American Privilege

In order to prevent any potential misunderstanding, I would like to make it clear that I absolutely do NOT hate American people. This statement is mostly meant for the occasional reader who might have ended here after clicking on a link, for all the people who follow me from the land of Uncle Sam (according to stats you are many and I thank you for that) certainly have figured it out for themselves already. Neither does being critical of the genocidal policy of Israel make an anti-Semite out of me, even though a bunch of self-appointed morons might say so. Usually, the argument of having a GI great-uncle and an Hebrew name is enough to calm moods (that just shows how that is). But as regards hopeless cases, I'm totally helpless. Sorry, not vibrating at the same frequency range.

Following the Israeli model for blocking entry of anyone who can even be broadly construed as supporting a boycott, the United States now also believes it should deny admittance to anyone who is critical of US government policy, which is a reversal of previous policy that considered political opinions to be off-limits for visa denial. DHS, acting in response to pressure from the White House, now believes it can adequately determine hostile intent from the totality of what appears on one’s phone or laptop, even if the material in question was clearly not put on the device by the owner. In other words, if a traveler has an email sent to him or her by someone else that complains about behavior by the United States government, he or she is responsible for that content. (Source)

Then if I don't get a ban for life — and the next ones...

Ey@el

American liberals and progressives talk a bit about white privilege, male privilege, straight privilege etc, but one thing I never hear them talk about is American privilege: the ability their nationality gives them to have a relationship with this world that the rest of us do not have.

American privilege is reassuring yourself that there are problems enough at home without worrying about the trillions your government’s war machine is spending terrorizing the world and encircling the planet with military bases.

American privilege is reluctantly allowing the potential Commanders-in-Chief to have an eight-minute conversation about foreign policy in your presidential primary debates, when your country’s military policy functionally dictates the affairs of rest of the world.

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The Science of Homeopathy

At the end of an excerpt of a conference I had transcribed for you about four year ago, Kevin Trudeau described homeopathy as a healing art based on the same principle as the law of attraction which says that “a vibration will attract a similar vibration, like attracts like. So vibrations which are similar always attract”.

And Hahnemann's theory was like cures like, which is the law of attraction, “like attracts like”. It neutralises and cures it.

Often mistaken for phytotherapy because of its heavy use of plants (but not only), homeopathy is first and foremost a wonderful therapy I do not understand much about, but it saved my life and keeps working small miracles wherever nothing else does. Like everyone else, I was initially sceptical, all the more since I had previously been involved with inept physicians who would practise homeopathy the same way as allopathy, namely to each disease its remedy, regardless of every complex factor and individual terrain unlike genuine homeopaths would (an initial homeopathic consultation should take approximately one hour). Also, I was of course convinced that it would take forever until I could hope to get some tangible unpermanent results. So much for the placebo effect, huh!

It's crazy how biases die hard and how brainwashed we are with utter nonsense bordering on outright evil — even though I am now firmly convinced, if not absolutely certain that nonsense is the prerogative of our refusal to acknowledge the evil we're collectively victims of (for a typical example of blatant dishonesty and biased propaganda, check this article on homeopathy on Wikiganda).

Retrospectively, I have moved such a long way up now that I can't help laughing at how stupid I was then. Though the realisation that my past stupidity was nothing compared to the effects of the actual powerful aggressive brainscouring propaganda practised here and everywhere by lobbys and governments alike makes it a bitter laugh. Today, homeopathic drugs are delisted by the French national health service. Next, they will be declared illegal. Why not? The way things are going in the France of the Lord of The Flies, another evil can't make it any worse.

To share a secret with you, homeopathy is so ineffective that all the “top” people rely exclusively on it. Having worked for several years in London next to Ainsworths homeopathic pharmacy, the official supplier of the Royal Family, I have seen loads of celebs including rockstars go in there. You may or may not draw conclusions, but I very much doubt Liam Gallagher would boast about using homeopathic remedies (bet he won't like my little scoop, but well, it's very unlikely that he ever reads about it — as you were, Liam).

Ey@el

For years, homeopathy has been unfairly maligned by the American Medical Association (AMA), FDA and mainstream medicine as a worthless placebo that lacks any scientific evidence of effectiveness.

If you listen to these aggressive mainstream critics, you would never know that homeopathy was originally a well-accepted medical practice taught in medical schools, which conferred degrees in the specialty. There were even homeopathic hospitals and the practice was supported by governments and influential leaders.

Homeopathy was developed by Dr. Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843), a German physician to the royal family, who was appalled at the traditional medical practices of his day, such as bloodletting and the administration of mercury and arsenic that did more harm than good.

What began Hahnemann's inquiries was learning that quinine — the bark of the cinchona tree — treated the effects of malaria by producing a condition similar to it, a principle known as the law of similars, or "like cures like."

