013 while she was being towed across the Atlantic Ocean to her final resting place, a breakers yard in the Dominican Republic, the towing line parted. The tug tried to reattach the line, but the weather was rough and they couldn't so they had to let the ship drift away. Lyubov Orlova drifted back towards to coast of Canada and the government sent another ship to intercept her in case she collided with the oil rigs and refineries in the area. However this time the towing vessel only dragged the ship further out to sea and then let her go in one of the transoceanic currents, just so she wouldn't be a danger to Canada; recovering the ship was now the owner's problem. However a month later she was located again. Her emergency radio beacon was still operating and the Irish Coast Guard detected her in the mid Atlantic. However she was drifting in the direction of Ireland. By the first of March she was 700 miles off the shoreline of County Kerry. Then her beacon went dead and she's not been seen since. It's possible she was dragged by the currents back out into the middle of the ocean. The beacon might have broken down or the ship might have sunk in a storm. But what if she's still out there? A ghost ship, a modern Mary Celeste?

Is there a danger from the derelict, drifting MV Lyubov Orlova? Yes there is. If she's still afloat then she can drift close to land and damage offshore oil operations, as the Canadians feared. She might also be a hazard to international shipping, an iceberg that never melts. She's small for a cruise liner, 295 feet long and displacing 4251 tons, but that's still a big lump of iron to crash into. But there's another and unexpected hazard, rats. Rats are one of the hardiest species ever to evolve. They'll be alive on Earth long after we humans have become extinct. They're one of the most intelligent of all rodents, they reproduce very quickly and they're omnivorous; able to eat both meat and vegetables. In fact they eat anything, even happily consuming human and animal excrement; hence they often make their homes in sewers. In fact no urban dwelling human is ever more than thirty feet from a rat. Wherever we go, they go too. This includes to sea. They find their way on board ships and feed off our leftovers there just like they do on land. However what do they do when that ship is abandoned and the supply of waste is gone? They'll obviously leave the ship and search elsewhere by climbing down the mooring lines or swimming over to the dock; rats are surprisingly good swimmers. But what if the ship is abandoned out at sea? There's nowhere for them to go. Some biologists have speculated that under these circumstances rats would become cannibalistic and start preying on each other. Rats are primarily scavengers but they can become predatory under certain circumstances, and they will hunt small animals sometimes; does this include other rats? If this is the case then the rat population of the Lyobov Orlova will have been engaged in an all out civil war for the past year. What does that mean for the ship? If somebody were to find the derelict vessel today and step aboard, what sight would their eyes behold? Probably a horrific one, with gnawed rat bones everywhere on the blood-soaked decks; with a few of the rats still alive and feeding. But these survivors might be very different to the rats we're used to. Rats reproduce at a rapid rate, this is what makes them ideal for genetic experimentation; but it also makes them highly adaptive. Evolutionary transformation that would take several centuries in humans can occur in rats within months. How would the rats on the ship evolve? Firstly they'll be a lot bigger than your average rat because natural selection would favour large size when it comes to internecine predation; as opposed to their natural habitat in which the smaller rat wins, able to squeeze itself through the smaller cracks in dustbin lids etc. How big would the rats on board the ship be? Also they will by now be far more behaviourally accustomed to being predators; as I said, rats are highly intelligent and adapt quickly. Are we looking at a nightmare scenario of giant rats, like in the horror book by James Herbert, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rats_(novel). Well, that might be something of an exaggeration, but the rats might have become of a size, and have the inclination, to be able to attack humans. If the ship is eventually located and salvaged, then perhaps whoever first steps aboard should be armed and wear protective clothing. Of course the next question that springs to mind is what would happen if the ship did flounder off a coast. Would these mega-rats survive? As I said, rats are excellent swimmers; a normal rat can easily paddle from a ship in harbour to the dockside. They are also good climbers who can shinny down mooring lines or water pipes. Suppose the ship did crash ashore on the western seaboard of Ireland; the rats might be able to swim to land. In this case these extra-large predatory rats would speedily multiply. This could create an ecological disaster and even endanger human life. Rats are very similar to an epidemic... except you can wipe out a disease; an established population of rats over a large enough area is virtually indestructible. To begin with I was asking myself about this issue and wondering: Is that the idea? I've spoken before about how there is a plan to depopulate the planet and engineer Earth's entire biosphere into a new form, see: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/bases-project-live-in-london.html and: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/zombie-update.html. Could this whole incident with the rogue ship be part of that? Giant rats infecting the globe may be the preferred method they will use for their dastardly plan; instead of, or more likely along with, viruses, pseudolife and chemtrails etc. But that doesn't make sense; if they wanted to carry out the plan that way, then why go to the trouble of wrecking a ship? Why not just breed the mega-rats in a laboratory at Porton Down or Plum Island or somewhere? Nevertheless I still think we should be concerned if a mega-rat infestation happens by accident. It might put ideas in their heads! Therefore I recommend that the hulk of MV Lyubov Orlova be found, if it's still afloat. This would involve a massive naval operation, probably involving more than one country scouring the whole Atlantic Ocean from top to bottom with maritime surveillance aircraft and satellites. When the ship is located she should be sunk in deep water, too far from shore for the rats, even mega-rats, to swim. It might be necessary to tow the hulk to a safe place before breaching the hull with explosives, a torpedo or missile, and letting it flood. The owners might object because the vessel is worth over a million pounds as scrap; but they let her go in the first place, and they didn't help find her afterwards. The operation to find the ship in the open ocean will be very costly so maybe the governments involved should sue the owners.

