Omar Khayyám (Persian عمر خیام; May 18, 1048 – December 4, 1131) was a Persian poet, mathematician, and astronomer. During his own life he was primarily known for his ingenious work as a scientist; Khayyám contributed a number of insights to the development of geometry, algebra, and other fields of mathematics. He also revolutionized the field of astronomy by proving that the earth-centric theory of the cosmos was fundamentally flawed. Almost all of Khayyám’s contributions to science would eventually find their way into the Western hemisphere.

Today, however, Khayyám is primarily known as a poet, and particularly for the volume The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyám, famously translated by the nineteenth-century English poet Edward Fitzgerald. Khayyám’s poetry, written in rubaiyat, or quatrains, which tend to rhyme in an “aaba” rhyme scheme, is memorable not only for the beauty of its language and the concise gracefulness of the rubaiyat form, but also because the poems give the reader a glimpse at a mind of profound complexity and intelligence addressing fundamental issues of faith, doubt, and morality.

As a brilliant scientist and devout Muslim, Khayyám struggled to find the balance between rationality and religion, a struggle which forms the principle topic of Khayyám’s poetry. Although he was virtually unknown to Western audiences until nearly a millenium after his death, Khayyám is now universally acknowledged as one of the most profound and important poets of the Middle East.

Early life

Khayyám is thought to have been born into a family of artisans in the city of Nishapur. He spent his childhood in the town of Balhi, studying there under the tutelage of Sheik Muhammad Mansuri, one of the most well-known scholars of the time. Later, Khayyám studied under Imam Mowaffak of Nishapur, who was considered one of the greatest teachers of the region. Two other exceptional students began studying under the same teacher at about the same time. One of these was Nizam-ul-Mulk, who went on to become the Vizier to two rulers of the Persian Empire. The other was Hassan-i-Sabah, who went on to become the leader of the Hashshashin.

It was commonly believed that any young man who studied under that eminent Imam would attain honor and happiness. These three students, who became friends, each pledged to one another that whichever of them received fortune, he would share it equally with the other two. After Nizam-ul-Mulk became Vizier, Hassan-i-Sabah and Omar Khayyám each went to him, and asked to share in his good fortune.

Khayyám made a very modest request, asking not for an office or fame, but simply a place to live, study science, and pray. He was granted a yearly pension of 1,200 mithkals of gold from the treasury of Nishapur. He lived on this pension for the rest of his life.

Mathematician

Khayyám was famous during his lifetime as a mathematician, well known for inventing the method of solving cubic equations by intersecting a parabola with a circle. Although this approach had earlier been attempted by Menaechmus and others, Khayyám provided a generalization extending it to all cubics. In addition he discovered the binomial expansion, and authored criticisms of Euclid’s theories of parallels which made their way to Europe, where they contributed to the eventual development of non-Euclidean geometry.

In 1070 C.E. he wrote his great work on algebra. In it he classified equations according to their degree, giving rules for solving quadratic equations which are very similar to the ones we use today, and a geometric method for solving cubic equations with real roots. He also wrote on the triangular array of binomial coefficients known as Pascal’s triangle. In 1077 Khayyám wrote Sharh ma ashkala min musadarat kitab Uqlidis (Explanations of the Difficulties in the Postulates of Euclid). An important part of the book is concerned with Euclid’s famous parallel postulate, which had also attracted the interest of Thabit ibn Qurra. Khayyám’s attempt at proving this difficult postulate was a distinct advance over those of his contemporaries. Khayyám also did other notable work in geometry, specifically on the theory of proportions.

Astronomer

Khayyám was also famous as an astronomer. In 1073 the Malik-Shah, sultan of the Seljuk dynasty, invited Khayyám, along with various other distinguished scientists, to build an observatory. Eventually, Khayyám measured the length of the year with extraordinary accuracy as 365.24219858156 days. This calendar measurement has only a 1 day error in every five thousand years, whereas the Gregorian calendar used today, has a one day error in every 3,330 years.

Khayyám also estimated and proved to an audience that the universe is not moving around earth as was believed by all at that time. By constructing a revolving platform and simple arrangement of the star charts lit by candles around the circular walls of the room, he demonstrated that earth revolves on its axis, bringing into view different constellations throughout the night and day. He also elaborated that stars are stationary objects in space which if moving around earth would have been burnt to cinders due to their large mass. All these theories were adopted centuries later adopted by Christian astronomers.

Poetry

Khayyám is famous today not only for his scientific accomplishments, but also for his literary works. He is believed to have written about one thousand four-line verses. In the English-speaking world, he is best known for The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám in the English translations by Edward Fitzgerald (1809-1883). Perhaps the most famous of Fitzgerald’s translations is this one, Rubaiyat XI:

Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough,
A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse – and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness –
And Wilderness is Paradise enow.

