Making a killing on world hunger?

Truthout has more on how certain multinationals are getting record profits, despite the start of a worldwide food shortage.

Link via Manuscripts Don't Burn.

Discordian Cyber Masquerade

Link.

Who will rid me of this troublesome politician?

Here is an interesting clip of Mike Huckabee, ex-Presidential nominee for the Republican Party, 'joking' in front of the staunchly right-wing NRA crowd about the possibility of an Obama assassination.

Now, I should first of all point out, for any readers, that I am not especially against gun ownership per se, in the UK or America. Yes, I know I have a reputation as a subversive left wing liberal who hates freedom and loves terrorism etc etc but to a degree, I side more with the right-wing/libertarian view when it comes to firearms. Not to mention I did spend part of my misspent youth in the countryside and have been a member of my University rifle club and so actually enjoy shooting too.

But anyway, that's not the point, so I wanted to dismiss the strawman straight away. The point is noting the spread and even acceptance of the "Obama assassination meme" within mainstream political discourse, especially in circles like the above, where Obama is not seen in an especially friendly light.

Now I know you'll be saying "Oh Huckabee is just joking, I thought you Discordians knew about larking about", but to be honest, that's kind of the point. I'm very used to using humour to mask a point, to say something I wish to be known in an indirect and subtle manner. That's often the function of humour in politics, it gives a veneer of deniability to a statement.

Its also one that has been used to death by the American right, such as Ann "lets assassinate a US Judge, teehee I'm only joking" Coulter, Rush "lets not kill all the liberals, just most of them" Limbaugh and other such 'wits' of American politics, like Michael Savage.

So you'll excuse me a certain degree of scepticism when I see the tactic repeated by others.

We all believe Obama is probably the most likely candidate to be targeted, followed closely by McCain (the Middle Eastern groups tend to not operate much outside their own territory, but when they do they are usually very good at it). It's hardly news. He's a charismatic, black man who appeals to a wide constituency of people, comes from a cosmopolitian, is opposed to favourite ventures of the nutjob-right and has a good chance of becoming the next US President. And we know people like the Aryan Nations are still out there, still exist and have people motivated and trained well enough to attempt something like this.

But repititions of the idea that Obama will inevitably face an assassination attempt seem to be aimed more at the idea of spreading this idea of inevitability far and wide, hoping some far-right nut will decide to take one for the Aryan cause and have a go at killing him. Its one step off encouraging it, when repeated like this.

The entire point of modern day, non-state/terrorist assassination is this - that it takes place within an enabling environment and narrative, and is done in a public place to validate the killer themselves. Making continued references to this happening only increases the chances of someone trying to have a go.

Equally bad is the downplaying of the chances of someone killing him. All three US candidates are at risk, its the nature of the game of politics. Killing the potential next President has long been a route to fame for no-hoper's around the world. Suggesting that Obama is perfectly safe and has nothing to worry about, in the same poisonous media climate which is also telling us he is likely to be killed, as it makes an attempt on him look easy and invites more attempts.

Here are just a few examples of the meme spreading from extremist to more mainstream circles

• Neo Nazi, longtime target of Anonymous and friend of Sean Hannity, Hal Turner threatens Obama.

• The notorious Freerepublic wont allow pro-Obama comments, but will allow posts talking about other people (on the left) raising the possibility of his assassination.

(Just as an aside, I think people on the left who continually raise the prospect of his assassination are just as guilty of perpetuating the meme as everyone else, though I suspect their motivation is more benign. Unless they are Hillary Clinton supporters).

• Sean Hannity of Fox News pops up again, this time with some interesting use of language...

"I just feel that with the more we learn about the racial implications in his past, the more likely it is for sure he will be killed."

He all but left out the *Hint hint, nudge nudge, wink wink* from that statement. We all know the implication is that he is a black supremacist is being spread by the right, which is like a lightning rod to any racists out there.

• Jonah "liberals once called me a fascist, so I call them it back now" Goldberg engages in more than just a bit of projection here when he suggests if Obama loses certain people will become unhinged. Maybe they will, but for the moment, it seems more likely a win will unhinge other 'certain people', as the above comments and Greenwald's own article are showing.

• Halfrican Revolution documents how a Unification Church owned publication practically went out of their way to give tips to any nutters crazy enough to give assassination a shot.

• The hilariously named White Civil Rights website also engages in a degree of projection, when they fantasize about Mossad killing Obama. Because thats no way an excuse to talk freely about an assassination attempt at all, is it?

