Tuesday 19 February 2013

My new FAVOURITE UNCLE!!!



Well boss..

I'M ABSOLUTELY LOVING Steve Pieczenik getting properly into the online world events commentary action...!)


Dr. Steve Pieczenik is a critically acclaimed author of psycho-political thrillers and the co-creator of the New York Times best-selling "Tom Clancy's Op-Center" and "Tom Clancy's Net Force" book series. He is also one of the world's most experienced international crisis managers and hostage negotiators. His novels are based on his twenty years experience in resolving international crises for five U.S. administrations.

Dr. Pieczenik received his B.A. from Cornell University,trained in Psychiatry at Harvard and has both an M.D. from Cornell University Medical College and a Ph.D. in International Relations from M.I.T.

He was the first psychiatrist ever to receive a PhD. focusing on international relations, and is the only psychiatrist to ever have served as a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State. He served four presidents as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State under Nixon, Ford, Carter, and Bush Sr. and was a Senior Policy Planner under president Reagan. Dr. Pieczenik worked directly with, and reported directly to, Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger, Cyrus Vance, George Schultz and James Baker, as well as the respective White Houses. Dr. Pieczenik was drafted into the Vietnam War. He was assigned in the Public Health Services with the rank of Navy Captain (0-6) to run three psychiatric wards at St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington, D.C., including a ward where serial killers were housed. He was subsequently offered a promotion to Rear Admiral (0-7), which he refused on the grounds that he felt honored enough to serve his country, did not want to take a pension and wished to return to civilian life to follow his passions as a physician, entrepreneur and novelist. 

Dr. Pieczenik is an expert in psychological warfare, political psychology, regime change, intelligence, counterintelligence and covert operations. During his career as a senior State Department official, Dr. Pieczenik utilized his unique abilities and expertise to develop strategies and tactics that were instrumental in resolving major conflicts in Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, Europe and the United States.

Dr. Pieczenik was the principal International Crisis Manager and Hostage Negotiator under Secretaries Kissinger and Vance. During this time he developed conflict resolution techniques that were instrumental in saving over five hundred hostages in different terrorist episodes, including the Hanafi Muslim Siege in Washington, DC, the TWA Croatian Hijacking, the Aldo Moro Kidnapping, the JRA Hijacking, the PLO Hijacking, and many other incidents involving terrorists such as Idi Amin, Muammar Quaddafi, Carlos, FARC, Abu Nidal and Saddam Hussein. Based on these experiences, Dr. Pieczenik, along with other senior officials at the State Department developed the mandate to create Delta Force and other quick-strike special forces units that could be used in future hostage situations and international crises. Dr. Pieczenik resigned over President Carter's handling of the Iran Hostage siege. He was recruited by Dr. Richard Solomon to the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, CA to develop the strategy and tactics using the principles of psychological warfare to dismantle the Soviet Union without the use of military force. 
He was subsequently recruited into the Reagan Policy Planning Staff at the State Department. While at the State Department, Dr. Pieczenik was tasked with creating and implementing regime change in Panama to overthrow General Manuel Noriega. As a result, General Noriega repeatedly accused Dr. Pieczenik in the Panamanian newspaper, La Critica, of being an "assassin" and neutralizing several of Noriega's associates. This is a charge Dr. Pieczenik neither confirms nor denies.

Dr. Pieczenik helped develop negotiation strategies for major U.S.- Soviet arms control summits under the Reagan administration. He was also involved in advising senior officials on important psycho-political dynamics and conflict mediation strategies for President Carter's successful Camp David Peace Conference. In 1991, Dr. Pieczenik was a chief architect of the Cambodian Peace Conference in Paris.

He has worked with Dr. Richard Solomon to develop the theoretical basis for the Chinese Negotiating Behavioral Strategy, a classic in transcultural negotiations.

Dr. Pieczenik continues to volunteer his time and expertise as a consultant to the Department of Defense. He does not accept any remuneration for his services. He felt honored to work for his country that adopted him as a refugee and saved his family from extermination in the Holocaust. He has made it his life-long commitment to work to protect and preserve America’s liberties and freedoms, even when it meant going against the president of the United States and the very organizations with which he was working. To this day he still strongly believes in the integrity of the Office of the Presidency and the Republic, both of which must be bereft of corruption, deception, betrayal, collusion and crony capitalism by any and all parties, including financial, political, medical, pharmaceutical and academic special interests. His basic belief is that no one person is indispensable to the viability of State.

Dr. Pieczenik has started several successful companies, employing his methodologies in various industries, including investment banking, publishing, television/film and medicine. He has been directly involved as an Angel Investor with starting twenty-eight companies.


A PRETTY FUCKING COMPREHENSIVE CV WOULDN'T YOU SAY!?!?

