Part 1

SETH SPEAKING ABOUT HIS PURPOSE by Andy Hughes

I come here, as an (humorously) "endearing" personality, with characteristics to which I hope you can relate. These characteristics are mine, and I am who I say I am, and yet the Seth you know is but a small part of my reality, the one that has been physical, and can relate to your problems.

There exists what could almost be compared to a psychological and psychic warp in dimensions where Ruburt's personality is an apex point at which communication can take place.

We want to deal with the nature of reality as it exists within your camouflage system and within other systems, and to study the overall characteristics that pertain to it.

We will discuss the interrelationship that exists between all systems of reality, including certain contact points that include them all. These various points can be mathematically deduced, and will, in some future of yours, serve as contact points, taking the place of space travel in some cases.

We will be discussing the laws of the inner universe. They are attempts to explain in words the nature of inner reality. These single-dimensional statements are more than are given to most, and, under the circumstances that we must work, are the best approximation that can be made of the basic fact beneath any existence.

As words would give little hint of the reality of color or sound to someone who did not experience these, so words can only give insight into the nature of reality.

I have been sent to help you, and others have been sent through the centuries of your time, for as you develop you form new dimensions, and you will help others.

Using your free will, you have made physical reality into something quite different than what was intended. You have allowed the ego to become overly developed and specialized. You were here to work out problems and challenges, but you were always to be aware of your own inner reality, and of your nonphysical existence. To a large extent you have lost contact with this. You have focused so strongly upon physical reality that it become the only reality that you know.

When you kill a man, you believe that you kill him forever. Murder is a crime that must then be dealt with. Death, however, does not exist in those terms. In the dawn of physical existence, men knew that death was merely a change of form.

There is never any justification for violence. There is no justification for hatred. There is no justification for murder. Those who indulge in violence for whatever reason are themselves changed, and the purity of their purpose adultered.

If you do not like the state of your world, it is you yourselves that must change, individually and en masse. This is the only way that change will be effected.

The responsibility for your life and your world is indeed yours. It has not been forced upon you by some outside agency. You form your own dreams and you form your own physical reality. The world is what you are. It is the physical materialization of the inner selves which you have formed.

It is wrong to curse a flower and wrong to curse a man. It is wrong not to hold any man in honor, and it is wrong to ridicule any man. Your must honor yourselves and see within yourselves the spirit of eternal validity. You must honor all other individuals, because within each is the spark of this validity. When you curse another, you curse yourselves, and the curse returns to you. When you are violent, the violence returns.

I speak to you because yours is the opportunity to better world conditions and yours is the time. Do not fall into the old ways that will lead you precisely into the world that you fear.

There is no man who hates but that hatred is reflected outward and made physical, and there is no man who loves but that love is reflected outward and made physical.

Beyond myself there is another self and still another, of which I am aware. And that self tells you that there is a reality beyond human reality and experience that cannot be made verbal or translated into human terms. And to that self, physical reality is like a warm breath forming in the winter air...

FUTURE SETH SPEAKS ABOUT THE NATURE AND PURPOSE OF THE COMMUNICATIONS.

The Seth personality is an intermediary. The information already given to you regarding the nature of personality gestalts should make my existence seem a fitting one.

Seth is what I am, yet I am more than Seth is. Seth is independent, and continues to develop as I do. In the Spacious Present we both exist.

Seth, as you know him, will always be an element in these communications. He is the connective between us, and he has been a part of me that I have sent out to you. He has participated willingly.

Names are arbitrary, and we use them merely for your convenience. Seth's name or mine isn't important. Individuality is important and continues in ways you do not suspect.

Seth is learning as I am.

As an analogy, you could call me a future Seth, at a higher stage of development, however both of us are fully independent and exist simultaneously.

These communications, while taking place in your time, are nevertheless responsible in other dimensions for what you would call future developments in your own personalities.

Whether or not I speak as myself or as Seth, he is the intermediary and the connection between us. He will appear to you as you know him because there are necessary emotional elements that are uniquely his own.

My personality is far different than his but I am also a friend. In many ways I am the same friend. Other portions of me are concerned elsewhere, for I am aware of my existence in other dimensions and keep track of them and direct my many selves.

We are Seth and whenever we have spoken we have been known as Seth. We are not alone in this endeavor, for through your centuries other entities like us have also appeared and spoken.

Our entity is composed of multitudinous selves with their own identities, many of whom have worked in this behalf. Their message will always be basically the same, though the times and circumstances of their communications may differ and be colored accordingly.

We adopt whatever personality characteristics seem pertinent, for in our own reality we have a bank of complete inner selves, and we are all Seth. We attempt to translate realities into terms you can comprehend. We change our face and form, but we are always the one. Many of us have not been born in the flesh, as I have not been, but in one way we have seeded ourselves through endless universes. The entity had its beginning before the emergence of your time. It was instrumental, with many other entities, in the early formation of energy into physical form. We gave you mental images and upon these images you learned to form the world that you know. We gave you the patterns, intricate and involved from which you form the reality of each physical thing that you know. We taught man to speak before the tongue knew syllables. The entire webwork was initiated by us.

Our basic knowledge and energy automatically reaches out to nourish all systems that grow.

You are like children with a game, and you think that the game is played by everyone. Physical life is not the rule. Identity and consciousness existed long before your earth was formed. You suppose that any personality must appear in physical terms. Consciousness is the force behind matter, and it forms many other realities besides the physical one. It is, again, your own viewpoint that is presently so limited that it seems to you that physical reality is the rule and mode of existence.

The source and power of your present consciousness has never been physical, and where I am, many are not even aware that such a physical system exists.

The physical system is an illusion, but you must accept it and from your viewpoint try to understand the realities that exist beyond it.

You cannot objectify the inner portions of your own identity, and therefore you do not perceive them. So much of your energy is used in the physical productions that you cannot afford to perceive any reality but your own.

Like children playing with blocks, you focus your attention on the physical blocks. The physical blocks appear very real to you when you dwell within their perspective. Other shapes and forms that you could perceive, you do not. Even in explaining other realities, I must use the words "shapes" and "forms" or you would not understand me.

Your idea of progress is building larger blocks, and yet one day you will put aside your "children's toys."

The human race is a stage through which various forms of consciousness travel... Yours is a training system for emerging consciousness. Before you can be allowed into systems of reality that are more extensive and open, you must first learn to handle energy and see through physical materialization, the concrete result of thought and emotion.

When you leave the physical system after reincarnations, you have learned the lesson and you are literally no longer a member of the human race, for you elect to leave it. Only the conscious self dwells within it in any case, and other portions of your identity dwell simultaneously within other training systems. In more advanced systems, thoughts and emotions are automatically and immediately translated into action, into whatever approximation of matter there exists. Therefore, the lessons must be taught and learned well.

The responsibility for creation must be clearly understood. To some extent you are in a soundproof and isolated room. Hate creates destruction in that "room" and until the lessons are learned, destruction follows destruction... In the terms of other systems, that kind of destruction does not exist - but you believe that it does, and the agonies of dying are sorely felt. It is not that you must be taught not to destroy, for destruction does not actually exist. It is that you must be trained to create responsibly.

The weapons of destruction are the obvious things that you see. The counterparts are not so evident, and yet it is the counterparts that are important: the self-discipline learned, the control, the compassion that is finally aroused, and that final and last lesson - the positive desire for creativity and love over destruction and hatred. When this is learned, the cycle is finished.

The training will serve you for existence in a variety of interrelated systems. If the sorrows and agonies within your system were not felt as real, the lesson would not be learned.

The teachers within your system are those in their last reincarnation, and other personalities who have left the system but have been assigned to help those still within it.

The system also includes some fragment personalities what are entering for the first

time, as well as those in later reincarnations.

Humanity dreams the same dream at once, and you have your mass world. The whole construction is like an educational play in which you are the producers as well as the actors. There is a play within a play within a play. There is no end to the "within" of things. The dreamer dreams, and the dreamer within the dream dreams. But the dreams are not meaningless, and the actions within them are significant. The whole self is the observer and the participator in the roles.

©Andy Hughes

// posted by Alice @ Friday, February 27, 2009 0 Comments

Got your attention with the title, didn’t I? LOL

I woke up this morning to hear, on the national news channels, it has now been determined that if women drink even one alcoholic beverage each day, they are putting themselves at risk for several kinds of cancer. Fortunately for me, I stopped drinking alcohol over twenty years ago, huh? But hearing this news made me chuckle, as I watched the stunned faces of the women who were discussing this new report. Wasn’t it just a few short years ago we were told to drink one glass of red wine, every day, to help keep the heart healthy? It seems one year we are being told that something is good for us, and just a few short years later we discover it is just the opposite. What and who exactly can we believe?

The bottom line is that whatever we believe to be true becomes our truth, and sadly, we tend to buy into the beliefs of others far too quickly…especially if we assume them to be some type of “authority” on the subject. How odd it is to discover the only one who is an authority on truth is the self, and more…that truth can only be true for that person!

Last week, when I went to a book study group in San Marcos, I strolled in with my dinner of Mentos and a Coke Zero. As I scanned the room, I noticed I was the only one with any type of “forbidden” fruit. Everyone else was dutifully sipping on bottled water. I pointed out that, in my beliefs, I’ve decided Coke Zero isn’t bad for me, so I choose to drink it. I’m sure that had to shock some people…more than likely a few were thinking how irresponsible and “wrong” my belief is. I understand.

Years ago, I read the Seth books, by Jane Roberts. I remembering laughing and laughing at the irreverence of this amazing woman. The most unlikely person in the world became a conduit for channeling, and she hated every minute of it. I recall, in one of her books, where she was speaking with an elderly man…well into his 90s…about his disgusting habit of smoking. She, too, was a smoker. It was hard to believe that he had lived such a long and healthy life, in spite of his addiction to cigarettes. She asked him how he was able to continue to smoke, without any physical effects, and he explained that he simply believed they caused him no harm. Her guides confirmed that it was his beliefs that enabled him to do what most people couldn’t. Now, I’m not recommending that we go out and consume massive quantities of unhealthy food or addictive substances, because I don’t think this would work for the vast majority of people. Most have bought into collective ideas about what is good and not good, and consuming things that the subconscious mind has learned is bad will only cause harm. That one particular man was an exception to the rule. He had no counter beliefs to sabotage what he had determined was true for him. My point is simply this…our beliefs are creating our worldly experience.

Sometimes, in my most upbeat moments, I imagine a day when we will no longer buy into beliefs that don’t serve us. I envision a world where we design each moment as magically delicious. We all believe we are perfect, beautiful, abundant, happy, prosperous, and healthy. Perhaps that more closely resembles what we call Heaven, and perhaps that is exactly why such a “place” exists. There is a part of us that recognizes we have this ability. Unfortunately, when we came up with this paradise called Heaven, we also attached an amendment that says the only way to get there is to live a good life and then die! Hmmmm…well, at least Christ Jesus didn’t agree. He told us we can have it here and now.

Knowing that we are the designers of our destiny, we always have the option of choosing well. But to do so, we are going to first have to wake up from the dream long enough to realize it is just that…a dream. We have to stop living as though the life around us is outside our control–as if it operates off of another system that we cannot access. Most importantly, we need to understand the illusory nature of it all.

People tend to shy away from the word illusion, because it doesn’t make sense to call solid, physical objects illusions. The problem is in the interpretation of that word. To simplify, we just need to get clear that the experience of all this absolutely does appear to be reality. As has been said, if we step out in front of a moving truck, the physical body is going to be flattened! Why? Because we are operating from two experiences…a dense, heavy vibration and a light, airy one. In our dense version, we agreed on rules that tell us objects are solid. But almost everyone, today, knows that solid objects are not solid, nor are they fixed. Looking into the quantum field, we magnified objects to such a degree, we discovered that what appears to be a solid, fixed table is really vast amounts of empty space with vibrating particles of energy popping in and out of our awareness. The truth is…we are all walking around, sitting on, and standing in empty space for the most part. Not to worry, though. The whole thing–including our bodies–is just a projected image, anyway, so we aren’t going to fall through space. There is an underlying field of dark energy (the something of nothingness) that holds it all in place. Yep…fortunately for us, we have a remarkably intelligent designer who covered all the bases.

Is it possible that the world “out there” is not as fixed as we’ve come to believe? Yes! We are learning more and more about this, each and every day. We are starting to understand that the forms we experience as physical are projections in our minds. It is all just perception. We are observing our environment and translating photons of light/energy into the experience of solid objects. To top it all off, we got lost in our own creation, and we forgot it isn’t really even out there. The entire universe is within the imagination.

As we experience being in this world, we make up rules and truths along the way. The more of us that accept those beliefs, the more “truth” about them is placed into the collective dream. Here and there, some reject the collective ideas, however, and challenges offer opportunities to replace old ideas with new ones. In every moment of every day, we have the option to change what we have believed to be absolute truth. In doing so, we discover the world around us changes.

I strongly reccomend that we all take a good long look at what we’ve accepted as truth. Are the beliefs operating our lives promoting our health, welfare and happiness? If not, we have the option of replacing them with new ones. With EFT, we can remove the background beliefs that hold us back, and then replace them with new perceptions that grant us the lives we always dreamed of having. It absolutely works…and that is one truth I’m holding onto!

So, ladies…what’s it gonna be? Are we going to simply agree with this new “fact” that one glass of alcohol per day is a major risk factor for numerous cancers? Or will we determine that our own truth rejects that idea? The most important thing to keep in mind is that we have the freedom to decide what is true for each of us. We do not have to accept ideas that cause us harm. In the end, I suppose what we are returning to is the debate on whether the universe we live in supports or harms us.

I don’t know about you, but in my world, everything works in my favor! Oh…and that thing about water causing cancer? Not true!

I AM…Jodi www.godisaverb.com/blog

// posted by Alice @ Wednesday, February 25, 2009 2 Comments

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// posted by Alice @ Tuesday, February 24, 2009 0 Comments

From: http://www.cnn.com/ posted by Bibliofuture of LISNews

John Deutch the former CIA chief who made Berger look like a Boy Scout has been appointed by DNI to a post in the Obama administration.

Deutch mishandled classified documents, as this clown actually put Top Secret documents on his home computer. Clinton pardoned Deutch in his flurry of hundreds of last minute pardons.