As a work of English literature Fitzgerald’s poetic version is a high point of the nineteenth century. As a line-by-line translation of Khayyám’s quatrains, it is noted more for its freedom than for its fidelity. Many of the verses are paraphrased, and some of them cannot be confidently traced to any one of Khayyám’s quatrains at all. Fitzgerald indisputably distorted the eleventh-century original by adding his own nineteenth-century Romantic sentiments, and some more recent translations of Khayyám’s poetry are not nearly as sentimental or overwrought as Fitzgerald’s version, revealing a poet of stark intelligence and concise language. Nonetheless, Fitzgerald’s version remains the most familiar (and most widely imitated) of Khayyám translations.

Some critics jokingly refer to the Fitzgerald’s English versions as “The Rubaiyat of FitzOmar,” a practice that both recognizes the liberties Fitzgerald took with his source but also the credit Fitzgerald deserves for the considerable portion of the “translation” that is his own creation. In fact, Fitzgerald himself referred to his work as “transmogrification.” Some people find this quite unfortunate, while others see Fitzgerald’s translation of the work as close enough to the true spirit of the poems to warrant the liberties taken.

One of Fitzgerald’s most important (and, according to some, controversial) innovations was his choice to organize Khayyám’s rubaiyat into coherent sequences. It is almost certain that Khayyám wrote each of his rubaiyat as a poem unto itself, and although he often returned again and again to the same images and issues, there is no textual evidence to suggest in what order (if any) he wanted his poems to be read. By linking a number of rubaiyat together, as in the following famous sequence on religious doubt, Fitzgerald was able to turn Khayyám’s small, brilliant poems into lengthy meditations on deeper, philosophical themes:

And, as the Cock crew, those who stood before
The Tavern shouted – “Open then the Door!
You know how little time we have to stay,
And once departed, may return no more.”

Alike for those who for TO-DAY prepare,
And that after a TO-MORROW stare,
A Muezzin from the Tower of Darkness cries
“Fools! your reward is neither Here nor There!”

Why, all the Saints and Sages who discuss’d
Of the Two Worlds so learnedly, are thrust
Like foolish Prophets forth; their Words to Scorn
Are scatter’d, and their mouths are stopt with Dust.

Oh, come with old Khayyám, and leave the Wise
To talk; one thing is certain, that Life flies;
One thing is certain, and the Rest is Lies;
The Flower that once has blown for ever dies.

Myself when young did eagerly frequent
Doctor and Saint, and heard great Argument
About it and about: but evermore
Came out of the same Door as in I went.

With them the Seed of Wisdom did I sow,
And with my own hand labour’d it to grow:
And this was all the Harvest that I reap’d –
“I came like Water, and like Wind I go.”

Into this Universe, and why not knowing,
Nor whence, like Water willy-nilly flowing:
And out of it, as Wind along the Waste,
I know not whither, willy-nilly blowing.

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

And that inverted Bowl we call The Sky,
Whereunder crawling coop’t we live and die,
Lift not thy hands to It for help – for It
Rolls impotently on as Thou or I.

On Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed into law two bills that dramatically escalate the government’s censorship of the internet and crackdown on free speech. The first bill provides for the removal of and ban on sites and blogs that allegedly spread “fake news”, and the fining of their authors. The second outlaws the alleged disparaging of state symbols and the government, and the inciting of society to “hooliganism”.

Individuals accused of spreading “unreliable information” on “socially significant” issues that could cause harm to individuals or social disorder, can be fined 30,000-100,000 rubles (US$ 466-1,553) for their first violation of the law – an amount that surpasses what a sizable portion of the population make in a month – and up to 400,000 rubles (US$ 6,211) for repeated offenses. Legal entities can be charged up to 1,5 million rubles (US$ 23,292).

What constitutes “unreliable information” is nowhere defined and will be decided by the General Prosecutor’s office, which will be overseeing the implementation of the law, as well as the state agency Roskomnadzor (Russian Communication Oversight), the main agency responsible for the surveillance and censorship of the internet in Russia.

The two laws are part of an international campaign by the ruling class to crack down on the internet, which has become the main platform for the dissemination and discussion of news and opinions that run counter to the official bourgeois mainstream media, as well as for the organization of demonstrations and strikes.

The bill had been approved in a first and second reading by the Russian parliament earlier this year, amid a strike of some 12,000 truckers in southern Russia. The signing of the bills by Putin occurred on the same day as medical personnel at several hospitals in Novosibirsk launched a work-to-rule action to protest against their miserable salaries (about 20,000 rubles monthly or US$ 314 with overtime) and the ongoing cuts in the health care sector.

If the US political establishment and corporate media have based their campaign of internet censorship ideologically on the fight against alleged “fake news” with reference to the “Russian meddling” in the election, the Russian government and state media have justified Moscow’s own clamping down on free speech on the internet by citing the international campaign against “fake news” as well as the Ukraine conflict and the overt propaganda by the Western bourgeois media.

