Blog bloggy blog blog

Giant Stinson Beach Bubbles (Canon 550D)

2010-08-22T01:02:00.000-04:00

Really cool video. Amazing, beautiful bubbles.

Trailer for New Documentary -- Manifesting the Mind

2009-10-29T09:30:00.000-04:00

I was really quite impressed with this and the folks interviewed in the trailer make a lot of great points.

An Interview with Adyashanti

2009-08-10T12:45:00.001-04:00

This one's for you Dad!

2009-07-14T17:52:00.000-04:00

Obama To Hold Job Performance Review With Every American Worker

Seeing Being

2009-03-31T00:57:00.002-04:00

So what now? Totally asleep . .. I know the way back. Keep coming back again and again. Deepen the awakening to include all aspects of being. Don't identify even with your reactions to being awake or asleep -- they are just more sleeping and dreaming. The moment you say "This is it!" it isn't. I want to try to clarify that more because I have seen it more clearly than that. Maybe it's because the moment you think that, however subtly, you create a false dichotomy between yourself and the awakeness.

When it comes down to it what is really the essential part of you? What is the foundation on which all concepts of self are based? Isn't it only the simple fact of Being, alone, unadorned, so common it is neglected by almost everyone? It is so simple but just seeing it once will not set you free. The habits of a lifetime of ignorance are reverberating inside you. They are neither good nor evil. Your value judgements about them are just another habit. But we are creatures of habit, aren't we? A person who knows they have tasted awakeness but has not embraced it is like an inmate in a prison where there are no guards and no warden. All the doors stand open and the prisoner continues to shuffle around in his cell, or perhaps the hallway, mostly dreaming that he is still a prisoner. Sometimes he sees the Truth and shuffles closer to the Final Exit. The fear is intense and at time seems all consuming. It seems the prison is all he has ever known and if he walks through that final door he will leave everything behind. Who will he be? How will he live? Where will he go?

So many questions they could be contemplated for a lifetime, or perhaps forever. Perhaps they have been already. Perhaps we have been standing at the door all this time and now all that is needed is one step.

Parkour and CST/Russian Martial Arts

2009-01-17T14:00:00.003-05:00

It turns out that I am not the only one who has noticed the similarities between the Russian martial arts, Scott Sonnon's CST and the practice of Parkour. Here is an article by Dan Edwardes over at Parkour Generations on the similarities between CST and Parkour:

Le Parkour (1), though crystallised into its current guise by Frenchmen David Belle and Yann Hnautra sometime in the 1980s, is a practice the roots of which precede records. It has drawn on a myriad of sources, been inspired by a number of notable individuals and evolved through several traditions to arrive at the modern discipline now referred to as parkour or free-running. Names and labels come and go, of course, and the outward visage of this discipline has shifted and modified itself countless times. However, behind whatever appearance has been fashionable at the time, at its core there has always existed an eternal constant – the means, the end, the method and the goal of parkour: Movement.

You can read the rest of the article here.

I have been thinking a lot recently that the combination of CST/Russian martial arts and Parkour would be the ultimate martial art. To bring it all together I would add the nature awareness training of Tom Brown Jr. (in particular the Scout training), and Jon Young.

Someone Stop George Lucas

2008-12-13T03:09:00.002-05:00

As he continues to violate the corpse of the original trilogy.

via Technoccult

Drug War Economics vol. 1

2008-12-11T22:36:00.001-05:00

Found this from a link on Disinfo.com

Obama's "Way-to-Go, Brownie!" Moment?

2008-12-10T16:31:00.001-05:00

by Greg Palast
for the Huffington Post

Has Barack Obama forgotten, "Way-to-go, Brownie"? Michael Brown was that guy from the Arabian Horse Association appointed by George Bush to run the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Brownie, not knowing the south shore of Lake Pontchartrain from the south end of a horse, let New Orleans drown. Bush's response was to give his buddy Brownie a "way to go!" thumbs up.

We thought Obama would go a very different way. You'd think the studious Senator from Illinois would avoid repeating the Bush regime's horror show of unqualified appointments, of picking politicos over professionals.
But here we go again. Trial balloons lofted in the Washington Post suggest President-elect Obama is about to select Joel Klein as Secretary of Education. If not Klein, then draft-choice number two is Arne Duncan, Obama's backyard basketball buddy in Chicago.
Say it ain't so, President O.
Let's begin with Joel Klein. Klein is a top notch anti-trust lawyer. What he isn't is an educator.
Klein is as qualified to run the Department of Education as Dick Cheney is to dance in Swan Lake. While I've never seen Cheney in a tutu, I have seen Klein fumble about the stage as Chancellor of the New York City school system.
Klein, who lacks even six minutes experience in the field, was handed management of New York's schools by that political Jack-in-the-Box, Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The billionaire mayor is one of those businessmen-turned-politicians who think lawyers and speculators can make school districts operate like businesses.
Klein has indeed run city schools like a business - if the business is General Motors. Klein has flopped. Half the city's kids don't graduate.
Klein is out of control. Not knowing a damn thing about education, rather than rely on those who actually work in the field (only two of his two dozen deputies have degrees in education), Klein relies on high-priced consultants to tell him what to do. He's blown a third of a billion dollars on consultant "accountability" projects plus $80 million for an IBM computer data storage system that doesn't work.
What the heck was the $80 million junk computer software for? Testing. Klein is test crazy. He has swallowed hook, line and sinker George Bush's idea that testing students can replace teaching them. The madly expensive testing program and consultant-fee spree are paid for by yanking teachers from the classroom.
Ironically, though not surprisingly, test scores under Klein have flat-lined. They don't dip only because Klein has "moved the cut line" that is, lowered the level required to pass, notes author Jane Hirshmann. In other words, Klein is cheating on the tests.
But media poobahs have fallen in love with Klein, especially the Republican pundits. The New York Times' David Brooks is championing Klein, hoping that media hype for Klein will push Obama to keep Bush schools policies in place, trumping the electorate's choice for change.
Brooks and other Republicans (hey, didn't those guys lose?) are pushing Klein as a way for Obama to prove he can reach across the aisle to Republicans like Bloomberg. (Oh yes, Bloomberg's no longer in the GOP, having jumped from the party this year when the brand name went sour.)
Choosing Klein, says Brooks, would display Obama's independence from the teacher's union. But after years of Bush kicking teachers in the teeth, appointing a Bush acolyte like Klein would not indicate independence from teachers but their betrayal.
Hoops versus Hope
The anti-union establishment has a second stringer on the bench waiting in case Klein is nixed: Arne Duncan. Duncan, another lawyer playing at education, was appointed by Chicago's Boss Daley to head that city's train-wreck of a school system. Think of Duncan as "Klein Lite."
What's Duncan's connection to the President-elect? Duncan was once captain of Harvard's basketball team and still plays backyard round-ball with his Hyde Park neighbor Obama.
But Michelle has put a limit on their friendship: Obama was one of the only state senators from Chicago to refuse to send his children into Duncan's public schools. My information is that the Obamas sent their daughters to the elite Laboratory School where Klein-Duncan teach-to-the-test pedagogy is dismissed as damaging and nutty.
Mr. Obama, if you can't trust your kids to Arne Duncan, why hand him ours?
Lawyer Duncan is proud to have raised test scores by firing every teacher in low-scoring schools. Which schools? There's Collins High in the Lawndale ghetto with children from homeless shelters and drug-poisoned 'hoods. Surprisingly, they don't test so well. So Chicago fired all the teachers. They brought in new ones - then fired all of them too: the teachers' reward for volunteering to work in a poor neighborhood.
It's no coincidence that the nation's worst school systems are run by non-experts like Klein and Duncan.
Obama certainly knows this. I know he knows because he's chosen, as head of his Education Department transition team, one of the most highly respected educators in the United States: Professor Linda Darling-Hammond of Stanford University.
So here we have the ludicrous scene of the President-elect asking this recognized authority, Dr. Darling-Hammond, to vet the qualifications of amateurs Klein and Duncan. It's as if Obama were to ask Michael Jordan, "Say, you wouldn't happen to know anyone who can play basketball, would you?"
Classroom Class War
It's not just Klein's and Duncan's empty credentials which scare me: it's the ill philosophy behind the Bush-brand education theories they promote. "Teach-to-the-test" (which goes under such pre-packaged teaching brands as "Success for All") forces teachers to limit classroom time to pounding in rote low-end skills, easily measured on standardized tests. The transparent purpose is to create the future class of worker-drones. Add in some computer training and - voila! - millions trained on the cheap to function, not think. Analytical thinking skills, creative skills, questioning skills will be left to the privileged at the Laboratory School and Phillips Andover Academy.
We hope for better from the daddy of Sasha and Malia.
Educationally, the world is swamping us. The economic and social levees are bursting. We cannot afford another Way-to-go Brownie in charge of rescuing our children.
****************
Greg Palast is the father of school-aged twins and the author of, "No Child's Behind Left," included in his New York Times bestseller, Armed Madhouse. Palast is a Nation Institute Puffin Foundation Fellow for investigative reporting.
Get a signed copy of Armed Madhouse for the holidays for a tax-deductible contribution to the Palast Investigative Fund at www.PalastInvestigativeFund.org
Subscribe to Palast's reports at www.GregPalast.com
Please re-post this.

Turning Air Into Water

2008-12-09T13:44:00.004-05:00

Remember those sweltering summer days when the air was so muggy you could practically drink it? A new home appliance is promising to make that possible by converting outdoor air into nearly 13 quarts of fresh water every day.
Originally envisioned as an antidote to the shortage of clean drinking water in the world, the WaterMill has the look of a futuristic air conditioner and the ability to condense, filter and sterilize water for about 3 cents per quart.
At $1,299, the 45-pound device doesn’t come cheap, and it is neither the first nor the biggest machine to enter the fast-growing field of atmospheric water generators. But by targeting individual households with a self-cleaning, environmentally friendly alternative to bottled water, Kelowna, British Columbia-based Element Four is hoping its WaterMill will become the new must-have appliance of 2009. CONTINUE READING AT MSNBC.COM

(h/t Fortean Times Headlines 12-9-08)

They are not the only company to market such a product. I first heard of this technology in relation to the product now known as WaterMaker.

People Get Ready

2008-12-09T13:22:00.008-05:00

James Howard Kunstler, author of The Long Emergency (which I am currently reading -- thanks Dad!) has a different, and discomforting vision of the future. Unfortunately it is based in fact. He is definitely a must read for anyone who wants to navigate through the rapids of near-future American life. Here is an excerpt from his most recent blog post:

In the twilight of the Bush days, in the twilight of the twilight season, a consensus has formed that we are headed into a long, dark passage leading we know not where. Even CNBC's Lawrence Kudlow has been reduced to searching for stray "mustard seeds" of hope on hands and knees in a bleak and tortured financial landscape. Half the enterprises in the land are lined up for some kind of relief bailout and a blizzard of pink slips has cut economic visibility to zero.
The broad American public voted for "change" but they thought that meant a "changing of the guard." Out with the feckless Bush; in with the charismatic Obama... and may this American life now continue just as it ever was. The change actually coming will be much more than they bargained for, namely our transition from a wealthy society to a hardship society. The sharp break is a product of our years-long failure to reckon with the energy realities of our time. We're still confused about that, but it's hard, otherwise, to ignore the massive disappearance of capital, asset values, livelihoods, domiciles, comforts, and necessities.

He also has a weekly podcast interview which can be found here, and he appeared on the always zeitgeisty Colbert Report:

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

James Howard Kunstler

Colbert at Christmas
Colbert Christmas DVD

Green Screen
Bill O'Reilly Interview

Fusion: The Future of Energy (hopefully)

2008-12-09T10:51:00.002-05:00

Came across this video of Eric Lerner giving a Google Techtalk. It is pretty technical but the subject is fascinating and the implications are enormous. One of the most startling things he mentions is that the Bush administration withdrew funding from most fusion research shortly after taking office. Yet another reason to despise the Bush regime. Anyway, here is the video:

Chris Floyd on the War Machine

2008-11-20T09:54:00.004-05:00

Chris Floyd as usual is right on regarding American foreign policy in the Middle East. In his latest piece he writes about the Obama plan to surge/escalate in Afghanistan. The whole article is good but the part that struck me was his succinct description of the underlying rationale for such insane policies:

Indeed, the entire arc of America's bipartisan policies in the region over the past 40 years can be seen as the elaborate construction of a gargantuan, self-propelled blowback machine, producing an endless effluent of violence, threat, chaos and crime that is now sluicing through the entire world. But blowback, as we all know, is not a design flaw of imperial policy, at least not for the most part; it is a design feature. No War Machine without perpetual war and rumors of war; no war profits – and no war powers – without the War Machine.

The Star Wars Holiday Special !?!?

2008-11-19T09:59:00.004-05:00

Yeah, you heard right. Apparently George Lucas sucked long before Episodes 1-3. The evidence is right here courtesy of io9:

Video Link Compilation Sites

2008-11-18T15:27:00.004-05:00

Here are a few great sites with links to online videos/documentaries that I like. The biggest and best that I have found (so far) is at Dedroidify. There is also Valis666.net which I found through Eye of the Cyclone. Also, Catherine Austin Fitts has put together a list of recommended documentaries and videos on her Solari.com blog.

Enjoy, I know I will!

* * * *

UPDATE: Just when I thought I was finished I found the Best Online Documentaries site (h/t The Teleomorph)

And Now for Something Completely Different

2008-10-31T09:28:00.003-04:00

The Four Pillars and Ten Key Values of the Green Party

Ecological Wisdom

A healthy society cannot exist without a healthy environment---all things are interconnected and interdependent. Both nature and humanity are worthy of respect and freedom from exploitation.

Social Justice

Greens want to replace the worldwide system of poverty and injustice with a world free of all oppression based on class, gender, race, citizenship, age, or sexual orientation.

Grassroots Democracy

Greens believe in direct participation by all people in the environmental, political, and economic decisions that affect their lives. In practice, Greens make decisions by voluntary consensus whenever possible.

