A 29 ans, le meilleur joueur de tennis russe des dix dernières années a choisi le tournoi Masters Paris-Bercy pour faire ses adieux. C’est donc au terme du tournoi que le Tsar rangera son sac de raquettes au placard. Il marquera alors la fin d’une carrière bien remplie de titres et de souvenirs.

Depuis son plus jeune âge, Marat frappe dans une balle jaune. Né d’un père propriétaire d’un club de tennis et d’une mère ancienne joueuse, le jeune Moscovite passe son temps sur les cours. En 1994, un responsable d’une banque suisse, sponsor du jeune Russe, lui propose de venir en Espagne pour intégrer l’Ecole Espagnole de Tennis. Safin quitte sa famille pour réaliser son rêve.

C’est en 1997 que Marat Mikhaïlovitch Safin débute sa carrière de joueur de tennis professionnelle. Inconnu du grand public, le Moscovite se fait remarquer dès sa deuxième année sur le circuit pro. En effet, lors de l’édition 1998 de Rolland Garros, le jeune Russe s’offre les scalps de Gustavo Kuerten et André Agassi. S’il échouera en huitième de finale du tournoi, le 116ème joueur à l’ATP vient de frapper un grand coup la hiérarchie tennistique. Son physique imposant, 88kg pour 1m93, et sa frappe de balle déjà irrésistible ont marqué beaucoup de passionnés et d’amateurs.

L’année 2000 marque un tournant dans la carrière de Marat Safin. Il s’installe en tête du classement ATP, à à peine 20 ans, et remporte son premier grand chelem à New York en battant Pete Sampras en finale. S’en suit 4 ans sans Grand Chelem. Quatre années comblées par quelques titres comme 3 Open Paris Bercy (2000, 2002 et 2004) et une coupe Davis, la première pour la Russie (2002). Puis, en 2005, Marat remporte l’Open d’Australie en battant en finale l’enfant du pays, Lleyton Hewitt, après avoir battu Roger Federer, le numéro 1 mondial, en demi.

L’année 2005 se finit maleureusement par une blessure pour Safin. Six mois de récupération et quoi de mieux qu’une seconde coupe Davis offerte par Marat à la Russie pour montrer son retour ? Cependant, le Russe reste en moins bonne forme. Il doit attendre 2008 pour atteindre les demi-finales d’un tournoi du Grand Chelem. C’est à Wimbledon, contre Federer mais la fin est moins heureuse. Il annonce alors que 2009 sera sa dernière saison sur le circuit pro.

Loin d’être flamboyant pour sa dernière année, Marat Safin aura à coeur de réussir quelque chose à Bercy. Il s’est qualifié, lundi soir, pour le second tour en battant le Français Thierry Ascione. Le Russe affrontera, mercredi, Juan Martin Del Potro. Peu importe le résultat, le joueur Moscovite restera unique et aura inscrit son nom à l’histoire du tennis mondial. Ses fameux coups de sang, ses services sur-puissants et ses échanges interminables resteront dans les mémoires. Avec 15 titres dont 2 Grands Chelems, Marat Safin était un grand joueur, pas seulement par sa taille.

Anna Anderson was one of a number of women claiming to be the youngest daughter of the last Czar Nicholas II, Grand Duchess Anastasia Nicolaevna. The Russian Revolution of 1917 saw the Czar removed from power and, ultimately, killed along with his wife, children and some servants. She was one of at least 10 claiming to be the Grand Duchess but, along with fellow claimant Eugenia Smith, she was certainly the best known. She was pulled from a canal in Berlin in 1929, and was at first called Fraulein Unbekannt (Miss Unknown) as she refused to say whom she was. She was admitted to a mental hospital in, then, Zwittau and questioned repeatedly. She at last revealed her identity to be that of the Grand Duchess. So began five decades of speculation as to her identity, divided between those who believed she was and those who believed she wasn’t. Among those who believed she was Anastasia were, Gleb Botkin (Son of the Czar’s doctor and childhood playmate of the Grand Duchess), along with various Russian émigrés. Against her claim was Grand Duke Ernst Louis of Hesse (The Empress Alexandra’s brother and uncle to Anastasia), Pierre Gilliard (The Grand Duchesses personal tutor) and also the Czar’s sister, Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna. Alexandrovna had actually visited Anderson in the hospital and kept a brief correspondence with her before declaring that the young woman was not her niece. Anderson’s claim was also not believed by other Romanov family members. Anderson launched several attempts in court to establish her identity. When the final case concluded, in 1970, it was decided that neither side had conclusively proven who she was. Her believers supported her for many years and she immigrated to the United States in 1968. She married supporter Jack Manahan in December 1968 and they remained married until her death, of pneumonia, on 12 February 1984. The recent (2007) discovery of the remains of Anastasia in the Koptyaki Forest in Siberia, for me, raises more questions. If Anderson was not Anastasia, who was she? This question already seems to have been answered as she was identified as Polish factory worker Franziska Schanzkowska, both by Schanzkowska’s family and relatives of the Romanovs. However, if this is who she was how did she come to know so much about the Russian Imperial Court? Where did she learn to speak three languages? Although personally I do not believe that Anderson was Anastasia I still find the subject very interesting. Thanks for reading.

First of all, I want to thank those of you that sent me emails, commented, or meebos with your thoughts and condolence’s. It really means a lot to me that you would take time out of your trading day to do that. Thanks a ton. You guys are awesome and I hope you all are prosperous, not just financially, but throughout you whole life. Now onto the analysis.

Looking at the charts today I had to chuckle a little to myself, which is healthy and needed in these times. Remember how I thought we would have a couple small up days then a huge down day to break the neckline? Well we broke the neckline much sooner than I thought, and now we have had a couple of small up days, on low v. I had it all backwards! But the results will still be the same. I think tomorrow has the potential for being a big down day. It is Friday, next week is 3f (opx. exp.) the mkt. is looking much weaker than in recent weeks and historically, this is one of the most volatile months. Further, Monday has been up 5 days in a row. The table is set for a sell off.

For the first time in a while, I have added a new line, the red one. I added it because it lined up so perfectly with what has been going on. Six touches is pretty significant. Now I would’ve liked to see a move down to the $29.60 area to dip into that gap, then I would’ve expected a good move up from here. But, nonetheless, I could easily see this thing bounce hard from right here.

The DOW has set up for a fall right here. Classic break of support with retest. This usually screams sell. Watch for it, and trade with it if it comes to fruition.

