. : Meme Nexus : .

Meme Nexus on hiatus

2007-12-22T11:40:00.000-08:00

So it's been just about six months since I last posted here, and I think it's time to close this chapter of my life book, so to speak, for the time being. I won't be posting here again in the immediate future, although I will keep the site up and the archives are accessible so I hope you keep this bookmark. If my writing situation changes I may start posting here again.

Thanks for checking in and reading my site,
and here's to wishing you a life of love and light!

~ @__@

Sweet Dreams: Building a DIY Dream Machine

2007-06-18T13:34:00.000-07:00

For this series of posts I decided to link entirely to Reality Sandwich articles, to give people a taste of the site. I will probably be posting here less often now, once every few weeks probably, but I'm not quitting all together. I hope you've enjoyed the Meme Nexus thus far and will come visit me on Reality Sandwich!

Sweet Dreams: Building a DIY Dream Machine
by Tristan Gulliford

http://www.realitysandwich.com/node/249

Dreaming is scientifically thought to occur when Alpha brain waves are dominant and the brain enters a deep state of relaxation or meditative rest. In the early 1960's the Parisian artist Brion Gysin, with the help of his friend the mathematician Ian Sommerville, invented a type of stroboscopic machine, popularly known as the Dreamachine. Designed to be viewed with the eyes closed, it sends pulses of light into the brain that match the rhythm of alpha wave cycles, at a rate between 8-13 hertz, which is about 78 RPM on a turntable.

The device was created partly based on British neuroscientist W. Gray Walter's earlier investigations into what he termed the “flicker phenomenon”. In his experiments Walter found that pulses of light could induce trance states and alter brain wave activity. Although Joseph Plateau of Belgium is credited with the invention of the stroboscope in 1832, ancient scientists may also have investigated this strobing phenomenon, such as the Greek astronomer Ptolemy. Modern, mass-produced versions of the device are personalized and high-tech, designed to be used in the home, featuring goggles, LED displays, digital sound, and programmable controls to customize the experience. The electroencephalogram, a medical instrument that reads alpha waves by emitting beams of light, is similar to the Dreamachine. These devices may also be used in other contexts, such as when the psychedelic rock band The Mars Volta has been known to use their own version of the Dreamachine during their live shows, which is placed behind the drummer.

The reported effects of Gysin's brain machines are somewhat astounding, including visual sensations that are something like complex multi-layered geometries of patterns, vivid and otherworldly colors, and dream-like holographic imagery all moving in a rhythmic pulse. Fans of psychotropic drugs may notice how similar these descriptions are to what people experience during a trip. Fans of lucid dreaming may notice how similar these effects are to some of the unusual physical and mental states that accompany lucid dreaming. After using a dream machine, participants often feel relaxed and energized as if they had just come out of a meditation. Machines of this type have sometimes been used for therapy, and are often used in conjunction with ambient music or biurnal beats, meditative breathing exercises, and other methods of self-hypnosis. Use of a dream machine is safe for most people, except people with epilepsy who may be sensitive to flashes of light.

The Beat writer William S. Burroughs, who was a friend of Gysin and frequently experimented with the Dreamachine, wrote: “Subjects report dazzling lights of unearthly brilliance and color. . . elaborate geometric constructions of incredible intricacy build up from multidimensional mosaic into living fireballs like the Mandalas of Eastern mysticism or resolve momentarily into apparently individual images and powerfully dramatic scenes like brightly colored dreams."

A low-tech version of the dream machine can be made with a turntable, some opaque cardboard which is fashioned into a rotating cylinder, some glue, and scissors, and a light bulb. Details for building this version are here.

Make magazine recently posted a video podcast where Mitch Altman and Bre Pettis show you how to make a brain machine based on Altman's idea using microcontrollers and open source software.

Or, for those not into the DIY thing, you can buy one of the machines currently on the market at the following websites.

http://www.mindmodulations.com/products.html

http://www.mindmachines.com/

Tristan Gulliford is a writer, dreamer, and aspiring myth-keeper who makes electronic music under the name "Dreamcode". He is currently attending the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Our Forgotten Future

2007-06-18T13:33:00.000-07:00

Our Forgotten Future
by Daniel Pinchbeck

http://www.realitysandwich.com/node/239

The following article originally appeared in Conscious Choice Magazine.

The future is not what it used to be. What does our future look like from this particular point in time? Scanning the distressing ecological data, we might find ourselves reminded of Marlene Dietrich¹s exit line to Orson Welles in Touch of Evil: "Your future's all used up." From the Oscar-nominated Children of Men to Cormac McCarthy's novel The Road, recent portraits of what may be coming down the pike have distinctly faded to black - sterile, war-torn wastelands where huddled masses forage for survival. These visions reflect the images we see from today's Iraq, Afghanistan and Darfur. They suggest a darkening of the collective psyche, a reduced capacity to envision a way out from the encroaching crises that we intuit but lack the will or courage to confront. Novels and films of apocalypse function as avoidance mechanisms, allowing us to imagine global doom from a comfortably alienated vantage point.

As the mainstream absorbs no-exit narratives of breakdowns ahead, the New Age and spiritual set have seized upon an almost antithetical attitude of naïve positivity, reflected in wildly popular works like What the Bleep Do We Know? and The Secret. From this perspective, the individual¹s psychic state determines his or her physical reality, and the occult laws of attraction can be utilized to increase one¹s bank account or sexual magnetism. If you haven't cashed out, it is because you are not using your psychic powers at their maximum rate. If other people aren't getting theirs' yet, it's not your problem, but their bad karma. This is a metaphysics suited to the narcissism of the baby boomers and the "Me Generation," whose lifestyles have denuded the planet's rainforests and ripped big holes in the ozone layer.