Nonviolence

Greens promote nonviolent methods to oppose practices and policies with which we disagree, and guide our actions toward lasting community and global peace.

Decentralization

Greens support a restructuring of social, political and economic institutions away from a system which is controlled by and mostly benefits the powerful few, to a democratic, less bureaucratic system.

Community-Based Economics

Greens seek an economics based upon the natural limits of the Earth which meets the basic needs of everyone on the planet. We value people over profits, when the two conflict.

Feminism

Greens acknowledge the importance of both men and women and their unique capacities. Both sexes are critical to creating a healthy, sustainable society. We actively promote cooperation and participation to further our goals.

Respect for Diversity

Greens believe it is important to value cultural, ethnic, racial, sexual, religious and spiritual diversity, and to promote the development of respectful relationships across these lines.

Personal and Global Responsibility

Greens demonstrate a commitment to global sustainability and international justice through political solidarity and in personal lifestyles of self-sufficiency. We believe in the slogan "Think globally, act locally."

Future Focus/Sustainability

We must counter-balance the drive for short-term profits by assuring that development, technology, and fiscal policies are responsible to future generations.

The Green Party's website is here.

Hello World!

2008-10-29T12:12:00.002-04:00

I haven't posted in awhile. What have I been up to you ask? Well the usual, trying to be a good husband and father which entails working full time in a good paying job that has the benefit of being something that I rather enjoy doing. Recently I reread (listened to) Jed McKenna's book "Spiritual Enlightenment: The Damndest Thing". Currently I am reading "Stranger in a Strange Land" by Robert Heinlein. It is a classic which I had heard about for a long time but never actually read.

I have also spent quite a bit of time trying to wake up, in a "spiritual sense". This has been a rather involved process in which I have the kind guidance of a friend and mentor. Perhaps more on this later, although again I feel restrained as this blog does occassionally get a peek from family members. Although they are all quite aware that my spiritual beliefs (or opinions) are quite unorthodox from their point of view I consider it a point of courtesy not to flaunt it before them. But, then, perhaps that needs a rethink. Indeed perhaps the whole world, including and especially myself, needs a rethink. Of course the word "rethink" implies that any of these complexities have been subjected to thinking in the first place, and that is a bit of a stretch.

I have also resumed study of the martial arts, although I have had to put the specifically Russian studies in a holding pattern due to limited time and monetary resources. In the meantime I have taken up the study of the Indonesian martial art of pencak silat.

Anyhow, more on all this going forward. I simply had to assuage my guilt over not having updated the bloggy in so long.

Just in time for Halloween!

2008-09-16T12:08:00.002-04:00

It's John McCain!

21 Reasons to Question the Official 9/11 Story

2008-09-12T11:31:00.002-04:00

By David Ray Griffin, courtesy of Global Research:

Note: Although the points are stated briefly, I give in each case the pages in my most recent book---"The New Pearl Harbor Revisited"---where the issue is documented and discussed more extensively.

(1) Although the official account of 9/11 claims that Osama bin Laden ordered the attacks, the FBI does not list 9/11 as one of the terrorist acts for which he is wanted and has admitted that it "has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11" (NPHR 206-11).

(2) Although the official story holds that the four airliners were hijacked by devout Muslims ready to die as martyrs to earn a heavenly reward, Mohamed Atta and the other alleged hijackers regularly drank heavily, went to strip clubs, and paid for sex (NPHR 153-55).

(3) Many people reported having received cell phone calls from loved ones or flight attendants on the airliners, during which they were told that Middle Eastern hijackers had taken over the planes. One recipient, Deena Burnett, was certain that her husband had called her several times on his cell phone because she had recognized his number on her Caller ID. But the calls to Burnett and most of the other reported calls were made when the planes were above 30,000 feet, and evidence presented by the 9/11 truth movement showed that, given the technology of the time, cell phone calls from high-altitude airliners had been impossible. By the time the FBI presented a report on phone calls from the planes at the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui in 2006, it had changed its story, saying that there were only two cell phone calls from the flights, both from United 93 after it had descended to 5,000 feet (NPHR 111-17).

(4) US Solicitor General Ted Olson's claim that his wife, Barbara Olson, phoned him twice from AA 77, reporting that hijackers had taken it over, was also contradicted by this FBI report, which says that the only call attempted by her was "unconnected" and hence lasted "0 seconds" (NPRH 60-62).

(5) Although decisive evidence that al-Qaeda was responsible for the attacks was reportedly found in Mohamed Atta's luggage---which allegedly failed to get loaded onto Flight 11 from a commuter flight that Atta took to Boston from Portland, Maine, that morning---this story was made up after the FBI's previous story had collapsed. According to that story, the evidence had been found in a Mitsubishi that Atta had left in the Logan Airport parking lot and the trip to Portland was taken by Adnan and Ameer Bukhari. After the FBI learned that neither of the Bukharis had died on September 11, it simply declared that the trip to Portland was made by Atta and another al-Qaeda operative (NPHR 155-62).

(6) The other types of reputed evidence for Muslim hijackers---such as videos of al-Qaeda operatives at airports, passports discovered at the crash sites, and a headband discovered at the crash site of United 93---also show clear signs of having been fabricated (NPHR 170-73).

(7) In addition to the absence of evidence for hijackers on the planes, there is also evidence of their absence: If hijackers had broken into the cockpits, the pilots would have "squawked" the universal hijack code, an act that takes only a couple of seconds. But not one of the eight pilots on the four airliners did this (NPHR 175-79).

(8) Given standard operating procedures between the FAA and the military, according to which planes showing signs of an in-flight emergency are normally intercepted within about 10 minutes, the military's failure to intercept any of the flights implies that something, such as a stand-down order, prevented standard procedures from being carried out (NPHR 1-10, 81-84).

(9) Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta reported an episode in which Vice President Cheney, while in the bunker under the White House, apparently confirmed a stand-down order at about 9:25 AM, which was prior to the strike on the Pentagon. Another man has reported hearing members of LAX Security learn that a stand-down order had come from the "highest level of the White House" (NPHR 94-96).

(10) The 9/11 Commission did not mention Mineta's report, removed it from the Commission's video record of its hearings, and claimed that Cheney did not enter the shelter conference room until almost 10:00, which was at least 40 minutes later than he was really there, according to Mineta and several other witnesses, including Cheney's photographer (NPHR 91-94).

(11) The 9/11 Commission's timeline for Cheney that morning even contradicted what Cheney himself had told Tim Russert on "Meet the Press" September 16, just five days after 9/11 (NPHR 93).

(12) Hani Hanjour, known as a terrible pilot who could not safely fly even a single-engine airplane, could not possibly have executed the amazing trajectory reportedly taken by American Flight 77 in order to hit Wedge 1 of the Pentagon (NPHR 78-80).

(13) Wedge 1 would have been the least likely part of the Pentagon to be targeted by foreign terrorists, for several reasons: It was as far as possible from the offices of Rumsfeld and the top brass, whom Muslim terrorists presumably would have wanted to kill; it was the only part of the Pentagon that had been reinforced; the reconstruction was not finished, so there were relatively few people there; and it was the only part of the Pentagon that would have presented obstacles to a plane's flight path (NPHR 76-78).

(14) Contrary to the claim of Pentagon officials that they did not have the Pentagon evacuated because they had no way of knowing that an aircraft was approaching, a military E-4B---the Air Force's most advanced communications, command, and control airplane---was flying over the White House at the time. Also, although there can be no doubt about the identity of the plane, which was captured on video by CNN and others, the military has denied that it belonged to them (NPHR 96-98).

(15) The Secret Service, after learning that a second World Trade Center building had been attacked---which would have meant that terrorists were going after high-value targets---and that still other planes had apparently been hijacked, allowed President Bush to remain at the school in Sarasota, Florida, for another 30 minutes. It thereby revealed its foreknowledge that Bush would not be a target: If these had really been surprise attacks, the agents, fearing that a hijacked airliner was bearing down on the school, would have hustled Bush away. On the first anniversary of 9/11, the White House started telling a new story, according to which Bush, rather than remaining in the classroom several minutes after Andrew Card whispered in his ear that a second WTC building had been hit, immediately got up and left the room. This lie was told in major newspapers and on MSNBC and ABC television (NPHR 129-31).

(16) Given the fact that the Twin Towers and WTC 7 had steel columns running from their basements to their roofs, they simply could not have come down as they did---straight down at virtually free-fall speed---unless these columns had been sliced by means of explosives. Therefore, the official theory, according to which the buildings came down because of fire plus (in the case of the Twin Towers) the impact of the planes, is scientifically impossible (NPHR 12-25).

(17) The destruction of the Twin Towers had many other features---such as the horizontal ejections of steel beams, the melting of steel, and the sulfidation and thinning of steel---that can be explained only in terms of powerful explosives. For example, the fires could not have come within 1000 degrees Fahrenheit of the temperature needed to melt steel (30-36).

(18) Members of the FDNY (Fire Department of New York) provided oral histories shortly after 9/11 in which one fourth of them testified to having witnessed explosions in the Twin Towers. Explosions in the WTC 7 as well as the towers were also reported by city officials, WTC employees, and journalists (NPHR 27-30, 45-48, 51).

(19) Mayor Rudy Giuliani told Peter Jennings of ABC News that day: "we set up headquarters at 75 Barclay Street . . . , and we were operating out of there when we were told that the World Trade Center was gonna collapse. And it [the South Tower] did collapse before we could actually get out of the building." However, there was no objective basis for expecting the towers to collapse; even the 9/11 Commission admitted that none of the fire chiefs expected them to come down. The FDNY oral histories show that the information that they were going to collapse came from the Office of Emergency Management---Giuliani's own office. How could Giuliani's people have known that the towers were going to come down, unless they knew that the buildings had been laced with explosives? (NPH 40)

(20) NIST, which produced the official reports on the Twin Towers and (recently) WTC 7, has been "fully hijacked from the scientific to the political realm," so that its scientists are little more than "hired guns," a former employee has reported, and the 9/11 Commission was no more independent, being run by Philip Zelikow, who was essentially a member of the Bush White House (NPHR 11, 238-51).

(21) The official story about 9/11 is now rejected by constantly growing numbers of physicists, chemists, architects, engineers, pilots, former military officers, and former intelligence officials (NPHR xi).

Things are going badly for Obama

2008-09-10T11:19:00.007-04:00

How do I know? When he makes a slip like this:

Oops! Barack Obama says 'my Muslim faith' in interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos

Here is video of it:

This one slip will be enough to fuel all those "secret muslim" rumors until election day. Of course, if he were a Muslim I would still trust him to run this country over McCain, or, GOD FORBID, Palin!

If you want to know the feeling I get from Palin it is summed up in this picture:

Why is Obama sliding?

2008-08-21T13:24:00.003-04:00

Dave Lindorff has an article over at Counterpunch (here) that pretty much hits the nail on the head:

But how can I or any progressive vote for a presidential candidate who goes
from opposing a war to saying he not only supports the idea of keeping troops in
Iraq for another five years—the length of the entire WWII!—but who further says
he won’t rule out attacking Iran, even if that country poses no imminent threat
to the US, simply because it develops nuclear weapons—the same weapons that our
putative friends, Pakistan and India, have? How can I vote for a candidate who
wants to expand the military (by 65,000 troops) instead of shrinking this huge,
bloodsucking parasite of an organization which is costing as much as the rest of
the world spends on its armies?

How can I or any progressive vote for a presidential candidate who
cannot state categorically that he will defend the Constitution by reversing all
of President Bush’s abuses of power and who will not promise to prosecute the
president and members of his administration for any crimes committed while in
office?

Olympic Commentator Bloopers

2008-08-19T09:34:00.002-04:00

Enjoy!

Here are the top nine comments made by NBC sports commentators so far
during the Summer Olympics that they would like to take back:

1. Weightlifting commentator: 'This is Gregoriava from Bulgaria. I saw her
snatch this morning during her warm up and it was amazing.'

2. Dressage commentator: 'This is really a lovely horse and I speak from
personal experience since I once mounted her mother.'

3. Paul Hamm, Gymnast: 'I owe a lot to my parents, especially my mother
and father.'

4. Boxing Analyst: 'Sure there have been injuries, and even some deaths in
boxing, but none of them really that serious.'

5. Softball announcer: 'If history repeats itself, I should think we can
expect the same thing again.'

6. Basketball analyst: 'He dribbles a lot and the opposition doesn't like
it. In fact you can see it all over their faces.'

7. At the rowing medal ceremony: 'Ah, isn't that nice, the wife of the IOC
president is hugging the cox of the British crew.'

8. Soccer commentator: 'Julian Dicks is everywhere. It's like they've got eleven
Dicks on the field.'

9. Tennis commentator: 'One of the reasons Andy is playing so well is that, before the final round, his wife takes out his balls and kisses them... Oh my God, what have I just said?

Watchmen Trailer

2008-08-14T00:43:00.004-04:00

I am really looking forward to this movie. I just read the graphic novel for the first time and it was really good. One interesting thing is that the climax of the book features a confrontation between the US and the Soviet Union. A few days later the fighting broke out in Georgia. Now we're sending troops to Georgia. Swell!

Anyway here is the trailer:

Pravda says it all

2008-08-14T00:21:00.003-04:00

A quote from Pravda that sums up my feelings and those of a lot of Americans regarding our Resident and Commander-in-Thief:

“President Bush,

Why don’t you shut up? In your
statement on Monday regarding the legitimate actions of the Russian Federation
in Georgia, you failed to mention the war crimes perpetrated by Georgian
military forces, which American advisors support, against Russian and Ossetian
civilians

“President Bush,

Why don’t you shut up? Your faithful
ally, Mikhail Saakashvili, was announcing a ceasefire deal while his troops,
with your advisors, were massing on Ossetia’s border, which they crossed under
cover of night and destroyed Tskhinvali, targeting civilian structures just like
your forces did in Iraq.

