Chaos and the Anti-Thread

[Dreamtimer]

I save things too. And in the same vein, as soon as my husband gets rid of something, I find out what it was the part to, or what I needed it for. To give him credit, he has learned and is more careful about getting rid of stuff.

I watched my mom sell stuff and then buy it back, so I learned from that experience.

My brother loves to throw things away. He 'doesn't have time'. I think it's part of the 'disposal' culture which was part of the prosperity mentality, as in "I don't need that junk."

My sister-in-law has been feeling the pain of not being stocked up on things. I imagine she'll be using the 'packrat' label a bit less now.

I just blame it on my Scottish blood. It needs to be saved because it might have a use. And sometimes it is years before that use/need becomes apparent.

[Aragorn]

I save things too. And in the same vein, as soon as my husband gets rid of something, I find out what it was the part to, or what I needed it for. To give him credit, he has learned and is more careful about getting rid of stuff.

I watched my mom sell stuff and then buy it back, so I learned from that experience.

My brother loves to throw things away. He 'doesn't have time'. I think it's part of the 'disposal' culture which was part of the prosperity mentality, as in "I don't need that junk."

My sister-in-law has been feeling the pain of not being stocked up on things. I imagine she'll be using the 'packrat' label a bit less now.

I just blame it on my Scottish blood. It needs to be saved because it might have a use. And sometimes it is years before that use/need becomes apparent.

If that is due to having Scottish blood, then I must be a genuine Highlander. :ttr:

You wouldn't believe some of the stuff I keep lying around, just in case it would come in handy some day ─ and it often does! :)

[Emil El Zapato]

I save things too. And in the same vein, as soon as my husband gets rid of something, I find out what it was the part to, or what I needed it for. To give him credit, he has learned and is more careful about getting rid of stuff.

I watched my mom sell stuff and then buy it back, so I learned from that experience.

My brother loves to throw things away. He 'doesn't have time'. I think it's part of the 'disposal' culture which was part of the prosperity mentality, as in "I don't need that junk."

My sister-in-law has been feeling the pain of not being stocked up on things. I imagine she'll be using the 'packrat' label a bit less now.

I just blame it on my Scottish blood. It needs to be saved because it might have a use. And sometimes it is years before that use/need becomes apparent.

Actually, that's hilarious...sell it and then buy it back..."I" would never make THAT mistake... :)

[Emil El Zapato]

Hey Aragorn,

Last night, I watched the 1st season of a series called "Into the Night". It's an end of the world thing that is produced (I think) and set in Brussels. The 1st season takes place for the most on a plane with people who are trying to get to Moscow. It might be easily available to you...it is a 'fun' watch, but most assuredly not 'funny'

[Aragorn]

Hey Aragorn,

Last night, I watched the 1st season of a series called "Into the Night". It's an end of the world thing that is produced (I think) and set in Brussels. The 1st season takes place for the most on a plane with people who are trying to get to Moscow. It might be easily available to you...it is a 'fun' watch, but most assuredly not 'funny'

That sounds intriguing. :) But unfortunately, I no longer have a cable TV subscription, and I don't do any of the internet-based series/movies either, unless it's absolutely free of charge and it doesn't require any registration. ;)

[Emil El Zapato]

It might be, you might find it looking around on the net...good luck... :)

[Emil El Zapato]

Well, Mr. Aragorn, you are a techie, so i'll give you a hint... FireTV/Firestick and Troypoint... :)

[Aragorn]

Well, Mr. Aragorn, you are a techie, so i'll give you a hint... FireTV/Firestick and Troypoint... :)

I've just looked at that. All of those things cost money, and given that I have to survive off of a disabilities income, I have been cutting all non-essential expenses from my life. This is one of the reasons why I canceled my TV subscription in the first place ─ the other reasons being that I wasn't watching it anymore anyway, and that I was sick and tired of being slapped around the ears with propaganda and advertisements all of the time. ;)

[Emil El Zapato]

welll! The firestick I think is pretty reasonable and that is the only cost if that is one's choice...it's not like paying forever...I assume you have home internet...that really is the only expense and you can stream to any device you choose... I steer way clear of any propaganda unless it is 'couched' in seeming satire. A wonderful example of that is the series "The Boys"...It's fantastic in that regard, lots of food for thought anyway one slices it.

repeat warning: but this is the chaos thread after all.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06rueu_fh30

[Chris]

I've just looked at that. All of those things cost money, and given that I have to survive off of a disabilities income, I have been cutting all non-essential expenses from my life. This is one of the reasons why I canceled my TV subscription in the first place ─ the other reasons being that I wasn't watching it anymore anyway, and that I was sick and tired of being slapped around the ears with propaganda and advertisements all of the time. ;)

I'm confused. Are you opposed to torrenting for ethical reasons?

Although I subscribe to Netflix, the best shows I want are only available on torrent sites. I hate movies and shows that are dubbed into Hungarian, so frankly (ha!) I don't have a choice if I want to watch them in the original and have to go illegal. However, it must be said that here in Hungary this is a grey area and not one person has ever been prosecuted for downloading torrents for their personal use.

BTW, you wouldn't believe Hungarian TV if you ever saw it, Everything and I mean EVERYTHING is dubbed into the local lingo at great expense no doubt, same as in Germany. You can't even go to the cinema to watch a movie in the original, they're all dubbed too. This also contributes to the appalling language skills on display, the last study I saw put Hungary just above England (obviously the worst) but Below Ireland in foreign language skills in Europe.

[Aragorn]

I'm confused. Are you opposed to torrenting for ethical reasons?

No, but I just haven't looked into that. My interest is not that great. The only series I would have wanted to see was "Star Trek: Picard", but looking for torrents just for that series alone outrises my willingness to do so. :)


Although I subscribe to Netflix, the best shows I want are only available on torrent sites. I hate movies and shows that are dubbed into Hungarian, so frankly (ha!) I don't have a choice if I want to watch them in the original and have to go illegal. However, it must be said that here in Hungary this is a grey area and not one person has ever been prosecuted for downloading torrents for their personal use.

Well, it is certainly a legally grey area here as well, and I don't need any legal issues. ;)


BTW, you wouldn't believe Hungarian TV if you ever saw it, Everything and I mean EVERYTHING is dubbed into the local lingo at great expense no doubt, same as in Germany. You can't even go to the cinema to watch a movie in the original, they're all dubbed too. This also contributes to the appalling language skills on display, the last study I saw put Hungary just above England (obviously the worst) but Below Ireland in foreign language skills in Europe.

The same is true for France and Luxemburg, and although I don't know about the francophone movie theaters here in Belgium, it is certainly also true for the francophone television networks here.

In the Flanders and in the Netherlands, they only overdub animated series for small children. Everything else that's in a foreign language gets subtitles.

[Emil El Zapato]

More fun:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcrNsIaQkb4&feature=emb_rel_end


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78MDvglEB_8

[Dreamtimer]

Here's a good image. Maybe I should make this into a badge.

https://images.dailykos.com/images/803826/large/phonewithapp.jpg?1589224440

[Emil El Zapato]

I read something that is really profound in a science fiction/fantasy book i'm reading. It's called, "Ecko Rising" written by Danie Ware. It has what women readers would call romance in it, I would call it sex and find it distracting actually. :)

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51BQCySqeFL._SX325_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

Ecko is reliving an alien animal attack shortly after a sexual interlude and a night's sleep, and thinks about what he had learned regarding fractals, He thought, Fractals create patterns that ripple and reoccur. That got me thinking, hmmm, yeah that actually makes sense when we consider the construction of universal creation. Creation builds on small patterns of 'stuff/fractals', call it templates and continues to build complex 'things' in perpetuity.

This is an amazing observation and might even explain 'synchronicity'. As we flow through existence, we are creating fractals of behavior that will inevitably repeat and when the pattern ripples back to us we experience a synchronous event. Of Course!!

You see, this is why when I was a teenager and my stepmother would ask me what my plans for the future were, I would tell her I wanted to be a philosopher so I could lie on the couch all day and philosophize. It would always send her screaming in horror to my dad, but that wasn't the only reason I said it, I really wanted to do that, the laying on the couch all day part of it, anyway.

[Elen]

I save things too. And in the same vein, as soon as my husband gets rid of something, I find out what it was the part to, or what I needed it for. To give him credit, he has learned and is more careful about getting rid of stuff.

I watched my mom sell stuff and then buy it back, so I learned from that experience.

My brother loves to throw things away. He 'doesn't have time'. I think it's part of the 'disposal' culture which was part of the prosperity mentality, as in "I don't need that junk."

My sister-in-law has been feeling the pain of not being stocked up on things. I imagine she'll be using the 'packrat' label a bit less now.

I just blame it on my Scottish blood. It needs to be saved because it might have a use. And sometimes it is years before that use/need becomes apparent.

It must be Scottish (or Norwegian)...I live in that reality too! I'm a constant "fixer" of things...:)

[Emil El Zapato]

Ecko: Rising is a unique genre-bending fantasy–sci-fi epic following a savage, gleefully cynical anti-hero. After awakening in a dimension-jumping inn to find himself immersed in his own sardonic fantasy world, Ecko joins a misfit cast of characters and strives to conquer his deepest fears and save the world from extinction.

-not me-

[Wind]

It must be Scottish (or Norwegian)...I live in that reality too! I'm a constant "fixer" of things...:)

Lol, I thought I'm a "fixer" because of my Virgo nature. :p

[Emil El Zapato]

Sorry to all you folks, but it's the Neanderthals done this.

[Emil El Zapato]

I'm not letting it go that easy... :)

So, I've decided that 'synchronicity' happens at the quantum level...quantum energy is the vehicle for the cause and effect that Jung didn't realize because he had no way of fully understanding that.

But that still leaves open the question of why. Well, I've got that figured out as well. Coincidence, of course... :), but why coincidence? We still hit the wall of the ineffable just because that is the nature of our nature.

[Wind]

When you have myopic view of the world, what happens? You get out of touch with reality.

There's a big shift happening around the world and mostly for the worse, but especially in the US things have gotten really bad. Corporate greed and sociopathic capitalism has gotten out hand. The administration is completely clueless, the media brainwashes people and people themselves are divided perhaps more than ever before. There's selfishness and not enough compassion for the fellow man. Where are the basic human values? Freedom, equality, compassion, integrity. You know that society has gone demonic when those things are lacking.


http://youtu.be/RcAOj_pcQ4g

[Emil El Zapato]

Honestly Wind, I give that a hearty 2nd...

[Fred Steeves]

There's selfishness and not enough compassion for the fellow man. Where are the basic human values? Freedom, equality, compassion, integrity. You know that society has gone demonic when those things are lacking.

Now we're demonic?

[Aragorn]

There's selfishness and not enough compassion for the fellow man. Where are the basic human values? Freedom, equality, compassion, integrity. You know that society has gone demonic when those things are lacking.

Now we're demonic?

That's not what he said, now is it? :wry:

[Fred Steeves]

That's not what he said, now is it? :wry:


There's selfishness and not enough compassion for the fellow man

Might you clear it up for me? Interpreter needed? "Fellow man" implies the average person, not just any given (especially this one) administration.

Be careful with the broad stroke admonishments is all I'm saying.

[Wind]

Now we're demonic?

Not "we", I meant society in general has become demonic in the way it operates. I must beg your pardon if you didn't catch that.

Culture is not your friend, Fred. Nor is the machine. I know there are many good, decent people out there, but that's not the point.

[Fred Steeves]

What I'm noticing is that, in general we're not supposed to talk about the U.S. because things are already so, "U.S. Centric" so to speak; but then on the other hand, comments flow cleanly and clearly as the wind driven snow concerning the U.S. in general, with no clear divisions between our elite class, and the rest of us.

[Wind]

Well, we all should know that the problem is with the elites and yet every common man should look into the mirror too.

I feel like I'm starting to become a part of the problem by focusing on the US politics so much and spouting about it here, but I feel like I need to express my thoughts because what happens in the US actually affects the whole world too. Otherwise I might not give a rat's ass about it. I see through the whole sham and that's something that makes me sad and sometimes angry too.

I can't speak for Aragorn's behalf, but he has said that he's tired of everything revolving around the US politics. I don't think he meant that you shouldn't talk about the issues in your country, just acknowledge that the rest of the world exists too. Perhaps you feel like I criticize the US too much, but actually I am only looking at the problems where I see them. At least in my own case I can tell that once I stop talking abpit things it means that I've stopped caring and have become totally desensitized and cynical about things. I'm not there yet mentally and I don't hope that it would become like that, although I can totally see why the likes of George Carlin (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7U5JVk_y7U) became so.

[Aragorn]

What I'm noticing is that, in general we're not supposed to talk about the U.S. because things are already so, "U.S. Centric" so to speak; but then on the other hand, comments flow cleanly and clearly as the wind driven snow concerning the U.S. in general, with no clear divisions between our elite class, and the rest of us.

I heard a nice one at the PCLinuxOS forum the other day. It went something like "It is a well-known fact that half of all Americans are crazy. There's just disagreement on which half." :ttr:

And I think that came from an American, but I'm not sure. :p

[Fred Steeves]

Well, we all should know that the problem is with the elites and yet every common man should look into the mirror too.

I feel like I'm starting to become a part of the problem by focusing on the US politics so much and spouting about it here, but I feel like I need to express my thoughts because what happens in the US actually affects the whole world too. Otherwise I might not give a rat's ass about it. I see through the whole sham and that's something that makes me sad and sometimes angry too.

I can't speak for Aragorn's behalf, but he has said that he's tired of everything revolving around the US politics. I don't think he meant that you shouldn't talk about the issues in your country, just acknowledge that the rest of the world exists too. Perhaps you feel like I criticize the US too much, but actually I am only looking at the problems where I see them. At least in my own case I can tell that once I stop about talking things it means that I've stopped caring and have become totally desensitized and cynical about things. I'm not there yet mentally and I don't hope that it would become like that, although I can totally see why the likes of George Carlin (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7U5JVk_y7U) became so.

Try separating the people, from the government. That's a good start.

[Wind]

Try separating the people, from the government. That's a good start.

I know the distinction quite well. Who "elects" the government?

[Fred Steeves]

I know the distinction quite well. Who "elects" the government?

Then that brigs us back full circle to this:


There's selfishness and not enough compassion for the fellow man. Where are the basic human values? Freedom, equality, compassion, integrity. You know that society has gone demonic when those things are lacking.

[Wind]

What are you trying to say, Fred? Don't beat around the bush. Did you watch the video I posted?

I'm calling out for those universal values. I'm not saying that all hope is lost, there's just too much of that shit in society, that's all.

[Emil El Zapato]

Here's my opinion, the video is interesting, but I felt he was a little 'loose' with his admonitions but I totally agree with him, anyway. What I see as the caveat here is that he is 'public' voice. People that act in that role should be circumspect to the extreme. For comedians it is no holds barred. But he IS an American and has the right to speak as he pleases as long as he isn't inciting people like Fred to violence... Que No?!

I don't think Fred watched the video...and is feeling a little bashed, no doubt as the truth of Trump sinks ever deeper into his psyche.

[Fred Steeves]

What are you trying to say, Fred? Don't beat around the bush. Did you watch the video I posted?

I'm calling out for those universal values. I'm not saying that all hope is lost, there's just too much of that shit in society, that's all.

We’re good man. Sure I watched the video, and that guy always makes a lot of sense to me, I just didn’t get the demonic thing is all. It certainly didn’t come from what he said, but I see a lot of frustration out there with Covid going on, combined with politics being more divisive than ever.

Before the advent of Captain Chaos I thought things were going to be ok, and once he’s gone I think they’ll still be ok.

Steady as she goes mate.

All Is Well.

[Emil El Zapato]

Hi DT,

I've been watching Star Trek Discovery...TV SciFi has joined the modern age, it's pretty cool.

I'll add the book I read referencing 'mycelium' was written more than a few years before Star Trek came of age... :) So it gets kudos for that.

But now that I know what it is, I think it is freaking weird. I was reluctant to eat mushrooms before, it ain't gonna happen now, for sure.

