Français/French Deutsch/German Italiano/Italian Português/Portuguese Español/Spanish 日本語/Japanese 한국어/Korean 中文(简体)/Chinese Simplified

Welcome!

I, God, welcome you to my blog!

The good book says only God is good, so it seems to me somebody needs to step up.

I hope you enjoy reading this, the Jesse Journal, as much as I have enjoyed writing it. Please feel free to subscribe, write me an email, request that I write about any particular topic you may want my perspective on, send a prayer, click on the charity link, or donate money to my bicycle fund! Have fun!

Your pal, Jess
Ladies- I'm a single, straight, virgo/boar INTJ (age 51) who enjoys books, getting out into nature, music, and daily exercise.

(my email is JesseGod@live.com)

F.Y.I. There are about 2200 posts..

Here's a quote from Fyodor Dostoevsky to start things off right: Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love.

Friday, June 27, 2008

Countries in my Blog

I try and keep a human perspective before a national(istic) one, but I've written about :




Myanmar- cyclone
China- earthquake, weather control for Olympics 8-8-08, and
Tibet- Buddhism and torch relay
Ethiopia- near - famine
Darfur- rape, tragedies
Iran and Israel- flap over nuclear capability/threat
Iraq- the continuing debacle
Afghanistan- Taleban and heroin
Denmark- a model state, it seems

my last name is as earth, and as God, who has taken geodon, I want my sheeple to be aware of and be willing and active on the helping one another front with the major problems of the day.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Taleban Opium: Afghanistan

Taleban attacks are on the rise, the UN says.

The Taleban made an estimated $100m in 2007 from Afghan farmers growing poppy for the opium trade, the United Nations says. Maybe the heroin itself is a kind of attack?

Antonio Maria Costa, head of the UN's Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), said the money was raised by a 10% tax on farmers in Taleban-controlled areas. The UN estimates last year's poppy harvest was worth $1bn.

Mr Costa said the Taleban made even more money from other activities related to the opium trade. One is protection to laboratories and the other is that the insurgents offer protection to cargo, moving opium across the border,"

"Last year Afghanistan produced about 8,000 tonnes of opium," Mr Costa said. "The world in the past few years has consumed about 4,000 tonnes in opium, this leaves a surplus, representing hundreds of millions of dollars. "It is stored somewhere and not with the farmers," he added.

Can the intense high of heroin be brought down to a mild euphoria, such as chewing on a coca leaf? This seems to me to be an interesting possibility for making the world a bit happier. I don't know my chemistry, though. Maybe all this nefarious and illegal business could be brought out into the open, in a way that helps everybody.

A horse is a horse, of course of course.

Monday, June 23, 2008

Ethiopia in Crysis

Famine threatens, they say







Famine is extreme scarcity of food, and while outright famine has not arrived, food shortages and malnutrition are a present reality for much of the country. The line between famine and lack is irrelevant for those who are starving. A famine on the scale of 1984, when Band Aid and Live Aid raised about $150M in relief for Ethiopia, is still unlikely. Logistics and medical understanding have improved. But the conditions haven't changed.

Too many people on too little land with too little, and too volatile, rainfall. Poor governance has resulted in failing to increase Ethiopia's hard-currency earnings. It has virtually no serious private business- with few jobs outside the state sector. Almost three quarters of the population may be under- or unemployed. 80% of Ethiopia's population of 80M people live off the land. They are facing a possible doubling of their population by 2050. Farming methods are still too basic to sustain it even when the rains are good.

In Goru Gutu, in Eastern Ethiopia, the average daily labouring wage is 80 cents, not enough to live on. They till soil by hand, dig ditches, and do whatever it takes to buy a few cups of grain to keep their families alive. Now, no one is eating. There were hailstorms, rains that came too late, then rains that fell too heavily, as well as infestations of insects. It is this way across the South and East. So now 4.5M more people need emergency food on top of the 5M that already receive aid, according to the UN World Food Programme.

One individual, Hindiya, 18 months old, is puffed up by edema, a protein deficiency. If she survives, she may still suffer mental and physical stunting, heart disorders, and a weakened immune system. The skin on her calves and heel has split wide open, putting her in excruciating pain. No one in her family has ever eaten meat.

The government owns the land, and yearns to shed its reputation as the world's poster child for famine. The only future is resettlement to areas of more fertile land. Goro Gutu would have to move 4000 people out a year, with an ungrowing population; however, the population might grow, and the government only has a budget to shift a few hundred.

Ethiopia's chances of progress look bleak.

Monty Python's Flying Circus sings, "Always look on the bright side of life!"
Just think what a few billionaires investing in a situation like this might do. And I don't mean buy the world a Coke, although that might be cool, as well. Structurally, the world has got to get with it. 80 cents??

Purpose and Passion Quotes

From my Life 101 Quote book

Passion


1. If you're bored, then you're boring. -Anthony Robbins
2. The art of resting the mind and the power of dismissing from it all care and worry is probably one of the secrets of energy in our great men. -Capt. JA Hadfield
3. If you want to win anything -a race, your self, your life- you have to go a little berserk. -George Sheehan.
4. There is no end. There is no beginning. There is only the infinite passion of life. -Federico Fellini
5. The purpose of life is a life of purpose. -Robert Byrne
6. Man's main task in life is to give birth to himself, to become what he potentially is. -Erich Fromm
7. He who has a why to live can bear almost any how. -Friedrich Nietsche
8. Follow your bliss -Joseph Campbell
9. It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop. -Confucius
10. It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing. -Thomas Jefferson
11. It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do. -JK Jerome
12. Great minds have purposes, others have wishes. -Washington Irving
13. What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail? -Dr. Robert Schuller
14. Creative activity could be described as a type of learning process where teacher and pupil are located in the same individual. - Arthur Koestler
15. Creativity is a drug I cannot live without. -Cecil B. DeMille
16. Creativity can solve almost any problem. The creative act, the defeat of habit by originality, overcomes everything. :-) -George Lois
17.Every creator painfully experiences the chasm between his inner vision and its ultimate expression. -Isaac Bashevis Singer
18. Have no fear of perfection -you’ll never reach it. -Salvador Dali
Perfection Quotes
-Be perfect, as your father in heaven is perfect. -heyzeus cryst
-If you have no defect, make a perfect prefect -me
-The internet is becoming the town square for the global village of the future -Bill Gates
-"I have seen the future and it works." - Lincoln Steffens

Love Quotes

Love







1. God is love. (God is good. Thus, Love is good. Love is a battlefield? God is a man of war. The art of war is deception:)
*I am the way, the truth, and the life -Jesus
* The body never lies -Martha Graham
*The liar's punishment is not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else. -George Bernard Shaw
*Don't use that foreign word "ideals." We have that excellent native word "lies." -Henrik Ibsen
*lies! lies! lies! lies! lies! lies! LIES! -Metallica
*lying is bad -my mom (but lying is legal, except under oath)
Love Almighty!
2. Serve God, that He may do the like for you. -the teaching for Merikare
3. Love is a reciprocity of soul and has a different end and obeys different laws from marriage. Hence one should not take the loved one to wife. -Alessandro Piccolomini
4. Husbands, love your wives.
5. What one has to do, usually can be done. -Eleanor Roosevelt
6. I love it, I love it; and who shall dare, to chide me for loving that old armchair? -Eliza Cook
7. Prayer gives a man the opportunity of getting to know a gentleman he hardly ever meets. I do not mean his maker, but himself. -William Inge
8. I never loved another person the way I loved myself. -Mae West
9. The best way to know God is to love many things. -Vincent Van Gogh
10. Love is but the discovery of ourselves in others, and the delight in the recognition. -Alexander Smith (vanity of vanities, all is vanity)
11. Beauty is the gift of God - Aristotle . (Beauty is in the eye of the beholder)
12. Only the really plain people know about love. The very fascinating ones try so hard to create an impression that they soon exhaust their talents. -Katherine Hepburn
13. That's not a lie, it's a terminological inexactitude -Alexander Haig
14. Agape, eros, and philia are the forms of love. -religion class
15. We live very close together. So, our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can't help them at least don't hurt them. -Dalai Lama
16. Personally, I like sex and I don’t care what a man thinks of me as long as I get what I want from him - which is usually sex. -Valerie Perrine
17. Romantic love is mental illness. But it’s a pleasurable one. It’s a drug. It distorts reality, and that’s the point of it. It would be impossible to fall in love with someone that you really saw. -Fran Lebowitz
18. The best mirror is an old friend. -George Herbert

God and angels
All you need is love.-Beatles
Love is a metaphysical gravity. -R. Buckminster Fuller
Angels fly because they take themselves lightly. -G.K. Chesterton. lol. I'm an angel! whee!