“President Bush,

Why don’t you shut up?
Your American transport aircraft gave a ride home to thousands of Georgian
soldiers from Iraq directly into the combat zone.

“President Bush,

Why don’t you shut up? How do you account for the fact that among the
Georgian soldiers fleeing the fighting yesterday you could clearly hear officers
using American English giving orders to “Get back inside” and how do you account
for the fact that there are reports of American soldiers among the Georgian
casualties?

“President Bush,

Why don’t you shut up? Do you
really think anyone gives any importance whatsoever to your words after 8 years
of your criminal and murderous regime and policies? Do you really believe you
have any moral ground whatsoever and do you really imagine there is a single
human being anywhere on this planet who does not stick up his middle finger
every time you appear on a TV screen?

Do you really believe you have the
right to give any opinion or advice after Abu Ghraib? After Guantanamo? After
the massacre of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens? After the torture by
CIA operatives?

Do you really believe you have any right to make a
statement on any point of international law after your trumped-up charges
against Iraq and the subsequent criminal invasion?

“President Bush,

Why don’t you shut up? Suppose Russia for instance declares that Georgia
has weapons of mass destruction? And that Russia knows where these WMD are,
namely in Tblisi and Poti and north, south, east and west of there? And that it
must be true because there is ‘magnificent foreign intelligenc’ such as
satellite photos of milk powder factories and baby cereals producing chemical
weapons and which are currently being ‘driven around the country in vehicles’?
Suppose Russia declares for instance that ‘Saakashvili stiffed the world’ and it
is ‘time for regime change’?

I found this in the article by Paul Craig Roberts appropriately titled "President Bush, Why Don't You Shut UP?" over at CounterPunch.

Jnana

2008-06-18T23:09:00.000-04:00

If you want to know what jnana is, ask him:

Interesting Articles on Gurdjieff

2008-06-16T23:47:00.003-04:00

A couple of recent articles on Gurdjieff and his teaching that I have found really interesting:

Gurdjieff and Ecology: The Astral Ecosphere in Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson
by Richard Smoley (formerly of the wonderful magazine, Gnosis)

Gurdjieff as Magus Omissions and Redefinitions of The Work
no author was identified but it was posted by user ccwe at the blog: books, news, reviews

I have also had the good fortune to read Fritz Peters second book about his relationship with Gurdjieff entitled Gurdjieff Remembered. His first book, Boyhood with Gurdjieff, is his account of his adolescent years spent with Gurdjieff at his Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man. His books are fascinating because they give a look at Gurdjieff from the perspective of someone who wasn't really one of his followers and who was not even an adult when they met. The two books have also been combined under the title My Journeys with a Mystic. I highly recommend both books for anyone interested in Gurdjieff. In fact if I were to make a Gurdjieff reading list it would start with Ouspensky's In Search of the Miraculous and Fritz Peters book's would be next on the list. If you have a taste for more Gurdjieff after that you can dive into his own books.

JK Rowling's Harvard Commencement Address

2008-06-16T22:43:00.004-04:00

The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination

Harvard University Commencement Address

By JK Rowling, Harvard Gazette Online (2008)

Really a great speech. I found it courtesy of Catherine Austin Fitts' blog at Solari.com

There is YouTube video of it in two parts that you can see below:

Another Communique

2008-06-09T22:53:00.004-04:00

Just after my previous post I read this quote from the Sufi poet Hafez:

Just sit there right now.

Don't do a thing.

Just rest.

For your separation from God is the hardest work in the world.

This is from a very good Sufi blog: Inspirations and Creative Thoughts

Inner Vision Calls

2008-06-09T22:30:00.004-04:00

I had been getting urges to pick up a certain book in my library for several days. The book is called "Wild Awakening" by Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche. It is a book that I have never read (I own quite a few of these) and I actually had very little desire to read it. The urging kept coming back and last night it hit me out of the blue and I knew I had to look at it. I opened it up to p. 174 and read the following:

That is the complete realization of Mahamudra mind and of enlightenment. From the point of view of Essence Mahamudra, it is really quite simple. Ultimately speaking, there is nothing on which to meditate because ordinary mind is stainless, luminous emptiness from the beginning. With the blessings of the lineage master, the student awakens to that realization. That is Essence Mahamudra.

Interesting the similarity with the realization and teaching of Adyashanti which has effected me greatly in recent weeks.

As Above, So Below

2008-06-02T14:09:00.004-04:00

Great stuff courtesy of Reality Carnival, via Strange Attractor.

Of course the title is drawn from the Emerald Tables of Hermes Trismegistos.

This should all come as no surprise to anyone familiar with self-similarity in complex systems or to students of the cosmology of Gurdjieff.

Adyashanti - True Meditation

2008-05-29T10:26:00.002-04:00

True Meditation

True meditation has no direction, goals, or method. All methods aim at achieving a certain state of mind. All states are limited, impermanent and conditioned. Fascination with states leads only to bondage and dependency. True meditation is abidance as primordial consciousness.
True meditation appears in consciousness spontaneously when awareness is not fixated on objects of perception. When you first start to meditate, you notice that awareness is always focused on some object: on thoughts, bodily sensations, emotions, memories, sounds, etc. This is because the mind is conditioned to focus and contract upon objects. Then the mind compulsively interprets what it is aware of (the object) in a mechanical and distorted way. It begins to draw conclusions and make assumptions according to past conditioning.

In true meditation all objects are left to their natural functioning. This means that no effort should be made to manipulate or suppress any object of awareness. In true meditation the emphasis is on being awareness; not on being aware of objects, but on resting as primordial awareness itself. Primordial awareness (consciousness) is the source in which all objects arise and subside.

As you gently relax into awareness, into listening, the mind's compulsive contraction around objects will fade. Silence of being will come more clearly into consciousness as a welcoming to rest and abide. An attitude of open receptivity, free of any goal or anticipation, will facilitate the presence of silence and stillness to be revealed as your natural condition.

Silence and stillness are not states and therefore cannot be produced or created. Silence is the non-state in which all states arise and subside. Silence, stillness and awareness are not states and can never be perceived in their totality as objects. Silence is itself the eternal witness without form or attributes.

As you rest more profoundly as the witness, all objects take on their natural functionality, and awareness becomes free of the mind's compulsive contractions and identifications. It returns to its natural non-state of Presence.

The simple yet profound question "Who Am I?" can then reveal one's self not to be the endless tyranny of the ego-personality, but objectless Freedom of Being -- Primordial Consciousness in which all states and all objects come and go as manifestations of the Eternal Unborn Self that YOU ARE.

© 1999 Adyashanti. All rights reserved.

Stove Gallery - Albuquerque

2008-05-27T20:59:00.003-04:00

Well, my friends down at the Stove Gallery in Albuquerque are hard at work changing the world. I found a couple of good articles about their work online, here and here. They also have their own home page (which needs some search engine optimization). I have also added a link to them in my links section. If you are ever in Albuquerque be sure to stop by and tell them John sent you.

An Old Dream

2008-05-27T20:39:00.004-04:00

I had mentioned in a previous post that a lot had been happening for me "spiritually" lately. I won't go into much detail but what is happening now makes me think of a dream I had a long time ago. It was one of those dreams that was so vivid and meaningful that it sticks with you and becomes part of the story of your life.

The dream itself was no more than an image. In the dream a grey robed and hooded figure stood half leaning back against a long wooden table. His face, if it was there at all, left no trace in memory. The table he was leaning on was covered with stacks and stacks of mostly very large, hard bound books. The room itself was small and rustic. Stacks of books similar to those on the table crowded every corner of the small room. The only other remarkable feature about the room was a fireplace in which a fire was blazing. The fireplace was to the left of the table and was clearly visible despite the large stacks of books.

In his right hand the hooded figure held a book upright and open facing me. Across both pages was inscribed a single word: JNANA. With his left hand he pointed to the book.

Who is Jed McKenna?

2008-05-27T16:01:00.005-04:00

I don't know for certain but my best bet is that Jed McKenna is another name for the teacher known as Adyashanti. Either that or Jed McKenna is Adyashanti's evil twin brother. Anyway even though the works of Jed McKenna are fictional the similarities in their teachings, their realizations, and their lives are difficult to miss. I highly recommend both teachers. The great thing about Adya is that even if he is not Jed McKenna he sure fills in a lot of the blanks. Here is a taste of Adya:

Some reading . . .

2008-05-19T11:12:00.003-04:00

Well it has been an interesting few months, to put it mildly. A lot of things happening in my life on the spiritual and personal fronts.

I just finished reading two books my wife bought me for my birthday. The first was Into the Wild. I had previously seen the movie which I enjoyed. The book added some more depth to the story. The real mystery in my mind was whether, if he had lived, Christopher McCandless would have been able to enter into a more mature relationship with his parents and thus with the rest of society. I say with the rest of society because so much of how he dealt with others was a result of his relationship with his parents. He left home mainly to escape what he saw as their stultifying and dead-end existence. But I guess that is the way most young people see their parents as they hold down jobs and do all the mundane things necessary to live in the world and to provide for their children the best way they know how.

The other thing that struck me was that he was ready to walk out of the wilderness, and quite possibly begin mending those relationships. But due to various, mostly accidental, events he died alone in the wilderness. He had run so far away from home and when it seemed he was finally able to begin his emotional return he died. It is a tragic and ironic story.

* * **

The other book she bought me was The Last American Man. I can't remember the author at the moment (Elizabeth . .. ?) and I don't have the book in front of me. The book itself is the story of Eustace Conway, a modern mountain man and the founder of the Turtle Island Presevere. His life story is fascinating and filled with amazing adventures and reminded me in many ways of Tom Brown, Jr. I have to wonder if those two have ever met. I enjoyed reading it so much that I stayed up way too light last night to finish it.

It is an interesting book because it is written by a woman and she does recount his amazing adventures but she also paints an honest portrait of a man who is so driven and consumed by his sense of personal destiny that he has difficulty maintaining personal relationships. His life is consumed by his work, and though he desires a family deeply it seems he is unable to compromise his life and work even an iota to achieve that desire. If he didn't want a family it would be different, but the fact that he wants one and wants one so badly is very sad. When I finished the book I said a little prayer for him that he would find what he was looking for.

The book is well written and insightful. The author is an admirer but also a woman. As with most women she has a deeper understanding of relationships in her pinky finger than he has in his whole body. Her insight into his childhood, and particularly the influence of his father is illuminating. In the end you see a person both amazingly accomplished and sadly inept. A person who knows that there is something wrong with him and even has an idea where the problem lies, but hasn't a clue how to fix it. I can certainly sympathize with him there.

AVP 2 -- Movie Rules

2008-04-27T17:12:00.003-04:00

Well, I saw some of Alien vs. Predator 2 this weekend. It was truly an awful movie. Of course I knew this even before the god awful ending. You might be wondering how. Well, I'll tell you. This movie violated one of my cardinal rules for determining how good a movie is. I call it the "Go! Go! Go!" Rule.

This rule is simple. Any movie in which a line of dialogue consists entirely of a character shouting "Go! Go! Go!" is generally a bad movie. This movie contained that gem of screenwriting not once but twice. Thus confirming its place in my heart as a BAD movie.

Google Reader Update

2008-04-01T14:02:00.002-04:00

Well it turns out that Google Reader does allow you to share more than just your shared items. In Google Reader you have another option to "Star" stories. Starred stories also have their own RSS feed which you can make public.

In addition you can sort your feeds using various tags (folders). You can then share these folders as well. Each shared folder will have its own RSS feed. Sharing folders does not give you the ability to self-select the stories but it is one more way to aggregate a bunch of news feeds together.

To share your starred items or tagged folders just go to Settings in Reader and then to the Tags tab. Beside each folder (including Starred Items) there is a little broadcast/rss icon. Just click on that and then click the View Public Page link that will appear next to the icon. This will bring up the public web page which will then have a link to its RSS feed along the right hand side of the window.

Interview with a Banker

2008-04-01T13:49:00.004-04:00

This interview was first published in Punch magazine on April 3, 1957. I first read it in the book "The Creature from Jekyll Island" by G. Edward Griffin. This book opened my eyes to the way "money" really works. The interview stuck with me as well because it is not only extremely enlightening but is really funny as well.

Here is the interview. The person answering the questions is, of course, a banker:

Q: What are banks for?
A: To make money.

Q: For the customers?
A: For the banks.

Q: Why doesn't bank advertising mention this?
A: It would not be in good taste. But it is mentioned byimplication in references to reserves of $249,000,000 or thereabouts. Thatis the money that they have made.

Q: Out of customers?
A: I suppose so.

Q: They also mention Assets of $500,000,000 or thereabouts. Have they madethat too?
A: Not exactly. That is the money they use to make money.

Q: I see. And they keep it in a safe somewhere?
A: Not at all. They lend it to customers.

Q: Then they haven't got it?
A: No.

Q: Then how is it Assets?
A: They maintain that it would be if they got it back.

Q: But they must have some money in a safe somewhere?
A: Yes, usually $500,000 or thereabouts. This is calledLiabilities.

Q: But if they've got it, how can they be liable for it?
A: Because it isn't theirs.

Q: Then why do they have it?
A: It has been lent to them by customers.

Q: You mean customers lend banks money?
A: In effect. They put money into their accounts, so it is reallylent to the banks.

Q: And what do the banks do with it?
A: Lend it to other customers.

Q: But you said that money they lent to other people was Assets?
A: Yes.

Q: Then Assets and Liabilities must be the same thing?
A: You can't really say that.

Q: But you've just said it. If I put $100.00 into my account the bank isliable to have to pay it back, so it's Liabilities. But they go and lend itto someone else, and he is liable to have to pay it back, so it's Assets.It's the same $100.00, isn't it?
A: Yes, But...

Q: Then it cancels out. It means, doesn't it, that banks haven't really anymoney at all?
A: Theoretically....

Q: Never mind theoretically. And if they haven't any money, where do theyget their Reserves of $249,000,000 or thereabouts?
A: I told you. That is the money they have made.