• Even the bloody Torygraph tries to pooh-pooh the chances of an assassination emanating from the right, instead blaming the idea on a mix of conspiracy theory, wish for martyrdom (nice touch, by the way, the Muslim implication there) and generalized paranoia. Obviously Tony Harden doesn't pay much attention to the lunatic fringe, or he'd know how pumped up on this idea many of them are. While no doubt many of the left wing comments implicating the likes of Blackwater or Clinton are nonsense, there is a real radical threat.

• Again, Vanguard News Network, another far-right US site, is spreading the Obama assassination meme under the cover of "tEh Jo0s DiD iT! (oR aT lEaSt wIlL dO!)".

And on and on it goes. I didn't even bother to go to some of the crazier, less well known sites. I thought this should cover it fairly nicely.

As a commentator at the Seattle PI points out, the best thing the media could do in order to play down these fears is not talk about it all the time. Yes, I do realize that makes me guilty to a degree as well, but I'm trying to introduce a phage here, to undercut the meme. By constantly finding ways to bring up the idea, either in terms of denying it having any possibility at all (all US Presidential candidates are potential targets, get over it) or prophesying it as a certainty, is only doing more damage and poisoning the civil discourse.

Government climbdown on 42 day detentions?

The Guardian seems to think so, and while I certainly hope so, relying on hope alone is a bad idea, and I can see a negotiated climbdown still involving the government seizing powers I'd rather it did not have.

Time, as always, shall tell.

More on the Crewe by-election

As is hard to miss, I was pretty pissed off by the Labour party Crewe by-election leaflet, more or less pandering to the xenophobic masses afraid of immigrants coming over here to steal their jobs and wimminz.

Fortunately, it seems like the Guardian has caught up on this story too (which was abley covered by the more Tory-friendly press and blogs, it has to be said) and John Harris has an article up on Comment is Free, where he puts this into the context of a government desperate to remain in power by appealing to "chauvinistic and backward-looking parts of British society" to quote Charles Clarke (who is still an authoritarian thug, in my opinion, but at least gains a smidgeon of respectability with this statement).

Harris pulls few punches showing the increasing role of nationalist rhetoric now the Brown government is up against the wall:

the essential Labour strategy is clear enough: not to concentrate on anything progressive or inspiring but to run instead on a mixture of the Dunwoody bloodline, utterly witless class warfare, and the politics of fear. One wonders what the more shrill aspects of the party's campaign will do for Crewe's community relations - but there again, it's doubtful that such thoughts are troubling many Labour high-ups. Misanthropic nastiness, after all, seems to be a central plank of the government's fightback.

This stuff has a pedigree dating back well into the Blair years but seems to be turning ever more ugly. Among the first announcements in the wake of May 1 was a loud Home Office pledge to try to realise Brown's drive for "British jobs for British workers", by forcing employers to prove no Briton can fill a vacancy before offering it to anyone from outside the EU. Soon after, there came Jacqui Smith's bizarre plans to "harass" badly behaved youths using video cameras and a technique hyped as "frame and shame". Going back a few months, one thinks also of James Purnell's proposed clampdown on the long-term jobless, Caroline Flint's priceless proposal that the workshy should be threatened with homelessness, and the government's increasingly baffling drive on "Britishness", in which fine words about inclusion are often overshadowed by the sense of dog-whistles being desperately sounded.

...

While seizing on fears about immigration, Brown has still made no headway on the issue of agency workers, which underlies so many modern tensions. At the same time as maligning many of the nation's youth as yobs, Labour also wrings its hands about their "unlocked talent". Apparatchiks are encouraged to wage class war for the cameras, but the government refuses to talk about compelling the ultra-wealthy to pay their way, or to make any move on, say, the totemic issue of charitable status for private schools. The impression is of politics at its most dried-up and disingenuous. The result: activists and once-loyal supporters decide to leave the party well alone, and floating voters decide that Cameroonian confidence and optimism is much the better option.

...As Labour lays waste to what remains of its progressive credentials, one thinks immediately of that handful of young(ish) Brownites - Ed Miliband, Douglas Alexander, Ed Balls, Yvette Cooper - who usually go out of their way to talk up the party's supposed soul, and the parts of the government's record that reflect it. Where are they, and why won't they speak up?

