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I thought I would upload a picture of my new bike to promote JaF as I was offered such an amazing service that I feel Josh deserves something in return. I experienced a very prompt service with communication and an interest in my needs that went well beyond expectations. The value/service ratio is high. The bike rides really well. The steel feels good with the right amount of dampening - I don't see myself returning to alu at any point. I'm happy and definitely recommend using JaF

Should be there with a few other west-country people.

http://www.fair.org/blog/2013/04/19/fair-tv-boston-bombing-defining-terrorism-social-security-bravery/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=fair-tv-boston-bombing-defining-terrorism-social-security-bravery

I still think even they act to narrow the range of discussion unfortunately. Their general support of the Iraq war despite its obvious illegality and lies indicates to us that they are still part of that system although, that being said, there are some excellent dissenting voices. Robert Fisk, Seamus Milne, George Monbiot, Owen Jones and Glenn Greenwald of those papers are excellent and honest journalists. It's just a shame they make up a minority.

I don't think the media works in such a way that everyone is plotting to deceive you. It works in a much more subtle way and its propaganda isn't complete. Often there is just a trend to report things in certain ways such as focusing on governmental officials as sources of information or choosing the business world for their views on matters rather properly offering a diverse interpretation. There's no conscious choice, just a system of unexamined tendencies that protect profits and powerful interests. I find the mainstream media can offer very intelligent and accurate reporting. It's just that in particular areas of politics the tendency to protect power happens more. As soon as you consider media as a business and all the ties that brings, it makes sense.

I don't think the alternative is a complete lack of trust in everyone and everything but, instead, a lack of trust in those things that, upon analysis of specific evidence, etc. have been proved to be untrustworthy. What proceeds that is simply an openness to the possibility that certain assumptions you may have made could be incorrect regardless of how common or conventional they seem to be. A further point is that conspiracies exist but just because one is true doesn't mean all others are. Again, everything has to be judged on its specific merits and validated or discarded with accordingly.

'In his novel 1984, Orwell wrote about the conditioned reflex of "stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought . . . and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction."' http://www.stopwar.org.uk/index.php/usa-war-on-terror/2391-boston-and-afghanistan-a-tale-of-two-children-and-two-terrorisms

Video about the book I mentioned, Manufacturing Consent that analysis the media and finds institutional propaganda. It's very interesting and compelling stuff, grounded in political scientific method: http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=9977