Is there an Afterlife?

One of the oldest and most perennial questions ever posed is: What happens to us after we die? Do we just disappear or is there some other world where we go to. Records of philosophers discussing this question date back to the beginning of history and it was no doubt a popular topic to be wrangled around a late night prehistoric campfire. Now Prof. Robert Lanza, a research physician at the Wake Forest University in North Carolina, USA, thinks he knows the answer, and oddly enough the answer is "yes", see: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/is-there-an-afterlife-the-science-of-biocentrism-can-prove-there-is-claims-professor-robert-lanza-8942558.html. This conclusion comes from his own theory which he calls "Biocentrism". Reading through the article the first thing that strikes me is that the concept is one I'm reasonably familiar with only I've never heard it called that name before. Fundamentally it means that the universe is not what it appears to be at first glance, a material object that conscious being live in; but it is rather formed by a direct mental projection of those conscious beings. Experimental science is more and more supporting that idea with tests like the double-slit experiment, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfPeprQ7oGc. The implications of the experiment are that objective reality changes depending on its perception by consciousness. This earth-shattering revelation means that the universe simply cannot be independently material and objective. Regular HPANWO-readers will be familiar Anthony Peake who has his own ideas regarding this subject, see: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/consciousness-beyond-individual.html. In such a universe, says Lanza, death simply cannot occur because there is no objective universe for you to die in. To claim otherwise is rather like assuming that the transmitters that broadcast a television signal stop broadcasting the moment your TV set breaks down. Death is simply how we decode a change in the projection of reality, both for ourselves and others.

This is really important news. Death is the central focus of life; survival instincts are about avoiding it, grief is sadness when it happens to somebody else whom you love. Fear of death can ruin a person's life; if you're religious you may believe you're bound for Hell, if you're an atheist you may dread the ultimate and eternal oblivion after your brain stops functioning and your consciousness ceases forever. This news would change all that. Atheo-Skeptics like Richard Dawkins disagree, claiming that awareness that we have "just one life and then that's it", increases its preciousness. I've never understood why he thinks that, see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqOKgCuYaVA. So why is this information not common knowledge? Well, I think there are distinct political reasons for that; this is a big subject that I've never covered properly, and I'll have to examine it in more detail in the future; but I touch upon it at the end of this article, see: http://hpanwo.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/helen-duncan.html. As I've said many times before, sometimes in jest, the quest for the MBA motivates many people to live their lives in a state of denial or hypocrisy over the prospects of an afterlife, for example see: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/andrew-copson-mba.html. Sometimes it is sheer dogmatic stubbornness and conformism in the face of a paradigm or an intellectual climate, the desire for peer-approval at any cost. This brings me onto another point. I'd like to salute Prof. Lanza for his courage. He is a mainstream academic and so he knows full well the possible consequences of the mess he's got himself into. I always follow the Skeptic media as well as the alternative one and have not heard his name mentioned yet; this is a fairly recent news story and Skeptics sometimes take a couple of months to catch up. However when they finally get their skates on they can be extremely brutal and merciless to those who oppose them, like Prof. Lanza has... and they'll be coming for him!

Geller's Island

A remarkable story has emerged concerning a small and previously insignificant island of the coast of Scotland. Lamb Island, known locally as just "the Lamb", sits in the Firth of Forth and is an uninhabited rocky islet just 320 by 160 feet across. It is very difficult to reach and has no landing facilities or buildings of any kind on it. It's a nature reserve which is home to only seabirds and a rest-stop for the occasional passing seal. Despite being only a mile off shore it is very rarely visited. However in 2009 it was bought off its previous owner, the Baron of Dirleton and Fulwood, for £30,000. The purchaser is none other than Uri Geller, one of the most curious individuals in the world today. I've discussed Uri Geller before recently here: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/the-secret-life-of-uri-geller.html. He is more than just a celebrity and stage magician; he was, and probably still is, an asset of Mossad, the CIA and perhaps other intelligence agencies. The official story is that the US Government dabbled with the idea of "psychic spies" during the Cold War and employed Geller as one of them, but the experimental project was a total failure; Geller fooled them with his illusionist tricks and that destroyed the credibility of the programme. This misspent folly is now supposedly an embarrassment which they would never repeat. I'm not so sure, for the reasons which I explain in the link above.