This is probably the most intriguing chart to me. I love flags, they trade well and usually lead to big moves. I still think the NAS will lead the drop and if this chart is any indication, the move could start very soon. We could easily get to the 1675 area in a matter of days in a July mkt.

Like I thought, we stalled out on the 200 ma and bottom channel. I would expect a move up a little before breaking the bottom, but if the NAS pulls hard enough, the S&P will follow. We broke through the 875 support once, the next time will be easier.

This is a 60 min. chart of the QQQQ. This chart looks pretty bearish to me. You can see the retrace of about 50% from the last high, which should leave to another strong move down, probably, finally, taking out that brute of a trend line.

I tweeted this one early today as a great sell. Lots of lines, I know, I know, but I look at it a lot and it is usually profitable to trade. I think it is a great short here.

Although I have never traded this, I really like the formation. I actually think this may be a .. l… lo….lon…..long play. There I said it, LONG. That is a hard word to get out of my mouth these days. Of course I prefer to trade with the overall mkt. but hey the analysis says up.

We have traded this on several times and it is time again. I will let you figure out which way. If you’re not sure, ask me.

I throw GILD in the mix just cuz this chart is so pretty. Look at the break of the wedge, look at the drop & stop on the down trend line. This is a thing of beauty. From here I would expect a small move up and perhaps a trend down the top of the line, or a v pop and break of the line. I wouldn’t trade it until I saw, but it is so pretty I had to put it on here. None of these lines have been altered since I originally put them on there a couple of weeks ago. ( just sprained my shoulder patting myself on the back)

Another pretty chart. CSL broke thru the up trend and stalled on our up trend: Again, unaltered lines. Now I think it should break back into the channel where it is warm and fuzzy. Perhaps after a bounce up.

I like this loose H&S on XLE to give way soon. We could move up a little from here, or just drop. But the next test should break support, and oil will follow probably to the mid $50’s or lower.

This is on of my favorite set ups ( if I haven’t mentioned it). The break of support and the retest. This one is especially sweet with the 200 ma adding extra resistance. I think $10 is in the near future.

Finally we finish with TASR (hence the blog title). We broke the bottom trend, but with suspect v. I would look for another down day, then watch for a move up, then short. If you want to be uber safe, you could wait till it breaks $4.05 and catch a dollar down. But I will short on retest.

In closing: If you play any of these with options, I would suggest trying August, that way if they go against us it won’t kill us, and they all have enough room down that we should do well if they do what the analysis tells us. Again, I think tomorrow could be a big down day, and I will be looking to close out some puts tomorrow, then do some day trading next week if I can. If tomorrow is not down, well then I may have to take some losses on the Qs, but not on the other three. Trade well, watch for a big move and prosper. Video will be posted this weekend, probably Sat as my Grandpa’s funeral is on Sunday. AKOT

Was it possible for the Kaiser to reach victory during World War I?  The answer is yes.  At the time, the German Empire had the largest military in the world, numbering to about eleven million troops.  The German Empire had also been victorious in the previous three wars it had fought on the European battlefield, though I should say the Prussian Empire had been victrorious.  The last war being a stunning victory against the French in the Franco-Prussian War, which resulted in the unification of the German nation.  From there, the German worked on its empire colonizing in Africa and attempting to build up its naval forces to compete against the United Kingdom.  Though Germany could not really get close to the island nation’s naval compacity.  The UK had a proud tradition of naval power that spanned over centuries since the defeat of the Spanish Armada.  Still, Germany would not be defeated by the English Army.  At least, not invaded by the English and French alone.  Then came the real blow against the Entente forces with the withdrawal of Russia from the war.  Since the Bolsheviks took over the Tsardom in Russia, they needed to consolidate power within their own nation, thus a peace treaty with Germany was desired.  In the treaty of Brest-Litovsk forced Lenin to also cede vast territories to Germany including Poland, the Baltic states, Belarus, and the Ukraine.  This allowed the German Army to mobilize troops from the Eastern front and concentrate them at the Western front.  If the Americans were not willing to join the war, a German peace treaty with the rest of the allied forces may have been desired to end the chaos of the war.  After all, not a single shot had been fired on German territory and England was fighting for its old-time enemy-nation.  A German-favored treaty may have been the only recourse without American involvement.

The next question would be if the Second Reich could maintain such an empire.  Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg could possibly have been kept on a tight leash.  As for any French territory gained, control may have been possible, but it is likely that France would have eventually waged a new war against Germany.  Russia, later to become the Soviet Union, would have definitely waged a new war if diplomacy did not bring back her ceded territories.  This war would have been disastrous for the Germans, as was Operation Barbarossa, due to the massive burdens of logistical support on the East European landscape.  To put it frankly, a Kaiser victorious in the Great War would have surely led to a Kaiser’s defeat in a second world war.

Before Starbucks took over the world, I spent my youth in the kind of coffee shops that played Ella Fitzgerald, talking over the finer points of existential angst with my cohorts. Dostoevsky’s work, filled with all the big questions of God and madness and free will and exile, was pressing stuff. So pressing, indeed, that we stayed up half the night at Chez Cappuccino, mulling over Notes from the Underground. You couldn’t be literary; you couldn’t be a writer, if you didn’t dissect every minutiae of meaning (or meaninglessness, as it were) from the Russian writers. I recall that one of my colleagues, an African, shook his head wistfully over Crime and Punishment. “Dostoevsky ruins it for all the other novelists,” he said. “How can you read anyone else’s work after these masterpieces?”

Well, maybe Tolstoy would make the cut- the two Russian writers are widely considered the best novelists of all time. Intellectuals have been gathering at cafes the world over to discuss Dostoevsky’s notions of suffering or suicide or freedom of expression for a hundred years. “The novels of Dostoevsky are seething whirlpools, gyrating sandstorms, waterspouts which hiss and boil and suck us in. They are composed purely and wholly of the stuff of the soul. Against our wills we are drawn in, whirled round, blinded, suffocated, and at the same time filled with a giddy rapture,” Virginia Woolf wrote. James Joyce said the writer had “created modern prose, and intensified it to its present-day pitch. It was his explosive power which shattered the Victorian novel with its simpering maidens…”

Indeed, Fyodor Dostoevsky’s dark whirlpool changed the face of literature irrevocably. His themes of human suffering, madness, sin, exile, guilt, redemption, evil, God, corruption, power, poverty, and the limits of human nature resonated deeply in circles far and wide, and every generation to follow. Inside the volatile thunderstorm of man’s search for meaning was truly “something for everyone.” From pop reading groups to the highest academia, Fyodor’s novels are on the ‘best of all time’ lists- at least one of The Idiot, Crime and Punishment, and The Brothers Karamazov- and usually all three. Every oeuvre painstakingly pries apart the soul and mind of humanity, swimming into the furthest depths of human behaviour. The writer’s explorations and explanations analyze human psychology brilliantly from every angle. Nietzsche would later call him “the only psychologist from whom I have anything to learn.”