Health Quotes

Health, from my Life 101 Quote book:

1. The first wealth is health.
2. Long life to you! Good health to you and your household! And good health to all that is yours! -1 Samuel 25:6
3. I've never met a healthy person who worried much about his health, or a good person who worried much about his soul. -John Haldane
4. A healthy body is a guest-chamber for the soul; a sick body is a prison. -Francis Bacon
5. Positive attitudes- optimism, high self-esteem, an outgoing nature, joyousness, and the ability to cope with stress- may be the most important bases for continued good health. -Helen Hayes .
6. A man needs a purpose for real health. -Sherwood Anderson
7. Without health, life is not life; it is only a state of languor and suffering. -Francois Rabelais
8. Don’t smoke, eat healthy, and exercise! -me, being a p.c. nazi
9. Do your daily maintenance. -David Eldridge
10. The best activities for your health are pumping and humping. Arnold Schwarzenegger

Regarding humping, did you know eating watermelon can act to relax blood vessels, like viagra?

Wealth Quotes

Wealth, from my Life 101 Quote book

1. Seek wealth, it's good. -Ivan Boesky
2. I have no riches but my thoughts, yet these are wealth enough for me. -Sara Teasdale
3. A man's true wealth is the good he does in this world. -anonymous
4. Riches are not from an abundance of worldly goods, but from a contented mind. -Mohammed
5. I am indeed rich, since my income is superior to my expense, and my expense equal to my wishes. -Edward Gibbon
6. That man is richest whose pleasures are cheapest. -Henry David Thoreau
7. We live in a society which provides a multitude of material things, but we may have paid a high spiritual price for our plenty. -Euell Gibbons
8.Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth. -3 John 2
9. One's friends are that part of the human race with which one can be human. - George Santayana
10. If a man owns land, the land owns him. -Ralph Waldo Emerson
11. This is the way God would do it if He only had money. -George S. Kaufman, describing Moss Hart's home.
12. Money is Aladdin's lamp -Lord Byron
13. Money is human happiness in the abstract. -Arthur Schopenhauer
14. Money is the wise man's religion. -Euripides
15. Money is God in action. -Frederick J. Eikerenkoetter II
16. Money is health, and liberty, and strength. -Charles Lamb
17. Money brings honor, friends, conquest, and realms. -John Milton
18. Money is not required to buy one necessity of the soul. -Henry David Thoreau
19. It's a kind of spiritual snobbery that makes people think they can be happy without money. -Albert Camus
20. Money isn't everything as long as you have enough. -Malcolm Forbes
21. If you can actually count your money then you are not really a rich man. -J. Paul Getty
22. Abundance consists not alone in material possession but in an uncovetous spirit. -Charles Sheldon
23. To have life more abundant, we must think in the limitless terms of abundance. -Thomas Dreier.
24.The secret of success is constancy to purpose. -Benjamin Disraeli

Happiness Quotes





A few T-shirts with "happiness" memes. I had a friend with this shirt like 20 years ago.

Happiness, from my Life 101 Quote book:

1. Don't worry, be happy - Bobby McFerrin, also Bob Marley
2. What? Me worry? -Alfred E. Newman
3. Paradise is where I am. -Voltaire
4. How good is man's life, the mere living! How fit to employ all the heart and the soul and the senses forever in joy! -Robert Browning
5. A man should always consider how much he has more than he wants, and how much more unhappy he might be than he really is. -Joseph Addison
6. The apprehension of the good Gives but the greater feeling to the worse. -William Shakespeare
7. Every misery I miss is a new blessing. -Izaak Walton
8. To the illumined mind the whole world sparkles with light. -Ralph Waldo Emerson
9. A merry heart doeth good like medicine. -Proverbs 17:22
10. Mysteriously and in ways that are totally remote from natural experience, the gray drizzle of horror induced by depression takes on the quality of physical pain. -William Styron.*Action is the antidote to despair -Joan Baez
11. The most common trait of all primitive peoples is a reverence for the lifegiving earth, and the native American shared this elemental ethic: the land was alive to his loving touch, and he, it's son, was brother to all creatures. -Stewart Lee Udall
12. It is the chiefest point of happiness that a man is willing to be what he is. -Erasmus
13. In those vernal seasons of the year, when the air is calm and pleasant, it were an injury and sullenness against Nature not to go out, and see her riches, and partake in her rejoicing with heaven and earth. -John Milton
14. Look, I really don't want to wax philosophic, but I will say that if you're alive, you got to flap your arms and legs, you got to jump around a lot, you got to make a lot of noise, because life is the very opposite of death. And therefore, as I see it, if you're quiet, you're not living. You've got to be noisy, or at least your thought should be noisy and colorful and lively. -Mel Brooks
15. He deserves Paradise who makes his companions laugh -Koran
16. If an idea is important enough it is worth laughing at. -Alan Plater
17. I can live for two months on a good compliment. -Mark Twain
18. We are made kind by being kind. -Eric Hoffer
19. My creed is that: Happiness is the only good. The place to be happy is here. The time to be happy is now. The way to be happy is to make others so. -Robert G. Ingersoll
20. To love what you do and feel that it matters- how could anything be more fun? -Katherine Graham
21. Happiness? A good cigar, a good meal, and a good woman -or a bad woman. It depends on how much happiness you can handle. -George Burns
22. Happiness is always a by-product. It is probably a matter of temperament, and for anything I know it may be glandular. -Robertson Davies
23. To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness -Bertrand Russell
24. Joy is the feeling of grinning inside. -Dr. Melba Colgrove
25. One joy scatters a hundred griefs. -Chinese Proverb
26. In about the same degree as you are helpful, you will be happy. -Karl Reiland
27. The roots of happiness grow deepest in the soil of service. -anonymous
28. Full of love for all things in the world, practicing virtue in order to benefit others, this man alone is happy. -Buddha
29. The Constitution of America only guarantees pursuit of happiness- you have to catch up with it yourself. Fortunately, happiness is something that depends not on position but disposition, and life is what you make of it. -Gill Robb Wilson
30. Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us, but is always the result of good conscience, good health, occupation, and freedom in all just pursuits. -Thomas Jefferson.
31. Happiness is a warm gun -Beatles
32. All of the animals except man know that the principal business of life is to enjoy it. -Samuel Butler
33. There is no time like the pleasant. -Oliver Herford
34. Don't expect to enjoy life if you keep your milk of human kindness all bottled up. -anonymous
35. It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not. -Andre Gide
36. A faithful friend is the medicine of life. -Ecclesiasticus 6:16
37. It isn't so much what's on the table that matters, as what's on the chairs. -W.S. Gilbert
38. America is a conspiracy to make you happy. -John Updike
39. Gladness of the heart is the life of a man, and the joyfulness of a man prolongeth his days. -Ecclesiasticus 30:22

Okay, so this isn't a quote: 7/13/08 BBC news reports momentous events in your life such as having children, or getting married, may make you happier, but only temporarily. Our basic happiness level essentially stays the same throughout adult life, the Economic Journal It reports there was some literature on people who became paraplegic, who, when interviewed a few years later, had similar levels of happiness to those who had not been affected this way. "Likewise, there are studies of lottery winners who are no happier in the long term." It's likened to a "thermostat," a range that we bounce around in, that may be genetic.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Anagrams of my name


I'm 'Jesse Lawrence Teshara'

Sara, Sarah, earth, satan, war, jeers, jests, clean, wrath(less), anal, jeweler, law, tree shrew, real, etc. are all in my name. I'm sure there's a lot more. An anagram has to use all the letters.

