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My expectation is the only source for his paper dealing with the suicide being a murder was the book he posted in the comment above. The theory isn't really something that has been accepted, or researched in terms of true academic rigor outside of this book.

In saying that, it is a good book on Van Gogh. It takes its liberties, but that is normal. I'd also suggest [Lust For Life] (https://www.abebooks.com/book-search/title/lust-for-life/author/stone/pics/) as an option as well. It is a bit more fun to read, and hits a lot of interesting points in his life while taking a few artistic liberties.

The fact that I'm seeing this today is crazy; Amazon had recommended me a book a month and a half ago called: "What Doesn't Kill Us," really great read from another journalist named Scott Carney, he had followed Wim Wof and trained with him. I just finished it last night, a great read if you think this type of stuff is interesting.

https://www.amazon.com/What-Doesnt-Kill-Environmental-Conditioning/dp/1623366909/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1500402291&sr=8-1&keywords=what+doesnt+kill+us

According to the account of the trip that he wrote in "Becoming the Iceman" He made it to 27,230 feet shirtless and in shorts, a hat and boots. Everest is 29,029 feet. I'm not sure where you got the 22,000 number.

I climbed to Gilman's point Kilimanjaro with Wim also shirtless most of the way. My account of my six year journey with Wim and other people practicing environmental exposure is in my book What Doesn't Kill Us.

As I've said before, there is certainly some overstatement that surrounds the Wim Hof Method. There is also a tendency for the organization InnerFire to be more focused on money than is healthy, but there is definitely something to the method. It does make you much more resilient to the elements and it absolutely has an effect on the immune system (here's a link to a journal article in PNAS). Here's another about the WHM effect on altitude sickness.

I agree that people should be skeptical of claims like these, but they also should look at the evidence before they just start discounting it.

Sorry to tell you but you are historically illiterate.

Overthrowing other peoples governments

http://williamblum.org/essays/read/overthrowing-other-peoples-governments-the-master-list

Energy subsidies

https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/survey/so/2015/NEW070215A.htm

Interference in other states when the rich/corporations dont get
their way

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mxp_wgFWQo&feature=youtu.be&list=PLKR2GeygdHomOZeVKx3P0fqH58T3VghOj&t=724

Manufacturing consent (book)

http://www.amazon.com/Manufacturing-Consent-Political-Economy-Media/dp/0375714499/

Protectionism for the rich and big business by state intervention, radical market interference.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHj2GaPuEhY#t=349

Manufacturing consent:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwU56Rv0OXM

https://vimeo.com/39566117

Testing theories of representative government

https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/files/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf

Well the easy answer is when they ran articles suggesting that Saddam had or was very close to getting WMDs, or that AQ had connections to Iraq which helped Bush drive the US into the Iraq War. If you've read Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman, they focus on the NYT and show a clear bias towards their corporate sponsors, as well as with the military industrial complex. The things you see and more importantly the things you don't see, are bought and paid for in all major news publications.

There's actually a wiki article about NYT controversies.

Hmm, perhaps what is needed is a Netflix mini-series?

Seriously, it would be an awesome watch.

This guy was the original Indiana Jones before all his famous exploits during WWI. He also came up with the idea of the PT boat after the war.

I also highly recommend another excellent book, Lawrence in Arabia, an excellent companion to the Korda book and Seven Pillars of course.

https://www.amazon.com/Manufacturing-Consent-Political-Economy-Media/dp/0375714499

I wish you the best of luck deprogramming yourself from a truly nightmarish ideological prison.

Or his book Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman. It too is a fantastic read and truly allows you to appreciate the man for not only his fantastic knowledge, but also for the humour he brought to life.

Read Zbigniew Brzezinski's book The Grand Chessboard

There is no one person short of Henry Kissinger who has been more of a political insider through last 4 decades than Brzezinski. He was a key figure in supporting the Mujahideen and he almost single handedly created Al Qaeda (Al Qaeda means "the base", which referred to Brzezinski's database of useful Mujahideen fighters).

Brzezinski has advised on foreign policy from Carter to Obama and everyone in between. His book and his own words document the reasons for and the consequences of the US' role in the creation of Al Qaeda.

Any video claiming to give information on the beginnings of Al Qaeda/ISIS is horribly incomplete without THAT story....especially when the words come from the horse's mouth and the man is still alive today (his daughter is the co-host of Morning Joe on MSNBC).