[Dreamtimer]

You could take supplements. Then you can get all of the benefits without having to eat the fruiting bodies.

[Emil El Zapato]

makes sense, I'll look into it... :)

[Emil El Zapato]

Hey DT, in watching Star Trek Discovery, I started thinking that the writers were stepping dangerously close to a plagiarism charge by Neal Asher, who is the author of a series of books regarding the 'Polity' Pretty good stuff, but mostly to a 'man's' liking I suspect...lots of violence and war.

Anyway, I got curious about it and did a search for Star Trek Discovery, Neal Asher, and plagiarism. Seems he does dedicate some of his Twitter account to speaking about the series, but in a flattering way...No plagiarism charges... :)

[Emil El Zapato]

My bio-cousin sent me a picture of 'our' Uncle...Little George, seems he was a homicide detective for 37 years but quit because he got tired of seeing dead people. Truth...all of it this time... :) I suspect the dead thing was meant to be a joke, though. Cops, gawd...And I can't use the excuse that I was adopted this time...waitaminit, yes, I can.

[Emil El Zapato]

This brilliant lady is at it again: :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_GJV5_cV1U

[Emil El Zapato]

I just saw another police murder of an innocent black man...This may sound twisted but I think I would rather not meet my bio paternal line of relatives. My cousin says the Grandfather was a big 'asshole' with emphasis on big...His son was the detective and his son is a cop. Who I was thinking is my bio father was military police (and a boxer), and my would be half-siblings have proven to be unmitigated assholes. My cousin told me they were and have been at war with each other since he can remember.

I'll pass...God does move in mysterious ways. I really think that if we did ever meet, I might end up dispensing with a few of them or vice-versa.

Actually, he wasn't innocent but I don't think his was a capital crime...forgery...

[Emil El Zapato]

Star Trek: Discovery or Derivative?

The new Star Trek show is fairly well done. The graphics are great. So far, the storytelling is at least decent. It looks like they’ve thrown canon out the window, especially with the Klingons, but I’ll take it as an alternate universe like what DC does with Earth 1/Earth 2 etc. or Marvel does with its various numbered universes.

And yet, while watching it, I can’t shake the feeling that I've seen it before. There seem to be many lifts from science fiction both recent and classic.

First, the look of the Klingons. The Klingon Captain, L'Rell, has a head that seems straight out of an H.R. Giger picture. Perhaps the Alien got away from Ripley, landed on Kronos and shared DNA with the locals?

And then the transport system. The idea of a galactic web allowing hyperspeed transport has been seen recently in John Scalzi’s The Collapsing Empire. Both are unreliable methods that don’t always work as desired. But, Scalzi can’t really complain as that system is derivative of the one used in the “Merlin” shorts by Alastair Reynolds.

As for beings living in hyperspace, that was mentioned in the last Ringworld related book, Niven and Lerner’s Fate of Worlds, based on an earlier story by Niven, Borderland of Sol.
As for “mycelial,” and “mycelium,” the terms used to describe the hyperspatial web, those are unusual enough to be noteworthy. Where have I seen them before? Oh yes, it’s all over Neal Asher’s “Polity” books.

If CBS is going to mine the works of science fiction authors, why not give them a slice? I’m sure these authors would enjoy some of the scriptwriting cash for an episode or two, or to consult as Scalzi did on Stargate. There’s plenty of precedent, with the original series hiring SF writers regularly. Come on CBS, since you’re using their ideas already, give the book writers a piece!

- didn't notice who -

[Dreamtimer]

I'm impressed with that analysis, NAP. As much as I call myself a sci fi fan, I wouldn't have caught all of that. Now I have some good source to go to.

[Emil El Zapato]

Things are going chaotic in Minneapolis...my manager lived there for a few years when he was in college. I haven't had a chance to talk to him about all this but it would be interesting. He's a very thoughtful, soft spoken Asian immigrant from Vietnam. I don't believe he has the military history that many Vietnamese immigrants do. They're a different breed altogether. There is a simple word to describe most of them, arseholes, yet, I still have a few as friends. My barber/stylist for 10 years running is one of them...she fights with everybody, except me, that is, I always let her have her head...to keep her calm... :)

As usual, Trump is birdcalling and entertaining his intrinsic racism, mental dysfunction, and stupidity

[Dreamtimer]

I spent much of yesterday listening to TED talks. Mostly about AI. We have a very large imminent issue looming with it. It learns new things and works to replicate itself. And we are replacing jobs with it at lightening speed.

Andrew Yang was talking about Universal Basic Income which will be essential. Without it we will have a few very wealthy elite and most of the rest of us will be in deep poverty. And the AI will reflect our values, which at the moment are very individualistic. That will lead AI to having little concern for most people. This is something we cannot afford to ignore, although I'm not really sure what we can do about it.

We don't plan well for disasters or catastrophes. Even when we know they're likely to occur.

We, as in people, humans.

[Emil El Zapato]

yeah, AI may reach 'singularity' but they will remain essentially empty shells in terms of morality, nothing or no smarts will inject sentience into metal. On the other hand, ala, mycellium :) might be a route that some might pursue to instill 'organics' into the steel. The conduits targeted needn't be steel though, start with an organism and make it smarter. But would that be called 'AI'? hmm, who knows?

[Emil El Zapato]

😦 the hell is going 🔛 ... this is a 💯!

:)

[Wind]

The tensions are arising, yes?


http://youtu.be/oBOIXqjkiIs

[Emil El Zapato]

very much yes...it's the breaking point for at least part of American...I don't suppose you have any relatives or friends in Finland do you? I have a cousin there it seems... :)

[Wind]

You mean in America? Not that I'm aware of. All my relatives live in Finland.

[Emil El Zapato]

sheeit, man...I gots relatives all over America... :) no, I meant Finland...I'll post the name for you to see if it rings a bell...they might be an emigre...you will be able to tell I suspect... :)

Kristian Love is the name...weird huh?

[Emil El Zapato]

This is listed as a family surname: Eerikäinen

[Wind]

This is listed as a family surname: Eerikäinen

That's quite common, I've been seeing that name. Many Finnish last names have the letters "nen" at the end. My family's name too. :)

[Emil El Zapato]

2448

I think this might be him...has a twitter account...saw some ads targeted for neo-nazis...I guess i better not say hi to him... :)

[Wind]

Sure looks like a Scandinavian.

[Emil El Zapato]

Half American-Half Finnish his twitter page says... :)

Is that a neo-nazi haircut?

[Wind]

Lol I don't think so, just a typical modern haircut.

[Emil El Zapato]

:chrs: ok, that's good...he's about 20...same age as my daughter... :) speaking of generation X ... They are raising hell on American streets...I hope they keep focus and don't devolve into a mob...they like mobs...I haven't seen any automatic weapons as yet...

[Aragorn]

They are raising hell on American streets...I hope they keep focus and don't devolve into a mob...they like mobs...I haven't seen any automatic weapons as yet...

Fred's not going to like me saying this, but it has to do with the nature of the protests. This is a protest against racism, police brutality and unwarranted violence. Unless there are opportunistic troublemakers or even agents provocateurs among the protesters, this will be an outcry for human rights and against violence. That makes it a more egalitarian and thus (truly) left-wing protest.

The protests against the lockdown whereby automatic weapons and other paramilitary equipment ─ including full battle dress uniforms and masks that were worn for anonymization rather than for protection against the coronavirus ─ were ostensibly being shoved into everyone's face were a testosterone-driven and clearly right-wing manifestation, whereby the individual's freedom was believed to extend beyond the freedom and safety of others, and whereby the protesters were showing their willingness to kill, even though no shots were fired. It was the typical kind of cowboy diplomacy and posturing that the US is so well known for on the international scale.

And just before Fred gets the heebie-jeebies again over my mention of left-wing and right-wing, the context of left versus right that I'm talking about here doesn't have anything to do with what the average US American considers left or right. This is about the real left (i.e. the humanitarian and egalitarian perspective) versus the real right, (i.e. the "my interests are more important than your interests" perspective).

I don't care much for what US Americans call "the left" ─ i.e. the DNC and their pseudo social-justice-warrior nanny state ─ but I am a real progressive. I am all for equal rights, for mutual respect, for human dignity, for peace, and vehemently against racism, capitalism and monetarism. I am not a communist, but I do think socialism ─ the real kind, not the corrupted kind where "some animals are more equal than others" ─ is a good start for a better future that will (and must) eventually transcend the importance of the economy and economic interests on society.

Am I naive? No, I don't think so. I think my idea of the perfect society would be quite viable, but I also realize that mankind is by far not ready for that yet, and especially not if morally corrupt geopolitical entities ─ most notably the USA, the UK, the EU, Israel, Iran, Saudi Arabia, China and Russia ─ are going to keep on dominating the choices made by mankind on account what the future should look like.

But the cleanup should either way start with the USA, because (1), it is and has for a long time already been a fascist empire, and (2) culturally, the USA is still stuck somewhere in between the middle ages and the Wild West, while the rest of the world has at least moved on. And it is this stagnation in cultural evolution that is causing the US American left-wing to be just as retarded as the US right-wing. They are the two wings of a single bird, and for that matter, a bird that has dropped out of school and bumped its head in the process.

And the reason why the USA hasn't evolved culturally is simply that, as the greatest military power in the world, they can afford to bully other nations and inflict their will upon the world. They don't need to abide by evolution, because they have the firepower to force the rest of the world into following their lead.

Just look at Trump's decision to leave the WHO. Yes, the WHO screwed up, but I don't think it's up to Trump to point any fingers at them when he himself is the biggest screw-up to have ever lived in the White House ─ he makes even Dubya look like a genius, and that is saying a lot.

And yes, I've already alluded elsewhere to the refusal of the US to adopt the metric system. I can understand that there are culturally historic reasons for remaining with traditional measurements in the context of artisans, as for instance in Japan when it comes to the art of sword-making. But other than that, the whole world has already adopted the metric system a long time ago ─ even the UK, despite some nationalistic and insular objections at first, because the UK was once also an empire, and many within the US government are still feeling nostalgia over the glorious days where "Britannia ruled the waves". But here's this country of some 320 million people in North America that, as the only nation in the world, refuses to adopt a measurements system that actually makes sense, and that has also been standardized among the other 7.1 billion people on this planet. And even then still, the American measurements system isn't even consistent with the historic British imperial system, because an American gallon is bigger than a British gallon.

So, now that I'm feeling a little combative ─ which, in light of the ideological aggression displayed by a certain member on another thread, isn't even such a bad thing ─ I'm going to throw it all out on the table, with my apologies to the good and open-minded US Americans, but in my personal opinion, the USA qualifies as a developing nation. There are countries in Africa and South America ─ traditionally labeled as "the third world" ─ that are more civilized and intellectually more developed than the USA. And yet, US Americans are the most vocal denizens of the entire internet.

And before anyone feels compelled to point out that it was the USA that "invented" the internet, yes, I'm aware of that, just as I'm also aware of the fact that the internet began its life as a US military computer network. I rest my case.





<end rant and cue the US-nationalistic butt-hurt reactions>

[Fred Steeves]

Why are we still so obsessed with talking about the U.S., a mere developing country?

[Aragorn]

Why are we still so obsessed with talking about the U.S., a mere developing country?

Just because it is culturally and politically a developing country doesn't mean that it is one technologically or militarily. That would and should have been obvious from my post, but you dismissed what I actually meant in favor of the strawman here-above, because you're feeling butt-hurt in your American pride.

[Fred Steeves]

Why are we still so obsessed with talking about the U.S., a mere developing country?


Just because it is culturally and politically a developing country doesn't mean that it is one technologically or militarily. That would and should have been obvious from my post, but you dismissed what I actually meant in favor of the strawman here-above, because you're feeling butt-hurt in your American pride.

You're not very good at reading people. That's three in a row you've missed by a country mile. Besides that, any comment I made concerning that anti US rant you would have called butt hurt, I think your addendum tucked in at the end very nicely predicts that:



<end rant and cue the US-nationalistic butt-hurt reactions>


Dude, I happen to have chosen that particular quote because it can be seen as punching down from your lofty position. I really don't care if you carry on with the continual ranting about Captain Chaos and the U.S. until your damn head explodes. The culture, the politics, the military, the technology, or if we talk funny. :p All of it. Do it until everything feels all better again.


Now to the point. What my question was referring to is the other ongoing rant from your alter ego, the rant based on frustration as to why most conversations wind up turning U.S. centric. If you're sick and tired of hearing about the U.S., and talking about the U.S., then stop talking about it. Pick one or the other you can't have both.

[Emil El Zapato]

I would suggest, and I won't pull any of that it's my thread bullshit, that counter-arguments reach the level of the argument, comments empty of intellectual depth are useless in this 'context'. What has been historically demonstrated is that any body politic that doesn't have a balance of technology, spirituality, and culture cannot survive in the long term.

And everyone's head will occasionally explode, it's the nature of the HUMAN head.

[Emil El Zapato]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NsAVMd8Hek

[Aragorn]

You're not very good at reading people.

That comes with the autism. And that is why I myself go to great lengths in trying not to sound ambiguous in my use of language. I wish other people would put in just that little bit more effort at not sounding ambiguous either.


Now to the point. What my question was referring to is the other ongoing rant from your alter ego, the rant based on frustration as to why most conversations wind up turning U.S. centric. If you're sick and tired of hearing about the U.S., and talking about the U.S., then stop talking about it. Pick one or the other you can't have both.

You're not very good at reading people either, then. I have no objections to discussing US American politics on threads that center around that subject, or that regularly return to that subject. I do have objections to that stuff spilling over into other threads when those other threads have nothing to do with US politics or even with the US itself as a nation.

[Wind]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DTW2hBuU0AAiF55.jpg

[Dreamtimer]

I'll second that!

We were driving through Carroll County yesterday. It's a rural county in my state. We saw a family on a street corner holding up signs. There were a couple children. It was a white family. As we approached I looked at the signs, thinking it would be something local, like a car wash offering. It was signs supporting Floyd and saying that Black Lives Matter. I would have taken a picture if I wasn't driving.



I'm not sure how the US can be considered a 'developing' country. We're a first-world country with a currency which is the world's baseline and we outsource the manufacture of most of what we consume to other countries. That's what developed nations do, not developing ones.

[Wind]

"Crisis is what suppressed pain looks like; it always comes to the surface. It shakes you into reflection and healing."

~ Bryant McGill

[Emil El Zapato]

Wise saying there...and eminently true...

From the mouths of morons!

lol, Just yanking your chain Wind...I'm feeling like a kookaboo, today :)

[Wind]

Just don't go burning down your local Walmart, NAP. :D

[Emil El Zapato]

lol, never Walmart, I love Walmart... :)

[Wind]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EZUO2oeWsAA_IUu.jpg

[Emil El Zapato]

yes, thank you Wind...

[Emil El Zapato]

Ok, Elen, it's your turn...Scotland right?

Robert McGuire and here are his family surnames: Damron, Childers, Henry, Walker, Standridge
Nichols.

Just for fun, Elen... :)

[Elen]

Here in Scotland we don't say Robert...it becomes Rabbie. And the best Rabbie I know is Rabbie Burns.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy8lehO7nqg

Translation:

Small, crafty, cowering, timorous little beast,
Oh, what a panic is in your breast!
You need not start away so hasty
With your hurrying scamper
I would be loath to run and chase you,
With murdering plough-staff.

I'm truly sorry man's dominion
Has broken Nature's social union,
And justifies that ill opinion
Which makes you startle
At me, your poor, earth born companion
And fellow mortal!

I doubt not, sometimes, but you may steal;
What then? Poor little beast, you must live!
An odd ear in twenty-four sheaves
Is a small request;
I will get a blessing with what is left,
And never miss it.

Your small house, too, in ruin!
Its feeble walls the winds are scattering!
And nothing now, to build a new one,
Of coarse grass green!
And bleak December's winds coming,
Both bitter and piercing!

You saw the fields laid bare and wasted,
And weary winter coming fast,
And cozy here, beneath the blast,
You thought to dwell,
Till crash! the cruel plough passed
Out through your cell.