The documentary Just One Drop reveals the medical history of homeopathy, its widespread, global usage, benefits to patients and its continued maligning by mainstream medicine.

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Animated Foul Weather

Having recently encountered some bugs (now sorted out) with Wine, I've decided to look for alternative solutions to create animations without recourse to Windows software. After all, I didn't shift to Linux only because it's free, but because I wanted to embrace the whole philosphy behind it in alignment with my principles. So I found another way to create animated rain effects without using Sqirlz Water Reflections nor Animation Shop which might not even work with further versions of Windows anyway. This tutorial is the result of my experimenting to fit with the mood of the season.

Rain

Materials

• a picture to add rain to (for this example, I've used a snapshot I took with my phone in a local park)
• GIMP 2.10 (free and open source for Linux/Windows/OSX)

Instructions

1. Open a copy of the image you wish to animate in GIMP and if necessary, resize it to avoid getting a bulgy output file.

2. Add a new white layer on top of your existing image layer.

3. Apply noise with Filters - Noise - Hurl menu using the following settings:

- Repeat = 2
- Randomisation = 50
- Click on New seed to generate new random pattern of pixels

4. Turn layer to greyscale using Colors - Desaturate - Colour to grey menu.

5. Set layer blend mode to Screen.

NOTE: I'm using the new blend modes introduced in version 2.10 which have a different render than previous ones (still available when you click on the switch button on top of the layer palette toolbar).

6. Apply motion blur with Filters - Blur - Linear Motion Blur menu using the following settings:

- Length = 14,68
- Angle = 115

NOTE: You may need different settings according to the picture you're using, but keep in mind that a smaller length may produce a snow effect. The angle depends on the direction you wish to give to the rain.

7. Modify the output of your layer accordingly using the Colours - Levels menu.  Here are the settings I have used:

- Input levels (on the left) = 197
- Other settings left as default

8. You may need to reduce layer opacity (79%).

9. In order to get a softer more natural effect, apply gaussian blur with Filters - Blur - Gaussian Blur menu using the following settings:

- Size X = 0,50
- Size Y = 0.50
- Other settings left as default

10. Duplicate bottom image layer and move it on top of the layer palette. Then repeat steps 2 to 9. Don't forget to click on New seed on step 3 (very important).

11. Repeat step 10.

12. You now have 3 image layers each with a different rain layer on top. Merge down each rain layer with the image layer below. You should now have 3 different layers.

13. Change colour mode for an optimised GIF using Image - Mode - Indexed menu:

- Generate optimum palette
- Colour dithering = Floyd-Steinberg (reduced colour bleeding)

14. Now you can export your animation via the File - Export as menu, choosing Image GIF Image as File Type. Another dialog opens to adjust the settings of you output file:

- Check As animation
- Check Loop forever
- Delay between frames where unspecified = 100 ms
- Other settings left as default

Tada ! Your animated GIF is ready to use.

NOTE: Right after step 1, I've applied an unsharp mask to enhance my picture and before exporting I have increased the saturation of each frame.

Lightning

On top of the rain, I wanted to find out whether I would manage to scare this courageous snail on a blade of grass (apparently his shell acts as a Faraday cage).

Materials

• a picture to add lightning to (for this example, I've used a picture I found on Pinterest)
• Lightning brushes for GIMP

Instructions

1. In order to use the brushes with GIMP, unzip the file you've downloaded on DeviantArt and copy the Lightning folder into the Brushes directory within your GIMP config folder.

- On Linux:
home/User Name/.config/GIMP/2.10 (or earlier version)
NOTE: Config is a hidden folder, so in order to access it you need to activate the display of hidden files.

- On Windows:
C:\Users\User Name\GIMP\2.10 (or earlier version)

- On Mac OSX:
Sorry, I couldn't test on MaC OSX, but you may find it using the Edit - Preferences - Folders - Brushes menu in GIMP. You may also add another location (whatever your operating system) to store your additonal brushes, which I find much more convenient.

Restart GIMP to load your new brushes.

The approach for adding lightnind effects is similar to rain effects, though with less manipulations:

2. Duplicate the layer of your original picture 3 times in order to have 4 identical layers.

3. Add a new transparent layer above each picture layer (except the first one at the bottom of the layer palette) set to Vivid light mode (only available as from version 2.10).

4. On each transparent layer, apply a different lightning brush using the brush tool  (with white colour) on different places using the following settings:

- Size = you need to adapt to the brush you're using and the size of your picture
- Aspect ratio = 0
- Angle = 0
- Spacing = 25
- Hardness = 100
- Strength = 50
- Dynamics = Dynamics Off

5. As for the rain effect, merge down each lightning layer with the image layer below to get a total of 4 different layers.

