Illuminata Sol Invictus

TED Intellectually Dishonest

2012-02-17T11:03:00.000-08:00

I was on TED (http://www.ted.com/) and I posted a response to a woman writing on college degrees. We discussed socioeconomic status (SES). I mentioned certain facts about SES, which I learned from sociology course materials, and I made cogent arguments. My post was deleted, though nothing offensive or in violation of the terms of service existed. I read others complaining of their posts getting deleted as well.

This bothers me most because a majority of TED posts are terrible. The questions are not well-worded, the responses are not well thought out, and the conversations operate on a level that is barely at what I experienced in high school. I was shocked by this because many of the TED talks I've seen are interesting, but the censorship of TED and the grotesque conversational skills compel me to complain.

On TED's site, I posted:

WOW TED DELETED MY RESPONSE? I do not support censorship. Conversation here was never really very sophisticated. With this petty, tyrannical behavior I am certain that this place is a waste of time. I hope people stop paying fees and attending your conferences if you censor people, which, after seeing your productions, it seems to me you must. I should have known you were intellectually dishonest, TED.

Welcome, my son... Welcome to the machine.

2012-02-17T10:18:00.000-08:00

Where have you been? It's alright we know where you've been...

Consider that our leaders and public relations personnel in the media, basically, read from teleprompters. How long before we move toward a virtual or ai projection that will just tell us what to do and some technocrat can just input commands? It seems that, as Gurdjieff said, "you're all asleep". I know some of our readers are awake.

Grant Morrison

2012-02-16T12:57:00.000-08:00

I picked up some of Morrison's essays in a compilation of occult writings some years back, but I did not have time to read these as I was attending to more pressing matters. After reading one, I sought to find some videos I saw earlier in life and I want to share those here:

The Manifesto

2012-02-14T15:38:00.000-08:00

The word "manifesto" finally appeared on this site, as many knew it would. It was inevitable.

"The word manifesto traces its roots to the Latin manifestum, which means clear or conspicuous. A manifesto is defined as a declaration of one’s beliefs, opinions, motives, and intentions. It is simply a document that an organization or person writes that declares what is important to them.

A manifesto functions as both a statement of principles and a bold, sometimes rebellious, call to action. By causing people to evaluate the gap between those principles and their current reality, the manifesto challenges assumptions, fosters commitment, and provokes change.

While manifestos are traditionally public declarations, every man can also have a personal manifesto."

Would you like to know more? Read more:

Writing a manifesto can have profound implications. Marcus Aurelius wrote The Meditations as a personal manifesto; it was not intended for publication as my research revealed. Someone may discover your manifesto and deem it worthy of publication, as Marcus Aurelius' work was -- perhaps even without his approval would he have known.

As an aside, certain philosophers encouraged men to write dialogs.

Dvorak: New World Symphony, 4th movement

2012-02-13T16:36:00.000-08:00

This is a tremendous piece of music:

Pop Magic

2012-02-12T18:05:00.000-08:00

I wanted to write an introductory essay for members of my family and I found this while looking for inspiration.

Pop Magic! by Grant Morrison

Breathtaking Solar Storm Video

2012-02-12T00:51:00.001-08:00

Better view here: http://news.sky.com/home/world-news/article/16167165

Ideology of Ego

2012-02-10T13:49:00.001-08:00

This is an interesting read; perhaps this blog's existence underscores the point? Whatever the case, I first found this on deoxy.org [http://deoxy.org/media/The_Social_Network_Scam] and clicked the link to the Guardian [http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2011/may/06/adam-curtis-computers-documentary].

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Both Twitter and socialist realism are innocent expressions of the ideology of the time, which don't pull back and show the wider thing they are part of.

We look back on socialist realism not as innocent but as a dramatic expression of power; it expresses the superiority of the state, which was the guiding belief at the time.

I think sometime in the future people will look back at the millions and millions of descriptions of personal feelings on the internet and see them in similar ways.

This is the driving belief of our time: that "me" and what I feel minute by minute is the natural centre of the world.

Far from revealing that this is an ideology—and that there are other ways of looking at human society—what Twitter and Facebook do is reinforce the feeling that this is the natural way to be.

Trivium & Quadrivium Cliff's Notes

2012-02-01T01:43:00.000-08:00

This is not a scholarly work, but it has excellent references and content. The section on the Prussian education model offers a springboard for further research. The section on Hindu schooling goes deeper into the history and context than John Taylor Ghatto did, but Ghatto did not include this in his original scope so this is not a fault of his. Ghattos work is in the links or here: http://johntaylorgatto.com/underground/

Trivium and Quadrivium Cliff Notes by Gene Odening

Logic, Fallacies, and the Trivium

2012-01-31T14:49:00.000-08:00

This video outlines some excellent points. The interview ties in with John Taylor Ghatto's work, which we linked in the miscellany of interest long ago -- it is on the bottom right of your screen when you scroll down. The link -- and title of the book it links to -- is "Underground History of American Education". The link is provided at the end of this post.

This video offers a glimpse of what one misses in contemporary "education", which resembles training more than education. Education comes from the Latin "educo", which means to draw out from within. Jan Irvin gets into how, since the 1850's, certain powers disrupted our education. In the 1850's it was the coal powers, but Irvin does not get into so much detail. Readers will need to undertake further research; Ghatto is a good place to start.

This video, and other materials gathered here to offer empowering solutions, is well worth your time -- in my opinion:

Trivium Education: http://www.triviumeducation.com/trivium/

Trivium Binder: http://triviumbinder.blogspot.com/

Underground History of American Education: http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/index.htm

Chaosphere Experience

2012-01-31T14:46:00.000-08:00

The approach reminds one of 1930's Hollywood. Some of it comes off as a joke; much of it is interesting. The video made me chuckle and also said much that I agree with. It's worth considering:

One-Dimensional Thinking

2011-02-07T10:52:00.000-08:00

This taken from wikipedia--though wikipedia is not a scholarly source, the points are relevant and comments are appreciated:

What is One-Dimensional Thinking?

One-dimensional thinking (1DT) is a description of the process which leads to an erroneous conclusion that is based upon the False Dilemma fallacy. That is, the idea that most questions have a yes/no, white/black, positive/negative answer.

1DTs (One-Dimensional Thinkers) tend to look at the world in terms of extremes, and ignore any middle ground that doesn't correlate with their own foregone conclusion or personal agenda. Everything must fit neatly into their good/evil paradigm. And of course, the 1DT always considers his side to be the "good" side and those who disagree, the "bad", or "evil" side.

Examples of One-Dimensional Thinking

"You're either with us, or you're with the terrorists" - George W. Bush

"Atheists hate Jesus."

"If you don't vote in favor of gay marriage, then you're homophobic."

"If you're not going to heaven, then you're going to burn in hell."

"People in favor of gun control want everyones' guns to be confiscated by the
government so that only criminals will have guns."

"If you don't like the President why don't you move to Communist China?"

"People who criticize Israel are anti-semetic."

One-Dimensional Thinking in Society: Polarization

The need to categorize people is a function of one-dimensional thinking. When people call themselves "liberal" or "conservative" they're actually sacrificing their own individuality and critical thinking to join in a herd-type mentality as if important social issues could be resolved in the same way two football teams might compete.

Granted, political parties and other groups offer the ability to accomplish much more through collective effort, but at the same time, it's important to be careful to not fall prey to 1DT in the process. Not all Democrats or Republicans have the same priorities and agenda, even though their ideological opponents may mischaracterize them as such.

By polarizing people into clearly-defined categories, and then generalizing about their "evil" intent, it makes it easy and convenient for the 1DT to dismiss the opinions of others with whom he might not agree. By using a sweeping generalization in conjunction with a polarized category, the 1DT divides and dismisses ideological opponents without having to spend a moment actually considering the issues raised: "He's a tax-and-spend Liberal." "There's an immoral, godless atheist."

One-Dimensional Propoganda

In an effort to further polarize complex issues, we're seeing one-dimensional propaganda. These are issues appearing to be packaged as some sort of ideological stance, when in reality, they are meaningless, jingoistic cliches devoid of stance or substance when examined further.

"Support the troops!"

"I am Pro-Life"

Flag waving and excessive patriotism

Nationalism is a type of one-dimensional thinking, usually employed by facist regimes as a means of rallying people behind the government in a state of obedience.

Irony?

Isn't the term, one-dimensional thinker a sweeping, polarizing generalization in itself?
It depends upon whether or not when you make such a term, you use it as the end, or the beginning of a conversation. If you call someone ignorant, that can be an opening to educate them, or a closer to dismiss what they have to say. Again, if you think in one-dimension, then you might think people are either one-dimensional or they're not. That's not the way reality works.

Critical Thinking Guide

2011-02-01T13:58:00.000-08:00

Critical Thinking Guide

Chaos Magic Essays

2011-01-31T01:15:00.000-08:00

Chaos Magic Theory
Reprinted from: http://iota.goetia.net/chaos.php
By Fra. Ratatosk

Chaos Magick remains a unique discipline in the clutter of occult practices, theories and methods, which litter the landscape of modern magical endeavors. It resembles no other system because it purports to not be a system. Chaos Magic eludes the boundaries, clichés and preconceptions, which cling to every previous system of enchantment devised by man. It holds to no dogma, foists no belief or lifestyle upon the practitioner, prescribes no limits to the aspirant, and presumes no one set of beliefs is inherently better than any other set of beliefs.

Chaos Magick arises out of meta-paradigmal theory. Which is to say, that everyone exists within a set of beliefs (a paradigm) and that it takes something greater (meta) to explain the parallel workings of multiple belief systems. Chaos Magick Theory, therefore is only that – a theory. It does not function as a paradigm, a set of beliefs.

An error made by many who have read the works of Peter Carroll, Phil Hine and other chaos magick authors, is to partially digest the writings of these men and then go around claiming to be a chaos magician. Nothing could hold a higher degree of inaccuracy than this fallacious claim. Upon further examination of chaos magick theory, one realizes that its core ideas themselves preclude it existing as a self-sustaining belief system. One may practice chaos magick theory within a belief system (i.e. a paradigm), one may even use the tenets of CMT to create a paradigm and then to dwell within it, however; one cannot live within a meta-paradigm. One cannot live within a theory.

So there really exists no such thing as a chaos magician per se, although, others and I will use that term in order to distinguish practitioners of CMT from other magicians. So how can you tell a chaos magician apart from your run-of-the-mill occultists?

There is a litmus test. Quite simply ask of yourself, or another, the question, "Do you believe in an ultimate truth or being?" A 'wrong' answer consists of "yes" or "god" or "goddess" or "self" or "country" or whatever. A 'right' answer may fall along the following lines: "Maybe" or "no" or "not today", depending upon the respondent.

The litmus test is based upon the oft-coined and misunderstood phrase, "Nothing is true, everything is permitted." A statement, which pretty much describes the universe in which we all seem to share an existence in. To some, it means: "Nothing - not even this statement holds objective truth, and therefore every conceivable action can and will occur." To others it means, "The absence of existence (void) exists and therefore reality consists of complete subjectivity." To others, "Everything I've been taught up till now is a lie, therefore I can do whatever the hell I want to do." A license to revolt.

There exist many other possible interpretations of the statement, the above only applies to my so-called "litmus test." Others have stated that it implies: "Believe Nothing, Dare all, on Earth there is no reckoning", and I find this makes sense. Others hold that the phrase is not a rejection of responsibility but a statement of freedom.

To Thelemites restriction is a sin. To a chaos magician restriction means self-imposed limitations in order to fully enjoy life. For a while, a chaos magician may understand that the only thing stopping him or her from committing rape, murder, arson, assault, lies, etc. etc. is him or herself. The chaos magician understands that the only thing keeping him or her from getting killed, raped, set on fire, assaulted, lied to, etc. etc. is the restraint that others impose upon themselves. (Whether or not they understand this.)

Chaos Magick Theory also distinguishes itself from non-meta-paradigmal magical theory in that it first and foremost attempts to obtain results. Chaos Magick itself holds that several techniques have been known to produce magical results regardless of the belief system in which they were practiced. These techniques have been classified under the term "Gnosis" (Greek for 'direct knowledge', connoting 'direct experience of god') and are sub-divided into two categories. Excitatory is best described as pushing physical, mental and emotional limits to their breaking point (without losing complete control. Examples include, but are not limited to: drumming, dancing, chanting, extreme states of anger, fear, etc.. The other category is termed inhibitory, the best example of which is a state of total quittance brought about by prolonged meditation.

What Pete Carroll and other chaos magick authors observed, is that extreme states of consciousness often lead to para-psychological events. That extremes of stress often precluded unexplainable events and happenings. The supernatural intruded upon the lives of individuals who had the capacity of whipping themselves up into a frenzy or of stilling themselves to single-pointed consciousness.

Chaos magic is the conscious effort to harness these states to produce controlled results. While it remains difficult to quantify these results and the states which cause them, chaos magicians will obtain results on a regular basis. A claim which few others in the occult world will make. Chaos magicians might even be the first to respond to, "well prove it", with something besides an evasive answer. Asking a chaos magician to "prove it" just might garner the rather frightening response "I'll see what I can do."

Chaos magicians will also do something that few others in the occult world will do. A chaos magician will take responsibility for his success or his failure to achieve a result. You'll NEVER hear a chaos magician say, "it was not god's will" or "the stars were not right." (Oh alright, you may hear a chaos magician say these things, but I think that they'll be having a laugh.) Chaos magicians also walk through the world gleefully ignoring such 'powerful' lines of dogma like, "that's bad karma dude" or "if you do evil it will come back on you three times."

Chaos magicians practice magic which center on obtaining results. Those results are dependent of several factors; the first is the ability of the magician, the second is the probability of the event occurring naturally. Novice chaos magicians begin by obtaining reasonable results, experienced chaos magicians have been known to do achieve what some might consider impossible.

Paradigmal Piracy

This act of eclectic gathering combined with the habit of never staying within the confines of one paradigm too long, is what we call paradigmal piracy. The chaos magician takes on the belief system necessary to obtain the desired results. As the chaos magician grows within that system he or she will add elements from other paradigms. Conversely speaking, the chaos magician will also ignore or "delete" elements of the paradigm which are spiritual 'clap-trap' or do not produce the desired results.

Chaos magicians may practice the techniques of chaos magick but they must do so within a specific paradigm, which roughly means that a chaos magician must believe in something in order to obtain results. What specifically the chaos magician believes in is entirely up to them. I've seen those that think the Cthulhu mythos of H.P. Lovecraft is a powerful paradigm. Others have worked within the Wiccan paradigm for years and obtained fantastic results. Still others are hardcore atheists (like the author). Chaos magicians are Setians, Satanists, Santeros, Sorcerers, Kitchen Witches, Thelemites, Cabalists, etc. etc.

A simple way of understanding chaos magic theory vis a vis any paradigm is to think of a meta-paradigm and a specific paradigm in the following manner: Consider the paradigm itself as the explanation and the meta-paradigm as the action. Chaos Magick Theory consists of a series of techniques, actions if you will. The results of which depend upon what the practitioner desires as an outcome. The paradigm, and it can be any paradigm, consists of how we explain our universe to others. The paradigm is the why. "Why did you do that?" "Why did you want that?" The meta-paradigm is the how. "How did you do that?" The techniques are devoid of meaning. The paradigm, in many cases, devoid of method. Everyone exists in a paradigm. Some people who exist in a paradigm use a meta-paradigmal theory to move through that paradigm.

Perhaps this is why many occultists who are ONE THING fear chaos magicians. The chaos magician will take what they need from a paradigm and then move on. Don't like something about being a Wiccan? Ignore it! Don't like treating Set as an objective entity while being a Setian? Believe that he is a metaphor.

What rather frightens non-chaos magicians is the ability for chaos magicians to get results while treating the paradigms in which they dwell with such a cavalier attitude. Nothing frustrates a 'true believer' more than someone who acts like a 'true believer', because he has to do it in order to get what he wants; and then is no longer a 'true believer' once he gets what he needs.

While a 'true believer' will stomach the idiocies of his or her paradigm without complaint, a chaos magician will simply ignore them BECAUSE they are idiotic. A chaos magician will never accept, "that's true because I/the bible/the high priestess said so." The chaos magician will treat things as true when it suits him and ignore them when it does not.

The fact that various god forms, egregores, demons and goddesses don't strike down chaos magicians left and right must really be starting to annoy some people! What's worse is that chaos magicians are currently having their cake and eating it too when it comes to the beliefs of others. We take what we need and then move on. Works for you? Maybe it will work for us. Doesn't work for you? Too bad. The chaos magician will move onto something that does work.

Many existing occult groups have come up with tons of useful magical material. The chaos magician should feel free to use whatever system works best for him. The chaos magician should also not hesitate to join a group of non-chaos magicians in order to learn what they are teaching.

One more point on the subject of paradigmal piracy. Attitude is everything. You'll never gain an ounce of real knowledge from anyone or any group by going in cock-sure and know-it-all. Show these magicians deference and respect; many of them have been at this magick thing for decades and could possibly teach you a lot, if your mind is open to it. While their beliefs are a matter of convenience for you; it is a matter of lifestyle for them. I've found many groups open to me even though I was a chaos magician. I was honest with them, up front and they still shared everything.

Nuts and Bolts

As mentioned above, chaos magick theory involves the use of altered states of consciousness in order to effect magical change upon the world. While many paradigms use altered states in order to obtain results, they do so in a rather haphazard fashion usually attributing the results of the magician to "the goddess/god, the stars, true will" and not giving credit (or blame) where it is due.

Peter Carroll outlines chaos magick theory in a precise (and pedantic) fashion in Liber Kaos, with several magical formulas. I like these formulas for their simplicity and the obvious absence of any extraneous forces, but then I'm an atheist magician. I've included them here so that the reader can get a taste of the underlying theory. A far better explanation of these formula comes from the author himself.
M = G x L(1-A)(1-R)
Pm = P - P x M 1/(1/-p)
All factors are between 0 and 1.

M equals the force of your magic. Which is dependent upon your G (Gnosis) and L (magical Link) multiplied by two negative factors. (Things working against you). Your conscious awareness of the desired result (1-A) and your subconscious resistance to doing magic (1-R) -i.e. "Mommy told me magick doesn't work."

In the other formula, P equals the chance the event you desire occurs by itself; (1/(1/-p)) equals the chance that the result you desire will not occur. Pm equals the combination of the Probability that the event will occur combined with your magical effort to make it occur.

So we're really looking at the two steps of magical activity. The first step is "How good was my magical act?" The second step is "Did it work?" These formula have the nice component of including the rather random nature of the universe. For example, you do a really good magical rite.

Absolutely great. However, it was to make the your High School Principle disappear in a big "poof!" on graduation day. As your High School Principle is not in the habit of going "poof!" this event has a ridiculously low probability of occurring naturally, thus dragging down significantly (but not eliminating) the probability of him going "poof!" during graduation.

Regarding the first formula, to get a really good magical result you have to get M as close to 1 as possible. So the better the Gnosis and the stronger the Magical Link, the better. The factors of conscious awareness (1-A) and subconscious resistance (1-R) are factors which must be reduced or brought closer to 0.

As anyone who does magick knows, it is not hard to get a good magical link, if you want something bad enough, odds are you are close enough to get a piece or representation of it. As many chaos magicians know, it is also fairly easy to obtain a state of Gnosis. So these bases are covered. What separates the "men from the boys" are the negative side of the equation. Chaos Magicians are aware of the annoying fact that a lot of things will come to be a long time AFTER we have desired them to be. Conscious Awareness hit 0 and the event occurred. How often have you heard anyone, not just a magician say, "It happened when I least expected it", or, "I had completely forgotten about it, then it happened." No lust for result anymore, objective manifests.

Subconscious resistance is a factor which vanishes with time and success. The more magick you do, the better your results; the smaller this factor becomes. More experienced magicians simply get better results more frequently. They BELIEVE in themselves and that contributes to their success. The same factor comes into play for faith healers – they and the patient BELIEVE that the patient will be healed and thus, it happens.

The second formula brings the capricious nature of the universe into play. Lets face it, we want something bad to happen to someone and it happens. Now, did it happen because we cursed them or did it happen because they finally pissed off one person too many and someone in a bar took a swing at them?

This question should remain an academic one for the novice chaos magician. He should take credit whenever possible. Not in order to build up an inflated ego, but in order to get into the habit of thinking "Heh, I did that!" Slowly wearing down that factor of subconscious resistance in the first formula. With time, and in an effort to stave off megalomania, the more experienced magician should ask themselves, "Did I do that or did it occur by chance?"