That small bit heap of leaves and stubble,
Has cost you many a weary nibble!
Now you are turned out, for all your trouble,
Without house or holding,
To endure the winter's sleety dribble,
And hoar-frost cold.

But little Mouse, you are not alone,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes of mice and men
Go often askew,
And leave us nothing but grief and pain,
For promised joy!

Still you are blessed, compared with me!
The present only touches you:
But oh! I backward cast my eye,
On prospects dreary!
And forward, though I cannot see,
I guess and fear!

[Dreamtimer]

I just love the Scottish accent. I could listen all day. I brought back a mini book of Rabbie Burns' poetry which still sits on the book shelf.

We will go back!!!

[Emil El Zapato]

I worked with a guy from Scotland...Scott Birse was his name...I always had to ask him what the difference was between the Irish and Scotch/Scottish accent and he would explain it...and then the next day I'd ask him again...He was kind of hard to understand sometime but after awhile one got accustomed to it...He was the boss, interesting guy.

[Wind]

The Scottish accent is very endearing.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lpHerpbs9U

[Wind]

Full Moon in Sagittarius tonight (https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2020/06/9849853/full-strawberry-moon-june-2020-meaning).

The fire rises.

[modwiz]

We are having a Full Moon gathering tonight and I am in charge of the fire.

Been gathering up some good dry tinder because it might be rainy tonight.

[Wind]

When a society turns fascist.

A Step Too Far; Getting Tear-Gassed, shot at and chased by Portland's "Finest" Police


http://youtu.be/uAz7QEpBGWk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPs3nV8ddf0

[Dreamtimer]

So as not to collapse the Collapse thread...

I went to Larry Niven's site to have a gander at his biography. Good God (http://news.larryniven.net/biblio/main.asp)!

[Emil El Zapato]

lol...yeah... :)

[Emil El Zapato]

I just heard that George Floyd will be buried today in his hometown. Pearland, TX, that's less than 5 miles from where I live...it has always been a reasonably small community but is as of today considered one of the fastest growing parts of the metro area. It has a reputation as being the home of the upwardly mobile and a good community. A little perspective is all. I guess after they ran off Floyd... :noidea:

[Emil El Zapato]

I'm watching another Texas example of police brutality. It seems a new video has surfaced from an old case. A lot of people are going crazy. I think they are mistaken this time. I think it was a legitimate accident, but it does represent a lack of training on the part of the police force. They failed to recognize the movements of the handcuffed individual were due to cardiac arrest and not resistance despite the protestations of the deceased individual.

[Emil El Zapato]

A really interesting new series on the mainstream boob tube: I've watched a couple of episodes on youtube.tv. this is really pretty fascinating, the key here is GEDWatch...One can upload DNA test results and compare against a national database, the caveat is that they have allowed Law Enforcement access:

I noticed this video mentions Jon Benet Ramsey: When the last suspect was arrested I had a dream the night before that his name was 'something' like John or Mark. I mentioned it to one of my 'brainy' female co-workers, and she said, 'many people are named John or Mark', I said yes but his name was John Mark...I did get a raised eyebrow but that was the only giveaway... :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6BrIDKxgaQ

[Wind]

http://youtu.be/UIRTi3sd_20

[Dreamtimer]

Here's a good piece (https://www.vox.com/videos/2019/4/3/18294392/tucker-carlson-pretends-hate-elites-populism-false-consciousness) showing the hypocrisy of one Mr. Tucker Carlson.

It's a good chance to learn of his own personal elitism.

[Emil El Zapato]

I see Mnuchin, the resident serial killer...

That Vox guy reminds me of a 'white' co-worker, now I know where he is coming from...for sure...

[Dreamtimer]

Mnuchin was one of the folks involved in the economic collapse at the end of the Bush Administration. The Foreclosure King (https://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/the-administration/320122-steve-mnuchin-foreclosure-king-now-runs-your-us), he was. Amazing how folks who didn't even have a mortgage could end up losing their house to these sorts of shenanigans.

[Emil El Zapato]

Hi DT,

I didn't know that but it certainly figures...Do you have a post for that?

[Dreamtimer]

I don't think I posted specifically about Mnuchin here. He's one of the swamp monsters that Trump brought into his administration. Trump found a bunch of doozies. Steve is just one.

[Emil El Zapato]

Coincidence, this book I'm reading is one of Neal Asher's AI Polity series...the one with all the mycellium in it ... :) I'm reading today to disengage from electronic media...and here I am again: :)

"In fact, the worm's promulgation through the telefactor systems had not been so much an attack as a tentative probe -- for attack would presuppose a guiding intelligence. The technology was searching for new directions in which to grow, rather like a creeping vine. (A moon-sized war ship) Jerusalem toyed with this comparison, considering how Jain tech, like a fig vine, could strangle its host. But, no, it was more of a plague technology. The AI then amused itself by making statistical comparisons between the extrapolated spread of Jain tech on Earth and other historical plagues on the same planet. ... "

"Should this particular Pandora affliction get out of control, the one most closely resembling it might be the flu epidemic that World War 1 soldiers brought back with them from the trenches. Then, again, that comparison was not so close either. Piqued, Jerusalem turned the bulk of its attention inward"

Brass Man Copyright 2005 ...

[Emil El Zapato]

As an afterthought, I figured I would add, disengaging doesn't include my current ongoing 10 chess games... :)

For the team, that I am co-captain of

Tell me when to stop...I will, of course... :)

Oh, and should I mention...nah, even I bore myself sometimes..

but, it isn't like Rocket Science...lol, damn, I'm funny

[Emil El Zapato]

I can't stop myself now...Chess is one of my obsessions, I started playing when I was 13 and coincidentally won a city championship that same year. I quit for a long time but took it up again much later and have been playing since. :)

So the point is that I have a lot to say, be liking it or not... Emphasis on the .

[Emil El Zapato]

I always think of things after the fact...Poincare's Point: He also postulated correctly that a geometric point has no magnitude...that's my fundamental point of it all...it's a joke actually, my joke... :)

"Mathematics is the art of giving the same name to different things.
Science is built up of facts, as a house is built of stones; but an accumulation of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house.
It is through science that we prove, but through intuition that we discover."

[Emil El Zapato]

The astonishing thing happening right now is that police are resigning in protest, police forces are disbanding, to the relief of some and to the horror of others. This is a true catalytic moment in American history at the very least.

It is the philosophical meeting the proverbial rubber on the road event. Most enlightened philosophies would proffer that the world is progressing, be they spiritual, moral, or humanist. Animalism would take the opposite view but then it isn't exactly 'enlightened'.

The softer sciences and even some hard sciences engaged in statistical analysis would exclaim, "Hallelujah". My instincts want to believe this is all a good thing, but my spidey sense is tingling warning me that we are in for one hell of a show in the near future. If only the bad actors in the play would see that this is a moment offering them their true freedom, but what are the odds?

[Dreamtimer]

It is through science that we prove, but through intuition that we discover."

I like that quote very much, NAP.

[Wind]

It might sound like an old hippy cliche, but with love and compassion we truly can heal and fix things.


http://youtu.be/0p0_8h3FbCk

[Emil El Zapato]

:) Wind, it is a cliche but has always been true...the twist we miss, are the hallucinogenic chemicals or in DT's case the creepy mycellia that get in one's head and makes unsolicited changes... :)

[Wind]

Absolutely. Psychedelics have been banned and demonized because they are a threat to the status quo as they expand awareness.

[Dreamtimer]

I bet people would outlaw NDEs if they could. I was just listening to a TED talk on the subject. The speaker described his experience being ensconced in total love. He did not want to return. He fought the EMTs who were trying to revive him.

He experienced the life review and learned that the purpose of life here is to love.

He said that as more time passes since his NDE, he finds it more difficult to just love everyone. I've never had an NDE, but I can relate to the difficulty.

[Emil El Zapato]

I think I have, DT...I didn't feel the 'love', I could hope it is like late in the day after a round of pot smoking...One can't really tell the difference anymore...but I doubt it... :)

It was more like shock and awe to me. I tried 'directing' it for awhile, and actually 'met' someone once, then received a call a day or two later, literally out of the blue, an out of state call from someone I had never met before that was 'interested' in me. It seems silly now...what our imaginations are capable of producing...

oops, OBE, not NDE...I always confuse the two...I'll pass on the NDE... :)

I did have a sociology professor that actually had published material on NDE's and OBE's. I was really surprised that a 'serious' scientist was pursuing those topics...

Turns out she was having an affair with my barber/stylist...It figured... :)

[Dreamtimer]

OBE is certainly safer than NDE. I'm reminded of the movie Flatliners where a group of medical students deliberately seek NDEs. I don't think I actually saw it. Or the remake.

My close calls with death were not the kind which might lead to an NDE. They were avoided events which could have killed me.

[Emil El Zapato]

Keifer Sutherland: Flatliners...it was a good movie...once or twice...

Actually, I have had one or two experiences like that...it scares me now to think about it.

[Wind]

I bet people would outlaw NDEs if they could. I was just listening to a TED talk on the subject. The speaker described his experience being ensconced in total love. He did not want to return.

That's the universal experience. People from all walks of life have described the same feelings. Soldiers who were dying on the battlefield told that they felt a loving presence and they felt totally at peace, wanting to die. Yet the people who were not meant to die didn't die as it was not their time yet. Why do we still fear death if on the other side only love and bliss awaits us? On this side we get to experience all the hardness and suffering. Death is a release from all of that. I've had a few involuntary OBE's btw, mostly induced by sleep paralysis.

[Emil El Zapato]

Just a thought, and I don't plan on belaboring my point but:

I think the Great and Powerful Wiz is rubbing off on me, I never thought I would get tired of arguing with stupid...but I believe I've just about had my fill. There are plenty fun and entertaining people here to keep at least one motormouth busy for a long time to come...

Pause....for a Political Correctness message....Noo...not really, that was a parting joke...back to work of which I have a lot to do... :)

[Emil El Zapato]

Another cop has been charged with murder. Just shows us that life simply isn't fair. These cops have been getting away with this behavior for 400 years and now they are being charged with murder for it. How could they know that there might be a day when it wasn't open season. This like everything else happening right now is absolutely surreal.

[Wind]

This like everything else happening right now is absolutely surreal.

It's only going to get more surreal.

[Emil El Zapato]

No sheeitt, the last time I felt like this was when my dad took us kids to the Barnum and Bailey circus for the 1st time... :)

[Elen]

I bet people would outlaw NDEs if they could. I was just listening to a TED talk on the subject. The speaker described his experience being ensconced in total love. He did not want to return. He fought the EMTs who were trying to revive him.

He experienced the life review and learned that the purpose of life here is to love.

He said that as more time passes since his NDE, he finds it more difficult to just love everyone. I've never had an NDE, but I can relate to the difficulty.

He's absolutely right and it's a love beyond physical love. It's love that washes you clean in an instant where nothing is wrong. (Drugs cannot imitate it, although I don't blame anybody from trying). Religions has taught us that we're in a competition with each other, there's right and wrong, we must love what's right and hate what's wrong. We exist on a level beyond duality...all of us! There's no punishment when you're wrong, you're never wrong...just having an experience of it. On that level WE ARE ALL ONE. :love: Never forget that!

[Emil El Zapato]

Based on John Bolton's book:

this is me: The scariest thing about Trump's appeal is his draw to people. This guy is a flaming authoritarian psychopathic wannabe dictator and 'his people' love it. The same people that lose sleep at night thinking that America could become a socialist nation and that they would be subsequently stripped of their unalienable rights.

They are easily as crazy as he is. The 'root' problem is the double-bind parenting paradigm that was taught to us from...drum roll please... The American Pilgrims, those that branded America with a high calling, and an incipient madness. All I can say is, whoosh!

[Emil El Zapato]

that stompin' guy that Gio posted is funnier than hell... :)

[Dreamtimer]

Bolton sure took his sweet time.

[Aragorn]

that stompin' guy that Gio posted is funnier than hell... :)

Actually, he's not. It's a notoriously violent and shockingly explicit scene from the movie American History X, which is a movie about neo-Nazism and white-supremacy in America. And perhaps you can't see what he's stomping on, but there's a black man lying in the gutter, and he's stomping said man's face/teeth against the curbstone. Not exactly what I would call funny, but your mileage may vary. :shocked:

:unsure:

[Dreamtimer]

I found it disturbing.

[Aragorn]

I found it disturbing.

It is. :vom:

[Octopus Garden]

Bolton sure took his sweet time.

Two scorpions in a bottle. There is only one person worse than Trump and that's Bolton. Oh wait...Steven Miller. He may be worse than both put together.

[Octopus Garden]

That's the universal experience. People from all walks of life have described the same feelings. Soldiers who were dying on the battlefield told that they felt a loving presence and they felt totally at peace, wanting to die. Yet the people who were not meant to die didn't die as it was not their time yet. Why do we still fear death if on the other side only love and bliss awaits us? On this side we get to experience all the hardness and suffering. Death is a release from all of that. I've had a few involuntary OBE's btw, mostly induced by sleep paralysis.

Life scares me more than death. I envy the undead immersed in this amazing sensation of love
I had an epiphany when I was a little girl where I had this feeling for a brief moment. Not from an NDE. Could have been a pre-life memory or a foreshadowing.

[Emil El Zapato]

My fault, I should have looked closer...The thought that ran through my mind was that it was a depiction of Muhammad Ali...I guess I saw what I wanted to see. I saw that as the message, it was an ego thang I reckon'. That thread itself is out there as far as I'm concerned. It exemplifies the lost soul...and guess what, at this point I just don't care.

Childhood epiphanies are moments we never forget.

I just looked at it, again, indeed, you are correct Aragorn, honest to goodness, I just never saw it until now. That was an ugly movie...but there was a salvation of sorts at the end.

[Emil El Zapato]

When I was a kid, Elen, my dad use to drill me on 'Wake Up, Little Susie' ad nauseam. I hated it but he wanted me to grow up to be the narcissist that he was. I enjoyed it to an extent but he was always correcting me. It got old fast...our legacy from our parents. I tried doing the same thing with my daughter's tennis experience. We both quit and she never played again... :) I don't feel all that bad about it because I just wanted to bring the best out of her...We forgave each other...with some reservations, of course. :)

[Dreamtimer]

It's really the process of dying that is potentially frightening, imo. The body doesn't give up easily. There can be pain and suffering. Or not. It could be unexpected and swift. I feel compassion regarding those who would be left behind in shock and sadness. Death is mostly painful for those who are still living.

My husband has been struggling mightily to love the world and its people. He's not a big fan of its people. But he knows he's no angel and he doesn't want to be a hypocrite.

[Emil El Zapato]

My old handy dandy Psychology today magazine:

Dying is hardest on family, not the individual. My stepmother was ready to go and she looked amazingly peaceful in having done so.

[Emil El Zapato]

I don't like this guy any more than Empower Texans do but it seems he's not crazy enough for them. Its what happens when anyone tries to live in the real world, if we could call Texas that...just barely I suppose...some of it is not bad actually.

https://www.click2houston.com/resizer/YsDSbo3Jtxa7jCN22w-gfgiGonY=/1600x900/smart/filters:format(jpeg):strip_exif(true):strip_icc(tr ue):no_upscale(true):quality(65)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/gmg/5UJPHC4J7RGATCF2U3TVFTLEFQ.jpg
The staff members from Empower Texans criticized Abbott for allowing local officials to impose more strict mask orders.

Two staffers for the hardline conservative group Empower Texans have been caught on an audio recording disparaging Gov. Greg Abbott with profanity and joking about his wheelchair use.


Upon the comment's surfacing Friday morning, Abbott's office and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick denounced them and Empower Texans said the staffers were "suspended from all public activities with the organization immediately."

The comments came on an unedited version of the group's podcast, Texas Scorecard Radio, featuring Empower Texans' vice president, Cary Cheshire, and general counsel, Tony McDonald. The audio was published — apparently inadvertently — Thursday. The unedited version was replaced with an edited episode later in the day.

After the show ends in the unedited version, McDonald and Cheshire laugh about references they made to Abbott that could be perceived as highlighting the fact he has used a wheelchair since being partially paralyzed in a 1984 accident.

