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26 Sep 2008 @ 14:00, by vector8. Spirituality
I was speaking to my mother about learning to touch-type. She said after she finished school she attended a technical college where she was taught to touch-type on a manual typewriter. She said their teacher made them master particular keys before they moved on to the next and the next.
"At least you had the luxury of time to learn," I said. "I actually learned to touch-type in about four hours."
"That's amazing! How?"
"I borrowed a friend's typing manual and learned from there." More >
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25 Sep 2008 @ 17:25, by namakando. Politics
THE ECONOMIC MELT DOWN – DEMOCRATIC PARTY’S CATCH – 22
Yet again an event presents us with an opportunity to mishandle issues. My blood pressure would rather I did not remember how during the Georgian genocide in South Ossertia, Senator Obama was caught on camera vacationing in Hawaii licking on ice cream, while a potentially globally dangerous situation unfolded in the Caucases. In like manner, it would cost us way too much in popularity ratings at this crucial phase of the campaigns if amid the unprecedented economic melt down and the subsequent congressional debate on the $700Bn Bail out plan being tabled, Senator Obama is say, caught again on CCTV rehearsing his presidential debate speech in the shower!
It would benefit the Democrats greatly if they made it clear in the voter’s minds that their campaign choice ultimately is not between Senator McCain and Senator Obama as individuals but it had been scaled up to a toss up between the Republican Party policies (for which all the successes and failures of the current administration should be credited) and those of the Democrats. This then means we should, without let up, attribute the shocking ‘Domino effect’ in the financial institutions’ failure to the Republicans as a party. This is because to a great extent they are responsible for the formulation of these catastrophic economic policies, which have led to the current recession, which is what it is really as semantic gymnastics will not take us anywhere. It would be a waste of resources to even mention G.W. Bush in all this, as he has become very irrelevant in national and world politics.
The Democratic Party is truly caught between the Scylla and Charybdis, indeed a Catch – 22 of sorts! Truth be told, as far as the future goes, the whole mess should be heaped on McCain and the party policies he represents. It would therefore seem like a very obvious choice come November 2008 for Americans to choose between Democrats or Republicans that is, more of the same or something different. It is this case that has to be made to the electorate in no uncertain terms. We however, have to trade carefully and guard against blurting out some not so Kosher game-changing, not well thought through politically incorrect and socially sensitive similes like that of smearing cosmetics on facial appendages of an omnivorous Sus domesticus! The time is critical we should avoid blunders at this stage if we can help it, as resultant damage control will just sap our energy and blur our focus and momentum.
It is my sincere hope that some time in future Senator Obama will embrace the concept of bi-partisanship because whether correctly or wrongly the Republicans seem to have painted him as one opposed or not so keen on drawing from experience that may exist beyond the party divide. Senator McCain literally sings about how the surge he suggested had worked in Iraq and how that should make him president because he reads military strategy better. I always wanted Senator Obama to swallow his pride and just admit that yes it did work so as to put the whole matter to rest. It is only later that I have realized what a moral struggle it must be for Senator Obama to do this as it would mean accepting the surge which led to the death of innocent Iraqi civilians and freedom fighters defending the sovereignty of their country against occupying forces in an immoral and evil war that should not have been waged to begin with.
The McCain camp in a very calculated ploy have called off their campaign to supposedly address the economic crisis in a bi-partisan fashion and calling on democrats to do likewise. Except I may not exactly yet appreciate just in what capacity Senator McCain intends to do this. Is he for instance going to be actively giving valuable suggestions on possible ground breaking ideas on how to sort out the economic mess? For which I would recommend he be immediately nominated for the Nobel Prize for Economics (Which would make Adam Smith envious)! Or is he merely going to be a detached bystander waiting on the experts to do the brain-storming? Senator McCain by his own admission does not understand economics much. Therefore his action should be seen for what it is, a desperate political gimmick, which only the severely gullible would buy into. We should exercise caution here for what ever we do, or however we respond, it would be met with more critical scrutiny than McCain’s possible motives of spreading the blame and responsibility nationally across party lines in the name of misplaced Patriotism, ‘ A virtue for the vicious’. Thus effectively making every American collectively responsible and hence compelled to engage in its resolution. The truth however is that people were elected into public offices as political leaders and appointed CEOs of corporations. They were entrusted with the task of making sound decisions and formulating policies to safeguard the interests of the citizenry. In the event that they fail the nation like they have, something would have to give, heads need to roll .A hasty bailout plan as an elixir may not be an economically prudent thing to do as time will tell. We should make NO mistake though, this situation is a very serious national security issue NOT naively just economic. FACT: Senator McCain should be seem as representing a party on whose watch the disastrous economic policies, foreign policy blunders, American reputation abroad have taken the deepest ebb in living memory.
This economic recession is surely with us now, even when McCain and Republicans in general kept on insisting, like they did during the pre-Iraq War intelligence Gathering Phase, that the economic fundamentals are strong and sound, then boom this happens! The Republicans sure do seem to have a very dangerous knack for misunderstanding and misrepresenting issues by spin-doctoring facts to suit and further their ends even if it meant forcing a square peg into a round hole that is another Republican Party administration.