Q: How?
A: Well, when they lend your $100.00 to someone they charge himinterest.

Q: How much?
A: It depends on the Bank Rate. Say five and a-half per cent.That's their profit.

Q: Why isn't it my profit? Isn't it my money?
A: It's the theory of banking practice that......

Q: When I lend them my $100.00 why don't I charge them interest?
A: You do.

Q: You don't say. How much?
A: It depends on the Bank Rate. Say half a per cent.

Q: Grasping of me, rather?
A: But that's only if you're not going to draw the money out again.

Q: But of course, I'm going to draw it out again. If I hadn't wanted todraw it out again I could have buried it in the garden, couldn't I?
A: They wouldn't like you to draw it out again.

Q: Why not? If I keep it there you say it's a Liability. Wouldn't they beglad if I reduced their Liabilities by removing it?
A: No. Because if you remove it they can't lend it to anyone else.

Q: But if I wanted to remove it they'd have to let me?
A: Certainly.

Q: But suppose they've already lent it to another customer?
A: Then they'll let you have someone else's money.

Q: But suppose he wants his too...and they've let me have it?
A: You're being purposely obtuse.

Q: I think I'm being acute. What if everyone wanted their money at once?
A: It's the theory of banking practice that they never would.

Q: So what banks bank on is not having to meet their commitments?
A: I wouldn't say that.

Q: Naturally. Well, if there's nothing else you think you can tell me...?
A: Quite so. Now you can go off and open a banking account.

Q: Just one last question.
A: Of course.

Q: Wouldn't I do better to go off and open up a bank?

Jack Johnson

2008-03-29T18:59:00.004-04:00

A little music from one of my favorites. I will always be grateful to my brother Mike for getting me his first album. Here is one of my favorite songs of his:

And here is Jack Johnson doing another one of my favorites with his friend (and fellow great musician) Ben Harper:

THE FAMILY (and more)

2008-03-28T11:15:00.007-04:00

NOT THAT ONE!

Well we've been hearing for awhile about Obama's pastor and all those nasty-nasty, verboten, things he said about Our Homeland the US of A. What you might not have been hearing about are Hilary Clinton's associations with the Christian power cult known as The Family. I just learned about this recently and find it very disturbing. I had no illusions that Hilary was anything more than a closet right winger but this article on her relationship with the Family disturbed me more than a little bit. Harper's magazine also did an exellent piece on The Family a couple of years back. You can find it here.

And then of course we have John McCain who it seems actively sought and received the support of the televangelist Jon Hagee. This is even scarier than the Family because he is one of the Christian types that wants to fulfill (his version of) Bible prophecy by kicking off World War III in the middle east. Unfortunately you can see him almost any time you want on TV.

Here's a taste of Hagee from last year's AIPAC conference:

I also read an interesting blog post on the emerging political philosophy of Pan-Eurasianism (aka Neo-Eurasianism). Think of it as the counter point to PNAC's Pax Americana. It seems that this philosophy may be informing the actions of Vladimir Putin and other Russian leaders.

Ideas have consequences.

Being Bodies

2008-03-26T11:24:00.003-04:00

The idea or effort for self-remembering or waking up seems to begin in the head -- the intellectual center. I have noticed that if the idea or practice stays in the head it isn't very stable. However, if we anchor this sense of being awake in the body via sensation (moving/instinctive center) then it becomes much deeper and more dynamic. This observation springs not only from my own experience but from what I have read about the practices of the Gurdjieff Foundation as well as other traditions.

This then points the way to another aspect of Gurdjieff's teaching which is as important as self remembering and that is self-observation. My understanding is that self-observation begins with distinguishing the work of the three levels of our being: intellectual, emotional, and moving/instinctive. Initially you practice just to be able to tell the difference between them. Later you shoot for getting a sense of the relationships between the three functional centers in dynamic life situations. I get the sense that it is almost like taking pictures of oneself. Once you have enough of these pictures you begin to understand your habitual mental/emotional/physical postures (egoplastikoori).

But what is the point of this really? Self-knowledge, sure, but to what end? This then brings us to the question of Aim or Wish. Why are we doing this? What is the goal? I think this is essential to the task. I think the answer is unique to each individual. I am still struggling to begin to integrate this. The Aim or Wish is "the big one".

For me the Aim that I defined was "To Be Free". It was very vague at first and only recently have I begun to try to understand what I mean by being free. For me the idea of being free has come to mean being able to control my actions. In fact the inability to control my actions was the reason that Gurdjieff (particularly In Search of the Miraculous) was such a revelation for me. This was a person who was talking about the world of people AS IT WAS. He was coming at it from a postion of observation and honesty and his conclusions were devastating and yet had the feel of Great Truth.

Another aspect of freedom that I have begun to think about is in relation to death. If we don't KNOW what will happen to us how can we ever be free? Obviously it is not possible to know the future absolutely but when it comes to death we don't even know the first thing. It is a great unknown. It is likely entering a wilderness with no preparation and no knowledge of the local flora and fauna. You might survive but if you had a bit of knowledge and training you might be able to do more than merely survive.

* * * *

It appears I have really started to blather in earnest. God help you!

Other (non-podcast) Audio Sources

2008-03-21T11:46:00.004-04:00

I love podcasts. I drive a lot for work and it is so much better than listening to the radio. I can listen to people talk about the things that interest me. For a taste of my tastes there is a Podcast Mix section just below My News Feed on the right (my babies!)

Anyway, despite the growing popularity and utility of RSS feeds and podcasting there are still some sites out there that have great audio content but do not have a podcast feed. Here are a few of my favorites:

- the Binary Research Institute does a monthly hour-long podcast called The Cosmic Influence. This podcast, and the Institutes's Research, revolve around what is most commonly known as the Yuga cycle. They are also the organizers of the now yearly Conference on Precession and Ancient Knowledge. To their credit they are on iTunes but do not have a generic RSS feed.
- Future-Hi is pretty static but features downloads of people like Terrence McKenna, Robert Anton Wilson.
- Project Camelot has MP3 versions of its video interviews with a variety of people focussed on the subject of UFOs, ETs, and the "Spirit of the Age". They have interviews with people like Richard Hoagland, David Wilcock, Gary McKinnon and others. They have a definite track they are working down with regard to the UFO question but their interviews are fascinating no matter what stand you take.
- Rupert Sheldrake has a collection of Trialogues available. Unfortunately they are streaming audio and not available for download, but still they are thought provoking and well worth the listening

Another great resource is LibriVox. It is basically a community of people volunteering to record audio versions of public domain books. They have a lot of interesting titles although being in the public domain many of the English translations have a bit of a King James feel to them. But hey, they're free!

Google Reader vs. Newsgator Online

2008-03-21T11:27:00.003-04:00

On a whim I signed up for Newsgator's online RSS Reader service. I thought it was time to check out other RSS Readers. I was mostly curious as to the features other readers might offer. The one feature that I was looking for was the ability to create multiple new RSS Feeds from items I selected (ala My News Feed to the right).

Sure enough Newsgator has that capability with its News Clipping functionality. I was very excited at first, but the more I used Newsgator the more I pined for the simplicity and reliability (and features) of Google Reader. Here are some of the problems I ran into with Newsgator:

- I found the overall appearance not as pleasing as Google Reader. This is a personal judgement and others may prefer the Newsgator interface
- the News Clipping service feed would only feed 20 items -- the same as Google Reader. And what's worse for me was that the feed did not seem to update as regularly as the Shared Items feed in Google Reader. I like my news feed to be "hot and fresh" so this bothered me
- it turned out that I didn't have a lot of use currently for the ability to do another self selected feed. I spend WAY too much time on the one I have as it is. I admit that sometimes I can't even make time to read some of the items I share because I have to take so much time going through them. Adding one more to the mix would only increase the load and, well, I already have a full-time job.
- Newsgator's interface had bugs! The most annoying of which would not allow me to look at the items in any of my subfolders if all of the items were read. It would default to some other screen. This was really frustrating when I was trying to download my podcasts. It was also slower to refresh feeds and performed slower in general than Google Reader
- Google Reader also has another feature that I have come to enjoy and that is that it will recommend new feeds for you based on what you already have. I know, I know, Total Information Awareness anyone? But I have found a few good new feeds that way and so in that way I appreciate it.

Also, did I say that the Google Reader interface is simpler and easier to look at than Newsgator's?

In short Google Reader is better than Newsgator Online.

Being

2008-03-20T23:04:00.004-04:00

I said when I started this thing that I would talk about "spiritual work", of course I can't say that I have posted a thing at all on this subject. It is difficult to write about because it is so personal. I am still not totally comfortable putting myself out there in a public format. I am also uncomfortable that some of my family might read this. If feels like it is time to put something down and see where it takes me.

I don't particularly "do" any spiritual work, at least in the external sense. I don't meditate or pray, I don't dance or sing, or go to church. Perhaps I should. What I do is to try to BE, as much as I remember to. I think that is why Gurdjieff called it Self Remembering because you have to remember to do it. Remembering to do it is the real trick.

Being is simply the sensation of "I AM" without the words. Almost everyone takes this for granted and it is easy to see why. If you ask someone if they are aware of themselves they will say "Yes, of course!" and they will be - for that moment. It is only when you make a concerted effort to sustain this awareness that you realize that most of the time you literally, ARE NOT.

Another word for Being is Awake. A friend was kind enough to give me some advice on the matter that helped clarify things for me. Here's how the conversation went:

"How do you know if you are awake?"
Me: SHRUG
"You ask yourself"

So I did, intensively, for several weeks. During that time I experienced several instances of what I would call being Awake (or being closer to it). The sense of Being or Awakening was accompanied by a sudden intensification or amplification of the senses. Nothing supernatural here, just that everything seemed more REAL.

(Gurdjieff's third book title: "Life is Only Real When 'I AM' ")

My use of this practice lost momentum as all mechanical processes do and eventually it died off. But it left its mark. I began to see that I had so exposed myself to the literature of awakening that I was being reminded by association several times a day that I should try to BE AWAKE. I would experience moments of awakening more frequently but without the sensory fireworks. I was becoming more used to the experience. My ability to remember now goes up and down but it hasn't gone away completely since that talk.

Gurdjieff once defined the path to awakening as follows:

"To Wish, To Be Able, To Be"

I think I am becoming able.

More Winter Soldier

2008-03-19T20:34:00.002-04:00

For more you can go to the website of the Iraq Veterans Against the War.

Obama vs. the Neo-right

2008-03-19T10:36:00.004-04:00

On one side we have Barack Obama's speech from yesterday. If you haven't seen it yet you must. I am cynical about politicians but this speech truly does give me hope, and not the kind that fits in a sound bite:

For the wrong side of the debate I give you Mitt Romney's concession speech, or at least blogger and journalist Chris Floyd's translation of it:

If you would like to see just how sick the American elite really is – how morally depraved, how intellectually diseased, how addicted to the taste of human flesh, the scent of human blood, and the sight of human suffering – then you need go no further than the speech given by Mitt Romney to the Conservative Political Action Conference on February 7, 2008.

Now you might say that Mitt Romney is old news. After all, this was the very speech where he declared he was quitting the presidential race. He's toast, he's over, the fork has been stuck into his well-roasted hide; who cares what he says? This is of course the witless "horse-race" view that dominates political discourse in America: who's up, who's down, who's getting the column inches, who's on TV? But in reality, the American elite – or the Establishment, or the power structure, call it what you will (as long as you don't call it what it really is: the ruling class) – is like an iceberg: most of its vast bulk exists unseen, it plows on beneath the surface, unperturbed by the media storms that rage around the small bit of exposed material at the summit.

You can read the rest here and you really should. This guy is one of my favorite writers and his analysis of the subtext of Romney's speech is devastating. It really highlights the subtle bigotry of the neo-right as we have come to know them in the last 14 or so years.

Winter Soldier -- Preview

2008-03-18T00:20:00.001-04:00

Changes

2008-03-10T12:21:00.002-04:00

Well I am not sure exactly how it happened but I have begun to treat my body a lot better. It has only been about a week but here is what I am doing:

- FlowFit 3x weekly; -- 14 minutes of the 2nd flow
- IntuFlow (Intermediate) 3x weekly; alternating days with FlowFit -- Sundays are off days
- on FlowFit days I also do the Ryabko Systema physical/breath work. Doing this then 14 minutes of FlowFit really pushes me to the my threshold of discomfort, particularly in my legs it also gets my breathing going quite nicely
- I have also changed my diet and am following a simple version of the Zone diet.

The simplified Zone diet worked great for me a few years ago and I stuck with it for months. Unfortunately I started having an adverse broccoli reaction that was so bad that the only way I could get rid of it was to return to my old, abysmal, eating habits. I like the modified Zone diet because I am a pretty simple guy and you can make a quick meal of raw vegetables and a decent protein without having to be too picky. The Zone also stresses the timing of the meals so you have to plan ahead a little bit, but not much. In one of his books the creator of the Zone diet says that food should be treated like medicine and taken in appropriate doses on a regular schedule. I say Amen. I love this diet and have been trying to get back to it for awhile but my old habits got in the way. I am not sure what tipped the scale this time but I know that I was not happy with the way I was feeling, or looking. One of the great things about this diet is that your energy level will go up almost immediately. It may not be all that noticeable if you are already eating healthy but if you ate like I did you will quickly notice the difference.

Another good thing about this diet is that it is pretty much in line with the dietary recommendations of Edgar Cayce regarding food combining. The important thing for me is not to get too caught up in the details, and thus the "modified" version that I mentioned. Basically, if I don't have low fat protein available I will substitute whatever protein I can get. With carbohydrates I still prefer raw vegetables but can substitute smaller portions of grains etc. I would rather substitute for the protein because the fruits and vegetables tend to be more filling than other types of carbohydrates.

The Zone diet also recommends a small amount of monounsaturated (or is it poly?) with each meal. This is stuff like olive oil etc. I have found a novel solution to this by taking fish oil capsules with my meals. Almonds, avocadoes etc also qualify.

