Back
in 1998 when I got my first internet connection and the internet was
still an exciting new frontier, within just a few days I wanted a
website of my own. I promptly registered two domain names www.frot.co.nz and www.sift.co.nz, so I've now had those domains for 27 years!
Our personal sites weren't even called "blogs" back then because the word hadn't yet been invented. Apparently "blog" was coined by Peter Merholz, who first used it on his blog peterme.com in May 1999.
As things worked out, I mainly went with Frot, and that URL got most of the use, while Sift, which I later came to regard as the better name, was just pointed at a series of little viewed blogs.
But there are copies of some of them on Wayback Machine dating back as far as 2002, and even back then I was already going hard out about a range of subjects including 911.
It
was quite cool really with its red white and blue on black colour
scheme, exploding head gifs, and twin vertical menus. Looking at it a
quarter of a century later, I'd even say it was ahead of it's time. Yes this blog is modeled on it!
The intro from 2003 read:
I Sift, therefore I am sifty
Sifting can potentially cultivate a much more aware state of mind than, say, mindless consuming and generalised believing. Hidden underneath all the worthless misinformation that flows freely out to us everyday, are some rare gems of truth. But you have to sift for them.
Sifting about on the net, I've found myself drawn to some seemingly diverse subjects such as nutrition, health, marijuana, hemp, consumerism, capitalism, chaos theory, organics, censorship, drugs, doctors, warez, hacking, advertising, corporations, chemicals, GE, computers, free trade, and of course the USA and it's uncontrolled world domination fetish.
That's a wide range of subjects and I'm too lazy to get into all of it, so a lot of the stuff on this site relates to health issues, as lately I've been spending a lot of my time working on my health, and researching diet and nutrition, But the thing I have found repeatedly, is that once you start digging around, everything starts to follow a similar pattern. Basically, it seems that if something is widely reported, it is probably false, whether it's about healthy food, or terrorist attacks.
The way these things tend to interlink, and the patterns they each repeat, open up a clearer way of looking at things. An alternative perspective, distilled through sifting. A bigger picture. There are many people on the Internet who are trying to distribute quality information. But most punters are not ready or willing to even consider it - they are too thoroughly indoctrinated. So it stays submerged.
One of my friends responded to this site with "I just maintain a state of apathetic cynicism and avoid thinking about all this stuff" And that's a reasonable reaction, there's no point getting stressed about it all. But on the other hand, we are getting shafted and lied to so frequently that it's hard to just ignore it. And I think that right now there are enough people becoming aware of what's going on to start fighting back.
Knowledge is power. For example, if enough people are aware of the real reasons that America attacked Iraq, or of America's history of world domination and how taking over Iraq fits into that, or that the "war on terrorism", like the "war on drugs" is a complete scam, intended only to increase America's power, then maybe that will help to make the actions of the US backfire on them.
Every aware person is only a drop in the ocean, but every drop can help dilute the tide of oppression that's coming from the likes of the US government, and the overbearing evil of multinationals such as Monsanto. The Internet is still a place where the individual can fight back. Let's keep it that way.
As I find interesting new stuff, I'll post some bits of it along the way, and make a sort of documented sifting scrapbook. Siftings from the sifterhood. As a rough guide, the text in red is generally stuff I have slapped together myself, while the blue text is stuff I have shamelessly ripped off wholesale from other sites and books, with as little editing as possible.
I am a firm believer in the motto "information wants to be free" Once something is posted on the net it's like tossing a bottle in the sea - who knows where it will end up... So feel free to recycle anything on this site - if it's in red it may even be original and a credit to www.sift.co.nz would be much appreciated. Wherever possible I have left in credits for the sources of all the material I have ripped off, and that to me is cool - I realise not everyone agrees with that, but as I am trying to show on this website, there are generally two sides to most arguments. (And the other side are generally a bunch of idiots!)
Much of this site contains personal opinion. But I believe the factual content is accurate. If you have clear evidence that would dispute or add to any of the statements on this site, feel free to send it to me. I have just added a feedback page for responses to the site.
The most popular page on this site has been the Coca-Cola one. It's my theory that is was getting the most hits because I had put the link to it as "coke". That's now been changed to Coca-Cola, so if it becomes less popular, I'll take it as a sign that people really want to read about drugs. That they want to read about Colombian drug dealers hoovering up mountains of coke off glass top tables in expensive nightclubs. Maybe they want to look at porn and read about coke. There's certainly some good sifting material in those subjects, so who knows...
People keep paying me to do stuff for them. It takes time and interferes with my sifting. Sometimes it's a problem. Sometimes I just sift anyway, and things I was going to do remain undone. This site still hasn't got much stuff on it yet.... But it's on my list. It's number 186. I'll be back.
The Curator