However, by Senator Obama insisting on engaging Senator McCain in a nationally televised presidential debate at this moment of crisis, the senator runs a real risk of being seen as one unwilling to reach out across the party divide in times of crisis. He will be caricatured as a desperate, heartless pugilist who goes for the jugular when the opponent is sprawling on the canvas, gasping for air and aims to strike him behind the head! Senator Obama should realize and I hope he does that his mistakes during the campaigns and through out his possible presidency, will in the eyes of the American people be magnified by a factor of X 10 compared to Senator McCain’s misjudgments. The reason?
“ The children of Africa are citizens of various nations in all the continents. We would remind them where ever they be that, arduous toil, strenuous devotion and untiring zeal in their glorious Cause is expected of them.” – His Imperial Majesty Emperor Haile Selassie I
We live in a world where some people need to work doubly as hard as others in order to be appreciated equally. Their wrongs and shortcomings are more serious than those of others. Oops! Is this a race card? Not that it would bother me! By also agreeing to momentarily disengaging on the campaign trail, he would be seen as lacking insight, very weak, easily bowing to pressure, already being dictated to by a McCain acting presidential and issuing orders. Senator Obama would be seen as desperately needing to win at all costs even if national survival was at stake. He would be seen as hell bent on an academic exercise of the debate when more serious issues needed attention first thus branded less patriotic.
The other school of thought holds that it is exactly at this point that the voters should see who is stronger on the management of the economy in a one on one debate. I seem to remember people saying Senator Obama is not combative enough and does not seem to have a killer instinct. What ever the Democratic Party decides on doing they should realize that theirs is not an enviable position as they are stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Namakando Nalikando Sinyama
Barotseland,
Central Africa,
namakando_sinyama@yahoo.co.uk
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  22 Sep 2008 @ 20:16, by feecor. Alternative Money Systems
Very roughly by rule of the thumb: 2 000 Dollar per capita, for every person in the USA ? or 100 Dollar for each inhabitant on this planet ? - for money given away for bad risks? - and how much alltogether already for such trash funds? 1.5b Dollar?
The problem seems to be not just of grounding and ethics, but the whole thing is intangible and abstract, so we have to imagination, no senses for what is going on and at stake. I write since about 20+ years about scales, proportions, and consequences. I learned it in the field of ecology, where you have slow and rapid change, dynamic interactions across subjects and sectors, and levels.
Milliards or Billions 10 power 9 or 12 - are quite different in German and English. We need 1000 Billions in German words for 1 Billion used in the English language space! Confusing isn't it ? So some people propose to speak about Giga (power9) and Tera (power 12). Why I focus on this many zeros? Beside the examples below I had my kick when someone entered our office and told us about the data stored on all their CDC computers in the world. It was Penta (power 15) ! So now consider all the data stored today in earth-sciences or worse on all GOOGLE servers today !
So who would be educated and experienced to discuss the magnitudes involved here, and can help us get a clue on how to not loose "touch", come to grips, and help us to jointly confront and grapple with the issues related with such "new dimensions" ?
Our leaders and journalist all too often fail - they confuse by factor 100 or 1000 on a daily basis. But how to make a difference, when not to learn, imagine, and communicate in new ways. More >
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22 Sep 2008 @ 11:33, by erlefrayne. Futurism
As you read this piece, please take a cursory glance at yourself. For you are among the last humans of the non-chipped prototype. We non-chipped humans’ lifeline will soon end, as we are only co-terminus with ‘late’ capitalism.
‘Late’ capitalism will crash down into total destruction. As already advanced in some previous articles, ‘late’ capitalism or ‘the system’ is now DEAD. No more can this system be revived, it is beyond repair. What you see, feel, smell, sense right now as ‘the system’ is merely a semblance of a once thriving and growing system of post-war interventionist capitalism, whose international trade conduct was partly regulated by fixed exchange rate and a gold standard. The reality you see today is only illusory, ‘virtual reality’ of a once mighty and envious system. To repeat, IT IS DEAD! More >
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22 Sep 2008 @ 07:09, by skookum. Ideas, Creativity
for the changing season.. More >
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21 Sep 2008 @ 09:28, by vaxen. Spirituality
The following article was written by a friend of mine and does contain some very salient advice concerning the changes that many are experiencing. The changes are going to keep right on coming. The old order is dying and we are being born anew each day. Be prepared. You can see the "Paradigm Shift" as a blessing or a curse.
Or maybe you don't see it at all?
Vax
===
Message from Eric Pepin
May you live in interesting times. It seems to be the
message I am putting out lately.
No doubt many of you are concerned with the financial
markets and the change that it represents and how it
will affect you. Well I make no claims to being a financial
adviser but certainly I have a handle on other effecting
energies. I think it’s important for me to explain to
fellow Navigators what is happening on a global and
spiritual level at least to help put things into a greater
perspective. More >
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 20 Sep 2008 @ 16:54, by jazzolog. Economics, Financing, Banking
Butterfly listens
at the flowerpot:
true teaching.