Amid escalating tensions with the US and European imperialist powers, and rising levels of social inequality, the Russian government in recent years has worked to set up what is now a comprehensive framework for the surveillance of the internet and individual users. It has banned the use of Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) that hide users’ actual internet IP, allowing them to surf on the internet without being automatically identifiable; public WiFis require personal identification for usage and the government has also obliged corporations running social media platforms to store their information about users on Russian servers and make them available upon request to the secret service. Meanwhile, a 2018 attempt to ban the popular messaging app Telegram, which enables encrypted communication, has largely failed.

In addition to these two new censorship laws, the Russian government is also actively preparing to create a Russian internet that would be separate from the World Wide Web. In February, the Russian parliament approved the first reading of a such a bill. The Kremlin has presented the law as a response to the US national cybersecurity strategy that was passed in 2018, and Putin has defended the law as necessary to guarantee the “security” of Russian citizens.

While there is no question that the open war preparations by the United States and NATO against Russia are a major motivation for the efforts to create a separate Russian internet, at least as important a factor is the fear of the Russian oligarchy that the internet can be used by Russian workers and youth to access information about and link up their struggles with the growing struggles of the working class all over the world. Russia is the most unequal large economy in the world, with the top 1 percent owning as much as one-third of the country’s net wealth and the bottom 50 percent of the population owning less than 5 percent.

The yellow vest protests in France, as well as the strikes by Iranian workers and, most recently, the mass protests and strikes in Algeria have been closely followed in Russia, where over 90 percent of the population has expressed opposition to the raising of the retirement age by five years, which was rammed through in the summer and fall of last year.

The US media coverage of the new censorship laws in Russia, feigning outrage over the Kremlin’s crackdown, has been entirely hypocritical. Thus, the editorial board of the Washington Post denounced as an “authoritarian assault” on the “potential value of the Internet, and its very freedom”.

The same Washington Post has been fully complicit in the internet censorship campaign in the US. It has been one of most vociferous proponents of a campaign against “fake news”, and, in November 2016, it published a “black list” of anti-war and left-wing web sites, many of which, including the World Socialist Web Site, were subsequently demoted by Google in search results, and purged by Facebook.

Watch the official music video for ‘Dream Warriors’ by Dokken from the Dokken album ‘Back for the Attack’. ‘Dream Warriors’ was written to be the theme song to the movie ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors’

The most anticipated. The most talked about. The most pre-ordered. The fastest selling. Halo 2 has become the game that everyone wanted it to be: the most important reason to ignore reality and escape to a world that’s 100% better than your own.

Everyone waited for Halo 2 because of its multiplayer gameplay. That’s the reason why it has a chance at becoming the most played game of this console generation. Based on my personal experiences, it seems that no less than three people are playing Halo 2 for every copy sold. If it sells as many copies as the first game (over five million), it’ll reach at least 15 million players.

When your friends aren’t around, you can log into Xbox Live and play it against thousands of gamers from virtually anywhere in the world.

There are times when you’ll end up playing the game alone, and in Halo 2’s case it will be by choice. The new single-player and co-op campaign is an ultra-fun, out-of-this-world, non-stop action-fest. What Metal Gear Sold did for espionage Halo 2 does for action. I literally felt like I was inside of an action movie, shooting my way through a legion of ferocious enemies that want to take over the world. (The whole galaxy is in their long-term plans, but they’ll settle for one planet at a time).

The action is backed by Halo’s award-winning controls and a new set of levels that are better than any featured in the original. You heard right – better than any level featured in the original Halo’s single-player campaign. Halo 2 is bigger, badder, and a whole lot better in every conceivable way. From tiny things like mounted weaponry, to the more major improvements like vehicle controls and the intense battle sequences (which you’re a part of!), Halo 2 is nothing short of an amazing experience.

Halo 2 has a lot of new gameplay features: new weapons, faster shield repair, the ability to use two weapons simultaneously, etc. Those are great, but my favorite is the ability to steal vehicles. Halo 2 gives you the power to chase opponents, kick ’em out of the vehicle, hop in the driver’s seat and take over. You have no idea how much fun this is to perform (unless you’ve played the game already. Then you know it’s the coolest and most brilliant addition Bungie has given us).

This is an especially cool treat for multiplayer games. Your friends will get so mad when they’re battling someone with a Ghost, only to lose it when you snatch it from them. The best part is when you’re playing Juggernaut (one of the many multiplayer games). In Juggernaut, only one enemy exists: the Juggernaut. Only the Juggernaut can score points by killing other players. Killing the Juggernaut turns you into the Juggernaut; killing anyone else will deduct points from your score.

The Juggernaut will likely search for a vehicle, thinking it’ll give him/her the upper hand. It might for a while…until the Juggernaut becomes distracted. That’s when I run in, steal the vehicle, kill the Juggernaut, and destroy the players I once called teammates. They hate it when that happens, which is precisely why I love it so very much.