In this video we see the new Laird of the Lamb visiting his territory for the first time ever in 2010: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3cWf4Z2LbE.

As you can see, this involved a major publicity scoop of the kind Geller has always excelled at. At first glance once might wonder, why would the Lamb would cost as much as £30,000 (what's more Geller managed to haggle it down from £75,000!)? Unless you happen to be a seagull or puffin there seems to be nothing of any interest or use there for you; it is literally just a big rock sticking out of the sea, topped with moss and grass. Like many parts of Scotland it was formed about three hundred million years ago by volcanic activity that has now ceased. However when Geller returned from his overnight encampment on the Lamb he said "So many things happened... only the four of us (he and his three companions) know!" I'd like to know too, I must say. The reason Geller wanted the Lamb so much is that he is an avid aficionado of mystical knowledge, as am I, and he found out that the Lamb and the other islands in the archipelago it's a part of, called the Islands of the Forth, are what is known as a "land zodiac". There are several places on Earth thought to be land zodiacs, like Giza in Egypt, Glastonbury, Rennes-le-Chateau and even Kingston-upon-Thames. The natural features in a land zodiac, and sometimes artificial features too, are not placed by random but are actually sites deliberately to signify an encoded message. Often this involves some kind of sacred geometry. Another common theme has them resembling the signs of the zodiac, as the name implies, or other constellations. This kind of placement was a recurring topic in the recent Megalithomania conference, see: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/big-stones.html. Today probably the best known land zodiac is what is known as the "Orion Constellation Theory"; this states that the construction of the Giza Pyramids in Ancient Egypt was laid out deliberately to match the constellation of Orion. There's also the Avebury- Cydonia Mars connection, see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gL5qvfW5cpo. The land zodiac involving the Lamb is related to the islands nearby, Fidra, Craigleith and the others. Geller read a 15th century Scottish text which spoke of a connection to Ancient Egypt calling the islands "the Pyramids of Scotland", see: http://site.uri-geller.com/why_i_bought_lamb_island. According to a spiritual research magazine there is a network of leylines connecting these islands to Rosslyn Chapel and Bannockburn the site of the famous battle won by Robert the Bruce on June the 24th 1314. The stars in the belt of Orion exactly mirror the islands on the ground on that very night. The Knights Templar and Arthurian Legends come into the story too making the Lamb an absolute hotspot of ancient spiritual wisdom. The myth is that an exiled Egyptian prince and princess, Gaythelos and Scota, landed on the islands when they first arrived in Scotland and buried a hoard of treasure on one of them; they did this because they understood that the location was a land zodiac. However I wonder how they managed to dig a hole on the solid rocky surface of the Lamb. Geller hopes to find the treasure by dowsing on the island, using psychic means to discover it. He claims that he will donate any treasure he finds to museums in Scotland and Egypt, but if he is still working for the intelligence services, I question that. 

Hauntings- Best Evidence by Don Philips

Hauntings- Best Evidence from GSI Paranormal UK can be watched here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vr8yU-rj0Qs.

This new film by Don Philips is a follow up to two previous productions he did, this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBIwR5G51DY.

And this one, a joint production with HPANWO TV, see: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/ghostly-goings-on.html.

In this video Don interviews the staff at The Chequers Inn in Ullesthorpe, Leicestershire. The newly-appointed landlord has seen and heard strange things in his pub, which dates back to the 1700's, including an elderly woman sitting in a corner knitting; the most common recurring apparition is of a young girl called "Alice". Similar reports have come from customers and former staff dating back many years. One barman saw a small girl in a white dress running around; she disappeared into thin air when he looked away for a moment. The same man also experienced apparent poltergeist activity when he was struck on the head by a coin; not a modern coin either but an old halfpenny dated 1964 which is not legal tender today and so is unlikely to have been found lying around in the bar. Was this an apport, a physical object that materializes by spirit activity? The inn definitely a has a reputation for supernatural activity. As you often find in haunted locations, there are manifest records of death and destruction. An unknown grave was recently unearthed there after Don's spirit guides told him about it. There was apparently a major fire in the building some time during the 19th century which resulted in many deaths, including a young girl named Alice; we explain the details in the previous films linked above. Both the landlord and one of the barmaids state that they were initially sceptical, but changed their minds later on.