But Fyodor didn’t become the bulwark of world literature by dropping a few well-mapped characters into winning plot formulas. He earned his bragging rights the hard way- through Russian political repression and oppression, through imprisonment and torture for defending freedom of expression, through a volatile relationship with his father who was murdered, and through madness, which he cherished above all else.

It was 1821 when Fyodor was born in Moscow. His father was a famously temperamental alcoholic, a retired military surgeon. Work doing gruesome amputations was not exactly ideal for a man prone to depressions and rage, and most biographers note that Mikhail was also exceedingly religious- likely to the point of delusion, as he was certain he was a special chosen one of God, and that his tribulations had special significance, like those of Job. Though Dad was a harsh master and jealous husband, his relationship with his children was not loveless. And Fyodor’s Mom was very nurturing and quite the opposite of her spouse- she was cheerful and loving. She taught Fyodor how to read early on, sharing stories from the Bible with her sons.

Fyodor’s environment was influential, of course, to the work he would do later on, contrasting human temperaments and beliefs. He was drawn to people’s stories early on, devouring the strange and beautiful and gory Biblical narratives. Contemporary struggles were even more fascinating- the boy prowled outside and spent hours listening to the stories of the poor and sick. There was plenty of fodder in his neighbourhood, among the worst in Moscow, located near a criminal cemetery, a lunatic asylum, an orphanage and so on. The boy was forbidden these travels, but more often than not failed to heed the rules. His curiousity got the best of him, and he craved sunlight instead of being indoors at all times.

In any event, both senior and junior Dostoevsky may have had more in common with the poor and crazy than Senior cared to admit. Exactly the nature of Dad’s headaches, rages, addiction and depression are unknown, but Junior had epilepsy and was prone to seizures and religious visions from his youth.

Though the hospital neighbourhood was squalid, the family was not poor. Far from it. Indeed, Fyodor was around ten years old when his father bought a hamlet and a village. This was the era of Russian serfdom, when rich landowners owned the peasants who lived there. Mikhail was a brutal landowner, but Fyodor did not take after him. Instead, as in the city, he listened eagerly to the stories of the lives at the lower rung of society’s echelon, and concluded that the poor were the truly nobility.

Country life was a short stint, however, as Maria died of consumption when Fyodor was fifteen, leaving dad to fend for a handful of young children and his broken heart. He sent Fyodor and his favourite brother, Mikhail, to boarding school, and took out his grief on his peasants, beating them whenever he wished.

And so it was that the motherless became fatherless a few years later- Dad was found dead on the path between his two villages. His horse and driver were reportedly missing, as were several of his serfs. The seemingly obvious explanation that he met his fate at the hands of his furious underlings has never been proven, though it is widely believed. It may have been a stroke. Some reports suggest suffocation by the carriage cushion, and still others suggest a bizarre murder method: drowning by enforced vodka administration. The latter derives, perhaps, from our insistence at reading Dostoyevsky’s work literally, for it appears in Notes from the Underground. Regardless, murder is very likely, for motivations abound, including reports that Dad was diddling the prettiest young peasants, sadly common among those with power then and now.

In any event, Fyodor was an orphan at sixteen. His troubles had just begun.

He completed studies at an academy of military engineering, but was far more interested in reading and writing. He was a lieutenant but escaped his work by reading obsessively, and obsessing about death. Both would be lifelong fixations. It’s not hard to imagine Fyodor, hunched over Pushkin in the late light of afternoon. He left the army in 1844 to write fiction and hang around literary and intellectual circles, including the St. Petersburg Petrashevsky Circle. Mikhail Petrashevsky was a follower of utopian socialism and organized a discussion group of writers and poets and other free thinkers, and they talked about books and politics. Most were opponents of the tsarist autocracy.

Fyodor was 24 when his first novel, Poor Folk, was published. Somewhat unexpectedly, he was hailed as the “new Gogol”- Gogol being a writer who satirized the corrupt Russian bureaucracy. And so the writer became a minor celebrity and he began to bravely publish political essays, even though he knew it was dangerous and illegal. He also decided to establish an underground press. He spoke out loud against censorship. Perhaps he was certain he could effect change, or perhaps he believed he should suffer for his art. And suffer he did. In 1849, Fyodor was arrested, along with other members of the circle, and taken to a maximum-security prison reserved for the most dangerous criminals. He was charged with owning an illegal printing press, and plotting to murder the tsar, among other things. The murder plot was outrageous- Dostoevsky was a revolutionary of ideas only. But his pleas fell on deaf ears. The writer was sentenced to death.

It was October 1849 when Dostoevsky and his partners in crime were marched toward the gallows, where they would stand in shooting range of soldiers. An order was given to lower the hoods over their faces. After an excruciating silence, the soldiers were commanded to shoot.

By now we all know that nothing happened- this mock execution is one of the most famous in history. A staged execution is among the most effective methods of psychological torture. While torture in general is, well, torture, this particular form usually makes you a basket case for life. Indeed, at least one and reportedly two of Fyodor’s friends went stark raving mad. Fyodor felt he’d been given another chance at life, and praised God for it. The torment led to later religious experiences while serving the next eight years of his sentence. Half of the sentence was spent doing hard labour in exile in Siberia, and the other half in the army.

Of his experiences in prison, Fyodor wrote, “I consider those four years as a time during which I was buried alive and shut up in a coffin. Just how horrible that time was I have not the strength to tell you…it was an indescribable, unending agony, because each hour, each minute weighed upon my soul like a stone.”

Yet Dostoevsky had never before felt so alive. He wrote in a letter to his brother, “When I look back on my past and think how much time I wasted on nothing, how much time has been lost in futilities, errors, laziness, incapacity to live; how little I appreciated it, how many times I sinned against my heart and soul – then my heart bleeds. Life is a gift, life is happiness, every minute can be an eternity of happiness.”

In those moments before he was to be shot to death, Fyodor had a revelation that “unconditional love” was the only salvation for humanity, something God had for the world, manifest in the gift of Jesus Christ. The writer committed to spending his life sharing this kind of love. These thoughts brought him tremendous strength through the continual hardships of his life, yet in eventuality, he despaired at the fruitlessness of convincing others of life’s joy.