Halo 2 has the expected multiplayer modes: Slayer (kill the most opponents to win), Capture the Flag, and King of the Hill. It also has a mode called Assault where you gain points by carrying, arming and dropping your team’s bomb in the other team’s base. Oddball is like Capture the Flag with constant movement: find the ball and hold onto it the longest. In Territories, players must control various areas on the map for as long as possible.

Halo 2’s weapon selection is the best of any console FPS. You can find pistols, shotguns and sniper rifles in any FPS, but they’re all better in Halo. The new dual wield system might take some getting used since each weapon is controlled by a different trigger. To fire both weapons at the same time you must hold down both triggers. This felt a little awkward at first since I tend to hold the Xbox controller very loosely. The awkward feeling began to fade as soon as I realized how much quicker enemies die when wielding two weapons. This greatly improved my chances for success in multiplayer, a mode I do not yet dominate (but will dominate very soon. Mu-ha-ha-ha!).

The vehicles, old and new, are undeniably cool, and undeniably Halo. Controlling the enemy’s vehicles is the best part, whether you’re the good guys or…do you really want me to spill the beans? If you haven’t heard by now, you’re best discovering this little secret on your own.

The Ghost is the vehicle you see everyone stealing, and the Banshee is the awesome aircraft that takes Halo to new heights, both in multiplayer and during the single-player campaign. The M808B Scorpion MBT (a near-indestructible tank) has the power to crush almost anything. It can drive over rugged terrain, take out enemy aircrafts, and cruise through a Ghost like it wasn’t even there.

Like every Halo vehicle, the Banshee doesn’t fly like a typical aircraft. The right trigger handles the Banshee’s powerful plasma cannons; the left trigger increases your speed. This aircraft moves in the direction of your crosshairs, so if you have them pointed at a ground-based enemy, you can be certain you’re losing altitude.

The new weapons and gameplay features would be useless without great multiplayer maps. Halo 2 has several. The cat’s out of the bag, so I’m sure most everyone knows that Coagulation is the Blood Gulch map, revived and revised for Halo 2. The other maps are extremely rewarding. Ivory Tower is an instant classic, featuring lots of areas to climb and a central dome-like area for all-out battles. Waterworks is perfect for the happy camper who likes to grab a tank and sit and wait for opponents to come.

If the vehicles don’t appease you, go to the options menu and change them. Same goes for the weapons. Halo 2 has a huge list of options that can be tweaked. The only thing I haven’t been able to do is eliminate ALL vehicles from a map. It’s not something I would normally do (the vehicles are one of the best things about Halo), but there were times when me and my friends wanted a game where our only line of defense was sniper rifle. The temptation of having a vehicle on the map is too great to resist. Eventually someone would cave and grab one, then we’d all cave and start using ’em.

As if there was ever any doubt, Halo 2 is the best Xbox game ever made. This means that it’s better than the first Halo. It’s better than Splinter Cell, Ninja Gaiden, Knights of the Old Republic, The Chronicles of Riddick, RalliSport Challenge 2, and every other Xbox game that, at one time or another, stole our hearts as the best game available. Halo 2 won’t be topped until the day Bungie releases Halo 3. Join the revolution now and buy the game that no one can stop talking about.

Review Scoring Details for Halo 2

Gameplay: 10
Everything you loved about the first Halo times two. Twice the addiction, twice the replay value, more than twice the number of gameplay features, and more than twice as many multiplayer options. Everyone who’s played it will tell you the same thing: this is the game makes you glad you bought an Xbox.

Graphics: 9.2
Some of the best visuals the world has ever seen. Take a look at the water, the textures, the destructible environments. Almost every moment is breathtaking. I was especially impressed by the effect the game demonstrates when using a sniper rifle or some other type of scope. The backgrounds gain detail as you zoom in, just as they would in real life.

A couple of things keep the game from receiving a perfect score in this category. (1) Graphics are always improving, so no game truly looks perfect. (2) The game seemed to slow down every once in a while during co-op. What gives? (3) Some of the movie sequences have clipping. Halo 2 looks gorgeous, then you watch a real-time sequence and see the game clip. The gameplay is good enough for us to forget that this happened, but why did it have to occur at all? They had three years development time. Was that not enough time to make it look as good as it played? I’ve seen EA work wonders in just 12 months.

Sound: 9
Good voice acting, but the music is split 50/50. I love the orchestral score – those songs are awesome. The rock-oriented tracks are good, but completely out of place. I know why Microsoft wanted to include them, but they’re not Halo’s style. Halo 2 is an epic game. The soundtrack should reflect that throughout the journey.

Difficulty: Medium

Concept: 8.9
Surprised by the imperfect score? Halo 2 is not entirely innovative. Bungie created innovation with the first game. Halo 2 improves on what they already made. The developers somehow managed to make the gameplay, which already seemed perfect, even better.