What makes this perspective so seductive is that there are fragments of truth in it. In my own life and the lives of many people I know, the power of intention is becoming more evident. Reality seems increasingly psychic, as we relearn, step by step, the lessons of synchronicity and nonduality well known to tribal shamans and realized mystics. However, as we access what Carl Jung called "the reality of the psyche," we also discover the huge gap between the small-time desires of the ego and the deeper purposes of the Self, our complete personality, encompassing conscious and unconscious elements. The Self doesn't give a hoot if we drive a fancy car or score with supermodels, and might even prefer to smash the delusions of the ego to incite a deeper realization.

Although I published a book on indigenous prophecy and the year 2012, which ends the 5,125-year Long Count of the Maya, my thoughts on the future continue to fluctuate (as Ralph Waldo Emerson noted, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds"). Between the various camps of technological utopians (see Ray Kurzweil's The Singularity Is Near), ecological pessimists, left-wing conspiracists, rapture-ready fundamentalists and New Age fantasists, one can experience schizo delirium. Is it possible that sudden crisis, such as coastal flooding or nuclear
terrorism, will lead to a system meltdown that will change everything? Is it conceivable that most of the world will continue to disintegrate as wealthy First Worlders get stem cell injections, new DNA and nanobot implants? Or perhaps a rapid shift in global consciousness will lead to a new compassionate planetary culture, with shared resources and technologies based on nontoxic processes and biomimickry? In any event, unless the Law of Attraction can overcome the basic laws of physics, a contraction of industrial civilization seems inevitable.

The trickster element undermining all future predictions is the reality of the psyche, and the possibility that psychic energy could be harnessed for purposes of planetary transformation. If we look back at the Industrial Revolution, before the 18th century, people had experienced lightning and shocks, but nobody had any idea how to make use of electricity. Once we figured this out, we changed the geophysical conditions of the planet in a century and a half ‹ not even a blink in evolutionary time. What if we are hovering on the brink of learning how to access and make use of psychic energy in a similar way? If this were the case, it would require a different approach from the modern scientific method, allowing no place for subjectivity. Psychic effects cannot be separated from subjective realizations. Creating the conditions in which psychic intention might interact with and influence the material world would require a deep sensitivity to unquantifiable aspects of human experience such as mood, atmosphere and emotion.

Considering this, it is possible that works like The Secret and What the Bleep have real importance. They could be transitional expressions, pointing us toward a new paradigm of psychic energy and intention that will become more sophisticated as it develops. It seems likely that the current interlocked problems facing our world simply cannot be solved by rational means but they might be dissolved, if they are approached from a different level of consciousness, and a deeper realization of the psyche.

A House That Lives

2007-06-18T13:32:00.002-07:00

A House That Lives
by Morgan Maher

http://www.realitysandwich.com/node/266

Inspired by Thoreau, Emerson, Whitman, and Alcott, New York designers TeReForm are taking orders for the Fab Tree Hab, a house built of living trees. Using a gardening technique called “pleaching” - trees, plants and vines are woven together to form archways, ceilings and wall.

Composed with 100% living nutrients, the home becomes indistinct and fits itself symbiotically into the surrounding ecosystem. Trees and plants initially grow over a plywood structure. Once stable, the plywood is removed and reused.

Trees such as Elm, Live Oak, and Dogwood form the load-bearing elements while a clay and straw composite insulates and blocks moisture. Water circulates from a roof-top collector, through human consumption, and ultimately exiting via transpiration. A gray water stream irrigates the gardens, and a filtration stream enters a Living Machine, where it is purified by bacteria, fish, and plants who eat the organic wastes. Water consumed by the vegetation eventually returns to the water cycle through transpiration, simultaneously cooling the home. In the winter, sunlight shines through the large south-facing windows, heating the open floor-space and thermal mass. The entire structure provides sustenance for both human inhabitants and local wildlife.

TeReForm, non-profit philanthropic design collaborative, envision a village of living homes that meld with the environment.

Science Of Soul

2007-06-18T13:32:00.001-07:00

Science Of Soul
by John Jay Harper

http://www.realitysandwich.com/node/182

[Tranceformers: Shamans of the 21st Century]

“Trance is the real perception state of humankind.”
—Holger Kalweit, author of Shamans, Healers, and Medicine Men

After-Death Communication (ADC) is the official term now given to what happened to me spontaneously in June 1988 where I was contacted by a “deceased” federal government physicist colleague, George Viguet (pronounced vee-gay). My friend had “died” prematurely at age 40 from a sudden cardiac arrest seven months previously in Huntsville, Alabama, but appeared suddenly “out-of-the-blue” one morning and that invoked a state of trance in me. I slipped into a very unique consciousness that was full-of-information about life and death in fact.

So, as a person with a scientific and religious background, I began an investigation into this state of mind that resulted in a book titled Tranceformers: Shamans of the 21st Century. My writings, in a nutshell, explain the larger relationship we have between what we call “heaven—the land of the dead” and the Earth, Sun, Milky Way Galaxy and our future world events in era-2012. Thus, I'd like to share some of these insights with you in this article now.

Psychologist Kenneth Ring, Ph.D., a retired professor emeritus with the University of Connecticut, put forth an idea regarding the goal of evolution decades ago that captured my attention once I had my ADC and had to ponder its meaning and find it—or lose my mind in the process seemingly.