Go to http://www.infobahn.com/pages/anagram.html and play with YOUR name, on either of the sites. The top link is exhaustive, and the bottom one chooses only one good one.

with 'Sara' (my wife)
27,673 anagrams were found. I'm not going through them. OK, here's some:
Sara Wealth Scene Jeers. Sara hates screen jewel. Sara Sane Rejects Wheel. Sara Sane Techs Jeweler. Sara Chats Jeweler Seen. Sara chases jeweler net. Sara tears hence jewels. Sara ah erectness jewel. Sara creates jewel hens. Sara Jean selects where. Sara senate Welch jeers. Sara hearse jewel scent. Sara crashes new Jet Lee. Sara crashes jewel teen.

with 'Sarah' (my sister)
Sarah ejects learn ewes. etc.

with 'earth' (my home)
-earth's aces earn jewels; jewelers as earth's acne; earth's real jaw essence; earth cleans ass we jeer; earth's anal secs we jeer; (ace wrathless, sane jeer) earth cleanses jeers, wa; earth resews jean's lace.

with 'Satan '
-satan researches jewel; satan reaches jewelers; satan searches jeweler

with 'real satan'
-real satan eschews jeer; real satan chess we jeer; real satan secs hew jeer; real satan secs where ej.

with 'as satan'
-jewelers cheer as satan; chew reel jeers as satan.

with 'anal'
-researches anal we jest; anal reaches sewer's jet; jests "anal careers, whee!"; jests "ew, anal careers, eh?"; jeers anal actress whee; anal wash secretes jeer; anal asses reject where; anal asset chewer jeer; (and my favorite for the band name category:) anal war cheese jesters; anal searches we re-jest.

So I limited my search to just Jesse L. Teshara. Of the 1923 found anagrams, I'll share these:
Jet Lee ass rash; harass Lee jest; alas here's jest; ass healer jest; heal ears jests; real as he jests; real as she jets; real ass jets, eh?; stashes jar eel; these jar sales; the eel's ass jar; seas re-lash jet; ha as lesser jet; has as leer jets; laser as he jets; are lass, eh? jest; LA as jesters, eh? share sale jest.

Tibet, China aftermath


The torch is going through Llasa on Saturday (in 2 days)

Journalists are not allowed in. What the heck is going on? Amnesty International would like to know. In time for the torch, they would like China to "shed some light" on the missing Tibetans issue. The dragon must shed from time to time, right?

Reports coming through friends and family members to the media and Tibetan organisations suggested that police had carried out hundreds of raids on monasteries, nunneries and private homes. More than 1,000 Tibetans detained during protests against the Chinese government in March remain unaccounted for, Amnesty International says. China says rioters killed at least 19 people. Tibetan exiles say security forces killed dozens of people. It's kind of a mess.

When Sara and I went to China, I remember this crazed guy selling red Olympic t-shirts, absolutely mad for a sale. We bought one later, but I wonder if the guy was able to feed his family. That was kind of scary. I hope the crowds that go to the Olympics don't get too stressed out by people crazed for money. God almighty. And I hope Beijing has good weather, and without pollution, with or without the help of weather control efforts.

Anyway, Tibet anagrams to bet it. You better, you better, you bet. You better bet your life.

Darfur, Sudan


It's horrifying; The world has to do something.

Almost 100% of women and girls at aid camps have been raped, cnn reports. Teenagers are reportedly getting raped repeatedly when they go out to collect firewood, and men are afraid to accompany them for fear of getting killed if they object/protect.

"Sudan's Darfur crisis has exploded on many fronts -- violence, hunger, displacement and looting -- but United Nations peacekeepers say the biggest issue now affecting the region is the systematic rape of women and children. Thousands of women -- as young as four -- caught in the middle of the struggle between rebel forces and government-backed militias have become victims of rape, they say, with some aid groups claiming it is being used as a weapon of ethnic cleansing."

Rape is almost always about power.
Power is knowledge, money, violence, authority, and control.
How can we give the victims (and the victimizers) power, to stop this madness.

Making matters worse, aid workers say scores of babies conceived through rape are being dumped by their mothers. "Abandoned babies are reported but because of the stigma attached to it there is no detailed report because the women don't come forward," says Dr Naqib Safi of the U.N. children's body UNICEF. As many as 20 babies a month are being dumped in one camp of 22,000 people.

This is so horrifyingly sad.
Please write the politicians, support aid agencies, spread the word, do something, do a good turn.
Here's an attempt at humor from the onion. Ugh.

Irrational Humans & Robots




The Economist magazine writes of Robots and Human Irrationality

Irrationals
"Once someone owns something, he places a higher value on it than he did when he acquired it—an observation first called “the endowment effect” by Richard Thaler. This has been proven in hundreds of experiments, the most famous of which found that students were surprisingly reluctant to trade a coffee mug they had been given for a bar of chocolate, even though they did not prefer coffee mugs to chocolate when given a straight choice between the two."

"Because the endowment effect touches on so many areas, it may be helpful for legislators to understand its evolutionary origins. That goods and rights such as pollution permits, radio spectrum and mobile-telephone licences do not inexorably flow towards the most efficient distribution worries the legal scholars charged with designing fair allocations. The effect also complicates the negotiation of contracts, as people demand more to give up standard provisions than they would have been willing to pay had they bargained anew. Nor is the endowment effect alone in suggesting that Homo economicus is a rarer species than neoclassical taxonomists would like to believe."

Other “irrational” phenomena include confirmation bias (searching for or interpreting information in a way that confirms one’s preconceptions), the bandwagon effect (doing things because others do them) and framing problems (when the conclusion reached depends on the way the data are presented). All in all, the rational conclusion is that humans are irrational animals.

Robots
(from the Economist, rephrased)
Robots, of course, are only as rational as their programming. We humans are largely, if not entirely, programmed by evolution. Robots offer us an opportunity, especially for tinkerers and men, to be like God and get as close as we can to creating something resembling life. Robots are getting cheaper to make. The entire human genome is getting cheaper to sequence, too.

Robots are starting to come into their own. Computing power is increasing and their cost is decreasing. Because of the relentless increase in computing power, robots are moving from the simple, mundane, and monotonous tasks of their 60's origins to being able to see, feel, move and work together, because of increasingly sophisticated systems. Robot engineers call this “mechatronics”: the union of mechanics, optics, electronics, computers and software. Some factory robots are now smart enough to be released from their safety cages to work among humans. And as they become cleverer and more dexterous, they are starting to move from factories to offices and homes.

They vacuum, cut the grass, clean windows, transport stuff, and don't necessarily look human. Robots that can climb walls have been developed by scientists in the United States. The robots can scale surfaces using the same principles behind electrostatic charges, which make balloons stick to ceilings after being rubbed... Some robots look like spiders or flying insects. Many are also enrolled in the armed forces where they defuse bombs, fly reconnaissance and attack missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, and meander under the sea. At the robot fair in Munich, among a bewildering array of robots that can now do most jobs in a factory there were also machines that, in addition to tasks like those already mentioned, could talk and even perform surgery. One robot bartender opens cans of beer and serves alcohol.

The cost of industrial robots has also fallen sharply against the cost of people, which has helped to boost their numbers to more than 1m worldwide. Most of them are built in Europe and Japan, with about half at work in Asia. The falling cost of computing power makes it practical to give robots features like vision, touch and awareness. They are becoming easier to program, and some respond to speech. Eventually, advanced humanoid robots will escape from the laboratory. Indeed, Toyota and Honda expect domestic robots to become a huge market in the future, with machines working as a family helper.

I imagine one day there will be robots that can build robots. So, in a way, they will be able to reproduce. With enough smarts and consciousness, won't this be life?

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

The Pro-Choice Argument

Keep your laws off my body

1. The foetus has no consciousness; experiences no pain; is not a person; is like a tumor; is like a leach; is tiny; is not human; removing it is like swatting a fly; is unwanted; is better off dead; is a threat to the life of the mother; would contribute to overpopulation; would be an inconvenience; would be painful to give birth to; requires the mother to eat healthy and not smoke or drink; and, is attached to me, and therefore a part of me, a part of my body, for me to do what I wish with.

2. We believe in freedom. Pro-lifers would take away my legal right to abort during the first trimester.

3. If abortion were illegal, women/girls would have them anyway, resulting in unsafe illegal abortions. Birth control doesn't always work. Adoption may not always be the best option.

and,
4. I personally don't have the right to have a say, because I'm a man. Huh.

Pretty strong stuff.

I'm still pro-life, though. I've already explained why. Basically, it's still murder, even if it is a bit like swatting a fly, which I've done plenty of. Meat is murder, too, and I love meat. Still, life begins at conception, and I empathize with the fetii (is that a word?) who I would imagine would tell their mothers they don't want to be snuffed before they're even born, if they could see their lives ahead. There are abortion snuff films on the internet. I personally believe adoption IS always the best option. Of course, not all prospective adoptive parents would be like mine were, I suppose. Then again, anything's better than being murdered.

As for keeping laws off bodies, maybe I'll get the law tattooed on mine if an abiding respect for life gets enshrined by it.