The most experienced magicians realize, in my opinion, that magical results are usually a combination of chance and magick. Accepting that things just sometimes happen, but that the magician may also be playing a part, keeps the mind balanced and the goals of the magician reasonable.

Another thing, which the novice chaos magician should keep in mind, uses the nature of the universe to help you achieve the results that you desire. Enchant for events that have a high degree of probability of occurring naturally. This will get you used to success and will allow you to build confidence for more difficult workings. Flowers don't bloom in the dead of winter. Don't attempt to cut your teeth on making the impossible happen, you will fail and your magickal ego will suffer accordingly.

Another gem of wisdom from the mind of the man whose been there before. Don't enchant for something and then DO NOTHING about it. You can't meet the man/woman of your dreams by sitting at home all night, you can't pass that physics test by not studying. You can't get a big pay raise by always showing up late for work etc.. As your workings become progressively more difficult seek to tip the hand of chance by creating "avenues of manifestation" – help the universe give you what you want.

Chaos magick theory is a meta-paradigmal theory. Specifically it contains the techniques necessary to accomplish successful acts of magick. Chaos magick theory will not, in and of itself, make a successful magician. That is up to the practitioner himself. However, there exists within chaos magick theory the idea that only RESULTS are the measure of a successful magician. Results take time, energy and effort. A little fact that many may ignore to their own peril.

Chaos Magic: The Misunderstood Path
Reprinted from: http://www.llewellyn.com/journal/article/1799
By Andrieh Vitimus

Recently at a pagan festival, I heard someone say, “I don’t do chaos magic, because I like being a friend to the trees and animals.” This was an elder of the community. Of course I pointed out that this was a horrible misunderstanding about what chaos magic actually is. I myself work with faeries, nature spirits, trees, and many other elemental forces that I might go so far as to call “friends.” So what IS chaos magic?

It is quite possible that no two chaos magicians would agree on this, but even despite that point, chaos magic is generally not what many people think it is. I would argue there is no such thing as chaos magic. There are no sets of techniques that make up chaos magic; therefore it is not a system in and of itself. Chaos magic is an attitude, a philosophy that promotes experimentation, play, and creativity while discarding dogmatic rules. Chaos magic points out that the techniques more than the symbols are what matter and that our belief in a system is actually what makes it work. The attitude discounts the idea of absolute truth and focuses instead on results within the real world. Often chaos magicians would say “Nothing is true, everything is permitted‚” referring to the fact that you can theoretically do anything. The idea is to test different sets of techniques and figure out for yourself whether or not they work. This sort of experiential attitude fosters creativity and inventiveness and puts emphasis on results to “prove” a given set of techniques. Chaos magic is a “meta system‚” which means that it is a theoretical framework to fit other magical systems into, so the practitioners of those systems can more easily have a shared language to foster cross communication and experimentation across the various knowledge sets that different people present.

The word chaos is a tough word for some to swallow. Many people feel that chaos is simply disorder and generally feel that disorder is “bad” and to be avoided. However, the Online Etymology dictionary says the following:

Chaos
Noun.

A state of extreme confusion and disorder
The formless and disordered state of matter before the creation of the cosmos
(Greek mythology) The most ancient of gods; the personification of the infinity of space preceding creation of the universe
(Physics) A dynamical system that is extremely sensitive to its initial conditions
(chaos (n.d), 2008).

The term “chaos magic” is generally credited to Peter Carroll. If you read Peter Carroll, you can see that he loves mathematics and physics. The non-linear and mathematical definition of chaos is closer although not exactly what Peter Carroll had in mind; however, in Liber Null and Psychonaut there are references to what seems like point two in the definition. In fact, Peter Carroll often synchronizes many eastern and western ceremonial magic systems in Liber Null and Psychonaut. If we look at one definition of the Tao, we see:

“There was something undefined and complete, existing before Heaven and Earth. How still it was, how formless, standing alone and undergoing no change, reaching everywhere with no danger of being exhausted. It may be regarded as the mother of all things. Truthfully it has no name, but I call it Tao.” (Tsu, 1972)

Definition two of the word and the interpretation of the Tao seem remarkably familiar. Most sensible chaos magicians would not agree that chaos is “destruction and evil,” but would agree to chaos being formless and might even agree that the apparent order of things is merely an arbitrary structure that we perceive. At a quantum level, they might be right (Arntz, 2004). For most actively practicing mature and serious chaos magicians, “Chaos” then is much closer to the mathematical systems of non-linear dynamics or the primal force from which we build the rhythms of the magic. The type of magic, however, follows other similar post-modern tendencies. Post-Modern literature, art and music, quantum physics, chaos mathematics, and other examples all clearly show a movement away from truth. All of these recent developments stress the importance that the observer has in determining the outcome or meaning. It should be no surprise then, that in the greater culture of the west, the similar notion of the impact of the observer is represented in and by chaos magic.

The most telling thing about a chaos magician is their ability to change their beliefs and paradigms at will. This is a complete change of perspective on the world that they live in to be able to see their reality from a different point of view. If you think about it, this would mean one day a chaos magician might be a Christian, while the next week they would be a Buddhist. These two philosophies are radically different in their orientation towards the world and an adoption of either worldview would have implications towards the person’s daily actions and attitudes. Chaos magic will demand that the practitioners be able to meaningfully switch between any beliefs about themselves, others, and religious beliefs. To the chaos magician, beliefs are choices. Belief is the tool that empowers the magic. In practice, this is extremely difficult to do. Chaos magicians have to constantly de-condition their minds to remove old patterns and beliefs and instill new ones. This takes practice, mental discipline, and dedication. Since the idea is that there is no right way or absolute Truth, the practitioner is left with the litmus test of real world results to defend their rituals, techniques, and beliefs. This makes chaos magic, in practice, one of the most difficult, grounded, and demanding magical paths if practiced in the way recommended by Liber Null and Psychonaut (Carroll, 1987). In fact, in my book Hands-On Chaos Magic‚ I provide extensive exercises and techniques to de-condition the mind and facilitate movement past any set of beliefs that a magician would like to get past.

Many of the ideas of chaos magic have, in fact, filtered into the general occult and pagan community. The idea that the words of a ritual are not important but the intent is the most important aspect of ritual is a direct consequence of chaos magic theory. Additionally, the eclectic idea that you can combine entities from different cultures in the same ritual is a practice lifted from chaos magic philosophy. Many of the newer occult books, such as Michelle Belanger’s Walking The Twilight Path and Taylor Elwood’s Space/Time Magic‚ combine a synthesis of different techniques from different cultures to create something new and powerful. I must say, I enjoyed both books, but neither book would have been possible without some adoption of chaos magic theory to loosen the dogmatic bounds of “the right way” and allow for creative magical experimentation. If there is only one way to do something, one truth, these tremendously creative works would not be possible. In fact, while some people take issue with the word “chaos‚” they themselves are using magical theory and techniques derived from early chaos magicians.

In practice, most mature and serious magicians who practice chaos magic find it extremely innovative, revolutionary, and well grounded. Chaos magic forces practitioners to continually change and transform. The reliance on results-orientated magic forces people to get better and get results when needed or re-examine their methods. Although there are a lot of different opinions on the matter, this freedom is really a double-edged sword. Many seem to treat chaos magic as some sort of religion— to the extent that, in their classes, they may even talk about the difficulty of integrating chaos magic with a Wiccan ritual. This completely goes against what is presented as “chaos magic” in books such as Liber Null and Psychonaut. Chaos magicians should be able to have the mental flexibility to take on Wiccan beliefs—or any other beliefs—fully and without hassle. To have difficulty doing so would imply that self work was required. Likewise, chaos magic has taken on sinister reputations because some chaos magicians who will entirely and only work with darker powers and paradigms. Of course, again, this is a limitation against the idea of being completely mentally flexible.

Several people, such as Anton Channing, and occasionally myself as well, prefer to be called just “magicians.” In fact, I originally did not want to call my book Hands-On Chaos Magic at all, because of the negative reputation that chaos magic has gotten both as being exclusively dark and because of the general magical sloppiness that some chaos magicians on the Internet tend to show. It is time to reclaim the word. Chaos magic is not dark or light. It is a difficult magical attitude that offers no certainty, requires mental flexibility, and demands verification grounded in physical results. The flip side of this freedom is that it allows the magician the flexibility to play with the universe and see how the universe responds. Magic becomes entirely a creative act. In Hands-On Chaos Magic‚ all the exercises, techniques, and methods are given to the reader as things that have worked for me as well as others in the past. It is a set of foundational materials to help readers on their own adventures of playing with the universe and to help them develop their own sets of techniques. It is a way to break down various techniques to develop better and more effective magic for themselves. In these uncertain times, people deserve solid methods for developing more reliable and life changing results. Using the attitude of non-dogmatic experimentation, testing, and validation, chaos magic provides a framework to improve one’s results to achieve whatever outcomes you desire.

Bibliography
Arntz, W. (Writer), & Arntz, W. (Director). (2004). What the Bleep Do We Know? [Motion Picture].
Carroll, P. (1987). Liber Null and Psychonaut. York Beach, Maine: Samuel Weiser, Inc.
chaos (n.d). (2008, 11 06). Retrieved 11 06, 2008, from Online Etymology Dictionary: http://dictonary.reference.com/browese/chaos
Tsu, L. (1972). Tao Te Ching. (G.-F. F. English, Trans.) New York: Vintage Books.

Glittering Generalities

2011-01-20T17:18:00.001-08:00

Because these terms have no meaning outside of the context people use them, they are called glittering generalities by propagandists. Propagandists use the adjective “glittering” because shiny objects tend to attract the attention and interest of people. These lingual devices attract people in the same way Odysseys was seduced by the three witches in The Odyssey . Odysseys fell in love with him, not the three witches. Had he been real with himself and realistically appraised the situation, he would have noticed this and not found himself in the clutches of these three successive women.

Three Important Articles About China

2011-01-10T12:49:00.000-08:00

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE70919N20110110

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE7082BL20110109

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/09/china-us-gates-new-weapons

The party is over. The Dragon has awoken and is sitting on our knee getting ready to eat our lunch.

Magic(k)

2011-01-06T02:19:00.000-08:00

It seems that anyone undertaking serious, cursory reading into the philosophy and practice of magic(k) will come across myriad definitions of what magic(k) is in 2011. There seems a lack of consensus among many writers of magic(k) and related subjects. Often, writers would defer to Aleister Crowley's definition of magic(k), "by which I cause changes to take place in conformity with my Will". [1] Astute readers will note the capital W, which is to indicate the existence of a higher will. As an aside, curious readers may continue their research on Crowley's theories through his several texts—these would arguably qualify as theories; Crowley spent his life testing these. Tangentially, one fundamental concern with Crowley's definition comes through consideration of what Alfred Korzybski would call a 'multiordinal', which applies to a word that changes meaning at the several levels of abstraction. [2] Thus, a multiordinal word comes to have—generally—every meaning; ergo it has no meaning. Crowley's definition creates a multiordinal semantic structure of magic(k)—effectively making magic(k) a meaningless word. It seems to me that is a good attitude, actually—'chaos' was chosen for chaos magic(k) because it is free of lofty considerations that come with words like 'God' or 'Tao'. However, these points do not help when others ask for a definition of magic(k). By Crowley's definition, something as seemingly mundane as defecating models a magic(k)al act.

After reading about others' ideas of the definitions of magic(k), I began asking other practitioners what their definitions were. Over the years, I came up with some interesting answers. All the while, the opening lines from Hagakure would come to mind. "Although it stands to reason that a samurai should be mindful of the Way of the Samurai, it would seem that we are all negligent. Consequently, if someone were to ask, 'What is the true meaning of the Way of the Samurai?' the person who would be able to answer promptly is rare. This is because it has not been established in one's mind beforehand. From this, one's unmindfulness of the Way can be known. Negligence is an extreme thing". [3] For me, magic(k) was something that I approached in the sense that Alan Watts described Buddhism in a lecture I once listened to. Watts described Buddhism as an ongoing experiment where canons were kept to record the results of these experiments. [4] I decided to leave the rockstarish behavior to the Aleister Crowleys of the world, let the Anton LaVeys worship demons and devils, and let others undertake their respective activities. I had a discussion with my friend and mentor one day; he mentioned that he decided long ago that he was not going to be a dark lord. He said his main reason was that he would need minions. I understood what he was getting at, controlling minions is a hassle. I didn't want to be a dark lord either. So for me, magic(k) was always an activity that was largely uncharted and allegedly treacherous.

It took me many years to come to terms with a definition that I accepted. I noted that most of my undertakings caused results, many of them accurate and in accordance with my stated intent. Peter J. Caroll noted that magic(k) is something one throws into reality to modify probabilities. I concur with this assessment, as I applied certain techniques toward these ends and these techniques worked well within the aforementioned context. However, this did not define magic(k) as much as it described it. Finally, I came across Dr. Stephan A. Hoeller who—being older and wiser than I—crystallized an excellent definition. Dr. Hoeller said that when we consider the word magic(k) it is best to consider the etymology of mag. Mag, Dr. Hoeller continued, indicates an expansion of something. We could see this in "magnitude" or "magnification" for example. Dr. Hoeller maintains that, in the case of magic(k), an expansion of consciousness occurs. I find this the best working definition of magic(k)—because there is much more to it than ritual and ceremony of high magic(k), the insights of divination, the results achieved through sorcery, etc. Many of these manifestations are by-products or side-effects of the magic(k)al process; these are not the goal of the practices or these should not be in my opinion.

Having offered my opinion, it seems incumbent on me to take a paragraph to support the same. Terence McKenna told a story about the Buddha and an Old Man—I will relate it from memory. [7]
The Buddha walks by a river and sees an old man meditating near the water. The Buddha approaches the man and quietly asks him,
"Old man, for how long have you sat in this place?" The man smiled and said,
"Lord Buddha, I have sat here for 63 years."
"And in 63 years, what have you learned?" The man smiled as though waiting for this question. He promptly stood up and walked across the water to the other side of the river. Smiling proudly, the Old Man walked back and presented himself in front of the Buddha. The Buddha shook his head and said,
"That's great, but the ferry only costs one rupee."
What would you have your sorcery do? Would you have it bring you money? You may find it more efficient, more reliable, and more reasonably priced if you acquire money through mundane means e.g. business, job—though you might employ sorcery to enhance your chances. Would you save the world? People are already trying to do that and failing, magic(k) probably will not help as it will tend to magnify unsolved problems. I practice it because it changes the fundamental sensation that I have of my existence, it is fun, and I enjoy it.

Notes

[1] http://www.beyondweird.com/crowley/magic_in_theory_and_practice.html
[2] http://www.amazon.com/Science-Sanity-Introduction-Non-Aristotelian-International/dp/0937298018
[3] http://rosenoire.org/archives/Hagakure.pdf
[4] http://www.alanwatts.com/ Regrettably, the exact title of the lecture escapes me. I believe it was Transformations of Consciousness or Four ways to the Center, but I am not sure.
[5] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYcEcGVLuU0
[6] http://bcrecordings.net/store/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=57&zenid=46e843a288bd5929ccc7da89c975cb99
[7] http://deoxy.org/mckenna.htm

Full Yuri Bezmenov Interview with G. Edward Griffin

2010-12-09T13:26:00.000-08:00

Hiatus

2010-08-17T12:12:00.000-07:00

Well, this blog has not been active in some time. It seems most of us are on hiatus. These days, as American confidence in public institutions dwindles e.g. Congress, Corporate Media--according to Gallup http://www.gallup.com/poll/142133/confidence-newspapers-news-remains-rarity.aspx--even the Wall Street Journal mentioned the possible collapse of the United States economy by years end.

At this point, there is little left to discuss. If the warnings have not worked by now, nothing will work until the military boot is in the butt--as Bezminov says in the videos on this blog. Getting through the crash is the biggest concern at this point.

Following that personal concern, we must manifest a political will to undertake the follow projects:

1. Cheaper Energy -- when the cost of energy goes up, the cost of almost any activity goes up as well.

2. New Infrastructure -- our transportation systems, communications systems, logistics systems, public utilities, etc. are old and need upgrades, replacements, and reinvention.

3. We must reacquaint ourselves with and return to the first principles of this Republic. This celebration of diversity is creating rude and natural chaos. We want that chaos to posses a more refined and smooth character. To this end, public awareness monies already spent on other public works advertisements would serve this purpose by telling people why and how they could read the Constitution and other important documents.

There are other challenges for our great Republic, but we must address these three before we will successfully address the others.

Zbigniew Brzezinski on the Global Political Awakening

2010-05-25T19:34:00.000-07:00

36 Strategies of China

2010-05-09T22:39:00.000-07:00

1. Deceive the sky to cross the ocean

Moving about in the darkness and shadows, occupying isolated places, or hiding behind screens will only attract suspicious attention.

To lower an enemy's guard you must act in the open and hide your true intentions under the guise of common every day activities.

2. Besiege Wèi to rescue Zhào

When the enemy is too strong to be attacked directly, then attack something he holds dear. Know that in all things he cannot be superior. Somewhere there is a gap in the armour, a weakness that can be attacked instead.

The origins of this proverb is from the Warring States Period. The state of Wèi attacked Zhao and laid siege to its capital Handan.

Zhào turned to Qí for help, but the Qí general Sun Bin determined it would be unwise to meet the army of Wèi head on, so he instead attacked their capital at Daliang.

The army of Wèi retreated in haste, and they were ambushed and defeated at the Battle of Guiling, with the Wèi general Pang Juan slain on the field.

3. Kill with a borrowed knife

Attack using the strength of another (in a situation where using one's own strength is not favourable).

Trick an ally into attacking him, bribe an official to turn traitor, or use the enemy's own strength against him.

4. Substitute leisure for labour

It is an advantage to choose the time and place for battle. In this way you know when and where the battle will take place, while your enemy does not.

Encourage your enemy to expend his energy in futile quests while you conserve your strength. When he is exhausted and confused, you attack with energy and purpose.

5. Loot a house on fire

When a country is beset by internal conflicts, when disease and famine ravage the population, when corruption and crime are rampant, then it will be unable to deal with an outside threat.

This is the time to attack.

6. Make a sound in the east, then strike in the west

In any battle the element of surprise can provide an overwhelming advantage. Even when face to face with an enemy, surprise can still be employed by attacking where he least expects it.

To do this you must create an expectation in the enemy's mind through the use of a feint.

7. Create something from nothing

You use the same feint twice. Having reacted to the first and often the second feint as well, the enemy will be hesitant to react to a third feint. Therefore the third feint is the actual attack catching your enemy with his guard down.

8. Sneak through the passage of Chencang

Attack the enemy with two convergent forces. The first is the direct attack, one that is obvious and for which the enemy prepares his defense.

The second is the indirect, the attack sinister, that the enemy does not expect and which causes him to divide his forces at the last minute leading to confusion and disaster.

This (confrontation strategies) proverb is literally translated as "openly repair the gallery roads, but sneak through the passage of Chencang".

The phrase originated from the Chu-Han contention, where Liu Bang retreated to the lands of Sichuan to prepare for a confrontation with Xiang Yu.

Once he was fully prepared, Liu Bang sent men to openly repair the gallery roads he had destroyed earlier, while secretly moving his troops towards Guanzhong through the small town of Chencang instead.

When Xiang Yu received news of Liu Bang repairing the gallery roads, he dismissed the threat since he knew the repairs would take years to complete.

This allowed Liu Bang to retake Guanzhong by surprise, and eventually led to his victory over Xiang Yu and the birth of the Han Dynasty.

9. Watch the fires burning across the river

Delay entering the field of battle until all the other players have become exhausted fighting amongst themselves. Then go in full strength and pick up the pieces.

10. Hide a knife behind a smile

Charm and ingratiate yourself to your enemy. When you have gained his trust, you move against him in secret.

11. Sacrifices the plum tree to preserve the peach tree

There are circumstances in which you must sacrifice short-term objectives in order to gain the long-term goal. This is the scapegoat strategy whereby someone else suffers the consequences so that the rest do not.

Cao Cao of the Three Kingdoms Period demonstrated this strategy. During a siege, Cao supplies ran low so he called in the supply captain and told him to dilute the rice with water to save grains.

When the soldiers started to complain, Cao ordered for the captain to be killed. He would explain to his troops that the captain has been selling supplies to the enemy.

This raises the army morale and they were victorious in a few more days.

12. Take the opportunity to pilfer a goat

While carrying out your plans be flexible enough to take advantage of any opportunity that presents itself, however small, and avail yourself of any profit, however slight.

13. Startle the snake by hitting the grass around it.
When preparing for battle, do not alert your enemy to your intentions or give away your strategy prematurely.

14. Borrow another's corpse to resurrect the soul.

Take an institution, a technology, or a method that has been forgotten or discarded and appropriate it for your own purpose.