They have to be kidding, a guy who is in charge of the CIA is fiddling around with Top Secret documents on his home computer, gets his hand slapped and several years later they are asking his advice on sensitive national security matters.

Why don't they just offshore the whole think to North Korea?

// posted by Alice @ Monday, February 23, 2009 0 Comments

by MickeyZ

Natty Seidenverg is a writer and an activist from the high desert region of Cascadia. She's been giving radical love workshops for about three years and was kind enough share her thoughts with me, via e-mail. Here's the result:

Mickey Z.: What do you mean by the term "radical love"? Does it automatically imply polyamory? Does it automatically exclude monogamy?

Natty Seidenverg: Radical love does not have a concrete definition, and that is purposeful. I came to my understandings of radical love and radical environmentalism at the same time, so for me, radical love is literally against concrete. Rather than offering a single, universal definition for “radical love,” I think we need to pay more attention to the heterogeneity of love in varying circumstances, and we need to become attuned to the fact that just as most living things change across time and from one bioregion and one person to another, so do ideas about love. Love is not manufactured, and it defies stasis or universality. That said, radical love as a term does have some broad and important currents. Unlike monogamy or polyamory, radical love is about quality, not quantity. For me, radical love simply means applying my politics to my way of loving.

MZ: I'll assume you're talking about something deeper and more venerable than a 1960s "love the one you're with" philosophy- something more rooted in social activism. Can you offer a little historical context for radical love?

NS: The stereotype about the 1960's free love movement has to do with the patriarchal appropriation of freedom and sexuality—the idea that the only place for a woman in a movement is prone, or that women are not "radical" enough if they do not succumb to the desires of their male comrades. But the 1960's/1970's free love movement was rooted in an earlier free love movement of the late 1800's. The first wave was basically an overlap of the anarchist movement (which was male dominated) and the women's rights movement (which was mostly statist). At that intersection, free love as a philosophy was born. At the heart of free love at that time was not only women's right to say yes to sex outside of the traditional strictures, but also their ability to say no. Marital rape was not condemned back then. The early free love movement was about the right of everyone to say yes to love and sex, as well as to say no. That is the fundamental difference between the 1960's stereotypes and the root of the free love movement. My understanding of radical love is informed much more by the earlier movement.

MZ: Wow...this sounds like yet another example of our (sic) history books failing us miserably. All right, with a flexible definition and some historical background as foundation, let's bring radical love into present day perspective. As you well know, human society and culture are dominated by hierarchies, profit margins, and a dangerous disconnect between humans and their natural habitat. How does one love ethically in such a corrupted environment?

NS: Well, first of all I want to say that we live in a dominator culture that is globalizing and everyday making the existence of healthy, land based communities more impossible. In this particular culture, imbalance and exploitation are so common that many people fail to perceive them. We have imbalances in power between people—or what bell hooks calls a “white supremacist capitalist patriarchy.” We have devastating imbalances between humans and the more-than-human world. How can we expect to have healthy relationships when our most basic relationship of survival—our relationship to the natural world— is based on exploitation and alienation? And finally, we have imbalances in human values. In a capitalist society, greed, control, and ownership are privileged values and even necessary to survival. Rather than the values of generosity, community, communication, and consensus, it is the former values that gain “freedom” in this society. So how do we love and live in a balanced, ethical way when we are surrounded by this world of imbalance? I would say the first step is to name the disconnections, exploitations, and power imbalances, as I have briefly done here. Secondly, we need to consider how each of these imbalances are “normalized” through the institution of compulsory monogamy. And finally, radical or ethical love relationships requires challenging ourselves at each level of imbalance—between humans, humans and the natural world, and human values. Only when we begin to think of our relationships as deeply entwined with these other processes will we begin to live in full, healthy, empowering, free, and abundant communion with others.

MZ: I can just imagine the extreme reactions you get to the phrase "institution of compulsory monogamy." Like any deep-seated institution (e.g. meat-based diet, religions, capitalism, etc.) monogamy sometimes seems as "natural" as breathing. Obviously, you're not condemning any two humans who willingly choose a one-on-one relationship so talk to me a little about the institution of monogamy (with a capital M, as you often say).

NS: Institutions are “mechanisms of social order and cooperation governing the behavior of a set of individuals.” As an institution, monogamy is enforced via state, church, and social coercion. Monogamy, similar to heterosexuality, intra-racial dating, and conforming to gender binaries, is compulsory. Most people don’t know they have other options. Monogamy is reinforced at every level of society, whether through jokes at the family dinner table, sneers at the strange neighbors, legal mandates enforced by state and federal governance, codes of conduct in employment contracts, or morals preached at the local church. Monogamy is culturally and institutionally enforced as the only, the natural, and the moral way to live. I like to talk about “Monogamy with a capital M” to differentiate this pattern of social coercion from the individual act of two people choosing to be in a loving relationship without other sexual partners. Such a choice is no less beautiful than any other loving formation. Once a person starts thinking outside the Monogamy “box,” a one-on-one relationship becomes freer, and one begins to see all her partner’s relationships as valuable, nuanced, and meaningful. It feels very powerful to understand oneself as a single thread in the web of a lover’s relationships, and to want to support that web rather than wanting to dominate it.

MZ: What seems most interesting and perhaps daunting in a way is how radical love (or polyamory) differs from other non-traditional choices. If someone swears off the animal-based diet and becomes vegan, it's clear: you will not see them eating a Big Mac. If another person renounces, say, Catholicism and becomes an atheist, well, you're not gonna run into them receiving Communion at Sunday Mass. Defining radical love, on the other hand, appears to be more like trying to define "art." You know, the whole eye of the beholder deal. How would you counsel someone seeking to break free of compulsory Monogamy and instead embark on a personal journey of ethical loving?

NS: You are absolutely right. Radical love is a different way of thinking about the world that defies easy categories. It involves being perceptive, nuanced, and communicative to no end. It involves having the self-awareness to know when we might be making assumptions or following pre-conceived narratives. It involves creativity, clarity, care, consent, and confidence. It involves having a sense of security in ones' self, so much so that the integrity of a lover is more important than the stability of any particular form the relationship might take. Most of all, it involves a very wonderful word, "compersion," which poly writers describe as the opposite of jealousy. It is the feeling of being happy, even elated, for your lover when s/he embraces other relationships, sexual and nonsexual alike. It takes a strong heart to love deeply and freely at the same time. That strength does not come overnight, but it is a small form of liberation which informs and shapes a foundation for all our political and social struggles.

To read more about Natty Seidenverg and radical love, you can visit: http://loveradical.wordpress.com http://polywog.wordpress.com

Mickey Z. can be found on the Web at http://www.mickeyz.net

// posted by Alice @ Monday, February 23, 2009 0 Comments

This week's Casual Fridays study was inspired by this comment on the Random Number thread:

When a freshman at Penn State too many years ago to count, the intro psychology prof did an amazing demonstration. I wonder if anyone knows the answer to this which I have long forgotten.

He said he had written the numbers 1 through 5 in random order on a piece of paper. He then asked the very large class to read his mind and write down his number order.

When the class compiled the answers, more than 50% of the class had his order, and so proved that telepathy was possible!!!

The class was ecstatic, until he then told us that humans more often than not arrange those numbers in that particular sequence that he had.

Does anyone know what that sequence order is?

I have puzzled over this for years since.

I thought we might do Bobbysoxer a favor by uncovering the number sequence, if indeed it exists. I was skeptical: half the class? A sequence of five items, in random order? Since there are 120 possible unique sequences of the numbers 1 through 5, a random distribution of responses would mean fewer than one percent of answers would be in any given order. Chances that HALF the responses would be the same seem remote.

That's not to say that responses will be truly randomly distributed. But I doubted that any single combination of digits would even approach 50 percent.

Our survey asked respondents to randomly arrange the digits 1 through 5 -- and also 1 through 4, and 1 through 3. Perhaps with a smaller range of choices we'd get something approaching Bobbysoxer's memory of the event.

First let's take a look at the distribution of responses for the digits 1 through 5. How "random" were our answers?

The most popular response was "12345", selected by 5.3 percent of our 1,409 respondents. Yes, technically, sometimes a "random" arrangement of those digits would come out in that order, but I suspect this reflects the percentage of our readers who are cheeky and want to make a point about "randomness," not the amazing mystery number Bobbysoxer remembers from college. Second most popular was "54321" with 3 percent of the responses. The next three sequences were tied: "34251", "53421", and "52314", each with 1.8 percent of the total response. That's hardly the 50 percent response that would have been so impressive to a class of intro psych students.

I suspect either the professor did something else to lead the students to respond in the way they did, or Bobbysoxer's memory isn't entirely accurate. What's clear from our study is that there's no "particular sequence" that most people arrange a sequence of five digits in.

That said, there were still some interesting patterns in the data. Take a look at this:

This shows the percent of people choosing each possible first digit in the sequence. They were significantly more likely to choose 3 or 5 than the other digits.

What about four-digit sequences? Were there any trends there? Once again, nothing as dramatic as what Bobbysoxer recalled. The most common response was "4231", with 6.7 percent of responses. This isn't anywhere near 50 percent, and only 2.5 percent above the expected 4.2 percent in a random sample. Was there a pattern with first digits?

This time, 1 was the least common first digit, with just 18.9 percent of an expected 25 percent responses. Interestingly, if you subtract out the 6 percent of respondents who answered "1234", answers starting with 1 sink to a very low 12.9 percent of the total -- about half of what would be expected due to chance.

What about 3-digit sequences? Here we see a bit more of a pattern to the answers.

With just six possible combinations, "231" garnered 22.6 percent of responses, and answers starting with 2 accounted for 43 percent of answers. But still, even with only three digits to arrange, no one answer accounts for anything near the 50 percent Bobbysoxer recalls.

But as with four-digit numbers, there seems to be a definite reluctance to start with the number 1.

So is it possible that Bobbysoxer's teacher somehow led his students to pick a particular sequence? It might be, although I'm having a hard time coming up with exactly how it might have been done. Perhaps the class had to fill out a form with a course number or some other numeric item before responding to the "mind-reading" challenge.

I didn't try to lead the respondents in a particular direction with this study, but another part of our study may have revealed just how suggestible people can be. We also asked respondents to "pick a random word and type it below."

Out of 1,409 responses, you wouldn't expect many repeats, given the fact that there are over 70,000 words in frequent use in the English language (math/stats whizzes: can you compute the expected number of repeats?). Yet there were in fact 409 repeats, including several words that were produced ten or more times. The most common word was "random," repeated 40 times (and of course, that word appeared immediately above the answer box). Next most popular was "pickle", with 20 repetitions ("pick" was also in the instructions for the question). Other common choices were "banana" and "monkey" (we use Survey Monkey to host our surveys). Food items were chosen dozens of times (we had previously asked how often readers went to the grocery store).

And take a look at this graph showing how frequently words were chosen starting with each letter:

The red bars show our survey responses, while blue shows the average incidence of starting letters in the English language. As you can see, our respondents chose words starting with B, C, and P significantly more frequently than those words actually appear in English. The discrepancy may again be due to our prompt -- it starts with a "P" word, "pick," and ends with a "B" word, "below."

I didn't find any correlation between the responses to the other "random" questions and how random the number sequences were, but in case you're interested, here are some of those results:

// posted by Alice @ Friday, February 20, 2009 0 Comments

Ninety percent of our brains are unused by humans. What that part of the brain is for remains undiscovered. The remaining ten percent is used to function in daily life.

The ability is within everyone to communicate using only the power of the mind. We are able to see what others are thinking without saying anything or using any physical effort.

We are taught from birth to not pursue our natural ability to send and receive telepathic messages.It would more than likely be considered “weird” or a sign of a mental problem if we did recognize this ability.

We involve ourselves with other things in life and forget about such nonsense until the day comes that we know something we should not and ponder for a short time only to push it further to the back of our mind again.

Is this a psychic ability or are we communicating with others through telepathy. Did you receive a message from someone needing to contact you?

We connect subconsciously with others all the time. Our minds have the capacity to learn to do this on a regular basis anytime we feel a desire to. We can develop this natural ability to use at will.

Mental telepathy is a talent we are all born with. The fact is most people never consciously use it therefore our natural ability to communicate with our mind is never developed. As a result most people never learn or even realize they have this power. In fact many believe they have this power is but do not know how to make it work for them.

Scientist say our though have a frequency and can be measured. A person can learn to use this to contact others and send messages. These thoughts or frequencies must be channeled in the right way in order to be effective in communication.

Some techniques to enhance your telepathic abilities

*Get relaxed - You need to put yourself into a trance like mode, this will allow your mind to receive messages that others are trying to send you or if you want to connect with someone. When your mind and body are relaxed you are open to send and receive telepathic messages.

If you are wanting to develop the ability to be telepathic, work on getting into the trance state to be successful with it.

*Learn to focus - Find a place where you will not be disturbed, relax your mind and body. Picture the one you want to communicate with mentally. Send the message and assure yourself they are getting it. Don’t make it a command just tell the person you would like to hear from them and think pleasing thoughts about them.

*Believe - You have to believe in what you are doing and have an open mind about it. As you grow your telepathic ability, always believe the person will get the message.

*Stop the exercise - Snap yourself out of your dreamy state and go about your daily routine. This is an important part of the whole process.

When you let go of the positive impressions the person you were trying to contact should feel that any thoughts about you will be missing and the urge to contact you to re-establish that communication should be strong. Don’t be surprised if the person you were reaching out to calls you soon.

This is a great way to become focused on developing and using telepathy to communicate. You can use two people to practice and enhance your abilities.

A quick way to practice with two people.

*One Sends and One Receives - Determine who wants to be the sender and who will be the receiver. We will start with you being the sender.

Since you are the sender your friend the receiver needs to have a pen and paper handy and be prepared to write down what comes into their mind. The receiver may feel silly at first so remember to stress how important it is to write everything down regardless of how trivial it may seem.

*Visualize - You are the sender so you should have some simple images in mind to send to your receiver. These should be well known objects, for instance, a star, an orange, or an apple. These will be simple and easy to focus on and easier for you receiver to get than more complex images.

*Transmission - Lie back and focus on connecting with your receiver. Imagine the two of you are connected and thoughts are flowing through a wire or cord back and forth. You can visualize this in a way that works for you as long as it represents a connection.

Get a clear picture of your image and send it down the line. Imagine a clear, bright picture of it racing or flowing to your receiver. Stay focused on the object until you see it reach the receiver.