If people started adopting babies instead of aborting them, having love for children instead of considering them as merely agglomerates of cells, gave love instead of considering themselves empowered by committing homicide on their own children, then maybe they wouldn't be so pessimistic about the future lives of their children in the first place. Adoption is the loving choice. Grow some plants, adopt a pet, be pro-peace, support life-imprisonment in a positive environment as punishment for heinous crimes, and consider adopting a child. That's what being pro-life is, as I see it. Enjoy life, eat well, fall in love, have passionate sweaty sex, work doing something you love, travel, follow your bliss. Abortion is just death. LIVE!

Why America went to Iraq (?)


Why did we go, why have we stayed?

1. the "enemy"
Well, we were angry, and needed to act, I guess, and the American people already had an enemy in Saddam Hussein. Bush may even have had a personal vendetta against Saddam for unknown reasons, like Iraqi threats against his dad. Another personal reason might have been Dubya's need to prove himself to his dad; apparently he was always assumed to be playing second fiddle to his brother Jeb. We get to sound highminded by couching our invasion as a liberation from oppression, especially of groups like the Kurds, which I suppose it was. We couldn't invade Saudi Arabia, the origin of most of the highjackers, because it's the Muslim holy land, and the enemy is a non-state actor, Al Quaeda (the base). So I guess we thought we'd use our know-how and equipment from the previous war to finish the job this time.
2. Religion
America has been called the "Great Satan" and Bush has called entire countries the "Axis of evil." Politicians have suddenly got religion. This is nonsense, from my (God's) point of view. Only individuals, not countries, are evil. And even then, it's specific actions and choices, not the identity of that individual I find fault with. And even then, I try and understand why people think and do what they do. And I usually come around to thinking it's a matter of preference or misunderstanding. I understand.

3. WMD
Nobody likes radioactive fallout, and as pretty as giant mushroom clouds may appear in pictures, you don't actually want to look at one. America is afraid of a devastating nuclear attack. We're the only country to have used them, and we have lots of them, and we go around telling everyone else that they can't have them, unless they're Christian or something, and we're a largely selfish nation obsessed with celebrity, obesely watching our plasma screen tv's, and polluting/consuming, while half of the world lives on like a buck a day. We usually think of WMD's as nukes. I wonder if cluster-bombs qualify. They're the abc's of war (atomic, biological, chemical). We're hypocritical, and we're scared. Our CIA meddling has killed plenty in the past. Maybe we weren't absolutely certain about Iraq's capability, given the lack of openness to UN inspection, and we just wanted to play it safe. So, to be technical, Iraq I guess did have at least one kind of Weapon of Mass Destruction, as Saddam gassed the Kurds. Bush apparently, though, was misinformed, or paranoid. You never know what those crazy Muslims will do, right?

4. Money and the American Israel lobby
But Saddam had nothing to do with 9-11. I think we even let Osama get away, possibly for geopolitical reasons, kept hush-hush. It's obviously about oil and the American, if not global, economy. My wife thinks we went to Iraq just to make money for the political elite (read: small group of monied men) with investments in corporations that would rebuild Iraq. I suspect there's even more to it. Like maybe we want a base in Iraq for potential future conflict in the region. Or we want to protect Israel from Iran, and keep Iraq from becoming part of a greater Iran.

5. Feeling righteous, support our troops
Or it's to distract the American public from something else...( like all the Hollywood crap does anyway, such as how morally bankrupt and selfish we can be. I have to take all this expensive medication for a reason, you know. Reality is f-ing harsh as hell. My role in the economy is just to basically funnel state funds to pharmaceutical companies, who have a vested interest in maximum mental unhealth). Our businesses are milking every cent from the world, as everyone does, in our capitalist world. You've got to fight for every advantage. Supposedly self-interest is in everybody's interest. Perhaps this is madness. In any case, if we create a siege mentality, constantly fighting, it could boost the economy, and prevent from falling into a depression. Fighting is better than moping. This is what I suspect it's most about. Bulls are angry creatures. Never give in, show that fighting spirit, whether you're a businessman or a soldier, who are both essentially doing the same thing, I would say, i.e. making a killing. It's all about the dolla billz, and we can't start having a nation of mendicant holy men. Also, America's got issues, it's divided, and it's better to have enemies abroad than enemies at home.

6. Tactical
Or to test new weapons systems, and support military contracts. Maybe Bush just wanted to get re-elected. Maybe "dark forces" wanted to manipulate our country into being further hated, made poorer, or put into a geopolitical or military disadvantage, and it's the result of mind control. The main reason? America! F-- yeah! Kick some ass! Woohoo! Iraq serves as a convenient location for everyone who hates America to gather and take up arms against our mighty military; and it's oh so far from American soil. Yeehaw! Bring it on! Some or all of the above? That's all I can think of.


Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Total Disillusionment with Dubya







Bush should not be Commander in Chief
I'm not a soldier, so I can say this:
He's Imbecile in Chief.

Which makes me wonder, shouldn't soldiers, who fight and die for the right of Americans to enjoy their right to free speech, enjoy that right themselves?

Anyway, I quote this from Jeremy Taylor's January Iraq war blog entry, entitled "Body Count":

Body count
How many Iraqi civilians have been killed since the US invasion in 2003? The cautious Iraq Body Count website puts the figure at almost 88,000. Fifteen months ago, the Lancet medical journal estimated 655,000. Yesterday the World Health Organisation calculated about 151,000, but maybe as much as 223,000.So, give or take half a million dead people. Who knows? No one is in a position to count, since the country has been sunk so deep in chaos and violence since its "liberation". On the "Allied" side, military deaths are now well over 3,000, substantially more than the number of people who died in the Twin Towers on 9/11. In avenging the tragedy of 9/11, the US has actually more than doubled it in terms of dead Americans, and that's without taking into account any of the maimed, the injured or the traumatised. In addition to the dead, over 4 million Iraqis have become refugees as a result of this war. According to the Refugees International website, 2.3 million Iraqis are internal refugees driven out of their homes by the violence; 1.5 million more Iraqis are in Syria, and another million in other Middle Eastern countries. When you consider that Iraq actually had nothing to do with 9/11, the horror inflicted on Iraq and its people by this lunatic war is almost beyond imagining, and certainly out of all proportion to anything that happened on 9/11. What's more, the 9/11 attackers were Saudis, not Iraqis. Logically it would have been better to attack Saudi Arabia, therefore. Or Germany, where some of the planning was done. Or perhaps America should attack itself, since it was right there in the USA that the attackers cheerfully bought pilot training for themselves. But for some reason—yet to be fully explained—the neo-cons in Washington have a vendetta against Iraq, and seem determined to pursue it to the end, no matter how many innocent Iraqis are killed or driven out of their homes.On the basis of the WHO study released yesterday, you have to conclude that one American is worth 50 Iraqis plus 500 refugees, more or less. Each American death merits 50 Iraqi deaths and 500 exiles. And the Americans still think of themselves as the victims.

Okay, so I'll add some research/numbers, and commentary of my own.

ibc.org (iraq body count.org) said, as of 2004, (so 4 more bloody years have passed), that: 408 American civilians outside of Iraq/Afghanistan have died since the wars/war began (in 18 attacks), which, added to the 2976 September 11th body count, is 3375 dead Americans. I don't know how many were injured in 9-11. But 1596 Americans were injured in the 18 subsequent attacks. Anyway, they ask:

One might ask how it is possible to claim that the deaths of some 4,500 civilians at the hands of paramilitaries demonstrates “utter contempt for innocent life” when the blood of some 14,000 innocents staining our own hands is considered noble and necessary.

Well, I'll answer the question. Both sides show contempt for human life, and each side, from it's own perspective, thinks their actions are noble and necessary. It's a mad world. I seriously don't know how military cemetaries can be filled with crosses. I seriously doubt Jesus would approve.

Okay, so I don't know if it's 14k or 88k or 250k or even 655k.
How can you say 250k dead civilian foreigners is a balanced response to 5k dead Americans?
(I suspect the higher figures are true). Jesus said to turn the other cheek. Even ONE DEATH is too many. I am completely, utterly sickened. Fuck you, George W. Bush.

Sorry kiddies. Welcome to our stupid world. Welcome to a neverending cycle of violence and culture of death and massive funding for the military-industrial complex. Welcome to hell.