In short I am going in a positive direction in regards to my physical body. My goals are to:

- feel better (this is already happening but I have to keep reminding myself that what I want is long term feel good, not the short term high that I get from my high sugar/high fat/high caffeine diet)
- look better - I'll know I am succeeding here if I can get some of my old pants to fit a bit better
- be more healthy - normal range for cholesterol and blood pressure. This is for me and my family

YHVH

2008-03-06T20:37:00.003-05:00

This one makes you think:

What happens when the Hebrew letters for God's name (YHVH) are written top to bottom?

2008-03-06T13:07:00.002-05:00

Fortean Times news:

Psychic medium contacts Natalie Wells' dead brother
Japanese model gets off thanks to large breasts
New twist in Hobbit-human debate
Go with your gut - intuition more than just a hunch, says research
Pollution helps birds sing better
Black fungus found in Chernobyl eats harmful radiation
NASA baffled by unexplained force acting on space probes
Cemetery full, mayor tells locals not to die
Boriska, boy from Mars, says that all humans live eternally
Herb Charles II used to keep mistresses in shape could help fight obesity epidemic

Daily Grail News:

Intuition more than just a hunch, says research. You know? Somehow, deep inside I already knew that ;-)

Psychologist and Dog Expert, Dr. Stanley Coren says dogs are intelligent, but NOT telepathic.

You & your dog can hear the entire interview here.

Mind-reading machine knows what the eye sees. I hereby propose they call it… The Randitron!! ;-)

The British Astrology Plot against Hitler.

Happiness is partly inherited, according to study. Yo, eggheads! It’s called trust fund, stupids.

World can 'afford' to solve its environmental woes: OECD.

Foggy wars: Over Washington, big industries are embarking in a big lobbying effort to block new, tougher limits on air pollution.

Are the birds on their side? Pollution help birds sing better, studio says. Wouldn’t that be a ‘swan song’ of sorts?

Well, in any case, we can always replace them! Robotic bird makes first flight.

Always two steps ahead: 2,200 Japanese homes run on fuel cell systems now. Goal is one-fourth by 2020.

First Godzilla, now it’s blood-thirsty leeches what’s threatening Japan.

Black Fungus Found in Chernobyl Eats Harmful Radiation. But what about the man-size worm?

Sure, ‘10,000 B.C.’ looks like an awesome flick, but are the paleo-monsters depicted in it based on real science, or mere Tinseltown exaggeration?

Loren Coleman & Henry Stokes (creator of the incredible blog ‘I Love the Yeti’) explore the evolution of the Yeti in popular culture throughout the decades.

What New World?? Primate Fossil discovered in North America may be even older than the ones already found in Europe.

Shackleton Crater: The New Tranquility Base?

Move over shuttle! And make way for Europe’s cargo ship, ‘Jules Verne’.

Those damn aliens and their juvenile pranks! NASA Baffled by Unexplained Force Acting on Space Probes.

Alien graffiti! New alleged Video of Stephenville UFO leaked to the web. You be the judge. More info about this video at Linda Moulton Howe’s Earthfiles, here.

Possible Photo of the Texas UFO, taken by a police officer with his patrol cam?

How lame! British man makes hoax of UFO sighting by using a 13-year-old Mexican photo —which is probably a hoax to begin with. Do your homework you NOOB!

‘Only Fools & Goatsuckers’: The adventures of Jonathan Downes, Graham Inglis & a film crew in Puerto Rico, Mexico & Miami in early 1998 (Thx to Nick Redfern & UFO Mystic for the link).

Say Hello to my little friend! A Goliath Sniper Rifle May Take Some of the Physics Out of War. Well, you know there was this young chap named David…

Great in theory, flawed in practice: 'Virtual Fence' along border to be delayed.

Oh s**t! Quick, act casual! US seeks terrorists in web worlds.

Butterflies Remember What They Learned as Caterpillars. Man, I don’t even remember what I had for breakfast yesterday! (Note to Self: turn vegan).

Let’s spark the controversy: Norwegian whaling lobby alleges that whale hunting is greener than farming livestock.

Don’t have a cow, man? Go get one! California cows start passing gas to the grid. Here in Mexico, we pass cows… to the grill ;-)

On ‘Beyond the Blog‘, Anthony North writes about Cannibalism, and helps us prepare for the day when beef becomes too damn expensive. Mmm… Soylent Green! ;-)

Learn about the ‘Magic Teapot Cult‘, at Cabinet of Wonders.

It has come to this: The tale of a French village where dying… is illegal!

The producers of the last post have been sacked . . .

2008-02-26T15:31:00.002-05:00

Once again Obama gives me (and Phillip Weiss) hope:

Hot Damn! Obama's Secretly a Leftist

Great minds . . .

OK, so I couldn't resist

2008-02-26T14:09:00.003-05:00

I was on Obama's campaign website and they have a place where you can submit an "idea". Here is what I submitted. It was off the cuff but I think it turned out OK:

You say you will end the war in Iraq and yet you will leave a sizeable military force either in Iraq or the region to respond to "al-qaeda" bases. Unfortunately the presence of our military in Saudi Arabia was one of the main reasons that al-qaeda attacked us in the first place. By maintaining a military presence in the middle east you will perpetuate military conflict in the region whether you intend to or not.

My idea is a complete withdrawl of American forces from the middle east and around the world. Then we wouldn't need to add 80,000+ new troops as you intend.

Another suggestion is to withdraw military aid around the world particularly from Israel and from dictatorial regimes such as Egypt. This would remove the other main problem that terrorists have with the United States. Perhaps without our unqualified support the hard core elements in Israel might be more inclined to deal equitably with the Palestinians.

Sincerely,

Behind the Next Throne 2

2008-02-26T10:50:00.002-05:00

Well, when we last left our hero he was feeling slightly uplifted that the people in the Obama camp were not crazy neocons. Of course our hero forgot who Zbigniew Breszinski really was and the kind of American foreign policy he advocates. To wit, the subtitle of his book "The Grand Chessboard" is

American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives

American primacy? That sounds awfully familiar (pun intended). I submit that if we want to understand where a future President Obama would take us we need to read this book.

Also Democracy Now interviewed Samantha Power, Obama's senior foreign policy advisor yesterday. The interview can be reached from a link here.

The Mark

2008-02-22T21:58:00.003-05:00

Something about myself I have started to see recently:

Being so close to death at a young age left its mark. What means anything when it can be ripped away in an instant; school, friends, family . . . it is hard to value anything that is impermanent, but if nothing has any value then what is the purpose at all?

Must there be a purpose? Who said so?

My wife once said that it was like I was empty inside. She didn't say this in the heat of a tussle, it was just a sober observation. At the time it bothered me and now I can see why. In many ways, and for a long time it was very close to the truth. I know it's still there, lurking like some horrible creature, but now I begin to see its face and in the time that I have known her I have begun to know some meaning in this life.

TV news does real journalism!

2008-02-22T10:20:00.004-05:00

I wasn't able to catch the entire report on Countdown last night but the parts that I caught were some of the best television journalism I have seen in a long time. Basically, Keith O. and the Countdown crew out the open secret that the Bush Administration consistenly manipulated terrorist threats, in many cases exaggerating them and in some cases making them up out of whole cloth, to trump the news cycle on stories that were unfavorable to them or favorable to their opponents, particularly one John Kerry.

If there is one thing America needs it is more journalism like this:

Behind the next throne . . .

2008-02-20T09:58:00.002-05:00

If there is one thing that we can learn from the Bush administration it is that often times the people behind the throne are just as important as the one on it. Think Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Douglas Feith and on and on . . .

Well Professor Stephen Zunes has been kind enough to break down the foreign policy people in both the Clinton and Obama campaigns:

Senator Clinton’s foreign policy advisors tend to be veterans of President Bill Clinton’s administration, most notably former secretary of state Madeleine Albright and former National Security Adviser Sandy Berger. Her most influential advisor – and her likely choice for Secretary of State – is Richard Holbrooke. Holbrooke served in a number of key roles in her husband’s administration, including U.S. ambassador to the UN and member of the cabinet, special emissary to the Balkans, assistant secretary of state for European and Canadian affairs, and U.S. ambassador to Germany. He also served as President Jimmy Carter’s assistant secretary of state for East Asia in propping up Marcos in the Philippines, supporting Suharto’s repression in East Timor, and backing the generals behind the Kwangju massacre in South Korea.

Senator Barack Obama’s foreign policy advisers, who on average tend to be younger than those of the former first lady, include mainstream strategic analysts who have worked with previous Democratic administrations, such as former national security advisors Zbigniew Brzezinski and Anthony Lake, former assistant secretary of state Susan Rice, and former navy secretary Richard Danzig. They have also included some of the more enlightened and creative members of the Democratic Party establishment, such as Joseph Cirincione and Lawrence Korb of the Center for American Progress, and former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke. His team also includes the noted human rights scholar and international law advocate Samantha Power – author of a recent New Yorker article on U.S. manipulation of the UN in post-invasion Iraq – and other liberal academics. Some of his advisors, however, have particularly poor records on human rights and international law, such as retired General Merrill McPeak, a backer of Indonesia’s occupation of East Timor, and Dennis Ross, a supporter of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank.

I have predicted in the past (nostrajohnus) that Barack Obama would be the next President. I have been somewhat disappointed in his muted opposition to the war in Iraq while a Senator. That being said I have clung to the shred of hope that Obama is actually a bit more progressive than he lets on, and that he is just coming off hawkish in an attempt to mollify the powerful political and economic interests that might oppose him otherwise. The analysis of his foreign policy team gives me a bit more reason to hope.

You can read the rest of the article over at GlobalResearch.ca

Systema on the Military Channel Sunday 10/17

2008-02-16T15:13:00.006-05:00

Just got an update from Systema headquarters that Systema will be featured in a Military Channel special on Spetsnaz. It should be fun to watch. The feature will be part of their Weaponology program and is scheduled to air tomorrow (2/17) at 10:00 PM Eastern.

Here is a brief video on Systema that features the main North American instructor, Vladimir Vasiliev:

Give a man a fish . ..

2008-02-16T00:21:00.002-05:00

Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day.
Teach a man to fish and he'll never go hungry again.
Give a man a fish and make him feel stupid for not knowing how to fish, well, you'll be lucky if you bait another hook.

A quote . . .

2008-02-13T23:12:00.001-05:00

"The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers, is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist."

-- Winston Churchill, Nov. 21, 1943

Courtesy of GlobalResearch.ca

In the end . ..

2008-02-12T19:32:00.000-05:00

This is one of the most important articles I have ever read and represents probably the most honest and balanced view of the times in which we live that I have ever read.

When I was 14 years old I embarked upon a reading program that included The Gulag Archipelago, A People's History of the United States, 1984, Silent Spring, and a volume of much lesser stature entitled The Population Bomb, by Paul Ehrlich. The latter was a Malthusian work predicting mass starvation in the 1980s unless impossibly drastic measures were adopted. Essentially, it predicted the end of the world as we know it. And after reading those other books, some part of me secretly hoped it were true. MORE

Found this courtesy of my friend over at the Whoa!? (or ist it Whoa?!) blog. Anyway, thanks my friend.

John He Is

2008-02-12T19:29:00.000-05:00

This one is a classic:

It is, of course, a parody of the amazing Obama video:

I think I might change my name.

Deep Government

2008-02-12T19:19:00.000-05:00

A quick glimpse behind the curtain at what is really going on:

Also, the Senate just passed the FISA bill sans the Dodd/Feingold amendment which would have prevented retroactive immunity to the telecom companies.

Wait while I choke back the bile.

The police state has just been authorized.

What happens when the legislative branch legislates against the constitution? All we have left is the judicial branch and I think we know how tenous that is. We are one appeals court ruling away from a fully vetted and approved surveillance state.

McCain voted against the amendment, no surprise there. Clinton abstained, which in my mind is the same as voting against it. Obama voted for it. One policy difference that makes a difference. My vote is for Obama, slender hope that it is.

In the end, however, all is well.

Cormac McCarthy

2008-02-03T01:05:00.000-05:00

Well I had a Cormace McCarthy theme going for a week or so. I saw the film adaptation of "No Country for Old Men" and also read his latest book "The Road".

No Country for Old Men was a fantastic and disturbing movie. Javier Bardem is basically a lock to win the academey award for best supporting actor. I am not going to do a whole huge breakdown here but just a couple of things I took away from it:

The texture of the film is so realistic that it makes the horrible aspects that much more terrifying. I haven't read the book but I have seen a few Coen brothers movies and they seem to genuinely love the background language and culture of their subjects. In this case the culture is southwest texas and the characters walk and talk in an appropriately Texas country manner (or at least close enough for a Kansas boy).

The best thing I can say about this movie is that when it is over I didn't want to get up right away. I just sat there for a while savoring the experience.

* * * * *

The Road is an extremely dark book about a father and son travelling the road to the East coast after a terrible apocalypse. I couldn't put it down, though I do confess to having a weakness for apocalyptic themes.

I feel that in addition to the parent-child themes the book had a lot to say about the notion of community as opposed to the nuclear family.

When the Weather Beats You!

2008-02-03T00:39:00.000-05:00

Well I made my regularly scheduled trip across the state this week. I left the night before I would have normally in an attempt to beat the severe winter storm that was bearing down with winds up to 50 MPH.

Well I didn't make it out as early as I would have liked and about half way through the trip I ran smack into the worst snow storm I have ever driven in. I was driving a generally unlit interstate and it was all but invisible. Fortunately I have made this trip a number of times before and had a good feel for the contours of the highway. This might have helped me if I could have consistently seen more than 20 feet down the road. No such luck.

It was snowing so hard with such a heavy wind that there was about 30 minutes (out of 2 hours) that I literally felt like I was driving in a cloud. I could not see anything. I would just coast and wait for it to clear enough to give it some more gas. I probably would not have finished the trip that night if it weren't for the ambulance in front of me. They had high headlight type lamps on the corners in the back of their truck and had them on. This allowed me to see through the frozen fog. They must have had similar lights in the front that allowed them to see further down the road than any of the other cars or trucks were able to.