Don's team picked up many EVP- Electronic Voice Phenomenon, recordings during this investigation (although he prefers the term AVP- "Actual Voice Phenomenon"). At one point a child-like whisper appeared on a recorder saying very distinctly: "I'm not scared". Another male voice announced: "I'm fucking with your head!" and "You fucker!" Spirits don't always respect polite company! The most amazing incidents were when they heard voices live while they were filming. There was a child's voice saying "Mummy?" very loudly, and later on Don heard a voice saying "Mrs Wright". Also the chiming of a clock was heard when the pub doesn't have one. The night vision cameras also picked up several strange shapes. Don's team is somewhat notorious in the paranormal investigation community. There's a lot of controversy surrounding his work. Many members of both ASSAP and The Society for Psychical Research have criticized him harshly, but he is very respectful and professional at all times when on an investigation and follows a strict code of conduct. He is quite open in his methods and allows all the equipment he uses to be examined at all times. In the end what counts is the evidence, nothing else. Hopefully a time will come when his contribution will gain the recognition it deserves.

Mystery Object spotted on the Moon

The Daily Mail is not often a source of quality journalism, but occasionally within the dung heap of right wing paranoia and narrow minded resentment, a gem peeks out, like here, see: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2541410/What-mystery-object-spotted-Google-Moon-Bizarre-wedge-shaped-craft-appears-lunar-surface.html. This story appeared in the newspaper's science section... yes, believe it or not the Mail does have one... and it is baffling. It is centred around a photograph of an object discovered on the moon that looks very artificial. The method of discovery is not a telescope or spacecraft, but Google Moon, a programme similar to Google Earth, but for the moon. The article speculates that it might be a secret NASA moon base or maybe an artefact from an extraterrestrial civilization. The object is pretty large, it measures 410 by 295 feet and is wedge or chevron-shaped. It looks to me as if the light-coloured segment above is part of the structure and that the inner surface is concave, like the detached roof of a house. Along the near edge facing the camera are seven structures that are evenly-spaced and regular in size and shape. A row of circles, three on one side, three on the other and one on the apex; it seems highly unlikely that such a formation could emerge by accident.

We hear a lot about artificial-looking objects being found on other planets, but most of those objects are found on Mars; few are seen on our cosmic neighbour. At one time liquid water flowed on the surface of Mars as it does today on Earth. This means that in the distant past Mars must have had a far denser atmosphere and it must have been a hell of a lot warmer. If Earth-like conditions existed on Mars, why couldn't it have had complex life like Earth's? Perhaps an intelligent animal-like species evolved that could create large structures like the Face on Mars and Cydonia etc, see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4ZXzlpcv3o. However this whole notion is almost universally rejected by academics; these structures are all supposedly natural formations caused by plate tectonics, meteorites, volcanoes or erosion. Why? In distant future ages it's possible Earth may change to become arid and airless like Mars is today. This would sadly kill most of our life. Imagine at the same time Venus changed too, to become cooler and more habitable and that life evolved there. The organisms on Venus might develop to the point where they can send spacecraft to Earth and examine its dry and barren surface. They may see the remains of any artificial structures we built which are sturdy enough to survive that long, the Giza Pyramids, Hadrian's Wall etc. Will those future Venusians be in the same state of denial that we are today?... Or will they be the victim of a cover-up too? Yes, I think there is a knowing cover-up of this information and have said so for a long time, see: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/bbc-blocks-brian-cox-over-alien-fears.html.

As for the moon, it's a different story. The moon has never had an atmosphere or liquid water at all. Its geology, or selenology if you want to be pedantic, is born out of meteors impacting its crust. However, this does not mean it has not been visited by intelligences which come from other planets, including Earth of course (No, I don't mean the official history of that, see: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/marcus-allen-at-bis-update.html). Several of Dr Steven Greer's Disclosure Project witnesses have spoken of seeing uncensored images of bases of the moon, either alien or human or maybe both, see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4hycqDNnPE and: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEBLmWhx1K0. These photographs were then doctored by NASA to remove any trace of the bases before they were released to the public. Perhaps one of these restricted images has somehow, by accident or design, made its way onto Google Moon. If it's by design, I'd like to thank whoever did it. Oddly enough The Daily Mail posts a link to a YouTube video which is the source for the story; however the video is the original one. I would have expected them to publish a clipped version or even upload and clip their own. The first thing you see on the vid is the word "Annunaki", see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EBzotgriEI. I'm astonished that this was not censored. I hope a few people who've never seen the word before Google it.