Even if what they had to say was couched in the obligatory political code, we'd know it when we heard it. Behind the scenes, they must surely alert Brown to a simple choice: cut this stuff out and rediscover that moral compass - or bequeath them a political husk so robbed of its essential identity that it will take at least a generation to even begin to revive it. David Cameron's recent pronouncements are not nearly as surreal as they sound: right now, the Tories really are sounding more progressive than Labour, and that way lies not just electoral defeat, but the prospect of complete wipe-out.

As Labour's popularity continues to go the way of the sub-prime loan industry, I can only see this sort of shrill and nasty rhetoric increasing.

Leaderless Jihad

I didn't know this, but Marc Sageman apparently has a new book on Al-Qaeda out, called Leaderless Jihad.

For those of you who don't know who Sageman is, shame on you. He's a former CIA Case Officer and psychiatrist with experience in Pakistan and Afghanistan who has undertaken some very interesting studies on Al-Qaeda.

His previous book, Understanding Terror Networks, is a classic of terrorism literature and has been highly recommended by pretty much every terrorism lecturer and researcher up at the St Andrews. Its a wide-reaching investigation into the background, motivating beliefs and (most importantly) social networks that comprise the nebulous organization called Al-Qaeda. Notes based on this research of 400 Al-Qaeda members can be found here.

These social bonds are the most important factor in recruiting and getting someone into terrorism, which is why I think Sageman's book is so important. If we rely on arguments from religion, personal psychopathy, brainwashing or hatred of 'Western' values, many of which are unproven caricatures as Sageman shows, then we wont be able to carry out the necessary counterterrorism policies - which should be aimed at severing the existing terrorists from a pool of possible recruits, while taking in their current members and working towards a political solution of the underlying factors that led to the emergence of terrorists in the first place.

His new book seemed more focused on what is called the New Wave of Al-Qaeda terrorists. Essentially, these are lone wolf or self-forming cells, who instead of being intensely religious and well educated (the profile of a previous Al-Qaeda member) are younger, probably had more run-ins with the police or a criminal record, and are "bored and looking for thrills".

This seems to be a real possibility. I remember more than a few classes I took with John Horgan where he said the process of radicalization often took place after one made contact with the terrorist group in question. If these "thrillseekers" are looking for jihadist videos, tracts and forums for thrills, sooner or later they are going to be talking with people sympathetic to a jihadist worldview. This taints or affects their thinking into a downward spiral based on the violent and paranoid worldview which could ultimately result in terrorist related activities.

Of course, that's a highly simplified way of putting it, and no doubt the actual processes are much more discrete and subtle. But I think as a simplified and limited explanation, it can work. These people get caught up in a discourse of warriorship, fanatical Islam and martyrdom. "We have always been warriors, we have always fought and been victorious, and now we are weak and persecuted". Its the common theme of too many terrorist group's rhetoric to be just a coincidence.

According to a talk Sageman gave at the New America Foundation "It's more about hero worship than about religion," The vast majority of Sageman's sample did not attended radical madrassas, coould speak Arabic and have not read the Koran. Nearly all joined the movement because they knew/are related to someone who's already in it. The age of these terrorists is decreasing too: In Sageman's 2003 sample, the average age was 26; among those arrested after 2006, it was down to about 20. Its more accurate to describe these people as supermepowered, transnational gang members than terrorists.

All of this has very interesting, and worrying implications for policy and society in general. Especially the latter, since media culture and rhetoric has not caught up with Sageman's studies or knowledge. They'd much rather listen to media heads or politicians than soldiers and academics who study terrorism closely, and to be honest, that's a real shame. Because if we don't understand how Al-Qaeda is morphing and evolving, we're going to be throwing around very dangerous charges and allegations at people who may have had little or nothing to do with such attacks, and be concentrating on totally useless avenues of investigation and prevention.

When internet memes meet philosophy....#2

I may seriously need help.

UFO files released

This might interest some of you, I don't know. Via the BBC

Secret files on UFO sightings have been made available for the first time by the Ministry of Defence.

The documents, which can be downloaded from the National Archives website, cover the period from 1978 to 1987.

They include accounts of strange lights in the sky and unexplained objects being spotted by the public, armed forces and police officers.

I've recently been reading Jacques Vallée's Passport to Magonia, so the subject sort of interests me, but not from the usual point of view.