In fact the ambulance was so comfortable driving in the storm that they almost lost me at times. When they pulled more than a quarter of a mile ahead their lights would begin to dim in the snow. I would speed up slightly to keep up with them. We passed a number of cars in the ditches on either side of the road. These were the unlucky (or stupid ones) the lucky (or smart) ones were often to be found sitting on the shoulder. I can only imagine that they didn't have any confidence driving in zero visibility. I don't blame them. If it weren't for that ambulance I would surely have been one of them.

In the end the ambulance took me almost all the way into town. A lesson that I learned along the way is be careful about following someone blindly. If they drive off the road you are likely to follow them.

When I got checked into the hotel and turned on the TV to decompress I saw a weather update. The weatherman, who exuded a weatherman's storm buzz like a doppler radar signal, announced that we were experiencing "near blizzard" conditions. Obviously he had not been out driving before he recorded THAT report.

The joke around the office (at least in my head) was that I left early to beat the weather, but the weather beat me instead.

News bites -- 1/15/08

2008-01-15T10:14:00.000-05:00

They still have another couple of months before this starts imploding. Things are very unstable and can move incredibly fast. I don't think the central banks are going to make a major policy error, but if they do, this could make 1929 look like a walk in the park

* * * * * *

I used to be in charge of the visa section at the CIA's Consulate in Jeddah. ... There for a year and a half I issued visas to terrorists recruited by the CIA and its asset Osama Bin Laden. ... Fifteen of the nineteen people who allegedly flew airplanes into buildings in the United States got their visas from the same CIA Consulate at Jeddah.

* * * * *

The horror of what is taking place in Iraq exceeds my worst fears five or six years ago (after Bush came to power). I am horrified at the disastrous mistake involved. Imagine the complete madness in trying to occupy a large Arab country in the middle of the Arab world, a culture we know precious little about, and who speaks a language only a handful of our specialists can speak, with armed forces which we have limited control of and with a large army of private soldiers .... The whole thing is a scandal ... a series of lies. I don't understand the motivation for the war, but suspect the real reason for the war, which one would suspect of a country which is a third oligarchy, a third plutocracy and a third theocracy, is that it simply is a profitable machine.

* * * * *

You brought us wars, and the bringer of war cannot bring peace and the bearer of corruption cannot spread wellbeing. Go away with your freedom and spread it among your own people, who suffer from your suppression. Spread peace among your own people who suffer from fear and hatred of others due to you. Get out of our land and it will be safe.

* * * * *

W . . . . The President

2008-01-14T14:28:00.000-05:00

I usually rely on my news feed to bombard people with the news I find interesting. In this case I am making an exception, and with good reason. The article below is a devastating deconstruction of the psychology of our current President and one that I believe is extraordinarily accurate:

The true rule in determining to embrace, or reject anything, is not whether it
has any evil in it, but whether it have more of evil, than of good. There are
few things wholly evil, or wholly good. Almost every thing, especially of
governmental policy, is an inseparable compound of the two; so that our best
judgment of the preponderance between them is continually demanded. - Abraham Lincoln, June 20, 1848
In defiance of his circumstances as an unpopular, lame duck president with a
minority party in Congress, George W. Bush pursues a sharply autocratic tone. He has intimidated both parties in Congress and violated the
Constitution. Through dissimulation and delay, he has forced the nations of the
world to conclude they must wait until his term ends to negotiate any serious
treaty on the imminent perils of climate change.
A sort of thousand-mile stare has descended on the country. Frank Rich writes, "we
are a people in clinical depression" as a result of Bush's leadership. Perhaps, a more apt diagnosis would be "dissociation." Like a child or spousal victim of a psychological abuser, Bush's "victims" try to mentally compartmentalize him; they attempt to get on with their lives - even as he keeps on being abusive. You can hear the dissociation
when Congressional leaders talk about their inability to make Washington work as
it should.
Some, including Daniel Ellsberg, who challenged the autocratic aspirations of Richard Nixon by releasing the Pentagon Papers, suggest Bush has already created a "presidential coup." Ellsberg has said, "If there's another 9/11 under this regime, it
means that they switch on full extent all the apparatus of a police state that
has been patiently constructed."

You can read the rest of the article here. Truly, we live in perilous times.

1/11 -- a (mostly) Shameful Anniversary

2008-01-11T11:33:00.000-05:00

Let us take a moment today to reflect on the prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. It was opened 6 years ago today. From the moment that it opened it has been the shame of America and all Americans should be ashamed.

The prison at Guantanamo is a repudiation of the ideals on which America was founded:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

Do you read this as I do? Do our leaders? Don't they understand that America can conquer the world, not with the force of a gun, but with the force of our ideals. Unfortunately it is these very ideals that we are sacrificing by allowing the torture and indefinite detention of "enemy combatants" (whatever that means). We are giving the terrorists better PR than they could have ever concocted themselves. We are ensuring a vicious cycle of terror and war. But then perhaps that is really the point of it all anyway. It is said that "War is the health of the state" and in a situation of eternal war state power grows unchecked, and state power always grows at the expense of individual freedom.

* * *

I say it is mostly shameful because today is also the anniversary of the death of Robert Anton Wilson, a great man:

All hail Bob!

Gurdjieff, Scott Sonnon News

2008-01-10T16:57:00.000-05:00

E-mail updates from Scott Sonnon. He has a new book and website for Prasara Yoga. Also he has started a special program called Scott Sonnon Core Cadre.

* * * * *

This year's All and Everything Humanities Conference has been announced (for those interested in Gurdjieff and his magnum opus "All and Everything"). Here is a schedule of what's planned:

---------------------------------------------------------
PROPOSED
PROGRAMME FOR A&E 2008
---------------------------------------------------------
WEDNESDAY,
MARCH 12
8:30 PM - Informal Session: Getting to Know You

THURSDAY, MARCH 13
8:00 - Voluntary Sitting / Meditation
9:15 -
Opening Remarks
9:30 - Paper 1: Svend Louland - Second Body Obstetrics
10:45 - Coffee Break
11:15 - Paper 2: Will Mesa - Objective Conscience
12:30 - Lunch
2:30 - Seminar 1: Ch. 23, Fourth Personal Sojourn of
Beelzebub to the Planet Earth
3:30 - Coffee Break
4:00 - Seminar 1:
Continued
9:00 - Special Presentation: Dorothy Usiskin - Ego

FRIDAY, MARCH 14
8:00 - Voluntary Sitting / Meditation
9:30 -
Paper 3: Bonnie Phillips - Manifestations and Potentials
10:45 - Coffee
Break
11:15 - Paper 4: Bill Murphey - Immaturity
12:30 - Lunch
2:30
- Seminar 3: Ch. 4 of Meetings with Remarkable Men, Father Evlissi
3:30 -
Coffee Break
4:00 - Seminar 3: Continued
9:00 - Free Social
Evening

SATURDAY, MARCH 15
8:00 - Voluntary Sitting / Meditation
9:30 -
Paper 5: Ian MacFarlane - Neologisms in Beelzebub's Tales
10:45 - Coffee
Break
11:15 - Paper 6: Anthony Blake - Beelzebub's Tales, Enneagram,
Mathnawi
12:30 - Lunch
2:30 - Seminar 3: Ch. 24, Beelzebub's Fifth
Flight to the Planet Earth
3:30 - Coffee Break
4:00 - Seminar 3:
Continued
7:30 - Conference Banquet

SUNDAY, MARCH 16
8:00 - Voluntary Sitting / Meditation
9:30 -
Special Seminar: Being Partkdolg Duty.
10:45 - Coffee Break
11:15 -
Seminar 5: Where Do We Go From Here?
12:30 - Lunch

Wish I could go but it's in England. There is also a new book out by Keith Buzzell a longtime student of the Work. It is called Man - a Three Brained Being and is published by Fifth Press.

Also, another long time Gurdjieff guy just published a new book on Carlos Castaneda called
The Life & Teachings of Carlos Castaneda:

The Life & Teachings of Carlos Castaneda demystifies what
Castaneda
sought to hide and delivers a detailed portrait of the forces
and
influences that drove him to become a Nagual, a man of knowledge
and
emptiness. Here, too, is a concept-to-concept comparison in which
the
primary source of Castaneda's ideas is uncovered--Gurdjieff's
Fourth
Way. Also explored are don Juan's true identity, the meaning
of
Castaneda's "jump into the abyss," the life of the Nagual and
the
strange sexual power games he played with his "witches." Included
in
full is the first reference to Nagualism, anthropologist
Daniel
Brinton's essay "Nagualism: A Study in Native American Folklore
and
History," written in 1894.

Albuquerque! Stove Gallery! Pajama Men! Go!

2008-01-10T15:55:00.000-05:00

Some friends and family run The Stove Gallery in Albuquerque, New Mexico. They will be hosting live comedy with the Pajama Men weekly in January and February. I would say more, but hey, the flyer really says it all:

Red LED Phototherapy

2008-01-10T14:42:00.000-05:00

Some of the most fascinating advances in medicine in recent years have come in the form of new healing modalities that utilize energy to allow the body to heal itself. One of these that I am most interested in is Red LED phototherapy.

My interest in the particular subject was picqued when I first read about the NASA research done in this area (here and here). Basically the red LED light is unmixed with other frequencies. The cells of the body have light sensitive components which react strongly to light, particularly light in the red (660 nm) portion of the EM spectrum. Exposure to red light stimulates these cells and causes the cell to radically increase its energy production. In plants this results in faster growth and in humans one of the main effects is an increased rate of healing. The red light does not penetrate deeply into the body and so it is mainly useful in treating the upper layers of the skin. Infrared light penetrates more deeply into the body and may have similar effects.

Unfortunately the devices on the market are quite expensive, but after being inpired by this blog I decided to make my own red LED device and test it out. This is beyond theoretical for me, as I have a loved one who suffers from a chronic pain illness and I am hoping that a combination of red and infrared LEDs will prove beneficial and provide some relief.

It'll be my first go with a soldering iron so look out! I'll keep you posted on my progress.

* * * *

I think I first read about it on rense.com

Some Thoughts on Politics from Robert Anton Wilson

2008-01-10T10:37:00.000-05:00

From "The Illuminati Papers", a short piece entitled Dissociation of Ideas, 3:

"Marxists, and socialists generally, have a fine, piercing, brilliant vision of all the defects of the present Monopoly Capitalism.

There is no necessity for conservatives or libertarians to blind themselves to these defects which the Marxist so clearly sees. Such blindness may be popular with conservatives, and even with some libertarians, but there is no need for it. It is a habit of stupidity.

The conservatives, and the libertarians, have a fine, piercing, brilliant vision of the defects of totalitarian socialism, and of the diluted pseudo-democratic socialisms that are not quite totalitarian yet.

There is no need for radicals, or even for Marxists, to blind themselves to these defects that the conservative so clearly sees. Again, such blindness may be popular, but there is no need for it. Intelligence might be better than conformity to one's group.

Try to think of one or more alternatives to Monopoly Capitalism and State Socialism. While you're trying, endeavor not to concoct a blend of the two. Combining smallpox and chickenpox may not be the only, or the best, alternative to those diseases.

If you can't think of any alternatives, you might browse in some of the books where alternatives are suggested, e.g.: Progress and Poverty by Henry George; Economic Democracy by C.H. Douglas; The Natural Economic Order by Silvio Gesell; Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth by Buckminster Fuller; Individual Liberty by Benjamin Tucker; The Green Revolution by Peter Maurin."

This quote seems very appropriate and to the point given the root of some of today's political debates. I'll have to check out some of the books he recommends.

Christmas Gifts -- call of the wild!

2007-12-31T16:20:00.000-05:00

It has been a very nice holiday for my family and I. My wife bought me two books that I have been wanting for a long time. They are both by Tom Brown Jr. AKA "The Tracker". I have bought and read both books before (more than once) and liked them so much I "loaned" them to other people. Of course when you give books away they never return. C'est la vie. Well the problem in this case was that these books went out of print. To make matters worse all of the used copies to be had online were exorbitantly priced. I'm talking ~$50 for a paperback. Yeah, he's a popular author.

Anyway my thoughtful wife got them both for me, and for a decent price. This probable because Tom Brown has bought the rights to both books and has published one of them himself just recently. This one is called "The Journey" and the other is called "The Quest". Along with "The Vision" these three books make somewhat of a spiritual trilogy, although all of his books have spiritual themes.

Anyway I love these books and am already half way through "The Quest". Of course that got me thinking about getting outdoors again and resuming my nature studies. I still have Kamana 2 ready to go on the shelf. Kamana is a great program and if you are interested in Tom Brown Jr.'s stuff it is like having a Tom Brown Jr. home study course. It was originally created by Tom's first student Jon Young.

* * * * * *

Happy New Year All!

Nanosolar, FISA, Dodd and Democrats

2007-12-18T16:04:00.000-05:00

A press release from Nanosolar, makers of one of the most promising new solar technologies. You'll probably be hearing a lot more about them in the near future:

"After five years of product development – including aggressively pipelined science, research and development, manufacturing process development, product testing, manufacturing engineering and tool development, and factory construction – we now have shipped first product and received our first check of product revenue.
We are grateful to everyone who supported us through all these years and the many occasions where there appeared to be mile-high concrete walls in our path; the unusual intensity and creativity of our team deserves all the credit for achieving this major milestone today.
Our product is defining in more ways I can enumerate here but includes:
- the world’s first printed thin-film solar cell in a commercial panel product;
- the world’s first thin-film solar cell with a low-cost back-contact capability;
- the world’s lowest-cost solar panel – which we believe will make us the first solar manufacturer capable of profitably selling solar panels at as little as $.99/Watt;
- the world’s highest-current thin-film solar panel – delivering five times the current of any other thin-film panel on the market today and thus simplifying system deployment;
- an intensely systems-optimized product with the lowest balance-of-system cost of any thin-film panel – due to innovations in design we have included.
Today we are announcing that we have begun shipping panels for freefield deployment in Eastern Germany and that the first Megawatt of our panels will go into a power plant installation there.
As far as the first three of our commercial panels are concerned:
Panel #1 will remain at Nanosolar for exhibit.
Panel #2 can be purchased by you in an auction on eBay starting today.
Panel #3 has been donated to the Tech Museum in San Jose.
[These are obviously not the first three we ever produced – we have produced loads for testing – but these are the first three of what we consider our commercial panels.]"