We’ve all had the writing teacher who tells us, “Write about what you know.” And Dostoevsky did- so much so that we too often surmise it happened exactly as it had in his novels. Nonetheless, the events and emotions the writer described, sometimes decades later, often came from his personal suffering and redemption stories. Following his release from prison, he wrote The Insulted and the Humiliated, followed by House of the Dead and Notes from the Underground. House of the Dead showcased tales of murder and suffering among hardened criminals in a labour camp, for example. It was nearly a decade after Fyodor’s release that his masterpiece, Crime and Punishment, was manifest, in 1866.

Fyodor had married- during his army sentence, he courted a married woman who was miserable with her abusive husband. She didn’t marry him until her husband passed away. Their happiness was brief- Maria took ill and died a few short years later, in 1864. The profound emptiness and despair Fyodor felt was multiplied when his life’s anchor, brother Mikhail, died shortly after.

Fyodor descended into a deep pit of depression and crippling debts. In honour, he committed to caring for his brother’s widow and children, yet he didn’t have two dimes to rub together. This deadly combination of debt and despair led him to become a hopeless gambling addict. Anything he earned, he’d throw on the tables, hoping his luck would change. It did not. When he was penniless and in danger to his debtors, his publisher came to his aid and promised to give him a formidable advance if he could produce a brilliant novel in a month. And so, we have The Gambler.

Crime and Punishment was also to be generated quickly to meet insurmountable debts. It began as a short story, and then took on a life of its own. Though Fyodor had to deliver by January, he wrote to a friend confessing he’d burned the novel the previous November. “I didn’t like it myself. A new form, a new plan excited me, and I started all over again.” Fyodor’s unyielding perfectionism paid off, and Crime and Punishment turned out to be one of the greatest books ever written.

But Fyodor’s punishments were not over yet. In his mid-forties, he fell in love with a 21-year-old stenographer, and they married. With Anna, he had four children. The first died a few months after birth, and the fourth, his favourite, was three when he died during an epileptic seizure. Dostoevsky’s misery was now at its absolute peak, for he believed he had killed his beloved child by passing on his disease.

For throughout all of these trials, Dostoevsky was also ill. Since boyhood, he also had epilepsy. He had to endure humiliating fits, seizures and headaches. He was haunted for life by horrifying dreams of evil and terror. Yet the transcendence he experienced in the seconds prior to the attacks fueled his writing and his will to live. (The writer reported that the fits began after the staged execution. Many historians believe he’d had similar issues since childhood, age nine specifically, when he had some kind of seizure.)

“For several instants I experience a happiness that is impossible in an ordinary state, and of which other people have no conception. I feel full harmony in myself and in the whole world, and the feeling is so strong and sweet that for a few seconds of such bliss one could give up ten years of life, perhaps all of life. I felt that heaven descended to earth and swallowed me. I really attained god and was imbued with him. All of you healthy people don’t even suspect what happiness is, that happiness that we epileptics experience for a second before an attack.”

The writer records similar passages in The Idiot and his other works that feature visionary spiritual people- epileptics. These brief splashes of paradise in the grisly misery of existence were understandably cherished. Dostoevsky seemed certain that God was really coming through him. In fact, he referred controversially to the prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him, as epileptic.

Scientist Clifford Pickover writes: “Dostoevsky, another famous epileptic whose works are filled with ecstatic visions of universal love (and terrible nightmares of uncanny fear and radical evil), thought it was obvious that Mohammad’s visions of God were triggered by epilepsy. “Mohammad assures us in this Koran that he had seen Paradise,” Dostoevsky notes. “He did not lie. He had indeed been in Paradise – during an attack of epilepsy, from which he suffered, as I do.””

What’s fascinating is that Dostoevsky knew that his visions and ecstasies were caused by his illness. And yet he was still dead certain that the symptoms revealed something real. It’s also interesting to note how interwoven religious delusions are in mental illness. Though human beings are hardwired to faith- atheism is rare and always has been- it’s undeniable that extreme religiosity and visions, delusions, voices, and so on are linked with schizophrenia. It’s common for mental health patients to report, and to believe in, messages from angels, Jesus, God. These messages are often beautiful and sometimes terrible, and they may come out of a hair dryer or out of the words of the newscaster or show up in a wallpaper pattern. It’s also a fact that most cult leaders are enigmatic, charismatic visionaries.

There are arguments over organic mental illness- epilepsy, for example, which produces electrical impulses that push against the brain- versus “mental” mental illness, or emotional instability. But the body is the mind is the spirit. Indeed, science knows that schizophrenia and depression are in fact imbalances of brain chemistry that CAUSE emotional problems, just as weak bones might cause knee problems. Are they the same as epilepsy, a seizure disorder? They aren’t the same, yet effective treatments for schizophrenia and bipolar are the same medications used for epileptic patients.

When big shot headshrinker Sigmund Freud came along, he lambasted Dostoevsky’s work as simpering sentimentality and wrote at length about how the writer’s particular form of epilepsy was hysterical, not organic. It was caused by his hatred of Dad, apparently, and that’s why it showed up most after stressor situations like a mock execution. (To be fair to the good doctor, he was certain that organic epilepsy was incompatible with razor sharp intellectual faculties, and so he assumed Dostoevsky had something else. Today we know that mental illness is often arm in arm with brilliance and creativity.)

Today we are coming closer to understanding that chemical and emotional are two sides of the same coin- each is causal of the other. We also know that high stress situations understandably involve severe emotional response- and that the cascade of motion in the brain’s network can ignite dreams, visions, fit, episodes, depressions, hallucinations, ecstasies, manias, whatever you want to call them. Sex, drugs, physical pain, and other triggers of emotions and endorphins can indeed incite a range of pleasant or terrifying effects, often both.

As modern science delves further into the unknown reaches of the brain, things get more and more astounding. The link between epilepsy, mental illness, religiosity, and creativity grows, as we enter the age of the God machine. Neurobiologist Michael Persinger has created a helmet and various scans and probes that are causing and examining religious experience networks in the brain. The science is in its infancy, but there’s already considerable evidence to show that déjà vu, ghosts, and other similar spiritual phenomenon goes hand in hand with electrical seizures in the brain- and diminishing oxygen brings on the white tunnel of near death experience. It’s the same reason kids hold their breath to get high and why some people prefer the strange practice of asphyxiation, by which they apparently experience visionary sex.