World Bank Whistleblower

Russia Today, one of the few decent news outfits left in the world, have featured an explosive new interview with Karen Hudes, a former official of the World Bank, see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hgA9j-4dB0. She was sacked from her job and decided to speak out; this was due to her exposure of the Bank's corrupt actions in the Philippines. She believes that we're on the brink of a "currency war". The US Dollar is about to cease to be accepted tender in most of the world. The Federal Reserve has increased the supply to its maximum possible level just to keep it from crashing and that was what the entire recent US Government shutdown was all about. Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa all want something that was considered out of the question a few years ago, trade goods for gold. However Ms Hudes is worried that market manipulation is devaluing gold, I think possibly as a warning to those countries who wish to trade with it instead of good old Papa Dollar. This reminds me distinctly of the petrodollar theory of the War on Terror, how David Frum's "Axis of Evil" countries have in common that they are economically independent of the Federal Reserve and have been trading oil in Euroes. I think the decision finally to remove Colonel Gaddafi from power in Libya was based on his gold-based banking plan. Ms Hudes says that there are "corrupt forces" controlling both the Democratic and Republican parties in America. There is a massive amount of lies and corruption in the US Government right now. Secretaries and senators are colluding over Obamacare and unemployment figures etc and the foundation of it all is this economic insanity, a financial system based on debt that not only breaches the US Constitution, it was not even ratified properly by Congress and so only exists as an illegal myth, as G Edward Griffin has discovered, see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lu_VqX6J93k. This situation has reached the level of lunacy that debt itself can be treated like economic capital; it can be bought or sold like gold, oil or anything else, see here for more details: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/give-me-back-my-debt.html. Ms Hudes also talks about a "secret super-entity" of executive businessmen who are strategically and tactically manipulating the corporate world to get their own people into key positions of power in the boardrooms. Over 43,000 companies have been infiltrated and are currently controlled by this secret super-entity. At a higher level, no doubt, it is also allied to the Federal Reserve which is behind the dollar glut.

The main strategy in progress by whoever controls the financial world, the Illuminati I reckon, is to shift the balance of power from the USA to the Far East, especially China. China is being established as the superpower of the 21st century in the same way America was in the 20th and Britain was in the 19th. However I suspect India also has a key role to play. According to Ms Hudes this is being done via the Jesuits, one of the most powerful organizations in the world; I expect they operate through the organized crime syndicates too, like the Triads. Despite her admirable actions in blowing the whistle and her unquestionable courage and sense of duty, she appears very naive on some matters in this interview. She thinks that all the injured parties in this mess will return to the Gold Standard currency once they've got down together and worked it all out; or at least a money supply based on real goods, other precious metals, food or water. There will be no serious economic collapse according to Ms Hudes; just a tricky period of instability followed by a positive revolution in economics. The currency war will not lead to any real war, just a currency armistice and new financial order. She's very keen on the notion of "positive banking", small local financial institutions; I totally agree, see: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/bank-of-dave.html. I'm not so sure that she's got all the answers though; Ms Hudes assumes that the financial collapse is an accident and that the goal of all the players involved in this problem is to solve it. What if that's not the case and the objective is to aggravate the situation to the point where we will experience economic Armageddon and all out war will kick off? Why not? This is exactly what has happened before in history many times. They know they need chaos to create order "Ordo ab Chao", as the Masonic motto goes. I applaud Ms Hudes for what she's done, but ask her to look at the bigger picture and wonder if more might be going on behind the scenes than even she has discovered.

Edward Snowden- UFO Disclosure

Fars News, a news agency based in Iran, has apparently made a startling assertion, that some of the secret documents currently awaiting publication by renegade spy Edward Snowden are confirmation that an extraterrestrial intelligence has been involved politically with the human race for at least eighty years. Since Snowden defected from the National Security Agency in June 2013 he has made public some surprising exposés (Well, not so surprising for us "conspiracy nuts"; we've been predicting what he has confirmed since the year dot!), see: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/ben-emlyn-jones-on-mind-set-podcast-24.html. Snowden has not released all his information in one go, but has done so tactically, in several waves. He has made it known that he is still sitting on many further documents that he has the option of using, to publicize many more revelations in the future from his sanctuary in Russia. Of course many of us are wondering what secrets the NSA has... or had... which are now in Snowden's hands. Will we get to hear about them as well soon? There is a lot of speculation about what might be in those files, but this takes the biscuit! Could it be true?