Revive something from the past by giving it a new purpose or to reinterpret and bring to life old ideas, customs, and traditions.

15. Entice the tiger to leave its mountain lair

Never directly attack an opponent whose advantage is derived from its position. Instead lure him away from his position thus separating him from his source of strength.

16. In order to capture, one must let loose.

Cornered prey will often mount a final desperate attack. To prevent this you let the enemy believe he still has a chance for freedom.

His will to fight is thus dampened by his desire to escape.

When in the end the freedom is proven a falsehood the enemy's morale will be defeated and he will surrender without a fight.

17. Tossing out a brick to get a jade

Prepare a trap then lure your enemy into the trap by using bait.

In war the bait is the illusion of an opportunity for gain.

In life the bait is the illusion of wealth, power, and sex.

This proverb is based on a story involving two famous poets of the Tang Dynasty.

There was a great poet named Zhao Gue and another lesser poet by the name of Chang Jian. While Chang Jian was traveling in Suzhou, he heard news that Zhao Gu would be visiting a temple in the area.

Chang Jian wished to learn from the master poet, so he devised a plan and went to the temple in advance, then wrote a poem on the temple walls with only two of the four lines completed, hoping Zhao Gu would see it and finish the poem.

Zhao Gu acted as Chang Jian forsaw, and from this story came the proverb.

18. Defeat the enemy by capturing their chief

If the enemy's army is strong but is allied to the commander only by money or threats, then take aim at the leader.

If the commander falls the rest of the army will disperse or come over to your side. If, however, they are allied to the leader through loyalty then beware, the army can continue to fight on after his death out of vengeance.

19. Remove the firewood under the cooking pot

When faced with an enemy too powerful to engage directly you must first weaken him by undermining his foundation and attacking his source of power.

20. Catch a fish while the water is disturbed

Before engaging your enemy's forces create confusion to weaken his perception and judgement. Do something unusual, strange, and unexpected as this will arouse the enemy's suspicion and disrupt his thinking. A distracted enemy is thus more vulnerable.

21. Slough off the cicada's shell

When you are in danger of being defeated, and your only chance is to escape and regroup, then create an illusion. While the enemy's attention is focused on this artifice, secretly remove your men leaving behind only the facade of your presence.

22. Shut the door to catch the thief

If you have the chance to completely capture the enemy then you should do so thereby bringing the battle or war to a quick and lasting conclusion.

To allow your enemy to escape plants the seeds for future conflict.

But if they succeed in escaping, be wary of giving chase.

23. Befriend a distant state while attacking a neighbour

It is known that nations that border each other become enemies while nations separated by distance and obstacles make better allies.

When you are the strongest in one field, your greatest threat is from the second strongest in your field, not the strongest from another field.

24. Obtain safe passage to conquer the State of Guo

Borrow the resources of an ally to attack a common enemy. Once the enemy is defeated, use those resources to turn on the ally that lent you them in the first place.

25. Replace the beams with rotten timbers

Disrupt the enemy's formations, interfere with their methods of operations, change the rules in which they are used to following, go contrary to their standard training.

In this way you remove the supporting pillar, the common link that makes a group of men an effective fighting force.

26. Point at the mulberry tree while cursing the locust tree

To discipline, control, or warn others whose status or position excludes them from direct confrontation; use analogy and innuendo. Without directly naming names, those accused cannot retaliate without revealing their complicity.

27. Play dumb

Hide behind the mask of a fool, a drunk, or a madman to create confusion about your intentions and motivations. Lure your opponent into underestimating your ability until, overconfident, he drops his guard. Then you may attack.

28. Remove the ladder when the enemy has ascended to the roof.

With baits and deceptions lure your enemy into treacherous terrain. Then cut off his lines of communication and avenue of escape.

To save himself he must fight both your own forces and the elements of nature.

29. Deck the tree with false blossoms

Tying silk blossoms on a dead tree gives the illusion that the tree is healthy. Through the use of artifice and disguise make something of no value appear valuable; of no threat appear dangerous; of no use appear useful.

30. Make the host and the guest exchange roles

Defeat the enemy from within by infiltrating the enemy's camp under the guise of cooperation, surrender, or peace treaties.

In this way you can discover his weakness and then, when the enemy's guard is relaxed, strike directly at the source of his strength.

31. The honey trap

Send your enemy beautiful women to cause discord within his camp.

This strategy can work on three levels.

First, the ruler becomes so enamoured with the beauty that he neglects his duties and allows his vigilance to wane.

Second, other males at court will begin to display aggressive behaviour that inflames minor differences hindering co-operation and destroying morale.

Third, other females at court, motivated by jealousy and envy, begin to plot intrigues further exasperating the situation. Even though this has been done many times, perhaps the most famous historical example is Xi Shi who was sent to the State of Wu during the Spring and Autumn Period.

32. The empty fort strategy

When the enemy is superior in numbers and your situation is such that you expect to be overrun at any moment, then drop all pretence of military preparedness and act casually.

Unless the enemy has an accurate description of your situation this unusual behaviour will arouse suspicions.

With luck he will be dissuaded from attacking.

From Desperate Situations Strategies.

33. Let the enemy's own spy sow discord in the enemy camp

Undermine your enemy's ability to fight by secretly causing discord between him and his friends, allies, advisors, family, commanders, soldiers, and population. While he is preoccupied settling internal disputes his ability to attack or defend, is compromised.

34. Inflict injury on one's self to win the enemy's trust

Pretending to be injured has two possible applications. In the first, the enemy is lulled into relaxing his guard since he no longer considers you to be an immediate threat. The second is a way of ingratiating yourself to your enemy by pretending the injury was caused by a mutual enemy.

This strategy was perhaps best demonstrated during the Spring and Autumn Period.

After his defeat by King Fu Chai of Wu, King Gou Jian of Yue pretended to go to Wu to become a servant of Fu Chai.

After gaining Fu Chai's trust, Guo Jian was allow back to Yue. There he strengthen his military and in 482 BC while Fu Chai was trying to gain hegemony, he attacked and conquered the capital. Some years later in 478 BC, he annexed Wu and forced Fu Chai to commit suicide.

35. The strategy of combining tactics

In important matters one should use several strategies applied simultaneously. Keep different plans operating in an overall scheme; in this manner if any one strategy fails you would still have several others to fall back on.

36. If all else fails, retreat

If it becomes obvious that your current course of action will lead to defeat then retreat and regroup. When your side is losing there are only three choices remaining: surrender, compromise, or escape. Surrender is complete defeat, compromise is half defeat, but escape is not defeat.

As long as you are not defeated, you still have a chance.

This is the most famous one of the 36th strategy, immortalized in the form of a Chinese idiom: "Of the Thirty-Six Strategies, fleeing is best."

CIA Officer Outlines Solutions

2010-05-05T23:26:00.001-07:00

Five Stages of State Collapse

2010-03-23T17:02:00.001-07:00

Five Stages of State Collapse (Zartman 1995)

1. Devolution of power to the periphery as the
center becomes mired in infighting.

2. Government loss of its power base as it withers
at the center.

3. Avoidance of necessary but difficult choices on
the part of leadership, resulting in a crisis of
governance.

4. Practice of only defensive measures by
incumbents, with a marked absence of any
policy agenda.

5. The center’s loss of control over its own agents.

The Judge

2010-03-17T15:16:00.001-07:00

A Detention Bill You Ought to Read More Carefully

2010-03-08T11:00:00.000-08:00

source// http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/03/a-detention-bill-you-ought-to-read-more-carefully/37116

bill// http://assets.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/politics/ARM10090.pdf

Mar 5 2010, 3:40 PM ET

Why is the national security community treating the "Enemy Belligerent, Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010," introduced by Sens. John McCain and Joseph Lieberman on Thursday as a standard proposal, as a simple response to the administration's choices in the aftermath of the Christmas Day bombing attempt? A close reading of the bill suggests it would allow the U.S. military to detain U.S. citizens without trial indefinitely in the U.S. based on suspected activity. Read the bill here, and then read the summarized points after the jump.
According to the summary, the bill sets out a comprehensive policy for the detention, interrogation and trial of suspected enemy belligerents who are believed to have engaged in hostilities against the United States by requiring these individuals to be held in military custody, interrogated for their intelligence value and not provided with a Miranda warning.

(There is no distinction between U.S. persons--visa holders or citizens--and non-U.S. persons.)

It would require these "belligerents" to be coded as "high-value detainee[s]" to be held in military custody and interrogated for their intelligence value by a High-Value Detainee Interrogation Team established by the president. (The H.I.G., of course, was established to bring a sophisticated interrogation capacity to the federal justice system.)

Any suspected unprivileged enemy belligerents considered a "high-value detainee" shall not be provided with a Miranda warning.

The bill asks the President to determine criteria for designating an individual as a "high-value detainee" if he/she: (1) poses a threat of an attack on civilians or civilian facilities within the U.S. or U.S. facilities abroad; (2) poses a threat to U.S. military personnel or U.S. military facilities; (3) potential intelligence value; (4) is a member of al Qaeda or a terrorist group affiliated with al Qaeda or (5) such other matters as the President considers appropriate. The President must submit the regulations and guidance to the appropriate committees of Congress no later than 60 days after enactment.

To the extent possible, the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Team must make a preliminary determination whether the detainee is an unprivileged enemy belligerent within 48 hours of taking detainee into custody.

The High-Value Detainee Interrogation Team must submit its determination to the Secretary of Defense and the Attorney General after consultation with the Director of National Intelligence, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. The Secretary of Defense and the Attorney General make a final determination and report the determination to the President and the appropriate committees of Congress. In the case of any disagreement between the Secretary of Defense and the Attorney General, the President will make the determination.

Note that the president himself doesn't get to make the call.

O Fortuna -- Most Widely Listened to Classical Piece?

2010-03-07T12:26:00.001-08:00

Aside from Dvorak's New World Symphony or Egmont Overture, this could be the most powerful piece of classical music I've ever heard. I suggest you read along while you listen, in English and Latin--even if your Latin is not particularly good; mine has fallen into a despicable state from years of neglect.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8432499.stm
http://forums.kickassclassical.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=5

Latin	English
O Fortuna velut luna statu variabilis, semper crescis aut decrescis; vita detestabilis nunc obdurat et tunc curat ludo mentis aciem, egestatem, potestatem dissolvit ut glaciem. Sors immanis et inanis, rota tu volubilis, status malus, vana salus semper dissolubilis, obumbrata et velata michi quoque niteris; nunc per ludum dorsum nudum fero tui sceleris. Sors salutis et virtutis michi nunc contraria, est affectus et defectus semper in angaria. Hac in hora sine mora corde pulsum tangite; quod per sortem sternit fortem, mecum omnes plangite!	O Fortune, just as the moon Stands constantly changing, always increasing or decreasing; Detestable life now difficult and then easy Deceptive sharp mind; poverty power it melts them like ice. Fate—monstrous and empty, you whirling wheel, stand malevolent, well-being is vain and always fades to nothing, shadowed and veiled you plague me too; now through the game, my bare back I bring to your villainy. Fate, in health and in virtue, is now against me driven on and weighted down, always enslaved. So at this hour without delay pluck the vibrating string; since through Fate strikes down the strong, everyone weep with me!

Post Office, ISP, Telecommunications, Major Websites and IT Corporations Spy Policies

2010-02-26T00:45:00.001-08:00

//source www.cryptome.org//cryptome was taken down today my Microsoft for posting one of these guides.

MS later retracted its claim and cryptome is back online....

Lawful Spy Guides paypal-spy.zip 
myspace-spy.pdf 
comcast-spy.pdf 
microsoft-spy.zip 
facebook-spy.pdf  
aol-spy.pdf        
skype-spy.pdf         
cox-spy.pdf        
ning-spy.pdf         
myyearbook-spy.pdf     
stickam-spy.pdf        
usps-spy.pdf           
usps-spy2.pdf  
yahoo-preserve.pdf     
cisco-spy.pdf           
3gpp-spy.htm          
microsoft-spy.htm     
att-spy-doc-01.pdf     
att-spy-doc-02.zip                    
verizon-spy.pdf  
sprint-spy2.pdf       
sprint-spy.zip        
voicestream-spy.zip    
yahoo-cryptome.htm     
yahoo-demand.pdf        
yahoo-spy.pdf         
cox-spy.pdf            
sbc-ameritech-spy.pdf  
sbc-lea-spy.pdf       
ameritech-spy.pdf       
cingular-spy.pdf       
cricket-spy.pdf        
nextel-spy.pdf         
pactel-spy.pdf         
gte-spy.pdf

Yuri Bezmenov on KGB Psychological Warfare and Subversion of the West

2010-02-24T22:39:00.000-08:00

The rampant and incompetent public sector

2010-02-24T13:54:00.000-08:00

//source BreakForNews.com

The rampant and incompetent public sector
is at least as big a problem for America as
its rampant and voracious financial sector.

In a new article on Reason.com, Steven Greenhut says:

Quote:

Government employees now receive far higher pay, benefits, and
pensions than the vast majority of Americans working in the private
sector. Even when they are incompetent or abusive, they can be fired
only after a long process and only for the most grievous offenses.

This we know! But the hard statistics
Greenhut uses to back his case are chilling:

Quote:

State and local government employees in 1946: 3.3 million.
State and local government employees in 2010: 19.8 million.

And it's not getting any better:

Quote:

Since 1999 the number of state and local
employees has increased by 13 percent.

Just look how all this had twisted the US economy

Quote:

In 1947:
78 percent of the national income went to the private sector,
16 percent to the federal sector, and
6 percent to the state and local government sector.

In 2010:
54 percent of the economy is private,
28 percent goes to the feds, and
18 percent goes to state and local governments.

The Governance sector has gone
from 22% of the economy to a
whopping 46% of the economy!

Steven Greenhut writes:

Quote:

The trend lines are ominous.

And it will require a gargantuan effort to extract ourselves
from this dilemma. A bit like trying to remove a deeply
embedded brain tumour without killing the patient:

Quote:

Those [government] employees then become a permanent lobby for
continual government growth. The nation may have reached critical mass;
the number of government employees at every level may have gotten so
high that it is politically impossible to roll back the bureaucracy, rein in
the costs, and restore lost freedoms.

The full article follows. It's a sometimes hilarious
trek through the astonishing benefits earned by
our so-called 'servants', via a selfish elitism.

Quote:

Class War
How public servants became our masters

Steven Greenhut from the February 2010 issue of Reason Magazine

In April 2008, The Orange County Register published a bombshell of an investigation about a license plate program for California government workers and their families. Drivers of nearly 1 million cars and light trucks—out of a total 22 million vehicles registered statewide—were protected by a “shield” in the state records system between their license plate numbers and their home addresses. There were, the newspaper found, great practical benefits to this secrecy.

“Vehicles with protected license plates can run through dozens of intersections controlled by red light cameras with impunity,” the Register’s Jennifer Muir reported. “Parking citations issued to vehicles with protected plates are often dismissed because the process necessary to pierce the shield is too cumbersome. Some patrol officers let drivers with protected plates off with a warning because the plates signal that drivers are ‘one of their own’ or related to someone who is.”

The plate program started in 1978 with the seemingly unobjectionable purpose of protecting the personal addresses of officials who deal directly with criminals. Police argued that the bad guys could call the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), get addresses for officers, and use the information to harm them or their family members. There was no rash of such incidents, only the possibility that they could take place.

So police and their families were granted confidentiality. Then the program expanded from one set of government workers to another. Eventually parole officers, retired parking enforcers, DMV desk clerks, county supervisors, social workers, and other categories of employees from 1,800 state agencies were given the special protections too. Meanwhile, the original intent of the shield had become obsolete: The DMV long ago abandoned the practice of giving out personal information about any driver. What was left was not a protection but a perk.

Yes, rank has its privileges, and it’s clear that government workers have a rank above the rest of us. Ordinarily, if one out of every 22 California drivers had a license to drive any way he chose, there would be demands for more police power to protect Californians from the potential carnage. But until the newspaper series, law enforcement officials and legislators had remained mum. The reason, of course, is that the scofflaws are law enforcement officials and legislators.

Here is how brazen they’ve become: A few days after the newspaper investigation caused a buzz in Sacramento, lawmakers voted to expand the driver record protections to even more government employees. An Assembly committee, on a bipartisan 13-to-0 vote, agreed to extend the program to veterinarians, firefighters, and code officers. “I don’t want to say no to the firefighters and veterinarians that are doing these things that need to be protected,” Assemblyman Mike Duvall (R-Yorba Linda) explained.

Exempting themselves from traffic laws in the name of a threat that no longer exists is bad enough, but what government workers do to the rest of us on a daily basis makes ticket dodging look like child’s play. Often under veils of illegal secrecy, public-sector unions and their political allies are systematically looting the public treasury with gold-plated pensions, jeopardizing the finances of state and local governments around the country, removing themselves from legal accountability, and doing it all in the name of humble working men and women just looking for their fair share. Government employees have turned themselves into a coddled class that lives better than its private-sector counterpart, and with more impunity. The public’s servants have become our masters.

Good Enough for Government Work

There was a time when government work offered lower salaries than comparable jobs in the private sector but more security and somewhat better benefits. These days, government workers fare better than private-sector workers in almost every area—pay, benefits, time off, and job security. And not just in California.

According to a 2007 analysis of data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics by the Asbury Park Press, “the average federal worker made $59,864 in 2005, compared with the average salary of $40,505 in the private sector.” Across comparable jobs, the federal government paid higher salaries than the private sector three times out of four, the paper found. As Heritage Foundation legal analyst James Sherk explained to the Press, “The government doesn’t have to worry about going bankrupt, and there isn’t much competition.”

In February 2008, before the recession made the disparity much worse, The New York Times reported that “George W. Bush is in line to be the first president since World War II to preside over an economy in which federal government employment rose more rapidly than employment in the private sector.” The Obama administration has extended the hiring binge, with executive branch employment (excluding the Postal Service and the Defense Department) slated to grow by 2 percent in 2010—and more than 15 percent if you count temporary Census workers.

The average federal salary (including benefits) is set to grow from $72,800 in 2008 to $75,419 in 2010, CBS reported. But the real action isn’t in what government employees are being paid today; it’s in what they’re being promised for tomorrow. Public pensions have swollen to unrecognizable proportions during the last decade. In June 2005, BusinessWeek reported that “more than 14 million public servants and 6 million retirees are owed $2.37 trillion by more than 2,000 different states, cities and agencies,” numbers that have risen since then. State and local pension payouts, the magazine found, had increased 50 percent in just five years.

These huge pension increases have eaten away at public finances, most spectacularly in California, where a bipartisan bill that passed virtually without debate unleashed the odious “3 percent at 50” retirement plan in 1999. Under this plan, at age 50 many categories of public employees are eligible for 3 percent of their final year’s pay multiplied by the number of years they’ve worked. So if a police officer starts working at age 20, he can retire at 50 with 90 percent of his final salary until he dies, and then his spouse receives that money for the rest of her life. Even during the economic crisis, “3 percent at 50” and the forces behind it have only become more entrenched.

In the midst of California’s 2008–09 fiscal meltdown, with the impact of deluxe public pensions making daily headlines, the city of Fullerton nevertheless sought to retroactively increase the defined-benefit retirement plan for its city employees by a jaw-dropping 25 percent. What’s more, the Fullerton City Council negotiated the increase in closed session, outside public view. Under California’s open meetings law, known as the Brown Act, even legitimate closed-session items such as contract negotiations are supposed to be advertised so that the public has a clear idea of what’s being discussed. But the Fullerton agenda for that night only vaguely referred to labor negotiations.

Four of the five council members—two Republicans and two Democrats—seemed to support the deal. But Republican Shawn Nelson, a principled advocate for limited government, didn’t appreciate the way the council was obscuring not only the legitimately secret details of the negotiations but the basic subject matter. He called me at the Register (where I worked at the time) and, without revealing details of the closed session, shared his concerns about the way the public had not been alerted. After I wrote about the secret, fiscally reckless deal, the recriminations came down in a hurry: on Shawn Nelson.

Not surprisingly, the liberal council members were furious that the public had been informed about what was going on. But some conservative Republicans, including a prominent state senator, Dick Ackerman of Irvine, were angry as well, because Nelson’s willingness to talk embarrassed a Republican councilman whom the GOP was backing for re-election. When I later bumped into Ackerman at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, he laid into me about Nelson’s supposed violation of the Brown Act. Some officials and bloggers actually called for Nelson to be prosecuted. Local union mouthpieces and fellow council members portrayed the whistleblower as a common criminal, even though he was merely acting in the spirit of the open meetings law and showing the kind of fiscal responsibility you would hope to see in public officials.