Atheists are quick to jump here on proof that God is all in our heads. Yet this “sickness” fueled the brilliance of Dostoevsky’s work, and gave him courage to endure unbelievable hardship. And he, for one, perceived it as God within us- is that the same thing? For millennia, the visionary was doped up and caged, or else he was the special shaman of society. The world over, humans ingest all manner of plant and pill in order to glimpse this world of paradise Dostoevsky describes- and then we wonder why it’s hard for the addict to give up drugs? Recall that the writer would give ten years of his life for that slim second of peace and harmony before his seizures.

And so, it can be understood why so many schizophrenic and bipolar patients prefer to avoid medication, the single biggest obstacle to treatment. But the light may disappear with the dark. Many schizophrenia patients report that they like the voices, feel close to or comforted by them, or of course, they are dead certain it’s ‘real’ and that they are afforded special insights that others can’t see.

The religious or supernatural connection to these kinds of visions extends way beyond Dostoevsky and his opinion about Mohammed. Fyodor writes in The Idiot about epileptic Myshkin, who is a Christ-like figure. But what about Jesus himself? What about Oral Roberts, who saw a 900-foot Jesus in the sky, who believes he raised people from the dead? What of The Book of Revelation, just one of hundreds of apocalyptic books that didn’t make it into the Biblical canon, all describing wonderful and terrible religious visions? What about Ezekiel and the chariot of fire? And what of Saint Paul, and the vision that inspired his conversion?

St. Paul spoke of a bodily affliction, a thorn in his flesh. Theories on this have abounded- was he gay? Deformed? Migraines? It was common before we had cures for infections for high fevers to damage the brain, and Paul had had malaria.

Of course, one accepts the prophecies and miracles of their own faith as God manifest, but prophecies and miracles of other faiths are surely mere insanity at best, and at worst, the devil incarnate. Joseph Smith receiving the golden tablets that only he could interpret is sheer lunacy to most of the world- yet millions of extraordinarily intelligent people called Mormons base their faith on this idea. Many Christians or Muslims would consider reincarnation beliefs heresy, yet millions of Buddhists are convinced and comforted when their leaders recount visions of their past lives. Yet paradise is sometimes hell- children are more often than not murdered by well-meaning parents, not by pedophiles- God was telling them to do it, to rid the child of demons or some such parallel.

Alien abductions and astral projection are an historically consistent fascination. Then there’s déjà vu, and jamais vu- the feeling you’ve never before been in your own house or yard. What gives?

Molecular biochemist Dr. Clifford Pickover says, “Temporal lobe epilepsy is caused by unusual electrical activity in the brain’s temporal lobes A significant proportion of people with TLE report that their seizures often bring on extraordinary experiences of transcendent wonder, luminous insight — or, at times, harrowing, uncanny fear.”

In The Vision of the Chariot: Transcendent Experience and Temporal Lobe Epilepsy, he says, “(Alien) abductees feel mild, epileptic-like symptoms just before they are ‘captured.’ Some abductees feel heat on one side of their faces, hear a ringing in their ears, and see flashes of light prior to an abduction. Others report a cessation of sound and feeling, or an overwhelming feeling of apprehension. All of this is typical of certain kinds of epileptic seizures.”

Whitley Strieber is arguably the most famous alien abductee in history, and he has written several books about his experience, most famously, Communion. He runs a website called Unknown Country, a support group for abductees. Pickover observes that Strieber documents TLE symptoms when describing the abduction- jamais vu, formication (crawling bugs on skin), “vivid smells, hallucinations, rapid heartbeats, the sensation of rising and falling, and partial amnesia.” Strieber was in fact diagnosed with epilepsy, but he refutes the diagnosis because polygraph and brain tests show that he isn’t lying- yet you’re not lying if you believe it was true! Just like others who have had visionary experiences, Strieber cannot be convinced the experience didn’t happen. In his case, it was not just a ‘window’ to the other world, but literally took place.
Mohammed shared the alien abduction theme in his vision, particularly the medical experiments that most abductees report. “Two men in white raiment came and threw me down and opened up my belly and searched inside for I don’t know what,” the prophet told his foster parents when he was five years old.

In Varieties of Religious Experience, psychologist William James warns us not to dismiss mystical events just because they came from electrical impulses. He reminds us that every single thought, however rational, anyone has, comes from the body.

Indeed, about a third of us have had religious experiences- can this be accounted for by some misfiring of the brain? Or is this exalted state actually the real deal, the divine, whereas the normal states are earthly ones, just as the visionaries profess?

September 7th, 1880, Dostoevsky’s journal reads: “This morning at 8.45, interruption of my thoughts, transported into other years, dreams, dreamy states, dreaminess…” It was the same year that his favourite child died, the final burden the writer would have to bear. The novel The Brothers Karamazov was underway, and much of it examined epilepsy, though the work was overall a culmination of the great psychological questions Dostoevsky wrestled with. Reason versus faith, doubt, the spiritual struggle, the question of free will, belonging, murder, family, fate -and indeed, the validity of epileptic experience, whether spiritual or organic- all the questions that science and psychology is examining today.

Dostoevsky said he’d be happy if he finished his book before he died, having great difficulty in writing it after the tragedy of losing his son. However, he wrote his son into the book by naming the hero after Alyosha.

A few months after The Brothers Karamazov was published, Fyodor Dostoevsky died of epileptic hemorrhaging. It was 1881. The novel was a supreme masterpiece, the writer’s crowning achievement.

It’s a gorgeous spring day, 128 years after Dostoevsky’s death, thousands of miles from political oppression and turmoil. Sitting on a Starbucks patio with The Brothers Karamazov and a friend, I wish the great writer were here today. We’d like to discuss a few things with Fyodor- one of them my central belief that mental illness isn’t mental illness, but what I like to call mental is-ness. Anger, delusion, sorrow, fear- just because something is unpleasant, doesn’t mean it’s sick. And conversely, the deep religious convictions we’ve had, and indeed the deep psychedelic experiences we’ve embarked on, are not sick just because joy doesn’t usually extend so far.

I’ve long believed that the chemical soup of which we are made is not a reduction of the human spirit or soul, but that it IS the human spirit or soul. My own bipolar life means torrential creativity even as it means frustration for idea cascades that never see completion. As a writer, I am, like Dostoevsky was, attached to my experiences of beauty, and accept the dark damnation that often follows in long depressions. Like most manic-depressives, I fear losing the exalted states and though the despair is hell, it teaches me the truth about the world.

Moreover, my benign and delightful belief in the magic of objects and the presence of spirits gives me profound connectivity. My grief is assuaged toward certain losses, when I feel my dead friend’s presence through an object he has left for me. How could I be a writer at all if it weren’t for my beautiful unquiet mind? I can’t shake the feeling that the meaning of life is indeed imbedded in the mystery of the mind, and the most intimate contact I have with a mind is with my own.