He has made this country less safe, robbed our money, and cost us insane opportunity costs, because some people like to be all macho and shit about killing "ragheads". I love this country, but I hate a lot of the evil, warloving bastards in it. I suppose it's just an all too pervasive false consciousness, and lack of morals cloaked in a supposed morality that says military "values" like honor, integrity, service justify blindly obeying orders to kill strangers. Not that it's okay to kill people you know. Geezus.

Iraq IS like Vietnam
During the conflict, approximately 3 to 4 million Vietnamese on both sides were killed, in addition to another 1.5 to 2 million Lao and Cambodians who were drawn into the war.
specifically,
-capitalist: Total dead: ~314,000Total wounded: ~1,490,000
(South Vietnam, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, United States)
-communist: Total dead: ~1,101,000Total wounded: ~604,000+
(North Vietnam, NLF, China)
civilians
-Vietnamese civilian dead: 2,000,000 (*=approximation)
-Cambodian civilian dead: ~700,000*
-Laotian civilian dead: ~50,000*

-U.S., specifically: US dead: 58,209; 2,000 missing; wounded: 305,000

What I'm saying is the U.S. lost 58,209 people in the Vietnam war.
Iraq, a sovereign country no better or worse than the United States, simply made up of people like us, despite stereotypes to the contrary, is said to have suffered a loss of over 600,000 lives, as of 2006.

"The new mortality survey of Iraq that estimates 600,000 deaths by violence is startling and should alter the way America thinks about this war. The John Hopkins University researchers were meticulous about the methods used to randomly choose the survey sites and analyze the data. It is state-of-the-art work, and its accuracy is not an issue. The survey is the only scientific account of the war dead. There is no other, and those who publicly dismiss the findings must offer an alternative. There is none. Every other account is deeply flawed in method, and this one is not. It is standard in epidemiology and disaster response. The survey is available here (mit center for international studies)."
This is some pretty bad karma, if justice exists.

Height









Looking up to people, looking down on people...
Do you "under-stand"?

Giants are a baseball team. Midgets are sex objects. And tallness is height is overseeing things. Tall is T-all; Height is H-eight; H8 would sound like hate; and to oversee is not necessarily to overlook.

What the hell is going on here??

What's the psychology of height? Someone I knew told me a long time ago that tall people were naturally submissive. Short people seem to often have something to prove. Dunno, though. Is international relations and business affected by cultural differences in height? I remember something about tall and lanky people living in hot environments, like some African tribes, and short and stocky living in cold places, like the Inuit. Do we want to even the playing field by electing a midget president or something?

Hell and Paradise




So you think you can tell...heaven from hell...blue skies from pain...
There's a Hell, Norway (and an ancient Helvetia in what is now Switzerland).
There's also a Paradise, California. (and a Paradise, Nevada)
There is no Heaven, but there is a Heavener, on earth. (and a Loving, USA, and a 2 Lovelands -in Colorado and Ohio- and a Lovelock, USA)

So how are things in Hell, Paradise, and Loving?

Paradise
Paradise, near Chico, was recently burning, and being evacuated from the California wildfire in the area.

Hell
Hell is a village in Stjørdal, Norway with a population of 352. It has become a minor tourist attraction because of its name, since people like to take the train there to get photographed in front of the station sign. The station sign reads "Gods-expedition", an old spelling of the Norwegian word for "cargo handling" (godsekspedisjon would be the current spelling).
The name Hell stems from the Old Norse word hellir, which means "overhang", "cliff cave". The Norwegian word hell can also mean "luck". The Norwegian word for "god" is gud.

Among English-speaking tourists, one of those popular Norwegian postcards depicted the station with a heavy frost on the ground. The visual joke was that the picture showed "Hell frozen over", though there was no caption to make the point. Temperatures in Hell can reach -20°C during winter.

Mona Grudt, Miss Universe 1990, is from a small town near Hell. During the 1990 Miss Universe competition, she listed herself as "The beauty queen from Hell" as a publicity stunt.

Loving
Loving is a County in Texas. It is the least populous county in the entire United States. Its seat, and only community, is Mentone. The nearest sizable towns are Pecos, Texas, and Carlsbad, New Mexico. In 2000, its population was 67.

It seems like bad news, then. Paradise sounds like hell. The world of loving only has 67 people. At least Hell has frozen over. But that's not necessarily good either. This reminds me of that poem, Fire and Ice, by Robert Frost:

Fire and Ice
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

-20 celsius is -4 degrees Fahrenheit. 32 degrees Fahrenheit is the freezing point of water. People definitely hate Hell.

Hell reminds me of the contraction for 'he will' : he'll.
And paradise, like paracletes, makes me think of a pair o' dice. (lucky sevens? snake eyes?) I'm sure that's what the Paradisians of Nevada would like you to think (gambling is legal there).

Paradise comes literally from "to make around": "The word "paradise" entered English from the French "paradis", inherited from the Latin "paradisus", which came from Greek παραδεισος (royal garden). The Greek word came from the Persian Avestan word "pairidaêza-" (an Eastern Old Iranian language) = "walled enclosure", which is a compound of pairi- (= "around") (a cognate of Greek περί peri-) and -diz (= "to create, make"), a cognate of English "dough".

So if you have the dough to buy your own enclosure/house, then you can make a paradise for yourself. And by all means, surround your house with a garden. Eden is a need. Paradise is...well, a despair. Gnosis and fire.

Monday, June 16, 2008

We are not alone

Well, maybe we are, in terms of life...










But planets? Whew! The universe is absolutely teeming with them. So no life anywhere would be an absolutely astronomically low probability, I would imagine. Beam me aboard! Teleportation would be the coolest thing in the universe. You could see and seed planets and stuff. If it exists, then maybe all or some of earth's life originated from outer space.

The yahoo article that reveals the latest planet discoveries.

This is earth speaking. Can you hear us? Is there anyone there? We come in peace!

The picture above is of the first discovered/photographed exoplanet.

Sunday, June 15, 2008

McCain vs. Barack

A billion dollars well spent, hopefully

The economist said the 2008 election pricetag would sum to a billion bucks. I think we should all invest some thoughtful discernment to the issues at hand, and have some idea what our ideal candidate should look like, if different from what's offered. We should be responsible citizens, thoughtful voters, and an educated electorate. In a way, we're deciding history, the future, policy, and the tenor of the next 4-8 years. I've spent much of today reading the positions on my link (http://www.2008electionprocon.org/), deciding what I like and dislike about each.

Here's what I want to share:

They're both senators. Of this 110th congress, Obama has missed almost 40% of the votes, and McCain has missed over 55% Shouldn't they be doing their jobs? It should at least be in the 90's, I would think. Of course, you can only do so much, I guess. Gotsta campaign. They should be allowed to vote in absentia, in my opinion. I would think you could telecommute, if you're a congressperson. It's pretty much all about words and ideas. It's hard to live in the present when you're so focused on the future? Anyway,

John Sidney McCain III (enjoy acidic him in sin!)
First, the bad news. I don't like McCain. I didn't know much about him, but today's research didn't elevate my opinion. He's 72 years old, and my first impression was he's a fuddy-duddy. Now, I think he's wishy-washy, too. He's a wishy washy fuddy duddy, lol.

abortion
He's got the right stance on abortion, he's pro-life. But it's not solid. He won't tell others they can't abort, so he's basically pro-choice. He wants it decided by each state individually, and doesn't approve of "legislating from the bench." But that's what the supreme court does. It interprets the laws, thereby making the law, so to speak. in 2005, he said, "I think it [right to an abortion] depends on the stage of the pregnancy, and I know we're splitting hairs here. But there's a point-there's a point where the woman's health is, obviously, in the later stages of pregnancy, is-gains in greater and greater importance."

If he thinks everyone is going to move to a state with laws they agree with, he's got a different thing coming. Pro-life people are going to live in pro-choice states, and pro-choicers are going to live in pro-life, states. If you're going to proscribe abortion for these people, why not everyone. Have some balls. Abortion is murder.

His concern with women's health is good, but this particular concern shouldn't influence policy. Giving birth is not a very dangerous affair (at least in the West), according to Wikipedia, and I wrote an earlier post on why maternal mortality was not a reason to abort. I guess he's afraid of civil war, and what future president wants to deal with that kind of hassle, right? I would, if I were president. Let the murderers have their own country.