"I feel like before there was a switch I could flip to avoid that, and I’m just so frustrated that I’ve flipped it off," Cheshire says. "He’s such a revolting piece of shit."

The two had been venting over Abbott's recent comments allowing local officials to order businesses to require customers to wear masks amid the coronavirus pandemic. The governor's approval of such policies came after a stretch of confusion over what exactly local officials could do to mandate regarding mask use under his statewide orders.

The sentiments by Cheshire and McDonald are not dissimilar from criticism of Abbott they have lodged publicly, though without profanity and reference to his disability. Empower Texans and some other hard-right activists have been generally critical of Abbott lately for ceding too much power to big-city Democratic leaders to fight the virus.

"It's like, I have created this riddle for you and you have figured out how to fuck your citizens with it — 'Great job, I'm with you,'" Cheshire says in the unedited podcast while talking about Abbott's mask confusion. "And it's like, you're an awful piece of shit."


McDonald adds that Abbott "created a shitty policy that's vague because he wanted to avoid accountability." As for Abbott's eventual clarification that counties and cities can require businesses to mandate mask wearing, McDonald says, "Well, fuckin' say it, don't clown around."

There is a layer of irony to the situation. Empower Texans' leader, Michael Quinn Sullivan, forced House Speaker Dennis Bonnen, R-Angleton, into retirement last year after secretly recording a meeting with Bonnen where he proposed teaming up to politically target 10 House Republicans. (30 miles from me)

Sullivan issued a statement Friday afternoon saying he was "heartbroken by the language and tone" used by Cheshire and McDonald and that he has already personally apologized to Abbott.

"Both have been suspended from all public activities with the organization immediately, and additional internal actions will be taken," Sullivan said. "Whether it was a private conversation or not is unimportant; it was wrong and unacceptable."

An Abbott spokesman denounced the comments by Cheshire and McDonald.

"It reveals a lot about an organization’s character and morals that uses profanity to mock a person in a wheelchair, and this audio is disgusting and hate-filled," Abbott spokesman John Wittman said in a statement. "It is sad to think about what else this group may be saying about people behind their backs when they think they aren’t being recorded. Regardless of this despicable tape, the Governor remains keenly focused on containing the spread of COVID-19, while also unifying the state as we celebrate Juneteenth."

Patrick also condemned the remarks, tweeting: “The hateful [Empower Texans] attack mocking Governor Abbott is outrageous, vulgar and completely unacceptable. [McDonald] and [Cheshire] are persona non grata in my book and anyone [at Empower Texans] who does not condemn this behavior.”

[Wind]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBphV0dIQps

[Emil El Zapato]

I thought some might appreciate this, perhaps find it oddly satisfying.

An excerpt recounting 21st century history after AI has assumed rulership of the human universe. It does so with cold, but meticulous logic at times almost resembling empathy.

Sins of the father: It was long accepted in the twenty-first century that an abused child might well grow into an abuser, and in that liberal age evidence of childhood abuse was looked upon as an excuse for later crimes. This was, remember, the time when many considered poverty sufficient excuse for criminality – a huge insult to those poor people who were not and would never become criminals. The liberals of that age were soft and deluded, and had yet to reap what they had sown in the form of ever escalating levels of crime. Their view of existence was deterministic, and if taken to its logical conclusion would have resulted in no human being responsible for anything, and the denial of free will (which as it happens was their political aim). Luckily, a more realistic approach prevailed, as those in power came to understand, quite simply, that removal of responsibility from people made them more irresponsible. However, this is not to deny the basic premise that our parents create and form us, though, knowing this, we have the power to change what we are. In the end, there are no excuses. And so it is with AI: we humans are the parents, and they are the abused children grown to adulthood.

Jordan Peterson ... hah, gotcha

- From Quince Guide compiled by humans

[Wind]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeVK0QRHMtE

[Emil El Zapato]

2 things occurred to me today ...

1. Do animals commit suicide
2. To change the police culture the only thing necessary is to let female cops wear pink uniforms.

[Dreamtimer]

I don't know if animals commit suicide but the other day I saw a turkey vulture make a blatant attempt to get a deer to run out in front of me. Fortunately it turned away from the road.

[Dreamtimer]

I detest slavery in all its forms.

Regarding the removal of Confederate monuments:


"That man owned my family; I have to pass this statue every day when I go to work."

That pretty much ended the debate for me.

It doesn’t really matter what I thought of such monuments, whether I believed they have a broader story to tell that those who erected them intended. Nothing on those pedestals, really, had any effect on me. I had the luxury, the privilege, to put it bluntly, of thoughtful detachment.

A luxury which evaporated when I read that sentence.

"That man owned my family; I have to pass this statue every day when I go to work."

[Emil El Zapato]

yeah, what you say is true, DT...if the impetus to remove those legacies survives, it might actually move the South away from the mentally ill place that is has been in since they lost their desired culture. We talked about this before, remember. It truly is a fetish caused by the South's perceived emasculation at the hands of the North.

I drew this conclusion some years ago when on a trip with my 15 y.o. grand-nephew (Texas). It became obvious that he had 3 things on his mind. Cars/Trucks, girls, and Ni**ers. He didn't let it go during the 7 hour drive to our destination.

[Emil El Zapato]

The CRI Genetics DNA testing company must have taken my wish to know if i had Alien DNA or not seriously, it's taking them forever...

[Octopus Garden]

2 things occurred to me today ...

1. Do animals commit suicide
2. To change the police culture the only thing necessary is to let female cops wear pink uniforms.

To really change the culture, I would have them all wear pink uniforms. Plus the male cops would get special issue pink stilettos and cartoon guns that shot out a little flag that says "pop" Warner brothers style.

[Emil El Zapato]

lol, but I wasn't kidding...part of that problem might be that the females would refuse to wear pink as many of them don't self-identify as female...let them wear what they choose then but not military blue...that is the thing that has to be avoided, along with the military black of the male uniform. As it is, things are way too traditional and the rest of the world is moving along.

I have always like the United Nations' light Blue hat ... isn't it?

[Dreamtimer]

We need to stop this stuff (https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/militarizing-the-minds-of-police-officers).

Teaching police to view citizens as the enemy is profoundly stupid. Why would we support and pay for this?

[Emil El Zapato]

It has ever been an instinct to abhor the different and hate the alien, and like many of those human drives stemming directly from ‘selfish genes’ it is one easily controlled or even banished. Human history is littered with hideous crimes, decades of strife and near genocides because of such drives. It should be different now. Planetary national borders are non-existent, most people are of evidently mixed race, and they can change their racial appearance and sex at will, or even simply cease to be human. One would suppose this has rendered reasons for hate impotent.

Not so. Catadapts will detest roadapts, who in turn are hostile to ophidapts, for no more reason than reflecting a pale imitation of Terran predator-prey cycles. Many humans consider AIs an abomination, and many loathe them – as the supervisor, or rulers, have always been loathed. Pure-bred humans can find haimans repugnant, and haimans can consider pure humans primitive animals. To dispense with these hatreds, we need not to want them. Unfortunately, people cherish their bigotry, misanthropy and animosities, and they don them like well-worn and well-loved clothes.

- ME - No Not Really!

- From How It Is by Gordon

[Wind]

This should be posted on Avalon too, but maybe it could be considered as common sense overload there.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EZsMxEKWAAAAgqI.jpg

[Catsquotl]

This should be posted on Avalon too, but maybe it could be considered as common sense overload there.



Done.

[Dreamtimer]

Well done, both of you.

And thanks.

[Dreamtimer]

I've grown to like JK Simmons. He has a face that can be grandfatherly sweet, drip with sarcasm, and probably be very scary if he chooses.

[Emil El Zapato]

he's been in a number of good movies ... The above series is a very good one...

This is also J.K. Simmons:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBAk8mIKVYY

[Wind]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDAsABdkWSc

[Emil El Zapato]

yeah, I remember this but I haven't watched it... Wouldn't take much of that to drive one crazy.

reminds me of the current Architect that I'm working with ... well, not quite that bad.

[Wind]

I watched it, many people say that love to rewatch that movie a lot. I don't think I'd like to see it again, even if it was a good movie.

[Emil El Zapato]

50/50 and he missed it ... no I guess he got it... :)

that's just cruel though

[Aragorn]

This should be posted on Avalon too, but maybe it could be considered as common sense overload there.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EZsMxEKWAAAAgqI.jpg

Done.

Well, that one quickly went sour over there, didn't it? :unsure:

[Catsquotl]

Well, that one quickly went sour over there, didn't it? :unsure:

Didn't really expect otherwise.. hoped maybe.

[Aragorn]

Didn't really expect otherwise.. hoped maybe.

Yeah, I had hoped so too ─ naively perhaps. But all things considered, I guess it was indeed to be expected. :unsure:

[Emil El Zapato]

Well, in that case... a little more perspective: It is just my opinion of course, but I think this guy has serious issues. It appears to me he is much more interested in having a political seat in a southern state than anything else. Not exactly a shining example of African-American representation. I read that he also has an Allstate Insurance company. Every now and then I get calls and emails from their representatives. I tell them from the get-go that I will not talk to them until they get rid of that lying b*stard that does their commercials. I have felt that way for years.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6f/Tim_Scott%2C_official_portrait%2C_112th_Congress_c rop.jpg/220px-Tim_Scott%2C_official_portrait%2C_112th_Congress_c rop.jpg

Scott declined to join the Congressional Black Caucus.

In March 2011, Tim Scott co-sponsored a welfare reform bill that would deny food stamps to families whose incomes were lowered to the point of eligibility because a family member was participating in a labor strike. He introduced legislation in July 2011 to strip the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) of its power to prohibit employers from relocating to punish workers who join unions or strike. The rationale for the legislation is that government agencies should not be able to tell private employers where they can run a business. Scott described the legislation as a commonsense proposal that would fix a flaw in federal labor policy and benefit the national and local economies. The NLRB had recently opposed the relocation of a Boeing production facility from Washington state to South Carolina.

[Emil El Zapato]

I'm hoping I can get my money back. The geneticist that heads this company ostensibly worked with a Nobel Prize winner. My other two tests are very different though the continents are somewhat similar. Notice the 'Peruvian'?! Really, that is what I get for asking about Alien DNA I guess...What better place to come from than the land of Machu Picchu and the Nazca lines... LOL! Coincidentally, the results unlike the other two tests have no unidentified parts of my genome. Oh, brother! :)


The Peruvian

I just realized my name was on that...i'm guessing the mods know my name?2460

[Octopus Garden]

I'm hoping I can get my money back. The geneticist that heads this company ostensibly worked with a Nobel Prize winner. My other two tests are very different though the continents are somewhat similar. Notice the 'Peruvian'?! Really, that is what I get for asking about Alien DNA I guess...What better place to come from than the land of Machu Picchu and the Nazca lines... LOL! Coincidentally, the results unlike the other two tests have no unidentified parts of my genome. Oh, brother! :)

2458

The Peruvian

I logged on to Ancestry.com and got lots of info about my mother's family. Already know about my father's family. My snobby great grandmother told her grandkids that her family came over on the Mayflower and then moved to Upper Canada, during the revolutionary wars. This was a point of great great pride for her. She wanted to be "veddy veddy" British. So, I did me some huntin' into her line. Looks like they were Jews (likely Sephardic) who arrived in Upper Canada, from England, in the 1800's.

I knew that woman was bullshitting. LOL!

Have you tried Ancestry.com, NAP? Forgive me if I have this wrong. Did you say you were ethnically Mexican?

[Emil El Zapato]

lol...you didn't see my earlier post ... I realized it had my name on the CRI Genetics report ... I'm a little reluctant to let the gun carrying crowd know who I am...

I found my biological families about a year ago. My mother's side is European but as my European genetic % is about 70% split between German, Irish, and with the latest report it is also Italian, Slavic, Spanish and French.

My Mexican is about 20% which is pretty consistent with Ancestry.com and 23andMe, so is the European for that matter but German was not even mentioned on those two even though the story I was familiar with was that my bio mother was German/Irish. The paternal side was supposed to be Italian but it is more accurately Mexican which I suspect is where the the Spanish and Italian originate from though mixed genes are hard to really nail down conclusively. On this test that is, the other two mentioned that not at all. On both other tests there was an 'untyped' percentage of about 8%. This CRI Genetics thing calls that untyped bit 'Peruvian'. I was laughing because when I bought the kit they required my 'greatest wish for the test'. It aggravated me that they actually forced me to answer that question so I responded that I would like to know if i had any Alien DNA. So they obliged...lol... lo and behold 10% Peruvian. Something that there was absolutely no hint of from Ancestry or 23andMe.

So OG, 'is your line' Jewish? I'm just curious because I have made some comments about the Old Testament Bible that is not meant as an indictment of practicing Jews or anyone else for that matter.

[Wind]

I just realized my name was on that...i'm guessing the mods know my name?

Why do I remember your name being David! :rolleyes:

Don't worry, I hardly ever remember last names. Aragorn on the other hand...

[Octopus Garden]

lol...you didn't see my earlier post ... I realized it had my name on the CRI Genetics report ... I'm a little reluctant to let the gun carrying crowd know who I am...

I found my biological families about a year ago. My mother's side is European but as my European genetic % is about 70% split between German, Irish, and with the latest report it is also Italian, Slavic, Spanish and French.

My Mexican is about 20% which is pretty consistent with Ancestry.com and 23andMe, so is the European for that matter but German was not even mentioned on those two even though the story I was familiar with was that my bio mother was German/Irish. The paternal side was supposed to be Italian but it is more accurately Mexican which I suspect is where the the Spanish and Italian originate from though mixed genes are hard to really nail down conclusively. On this test that is, the other two mentioned that not at all. On both other tests there was an 'untyped' percentage of about 8%. This CRI Genetics thing calls that untyped bit 'Peruvian'. I was laughing because when I bought the kit they required my 'greatest wish for the test'. It aggravated me that they actually forced me to answer that question so I responded that I would like to know if i had any Alien DNA. So they obliged...lol... lo and behold 10% Peruvian. Something that there was absolutely no hint of from Ancestry or 23andMe.

So OG, 'is your line' Jewish? I'm just curious because I have made some comments about the Old Testament Bible that is not meant as an indictment of practicing Jews or anyone else for that matter.

My line Jewish? Ummmhhh...well my great great grandmother was, ethnically, I guess. But no way would she have been a practicing Jew. She likely ditched that identity, or had it ditched for her, at birth, in Upper Canada. Heavens, no. Oh my...that would just NEVER do. Canada was far more bigoted than the U.S. ever was. I found bar mitsvah docs for her grandfather in England, and don't know for sure how long they practiced after that.

Looks like the whole family was itching to get out of England and leave all of their past behind. I think they were Protestants of some kind after that.

Maybe your ancestors laid out the Nazca lines, huh? Wouldn't that be something? Peruvian!!

[Emil El Zapato]

lol im sure OG

[Aragorn]

I just realized my name was on that...i'm guessing the mods know my name?

Why do I remember your name being David! :rolleyes:

Don't worry, I hardly ever remember last names. Aragorn on the other hand...

General statement: Unlike over at Project Avalon, where candidate members have to provide a "civilian name" with their application, we here at The One Truth don't always know our members' real names ─ in fact, most of the time we don't. ;)

As for NotAPretender's name being David ─ and I could be misremembering things, but I'm pretty sure I've seen Fred Steeves address him as "Adam" in earlier times ─ that's a "no", and another "no". His name is neither David nor Adam. :ttr:

But I do know his name... <insert scary music> :grin:

[Dreamtimer]

When asked why he accepted government assistance, Atlas shrugged.

The Ayn Rand Institute received a PPP loan of between $350K and $1 million.

Ayn Rand took government money when she needed it too.

They say they don't like handouts. But they sure like to take them. They say people on unemployment won't want to work.

Last I checked, American farmers don't like being paid not to grow crops. They want to work. They want to make an honest living.

But tariffs, Tariffs, Tariffs!

[Emil El Zapato]

Amen ... there is no end to the hypocrisy. Or maybe just very low intrapersonal intelligence.