Dostoevsky suffered to show us a mirror to ourselves, to those sleepless nights inside us where the heart cries out to God for love, where we struggle with the big questions on the nature of man. And yet, sometimes, we glimpse the heartbeat of beauty and love and it keeps us going, whether or not it is a delusion.

If you like art, literature, madness and interesting people, you’ll love Lorette C. Luzajic’s books. Her first book is “The Astronaut’s Wife: Poems of Eros and Thanatos.” Her second is “Weird Monologues for a Rainy Life (Irreverent Ramblings from the End of the World.)” Her poetry and her collected blogs, musings, reviews, memoirs, notes, eulogies, requiems, interviews, profiles and more both devastating and hilarious romps through one woman’s wild mood swings- proving there’s life after death, even for manic depressives. “Think Courtney Love meets Margaret Atwood,” says Donnarama, Toronto’s premiere performance artist.

Visit the author’s link at Amazon to order your copies today!

As long as we are discussing the history of the first half of the 20th century now, I will write about the Russian revolution. It is rarely discussed by the general public, and is a favorite of the neo-Nazis. When I was in Baltimore, one of the participants in the conference argued that it was instigated, funded and organized by Germany. Reading up on it since, the theory rings true to me.

One of the interesting and forgotten things about the Russian civil war is that 19 countries jumped in on behalf of the White Army: US, Britain, the defeated and submissive to Allies Germany, France, Italy, Australia, Finland, Greece, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Canada, Austro-Hungary, Turkey, Japan. Their invading armies weren’t huge, but it was still 100,000 trained soldiers, about the same as our military in Iraq today. The West also sponsored a breakaway Moslem republic in southern Russia.

The problem was that Russians actually liked the Communists. During the October revolution, the Russian troops flipped to the Reds or just deserted.

So what does Germany have to do here? Well, for one, the Communist ideas began with Friedrich Engels who financially supported Karl Marx, a German Jew, and published his second and third editiors of Das Kapital after Marx died. The two of them co-wrote The Communist Manifesto. But that’s basically a side-note, as theories must be put in place.

In 1915, Vladimir Lenin, already a prominent Communist leader with close ties to European Social-Democratic parties (which explicitly described themselves as Marxist) attended an anti-war Zimmerwald Conference where he was the leader of the wing that called for turning The Great War into a class struggle. The same call was again repeated at a conference in 1916.

By then, Germany was bugged down in a war on two fronts and needed relief. The Eastern Front was the obvious side from which relief could be sought. Czar Nicholas II was a terrible leader. Many Russians now praise him, but only because he was the last pre-Communist leader. Russian people didn’t revolt against the Czar twice in a dozen years because he was even mildly competent. In fact, he admitted that he didn’t know how to run a country on the day of his coronation. (I heard this on the History Channel, but can’t find a citation for it now. I’ll look for it later.)

The Germans couldn’t just surrender the Eastern Front, that wouldn’t strengthen them. In fact, it would be the end of their war effort. Nor did they want to do so after crushing the Russian army in battle after battle. So Germany issued demands on Russian territories. The Czar didn’t want to do so. Neither did the guys who replaced the Czar following the February 1917 revolution (Alexander Kerensky’s Provisional Government).

But Germany saw an opportunity in Lenin, who was willing to surrender parts Russia in return for coming to power.

It is undeniable that the German government clearly hoped Lenin’s return would create political unrest in Russia, which would help to end the war on the Eastern front.

Lenin wasn’t merely allowed to travel from Switzerland through Germany to Russia after the February Revolution. Alexander Kerensky (the Head of the Provisional Government from February to October 1917) and Grigory Aleksinsky outright accused Lenin, whose mother was (fully or at least mostly) an ethnic German of being an agent for Berlin. (In addition to being part German, Lenin was partly Russian, Finnish, Swedish and Mongol.)

According to one account, “far from acting like a tiger in a cage, Lenin started to move only after the Germans forced him.” According to the same source, Germans had plans to transfer Lenin back to Russia before he even learned of the February Revolution.

German Chancellor, Bethmann-Hollweg, reported to the Emperor that “immediately” upon learning of the Russian revolution he instructed the German Minister to Switzerland to offer the Russian exiles passage through Germany.

It wasn’t the first time that Germany sent saboteurs into Russia during WWI. On at least one occasion in 1915, Communists were sent into Russia by Berlin. Additionally, German Communists were smuggling propaganda into Russia for years, with consent and support of Berlin.

On March 24 Lenin the German Emperor let it be known that he intended to support the Communists against the new Russian government. Three days later, a representative of the German General Staff visited Lenin to work on details of his return to Russia.

On April 1 the Wilhelmstrasse requested five million marks for political use within Russia.

On the morning of April 2, the German Minister in Berne received communication from Berlin ordering him to expedite the transport of Russian revolutionaries. That same morning, Lenin finally agreed to overcome his hesitations and telegraphed home that he’s returning.

Several of Lenin’s comrades still did not want to return, but Germany pressured them to do so. Of the 60 Communist leaders, only 19 were persuaded to return to Russia to stage a second revolution. Berlin also made sure to accompany Lenin with an “understanding officer”.

Lenin’s train was given such high traffic priority that it delayed the train of the German Crown Prince for two hours.

Upon entering Russia, Lenin immediately called for a second revolution (which would take in fact take place in October). A German agent reported: “Lenin’s entry into Russia successful. He is working exactly as we would wish.”

Lenin’s October Revolution was based on an effort to collectivize the farms (“land to the proletariat”) and surrender (“peace to nations”). Unlike the Czar and Kerensky, Lenin agreed to surrender Russian land to Germany, an act that was nothing short of treasonous. Naturally, just as today’s leftist leaders, he referred to surrender as “peace.”

The Russian revolution was a purely German conspiracy. From Marx and Engels and until Lenin’s trip back, including the pumping of Communist propaganda into Russia in intermediate years, it was always Berlin’s effort to undermine the enemy to the East.

But what about all those Jews in the Soviet government during the 1920s? A quick search of non-Nazi sources reveals that a large number of of them, like secret service founder Felix Dzerzhinsky weren’t Jewish, as the Nazis claim.

Jew Watch also claims that a Jew Hesya Helfmann assassinated Czar Alexander II. In fact, there were 4 bomb throwers, none of whom were Jews. Of the hundreds of people involved, Hesya was the only Jew. Narodnaya Volya organization had no Jewish leaders at that or any other time. (But like I said, according to Jews and anti-Semites, all famous people are Jewish. All of them. At least a quarter Jewish – the most important quarter, no doubt.)