Yes it certainly could; in fact it would fit perfectly with what many other insiders have been saying for years. It would confirm what dedicated researchers have already found out about the Roswell Incident and other similar events, for example see: http://hpanwo-radio.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/programme-46-podcast-citizen-hearing.html. However, we must be cautious not to jump too eagerly to welcome conclusions. If you Google "Edward Snowden UFO" you will find several dozen webpages on this subject. They claim that aliens were behind the Nazi regime and after World War II moved to the United States and run the country from Area 51. This is certainly an idea I take seriously, see: http://hpanwo.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/jack-of-antarctic.html, but will we find proof of it from Edward Snowden? All the webpages on this subject I can find source back to this one, see: http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index1730.htm. The article on the 11th of January claims that Snowden dropped some hints about the UFO cover-up in an email to Glenn Greenwald, a journalist at The Guardian who has been instrumental in publicizing the Snowden disclosures, however the source link to that statement is simply this: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/snowden-and-greenwald-the-men-who-leaked-the-secrets-20131204; it says absolutely nothing about UFO's. The Whatdoesitmean.com article then says that the Rt. Hon. Paul Hellyer MP, the former Minister of Defence for Canada and a hero in the ET Disclosure world, has all the starting prices on everything Snowden knows about this subject and the documents proving it include the classified transcript of a conversation between Hellyer and an official of the FSB, the Russian intelligence agency. Hellyer has recently returned to the limelight at the age of ninety-five when he did an amazing interview about UFO's and how they relate to national security on Russia Today, see: http://rt.com/shows/sophieco/%D1%81anada-minister-defense-ufo-959/. What happens next could determine whether this information about Snowden and UFO's is either proved real or put to bed. Hellyer will be asked to comment on whether he really does know what he is supposed to know, and whether this classified conversation with a Russian secret agent actually did take place. Also, of course, Snowden may release the documents under discussion; however he may be reluctant to because of the explosive nature of their content. Also there's the simple fact that Russia may be granting him political asylum but that gesture is somewhat lukewarm. If his new publications involve FSB secrets as well as NSA ones the Russians may decide he's outstayed his welcome in their country. I visited the website of Fars News and did a quick search under "UFO"; this is the only page I came up with: http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13921022000210. It is about UFO's, and it is interesting in itself, but it is not related to the information posited in Whatdoesitmean.com. Iran has done some good media work in recent years with Press TV etc; this is all the more reason not to misquote them. We shall see how this matter develops, but at the moment it's very confusing and the source information is shallow. I'll be sure to report anything significant updates on the issue in future on HPANWO. 

Jack McLamb Dies

I'm sorry to announce that Jack McLamb has died, see: http://deadlinelive.info/2014/01/13/rip-officer-jack-mclamb/. The police officer who founded Police against the New World Order (later Police and Military against the New World Order) inspired me to set up HPANWO. I thought, if the police can have an organization against the NWO, why not Hospital Porters? His aim was to support his fellow policemen who didn't want to be used as agents to bring in the global Orwellian dictatorship that he knew was planned. He had first hand experience of the brutality of the state when he volunteered to be a negotiator in the Ruby Ridge atrocity. A man called Randy Weaver and his family were living in a remote house in the forest at a place called Ruby Ridge in Idaho, USA. Weaver had been enjoying an ordinary life until he came across information that made him become conspiratorially-aware. He decided to try to hide from the New World Order in the deepest place in the countryside he could find. Sadly the FBI tried to recruit him as an informer through blackmail, and when he refused an entire regiment of FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms soldiers laid siege to the little farmhouse at Ruby Ridge. After they shot one of Weaver's dogs, a gunfight broke out in which Weaver's son Sammy and his wife Vicki were killed. Vicki was shot through the head while holding her baby daughter. McLamb managed to talk Weaver down before the FBI and BATF stormed the house, which would probably have resulted in the deaths of all the surviving members of the family. See here for a documentary on the case: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28kvrPXj-6U. The passing of Jack McLamb comes after a series of losses for the alternative community, see: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/lloyd-pye-dies.html and: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/colin-wilson-dies.html and: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/jim-tucker-dies.html. Jack McLamb was a life-saver as well as a dedicated researcher and activist. Rest in Peace.

Fracking Bribery

See here for essential background: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/bbc-horizon-does-fracking.html.

And: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/energy-price-rises.html.

The prime minister has announced that local communities which have fracking wells on their land will receive a massive business rate rebate, see: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-25705550. As the lady in the second interview says, the Government are simply getting desperate to persuade people to accept fracking. This is effectively a bribe. This desperation is a welcome sight and it will be no more welcome to anybody than the gallant protesters at Balcombe and Barton Moss. Here's a UK Column programme about the good work they've been doing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4KTozjFnFc. The opposition to fracking has spread across the world. Australia has been hit badly, but they have hit back harder. They've even produced a song about it featuring Leo Sayer, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xfo0hpVrtrs.

UFO sighting in Bremen, Germany

A major UFO report has come out of Germany. Last Tuesday a mysterious object was spotted over Bremen in the northwest of the country. It appeared and disappeared several times between 4.30 and 9.30 PM. The city's airport was disrupted as a result and many flights were cancelled or diverted. The object was detected on radar and also seen by eyewitnesses on the ground; eventually a police helicopter tried to intercept it. It appeared to be very like a man-made aircraft, with the correct navigation lights etc; this does not mean that it was. It could be of course. The noise it gave off was like an aircraft, but "too loud", see: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/germany-ufo-bremen-airport-unidentified-3000934. A video has been released claiming to be of the Bremen UFO. It's interesting in its content, but it does not match the descriptions and so I suspect it is of an entirely separate incident, see: http://www.marca.com/2014/01/08/en/football/international_football/1389205422.html. At one point the object hovered close to Bremen's Weser Stadium. This is not the first time a UFO has been drawn towards a major sporting venue, see: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/football-ufo-in-florence.html.