Multiplayer: 10
If you expected the multiplayer to live up to the original, you might be disappointed. Bungie didn’t want to make a game that played as good as the original. They wanted to make one that played better. I know it’s hard to deal with, but you’ll find a way to go on. We all will.

Overall: 9.7
What do you mean you want an overall score? Doesn’t my review say enough? Kids these days. Back in my day, it didn’t take a review to get us gamers to go out and spend money. We flew to the store whenever a game like Halo came out, regardless of the cost.

Back then we didn’t have a game like Halo. We had the Marios and the Street Fighters, but not until Bungie came along did we get a game like this. A game that brings people together in a way that no other has. Halo 2 is the Xbox revolution you’ve been waiting for. Not just you – but all of us.

The bubbling crucible of horror video games has brewed some underwear-dampening gameplay over the last two decades. Heart-stoppers such as Outlast and Amnesia: The Dark Descent leave their mark on the psyche of gamers brave enough to endure their scares, but one game has been the muse to up the ante in current survival entertainment and JumpCut wanted to commemorate its twentieth birthday.

Konami’s 1999 survival horror for Playstation has remained timeless amongst retro gamers. Remaining visible in the media’s eye, various adaptations on multiple platforms have invited non-gamers into Silent Hill, including a visual novel, feature film and seven sequels to the original game (The most recent being Downpour in 2012). These adaptations have spread the myth of this pastime to all niches of civilization, ensuring we all receive a dream from Pyramid Head.

Harry Mason is the protagonist in the foggy American town as he searches for his missing daughter and consequently interferes with a cult’s ritual to birth the deity they worship. With a combination of third-person combat, exploration of real-time 3D environments and crucial puzzle-solving, the quivering player must learn the true origin of this town’s evil and beat the game that – depending on your choices – offers five different conclusions.

Director Keiichiro Toyama lacked in horror culture, but his interest in UFOs, the occult and David Lynch movies influenced and encouraged the game’s development. Though Silent Hill was compared to Resident Evil, it established a distinct approach to prompt fear by creating a disturbing atmosphere for the player, in contrast to Capcom’s action-oriented base. A combination of thick fog, darkness and vintage technical grain aided Silent Hill’s scare-o-meter, combined with composer Akira Yamaoka’s jarring industrial score, who had to explain to Team Silent that the noises they heard in his music were not glitches.

Toyama guided the design and narrative of Silent Hill away from a B movie format and towards psychological horror that had a lasting effect on gamers and provided a gateway to the silver screen. Its plot and nightmarish images caught the eye of Christophe Gans when he directed his 2006 cinematic adaptation, replacing Harry Mason with female lead Rose Da Silva (Radha Mitchell) because Gans saw feminine qualities in Mason. Mitchell’s emotionally-driven Rose offered a new dynamic for the franchise and Gans gifted us with a graphic look at the bubble-head nurse, for which, we thanked him for.

Silent Hill is a horror aficionados paradise and an Ori and the Blind Forest player’s biggest NOPE. This nineties classic was transformative for gaming on the gore scene, updated for modern platforms thanks to Konami’s release of the Silent Hill 2 & 3 HD Collection. Whether you play alone, in a group of namby-pambies, or with your mama, this sublimely atmospheric godfather of horror games has to be experienced at 2 AM in complete darkness and don’t forget your pocket radio.

If there is an argument to be made that the United States is the biggest purveyor of terrorist activities across the world which we justify with the endless “Global War on Terror” (and that argument is not hard to make), what does that say about our “War on Drugs”? Look at just a few of the recent stories from the headlines and judge for yourself…

The Justice Department lied repeatedly about “gun walking” firearms to Mexican drug cartels – There was a policy in place at the highest levels in the ATF and the Justice Department to ship weapons to Mexican “drug cartels”. This is at a time when violence in Mexico is at it’s highest level since the Spanish landed on their shores. In February the Assistant Attorney General wrote the following to an investigating body of congress; it was a complete fiction… a lie… and congress now has the emails to prove it.

“”ATF makes every effort to interdict weapons that have been purchased illegally and prevent their transportation into Mexico,” wrote Ronald Weich, assistant attorney general.” the Hill

Darrell Issa has backed off his calls for Eric Holder’s resignation. He basically states that since the program is institutional in the Department of Justice and has been since the Bush administration (yes, yet another Bush program the administration of CHANGE kept), holding Holder responsible would be pointless. If corruption existed before the new head took over and the new head of the department continues the same corruption and illegality, I guess he gets a pass. That’s what passes for logic these days.

“This isn’t the first time the FBI and other agencies have been involved in investigations in which bad people are allowed to continue doing bad things in the name of going after bad people,” Issa said” CSM

In that vein, we take a look at another developing story, this one deals with the money made by the so-called “drug cartels” in Mexico.