I read a pretty interesting book about Lawrence called "Lawrence In Arabia" by Scott Anderson. It offers an interesting view of the man.
https://www.amazon.com/Lawrence-Arabia-Deceit-Imperial-Making/dp/0307476413

Quit making stuff up - time to learn the facts ... -- Wall Street, Washington DC, the US Military Industrial Complex, & the US Corporations (working together with the help of the CIA behind the scenes) are slowly & surely taking over the entire World Markets (with selective trade agreement that the average person has no understanding) and the people as well (consumers money) in those countries (and some with deadly operations)- sorry I had to reveal their long term plans ... most other countries know this already and hence, they're either with us or against us - and it's obvious which is which

See Attached

https://www.amazon.com/Legacy-Ashes-History-Tim-Weiner/dp/0307389006

May I recommend you read "Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman!", a fantastic book.

If you have never read his book, Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!, I highly recommend it. It is one of the most entertaining and informative books I have ever read.

If you get the chance, I'd also recommend picking up the graphic novel My Friend Dhamer and giving that a read. Supposedly the author who created it actually went to high school with Dahmer before he became a full blown serial killer.

Well done. This video seems to be based on the book Code by Charles Petzold, if you were interested in this video I highly recommend you read this book!

Get the book CODE by Charles Petzold. It's a super easy read, and by the time you're done with it you'll understand how CPUs work.

This has been mentioned by myself and others in this thread, but Lawrence in Arabia by Scott Anderson is a wonderful account not just of Lawrence, but the whole ordeal -

https://www.amazon.com/Lawrence-Arabia-Deceit-Imperial-Making/dp/0307476413

It uses journal entries, correspondence, and interviews to go into what Lawrence was thinking at different points during the conflict, and it's so engrossing that it almost reads like fiction.

Read Ahmed Rashid's "Taliban" and "Descent Into Chaos". He's the guy in the picture for reference. One of the few people in the world who have actually interviewed Mullah Omar (the founder of the Taliban) as well as many other ranking officers within the command structure, without a doubt he's the foremost authority on the subject. Yet he writes in such a simple and direct manner about the facts and figures as they evolved, without any of the propaganda or politics.

If I had to synthesize my undergrad in Pol Sci into a handful of books, these two would be at the top of the list. Truly an eye opener into this issue

Foreign Aid is such a complex topic.
I found that de Mesquita's tongue-in-cheek book "The Dictator's Handbook"
(https://www.amazon.com/Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Almost-Politics/dp/1610391845) has an interesting angle on that topic. When focus is on the motives of the aid givers, some seemingly absurd results and situations seem less absurd.

No, I'm saying that political leaders have similar incentives in most societies, and that this often leads to poor behaviour. This book is a good summary of why this happens.

No two individuals are the same, but we know that if we want a job done that offering money is a good way to get a whole variety of individuals to offer to work for us. That doesn't mean they are "all the same" though.

It's not common knowledge. More liek common lies. The 'source' you cite is hardly one. It appears to be a compilation of rumors and what 'some analysts believe'. Basically meaningless.

A good source to start with with is Ahmed Rashid, who wrote the definitive account about the origins of the Taliban called ... well, "Taliban". In his travels during the 1990s through Afhanistan he bumped into a certain hothead from Saudi Arabia with lots of money to throw around. Rashid is a Pakistani reporter who was on the ground, and appears to have attended the earliest meetings with these militants, that eventually led to the creation of the Taliban. Before that though, he was in and out of the Afghan war zone and clearly remembered seeing Osama Bin Laden before he became the world's bogeyman.

Rashid wrote - not too surprisingly - that everyone knew the source of the money that was putting weapons into the hands of these fighters. Everyone, of course, included Osama. Rashid went on to say that Osama was greatly offended by the idea that foreign western entities were paying for the defense of a Muslim homeland. In Osama's mind, there was no honor in fighting against one infidel (USSR) with the materials and funds provided by other infidels (US, Europe, et al). In addition, Osama had money. He was rich. He didn't need western handouts. Rashid goes into great detail about these visits and proves the lie that the US or any other foreign country provided any direct assistance to the creation of Al Qaeda.

Edit: The book - http://www.amazon.com/Taliban-Militant-Fundamentalism-Central-Edition/dp/0300163681

http://www.amazon.com/Taliban-Militant-Fundamentalism-Central-Edition/dp/0300163681/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1396212194&sr=8-1

I haven't read it, but I trust the author, because I've read his more recent books.

It focuses more on Al-Qaeda, but Lawrence Wright's 'The Looming Tower', is usually the first book I suggest to people looking to learn more about the broader subject. My Trip to Al-Qaeda is a documentary that covers a little bit about the book, which I highly suggest reading.