In his landmark book The Omega Project: Near-Death Experiences, UFO Encounters, and Mind at Large, he speculated that life in general is made of “light,” the sunshine of stars, the solar plasma radiation that permeate the cosmos itself. This was simply not done back then in those days, to apply solid-state physics knowledge to living biological systems. It is gaining momentum today as prolific life science writer of six books and 150 articles on biophysics and chemistry, Dr. Mae-Wan Ho, says, “The most remarkable implication of our findings is that organisms are completely liquid crystalline,” in The Rainbow and The Worm: The Physics of Organisms.

The implications of these ideas above are enormous as they point to the properties of solar plasma physics and briefly that means we and creation may well be immortal beings of light. That is, our bodies can “die” but our thoughts, feelings, and memories may forever be part and particle of a living Mind at Large: God in plain terms.

More so, Dr. Ring's parapsychology research that ran the gamut from alien abductions to near-death encounters with angels confirmed that we are witnessing the classical opening of our third eye today by interacting with higher order beings of light, or what he cleverly-coined as the “shamanizing of humanity.” This process he defined as the emergence of an “encounter-prone personality—a distinctive, spiritually sensitive, and visionary psyche that may, collectively, represent the next stage in human evolution.” The key concept I grasped from all of these studies was that our states-of-consciousness are literally linked to the solar cycles of electricity and magnetism. This is why I also just completed a DVD on this topic with Reality Entertainment Studios in London and Hollywood co-directing it, titled Science of Soul: The End-Time Solar Cycle of Chaos in 2012 A.D.

Indeed, keep your “third eye” peeled on the Sun in Solar Cycle 24.

Robert O. Becker, M.D., author of The Body Electric, and Cross-Currents: The Promise of Electromedicine, the Perils of Electropollution, wrote an article titled “The Relationship Between Bioelectromagnetics and Psychic Phenomena” that was published in the American Society for Psychical Research, ASPR Newsletter, 16, Spring 1990. In it he proclaimed forthrightly that “the earth’s geomagnetic field and living organisms show that a firm [psychic] link has been established between them.” Another physician, Edgar Wilson, wrote in the Journal for the International Society for the Study of Subtle Energies and Energy Medicine: “Humans seem to possess an extremely complex biomagnetic energy field that operates outside of the nervous system alone.” That is, our mind-field is the mind-field of our Sun's solar system first and foremost and then the Earth—but also beyond into outer space.

To the point: Space is Cosmic Consciousness itself!

Indeed I wonder if NASA is on the right track with respect to space exploration, as the trance state-of-mind may have a teleportation capacity that has not been explored yet. For as the 1960’s Mars Mission astronaut Brian O’Leary, Ph.D. asks in his book Exploring Inner and Outer Space, “Can the trance state create the extraordinarily real experience of movement at will through space, time, and other dimensions? Just as our alleged UFO visitors appear to be able to operate with regard to outer space? Will outer space travel become easier once we realize that the farthest reaches of all space may be visited through our inner space?”

That is to say, our cosmos is a hologram—a whole message.

In fact, it was this mystical trance state of mind—cosmic consciousness—that Apollo astronaut Edgar Mitchell encountered up close and personal during some of his space flights. That unforgettable sense of “living felt presence” during his Moon Mission led him to launch, pardon the pun, the Institute of Noetic Sciences in Palo Alto, California upon his return to our planet to formally explore the outer reaches of our own inner space further. This ultimately inspired a colleague of his, author of Pole Shift, John White, to identify this new breed of humanity they were contemplating by the Latin phrase “Homo Noeticus”—or a person that has precognitive—remote viewing—skills. Dr. White adds that “Precognition is [merely] the scientific term for paranormal knowledge of future events.”

Of course, upon hindsight we can see clearly that we have had many folks throughout world history display these blossoming psychic talents for catching glimpses of the past and the future in the present moment.

In particular, I am referring not only to shamans but to Christian trance mystics too such as Edgar Cayce (1877-1945). He is someone who would fit this category of visionary and is in fact a person White studied for his timely predictions of a pole shift in our near term. Cayce indicated a time would come when the planet would be so polluted that it will begin to eliminate the threat to life posed by humanity through a catastrophic series of Earth Changes. Beyond a reasonable doubt, that time is now, and, again, it is the role of the mystic, prophet, and shaman to warn the world of looming catastrophes and how to prepare for them. In my book I make recommendations yet I'd be remiss if I did not state “on-the-record” that I see all coastlines of our globe at great risk for cataclysms. The reasons are many not just tidal waves and super storms.

Nonetheless, here is the rest of my story: Cayce—a.k.a., the “sleeping prophet”—who had his own shamanic trance abilities and insights into natural disasters yet was optimistic. He repeatedly stated forcefully that “mind is the builder” of both physical and spiritual reality. So, as I have expressed above, it is my hypothesis that the goal of evolution is to make the contents of our collectively unconscious “mind-field” collectively conscious in order for us to employ these visions in our everyday affairs and even change the outcomes of disasters to more positive, survivable, situations.

How do we do that you ask: Can you say “A-U-M?”

Robert Keith Wallace, Ph.D., an avid researcher of altered states of mind, reports in his book, The Physiology of Consciousness, that as people develop skills in trance meditation techniques they change their perception of reality through shifting into higher realms, and these “subjects sometimes describe their experience in terms of a momentary feeling that the breath has stopped and the body is filled with energy and pure awareness.” So what happens in trance that does not happen otherwise?

Physicist Claude Swanson confirms in The Synchronized Universe: New Science of the Paranormal, “Entering deep [trance] meditation states causes a synchronization of the vibrations of the DNA in the body, and it is very likely that this is one of the keys to ‘psychic superpowers.’ … ‘Phase’ acts like a fifth dimension which distinguished one parallel reality, one ‘universe’ from another.” We become enlightened, in other words, to future events and our role in them by downloading more subtle, faster vibrating electromagnetic waveforms of information. In blunt terms, you don't need a human brain to be conscious! That is a filter so that you don't become overwhelmed by too much input at once.