In its embarrassment, the city council voted against the deal at the last minute, but only after council members publicly chastised Nelson, accused me of libel, and vowed to come back for more when the timing was right. One Republican councilman couldn’t figure out what the fuss was all about, given that the council enhances public employee pay and pensions all the time.

Pension Tsunami

Although Americans may have a vague sense that the nation has run up a great deal of debt, the public employee benefit problem is not well known. Yet the wave of benefit promises is poised to wash away state and local government budgets and large portions of the incomes of most Americans. Most of these benefits are vested, meaning that they have the standing of a legal contract. They cannot be reduced. And the government employees’ allies, such as California’s legislative Democrats, are cleverly blocking some of the more obvious exit strategies.

For instance, when the city of Vallejo went bankrupt after coughing up 75 percent of its budget to police and firefighters, the state Assembly introduced legislation that would allow cities to go bankrupt only if they get approval from a commission. Such a commission would of course be dominated by union-friendly members. The result: Cities would be stuck making good on contracts they cannot afford to fulfill.

When the economy was booming, these structural problems could be hidden. But not now. As debt loads become unsustainable, you can expect cuts in services, tax increases, pension-obligation bonds, or some combination of the three.

In California unfunded pension and health care liabilities for state workers top $100 billion, and the annual pension contribution has shot up from $320 million to $7.3 billion in less than a decade. In New York state, local governments may have to triple their annual pension contributions during the next six years, from $2.6 billion to $8 billion, according to the state comptroller.

That money will come from taxpayers. The average private-sector worker, who enjoys a lower salary and far lower retirement benefits than New York or California government workers, will have to work longer, retire later, and pay more so that his public-employee neighbors can enjoy the lifestyle to which they have become accustomed. The taxpayers will also have to deal with worsening public services, since there will be less money to pay for things that might actually benefit the public.

In July 2009, Orange County, California, Sheriff Sandra Hutchens proposed more than $20 million in budget cuts to close the gap caused by falling tax revenue. Her department slashed 40 percent of its command staff, cut a total of about 30 positions, and made changes that affected about 200 positions through reassignments, demotions, new overtime rules, and other maneuvers. “These are services that we believe are quite important to maintaining public safety, that we’re just not going to be able to continue,” department spokesman John MacDonald told the Los Angeles Times.

The sheriff failed to identify another reason for the tight budget: In 2001 the Orange County Board of Supervisors had passed a retroactive pension increase for sheriff’s deputies. That policy nearly doubled pension costs from 2000 to 2009, when pension contributions totaled nearly $95 million—20 percent of the sheriff’s budget. So the sheriff decries an economic downturn that is costing her department about $20 million, but she doesn’t mention that a previous pension increase is costing her department more than double that amount. It’s safe to say that had the pension increase not passed, the department would have money to keep officers on the streets and to avoid the cuts the sheriff claims are threatening public safety.

Chief’s Disease

One would think that a “3 percent at 50” retirement would be a good enough deal for most people. Most workers in the private sector would probably jump at such an opportunity. But many public safety officials aren’t satisfied with a system that allows them to retire with 90 percent or more of their final year’s pay at young ages. They feel compelled to game the system in ways that stretch or break the law.

A large percentage of public safety officials —more than two-thirds of management-level officials at the California Highway Patrol, for instance—come down with something widely known as “Chief’s Disease” about a year before their scheduled retirement. “High-ranking [CHP] officers, nearing the end of their careers, routinely pursued disability claims that awarded them workers’ comp settlements,” John Hill and Dorothy Korber of the Sacramento Bee reported in 2004. “That, in turn, led in many cases to disability retirements. As they collected their disability pensions, some of these former CHP chiefs embarked on rigorous second careers—one as assistant sheriff of Yolo County, for example, another as the security director for San Francisco International Airport.”

When Mike Clesceri was mayor of Fullerton (a part-time position filled by a city council member), he also worked as an investigator for the Orange County District Attorney’s Office. As his retirement approached, Clesceri claimed to have an extreme case of acid reflux, which would help him net a tax-free pension of $58,000 a year, plus cost-of-living increases. Even while retired with that alleged disability, Clesceri pursued a local police chief’s job, retained his mayorship, and ran a tough re-election campaign. He even had the time to have his brother-in-law, an attorney, send threatening letters to members of the community who commented on the absurdity of his disability pension. As Clesceri explained in a newspaper column, the disability only applied to his job at the D.A.’s office.

The exposure of this abuse ultimately galvanized the public to boot Clesceri off the Fullerton City Council. The problem is most of these situations never get aired publicly.

Other state employees go to great lengths to find the highest-paying job they can in their final year, thereby locking in their permanent retirement benefit based on a salary they made only once. Bee reporters Hill and Korber told the story of Sharon McGraw, a Sacramento-area accounting manager for the state who moved from her suburban home to a tiny apartment in the San Francisco Bay area so she could temporarily take a high-paying job that would increase her pension benefit by $18,000 a year.

Then there’s the bizarre story of Armando Ruiz, a part-time trustee for the Coast Community College District in Southern California. Ruiz also worked full time as an administrator with the South Orange County Community College District. Ruiz wanted to run for re-election as a trustee and use the “incumbent” label on his ballot, but he also wanted to take advantage of a strange California law that dramatically increases an employee’s pension payout if he retires from two jobs on the same day.

“Ruiz ‘retired,’ effective Oct. 31, as a part-time trustee of the Coast district and as a full-time counselor at Irvine Valley College,” Register columnist Frank Mickadeit reported in 2008. “Even though the trustee gig pays just a $9,800 annual stipend, he was able to calculate his state pension as if he had been paid $106K a year for that ‘job’ plus the $106K a year he got for his real job at Irvine. So, based on a $212K salary he never really made, his pension will work out to about $108K a year for life. Otherwise, the pension would have been $59K—$54K for the real job; $5K for the trustee job. Even though Ruiz was officially retired from the Coast district board, he was still listed on Tuesday’s ballot as an incumbent. A cynical person might say that by waiting to ‘retire,’ just days before the election Ruiz knew it would be too late to change the ballots. And incumbents rarely lose such elections.”

The only good news from that scam: After Ruiz’s maneuver was exposed, the state legislature repealed the incomprehensible pension-spiking rule. But the pending pension crisis, with its thousands of abuses undetected by outside scrutiny, continues to loom over our heads.

The Public Sector Menace

In the summer of 2009, various Democratic candidates for California attorney general came before the Police Officers Research Association of California, a union lobbying organization, to ask for its support. According to one attendee (who asked to remain anonymous, given the obvious repercussions for his career), the organization had two basic questions for Assemblymen Ted Lieu (D-Torrance), Alberto Torrico (D-Newark), and Pedro Nava (D–Santa Barbara), each a candidate in the 2010 attorney general race. The first: Did they support the death penalty for cop killers? The second: Would each candidate, as attorney general, make sure the official summary of a state pension reform proposal would be slanted to destroy its chances of passing?

In California crafting ballot language is one of the most important jobs of the state’s attorney general. The police union officials reminded the candidates that 90 percent of voters read nothing more than the ballot title and summary, and they emphasized the importance of putting the kibosh to the measure. My source was appalled, not just by the directness of the question but by the eagerness with which the candidates, especially Torrico, answered it. They all promised they would help kill the measure.

Public-sector unions have a growing influence in state and federal governments, and in the overall labor movement, but they are a relatively recent phenomenon. Civil service unionization in the federal government wasn’t allowed until President John F. Kennedy issued an executive order legalizing it in 1962. In California it didn’t become legal until 1968. Yet now California may be spearheading the re-unionization of the country.

In a 2003 study of union membership rates, the sociologists Ruth Milkman and Daisy Rooks explained that “California stands out as an exception to the general pattern of the past decade. Against all odds, union density has inched upward in the nation’s most populous state, from 16.1 percent of all wage and salary workers in 1998 to 17.8 percent in 2002.”

The study was produced by the University of California Institute for Labor and Employment, itself a testament to union power in the Golden State. Critics call the institute Union University, arguing that the state is funding a left-wing advocacy and research organization that advances union causes. As the Los Angeles Times explained in a 2004 article about the controversy, “For years these programs received the majority of their funding from the budgets of the universities where they are housed. Then in the 2000–01 budget, former Gov. Gray Davis approved $6 million to create the institute encompassing the two centers and charged with carrying out ‘research, education and service involving the world of work, and the public and private policies that govern it.’ ”

In the 2003 study, Milkman and Rooks found that union growth in California’s public sector has far outpaced such growth in other states, for an obvious reason: “Organized labor has more political influence in California than in most other states.” In more-recent studies, the Institute for Labor and Employment found that for the first time in five decades, U.S. unionization rates actually increased in 2008. The reason: increases in California, mainly in the government sector.

At all levels, state and local government employment grew by 13 percent across the United States from 1994 to 2004. The number of judicial and legal employees increased by 28 percent. The number of public safety workers increased by 21 percent. The number of teachers increased by 22 percent.

Michael Hodges’ invaluable Grandfather Economic Report uses the Bureau of Labor Statistics to chart the growth in state and local government employees since 1946. Their number has increased from 3.3 million then to 19.8 million today—a 492 percent increase as the country’s population increased by 115 percent. Since 1999 the number of state and local government employees has increased by 13 percent, compared to a 9 percent increase in the population.

The United States had 2.3 state and local government employees per 100 citizens in 1946 and has 6.5 state and local government employees per 100 citizens now. In 1947, Hodges writes, 78 percent of the national income went to the private sector, 16 percent to the federal sector, and 6 percent to the state and local government sector. Now 54 percent of the economy is private, 28 percent goes to the feds, and 18 percent goes to state and local governments. The trend lines are ominous.

Bigger government means more government employees. Those employees then become a permanent lobby for continual government growth. The nation may have reached critical mass; the number of government employees at every level may have gotten so high that it is politically impossible to roll back the bureaucracy, rein in the costs, and restore lost freedoms.

People who are supposed to serve the public have become a privileged elite that exploits political power for financial gain and special perks. Because of its political power, this interest group has rigged the game so there are few meaningful checks on its demands. Government employees now receive far higher pay, benefits, and pensions than the vast majority of Americans working in the private sector. Even when they are incompetent or abusive, they can be fired only after a long process and only for the most grievous offenses.

It’s a two-tier system in which the rulers are making steady gains at the expense of the ruled. The predictable results: Higher taxes, eroded public services, unsustainable levels of debt, and massive roadblocks to reforming even the poorest performing agencies and school systems. If this system is left to grow unchecked, we will end up with a pale imitation of the free society envisioned by the Founders.

Steven Greenhut (stevengreenhut@gmail.com), the director of the Pacific Research Institute's Journalism Center, was a columnist for The Orange County Register for 11 years.

http://reason.com/archives/2010/01/12/class-war

Active Measures

2010-02-24T10:01:00.000-08:00

These interviews are extracted from the Obama, CIA, KGB post below.

This is most interesting. Political Correctness, is a Marxist-Leninist concept. The idea is to create a "New Soviet Man" and a new society where the the expression of an idea that conflicts with the ideology of the state is impossible to express.

This video explains much more about active measures (activi merbiyatche, psychological warfare) occur:

Obama, the CIA, and the KGB

2010-02-24T00:39:00.000-08:00

This is some interesting stuff that you can research.

Before dismissing it outright, ask yourself why you don't dismiss what you hear from the TV or read on the newspaper outright?

This is not anything you will hear on the corporate channels, and it is certainly worthy of research.

Why We Are Susceptible to Manipulation

2010-02-23T09:54:00.000-08:00

//original post at http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2010/02/evolve-or-lose-our-humanity.html

Biologists and sociologists tell us that our brains evolved in small groups or tribes.

As one example of how profoundly the small-group environment affected our brains, Daily Galaxy points out:

Research shows that one of the most powerful ways to stimulate more buying is celebrity endorsement. Neurologists at Erasmus University in Rotterdam report that our ability to weigh desirability and value doesn’t function normally if an item is endorsed by a well-known face. This lights up the brain’s dorsal claudate nucleus, which is involved in trust and learning. Areas linked to longer-term memory storage also fire up. Our minds overidentify with celebrities because we evolved in small tribes. If you knew someone, then they knew you. If you didn’t attack each other, you were probably pals.
Our minds still work this way, giving us the idea that the celebs we keep seeing are our acquaintances. And we want to be like them, because we’ve evolved to hate being out of the in-crowd. Brain scans show that social rejection activates brain areas that generate physical pain, probably because in prehistory tribal exclusion was tantamount to a death sentence. And scans by the National Institute of Mental Health show that when we feel socially inferior, two brain regions become more active: the insula and the ventral striatum. The insula is involved with the gut-sinking sensation you get when you feel that small. The ventral striatum is linked to motivation and reward.

In small groups, we knew everyone extremely well. No one could really fool us about what type of person they were, because we had grown up interacting with them for our whole lives.

If a tribe member dressed up and pretended he was from another tribe, we would see it in a heart-beat. It would be like seeing your father in a costume: you would recognize him pretty quickly, wouldn't you.

As the celebrity example shows, our brains can easily be fooled by people in our large modern society when we incorrectly ascribe to them the role of being someone we should trust.

The opposite is true as well. The parts of our brain that are hard-wired to quickly recognize "outside enemies" can be fooled in our huge modern society, when it is really people we know dressed up like the "other team".

Wolf In Sheep's Clothing

Because of this hard-wiring in our brains from the days we lived in tiny tribes, we arehighly susceptible to false flag attacks.

Specifically, if government agents dress up like the "other team" and stage an attack on their own country, most people's "defend the tribe" hardwiring kicks in, so they rally around their leaders and call for the heads of the "other team".

Our brains assume that we can tell truth from fiction, because they evolved in very small groups where we knew everyone extremely well, and usually could see for ourselves what was true.

On the other side of the coin, a tribal leader who talked a good game but constantly stole from and abused his group would immediately be kicked out or killed. No matter how nicely he talked, the members of the tribe would immediately see what he was doing.

But in a country of hundreds of millions of people, where the political class is shielded from the rest of the country, people don't really know what our leaders are doing with most of the time. We only see them for a couple of minutes when they are giving speeches, or appearing in photo ops, or being interviewed. It is therefore much easier for a wolf in sheep's clothing to succeed than in a small group setting.

As with the celebrity endorsement example, our brains are running programs which were developed for an environment (a small group) we no longer live in, and so lead us astray.

Like the blind spot in our rear view mirror, we have to learn to compensate and adapt for our imperfections, or we may get clobbered.

Grow Up

The good news is that we can evolve.

While our brains have many built-in hardwired ways of thinking and processing information, they are also amazingly "plastic". We can learn and evolve and overcome our hardwiring - or at least compensate for our blind spots.

We are not condemned to being led astray by Madison Avenue advertisers and ruthless dictators and scientific frauds and fundamentalists.

We can choose to grow up as a species and reclaim our power to decide our own future.

Power

2010-02-07T11:54:00.000-08:00

George Jackson defines power--using what we learned in Physical Science in Middle School--as: the ability to do work.

While reading a RAND Corporation monograph, I found another definition: In their succinct analysis of the term, Raymond Boudon and Francois Bourricaud argue that these three notions of power must be made explicit if the term is to be usefully employed as a concept of analysis. In the first instance, they argue that power refers to some “allocation of resources, of whatever nature these might be.” Secondly, it refers to the “ability to use these resources,” implying, among other things, “a plan of use” and some “minimal information about the conditions and consequences of this use.” Finally, the notion of power refers to its “strategic character,” which is seen in the exercise “not only against the inertia of things, but also against the resistance of opposing wills.”

Four Principles of Cybernetics

2010-02-04T21:32:00.000-08:00

To control the system, one must understand both a system’s individual pieces and the coupling between the pieces.
One cannot describe a system’s evolution unless one has concepts—and variables or data structures representing those concepts—that accurately represent the state of the system.
While one needs to take into consideration all types of information transactions and transformations inside a system to control the system, one does not need to take into account the specific media and physical processes used.
In order to control a system, one needs to understand, collect data on, and have control mechanisms for all of the degrees of freedom of that system.

Sorcerer's Intelligence Network Lauches

2010-02-04T17:17:00.001-08:00

Check it out: http://sintelnet.webs.com

The Big Tarp Lie

2010-02-02T09:55:00.000-08:00

Priests of Power: Functional Psychopaths in Society part II

2010-01-31T16:07:00.001-08:00

This post is an adjunct to this previous post.

Orwell wrote 1984 in 1948, and 1984 is the date because Fabian Socialism--"soft socialism", evolution by stealth--manifested through the work of Cecil Rhodes--as in Bill Clinton is a Rhodes Scholar. Orwell worked for the English secret police in India, and served in several leadership positions in the English Empire. I did some research on him as a kid. Eventually, he learned that socialists, communists, and others are controlled by a cabal of functional psychopaths--about 1% of the population--who gravitate toward power. My own research in psychology and sociology courses confirms that such people do, in fact, gravitate toward power and often achieve it. Just think of your student government, who got to be class president?

Fabian Socialism operates on the premise of the "inch worm effect". Rather than kicking down your door as in Stalinist Socialism, the Fabian paradigm evolves through evolution by stealth. When it meets resistance at one point, it moves laterally and finds another point where it does not meet resistance, it moves forward and repeats the process. In this way, the paradigm is constantly moving toward it's goals, even if at an insanely slow pace. As an aside, Karl Marx wanted to title The Communist Manifesto as The Socialist Manifesto. He could not, because socialism was a dirty word at the time he wrote the Communist Manifesto. Could this explain why the Soviet Union was called the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics? Could that be why other communist blocs call themselves socialist?

Orwell eventually learned that Fabian Socialism is a cover for these functional psychopaths. He moved to an island that was infested with poisonous snakes, and had few ferries travel to it. He checked the manifests to see who was coming to the island, constantly. After working in the secret police, after all his work for the English Empire, Orwell knew that after writing a book like 1984, he would be at risk.

Thus, the functional psychopaths require certain traits in order to find success in the application of their totalitarian dreams--in which they become the Hitlers, Stalins, and Maos of the world. They require uncanny patience, a sense of timing, and they must be ready to sacrifice anything, anytime, anywhere if it furthers their overall goals.

These opinions may be confirmed through your research. I lack the time to post all the links and sources. This is common knowledge to me, and is basic information. I suggest that any who were previously unfamiliar with this information, do some research on Eric Blair (George Orwell was his pen name) and make it part of your common knowledge set as well. This is a very important topic, and reading 1984 will offer much insight into what is happening in our world today.

If you want a sample, see this previous post.

Khaos and Chaos Magic

2010-01-31T16:02:00.000-08:00

Our Enemy: Functional Psychopaths in Governance

2010-01-29T11:16:00.000-08:00

'We are the priests of power,' he said. 'God is power. But at present power is only a word so far as you are concerned. It is time for you to gather some idea of what power means. The first thing you must realize is that power is collective. The individual only has power in so far as he ceases to be an individual. You know the Party slogan: "Freedom is Slavery". Has it ever occurred to you that it is reversible? Slavery is freedom. Alone -- free -- the human being is always defeated. It must be so, because every human being is doomed to die, which is the greatest of all failures. But if he can make complete, utter submission, if he can escape from his identity, if he can merge himself in the Party so that he is the Party, then he is all-powerful and immortal. The second thing for you to realize is that power is power over human beings. Over the body but, above all, over the mind. Power over matter -- external reality, as you would call it -- is not important. Already our control over matter is absolute.'

For a moment Winston ignored the dial. He made a violent effort to raise himself into a sitting position, and merely succeeded in wrenching his body painfully.

'But how can you control matter?' he burst out. 'You don't even control the climate or the law of gravity. And there are disease, pain, death --'

O'Brien silenced him by a movement of his hand. 'We control matter because we control the mind. Reality is inside the skull. You will learn by degrees, Winston. There is nothing that we could not do. Invisibility, levitation -- anything. I could float off this floor like a soap bubble if I wish to. I do not wish to, because the Party does not wish it. You must get rid of those nineteenth-century ideas about the laws of Nature. We make the laws of Nature.'

'But you do not! You are not even masters of this planet. What about Eurasia and Eastasia? You have not conquered them yet.'

'Unimportant. We shall conquer them when it suits us. And if we did not, what difference would it make? We can shut them out of existence. Oceania is the world.'

'But the world itself is only a speck of dust. And man is tiny helpless! How long has he been in existence? For millions of years the earth was uninhabited.'

'Nonsense. The earth is as old as we are, no older. How could it be older? Nothing exists except through human consciousness.'

'But the rocks are full of the bones of extinct animals -- mammoths and mastodons and enormous reptiles which lived here long before man was ever heard of.'