Other authors I read about the Middle East:

Robert Fisk

Ahmed Rashid

Rashid Khalidi

Steve Coll

George Packer

Peter Bergen

Thomas Ricks

Dexter Filkins

Jeremy Scahill

I strongly recommend this

https://www.amazon.com/Grand-Chessboard-American-Geostrategic-Imperatives/dp/0465027261/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1480093598&sr=1-1&keywords=the+grand+chessboard

if you want to dig deeper into what Russia has to deal with on a geopolitical level.

> The government is making a lot of people rich. And its not even just Republicans its Democrats too.

That's actually intentional. You've been fooled.

Reason doesn't work the way we thought it does:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYmi0DLzBdQ

The real news:

http://therealnews.com/t2/

http://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Incorporated-Managed-Inverted-Totalitarianism/dp/069114589X/

http://www.amazon.com/Shadow-Government-Surveillance-Security-Single-Superpower/dp/1608463656/

http://www.amazon.com/National-Security-Government-Michael-Glennon/dp/0190206446/

Look at the following graphs:

IMGUR link - http://imgur.com/a/FShfb

http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

And then...

WIKILEAKS: U.S. Fought To Lower Minimum Wage In Haiti So Hanes And Levis

Would Stay Cheap

http://www.businessinsider.com/wikileaks-haiti-minimum-wage-the-nation-2011-6

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnkNKipiiiM

Free markets?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHj2GaPuEhY#t=349

Free trade?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ju06F3Os64

http://www.amazon.com/Empire-Illusion-Literacy-Triumph-Spectacle/dp/1568586132/

"We now live in two Americas. One—now the minority—functions in a print-based, literate world that can cope with complexity and can separate illusion from truth. The other—the majority—is retreating from a reality-based world into one of false certainty and magic. To this majority—which crosses social class lines, though the poor are overwhelmingly affected—presidential debate and political rhetoric is pitched at a sixth-grade reading level. In this “other America,” serious film and theater, as well as newspapers and books, are being pushed to the margins of society.

In the tradition of Christopher Lasch’s The Culture of Narcissism and Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death, Pulitzer Prize-winner Chris Hedges navigates this culture—attending WWF contests, the Adult Video News Awards in Las Vegas, and Ivy League graduation ceremonies—to expose an age of terrifying decline and heightened self-delusion."

Important history:

http://williamblum.org/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcA1v2n7WW4#t=2551

Excellent (and very readable) book -

http://www.amazon.com/Dead-Aid-Working-Better-Africa/dp/0374532125

I watched this about 10 years ago now. For those interested, the author wrote a book about it, called Don't Get High on Your Own Supply.

I've got a paperback of it and I remember at the time (around 2007-2008) it was really hard to get ahold of (I actually had to bid for a copy on ebay as it was out of print - cost about £30 at the time if I recall)

Edit: Looks like it never got a digital release, and used copies run for around £50

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Charlie-Says-Dont-High-Supply/dp/0684860120

Highly recommend this as a very approachable "for-the-layperson" history of TE and the region during the same era that Seven Pillars covers. https://www.amazon.com/Lawrence-Arabia-Deceit-Imperial-Making/dp/0307476413

Part of the reason he couldn't explain what he did, and part of the reason he was deemed not insane in his verdict, was because he was a severe alcoholic. Had been since high school. He didn't remember most of what he did. It's almost a literal Jekyll and Hyde situation. Being drunk was the only way that he could commit the crimes, because when he was sober he knew what he had done was bad as opposed to a Ted Bundy or Jon Gacy who believed they had done nothing wrong. He is one of the few that had genuine remorse and, I think, knew how much of a monster he was and truly hated himself for it.

There's a FANTASTIC comic about this called My Friend Dahmer by an amazing comic artist who happened to go to high school with Dahmer and was his friend for a period. Really interesting, drawn well in an interesting style but very sad and, obviously, creepy.

For those interested in Dahmer. https://www.amazon.com/My-Friend-Dahmer-Derf-Backderf/dp/1419702173

For those interested his name is Dr. Tim Pychyl. I had to google images 'procrastination professor'. Here is a link to his book with decent reviews.

> humanizes this person that has been demonized for so long.

Try giving 'Dark Money' a read and then try saying that statement again.

check out the dictator's guide.

if you want to know why leaders throughout history have behaved in ways that seem at odds with common sense - this is the book.

it also explains how in fact democracies and dictatorships are not really all that different - in both the real mechanism of staying in power is "deep/hidden" coalition. The only difference is you need a smaller coalition for a dictatorship.

CG_grey made a video book review about it - it covers the genernal idea quite well.