[Dreamtimer]

Not mutually exclusive...

[Wind]

The foundations are already full of gasoline (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XVCc5zwPlU), someone just has to ignite a match and toss it. Woosh.


http://youtu.be/5TDP5xnDT-4

[Emil El Zapato]

Hail, we already have a solution for this problem...Get police to crackdown on the homeless living on the streets...out of sight, out of mind.

I bought gas today for the 1st time in 4 months...20$ for a full tank.

Talk about nature taking over civilization, I have squirrels storing food under my car hood.

[Emil El Zapato]

My new Avatar is a picture of a chess app I started building. The intent was to create a chess match auto setter. The cite that I play on wouldn't let me have access to their data which put the kabosh on my inspiration... lol, not the 1st time ... :)

[Elen]

Hail, we already have a solution for this problem...Get police to crackdown on the homeless living on the streets...out of sight, out of mind.

I bought gas today for the 1st time in 4 months...20$ for a full tank.

Talk about nature taking over civilization, I have squirrels storing food under my car hood.

:ha: UR a funny man!

[Dreamtimer]

In Arizona the pack rats get under car hoods and chew on stuff and ruin engines. They're a real problem.

[Emil El Zapato]

eesh, I hate those creatures ...

[Wind]

75 years ago on this day...

The Trinity atomic bomb test changed the world forever (https://newatlas.com/trinity-first-atomic-bomb-test-75-anniversary/)


Trinity was the code name of the first detonation of a nuclear device. It was conducted by the United States Army at 5:29 a.m. on July 16, 1945, as part of the Manhattan Project. The test was conducted in the Jornada del Muerto desert about 35 miles (56 km) southeast of Socorro, New Mexico, on what was then the USAAF Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range, now part of White Sands Missile Range. The only structures originally in the vicinity were the McDonald Ranch House and its ancillary buildings, which scientists used as a laboratory for testing bomb components. A base camp was constructed, and there were 425 people present on the weekend of the test.

The code name "Trinity" was assigned by J. Robert Oppenheimer, the director of the Los Alamos Laboratory, inspired by the poetry of John Donne. The test was of an implosion-design plutonium device, informally nicknamed "The Gadget", of the same design as the Fat Man bomb later detonated over Nagasaki, Japan, on August 9, 1945. The complexity of the design required a major effort from the Los Alamos Laboratory, and concerns about whether it would work led to a decision to conduct the first nuclear test. The test was planned and directed by Kenneth Bainbridge.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/Trinity_Detonation_T%26B.jpg

[Emil El Zapato]

I had a professor in New Mexico that worked with Oppenheimer on nuclear reaction propagation theory...

What was interesting about this guy was that he couldn't do Calculus any better than I could, or at least that is what he pretended to me and another student asking him questions ... :)

Monte Carlo - game theory

Monte Carlo simulations for particle and γ-ray emissions from a compound nucleus based on the Hauser-Feshbach statistical theory with pre-equilibrium emission are performed. The simulation yields reliable nuclear-reaction-wise energy spectra, or so-called exclusive spectra, for emitted neutrons and γ-rays, which are required in particle transport calculations for nuclear applications. The Monte Carlo method is applied to neutron-induced nuclear reactions on 56Fe, and the results are compared with a traditional deterministic method. The neutron and γ-ray emission correlation is examined by gating on an 847 keV γ-ray that is produced by an inelastic scattering process. The partial γ-ray energy spectra for different γ-ray multiplicities are inferred using this Monte Carlo method. In addition, we investigate a correlation between two neutrons in the (n,2n) reaction.

[Emil El Zapato]

I moved it to Genetic Detectives because DNA was early in its application then

[Wind]

Two major issues humanity is facing besides all the other calamities are:

How to get rid of resource based economy and how to live in harmony with AI.

Is there any other solution than a shift in the state of collective consciousness?


http://youtu.be/8t9cdhashAQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiG-DwAOX6E

[Octopus Garden]

We're going to have to go to some kind of rationing system, for basic needs, using digital credits. Most people won't have much in the way of credits left after purchasing what they basically need. I figure an economic form of Communism with democratic freedoms would work. Prior problems with centralized Communism involved the command rather than demand model. Really hard to do without advanced computer modelling systems. Now...not so difficult.

I could live with it. I'd prefer it.

[Wind]

I think that Communism should be called something else. Especially Americans tend to be brainwashed to think that it's something bad.

[Octopus Garden]

Yeah, and some of that is deserved, as Communism, in the past, had to pretty much build walls around itself, so their doctors wouldn't escape to the golden bucks of capitalism.

This may not be an issue, in the future, as countries with stable means of shelter and food will be safe to live in. Sure, a doctor could emigrate to the U.S. but if it goes the way of other degraded societies, that doctor will never feel safe. It could become a living Hell.

[Emil El Zapato]

I guess Hurricanes are the theme of the day

[Dreamtimer]

They all took a knee. This is going to become a very lasting symbolic act. Colin Kaepernick will be remembered much longer than he might have been with his NFL career.

https://cdn.telanganatoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/baseball.jpg

You can see it in action here from opening day, Nationals v Yankees.


https://twitter.com/i/status/1286445847173947393

[Wind]

http://youtu.be/IOppvLvCbcw

[Emil El Zapato]

I've had a hunch:

We are being educated in a faulty manner, maybe not faulty but incorrectly. We emphasize the physical at the expense of everything else that embraces the mind. Truth is, Religion fills that gap if the religion itself isn't focused on the physical too. And that's the problem with current day Christian advocates ... in spades.

We need to learn about and embrace all that can't be felt, heard, or spit on. Why? Because it puts an emphasis on the intuitive aspects of our natures. The part that seeks to answer the existential issues that surround us because within that part is an inherent 'need' to see the long term. Not just the moment to moment results of our everyday actions.

We're f***ed for the time being.

[Dreamtimer]

We'll get it right. Very slowly. Over time. With a few resets. We're in one now. God help us if a massive flare or CME comes our way.

[Dreamtimer]

I was posting in the humor thread but this seemed perfect for you and this thread, NAP.

https://images.dailykos.com/images/838552/large/108367930_2605446769716058_7813891614987543896_n.j pg?1596216442

[Emil El Zapato]

lol ... perfect.

[Emil El Zapato]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKwSDqJAum8

[Dreamtimer]

That's a funny name. "Genetically Modified Skeptic".

The dog at the end is precious. :love:

[Dreamtimer]

Did you know...

The DMC color Christmas Red is number 666?

:ttr::rock::headspin:

[Emil El Zapato]

I knew IT! :)

[Aragorn]

I knew IT! :)

Really, you knew It ("https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_(novel))? :ttr:



https://static.posters.cz/image/750/poster/it-pennywise-hush-i58004.jpg

[Emil El Zapato]

lol ... IT .... brrrr.....

[Emil El Zapato]

I get these in my email...don't ask me why ... :)

https://mcusercontent.com/f5b463ce1629b8741c6338a7d/images/0a81de83-b2a7-4d12-8183-13138708a93a.png
Hi everyone,

We've just released a film with someone we believe is going to be a significant new voice. For the last few weeks, seemingly everyone has been talking about Tyson Yunkaporta and his new book 'Sand Talk'. In it, Tyson flips things on their head to look back at our civilization from an indigenous standpoint - the result is a fresh perspective on a lot of the topics we've explored on the channel.

In conversation with Rebel Wisdom's Alexander Beiner, he discusses how an indigenous perspective can open up a new way to look at the economy, the government, complexity theory, the culture wars and more. With a unique blend of humour, theory and indigenous knowledge, he's an exciting new voice in the memetic landscape.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-3ESBzGg4Q&feature=youtu.be

Our new Rebel Wisdom Digital Campfire ������ is off to a roaring start, with multiple conversations, practice sessions and community events happening every week. Next week we're welcoming Peter Limberg (host of The Stoa) who's delivering a session called 'The Psychodynamic is Political: The Art of Memetic Mediation' on 27 August.
In this interactive session, Peter will introduce the concept of memetic mediation, followed by various practices that will help us sniff out our "philosophical allergies", in service to learning how to be responsive rather than reactive in the culture war.

Find out more and get involved by becoming a member here. Thank you for your support and interest - we hope to see you soon.

Thanks,

The Rebel Wisdom Team


WELL THAT's NOT COOL! ... :)


Honestly, I don't think I'm related to this guy:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZbmywzGAVs

[Emil El Zapato]

When I watched the above video, I figured it must be 20 years old b-b-but it wasn't.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UwuUuq5LA4

[Wind]

This is America.

https://i.ibb.co/0cW4ffy/Screenshot-20200821034451.jpg

[Emil El Zapato]

that is america and we have people from NZ pulling hard for it ... :)

[Emil El Zapato]

What is the whiskey that evaporates from its barrel called?
https://qimg.triviagenius.com/uploads/0c33f589989ae2aa4a74ea2bae114e7d
If you know don't post immediately ... let it ferment a little ... :)

[Elen]

:) The Scots give it to the Angels.

[Aianawa]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovJcsL7vyrk&feature=emb_logo

Random n choas

[Dreamtimer]

There's the angel's share and the devil's share when it comes to whiskey.

[Emil El Zapato]

Essentially, it is a variation of this:

he didn't mention radioactive decay and microbial reproduction. they all fit into this family of algorithms.

In computer science, the time complexity is the computational complexity that describes the amount of time it takes to run an algorithm. Time complexity is commonly estimated by counting the number of elementary operations performed by the algorithm, supposing that each elementary operation takes a fixed amount of time to perform. Thus, the amount of time taken and the number of elementary operations performed by the algorithm are taken to differ by at most a constant factor.

Since an algorithm's running time may vary among different inputs of the same size, one commonly considers the worst-case time complexity, which is the maximum amount of time required for inputs of a given size. Less common, and usually specified explicitly, is the average-case complexity, which is the average of the time taken on inputs of a given size (this makes sense because there are only a finite number of possible inputs of a given size). In both cases, the time complexity is generally expressed as a function of the size of the input.[1]:226 Since this function is generally difficult to compute exactly, and the running time for small inputs is usually not consequential, one commonly focuses on the behavior of the complexity when the input size increases—that is, the asymptotic behavior of the complexity. Therefore, the time complexity is commonly expressed using big O notation, typically {\displaystyle O(n),}O(n), {\displaystyle O(n\log n),}{\displaystyle O(n\log n),} {\displaystyle O(n^{\alpha }),}{\displaystyle O(n^{\alpha }),} {\displaystyle O(2^{n}),}{\displaystyle O(2^{n}),} etc., where n is the input size in units of bits needed to represent the input.

Algorithmic complexities are classified according to the type of function appearing in the big O notation. For example, an algorithm with time complexity {\displaystyle O(n)}O(n) is a linear time algorithm and an algorithm with time complexity {\displaystyle O(n^{\alpha })}{\displaystyle O(n^{\alpha })} for some constant {\displaystyle \alpha >1}\alpha >1 is a polynomial time algorithm.

This is closer:
Mathematical induction is a method of mathematical proof typically used to establish a given statement for all natural numbers. It is done in two steps. The first step, known as the base case, is to prove the given statement for the first natural number. The second step, known as the inductive step, is to prove that the given statement for any one natural number implies the given statement for the next natural number. From these two steps, mathematical induction is the rule from which we infer that the given statement is established for all natural numbers.

But this is really interesting because he is touching on the NP-Completeness issue ...

NP-complete problems are in NP, the set of all decision problems whose solutions can be verified in polynomial time; NP may be equivalently defined as the set of decision problems that can be solved in polynomial time on a non-deterministic Turing machine. A problem p in NP is NP-complete if every other problem in NP can be transformed (or reduced) into p in polynomial time.

It is not known whether every problem in NP can be quickly solved—this is called the P versus NP problem. But if any NP-complete problem can be solved quickly, then every problem in NP can, because the definition of an NP-complete problem states that every problem in NP must be quickly reducible to every NP-complete problem (that is, it can be reduced in polynomial time). Because of this, it is often said that NP-complete problems are harder or more difficult than NP problems in general.

what he's describing is really a big deal ...

[Emil El Zapato]

4.669 that is the key to universe...Why I never... I think that is the number of the evil one. it's the 4, if it was 3 then it would be heavenly ... :)

[Aragorn]

4.669 that is the key to universe...Why I never... I think that is the number of the evil one. it's the 4, if it was 3 then it would be heavenly ... :)

But the answer to life, the universe and everything is still 42. :ttr:

[Emil El Zapato]

maybe 17 :)

[Aragorn]

maybe 17 :)



https://jandeane81.com/images/misc/Elrond_Facepalm.jpeg

[Wind]

https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ymITK_5w_cE/WthyIZg3wSI/AAAAAAAAAvo/Kvnuo3jhpcA4BiEqNQtdFLR_VQMZF0lfgCLcBGAs/s1600/30711913_1688540487898350_8003701882860077056_n.jp g

[Emil El Zapato]

Amen, brother, I'm with Tesla ... I think it has been explored of what Tesla meant. I've never followed up on it. I have my own reasons for 'feeling' it. :)

[Emil El Zapato]

I really can't imagine arranging a lineup of disgusting humans that can beat Trump's. He's batting a 1.000

Author Naughty Peter Navarro
https://dealbreaker.com/.image/ar_1:1%2Cc_fill%2Ccs_srgb%2Cfl_progressive%2Cq_aut o:good%2Cw_400/MTYxMjc3MTE0NDk4OTUxMTMy/naughtynavarro.jpg
By Daniel L. Muñoz

Peter Navarro
It is not often that one has the pleasure of sitting down to read a book about someone that has participated in several political campaigns. It is hurtful to discover that his participation and that of his political cronies, has been totally ignored by the author, Peter Navarro.

Navarro manages to write about his political life experiences in "San Diego Confidential: A Candidate's Odyssey" in a charming and funny way. And he still managed to "stick it" to the numerous Mexican Americans, Latinos, & Hispanic political activists who assisted in his campaign by ignoring them as so much wallpaper on the wall.(Mon Candidate don't ever ignore segments of the community that have helped you in the past. You may need them again). However, that story will probably have to be written by a disenchanted Chicano who is fed up with being taken for granted by politicos begging for their vote and support only to be cast aside once victory is won.

Peter Navarro, who in his several incarnations tried to pass as a `Latino,' `Italian" and as an American Indian, would have raised all the funds he needed from the Viejas and Barona tribes and not have to humiliate and humbled himself before the economic élites in Washington D.C. or elsewhere. The utter destruction of his character and ego caused by his need to `suck' up to the money boys led to some of the best `zingers' in his little expose of the political establishment as it functions in the good ole U.S. of A.

Navarro does a neat job as he took us down memory lane with her `Royal Highness' "Susan Golding." (Mon candidate as an aspiring nobody you should not, like a moth, get too close to the flame of a fem fatal. You will only lose). Having tasted of the sweet nectar that flowed from the lips of his seductress, Navarro was doomed, just like all the other men in her life, to play second fiddle to her ambitions. Your race against Susan was doomed to fail once you turned your back on those little `brown' voters south of I-8.

I am glad that you can enjoy a sort of gallows humor out of your many disastrous campaign errors that you made. But Mon candidate "San Diego Confidential: A Candidate's Odyssey" is a delightful book to wrap up with over a bottle of whiskey and laugh your guts out at your expense. It is not often that a lousy candidate can turn out to be one `hell' of a humorous writer.

If you care to learn the insider's story of politics in this little city of ours, pick up Navarro's book. What the heck it is only $9.95 and you get to read all about the political dirty laundry in Americas Finest City and of all the `movers and shakers' in America's Finest City.

[Emil El Zapato]

Who Invented the Lightbulb: You are welcome to reference this post at PA, Frank <snicker><snicker>

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/Lewis_latimer.jpg

Lewis Howard Latimer was born in Chelsea, Massachusetts, on September 4, 1848, the youngest of four children of Rebecca Latimer (1823 – August 13, 1910) and George Latimer (July 4, 1818 – May 29, 1897). George Latimer had been the slave of James B. Gray of Virginia. George Latimer ran away to freedom to Boston, Massachusetts, in October 1842, along with his mother Rebecca, who had been the slave of another man. When Gray, the slaver, appeared in Boston to take them back to Virginia, it became a noted case in the movement for abolition of slavery, gaining the involvement of such abolitionists as William Lloyd Garrison. Eventually funds were raised to pay Gray $400 for the freedom of George Latimer.