* * * *

Also a great article over on Harper's magazine's website about the ominous implications of the FISA bill. Fortunately, thanks to the outstanding courage and vision of Senator Chris Dodd the FISA bill was defeated yesterday. Thank you Senator! It has been over a year since the Democrats gained control of both Houses and only now does it feel as if the first step has been taken to fight the criminal actions of the Bush Administration.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

* * * * * * *

Now some advice for the other Democratic contenders: emulate Chris Dodd. Chris Dodd just did what the American public (or at least ~70% of us) have been looking for someone, anyone, to do. He led the fight against the Shrub regime. He played to win. He didn't play "not to lose" as so many Democrats have done since being elected. We know the MO: complain about the war and the terrible Shrub but when the time comes rubber stamp the money for his wars, make his crimes legal after the fact, and sell our republic down the river and into the gaping maw of an ever encroaching fascist state.

Play to win. If they accuse you of playing politics you just tell them that you will do whatever it takes to preserve this republic. If that means playing politics then you tell them you will be the most ruthless, hard-nosed politician in history.

Clinton, Obama, and Biden all missed the boat on this one. They are seriously misjudging the mood of the populace if they could not see that defeating this legislation was not only a partisan political victory but would have been a huge victory for them on the campaign trail.

America wants a leader not a politician with their wetted finger in the air and their nose shoved firmly up the arse of big business. Chris Dodd may not be that leader, but he sure acted like it yesterday.

Over and out!

Morgan Spurlock Found Osama Bin Laden

2007-12-06T15:05:00.000-05:00

Believe it or not this could be a future headline in the New York Times. Morgan Spurlock's forthcoming documentary is called "Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden" and the initial reports seem to indicate that he actually found him!

You can read the story here. I found it on WhatReallyHappened.com

Information Security -- a friendly message

2007-12-06T13:33:00.000-05:00

A lot of us are updating our Operating Systems regularly with the latest security patches. Unfortunately we are not as vigilant about the applications that have become such an integral part of our experience of the internet. Many of these applications have had critical security flaws exposed in recent months and new flaws are revealed regularly. With this in mind here is an "off the cuff" list of applications that you should update if you haven't done so recently:

- Apple's Quicktime
- RealPlayer
- Flash Player
- Java Virtual Machine

If I get really motivated I might post some links for you. Most of the updates are pretty easy and can usually been done through the browser if you go to the company's page for the software. Also some of this software includes settings that can prompt you when updates are available. In the past I considered these upgrade prompts as annoyances and the memory resident programs running them as nothing more than performance killers. To a certain extent that remains true but I believe the value of the little pop up reminder when upgrades are available now outweighs the performance hit that your system will take if you leave the program running in the background.

Comcast Shennanigans

2007-11-30T13:00:00.000-05:00

The Electronic Freedom Foundation has reported the results of their testing of problems experienced with Comcast's internet service particularly by users of P2P/BitTorrent software. The summary of the report is here. I found the story on WhatReallyHappened.com

This has gotten me thinking about some of the e-mails I haven't received that were related to BitTorrent services. Also, I wonder if this explains why my profile picture never shows up. Of course if blogger simply let you upload a picture into your profile instead of pointing to a URL it would really be a non-issue. But maybe I am missing something.

Cute Kids!

2007-11-30T09:12:00.000-05:00

A good podcast

2007-11-29T14:23:00.000-05:00

Here's one that didn't make it into my feed because the feed link is broken. It is the Phoenixfire podcast of John Anthony West. If you are not familiar with him he is the "rogue egyptologist" driving the effort to explain the water weathering on the Sphinx and the Sphinx enclosure in Egypt. His first six podcasts covered the history of his work in this regard as well as the response from the scientific and Egyptological community. I find his theories interesting and he is fun to listen to besides.

His latest podcast is "Atlantis here, Atlantis there, Atlantis Damn Near Everywhere!".

Enjoy!

Fun with RSS!

2007-11-29T13:33:00.000-05:00

In case you didn't notice I got my news feed working again. For some reason the site that was hosting the feed for me deleted it (?) I went back and signed up again after getting no response to an e-mail requesting support. After I set it back up it worked like gangbusters. The site I use to generate my consolidated news feed is WebRSS. It is a bit klugey and the support seems non-existent but it served its purpose.

The reason I went looking for it in the first place was because of the (are you listening Google?) crappy RSS module in Blogger. The main problem is that it only allows you to display the top 5 items from the feed. That's OK if it is just a single feed with just a few items daily but I was trying to feed the contents of my Google Reader Shared Items into a module. The Blogger module was just not going to do the trick. I looked around on the internet for a way to generate some javascript to display more of the feed, because Blogger does let you plug in JS modules from third parties. I found several that worked, but only partially. WebRSS was the only one that worked for me fully at the time. I will keep an eye on it because I don't trust it completely.

The good news is I found another site that will probably do just as well. I found it while I was trying to figure out how to do a consolidated feed of the podcasts I like. The problem I had was that Google reader was allowing me to consolidate my news into a single feed based on the items I selected to share, which (are you listening Google?) is an AWESOME feature of Google Reader. I found the FeedDigest site which is just what the Doctor ordered. It allows you (after a free sign up) to consolidate multiple feeds into one and will also generate the Javascript (or other methods) needed to embed the consolidated feed into your blog or web page. The only thing that the Google Reader feed has over it is that with Reader you can control your feed manually. With the Podcasts it's not a big deal since there are so much fewer of them.

So as you can see, I love RSS! If you aren't all that familiar with RSS you really should take a look at it. Most sites have RSS feeds nowadays and when you get them all consolidated in a reader like Google's you can check out a lot of your favorite blogs and news sites without as much time spent surfing around. I know there are other online readers besides Google's as well as stand alone (downloadable) RSS readers. I have personally used the Snarfer reader, and although it had some bugs it was generally OK -- and free. I was forced by circumstances beyond my control to migrate to an online reader and picked Google because I already had the blog here. The features of Reader have been a pleasant surprise and have inspired me to inflict this RSS madness (look to the right) on everyone who comes into contact with the Bloggy here.

FEED ME!

Some light holiday music

2007-11-27T09:58:00.000-05:00

The good folks at the HP Lovecraft Historical Society have released their second album of soul shattering holiday favorites entitled "An Even Scarier Solstice". Just remember, when you listen to the void the void also listens to you!

Here is a sample:

BLUE SOLSTICE . . .

* * * * * * * * ** * * * * ** *

I was also thinking about good HP Lovecraft style horror movies. There aren't too many of them, but when I really thought about it there were more than I at first realized. Granted none of these movies is "authentic" HP Lovecraft but all of them seem to be heavily inspired by his work.

The Mist -- the Stephen King story turned into a movie just recently

Hellboy -- not strictly a horror movie but the horror elements are definitely Lovecraftian. I liked this movie as much for its humor. The dialogue between Hellboy and the kid on the roof is great. It also has this great one liner: after Hellboy slays a demon from hell (by electrocuting him) he says "I'm fireproof, you're not"

In the Mouth of Madness -- a book that drives people insane

Event Horizon -- a spaceship and its crew are sent to recover a ship, the Event Horizon, lost at the edge of space for years. The ship was a prototype with a special warp drive that would open a hole in space. If you know Lovecraft you know this is something you don't want to be doing. Sam Neill who was the lead for In the Mouth of Madness also plays in this one.

Also IMDB has a tag for HP Lovecraft , not sure how accurate the ratings are but some of them look interesting.

Damanhur -- Eighth wonder of the World

2007-11-26T12:29:00.000-05:00

My dad forwarded me this story about a temple created by a group of dedicated and creative volunteers. The whole work is straight out of the visions of one man. It looks amazing and awe inspiring and is definitely on my list of places to vist should I ever make it to Europe. Here is a sampling stolen from the article above:

See dad, non-Catholics can accomplish great things! :>)

The Mist

2007-11-26T12:00:00.000-05:00

My wife and I went to see The Mist over the holiday. I have to say that it was a really good horror movie. There was a definite tension throughout the film as the characters lives were threatened and the bonds of "civilization" were pushed to the breaking point. There was an underlying message that when put in a situation of great fear people will do or believe almost anything to relieve themselves of the responsibility for feeling it. If they feel powerless they will attempt to reassert their power in whatever way they can. Scapegoating provides a convenient outlet for this. The terrible unknown is reduced to something familiar and identifiable.

Overall I really enjoyed this movie. Nowadays a well done horror movie seems to be a rarity. I did have a couple of problems with it. The first complaint I have was the quality of the computer generated graphics. At points they were not that great and took me out of the movie a little bit, at other points they were fine. I couldn't help but thinking they might have done better relying a bit more on animatronics and other low tech for the creatures instead of so much CG.

The bigger complaint I have is with the ending.

BIG SPOILER ALERT!!!!!

Why did they decide to kill themselves after being out of gas for 5 seconds! I mean come on! They worked so hard to survive up to that point, any normal human being is going to hold out as long as they can. I imagined myself in that situation and could easily imagine surviving for several days, and yet they decided to end it after what, maybe, 5 minutes! No, you hold out until you are either eyeing each others ribs hungrily or the monsters are about to break in.

I don't have a problem with the movie ending this way, in fact I liked it, but the context in which it happened kind of soured it for me.

* * * * * * * *

One part I liked was the beginning when you see the main character, an artist, working on the movie posters that are his livelihood. In the background is the movie poster for John Carpenter's "The Thing", a favorite movie of mine in both its version. The poster he is working on as the movie opens is obviously for Stephen King's "The Dark Tower" series. HMMM . . .. perhaps a hint of things to come?

The Plan

2007-11-20T15:22:00.000-05:00

I grew up in a large family as the middle child. Although I was the middle child I was always lumped in with my younger siblings as one of what my parents called, "the little guys." I remember how unfair this felt even at a very young age. I was about five years old when "The Plan" was first hatched.

My parents went out for the night and left all the kids at home with a babysitter. The babysitter seemed perfectly normal despite having agreed to watch seven unruly children for a whole night. We were all watching television and it was almost bedtime. Or rather, it was almost bedtime for the "little guys". The baby sitter started rounding up my two younger brothers and me. I must not have been very happy about the situation because the babysitter wanted to make a deal. My five year old mind found her deal extremely appealing. The gist of this "Plan" was that I would pretend to go to bed with my brothers as normal, but as soon as they were asleep I would sneak out of bed. Then I could come back and watch television with the "big guys" (my sister was included in this) and the babysitter. Well it worked out marvelously for me and the babysitter. I marched to my room dutifully with the other "little guys", although inside I knew that I was no longer one of them. I fought off the thick gooey sleep that was trying to pin me down and slowly, oh so slowly, slipped out of the queen sized bed I shared with my two brothers. Every squeak sounded like a gunshot as I tried to get out without waking them. I finally succeeded and went back to the living room. I remember how bright the lights were when I came back out. I had a great feeling of freedom right alongside the persistent, hypnotic call of sleep.I sat on the floor in her lap and despite a valiant struggle I fell back to sleep. The babysitter had won and got me to sleep with very little fuss. Little did she know that she had planted a seed in me that would grow and mutate.

It was a couple of years later that The Plan would rise again. The situations were very similar to before. The "little guys" had to go to bed early, even on the weekends. This left the big kids awake to watch scary movies and drink all of the soda pop and eat the treats. I felt outraged by the unfairness of the situation. It was in this outrage that I remembered The Plan. Only this time I felt that I needed to bring the freedom of The Plan to others. I explained The Plan to my two younger brothers and from then on it was a standing order. Despite this fact we would always confirm with each other that The Plan was on:"Are we doing The Plan tonight?""Yeah, The Plan tonight."In most cases we would be unable to stay awake and The Plan would be lost to sleep and dream. With The Plan there was strength in numbers. If one of us managed to stay awake we made a solemn promise to the others to wake them up too. There were times, glorious times, when The Plan was executed to perfection. I remember feasting on chips and Coca-Cola while watching late night sci-fi and horror movies.Now that I'm older I find it interesting that I still do The Plan. I don't call it that any more but the pattern is the same. I wait until everyone else is asleep and then treat myself to whatever goodies are in the house. I watch all of the movies and television that my kids can't (or my wife won't) watch. It still has the sweet taste of a secret shared among a precious few.

To this day when I get together with my brother we always end up talking about The Plan. We remember it fondly. We also remember our co-conspirator, our brother, who died too young. Now I am thinking that maybe, somewhere or somewhen, he is doing his own cosmic version of The Plan. I hope he remembers to wake up his brother so that we can enjoy the goodies together.

Drowning or How I Learned to Swim

2007-11-20T15:01:00.000-05:00

Growing up I was a timid child. It may have had something to do with having a lot of older brothers. I remember that for a couple of years we lived in a subdivision close to a lake. In the summer we would often go swimming at the public beach there. I was probably 8 years old and didn't yet know how to swim. It was a bit humiliating because even my younger brothers were already playing in the deep water off the end of the dock. I remember watching them play as I played by myself, jumping off the dock again and again into the water where I knew I could touch the bottom.

In the end I had to confront my fear of the deep water, but not by choice. I jumped into the water again for probably the thousandth time. I fully intended to jump into the shallow water, but somehow I misjudged and ended up in water that was above my head. I began to panic because I didn't know how to swim. I came up for air and tried to call for help . .. once, twice, three times. Each time I swallowed more water. I soon realized that no one could see or hear me and that I was about to drown.