This is why there is such dissonance between the actual CIA and the one presented to us by Hollywood.

I'll just leave this here for those interested int he history of the CIA:

http://www.amazon.com/Legacy-Ashes-The-History-CIA/dp/0307389006

Sowell does write about race and culture, too.

But he is also a serious economist, yes.

John Decamp wrote about this in his book "The Franklin Cover-Up." My hometown of Omaha, Ne played a major role in this whole ugly thing.

The Franklin Cover-Up

Sorry for not being more clear. I was referring to the popular far-right platform of diversity of race in Europe, the US, or Canda, being tantamount to the genocide of white people in those places.

Check with put the reviews for a book that Jonas Nilsson, the person that made this film, wrote.

He's a blatant white nationalist

Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky.

Read the book or watch the documentary

You need to read a book. For instance Dark Money by Jane Mayer

Once you've done that come back and talk to me about the Kock brothers.

you may find this book interesting:

http://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Incorporated-Managed-Inverted-Totalitarianism/dp/069114589X

It was published in 2000.
http://www.amazon.fr/gp/product/0684860120/ref=x_gr_mw_bb_sout_a?ie=UTF8&tag=x_gr_w_bb_fr-21&linkCode=ur2&camp=1642&creative=6746

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0399168125?*Version*=1&*entries*=0

http://www.amazon.com/Charlie-Says-Dont-High-Supply/dp/0684860120

Everyone needs to read Manufacturing Consent

Read "The Franklin Cover-up" if want more info. This entire story was called "a carefully crafted hoax" by a judge. But... I don't know how you get that many people to participate in this for so long.

> Every person is capable of resisting altitude sickness. It's called "acclimating". All Hof's method is is acclimation training through auto-asphyxiation before you hit the mountain. Not exactly magic or rocket science.

That may be a part of it. But the thing he teaches on these climbs is to consciously breathe more and deeper in order to oxygenate the blood. He has climbed Mt Kilimanjaro with a group of people in like 48h using this method without any of the normal medication climbers use. He has been up Mt Kilimanjaro with several groups of people, all using that breathing tecnique.

I suggest anyone interested to read Scott Carney's book What Doesn’t Kill Us: How Freezing Water, Extreme Altitude and Environmental Conditioning Will Renew Our Lost Evolutionary Strength. Scott is a lot more articulate on these things than Wim. Scott was also part of the group that climbed Mt Kilimanjaro in record time with Wim.

"Dead Aid" by Dambisa Moyo is a fantastic book on this subject and specifically its impacts in Africa. https://www.amazon.com/Dead-Aid-Working-Better-Africa/dp/0374532125

There is new evidence, such as accounts from people alive at the time, that suggest he was killed by a young man. (it is unclear why the boy shot him, could have been accidental, could have been malicious)

Here is an article about it that sums it up well: http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2014/12/vincent-van-gogh-murder-mystery

Here is a book that goes into copious detail: https://www.amazon.com/Van-Gogh-Life-Steven-Naifeh/dp/0375758976/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1481781701&sr=8-4&keywords=vincent+van+gogh

I myself read all the letters that are currently published between Vincent and his brother Theo, over 600 letters spanning his life time, read the interviews with people who knew him, looked at his medical history, and though its clear he was unhappy, he did not have the intention of killing himself that day (via the letter he sent that morning), and his autopsy helps prove that he was unlikely capable of creating the wound that he died from.

Frankly, His artwork was just starting to get noticed by the art world, having had his work officially critiqued, he was working on a new piece for a gallery exhibition him and his brother were going to host together to display Vincents work, all together, he was getting better. A couple more months and he would have had the fame he is renowned for. He was having a good day, and died.

Some people are born in areas where resources are more or less plentiful, this is not fair. That being said, some cultures or demographics make more babies who make more babies at rates which continue to ensure the limited resources available are certainly incapable of handling the population. Well what to do besides fuck if there is nothing to hunt, well their is war, political power, etc...Or their is entering the labor force through education and training. But it doesn't exist, ok import it, NOPE IMPERIALISM! rant off/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependencies_by_total_fertility_rate

May I suggest Sowell for an interesting viewpoint on historical choices of individuals as they relate to their particular advantages or disadvantages within certain areas, types of legal framework, ethnic groups, and culture... https://www.amazon.com/Race-Culture-World-Thomas-Sowell/dp/0465067972/ref=la_B000APQ7EI_1_17?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1495232293&sr=1-17&refinements=p_82%3AB000APQ7EI

“Jonas Nilsson is the author to Anarcho-Fascism Nature Reborn”

Looked the book up on Amazon. The official description is incredibly — purposely — vague, but the reviews make it clear: this dude’s racist as hell.