What is information? It is solar energy, the “biophoton” fields of sunlight, within our DNA.

Highly-respected German biophysicist Fritz-Albert Popp suggests that DNA may be the “mind molecule.” Anthropologist Jeremy Narby, Ph.D., author of The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge, says that Professor Popp confirmed in a telephone conversation with him recently from his European laboratory: “Yes, consciousness could be the electromagnetic field constituted by the sum of these [DNA] emissions.”

Award-winning science writer Michael Talbot said in his now classic book Holographic Universe, “The closest we can come to describing what they [fields] are, is to say that they are spatial structures in the fabric of space itself.” Do you get the implications of what all these folks are saying to us? What these solar fields of light are is non-physical—pure energy—but what these fields do is very physical; they create molecules of matter, our “physical” reality! The bottom-line then is we are light beings of information compressed into meat bodies in order to have a limited experience of creation! There is so much more that it would literally blow our minds to witness it, if unprepared by those that have gone before us.

Dr. Robert Wallace adds, “In terms of DNA the optimal state of physiological functioning is one in which there is a fully integrated and unimpeded flow of information from the DNA to all parts of the body.” What type of information is stored within our bodies? It is our “myths” of heaven, our former condition prior to being born on this planet and as physicist J. Nigro Sansonese reiterates in The Body of Myth: Mythology, Shamanic Trance, and Sacred Geography of the Body: “Myths make use of the special knowledge of our bodies’ life processes to tell us about ourselves, about who we are and whence we have come.”

My greatest revelation from my close encounter with my buddy George Viguet, after all was said and done, was that I saw the grand underlying and overriding purpose of evolution: To see into space! That is, we want to interact consciously with the Kingdom of Heaven; that is our task to fulfill, the flip side of the coin, as Jesus stated through his teaching parables—myths. In the words of the Gnostic scriptures: “We want to make the two [realms of existence] one again. Thy Kingdom Come Thy Will Be Done on Earth as it is in Heaven.”

Again, how do we do this now?

Scholar Stevan L. Davies gives us his opinions for using trance rituals in Jesus the Healer: Possession, Trance, and the Origins of Christianity: “Religious trance perception may be understood to be the perception of some other supernatural place beyond this world or, much more probably for the case of Jesus and his associates, it may be understood to be a radically revised mode of perception of this world. The ‘Gospel of Thomas (113)’ gives this account: His disciples asked him, ‘On what day will the Kingdom come?’ [Jesus] said, ‘It will not come by your expecting it. They will not say, ‘Look here’ or ‘Look there,’ but the Kingdom of the Father is spread out on the earth and people do not see it.’”

Why don't we see that the Kingdom of Heaven for human beings is linked to the Earth and thus our “dead” loved ones are still here as well? And what does this have to do with the trance of the prophet, mystic, and shaman in terms of accessing useful information for us in terms of predicting our future?

In a word, everything!

For heaven is located in the sky above our heads and the way to communicate with its citizens is through the use of trance as that is the synchronized wavelength frequency of their DNA in its ideal state too without a physical brain-body to limit it. In other words, DNA is an immortal liquid-crystal computer, a transmitter-receiver of information as I document in my book comprehensively, DNA processes the solar ray information broadcast into space by the Galactic Center via our Sun! Our Sun is thus likewise a filter for the consciousness of the Milky Way star clusters and so on and so forth throughout the cosmos. More than building-blocks of matter and molecules, we can now see the building-blocks of mind are the solar systems too!

Hence, the logic behind the worship of Sun Gods!

This is what the Mayans and Egyptians knew about these matters as physicist Thomas G. Brophy, Ph.D., revealed in his new book The Origin Map: Discovery of a Prehistoric, Megalithic, Astrophysical Map and Sculpture of the Universe, after he painstakingly dissected the purpose of pyramids and a related ancient stone circle in the Sahara Desert 100 miles west of Aswan, Egypt called Nabta Playa. “Such a function,” Dr. Brophy proclaims, “seems to involve certain alignments among the super massive black hole at the Galactic Center, the Big Bang, the Sun (probably at vernal equinox sunrise), Earth’s axis, and human beings. … This may involve purely physical processes on one end of the spectrum, or involve human consciousness on the other end of the spectrum.”

Islamic scholar Henry Corbin hit the proverbial nail on the head in his text Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth: “The Heavens are light and are here now but we can not see them. What this teaches us is that it is the business of the rest of the community, its Earthly members, to attain this point of view, this spiritual level. This is exactly what it means to ‘rise,’ to be transported to the heights. It has nothing to do with ‘flying away’ and arriving somewhere in Heaven. Nor does it mean that the physical exitus of death is necessary to take you out of this Earthly elemental world we perceive with our senses and help you reach this other world. No, it means to get there while remaining in this world.” Unfortunately, we are not “tuned” to the sky presently, and therein lies the purpose of the precession of the equinoxes and the shift of the ages from Dark to Golden—rapture into the music of the spheres and the reunification of Heaven on Earth!

In closing, it is my genuine heartfelt desire that you can see why such traumas as the after-death communication and the near-death experience invoke such “shock and awe” when they do reveal the “heavenly” secrets of the magnetosphere to us. For we are called to apply that wisdom to our war-ravaged world here and now as it is facing a cataclysmic crisis in climate and consciousness in era-2012. That is in fact the mission for the Shamans of the 21st Century!