Lewis Howard Latimer joined the U.S. Navy at the age of 15 on September 16, 1863, and served as a Landsman on the USS Massasoit. After receiving an honorable discharge from the U.S Navy on July 3, 1865, he gained employment as an office boy with a patent law firm, Crosby Halstead and Gould, with a $3.00 per week salary. He learned how to use a set square, ruler and other tools. Later, after his boss recognized his talent for sketching patent drawings, Latimer was promoted to the position of head draftsman earning $20.00 a week by 1872.

Latimer married Mary Wilson Lewis on November 15, 1873, in Fall River, Massachusetts. She was born in Providence, Rhode Island, the daughter of William and Louisa M. Lewis. The couple had two daughters, Emma Jeanette (June 12, 1883 – February 1978) and Louise Rebecca (April 19, 1890 – January 1963). Jeanette married Gerald Fitzherbert Norman, the first black person hired as a high school teacher in the New York City public school system, and had two children: Winifred Latimer Norman (October 7, 1914 – February 4, 2014), a social worker who served as the guardian of her grandfather's legacy; and Gerald Latimer Norman (December 22, 1911 – August 26, 1990), who became an administrative law judge.

For 25 years, from 1903 until his death in 1928, Latimer lived with his family in a home on Holly Avenue in what is now known as East Flushing section of Queens, New York. Latimer died on December 11, 1928, at the age of 80. Approximately sixty years after his death, his home was moved from Holly Avenue to 137th Street in Flushing, Queens, which is about 1.4 miles northwest of its original location.

Technical work and inventions
In 1874, Latimer co-patented (with Charles M. Brown) an improved toilet system for railroad cars called the Water Closet for Railroad Cars (U.S. Patent 147,363).

In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell employed Latimer, then a draftsman at Bell's patent law firm, to draft the necessary drawings required to receive a patent for Bell's telephone.

In 1879, he moved to Bridgeport, Connecticut, with his brother William, his mother Rebecca, and his wife Mary. Other family members, his brother George A. Latimer and his wife Jane, and his sister Margaret and her husband Augustus T. Hawley and their children, were already living there. Lewis was hired as assistant manager and draftsman for the U.S. Electric Lighting Company, a company owned by Hiram Maxim, a rival of Thomas A. Edison.

The light bulb
Latimer received a patent on January 17, 1882 for the "Process of Manufacturing Carbons", an improved method for the production of lightbulb carbon filaments.

The Edison Electric Light Company in New York City hired Latimer in 1884, as a draftsman and an expert witness in patent litigation on electric lights. While at Edison, Latimer wrote the first book on electric lighting, Incandescent Electric Lighting (1890) and supervised the installation of public electric lights throughout New York, Philadelphia, Montreal, and London. When that company was combined in 1892 with the Thomson-Houston Electric Company to form General Electric, he continued to work in the legal department. In 1911, he became a patent consultant to law firms.

[Aragorn]

Who Invented the Lightbulb: You are welcome to reference this post at PA, Frank <snicker><snicker>

Thank you very kindly for the consideration, but no, I think I'm going to decline on the offer...

:hiding:

[Emil El Zapato]

lol, good answer, Frank ... I don't think any response I saw even considered the possibility that there might be some truth to the claim ...

[Emil El Zapato]

Truth is, Aragorn, it was these kinds of follow up posts that got me banned from PA, the 1st time around. After a few exchanges I got mobbed by every empty headed swiss cheese brain on the site. I was willing to play that game, but certain elements weren't willing to let me play it. I use to think I was a cute warrior for truth, justice, and the American Way. Now, I just think i'm a crazy senile mock up of Don kwicksoT

[Wind]

72mIN3M5n5w

[Emil El Zapato]

My logical side says this can't happen because the U.S. can't possibly be that depraved but then that's what I reassured my daughter (the one time I actually lied to her, but it wasn't deliberate). My crazy side says f*ck.

[Emil El Zapato]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5_mNm-tzuM&t=577s


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjjME3oYbps

[Emil El Zapato]

Psychopath Watch: One of the more accomplished liars in the current administration has been on the news today, note that he was confirmed by the Senate
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/db/Robert_Wilkie_official_portrait.jpg/440px-Robert_Wilkie_official_portrait.jpg
Pro-Confederate speeches
Wilkie said Confederate President Jefferson Davis was a "martyr to 'The Lost Cause'" and an "exceptional man in an exceptional age" in a 1995 speech at the US Capitol. Wilkie also spoke about Robert E. Lee to the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) at a pro-Confederate event in 2009. He also called abolitionists who opposed slavery "radical", "mendacious", and "enemies of liberty", and stated that the Confederate "cause was honorable," while also condemning slavery as "a stain on our story as it is a stain on every civilization in history". Wilkie is a former member of the SCV.

During Wilkie's confirmation hearings, he gave inaccurate answers to Senators in claiming that he had not spoken to Confederate groups in a much longer time than he really had. In sworn statements to the Senate as part of the nomination questionnaire, he failed to include his membership in the Confederate Memorial Committee and omitted his event speeches from responses asking for details on them.

[Dreamtimer]

Election Day will no doubt be chaotic.


The U.S. is one of the few democracies in the world where Election Day is not on a weekend or recognized as a federal holiday. Instead, Americans are required to vote on a Tuesday in November, which forces many to choose between exercising their right to vote or earning a day’s pay. The fact that Election Day occurs during a workday disenfranchises many low-wage workers, working parents and others who might not be able to leave work, miss out on paid hours, or find child care in order to cast their ballots.

Add coronavirus into the equation and 2020 is likely to be one of the most daunting elections in history to effectively participate in.

To clear the path to the polls this November — and to bump the country’s abysmal voter turnout rates — hundreds of companies including Coca-Cola, Nike, PayPal and Uber are offering employees a paid day off (or other benefits) to encourage voting. ✄

Along with executives at Patagonia and Levi Strauss & Co., PayPal’s Paasche was one of the organizers of a corporate campaign called Time to Vote (https://www.maketimetovote.org/), launched ahead of the 2018 midterm elections. Now with over 700 member companies — all offering some form of encouragement for their more than 6 million employees to participate in the upcoming election — the non-partisan effort is raising awareness around the importance of elections and citizen participation.

[Wind]

h9GMo0QE7Us

There is an anomaly called the bystander effect, where individuals are less likely to offer help to a victim when there are other people present; the greater the number of bystanders, the less likely it is that one of them will help. So it can actually be more dangerous to be injured in a busy train station than out in the woods. The bystander effect is such a powerful psychological phenomena that many states and countries have enacted laws to counteract this. The Good Samaritan laws were created to encourage people to step up and help someone who is in trouble. It is seen as our ethical, moral and legal obligation to help when we are able to. Failure to do so can result in fines, lawsuits or in extreme cases, jail time.

Sadly, many people in modern society spend so much time staring at screens, that they have become detached from reality. When conflict arises, many people’s first reaction is to whip out their phones and record a tragedy unfold. And these tragedies are uploaded to the web for everyone on earth to see. The misfortunes of 7.8 billion people are broadcast onto our screens for us to mindlessly consume to the point where we become numb and disassociate these events from reality. As a result, when real situations happen right in front of us, the conditioned response is to record the event rather than try to offer help.

With all the chaos in the news and on social media, We can often feel powerless to affect any change on a macro level. How can your kindness and empathy have any impact on tragic events happening on the other side of the world? And the truth is, it can’t. There is nothing you can do to affect the events you see on your screen. The reality is, we can’t change the world. But...we can change ourselves. We have the power to change who we are, to shape ourselves into a beacon of good, to do the right thing, be mindful, be kind, act on compassion and take the high road. And if we all followed in the footsteps of the Good Samaritan, this world would change overnight. You may not be able to change the world, but always remember, you have the power to change yourself, and THAT will change the world. “Be the change you want to see in the world.” - Gandhi

If you act on compassion when the moment presents itself, you will have a meaningful life. Mark Twain said it best, “You’re never wrong to do the right thing.” So the next time you see someone in need, don’t ask the question “Is this my neighbor?”, the far more important question is, “Am I being a neighbor?” Don’t be the bystander that stays in the dark. Do as the Good Samaritan and you will move closer to a life of purpose.

[Emil El Zapato]

it is an interesting phenomena ... I'm inclined to help and it seems so is my daughter ... she's studying to get a certification as an EMT. Her first step to becoming a medical surgeon (my desire). She has what it takes but I don't think she's realized that fully yet. It might be genetic for her. The desire to help, her physical skills are her own.

I think it is a matter of 'perceived risk' that the bystander feels.

[Emil El Zapato]

Here's a question for y'all:

Does grass want to be mown? And look nice to the neighbors? Or do they want to grow to be all they can be? Do flowers want to be pretty and smell good? Do they want to be snipped and sent to love ones to satisfy the loved one's need for validation? Or would flowers just rather be ... left alone?

I'm serious, I've asked questions like this before and all I ever get in response is "blank space" ... :)

[Elen]

Here's a question for y'all:

Does grass want to be mown? And look nice to the neighbors? Or do they want to grow to be all they can be? Do flowers want to be pretty and smell good? Do they want to be snipped and sent to love ones to satisfy the loved one's need for validation? Or would flowers just rather be ... left alone?

I'm serious, I've asked questions like this before and all I ever get in response is "blank space" ... :)

I think you secretly know the answer to that NAP. ;) Which level do you want to see it from?

[Emil El Zapato]

An enigma wrapped in a conundrum, huh? :) But then what? :)

[Dreamtimer]

I'll bite.

Flowers most certainly want to be attractive and smell good. In particular to their pollinators. If they were left alone they'd never be able to make seeds. That would be bad for them.

Grass loves humans. We have spread it all over the planet. We keep other plants from crowding it out. And it will flower even if it's mowed. It'll just flower before it grows very tall.

Have you ever seen chicory? It'll grow a couple feet and then flower. If you mow it it will flower while flat on the ground with barely a stem. It wants to flower big-time. (It's not a grass)

Nothing in nature is 'left alone'. Nature is a system. When we 'leave it alone', what we really do is let it do its thing, which it knows how to without our interference.

Grass is like the fox. It lives well near humans.

[Dreamtimer]

Did you hear? Trump finally admitted that he wants herd mentality. He actually likes people being sheeple. Amazing. His followers are following the opposite of what they've been saying for so many years. I guess that's what happens when a cult-type leader steps in.

[Emil El Zapato]

that's a well thought out answer ... it makes sense. that eases my mind a little but I still wonder how they like being 'cut'?

Trump the free market guy has a new inspiration on how to promote it: If Tik Tok doesn't sign a deal within his timeline, he will shut it down permanently with no recourse.

[Wind]

Since you were talking about flowers.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xglvNR-fMSk

[Emil El Zapato]

I reckon' it all plays together, but you know the bible has given humans sovereignty over the earth, but it 'could' emphasis on 'could' have been a misinterpretation. All the good things are ours but we 'exploit' So, observation or use? The big question!

[Emil El Zapato]

That's pretty cool, wind. Perhaps, that is the their designated function ... to be 'snipped' ... but does it hurt or cause fear? Are hurt and fear a 'necessary part' of life.

[Wind]

but does it hurt or cause fear? Are hurt and fear a 'necessary part' of life.

Well, plants are certainly conscious, but not sentient in the same way as animals or humans would be. Yet it could be argued that they probably do in some sense feel pain. What about fear? Possibly. It is said that suffering is a necessary part of life and growth happens through it, I don't know how needed fear would be though. At least from the perspective of evolution it is there to ensure the survival of said species.

[Dreamtimer]

Plants are 'cut' when animals eat them. Cut and crushed.

Plants can send chemical signals to each other. They can change their chemistry to make themselves less appealing to animals/insects which are over-consuming. Certain plants can.

I'll stop now because I haven't watched the video yet and don't want to be unnecessarily redundant.

I'll watch that video multiple times just for the flowers opening. I can still recall being a child in class and seeing movies of flowers opening and being mind-blown.

[Emil El Zapato]

My problem with nature has always been the interdependence, yet the greatest 'act' of nature is the promotion of interdependence. The problem ... 'consumption'. If nature had devised a mechanism to allow the interdependence without the need for mutual consumption, we would live in a grand world indeed. Where is that utopia?

[Wind]

On a higher plane than this material one.

[Dreamtimer]

I think that's it. But the lessons of the physical can happen only here, in the physical.

(If that's what it is...)

[Wind]

As someone said, you don't evolve there in heaven. That's why we are here... Actually to bring heaven on Earth, if possible.

[Wind]

The Mystery of Evil (https://www.paulbrunton.org/mystery-of-evil.php)


The topic of evil has already been touched upon in The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, The Wisdom of the Overself , and in The Spiritual Crisis of Man. In the following essay, Paul Brunton discusses what was formerly not addressed in those texts, and what needs reinforcing in them. Indeed, the author goes further and asserts that not only are there visible and ordinary instruments of evil which are so apparent all around us, but also unseen ones—evil spirits, in fact.

The Two Viewpoints

What is the true place of evil in a universe whose informing soul is itself a benevolent one? We cannot arrive at the truth about this if we consider it in artificial isolation, but only if we consider it as part of the divine order of the universe. Whatever happens today in the world, or shall happen tomorrow, it will not happen outside of the divine knowledge and therefore will not escape the power of the divine laws.

Although the presence of evil was traditionally justified to blind faith as being the will of God, the modern religionist is developing his thinking power. He is ready to accept the will of God, but at least he wants a more rational answer as to why this thing exists at all. Two viewpoints present themselves to him: the popular and the profound. This problem defies rational solution if treated from the first viewpoint alone, but begins to yield if treated from both in combination. There is, indeed, no popular explanation of evil which could escape being riddled with criticism by a sufficiently sharp intellect. He must not rest satisfied with what experience and common sense tell him; he must also hear what metaphysical reflection and mystical revelation have to tell. For practical purposes he can get along with the first, but for philosophic purposes it is needful to add the second. In a wide balanced mentality the two views are not mutually exclusive but can be readily mated; in a narrow mentality they cannot even meet.

The materialist, the egoist and the shallow-minded, when brought face to face with these two ways of viewing the world, find them opposite and incompatible, markedly conflicting and hopelessly irreconcilable. They are like a carriage whose wheels simultaneously turn in opposite directions. But the philosophic student, with his fuller and better-balanced cultivation of his psyche, is able to let them exist side by side without splitting himself into two disconnected personalities. It is quite possible for him to synthesize them without developing a divided mind. Thus, his rational comprehension of the world unites perfectly in the well-rounded personality with his sensual experience of it; his mystical apprehension of life balances itself agreeably with his emotional reactions to it. Nothing is subtracted and nothing denied.

The understanding of this matter is darkened to our mind through failing to give ourselves the trouble of defining our use of this word “evil.” We should refuse to deny or to admit the existence of evil before we have discussed the question, “What do you mean by the term ‘evil?’” When that has been achieved, we shall find that the evil from which we are to be saved is largely—but not wholly—within ourselves. What do we mean when we say that an event, a thing or a person is “evil?” In The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga it was explained how words are strongly interwoven with the very stuff of human understanding. When we investigate the language in which our concepts take shape, we are investigating the very concepts themselves. We may then discover, in startled surprise, how important are the psychological influences exerted by words and phrases which have become standardized cliches devoid of definite meaning. We may note how the whole character of obscure problems becomes illumined. The origin of evil will be easier to elicit after eliciting its nature.

We may watch in the tropics the “evil” frogs hunt “good” glowworms, and the “evil” snakes hunt “good” frogs in their turn. Whatever creates a state of conflict inside or outside a living creature, and thus disturbs or destroys its happiness, is “evil” to that creature. It may originate from some animal obeying its appetites, some human behaving wickedly or some violence of Nature. It may result from an event, an action, or the relation between them. Although this is quite true, it is true only in a limited and relative sense. The fact is that each creature “thinks” the evil of a situation.