When did I say I was the only one "smart" enough to see it? I think everyone is capable once they consider the facts; facts that I have offered yet you have ignored. Feel free to fit me into your psychological model once you've discredited that evidence but until then your application of that model doesn't stand. The model you're talking about is not about the truthfulness of a theory but about somebodies need to generate meaning in their life at the expense of truth. If what I'm saying has truth then you can't apply the model. Feel free to watch the following TED on creative intelligence and how the schooling system kills it. TED conferences are scientifically prestigious and you won't really find conspiracy theorists or idiots there. Mostly sound reasoning grounded in good evidence. http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html Actually medical care, schooling, etc. were the probably the most advanced in the Middle East. The level of literacy was very high (link). I wasn't denying that Sadam did a lot of nasty things but the quality of life and amount of deaths differs massively. Also, actually, those figures relate specifically to the consequences of war. They are founded on methods that are scientifically peer reviewed and accepted as valid. The Lancet (link), one of the most prestigious medical journals there is, has produced two reports on deaths related specifically to the invasion - causes such as the invasion itself, destruction of infrastructure leading to death (water, sanitation, etc.), etc. - the last of which was in 2006 and found there had been 654,965 deaths as a result of the invasion. This is following the millions deaths that followed from the sanctions after the first gulf war. I forget which more recent reports suggest over a million deaths due to the second gulf war but, I think, the Lancet numbers are sufficient for my point. You can include civil war as a cause but that is the result of invasion. Sadam maintained relative peace between various religious factions. This is something which must be accounted for as a consequence of invasion. Regarding dictators, I'm offering you a direction to investigate what I say by considering events in the 20th century such as Nicaragua, El Salvador, The Domican Republic, Indonesia, and so on. Rather than actually doing that though you just make more assumptions without looking at any facts. I also didn't say that we are simply fine with dictators, I said that we are fine with dictators that serve our purposes. We have a problem with anyone that interferes with out interests be they democratically elected leaders or dictators. You said I didn't offer any facts but that's a complete lie or, at best, a total misunderstanding of what I've written. I've even offered you some of the sources for my information. Are government documents, for example, not enough? I am, ultimately, only offering you limited examples but you're criticising the amount of detail I'm going into? I'm offering you a direction but without wanting to explore it you are shooting me down. At no point have you adequately addressed my points. We live in a western world that has the potential for democracy. The institution definitely exists in a sense. However, a definite requirement of democracy is an informed populace and we lack that. The way politics is presented by the mainstream media serves a certain world view; a world view of wealthy interests. Does it not make sense that newspapers, television, etc. are generally owned by wealthy people or exist in a conglomerate (as part of a group of businesses) and therefore, ultimately, they will serve the world view of those owners or the advertisers that bring them revenue? In Manufacturing Consent by Chomsky, we find a statistical analysis of the emphasis and amount of reporting that goes into official enemies against official friends. Indonesia and East Timor, the first of which was a CIA and UK sponsored coup that helped install the General Saharto (spelling) in place of President Sakarno (spelling) didn't feature in the news. Neither did the genocide of the East Timorise by the military dictatorship of Saharto. Sadam's atrocities didn't feature very much in the news until he stopped being useful and then his atrocities were fully displayed to justify war. There's so much to say and I've offered so many jumping off grounds. It's up to you if you actually want to properly investigate what I've said if you really want to refute it or whether you want to keep coming at it without really knowing about it. Again, this sort of thing doesn't come from conspiracy nuts but is grounded in political scientific study, academia, etc. Feel free to skirt around my points my calling my writing style boring or whatever. I'm pretty disinterested in this sort of dig at my character. I'm only really interested if you're willing to actually consider my points seriously and argue against them with good evidence and reasoning. You've not really offered that. You've clearly not investigated anything yet you've continued to deny it. There's not really much else I can say other than repeating myself.

It was a conspiracy according to the meaning of the word and when placed into the context of why these conspiracies are done - not for noble reasons - but gains in power, resources, etc. it becomes a significant conspiracy. Why would you downplay the choice to lie about a serious threat to justify an action that has resulted in the death of over a million Iraqis? In actual fact, life under Sadam prior to the first Gulf War, although not great, was substantially better than how it is now. There was significant infrastructure like hospitals, schools, water, power, etc. which have all be destroyed through the two wars and sanctions. We were also fine with Sadam whilst he gassed the Kurds and exploited his people in the 80s. It was only when he no longer supported our interests that we suddenly pointed out his atrocities. Iraq is still a dictatorship of sorts. It is called a democracy because saying anything else works against the illusion of a noble Western intent. Western governments are fine with dictators providing they tow the line. Just consider our relationship to Saudi Arabia or the situation in South America. If intervention were to happen it should be grounded in good humanitarian intentions but it is not. Here you are buying into the myth that it is. Furthermore, the evidence is that intervention simply does not work; it usually causes more problems. However, this should be judged on a case by case situation. Again, there's an underlying assumption throughout your words. It's the only reason you can have most of them. If a dictator removes another dictator claiming it's about 'democracy' and 'freeing' those people you wouldn't say, "oh, it's okay because a dictator was removed" but, rather, you would recognise that this was just going to cause more problems. We live in a democracy, only by name, as does America. Powerful business interests dominate the direction of our politics which are essentially totalitarian. Once you see it in these terms, the whole notion of helping people and actually achieving good falls to pieces. You have almost entirely ignored my previous points. This is what frustrates me about talking to about these matters. The response is often reflexive rather than thoughtful and expressed in conventional rationalisations for imperialistic atrocity. Millions have died in Iraq and many more have a terrible quality of life because of western intervention. Sadam caused a minute fraction of comparable suffering. That doesn't mean I'm justifying Sadam who was, in many respect, a monster but I simply want to trash the myth of our mythical noble efforts actually amounting to anything good.