Controlling Substances

2007-06-18T13:30:00.000-07:00

Controlling Substances
by ST Frequency
http://www.realitysandwich.com/node/162

In a Village Voice article last May, Tricia Romano interviews a clique of aging New York club-kids who have hung up their trademark vices for the sake of living to party another night. After decades of after-hours shenanigans and chemical abandon, these professional revelers (DJs, promoters and dancefloor celebrities) eventually found themselves faced with the choice between cleaning up their act or winding up another nightlife tragedy. Dubbed “The Sober Bunch,” they are conspicuously abstemious hipsters in an industry characterized by hedonistic excess.

Their stories prompted me to examine my own history. I've had a love affair with psychotropics since high school, when I first courted Ms. Mary Jane. My junior and senior years were some of the most exciting times I've known as I ran dizzily down the corridors of my psyche, twisting doorknobs. I can honestly say, had I not had these initiatory experiences with drugs (especially psychedelics) at this early age, I wouldn't be even vaguely the person I am today. There was a brilliance and magic and electricity about those years that shimmers in my memory still.

College life dulled my perceptions for one reason or another, and I lost that sparkle in my synapses for a while. I didn't indulge in alcohol yet, which made me a social outcast of sorts (We're talking UGA here). But I still toked on the daily -- certainly out of habit, yet perhaps also out of deference to my not-so-distant past, in which new discoveries abounded and all things were gilded and shot through with promise. I had slipped from that Kairos moment into the banal mechanisms of "real life," and it got me down a little. So I got high, you know -- to try and get back up.

After two years of high marks and low interest at UGA, I dropped out. There was a girl involved in all of that as well, but the larger issue was a need for visceral experience, all but banished in the keg-and-football milieu of Athens' collegiate life. Somewhere along the way, I started driving to Atlanta to spend long nights dancing in dark warehouses. I’ll just say that ecstasy and the rave culture was what I’d been searching for -- a social experiment on par with the Acid Tests of the 1960s and one that elevated me from detachment to a delirium so sublime, it seemed almost revolutionary. Recreational drug use took on a literal meaning for me during this period as I began to re-create my world and myself. Like all truly radical cultural movements, the Rave was a brilliant spark that soon burned itself away, leaving thousands of tuned-in, turned-on kids no choice but to drop-out … or fall-in. Here again, the fantastic circumstances that made my chemical adventures so meaningful melted back into the mundane. The pills were still there, but the passion was noticeably lacking.

The substances of choice among the post-Rave set are unmistakably blow and booze. It seems the majority of people find these the most comfortable intoxicants to settle down with, when the vibrancy and daring of youth gives way to marriages, mortgages, and Blackberries. Noncommittal and socially minded, cocaine and alcohol are quite simply easier to incorporate into adulthood than their more dazzling chemical cousins. Unfortunately, they are also highly addictive, destructive, and shamelessly egoistic. Drunken coke binges are purely self-indulgent endeavors, in my experience; few enlightening breakthroughs have been facilitated by a 40-ounce and a 40-bag. At least none that I can remember.

I turn now again to look at these events, and realize that it is both natural and healthy for humans to seek altered states of perception. And yes, it is an escape from “reality,” for we have fabricated an essentially unsatisfying existence out of empty artifice, delusion, and distraction. It can only be expected that we, as a species, continually turn to the infinite frontiers of consciousness for a sense of completeness, limited as we are by our reified consumer identities and dogmatic belief systems. Drugs have the inimitable ability to reveal the charlatans in the grand charade.

Eventually, however, even the most hardy of debauchees may reach that point at which toxicity threatens to tip the balance. Enter this discussion: the choice between sobriety or death, as it were. For certain individuals, the “moderation method” is a lost cause this late in the game. And for this reason, I have the utmost respect for the Sober Bunch.

I can’t help but think, though, how regrettable it is that we often let the worst things in life get the best of us –- slipping into downward spirals at the hands of nature’s foulest offerings. I consider those few, mystical journeys I’ve taken under the spell of a mushroom, and how startlingly awakened the hidden world appeared for a few, eternal moments. How achingly substantial, nourishing, are these memories -- especially in light of the myriad mindless benders I’ve suffered through, after which I was left with nothing but a numb migraine.

Taken to their limits, certain paths grow tangled and dissolute. Certain others, however steep and thorny, will loose the intrepid traveler clear off the map. It is to our society’s tragic chagrin that we are conditioned to trudge the same circuitous trail, when what we truly require is to get helplessly, fearlessly lost.

Amazonian Shamanism Conference

2007-06-18T13:25:00.000-07:00

Amazonian Shamanism Conference
by Morgan Maher

http://www.realitysandwich.com/node/266

The 3rd International Amazonian Shamanism Conference will take place July 7-14th, 2007 in Iquitos, Peru, bringing together an astounding set of shamans, curanderos, and plant-people from around the world.

Norma Panduro Navarro, Guillermo Arévalo, Pablo Amaringo, Juan Flores Salazar, Gayle Highpine, Peter Gorman, Jimmy Weiskopf, Alan Shoemaker and Dennis McKenna are among the long list of shamans, artists, activists, scientists, journalists and curanderos that will speak on specific topics and as part of panel discussions exploring Shamanism and Amazonian healing techniques as well as alternative types of natural medicines.

The first conference was described as an “atomic bomb of good.” This year it has grown considerably in size and breadth and is surely set to be a wonderful, profound and amazing event.

The International Amazonian Shamanism Conference is open to those people sincerely and seriously interested in the knowledge from the Amazon rainforest.

Reality Sandwich launches

2007-05-10T17:00:00.000-07:00

This is a new collective blog that I will be writing for. I have high expectations for it. There are some interesting personalities writing and there will no doubt be some interesting content. I hope you will check it out and visit often!