The art of visualizing and focusing is the best way to get your message out to the one you need to reach.

*End Transmission - When you feel that your thought-object has reached its destination, stop projecting and allow your mind to be blank. This pause in transmission is important because it allows your receiver time to realize that an image really did appear. When it stops it also allows the receiver time to take a note of what image he saw.

*Receive - The receiver needs to approach this with an open mind and want to receive messages. It all needs to be written down as a record to refer to later. It is important to relax and let the message flow in.

We all see have things flowing through or mind when we relax and are receptive to it. A receiver should write anything down that he or she sees, even if it is believed to be a random thought.

*Check the results - When the session is complete, see how well both of you done in sending and receiving images. Anyone will get some of them right as well have the ability to do this. It will take some training to do really well at it as a rule. A perfect score would be very unusual on the first try.

Remember, practice makes perfect!

// posted by Alice @ Friday, February 20, 2009 0 Comments

“It comes about quite naturally because we’re a museum with a lot of Buddhist art in it, and Buddhism is about controlling your mind in order to focus it for meditation,” said the museum’s producer, Tim McHenry, who conceived of the festival.

This two-month event, in its second year, is no sleepy academic and spiritual retreat. Its programming includes talks in which the persistently belligerent comedian Lewis Black, above, encounters an anger-management psychologist, Robert Allan (March 9); Paul Simon brings his guitar in for an exchange with the neuroscientist Daniel J. Levitin about how our minds process music (March 4); and the opera director Peter Sellars explores visual perception with the neuroscientist Semir Zeki (March 21).

There are countless other draws: the documentary “Dalai Lama Renaissance,” narrated by Harrison Ford, follows thinkers who visit the Dalai Lama to discuss how to change the world (Saturday, Sunday, Feb. 28 and March 1), and the premiere of a work by John Tavener will ring out on multiple levels in the museum’s galleries (April 23). But the feature that holds the broadest appeal is the improbable pairings of celebrities with scientists.

// posted by Alice @ Thursday, February 19, 2009 0 Comments

If you are familiar with new age literature today then you are aware of the law of attraction. Guys this law has nothing to do about women and everything to do about women. The law of attraction states that everything in the universe is energy at its base level. All energy vibrates and based on your level of vibration things are drawn into your reality or attracted to you.

So no it is not about women but it can explain why you keep getting hooked up with the same ole crazy woman. If you take it a little farther there are no coincidences, accidents or luck that enters into your reality. All things are orchestrated by the beautifully woven tapestry of the universe in which we are all a part. Damn, that was almost poetic! Everything in the universe is connected. Based on this premise that all things are connected, tarot cards have been used successfully for hundreds of years.

Are you Skeptical about the success of tarot cards? Let’s use a little common sense logic. If they did not work would they be in use and last for hundreds of years? Were you skeptical of the stockbroker that gave you that tip on the last hot buy before the market went into the toilet? Maybe you should have been! People have had great success with tarot cards for hundreds of years. That’s why they have stayed around and people keep coming back. With the success that you’ve had in the market, why do you keep going back to that broker?

In a tarot card reading you concentrate on a question. You then are dealt a “spread” of cards. When you are concentrating you are sending out a vibe to the universe. Because your energy vibrates at any given point in time the cards that find their way into your spread are specifically attracted to your energy or vibration. There are no coincidents, accidents or luck. The cards are attracted to your energy.

A skilled “reader” can interpret the cards based on your question and their intuition. A tarot card reader can be psychic but they don’t have to be to give a good reading. It is more of an intuitive art. The cards are a snap shot of the energy that you are putting out, at any moment in time, to the universe. That stockbroker? He just threw a dart at a board full of companies, hit one that then called you! At least the tarot reader taps into the universe, that stock broker just tapped the phone and you came up.

Choosing tarot card reader is like choosing a preacher. Do you want to hear a sermon of fire and brimstone and how you have one foot in hell and the other foot on a banana peel? Or do you want one that will give you hope and that you can be a better human being? Ok, I’m kidding with the analogy of the fire and brimstone tarot reader. But do understand that reading the cards is not a science. Different readers can look at the same card and interpret it different ways. No right or wrong simply their perspective and how they feel your energy.

I was a skeptic about tarot cards until I understood how they fit with my vibrational energy and the law of attraction. A good tarot reader can aid you in many areas of your life. For example, what would be your best career path? Why you seem to get involved with the same type person in relationships? Things you need to do to develop a good relationship. They can aid you in how to handle certain situations in a relationship, at work, at home, in business and any number of life’s issues that you may not quite have a grasp of.

Because all parts of your life are interconnected within the tapestry of the universe, a good tarot reading can be an awesome aid in your daily life. Unorthodox? Yes. But relevant in ways that many do not yet realize. There is no accident that you are reading this blog. Because of the law of attraction you drew it into your awareness. Now you need to act on the message. There are many skilled tarot card readers that you can connect with online. Find one that is reputable and allow them to give you a reading. Gentlemen, lighten up. Learn how you fit into this universe. Learn why Becky Sue (a southern bell, talks like Jessica Simpson or Beyonce’) keeps showing up in your life even though the name and body keeps changing. Tarot can be an excellent tool.

If you learn to read the cards for yourself they can be an excellent way for you to connect to your higher self. Our spiritual guides are always sending us messages. Unfortunately most of us are so grounded in ego consciousness that we miss the subtle messages our guides send. You can ask your guides for guidance and they will give you messages with the cards. Tarot cards can help you interpret your dreams. You can continue to be a skeptic, but hundreds of years of success behind this divination tool speak for itself. There is some much more to our universe than our five senses can detect. Why not use different tools to help guide you in this life. You are an extraordinary being. Learn who you are. All of who you are. Allow your guides to direct your path.

Reginaldc is me @reginaldc.me

// posted by Alice @ Wednesday, February 18, 2009 0 Comments

Earlier this year, I received a copy of Telepathy for review. It is a newly produced game by LMD Enterprises – a new startup based in Seattle, Washington. The game is advertised as “a strategy game combining logic, deduction, and more…”.

Well, based on the one sentence tagline, I was immediately interested, as I generally like all sorts of deduction games. Further examination of the game’s website brought up this blurb: “In this puzzle solving challenge of deduction, logic and intuition, players go head to head to see who can be the first to guess their opponent’s secret square. Every action turn brings you closer to finding the hidden, ancient symbol. But watch out; your opponent may be closer to solving your secret square than you think! The Telepathy board game is an outstanding logic building tool, ideal for educators and puzzle solvers alike. If you like Sudoku, Mastermind, or Battleship, this game is for you.”

The game focuses on a 18x18 board. There are 9 colors and 9 shapes involved in the game, and each combination of color and shape is represented 4 times on the 18x18 board. The columns are numbered 1 to 18 and the rows are lettered A to R. At the beginning of the game, each player picks out his “secret square” - any square on the board – and then writes down the row, column, color, and shape.

Once each player has chosen a secret square, you then go about trying to ascertain the secret square of your opponent. Now, admittedly, I’ve only played the game in a 2-player format thus far – so it was always a simple head-to-head battle. If you have 3 or 4 players, each player tries to discover the secret square of the person in front of them in turn order.

In any event, each round follows a simple pattern – you simply nominate any square on the board and announce the row, column, color and shape. Your opponent then simply gives you a “Yes” or “No” answer. If you match any of the four characteristics of the secret square, you get a “Yes”. If ALL four characteristics do not match, then you get a “No”. After you ask your question, your opponent gets to ask you one about your secret square and so on.

The game continues on in the format until one player thinks they know what their opponent’s secret square is. Instead of their normal turn, they announce that they are guessing at what the secret square is. If they guess right – they win the game. If they guess wrong, they are eliminated from the game. (And since I played only two player games, they would therefore lose the game by guessing incorrectly).

That’s all there is to the game – it’s deceptively simple to figure out. At first it didn’t make sense why players would have to announce all the characteristics of the space they were guessing at – but after awhile, it became apparent that announcing all those things made it much harder for a mistake to be made in giving the Yes/No answer. Like all logic/puzzle games, the entire game can break down if there is an error in the information reporting.

But the big question – is it fun? Yes, Telepathy is a fun game. It is a nice simultaneous logic puzzle game. I would have to disagree with the assertion that it is also a deduction game, as I have really found no deduction whatsoever in the play of the game. The start of the game is a race to eliminate as many colors/shapes/rows/columns as possible early on in the game. Then, once you’ve eliminated out a large portion of the board, you then carefully examine the board to find out which squares will give you the vital pieces of information that you need to solve the puzzle. Games tend to be fairly quick – most of my games have ended within 15 minutes.

You can often tell how your opponent is doing by examining the questions being asked of you. As the endgame nears, if you feel that your opponent is close to determining your own secret square, you may have to make a guess between two or three possible choices when guessing at the secret square – but this isn’t deduction. It’s guessing. But, if you think your opponent is about to guess at your square – sometimes it’s worth the risk to make a guess with incomplete information in order to try to sneak out the win. Of course… if you guess wrong, then you’ve lost (though maybe you would have lost anyways?)

As I mentioned before, all of my games thus far have been the two-player variety. There are rules included to allow you play with more, either as teams or cut-throat. However, most of these rules seem artificial (from my reading of them). I suspect that if I ever had 4 people together that wanted to play Telepathy, I’d start 2 simultaneous games and then switch opponents between games.

There is one advanced variant to the game which is quite interesting. In this version of the game, each player chooses two secret squares and you win only be deducing the identities of both of your opponent’s secret squares. Now, I’ve only played this way once, so I’m not sure if I prefer it to the basic game. It is a much more difficult process of figuring out where the secret squares are – and in fact, for those not inclined to logic puzzles – it may actually be more work than fun. To compensate for the increased difficulty, you are not eliminated from the game if you make an incorrect guess at the two secret squares. In this version, you merely lose a turn for making an incorrect guess. In any event, this advanced version converts the game into a pretty significant brain burner.

The components of the game are pretty well made. There are 4 large coated boards that provide you with your 18x18 grid – and the boards are big enough that it is easy to see the contents of each square. There are also 4 smaller cards provided so you can write down the information about your secret square. The dry-erase markers that are included work well, and importantly, they erase easily. My only complaint of the components might be the box. The box is made of the same coated cardboard material and it is STICKY. The inner face of by box is already marred by fingernail impressions as I’ve had to dig my nails into the box to get it to come open before playing. However, the complaints about the box are minimal when taking in the game as a whole.

Telepathy has been about a year in development. According to the designer, Derek Chinn, his inspiration to design the game came from a 2007 Christmas gift. He was able to get his game idea into good form by May of the following year and, thru FunHub Creative, he was able to have finished copies of his game available by November, 2008. At the current time, the game is available thru his website (http://www.telepathygame.com/) as well as getting hooked up with a distributor. If you’re a fan of logic games (or Mastermind or Battleship), you’ll probably enjoy playing Telepathy, and I’d encourage you to give it a try.

Until your next appointment, The Gaming Doctor

// posted by Alice @ Wednesday, February 18, 2009 0 Comments

The Dark Tower in Scorpius

In silhouette against a crowded star field toward the constellation Scorpius, this dusty cosmic cloud evokes for some the image of an ominous dark tower. In fact, clumps of dust and molecular gas collapsing to form stars may well lurk within the dark nebula, a structure that spans almost 40 light-years across the gorgeous telescopic view. Known as a cometary globule, the swept-back cloud, extending from the upper right to the head (top of the tower) left and below center, is shaped by intense ultraviolet radiation from the OB association of very hot stars in NGC 6231, off the left edge of the scene. That energetic ultraviolet light also powers the globule's bordering reddish glow of hydrogen gas. Hot stars embedded in the dust can be seen as small bluish reflection nebulae. This dark tower, NGC 6231, and associated nebulae are about 5,000 light-years away. ...

// posted by Alice @ Tuesday, February 17, 2009 0 Comments

Where is your water?

Where is your garden?

Where is your community?

...

The universe doesn’t care about fancy linguistics or belief systems.

The actuality of our human condition is this: There is no way around emotional cleansing. There is no one that can save us from this required inner work. There is no fancy machine that can do it for us. There is no councilor or facilitator or healer that can do it for us. There are no changes in political policy or religious addresses or shifts in the interest rate that impact this predicament by even 0.0001%. Only inner work accomplishes emotional integration.

In 2009 – those who do not have the capacity – and who have not already been doing the work to develop the capacity - to contain the exponentially increasing waves of the vibrational – shall commence equal and opposite exponentially accelerated self-destruction. Those who have eyes to see already real eyes this. Many will also fervently partake in the collective destruction of others.

2009 also contains within its frequency the strong possibility that many may still awaken in time to tend to their emotional responsibilities. However, the window of opportunity for the required organic unfolding of emotional development is fast closing.

In 2009 it shall become disturbingly apparent that it is no longer possible for the masses to sedate and control the authentic state of their emotional bodies. The rising vibrational impulses shall be too powerful for those who have not consciously practiced containment. These impulses shall override the hold pharmaceuticals, alcohol, cigarettes, and street drugs currently have as far as ‘masking the authenticity of our collective human emotional predicament’.

This sudden increase in random, outwardly-projected, destructive behavior of the masses is already increasingly obvious and has already been active-8-ed for all to witness in the most unexpected places. The wheels for this unfolding have already been ‘Greece-d’, one might say: One person is killed and millions riot in reaction – burning and destroying everything in their path.

In 2009 many will continue to face unemployment – but the riot police departments on planet earth will definitely not. On the contrary, they will offer great recruitment packages! Watch your local press for details and employment opportunities!

The only hope for humanity right now is that there are enough self-trained alchemists willing to open themselves up completely to feel and contain these escalating vibrational impulses. There are clearly no longer enough Indigenous Elders to accomplish this on our behalf.

2009 is time for us to ‘grow up’ and take our place at the table of planetary guardianship.

Many have been given all the necessary tools to approach the unfolding experiences upon our planet consciously. However, because of our trance state, many of us have foolishly viewed and used these tools in terms of ‘their efficiency in helping us to get what we want’ – as opposed to opening us up to develop the capacity ‘to receive what we require’.