Check out his blogs and podcasts in particular at stevetalks.tv
 
https://stevepieczenik.com/talks/archive.html#.USQA0_K1imx

HE'S MY NEW FAVOURITE INSIDE UNCLE SPILLING THE DIRT!!!

Perhaps in reaction to Alex Jones's rather 

RABIDDDDDD!!!!

approach 

Pieczenik has had his voice slowed (I enjoy the slow mouth movements in the podcasts) He's also blacked himself out of the talking image. He has a thing about self-aggrandizement, it frequently comes up in his commentaries. 

But surely blacking yourself out and using your real name and voice slowed down is

WAY MORE EGO!!!?!?!
 
Pieczenik does contradict himself occasionally and makes some absurd claims that only BOARD CERTIFIED PSYCHS can make, like... 

MASS MURDERERS CAN EITHER BE SANE OR INSANE?!?!?
 
Personally, I'D SAY THEY'RE ALL FUCKING NUTJOBS!!!

EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM!!!

EVEN POL POTTY AND IDI AMIN!!!

It's almost like he's suggesting the killing isn't the bit that makes you mad - more that you have to have a club foot or GOOGLY EYES!!!

I also worry a little that he appears to think perhaps the best way forward for the US is MILITARY DICTATORSHIP!?!?!! 

These mild criticisms aside, it's LOVELY to see a man with such experience across so many disciplines and positions of 'responsibility' laying out some FASCINATING angles on world events for the public... 

IT'S TOP FUCKING DRAWER!!!

BE THERE NOW!!! 

https://stevepieczenik.com/ 

 

Thursday 14 February 2013

AMERICA WHAT TIME IS LOVE???








The day of LOVE!!! aka R.I.P MARCO PANTANI



9 years ago today the champion cyclist Marco Pantani died 'alone' in a room in a hotel called The Rose in Rimini. The cause of death was a cerebral edema and heart failure. The coroner's inquest suggested acute cocaine poisoning. I wouldn't say I'm entirely convinced by the cause and manner of his death and neither apparently is his mother - but looking over the improbabilities of his death isn't what this blog is going to be about.

No boss, this is going to be all about Pantani the professional bike rider and how he beguiled me into following the sport of Professional Road Racing.

First up let's state the obvious:
 
Marco Pantani was a LEGEND!!!

He was a rider who ATTACKED WITH HIS HEART!!!

His riding style had PANACHE AND GUTS!!!

SOUL AND FIRE!!!

He wore no helmet, no radio, and employed no dull and earnest 5 team mates rolling a nice steady pace on the front of the bunch for the early climbs, then dropping off one by one to allow their esrtwhile capo to

grinddddddd

up the mountainside and ride everyone else off the wheel

in the process sending the viewing public to na na land....

No boss, when Pantani was riding he wasn't completing a 9 to 5 shift in a lead sheeting factory he was LOBBING A FUCKING HAND GRENADE INTO A FIREWORKS FACTORY!!! 

When he felt like attacking - he'd throw off his cap or his bandana and

GO!!!

And if that attack didn't work, he'd pause for a moment then

GO AGAIN!!!

AND AGAIN!!!!

AND AGAIN!!!!!!!

Yes boss, when he had those ROCKETS and multi-coloured WHIRLS proper FLYING OFF THE ROOF!!! it was never long before his competitors gave up any hope of trying to follow...

DEATH OR GLORY!!!

FLARE!!!

EDGE!!!

Pantanis riding was the kind that got you hooked. The little bald guy with a bandana and sticky out ears, who'd come through a career threatening injury laying it all out on the mountainside, destroying his rivals and making it all look very, VERY easy...

He was an inspirational rider. A rider who made you move and want to be involved.

Yes boss, without the prospect of him riding the 1999 Tour De France, I'd have never got together the wherewithall to lay off the fags for a few weeks to cycle a knackered old touring bike the 500 miles from Southampton to the Alps, to stand on the roadside 3/4 of the way up Col Du Galibier and wait in the vain hope of catching a similar memory to him

MINCING

Jan Ullrich and the rest of the field, in absurd weather on the way to his Giro and Tour double of 1998.

But sadly Pantani never arrived at the Alps in 1999...

No boss, within days of a second consecutive win in the 1999 Giro D'Italia, he was booted from the race for running an overly high haematocrit level. In those days, such a minor sin only meant a few weeks on the sidelines, but the whole situation seemed to get Pantanis back and/or doping program up and so though he could have, he didn't make the start line of the Tour...

What was then trumpeted as a sign the STILL tedious 'war on drugs' in cycling was BEING WON!!! turned into Lance Armstrongs first of the 7 *wins - and we now know he also had the extra fuel in his tank...