REALITY SANDWICH LAUNCHES
EVOLVING CONSCIOUSNESS, BITE BY BITE

Reality Sandwich

A new web magazine for these times of intense transition, Reality Sandwich launches today at http://www.realitysandwich.com.

Reality Sandwich covers topics from sustainability to shamanism, alternate realities to alternative energy, remixing media to re-imagining community, holistic healing techniques to the promise and perils of new technologies. It hopes to spark debate and engagement by offering a forum for voices ranging from the ecologically pragmatic to the wildly visionary. Reality Sandwich includes news, reflective essays, arts, interviews, podcasts, and forums. Counteracting the doom-and-gloom of the daily news, the site is a platform for perspectives conveying a different vision of the transformations we face.

Among the more than 40 participating contributors are: Daniel Pinchbeck, Melinda Wenner, The Yes Men, Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky, David Rothenberg, Douglas Rushkoff, John Jay Harper, Kaliya Hamlin, Henri Poole, Andrew Boyd, Aline Duriaud, Ken Jordan, Jonathan Phillips, Elizabeth Thompson, Andy Dale and Michael Brownstein.

Reality Sandwich is built with Drupal, the popular open source online publishing system, by the free and open source software consultants CivicActions.

“Life is a Dance; It is Not a Treadmill:” An Interview with Dream Interpreter Amy George

2007-05-10T16:56:00.000-07:00

“Life is a Dance; It is Not a Treadmill:”
An Interview with Dream Interpreter Amy George

Apr 29th, 2007 by cadeveo

Waking the Midnight Sun link

Awhile back, I wrote about a very significant dream I had, which led me to seek out some dream interpretation. That, in turn, led me to discover, Amy George. Amy interprets dreams on a daily basis as part of her column for the Cape Cod Times. On top of that, she is a transgendered woman who has had quite a spiritual transformation experience, culminating with her becoming a vessel for the manifestation of a consciousness she calls The Queen of Heaven. And while I could spin all sorts of speculation, I prefer to let Amy speak for herself.

Below, you’ll find a recent e-mail interview I conducted with Amy, where she talks about her life, dream work, spiritual experiences, and more.

When did you first realize you had a spiritual calling?

In college, in the late 1980s, while working through long-term problems with depression & anxiety, I started dreaming. My dreams then introduced me to my calling, but I wasn’t fully initiated into it till 1998.

Before ’98, my dreams were unusually cosmic, and odd phenomena happened in the night such as awaking to presences in the room, awaking paralyzed, and being attacked by “demons” in my sleep. I knew something novel was happening underneath the surface of ordinary life, and had little inkling that it would lead where it did.

The two most pivotal events in my calling were my encounter with Satan in 1982 and my encounter with Christ in 1998. Regarding my calling, there was no turning back after the latter event.

You mention on your site that in 1998 a “spiritual quest” led to an apocalyptic shift in your identity. What were the different devotional processes or rituals that you experimented with when this happened, if any? And what do you feel triggered the shift?

In 1998 I was (and still am today) participating in a global shift in consciousness. The global shift is a macrocosm of a microcosmic shift taking-place within individuals. I see the trigger for these shifts as ultimately a cosmic one. The point of the shift is to initiate a global transition to a higher state of consciousness which will eventually allow the eternal spirit of Creation to dwell within humanity, making the flesh inorganic and immortal, “in the image of God.” The shift is an existential one toward the reunion of male & female, time & eternity, spirit & matter, Heaven & Earth and so on for the sake of the cultivation of the New Kingdom.

In ’98, the most essential things I did differently to assume my role in the personal/collective/global/cosmic shift were to turn away from social, romantic and monetary/employment distractions to attend to my inner-world through meditation, prayer and my dreams. I would pray, meditate, work with my dreams and contemplate every day. Meditation was typical, seated, focused on being. When I prayed, it was as a supplicant.

The universe responded to my receptivity. I answered back, it replied, and so on it went like a dance. Eternity danced itself into my mind and body because my receptivity enabled it to. This occurred while on a ten-week, somewhat Aboriginal walkabout in California.

Another side of the personal level of the shift was that it happened because my male identity had run its course. By this, I primarily mean that I had become incapable of feeling anything as the man I was. I was too spiritually/emotionally wounded to go on. Dreams often likened me to a cripple. I needed my inner-woman because my ability to relate as a man to waking-life women was moribund.

Unlike most transsexual women, I was not born with the sense that I was in the wrong body. Rather various people and events emasculated me. I responded by becoming more clown than man. Had I not answered my calling, dreams and other experience have suggested that I would have gone into rather wretched decline, which was already beginning in 1998, but was curtailed as I began dancing with the shift.

From the brief detail you give of your experience on your FAQ about your spiritual transformation, it sounds like what has sometimes been referred to as a kundalini awakening or perhaps a dark night of the soul which you successfully passed through. How would you describe your transformation experience and what helped you make it through to the other side successfully?

The transformation experience was like death. Maybe it was death. I’m not sure that I did not actually die. Now I am reconstructing myself under the premise that the mind/body I presently inhabit might not physically die, but keep evolving. (I don’t mention this glibly. It’s a burden.) Even if I am to physically die, being reborn into a new life appears immanent. Remembering so much of my previous life, I sense that I have already subverted death once with consciousness.

The pinnacle of my transformation, in this life, was losing my male name and becoming a collection of selves dialoging to put me back together. This went on for a few weeks, in the midst of full-blown psychosis. The psychosis was at its most intense for a year and a half. During this time there was not much continuity to my identity, except what I could arrange from images coming from visions and dreams, and through my writing, journaling, art, music & dance.

During the year and a half, my nerves were shot. I was jittery and disoriented most of the time. For awhile moving cars frightened me.