There’s no doubt, however, that there were a lot of Jews in the Soviet government in the first dozen or so years and that Russian Jews opposed the Czar.

The answer to this, I’ll quote a Gates of Vienna article:

A mention of just 50 years of Russian history prior to 1917 would have to include at the least the tremendous, fascist-style oppression under Alexander II, Alexander III and Nicholas II and the royals’ rabid anti-Semitism, the many state-sanctioned mass murders (i.e. “pogroms”) of Jews, arbitrary deportations and destructions of Jewish communities, the Okhrana and the Black Hundred, the blood-libel Beilis trial and the forgery of the Protocol of the Elders of Zion, the super anti-Semitic and tsar-sponsored Union of the Russian People, the prominent roles of Jew-haters like Konstantin Pobedonostsev [read Wikipedia entry here], restrictions on habitation, education and access to the professions, and a prevailing atmosphere of hatred and disdain for Jews in all institutions of tsarist Russia except only the nascent communist conspiracy.

And also from Wikipedia:

Strict quotas were placed on the number of Jews admitted to high schools and universities, and many professions were declared off-limits…

Many historians note the concurrence of the state-enforced anti-Semitic policies with waves of pogroms.

In 1889, Jews were forbidden admission to law bar association…

In 1886, an Edict of Expulsion was applied to Jews of Kiev. In the spring of 1891, Moscow was cleansed of its Jews (except a few deemed useful)… About 20,000 were expelled, causing international condemnations…

That Jews would oppose such a regime is about as surprising as the news that Rhodesians are opposed to Robert Mugabe. If I raped your wife and killed your children, how much would you like me? (History of anti-Semitic pogroms of the time is too long for me to list here; you can read about it on Wikipedia.)

A Jew would have to be outright suicidal to support this regime. No doubt this will prompt comments that this proves that Jews work for their ethnic interests. But 1) they were forced to do so; 2) it isn’t necessarily any kind of a nationalist movement, people just wanted not to get killed.

So why did Jews rise to the top of Soviet ranks? Once again, we have to go back to the question of IQ. But in Russia’s case, it was even more extreme because the only people who could read prior to the Revolution were the aristocracy and the royalty. Seeing as they were driven out of the country (or not allowed to have a decent), it was a choice between Jews and people who couldn’t sign their own name.

Germany, historically the protector of Jewish interests, also pushed for Jews to be promoted to positions of power.

Interestingly, this was also a time when the Russian economy grew faster than at any other point in history. Lenin actually reversed himself and imposed a pseudo-capitalist New Economic Policy.

Then Josef Stalin came to power and in the 1930s purged all Jews from power. It’s interesting that Nazi lists of Jews in Russia who were in positions of power ends in the 1930s. The reason is that there were no Jews in power after that.

In fact, the Soviet Union was anti-Israel, anti-Zionist and at times outright anti-Semitic. Stalin was anti-Semitic, as evidenced by the Doctor’s Plot, the Night of Murdered Poets, Show Trials of the Jewish anti-Fascist Committee, and his desire to deport the Jews (he died just in time).

Stalin announced that “Every Jewish nationalist is the agent of the American intelligence service. Jewish nationalists think that their nation was saved by the USA (there you can become rich, bourgeois, etc.). They think they’re indebted to the Americans.”

Stalin directed Kruschev to incite anti-Semitism in the Ukraine, telling him “The good workers at the factory should be given clubs so they can beat the hell out of those Jews.”

Some historians have argued that Stalin was also planning to send millions of Jews to four large newly built labor camps using a “Deportation Commission”that would purportedly act to save Soviet Jews from an engraged Soviet population after the Doctors Plot trials.

Until Michail Gorbachev came to power, Holocaust-denial was a standard party line. They didn’t outright try to prove that Holocaust didn’t happen, just suppressed any news about it.

For example, a 1943 report on Babi Yar was originally supposed to say: “The Hitlerist bandits committed mass murder of the Jewish population. They announced that on September 29, 1941, all the Jews were required to arrive to the corner of Melnikov and Dokterev streets and bring their documents, money and valuables. The butchers marched them to Babi Yar, took away their belongings, then shot them.”

Instead all references to Jews were taken out by the censors and it said: “The Hitlerist bandits brought thousands of civilians to the corner of Melnikov and Dokterev streets. The butchers marched them to Babi Yar, took away their belongings, then shot them.”

The Soviet Union sided with Arabs over Israel, suppressed the Hebrew language and Jewish culture, and regularly referred to Jews as “rootless cosmopolitans.”

Thus, I would have to agree with Wikipedia which concluded that, “Jews were the immediate benefactors (of the Revolution), but long-term victims.”

But it would be too much to expect a full picture from people who are pathologically obsessed with Jews.

THE US pay tsar will slash compensation for the 25 highest-paid employees at seven firms receiving large sums of government aid and demand a host of corporate-governance changes at those firms, according to people familiar with the matter.

Kenneth Feinberg Picture: Bloomberg

Just how much does a Government appointed Tsar (Czar) earn as an income?

I don’t ever remember anyone, anywhere, mentioning how much their salaries are.   Is it public record?

Please, point me in the right direction.  Inquiring minds want to know!  Were their salaries, pension plans and perks part of the stimulus plan? 

KENNETH Lewis, outgoing chief executive of Bank of America, will get no salary or bonus for 2009, according to people familiar with the matter, the biggest Wall Street name thus far to come under the thumb of the government’s pay tsar.

Small sacrifice: Outgoing Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis. Picture: Bloomberg

I went for a short drive this afternoon and by the time I reached home again I was really rather cross. The radio was doing a feature on ‘Communist China’s 60th Birthday’. Environmentalists like George Monbiot and political whores like George Galloway phoned in messages of congratulations. There were odd digs at human rights records and the problem of greenhouse emissions but mostly this seemed like a kiss-ass fest.

What annoyed me more than anything was the constant referral to the 60th birthday. No details about the Maoist revolution, of course. No acknowledgement that China has existed for thousands of years prior to Mao’s ascension to power. And absolutely no discussion of whether there is any point in calling China a communist state as it was initially a military dictatorship and has more recently become a huge player in globalised capitalism.