In July 2000, I again made the trip to the Alps. This time on the bike to Portsmouth, then the ferry?!!? The train!?!? I can't remember exactly, other than that I cycled from  Paris TERRIFIED from one station to another to board a train as far as Briancon and from there on with the bike.

I watched stage 14 over the Col D'Izzoard from the summit.

Pantani wasn't much showing.

A few days before he'd been 'gifted' the Mont Ventoux stage by Lance Armstrong. I'd watched all that unfold in a bar a few ks up the Izzoard. As the road kicked up on the Ventoux Pantani was drifting off the back 15 and more seconds behind a SUPER group containing Beloki, Armstrong, Ulrich, Botero, Heras & Tricky Dicky Virenque. He looked a good way off his best form and NAILED on for 7th place on the stage at best...!(

Then

OUT OF FUCKING NOWHERE?!?!

He crept up to the back of that leading group and then

OFF HE WENT!!!

1 time, 2 times, 4,5...

Until he got that gap...

IT WAS VINTAGE PANTANI!!!

UNFATHOMABLE!!! MOODY!!! INEXPLICABLE!??! EASY!?!?

I remember a guy going to the toilet in the midst of it. He came back and starred at the screen not understanding what had happened. When he'd left Pantani was dangling off the back

'Pantani!?!?'

'Oui...' the barman replied.

But equally unfathomable on the Ventoux was that when he felt ready and like it, Lance Armstrong nonchalantly rode on up to Pantanis wheel

and stayed there...

Pantani's collar had been felt.

LANCE WAS IN CHARGE!!!

THE BOSS HAD SPOKEN!!!

Anyway...

With no SPARKS flying on stage 14, I had to make do with buying a T-shirt and a bottle of Pantani labelled red wine from one of his many fan clubs on the summit. Feeling rather glum and underwhelmed, I drank the bottle as the race passed, then SUICIDALLY BOMBED IT back down the Col into Briancon at speeds that make me shiver to remember, loosing the empty souvenir bottle out of my panniers somewhere en route...

Pantani had seemed to be humbled.

It wasn't good.

But guess what???

He wasn't humbled.

FUCK THAT!!!

He was simply waiting for Stage 15...

Yes boss, the next day, when he rolled past on the early slopes of the opposite side of the Galibier to his epic attack of 98, he was loitering towards the back, not looking likely - bandana still on. Otxoa & Jiminez (R.I.P) were probing off the front trying to set up the early move - Pantani didn't seem interested in following it.

Marco wasn't however getting lazy, he was biding his time until the final climb into Courchevel.

Yes boss, when the final ramps went up

OFF HE WENT ONCE AGAIN!!!

Lance once again went along for the ride - for a bit, but Marco was too much for him.

UP AND UP AND UP AND UP!!!

VICTORY!!!

ALONE!!!

PROPER!!!

Now, 2 Mountain stage victories is a good return for any rider in the Tour. Pantani was seemingly too far back on the GC to win the overall and many lesser men would have simply sat at the back of the bunch taking the backslaps and cracking jokes. But apparently pissed off with Lance Armstrongs manner, charity and unpleasant goading, and still believing he could somehow win or podium the GC, the next day Pantani decided to try and PROPERLY derail the US Postal train and set himself up for GLORY!!!

AND SO OFF HE WENT ALONE ON THE FIRST CLIMB OF THE DAY!!!

DEATH OR GLORY!!!

PASSION AND FIRE!!!

FANFUCKINGTASTIC!!!



But as today of all days sometimes makes all too clear, it's not always a happy ending for the romantics...

No boss, though Lance BONKED and almost lost the Tour that day, Pantanis idyllic plan didn't win him it either. He was reeled in by the USEPO train, finished low down on the day and retired from the race the next siting stomach problems

It was the last the Tour would see of him.



R.I.P Marco Pantani

13 January 1970 – 14 February 2004




Wednesday 13 February 2013

What I've been doing...




I've gone beyond taking, photoshoping and posting the images...

HUNDREDS are printed out, pasted to rejected boards and then variously conditioned to find new layers and angles - these won't be posted online....

But you get the virtual gist by going here

A POEM

Oh the winds and the sea
How beautiful art thee
But when them planes went in the towers
I saw greater beauty than is present
even in flowers...
Those buildings had to go
My friend Larry said so
He once bought me a boat
(I don't like to gloat)
And so they went
BOOM!!!
Soon I will leave the room
For we must all die
and sometimes
even 
I
cry.

By George Aged 66


HERE WE GO THEN!!!


I was due to be starting this one tomorrow

Valentines Day AKA the 9th anniversary of the strange death of the champion cyclist Marco Pantani

But I'm all up and running a day early and so I'll start now.

WHY NOT?!?!?

There's no start anyway...

There's been a gap and I do of course have MUCH to say...

ONWARDS!!!