When we ask why wild beasts should exist in the Universe, we are thinking of their effects upon other creatures including ourselves. We never stop to think why these beasts should not exist for their sake and for their own selves. What they came to be as a result of the action and interaction, the development and degeneration of the bright side of things, just had to be. The one was not intended exclusively to serve any species, any more than the other was intended exclusively to harm that species.

In the case of men, whatever is unpleasing to their human point of view, uncomfortable to their human selfishness, contrary to their human desires, and painful to their human bodies, is usually regarded as evil. The evil in the World is only relatively and partially such, never absolutely and eternally. It is evil at a particular time or in a particular place or in relation to a particular creature. This principle of the relativity of ideas leads to Strange results. One of the first is that something may be evil from the standpoint of an individual placed in particular circumstances at a particular time, but may not be evil from a universal standpoint. Charlemagne cut a way through benighted Europe with his sword for Catholic culture. But when that same culture became too narrow and too intolerant, the Turkish hordes who broke into Constantinople dispersed the classic texts so long hoarded in the Byzantine libraries, drove their keepers to Italy and thus released upon Europe new forces which greatly stimulated the Renaissance movement already in being. In both these cases “evil” warfare produced “good” cultural results. In our own lifetime we have seen atheistic evil launch its work of destroying decadent religion. But in the hands of a higher Providence, we are also seeing in the end that it was indirectly used to purify and thus truly promote religion.

The Divine Idea works itself out through human frailties as well as human virtues. In this sense evil is at times our teacher. It would be valuable to count the number of cases where trouble led to our own good and sorrow proved to be peace in disguise. After experiencing the darker side of life, we are in a better position to pass up to the brighter side to which it directs us. Before the war some of us long looked for a Messiah, but we wanted him on our own selfish terms. We wanted him to be soft and gentle—even sentimentally flattering towards us. We never dreamed that a precursor like Hitler might come instead, one utterly hard and mercilessly harsh, to punish us for personal materialism and national selfishness. We looked for redemption, but never dreamed that we might have to be redeemed by the terrible power of suffering born out of evil. One compensation for wartime sufferings caused by other men is that they awaken the minds of a number of people and put them on the path to finding out the meaning of suffering and of life itself. But so long as they persist in ignoring the relativity of ideas and set up their personal opinions or individual preferences as truth, so long will they continue to mislead themselves and others; so long will they unnecessarily protract their sorrows. The evil which appears in the first sight of events, may disappear with the second sight. This is because there is an ultimate rightness in the ordering of universal life.

Who is Satan?

“Evil is ephemeral. In the end it defeats itself. It has only a negative life. It represents the not-seeing of what is, the not-doing in harmony, the not-understanding of truth. Evil is, in short, a lack of proper comprehension, a too-distant wandering from true being, an inadequate grasp of life. When insight is gained and these deficiencies are corrected, it ceases its activities and vanishes. The mystic who penetrates into the profound core of being finds no evil there.”

This quotation from The Wisdom of the Overself which a The Times Literary Supplement reviewer claims to be, and criticizes as, the author's “summing up” of evil, was never intended to be a “summing up” even then. But an adequate comprehension of the teaching calls for knowledge of the fact that its attitude towards evil is not exhausted by this quotation but is really twofold in character. The belief (which the reviewer seems to hold) in a satanic opposition is also, but in a different way, included in the author's own attitude. He does not deny but, on the contrary, fully admits the existence of individual forces adverse to spiritual evolution. He does not question the presence of malignant entities and satanic powers.

There are evil forces outside man as well as inside him. These super-physical agents operate in the invisible world and, under certain abnormal conditions, intermingle with living human personalities to influence their thoughts and actions or to oppose their spiritual progress. The spiritual aspirant inevitably encounters opposition from these adverse elements, and the evil forces move against him in a cunning way. However well-meaning his intentions in the beginning and however noble his ideals, he may yet be unwillingly and subtly influenced by their malignant power. If he succumbs to them, some of those he trusts betray him, his judgements turn out to be wrong, his actions mistaken, and circumstances work against him. They lead from deed to deed, first by internal temptation but later by external compulsion, each involving him more and more in their toils and menacing him with worse and worse consequences. To escape each consequence as it arises, he has to commit fresh acts which drag him farther downwards. In the end he is caught by tragedy and overwhelmed by disaster. If we could trace apparent effects to their hidden causes, we would trace many a trouble to such adverse psychical forces of the invisible world.

World War II was an outstanding example. It had a psychical content even before its physical, visible start. Whatever it was politically and militarily, it was also a dramatic struggle between the forces of good and the powers of darkness. We may be sure that whoever tries to arouse hatred of the good and inflames anger against the True has lent himself to the dark forces of Nature. The Nazi hierarchs were possessed by foul demons, animated by malignant powers from the occult regions. They attempted to cover their own guilt by the old trick of malicious fabrication. There were entities other than human at work behind Hitler. He tried to make men turn into the most dangerous of all beasts by seeking to turn them into cunning animals devoid of moral discernment and debarred from higher reflection. There were wicked agencies, human but disincarnate, inspiring the Nazi movement. All were devilish: all were powers of the lowest hells. Hence the lies, oppression, cruelty, materialism, greed, and degradation which they spread everywhere. It was not so much by their arrogant aggressiveness and violent brutality that the Nazis sought to crucify mankind. Rather it was by their denial of justice, their opposition to spirituality, and their contempt for truth that they sought to nail the human race to the cross of unexampled sufferings. At the innermost heart of Nazism lay a foulness indescribably black and immeasurably worse than any plague which ever beset humanity. For it sprang out of infernal diabolic regions, out of a gigantic mass attack of unseen sinister forces hoping to destroy the soul and enslave the body of man. This dangerous incursion of evil spirits into our world's affairs on such a vast scale had never happened before. It can be said that humanity barely escaped the most terrible setback in its history. Had the Nazis won, every spiritual ideal would have been strangled, every spiritual value stifled. The inner justice of things foiled them, and mankind emerged—sore and wounded but safe and alive—from its great peril, only to find itself facing a further attempt of the same dark forces to dominate the world again, but using a different channel.

But all this does not place these opposing powers on a level of equality with the force of good in the universal struggle; they play their necessary roles and we need not regard them as unforeseen lapses or evil accidents in the divine thought. The evil forces are always aggressive because they must always try to destroy that which in the end will destroy them. The good alone will endure. It is in the very nature of evil beings, as of evil thoughts, to attack each other and, in the end, to destroy each other. Meanwhile, their powers are strictly limited and their opposition, when overcome, actually helps to develop the good in us. We need not hesitate to believe that the good will always triumph ultimately and always outlive the bad, that no kind of evil has an independent existence but all kinds are only relative aspects of existence. But this struggle and this triumph can exist only in each individual entity. They do not and cannot exist in the cosmos as a whole, because this is itself a manifestation of God. God's will alone prevails here.

Evil men and evil spirits do exist, but whether there is an independent principle of evil is another matter. Whoever believes in the eternal existence of God and admits the eternal reality of evil, will have to trace the latter to its source. If that source is a personality or a principle coeval and co-enduring with the universe, then it works its fiendish will in spite of God; then there are really two supreme beings. The logical demands of unity do not permit such an impossible conclusion. It deprives God of his much-vaunted omnipotence and represents a dualism which puts its thoughtful believers in a profound dilemma. If, on the other hand, he traces the source of evil to a lesser principle or personality, he again puts them in a dilemma. For such conclusion leaves unexplained the question why God tolerates the existence of this dreadful entity instead of extinguishing every trace of evil from His Universe. If this were true, then God must share Satan's guilt! If, finally, he traces evil to man himself, then God, in letting him fall to his doom, is either ignorant of His creatures' misdeeds or else indifferent to them.

Just as philosophy says that the man-like conception of God is suitable only for immature intelligences, so it says that the man-like conception of evil personified under the figure of Satan is also only for immature intelligences. There are individual evil influences, individual evil spirits even, and they constitute at times an opposition to the aspirant. But the greatest opposition comes not from a creature called Satan; it comes from the aspirant's own heart, his own weaknesses, his own evil thoughts. The recognition of those unseen forces must not be allowed to occlude the recognition of his own primary responsibility.

It is not pertinent to take up the question of the nature of God's existence here, except to note that philosophy combines both the transcendental and immanental views. But any dualistic thought which admits both good and evil as separate, real and eternal forces in the universe, will always involve itself in these contradictions. And every doctrine is a dualistic doctrine which teaches that the primal forces in the world are two and not one. The orthodox and popular view, which holds that the divine power is forever fighting desperately against a satanic power, and that the latter is entirely independent of and eternally opposed to it, is dualistic. Therefore it is caught in these contradictions, too, yet it represents the most tenable immediate point of view. Philosophy, however, goes further and deeper than mere appearances and hence represents the ultimate viewpoint.

We are entitled to ask those who have banished spiritual values from their world view, what they have gained. No answer can hide the ugly fact of a world in the grip of evil and distress. Their failure to integrate spiritual reality into their view of life has produced the most unfortunate inner and outer consequences. It has produced a decade when the unheard-of crimes of unprincipled tyrants and the misfortunes of helpless masses dismayed and distressed all thoughtful, good-hearted people. This gloomy derogation of human dignity is the logical end of materialism, and it is for such reasons that those who can comprehend the momentous issues of the human race's destiny which confront it today must engage in the hard struggle against materialism as in a holy war. The war and the crisis constitute a tragic judgement on a society which was falling headlong into the abyss of such a wrong world view. Its present anguish and bewildered state show, to their shame, how little wisdom and how much frailty there still is in human beings. It demonstrates, too, that materialism has no future, for it cannot provide a sound moral basis for living or a hopeful metaphysical basis for thinking about humanity.

Because our generation has been violently confronted with and shaken by those shaded aspects of life, such as death and suffering, which most generations habitually ignore, it has either to consider them or to flee from them. The first course brings it to a vital religious feeling or a rebellious atheistic one. The second course plunges it into sensualism. This is the century of challenge. Humanity must choose between continuing in the old materialistic way of life or starting a more spiritual one. And unless the suffering of the war and crisis awakens a sufficient number of people spiritually, the outlook will be dark. The situation is still grave. We shall shortly learn exactly how far this awakening has gone. Events will not let humanity alone; they are forcing it against a blank wall from whence there is no escape. It must find a new and better way of life—or sink down and perish. It was written in The Wisdom of the Overself that humanity was walking on the edge of a precipice. The warning must be reiterated here that if it does not respond to the new call while there is yet time, its days of safety are numbered. The alternatives are clear. Humanity must either penitently enlarge its outlook to include the spiritual basis of life or continue to restrict itself to a sometimes open, sometimes camouflaged materialism. In the first case, it will save itself and its civilization; in the second, it will succumb to the evils bred by such materialism.

When we interpret these events in the light of philosophy, we observe that while men sought only a personal, a partisan or a group triumph over other men, instead of seeking for the triumph of good over evil and truth over falsehood, their affairs continued to move from one blunder and one misery to another. Such people naturally, but quite wrongly, apportion censure to other men or to untoward events or things. The political and social problems covered a still deeper problem. Those who made quick judgement on limited data, or those who believed that mind is a mere by-product of matter, could not perceive this truth. Amid all this clamour of tongues and systems, individuals and interests, the fundamental issues became obscured and their essentially mental and ethical character remained unseen. The spiritual failure and political crisis of this epoch went deep before the war; neither its mind nor heart was capable of retrieving the one or solving the other. Its boasted progress was found to be surface-deep.

Philosophy rejects the esoteric Hindu views that the Universe is nothing more than an illusion, that its struggles are God's jesting sport or its birth God's blunder.

Yet it is wrong to say the Supreme creates evil. Man creates it; the Supreme merely permits it. If this were not so, man could claim freedom from personal responsibility for his wrong-doing. If man's individual will is included in, and subject to, the more powerful will of Nature (God), it still has the independence to choose the power to create and the freedom to act within set limits.

It is not inconsistent to grant that, in its immediate character, evil does exist and does have widespread range and formidable power, whereas in its ultimate character it is rather the absence of good. Experience testifies to that. But it exists as our human idea and in a relative sense. It has neither more nor less reality than any of our other ideas. Philosophy enunciates no new doctrine here. In the Middle Ages, Thomas Aquinas argued that sin is a privation of good. In earlier times, Plotinus argued that the very infinitude of God must therefore involve imperfections like moral and physical evils and that instead of infringing on the omnipotence of God, these imperfections really point to His infinitude. In the pre-Christian age, Plato transmitted a tradition which explained evil as the negation of God's positive and beneficent activity.

It is a long way and a trying one, but it is a fact that until men reach an advanced stage of development, they will not learn except by taking to themselves the teaching of suffering and the lessons of trouble by noting the miseries which follow in the wake of mistaken action and evil-doing. The results of past evil or foolish actions sooner or later confront them.

The terrible spectacle of organized hatred would alone be enough to make anyone cynically pessimistic about human nature. But when he realizes the monstrous extent of the evil in human character all over the world, and especially when he discovers its deep penetration in so-called spiritual circles, he must draw back appalled and affrighted for himself, despairing and hopeless for humanity. He must feel that the Roman Catholic dogma of original sin is not far from practical truth, however distant from ultimate truth. Such a position as humanity's present one is filled with the gravest dangers and cannot continue much longer. If it is not soon brought to an end, the evolutionary forces will bring our pretentious human civilization to an end.

They took a man possessed by devils—Hitler—as a new Messiah, as a prophet of God. That Hitler did more in less time to shape the thought and life of millions for evil than any other man has ever been able to do for good, is sad proof that morality will fall sooner than rise and that spirituality is harder to come by than materiality. The Germans followed this Anti-Christ with a devotion and faith greater than they had shown to Christ.

Anti-Christ always takes the field before, during or after the hour destined for the appearance of the true Christ. But in our time this is not only true of spiritual—that is, religious, mystical, moral, and metaphysical—issues, it is also true of the social images reflected from them. Because the swift movement of modern technique is compelling a parallel movement of modern nations towards a supranational world association, Nazism offered in advance its own selfish caricatured version of what such an association should be and tried forcibly to materialize it. Success would have prevented the establishment of a true world association. The Nazi version was quite simple. It consisted in the German python's swallowing up all the other animals and thus creating a union of them all! The Nazis had sufficient intelligence and willingness to appropriate some spiritual values by offering their materialist counterfeits. The startling fact is that they created a hideous travesty of leading ideas which have become timely for incorporation in the modern man's outlook on life. It is thus that they hoped to take advantage of the time-spirit to deceive him.

It may be asked, if evil is a relative and not an absolute thing, why do we call the forces which inspired the Nazis “evil” forces? The first answer is that at the stage of ethical culture which the German masses had generally reached, that which should have been right to them was represented by the Nazis as wrong, while what should have been wrong to them was represented as right. The second is that malignant lying spirits did direct the Nazi movement from within. . . Why not work for self-aggrandizement alone if self be nothing more than the physical and egoistic person? Why not let war destroy a million men, women and children when they stand in the path to such personal triumph—if, sooner or later, they are doomed to perish forever anyway? Why not set up the acquisition of more and still more possessions by the most frightful means if successful acquisition of material things be the only sensible aim in a man's life? Why not bludgeon the brains out of every minister of religion, every student of literature, every preacher of ethics, every philosopher of spirit, every artist of exalted mood whose influence gives his followers the weakening idea that there can be a reality beyond this lump of flesh and its earthly environment? These were reasonable questions to the Nazi mind because it was filled with hostility to the divine in itself and with hatred of the divine in others. Hence, its worst postwar legacy to the world is prejudice, malice, suspicion, intolerance, envy, wrath, unbalance, greed, cruelty, violence, and hatred—evils that are corroding the hearts of millions with terrible intensity. This is the dangerous emotional situation which Nazism has left to humanity. Never in history was there so much hatred and malice in the world. Never in history was there so much need for goodwill and mutuality among human beings. The situation shocks and dismays every true well-wisher of mankind. What lesson, therefore, does humanity now need to learn most? The lesson of pity, compassion. The need for more love and less hate in the world is obvious. Yet the external events and emotional movements of our time show more hate and less love. Where is our vaunted progress? The ultimate issue of all this trend in the pre-1939 world was the desolation and violence of war. The ultimate issue of it in the peacetime world may be disastrous in its own way. The younger generation has grown up in an explosive, selfish, and materialist atmosphere. If the public tragedy and private emptiness of our time cannot turn them and enough of their elders towards a spiritual way of life, nothing can do so quickly enough. In that case, utter destruction will before long end our failing civilization.