'Have you ever seen those bones, Winston? Of course not. Nineteenth-century biologists invented them. Before man there was nothing. After man, if he could come to an end, there would be nothing. Outside man there is nothing.'

'But the whole universe is outside us. Look at the stars! Some of them are a million light-years away. They are out of our reach for ever.'

'What are the stars?' said O'Brien indifferently. 'They are bits of fire a few kilometres away. We could reach them if we wanted to. Or we could blot them out. The earth is the centre of the universe. The sun and the stars go round it.'

Winston made another convulsive movement. This time he did not say anything. O'Brien continued as though answering a spoken objection:

'For certain purposes, of course, that is not true. When we navigate the ocean, or when we predict an eclipse, we often find it convenient to assume that the earth goes round the sun and that the stars are millions upon millions of kilometres away. But what of it? Do you suppose it is beyond us to produce a dual system of astronomy? The stars can be near or distant, according as we need them. Do you suppose our mathematicians are unequal to that? Have you forgotten doublethink?'

Winston shrank back upon the bed. Whatever he said, the swift answer crushed him like a bludgeon. And yet he knew, he knew, that he was in the right. The belief that nothing exists outside your own mind -- surely there must be some way of demonstrating that it was false? Had it not been exposed long ago as a fallacy? There was even a name for it, which he had forgotten. A faint smile twitched the corners of O'Brien's mouth as he looked down at him.

'I told you, Winston,' he said, 'that metaphysics is not your strong point. The word you are trying to think of is solipsism. But you are mistaken. This is not solipsism. Collective solipsism, if you like. But that is a different thing: in fact, the opposite thing. All this is a digression,' he added in a different tone. 'The real power, the power we have to fight for night and day, is not power over things, but over men.' He paused, and for a moment assumed again his air of a schoolmaster questioning a promising pupil: 'How does one man assert his power over another, Winston?'

Winston thought. 'By making him suffer,' he said.

'Exactly. By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing. Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery is torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself. Progress in our world will be progress towards more pain. The old civilizations claimed that they were founded on love or justice. Ours is founded upon hatred. In our world there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph, and self-abasement. Everything else we shall destroy everything. Already we are breaking down the habits of thought which have survived from before the Revolution. We have cut the links between child and parent, and between man and man, and between man and woman. No one dares trust a wife or a child or a friend any longer. But in the future there will be no wives and no friends. Children will be taken from their mothers at birth, as one takes eggs from a hen. The sex instinct will be eradicated. Procreation will be an annual formality like the renewal of a ration card. We shall abolish the orgasm. Our neurologists are at work upon it now. There will be no loyalty, except loyalty towards the Party. There will be no love, except the love of Big Brother. There will be no laughter, except the laugh of triumph over a defeated enemy. There will be no art, no literature, no science. When we are omnipotent we shall have no more need of science. There will be no distinction between beauty and ugliness. There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always -- do not forget this, Winston -- always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face -- for ever.'

--George Orwell 1984

The Ten Commandments of General Semantics

2009-11-24T20:17:00.001-08:00

Thou shalt entertain no other theories (that conflict with general semantics).
Thou shalt not construct or use other devices than the structural differential.
Thou shalt not criticize Korzybski, for his word shall be not questioned.
Thou shalt keep revered the annual Korzybski Memorial lecture, and never do anything else on that day.
Thou shalt honor time-binding and all thy ancestors who have passed down the written word.
Thou shalt cooperate with thy fellow human beings, for not doing so is to behave like animals.
Thou shalt not truck with proponents of theories conflicting with general semantics.
Thou shalt not take another's general semanticist's words and pass them off as thy own.
Thou shalt not speak falsely against thy fellow general semanticists.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbors properties, for to do so is to behave like animals.

The Four Stages of Competence

2009-11-20T20:14:00.000-08:00

According to Kevin Trudeau

1. Unconscious Incompetence - this is the stage where you don't know that you don't know;

2. Conscious Incompetence - this is the stage that you KNOWYOU DON'T KNOW;

3. Conscious Competence - this is when you know that you know, but you have to
consciously think about it;

4. Unconscious Competence - this is when it is second nature; this is when the information is part of you; this is when you know it just as easily as you know your own name; this is when it is fully internalized and is just automatic.

ATTN Global Warming Cult--the HOAX is over!

2009-11-10T09:00:00.000-08:00

Congress has Reached a Point of Technological Obsolescence

2009-11-09T09:11:00.000-08:00

(NaturalNews) Given that the massive health care reform bill just passed by the House was one of the largest pieces of legislation in U.S. history, you might wonder why you didn't get to vote on it. When it comes to federal legislation, your vote doesn't count in America, didn't you know? You are dictated to by a small band of the political elite who may or may not represent your interests (or even the interests of your fellow citizens).

Those people are called members of Congress. And as you'll read here, they are essentially obsolete. Society no longer has any need for them. Here's why...

Why Congress was created

Consider why the U.S. Congress was created in the first place: Back in the 1700s, there was no internet. There weren't even telephones. Heck, this was pre-telegraph! Long-distance communication was simply impossible, so the people had a very practical need to send a representative to Washington to represent their wishes on the legislative front.

And so the idea of the U.S. Congress was born. Senators and Congresspeople would be representatives of the People from their home states and districts, and they would vote according to the wishes, desires and best interests of the people back home. They would essentially be proxy voters. Sounds good in theory, right?

Fast forward 230 years or so...

Now, instant communication is available to almost everyone. A new law being proposed in Washington could be instantly read -- and voted on -- by the People all across America. The internet has made the whole purpose behind the U.S. Congress obsolete... irrelevant. Why do Americans need someone else to represent them when we can all just read and vote on the bills ourselves? In an age of instant communications, Congress is no longer needed.

But of course, the current members of Congress would heartily disagree with that assessment. If there's one rule about power, it's that those in power always seek more power. And because only members of Congress can vote federal laws into existence -- not the actual citizens of the country -- they hold a tremendous amount of concentrated power... and they're not about to let it go.

Corporations love the current system, too, because they can simply bypass the People and lobby Congress to pass the laws that favor their own interests. This is how the U.S. Congress has become a legislative auction house where new laws are passed to appease whoever raises more money for reelection campaigns. Meanwhile, the People have been abandoned in this equation, and the interests of the People that were supposed to be "represented" in Washington have been long forgotten.

Did you realize that 237 members of Congress are millionaires? (http://www.politico.com/news/storie...) And seven of them have a net worth greater than $100 million. When lawmakers are rolling in that kind of cash, how can they possibly represent the interests of the People, of which 99% earn far less?

Further demonstrating detachment from the people they claim to represent, one new Congressman -- just sworn in yesterday -- managed to break four campaign promises in his first hour of office (http://www.gouverneurtimes.com/inde...).

It's time for Direct Democracy

In a Direct Democracy, the People directly participate in the debate and passage of new laws. All laws are publicly published for debate and discussion -- unlike the current situation where 1,000-page laws like the Patriot Act or the new health care reform bill are covertly written, then often deposited in the federal register just minutes before a scheduled vote.

Some Solutions

2009-11-08T09:00:00.000-08:00

Create a government program to help arm, train, and qualify American citizens to carry firearms. This will save police resources, and teach people to take some responsibility for their personal security. Participation would be voluntary.
Legalize marijuana and tax processed cannabis items e.g. a pack of marijuana cigarettes. The age of tobacco will end when people realize what a waste of time cigarettes are by comparison. Tax revenues will increase. Hopefully use of alcohol will also decline.
Build a United Earth Defense (UED) system to knock Earth crossing objects out of the sky if on a collision course. The nukes are pointed in the wrong direction, people!
Begin projects to mine objects in our solar system for minerals and elements necessary to support the needs of energy and infrastructure on Earth.
Keep a population of people constantly off-world so that if a disaster strikes--meteor that we cannot stop with the UED, a caldera (like Yellowstone) touches off, etc--we have members of the species who can pick up the pieces and hopefully our species can survive such a curse.
All political parties must be abolished. Individuals should stand for election, but there shall be no political factions. If you can't get your agenda through without uniting in some sort of Teamsters Union, your agenda probably isn't good for the nation at large. Political factions have gotten us 237 Millionaire Congressmen--through the spoil system.
All lobbying groups would be abolished. If the people don't have time to petition the government for a redress of grievances, it's probably not that big a deal and they can better spend their time undertaking more productive projects.
American citizens would have mandatory education in reading and understanding statistics, thinking and reasoning critically, and they would be educated not to reason emotionally. The political processes of this country are some sort of hybrid between infomercials and spectator sports. People paint their faces and cheer for one faction or the other.
As a matter of social policy spectator sports would be discouraged. Participation would be encouraged. Spectators fill their couch cushions with beer farts, and participants get stronger and learn social skills.

Ron Paul Raises Points

2009-11-08T08:59:00.000-08:00

Updated Dogma

2009-10-28T20:29:00.000-07:00

Agreement is not requisite of acceptance.

Comprehension is not requisite of cooperation.

If you don't have a plan, are you part of someone else's?

Critical theory does not offer solutions.

Chaos Theory offers grounds for faith, hope, and charity.

The problems are between others and the truth, you aren't in the dynamic.

The power of Chaos convinces and enhances you!

A Little Plato

2009-10-27T11:32:00.001-07:00

For this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it; they will not exercise their memories, but, trusting in external, foreign marks, they will not bring things to remembrance from within themselves. You have discovered a remedy not for memory, but for reminding. You offer your students the appearance of wisdom, not true wisdom. They will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality.

---Plato

Make An Impression on a Congressman

2009-09-24T09:32:00.000-07:00

The template is simple. Go to see your Congressman in his office or at an office near you. Every Congressman seems to have a local office from his/her district. Go there, meet with a staffer who works on your general issue i.e. one of the finance advisers. Make an impression and get that impression to the Congressman

The Rabbi

2009-09-16T16:37:00.000-07:00

Slevin: How do you justify being a rabbi... and a gangster?

The Rabbi: I don't. I'm a bad man who doesn't waste time wondering what could've been when I am what could've been and what could not have been. I live on both sides of the fence. My grass is always green. Consider, Mr. Fisher... there are two men sitting here before you, and one of them you should be very afraid of. Where's my money?

Some Definitions

2009-09-11T14:33:00.000-07:00

* Theory is a model (of something - for the naive realists).
* Knowledge is a tested and not dis-confirmed theory.
o Empirical knowledge is tested against physical experiment.
o Mathematical knowledge is tested against logical argument.

America's Blame Game

2009-08-26T23:30:00.000-07:00

This video cannot embed, enjoy:

http://www.pjtv.com/v/2315

MSNBC & The Great Liberal Narrative: The Truth About The Tyranny of Political Correctness | 13min Video

2009-08-26T00:41:00.001-07:00

Embedding is not allowed, you will have to go to the following link:

http://www.pjtv.com/v/2343

Someone asked for solutions. The response has a rather perturbed tone:

Solutions? Don’t use Critical Theory? Maybe build some pride? Call out the BS when you see it an educate people?

I mean really, why does everyone go "so what is the solution?"? No time spend digesting the information, just an immediate "what is the solution" as if that makes the person asking the question look intelligent.

While there is no such thing as a stupid question, there is such thing as a broad question. A broad question means you haven’t absorbed much of anything and you want to sound intelligent by using a defense mechanism.

Solutions

One: Don’t use PC.

Two: Call out PC as BS whenever it happens to you.

Three: Realize that the left has always done this. The only position that you can express, and find them in agreement with you, is a repetition of their position. That’s how the left has always operated and they always call you racist, elitist, capitalist, etc if you don’t parrot their position. The right uses different tactics, but the right is so disorganized right now that they probably couldn’t organize a picnic, so we will work on them later.

Four: Spread this video and make others aware of the problem. If they have an attention span longer than a common carrot, 13 minutes of time should not be too taxing on their busy schedules of wasting time watching TV and pissing away more on the internet.

Five: Understand the concepts raised in the video e.g. Critical Theory, PC and learn how and where they came from, confirm the materials in the video and begin to fashion talking points and work these into your conversations to make society better and educate people about this BS.

If you do those five things, you will be busy for decades to come. Any questions?

Mentor | Mentee

2009-08-26T00:35:00.000-07:00

This piece is written by Su Leyborn--a pioneer of Eidetic Magic. This piece is printed with permission in its original form.

The term "mentoring" and "mentor" originate from Greek mythology. In Homer’s Odyssey, the warrior Odysseus entrusts a good friend named Mentor to educate and guide his son Telemachus during his absence. Mentor protects and nurtures Telemachus, introduces him to other leaders, and helps guide him in his development.

Today we see the mentor as a trusted and experienced advisor who operates with a direct interest/involvement in the development and learning of another individual. A mentor goes all out to achieve a one-on-one relationship with the mentee/student and makes a commitment to help him/her grow in the culture that connects the two (magic, in this instance). The mentor gains competence, identity and effectiveness as an educator, and the mentee gains competence, identity and effectiveness as an operator in a certain field/subject.

Qualities of a good mentor in magic (any paradigm) include the facts that he/she can/will:

1. Warrant the respect of others in the same/other paradigms of magic;

2. Operate as committed to the mentoring process;

3. Encourage and motivate others;

4. Willingly share knowledge;

5. Maintain strict confidentiality;

6. Give feedback in a constructive and caring manner;

7. Serve as a sponsor and advocate for the mentee; and

8. Foster growth and independence of the mentee.

Benefits of mentoring include the facts that he/she can/will:

1. Contribute to the development of another potential mentor down the track;

2. Experience personal growth and renewal;

3. Use and/or develop additional skills not generally required as a magician;

4. Enhance value to others;

5. Tweak a sharp mind and encourages creativity; and

6. Provide an opportunity to get by giving.

Qualities of a good mentee in magic (any paradigm) include the facts that he/she can/will:

1. Deserve the respect of the mentor and others in the same/other paradigms of magic by virtue of his/her determination to succeed;

2. Operate as committed to the buddy mentor-mentee process;

3. Begin first/foremost as self-motivated;

4. Willingly share whatever he/she learns or feels;

5. Respect strict confidentiality;

6. Provide regular journal entries (or other designated feedback) in a constructive and caring manner;

7. Serve as a sponsor and advocate for the mentee; and

8. Foster growth and independence.

Benefits of acting as the mentee include the facts that he/she can/will:

1. Contribute to the mentor/mentee program and ideology;

2. Experience personal growth and renewal at an accelerated rate with a buddy support system;

3. Use and/or develop additional skills with the support of the mentor (seasoned veteran of magic) as backing;

4. Enhance value to self;

5. Tweak a sharp mind and encourage creativity; and

6. Provide an opportunity to get by giving.

we are all a lie

2009-08-15T15:14:00.000-07:00

what is probably THE greatest occult influence on me:

"Abandon the personality, get rid of the sense of self. If you take I to the limit, all that happens is self questions self. Endlessly, repetitively ... it reaches a peak, it goes nowhere. It ends in neurosis on the personal level. Abandon the personality. Abandon the individual. ... Get rid of the sense of self, get rid of the sense of I and make yourself something bigger. Above all let us become plex creatures, complex, superplex. Able to take on new personality traits able to take on new ideas, able to adapt, able to extend our boundaries into what was previously called enemy territory until the point where we become what we once called our enemy and they become us and there is no distinction."
- Grant Morrison, Disinfo.con (paraphrased/condensed)

and a close second:

“I believe I haven’t seen everything. I dunno. Funny, isn’t it, the things you make up, the rules. That thing, if it said it came from beyond the universe, I’d believe it. But before the universe? Impossible. Doesn’t fit my rule. Still, that’s why I keep traveling, to be proved wrong.”
- Dr Who (28x09)

we are all just a collection of lies and half-truths, like everything is, was, and will be. insistence; "never buy anybody’s bullshit, especially your own". the first and best person that will lie to you is you. mistake: the medium for the media, screen for story. easy mistake, so easy to overlook; you have to learn to stalk and track it down just to find it. notice how attached humans get to a an idea, a vapor of electrical noise based on hazy bio-electrical-mechanical input? the emotion a belief, an opinion can unleash. can you attack yourself as viciously as you can another? validity and truth are irrelevant, the comfort of knowing is the goal. through knowing one has an anchor, change is terrifying because it removes the distractions of certainty leaving the involved stripped bare. even here we’re lying to each other, fluff, serious, troll, lurker; all the same, just lying to yourself. preservation of idea over preservation of actuality; sneaksy lil memes are aggressive nowadays, aren’t they?

we are figments of imagination; we and us become as we and us become.

Lets Get into the Quanta again!

2009-08-03T14:46:00.000-07:00

Schrödinger's Cat: A cat, along with a flask containing a poison, is placed in a sealed box shielded against environmentally induced quantum decoherence. If an internal Geiger counter detects radiation, the flask is shattered, releasing the poison that kills the cat. The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics implies that after a while, the cat is simultaneously alive and dead. Yet, when we look in the box, we see the cat either alive or dead, not a mixture of alive and dead.

Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_cat

Analysis of "Highwayman"

2009-08-01T13:53:00.001-07:00

---------

Lyrics:

I was a highwayman. Along the coach roads I did ride
With sword and pistol by my side
Many a young maid lost her baubles to my trade
Many a soldier shed his lifeblood on my blade
The bastards hung me in the spring of twenty-five
But I am still alive.

I was a sailor. I was born upon the tide
And with the sea I did abide.
I sailed a schooner round the Horn to Mexico
I went aloft and furled the mainsail in a blow
And when the yards broke off they said that I got killed
But I am living still.

I was a dam builder across the river deep and wide
Where steel and water did collide
A place called Boulder on the wild Colorado
I slipped and fell into the wet concrete below
They buried me in that great tomb that knows no sound
But I am still around..I'll always be around..and around and around and
around and around

I fly a starship across the Universe divide
And when I reach the other side
I'll find a place to rest my spirit if I can
Perhaps I may become a highwayman again
Or I may simply be a single drop of rain
But I will remain
And I'll be back again, and again and again and again and again..
--------------

Analysis, Mister Spock:

In this first bit, he is a highwayman. He fucks women, he beast the piss and shit out of men. He is vulgar, as I just was to prove my point. He is in his rude and natural state. He lives by the sword, and dies full of hate. But, he lives on... Maybe because the death is figurative like in the tarot? Maybe because the only way to see is on a mountain of your dead selves?

In the second bit, he becomes a sailor. Like I Muslim, he surrenders to God, in this case the sea--representing the unconscious as well. Now, the sea is about turbidity and depth. This is where we get into Chaos Theory--and I don't mean Chaos Magic, I mean the Science. He follows a path of exploration rather than conflict. This is where the warrior becomes the adventurer. He dies on the quest.

The third bit is where he becomes a dam builder. He learns to hold the water--ergo the force--back. He learns to become reserved. He learns to wait a time with patience. He learns to see, and therefore becomes able to respect, the boundaries of time and place and patience. However, he falls victim to his own walls. To quote Ozzy Osborne, "So protected his feelings in walls he imagined. Now Castles crumble exposing the frightened child, yeah."

In the end, he discovers his merkaba, light body, soul, whatever. He realizes that he never really died, that he lives forever, and maybe he would like to start again because it can get horrible, frightening, and even lonely at times, but won't it be wonderful when you wake up?

A Manifesto

2009-07-28T23:33:00.000-07:00

Work with power where possible, create power where impossible.

Publicly invisible, privately recognizable, and subject to a pact.

Agreement is--generally--not a requisite of acceptance.

Comprehension is--generally--not a requisite of cooperation.

If you don't have a plan, perhaps you are part of someone else's?

Simple Algorithms and Probability Scattering

2009-07-24T14:39:00.001-07:00

Congressman Gohmert mentioned that when times get tough economically, people will give up liberties for economic security. If we consider that statement, which is a true statement as we have seen two or more people do just that, so we know that is a behavior we can expect from a certain percentage of the population. Other statements might manifest along the lines of people giving up their liberties in the face of a threat or while under the influence of fear. That gives operating under the influence a new name doesn't it? It also makes a great meme to transmit the reality to those who would otherwise not accept it.

Social engineering has created minds that are not actually thinking as many of us consider the process. Communication with and among such minds becomes problematic. Not only are many people unable to articulate themselves, they are not able to understand those who are able to articulate themselves. Now, the reader may encounter more or less of these minds than others. This piece is not written to suggest that all or even most minds are like this, but that some are and that if you recognize one, this method might work.

Using simple phrases tends to work. Weapons of Mass Anxiety, Operating Under the Influence of Fear, Not Science but Faith, Balkanization of Epistemology, and other simple sound bytes that one can slip in through others' psychological screens will allow one to subtly engage the minds of those who don't want to move outside of their comfort zone.