I went under again and inside me a commanding voice said "SWIM!". I immediately began to swim under the water and didn't stop until I was laying on my back on the beach.

When you have kids . . .

2007-11-16T12:54:00.000-05:00

weird things happen sometimes.

Picture this: you're alone in the house at night. Everyone else is fast asleep. You are dilligently doing whatever it is you're doing. It is calm and relaxed. Then, out of nowhere, you hear something like this:

"Tickle Elmo again!"

The funny thing is that it's not coming from your kid's rooms or from the baby monitor, it is coming from the toybox. For no apparent reason your child's toys have decided to start speaking to you. Elmo wants to be tickled!

Of course you can rationalize it away: the toys were just settling or there's a storm outside or the butterfly effect from a quantum state change bubbled up a level like a meal at White Castle.

But you are never really sure. Usually they don't keep talking . .. usually!

MWAHAHAHA!

Who am I?

2007-11-16T12:46:00.000-05:00

When I was much younger, maybe 12 or 13 years old I got very, very sick with mononucleosis. Unfortunately I did not even get it from a girl. My glands swelled up so bad it was really painful even to swallow. As a consequence I became severely dehydrated. At the same time I was feverish and sick to my stomach. I remember sleeping for long stretches and waking up completely disoriented, hardly remembering where I was or how long I had been sleeping.

Once I woke up from just such a period of "rest" and dragged myself into the bathroom. When I looked in the mirror I had one of the strangest feelings I have ever experienced. I saw my reflection and did not recognize it as me. I know I must have looked terrible by that point but this was something completely different. The reflection in the mirror was not me! The feeling was so unusual that I remember it to this day.

News Feed

2007-11-14T15:02:00.000-05:00

Well the News Feed has been F!@$&D up for awhile now. Not sure what is going on. Double GRRR!

One of my favorite quotes

2007-11-14T09:39:00.000-05:00

"If all fools were to be whipped, then who shouldst 'scape whipping?"

The Fool to King Lear

Joss Whedon returns to TV!

2007-11-05T13:08:00.000-05:00

Yes, you read it right. The creator of Buff, Angel, and Firefly is returning with a new TV series. You can read all about it here.

I have to admit that I was not a fan of Buffy or Angel. The writing was fun but the "camp" factor was a bit too much for me. Of course compared to all of the other stuff on TV . .. I digress.

I really enjoyed the movie Serenity. It was my first exposure to his work. Later I sat down with my wife and watched the entire run of the TV series Firefly, on which Serenity is based. What can I say, the show was great! The characters had a texture and their relationships felt genuine. It also had a great sense of humor, and the Jaynestown (or is it Jaynesville?) episode is an all time classic.

I remember when it first came out on TV. At the time I thought that the "space western" thing was a bit too cheesy for my tastes. It was my loss. Firefly is a classic. Only beware, if you go out and rent it be prepared for a few days of grieving because when you are finished watching it, it's over.

Why censorship?

2007-11-02T11:30:00.000-04:00

Like a lot of other people I wonder about this censorship. I also notice that the censorship consistently favors the current Administration by suppressing information that might be damaging to them. Why would they do this?

I think part of the answer can be found in the control that the Federal government can exert over the business of the media through the FCC. I also know that war and conflict are good for the business of big media. After all, wasn't it the first Gulf War that really put CNN on the map? Now in the era of embedded reporters it seems like the media has to kiss the ass of the politicians to get access to the "official reports" that they rely on so heavily. In essence I feel that if the big media companies don't play ball with the government, particularly the Administration, they can be squeezed from multiple angles and the viability of their business put in jeopardy.

An interesting case in this regard is the telecommunications company Qwest. Their former CEO claims that Qwest was passed over for lucrative federal contracts because they would not play ball on warrantless wiretapping

A brave new world . . .

2007-10-31T16:37:00.000-04:00

of censorship.

My own lovely ISP has apparently been engaged in both political and technological censorship. Comcast has been caught filtering e-mails that contain the URL http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/ In addition they are interfering with a variety of applications such as P2P, FTP, VoIP etc that their customers use. I personally find this highly disturbing.

Recently Truthout.org reported that their e-mails were being blocked by AOL, Yahoo, and Microsoft.

But wait, there's more. Apparently Clear Channel stations are being told not to play any songs from Bruce Springsteen's new album Magic. This is the same Clear Channel that dropped Howard Stern for "obscenity" shortly after Stern came out in favor of John Kerry in '04. As if that wasn't bad enough they were also the sponsors of the idiot Glenn Beck when he toured the country drumming up support for the Iraq War.

And who could forget AT&T censoring Pearl Jam's political comments.

What ever happened to freedom of speach?

The Core of Gurdjieff's Teaching

2007-10-31T16:22:00.001-04:00

Taken from the website of the Gurdjieff International Review:

"ONE OF MAN’S IMPORTANT MISTAKES, one which must be remembered, is his illusion in regard to his I. Man such as we know him, the ‘man-machine,’ the man who cannot ‘do,’ and with whom and through whom everything ‘happens,’ cannot have a permanent and single I. His I changes as quickly as his thoughts, feelings and moods, and he makes a profound mistake in considering himself always one and the same person; in reality he is always a different person, not the one he was a moment ago. Man has no permanent and unchangeable I. Every thought, every mood, every desire, every sensation, says ‘I.’ And in each case it seems to be taken for granted that this I belongs to the Whole, to the whole man, and that a thought, a desire, or an aversion is expressed by this Whole. In actual fact there is no foundation whatsoever for this assumption. Man’s every thought and desire appears and lives quite separately and independently of the Whole. And the Whole never expresses itself, for the simple reason that it exists, as such, only physically as a thing, and in the abstract as a concept. Man has no individual I. But there are, instead, hundreds and thousands of separate small I’s, very often entirely unknown to one another, never coming into contact, or, on the contrary, hostile to each other, mutually exclusive and incompatible. Each minute, each moment, man is saying or thinking, ‘I.’ And each time his I is different. Just now it was a thought, now it is a desire, now a sensation, now another thought, and so on, endlessly. Man is a plurality. Man’s name is legion."

Fuck the "homeland"!

2007-10-31T15:38:00.000-04:00

You know the word, homeland. The Nazis had the "Fatherland", the Soviets had the "Motherland" and now we have the "Homeland". Do you see a pattern here? I still can't help but shudder to hear people use that word and not make these connections each time they do. Perhaps it was done as a sort of litmus test, a brazen trial balloon to see how much "freedom loving" Americans would accept. Would we accept referring to our country in a way that was SO reminiscent of some of the most despotic regimes ever known? If we accept this we are opening ourselves conceptually to the same horrors, or at least signalling our willingness to look away as those horrors are meted out in our name.

There is no "homeland". There is only the United States of America, and the USA is nothing more or less than the Constitution of the United States of America. If you aren't with the Constitution then you are with proto-fascists of "the Homeland".

Turn on the TV right now, I bet you can see one of those screaming little beasties!

Fuck the homeland!

At the End with Mr. Gurdjieff

2007-10-29T12:04:00.001-04:00

Just received this brief story via e-mail from the good people at http://www.gurdjieff-legacy.org/:

"AU REVOIR, TOUT LE MONDE!"

His departure was typical.
The ambulance men brought the stretcher to his room, but he wouldn't have this, and walked out into the hall and got on to the stretcher there, sitting back, saying, "Oy!" as he always does.
He did not dress, but wore pajamas, and his red fez on his head. He sat upright on the stretcher, and was carried away like a royal prince! All the family was clustered at the street door (the crusty old concierge was in tears!) and as they carried him across the pavement he made a little gesture, a sort of wave, with his hand and said, "Au revoir, tout le monde!"
The last sight of him was as he was carried into the ambulance, sitting very upright, with his head up, his fez at a rakish angle and his cigarette between his lips.

Make America Stronger

2007-10-29T11:48:00.000-04:00

Coach Scott Sonnon and RMAX Interantional are making one of their foundational (and innovative) training programs available free of charge:

In light of the unprecedented political situation, it's imperative to keep America Strong.
RMAX International has been donating to the US Military and supporting its heroes on active duty as well as veterans.
Today RMAX International is proud to offer the same benefit to EVERY AMERICAN. Its best-seller, the FlowFit fitness and conditioning program, has been used by the US Military, Law Enforcement, Firefighters, government agencies, private organizations, professional coaches, elite athletes, and fitness enthusiasts around the world.
It's time for Americans to lose weight, get in shape, and gain power.
Order Your Free Copy of FlowFit at
http://www.makeamericastronger.us/
Spread the Word while this campaign is still ongoing, and help
MAKE AMERICA STRONGER!

I just ordered a copy. You have to pay $6.95 for shipping but it is still a bargain. Trust me, this guy and his team are at the cutting edge of fitness and conditioning training. Coach Sonnon is also training a UFC fighter and blogging about it here.

Truly fascinating stuff and I am looking forward to getting my own copy of FlowFit soon.

World War 3

2007-10-19T13:44:00.000-04:00

President Bush, in a recent speech, said the following: "we got a leader in Iran who has announced that he wants to destroy Israel. So I've told people that if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from have the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon"

The funny thing is that the leader of Iran never said he wants to destroy Israel. That was a mistranslation. Dr. Juan Cole, professor of History at the University of Michigan, made that point:

The phrase he then used as I read it is "The Imam said that this regime occupying Jerusalem (een rezhim-e ishghalgar-e qods) must [vanish from] from the page of time (bayad az safheh-ye ruzgar mahv shavad)." Ahmadinejad was not making a threat, he was quoting a saying of Khomeini and urging that pro-Palestinian activists in Iran not give up hope-- that the occupation of Jerusalem was no more a continued inevitability than had been the hegemony of the Shah's government.

Whatever this quotation from a decades-old speech of Khomeini may have meant, Ahmadinejad did not say that "Israel must be wiped off the map" with the implication that phrase has of Nazi-style extermination of a people. He said that the occupation regime over Jerusalem must be erased from the page of time.

To me the fact that the President of the United States would make such a provocative statement based on a mistranslation says that he is either an idiot or that he has a hard on for World War III. Knowing what we know about him it is likely that both are true.

The most ironic thing is that the United States is the country claiming the right to use nuclear weapons preemptively. We are also actively supporting nuclear proliferation through our latest deal with India. We must also never forget that Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. This treaty allows them to develop nuclear energy for peaceful uses under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency. The IAEA has found no evidence of a program to develop nuclear weapons by Iran.

It is also interesting to note that Israel is widely known to possess nuclear weapons along with the means to deliver them. Israel in not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Russian Martial Arts

2007-10-18T23:38:00.000-04:00

I have been studying the Russian martial art known as Systema for a little while now. Apparently the two main instructors are going to give a demonstration at the UN. Here is the info from their e-mail update:

Systema Founders Mikhail Ryabko and Vladimir Vasiliev have been invited to present Russian Martial Art at the United Nations Headquarters in Manhattan on Wednesday, October 24th, 2007. Celebrating the United Nations’ Commitment to Peace on its 62nd Anniversary, three or four of the world Martial Art have been selected to present their styles to the Untied Nations Assembly.

After the presentation, the Systema masters will be filmed for the new Discovery Channel program. The filming will take place on Thursday October 25th And then… Mikhail Ryabko and Vladimir Vasiliev will stay in Manhattan, New York to teach special workshops at Fighthouse on Friday October 26th from 6:30 pm – 9:30 pm and on Saturday October 27th from 11:00 am to 5:00 pm.For more details and to register for the workshops contact Edgar at: 212-807-9202 or systema@fighthouse.com

Scott Sonnon of RMAX International also has some updates. He is an expert in the Russian martial arts (although not the same as Ryabko/Vasiliev above) and is currently involved in training an MMA fighter for the UFC. Anyway it looks like you'll be able to see him on TV soon as well:

If you're waiting for the highly anticipated History Channel's HUMAN WEAPON Episode on Russian Sambo, featuring Scott Sonnon's Coach Alexander Retuinskih, here is the information we've received:

HUMAN WEAPON Episode on Russian Sambo will run on Nov. 9 on the History Channel at 10 p.m. EST.

Meantime please check:

Coach Sonnon's new blog - www.ScottSonnonLive.com
(Follow a UFC Fighter's Weekly Training)

Scientific concensus

2007-10-17T14:10:00.000-04:00

Just read an interesting NYT article about the origina of the "fat is bad" school of thought that has been so prevalent in America until recently.

It is interesting not just because of its subject matter but because of the principles of human behavior it discusses. After reading it it makes you wonder about lots of other "facts". The most obvious example of a similar scientific and popular concensus today is global warming.

More on this later . ..

GRRR!

2007-10-17T13:26:00.000-04:00

My feed at the right doesn't seem to be updating as it should. Maybe it only updates when I make a new post. I guess I'll find out.

August was really sick over the weekend with an ear infection. He has been better for the last couple of days since we started him on antibiotics.

Anabelle is loving kindergarten. She spent 10 or 15 minutes last night just writing out her letters. We got into numbers somewhat she wrote them out up to 20. I tried to start explaining the decimal system to her but she wasn't having any of that.

Also, our digital camera is broken or else I would have posted some pictures.

Some geopolitical context . . .

2007-10-15T14:29:00.000-04:00

A couple of articles I found interesting today. The first gives some insight into what is really happening in Myanmar/Burma. Probably more useful information for understanding the context of this situation than everything else that has been written so far. You can read the article here.

After you read it maybe you should ask yourself why this all of the sudden became a REALLY hot news item, and why our government is so concerned about the dictatorship there.

The other article reports on the meetings between Bob Gates, Condoleeza Rice and Vladimir Putin in regards to the proposed missile defense shield in Eastern Europe. President Vlad is playing hardball but maybe if more of us understood what was really at stake we wouldn't be so surprised, or so susceptible to the propganda of our own homemade Pravdas.

Oh, by the way if you have no idea what the Shanghai Cooperation Organization is this might be a good time to eductate yourself.