‘What is actual’ is that most so-called ‘civilized humans’ no longer have the capacity to discern between a need, a want, or a requirement. Such capacity requires significant emotional development, and emotional development, like the growth of a flower, is an organic unfolding. It cannot be quickly organized by politicians, discounted on a summer sale by profiteers, or granted via absolution to congregations by priests. Those who are not already consciously developing themselves emotionally are unlikely to have the capacity to enter such inner workings.

Once the bulls are charging, the people in the street no longer have the luxury of deciding where in the crowd to position themselves.

The frequency of 2009 is akin to ‘the running of the bulls’. It is fun for those who consciously ‘show up’ and therefore ‘respond’ to the occasion – but horrific and devastating for those who suddenly awaken from their leisurely shopping spree in the midst of panicking masses.

...

// posted by Alice @ Monday, February 16, 2009 0 Comments

Beyond the "If" Posted by:Jennifer Flynn

Watch the trailer.

*

// posted by Alice @ Monday, February 16, 2009 0 Comments

Antonio Vivaldi Bach at age 35

// posted by Alice @ Monday, February 16, 2009 0 Comments

CARACAS, Venezuela — President Hugo Chávez said Saturday that he was ready to engage in direct talks with President Obama in a bid to repair relations with the United States. The statement marked an evolution in Mr. Chávez’s view of Mr. Obama, whom he described last month as having the “same stench” as his predecessor in the White House.

// posted by Alice @ Friday, February 13, 2009 0 Comments

Global economies are withering while Washington conceives “Financial Recovery Plan(s) from Hell,” according to economist Michael Hudson in his latest February 11 article. Bankers demand more trillions, “or (they’ll) plunge the economy into financial crisis.” What they want they’ll get, and here’s where things now stand.

On February 10, Bloomberg.com reported that Treasury Secretary Geithner “pledged government financing for as much as $2 trillion…to spur new lending and address banks’ toxic assets, seeking to end the credit crunch hobbling the economy.” Hudson calls it “Stage One of a two-stage plan,” so far unannounced, to transfer trillions more to corrupt bankers who caused the problem in the first place, yet taxpayers will get little more back than the bill.

On February 11, the New York Times reported that “House and Senate leaders…struck a deal on a $789 billion economic stimulus bill after little more than 24 hours of rapid-fire negotiations…clearing the way for final Congressional action later this week (so) Obama (can) sign the bill on” February 16 in a prime time TV spectacular.

In America today, they’re called bailouts, but throughout history they were handouts. Some quite generous (though nothing like today’s) and always for the privileged. Never for the public interest or greater good.

Last October, Howard Zinn wrote about them in his Nation magazine article titled “Bailout — A Great Opportunity”:

Let’s face a historical truth: we have never had a “free market,” we have always had government intervention in the economy, and indeed that intervention has been welcomed by the captains of finance and industry. These titans of wealth hypocritically warned against “big government” but only when (it) threatened to regulate their activities, or when it contemplated passing some of the nation’s wealth on to the neediest people.

“They had no quarrel with ‘big government’ when it served their needs, (and it) started way back” in 1787 when the Constitution was drafted. The year before farmers from Western Massachusetts and elsewhere rebelled to protect their properties from being seized for nonpayment of taxes. The Founders took note and “created ‘big government’ powerful enough” to deter them in future incidents. To return runaway slaves to their owners, and to massacre Indians to make way for new settlers.

They established the idea of handouts as well. The first one to pay full value for near-worthless bonds held by speculators — an earlier version of buying today’s toxic assets.

It was bad enough, then compounded by taxing the public to pay for them each time, and having a standing army ready in case of resistance. What precisely happened in 1794 when Pennsylvania farmers stood up against unfair tax laws.

“In the first sessions of the first Congress,” markets were manipulated with tariffs “to subsidize manufacturers.” Government also partnered with private banks to establish a national one. These practices were commonplace from that time to now. Only the amounts get bigger. The more concentrated business gets, the greater its appetite and more power it has to satisfy it. It’s now insatiable enough to demand trillions more in handouts before the current crisis ends, looted from the Treasury with taxpayers getting the bill.

Zinn notes how in the 19th century government subsidized canals, the merchant marine, and before and during the Civil War gave about 100 million free acres of land to the railroad barons “along with considerable loans to keep” them in business. It was the largest ever giveaway until Paulson’s-engineered Wall Street one, and as stated above, lots more is coming, and much of it still ahead.

Democrats back it more than Republicans. Another long-standing tradition from the republic’s beginning, as Zinn again noted. He cited Democrat Grover Cleveland vetoing “a bill to give (a mere) $100,000 to Texas farmers to help them buy seed grain during a drought, saying (dismissively): “Federal aid in such cases encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character.” However, in the same year he gave wealthy bondholders $5 million by pricing them $28 above market value. “Rugged individualism” he called it to make it on our own with a little government intervention for assistance. Only for business. Never the public.

After WW II, military Keynesianism became dogma. Aircraft and other defense industries had to be saved and another Depression avoided. The oil industry got its depletion allowance. Chrysler was resurrected from the dead. Continental Illinois Bank was taken over until sold to Bank of America. Business was shored up overall by the 1971 Emergency Loan Guarantee Act. Post-9/11, the Air Transportation Safety and Stabilization Act was for the airlines. Today it’s rescuing Wall Street and major banks, Fannie, Freddie, AIG, the auto giants, and any other “too big to fail” company. Generous government handouts to revive America’s business, or at least that’s the hope behind them.

Historian Charles Beard’s Documented History of Handouts

In December 1931, noted historian Charles Beard wrote about them for Harper’s Monthly in an article titled: “The Myth of Rugged American Individualism.” He documented 15 examples of government handouts/subsidies to business when the country was sinking into Depression.

(1) Government Regulation of Railways from 1887

Beard asked: “How did the Government get into this business?” At the “insistence of business men, shippers, who were harassed and sometimes ruined by railway tactics.” Through rebates, pools, stock watering, bankruptcy-juggling, savage rate slashing, merciless competition, and much more by some of the most cutthroad of all robber barons. They caused disastrous railway bankruptcies involving bloodshed and arson during the Panic of 1873, the result of financier Jim Fisk and railroad baron Jay Gould trying to corner the gold market. Ulysses S. Grant deterred them. A panic ensued and depression followed — two years after the great Chicago fire destroyed four square miles of the city, including close to where this writer lives.

(2) Waterways

Since the nation’s founding, the government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars funding the development of rivers, harbors, canals, and other infrastructure, and continues to do it for business. “Who (was) back of all this,” Beard asked? “Business men and farmers who want lower freight rates. There is not a chamber of commerce on any Buck Creek in America that will not cheer until tonsils are cracked for any proposal to make the said creek navigable.” Dredging companies also backed it and companies making their machinery.

Beyond Beard’s timeline, the Eisenhower administration began building the Interstate Highway System at the behest of the auto industry, but its origin way pre-dated him with the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1938. Then another Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1944. Still another in 1952 and under Eisenhower one more plus the Highway Revenue Act of 1956 that created the Highway Trust Fund to pay for the proposed 41,000 miles of roads (up to almost 47,000 by 2004).

(3) The United States Barge Corporation

Again Beard asked: “Who got the Government into the job of running barges on some of its improved waterways?” Not socialists. Good Republicans and Democrats representing the country’s business interests.

(4) The Shipping Business

WW I was the proximate cause. For over half a century government stayed out of subsidizing ship builders and allied industries. “Under the cover of war necessities,” it went into the business with much joy from the industry. It backed huge merchant marine expenditures in the form of cheap or subsidized funding, and did it by spending money “like water educating politicians.” What today we call lobbying.

Beard asked: “Who wants navy officers on half pay to serve on privately owned ships? Business men. Who wants the Government to keep on operating ships on ‘pioneer’ lines that do not pay? Business men. And when the United States Senate gets around to investigating this branch of business, it will find more entertainment than the Trade Commission has found in the utility inquest.” In other words, if Congress ever has second thoughts, it’ll be too late. Business will have pocketed their money and used it.

(5) Aviation

Government was already in this business by providing costly airway services free of charge and by subsidizing air mail. Once again, private enterprise was behind the whole scheme, or as Beard put it: “Gentlemen engaged in aviation and the manufacture of planes and dirigibles.” Government merely helped out by buying planes “for national defense” or whatever other reason it chose.

(6) Canals

Consider the Panama Canal, for example. East and West coast shippers backed it because of costly railroad rates. Others with a financial interest in the Cape Cod Canal found that one unprofitable. “They rejoiced to see (that) burden placed on the broad back of our dear Uncle Sam” to bail them out.

(7) Highway Building

Even in Beard’s day, “business men engaged in the manufacture and sale of automobiles and trucks” wanted the government to spend hundreds of millions on roads and tax railroads to help pay for them. With a touch of humor, Beard asked: “Who proposes to cut off every cent of that outlay? Echoes do not answer.”

(8) The Department of Commerce

Its very name defines its purpose. To promote what Calvin Coolidge called “the business of America.” A process Beard described going on in its “magnificent mansion near the Treasury Department, and its army of hustlers scouting for business at the uttermost ends of the earth. Who is responsible for loading on the Government the job of big drummer at large for business? Why shouldn’t these rugged individualists do their own drumming instead of asking taxpayers to do it for them?” Herbert Hoover headed the department at the time and outdid all his predecessors in dispensing public money. The same president Herbert Hoover we blame for his public stinginess after the country headed into Depression on his watch.

(9) The Big Pork Barrel

It’s been around for ages and entered into the vocabulary after the Civil War. It was named after a container to store pig meat in brine, and in 1801 a farmer’s almanac urged readers to “mind our pork and cider barrels.” Its need went out with refrigeration but got new life in reference to political bills bringing home the bacon for constituents. For all sorts of things like post offices, rivers, harbors, buildings, and a whole array of boondoggle projects and giveaways. Beard cited public buildings, navy yards and army posts with business interests every time the beneficiaries.

(10) The Bureau of Standards (NBS)

It’s now called the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST), and was originally established in 1901 as a measurement standards lab under the Department of Commerce to promote US innovation and industrial competitiveness. Given its purpose was to help business, Beard asked: “Why shouldn’t they do their own (promoting) at their own expense, instead of turning to the Government?”

(11) The Federal Trade Commission

In 1914, it was established as an independent US government agency. While claiming its principle mission is to promote “consumer protection,” it exists solely for business and in Beard’s day for “business men who do not like to be outwitted or cheated by their competitors.” Why so for “rugged individualists,” he asked? Why not let them all do as they please “without invoking government intervention at public expense” and no public benefit.

(12) The Anti-trust Acts

Beard refers to the 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act and 1914 Clayton Antitrust Act - trustbusting legislation of their day to defuse anti-competititive practices. Today they’re mere artifacts at a time business oligopolies and de facto monopolies dominate all major industry groups and are practically omnipotent. It’s why Chomsky calls them “private tryannies.”

Earlier, businesses complained that these laws constrained them and their ability to do large-scale planning without risking prosecution. Yet farmers and small business wanted them. The former for lower prices. The latter so as not to be undersold, “beaten by clever tricks, or crushed to the wall by competitors with immense capital.”

Individualism inspired both acts, what Woodrow Wilson called “The New Freedom. Break up the trusts,” he said, “and let each tub stand on its own bottom.” That’s how small businessmen felt. Lawyers representing them put it differently: “The natural person’s personal liberty should not be destroyed by artificial persons known as corporations created under the auspices of the State.”

(13) The Tariff

They go back to the 18th century and were the government’s largest source of revenue from the 1790s until WW I. Once income taxes became law in 1913, that changed although taxing income was used during the Civil War and again in the 1890s.

Beard referred to tariffs as the kind of “interference” business men demanded to protect their interests while at the same time wanting “the right of capital to find its most lucrative course, industry and intelligence their natural reward, and commodities their fair price.” The idea of “free trade” then was about the way it is now. One way with government protecting business against foreign competition, heavily by tariffs back then. More today by the WTO, NAFTA and the like. Beard’s response: “If competition is good, why not stand up and take it?”

(14) The Federal Farm Board

It was created in 1929 so was quite new when Beard wrote about it. He called it a “collectivist institution” and a product of “agrarian agitation on the part of our most stalwart individualists, the free and independent farmers.” Hoover sponsored it and signed it into law, but under him its measures were modest at best. It primarily and fundamentally stabilized prices and production through cooperative methods. It financed associations to limit production. The alternative was to let farmers produce what they wish, as much as they could, and sell it at whatever the market would bear. It’s slogan was “Grow Less — Get More,” cooperate under government leadership or hang separately.

(15) The Moratorium and Frozen Assets

It was a Herbert Hoover plan for a one-year moratorium on payments due the US from foreign powers at a time of growing economic duress as well as a “proposal to give public support to ‘frozen assets.’ ” Its “inspiration” was the jam American investment bankers were in. They made easy money in the 1920s, were now in trouble, and wanted government bailout help.

In 1927, a distinguished German economist told Beard that “the great game in his country, as in other parts of Europe, was to borrow billions from private bankers in the US, so that it would ultimately be impossible to pay reparations, the debts due the Federal Government, and then the debts owed to private parties.” As a result, they believed bankers would force their government to forego its claims for the benefit of private operators. It worked, and according to Beard: “American taxpayers (were) to be soaked and American bankers (were) to collect — perhaps.”

What then is a “frozen asset?” A piece of paper representing a transaction expecting to yield a larger return than possible on a prudent investment. For example, a 7% Western farm mortgage at the time was frozen tight and its holder with it. But why should government have to intervene to save them from “their folly and greed? No reason, except that (investors) want the Government to bring home their cake so they can eat it.”

Beard stressed that “the Federal government does not operate in a vacuum, but under impulsion from without.” From “rugged individualists - business men or farmers or both…The Government operates continually in the midst of the most powerful assembly of lobbyists the world has ever seen.” Representing every business interest “above the level of a corner grocery. For forty years or more there has not been a President, Republican or Democrat, who has not talked against government interference and then supported measures adding more interference to the huge collection already accumulated.”

Woodrow Wilson, for example. He based his 1912 campaign on individualism. A new freedom against corporate wealth controlling government. As a Jeffersonianism heir, “he decried paternalism of every kind.” But look at the laws enacted under him:

• the Federal Reserve Act subverting the Constitution by giving a private banking cartel the right to print money, control its supply and price, and charge government interest on what it would not have to pay if it printed its own;
• the Federal income tax to service the federal debt owed to bankers;
• the trainmen’s law virtually fixing wages on interstate railways for certain classes of employees;
• the shipping board law that put the government in the shipping business and let it regulate rates;
• the Farm Loan Act that established 12 regional Farm Loan Banks to serve members of Farm Loan Associations;
• federal aid for highway construction;
• the Alaskan railway;
• the Water Power Act that created a Federal Power Commission with extensive authority over waterways and the construction and use of water power projects; and
• various other acts belying the notion of “the less government the better” so increasingly more of it for business became the law of the land.