6. Repeat indexed mode.

7. Instruct animation by renaming the frames as follows and in the same order:

4 (200ms)
3 (200ms)
2 (200ms)
1 (600ms)

8. Export as GIF image using previous settings.

The Foul Monty

After electrifying the snail, I wanted to wash the Trocadero Plaza clean of all those intrusive tourists with mucho rain and thunder.

Materials

• lightning brushes
• a picture to add rain and lightning to (for this last example, I have used a picture I also took with my phone)

Instructions

The last effect is a combination of both rain and lightning. The only complexity lays in  the laying out and merging of layers.

1. Create a rain effect using 3 layers as explained above.

2. Rename the three merged layers starting from the bottom of the layer palette:

rain 3 (100ms)
rain 2 (100ms)
rain 1 (100ms)

3. Add 2 new different lightning layers (blend mode set to Addition) on top of existing layer and DO NOT merge.

lightning 2
lightning 1
rain 3 (100ms)
rain 2 (100ms)
rain 1 (100ms)

4. Then duplicate each of the rain layers and arrange them as follows:

lightning 2
lightning 1
+ rain 3#2 (100ms)
+ rain 2#2 (100ms)
+ rain 1#2 (100ms)
rain 3 (100ms)
rain 2 (100ms)
rain 1 (100ms)

We now have a 600ms rain cycle.

Let me explain how it works: for the rain effect, each frame will be displayed for 100ms for a 300ms cycle; for the lightning effect, we need two 300ms cycles of rain frames, that is 600ms plus 200ms for each lightning frame. We shall have to combine both effects (rain only, rain + lightning) by duplicating and merging a lot of layers.

5. Now, duplicate each lightning layer (on the top of the layer palette) once and arrange as follows:

+ lightning 2#2
lightning 2
+ lightning 1#2
lightning 1
rain 3#2 (100ms)
rain 2#2 (100ms)
rain 1#2 (100ms)
rain 3 (100ms)
rain 2 (100ms)
rain 1 (100ms)

6. Duplicate and place a different rain layer under each lightning layer de so as to merge them down:

↓ lightning 2#2
+ rain 1#4 (100ms)

↓ lightning 2
+ rain 3#3 (100ms)

 ↓ lightning 1#2
+ rain 2#3 (100ms)

↓ lightning 1
+ rain 1#3 (100ms)

rain 3#2 (100ms)
rain 2#2 (100ms)
rain 1#2 (100ms)
rain 3 (100ms)
rain 2 (100ms)
rain 1 (100ms)

7. Merge down each lightning layer with the rain layer below. You should have this:

lightning 2 + pluie 1 (100ms)
lightning 2 + pluie 3 (100ms)
lightning 1 + pluie 2 (100ms)
lightning 1+ pluie 1 (100ms)
rain 3#2 (100ms)
rain 2#2 (100ms)
rain 1#2 (100ms)
rain 3 (100ms)
rain 2 (100ms)
rain 1 (100ms)

We now have a 600ms rain cycle, and two different 200ms lightning- rain cycles while the rain cycle within the lightning cycle is still 100ms  (sorry if I lost you on the way).

8. Apply indexed mode.

9. Export as GIF image using previous settings.

That's it. I hope you enjoyed these lengthy tutorials and that you won't find them too complicated to try.

Best of luck!

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Greta Thunberg Wants You to Be Scared & Big Business Will Make a Killing off It

Another very long article which took me several days to translate in French (while the less conscientious and more concerned about generating traffic would rather use a translation software program — I tested a certain number of these and it was a disaster — this is not the way I like to work, I am too dedicated and put myself so much in what I do to produce smooth and pleasant reading, it would hurt to present you with some shoddy work). I wish so much I could have the same mastery of English and offer my non French speaking readers the same quality reading. I also wish I had enough time to translate everything I write in French, though my love of language has raised the challenge a bit too high as most of the stuff I write would be meaningless once translated. Believe me, this is so frustrating.

One special mention goes to the occasional cursory reader, proponent of the single mindset, ready to judge a book by its cover and label me an enemy of the planet (sic) without ever scratching the surface first (and god knows they are many, which, in my own opinion, is actually the real impending disaster threatening this planet), please read this copy-pasted conclusion from the author of the article which epitomises my personal view of the environmental issue:

We are not denying climate change, we are simply presenting the evidence showing that climate change has been happening for a long time, and that human CO2 output doesn’t seem to play a significant role at all, and that this is simply being used for profit, control, and to take more ‘power’ away from the people and put it into the hands of politicians and the global financial elite. This is not about the planet.