However, this method is best implemented with a certain attitude. That attitude is provided through George, and that attitude is thus: "This is my comfort zone, welcome aboard."

Adept = Free from Space, Time, and Reason?

2009-07-24T12:34:00.000-07:00

Dr. Hoeller remarked that an adept is free of space, time, and reason. George suggests this in his catch-phrase "Power Dark and Bright!" This phrase tends to needle people who buy too much into one polarity.

As most of you are aware, a battery has two poles positive (+) and negative (-). Without these two polarities of power, power does not flow. George, in his infinite wisdom, recognizes this. BTW, infinite wisdom is an inside joke that circulates in a certain culture that George and I had the (mis?)fortune of partaking in.

The phrase "Power Dark and Bright" extends to "Illumination Dark and Bright" as well as "Gestalts Dark and Bright." These statements defy "conventional wisdom", "home spun wisdom", "folk logic", or whatever you want to call it. Common sense exists to be jarred by uncommon sense. Jack Parsons represents an excellent example of an Adept pioneering human freedom from space.

However, Jack Parsons did not invent the fuel, every human being who ever worked on that problem invented that fuel and Jack Parson's enjoyed the privilege of existing at the moment when it manifested from human activity. He is an example of an adept, but you don't need to revolutionize the space program to be an adept, and revolutionizing the program does not necessarily make you one.

George is an adept who found himself free of reason, and gained much wisdom from it. I suppose freedom from space is limited by our technology and freedom from time may entail similar understandings. We may learn how to remove the waste products that cause aging and live longer. Freedom from reason is only found through daring to challenge such.

Congressional Remarks on Apollo 11

2009-07-23T02:02:00.001-07:00

Goldman Sachs

2009-07-21T02:17:00.000-07:00

Then, throw this one in just to get a skewed view...

A Consecration of Friendship

2009-07-20T00:27:00.000-07:00

You are welcome at my fire anytime, anyplace, you just walk up and announce yourself if you know me to be at the fire, I will vouch for you if it is not my fire. This is the most primitive way of saying it, and primitive seems good in this case because it is where feelings and simplicity reveal.

A Contribution from Jerry Pournelle

2009-06-30T22:01:00.000-07:00

Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work for the organization itself. Examples in education would be teachers who work and sacrifice to teach children, vs. union representative who work to protect any teacher including the most incompetent. The Iron Law states that in all cases, the second type of person will always gain control of the organization, and will always write the rules under which the organization functions.

Freedom is never free, and is always the enemy of structured bureaucracies. Free people are not equal and equal people are not free. Equality can be a weapon in the hands of the bureaucracy. All one needs is to insist on equality of outcomes.

In logic, a false statement implies the universe class. In human affairs, authority to accomplish the impossible implies absolute power.

source: http://www.jerrypournelle.com/view/2009/Q2/view575.html#accomplish

Spectacular

2009-06-29T16:46:00.000-07:00

Nightly News Loses Ratings

2009-06-09T09:28:00.000-07:00

EVENING NEWS RACE
WEEK OF JUNE 1, 2009

NBC 7,960,000
ABC 7,150,000
CBS 5,180,000*

*Lowest Total Viewer delivery since NIELSEN records kept

Idealism Meets Pragmatism: A Stream of Conciousness vis-à-vis Arête

2009-06-05T02:14:00.000-07:00

George and I often talk about the fate of the human race. Through my conversations with him, I have come to have certain thoughts on the matter. The dinosaurs were not a successful species. The trial of humanity is now. Alan Watts once said that Christians put everything in terms of chronology, but for the Buddhists the trumpet is sounding now, you see. I would modify this point to the following: In Christian chronology, the judgement happens after humanity dies. However, the judgement is now, you see. If there is anything to learn from the Buddhist exercise of living in the now it is that there is no where to exist but the present! Judgement is now. We either go like the dinosaurs or we go like the aliens--flying around the universe and sticking anal probes into other species. This is more interesting when we consider those who occupy the apparent upper echelons of power. We cannot continue to pound the ground for resources as crude as--no pun intended--oil. We must control the star system.

George points out consistently the Apollo Project got 4 dollars out for every dollar invested in it. As the program grew, so did the injection of new capital into the economy. When I say capital, I don't mean hollow credit or inflation of the money supply. I mean real profit. Ask any tax payer, investor, etc if they want to see 300% returns. What are they going to say? "Fuck you, I don't want to see those returns?" Of course not. Several technologies derived from this project for use in space are still used today. What new dividends in technology would a new project pay? Our quality of life would improve dramatically. As George likes to say, he never met anyone who made it better that didn't like it after it was better. Space exploration projects would make our lives better, our economy better, and satisfy our instinct for exploration.

These disagreements between nations are petty. A huge rock could fall from the sky and cause mass extinction of 97% of the species at any moment. Our defense expenditures are not a strategy, they are madness. We are busy screwing around with each other, down here, when we would better ensure the protection of this planet from Earth crossing objects.

Our first priorities had better be:

Earth Defense from any objects that could potentially strike Earth

Shielding from Solar storms e.g. the Carrington Event

Research and development (R&D) on Space Exploration technologies

R&D on manufacturing, power generation, mineral extraction, etc space technologies

R&D on technologies for Terra-forming

A method of maintaining safety and order within the solar system

Begin looking toward the Red Giant phase of the Sun and developing technologies to find a new home for our future generations

A fundamental shift in matters of society, economy, and the body politic to support aforementioned priorities is necessary--though this shift must occur incrementally. These ideas may seem "ahead of their time" but this could not be further from the truth. We are aware and we posses a technological capability previously lacking. Now it is time to look beyond the matters that so preoccupied us through history. It is time to evolve. It is time to focus our collective effort on these matters.

Even if counter-argument would point out that these points are all well and good, however there are those who would simply attack and by the way, we have no money anymore. Well, money is where space exploration comes in. The Apollo Project offers a precedent. Thus the argument rests on the assumption that other projects of space exploration would return similar dividends in money and technology. Certainly a conservative portion of assets could be calmly repositioned toward achieving these goals, at first. In time, funding would increase as the economy shifts toward space defense and exploration.

The Pentagon would support such policies as these are in line with certain policies concerning space over the last decade. Certainly American allies would willingly participate. Japan would make an excellent partner in this new economy and defense system. It may come to pass that other nations would care to join the effort, making contributions as they may and receiving a portion of benefits accordingly. With the people's lives getting better, they would support these policies. We would also have stronger alliances, better cultural connections could result. The possibilities of new connections, new integrations, and new freedoms seem nearly endless.

The Magician

2009-06-01T01:11:00.000-07:00

by Eliphas Levi

O Lord, deliver me from Hell’s great fear and gloom!
Loose thou my spirit from the larvæ of the tomb!
I seek them in their dread abodes without affright:
On them will I impose my will, the law of light.

I bid the night conceive the glittering hemisphere.
Arise, O Sun, arise! O Moon shine white and clear!
I seek them in their dread abodes without affright:
On them will I impose my will, the law of light.

Their faces and their shapes are terrible and strange.
These devils by my might to angels I will change.
These nameless horrors I address without affright
On them will I impose my will, the law of light.

These are the phantoms pale of mine astonied view,
Yet none but I their blasted beauty can renew;
For to the abyss of hell I plunge without affright:
On them will I impose my will, the law of light.

Buddhism Meets Quantum Mechanics

2009-05-31T12:48:00.000-07:00

"As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter." --Max Planck, “Das Wesen der Materie” (The Nature of Matter), speech at Florence, Italy, 1944 (from Archiv zur Geschichte der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Abt. Va, Rep. 11 Planck, Nr. 1797)

"All that is comes from the mind; it is based on the mind, it is fashioned by the mind." --Gautama the Buddha, The Pali Canon 500-250 B.C.

Proving a Negative

2009-05-31T02:22:00.000-07:00

THINKING TOOLS: YOU CAN PROVE A NEGATIVE
Steven D. Hales

Thinking Tools is a regular feature that introduces tips and pointers on thinking clearly and rigorously.

A principle of folk logic is that one can’t prove a negative. Dr. Nelson L. Price, a Georgia minister, writes on his website that ‘one of the laws of logic is that you can’t prove a nega¬tive.’ Julian Noble, a physicist at the University of Virginia, agrees, writing in his ‘Electric Blanket of Doom’ talk that ‘we can’t prove a negative proposition.’ University of California at Berkeley Professor of Epidemiology Patricia Buffler asserts that ‘The reality is that we can never prove the negative, we can never prove the lack of effect, we can never prove that something is safe.’ A quick search on Google or Lexis-Nexis will give a mountain of similar examples.

But there is one big, fat problem with all this. Among profes¬sional logicians, guess how many think that you can’t prove a negative? That’s right: zero. Yes, Virginia, you can prove a negative, and it’s easy, too. For one thing, a real, actual law of logic is a negative, namely the law of non-contradiction. This law states that that a proposition cannot be both true and not true. Nothing is both true and false. Furthermore, you can prove this law. It can be formally derived from the empty set using provably valid rules of inference. (I’ll spare you the boring details). One of the laws of logic is a provable negative. Wait… this means we’ve just proven that it is not the case that one of the laws of logic is that you can’t prove a negative. So we’ve proven yet another negative! In fact, ‘you can’t prove a negative’ is a negative  so if you could prove it true, it wouldn’t be true! Uh-oh.

Not only that, but any claim can be expressed as a negative, thanks to the rule of double negation. This rule states that any proposition P is logically equivalent to not-not-P. So pick any¬thing you think you can prove. Think you can prove your own existence? At least to your own satisfaction? Then, using the exact same reasoning, plus the little step of double negation, you can prove that you aren’t nonexistent. Congratulations, you’ve just proven a negative. The beautiful part is that you can do this trick with absolutely any proposition whatsoever. Prove P is true and you can prove that P is not false.

Some people seem to think that you can’t prove a specific sort of negative claim, namely that a thing does not exist. So it is impossible to prove that Santa Claus, unicorns, the Loch Ness Monster, God, pink elephants, WMD in Iraq, and Bigfoot don’t exist. Of course, this rather depends on what one has in mind by ‘prove.’ Can you construct a valid deductive argument with all true premises that yields the conclusion that there are no unicorns? Sure. Here’s one, using the valid inference procedure of modus tollens:

1. If unicorns had existed, then there is evidence in the fossil record.
2. There is no evidence of unicorns in the fossil record.
3. Therefore, unicorns never existed.

Someone might object that that was a bit too fast  after all, I didn’t prove that the two premises were true. I just asserted that they were true. Well, that’s right. However, it would be a grievous mistake to insist that someone prove all the premises of any argument they might give. Here’s why. The only way to prove, say, that there is no evidence of unicorns in the fossil record, is by giving an argument to that conclusion. Of course one would then have to prove the premises of that argument by giving further arguments, and then prove the premises of those further arguments, ad infinitum. Which premises we should take on credit and which need payment up front is a matter of long and involved debate among epistemologists. But one thing is certain: if proving things requires that an infinite number of premises get proved first, we’re not going to prove much of anything at all, positive or negative.

Maybe people mean that no inductive argument will con¬clusively, indubitably prove a negative proposition beyond all shadow of a doubt. For example, suppose someone argues Hales Thinking that we’ve scoured the world for Bigfoot, found no credible evidence of Bigfoot’s existence, and therefore there is no Bigfoot. A classic inductive argument. A Sasquatch defender can always rejoin that Bigfoot is reclusive, and might just be hiding in that next stand of trees. You can’t prove he’s not! (until the search of that tree stand comes up empty too). The problem here isn’t that inductive arguments won’t give us certainty about negative claims (like the nonexistence of Bigfoot), but that inductive arguments won’t give us certainty about anything at all, positive or negative. All observed swans are white, therefore all swans are white looked like a pretty good inductive argument until black swans were discovered in Australia.

The very nature of an inductive argument is to make a conclusion probable, but not certain, given the truth of the premises. That just what an inductive argument is. We’d better not dismiss induction because we’re not getting certainty out of it, though. Why do you think that the sun will rise tomorrow? Not because of observation (you can’t observe the future!), but because that’s what it has always done in the past. Why do you think that if you turn on the kitchen tap that water will come out instead of chocolate? Why do you think you’ll find your house where you last left it? Why do you think lunch will be nourishing instead of deadly? Again, because that’s the way things have always been in the past. In other words, we use inferences — induction — from past experiences in every aspect of our lives. As Bertrand Russell pointed out, the chicken who expects to be fed when he sees the farmer approaching, since that is what had always happened in the past, is in for a big surprise when instead of receiving dinner, he becomes dinner. But if the chicken had rejected inductive reasoning altogether, then every appearance of the farmer would be a surprise.

So why is it that people insist that you can’t prove a negative? I think it is the result of two things. (1) an acknowledgement that induction is not bulletproof, airtight, and infallible, and (2) a desperate desire to keep believing whatever one believes, even if all the evidence is against it. That’s why people keep believing in alien abductions, even when flying saucers always turn out to be weather balloons, stealth jets, comets, or too much alcohol. You can’t prove a negative! You can’t prove that there are no alien abductions! Meaning: your argument against aliens is inductive, therefore not incontrovertible, and since I want to believe in aliens, I’m going to dismiss the argument no matter how overwhelming the evidence against aliens, and no matter how vanishingly small the chance of extraterrestrial abduction.

If we’re going to dismiss inductive arguments because they produce conclusions that are probable but not definite, then we are in deep doo-doo. Despite its fallibility, induction is vital in every aspect of our lives, from the mundane to the most sophisticated science. Without induction we know basically nothing about the world apart from our own immediate per¬ceptions. So we’d better keep induction, warts and all, and use it to form negative beliefs as well as positive ones. You can prove a negative — at least as much as you can prove anything at all.

Steven Hales is professor of philosophy at Bloomsburg University, Pennsylvania.

Code of the Togakure

2009-05-30T16:23:00.001-07:00

The stars are my eyes

The wind my ear

The night my mantle

It fried my spirit

The shade my dwelling the determination my force

The respect to my teacher is my only value

My personality is my power

The stoicism is my body

The survival is my law

The imprudence is my enemy

The reason of respecting or of taking the life my strategy

The laws of the universe are my great universe

The adaptability is my principle

The vacuidad of the wind my tactics

The sensitivity and sense of having my armors

The imperturbable spirit my strength

The knowledge of the spirit without thought my sword

The Balance Points

2009-05-26T12:24:00.000-07:00

There are five points of balance on the human body, and controlling three of the five allows one to take and manipulate the balance of another human. There seem to be certain balance points for society.

Money Supply--control of lifestyle
Media--control of information
Drugs and Heatlhcare--force the eugenics and dumb down population, opium wars, etc
Food--obvious
Water--obvious
Energy--obvious
Roads and Travel--movement is freedom
Education--wealth, prestige, and education are social class
Guns--the power of the sword, ultimately

Jesse Ventura and the Power of Critical Thinking

2009-05-25T20:15:00.000-07:00

This is used for the purposes of considering critical thought, and rhetoric. Yes, the political elements will distract certain people, however these are excellent and relevant examples.

Ventura might have pointed out that more people die from car accidents or alcohol or many other matters each year than died on 911.

A Little Something From Kippling

2009-05-25T20:00:00.000-07:00

I Keep six honest serving-men:
(They taught me all I knew)
Their names are What and Where and When
And How and Why and Who.
I send them over land and sea,
I send them east and west;
But after they have worked for me,
I give them all a rest.

I let them rest from nine till five.
For I am busy then,
As well as breakfast, lunch, and tea,
For they are hungry men:
But different folk have different views:
I know a person small--
She keeps ten million serving-men,
Who get no rest at all!
She sends 'em abroad on her own affairs,
From the second she opens her eyes--
One million Hows, two million Wheres,
And seven million Whys!

Gold Leaves - Chesterton

2009-05-25T18:41:00.001-07:00

Lo! I am come to autumn,
When all the leaves are gold;
Grey hairs and golden leaves cry out
The year and I are old.

In youth I sought the prince of men,
Captain in cosmic wars,
Our Titan, even the weeds would show
Defiant, to the stars.

But now a great thing in the street
Seems any human nod,
Where shift in strange democracy
The million masks of God.

In youth I sought the golden flower
Hidden in wood or wold,
But I am come to autumn,
When all the leaves are gold.

More Than One Way to Skin a Cat?

2009-05-22T14:38:00.000-07:00

May 22 (Bloomberg) -- Morgan Stanley will increase base pay for many of the firm’s top executives this year and double the pay of Chief Financial Officer Colm Kelleher as bonus payments come under scrutiny from the Obama administration and lawmakers.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=ayBy0.Db.YOo

Musings on Game Theory and Magick

2009-05-05T02:44:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone, i finally decided to post my first entry in here...

...although i should be preparing for yet another IT-certificate, but in the end... who doesn t need a break from time to time.

I finished my diploma thesis in the business/economics sector with an A+ and it was majorly about game theory- in the end about game theory as tool for strategic modelling of situations marked by a high degree of interdependance...

...so i decided to share some of the basic insights this funny little theory(-ies) has (/have) to offer...

i ll try to give an insight about the theory itself and then give you a small model of two magicians in their neighbourhood, and why in the end, they are likely to a) become friends or b) leave one another in peace without any interaction.

The foundations of game theory were already laid by John von Neumann in 1928 when he proved the basic minimax theorem, although the field was officially established some years later with the 1944 publication of “Theory of Games and Economic Behaviour”. Since then, of course, the theory has evolved and many scientists have helped expand it in various fields such as economics, mathematics, psychology, war-strategies and even evolutionary biology. This tool for choosing the right strategy in an ongoing interaction with another proved to be useful in many ways and fields, because what game theory actually does is provide a systematic way to develop strategies of behaviour when one person´ s fate depends on what other people do.

To be able to understand the game-theoretic viewpoint of a certain situation some basic terms have to be introduced first.The decision-makers in the games of strategy which are going to be discussed are called players. These can be “[…] individual persons, organisations or, in some cases, nature itself.” Every game involves at least two players, but the maximum number is theoretically infinite. The first type is called two-person games, whereas the other is referred to as multi-person or n-person games. The object of study itself is “[…] a formal model of an interactive situation […]" called strategic game. In these games each of the players has a number of strategies available to him. And all players try to use the strategy which yields to them the maximum payoff. The strategy is a complete plan of actions that could be modelled as algorithm. The payoff is the result of the actions and strategies chosen by one player, considering the other players´ strategies. So the outcome for each player is an individual payoff. One of the basic assumptions is that each player does his best. The utility or utility function of each player refers to their personal beliefs and thus how their personal goals are tried to be reached, as well as a specification of those.

The nature of the game “[…] is determined by the rules.” Rules are for example the number of players, their abilities to share and transfer payoffs, the information available to each player, as well as the possibility to communicate.

The development of the modern algorithms that enabled self-learning systems ("Artificial Intelligence") was also developed on the basis of a quiet simple model of a zero-sum [strictly competitive] game, and the strategies that the players´ chose when repeating the game n-times under certain rules concerning the game and the information available to them.

So, one could say, quiet an interesting field of study, fruitful as well, considering it´s basically just a scientific way of modelling situations with two or more persons, countries, armies etc. pp. involved.

To give an example of one of the most interesting models [the one my example is based on, as well] heres the Prisoner´s Dilemma.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/prisoner-dilemma/

Now let´s start with the model:

First we have the players: There are, as mentioned, two Magicians. Let´s say one Chaos Magician, and one primarily focused on ceremonial Magick [Bardon, etc.].

We have the rules: The Chaote has information available to him spanning Hine, Liber MMM, Spare, Sigils, Wilson, Carroll etc. And he/she has the freedom of choice concerning many things the "ceremonial magician" has not.

The Ceremonial Magician on the other hand has information from Bardons´works, Crowley, Regardie, of course, and is more the Golden Dawn type. He likes Evocation, the Religions of ancient Egypt and is to be found somewhere in the second order.

So, now we have players, rules and information available, as well as, to a certain degree the utility functions of both. Another rule is, that the two can not watch each others´moves, for both work in secret and are not to be seen as friends [yet] ;-)

We play a game similar [though not exactly alike] to the prisoner´s dilemma mentioned in the link above, only we play it repeatedly. There is no prison, but we have a setting of both magicians moving into the same neighbourhood. They are both not that young anymore, have an attitude with a certain amount of pride, and do not wish to have another magician influencing their actions or surroundings.

So, both magicians have the possibility to act agressively or peacefully in general.

The following matrix shows the payoffs resulting in the different behaviour-choices of the magicians, within the cells of the matrix, with those of the Chaos Magician first.