Republicans regained power in the early 1920s on a slogan of returning to normalcy and getting government out of business. In fact, they repealed none of Wilson’s laws. They and their ideological forebears “came honestly by subsidies, bounties, internal improvements, tariffs, and other aids to business.” It was their kind of normalcy. Individualism, with no interference, lots of handouts, and nothing changed under Republican and Democrat administrations through today.

Handouts to Business: the American Way of Life

American business is defined by Socialized costs and privatized profits — more than ever today with trillions in handouts plus all sorts of other generous benefits:

• subsidies and other direct grants;
• tax breaks, reductions, deductions, exclusions, write-offs, exemptions, credits, loopholes, shelters, and rebates even for profitable companies; the bigger they are, the more they get;
• letting corporations be headquartered off-shore and pay no federal income taxes; allowed to repatriate foreign earnings on the same basis; export jobs and erode the nation’s industrial base; financialize the economy; make it a casino, and loot the Treasury to cover their bad bets;
• large government contracts of every imaginable kind; some on a cost-plus basis with every incentive to cheat and get more;
• discounted user fees or subsidized use of public resources;
• free government-funded R & D;
• various other government direct payments; every cabinet department as a conduit for government funding to private business; every program from the Department of Commerce, Agriculture and others underwrites it; the FDA for Big Pharma; the FCC for media and telecommunications firms; the FAA for the airlines, the Treasury and Fed for Wall Street, and so forth; the most active “peoples” agency is the IRS;
• other subsidies like accelerated depreciation; the cost of advertising; direct aid for companies that advertise abroad; and much more with Democrats as pro-business as Republicans while at the same time curtailing essential social benefits;
• individual tax breaks for the rich; winking and nodding about billions offshored to tax havens; letting corporate fraud and abuse become the national pastime;
• privatizing more of what government should do and/or does best — schools, highways, bridges, airports, prisons, public lands, utilities, the running of elections, foreign policy, parts of the military, war through the use of mercenaries, outer space, and thus far a failed attempt to take away the most important poverty reduction program for seniors and the disabled — Social Security;
• privatizing wealth and socializing debt;
• abolishing welfare and other social benefits; rendering organized labor impotent in a “Walmartized” society; ruling by the doctrine of rewarding the privileged at the expense of beneficial social change; the greater good; government for the people; human need; and the democratic ideal that government should serve all its people, not just its preferential few.

Beard’s “rugged individualism” is pure myth for them. But, rugged or otherwise, it’s the consigned fate for the rest of us — sink or swim at a time a lot of us are submerging.

// posted by Alice @ Friday, February 13, 2009 0 Comments

Kurt Nimmo Infowars February 13, 2008

The lords of Wikipedia have announced they will delete the Bilderberg attendees list entry on the site because it is allegedly a “totally un-reliably-sourced list [and] possibly defamatory towards living persons.” The announced deletion will occur five days from 2009-02-18 at 14:53.

Wikipedia offers people concerned about this possible deletion the ability to edit the page. “You may remove this message if you improve the article or otherwise object to deletion for any reason. To avoid confusion, it helps to explain why you object to the deletion, either in the edit summary or on the talk page. If this template is removed, it should not be replaced.”

In response, an editor interested in retaining the page added references. Soon after the references were added, however, somebody went on the page and removed them, according to a comment.

	Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales offers excuses for the CIA’s Intellipedia spin-off.

Obviously, certain Wikipedia editors are determined to have the page removed and will engage in vandalism in order to have this happen within the five day period announced. Considering the history and allegations leveled at Wikipedia, this should not come as a surprise.

In 2007, Cal Tech computation and neural-systems graduate student Virgil Griffith developed a software tool that revealed the identities of organizations that edit Wikipedia entries (see Wikipedia ’shows CIA page edits,’ BBC, August 15, 2007). The software revealed editorial changes made by the CIA, the FBI, Diebold, the Democratic Party and the Vatican.

“The Democratic and Republican parties, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the National Institute of Health have also made their fair share of edits. As far as corporations go, Diebold, Amgen, Pfizer, Wal-Mart, Microsoft, Apple, and Exxon Mobil have all made changes. Not to be outdone, the news agencies of Fox News, the New York Times, and Al-Jazeera have also participated,” writes Manila Ryce.

“According to clues accumulated by ordinary citizens around the world, it could be that the CIA and other intelligence agencies are riding the information wave and planting disinformation on Wikipedia,” explains Ludwig De Braeckeleer. “The fact that most Internet search engines, such as Google, give Wikipedia articles top ranking only raises the stakes to a higher level.”

After independent UK journalist and columnist Neil Clark claimed his Wikipedia entry was “consistently maliciously edited” after he critically reviewed a pro-war book penned by Oliver Kamm writing for the Daily Telegraph, the Byzantine Blog wrote that “most internet users who consider Wikipedia a reliable source of information on a whole range of issues, including history and politics, are entirely unaware of” the claim “that Wikipedia is infiltrated by the Western secret services which use it to manipulate truth and prevent the inconvenient facts reaching the wider public, by planting their governments’ official versions of events through Wiki articles.”

And, while the official mainstream media is still filled with praises for the highly dubious Wikiality, independent sources have confirmed Wikipedia is neither “open”, nor “egalitarian”, and certainly not “free”. Unless one thinks CIA and MI5 are veritable fountains of unvarnished, solid-as-gold truths, generously shared with the rest of world for no other purpose but to inform, educate and enlighten the slumbering masses.

Before deciding to rely on Wikipedia as a source of information for serious research on any political subject and most other issues (except for, say, tapeworms and sessile leaves), one would be well advised to heed the warning of founder Jimmy Wales, who personally instructed users not to cite Wikipedia as a source.

Uri Dowbenko is a little more to the point: “Claiming to be a ‘free online encyclopedia,’ Wikipedia is actually a shill for corporate and other internet disinformation, just as AP, also known as Associated Propaganda (or Press), is the Media Cartel’s syndicator of choice, spreading false ‘nooz’ in hometown papers throughout America,” writes Dowbenko. “Wikipedia is the undisputed kudzu weed of the Internet. Just wait till it’s revealed that Jimmy Wales’ Wikipedia is an NSA-CIA-Pentagon PsyOps scam.”

As of this writing, there is no definitive evidence Wikipedia is associated with the CIA or other intelligence agencies. However, other prominent internet information corporations have a well-defined association with the spook world. For instance, Robert David Steele, a 20-year Marine Corps infantry and intelligence officer and a former clandestine services case officer with the CIA, told Alex Jones in 2006 that “Google took money from the CIA when it was poor and it was starting up” and the search engine company is “in bed” with the CIA. “Let me say very explicitly - their contact at the CIA is named Dr. Rick Steinheiser, he’s in the Office of Research and Development,” said Steele.

In 2008, Steve Watson wrote that Google is in the business of providing the search features for a private Wikipedia-style site, called Intellipedia. “Google is selling storage and data searching equipment to the CIA, the FBI, the National Security Agency, and other intelligence agencies, who have come together to build a huge internal government intranet,” Watson reported.

Like Wikipedia, the CIA’s platform is based on the open-source MediaWiki software.

Wikipedia’s Bilderberg entry may be of interest to the CIA considering former CIA director John M. Deutch is a member, according to the entry now up Wikipedia’s chopping block. Walter Bedell Smith, a former CIA director, and Cord Meyer, a former CIA official, are also listed as members.

Again, there is no definitive evidence the CIA is complicit in the recent vandalism of the Bilderberg entry on Wikipedia, however the fact Virgil Griffith’s software caught the agency in the act of editing entries is highly suspicious, to say the least.

Finally, if Wikipedia does indeed delete the entry in question, we have replicated it here for the sake of posterity.

// posted by Alice @ Friday, February 13, 2009 0 Comments

Instead of prosecuting the instigators of these capital crimes, Obama has praised the torturer-in-chief, Bush, for “his service to our country.” He has retained the services of many Bush minions, including some who are in charge of the unconstitutional kangaroo court system of “military commissions” for tortured captives held in the American gulag. He has made a great show of “banning torture” — the same kind of great show that Bush periodically made — while continuing the practice of “harsh interrogation techniques” countenanced by the Pentagon: a series of layered “techniques” of physical torment and psychological persecution that are themselves a system of torture. And his designated CIA chief, Leon Panetta, has testified, under oath, that he will “not hesitate” to urge Obama to go beyond the Pentagon tortures if necessary, while also retaining the practice of kidnapping people and depositing them in the torture chambers of foreign countries without any charges or legal processes whatsoever.

So again, we ask: what is “shocking” in Obama’s intervention to kill a torture case in both an American and a British court? By his own words and deeds, Obama has made clear that not only will he not prosecute his predecessors for their egregious abuse of power, he intends to retain full rights to use those abusive powers himself.

II. Meanwhile, on the economic front, Robert Scheer is shocked — shocked! — to find Obama kowtowing to the robber barons of Wall Street in the latest “bailout” plan. He is shocked that the favorite candidate of Wall Street is now committing trillions of dollars of public money to save Wall Street from its own fraud, crime, greed and stupidity. Yet as Scheer himself rightly notes:

What an insipid anticlimax! Rising to “a challenge more complex than our financial system has ever faced,” Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner promised on Tuesday to give trillions more to the very folks who profited from that malignant complexity. For all the brave talk about transparency and accountability in the banking bailout, he gave the swindlers who got us into this mess yet another blank check to buy up the “toxic assets” they gleefully created…

The New York Times got it right: “… the plan largely repeats the Bush administration’s approach of deferring to many of the same companies and executives who had peddled risky loans and investments at the heart of the crisis. …” Geithner and White House economic czar Lawrence Summers won out over David Axelrod and other Obama advisers more loyal to the wishes of grass-roots voters; “… as intended by Mr. Geithner, the plan stops short of intruding too significantly into bankers’ affairs even as they come onto the public dole.”

The word dole is usually applied heartlessly to welfare mothers sustained in their dire poverty by meager government handouts, not to the top bankers now ripping off the taxpayers. But as opposed to welfare mothers, who must survive stringent monitoring, the bankers will be largely self-monitoring. No wonder that welfare rolls, because of onerous eligibility rules, are not rising commensurate to the degree of misery out there. There is no such tough love for bankers.

It is difficult to understand how anyone could expect anything else from a president who put people like Geithner and Summers in charge of economic policy. Yet, incredibly, Scheer writes:

Believe it or not, I fully expected this morning to write a cheerleading column hailing Geithner’s reversal of course. Surely the man who as head of the New York Fed sat idly by while the Wall Street giants he was supposed to be monitoring imploded would have learned the error of his ways. Otherwise why would Obama have appointed him?

Obama appointed him because he expected Geithner to continue the bailout policies of the Bush Administration, of course. Scheer seems to forget that it was Obama himself who was instrumental in getting the first bailout/giveaway bill passed, dramatically coming back to Washington to lobby and cajole reluctant Democrats into backing the Bush boondoggle.

This is not ancient history. It only happened a few months ago. It was on the front page of all the papers; it was even on the tee-vee. I’m sure Robert Scheer heard about it. Yet he is shocked that Obama is now going to continue — and exacerbate — the worst of Bush’s fat-cat rescue plan, while, as Scheer notes, millions of ordinary people lose their jobs and homes.

Scheer ends on an ominous — if completely impotent — note:

If like me you still get those chatty e-mails from the Obama campaign, it is time to remind them that we voted for the caring community organizer from the streets of Chicago and not some hack carrying water for the predators of Wall Street.

Like a previous president from Illinois — who turned a brief period of youthful rail-splitting into an enduring PR legend while he himself became a prosperous railroad lawyer — it looks like Obama will feast on his liberal cred as a “caring community organizer” for years to come. But whatever he may have been in those distant callow days of youth, he ran for president quite openly as a “hack carrying water for the predators of Wall Street,” as we noted here long ago, following up on the diligent reporting of many others. (Such as Pam Martens, Mike Whitney and Arthur Silber. For examples, see here, here, and here.)

As with the moves to cover up and continue the Bush-Cheney torture system, Obama’s multitrillion-dollar giveaway to the rich might be “shocking” in the moral sense; but none of it should come as any surprise.

—————–

-the real progressive choice was Ralph Nader-ZGR.

// posted by Alice @ Friday, February 13, 2009 0 Comments

Blackwater has probably been used for U.S. Government narcotics trafficking operations before, but it looks like that is going to be a major component of their business going forward.

Note the phrase “aviation support” in the story below. Aviation support is synonymous with narcotics trafficking. If you read, Compromised: Clinton, Bush and the CIA, this will all make much more sense.

Also note the mention of West Africa as a venue for increased Blackwater/Xe activity. In this context, see: Global Cocaine Trade Moves to Africa:

West Africa is an unlikely center for the international cocaine trade. It is not a producer of the drug nor is it a consumer, as the vast majority of its people are very poor.

Yet a startling 50 tons of cocaine is transported through West Africa each year, according to the latest United Nations estimates. The value of this illicit trade dwarfs entire economies and has the potential to corrupt the region’s fragile states, which are just pulling out of decades of bitter civil wars.

In the past Africa has been a treasure trove looted by covetous colonialists, voracious rebels and kleptocratic rulers — over the last 300 years think slaves, ivory, gold, diamonds, tin and coltan. Now it is a transit point and storeroom for the cocaine trade.

“Drug money is perverting the weak economies in the region,” says Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime. The wholesale value in European streets of cocaine passing through West Africa is $2 billion, he says.

South American cartels used to transport cocaine to the big U.S. market via the Caribbean. But dwindling American consumption, stricter control of the West Indies drugs route, growing cocaine use in Europe and weak law enforcement in West Africa have conspired to bring the drug to the region. It is the path of least resistance.

Grown and processed in South America, the refined cocaine is transported by boat or plane across the Atlantic: The shortest line of latitude brings the cargo straight to West Africa. From there the cartels move the drugs onwards to Europe, along the way paying off West African officials in order to be able to operate freely.