China has not been a communist state for most of the 60 years it has been perceived as one. Indeed, it is unlikely it ever was one at all, even when Mao first came to power, as he needed military might and draconian policing to ensure the survival of his regime. Those who insist in calling it a communist state are the same misinformed nincompoops who believe Marx has been proven wrong by the fall of the Berlin Wall. As if the Soviet Union was a Communist state either. Certainly not after Lenin died and, as he and Trotsky would readily have admitted, even when Lenin was alive they had to use highly undemocratic means to stabilise their regime and stave off a populist return to Tsarism. And as for Russia under Joe Stalin. Communist? My left buttock! Stalin was as big a fascist as Hitler, and he was probably quite proud of the fact.

Slight digression: it has always fascinated me that three of the most feared and historically memorable dictators of the past 200 years became leaders of countries which were not the lands of their birth. Napoleon was not French, he was Corsican; Hitler was not German, he was Austrian (and of Jewish stock, no less); and Stalin was Georgian, not Russian. Does this mean that one day I will become fascist dictator of The Isle of Man?

Anyway, happy 60th anniversary of the Maoist transformation of China. I am waving my little red book in joy.

The Kitchen Boy: A Novel of the Last Tsar by Robert Alexander  ISBN 067003178X

I had been looking at this book for a year and a half before I finally picked it up and said I just have to read it. 

I am a mother of young children — so, of course I know Disney’s version of the last days of the Romanovs and the kitchen boy who runs off with a Grand Duchess.  Therefore I was curious what another person had to say about the character of the kitchen boy.

It took me a long time to read this book.  The book opens with an old man who is writing a letter of instructions to his grand daughter for after he dies.  It frustrated me to have the grandfather keep disrupting the flow of the novel — the grandfather in the “Princess Bride” helped the story along but somehow this grandfather was annoying.  I kept thinking to myself that’s it, I won’t finish it.  Yet for some reason I kept going back and finished it and did indeed enjoy it.  It was a book that may not be a thriller that you can’t put down … but it persistently hung on you making you want to finish it despite the fact that you thought you knew how it ended.

It was a harsh time in world history and it is sad to see the passing of tradition and history in so cruel and inhumane a manner — I did like the use of letters and diaries to add to the realism of the book and think just possibly … what could have happened?

From Amazon.com:

From Booklist
The final days of the last Russian tsar, Nicholas II, and his family are still a fascinating mystery. There is no one left to bear witness to what happened at the execution. Or is there? Alexander takes a very real, but forgotten and overlooked, potential witness, a young kitchen boy, and creates an amazing fictional account of what may have transpired. Leonka was working as a kitchen boy to the Romanov family when the Bolsheviks captured them, exiled them to Siberia, and imprisoned them in their house. Because of his lowly position in the household, Leonka was able to see and hear secret things. And he does keep them secret until decades later, knowing he is ready to die, he reveals all he knows about the imperial family and their horrific death. Alexander includes as much historically accurate information into his fiction as possible, and he includes actual letters and notes attributed to the Romanovs, which add a touch of authenticity. He also renders the plot beautifully with one final jaw-dropping and satisfying twist. Carolyn Kubisz
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Our government is filled with politicians who campaigned on a platform of protecting our right to choose.  To date none of them has done anything to protect any of our rights; instead they chip away at the Constitution with each new bill, comittiee and Czar.  In most states citizens can only purchase the dairy products the government wants them to consume – they actually legislate what kind of milk and cheese voters can buy.

Sure Louis Pasteur did mankind a favor when he discovered the process that now bares his name but other innovations since 1864 have negated the need to pasteurize milk.  Raw milk does not present the same dangers it did two centuries ago.  So why is it that in most states it is illegal to purchase raw milks and the amazing cheeses made from them?  Shouldn’t that be my choice?

The inept USDA is pasteurization crazy.  Do you know that commercial honey is pasteurized?  Honey, which in its raw state is as inhospitable an enviroment for microorganisms as exists on the planet is being cooked.  So what does pasteurizing honey do?  Nothing positive.  In fact it strips honey of every bit of its considerable nutritional value as well as flavor.

My good friend Widmer once smuggled back a pound of raw cheese from Zürich.  You could smell it a block away and the flavor was unbelievable.  It was the Swissest Swiss I have ever tasted.  When I inquired what made it so good he said back home they don’t pasteurize their milk.

I’m not saying to stop pasteurizing milk.  There are plenty of folks out there who just feel better with it.  What I am saying is give me back the freedom of choice granted by the founding fathers (who, by the way, never drank pasteurized milk).  Give me back my raw dairy.

Pesanan mbak Irma, untuk ulang tahun anaknya, Tsar. Cerita asyiknya ada di sini.

NB. Pemesanan cupcakes dengan desain seperti di bawah, MINIMAL satu minggu sebelum hari H. Terima kasih atas perhatiannya.

A lot of people have questioned over the past few weeks, my unrelenting retorts to @JohnPrescott, one Mr. Blair’s former lackie, and now Commander-in-Chief of Labour’s Online Army of Deception. With his trusty padawan, @KerryMP and plenty of help, I’m sure- Prezza has declared himself the “King of Twitter” and challenged various people (who wouldn’t be seen dead around him) to “Twitter debates” and other blogging banter.

It’s by no means statesman-like behaviour from the former First Secretary of State, as John attempts to goad political opponents into non-debates and claims victory through non-participation of the wiser party. Unfortunately, John- some people have day jobs. I wonder what the people of your constituency would think to know all you do all day long is sit at the laptop or blackberry thinking of tenuous and childish ways to try and destablise your foes? If I were a constituent of Hull East, I’d sooner vote Socialist Worker’s Party than for this twat twitterer. (Ed: Uh… really?)

John’s recent tirades have been against David Cameron, Andrew Lansley, Daniel Hannan and George Osborne, and his activities on the shabby, “GoFourth.co.uk” are funded centrally by the Labour Party. So what has he achieved? Well, a quick look at the UK Polling Report average polling figures puts the Tories squarely on 42 points, the Lib Dems on 19 and Labour on a measly 27. Good job, John! That’s a mighty fine use of time.

Finally, I’d like to pass comment on how Prescott is actually more likely worsening the situation for the Labour Party.

No one even knows who’s leading the Party and the country currently, with Mandelson vying for power, Harperson looking to purge Labour of all men and Miliband twiddling his schoolboy-like moustache in the wings. John’s emergence from the murky depths of anonymity have further blurred the lines between who is really the driving force in this farce of a government. His negative and tactless spin further implicates Labour in their negative campaigning ways- and his baseless accusations will only firm up what the public already know. Labour STILL isn’t working- and nor should Prezza be.

Here’s a lesson you wouldn’t learn in you American history class:

A seal in which the original emblem of the tsar backs up the present logo of Smirnoff. The logo is derived from this emblem and the client asked for a crossover between the two. This seal was used during a liquor fair.