To these people, I won't tell what they could figure out for themselves by going through the trouble of digging in (rather than wasting so much energy denigrating on the basis of misconceptions and unfunded arguments), namely that individually, I probably do much more for the planet than they who spend their time lecturing others. Should we do a carbon count, I'm not sure their ego would enjoy the comparison! Fortunately, we're not that dumb — at least, I am NOT — I have enough on my plate dealing with my own ego which even though better mannered still can be quite challenging at times ;)

Coming back to the topic at hand, as Tatiana Ventôse rightly points out in a video (in French) entitled "What's wrong with Greta Thunberg?", we have good reasons to question the many strange facts “in her path to notoriety, in the way and speed with which she found herself propelled to her role of prophetess of doom, foretelling our imminent death from summit to summit, unless we start panicking [...] It would appear she is being sold to us as another manufactured commercial product targeting those who are quite concerned about global warming.”

Tatiana also explains how she browsed through the comments below articles dealing with Greta Thunberg:

The least you can say is that she raises many questions. It would be too easy to argue back that Greta Thunberg critics are all offensive haters and climate sceptics. All in all, abusive posts are common place on the Internet, but what I mostly saw were comments such as ”poor girl”, “irresponsible parents instrumentalising their diseased child”.

What I've read raised more doubts than anything else, not so much raising doubts about the reality of the environmental crisis or even challenging the genuineness of Greta as an activist, but raising question marks about the way this kid suddenly, magically ended up attending every international climate summit and making grand speeches and having her picture taken with the worst enemies of the planet.

Tatiana has also released two more videos (in French) about the political hijacking of environmental issues:

- Greta Thunberg - When Hysteria Overcomes Debate
- Macron's Strategy to Hijack Environmentalism

And as part of the climate issue that emerged as the natural focal point of most of my posts this month, stay tuned for more related articles in the upcoming days and weeks.

Ey@el

Eva Bartlett spent years on the ground covering conflict zones in the Middle East, especially in Syria and occupied Palestine, where she lived for nearly four years in becoming one of the world’s most prominent journalists. Scrolling through her twitter feed reveals thought-provoking messages that can really help us further our understanding about what’s really happening on our planet, especially with regards to geopolitics.

Her posts are heavily censored by social media giants and search engines like Google because the information directly opposes fake narratives that are constantly spewed by mainstream media at the behest of their puppet masters, among them the Western intelligence agencies. A great example would be what’s happening in Syria, as many of her posts greatly expose networks like CNN and the BBC for reporting and spreading information that is completely fake. She backs up her tweets with proof and credible sources, not to mention that she goes directly to the places where she reports from.

She isn’t the only one. Several insiders have joined the quest for truth. For example, William Arkin, a longtime well known military and war reporter who is best known for his groundbreaking, three-part Washington Post series in 2010 has gone public outing NBC/MSNBC as completely fake government run agencies. You can read more about that here.

Then there is Riam Dalati, a well known BBC Syria producer who recently put out a tweet stating that the supposed gas attacks in Douma were “staged.” You can see that and read more about it here.

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Rain

I am not particularly fond of rain, but I agree that allowing the weather outside (about which we cannot do much if not nothing at all) to affect our inner sunshine is not very constructive and I 'd rather follow Gene Kelly's example and go singing and jumping in puddles (preferably equipped with my rain gear and boots). For, after all, “when it rains or shines, it's just a state of mind”.

Furthermore, I never decide on the topics of my posts. They come to me. On my recent birthday (which I incidentally share with the late John Lennon), I had this lesser-known Beatles song looping inside my head while the weather kept toggling between rain and shine every fifteen minute as if somehow mirroring my mood and the events of that chequered day. Therefore I had to share it with you.

Rain

If the rain comes,
They run and hide their heads
They might as well be dead.

If the rain comes...
If the rain comes...

When the sun shines,
They slip into the shade
And sip their lemonade.
When the sun shines...
When the sun shines...

Rain, I don't mind.
Shine, the weather's fine.

I can show you
That when it starts to rain,
Everything's the same.
I can show you...
I can show you...

Rain, I don't mind.
Shine, the weather's fine.

Can you hear me
That when it rains and shines,
It's just a state of mind?
Can you hear me?
Can you hear me?

John Lennon, 1966

About this song

Released in 1966 as a B-side of the "Paperback Writer" single, "Rain" was recorded during the session of the Beatles's brilliant Revolver album on which it's not featured.

John Lennon's lyrics were inspired by The Beatles's Australian tour in June 1964 where their arrival in Sydney was marked by rain and foul weather. “I've never seen rain as hard as that, except in Tahiti”, John Lennon would say.

"Rain" is “about people moaning about the weather all the time”. According to writer Steve Turner, it is the first song alluding to spiritual development, to the ability to transcend events, plenty of which will be found in subsequent albums and band statements. "Rain" would also convey a message emphasising the importance of the state of mind you're in.

I, for one,mostly see Lennon's cynical side and off-beat humour starting to come through in his lyrics during this period. And also, maybe, a poke at McCartney's "Good Day Sunshine" that, unlike "Rain", ended up on Revolver.

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