So, we have Blackwater/Xe increasing “aviation support” activities in two of the hottest narcotics trafficking hubs in the world. Coincidences, of course.

Blackwater/Xe/ or whatever those crooks are calling themselves this week, are probably going to be performing the same role as Barry and the Boys did at Mena, Arkansas in the 1980s. Running contractors and cutouts, training drug pilots, retrofitting aircraft, and actually carrying out narcotics trafficking operations. Soup to nuts.

In other words, same shit, different decade.

Via: AP:

Blackwater Worldwide is still protecting U.S. diplomats in Iraq, but executives at the beleaguered security firm are taking their biggest step yet to put that work and the ugly reputation it earned the company behind them.

Blackwater said Friday it will no longer operate under the name that came to be known worldwide as a caustic moniker for private security, dropping the tarnished brand for a disarming and simple identity: Xe, which is pronounced like the letter “z.”

It’s a rare surrender for a company that cherished a brand name inspired by the dark-water swamps of northeastern North Carolina, one that survived another rebranding effort about a year ago, following a deadly shooting in Baghdad’s Nisoor Square. The decision to give it up underscores how badly the Moyock-based company’s brand was damaged by that incident and other security work in Iraq.

“They have established themselves as the bad guys,” said Katy Helvenston, who sued the company following her son’s death during a mission in Fallujah while working for Blackwater in 2004. “They’ve established such a horrible reputation. Why else would they change their name?”

Blackwater acknowledged last year in an interview with the The Associated Press the damage to its reputation had persuaded the company to focus on lines of business other than private security contracting.

The issue came to a head last month, when the State Department said it would not rehire Blackwater to protect its diplomats in Iraq after its current contract with the company expires in May. The company has one other major security contract, details of which are classified.

“It’s not a direct result of a loss of (that) contract, but certainly that is an aspect of our work that we feel we were defined by,” said spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell.

The company is also replacing its bear paw logo with a sleeker black-and-white graphic based on letters that make up the company’s new name. In a note to employees, president Gary Jackson said the name change reflects the company’s new focus, and he indicated Xe would not actively pursue new security business.

“This company will continue to provide personnel protective services for high-threat environments when needed by the U.S. government, but its primary mission will be operating our training facilities around the world,” Jackson said.

It has expanded other businesses such as aviation support, recently building a fleet of 76 aircraft that it has deployed to such hotspots as West Africa and Afghanistan. The company got its start in training and continues to build up that business. Last year, some 25,000 civilians, law enforcement and military personnel attended a Blackwater class.

The company’s changes aren’t entirely voluntary. The 2007 shooting in Nisoor Square involving Blackwater guards left at least a dozen Iraqi civilians dead, infuriated politicians in Baghdad and Washington, triggered congressional hearings and increased calls that the company be banned from Iraq.

Late last year, prosecutors charged five of the company’s contractors — but not Blackwater itself — with manslaughter and weapons violations. In January, Iraqi officials said they would not give the company a license to operate. The State Department responded by informing Blackwater it would not renew a contract that comprises a third of the company’s nearly $1 billion in annual revenue.

“It would hurt us,” company CEO Erik Prince said in an interview before losing the State Department deal. “It would not be a mortal blow, but it would hurt us.”

Blackwater has rebranded before, introducing a new name — Blackwater Worldwide — and slight changes to its logo about a year ago. But Friday’s announcement cuts ties entirely with a name created in 1997 when Prince and some of his former Navy SEAL colleagues launched the company.

Xe will cover the parent brand for the two-dozen subsidiaries, and none of those subsidiaries will retain the word “Blackwater” in their names.

Illinois Rep. Jan Schakowsky, chair of the Intelligence Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations and a longtime Blackwater critic, said the new name won’t change the fact that its actions have resulted in the deaths of innocent civilians.

“Blackwater’s notorious reputation will outlast its name,” she said.

// posted by Alice @ Friday, February 13, 2009 0 Comments

Police opened fire on an unarmed couple during a routine traffic stop late Tuesday night because one officer "thought he was shot," a high-ranking Salinas Police Department official said Thursday.

"He saw what he perceived as a threat and thought he was shot, and based on that both officers discharged their firearms," said Dino Bardoni, commander of investigations.

No one was hurt in the 11:24 p.m. incident at North Sanborn Road and Freedom Parkway, but the couple's SUV was riddled with bullet holes and its rear window was shattered.

Police are releasing few details about the incident or case and have characterized it as a "priority investigation," Bardoni said.

It's the fourth officer-involved shooting in the city in the past seven months, two of which were fatal.

Interim Police Chief Daniel Ortega refused to discuss the most recent case, referring all questions to Bardoni.

Bardoni said the incident began when one officer stopped the vehicle because one of its license plate lights was not working. He was joined shortly thereafter by a second officer.

Bardoni said the primary officer was in the midst of contacting the vehicle's occupants, a driver and passenger, when the problem began.

"He was walking up to them, nothing out of the ordinary," Bardoni said, when there was the perception of a threat and the officer thought he'd been shot.

Police later determined that the couple was unarmed.

Neither of the vehicle's occupants was arrested or cited.

The couple, Adrianna Velasquez and Julio Fernandez, could not be reached for comment.

Bardoni declined to identify the officers or to confirm or deny that one of them is the same officer who was involved in the tragic shooting death last year of Maria Irma Del La Torre, 45, of Salinas.

She was shot and killed when officers mistook a knitting needle for an ice pick and said she lunged at them. De La Torre was taking medication for epileptic seizures at the time of her death.

// posted by Alice @ Friday, February 13, 2009 0 Comments

The FBI told the 9/11 Commission that the black boxes from Flight 11 and Flight 175, despite being built to withstand direct full speed crashes and temperatures of 1800-degrees, were never discovered in the wreckage at ground zero. They also claimed that the voice recorder from Flight 77 and the flight data box from Flight 93 were damaged beyond recovery.

It is incredibly rare that black boxes remain undiscovered after a plane crash, and considering that the WTC site was meticulously cleaned up to the point where tiny bone fragments were recovered, it is inconceivable that the black boxes could have been completely lost, even if they were damaged beyond repair.

In 2004, New York firefighters Mike Bellone and Nicholas DeMasi went public to say they had found the black boxes at the World Trade Center, but were told to keep their mouths shut by FBI agents. Nicholas DeMasi said that he escorted federal agents on an all-terrain vehicle in October 2001 and helped them locate the devices, a story backed up by rescue volunteer Mike Bellone.

As the Philadelphia Daily News reported at the time, “Their story raises the question of whether there was a some type of cover-up at Ground Zero.”

“At one point, I was asked to take Federal Agents around the site to search for the black boxes from the planes,” he wrote. “We were getting ready to go out. My ATV was parked at the top of the stairs at the Brooks Brothers entrance area. We loaded up about a million dollars worth of equipment and strapped it into the ATV,” said DeMasi.

“At one point, Bellone said he observed the team with a box that appeared charred but was redish-orange with two white stripes. Pictures of the flight recorders on the NTSB and other Web sites show devices that are orange, with two white stripes,” reported the newspaper.

“There was the one that I saw, and two others were recovered in different locations - but I wasn’t there for the other two,” Bellone said. He said the FBI agents left with the boxes.”

In addition, a source at the National Transportation Safety Board later told Counterpunch, “Off the record, we had the boxes….You’d have to get the official word from the FBI as to where they are, but we worked on them here.”

Suspicions surrounding the so-called failure to locate the black boxes at the World Trade Center can only be heightened by the news that the black box from last night’s tragic plane crash in Buffalo was discovered within a mere 15 hours.

Furthermore, both the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder were in perfect condition, as you can see from the image below.

“The black box of a commercial airliner that nose-dived into a Buffalo house in New York has been retrieved, about 15 hours after the incident,” reports Press TV.

The flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder “have been found and they are on their way back here,” said Ted Lopatkiewicz a spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), AFP reported on Friday.

The motivation behind lying about the recovery of the black boxes on 9/11 is obvious - any aspect of the recordings of the onboard conversations between the pilots or the movements of their plane that didn’t coalesce with the official story would have destroyed the fairy tale that was being constructed around the attacks in the very minutes and hours after they started to unfold.

Questions about how a handful of men with box cutters could have overpowered burly ex-military pilots and scores of passengers with apparent ease would not have gone unanswered.

The circumstances surrounding the Buffalo crash and the Beijing skyscraper fire are two events that happened in the same week which offer stark contradictions and only place the credibility of the official 9/11 story further in doubt.

9/11 Activist Who Sued Government Killed In Buffalo Plane Crash

President Obama and Beverly Eckert, Victim of 9/11 and the Buffalo Plane Crash

No mention of ice being a problem for aircraft. There is a brief incidental mention that there is an area of icing, nut it is clear that nobody sees this as a problem.

No mention of any problems at all.

3407 is there one moment, then gone the next.

Now, look at this line from the transcript.

17:40 - delta 1998: uh negative, delta 1998, we're just in the bottoms and nothing on the TKs

Listening to the tape, it sounds like what the pilot of 1998 said was "... nothing on the TCAS."

TCAS (pronounced T-cass) stands for Traffic Collision Avoidance System, which sends out a lower power non-directional radar pulse and listens for any aircraft transponders in the vicinity. in order to warn pilots of close approaching aircraft. So, what the pilot of Delta 1998 is saying is that at the time ATC asked him to look for a Dash-8 at 2300, 3407's radar transponders had quit working.

One final note. If the Air Traffic Controller is telling the pilot of Delta 1998 to look at 2300 feet altitude for the Dash 8, then that means the last altitude reading returned to the ATC was 2300 feet. Air Traffic radar never received a return showing a loss of altitude, which strongly suggests that the aircraft's entire electrical system quit working while the plane was still half a mile in the air.

*

Jean Srnecz Dies in Plane Crash

Jean Srnecz, senior v-p of merchandising for Baker & Taylor, was one of the victims of the Continental Connection Flight 3407 plane that crashed last night, February 12, outside the Buffalo airport. Srnecz, who was on a trip to visit family, was a highly regarded and well-known member of the publishing industry and served on the boards of the Book Industry Study Group and Educational Paperback Association.

Full story at Publishers Weekly * One of the world’s foremost experts on Rwanda - Alison Des Forges Dies in New York Plane Crash

// posted by Alice @ Friday, February 13, 2009 0 Comments

Friday February 27^th will begin the four day Powershift 2009 conference, which is set to become the largest ever youth conference on climate change. But history will be made on Monday, March 2^nd, when thousands of youth lobby Congress and thousands of others march to the Capitol Coal Plant to take part in what should become the largest ever act of climate change related civil disobedience.

Over 10,000 high school and college aged students are expected to turn out to this year’s Powershift conference. 2007’s conference had thousands of attendees and speakers such as Van Jones, Ralph Nader and Nancy Pelosi. This year is expecting some of the same big names, and more.

// posted by Alice @ Friday, February 13, 2009 0 Comments

I just got news of an interesting event to happen this week called the American Citizens’ Summit in Denver, Colorado organized by an entity called the Transpartisan Alliance:

Description The Transpartisan Alliance is an informal network of networks facilitating cooperation among individuals and organizations from all political points of view.

Mission 1) To engage the passion, brilliance and creativity of average citizens in a search for solutions to our most pressing challenges, and 2) empower a unified political voice capable of restoring a balance of power between the government, corporations, and the American people.

Values Principles agreed to by all Americans — unity, equality, liberty, dignity and self governance.

Their Board of Advisers include:

Brent McMillian, Political Director, Green Party Fred Smith, President, Competitive Enterprise Institute Nancy Ross, Political Director, Committee for a Unified Independent Party Grover Norquist, President, Americans for Tax Reform Michelle Bernard, President, Independent Women’s Forum Jodie Evans, Co-founder, Codepink Women for Peace Mark Gerzon, Author, Leading Through Conflict, President, Mediators Foundation Jesse Benton, Communications Director, Campaign for Liberty (Ron Paul) Jackie Johnson, Executive Director, National Congress of American Indians Rob Richie, Executive Director, FairVote.org Maya Enista, CEO, Mobilize.org Sandy Heierbacher, Director, National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation Joan Blades, Co-founder, MoveOn.org, President, MomsRising.org Michael Ostrolenk, Founder, Liberty Coalition Peggy Holman, Author, The Change Handbook Chris Bui, Founder, 5th Medium I.C. John Steiner, Chair, Transpartisan Center John Briscoe, Vice President, Common Cause David Korten, Co-founder, Positive Futures Network Cheryl Graeve, Membership Director, League of Women Voters Juanita Brown, Co-founder, The World Cafe J. Manuel Herrera, Silicon Valley elected official Steve Bhaerman, Political comedian, Department of Heartland Security

In addition, they are convening a Transpartisan Cabinet which includes:

Monetary reform leader Ron Paul, co-founder of MoveOn.org and President of Momsrising.org Joan Blades, conservative activist Grover Norquist, co-founder of the Liberty Coalition Michael Ostrolenk, former Green Party presidential nominee Cynthia McKinney, human potential movement visionary Barbara Marx Hubbard, humorist Steve Bhaerman, and director of the Committee for a Unified Independent Party Jackie Salit. Pending invitations include Ralph Nader, as well as former Constitution Party presidential nominee Chuck Baldwin.

A close look at the composition of their Board of Advisors and Cabinet reveals some controversial groups that have been maligned on mainstream political media in one form or another like Code Pink and the CUIP. However, some of the other groups have solid reputations and are well-regarded as serious organizations even by those among the mainstream: FairVote, Common Cause, the Green Party, MoveOn, League of Women Voters.

This gathering appears to be the first major effort in recent years to organize third parties, reform organizations and other non-mainstream political reform groups under one umbrella. It would be interesting to see how Cynthia McKinney and Ralph Nader can find common ground with Ron Paul and Grover Norquist. Or for that matter, the CUIP with the League of Women Voters; FairVote and Common Cause with Code Pink. I will admit that I am unfamiliar with the other groups involved. But I am fascinated that this effort is even happening. Can something useful and productive come out of it? It is too early to tell. But I will be watching this effort closely in the next few months to see how it develops.

// posted by Alice @ Friday, February 13, 2009 0 Comments

Recently, a group of very high-minded and virtuous but, retired diplomats and academics who do not owe their future success to AIPAC or any Israeli lobbies, asked the question: "Can Obama Untangle the Iranian Challenge?" But the question they should be asking is: "Can Obama escape the dominating influence of AIPAC and the American Jewish/Zionist Israeli lobby?"

