Drug War Economics vol. 1

Found this from a link on Disinfo.com

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

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

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

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)

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

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 !?!?

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

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

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!

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!

It's John McCain!

21 Reasons to Question the Official 9/11 Story

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

Interesting Articles on Gurdjieff

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

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

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

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

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.