Apparently, while the ATF was shipping weapons to the drug cartels, the DEA was helping them launder their cash. I shit you not.

“Undercover American narcotics agents have laundered or smuggled millions of dollars in drug proceeds as part of Washington’s expanding role in Mexico’s fight against drug cartels, according to current and former federal law enforcement officials.

… Another former agency official, who asked not to be identified speaking publicly about delicate operations, said, “My rule was that if we are going to launder money, we better show results. Otherwise, the D.E.A. could wind up being the largest money launderer in the business, and that money results in violence and deaths.”” New York Times

According to officials who are only speaking out about this because the plan was exposed, the idea was much like the one they claimed when Fast and Furious came out… they were laundering the money so they could catch the bad guys. But as the NYT article pointed out, they have been doing it for a couple of the drug cartels “for years“

In Washington these days when you get caught doing something illegal and definitely immoral (like morality factors into any equation in DC anymore) all you have to do is say you were doing it to catch the bad guys. Arming thugs in Mexico to destabilize the country? Just say you did it to “catch the bad guys”. Laundering massive amounts of drug money for off the books financing of your destabilization teams? Just say you were doing it to “catch the bad guys”. Get caught fabricating “terrorist” plots to divert public attention from you SS style crackdown on legitimate protests in New York? Just say you did it to “catch the bad guys”

Seems pretty simple doesn’t it? And as long as you have over-paid stenographers posing as journalists in the MSM, it’ll work.

Here’s an interesting point brought up in the Times piece:

“The laundering operations that the United States conducts elsewhere — about 50 so-called Attorney General Exempt Operations are under way around the world…” New York Times

“About 50” drug money laundering programs “around the world“? What? And the AG is “exempt” from U.S. law while running them? Really? Really? That’s a lot of drug money. That’s a lot of drugs and ruined lives and crime and murder. And the AG is “exempt”?

Let’s take a trip back in the not-so-way-back machine to 2009 because remember, both Fast and Furious and apparently the drug money laundering program existed back then and god knows how many of the 50 other exempt operations did too. It was revealed by an Afghani counter narcotics official that U.S. and NATO forces were taxing the poppy growers and actually protecting their crops. (go to the link for an endless selection of photos of U.S. and NATO troops protecting the poppy fields)

“In November 2009, the Afghan Minister of Counter Narcotics General Khodaidad Khodaidad stated that the majority of drugs are stockpiled in two provinces controlled by troops from the US, the UK, and Canada. He also said that NATO forces are taxing the production of opium in the regions under their control and that foreign troops are earning money from drug production in Afghanistan.” Public Intelligence

His statement dovetails perfectly with something else we know about Afghanistan: 1. Afghanistan’s installed puppet president has a brother Wali, who is a notorious drug dealer with ties to the CIA and 2. the Taliban had nearly wiped out the poppy production in that country (drug dealing is a death sentence according to Sharia Law) until Baby Bush invaded in 2003 and got things going again.

Yes, you can go back to Iran Contra when it’s known that the CIA was shipping in cocaine and shipping out guns for another fascist coup.

Yes, you can go back to Mena Arkansas and the start of the Clinton rise to power.

Yes, you can go back to Ricky Freeway Ross and Gary Webb who showed that the CIA created crack cocaine and conspired to market it to the West coast of the U.S. Gary Webb wrote “Dark Alliances” exposing all of this shit and when he turned up dead with two bullets in his head, they called it a suicide.

Yes, you can go back to Frank Lucas, that’s the New York heroin dealer made famous by a Hollywood movie recently. He became the drug kingpin of the 60s and 70s because during the Vietnam War, for some reason, he was able to have loads of smack shipped right along on Army transport planes with no one supposedly the wiser. For years his shipments came in regularly and he moved tons and tons of Asian heroin into New York and other cities without anyone ever getting to wise, that is until the end of the Vietnam War.

Hell, for that matter you can go back to the Opium Wars when Britain was shipping the shit from India to China. The Chinese government didn’t like it too much. Go figure. I guess back then they hadn’t invented the Attorney General Exempt Operation. That makes it all ok.

You can go back to all of those things and see a pattern of hypocrisy, corruption, and the vile institutionalized exploitation of the human condition if you want to, or you can just read today’s paper and connect the dots yourselves. Or you can get drunk and watch a football game and thank god they haven’t kicked in your door… yet.

Sharing my memories of Diablo 2… one of the best games ever.

Now for the first time, all nine exhilarating, groundbreaking seasons of The X-Files, along with special features, can be yours to own on Blu-ray! Although they began as reluctant partners, FBI special agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully (Golden Globe winners David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson) ultimately form a powerful bond as they struggle to unravel deadly conspiracies and solve paranormal mysteries. (The set contains full seasons 1 – 9).