The answer is "probably not and live."

It isn't enough, I think, just to point out that in the US, Jews have acquired the lion's share of many key political appointments in the US Administration. It is a known fact and I iterate it was 56% in the Clinton years, and almost the same in the Bush years and we are beginning to see the same shape in the formation of Obama administration. Even that Congress has been largely compromised by AIPAC and the brigade of Jewish PACs in the US — is all true, and apparent of course.

In my recent essay I mentioned my fading faith, hope, trust and expectations in Barack O'Bama. That was before I read Christopher Bollyn's article illustrating the Israeli Zionists in the Obama Administration and the US Government, The Israeli Who Runs the Obama White House - bollyn and the way they "fixed" the entire US Presidential elections, and created a dramatic charade, including the comedy team of McCain and Palin. With Obama refurnishing the White House with Clinton leftovers and resurrections, it is beginning to look like business as usual and nothing has changed since the regime of Lyndon Johnson, the Clintons, the Bushes, et al. The New Emperor's new robes are being cut and tailored of the same material and by the same City Island tailors as his predecessors!

So much for dreams, ideals, hope and promises of change.

The question is why a large majority of the American people go along with this entire exercise? And when did it all start?

The answer to the second question came from an Israeli diplomat who lectured to a class at Georgetown in the late 1980s, I am told by Professor Alan Sabrosky, who taught at the University, a course on Comparative Foreign Policy, among others, and had 3-4 diplomats from different countries in to the class each semester that at dinner with the Israeli diplomat and two students, he remarked during the conversation that the real turning point in Israel's approach to the US had come in the wake of the 1956 War, when President Eisenhower had ordered Israel, Britain and France to "cease & desist" and return home. He said the Israeli Embassy tried to get to Congress to reverse that decision, and found that in fact they had access to only two "minor Congressional offices" (his phrase, I remember it clearly says Prof. Alan Sabrosky). So, they set about crafting a network of PACs and other things to reverse that state of affairs. One of the students asked "how many Congressional offices they could access successfully now?" (that was in late 1980s please note)– and with a satisfied smile, he remarked "Almost all of them." The students faces registered astonishment, so he quickly added words to the effect that "But of course, we don't control them, they still act in the best interests of the American people," but the students didn't believe him, and there you have it…."

Admittedly, the more I read, the More I realize why it took the American people so long to react to Bush Administration idiocy. Too many obstacles, making it a monumental task.

I suppose when so many people in comparable positions have a consensus on something (like "thou shalt not allow criticism of Israel"), you don't need a conspiracy. There are so many Jewish PACs, besides AIPAC. There exists a coordinating agency called "The Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations," Their website (www.conferenceofpresidents.org/) is worth exploring (and AIPAC is just one of literally dozens of organizations under its umbrella).

With all the money, political and corporate connections they have at their disposal they must certainly have a tremendously powerful influence over the ambitious and greedy men and women who enter politics. But to practically dominate everyone in the game, including those with the popular support which both Obama and Bush have experienced, and including the statistical minority of what I might assume to be "honest men of principle," (or am I being naive in believing that any such still exist?) is astounding.

The answer to the first question is partly because a key part of that program, has been the steady diet of images fed to the general American population. For bad or worse, a large majority of the general American public get their impressions and opinions about the world at large from fiction: movies, television shows, and novels. For half a century, thanks to many of the people who sit on the Boards of Directors and in the executive suites of studios and networks, they have been fed a constant stream of messages around certain core themes: (a) poor, brave, misunderstood little Israel as America's only true friend in the world; (b) the dirty, dangerous, barbaric, and malevolent Arab as the direct lineal successor to the architects of the Holocaust; and (c) more recently, Islam through Islamic terr'rists as the only direct threat to Israel, the United States, and Western civilization and culture generally. Those messages until recently were rarely in the form of the "in-your-face" overt propaganda, but a form of low-level political socialization that becomes part of the background against which opinions are formed, and thus more pervasive and more enduring than mass parades with people carrying banners and shouting slogans. After more than a half-century of this "diet," the dumbest had a greater capacity for independent thought than the average American hearing the words "Israel" and "(Palestinian) Arab."

This "steady diet of imagery" coming out of Hollywood and the Infotainment Industry for nearly a hundred years now has been insidious and we cannot ignore who the initial investors and funders of the industry were, and still are, and where they came from.

A great proportion of those beautiful and handsome "movie stars" with the exotic names who set the scene for what the "normal" American should strive to become, were of Eastern European extraction. Google and then try to persuade me that they are proportionally representative of the incidence of Jewry in the American population. Check the names of Studio Owners, Producers, Directors, Writers, any one in the Movie and Infotainment profession, and tell me that they are proportionally representative!

Hollywood is and has been for nearly a century, one of the most intense and tightly organized, efficient and malevolent propaganda and thought control machines in the world. It was during the Korean War that the US Government invented and promoted what they called "brainwashing," which they attributed to the North Koreans, but which they have been employing in Hollywood for fifty or sixty years already. One cannot over-emphasize the "images" aspect insofar as the general American public is concerned, and how it enables AIPAC and company to leverage Congress. And it is not only Hollywood and the New York TV industry; it is also publishing houses and major newspaper chains, all of which send images to the public. These have increasingly over more than a half-century molded how most Americans "feel" about the Middle East, and Israel and the Arab (now more broadly Muslim) states/peoples in particular. And especially Israel as a state and Arabs as people, now terr'rists, have become embedded in their cultural and emotional background.

So when anti-apartheid leaders like Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu are dis-invited from lecturing at American colleges and universities because of their public opposition to Israel's maltreatment of the Palestinians, and plays like "My Name is Rachel Corrie" is scrubbed from major theaters (but does appear in smaller ones), all under pressure from Jewish organizations and donors, virtually no one thinks to quarrel with the decisions, or even wonder why.

Can President Obama change anything?

Yep! He could start 1) Appoint some people that represent real change such as Dennis Kucinich, Ralph Nader, Paul Krugman, Paul Findley or Robert Reich, Ariana Huffington, Robert Kennedy Jr., Paul Craig Roberts, some folks from The Nation, etc.

2) Keep the discussion on the costs of 2 very expensive wars that have accomplished next to nothing (other than enriching the war profiteers). (Seven years and still no Osama bin Laden; can you imagine fighting WWII and say you could never find Hitler??)

3) Use money for the crumbling infrastructure in the U.S. Discuss costs in terms of Months of Iraq War/Occupation— how many MIWs for the loan to the Big Three auto companies or how many MIWs for Universal Health Care coverage etc.

4) Get to the root cause of Arab frustration and anger festering for decades. For starters, by simply ordering that Israel immediately lift the Gaza blockade, so Palestinians smoldering from the Israeli siege that killed 1,285 people - nearly 70% of them civilians, destroyed at least 4,000 homes, that sent more than 50,000 people to temporary shelters in the recent blitz, could begin to get bread, clean water, medicines and electricity, the basic essentials for their survival. His silence on the issue speaks louder than words.

Yes, he can, but he won't!

Even as President, he is powerless without his support system, and it apparently is AIPAC.

He could appoint anyone he wanted, and I have no doubt it would be a simple matter to find men and women of high ideals and standards who would willingly go to work to correct many of the ills which affect US Government and which we had hoped he would attack, and correct… if that were his objective.

But, it makes little difference, however, whether that is his objective or not, because it would be absolutely impossible to carry it out against the will of AIPAC!

If he were to promote a program which went against the aims of AIPAC, with the entrenched powers and the deep penetration they have infiltrated throughout the system, he and his loyal Lieutenants would never find sufficient and dedicated people who would be willing to sacrifice their careers in government service, nor their passes through that revolving door between government, and Corporate/Self-service, of which AIPAC is the doorman, and the overseer and keeper of the Chalice of Post-Government Service lucrative relocation and $ucce$$.

For most of that hustling crowd in Washington, D.C., government service is a short-time stepping stone to bigger and better things. That AIPAC doorman guards the gates to the afterlife.

Walt and Mersheimer are correct! "They" run the show! They write the script, stage the production, sell the tickets, usher the audience to their seats, operate the lights and stage effects, write the Sunday morning reviews, and select casts for the next production. They also take the receipts to their own bank.

The Presidency and every simple job in US Government is controlled by the Israel Lobby. If they do not actually select those who get the positions, they certainly ensure that those whom they do not want to have them do not! If you wish to apply for a position trimming hedges on the landscaping staff of the White House, it is best to drop in and pay your respects at the local AIPAC office and the synagogue on your way to the Employment Office.

About the author: Debbie Menon is an independent writer based in Dubai. She can be reached at debbiemenon@gmail.com.

// posted by Alice @ Friday, February 13, 2009 2 Comments

The Supreme Court has ruled that police should be investigated for their conduct in San Salvador Atenco, although it absolves the state governor and federal officials who ordered the raid. The non-binding decision came Thursday.

Police intervened in San Salvador Atenco in May 2006 to end protests that erupted after authorities tried to prevent street vendors from setting up stands in a nearby city.

Some of the demonstrators kidnapped and beat six policemen.

Nearly two dozen women detained by police were sexually abused. Others were beaten.

// posted by Alice @ Thursday, February 12, 2009 0 Comments

Judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan of the Court of Common Pleas in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, entered plea agreements in federal court in Scranton admitting that they took payoffs from PA Childcare and a sister company, Western PA Childcare, between 2003 and 2006.

"Your statement that I have disgraced my judgeship is true," Ciavarella wrote in a letter to the court. "My actions have destroyed everything I worked to accomplish and I have only myself to blame."

Conahan, who along with Ciavarella faces up to seven years in prison, did not make any comment on the case.

When someone is sent to a detention centre, the company running the facility receives money from the county government to defray the cost of incarceration. So as more children were sentenced to the detention centre, PA Childcare and Western PA Childcare received more money from the government, prosecutors said.

Teenagers who came before Ciavarella in juvenile court often were sentenced to detention centres for minor offences that would typically have been classified as misdemeanours, according to the Juvenile Law Centre, a Philadelphia nonprofit group.

One 17-year-old boy was sentenced to three months' detention for being in the company of another minor caught shoplifting.

Others were given similar sentences for "simple assault" resulting from a schoolyard scuffle that would normally draw a warning, a spokeswoman for the Juvenile Law Centre said.

Continued...

// posted by Alice @ Thursday, February 12, 2009 0 Comments

How Can We Survive?

What is the cardinal rule to survive? Pure survival, rather than focus on any other orientation, is said to be a basic instinct of man when hard times strike. On account, it brings out the worse or best in us.

As such, today’s global recession to depression, now really deepening and going into overdrive, is compelling us to think of any ways and means to ride out the financial-economic tornado. Yet how can we do so when there are no opportunities available? How can we do so when everything is “business as usual?”

Moreover, it most surely is “business as usual” with the same out patterns present that got us all into this current dilemma in the first place. Meanwhile, the ripple effects of the crisis continue lamentably right around the world.

On account, personal efforts are not enough to handle the ongoing worsening conditions. Consequently, there must be government intervention to truly jump the economy forward, especially as the government exists for the people and not the other way around!

If this whole trouble is not a supernatural problem, but is only an artificial problem, then it can be solved in an outright fashion since it is man made. Therefore, the successful remedy can be generated, too, which involves removal of debt, the creation of which led to the most turbulent years in the history of global financial markets in that debt generation has arguably been THE main foundation for the money flow in our current model.

Consequently, governments should be compelled to infuse funds in capital or aid programs that create work and economic stimulus for their citizens rather then help the banking system carry on as usual. After all, who can borrow money from the bank if he has no means for capital growth as the foundation to pay it back with interest?

The Philippine government is currently pledging P15 Billion or $300 Million in capital from taxpayers’ money and/or from foreign borrowings for Philippine Deposit Insurance Corporation (PDIC) to fund the payout of deposits of the closed bankrupt legality group of rural banks presumably caused by the greed and corruption of those involved. Meanwhile, we see the same pattern of wrongful behaviors around the world!

In particular and concerning the Philippines:

IMF has the forecast that Philippines has $800 Million deficit in balance of payments in 2009. IMF AND WB loans at interest are destroying my country’s economy and the working class people who suffer increasing poverty under such an arrangement.

So what is next? Why do we need to pay interest further? How CAN we do it? The Filipinos have paid too much already. We have NO MORE to give! We cannot pay back whatever we do not have and it was an unjust transaction with which to begin such that no Filipino in his right mind would ratify it except for our wealthy elite, who took the loans for their own indirect benefits.

In the end, let’s face a hard truth in this whole matter. It is this: What kind of values do we want to promote as a society? Can we not realize that it is not the banks that matter, but the people who make up the society? If this latter view is the case, then we need to change our financial models to support them rather than use them like chattel and slave for the gains of the global business and banking tycoons.

The alternative — the one to which we are likely heading — just might be that Filipinos wind up expecting to copy the poor in Haiti in order to get ourselves out of this mess. Are we expected to live under tarps after losing our homes? Are we expected to look for food by combing garbage dumps? Must we and our children eat mud cookies because we can no longer have jobs and cannot pay for imported food?

As Penny Hess stated in “America causing world food crisis and starvation”:

Forced deregulation of world agricultural markets. Historically countries around the world produced food for themselves and their governments kept restrictions on the price of food to prevent speculation and price gouging. Haiti, where the people are today forced to subsist on a steady diet of mud, is a perfect example. Twenty-five years ago Haitian farmers grew and exported their own rice.

But in the late 1980s the U.S. backed IMF forced Haiti, as a condition for a desperately needed loan, to deregulate their markets and open them up to competition from the outside. The U.S. then dumped its government-subsidized rice onto Haiti (and many other countries around the world), selling the American rice cheaper than Haiti farmers could sell theirs for. The U.S. rice dumping brought to an abrupt halt Haiti’s own self-sufficient agricultural infrastructure and forced millions of people into desperate poverty.

U.S. Agribusiness. According to Gretchen Gordon in, The Food Crisis: Global Markets and Deregulation Strike Again, three major corporations, Cargill, Archer Daniels Midland and Bunge, “control the vast majority of global grain trading, while Monsanto controls more than one-fifth of the global market in seeds.”