---Issa
And do not change. Do not divert your love from visible things. But go on loving what is good, simple and ordinary; animals and things and flowers, and keep the balance true.
---Rainer Maria Rilke
Old gnarled trees
darken the trail:
Where is the temple bell?
---Li Po
The drawing by Luis Quintanilla in Barcelona, 1938
Today's headline: Bush asks Congress for $700 billion for bailout
Growing up from boy to man: play some kind of ball and watch cowboys. Those were the keys to American success in my childhood. Eventually become fulfilled in business was what a guy was supposed to do, to be. I took one course in economics at Bates. The prof was young, bald and interesting, but I don't remember any of it. Not a word. It was a foreign language...without translation. There was a girl in the front row, beside his desk, I found fascinating...and so I spent the semester staring at her, until finally she noticed. I do remember Kay, from Springfield.
Baseball I liked and still do...sorta. I have to say when the Dodgers left Brooklyn, the very heart of the game cracked somehow. Now, I don't know how all the leagues work even, and I never liked pinch hitters to say nothing of these designated hitter dudes. The sound of an aluminum bat makes me sick. I never was very good at playing it, but I had some cherished moments doing so. I connect baseball more with jazz than selling cars, I guess because of the notion of teamwork...which seems to be for the support of the individual rather than the other way around---on top of which sits the owner. Or at least it used to SEEM to be like that, before football became America's preferred sport. Jazz players remain on the economic edge, but baseball stars make millions.
I went to the movies most Saturday afternoons, and usually one of the double features was a Western. Cowboys I got to know---oh, not the ones that actually herd cows: I mean the cleancut nice guys with a beautiful horse and powerful punch, who had to leave Melody Ranch (or whatever) to clean up the town and toss the rich saloonkeeper and his gang into the hoosegow. Or as we moved into the "adult Western," Shane alone and haunted keeping the open range safe from the greedy cattleman and available to the average guy like you and me and Brandon de Wilde. And Jean Arthur. More >
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19 Sep 2008 @ 16:27, by shreepal. Philosophy
The truth, the eternal conscious being, which is perceived by humans variously – depending upon one’s Para psychological propensity as the Supreme father, the Divine Mother, the Ultimate State or whatever kind of thing It appears to that psychology – has always been there allowing Itself or Himself bound by the law of conservation of energy. It or He was there before the birth of great leaders of mankind like Lord Buddha, Lord Jesus Christ etc. and shall always remain there.
The supreme tool of human beings for knowing things, that is, Mind, as of today is not developed enough to resolve the dilemma of the ultimate – the primordial creator or the creation. The choices available to us are either to postpone the resolution of this problem to an indefinite future, to a point of time in future when humans would be evolved enough mentally or otherwise to tackle this supreme question and proceed further on our forward march or to pass our judgments today denouncing things Divine as against Science and vice versa. The wisest choice on our part is the former option.
This timeless truth has been spoken of by credible people and there is no reason for us to doubt their integrity. The truth spoken of by them is timeless but the context and the times in which it was spoken have changed with the passage of time beyond recognition today.
While passing our judgments on their statements we should always remember that a truth has to be clothed in words, context and circumstances to make it understandable to the people of the time and relevant to their problems. Today we speak of this truth in the words of Science. It is but natural. But this process inevitably puts ostensible limitations of time-specific culture and rigid frames of contents on its otherwise limitless substance. This truth is limitless from the weak human measures. Its relevance to times and circumstances includes not the past ages alone but our (modern) age as well.
Let the rigid religious moulds formed around it by lay followers of different leaders of mankind over the ages pursue their respective old-beaten tracks, take their own course and complete their natural run. And in the meantime, let these rigid, divisive and narrow moulds thus extract out of this eternal source their due life-sustaining nectar for their remaining period of life, for the period till humans pierce these moulds and get to the bottom, to the centre, to the essence. It is for them to follow this track of outlived utility and realize its diminished utility and not for us to dissuade them from that path.
We on our part should go to this centre of eternal truth and tap its benign flood-light to expose the rampant habitations of human miseries and misfortunes on earth and to heal them by its curative energy. The sweep of the truth of which the great human leaders have spoken is not confined to individual charity and good conduct on the part of an individual; it takes within its sweeps the charity and good conduct of the organized human society.
This truth is not permissive in the face of evil times; it is revolutionary to the core. It is more revolutionary in character than any of the ordinary revolutionary human thoughts. If revolution is understood a radical change, then this eternal truth is concerned with nothing but bringing a radical change in the individual and collective human living. Let this eternal light be inscribed by us as a war cry on the revolutionary banner of the New Age.
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18 Sep 2008 @ 19:41, by martha. Philosophy
New-Style Thinking (NST) has been a term Patricia Sun ([link]) has used for several decades to describe a new way to perceive using both the intuitive and logical sides of the brain. She believes we are a young species and are learning to mature both our right and left hemispheres of the brain to create whole brain thinking. More >
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18 Sep 2008 @ 15:39, by skookum. Spirituality
Shamanism: Working with animal spirits.
[link]
I have in the last few weeks had unusually frequent contact with a high number of Praying Mantis...
 More >
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