For four years I spent the good part of every day lying down. I was dazed most of the time. The external environment overloaded me with stimuli and I would reflexively withdraw into myself. Eventually, I stopped assuming I was going to magically turn into a girl and set about getting hormones and an orchiectomy.

I am certain both “kundalini awakening” and “dark night of the soul” apply to my experience. The number one thing that helped me get through was maintaining an observing ego. Because of my work with dreams, and contemplative nature, my ego was extremely pliant. It could integrate any experience, no matter how over-the-top. My ego constantly got more and more strongly elastic, while not getting “big.”

I was often lost in self-created dramas, but whenever they receded my ego would step forth and arrange my experience in accordance with the library of existential information housed in my body.

The kundalini awakening I had in 2000 virtually annihilated me. It has taken years to bring enough balance to it that I am comfortable. The past year has been my best since 1996.

Balancing the kundalini with dance feels very healthy. I let the kundalini move through me when I dance.

The Queen of Heaven is a title that has been attributed to various female deities or aspects of the divine throughout human history, including the Virgin Mary and the ancient Middle-Eastern goddess Ishtar. How do you perceive the Queen of Heaven with whom you’ve spiritually bonded?

The FAQ in my website answers this question best.

In brief, I regard the Queen of Heaven as a state of being that impresses itself on human consciousness when called for, channeling through various personae in different eras. This state of being is a personification of the feminine side of God. She is like Eve before the Fall, only the Queen of Heaven is eminently self-aware.

The Queen of Heaven has required history in order to become self-aware. She has been becoming, and seemingly will continue to become, self-aware through my mind & body—and other peoples’, too, in varying degrees.

I surmise—and have experienced in dreams and visions—that at some point in my evolution I will become as perfect, whole, aware, and perhaps as deathless as Her.

There is a tradition of yoga called bhakti, wherein a devotee chooses a god/goddess form–perhaps Krishna or some other deity–who becomes the sole focus of hir devotion. Through intense concentration and constant remembrance of hir chosen deity (isht-deva), the devotee eventually becomes transformed so that hir essence and spirit becomes one with hir deity. Has the role you describe for yourself as an avatar of The Queen of Heaven resulted from a process like bhakti? Or was it more that She chose you?

I would say that it resulted from both, but I definitely didn’t choose her. It was more like there was a path to her that I was unwittingly led down. My role in relation to the Queen of Heaven is to participate in it, to dance with it. In 1997, months before the onset of my calling, I had the following dream that elaborated the process of relating to the unconscious, of which she is the crown:

I’m in a dentist’s office getting prepared for oral surgery by a woman dental assistant. She is rubbing painkiller into the back of my skull, so I figure it’s supposed to seep through to my mouth. As she does this she instructs the dentist on spiritual matters. He is aware that a great spiritual shift is taking place. He is both wary and curious about it. She talks about the spiritual shift’s relation to us. When the Ego is gone the Self can live, and what the Ego calls impossible can happen, for example levitation or flight. She instructs him in being both open and judicious in approaching it. Everything she’s saying is in Hungarian, except when she says, “It is something that experiences everyone.” I correct her saying, “Everyone experiences.” She accepts my correction. As she speaks I shut my eyes and raise my feet in the direction of the ceiling so that I’m standing on the back of my neck and head in some kind of yogic position. Energy is coming to me.

Does God experience us or do we experience God? The answer is both, only most people are not as called as me to be God’s puppet. God is not my puppet, but puppeteers me by leading me into experience.

Our culture seems to have a bit of difficulty in figuring out how to conceive of, much less what to do with, spirituality for folks that have sexualities or gender-identities outside the usual male/female heterosexual box. Yet, that has not been the case in other cultures I’ve read about where, folks that in our society would be considered queer or gay, bi or transgendered would be the prime candidates to receive the call to spiritual work or shamanism. How do you see that changing both within the mainstream culture and also within gay/bi/transgender communities?

I don’t perceive any shift in the mainstream toward regarding LGBTQ people as particularly spiritual. In general, the mainstream seems to be giving greater interest and a fairer shake to the LGBTQ community—not that there is not a long way to go.

I have sensed a little shift toward spirituality and shamanism within LGBTQ circles, but I don’t think it is any different than what is happening in the mainstream. I think that, in our culture, LGBTQ people tend to be spiritualized not because of their unique perspectives, but because of their suffering, which is a spiritualizer. In the LGBTQ community, more attention is given to protecting rights than spirituality. First things first.

I regard LGBTQ shamanism and spirituality in traditional societies as certainly paralleling my personal role in today’s mainstream culture. In contrast, I am a marginal figure engaging the spiritual life of the mainstream through the backdoor, using “Ask the Dream Queen.” I think that my role has come about due to the schism between the collective conscious and the collective unconscious becoming quite narrow.

What have you learned, not only about yourself, but about other people through your work as a dream interpreter?

I try to interpret a dream a day. I always learn something new from this. It is often like adding a new book to my library of dreams and related existential information

In everyday life I haven’t had a social relationship of any depth for ten years. During this time, I have evolved to a degree that is alienating. If the soul cannot be part of my relation to others, I am alienated. The blog lets me go straight to the place where I am most at home with others. I feel close to dreamers, like we form a soul family that is assisted in becoming aware of itself by working with dreams.

The blog also gives me a platform to express ideas that have stewing for years.

How did you connect with the Cape Cod Times?

One of my brothers works there as a graphics designer. I submitted the blog to approximately 150 other publications, and was rejected by all. It goes to show the value of contacts.

Aside from dream interpretation, what other spiritual work do you do with others?