One of the victims Alisha Owen was apparently sentenced to 27 YEARS in prison for perjury. Her video testimony of child abuse by Larry King and others does not look fake to me.

There is a book on the subject too, which I think is the basis of the doco

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0963215809/102-1734717-3423304

Anyone know who, if anyone, has been brought to justice over this?

"We don't know how many people died. We estimated by counting the number of villages wholly depopulated."

• Interview with a CIA station chief detailed in Legacy of Ashes.
  
  Sixty years later, all we know about the U.S. involvement are a few leaks, interviews, and one particularly revealing drunken confession. What we do know is bad. Very bad. There was no threat to U.S. national security here, a few firebrands convinced themselves there was and then proceeded to convince the Indonesians of it.
  
  I highly recommend the book: Legacy of Ashes

Your assertion that there is absolutely no state-sponsored influence on any facets of American media, and that there are no power players who involve themselves in advertising, is obviously, categorically false. Your argument is founded solely on either naivety or misinformation. I'd recommend to everybody seeing this read The Dictator's Handbook, NY Times best-selling Dark Money, and maybe even Pulitzer-prize winning Black Flag for a more in-depth study on the complicated issue of how exactly we're manipulated and exploited.

In a nutshell, the classic steering mechanism for public opinion used to be Manufacturing Consent (Chomsky) or Engineering Consent (Bernays) which generates propaganda to achieve more of a public consensus whereas Adam Curtis' HyperNormalisation looks at the shift from that to neutralizing the pubilc into inaction by polarizing them with conflicting information or misinformation (patently false information) so that NO consensus can be reached. Both achieve the same goal of allowing the power elite to carry out the policies they wish while reducing the influence of an ostensibly democratic public which, in conjunction with more and more police state-like authoritarian measures making them more compliant, can no longer tell what is truth and what is misinformation. The public descends into arguing amongst themselves as opposed to those in power.

Edit. I would highjly recommend watching Adam Curtis' famous documentary The Century of the Self which looks at Edward Bernays (Sigmund Freud's nephew) and the origins of the consumer society, public relations and propaganda.

Many of those figures were exaggerated and fabricated after the war, as historians have known for around fifty years.

Even the pre-war figures were also based on faulty, often racist assumptions, about the unwavering tenacity and fanaticism of the Japanese population, in which they argued that much of the civilian population would either fight invaders with their bare hands, or commit suicide rather than be conquered.

Both left out the fact that eight straight years of war, and being completely cut off from their empire in the last year, the Japanese were only months away from being completely without the resources, gasoline/oil/rubber/steel etc... necessary to continue the war. A fact which was not unknown to us, nor does it mention that Japanese were seeking conditional surrender for months before we dropped the bomb.

Edit: For further reading on the topic, I would recommend John Dower's War without Mercy, Tsuyoshi Hasegawa's Racing the Enemy, Gar Alperovitz's Atomic Diplomacy and The Decision to use the Atomic Bomb

A week ago I would have said the same thing as you, but recent scholarship does not support even the idea that the people at the time thought it was necessary.

On Monday I listened to this great lecture by Gar Alperovitz based on his book The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb. He goes through all of the military reports and journals of the people involved.

The military didn't think it was necessary (particularly Eisenhower). The British didn't think was necessary. The political staff didn't think it was necessary, except for Truman's Secretary of War Henry Stimson who had enormous influence over Truman because Stimson was his former patron in the Senate.

> He was the only top government official who tried to predict the meaning of the atomic age—he envisioned a new era in human affairs. For a half century he had worked to inject order, science, and moralism into matters of law, of state, and of diplomacy. His views had seemed outdated in the age of total warfare, but now he held what he called "the royal straight flush." The impact of the atom, he foresaw, would go far beyond military concerns to encompass diplomacy and world affairs, as well as business, economics and science. Above all, said Stimson, this "most terrible weapon ever known in human history" opened up "the opportunity to bring the world into a pattern in which the peace of the world and our civilization can be saved." (Wikipedia)

What struck me about Alperovitz's talk was the casualty figures. The realistic casualty figures were 0 (that's right, zero) because the Japanese were dying to surrender. The estimated casualties if an invasion were necessary were about 45,000, because they had no fighting capacity left. The estimate of 500 thousand to 1 million were only mentioned after the fact to justify was was basically a war crime.

These cities had no industrial capacity. They were filled with women, children, the elderly, and the injured. The bomb was only dropped to scare the Russians and set up the stage for the Cold War.