Also, my motivations aren't about ego. I don't care about being in the know. I often take my time to read about current affairs, history, etc. despite my general disinterest in politics. In an ideal world my 'intellectual' focus would be entirely upon philosophy and religion. However, I do it because I understand that social life is an ever-present struggle between having your freedoms and people taking them away from you. We are in a particularly free period of life, within the West at least, but a lot of the freedoms we have won across history are being eroded. Assuming things will always stay free and fair is ignorant. Even a basic understanding of history should make us aware of this. Freedom also isn't just about what you can do physically but is also about how you are able to think - we can have the illusion of freedom even though our thinking has been significantly shaped to blot out various ways of looking at the world that might better serve us. Schooling destroys lateral/creative thinking as studies have shown. Children possess creative intelligence that if I an adult had the same levels we would call them a genius yet children have that part of them dulled. Learning is the process of unquestioningly absorbing 'facts' from 'official' sources which includes learning to shun anything outside those official 'facts'. It's the basis for unquestioningly believing in the intrinsic good of our system and noble intentions of those in power. If you deny this, to what extent are you doing it with proper consideration and to what extent are you doing it unquestioningly, reflexively? Because it's very difficult to start thinking in ways that go against how you've been taught to think for years. I constantly fail and blatantly in lots of ways I've been duped and have narrow thinking. I say this because I have no interest in painting a picture of a completely illuminated person bringing my awesomeness to fools. I am also a fool but, in some senses, through painful effort, I have found that certain things are not as they seem - I am still a fool though and getting away from that is a work in progress I want people to know about this reality, which I am confident is more real, because I hate the idea that we are exploiting and killing people both abroad and at home so that a small minority can benefit in ways that matter so much less than the general well-being of humanity.

Well, the first and last paragraphs acted like an introduction and a conclusion in the sense that they offered kind of summaries to my points. It wasn't my most articulate effort but I wrote it late and was on codeine for my wisdom tooth. I apologise if it's less articulate than it could be and difficult to understand. However, unless you want me to just say that governments conspire and offer no evidence supporting that assertion then you're placing me in a catch-22. If I summarize without facts by making my arguments shorter you criticize me as being a baseless conspiracy nut and if I go into reasonable, albeit what I still consider to be a very short, description of things that includes good evidence I'm criticized for being overwhelming. I am saying that governments conspire and this is not a conspiracy theory but a conspiracy fact grounded in evidence such as actual government documents which explicitly show the intent to lie, exploit, etc. regarding illegal war, invasion, undermining democracies etc. Western governments have a lot of blood on their hands and this should make us suspicious about the stories they tell and what lengths they will go to in achieving their goals. Again, I am offering you definite facts. Those facts are what you should be addressing. Simply labelling me anything and skirting around those facts to avoid them isn't reasonable. I am also saying that we are generally not exposed to these facts because our media systems (The BBC, ITV, newspapers, etc.) are ultimately either founded by government or run by business which creates bias. Medialens and books such as Manufacturing Consent by Chomsky and Hermann offer a systematic analysis of this grounded in well referenced facts.

http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/new_york_post_under_fire_for_bogus_boston_marathon_bag_men_story_20130418/