So, if one of the magicians approaches the other agressively, by whatever means possible, and the other one is in a state of peace, he´ll be taken unaware and have -7 utiles/ the other, having succesfully damaged him will be happy with that achievement, and thus get 7 utiles in the first round.

Now, as I stated theres a number of rounds to play, the other magician will, in the next round act agressively, as well. So, the first act of agression can be seen as the starting point of an ongoing agressive interaction between the two. Hereby both receive a payoff of -5 while both choosing agressive behaviour. Not -7 because they are prepared for the agressions of each other [and protect themselves by 2 points]. But still they both know what they´re doing thus they are both getting negative payoffs- the 5 points "coming through".

And, as magicians are intelligent, they both will realize, that in the end, they are both better off by choosing the Rapaport strategy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tit_for_tat

...which could lead to them even becoming friends
...or simply not playing with one another at all... [which is the more realistic example i think*]

Another nice Theorem, called the Folk Theorem, is also interesting to mention, if combined with Ashby´s Law of Requisite Variety.

Now we could say the Chaos vs. Ceremonial aspect is enlightened. [Or the Experience aspect...or even any other factor imaginable]

[I know the difference is a bit shady, but for these rules to apply, we say the major difference between them is the freedom of choice. So Chaos is not bound to Tradition, while Ceremonial is. Else the model would become too complex, or simply not work].

The Folk Theorem is by some regarded as one of the basic insights the whole branch of the theory of repeated games and reputations has to offer. Its basic notion is that in each repeated interaction, any outcome, which is mutually beneficent for both sides, can be sustained in equilibrium. So it can be said that in every possible repeated game scenario there is a multiplicity of equilibria. And hence of strategies which can be very stable, once achieved by both players. And although the Folk Theorems apply only to the infinitely repeated games this is not such an important factor for “[…] the analyses of finite and infinite horizon games are governed by the same conceptual issues.” So that´s what the mathematicians say/proved.

Now let´s take into account, that http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variety_(cybernetics) the Chaos-Magician has [per definitonem, my definition in this case ;-) ] a broader variety of actions, and is thus able to compensate more perturbations.... applying this to the Folk Theorem, it can be stated, that the mutually beneficient Equilibrium, that will be achieved in the repeated interaction of the Magicians, will be influenced to a greater degree by the magician, having the greater variety of actions.... which would then be the _______ Magician*

Of course, one could also argue with the experience of the magicians, and thus with the larger variety of actions, the one with more experience has... with the generally great variety of each system... and many other factors... but hey-it´s just a model. And i greatly simplified it, as well, else one would have to read a bit more...

and as i just mentioned reading-hope you enjoyed...

I´ll now return to my Ivory-Tower of IT-learning, and i guess in the weeks to come i´ll find the time to post once in a while.... if anyone wants to read it, that is* ;-)

Bits from The Network (1976)

2009-05-01T12:27:00.000-07:00

Swine Flu BS

2009-05-01T10:33:00.001-07:00

Modern Slavery

2009-04-11T16:17:00.000-07:00

Juan Enriquez: Beyond the crisis, mindboggling science and the arrival of Homo evolutis

2009-04-08T23:16:00.000-07:00

Gravestone Epitaph

2009-03-31T10:26:00.000-07:00

Special thanx to E-dubs.

"I told you so, you damned fools."

- H. G. Wells

The Power of Simple Observation

2009-03-27T15:52:00.000-07:00

In Thailand an expat wryly commented that Thai Police wear Brown and commented about Brown Shirts--as in S.A.

In the United States, they wear black like the black shirts--as in S.S.

The OC and LA Sheriff Deputies wear olive drab--think military police.

A good doctor just made an interesting statement: "The MD white coat is the same coat the butcher wears, and they both do the same thing."

Go Green, Slum Chic

2009-03-27T15:50:00.000-07:00

You've probably heard of CIA and SF Connex offices. Well, now, you can live in one! Special thanx to Lord of Babylon for sharing the new Slum Chic. Now, you too can live in a shipping container, and they do float!

Link up: http://green.yahoo.com/blog/daily_green_news/8/twelve-amazing-shipping-container-houses.html

Only the Perspective Has Changed

2009-03-25T17:47:00.000-07:00

˙sƃuıpuıɟ ɹnoʎ ǝɹɐɥs ǝsɐǝןd ˙ןǝǝɟ noʎ ǝǝs puɐ ʇno ʇı ʞɔǝɥɔ oʇ pǝsıʌpɐ ǝɹɐ noʎ os 'ǝɔuɐɹouƃı sǝɯıʇǝɯos sı uosɐǝɹ ʇɐɥʇ ʇɥƃnoɥʇ--uosɐǝɹ ɐ ɹoɟ ʎɐʍ ɹǝɥʇo ǝɥʇ ʇı pıp ǝןdoǝd 'ʇou uɐɥʇ uǝʇɟo ǝɹoɯ 'sɹǝʇʇɐɯ uıɐʇɹǝɔ uo sʍǝıʌ ʍǝu ƃuıʇsǝɹǝʇuı ɹǝɟɟo ʎɐɯ ǝʌıʇɔǝdsɹǝd ʍǝu ɐ ƃuıppɐ ǝןıɥʍ „˙pǝƃuɐɥɔ sɐɥ ǝʌıʇɔǝdsɹǝd ǝɥʇ ʎןuo 'ʇɔǝɹɹoɔ sı sıɥʇ„ 'noʎ ƃuıןןǝʇ ǝuoǝɯos ǝǝs noʎ ǝɯıʇ ʇxǝu ǝɥʇ sı ǝsıɔɹǝxǝ sıɥʇ ƃuıʎouuɐ ʍoɥ ɹǝqɯǝɯǝɹ

(: ˙ǝuıɹn ʇɹınbs ǝʍ ןıʇun ɥƃnɐן-ʎןןǝq sn ɟo uıɐʇɹǝɔ ƃuıʞɐɯ uı uoıʇɐɔıןddɐ ʎpɐǝɹ spuıɟ ɥɔıɥʍ poɥʇǝɯ ƃuıuǝppɐɯ sıɥʇ ɥɔɐǝʇ ɥɔıɥʍ suoıʇnʇıʇsuı pǝʇdǝɔɔɐun puɐ ʇuǝıɔuɐ ɹǝɥʇo ǝɥʇ ɟo ʎuɐ ɹo 'ʎʇǝıɔos noʎ ɹoɟ pǝıp ɹǝƃuıןןıp uɥoɾ ǝɥʇ 'ʎʇǝıɔos uɐıpɹoɔsıp ǝɥʇ '˙,˙ı˙,˙s˙,˙ı ɯoɹɟ ʇı uɹɐǝן 'spoɥʇǝɯ uʍo ɹnoʎ ɥƃnoɹɥʇ ʇı oʇ ǝɯoɔ ɹǝɥʇıǝ ʇsnɯ noʎ 'ʎɹǝʇsʎɯ uǝppıɥ puɐ pǝɹɔɐs sıɥʇ uɹɐǝן oʇ ɥsıʍ noʎ ɟı

˙ǝuo ǝɥʇ ƃuısnɯɐ ǝןıɥʍ ʎuɐɯ ǝɥʇ punoɟuoɔ puɐ ǝsnɟuoɔ ןןıʍ sıɥʇ ˙ǝʇısqǝʍ ʎuɐ uo sʇsod ʇuɐʇɹodɯı ʎuɐ ƃuıɹǝʍsuɐ ɹǝʌǝuǝɥʍ poɥʇǝɯ sıɥʇ ǝsn noʎ ʇɐɥʇ puǝɯɯoɔǝɹ ǝɹoɟǝɹǝɥʇ sı ʇı ˙sʇsoɔ ןןɐ ʇɐ pǝʌɹǝsǝɹd ǝq ןןɐɥs ʇı pɐǝɹ oɥʍ ǝsoɥʇ punoɟuoɔ puɐ ǝsnɟuoɔ ʇɐɥʇ sɹǝuuɐɯ uı ƃuıʇıɹʍ ɟo ʇɹɐ uɐıpɹoɔsıp pǝʇdǝɔɔɐun puɐ ʇuǝıɔuɐ sıɥʇ

˙pǝsıʌpɐ ɟןǝsɹnoʎ ɹǝpısuoɔ

˙,˙ı˙,˙s˙,˙ı ʎq pǝssǝɹdxǝ sʍǝıʌ ǝɥʇ ʎןıɹɐssǝɔǝu ʇou ǝɹɐ ˙,˙ı˙,˙s˙,˙ı ʎq pǝssǝɹdxǝ sʍǝıʌ ʇɐɥʇ ǝsıʌpɐ osןɐ ʇsnɯ ǝʍ 'ƃoןq ǝʌıʇɐɹǝdooɔ ɐ sı sıɥʇ sɐ

˙suoıʇɐuɐןdxǝ ou 'sǝıƃoןodɐ ou ˙sɹǝpɐǝɹ uıɐʇɹǝɔ puǝɟɟo ʎɐɯ ןɐıɹǝʇɐɯ uıɐʇɹǝɔ

˙ǝʇɐʇɔıp sǝsodɹnd ɹno sɐ ןɐıɹǝʇɐɯ pǝʇsod-ssoɹɔ oʇ ʇuǝʇuoɔ ɹǝɥʇo ɹo ʎɹɐʇuǝɯɯoɔ ppɐ ʎɐɯ ǝʍ ˙ǝןqıssod ǝɹǝɥʍ uǝʌıƃ ǝɹɐ ʇuǝʇuoɔ ןɐuıƃıɹo ǝɥʇ oʇ sʞuıן ˙sǝsodɹnd ɹno ɹoɟ ǝɹǝɥ pǝʇsod-ssoɹɔ sı ןɐıɹǝʇɐɯ uıɐʇɹǝɔ

Cooperation Preferred to Competition :: Humanity in Space--How to Overcome the Dismal State of Affairs

2009-03-25T15:10:00.000-07:00

This is a "Stream of Consciousness" or "Automatic Writing". I may decide to edit this later.

During a conversation with George, we were discussing the effects of terror and the subsequent Shock and Awe (Shekinah) on the human psyche. George asserted that people are not dominated through terror but through laziness.

The effects of terror only last a few moments--generally long enough for one to be killed or come back to sense and fight back. People choose to allow domination because they are too lazy to do otherwise and it is not worth their effort to resist.

The ideas that George and I threw around are not new.

Aldous Huxley gave a speech at Berkley which covers these matters:

It seems to me that the nature of the ultimate revolution with which we are now faced is precisely this: That we are in process of developing a whole series of techniques which will enable the controlling oligarchy who have always existed and presumably will always exist to get people to love their servitude. This is the, it seems to me, the ultimate in malevolent revolutions shall we say, and this is a problem which has interested me many years and about which I wrote thirty years ago, a fable, Brave New World, which is an account of society making use of all the devices available and some of the devices which I imagined to be possible making use of them in order to, first of all, to standardize the population, to iron out inconvenient human differences, to create, to say, mass produced models of human beings arranged in some sort of scientific caste system. Since then, I have continued to be extremely interested in this problem and I have noticed with increasing dismay a number of the predictions which were purely fantastic when I made them thirty years ago have come true or seem in process of coming true.

A number of techniques about which I talked seem to be here already. And there seems to be a general movement in the direction of this kind of ultimate revolution, a method of control by which a people can be made to enjoy a state of affairs by which any decent standard they ought not to enjoy. This, the enjoyment of servitude, Well this process is, as I say, has gone on for over the years, and I have become more and more interested in what is happening.

(Notice Huxley's use of Korzybski's General Semantics Theory?)

Well enough about the poor, lazy, and uniformed [m]ass who can be made to enjoy a standard of affairs that by any decent standard they should not, and lets move on to the rich, motivated, informed, and prosperous us.

George remarked that involvement in a Space Program--similar to Apollo--would "keep the money flowing" and keep us out of the Greater Depression we are now not-so-insidiously creeping towards--running into it rambunctiously is more like it. George always hammers the point that for every dollar we put into the Apollo Program we were taking 4 dollars out.

While the functionalist perspective of using the Space Race to keep the economy from retching in death throws and tossing misery and tyrananny [this is not a misprint, read tyranny and nanny state] around in copious amounts before the population restores some of the bile and zest that we read in History books that we allegedly had; this also provides an opportunity for cooperation.

Regan once remarked that if the Earth was invaded by aliens, the Soviet Union and the United States would find themselves good friends working together against a common enemy. Why must it take a common enemy to unite humanity? Why not a common endeavor? The Universe is quite large. It is at least a trillion trillion light years in size and 11 billion light years from your current position to the antipode of the hypersphere--if you believe the limit case for credulity known as the Big Bang Theory it is larger. There should be plenty of room for us all to get along and find places to live.

In any case, before we start killing each other off and dominating the universe, it would make sense for us to ensure that it is necessary for us to do so. The Chinese proved in the Korean Conflict that quantity has a quality all its own, and if we do meet something that is a bigger, badder, coursing predator than we are out there, we might like to have some of these gang members, soldiers, Nazis, and every bad-ass that we can possibly throw at it--should it threaten the survival of the species.

Now, should there be no threat, the universe is quite huge and it will be a long time before we actually have to consider killing one another to fight for resources. As George points out the resources we have mined on this Earth thus far have not even eaten up the cream. We are only tapping the easy and sweet stuff, we haven't begun to mine the deep, nor have we begun to mine asteroids or examine what can be done elsewhere in space or under the ocean.

We could move entire cities under the ocean, and we could certainly move prisons and factories there.

Reorganizing our operations, and focusing on exploration of space and undersea would involve almost everyone on the Earth in some facet of the project. It would keep people gainfully employed and working toward a common goal. This solves all of our economic problems and our social problems.

Rather than competing when it is completely unnecessary, we can cooperate toward spreading out among the stars. Do we really want to sit around worrying about Ali Baba and the 40 Bogey Men or Mister Clowny Fat Ass De Jong? What about Monkimud Amadimajeed? Do we really care about these clowns? We have more important affairs to attend to. If a fly buzzes in your ear, you swat it. Once our businesses, including Big Pharma, Agro, and the Defense Industry are aimed to space, we can all get on with our lives and stop competing with these simpletons who are not really a threat to anyone, but are simply a way for big companies to make money.

Certainly if everyone picks up their stuff tomorrow and starts working towards this goal with one intent, nothing can stand against it. The so-called oligarchs, the dictators, and all of these other losers will have to bend to the will of the collective intent of exploring space. The existing businesses can make even more money doing this than they can doing what they are doing.

For those who will say that power is their aphrodesia, there is plenty of power in space exploration. Entire solar systems for them to conquer and explore. They will need all of us to do it. As you can see, they are forgetting how to make important parts of certain technologies. Without us, they shoot themselves in the foot. Any other method of management is doomed to failure because it does not use all assets available and only weakens whoever is left to control a stunted and crippled species. No, my friends, cooperation is the only way. Jim Morisson once remarked that "No one here gets out alive." Well, that might not be true.

Until we cooperate toward the goals of exploration of space, omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence, we will only relegate ourselves to the fate of every civilization that came before us. Quantum Mechanics teaches us that we are already omnipresent. Omnipotence and omniscience, as well as eternal life--certainly much longer life--all lay just beyond our current grasp and are probably easily attainable if we cooperate.

Come Together

2009-03-25T12:37:00.000-07:00

Here come old flat top
He come groovin up slowly
He got joo-joo eyeball
He one holy roller
He got hair down to his knees
Got to be a joker
He just do what he please

He wear no shoeshine
He got toejam football
He got monkey finger
He say I know you, you know me
One thing I can tell you
Is you got to be free

(chorus)
Come together
Right now
Over me

He bag production
He got walrus gumboat
He got oh, no sideboard
He one spinal cracker
He got feet down below his knee
Hold you in his armchair
You can feel his disease

(chorus)

He roller coaster
He got early warning
He got muddy water
He one mojo filter
He say one and one and one is three
Got to be good lookin
cause hes so hard to see

This song originally performed by the Beatles, but Aerosmith remains the preferred Key.

None Dare Call It Satire

2009-03-22T12:43:00.000-07:00

Special thanx to George for sharing this wonderful piece--without his efforts the belly laughs you are about to enjoy would not be possible.

Last Tuesday, as President Obama got off the helicopter in front of the White House he was carrying a baby piglet under each arm.

The squared away Marine guard snaps to attention, salutes, and says: "Nice pigs, sir."

The President replies "These are not pigs. These are authentic Arkansas Razorback Hogs. I got one for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and I got one for the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi."

The Marine again snaps to attention, salutes, and says, "Excellent trade, sir."

Complexity Theory and Chaos Theory in Application

2009-03-21T15:50:00.000-07:00

http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA420704&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf

Random Headlines

2009-03-21T12:53:00.000-07:00

In what may become a tradition here, we offer random headlines from the news:

Obama Fails Credit Check: Cannot Get Car Loan

http://blogs.reuters.com/oddly-enough/2009/03/20/do-you-have-anyone-who-can-co-sign-mr-obama/

Military Laser Hits Battlefield Strength

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2009/03/military-laser.html

Mandatory Service Bills Passed

Google
H.R.1388
H.R. 2857

More Power for Monstanto Through New Bill

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Monsanto-s-dream-bill-HR-by-Linn-Cohen-Cole-090309-337.html

Australian Blacklist Reveals Banned Internet Sites

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2009/03/19/1237054961100.html

True Doctrine of the Illuminati

2009-03-20T19:08:00.000-07:00

Posted by: Majutsu* on January 13, 2008

available from: http://honestpoet.wordpress.com/2008/01/13/true-doctrine-of-the-illuminati/

The True Doctrine of the Illuminati

The true doctrine of the Illuminati lies in the appreciation of the perpetual life-giving wisdom of the mythology and symbolism of the religion of the ancient Near East. The term “ancient Near East” encompasses the early civilizations in the region roughly corresponding to that described by the modern term Middle East (Egypt, Iraq, Turkey, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria), during the time roughly spanning the Bronze Age, from 6000-4000BC. The basis of these stories is the Baal cycle. The Baal stories were a Canaanite group of stories regarding Baal/Hadad, Lord of the Earth. The stories were found on clay tablets in the 1920s in the Tell of Ugarit, carved in Ugaritic, a cuneiform alphabet.

The stories as a whole have a central tale to tell involving three characters in particular: Baal Hadad, Yam/Mot, and Anat. Baal Hadad is the lord of the earth. He represents matter. Yam is the god of the waters and the god of death. In Mesopotamia, floods from the rivers were the source of famine, plague and death. Yam is therefore often seen as a great watery serpent, as Leviathan in the Bible, for example. Anat is the queen of heaven, the mother of fertility and source of life energy and sexuality. In mystical traditions, she represents the mystical mind, the guide, and the source of self-transformation.

Yam wished to rule over the gods. In order to do so, he would have to depose Baal from his throne. He changed his name to Mot, meaning drought or death, and attacked Baal. As this tale is a version of the spring cycle, Mot is also winter, or the absence of heat. Baal then seeks to subjugate Mot and invites him to dine. He tries to make Death (Mot) accept a meal of bread and wine, which Death, the eater of human flesh, finds offensive. In fact, when Christians eat bread and wine, they are celebrating that in the end, Baal’s (Christ’s) victory over Mot (Death) was permanent. Death demands flesh, even the flesh and life of Baal. Baal mates with a cow so as to produce a young bull, his only son, whom he dresses in his clothes to take his place. This is why the horns of a bull or ox represent Baal. This is the reason the Hebrew kabbalah begins with aleph, the ox, as does the Hebrew alphabet. This is also the reason the English alphabet begins with ‘A’, short for Aleph, the ox, and is an upside-down bull’s head. This is also why the Illuminati make a sign of a bull’s horns with the hand. This is the mis-named “devil’s sign” or the “rock ‘n roll sign” as well. Baal, after sending his bull-son, decides to hide in the land of the dead. This story resurfaces later in history as Jesus’s descent into hell.

Anat, the wife and consort of Baal, on finding the dead bull, prepares for the funeral of Baal. Afterwards, she descends upon Mot with vengeance. Anat finds Mot, cleaves him with a sword, burns him with fire, and throws his remains on the field for the birds to eat. This is why Anat is represented by the letter shin, the tooth or the cutting blades. This same letter remains as ‘W’, two teeth or blades, in the English language. Anat destroys death, but is saddened by the loss of her lord.

Then Baal comes back. The lovers are reunited in embrace and there is permanent victory over Death. Mot returns, but has been so weakened he is forced to agree to rule only part of the year and to always allow spring (Baal) to return. Furthermore, he is required to stay in the river banks and be controlled and confined to certain seasons and cycles that the ancients could count on. Mot is represented by Mem, water, in the Hebrew alphabet. This letter persists as the letter ‘M’ in English, which is a picture of two crests of waves on water.