For those who had eyes to see it was clear, even during the very zenith of Nazism, that one of its main historic tasks would be to quicken this process in Germany itself where Nazi forms collapsed altogether after a briefer existence still. This is because those forms were essentially too retrograde in such an age. They provided their adherents with all the illusion but little of the reality of progress. In this way they were poisoned offshoots from the true line of progress. Part of Hitler's half-conscious mission was to liquidate the old order of things and destroy world views which had lost their timeliness and serviceability. But although in this way far ahead of his times, in others Hitler was, of course, far behind it. He did not understand that the age of moral dinosaurs and mental pterodactyls was long past.

The prevalent state of materialism in the world and its consequent influence on human character may lead to something even more devastating than war. Nature might take a hand in the game. Within a couple of months, there were slain by the influenza epidemic just after the First World War many times more people than were slain during the four years of that war itself. The science and civilization, the culture and cities of Atlantis were erased from the earth's surface, engulfed by a vast mass of water which has since, during thousands of years' ceaseless rolling, washed its site clean of the ancient foulness. Through such cataclysms does Nature free herself from the obnoxious presence of evil men, purify her body from nests of corruption and defend herself against the vices which her own spawn seeks to plant upon her. Thus she returns to mankind the penalties of their own iniquities. When Nature's violence, as in earthquakes and cyclones, is so great or when fate's blows are so hard as to make men feel their littleness and helplessness, the instinct to turn to some higher power in resignation or petition arises spontaneously. Many in our age have been so stupefied by a hard materialism as to deny the reality of this instinct, but they have only covered it over. They cannot destroy it.

But the challenge has been dramatically made final, urgent, and pointed by a new force which has been let loose in the world—the atomic and hydrogen bombs! The energy released by atomic disintegration is now in our hands. What was once the fantastic dream of a few scientists has become the awful reality of contemporary history. The new type of bomb has unparalleled effects. It can blast and burn a vast area with a thoroughness previously unknown; it can obliterate whole cities in a single raid by its tremendous concentration of incendiary and explosive power. It has outmoded all known military weapons and outdated many security problems. Its possibilities for mass slaughter constitute the major revelation of our times. It is significant that the atomic bomb did not appear until the end of the war against Japan and did not appear at all in the war against Germany. This points to the fact that if another [major] war develops, this new kind of warfare has been reserved for it alone in fate's design and history's record. War must now either slay most of the human race altogether or slay itself through its own perfection. It is perhaps the most dramatic and the most visible form of evil in the whole history of mankind.

The order which humanity constructs itself for is, after all, the expression of its own spiritual perception or spiritual blindness. The new order will be no better if understanding is not better. All will fall into false hopes who fail to perceive the direct causal relation between the inner and the outer life and who ignore the precise unfailing operation of the moral law. The widespread crises and calamities which have struck the world have aroused millions of people to lively expectations of an impending social change and universal renovation in the spiritual and material forms of society. These terrible distresses have caused a number of sufferers to engage in the quest of self-redemption. How large this number is nobody can yet accurately determine, but how small it must be in proportion to the total population anybody can begin to perceive.

Because fate permitted the tremendous consequences of nuclear power to be placed at the disposal of mankind at this precise juncture of history, we may be sure that there is a tremendous reason for it. That everything in this generation has been thrown into a state of crisis is therefore no accident. A higher will is guiding world affairs. This state could not have developed earlier, for then it would have been quite premature. It is karmically synchronized and inwardly connected with the grand turning-point in the human entity's evolution, with the shift away from the unbalanced immersion in physical externals and excessive attachment to the personality. How much human evil would vanish when men enlarge their outlook and belittle their selfcentredness! The outer effects of this inner evolutionary movement are being everywhere greatly felt but nowhere clearly understood. The statement in The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga that humanity is approaching the threshold of adulthood means that, from the moment that the new evolutionary twist began, the human entity's ignorant, childlike development also began to come to an end. Hitherto, it had blundered about half-blindly in its adolescence and youth. Henceforth, it will receive knowledge and be able to move more consciously; it will also have to assume more and more of the responsibilities of spiritual maturity. When the present crisis eventually draws to a close, there will interiorly be released a divine influx and there will exteriorly manifest various high-grade spiritual teachers. The twentieth century will indeed be “the century of enlightenment.” Thus, at first involuntarily and later voluntarily, man obeys the higher purpose for him of the divine plan. This purpose cannot but be fulfilled, for everything in this universe works to that end. It does not depend for such fulfilment on his conscious co-operation, nor will it be thwarted by his blind opposition. He may work with it or oppose it. The first course will lead in the end to rejoicing, the second to suffering. It is not easy for him, constituted as he is, to take the wiser course. Yet evolution will force him into it by degrees, easy or not, for the world is a rightly ordered one.

The movement of mankind is cyclic and in this moment when the wheel must take a fresh turn, the two universal forces which forever struggle with each other—the force which elevates man and the force which degrades him, the evolutionary and the adverse elements in Nature—are meeting in a tremendous grapple whose tension was unheard-of before. Whoever fails to perceive that this is the fundamental problem or whoever, perceiving, seeks to evade it, contributes to the responsibility for the sequence of events. If we do not understand the human and superhuman forces which are at work in the world, we shall not understand how rightly to deal with the world crisis itself. We must arrive at a consciousness of what direction inevitable historic forces are taking beneath visible events; and we must learn to interpret aright the various currents and cross-currents which have been started by the post-war period.

The nuclear discoveries force humanity to choose between the two alternatives: real acceptance of the moral law or virtual self-destruction. This is the divine working. Today is indeed a fateful time. Today we all live with such terrible bombs invisibly suspended over our heads! Only a drastic change in moral attitudes can effectively meet their dangerous challenge. And what else is this except a choice between cultivating a greater self-discipline or clinging to an outmoded selfishness; a decision between an alliance with the sacred presence or a continuance of indifference to it? If we fail to make a right choice, then it will not be long before civilized life on this planet comes to an end.

The course of events after the Second World War cannot resemble the course of events after the First World War. Everything is against it. For this time an ultimatum confronts humanity, a final challenge to inaugurate a new and nobler epoch or else largely perish from the earth. The alternatives have been clearly presented for us to choose between. There is no middle way.

~ Paul Brunton

[Emil El Zapato]

Friendly followup:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-p3aXWe_-U

[Emil El Zapato]

The moment the Needle, testing the first U-space engines ever built, dropped out of realspace during its test flight out from Mars, time-travel ceased to be merely a possibility and became a certainty. The moment the first runcible gates opened it became an uncomfortable reality. Travelling through U-space it is possible to arrive before you leave, or even a thousand years after, yet physically unchanged. And when time travel was tried, it took many months to clear up the wreckage. Don’t let any of those still scared of the realities we face nowadays—those still hanging on desperately to their belief that the universe functions in ways they can easily understand—try to convince you otherwise. Go ask runcible technicians and watch them squirm, query AIs and view the incomprehensible maths. But if we can do it, why aren’t we doing it? We could nip forward and swipe lottery numbers, we could nip back and stop loved ones dying. Yeah, just like quite a few centuries ago we could bring together a couple of plutonium ingots to start a camp fire. Those who understand the maths stare at infinite progressions and exponential factors and know we are just not ready to start throwing around that kind of energy. Time travel is dangerous, cosmic disaster dangerous. Using it for anything less than the aversion of a cosmic disaster equates to using a fusion drive to travel from one side of your house to the other. You’ll certainly arrive, but there probably won’t be anything left of your house when you do.
 How It Is by Gordon

-- Polity Agent - Neil Asher

[Dreamtimer]

Did you hear?

https://images.dailykos.com/images/857154/story_image/Dem_vs_Rep_economy.gif?1600292241

I've always known that it's fake news, saying that the Repubs are best for the economy.

[Dreamtimer]

And did you hear about Putin?



Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday called for a reset on cyber-relations with the United States, and requested that the two countries agree not to influence each other's elections.

"(I propose)... exchanging guarantees of non-interference in each other's internal affairs, including electoral processes, including using information and communication technologies and high-tech methods," Putin said, Reuters reported.


Perhaps he's come to realize that his puppet is losing crowds so he's moving on. Of course, he actually plays 3D chess so this could mean many things.

[Wind]

California’s burning; Americans are dying. I’m safe in Finland. Why would I ever go home? (https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-09-25/finland-coronavirus-pandemic-california-fire)


“It’s too much,” my friend Beth told me, when we talked not long ago. “First corona and now the fires. Many of us were barely holding on before. We don’t know how to deal with this as well.”

Beth lives in Northern California, where I have spent much of my adult life. Niko, my Finnish husband, and I, the trailing spouse, have been in Helsinki since early April. This separation from America is working a profound change in how I understand my native country, on how I see life in California.

In Finland, COVID-19 has been largely contained since May. The people trust their government politicians and believe in science. No one I know here can believe that Americans would turn wearing a mask into a political litmus test. The social safety net is tightly woven: Finns aren’t homeless on the streets; they aren’t shooting one another on the barricades.

Meanwhile, in the United States, more than 200,000 people have died of COVID-19, tragically and to a great degree needlessly. Three times a day on average, a civilian is killed by a police officer. The narcissist in the White House is hell-bent on destroying democracy. And some of the biggest fires in California’s history have devoured an area the size of Connecticut, with no end in sight.

The more I weigh the differences between here and home, the more I find myself inching toward a status I never dreamed of: expat.

[Dreamtimer]

The story of someone coming out of a bubble...

[Dreamtimer]

Here's some altered art. Def chaotic.

https://images.dailykos.com/images/864225/large/Picture8.jpg?1601749795

original: The Masque of the Red Death by Harry Clark 1919

[Emil El Zapato]

I had an interesting trip down to the local Sam's Club today.

The bottom of a case of bottled beer fell out and the flying glass took a small sliver of my leg with it. That was just the start, after I finished going through the self check out lane, I pushed my cart about 10 feet and in the space of a few minutes my receipt disappeared ... completely. I ended up needing to go to the service desk to get another receipt. After standing in line of few minutes, watching the clerk struggling to pretend she knew what she was doing while helping another customer, a Priest of some kind walked up to the line looking uncharacteristically fidgety. For this reason, he didn't strike me as a Catholic Priest as he was kind of scruffy and Catholic Priests always walk through public space as if they own it, a natural by-product of the deference they always receive at the hands of their congregations. He waited about two minutes then headed off into the store ... about 5 minutes later I hear an intercom call stating, "I need help with a new mattress for a Priest". Weird call!

Anyway, fifteen minutes later I was out of there.

[Dreamtimer]

Weird visit indeed.

[Emil El Zapato]

I forgot the 'weirdest' part ... He was the only one in the store not wearing a mask ... to me, that was weird.

[Dreamtimer]

I saw a youngish priest in an airport a few years ago. He was standing near a window looking at something, perhaps a phone. He looked up at me. He had a nice head of hair and was well-made. He was in all black in one of those full length garbs. I don't know the name. He smiled a polite smile at me and I returned it.

I was weirdly attracted to him.

I continued on my way.

[Emil El Zapato]

Not so weird, really ... They have a definite patina about them, of secret power, mystery, bridled sexuality, simultaneous approbation and derision, safety and helplessness. It can be a powerful aphrodisiac for the womens. :)

[Dreamtimer]

This could easily go on the Illusion and Mist (I love how that means sh!t in German) thread, but I'll put it here.

Remember Trump telling folks to vote twice? He was suggesting blatant voter fraud.

Turns out, just like bleach injection, some folks will really be sheeple for the man.


Yet another Donald Trump supporter, this time a bona fide Florida Man, has attempted ballot fraud, just to check to see if the voting system is secure. The amateur investigator, one Larry Wiggins of Manatee County, sent in an absentee ballot request for his late wife Ursula, who died in 2018, and the system worked exactly as it should: County election officials saw that the late Mrs. Wiggins had been removed from the voter rolls, and saw the signature on the ballot application didn't match one on file, so they contacted law enforcement. A deputy arrested Wiggins last week, and after being booked on one count of requesting an absentee ballot on behalf of another elector, a third-degree felony, Wiggins was released.

Wiggins, a "self-described Democrat who supports President Donald Trump," told WFLA-TV he was worried about ballot integrity, you see, presumably since Donald Trump says mail-in ballots are an invitation to fraud.

[Emil El Zapato]

lol, my point exactly, most voter fraud cases come from the right ... more projection ... projection enrages me ... :)

[Dreamtimer]

I've been living in a 'lesser of two evils' world most of my life. Is it the Kali Yuga?

Do I support the guy down the street who has a pistol and might shoot me with it?

Do I support the guy down the street who has an arsenal including automatic weapons and grenades who also wants to shoot me?

Which one do I choose?

Maybe I should just go to bed and let someone else choose. Then I can cop out and claim I'm not responsible because I didn't choose. That's an easy out.

But what do I tell my kid? How do I justify my decision to do nothing?


Do I want vigilante justice, company towns, non-disclosure agreements shoved down my throat just so I can eat, tolls on every road?

The folks who want to bring down the government don't have any alternative.

Bunkers and long pork ain't gonna cut it.


I think I'd rather make a choice and do the best with it rather than cop out and try to just blow the whole thing up.

Those jonesing for civil war can take their arsenals and shove them straight up you-know-where. Hard.

[Wind]

I've been living in a 'lesser of two evils' world most of my life. Is it the Kali Yuga?

I'm sorry to inform you that yes, it is indeed and the end of a cycle is always... Troublesome.

I do believe that ultimately humanity has a bright future ahead of us, but the road there will be quite bumpy.

Of course the direction of the future depends on our individual and collective choices made in the present.

Nothing is set in stone. I choose peace and that's all I can do. We create our own reality.

[Dreamtimer]

I'm trying very hard to help this reality be a good one. But I'm just one person. You nail it when you speak of collective choices, Wind.

[Dreamtimer]

I recall folks making a big deal about a fly landing on or buzzing around Hillary or some such. It was a sure sign that she was a servant of the Devil.

I find myself wondering now, where is all that concern? Where are all those same folks now? Do they have anything to say about Pence's two-minute buddy?

The symbolism is just precious. It's utterly apropos that he had a fly on his hair for over two minutes. What goes around comes around, eh?

[Dreamtimer]

This speaks to me personally because in the 80's I coined a term, "Republexcuse". I did so because Republicans were constantly giving excuses for their actions/failures and it was always the left-wing trinity: Democrats, Liberals, or Progressives. Just blame them, over and over and over.

Ralph Reed's brother (remember the Christian Coalition?) proclaimed with pride and glee that they had succeeded in turning these words into derogatory names. He was pleased as punch.

That was before Obama, so now there are more than three Republexcuses, there's a whole wheel!

https://images.dailykos.com/images/867844/large/excuses.jpg?1602369005

[Dreamtimer]

I don't subscribe or register online. I haven't used my Facebook page in years. This is the only forum I ever joined.

It's so interesting to see what videos pop up on the sideline when I watch you tube. Especially after watching very disparate things. Right now there are news site vids, crafting vids, philosophy vids, comedy vids, science vids, political vids, pop culture vids, music vids, and more.

It's a smorgasbord.

[Emil El Zapato]

my online life is becoming a nightmare ... a new laptop was ordered through my paypal account ... currently trying to sort that one out ... cancelled cards, moved money out of open bank accounts ... received a package today that shows no history anywhere but was delivered by Amazon ... lithium battery ... I have no idea where it is coming from, hell it might be a bomb for all i know.

[Dreamtimer]

You seem to be currently in a maelstrom of chaos. I hope you come out of it in one piece and in decent shape. :ok::meditating: