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Tuesday, August 26, 2008
"What the World Needs Now"
I saw on the news today that the Secret Service had arrested 4 men who had planned to assassinate Barack Obama. That reminded me of this song, and the events that had such a horrific impact on all of us who lived during those times. I was only 12 when John F. Kennedy was killed, but my world was never the same after that.
And now, today, more of the same? God help us...
A Touch Away
When the telephone rang last night I thought it strange, since no one ever calls at that time. Her older sister, with that tone of voice that you just know has to be something very bad. And it was. Her brother, fighting a losing battle with brain and pancreatic cancer, had just been declared "terminal", with perhaps 2 months to live. The Medicine Men had stopped all efforts except for pain relief, and had given up. She was not completely shocked by this news, having been aware of his earlier condition. Facing the reality of it is another matter. They had never been really close, and time and distance had caused them to drift apart even more for these past years. Hidden behind the tear streaked, sham brave face were the thousand panicky, despairing questions and regrets we all deal with in times like this. "Why?" "What to do now?" "Call, despite feeling hypocritical, and perhaps face rejection?" "Why didn't I get to know him better?" "Write a letter?" "Pretend I don't know?" "Cry?" "Rage at the unfairness of it all?" "Blame and denounce God?" So many conflicting ideas and emotions, all demanding resolution, explanation, reason. And the personal fear, never admitted or acknowledged, too primal, too terrible to contemplate, now all too real.
The only question now is when; " what" has been answered, for him. Despite our denials and pretensions to the contrary, Death smiles, knowing He's never more than a touch away from any of us...
(Curious timing, considering the subject of the last post.)
The only question now is when; " what" has been answered, for him. Despite our denials and pretensions to the contrary, Death smiles, knowing He's never more than a touch away from any of us...
(Curious timing, considering the subject of the last post.)
Monday, August 25, 2008
Time, Life, and the Roller Coaster
Remember when you were 10 years old, and summer felt like it lasted forever? Got a little older, not so bad, still plenty of time to do everything you wanted. Someone told me back then that time speeds up the older you get. Being young, and knowing everything as the young do, I of course ridiculed this idea. But guess what- it's true. Now I view life, and time, as a roller coaster with just one enormous riser. As you climb the beginning towards the top time is slower to pass. At 30 or so you're at the very top, then you start the fall towards the bottom. Faster and faster you go, as time goes by ever quicker. Weeks and months flash by, and you wonder where it all went. And as you descend even faster you realize that somewhere on the tracks below there's a solid brick wall or some other disaster awaiting your arrival. The only thing you don't know is where on the tracks ahead of you it is. So you appreciate even more the things you can enjoy, and the people whom you love and that love you, because the ride isn't going to last forever...
Oscar-"Working on the railroad!"
By all accounts grandpa Oscar had a life long aversion to employment. The very idea of "working" for someone else was totally unacceptable. So it came as a shock when he announced one day that the railroad company, Norfolk-Southern, had offered him a job at the local depot. His responsibility was to fill the water tender of arriving trains, since most trains at that time were still steam driven. He'd sit in the tower above the locomotive's tender (much like the one pictured), turn on the spigot, and wait for the tank to fill up, when he'd turn it back off, a process that took all of about 10 minutes to complete. During his 8 hour shift only 2 trains were scheduled, though he was paid for the entire 8 hours. Well, Oscar managed to endure nearly 2 weeks of this ordeal, finally quitting in disgust at how being there all those hours "just ruined" his day!
There would be no further talk about another job...
There would be no further talk about another job...
Damned if I Know- UFO's in ancient art?
How could paintings, carvings and sculptures like this exist all over the world, in all cultures, dating back thousands of years, yet be so similar? This could only be possible if all these different population groups were exposed to the same
Who might have done that is the question. A better question is, are they still here?
We're not the only ones who saw it...
August 23rd, 2004 in Chandler, Arizona. We were watching TV at 2:30 in the afternoon when a weather alert bulletin came on, advising that a very large and violent thunderstorm was approaching our area from the north. Thinking to watch it we went outside onto the small patio, where indeed an ominous looking mass of dark gray and black clouds was coming in our direction. Where we lived in Chandler was due south of Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix. We'd seen planes follow landing and takeoff patterns many times, and as usual on this day a number of them could be seen. Hoping for a better view of the storm, we went around to the front of the building and faced north. Silhouetted against the dark cloud mass appeared a large passenger plane, moving from right to left at about a 30 degree angle upwards from the ground.
We both simultaneously noticed a flash of movement from the right. A metallic object was rapidly catching up to the plane, at twice its relative speed. We watched in amazement as the object caught up to the plane, then hovered effortlessly within 100 feet of it's tail, matching it's speed and direction perfectly. Relative to the size of the plane the object must have been approximately 30 feet in diameter. There were no signs of engines or any form of propulsion.
After tailing the plane for about 10 seconds it suddenly veered sideways and disappeared from our sight behind the fuselage of the plane, and we never saw it again. What was it? Not a clue. Obviously under intelligent control. A metallic surface like silver or platinum. No visible means of propulsion, but easily twice as fast as a commercial jetliner. Lots of strange things in the sky. This was simply what we saw, nothing more, nothing less. Any ideas?
Here's the video of the same kind of event, in England:
(Note: the "plane formation" mentioned in the title comes at a later part of the video. This was NO plane.)
We both simultaneously noticed a flash of movement from the right. A metallic object was rapidly catching up to the plane, at twice its relative speed. We watched in amazement as the object caught up to the plane, then hovered effortlessly within 100 feet of it's tail, matching it's speed and direction perfectly. Relative to the size of the plane the object must have been approximately 30 feet in diameter. There were no signs of engines or any form of propulsion.
After tailing the plane for about 10 seconds it suddenly veered sideways and disappeared from our sight behind the fuselage of the plane, and we never saw it again. What was it? Not a clue. Obviously under intelligent control. A metallic surface like silver or platinum. No visible means of propulsion, but easily twice as fast as a commercial jetliner. Lots of strange things in the sky. This was simply what we saw, nothing more, nothing less. Any ideas?
Here's the video of the same kind of event, in England:
(Note: the "plane formation" mentioned in the title comes at a later part of the video. This was NO plane.)
Most Profound Man in Iraq
Most Profound Man in Iraq:
An unidentified farmer in a fairly remote area was asked
by Reconnaissance Marines if he had seen any
foreign fighters in the area.
He stared at them for a moment, then replied, "Yes, you."
Oscar's Solution: Where's the Beef?
In 1950 the Norfolk-Southern railroad track ran several hundred yards behind grandfather Oscar's house in Colfax. Several times a year he'd feel the need to replenish his supply of fresh beef. Not wanting to spend any money, and being of a naturally devious mindset, he'd come up with an ingenious solution for "having his cake and eating it, too". Knowing the passing trains schedules by heart, he'd wait until midnight, then take a cow and tie it to the railroad tracks. Sure enough, the train would come barreling through and hit the cow, killing it instantly. As the train stopped to see what had happened Oscar would appear, terribly distraught over his "favorite cow" being so ruthlessly slaughtered by the negligent railroad. As always, railroad personnel assured him that, of course, they would reimburse him for the cow killed by their carelessness. As soon as the train departed, Oscar and his helpers gleefully butchered the remains of the cow, filling all their freezers and smokehouses with nice, fresh beef, and in a day or two a new cow was delivered to comfort the grieving Oscar for his loss. And that's how it was...
Oscar and His Donkey VS the Churchgoers
In the 1940's my grandfather Oscar lived in a small town named Colfax in central Louisiana. To call it "rural" would be kind, but it provided him all the fishing, hunting and other simple pleasures he enjoyed. He harvested vegetables from his own garden, smoked meat in his smokehouse, and had many dogs and other farm animals like goats, chickens and a few milk cows. One day Oscar was offered a donkey at a very cheap price, and bought him. That's when things got interesting for Oscar, and even more so for his nearest neighbor, the Baptist church across the road.
Every Sunday for as long as folks could remember Sunday services were held at the church, with joyous singing and fellowship among the good churchgoers. That was about to change, however. On the first Sunday after Oscar brought the donkey home, singing started as usual at the church. The donkey, for reasons known only to himself, started braying loudly. Oscar, deprived of his peace, stormed out of the house in a rage, grabbed a 2"x4" board, and began beating the donkey, demanding that he, "Shut up, you son of a bitch!", all of which only made the donkey louder. The combination of the donkey braying and Oscar screaming curses unnerved the congregation, but they carried on, hoping for the best.
This pattern repeated itself every Sunday for a year- they'd sing, the donkey brayed, and Oscar went nuts, until finally the elders of the church begged Oscar to get rid of him. Oscars absolute refusal to even consider this left them with only one choice, and they did it: they hired a company to literally move the church to another site they owned 5 miles away, just to be rid of Oscar and his donkey. And that's a true story...
Sunday, August 24, 2008
"The Undiscovered Country"
"Hamlet: To be, or not to be: that is the question.
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them. To die; to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die; to sleep;—
To sleep? Perchance to dream! Ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffl'd off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of dispriz'd love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action."
William Shakespeare (1564–1616).
The Tragedy of Hamlet Prince of Denmark.
(respect=realization; quietus= release from life; bodkin=dagger; fardels= heavy burdens; bourn=countryside)
Modern translation: Should I continue living this unfair, miserable life with all it's pains and problems? I'd kill myself, except for fear of not knowing what really comes next, since nobody has ever returned from there, and cowardice makes me endure the misery I know rather than risk whatever might really be after death.
I was looking at TV listings and saw one for "Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country". The title made me think of where the term originally came from- Shakepeare. Oh well...
Happy face!
"It's not just a sanctuary - it's Dogtown!
Dogtown is the most welcoming place on earth. They may have been homeless, but none of the dogs here are sad and forlorn.
Everywhere you go, you're greeted with wagging tails, whelps of excitement and big, friendly eyes.
This is truly a neighborly, all-American town."
Couldn't resist posting this amazing face! DogTown is a 33,000 acre facility in Kanab, Utah, which also cares for cats and many other animals in a no-kill environment.
Echelon: Big Brother Hears You
"In the greatest surveillance effort ever established, the US National Security Agency (NSA) has created a global spy system, codename ECHELON, which captures and analyzes virtually every phone call, fax, email and telex message sent anywhere in the world. ECHELON is controlled by the NSA and is operated in conjunction with the Government Communications Head Quarters (GCHQ) of England, the Communications Security Establishment (CSE) of Canada, the Australian Defense Security Directorate (DSD), and the General Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) of New Zealand. These organizations are bound together under a secret 1948 agreement, UKUSA, whose terms and text remain under wraps even today.
The ECHELON system is fairly simple in design: position intercept stations (using 126 satellites) all over the world to capture all satellite, microwave, cellular and fiber-optic communications traffic, and then process this information through the massive computer capabilities of the NSA, including advanced voice recognition and optical character recognition (OCR) programs, and look for code words or phrases (known as the ECHELON "Dictionary") that will prompt the computers to flag the message for recording and transcribing for future analysis. Intelligence analysts at each of the respective "listening stations" maintain separate keyword lists for them to analyze any conversation or document flagged by the system, which is then forwarded to the respective intelligence agency headquarters that requested the intercept."
So anytime you're on the telephone, texting your friends, emailing or just surfing the internet, they know exactly what you're doing. And you were wondering where all that money the CIA makes from it's world wide drug running ring goes? As mentioned in an earlier post the good patriots in the FBI can listen to everything within range of your cell and house phones, without your knowing it. NSA handles all the rest. Paranoia? Sure, but that doesn't mean they're not following me... ;-)
The Bond
"The bond that links your true family
is not one of blood, but
of respect and joy in
each other's life.
Rarely do members
of one family grow up
under the same
Richard Bach, "Illusions"
of respect and joy in
each other's life.
Rarely do members
of one family grow up
under the same
Richard Bach, "Illusions"
Saturday, August 23, 2008
I KNOW You've Felt Like This
Yeah, I've felt this way a few times, too...
Life's Arrows
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit,
not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that
is stable."
- Kahlil Gibran, "The Prophet"
Had a chance to speak with The Young Man today, always a delight. I miss them, so very much. Made me think of this from "The Prophet", which I've always loved.
"What good fortune for governments..."
Yes, we can!
"Let's come out fighting, unbowed, heads high, laughing fools to scorn, rejecting at every turn the moral authority of murderers and thieves to rule our lives, determine our reality, act in our name. Let's get right back to work, more determined than ever to bear down harder, dig deeper and excavate the radioactive nuggets of truth still glowing beneath the slag-heap of ruin that Bush and his terrorist partners have made of the world.
Let's fight, let's reject, let's resist- without violence, the weapon of the stupid, the hormonal secretion of evolutionary backsliders in thrall to the chemical soup in their heads, dull primitives dressing up their ape-lust for power with scraps of religion, philosophy and cant. Let's fight these pathetic, malfunctioning wretches who lay their hands on our world and rape it like beasts in a mindless rut. Fight them with the truths we find, exposing their crimes and deadly hypocrisies to the people they've suckered, perverted and betrayed.
It's worth the fight. Let's take it on, let's take them down. In the words of the old spiritual, let us be in no ways tired. The road back to sanity and justice starts now."
"No Ways Tired"
By Chris Floyd, Published: November 5, 2004
One of my favorite writers is Chris Floyd. Following Bush's re-election in 2004 he wrote a piece called "No Ways Tired", which suggested how we should respond to that catastrophe. I've taken that article and re-worked it into how I feel about the Obama-McCain contest. Sincerest apologies to Chris Floyd for mangling the original, but his words here are the perfect way to view this election.
Friday, August 22, 2008
Yeah, sometimes I do...
"Before our white brothers arrived..."
"Before our white brothers arrived to make us civilized men,
we didn't have any kind of prison. Because of this, we had no delinquents.
Without a prison, there can be no delinquents.
We had no locks nor keys and therefore among us there were no thieves.
When someone was so poor that he couldn't afford a horse, a tent or a blanket,
he would, in that case, receive it all as a gift.
We were too uncivilized to give great importance to private property.
We didn't know any kind of money and consequently, the value of a human being
was not determined by his wealth.
We had no written laws laid down, no lawyers, no politicians,
therefore we were not able to cheat and swindle one another.
We were really in bad shape before the white men arrived and I don't know
how to explain how we were able to manage without these fundamental things
that (so they tell us) are so necessary for a civilized society."
John (Fire) Lame Deer
Sioux Lakota - 1903-1976
Why Is the Economy So Screwed Up?
The GSE End Game?
by Mike Larson 08-22-08
"This week, shares of the two Government Sponsored Enterprises, or GSEs, imploded again: Fannie Mae lost 39% between last Friday and yesterday's close. Freddie Mac tanked 46%. Freddie Mac fell to its lowest in almost 18 years ... Fannie Mae to its lowest in more than 19.
It's not just the common stock, either. Investors are dumping their preferred shares and they're selling off Fannie and Freddie bonds. The message from the markets is coming through loud and clear: These companies are in big, big trouble.
So today, I want to focus on why this is happening, and what it means for your investments and your finances. But first, I need to provide some background on just who the heck Fannie and Freddie are ...
A Primer on "Securitization" and the
"Secondary" Mortgage Market
Chances are, many of you hadn't heard of Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac until recently. It's not like these companies have bank branches after all. When you went to get your last mortgage, you probably got it from Bank of America, Citibank, Wachovia, or a local mortgage broker.
But behind the scenes, Fannie and Freddie play a crucial role in providing liquidity to the mortgage market. The two giants buy hundreds of billions of dollars worth of home mortgages from lenders for their own portfolios. That's the "secondary" mortgage market at work (the "primary" market being where you and I get loans in the first place).
Failing giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have hundreds of billions of dollars worth of home mortgages from lenders in their portfolios.
Fannie and Freddie also slap guarantees on bundles of home loans called mortgage-backed securities (MBS). Essentially, they promise to pay investors who buy MBS timely payments of principal and interest even if the underlying borrowers default on their loans. This is called the "securitization" process. These processes grease the wheels of the mortgage market. Banks can make loans, turn around and unload them to Fannie and Freddie, then use the money they get back to make new loans.
During the housing bubble, vast quantities of home loans were also made and securitized by PRIVATE market participants, rather than Fannie and Freddie. This allowed the subprime and "Alt A" mortgage markets to explode.
Bottom line: As long as some investor further down the pipeline was willing to buy and invest in mortgages and mortgage bonds, front-end lenders and brokers were able to make more and more loans.
But that was then. Beginning in 2007, the subprime market started imploding. Rising delinquencies on the underlying loans caused losses to mount on mortgage investments. Falling home prices only made a bad problem worse. Liquidity drained out the market as investors started dumping subprime mortgage bonds.
For a while, Wall Street and Washington tried to sell Main Street on this idea that it was a "subprime" problem only. They said it was "contained." We told you the exact opposite — that the problems in the subprime market were only the start of a massive crisis that would work its way up the mortgage food chain.
Sure enough, we soon started hearing about emerging problems in Alt-A loans. Those are mortgages made to borrowers with higher credit scores, but other risk factors. For instance, a loan might be considered Alt-A if it requires interest-only payments, it's made against an investment property, and the underwriter wasn't required to verify the borrower's reported income. One of the biggest Alt-A lenders during the bubble was none other than IndyMac, which, as we all know, just failed and was taken over by the FDIC.
Now, even "prime" quality borrowers are falling behind on payments at a record pace. The delinquency rate on prime mortgages hit 3.71% in the first quarter of this year, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. That's the highest since the MBA started splitting out subprime and prime borrowers back in 1998. The overall delinquency figures go much farther back — to 1979. They show the same thing: A record high delinquency rate of 6.35%.
Home prices are way down, but they show little signs of bottoming out just yet.
As for home prices, they show little sign of bottoming out. Figures from S&P/Case-Shiller show home prices down 15.8% in May from the same month a year earlier. That's the largest drop on record. Prices fell in all 20 metropolitan areas the firm tracks. Las Vegas (-28.4%), Miami (-28.3%), Phoenix (-26.5%), and multiple markets in California (-24.6% in L.A., -23.2% in San Diego, and -22.9% in San Francisco) are leading the way. (My comment: all your equity- gone.) Lenders are responding by tightening lending standards across the board. That's preventing many troubled borrowers from refinancing into new loans.
The result? Losses are surging at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Fannie Mae bled $2.3 billion, or $2.54 per share, in red ink during the second quarter. That was the fourth straight quarterly loss, and much worse than the 72-cent forecast that analysts were carrying. Freddie Mac lost $821 million, or $1.63 a share. That compared with a profit of $764 million, or $1.02 a share, in the year-earlier period.
Other details weren't pretty. Freddie Mac's credit loss provision surged to $2.63 billion from $469 million a year earlier. The company also revealed that it had roughly 22,000 foreclosed homes on its books. That was the most in the almost four decades it has been operating.
Fannie Mae's credit losses jumped 66% to $5.3 billion. The company said it will cease buying Alt-A loans and slashed its dividend by 86% to preserve capital.
Investors are responding by running for the hills. Not only are they dumping many of their existing stock and bond positions, but they're also demanding that Fannie and Freddie pay up to borrow NEW money. One example: Freddie Mac had to fork over 1.13 percentage points in excess yield (over Treasuries with a similar maturity) in a five-year note sale earlier this week. That was up from 69 basis points in May and the highest in at least a decade, according to Bloomberg.
If you recall, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson tried to assuage these kinds of fears a few weeks ago by obtaining the authority to buy an unspecified amount of equity in the GSEs. He also was granted the right to provide the GSEs with an unlimited credit line from the government. (My comment: don't YOU have such a line of credit from Uncle Sam?)
Paulson suggested at the time that the mere existence of this authority would obviate the need to actually use it. This allowed the administration to suggest that the cost to taxpayers would be limited or even nonexistent. (What?!!!)
But the market just isn't buying it anymore. Investors are voting with their pocketbooks. They're rendering a simple verdict — namely, that the GSEs probably don't have enough capital to weather the mortgage crisis and cover all the losses they're facing. So they're going to need government support.
What is the ultimate outcome here? That depends on the credit markets. If Fannie and Freddie can keep raising money, even at more expensive levels, then they can drag this thing out for a while. But if debt and stock buyers completely step away, forget it. Who's going to give Fannie and Freddie money to keep operating in that event? The government — or more accurately, taxpayers like you and I! (My comment: we already owe $53 trillion in national debt- where might the Government get even more?)
Frankly, several indicators I monitor are signaling that something is rotten in the state of Denmark. I already mentioned that spreads on Fannie and Freddie debt over Treasuries are widening out. I could also point out that financial stocks are rolling over again ... that a measure of market risk called swap spreads is flashing "red" ... or that Treasury prices are rising sharply again. These all suggest bond market players are piling into "safe haven" assets and fleeing risk.
For the housing market and the economy as a whole, this GSE crisis is yet another hot poker in the eye. Fannie and Freddie (along with the FHA) have become essentially the only game in town when it comes to the mortgage market.
Private market players on Wall Street have all but stopped buying and packaging subprime or Alt-A mortgages into bonds, and there's little demand from end investors for that paper anyway. Meanwhile, the major banks have neither the appetite nor the capital on hand to lard their balance sheets up with conventional mortgages.
If Fannie and Freddie have to slash their mortgage guarantee operations, or shrink the size of their loan portfolios, to preserve capital, what's going to happen? The cost of home mortgages on Main Street U.S.A. will go up.
Despite clear signals that the Fed has no intention of raising rates, mortgage rates remain stubbornly high.
Heck, it already is. Despite the lousy economy and clear signals from the Federal Reserve that it has no intention whatsoever of raising the rates it controls directly, mortgage rates remain stubbornly high. A 30-year fixed rate loan goes for just under 6.5% right now. (My comment: remember that these bastards have borrowed the money from the Federal Reserve at 2.25%, then continue to gouge you for the difference!) That's not far from the multi-year high of 6.86% in mid-2006.
Bottom line: Mortgage credit will likely get pricier for some borrowers, and be cut off completely for others."
"Oh, what a tangled web we weave..." It's about to become even more fun, as the consequences of the $62 TRILLION credit default swap nightmare are already beginning. The bottom line to why so many, maybe even you, have lost their homes, jobs, and way of life is simple: incalculable greed, by those already wallowing in more wealth than they could ever spend, desperately grabbing more loot from anywhere they could. And it's never, ever enough. Verminous, filthy greedy bastards, they've finally killed the goose that laid their golden egg. Too bad all of us are going down with them...
$53 TRILLION Dollar Federal Debt
Our politicians have sure been busy making our lives better, haven't they?
Thursday, August 21, 2008
"Twilight of the Psychopaths", Dr. Kevin Barrett
"Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we're being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I think I'm liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That's what's insane about it." °© John Lennon, before his murder by CIA mind-control subject Mark David Chapman
When Gandhi was asked his opinion of Western civilization he said it would be a good idea. But that oft-cited quote, is misleading, assuming as it does that civilization is an unmitigated blessing.
Civilized people, we are told, live peacefully and cooperatively with their fellows, sharing the necessary labour in order to obtain the leisure to develop arts and sciences. And while that would be a good idea, it is not a good description of what has been going on in the so-called advanced cultures during the past 8,000 years.
Civilization, as we know it, is largely the creation of psychopaths. All civilizations, our own included, have been based on slavery and "warfare." Incidentally, the latter term is a euphemism for mass murder."
Psychopaths have played a disproportionate role in the development of civilization, because they are hard-wired to lie, kill, injure, and generally inflict great suffering on other humans without feeling any remorse. The inventor of civilization - the first tribal chieftain who successfully brainwashed an army of controlled mass murderers- was almost certainly a genetic psychopath. Since that momentous discovery, psychopaths have enjoyed a significant advantage over non- psychopaths in the struggle for power in civilizational hierarchies - especially military hierarchies.
Military institutions are tailor-made for psychopathic killers. The 5% or so of human males who feel no remorse about killing their fellow human beings make the best soldiers. And the 95% who are extremely reluctant to kill make terrible soldiers - unless they are brainwashed with highly sophisticated modern techniques that turn them (temporarily it is hoped) into functional psychopaths.
In "On Killing", Lt. Col. Dave Grossman has re-written military history, to highlight what other histories hide: The fact that military science is less about strategy and technology, than about overcoming the instinctive human reluctance to kill members of our own species. The true "Revolution in Military Affairs" was not Donald Rumsfeld's move to high-tech in 2001, but Brigadier Gen. S.L.A. Marshall's discovery in the 1940s that only 15-20% of World War II soldiers along the line of fire would use their weapons: "Those (80-85%) who did not fire did not run or hide (in many cases they were willing to risk great danger to rescue comrades, get ammunition, or run messages), but they simply would not fire their weapons at the enemy, even when faced with repeated waves of banzai charges" (Grossman, p. 4).
Marshall's discovery and subsequent research, proved that in all previous wars, a tiny minority of soldiers - the 5% who are natural- born psychopaths, and perhaps a few temporarily-insane imitators-did almost all the killing. Normal men just went through the motions and, if at all possible, refused to take the life of an enemy soldier, even if that meant giving up their own. The implication: Wars are ritualized mass murders by psychopaths of non-psychopaths. (This cannot be good for humanity's genetic endowment!)"
"The implication, too frightening for even the likes of Marshall and Grossman to fully digest, was that the norms for soldiers' behaviour in battle had been set by psychopaths. That meant that psychopaths were in control of the military as an institution. Worse, it meant that psychopaths were in control of society's perception of military affairs. Evidently, psychopaths exercised an enormous amount of power in seemingly sane, normal society.
How could that be? In Political Ponerology, Andrzej Lobaczewski explains that clinical psychopaths enjoy advantages even in non- violent competitions to climb the ranks of social hierarchies. Because they can lie without remorse (and without the telltale physiological stress that is measured by lie detector tests) psychopaths can always say whatever is necessary to get what they want. In court, for example, psychopaths can tell extreme bald-faced lies in a plausible manner, while their sane opponents are handicapped by an emotional predisposition to remain within hailing distance of the truth. Too often, the judge or jury imagines that the truth must be somewhere in the middle, and then issues decisions that benefit the psychopath. As with judges and juries, so too with those charged with decisions concerning who to promote and who not to promote in corporate, military and governmental hierarchies. The result is that all hierarchies inevitably become top-heavy with psychopaths.
So-called conspiracy theorists, some of whom deserve the pejorative connotation of that much-abused term, often imagine that secret societies of Jews, Jesuits, bankers, communists, Bilderbergers, Muslim extremists, papists, and so on, are secretly controlling history, doing dastardly deeds, and/or threatening to take over the world. As a leading "conspiracy theorist" according to Wikipedia, I feel eminently qualified to offer an alternative conspiracy theory which, like the alternative conspiracy theory of 9/11, is both simpler and more accurate than the prevailing wisdom: The only conspiracy that matters is the conspiracy of the psychopaths against the rest of us.
Behind the apparent insanity of contemporary history, is the actual insanity of psychopaths fighting to preserve their disproportionate power. And as that power grows ever-more-threatened, the psychopaths grow ever-more-desperate. We are witnessing the apotheosis of the overworld-the criminal syndicate or overlapping set of syndicates that lurks above ordinary society and law just as the underworld lurks below it. In 9/11 and the 9/11 wars, we are seeing the final desperate power-grab or "endgame" (Alex Jones) of brutal, cunning gangs of CIA drug-runners and President-killers; money-laundering international bankers and their hit-men, economic and otherwise; corrupt military contractors and gung-ho generals; corporate predators and their political enablers; brainwashers and mind-rapists euphemistically known as psy-ops experts and PR specialists-in short, the whole sick crew of certifiable psychopaths running our so- called civilization. And they are running scared. It was their terror of losing control that they projected onto the rest of us by blowing up the Twin Towers and inciting temporary psychopathic terror-rage in the American public.
Why does the pathocracy fear it is losing control? Because it is threatened by the spread of knowledge. The greatest fear of any psychopath is of being found out. As George H. W. Bush said to journalist Sarah McClendon, December 1992, "If the people knew what we had done, they would chase us down the street and lynch us." Given that Bush is reported to have participated in parties where child prostitutes were sodomized and otherwise abused, among his many other crimes, his statement to McClendon should be taken seriously.
Psychopaths go through life knowing that they are completely different from other people. They quickly learn to hide their lack of empathy, while carefully studying others' emotions so as to mimic normalcy while cold-bloodedly manipulating the normals.
This manipulation of shame has the added benefit of making psychopathic organizations effectively invisible to normal society. Despite easily available media reports, American voters in 2004 simply refused to see that the two major-party presidential candidates had lain naked in a coffin masturbating in front of older Bonesmen in order to gain admission to Skull and Bones and thus become members of the criminal overworld. Likewise, many Americans have long refused to see that hawkish elements of the overworld, operating through the CIA, had obviously been the murderers of JFK, MLK, RFK, JFK Jr., Malcolm X, ChÈ, AllendÈ, Wellstone, Lumumba, Aguilera, Diem, and countless other relatively non-psychopathic leaders. They refuse to see the continuing murders of millions of people around the world in what amounts to an American holocaust. They refuse to see the evidence that the psychopaths' guilds running America's most powerful institutions use the most horrific forms of sexualized abuse imaginable to induce multiple-personality-disorder in child victims, then use the resulting mind-control slaves as disposable drug-runners, prostitutes, Manchurian candidates, and even diplomatic envoys. And of course they refuse to see that 9/11 was a transparently obvious inside job, and that their own psychopath- dominated military-intelligence apparatus is behind almost every major terrorist outrage of recent decades.
All of this psychopathic behaviour at the top of the social hierarchy is simply too shameful for ordinary people to see, so they avert their gaze, just as wives of husbands who are sexually abusing their children sometimes refuse to see what is happening in plain view. If deep, deep denial were a river in Egypt, American citizens' wilful blindness would be more like the Marianas Trench."
"Truly, we are witnessing the twilight of the psychopaths. Whether in their death throes they succeed in pulling down the curtain of eternal night on all of us, or whether we resist them and survive to see the dawn of a civilization worthy of the name, is the great decision in which all of us others, however humbly, are now participating."
About the writer:
Dr. Kevin Barrett, co-founder of the Muslim-Christian-Jewish Alliance for 9/11 Truth, LINK, has taught English, French, Arabic, American Civilization, Humanities, African Literature, Folklore, and Islam at colleges and universities in the San Francisco Bay area, Paris, and Madison, Wisconsin. Barrett became a 9/11 truth activist in 2004 after reading David Griffin's The New Pearl Harbor and conducting follow-up research that convinced him Griffin had accurately summarized evidence indicating 9/11 was an inside job.
OK, this is a long post, but the contents are so important that it must be delivered in its entirety. Come on, work those brain cells... -http://rense.com/general83/twi.htm
Selling the Legend: 9/11 Myth Construction
"The greatest fear of any psychopath is of being found out. As George H. W. Bush said to journalist Sarah McClendon, December 1992, "If the people knew what we had done, they would chase us down the street and lynch us."
-Dr. Kevin Barrett, http://rense.com/general83/twi.htm
George, why don't you tell us all about it?
"The greatest fear of any psychopath is of being found out. As George H. W. Bush said to journalist Sarah McClendon, December 1992, "If the people knew what we had done, they would chase us down the street and lynch us."
-Dr. Kevin Barrett, http://rense.com/general83/twi.htm
George, why don't you tell us all about it?
Fox/Faux News and NLP Programming
This guy put together a video showing the NLP trademark signs Fox News was using during an interview of a 9/11 truth topic. Watch how these devious bastards use all their tricks to distract, confuse and misdirect you from learning the truth. Do a search on NLP to read more about it, or take a look at the Derren Brown videos on YouTube.
See also parts 2 and 3 of this set.
"Fair and Balanced" my ass...
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Fly away, Bluebird
"The Manchurian Candidate is compelling evidence for the reality of therapist-created multiple personality disorder. The condition has been created deliberately by mind control doctors. Experiments to create Manchurian Candidate "super spies" must be understood in their social and historical context, which is one of pervasive, systematic mind control experimentation, not by a few isolated renegade doctors, but by the leaders of psychiatry and the major medical schools. Because this book is likely to provoke extreme reactions, I have taken great care to present only facts which are fully documented and based on objective, public domain information.
The basic premise of the book The Manchurian Candidate is that a group of American POWs in the Korean War is brainwashed while crossing through Manchuria to freedom. They arrive back in the US amnesic for the period of brainwashing, and one of them has been programmed to be an assassin. His target is a candidate for president of the US. His Asian handlers control him with a hypnotically implanted trigger, a particular playing card.
Multiple personality disorder is now classified by the American Psychiatric Association as dissociative identity disorder. According to my definition, the Manchurian Candidate is an experimentally created dissociative identity disorder that meets the following four criteria:
* Created deliberately
* A new identity is implanted
* Amnesia barriers are created
* Used in simulated or actual operations
That the CIA created Manchurian Candidates is a fact, and easy to understand and justify from a national security perspective. I am not criticizing the CIA or the military in this book because I am not an expert on intelligence matters. I am a psychiatrist specializing in dissociative disorders.
Many thousands of prisoners and mental patients were subjected to unethical mind control experiments by leading psychiatrists and medical schools. Organized academic psychiatry has never acknowledged this history. The network of mind control doctors involved in BLUEBIRD has done a great deal of harm to the field of psychiatry and to psychiatric patients.
The participation of psychiatrists and medical schools in mind control research was not a matter of a few scattered doctors pursuing questionable lines of investigation. Rather, the mind control experimentation was systematic, organized, and involved many leading psychiatrists and medical schools. The mind control experiments were interwoven with radiation experiments, and research on chemical and biological weapons. They were funded by the CIA, Army, Navy, Air Force, and by other agencies including the Public Health Service and the Scottish Rite Foundation. The psychiatrists, psychologists, neurosurgeons, and other contractors conducting the work were imbedded in a broad network of doctors, and much of the research was published in medical journals. The climate was permissive, supportive, and approving of mind control experimentation."
-Colin A. Ross, MD,
"Bluebird: Deliberate Creation of Multiple Personality by Psychiatrists"
"Where Have You Gone, Mrs. Robinson?"
Do these figures shock you? They shock me. Over 800,000 people each year are reported missing? I discussed this with The Wise Man, who offered the notion that perhaps some of them had wandered off and committed suicide, or simply wanted to be homeless and forgotten. Entertaining that concept, let's assume that 10% of these folks kill themselves, and another 20% want to fall off of the earth. That would still leave 560,000 disappearos. Assuming the majority of them eventually are found or return home still leaves several hundred thousand people who have apparently vanished from the face of the earth, in each of the last 10 years, if our FBI friends records can be trusted.
Where have they gone?
Big Brother Hears All-shhhhhhhh FBI Surveillance
So these good citizens finally admit what we've known or suspected all along: they can turn your cell phones microphone on, even when the phone itself is turned off, and hear anything within range. Yeah, I'm feeling real free...
Monday, August 18, 2008
What Did You Expect? Justice?
The Wall Street Journal ran this article:
"AG Michael Muksasey's turn to speak at the ABA's annual meeting. And he delivered: Mukasey said today that neither Monica Goodling nor Kyle Sampson (nor anyone else, it seems), will face prosecution for considering improper political considerations in their hiring of judges and lawyers. "Not every wrong, or even every violation of the law, is a crime," he said. "In this instance, the two joint reports found only violations of the civil service laws." http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2008/08/12/mukasey-not-every-wrong-or-every-violation-of-the-law-is-a-crime/
So... "NOT EVERY VIOLATION OF THE LAW IS A CRIME", if you're connected to the right people in power. Karl Rove and Harriett Meyer snub their noses at Congressional subpoenas with impunity, no consequences. Scooter Libby walks. No one is held accountable for anything, unless they're poor- then "expect the max", as the current anti-DUI slogan in Arizona advises.
But, you ask, surely Congress can do something about all this, can't they? Don't hold your breath. After Bush's legislation eliminating Habeas Corpus rights was passed by these boot lickers, Chris Floyd wrote the best description of Congress and the Senate I've ever seen:
"Who are these people? Who are these useless hanks of bone and fat that call themselves Senators of the United States? Let's call them what they really are, let's speak the truth about what they've done today with their votes on the bill to enshrine Bush's gulag of torture and endless detention into American law.
Who are they? The murderers of democracy.
Sold our liberty to keep their coddled, corrupt backsides squatting in the Beltway gravy a little longer.
Who are they? The murderers of democracy.
Cowards and slaves, giving up our most ancient freedoms to a dull-eyed, dim-witted pipsqueak and his cohort of bagmen, cranks and degenerate toadies. For make no mistake: despite all the lies and distorted media soundbites, the draconian strictures of this bill apply to American citizens as well as to all them devilish foreigners.
Who are they? The murderers of democracy.
Traitors to the nation, filthy time-servers and bootlickers, turning America into a rogue state, an open champion of torture, repression and terror.
Who are they? The murderers of democracy.
Threw our freedom on the ground and raped it, beat it, shot it, stuck their knives into it and set it on fire.
Who are they? The murderers of democracy.
If there was an ounce of moxie left in the American system, these white-collar criminals would be in shackles right now, arrested for high treason, for collusion with a tyrant who is gutting the constitution, pushing terrorism to new heights and waging an unholy, illegal war of aggression that's killed tens of thousands of innocent people and bled our country dry.
There is no honor in them. There is no decency, no morality, no honesty – nothing but fear, nothing but greed, nothing but base servility. Cringing, wretched little creatures, bowing to the will of a third-rate thug and his gang of moral perverts. This is their record. This is their doing. This is the shame they will have to live with. And this is the darkness, rank, fetid and smelling of blood, that now covers us all."
Don't expect things to change any time soon...
Having a bad day?
"Mr. Ethics" McCain's Affair in 2000
WASHINGTON — Early in Senator John McCain's first run for the White House eight years ago, waves of anxiety swept through his small circle of advisers.
A female lobbyist had been turning up with him at fund-raisers, in his offices and aboard a client's corporate jet. Convinced the relationship had become romantic, some of his top advisers intervened to protect the candidate from himself — instructing staff members to block the woman's access, privately warning her away and repeatedly confronting him, several people involved in the campaign said on the condition of anonymity.
When news organizations reported that Mr. McCain had written letters to government regulators on behalf of the lobbyist's clients, the former campaign associates said, some aides feared for a time that attention would fall on her involvement.
Full story:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/21/us/po ... ref=slogin
What a hypocritical, lying son of a bitch this guy is...
"Land of the Free"?!
"The Central Bank is an institution of the most deadly hostility existing against the principles and form of our constitution… if the American people allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered." ~Thomas Jefferson
And so they have...
The Federal Reserve, a privately owned corporation, NOT part of the "Federal" government, with NO "Reserves". Do you know who the true owners of this monster are? You should...
This is now a global financial market disaster. How are things where you live? Many foreclosures/unsold homes, dropping home prices? Job losses? Is any of this affecting your life? If so, how?
And so they have...
The Federal Reserve, a privately owned corporation, NOT part of the "Federal" government, with NO "Reserves". Do you know who the true owners of this monster are? You should...
This is now a global financial market disaster. How are things where you live? Many foreclosures/unsold homes, dropping home prices? Job losses? Is any of this affecting your life? If so, how?
Sunday, August 17, 2008
New Logo for UK's OGC
"In April last year, London design outfit FHD proudly announced it would be rebranding the UK's Office of Government Commerce (OGC) - the HM Treasury tentacle "responsible for improving value for money by driving up standards and capability in procurement". So far so good - nothing more exciting than some traditional Strategy Boutique Newspeak. However, the wheels came off this particular rebrand in spectacular style when the new logo was presented to OGC staff.
According to an inside source, the graphic had allegedly already been inscribed onto mousemats and pens in anticipation of its imminent deployment, but it took OGC foot soldiers around 20 seconds to realise why this particular bit of joss-stick-driven madness was going to end in tears (of laughter):
On dear, oh dear. Well, at least it appears that FHD really does have expertise "in workings of government", as a quick 90 degree clockwise rotation reveals."
Full story: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/22/ogc_logo/
Perfect for government work here, too...
According to an inside source, the graphic had allegedly already been inscribed onto mousemats and pens in anticipation of its imminent deployment, but it took OGC foot soldiers around 20 seconds to realise why this particular bit of joss-stick-driven madness was going to end in tears (of laughter):
On dear, oh dear. Well, at least it appears that FHD really does have expertise "in workings of government", as a quick 90 degree clockwise rotation reveals."
Full story: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/22/ogc_logo/
Perfect for government work here, too...
"Sometime, it be's dat way..."
Look at the headlines, watch the news, doesn't it ever make you feel this way?
"Mad World"
"All around me are familiar faces
Worn out places, worn out faces
Bright and early for their daily races
Going nowhere, going nowhere
Their tears are filling up their glasses
No expression, no expression
Hide my head I want to drown my sorrow
No tomorrow, no tomorrow
And I find it kinda funny
I find it kinda sad
The dreams in which I'm dying
Are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you
I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It's a very, very mad world mad world
Children waiting for the day they feel good
Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday
Made to feel the way that every child should
Sit and listen, sit and listen
Went to school and I was very nervous
No one knew me, no one knew me
Hello teacher tell me what's my lesson
Look right through me, look right through me
And I find it kinda funny
I find it kinda sad
The dreams in which I'm dying
Are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you
I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It's a very, very mad world ... mad world
Enlarging your world
Mad world"
-Gary Jules,
David Icke's "The Biggest Secret", free, online
"David Icke's most powerful and explosive book so far. Every man, woman and child on the planet is affected by the stunning information that Icke exposes. He reveals in documented detail, how the same interconnecting bloodlines have controlled the planet for thousands of years. How they created all the major religions and suppressed the spiritual and esoteric knowledge that will set humanity free from its mental and emotional prisons.
This is the book that revealed the existance of a reptillian race from another planet and/or dimension covertly controlling humanity.
It includes a devastating expose of the true origins of Christianity and the other major religions and documents the suppressed science, which explains why the world is facing a time of incredible change and transformation.
The Biggest Secret is a unique book and is quite rightly dubbed "The book that will change the world". No one who reads it will ever be the same again. If you want to wake up and see the conspiracy this book is for you."
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/bigge ... secret.htm
Don't judge it until you read it...
The Gods That Failed
"'The excesses of banks, big business and the super-rich have shattered our economic system ..."
An excellent series of articles detailing how the wealthy elite, motivated by insatiable greed, destroyed the economic structure of the entire world, and impacted all our lives directly. Wonder why you've lost ALL the equity in your home, food prices are skyrocketing, gas/petrol prices are at record highs? Here's how they did it...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/seri ... thatfailed
Think things are bad now? Wait till you understand what's coming:
"While attention has been focused on the relatively tiny US "sub- prime" home mortgage default crisis as the center of the current financial and credit crisis impacting the Anglo-Saxon banking world, a far larger problem is now coming into focus. Sub-prime or high-risk Collateralized Mortgage Obligations, CMOs as they are called, are only the tip of a colossal iceberg of dodgy credits which are beginning to go sour. The next crisis is already beginning in the $62 TRILLION market for Credit Default Swaps. You never heard of them? It's time to take a look, then."
http://www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net/F ... part_v.HTM
Dogs and Cats
7:00 AM - Outside! My favorite thing!
8:00 AM - Dog food! My favorite thing!
9:30 AM - A car ride! My favorite thing!
9:40 AM - A walk in the park! My favorite thing!
10:30 AM - Got rubbed and petted! My favorite thing!
12:00 PM - Lunch! My favorite thing!
1:00 PM - Played in the yard! My favorite thing!
2:00 PM - Looked out the window and barked! My favorite thing!
3:00 PM - Wagged my tail! My favorite thing!
4:00 PM - Chased a bird out of the tree! My favorite thing!
5:00 PM - Milk bones! My favorite thing!
6:00 PM - Watched my people eat! My favorite thing!
6:20 PM - Table scraps! My favorite thing!
7:00 PM - Got to play ball! My favorite thing!
8:00 PM - Wow! Watched TV with the people! My favorite thing!
11:00 PM -Sleeping on the bed! My favorite thing!
Day 983 of my captivity.
My captors continue to taunt me with bizarre little dangling objects.
They dine lavishly on fresh meat, while the other inmates and I are fed
hash or some sort of dry nuggets.
Although I make my contempt for the rations perfectly clear, I
nevertheless must eat something in order to keep up my strength. The
only thing that keeps me going is my dream of escape.
In an attempt to disgust them, I once again vomit on the carpet.
Today I decapitated a mouse and dropped its headless body at their
feet. I had hoped this would strike fear into their hearts, since it
clearly demonstrates what I am capable of. However, they merely made
condescending comments about what a 'good little hunter' I am. b*st*rds!
There was some sort of assembly of their accomplices tonight. I was
placed in solitary confinement for the duration of the event. However,
I could hear the noises and smell the food. I overheard that my
confinement was due to the power of 'allergies.' I must learn what this
means, and how to use it to my advantage.
Today I was almost successful in an attempt to assassinate one of my
tormentors by weaving around his feet as he was walking.
I must try this again tomorrow - but at the top of the stairs.
I am convinced that the other prisoners here are flunkies and snitches.
The dog continues to receive special privileges.
He is regularly released and seems to be more than willing to return.
He is obviously retarded."- Author Unknown
The Mangy Mutt Pack Has Approved This Message ;-)
Damned If I Know- Crop Circles
Do a Google image search: crop circle. Amazing how many have been reported (hundreds, at least), and the remarkable complexity of their design. Several groups have claimed responsibility for making them, though it seems highly unlikely to me that clumsy humans with ropes and boards, stumbling around in a dark wheat field at night while trying to avoid detection, could have been so successful. And all in a single night? No, something else is at work here, though I haven't a clue what it might be. What do you think?
Saturday, August 16, 2008
2008 Campaign in 2 Pictures
It rained!
After enduring 3 Washington state winters, with the characteristic 24 hours a day rain lasting for months on end, we had had enough, and needed a climate with more sunshine. Being the extreme personalities we are, the Queen and I moved to Arizona in search of sunlight. Well, I guess you can figure out how THAT worked out...
Here in the Sonoran desert we get sunlight all right, about 345 days a year of it. There's also the little matter of the dreaded "SUMMER", with temperatures routinely over 110 degrees, and humidity about 3%. (Which explains the lady we saw driving her car wearing oven mitts as protection against the hot steering wheel.) Or, as they like to say hereabouts, "It's a dry heat"; apparently 117 degrees of "dry" heat feels better to you than if it were "wet"?
What we DON'T get is rain, except during the so-called "monsoon" season, lasting from June until September, when wind patterns draw moisture from Mexico to form thunderstorms here. The problem with that is the parched, high ground temperature, making the entire region a "heat island" which causes enormous amounts of lightning any time it does rain. In the last few weeks many parts of the state had gotten really good amounts of rain; we got nothing but wind and dust, watching enviously the televised weather reports of local flooding in Phoenix and Tucson. And still we got nothing. Until last night.
Out of nowhere the heavens opened up in a furious barrage of thunder, lightning and heavy rain. Delighted, we watched the show from the front porch until the high winds and driving rain drove us inside. Our Mangy Mutt Pack were somewhat less enthusiastic about all this, whining their dismay at every thunderbolt, all the while careful not to go anywhere near the outside. Still, joyous at finally getting rain, we were happy until -oh no!- the electricity went off. Great relief when it finally came back on after 3 1/2 toasty hours. I guess the moral of the story is: never wish for the extremes of anything, including rain or sunshine, because you just might get it.
Tired Old John
Regarding Russia's move against Georgia in S. Osettia, John Sidney McCain had this to say: "It's the 21st century, and nations don't invade other nations..."
Let me see, what was that... Iraq? Oh, that. And wasn't there something about that other place, what do you call it, Talibanistan? And we've spent a TRILLION dollars in our adventures over there? But McCain says it's ok, even if we're there "100, 1,000 or even 10,000 years"- direct quote.
Guess it really doesn't matter to Old John, who has declared himself "older than dirt", which is about the only honest thing this old hump has said in all these months of campaigning. Almost pathetic to watch him desperately lie every day, and say literally anything that he thinks will help him get elected. All that "war hero" bullshit- no mention of his adultery with his drug addicted mistress Cindy, now his wife. But he's a man of "character", don't you know? "Keating 5"- never heard of it! He and his wife own 10 houses, and are worth well over $100,000,000, but he's "one of us"? And after being a Washington lobbyist whore for 26 years HE'S the guy to change things there?
No, John, your time is long past, and soon you can retire to one of your many houses in peace and quiet. Can't happen soon enough...
Friday, August 15, 2008
The Old Blind Man-impossible!
We lived for a time in Lacey, Washington. We had no car, but there's a wonderful public transportation system, so one Sunday afternoon in October the Queen and I decided to go to Olympia to sight see. Returning from Olympia on the bus we arrived at the Lacey Regional Transit hub, where buses arrrive and depart on their respective routes. By this time it was about 7 PM, and already dark. We had to transfer to another bus route, and as we left the bus we noticed an old blind man standing on the platform, wearing a heavy coat, a hat, dark glasses, and holding his white walking cane in front of him.
No other people or cars were there. Our bus soon arrived, and as we boarded we saw the old man still standing in the same spot. The bus made several right turns going around the block, then drove straight for perhaps a mile and a half, where it pulled over to let another passenger on. To our absolute astonishment, onto the bus came the same old blind man we'd left behind at the station! We had just witnessed a literally impossible event- he could NOT be getting on this bus, and yet, there he was, without question the same person. He calmly sat down as we looked at each other in confused amazement.
Since a World Class sprinter could not have gotten to the spot he was picked up at in the time allowed, we had no explanation for what had just happened, and have none now. It could not have happened, but it did. The only conclusion we can make is that the world just may not be exactly as we imagine it to be, and "impossible" events can occur under the right circumstances. What do you think?
Thursday, August 14, 2008
"The Oyster and the Cormorant"
"The Oyster and the Cormorant"
by CoyotePrime
by CoyotePrime
"Brandt's Cormorants feed either singly or in flocks, and are adaptable in prey choice and undersea habitat. It feeds on small fish from the surface to sea floor, obtaining them, like all cormorants, by pursuit diving using its feet for propulsion. Prey is often what is most common: in central California, rockfish from the genus Sebastes is the most commonly taken, but off British Columbia, it is Pacific Herring. Brandt's Cormorant have been observed foraging at depths of over 40 feet."-WikiPedia
Westport is a small fishing town on the western coast of Washington, a place we visited for fishing from their public dock. Pelicans, terns, sea gulls and many other birds are abundant there. My favorite was the cormorant, a sleek bird known for diving like an arrow into the water to catch its prey. One sunny afternoon we saw a strange sight among the many Brandt's cormorants floating near the rock jetty was one with something apparently stuck to his beak. Walking closer, we saw to our horror that it was really a very large oyster, encrusted with barnacles, which must have weighed several pounds. The cormorant, while diving for food, had obviously poked his beak into the oysters shell, which the oyster promptly closed, trapping them both in a death grip. Despite the cormorants frantic efforts at removing the oyster it remained firmly in place. Barely able to breath, the effort to keep the oysters weight from pulling his head underwater was rapidly exhausting the bird. Desperately the bird pulled his head above water, trying to catch a breath, then slowly he was pulled back under. Helpless, all we could do was watch as the birds head was gradually pulled beneath the water for longer periods of time, until finally they both disappeared beneath the waves.
This made me wonder what "oysters" many of us invisibly carry around, the possessions or experiences we "REALLY" believe we must have or possess, which turn out to harm us in the long run: debt stress from the house and new car; health problems; relationship problems; family problems; losses of all kinds, all adding to the weight of the "oyster" attempting to drown us. Are they really worth it?
What's YOUR oyster made of? Can you safely remove it before it drowns you?
During winters in Washington state it's common for rain to fall daily for months on end. Frequently animals like raccoons, mice or squirrels will burrow into the walls and roofs of homes, trying to find a warm and dry place to nest.
And so it was, one afternoon, that our house cat suddenly and frantically charged across the living room into the corner, howling ferociously at something we couldn't yet see. After clawing the object several times, the force of her strike threw it into the middle of the room- a small, gray mouse, now bleeding from its head, and trembling wildly in shock and pain. The cat, now sure of her catch, slowly strolled over and sat in front of the mouse, eyeing it menacingly, eager, as cats are fond of doing, to continue slowly torturing her victim. The mouse, realizing there was no possible escape, sat there, staring directly into the cats eyes towering so high above him. Before we could move to save him, he suddenly pulled himself upright, stood on his back legs, and, shouting his death cry of "SCREEEE!!!", jumped as high as he could straight towards the cats face. The cat, of course, caught him in midair, and dispatched him with a crunch of her powerful jaws.
I've often thought of the courage of that mouse, who decided, when the outcome was inescapable, to leave life under his own terms, without surrender, beaten down but unconquered, in the final and bravest deed of his life.
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Winkler, Steve wrote: > Hi David, > > I'll take the time to make it shorter: > > What I'm advocating is adding a sentence that basically recommends > that a message id SHOULD be present in all WS-A messages (both > requests and responses). The message id would still be, strictly > speaking, optional. As far as I understand you, we are in agreement > on this point, so I would like to limit any discussion for proposals > to this scope at this point. Would that include changing the MUST to SHOULD for replies? I gather from the discussion below that it wouldn't. If that's the case, I'm not against adding such a sentence, but I don't think it changes anything materially. If the idea is to have [message id] OPTIONAL but RECOMMENDED everywhere, I'm all for it. I think I may just be more comfortable with the a la carte approach than much of the group is. In my view, we're providing a collection of very useful utilities. The way to get them used is to make them useful (which they are). Requiring a facility whether or not it's of use in a particular situation seems likely to raise the bar for adoption. I can actually see someone wanting to be "lighter weight" and defining <NewmansOwn:{Reply,Fault}To> with the same meaning as <wsa:{Reply,Fault}To> except that you don't have to include <wsa:Action> and <wsa:MessageId> in order to use it. Or worse, quietly just not conforming and only paying attention to <wsa:{Reply,Fault}To>. I don't endorse either approach, but I wouldn't be surprised if someone decided to take one of them. Now I can hear the reply coming from somewhere in the ether: "But that's the beauty of the SOAP processing model: You can define your own headers if you don't like ours." I think that's fine when my headers don't overlap significantly with existing standards, but it's not fine at all when my headers are playing in essentially the same space as what's already there. Is it more important to allow senders who don't need [message id] for correlation to get replies even if they don't include [message id], or for senders that do need [message id] to be warned that some message they sent (they won't always know which one since there's no [message id]) didn't include one? I think the realistic answer is "it depends," and a receiver should be able to behave either way (and advertise that behavior) without breaking conformance. That's why I'm much more comfortable with "SHOULD fault" than "MUST fault" in section 3.3. I would prefer to see this handled by leaving the core flexible but biased toward stricter behavior (i.e., faulting in this case). Bindings like the WSDL binding can then make strict behavior the default while allowing loopholes for more lax behavior. Of course, they can do this anyway (this flavor of endpoint is WSA conformant except ...), but it seems better to add constraints to the core rather than to selectively override ones that are already there. > > See below for some curt (in the interest of brevity, not insolence) > retorts to the points I found the most salient. > > Cheers, > Steve > > -------------------------- > Steve Winkler > SAP AG > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > *From:* David Hull [mailto:email@example.com] > *Sent:* Wednesday, Jul 20, 2005 2:22 PM > *To:* Winkler, Steve > *Cc:* firstname.lastname@example.com; Mark Nottingham > *Subject:* Re: Closure of LC86 > > Apologies that this is so long. As Blaise Pascal once said, I > didn't have time to make it shorter. > > Winkler, Steve wrote: > >> >> >> Hi David, >> >> Since I was probably the most vocal opponent of making >> wsa:MessageId optional, I feel a response is probably warranted. >> I think that some of the ideas in your proposal could make the >> status quo better, but I don't agree with all of it. >> >> As you'll remember from the Berlin F2F, I was arguing against >> making message id optional. I actually went the other way and >> advocated the utility of an ever-present message id, and I used >> the auditing scenario as an illustrative use case. This was just >> one use case, but I do think that message ids are generally >> useful, for responses as well as all requests, and not just in >> the case of a request where reply message is expected. >> >> >> >> The main objection to this that I saw would be the performance >> hit that the sender of a message would incur when ensuring the >> uniqueness of the message id. This makes sense to me, and I >> would be willing to relax my original standpoint from a REQUIRES >> to a SHOULD contain a unique id, which would still allow >> performance conscious senders to omit the id while encouraging >> the use of the message id in all normal cases. >> >> I would prefer, however, to stop there. I have not yet seen a >> convincing use case where including a message id would be >> prohibitive for correlation. >> > First, I'm not comfortable with the notion that [message id] > should be REQUIRED so long as it doesn't impede correlation use > cases. Just going by that, I could require that every request > include <wsa:Please/> and every response include <wsa:HereYouGo/> > and <wsa:HaveANiceDay>. These don't impede correlation, or > anything else for that matter, and they might improve the civility > of network commerce, so why not require them? The only difference > with [message id] is that we can identify particular cases where > [message id] certainly does help, namely auditing and cases where > correlation is needed and no other mechanism is available. But by > that reasoning we should require that WSS or WS-Trust or whatever > be used everywhere WSA is because they are certainly useful in > some cases where WSA will be used. > > <SW> > <wsa:HaveANiceDay> and your other examples provide no value. > MessageId provides great value. We are writing a core spec > here on which other specs will hope to compose. If they can be > relatively sure that most default implementations of WS-A will > have a message id, they will be more likely to reuse rather than > roll their own. > </SW> > > In this context, the performance hit is a symptom, not a central > factor. I'm more concerned that we are making a sweeping > requirement (but one that presently only sweeps over requests and > leaves other messages unswept) without a convincing case that the > thing to be required is always needed, and indeed with definite > evidence to the contrary. > > <SW>I have yet to see such evidence.</SW> > > This seems wrong from the beginning, but I respect that others > may view the burden of proof differently. In any case, I'm more > interested in reaching consensus (see below) than arguing over the > burden of proof (and thence over the burden of proof in the > argument over the burden of proof ... :-). > >> In fact, I think it's obvious that being able to uniquely >> identify a message is of paramount importance in correlation. If >> you choose to use an out of band correlation mechanism and have >> it supersede what is defined here, then so be it. The WS-A >> charter requires us to specify properties which allow for the >> correlation of messages, and I think that a message id should >> still be REQUIRED when a response is expected. >> > > In a broad sense, being able to uniquely identify a message is > essential to correlation. However, this doesn't have to be done > by a message id. In the well-known case of SOAP/HTTP, we identify > the message, even in the presence of pipelining, by when it comes > back over the response channel. > > <SW>This is transport specific. WS-A core concepts are, per our > charter, to be transport agnostic.</SW> > > There are other cases where an endpoint will effectively be > created for the purposes of one message only, so identifying the > message is trivial. I've also mentioned the case where the > application-level payload carries a transaction id or something > similar and correlation is effectively handled at the application > layer. In these cases, the [message id] handshake is not adding > any value. > > <SW> By this rationale, we might as well just all go home. > Everything can be done in the application payload, and everyone > can roll their own systems. We're shooting for interop here. If > you want to do something extra, fine, go ahead, but don't expect > it to work with my systems out of the box.</SW> > > I'm more interested, though, in cases where correlation is or can > be done by other SOAP-visible means. For example, suppose I have > defined a choreography such that for any given instance, there > will be exactly one message for each [action]. Each instance has > its own context ID header. Suppose that one piece of this happens > to be a request/response, but the request/response endpoint > naturally doesn't know that it's participating in the > choreography. In a nutshell, when the receiver of the response > sees [action]=..../fooResponse, it knows that that's the one and > only fooResponse message for that instance of the choreography. > It doesn't need a message id. > > <SW>True, but only because the choreography spec can depend on the > presence of Action to make it's determination. I would argue that > other specs could rely on message id to do other interesting > things in the same manner.</SW> > > Or, on a completely different tack, suppose I know that > reliability is in play. The reliability layers that we know of > use a (sequence id, sequence number) pair to uniquely identify > each message. Rather than create another id on top of that, why > not just tell the receiver "put the sequence id, sequence number" > of the request in the reply and I'll know what to do. Let me be > clear that I think this would be completely out of scope for /us. > /But I'm not sure we want to actively discourage it, either. > > <SW>There is nothing to stop the writers of that spec from > creating a URI encoding scheme to include the sequence id and > sequence number in the WS-A message id URI. Reuse achieved.</SW> > > I would like for clients to be able to use whatever's handy for > correlation, or not correlate at all. In this view, [message id] > is our standard header element for identifying messages -- which I > think is pretty close to the charter -- and the rule in section > 3.3 is a way of leveraging this as one way of providing > correlation, if it's needed. The obvious concern here is that it > might hurt interoperability if the client can correlate any way it > wants. But I think this misrepresents what's going on. > Interoperability comes from the server being able to advertise > exactly what it does and does not guarantee with respect to the > MAPs, not from the server refusing to accept request messages that > may work perfectly well for the client. As long as the client > knows that the server will always reflect the [message id] of the > request in the [relationship] of the reply, /provided [message id] > is present in the request/, the client always knows enough to > interoperate. The server has told the client the rules > unambiguously, and it can assume the client knows what it's doing. > > <SW>No real disagreement here. I'll reiterate that there will be > less chance of a problem if the client is encouraged to always > send a message id. I personally still feel that a WS-A request > message that expects a response should still be required to > contain a message id. If you don't want this, maybe WS-A isn't > the right choice for you.</SW> > > Suppose some later server advertises "I will reflect [message id] > if it's present in the request. I will also reflect (sequence > number, sequence id) if they're present." Is this any less > interoperable than what we have now? I would argue that if > anything, it's more interoperable. It will provide correlation > for a client that includes [message id], and it will also provide > correlation for a client that's using a reliable connection. The > only argument that I can see here is that this might undermine the > universal use of [message id]. Personally I'm uneasy with trying > to use a correlation facility as a lever to try to get people to > support auditing, and I also feel that the proposal I made is a > better lever anyway. > <SW>I was never attempting to use correlation to support > auditing. I simply used auditing as a single use case (there are > more) to show that having message ids generally be contained in > WS-A messages is useful. I don't even really want to get into the > correlation discussion at all if I don't have to.</SW> > > (I note in passing that the charter itself refers to the > definition of /Identifier/ given in the Web Services > Architecture. This reads "Identifiers are used to identify > resources. In the architecture we use Uniform Resource Identifiers > [RFC 2396] > <http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/NOTE-ws-arch-20040211/#RFC2396> to > identify resources." The second sentence is disputed. In short, > there's not a lot of guidance offered here as to what we're trying > to accomplish.) > >> >> >> It seems that the two people with the most opposite opinions have >> come quite a bit closer, but what should we do about it now? >> > Indeed. I believe we're not too far from agreement, if not on > underlying philosophy, at least on the end result. > >> >> >> The issue was closed in Berlin, perhaps a bit hastily at the end >> of a long meeting where people were jetlagged, but it was still >> closed. Are you just registering your dissatisfaction, or do you >> have a course of action you would like to propose? >> > Well, I do have a concrete proposal that might be worth > considering at some point. I don't think this is the right point > -- if I did, I would have pushed for consideration at the > meeting. Right now, I would rather go for CR and see what the > director makes of all this, realizing there may never be another > opportune moment. Them's the breaks. This was never a > deal-breaker for me. I do strongly feel that the spec could be > better in this regard, but I don't feel that the current handling > of [message id] is irreparably broken. And to be honest, plenty > of specs have made it out the door with bigger flaws. > > <SW>It's not a deal breaker for me either, but I think the spec > would be better off with the guidance that a message id SHOULD be > present in WS-A messages, unless a particular implementation has a > good reason not to include it.</SW> > > However, I would like people to consider the current proposal and > in particular consider whether it supports universal unique ids > for messages better than the status quo. As far as I can see, it > does, by tilting the landscape heavily in favor of ids on /all/ > messages, not just requests. > <SW>+1 with the focus, though I think your proposal is too broad > to gain widespread support. I would rather focus on the focus, so > to speak.</SW> > > If there's a general agreement that it does, then we can consider > whether to try to bring it in at some point. Since the proposal > is a response to the group's closing of an LC issue, the director > will be aware of it and may also weigh in on whether it's worth > considering. Beyond that, it's up to the group to decide whether > there's a strong agreement that it's an improvement (there may not > be) and if so, whether there's a good way to bring it in without > wrecking the schedule. > > In any case, I couldn't let an idea that seemed worthy of > consideration and might make life better for everyone just lie. > So there it is. > > Hope this helps. > >> >> >> >> >> Cheers, >> >> Steve >> >> --------------------------- >> >> Steve Winkler >> >> SAP AG >> >> >> >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >> *From:* email@example.com >> [mailto:firstname.lastname@example.com] *On Behalf Of >> *David Hull >> *Sent:* Tuesday, Jul 19, 2005 7:17 AM >> *To:* email@example.com; Mark Nottingham >> *Subject:* Closure of LC86 >> >> This message records my dissatisfaction with the closure of >> Last Call issue 86, entitled "[message id] should be >> optional." [1] and proposes a novel resolution that would >> resolve LC86. This proposal should also be an improvement on >> the status quo regarding the concerns that caused LC86 to be >> closed with no action originally. >> >> Issue LC86 was closed with no action at the Berlin face to >> face. TIBCO and others voted against this closure. Since >> then, there has been further discussion of the use cases that >> [message id] might or might not support, and the notion of >> [message id] uniqueness has been clarified in the resolution >> of LC75. Both of these events, together with the proposal >> below, introduce new information relevant to the resolution >> of LC86. >> >> In the discussion of use cases for [message id], several >> possible uses were proposed. In my understanding, only two >> held up to closer scrutiny, namely >> >> * The original use case of message correlation. >> * The use of a standard, transport-independent [message >> id] on all messages for various auditing purposes. >> >> Neither of these is grounds for making [message id] a >> REQUIRED property. The original issue description argues >> that [message id] need not be REQUIRED on all messages in >> order to support message correlation, both because message >> correlation may not always be necessary, even when the >> receiver is acting in a request-response fashion, and because >> correlation can and in some cases likely ought to be >> accomplished by other means. I also argue that producing a >> [message id] and checking for its presence and uniqueness >> consumes resources that may be scarce in some scenarios. In >> any case, I do not believe that the correlation case was a >> major factor in closing LC86 with no action. >> >> I have argued separately [2] against the second case, both on >> the grounds that the status quo does not effectively support >> it, and on the grounds that it is out of scope for the core >> of addressing, is not needed in all WSA deployments and so >> should not be REQUIRED. Deployments that require a universal >> unique [message id] can mandate it separately without >> contradicting anything in the core, even if [message id] is >> made OPTIONAL in the core. >> >> My understanding is that LC86 was closed because it was felt >> that requiring [message id] would promote the auditing use >> cases and making it optional would weaken this. However, the >> status quo only requires [message id] in the case of request >> messages. Further, it effectively discourages it in other >> cases. The behavior of a node receiving a message with a >> duplicate [message id] is unconstrained. There is thus no >> point in including a [message id] anywhere it is not >> mandated, as there is always the risk of accidental collision >> for any of various reasons. While this risk may not be >> large, it is easily eliminated by omitting [message id] >> altogether. The status quo thus supports auditing of >> requests while undermining auditing of everything else. >> Further, it is difficult to see how to fix this. The >> receiver of a reply or a fire-and-forget one-way message does >> not have the option of throwing a fault on receiving a >> message with a missing [message id]. >> >> I believe that the auditing use cases can be better supported >> while allowing flexibility for deployments that do not want >> [message id], with small changes to the existing text. Namely >> >> * Amend the description of the [message id] property to >> add the italicized text: >> >> An absolute IRI that uniquely identifies the message. >> When present, it is the responsibility of the sender >> to ensure that each message is uniquely identified. >> The behavior of a receiver when receiving a message >> /that lacks a [message id] or /that contains the same >> [message id] as a previously received message is >> unconstrained by this specification. >> >> * Change MUST to SHOULD in the paragraph in section 3.3 >> reading >> >> In either of the above cases, if the related message >> lacks a [message id] property, the processor MUST fault. >> >> * Add the italicized text to the following paragraph in >> the same section: >> >> [relationship]: this property MUST include a pair of >> IRIs as follows; the relationship type is the >> predefined reply URI >> "http://www.w3.org/@@@@/@@/addressing/reply" and the >> related message's identifier is the [message id] >> property value from the message being replied to, /if >> it is present/; other relationships MAY be expressed >> in this property >> >> This strongly encourages the presence and uniqueness of >> [message id] in /all/ messages in just the same way the the >> present text strongly encourages its uniqueness alone. >> However, the softening of MUST to SHOULD allows flexibility >> in situations where [message id] is not wanted. In such >> cases, receivers may advertise, or it may otherwise be made >> known, that messages lacking a [message id] will be processed >> normally. Then, and only then, do senders know that it is >> safe to omit the [message id]. >> >> This proposal provides the desired ubiquitous unique id by >> default while allowing deployments to explicitly waive the >> requirement when appropriate. It is thus an improvement on >> the status quo in both flexibility and in support for auditing. >> >> References: >> >> [1] http://www.w3.org/2002/ws/addr/lc-issues/#lc86 >> [2] >> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-ws-addressing/2005Jun/0054.html >> and following thread >> >Received on Thursday, 21 July 2005 18:30:34 UTC
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subset: commoncrawl


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text:
... Mario Puzo's description of Woltz's ensuing panic oddly parallels that of the Democratic debt negotiators when they realized the Tea Party idealogues [sic] really were willing to risk default.Um. Okay. That reminds me. I've been meaning to ask... And I don't want another post about the debt deal. In that scene in "The Godfather"... we just see the guy slowly waking up and finally noticing there's a bleeding horse head in his bed. It's great cinema. You never forget it. But what the hell kind of a heavy sleeper was Jack Woltz anyway? I'd love to see the missing part of the story, where guys holding a giant, dripping horse head open the bedroom door, walk across the room, peel back the covers — I guess they'd have to set the head down — put the head in the bed, gently replace the bed clothes, and sneak back out of there. All that time, Woltz is snoozing peacefully.
The cinematic trick is: You're so preoccupied with the startling thing you've actually seen as you discover the horse head along with Woltz that you have no mental space remaining in which to ask how'd they get that thing in there? You might ask: What sort of people would do a thing like that? — which is the aspect of the scene that TPM invokes in its absurd analogy. But you're not supposed to think: No way could they do that. In fact, if you're inclined to ask questions like that, you probably don't enjoy movies too much.


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Fulton Community Channel the Public Access operation for Fulton County operates from the Southwest Arts Center at 915 New Hope Road. For more information on the County's Public Access Channel please contact the Cable Franchise Office 404-612-6456.
Comcast and AT&T Uverse is available in North and South Fulton County. Go online to comcast.com or Uverse to confirm the availability in your area.
The relationship between the Fulton County and Comcast
Whenever a cable company wants to build a cable system and provide cable service, in our case the unincorporated areas of Fulton County. That company must agree to certain standards set forth by the local government. Those standards are found in the Cable Franchise Agreement, a contract which sets forth what is expected of the cable company and the local government before building its cable system. These agreements are generally renewed every 12-15 years. Fulton County amended its agreement with Comcast in 2011.
Fulton County has an amended Cable Franchise Agreements with Comcast, serving the southern unincorporated areas of the County and expire in 2016.
In exchange for using the County rights of way, the cable company agrees to a number of provisions, all contained in the Cable Franchise Agreement.
Some of those provisions of the Amended agreement are:
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