I am, of course, highly sceptical of much of the UFO subculture, barring our fine Subgenius friends, naturally. Its rife with disinformation specialists, con-men, cultists, the true lunatic fringe of New Age believers, the mentally disturbed, professional paranoids and, very occasionally, a stable but curious individual, such as I believe Jacques Vallée is. And while this makes it a hell of an amusing scene to fall into or lurk around, its not very good for the truth.

But I think Vallée is onto something, when he describes the similarity between folklore and UFO contactee tales. Especially the early ones, coming out of the 50s, are more reminiscent of tales about the faerie folk and their mischevious, odd ways than anything else. And the contactees who are allegedly approached by benevolent, peaceful beings concerned about developments on the planet seem rather similar to angels of past periods. Meanwhile the modern sci-fi monsters, the gray's and reptilians, are reminiscient of ancient demons more than anything else, with their terrifying appearances and disturbing habits. It all seems just a little too...perfect, the way these tales segue from a pre-technological, superstitous and rural society, to an urban, technologically adept one, while retaining so many core characteristics of the story.

Thats not to say either of the above two explanations are true. I certainly don't see a reason why I should accept either presented answer as the 'real' explanation. Only that the similarity between them, when examined closely, is quite astonishing, and suggests another element to the story, a psychological and social component that is worth exploring, perhaps especially in the context of mythology.

Either way, these are only half-formed thoughts, and I don't want the crazies from the UFO crowd to descend on me, demanding explanations for every little thing they think disproves my musings. The archives are yours to peruse at your pleasure, and if nothing else, could make for interesting reading.

Another reason, as if one was needed, to hate Labour

Oh no, not those vicious foreign nationals.

Fuck you Labour, fuck you in the ass. If you didn't know, this is what Labour were trying to use in the Crewe and Nantwich by-election. Yeah, trying to appeal to the xenophobic blockhead vote.

As I'm sure some of you are aware, while I reside in the UK I am not a UK citizen. Yeah, I'm a dirty immigrant, draining your economy and stealing jobs (lolwut?), when I'm not planning to establish a Caliphate, driving drunk and eating swans. And I'm pretty sick and tired of being treated like some scum who should be grateful to this government which has decided, in its infinite wisdom, to let me reside here (especially since I was here just after the fall of the Thatcher government).

And I can safely say that the first person who attempts to enforce me having an ID card on my person will very quickly find out how painful a biometric ID card is, when shoved where the sun doesn't shine, with alarming swiftness.

This is the sort of xenophobic, Daily Mail-esque triangulation bullshit that makes me want to puke every time I see another Parliamentary initiative unveiled, and pretty much guarantees I will only vote Labour again in the most dire of circumstances. Assuming I even bother to hang around long enough to have the chance to vote again, which is looking increasingly unlikely. There seems to be a foul smell in the body politic, and I for one have no intention of seeing it play itself out.

Kallisticon 2008

From a secure location beneath New Alamut,
Left Coast, Turtle Island, Earth
Fool's Day 2008

Discordians, Dysnomians, Erisians, and others of much ilk...

Get up! (Get on up!)

KallistiCon 2008 is coming - June 20-22!

Every year this millennium, we've gotten together in the Bay Area in California. We're not just rehashing gags from the Principia - we're moving forward, practicing chaos in the world.

For the last seven years, we've eaten and drank together, we've made friends with strangers in traffic, we've had rituals and blessings, we've been weird in public, and we've been human with each other. We’ve found the freaks who thought they were the only ones, and taught them - and ourselves - what tribe is supposed to mean.

Some of you will say: "But Discordians are supposed to be disorganized."

Didn't you know that's just a put-on?

Some of you will say we’re doing it wrong, and only you know the right way to follow Eris.

That's OK. Just quit talking about it and start doing it.

Some will no doubt repeat the tired cliche: "We Discordians tend to stick apart."

Of course we do, but sticking apart is more fun when we do it together.

Throw out your old memes. Greg and Kerry are gone, Bob Wilson is gone, Camden Benares and the other old-timers are gone. Let's honor and respect them. Let's learn from their lives and their teachings. But let's stop trying to be them.

The Principia is your grandma's Discordia. Being an inside joke on the net is your daddy's. What's yours? And who are you doing it with?

gabba gabba
we accept you
we accept you
one of us

http://www.kallisticon.com
June 20-22, 2008
Redwood City, California
RSVP by June 15!
Contact: email stmae@discordian.com

What happens when internet memes meet ancient philosophy

Cain's "Pentagon" Law of Stupid Policies

Any effectively large enough institution, given an infinite black budget and enough time, will try out every idea in the world, no matter how stupid, implausible, reckless, historically proven to be bad or flying in the face of all known scienctific principles that idea is.