When you consider the vast number of television shows that come down the pilot pipeline each and every year, it’s a virtual miracle that anything gets ordered to series. Then, when you consider that the number of shows that do make it to the airwaves only to get canceled almost immediately, it becomes a rarer event for a series to get a second season order, let alone a third, fourth, or in the case of Chris Carter’s seminal 1993 series ‘X-Files’ a grand total of nine seasons. How or why a show clicks with an audience and draws in millions of viewers willing to give up an hour of their time each and every week is a mystery – but something about ‘The X-Files’ connected with people.

As a fan of the show from the very beginning, I loved the its blend of science fiction, government conspiracy theories, and horror. It was around this time that I had discovered movies like ‘Blade Runner,’ ‘All The President’s Men,’ and ‘The Texas Chain Saw Massacre’, so this wild blend of genres fit right into my bandwagon. As the ever true believer, Agent Mulder (David Duchovny) and the always skeptical Agent Scully (Gillian Anderson) would handle a case involving the big government conspiracy to hide the existence of extraterrestrial life, there would be a wonderful dip into a “Monster of the Week” to keep things fun, exciting, and at times more than a bit creepy – or in the case of one particularly notorious episode from season four, downright disturbing! But I loved ‘The X-Files’ and I kept tuning in week after week… for awhile. with any good show, the demand for more episodes from the broadcasting network started to put a strain on the creative team. Season five concluded with a hell of a cliffhanger ending in May of 1998 and served as the perfect segue to the series leap to the big screen that June with ‘The X-Files: Fight The Future.’ As great as the movie was and how perfectly it tied the events of Season 5 and Season 6 together, it also marked the beginning of the show’s downfall. The original intention of Chris Carter was to end the show at season five and then continue the exploits of Agents Mulder and Scully on the big screen. The network thought otherwise and required more episodes of the show as a condition for getting the film financed.

Fans of ‘The X-Files’ are well aware of the show’s precipitous drop off as the series was stretched thinner and thinner. As the mythology episodes moved from Black Oil to Alien Colonization to Super Soldiers, to Lizard People and back again, the credibility of the show wained – as did the patience of the audience. For a show about two people on the quest for the truth and answers to big mysteries and riddles, the show started offering up fewer and fewer solutions to stories and left entirely too many threads dangling. That isn’t to say that by the time Agent Doggett (Robert Patrick) and Agent Reyes (Annabeth Gish) appeared on the scene the show had become “bad,” it’s just that a number of the show’s tropes had become routine and tedious. Even as Anderson’s Scully moved from being a skeptic to a believer – there are just so many times that Scully could “not see” the big awe-inspiring moment.

Through all of the highs and lows of the series, there was a constant that made the show worth tuning into – the relationship between Mulder and Scully and their real life counterparts David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson. While the pair absolutely had on-screen chemistry, it wasn’t ever forced into the realm of unnecessary romanticism or sexualized. The two viewed each other as equals and never once trivialized their respective genders. Both were strong-willed unique individuals with their own beliefs and biases, but they were also human and capable of irrational emotional outbursts – just like the rest of us.

When taking a look at ‘The X-Files: The Collector’s Set’ it’s easy to understand why this set wouldn’t be for everyone – namely because of the show’s slide in quality over the final three seasons. However, if you are a massive fan of the series, this set is an attractive and sturdy way to display one of the best shows to come to television. That said, if you’re not game for every season, 20th Century Fox was wise enough to release each season individually:

Season One (4/5)

X-Files

This first season has a couple of clunky episodes in there, but that’s to be expected with any series. It’s a show that is still finding its legs, but through it all the show delivered hours of great entertainment.

Favorite Episodes:

Ep 3 ‘Squeeze’ and Ep 21 ‘Tooms’ – I have fond memories of watching these two episodes on separate weekends with my best friend at the time. I remember us being totally freaked out by ‘Squeeze’ and then totally losing it when ‘Tooms’ started up and we realized it was a sequel episode! These two still stand among my all time favorite episodes.

Season Two (4.5/5)

The X-Files

This second season is much stronger, the mythology of government involvement in suppressing the evidence of extraterrestrials was coming together, the relationships of certain players were coming together, and the “monsters-of-the-week” were getting pretty intense.

Favorite Episodes:

Ep 2 ‘The Host’ and Ep 5 ‘Duane Barry’ and Ep 6 ‘Ascension’ – ‘The Host’ stands as my second favorite “monster-of-the-week” episode while ‘Duane Barry and Ascension prove just how big and important the mythology episodes can get with the abduction of Scully!

Season Three (4.5/5)

The X-Files

While the “monster-of-the-week” episodes were still the highlights of the show, this is the season where it felt like the mythology episodes started to carry a lot more weight and importance.