The trouble with all of this and why I think it's perhaps easy to readily assume, perhaps more so than we should, that the causes of things are other than they are given to us by 'officials' and/or 'official' sources is that governments do definitely conspire to do unlawful things. This isn't really debatable when you consider that the evidence of it happening, for example, is often contained in declassified documentation where the conspiracy is found in explicit terms. For instance, prior to the Iraq invasion, Blair and his cabinet were well aware that Sadam no longer had a WMD program and, therefore, they must fabricate a reason for the invasion. The USA had already decided an invasion was going to happen and the UK was going to join them. What mattered next was how to spin a justification - lie - so that popular opinion would consent. This fact can be found in the recorded minutes from a cabinet meeting that were eventually declassified by the efforts of a scholar who I'll mention at the end of this paragraph. The mainstream media blindly repeated the lie that Sadam was a WMD threat - rather than properly critique it - and even to the present, they frame the 'failure' in terms of failed intelligence rather than fabricated intelligence and motives that were not noble (freedom, democracy, etc.). It was human error rather than callous, greedy intent. This despite the fact of the recorded minutes that I mentioned and also that UN weapons inspectors were unable to find evidence of WMDs prior to the invasion. This constitutes a conspiracy by our government to manipulate our consent by lying at the cost of what seems to now be over 1 million Iraqi lives as a result of the invasion. If anyone is interested in difficult to dispute evidence regarding all of this Mark Curtis' book "Unpeople" is well worth a read. Regarding 9/11 I'm less inclined to believe the conspiracy about the government being involved in the planning, etc. but more open to them having let it happen. There are an array of things that happened, such as anomalous stock movements regarding the airlines involved, strangely ineffective defences, etc. that, at the very least, are suggestive. Before people simply brush off such evidence as conspiracy nonsense they should actually consider the evidence itself before doing so. Not doing so is to be just as stupid as simply believing it uncritically. At best, the US government exploited the situation. They lied about Sadam's connection to the attack which was a total fabrication. Almost immediately a list of seven countries in the Middle East was written up for invasion beginning with Iraq and including Iran, Syria and others (I forget which) with the attacks as a justification. America has a long interest in Imperialism within the 20th century. George Keenan who was in Eisenhower's administration in around the middle of the 20th century expressed how that America made up only a small part of the world's population but also owned most of its wealth - obviously to the detriment of other nations - and this must be maintained, advanced and, if necessary, done by force. The general theme of that time was that Central/South America, the Middle East and parts of Asia would come under their control by making sure governments were aligned with their power interests. If they resisted they would be met with force of one form or another whether that meant direct intervention or sponsorship of coups, etc. Vietnam was not about communism but rather about a nation that had freed itself from French colonial power. This was not permissible because it might set an example that other slave nations might respond to. South America has seen huge amounts of terrorism on the part of American sponsorship of right wing guerilla groups - i.e. the Contras in Nicaragua I already mentioned. It tends to be a requirement that US friendly governments are dictatorships of one for or another. The reason being that most people aren't interested in losing their resources to another country whilst they live in poverty and therefore need to be controlled oppressively. The sorts of stories that come out of American sponsored states in South America are really horrifying. These countries are often called democracies (Orwellian double-speak) despite simply not being that and, of course, countries that don't fall into line with America's power interests are usually demonised and called dictatorships. Doing so brings about our consent to invade, kill, terrorise, etc. We have been duped by the myth of noble western governments bringing peaceful democracy to backward countries by blowing them up and murdering them... That's a contradiction even within the myth which should make people question the very nature of it. Most of you probably don't know about this because the mainstream media mostly offers accounts that accord with 'official' sources. Scholarly analysis of the mainstream media as essentially, when it counts, a propaganda machine is very compelling. Essentially, the mainstream media is usually corporate and therefore orientated toward profit. An outlet might exist as part of a group of other businesses and will definitely have a specific owner/s which instantly creates bias but, more importantly, profit is made through advertising which limits the type of criticism which can arise. Advertisers will withdraw themselves and the revenue they offer if something is said that it doesn't like. The situation is more complex with additional reasons for bias and a framing of news within 'official' boundaries but I don't have time to go into anymore detail. In others words though, governments do conspire. This doesn't mean that everything that happens is a government conspiracy but it does mean it shouldn't be ruled out prior to a proper consideration of the available facts. Government involvement can vary between direct involvement, indirect or simply letting something happen in order to gain some benefit - such as a justification for something else. There is a well documented, non-theoretical wealth of evidence that tells a very different story of foreign and domestic policy in the western world. A lot of people don't know this because people are generally good and wouldn't really stand for such horrific things being done in their name so the system is rigged to distract them and lie to them. A systematic analysis based on facts reveals this and not a conspiracy theory. Facts are offered and so simply applying the label 'conspiracy' (in a derogatory sense) or suggesting that it's being made up for egotistical reasons is the wrong response. Facts should be responded to according to their truth value which you can only really decide upon by exploring their source and reasonableness. Without doing that you can't really critique. Well, you can but it doesn't amount to much.