Its like the monkeys with typewriters, only you have to fund and release all the pages of gibberish they write, too. Which is why a good deal of the time you have to put up with people like this coming up with your strategic doctrine.

You know...

I actually had plans to do some more interesting, longer articles, now that all my lectures have officially finished.

But instead, I'm having to do paperwork. PAPERWORK.

Damnit.

I'll try and do something interesting for tomorrow.

Roll right!

So, it looks like the Götterdämmerung of Labour will soon be upon us.

With a startling victory in local council elections (where the Tories trounced Labour by 20% and broke their hold on several previous safe councils) and the election of Boris Johnson as the Mayor of London, I think it is safe to say that Labour's days are numbered, as I had suggested back in December. Hardly a feat of precognition, I know, but it still feels nice to be vindicated.

I know I have made it extensively clear that I am no fan of Labour, under Brown or Blair. But this is almost a phyrric victory for the UK electorate in many ways. Because, despite the Conservative rhetoric coming from the media, of a libertarian and (hilariously) even progressive bent, they are still the Neo-Thatcherite party who will gut public services and programs, and promote the wellbeing of the rich and business inclined over everyone else.

And that's the problem.

Many right-wing inclined publications have lately taken this pseudo-libertarian tack to complain about the very real authoritarian nature of New Labour. But lets be honest, they have to be insane to think the Tories will be any better. Oh, sure, maybe in the first year or two, while they are riding high on popular support in the press and electorate generally. But then they'll realize they have a mandate and it will all go downhill from there.

And I'd bet everything in my bank account (ie; my mountain of debt) that the Daily Mail/Express/Sun reading the public, the ones who leave comments on stories bewailing Labour's autocratic tendencies on nearly every story, will be the same ones cheering on illiberal policies passed by a Tory government - especially if they were aimed at immigrants, Muslims or criminals. Every intelligent person know's they don't give a shit about freedom - they care about their own hides and are more than willing to cheer on a police state so long as they think the government is on their side and will only use it against other people.

Tribal politics, in other words.

I have no doubt that David Cameron will be the next Prime Minister. And I have no doubt when that happens, certain yahoos and morons will treat this as their moment in the sun, and proceed to swing a wrecking ball through what remains of freedom in this country.

On the other hand, at least I wont have any minor twinges of guilt about doing everything in my power to fuck up such a government.

ATTN British Media

Amazing as it may seem to you, there actually people who live outside London. *Gasp* shock horror, yes, I know. Many people are taken aback when they first learn this. And even more incredibly, they rarely give a shit about things that affect Londoners alone. Like, say, for example, the London Mayoral Election.

Therefore, when I pick up a supposedly national newspaper and have to wade through 20,000 pages of hissy fits between Boris Johnson and Ken Livingstone supporters to find out anything else that may be interesting or important, I get a little...peeved. Especially when everyone is taking this OH SO SERIOUSLY yet we all know both of them are joke figures fighting over a meaningless title that do nothing except wind up the opposition's supporters.

SO CUT IT THE FUCK OUT, RETARDS!

Very important petition!

Guillermo del Toro

We the undersigned would like to see champion actor Vin Diesel be cast for the role of "Bilbo Baggins" in the upcoming adventure/fantasy movies "The Hobbit Parts 1+2".

We beg Director Guillermo del Toro to look beyond common sense and make the boldest casting move of ALL time, with a view to creating cinematic magic.

Please cast Vin Diesel has the hobbit. He's awesome.

Sincerely,

Link to sign petition

Uniform

Live performance by Bloc Party

Breaking: Albert Hofmann, discoverer of LSD, allegedly dead

Hot off the presses...if its true...

More as I get it.


Edit 1

As of yet, no official confirmation. However, those who spoke with him in the last few months said he was not in good health at all.


Edit 2

Still no confirmation...however the rumour has spread fast. The Wikipedia entry has had to be reverted several times since there is nothing more than rumour at the moment...the story has also spread to sites like Deathlist, Shroomery and God Like Productions (where, humourously, someone tried to use Wikipedia as proof of his still uncomfirmed death).


Edit 3

Boing Boing has also reported this....though as of yet, still no confirmation. Speculation on Livejournal too, though still nothing positive.