Unknown objects that bear a moderate resemblance to man-made aircraft are a common and distinct category of UFO. We all know that sometimes people see a bird, a plane or kite etc in the sky and mistakenly think it's a flying saucer; indeed this accounts for the majority of UFO reports; but the opposite is true as well. At first glance they may be mistaken for a conventional aircraft, but then the witness will notice that it is behaving strangely; making no sound, or the wrong sound. It might change shape or move in a way a conventional aircraft cannot. There are two good examples of such sightings near where I live. My friend and fellow researcher Ellis Taylor has reported in his book Dogged Days how he saw an object hovering in the sky completely still and silent near Eynsham, Oxfordshire. However it was exactly the same size and shape as a small executive jet, see: http://www.biggyboo.com/doggeddays.html. A similar object was seen in Headington in Oxford a few months later, about ten miles from where Ellis had his encounter. The second encounter was reported to me personally by a young woman who was a cleaner at my hospital. She approached me in private after she'd heard me talking about UFO's to a group of my colleagues; I suspect she hadn't told anybody before because I was the first person she'd met who took the matter seriously. She certainly had never heard of Ellis or his book. She is Hungarian and speaks only sub-fluent English, but after talking to her for twenty minutes or so I was left in no doubt over her description. So keep watching the skies, but watch carefully the things you do initially recognize, as well as those you don't.

Neon Nettle Article

At the end of November I submitted an article to the online magazine Neon Nettle, see: http://neonnettle.com/. It's a publication which focuses on alternative and anti-establishment news and features; just up my street! Unfortunately the article has not been published. Not to worry, I'll put it here on HPANWO so you can read it; it's a slightly expanded and reedited edition too. It's very topical and concerns the rise of the database state and advanced surveillance technology:

Big Brother is Downloading you

(Draft submitted to Neon Nettle on 28th of November 2013)

We're living in an age of hope and terror. Hope because humanity has developed technology that would look like magic to those who were alive during the youth of your own grandparents. This technology makes our lives easier, safer and more enjoyable in a myriad of ways. Whether it's knowing which exit to take on a roundabout in Swindon or talking to somebody on the other side of the Earth with the same ease as we do our next door neighbour. Never before has the world been changed so much by the simple application of man-made tools. At the heart of this technological revolution is electronics. We can now create machines that can virtually think; and think even better than we can, in some ways at least. The benefits of this power are almost limitless, indeed we've already pushed those limits a long way. However these technological marvels are still just tools, every bit as much as the stick one of our ape ancestors picked up to break open an anthill. What they are used for is completely dependent on the person wielding them; even the most powerful computer in the world will never be able to turn to its operator and say: "Stop! I'm not going to let you use me for this." Along with the benefits of any technology we also have to consider its potential for abuse, that it might be applied to a malevolent purpose. In 1949 George Orwell published his best known novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, in which he cleverly foresees much of the gadgetry we've since invented and how a tyrannical government could use it to maintain its power. These include the "telescreen", a household device that acts as both a television and a spy camera; and we've just heard that such a contraption has come true, "Smart TV" (Daily Mail 28/11/13).    

This is why I was so disturbed when my ten year old daughter came home from school one day and announced: "Dad, the school want to take my fingerprints." This was the first I'd heard of it; it turns out it was announced on page 4 of the school newsletter (teach me not to read it regularly!). It said that the school would be creating a database of the pupil's fingerprints to use in an electronic registration system for the library. They weren't asking permission, they were telling us they were going to do it. I immediately called the school and demanded to speak to the headmistress; she said that she knew nothing about it. This was surprising seeing as she was in charge of the school. She said she'd look into it and get back to me in an hour or two. She didn't. I called her back three or four times over the next few days, but she was somehow always "out of the office". Eventually I got a response, but I was fobbed off onto the librarian. "We want to reassure you, Mr Emlyn-Jones," she wheedled, "All the children are perfectly safe at this school. The electronic reader only takes one small segment of the print, not the whole finger, and it's stored on a highly secure encrypted database." I replied that this was not the point; once the database had been created then it would only take one decision to adapt it. With this issue it's important to take into account capabilities, not professed intents. But my main concern was that it was psychologically and culturally conditioning the youngest members of society to accept constant monitoring with biometric ID as normal. When they grow up they won't expect anything different, whereas adults have their memory to remind them of an alternative in the past. In Orwell's book, the character Winston Smith finds his path to freedom through memories of nursery rhymes he learned and other aspects of life before Big Brother came to power. It is the children Winston fears most because they were born under Big Brother's rule and cannot imagine an alternative. After hearing nothing more from the school I wrote to the headmistress saying that I withholding my consent for my child to be fingerprinted or have any biometric data taken from her under any circumstances. I said that if any member of staff tried to do this I’d instructed her to refuse and refer that staff member to me. I received no reply, but my daughter was not fingerprinted.