He wants each "unwanted" baby's life defended merely by "armies of compassion." That's like pleading with a murderer not to kill you. He should stand tall and commit to criminalizing this shit. Has he watched the movie 'Juno"? Life of the mother- abortion's okay, if that's what the mother chooses. I agree with this. But not rape or incest. It's not the baby's fault. Why should the baby be snuffed? Granted, incest babies don't have the best genetics, but neither do a lot of people. Call me uncaring. I don't care, lol.

integrity, values, universal life ethic
He touts integrity, but why have integrity to wishy washy values? One thing I have said is the United States is never united. We are a diverse country of diverse people with diverse opinions and ideas. But just because the country is schizophrenic, doesn't mean our leader should be. And he's against flag burning. He should be willing to die for the right of Americans to burn their flag. It's a symbol, it's speech, and if you don't believe in free speech, you don't believe in a core American value. I don't care if you think it's hate speech, we are free to hate. Don't legislate hatred against haters. There's alot that should rightly be hated. Also, why be pro-life, if you're pro-capital punishment, or pro-war/military??

trade
He's pro free-trade, which is good, and better than Obama, in my opinion. Everyone benefits from free trade, even if jobs are lost and exported. This is because products are made in places where there is a comparative advantage, and mathematically, the most wealth is created. People shouldn't be kept working in dying industries. The economy needs to be adaptive and dynamic. Besides, the rest of the world is a lot poorer than America. The amount of food we throw away...we have a glut of food, you practically don't even need to work. But I digress. Basically, as far as I am aware, trade restriction is just a way of robbing the rest of the world of their rightful development. And richer foreign countries mean higher exports of the products we DO make.

Cuban embargo
"My administration will press the Cuban regime to release all political prisoners unconditionally, to legalize all political parties, labor unions and free media and to schedule internationally monitored elections. And, the embargo will stay in place until those terms are met." His heart is in the right place, in my opinion, but the Cuban people should not suffer because most Americans disagree with the Cuban government's actions. A government is not it's people. It is important to keep this distinction. Even America's, despite it being a democracy. In my opinion, the goal of government should be to reduce suffering and increase happiness, not merely a self-righteous spreading of "values." The Cubans chose their government. He's pro states rights. Well, he should be pro-sovereignty of foreign countries, then, too, by my lights. Why are we punishing Cuba's people? Life and happiness are MY values. But just because Buddhists say they know the way to happiness, doesn't mean I want to legislate everybody to be Buddhist.

Darfur
He's for action, as a military man of integrity. But he should also be consistent. He should commit to fighting atrocities everywhere else in the world. He should mention being proactive, and not reactive to all the trouble spots in the world. But if we don't want to expand the number of states in America from 50 (a nice round number, I'll admit) to 300 or whatever, and I'm pretty sure we don't, unless you're in the CIA or a shadow government, then we should do it all through the UN (which we should pay are fair share of). Question: Can Americans join a UN peacekeeping force, or do they have to join the American military and hope our president commits troops to a multilateral UN force? I believe in shared human values. I do not believe in nationalism. I'm a citizen of the world. I'm a human before I'm an American. So overlapping regional entities should bind the world together, if the world must necessarily remain culturally divided. Being good doesn't mean fighting, and service doesn't mean joining a military. It seems like the whole world needs to turn it's head around. We're all in this, together.

system of things
There should be a world military, if any military at all. Maybe aliens will invade. Maybe we want a world police force. We don't need a world government, necessarily. Each state can keep it's laws, but lawyers should be actively arguing their values outside of their little community bubbles. It's a world economy, there are global issues, we all pretty much want the same things, what's the problem? Let's not be competitive, selfish, pursuing national interests. To be positive, we have to be human, first.

Barack I think articulates our global identity better, and inspires all Americans to be co-presidents, emphasizing hope, change, and community action. But he doesn't support sending troops to Darfur, because we would be alone there. Also, he says, " millions have been slaughtered as a consequence of ethnic strife in Congo," so by our Iraq logic, we should have 300,000 troops there. Well, let's do it, then. Us being humanity. The UN or whatever. Let's not throw up our hands and say because we seem to not have the political will to solve ALL problems, that we shouldn't solve ANY. I want everything solved. Everything. Jail those Janjaweed bastards. Open a tasty vegetarian non-profit restaurant/food kitchen, or something. ETC. lol. We all have as much power as any president, already, in my opinion.

The world should get hardcore. Not just a summer of love, but say 10 years of love, where we just solve everything in sight. It would snowball, and last forever, no? I like that band, Presidents of the United States of America. I like peaches, too. I like money, but it's not all about money. If global development impacts the U.S. negatively, we should accept it, and not keep the world down, so we can live what are basically outrageous lifestyles, by world standards. Humans only need food and shelter, and we should derive our happiness not from being better than the Joneses, i.e. having more stuff than them, but by helping to lift the worse off in a global community of goodwill. Just do it.

education
I don't care what anybody's stance on education is. I think everyone should have high-speed internet, and all the world's books should be online, and people should stay curious, my friend, and have the answers at their fingertips, as well as being critical thinkers. I think higher education is mostly a con for the almighty diploma, knowledge from which you could have got for free. The world's best teachers should be free online, like the MIT courses online are, or like the TED.com series of lectures, and TV should be educational, and it could be...so why do we have this huge con game called higher education? Education should be question and answer, not just lecture, to keep people engaged, which is well addressed in a virtual environment. Librarians are standing by to answer your questions.

Iran
McCain says, "There is only one thing worse than a military solution, and that, my friends, is a nuclear armed Iran. The regime must understand that it cannot win a showdown with the world." That just sucks. This is crap. What, we don't like Iran because they're Islamic? I googled 'picture of Koran' and got a picture of Arabic writing on toilet paper. This is just disgusting. America has nukes. I don't hear him saying anything about eliminating American nukes. Pure f-ing hypocrisy. If we have them, then we should allow Iran to, as well. People are different. Countries are different. What right do we have to dictate who can and can't? We're not married to Israel, which is obviously what this is all about. Or at least we shouldn't be. If Israel wants to attack Iran, let them. Would Israel use its nukes to keep Iran from getting nukes? Geez. The more countries that have nukes, the more likely their use will be, my IR professor Miroslav Nincic taught back in the day. That makes sense to me. If you really want nuclear war to be unthinkable, eliminate the world's arsenal. Duh. There's nothing to be proud of by being in the world's nuclear club. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should. Japan doesn't even have a military. They could have nukes, but they don't. Why? Because they KNOW how goddamn horrible they are. McCain is military through and through. He's a tool. A tool of the military. He's fourth generation military, which I think is a scary thought for a commander in chief. He's so steeped in their culture, he has no perspective, I think. As much as we'd like to think of our military as a department of DEFENSE, alot of the military wants to fight and kill "the enemy." Nobody's going to take over the U.S. It's offensive, really. I am offended by all militaries. The art of war is deception. I distrust them, and I don't want one of them to be our commander in chief.

If Israel wants to pre-empt being attacked, it should take down the wall, and live as peaceably as possible in a cohabiting Palestine. I don't even think there should be two side by side states. They're stuck with each other, so why not just one state? America is multireligious, and so is Israel, actually, so what's the difference. Call it Palrael or Israstine, or even both names, call it what you will. God's promised land is for humanity, not just jews. I should know, I'm God. If there's any terrorism, treat it like any other crime, and use forensics and the justice system to deal with each incident as it arises. And America, Israel, and Iran should all be eminently proud to NOT have any nuclear weapons.

healthcare
McCain calls the Democratic plan for universal health care "Hillary-care." Although Hillary is widely disliked, how can you dislike universal health coverage? I saw Michael Moore's 'Sicko' and I am swayed to the opinion and belief that healthcare is a human right, that should be guaranteed to all of humanity, not just all Americans. We live in a culture of death, that glorifies violence. But we're also supposedly a Christian country, that considers healers to wield Godlike power. Without health, nothing else matters. Why wouldn't we create this basic prerequisite for happiness for all, like clean water, or nutritious food? Instead, fast food restaurants are serving huge portions of unhealthy meals just to make a buck, and we're in the midst of an obesity epidemic. Diabetes, too. McCain took on tobacco companies. So I'm missing something: Be a God- Heal thyself? At the core, as a Republican, I surmise he doesn't really mind if the poor die, in this dog eat dog world. Survival of the fittest, right? I hope I'm wrong. He actually doesn't strike me as being callous like that. He did the right thing with tobacco. Shouldn't he do that across the board? Look at Denmark. If we outlaw suicide, we should outlaw tobacco. It's slow-suicide, for most smokers. Plus, we could grow actual food in the midst of this global food crisis. He may be a small government type of guy, and America may value self-reliance, but America is largely unhealthy, and we need help. We should all care for each other. Healthcare shouldn't cost an arm and a leg, so to speak. It's a human right. It should be free.