Mot is also associated with reptilian imagery. It is not the worship of reptilian overlords that is going on, but the celebration of victory over death. The Canaanites were the originators of this religious symbolism. The Phoenicians were coastal-dwelling Canaanites who spread their alphabet (which was embedded religious symbolism) and their myths to the cultures they traded with. Canaanite mystical culture is therefore embedded in the Jewish, Christian, Islamic, and Greek mystery schools, and African religious traditions to this day. For example, the Minoan snake goddess is a representation of Anat’s victory over Mot, as the bare-breasted goddess clutches one or more dominated snakes. Christ is depicted as crushing the serpent under his heel [as are Mother Mary and St. Patrick].

The Illuminati accept this parable of human existence as taught by the reality of being on a rotating earth with the cycle of the seasons. The Illuminati are formed by no one. They are, as Timothy Leary suggested, self-appointed, self-taught, and self-motivated. The shared philosophy arises from mystical experience and understanding human history and mythology. It does appear that all useful scientific change and progress in human history was accomplished deliberately only by those with this holistic and humanistic view of self-divinity, self-achieved. But this transformation to greatness was most of time only impeded by others, certainly not encouraged or orchestrated by them. It was only those with fearlessness and confidence that all knowledge and contentment lay open to them with work who could possibly have the courage to make a difference.

The Freemasons have this knowledge. They acquired it from the Phoenicians on Malta when the Knight’s Templar’s were stationed there. They understand that you meet Anat in the inner temple which you have to prepare for her. This makes you, in their symbolism, like Hiram, the builder of the Temple of Jerusalem, and this is why building implements are their emblems. They also study the kabbalah and the Baal cycle using Christian replacement terms at times.

The Gnostic Christians have this knowledge too. They see Mary Magdalene as the Anat, and Christ as Baal. They make the knowledge of Baal’s (Jesus’s) son a secret knowledge gained from initiation. Baal on the throne in glyphs is represented as tau, the mark of the king, an ‘X’ or ‘T’ above a round head. This is why the cross, the letter ‘t’ in English, represents the risen Christ, or re-throned Baal, or the triumphant cycle of spring and hope. This is also why the illiterate still mark contracts with an ‘X’ or mark in many countries to this day.

There is a small cabal, or group, of Jews who have this knowledge, the cabala, or kabbalah. They inherited it from the Phoenicians in the form of proto-Sinaitic, then paleo-Hebrew letters and culture. The Hebrew alphabet is identical in number and shape to the proto-Sinaitic alphabet of the story of the Baal cycle. These stories and truths are retained in full in the Hebrew mystical tradition, the kabbalah.

This is the truth about the Illuminati. We believe that people are free, in divine intercourse with the universe. We believe you should approach the earth as a loving partner, with joy and passion. We believe that there is only this dance of mind and matter, and no ghosts or demons we can’t see have victory or dominion over us. Our choices, our actions and the moralities we live by are all completely free and self-determined. We look forward to a day when all people share in victory over fear, death, and powerlessness, and live in harmony with the earth, in joy.

There is talk that the Illuminati worships death and war. There is an association between this secret knowledge, the worship of Baal, and war, not because mystical knowledge glorifies murder, but because the alphabet was largely spread by the Phoenicians because it was so successful in conscripting foreign soldiers with unusual-sounding names or identifying goods for trade in ledgers when there was no word for these goods in your tongue. War, conquest, and financial assimilation are the main reasons why we have language and religion around the world. Baal is recognized as the father of war. But in this way, war is symbolic for all technology and scientific knowledge, much of which, like radar, came from war, but may be used for good or evil indiscriminately, like all tools.

However, anyone who plots death or destruction or erases the human spirit is not Illuminati. Those who spin anti-Semitic paranoid plots are the real servants of death, the real snake people. It is only by seeing the brotherhood of man, the commonality of human experience, that we can all be free of pain, hunger, poverty, death and fear one day.

*Majutsu is roughly translated from the Japanese as "magic". It consists of two kanji ma and jutsu. Ma is made of two more kanji the Oni (demon) which is drawn as a death priest and the kanji for marijuana (kusa). These two combined make Ma, the same as Mahra--"the anti Buddha". Therefore majutsu is life (the grass) and death (oni--death priest) and represents illuminations dark and bright. You will be hard pressed to find a Japanese person who knows this, most of them consider majutsu as "bad".

Harper's Index: March 2009

2009-03-18T09:17:00.000-07:00

Percentage of Americans who think their lives serve “an important purpose” : 94
Percentage of U.S. teens who say they are “completely satisfied” with themselves : 30
Chance that a U.S. high-school student says he or she has stolen something from a store in the past year : 1 in 3
Extra points that a California student added to his GPA last year by hacking into a school computer : 1.9
Years in prison to which he might be sentenced at his upcoming trial : 38
Average number of hours of television watched per week by Americans aged 43 to 61 : 19
Average number watched by those aged 26 to 42 and those aged 14 to 25, respectively : 15, 11
Number of serialized TV and radio melodramas in favor of population control produced by a Vermont group : 18
Number of countries in which the group has aired them : 23
Number of days by which the median age of Europe increases each week : 2
Percentage of residents of former Communist-bloc nations who say they live better now than in 1989 : 30
Date by which the head of Russia’s foreign-service academy says the United States will have totally disintegrated : 7/4/2010
Number of days in November that a family farm near Denver opened up its fields for free picking : 1
Number of people who showed up : 40,000
Minimum number of U.S. homeowners whose banks improved their mortgage terms in the first quarter of last year : 73,000
Percentage of them who were a month or more behind on their payments six months after the relief : 55
Number of months since record keeping began in 1947 that U.S. consumer prices declined as steeply as in November 2008 : 0
Last year in which total world trade shrank, before it did so in 2008 : 1982
Amount Italy spent last year to bail out its Parmigiano Reggiano and Grana Padano cheese industries : $65,000,000
Minimum per-capita debt that Iceland owes to foreign depositors as a result of its banking collapse : $19,100
Per-capita reparations required of Germany in the Treaty of Versailles : $2,400
Chance that a U.S. Gulf War veteran still suffers from “Gulf War illness,” according to a federal panel : 1 in 4
Number of twenty PTSD patients in a 2008 study who reported significant improvement after being treated with ecstasy : 20
Percentage of PTSD patients in an earlier study who reported improvement after taking Zoloft : 53
Estimated total, in pounds, of explosives dropped by Israel on Gaza during the first week of this winter’s attack : 40,000
Estimated total fired into Israel by Palestinians last year : 40,000
Number of people killed by Hamas rocket attacks since 2001 : 28
Average pain rating, on a scale of 1 to 7, given by study participants to a shock they believed to be unintentional : 3.0
Average rating they assigned the same shock when they believed it to be intentional : 3.6
Percentage of the estimated total population of extraterritorial U.S. prisons that is held at Guantánamo : 1
Total number of guns that five of the six candidates for RNC chairman bragged about owning during their January debate : 22
Number of the candidates who said he had “too many to count” : 1
Amount an undisclosed buyer offered the Minneapolis–St. Paul airport last year for the Larry Craig bathroom stall : $5,000
Number of times that Caroline Kennedy said “you know” during a 45-minute interview with the New York Times : 138
Number of different occupations that Barbie has held during her 50-year run : 108
Days after going on sale that tickets to July’s National Barbie Doll Collectors Convention sold out : 2
Minimum number of nations that currently have plans to build a Ferris wheel larger than the current record holder : 3
Number of exotic marine animals that a new Dubai hotel keeps in its 3 million gallons of decorative tanks : 65,000
Pounds of “restaurant-quality” seafood the animals are fed each day : 485
Price, at a Reykjavík restaurant, of a whale kebab called “Moby Dick on a Stick” : $9

Figures cited are the latest available as of January 2009. Sources are listed on page 72.
“Harper’s Index” is a registered trademark.

Index appears on page 13.

Human Nature III

2009-03-17T20:36:00.000-07:00

This is becoming a series of considerations isn't it? I suspect this could be an essay or even evolve into a case study, and who knows, maybe later in life it will?

George and I were having a series of discussions vis-a-vis certain matters referencing human behavior. I was lamenting the inability of certain people to reason critically and the difficulties posed by my inability to communicate effectively with such people. This can become one of the most difficult and stressful experiences that one must pass through.

George pointed out that brain activity in such people ceased and that these people cannot be reached by reason. I retorted an understanding of moral indignation and emotional outbursts used in lieu of logic and counter-logic through intellectual reasoning and critical thinking.

While having a conversation on quite a different matter an insight manifested. This state of existence--in which one does not reason but reacts emotionally--is a form of regression to childhood. This is much like the "Archie slap" in Rock-a-rolla. When the full-force, backhand slap is applied to a subject, the mouth slackens, the eyes drop, and the subject is instantly transformed back to childhood. Now, if the subject is in not in a position submissive to the applicator this reaction may not last long. For an instant, however, the subject is transfered back to childhood--subsuming prior experience of this method.

George retorted to the "Archie slap" considerations by pointing out that people first learn to feel and then to think. He might have also added--and I'm sure he is aware that--people learn to experience with their right brain, before their left. While a child may not know that a woman is being raped, he knows that something horrible and painful is occurring and reacts accordingly.

Coping skills that rest on emotional outbursts and moral indignation represent a general regression and lack of development. George pointed out again that this is why the term "Sandbox Politics" finds apt application. For whatever reason, a significant portion of humanity exists primarily in a state of regression. This has interesting sociological implications through all three sociological perspectives i.e. functional, conflict, and symbolic-interactional [I may have bastardized the word following the hyphen].

This insight begs the question: If the inappropriate coping skills of our fellow humans makes us uneasy and we look with disdain on these methods, how can we have negative emotional feelings toward these people? Do we hate children for not knowing any better? Does it make sense for us to do that? If not, then how do we deal with the problem responsibly?

More on Human Nature

2009-03-17T14:09:00.000-07:00

Humanity: Come for crazy killer apes, stay for the deranged peacocks. Welcome to the Coursing Predators' Club; you are one of us.

George observed two classifications of humanity, but maintains that there are others. The two classifications that we shall consider are the hero and the citizen. There are others e.g. pacifist, sociopath. We will not discuss these at this time.

The Hero is a barbarian. The hero is individualistic and unorganized, like the barbarian hordes the Romans fought. These people will follow the most successful among their number i.e. the Alpha Male. The hero goes to battle for the power and the glory. The hero is a dominator when possible and a submissive when met with one more powerful than he--probably always jockeying for position.

The Citizen is refined. The citizen has a sense of community and is organized--this is not meant as collectivist in the Bolshevik or Maoist sense. The citizen follows principles as they manifest in a contract among the people. In matters of battle as George points out--and anyone who served in the military knows--there is no room for glory in the infantry--infantry is best understood by dropping the "ry" from the word, this is not an accident. The citizen goes to battle for the results. The citizen is a dominator through the group, rather than through self. In this sense the citizen is Cartesian.

George postulates--and I concur--that most adult males are somewhere between the two and that most adult males begin life as the hero. Joseph Campbell does excellent work on the hero. Through knowing our hero and embracing our barbarism, we may come to be a good citizen or--more correctly--a better hybrid of the two.

I write of men, because having an X and Y chromosome, I'm only half woman i.e. a man. I don't know what goes on in a body-mind with a Y, Y configuration. Comments from the Y, Y coursing predatory variety are welcome and encouraged.

SS Style Political Assasination Unit?

2009-03-17T01:02:00.001-07:00

I hope not....

Before you go blowing off the Alex Jones links, look at the Congressional interest in this matter. Also, politico.com is sourcing Alex Jones' news. He's becoming a respected source these days. As with anything you read, you should research it. Research is more than a google search and five or six mouse clicks.

Hersh: Cheney Ran SS-Style Political Assassination Unit (As in murder death kill, not character assassination)

Cheney “Assassination Unit” Still Active Under Obama, Including Domestically (YES WE CAN!)

Kucinich Calls For Congressional Investigation Into Cheney “Assassination Unit” (Kucinich is a Democratic Party Congressman)

AIG Bonuses Add to Potential for Public Revolt against Wall Street, Federal Reserve

2009-03-16T22:03:00.000-07:00

from: http://www.counterthink.com/025683.html

(CounterThink) When AIG took more than $170 billion in bailout money from the Federal Reserve, it insisted it was so poor that only emergency funding of public money could save it. That was before AIG revealed it was "contractually obliged" to pay $165 million in bonuses to its executives. Which executives, exactly? The ones who lost all the money in the first place!

But this article isn't about the facts surrounding the AIG bailout and its subsequent payout of $165 million in bonuses to incompetent executives. This is about something far more serious: The growing discontent among taxpayers who are inching ever closer towards a popular revolt.

Yes, there is a limit to how much even the mainstream public will put up with. And the only reason they aren't marching in the streets right now is because all this bailout money hasn't hit them in their own pocketbooks... yet. But once the hyperinflation of the U.S. dollar begins (which is now inevitable), and the public starts to connect the dots between their own financial losses and the bailout bonus money paid to rich executives, they are going to be utterly outraged at the magnitude and arrogance of the financial theft that took place right in front of them.

I believe it is no exaggeration to say that when these issues come to a crescendo, people will be marching in the streets, demanding the arrest of all the rich executives and corrupt bureaucrats who took part in this massive financial theft.

Let's be blunt about this: This $165 in bonus money being paid to incompetent AIG managers is essentially money confiscated from hard-working American taxpayers. It's just like being mugged on the street, except this theft will cost you much, much more than any mugging.

What we are witnessing here with this bailout fiasco is a massive theft of money from the People. And it's the kind of scandal that makes people hopping mad when they finally figure it out. This is the kind of stuff that leads to wars of independence (read your American history books) and breakups of entire nations. And instead of stopping this madness and telling AIG they can't pay million-dollar bonuses using taxpayer bailout money, the U.S. Congress and President just look the other way, pretending no theft is happening at all! Only a few lawmakers like Rep. Barney Frank (and Ron Paul, of course) have dared to stand up and challenge this fiscal madness (http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Frank...).

Betting the farm on a bankrupt nation
Meanwhile, the debt situation in America has become so dire that China is once again asking for assurances on U.S. debt (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/u...).

They should be. The U.S. is so hopelessly lost in debt spending that there is no conceivable way to avoid outright national bankruptcy. So President Obama now takes to the podium and declares what every informed person in the world knows to be a lie, saying, "...every investor can have absolute confidence in the soundness of investments in the United States."

And I have a bridge to sell ya in Brooklyn, too!

A White House spokesperson adds to the hilarity by saying, "There's no safer investment in the world than in the United States [debt]." (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?...)

These are extraordinary statements from the world's most highly-mortgaged debtor nation. They remind me of tobacco company executives stating, "Nicotine is not addictive," or Merck saying "Vioxx is safe." Sure, the U.S. -- which needs about $2 trillion more in loans just to continue its bailout charade -- is going to insist it will pay back the money. But how can it? With an economic depression now underway, and the import / export trade imbalance at dangerous levels, and the expense of fighting two wars hanging over the American Empire like a two-ton lead weight, the only person who believes the U.S. is a good credit risk is an insane person.

Buying U.S. debt is no doubt one of the dumbest things any investor could ever do, short of just pouring gasoline on dollar bills and lighting them up (which would actually help the Fed because it would slightly reduce the money supply).

Note carefully that what Madoff was arrested for (ripping off investors by running a ponzi scheme), the U.S. Treasury is pursuing as official policy! U.S. Treasury Bills are, in fact, a classic example of ponzi scheme mechanics: The only way the early investors get paid is if NEW investors can be suckered into the scheme in order to bring new money to the table! And when Obama says the U.S. is a safe investment, it echoes the words of Madoff himself who insisted that his own "investment brokerage" was a safe place for investors, too!

It is now obvious to every intelligent person familiar with the situation that the U.S. will default on its debt in some fashion, either by declaring a default or by paying off the debt with worthless hyper-inflated currency, which is much the same as declaring a default. The "one world currency" gang will then step in and exploit the crisis to seize control over the global money supply, and the U.S. dollar will be traded in (at pennies on the dollar) for some other global currency that's once again controlled by the global elite.

Don't be suckered into the U.S. dollar ponzi scheme
The only way to avoid losing your wealth during this transition is to convert your dollars to something real. Trade your dollars for gold, silver, land, storable food, seeds, tools, water filters or other things that hold value. The dollars you do not convert will be confiscated in one way or another, either through rising taxation or theft via new money creation.

Based on the way things are headed right now, I fully expect to see Americans rioting in the streets at some point in the next few years when the real pain of the bailout money fiasco starts to be felt by Joe Public. There are things you need to do in order to prepare for that, and I'll write more about those topics here on CounterThink as events unfold.

Weapons of Mass Anxiety (WMA)

2009-03-08T09:13:00.001-07:00

George and I were having a conversation and collaborated on a point. George and I were discussing the point that most of the so-called news we get is propaganda. Propaganda is meant to keep one off balance, to cause anxiety.

Having been discussing WMD in a class, I chortled "Weapons of Mass Anxiety". George liked it, and said that if we could appropriately point out this classification for information where appropriate, we might find that people realize the politicians and priests are using Weapons of Mass Anxiety to ply their trades.

Next time you watch the fearbytes on the so-called news or listen to some doom and gloom prophet, perhaps you might keep that in mind? Much of the time, end users (people) and influentials are not aware of what they are doing. They are just parroting what they heard. This demonstrates the pervasiveness and insidiousness of a WMA.

Diplomacy

2009-03-08T09:12:00.001-07:00

The ability to tell someone to "Go to Hell!" in such a way that they actually look forward to the trip.

Why Communists Aren't Demonized As Nazis Are?

2009-03-04T08:25:00.001-08:00

I've always wondered: with all the deaths and despots produced by communism in its various guises--whether considered actual communism or not, which amount to more than those produced by the Nazis, why aren't communists demonized? Why does everyone hate neo-nazis and not neo-communists?

Why is it socially unacceptable for me someone to be a nazi but its okay to be a communist? It isn't horrible government policies, the Soviet Union under Stalin and China under Mao are excellent examples of governments worse than Hitler.

It isn't the numbers. Mao and Stalin killed more than Hitler. It isn't specifically the number of Jewish deaths, Stalin has Hitler beat on that too. So what is it?

While there are many possibilities, and scholarly research may be in order, we will leave that to the sociologists to figure out. However, GB1Kinobi came up with an interesting possibility:

The Nazis lost a war. The Commies just kinda fizzled. The Nazis had a real crack team of filmers taking film of everything. The Commies didn’t. Therefore, the Nazi stuff is a hell of a lot more entertaining on television and there’s gobs of it. The Nazis make for better television entertainment. It’s also more fun to poke fun at the complete losers. As I said earlier, the Commies didn’t really lose as much as they simply just fizzled.

Crematoriums are great entertainment. Interviews with Czechs who didn’t wanna wear Bulgarian shoes anymore nor to listen to Polish rock-n-roll does not make for scintillating television on PBS.

Yep, it all boils down to the sheer entertainment factor. Nazis are fun. Commies are kinda boring: their film crews sucked.

GB1Kinobi's Blog is here

Monday Morning Satire

2009-03-02T09:58:00.001-08:00

Everybody Knows

2009-02-28T14:51:00.000-08:00

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
Thats how it goes
Everybody knows

Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows that the captain lied
Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died

Everybody talking to their pockets
Everybody wants a box of chocolates
And a long stem rose
Everybody knows

Everybody knows that you love me baby
Everybody knows that you really do
Everybody knows that youve been faithful
Ah give or take a night or two
Everybody knows youve been discreet
But there were so many people you just had to meet
Without your clothes
And everybody knows

Everybody knows, everybody knows
Thats how it goes
Everybody knows

Everybody knows, everybody knows
Thats how it goes
Everybody knows

And everybody knows that its now or never
Everybody knows that its me or you
And everybody knows that you live forever
Ah when youve done a line or two
Everybody knows the deal is rotten
Old black joes still pickin cotton
For your ribbons and bows
And everybody knows

And everybody knows that the plague is coming
Everybody knows that its moving fast
Everybody knows that the naked man and woman
Are just a shining artifact of the past
Everybody knows the scene is dead
But theres gonna be a meter on your bed
That will disclose
What everybody knows

And everybody knows that youre in trouble
Everybody knows what youve been through
From the bloody cross on top of calvary
To the beach of malibu
Everybody knows its coming apart
Take one last look at this sacred heart
Before it blows
And everybody knows

Everybody knows, everybody knows
Thats how it goes
Everybody knows

Oh everybody knows, everybody knows
Thats how it goes
Everybody knows

Everybody knows