The media is full of science pundits who gush lasciviously over every new breakthrough without ever considering if it could cause us to forge our own shackles. There is almost no function of this world now that cannot be carried out via a computer. We're even putting computers inside our bodies; yes, this has already been done. Many people now walk around with their bank details and medical records on microprocessors placed under the skin. It's been done to dogs for years. Electronic implants will become more and more sophisticated and may end up more popular. We can use them to replace everything, even front door keys. Imagine your front door connected to a massive computer; no more worrying about burglars. No need for cash or credit cards, you can do all your shopping on your microchip. Experts in biometrics are even proposing blending the human body with computers to the point where they merge; this is called transhumanism. Again, its supporters are only willing to consider its benefits. We need a moment of pause to ask ourselves whether our own ideas of what is best for humanity are shared by the political classes. If all our lives are controlled by a computer then whoever controls the computer controls our lives to an extent no government has ever been able to before. What if that ruler decides he doesn't want you to do any shopping or open your front door? What if you're no longer even a natural human and are an electronic cyborg? Then punishing dissidents couldn't be easier: just press FORMAT- RESTART. So, personally I'll stick with my keys and coins, thank you.

(Edit 12/1/14) Apologies! I should have looked harder. Neon Nettle did in fact publish the article: http://neonnettle.com/blogs/8-is-big-brother-downloading-you-.

Indoctrination into Non-belief

Unlike most others in the conspiratorial/paranormal/alternative community I take a keen interest in our antithetical numbers in the Skeptic media. I've covered this in great detail in the background links below. One of the most prevalent things I've noticed in my study of the Skeptic movement is an endemic lack of introspection on their part, a fundamental misunderstanding of themselves. Ask a Skeptic to define their own position and they'll say something like this: “A Skeptic is one who… rigorously and openly applies the methods of science and reason to all empirical claims… A Skeptic provisionally proportions acceptance of any claim to valid logic and a fair and thorough assessment of available evidence, and studies the pitfalls of human reason and the mechanisms of deception so as to avoid being deceived by others or themselves" (source: http://oxford.skepticsinthepub.org/Default.aspx/19/What-is-a-Skeptic). However this is not a description at all, it is a slogan. There are those who actually do emulate that passage with their action, but I call them sceptics, not Skeptics; note the different spelling. These two words are homophones so when speaking I just say "sceptic with a C" and "Skeptic with a K". I consider myself a sceptic, or at least I aspire to such. What is a Skeptic with a K? A far more accurate definition would be: "A Skeptic is one who is ideologically uncomfortable with the idea that the paranormal, conspiracy theories and associated subjects might be real and wishes for them not to be. A Skeptic tries to prove that such subjects do not exist in order to artificially prop up their worldview, sometimes using science and reason, but also rhetoric, denial, deception and subterfuge." A sub-category of the Skeptics is what I call atheo-Skeptics, Skeptics who combine general Skepticism with a positive and active disbelief in God and rejection of all religion; the best example being Richard Dawkins, see: http://hpanwo.blogspot.co.uk/2008/04/god-delusion-by-richard-dawkins.html. Along with being the world's most famous atheist, Dawkins is also an outspoken Skeptic, for example see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CyMglakWoo.

A few other commentators have pointed out the same criticism of atheo-Skepticism that I have, for example Rod Liddle in The Trouble with Atheism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i20vLIgBt4M. However the atheo-Skeptics themselves seem to live in blissful ignorance of their worldview's structural flaws. I came across an interesting example the other day on the well-known Skeptic radio show The Skeptics Guide to the Universe. The subject under discussion is the upbringing of children in a Skeptic household. One of the presenters explains how a friend of his is a secular humanist and tried to bring up his daughter to be one too by teaching her to be a critical thinker. However when she grew up she became a Buddhist and her father wasn't happy about that. He considers his parental philosophy a mistake and says that if he could go back and start again he would "indoctrinate her into non-belief". See here from 47.20 (There's no time stamp on the online player so you may need to download the programme to skip to the right place): http://www.theskepticsguide.org/podcast/sgu/10. This explosive statement seems to flow straight past the SGU presenters without raising a ripple. For some reason they fail to grasp the enormous implications of what they've just been talking about. Indoctrination into non-belief? This is a vitally significant concession for an atheo-Skeptic to make. They're admitting that critical thinking is not enough, that atheo-Skepticism is indeed an ideology that can be rejected through critical thinking; that rational, logical and scientific thought sometimes needs to be suppressed in order to maintain the ideology of atheo-Skepticism, and that one is justified in doing so. Skeptics spend a lot of time studying and criticising us "buh-leevas" in conspiratorial, supernatural and spiritual ideas. Maybe they should turn around and take a good long look at themselves too.

See here for important background: http://hpanwo-radio.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/programme-5-podcast-skeptics.html.
And: http://hpanwo-radio.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/programme-48-podcast-steve-trueblue.html.

And: http://hpanwo.blogspot.co.uk/2010/10/tam-london-2010.html.

And: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/skeptics-evolution-and-revolution.html.