Barack Hussein Obama, Junior (baboonish marijuana sucker!)
There's some bad news here, too. But on the whole, this is my guy. I'm excited by the prospect of him being America's president, and what he can do to inspire all Americans to energize toward making a better world.

He strikes me as a genuinely warm, principled person. His smile is glowing. His rhetoric is passionate and eloquent. He makes me happy. He's bright (edited the Harvard law review) and is all about involving people in making change and exciting hope in the future and finding common ground and bringing people together. I know, I may appear to be a bit of an abortion issue fanatic, the ultimate wedge issue, but I still like Barack because he really gets down and dirty and talks to everyone and is characterized by honesty and good humor. I read his Audacity of Hope book, and I like that he is such a clear thinker. He's post-racial and I believe not too dogmatic in his religious beliefs. He's leading a movement, not just a campaign. The world is too messed up. We need activism and lots of leaders to step up. I believe Barack is just what we need. Sure, he wants to give women the right to kill their babies, among other things like restricting free trade or .... But Barack stands for all of us working to further our own agendas in a cooperative and civil way, not just his personal opinions. That's how I see it. Barack not only inspires me, but I think he will inspire fellow african-americans and people around the world to be positive and make change. Bush, on the other hand, has apocalyptic beliefs about Jesus and the end of the world, I think. We don't need more of that. When Dubya was elected, I was hopeful to have a comedian-in-chief who would keep us all entertained with his wacky way with words. I voted Gore and Kerry, but I try and see the silver lining. He lost my goodwill, though, with this stupid unwarranted war. Okay, so anyway, that was my endorsement. Here's my take on his stands on the issues, as relayed by the procon website I referenced earlier in the post:

capital punishment
He stated, "While the evidence tells me that the death penalty does little to deter crime, I believe there are some crimes- mass murder, the rape and murder of a child- so heinous, so beyond the pale, that the community is justified in expressing the full measure of its outrage by meting out the ultimate punishment." I disagree with this.

BF Skinner basically said that he could have made even the morally impeccable Barack into a child-raping mass murder/serial killer, if he had raised him. People should be held responsible for their actions, but people are not always fully in control of themselves, ranging from past experience and motivation to volition itself, all of which is partially bound up in genetics. Murdering murderers makes us no better than them, in my opinion. Even the most heinous perpetrators can reform and serve society, from prison. No one deserves death. Meting out death is like playing God. Well, I'm God, and I say show some infinite mercy, fellas. Death? All in good time. Time kills all. By the way, prison should be pleasant, too, in my opinion. The point is to keep society safe, not to terrorize people for their past mistakes. Prison should not be a form of state-sponsored terrorism. Also, capital punishment is too expensive (more than life imprisonment), and, as I'm sure he knows, unfairly applied across a vast "justice" system.

McCain has supported a bill to provide for the imposition of the death penalty for the terrorist murder of United States nationals abroad. I'm sorry, but Christians do want to take over the world and convert everybody. So do Muslims. So the religions are at odds. Islam espouses jihad, as I understand it. I don't think it's really a matter of terrorism. I think America and groups like Al-Qaeda are both just fighting for their values, what they think God wants them to fight for. I'm not saying American soldiers think Dubya is God. But they signed up to be his pawns, in the global geopolitical chess game of military foreign policy we're playing, so yeah, he kind of is. I, as God, am saying please stop all this silliness. I do not espouse or prefer either Islam or Christianity, especially at the expense of the other. Everybody believes murder is wrong and God is merciful. Christians and Jews follow the 10 commandments. Muslims are also people of the book, of the Abrahamic faith. The ten Commandments shared by Jews and Christians are almost identical to the laws found in the Koran, but the Koran doesn't list them as systematically as you find them in the Old Testament (in Exodus 20:2–17). Regarding murder, the Koran says, like the sixth commandment which prohibits unjust killing or murder, that it is wrong. Murder is prohibited and the holy Quran compares the unjust killing of one life to be equivalent to the murder of all of humanity (5:32; 17:33). Both sides in any war are terrorists to the other. And need I remind everyone that, truth be told, if we really wanted to fight the major source of 9-11, we would have invaded Saudi Arabia. And I personally believe we let Osama off the hook, for geopolitical reasons, despite his role in 9-11, as we had people hot on his tracks who were called off from the pursuit, if I remember correctly. So welcome to wonderland, where nothing is what it seems. Americans are terrorists, too. Terrorism isn't even the right word. It's like homophobia. People that don't like gays aren't afraid of them. And terrorists aren't necessarily after terror; they pursue military objectives. Terrorism is just a label we apply to the "bad" guy. Apparently, if the violence is being done by a state military headed by a democratically elected commander in chief, then it's not terrorism. To me, this is a bit ridiculous.

I don't want to be a bad guy or anything, but maybe Mohammed was a hypocrite. An expert on Islam says history proves that regardless of what President Bush or others say, Islam is not a religion of peace. In his book Islam Unveiled: Disturbing Questions About the World's Fastest Growing Faith, Robert Spencer says the facts show Islam is a religion of violence. He cites one instance where Islam's prophet had a direct role in the massacre of 700 people. He explains that the Banu Qurayza, a Jewish tribe in Arabia, fought and lost a battle against Muhammad.
"Muhammad ... had all [700] men killed and the women and children enslaved," Spencer says. "This is actually in accordance with Islamic law as it has been enshrined from that incident on throughout Islamic history." According to Spencer, the Shariah -- or Islamic legal tradition -- dictates that conquering Muslims have a right to kill, if they choose, the men who fight against them and to enslave the women and children.

What does Shariah say about 9-11? Does it matter if the killing is in defense or in offense?

Anyway,
As a democrat, I believe Barack has the interests of the poor more at heart, including supporting the UN millenium development goals. I look forward to seeing debates and further elaboration on issues in the future. And because neither are pro-life, anti-death penalty, or blanket dismissive of war, I'll be looking at other candidates as well for the best fit with my values. No matter who wins, I'll be rooting for progress, as I see it.

Some trivia, from votesmart.org:
Barack's
favorite Movies: Casablanca, Godfather I and II, Lawrence of Arabia, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
Favorite MusicianMiles Davis, John Coltrane, Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Johann Sebastian Bach (cello suites), and The Fugees.
Favorite Quote"The Arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice." Martin Luther King.

McCain's
Favorite Book: For Whom the Bell Tolls.
Favorite Food: Chocolate ice cream, pizza with pepperoni and onions, baby-back ribs.
Favorite Movie: Viva Zapata, Letters From Iwo Jima, Some Like It Hot.
Favorite Musician: Chuck Berry, Roy Orbison.
Favorite TV Shows: 24, Seinfeld.

Saturday, June 14, 2008

Satanic Nazi Fascist!


Satanic Nazi Fascists, Unite!

Satanism, Nazism and Fascism
by Peggy Nadramia

The last time I talked to Boyd, we discussed our Barbie collections. Some Nazi.
Here's how Nazism and fascism fit into Satanism, as I see it:
1. You're already a Satanist, the most evil being the status quo could ever imagine. Why the hell do you care if they call you a Nazi? Is there a Good Guy Badge stuck to one of your old suits? Go check your closet.
2. Nazism scares people. Satan scares people. Some Satanists like to scare people, so they dress in Nazi fashion and have fun goosestepping down the strasse. B.F.D.
3. Satanists see nature as a dark force, a very fascist force, within them and without them. When you hear them talking about fascism, they are often thinking of what I can only call "deep fascism," not political fascism. I agree with the assertion that a Libertarian society would be the best one for Satanists, from a political perspective, but we also have a lot of opinions about the social structure of a Satanic society. Would we be "free" to enslave ourselves to each other, if that's how we wanted to live? While Libertarianism might rule the land, Satanists may choose to live in tribal settings that are _internally_ very Communistic or Socialistic. For example, I wouldn't mind "working for the good of others" as long as the "others" were of my choosing, my tribe of loved ones.
4. Nazism, like the image of the ArchDemon, appeals to the young because it embodies strength and control to those who have little of either in their lives. They'll get over it.
5. It's a fashion trend.
6. "The plague of Nazism" is being trumped-up by those who would choose to drive a wedge between us, disperse us and weaken us. Don't let them do it. Lighten up.