Edit 4

Echoes and Mirrors is alleging this is a hoax. While no new evidence is put forward, the lack of evidence, and the time lapse since the initial claim is making this look more and more likely.


Edit 5

On the other hand...apparently he IS dead. According to Seattle's Stranger:

There’s uncertainty on teh nets whether Hoffman’s passing is just a rumor. However, a call to the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies confirms he died last night in his home in Basel, Switzerland.

Also, according to his Wikipedia article:

Rick Doblin of MAPS has claimed that Hofmann died at 9am from a heart attack.

But according to a Wikipedia editor I spoke to just recently, Rick Doblin was unaware of this only a couple of hours ago, and the comment is not sourced. So we have at least one source now...but I'd like another independent source to confirm. Just to make sure.


Edit 6

I Love Bonnie.net has another piece confirming Hofmann's death. The email from Rick Doblin can be found here.

“Albert died at home at 9 AM Basel time from a myocardial infarction, quick and relatively painless. Two caretakers were there with him at the time. The only people who were told were people from Burg, the village where he lived, and Peter and others were surprised the word of his death had gotten out so quickly. It’s the age of the internet…

Albert had been increasingly thinking of death these last few months. He had stopped leaving his home, where he said he could feel the spirit of Anita, his wife who died December 20, 2007. He didn’t come to the World Psychedelic Forum a month ago, but did entertain some visitors at his home. We spoke on the phone the day after the Basel conference and he was happy and fulfilled. He’d seen the renewal of LSD psychotherapy research with his own eyes, as had Anita. I said that I looked forward to discussing the results of the study with him in about a year and a half and he laughed and said he’d try to help the research however he could, either from this side or “the other side”.”

So I believe thats it. Goodbye, Dr Hofmann.

War Nerd interview

As I'm sure many of you know, I am a long time fan of the eXile's War Nerd, AKA Gary Brecher. So I was pleasantly surprised to see an interview of him being done over at Blood and Treasure, to help promote his new book. He also answers the long posited conspiracy theory that he is actually John Dolan/Mark Ames/some hideous combination of the two.

Link via Liberal Conspiracy.

Operation: Mindfuck Pack

http://www.megaupload.com/es/?d=27X5LIHF 227 MB download

Download mirror:

http://www.mediafire.com/?mdcyy3zlswz - Part 1
http://www.mediafire.com/?4xyydjxngwn - Part 2
http://www.mediafire.com/?2ugg32x9syb - Part 3

Titles are:


The Structure of the Mind - Ben Goertzel
The MIT Encyclopedia of Cognitive Sciences (1999) - Robert A Wilson and Frank C Keil
The Encyclopedia of Applied Psychology - Edited by Charles Spielberger
Putting a new spin on groups - The science of of Chaos - Bud A McClure
Billion Dollar Bunko - Simon Lovell
The Changing Images of Man by Stanford Research Institute
Derren Brown - Behind the Screen
Derren Brown - Pure Effect
Get Anyone to do Anything - David J Lieberman
Undoing Yourself - Christopher Hyatt
Theory of Power - Jeff Vail
The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature - Matt Ridley
PsyOps and Ethics - Michael Aquino
Propaganda - Edward Bernays
Prometheus Rising - Robert Anton Wilson
The role of cognitive and socio-cognitive conflict in learning to reason - Katiuscia Sacco and Monica Bucciarelli
Secret Incunabula.org paper - Joesph Matheny (?)
Society of the Spectacle - Guy Debord
Stealth Marketing - Jay Abraham
Strategic Information Warfare (RAND corporation) - Roger C Molander, Andrew S Riddle, Peter A Wilson
The Strategic Game of ? And ? - Unknown
The Power of Persuasion: How We're Bought and Sold - Robert Levine
The Selfish Meme - Kate Distin
The Advertised Mind - Erik du Plessis
The Art of Memetics - Wes Unruh and Edward Wilson
The Authoritarians - Bob Altemeyer
The Origin and Evolution of Cultures - Robert Boyd and Peter J Richerson
The Psychology of Entertainment Media - Edited by L. J. Shrum
Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
Think Two Products Ahead - Ben Mack
This Is Not A Game (extract) - Dave Szulborski


All these books are pretty heavy on psychology, NLP and marketing, and are low on actual pranks and tricks. The idea is more to condition your mind to think about how other people think, then exploit that knowledge.