While billions of human beings are starving, Cargill’s third quarter 2007 profits increased more than 86 percent and Monsanto’s were up 45 percent. In fact they are using the current crisis to further impose their genetically modified seeds on the peoples of the world.

Meanwhile, high salaries and compensation packages — rewards really for doing who knows what — are still given to the bankers and business tycoons even in these hard times of global financial crisis and even while President Obama and the Australian prime Minister have called for an end to unrestrained selfishness on the part of these financial speculators. At the same time, it has been reported that, in Germany, bank managers receive annual Euros 500,000.00 or $645,000 as a rough average intake.

In a similar vein, Josef Ackermann, chief executive of Deutsche Bank AG has the total gain, including assorted benefits and shares, of Euros 14 Million or $18.9 Million. And the list goes on… and on concerning irresponsible money managers who are making out royally due to the losses of many, many others.

As such, European bankers receive astronomical, US-style compensation, which is similar to the huge rewards obtained by other financial executives in India, China, Philippines, India, Russia, Mexico, Brazil and other countries. Likewise, some Russian financial executives and bankers are paid in the amount of $500,000 to $5 Million range, while top Italian and French executives make $2 Million to $3 Million annually.

Similarly, Indian salaries have risen to $300,000 to $3 Million level and Mexican financial executives are making nearly $1 Million. However, chief financial executives in Japan usually receive salaries merely in the $400,000 range. All the same, many ordinary citizens around the world wallow in dreadful poverty, hunger, homelessness and despair while these financial gangsters worldwide gain from their ongoing losses.

In the end, we need to reorganize the patterns of the global economy rather than continue to throw money at useless crooks and empty remedies that, doubtlessly, do not work because, if they did, we would be seeing improvements already rather than an ever deepening crisis. Therefore, we need to start pressuring our government representatives to make the necessary radical reforms. If we not change our monetary patterns soon, the most terrible outcomes imaginable are all but assured.

Eric V. Encina, Filipino Social Creditor/Monetary Reformer, can be contacted at: ericencina@yahoo.com. Read other articles by Eric. ...

// posted by Alice @ Thursday, February 12, 2009 0 Comments

Come Wearing White. Leave Seeing Red!

Monday, February 16 12 p.m. to 3 p.m. State Capitol Sacramento Love and Marriage will be a statewide rally where people from all over the state will join us on the steps of the Capitol to show our solidarity for the rights of 18,000 same-sex couples who were married and look forward to the day when those rights are available again, this time for everyone. Speakers, entertainment and thousands of like-minded people – in one spot – join us to put a FACE on the issue of true equality. Organized by Equality Action NOW. Confirmed Appearances by: Invocation: Rev. Roland Stringfellow, Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion Gloria Allred - Defense attorney leading the case Margaret Cho – The Cho Show Deborah Gibson - Singer Julia Louis-Dreyfus - The New Adventures of Old Christine Rabbi Denise Eger – Kol Ami Congregation Dr. Michael Gottlieb - Discoverer of AIDS Senator Mark Leno Selene Luna - The Cho Show Molly McKay – Marriage Equality and singer Shannon Minter - NCLR Sacramento Gay Men's Chorus performing Prop 8 the Musical Doug Spearman - Noah's Arc, EQCA Institute Board of Directors Mandy Steckelberg – "I Love the Gays" Pres. pro Tem Senator Darrell Steinberg Wanda Sykes - The New Adventures of Old Christine, EQCA Institute Board of Directors George Takei and his partner Brad Altman – Star Trek Rev. Dr. Neil Thomas - Metropolitan Community Church Robin Tyler - LGBT Activist and original lawsuit Dr. Pat Washington – San Diego Video Messages by: Melissa Etheridge - Special video message Gavin Newsom - Mayor San Francisco, videotaped message Eric Himan - sending video message and his song "The Protest" Bruce Villanch - Comic starred in road show of Hairspray sending video message for us.

Sponsored by: Equality Action NOW, California Outreach, Marriage Equality USA, and EQCA

Supporters: activelyOUT.com, Artists Against AIDS, Bakersfield LGBTQ, Bay Area Lawyers for Individual Freedom (BALIF), Calafia, Catholics for Marriage Equality, Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies Central California Alliance, COLLAGE, Congregation Kol Ami, Courage Campaign, Create Equality, Erase the H8 Fresno, Equality Campaign, GayFresno.com, Gay-Straight Alliance for Equality (GSAFE), Gays United Network GLAAD, GLBT Alliance of Santa Cruz County, Hillgirlz, Join the Impact, LGBT Sacto.com, Love Honor Cherish, Marriage Equality Silicon Valley, Metropolitan Community Church Los Angeles, Million Gay March, National Center for Lesbian Rights, Noahs Arc, Our Family, Out Sacramento, Pacific Pride Foundation, Peace and Freedom Party Sacramento County Central Committee, Pride At Work AFL-CIO, Progressive Jewish Alliance, Purple Unions, Queers United, Sacramento PFLAG, Sacramento Gay and Lesbian Center, Sacramento Area Gay & Lesbian Professionals Social Group, San Diego Equality Campaign, SF LGBT Community Center, Stanislaus PRIDE Center, Students for Equality, United for LGBT, White Knot

// posted by Alice @ Thursday, February 12, 2009 0 Comments

And every single day the endless information generated by our ever-expanding digital footprints is recorded, tracked, searched through, sold, analyzed, and saved forever.

Some might call this hyper-networked digital explosion and its potential for collaboration and innovation a kind of utopia.

But others warn that it also raises important concerns about privacy, identity, freedom of expression, accountability, and the future of democracy. They argue that our digitized world might actually be closer to the dystopias imagined in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World or George Orwell"s 1984.

The only difference, as our next guest points out in his latest book, is that unlike the world of Orwell’s 1984, we have “fallen in love with this always-on world” and “accept our loss of privacy in exchange for efficiency, convenience, and small price discounts.”

Harry Lewis, the former dean of Harvard College, is the author along with Hal Abelson and Ken Ledeen of a new book that explains how the digital revolution is changing our world more profoundly than we could ever imagine. Its called “Blown to Bits: Your Life, Liberty, and Happiness After the Digital Explosion.”

Harry Lewis, professor of computer science at Harvard and the former dean of Harvard College. He is co-author of, “Blown to Bits: Your Life, Liberty, and Happiness after the Digital Explosion.”

// posted by Alice @ Thursday, February 12, 2009 0 Comments

Et Tu, Atul? 23 Corporate Crime Reporter 7, February 10, 2009 A politician says –I support health care for all.

That is a politician you should support, right?

Wrong.

A politician says –I support universal health care.

That is a politician you should support, right?

Wrong.

Universal health care.

Health care for all.

More often than not, these are code words for – keep the private insurance companies in the game.

The only way we are going to dramatically improve the health care system is to get the private insurance companies out of the game.

That means replacing the hundreds of private insurance companies with one payer.

One nation.

One payer.

Single payer.

Single payer already exists for Americans over 65.

It's called Medicare.

Why not single payer for everyone else?

Because the insurance companies don't want it.

And they have a lot of money and political influence.

Last week, Tom Daschle was forced to pull out as Obama's nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Resources because he failed to pay taxes on a limousine and chauffeur.

Or as one DC insider summed up Daschle's problem – “he's a limousine liberal who didn't pay taxes on his limousine.”

But what was widely overlooked in the flood of news last week?

Daschle's close ties to the health insurance industry.

The fact that he gave speeches to the industry's key lobbying group – America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) – at $20,000 a pop.

AHIP has one litmus test – you must oppose single payer at all cost.

If you oppose single payer, you are with the insurance industry.

If you favor single payer, you are against the insurance industry.

Daschle opposed single payer.

He was with the insurance industry.

And against the interests of the American people.

Just go down the list of health advocates and advocacy groups – and apply this test.

Ron Pollack and Families USA – opposed to single payer now.

Physicians for a National Health Program – for single payer now.

SEIU – opposed to single payer now.

California Nurses – for single payer now.

Health Care for America Now – opposed to single payer now.

Public Citizen – for single payer now.

AARP – opposed to single payer now.

And if you dig deep enough, you will find that that most people and groups who are opposed to single payer have ties to the health insurance industry.

I decided to test out my thesis with the case of Atul Gawande.

Gawande is the Boston surgeon and New Yorker magazine writer.

And he's being pushed by Pollack and others as a replacement for Daschle at HHS.

In his most recent article in the January 26 New Yorker titled “Getting There From Here: How Should Obama Reform Health Care?” Gawande argues against single payer now.

I started looking to find out whether Gawande had ties to the insurance industry.

And sure enough, there it was.

Gawande is scheduled to give the keynote speech to AHIP's annual public policy conference on March 11 in Washington, D.C.

So, I shoot off an e-mail to the New Yorker and to Gawande and ask – is Gawande being paid by the health insurance industry for this speech?

And how much has he been paid by the insurance industry for speeches in the past?

And why weren't New Yorker readers informed of his ties to the industry?

Alexa Cassanos from the New Yorker writes back first.

“Atul Gawande does not accept speaking fees from pharmaceutical or medical-device companies, and speaking payments from insurers or insurance lobbyists are relayed directly to charity,” Cassanos says.

Okay, a follow-up.

Why does he take money from the insurance industry but not from the pharmaceutical or medical device companies?

And how much has he taken from the insurance industry?

On the phone, Cassanos says “there's no story here,” but that she will try and track down the information.

I next hear from Dr. Gawande, via e-mail, who points me to a just updated (February 6, 2009) conflicts of interest disclosure statement on his web page.

In it, Gawande says: “I don't benefit financially from speaking to for-profit medical businesses (whether they are drug companies, device companies, or insurance companies) – either I'm not paid or I arrange for the fee to be donated to charity (including my family's church, our WHO work in patient safety, and a rural college my father started in India).” I write back to Dr. Gawande. I again ask him why he says he will not take money from medical device and pharma companies, but will take money (for his charities) from health insurance companies. This time, he clarifies what Cassanos from the New Yorker said.

“The reason I haven't received money from for-profit drug or device manufacturers is that neither have asked me to lecture," Gawande says. "If either did and I accepted, I would donate the fee to charity or not accept the fee.” As for his insurance industry ties, Gawande writes:

“Since I decided in April, 2007, to write on health reform policy - I spoke to AHIP once (and the fee I received was donated to charity), I've scheduled to speak to AHIP again in March (that fee will be donated to charity), and I've not lectured to any for-profit insurers.”

AHIP is of course the lobbying group (technically a non-profit) of the for-profit insurance industry. “I would have received $31,500 in 2008 after the speaking agency's 30% fee was taken, and $28,000 in 2009,” Gawande writes. “I chose the charities independently and AHIP is not informed whom they are," Gawande says. "The charities are the Trinity Church, Boston, the Student Education Support Association which provides for students attending a nonprofit college my father started in rural India, and the Brigham and Women's Hospital Foundation for our work with the WHO to reduce unsafe care globally – I am not permitted to benefit financially from these funds.” Gawande does not reveal what he was paid by the insurance industry prior to April 2007. He has been speaking to AHIP groups around the country since at least 2004, according to the AHIP web site. But more importantly, don't his New Yorker readers deserve to be told that his favorite charities including his church, a non-profit set up by his father, and a foundation affiliated with the hospital where he works – are benefiting financially - and by how much – when he speaks to the private health insurance industry ? As for his opposition to single payer, he remains steadfast. In a q/a with New Yorker readers last week, Gawande defended his opposition to single payer now.

“Replacing the entire health-financing system with Medicare would require most working-age people to leave their current insurance plans,” Gawande writes. “It would change the finances of every hospital and doctor in the country overnight. It would require replacing the premiums we pay with a tax, with massive numbers of both losers and winners. It seems simple in theory, but in practice it never is. This would be a whole new path for health care. No country has swept away their health system and simply replaced it like that. As I said in the article, one would have to be prepared for an overnight change in the way people get 3.5 billion prescriptions, 900 million office visits, 60 million operations - because how these are paid for is critical to whether and how they are provided. Doing away with private insurance coverage is no less sweeping than saying we'll do away with public insurance programs or do away with employer-paid health care. No major country has simply swept away the way so many people's care is paid for. And the reason is that people have legitimate fears about what will happen to them.”

Dr. David Himmelstein, a founder of Physicians for a National Health Program, calls this argument “bogus.”

“Patients do not care what their insurance plan is - just that it pays for the care they need. A transition from a system where virtually everyone has only partial coverage to one where they have full coverage is not a disruption for patients," Himmelstein said when we asked him to respond to Gawande. "Several nations have made abrupt changes in the financing of care. The UK instituted the National Health Service - eliminating insurance and private payment for care at a stroke. Each Canadian province went from a private insurance system very like ours to its current system virtually overnight – though not all provinces underwent the change simultaneously. Taiwan changed to a single payer system about 10 years ago at a stroke.”

“Medicare replaced private coverage for the elderly – who account for about 30% of all hospital patients – about nine months after its passage. That occurred in an era before computers. The entire task of enrolling tens of millions of patients, inspecting virtually every hospital in the nation – to certify that they were desegregated, which was mandated by the Medicare law – and set up a new payment apparatus was carried out using paper records. Why is a shift of the other two-thirds of our system more difficult?”

“The new payment system would be far simpler than the current one – hospitals would receive a global budget, which initially would be based largely on their previous year's revenues. Medicare currently collects all of the financial info needed to do such budgeting at the outset. Per-patient billing for hospital care would be eliminated. For doctors, Medicare already has a fee schedule, which should be modified somewhat, but already serves as the benchmark for most private plans. Expanding this payment system to cover all fee-for-service billings would be trivial. Paying for drugs is similarly pretty simple and straightforward, with most of the needed infrastructure already in place.”

“In sum, his arguments are bogus unless you assume that we are far less competent than people in other nations, and than we used to be,” Himmelstein said.

Gawande will travel to Washington on March 11 to speak to AHIP.

The title of his speech – Fixing Health Care from the Inside Out: The Physician's Role in Health Care Reform.

The majority of physicians in the United States now support a single payer system.

Dr. Gawande does not and is coddling the private health insurance industry.

When Daschle was driven out of office last week, a DC insider made the following observation:

When people first come to Washington, they see it as a putrid swamp that breeds corruption.

But after they stay awhile, they begin to see it as a hot tub.

Et tu, Atul?

// posted by Alice @ Thursday, February 12, 2009 0 Comments