Favorite Episodes:

Ep 3 ‘D.P.O.’ and Ep 15 Piper Maru & Ep 16 ‘Apocrypha’ – ‘D.P.O’.’ was a real kick of an episode featuring guest appearances by Jack Black and Giovanni Ribisi. ‘Piper Maru’ and ‘Apocrypha’ gives us a glimpse of the mysterious “black oil” and this pair of episodes was just darn creepy.

Season Four (5/5)

X-Files

This is a season where just about every single episode clicked and was just a great piece of entertainment. Even the “bad” episodes were only bad because they didn’t quite live up to the other great episodes this season had to offer.

Favorite Episodes:

Ep 2 ‘Home’ and Ep 7 ‘Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man – ‘Home’ is perhaps the most notorious episode ever produced for the show and given its disturbing content, it’s easy to see why. It stands as my favorite “monster” episode of the entire series. ‘Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man’ stands as a pseudo-mythology episode as were given an abundance of information about “Cancer Man” and his involvement in any number of conspiracies dating all the way back to JFK’s assassination.

Season Five (5/5)

X-Files

Momentum was working for the show at this point. The series was building towards the June 1998 release of the movie and all of the episodes were working in such a way as to allow people who hadn’t yet seen the show to get caught up while featuring some good and creepy monsters.

Favorite Episodes:

Ep 3 ‘Unusual Suspects’ and Ep 14 ‘The Red and the Black,’ Ep 15 ‘Travelers,’ and Ep 20 ‘The End’ – ‘Unusual Suspects’ is just pure fun – the meeting of The Lone Gunmen. ‘The Red and the Black,’ ‘Travelers,’ and ‘The End’ offers up some of the best mythology episodes regarding the conspirators, black oil, and the alien colonization plot.

Season Six (4.5/5)

The X-Files

Fresh off the movie, the series picks up strong but isn’t able to hold the momentum very long. part of the issue is it doesn’t “look” or “feel” the same, as production had moved from Vancouver to L.A. – but it was still pretty good and was providing some solid entertainment value.

Favorite Episodes:

Ep 2 ‘Drive’ and Ep 20 ‘Three of a Kind’ – ‘Drive’ features guest Bryon Cranston in a hell of an intense episode while ‘Three of a Kind’ offers up some more Lone Gunmen fun with a follow-up to S05Ep3 ‘Unusual Suspects.’

Season Seven (3.5/5)

The X-Files

The show was still pretty good, but the stretching and altering mythology episodes started to wear thin. Thankfully the “monsters” episodes were pretty great and made this season worth watching.

Favorite Episodes:

Ep 3 ‘Hungry’ and Ep 4 ‘Millennium’ – Something about a guy being addicted to eating human brains made ‘Hungry’ a fun episode while ‘Millennium’ was a great crossover episode featuring Lance Henriksen as Frank Black. ‘Millennium’ also shows where Chris Carter’s attentions truly were at this point.

Season Eight (3/5)

The X-Files

While still a decent show, you can feel the creative team being stretched thin by the lack of Mulder and the need to introduce Robert Patrick as Agent Doggett. I always felt like this season was similar to the final season of ‘Northern Exposure’ where they were doing anything they could to find a reason to keep going.

Favorite Episodes:

Ep 6′ Redrum’ and Ep 12 ‘Medusa’ – These two episodes, in my opinion, show that the show still had a lot of creative juice in the tank at this point, but didn’t know how to focus it. As the mythology episodes became more and more redundant, the “monsters” became the real highlight and reason to keep tuning in.

Season Nine (3.5/5)

The X-Files

It’s difficult to know where to go with this season. The series at this point had clearly run out of juice, but still needed to come to a close. Thankfully there were a couple of good one-off episodes and a big conclusion brought the show home in grand order.

Favorite Episodes:

Ep 15 ‘Jump the Shark’ and Ep 16 ‘William’, Ep 19/20 ‘The Truth: Parts 1 & 2’ – Any Lone Gunmen episode is a good one and ‘Jump the Shark’ saw them team up with Michael McKean’s Morris Fletcher from Season 6. ‘William’ and ‘The Truth: Parts 1&2’ bring the series to a fitting and exciting conclusion. It may have been a very bumpy road to get to this point, but it was a satisfying end.

After a second less-than-amazing follow-up film, ‘The X-Files’ appeared closed – that is until late last year when it was announced that the series and lead stars would be returning for a limited 6-episode run. It’s nice knowing that interest in the series has stayed strong and the fan demand for more Mulder and Scully wasn’t simply regulated to a series of comic book spin-off adventures. It’s even more impressive when you stack it up against the other great shows that will be making their return in 2016 and 2017 with the likes of ‘Twin Peaks’ coming back and now after an incredibly successful Kickstarter campaign, ‘Mystery Science Theater 3000.’ I for one can’t wait to be sucked back in by that familiar ‘X-Files’ theme song by composer Mark Snow. Hopefully, the wait for these new six episodes will be worth it!