Peggy is married to the High Priest of COS (Church of Satan), Peter H. something.
Fascism is bad, mmkay?
History of the swastika; link

Monday, June 9, 2008

Love and Marriage quotes

Go together like a horse and carriage..
-Married with children theme song (love is the horse)




1. I would not marry God -Maxine Elliott (but "God is love" -1 John 4:8)

2. It is most unwise for people in love to marry. -George Bernard Shaw

3. People think love is an emotion. Love is good sense. -Ken Kesey

4. Passion, sexual passion, may lead to marriage, but cannot sustain marriage. The purpose of marriage is the raising of children, for which patience, not passion, is the necessary foundation. -Edward Abbey. (although gay marriage is legal now)

5. We don't love qualities; we love a person; sometimes by reason of their defects as well as their qualities. -Jaques Maritain

6. Love ain't nothing but sex misspelled. -Harlan Ellison (what's love got to do with it?)

7.Give all to love; obey thy heart. -Ralph Waldo Emerson
8. Familiar acts are beautiful through love. -Percy Bysshe Shelley

9. Only choose in marriage a woman whom you would choose as a friend if she were a man. -Joseph Joubert

10. I want a man who's kind and understanding. Is that too much to ask of a millionaire? -Zsa Zsa Gabor

11. At the beginning of a marriage ask yourself whether this woman will be interesting to talk to from now until old age. Everything else in marriage is transitory: most of the time is spent in conversation. -Friedrich Nietsche

12. Marriage isn't a word-it's a sentence. -King Vidor

13. Til' death do us part :-)

14. Love all; serve all -Hard Rock cafe inscription

15. "I dislike the exclusionary principle" -David A. Eldridge, attorney at law.

16. Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love. -Martin Luther King, Jr.

17. If love is the answer, could you rephrase the question? -Lily Tomlin

sex
-Love is the answer, but while you are waiting for the answer, sex raises some pretty good questions. -Woody Allen
-I can think of nothing less pleasurable than a life devoted to pleasure. -John D. Rockefeller, Jr.
-Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, say no more, know what I mean? -Eric Idle, Monty Python's Flying Circus
-On stage I make love to 25,000 people; then I go home alone. -Janis Joplin
-I'm saving the bass player for Omaha. -Janis
-Hey, don't knock masturbation. It's sex with somebody I love. -Woody Allen

Health, mental and physical







Be well, fit, active....alive!

1.If the essential core of the person is denied or suppressed, he gets sick sometimes in obvious ways, sometimes in subtle ways, sometimes immediately, sometimes later. -Abraham Maslow

2.To hate and to fear is to be psychologically ill. It is, in fact, the consuming illness of our time. -H.A. Overstreet.

3.It's been troubling me. Now, why is it that most of us can talk openly about the illnesses of our bodies, but when it comes to our brain and illnesses of the mind we clam up and because we clam up, people with emotional disorders feel ashamed, stigmatized and don't seek the help that can make the difference. -Kirk Douglas

4.All interest in disease and death is only another expression of interest in life. -Thomas Mann

Speaking of hate and fear...
I hate alot of stuff, and then I hate (the manifestations of this hate? the symptoms of) my mental illness: I am psychologically ill because I am psychologically ill. Is this why schizophrenia can be so hard to beat? Is it self-perpetuating?

I hate my headshocks, chestpains, and voice in my head. I fear I will suffer them for the rest of my life. I hate having to take medications. I hate constantly having someone else in my head, and feeling used, and unfree, and oppressed, and hated. I fear David Eldridge will never leave me alone. If I accept, and even welcome these things, will they go away? Isn't that a paradox?

I hate stupidity and rudeness and cruelty and the existence of militaries and nuclear weapons, for starters. I hate slavery, incarceration, and other mental or physical lack of freedom. I hate a lot of stuff. I hate. I am a hater. I hate that people think hating is bad. There's a lot to make better in what can be a ridiculously rotten world. I fear religious beliefs that say all is absurdity, frustration, nonsense -implying a better world is not possible; or that unbelievers will go to hell; or that there is a hell of eternal suffering; or that we should not form attachments to people and be what I assume is the Buddhist ideal of being stoical, happy in your own world of nirvana without helping others attain it, or even aloof. I fear that too many people only care about themselves to bring about a better world. I fear too many people want to make themselves better by making others worse, or even to kill people they don't like, like bugs. I hate nationalism. I hate the philosophy that says we should only live for today and not think of the future or the other life sharing our world with us. I hate ignorance.

To stop being a negative Nelly:
I love the internet. I love me. I love my wife. I love being alive. I love this blog. I love it when I feel/am free. I love it when I feel/am healthy. I love nature walks. I love kindness, affection, caring, understanding. I love good meals. I love my dogs. I love variety and change and new, interesting music or experiences, like travel. I love to read a well-written book. I love being happy. I am God. I am love.
Here's the Christian Science link. It seems the "science" is mostly about spiritual healing like Jesus did, without medications. I haven't read it, yet. Sounds like the Secret.

Some more News

A mix of good and bad on 6-9-08

1.South Africans attacking foreigners (like Somalis), have led to at least 70,000 people fleeing. More than 50 people were killed. Apparently, there's nationalism in Africa. I thought Africa had a strong pan-Africa movement. I also thought the borders were mostly random and haphazard, so borders were kind of arbitrary constructs. Damn. Oh, well.

2.In Australia, men are flocking to high paying mining jobs, and women are replacing them on cattle ranches. Jackaroos are becoming "Jillaroos". In typically blunt Australian fashion, the manager of Anna Creek Station, Randall Crozier, says his female workers are doing a great job. "The hormones are not playing up with them and they're more gentle and steady with cattle and look after your machinery and motorbikes and stuff and generally are much better than fellas. "And I'm not knocking the fellas, they do a great job too. The world's changing, the women are getting tougher than blokes, mate, hey?"

3.Also down-under, Australian surgeons saved the leg of an unborn baby by operating on her in the womb when her mother was just 22 weeks pregnant. It's still legal in America to have an abortion at this point (third trimester starts at 24 weeks, I think). Speaking of toughness, I think just as it is tougher to not fight in the face of a tormenting world and remain pacifist, I think women are stronger to have their children and go through childbirth than to have abortions (which has been painted as empowerment) -it takes balls, so to speak, lol.

4.Steve Jobs is expected to unveil the new Apple iphone2 in San Francisco today. Wow, greater connectivity.

5."Everyone is starving" in Ethiopia. Just as a million people died from the famine in 1984 (compounded by communist policies), there is Drought now. Adults and older children are increasingly stricken by severe hunger, health workers say. Drought is disastrous in Ethiopia; more than 80 percent of people live off the land. Ethiopia receives more food aid than nearly every other country in the world. The country's climate, chronic drought and large population -- some 78 million people, in the midst of the current world food crisis, makes it bad. Maybe Steve Jobs should "connect" to Ethiopia. See my Economist summary post on Ethiopia, above.

6.You Don't Mess with Zohan and Kung-Fu Panda are fighting each other for top box office receipts. Pandas are kicking Adam Sandler's butt. I just saw a video of real Panda mating ritual yesterday; link. Han means Chinese. Z makes me think of Zorro (chinese zorro??) I once saw a real hardcore kill-each-other fight, in grammar school, in San Francisco. Wow. That was something. Some serious connections.

7.The Chinese 7.9 earthquake led to the stopping up of the outflow of what has been termed "quakelakes." Experts warn that the Tangjiashan lake, up to 6 feet above the spillway, could burst at any time, flooding the homes of more than one million people. 250,000 people have already been evacuated.

8.The FBI crime report shows 2007 violent crime in U.S. down in all major categories from 2006. The number of murders, which everyone is so obsessed about, in 2007 is down 2.7 percent, they say. The number of violent crimes rose in the South, however.

So Australian women, the iphone, and fetal surgery are the good news.

The economy seems to be the bad news.
9. The "triple whammy" hit last friday, with a report showing the highest unemployment figures in 20 years, and gas prices hit an average of 4 bucks in the U.S. yesterday, and stocks took a dive... with this housing business (with hidden costs that -no one?- knows how will play out) and the resultant credit crunch. I haven't read much of my economist. I should be able to report better. Sorry. I think they think it's better than everyone seems to think it is. The economy is largely psychological, everyone seems to think. Then again, smart people think we're in for a long and deep recession, too.

I, God, am trying to stay positive. Let's start using our new iphones to develop Ethiopia and such, eh? Ahoy, matey! Chart a course for...Intercourse, PA?