Exactly, calling someone a conspiracy nut or whatever is the quickest way to invalidate what they have to say. It's a means of irrationally closing somebody down rather than rationally doing so on the basis of the evidence, facts, etc. that justify the reasonableness of what they have to say. Just to be certain, I'm in no way claiming the government is responsible here. I am, instead, being critical of the uncritical assumption that the government could definitely not be involved. I don't know enough about the event to lean in any direction at this point.

Don't worry, I won't be getting very involved because people aren't really that interested in having a proper discussion. New ideas and evidence that goes against certain norms isn't given the attention it deserves and most people just want to rationalise away views that might upset them. I don't imagine that adding anything beyond what I've put will achieve anymore. As we've already seen, debate is only allowed within certain narrow margins that don't upset commonly held views. You get called an 'idiot' if you step outside those margins. I'd call that ironic.

Anyone who, prior to actually knowing, closes down the possibility of government involvement, in some sense, is clearly blinded by the bad myth of noble authority; the idea that those in power have good intentions rather than bad. Yet a proper consideration of American foreign and domestic policy will, at the very least, to a sane person, leave the question open. Consider, for example, the CIA's involvement in the sale of crack cocaine in L.A. to fund the right-wing guerillas, the Contras, who terrorised Nicaragua and tried to undermine the democratically elected Sandinistas to gain power. All this whilst claiming to be in the throes of a 'Drug War.' The intentions of government and the power that controls it are currently, mostly, self-serving. Whomever wants to call someone an idiot for being open to the possibility of government involvement needs to justify what they mean. Calling someone an idiot offers no explanation for why there could be no possibility. What evidence of history and current affairs are you referring to to formulate a total denial of the possibility? Please show us the supposed unblemished record of governments, their agencies, etc. that is presupposed by your dismissal... I also agree that it's a shame the emphasis this type of event gets because it relates to a certain class of people in a certain location. This isn't to say it's not a terrible thing but it is to say that there is clearly a type of racism that underpins the evaluation that makes this event so much more important than others that are significantly worse when you see all human being as having the same value...

I'm not sure how well you'd fare on that sort of bike given the foam pit setup to be honest. Although I wouldn't like to say for definite.

If you're a more streety, 24" type rider then Motion is alright - not amazing - and they will allow you to ride there. Thursday evenings are bike night. The foam pit is okay. Its problem is that the drop in is very close to pit so you have very little time to prepare but, none the less, you can somewhat get used to it. There's certainly the possibility of learning flips in it.

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That was a quote. I'm simply offering what I deem to be counterbalances to mainstream news reporting. I've not neccessarily subscribed to any viewpoint although I am more inclined toward certain ones. What do you mean about Illuminati?

This is a particularly interesting offering on the current 'conflict' offering a broader historical contextualisation that you won't find in the mainstream media: http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-dangers-of-war-what-is-behind-the-us-north-korea-conflict/5329307

http://www.fair.org/blog/2013/04/03/north-korea-rattles-sabres-meanwhile-u-s-pretends-to-drop-nuclear-bombs-on-them/ While it is certainly difficult to get a sense of what exactly the North Koreans are actually saying, one of the most interesting takes came from B.R. Myers, a professor at Dongseo University in South Korea. He was quoted by a New York Times blog (Lede, 3/29/13): We need to keep in mind that North and South Korea are not so much trading outright threats as trading blustering vows of how they would retaliate if attacked. The North says, "If the U.S. or South Korea dare infringe on our territory, we will reduce their territory to ashes," and Seoul responds by saying it will retaliate by bombing Kim Il-sung statues. And so it goes. I think the international press is distorting the reality somewhat by simply publishing the second half of all these conditional sentences. And I have to say from watching North Korea's evening news broadcasts for the past week or so, the North Korean media are not quite as wrapped up in this war mood as one might think. The announcers spend the first 10 minutes or so reporting on peaceful matters before they start ranting about the enemy.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/04/wheres-real-threat-kim-jong-un-trident

A more contextual offering regarding the current strife: http://www.globalresearch.ca/rising-risk-of-war-us-sends-fighter-bombers-to-korea/5329292