On my website, I offer free spiritual counseling. No one has actually contacted me for this because of the website. Mostly, all I do personally with others is offer perspectives to lighten things weighing on them. More than anyone else, my brothers refer to me for guidance. Once a woman contacted me after reading my thoughts on synchronicity in an ”Ask the Dream Queen” posting. I was able to help her make sense of the incapacitating synchronicities she was experiencing.

You’ve described your purpose as one of bringing balance. I’d like you to go into some more detail about that.

There is no greater need on the planet than balance, but most people are incapable of understanding balance because imbalance is so deeply enculturated. I see all woe–tragedies, atrocities, sickness, injury and death–as expressions of balance, incurred because of imbalance.

Where I identify imbalance, others often see power. People think that they are powerful when they exert force, and then, over time, they come to exert force reflexively, causing imbalance. At this point come accidents, tragedies and so forth. They happen because there is only force behind them, and no power.

Power is the potential to exert force just as much as it is the potential not to exert force. Only from balance can unassailable power arise. From such power comes irresistible force.

As an extension of these notions, I believe that the potential to exert great force due to the practice of repetitive actions is illusory. Life is dance. It is not a treadmill.

Balance is feminine. Power is masculine, but balance & power precede man & woman. They are that fundamental.

To empower woman and balance man is the end of the old world.

Assuming, for a moment, that the events so far in the U.S., make up the components of one collective dream–how might you interpret it and what do we need to work on, purify or transform in ourselves?

There is no doubt that waking-life dramas are projections most directly addressed by attendance to the Self. Because of the Tao, enough energy is invested into environmentalism, peacemaking and other areas that curb the momentum of ignorance in the external world. Given this, those who have spiritual and creative callings do best to ignore ignorance (“events in the US”) altogether, at least until its excesses demand compassion.

No greater gift can be given to the world than for the individual to answer the call of the Self. In return, the individual becomes a home for the ethos of eternity—the ethos that ultimately dooms ignorance. The contributions of such individuals to the collective will transform it. As a result of the transformation, even the collective’s nay-sayers will wake one day to realize that they have been asleep at the wheel of reality.

As a new era approaches, the Tao will purify the collective of ignorance, and its souls will be recycled like so many aluminum cans.

I view history as a gestalt that parallels the development of a single individual. If there is a point to this, it is that historical time and individual time converge as individuals consciously harmonize with eternity.

Do you have any other thoughts or insights you’d like to share with us?

Many thousands, but I’ll hold off except to mention some news: I landed an agent! She has been in the business of selling books to big publishing houses for thirty years. Soon, she will be going to NYC to try to sell my memoirs, collectively titled Evolution of the Peacock. The first book to be published will likely be one called “The Stooge.”

***

Thanks to Amy George for the opportunity to conduct this interview. If you have dreams of significance that you’d like interpreted, check out her column, send her an e-mail and be ready for her helpful insights.

The Tree of Life, Cosmic Conspiracy, and the Secret of Da'ath

2007-05-10T16:52:00.000-07:00

http://world.std.com/~snet/tol.htm

Have I stumbled onto a Cosmic Conspiracy?

The seed of life and the tree of life superimposed

Do you see something(s) missing?

I am convinced that the "message" of this crop circle is:

"What about Daath?"

The tree of life is a cultural symbol, historically attributed to Jewish mystery religion. I rejected the notion that the author of this crop circle would ask the whole of humanity to pay homage to the religion of a minority ethnic sect. Kabbalah is not mainstream Judaism! However, Kabbalah has been embraced and adopted by non-jewish groups, such as the gnostics and rosicrucians, among many others. Indeed, within recent years Kabbalah has become more popular among a wide range of spiritualist seekers. For these reasons, I sought a more universal approach to the reason that this form was selected for a crop circle.

In the past, crop circles have usually been pressed into unique geometric patterns. I am aware that in at least one instance, a previously known form was shown; the mandelbrot set.

The following quote is from Greg Braden, in his book, "Glyphs in the Crops: Living Codes of Change" (1994):

A Mathematical Constant: order and Chaos Converge

Possibly one of the most astounding glyphs to appear in recent
years is that of the Mandelbrot set. Appearing approximately ten
miles south of Cambridge, England on August 12, 1991 this
formation was the first that could actually be scientifically
substantiated by researchers.

The study of chaos theory defines a point expressing the boundary
between order and non-order. It may be said that at this point order
breaks down into chaos, or conversely, chaos gives way to a higher
order ( chaos being a degree of order within itself ). The
mathematics to describe this point, known as the Mandelbrot Set, are
complex. Until recently, the mathematics were all that we had to
reference this energetic boundary. With the development of high-
speed computer capabilities, massive computer memory and fractal
output, it is now possible to view the Mandelbrot equations
graphically. The image portraying the point at which order and chaos
converge is shown in Fig. 14 (see graphic below).

Fractal Geometry
The Story of Benoit B. Mandelbrot and the Geometry of Chaos

As Colin Andrews states in his video, "Undeniable Evidence" (4), this is a particularly significant image because it portrays graphically and describes mathematically the precise point that the indigenous people of the world, as well as the ancient texts, indicate that Earth is at in this moment of time; the point in which chaos and order converge. Stated another way, we are experiencing the chaos of old belief systems and obsolete paradigms, giving way to a higher order characterized as peace, cooperation and harmony. In any case, it is the Mandelbrot set that will probably be viewed as a turning point in the study of crop circles, as this pictogram was the first to be recognized universally as the graphic portrayal of a relevant and significant mathematical constant.

[ END QUOTE ]

The majority of circles has given us messages obscured in geometry and mathematics. Although the TOL is a known jewish symbol, it is also obviously a geometric form. In addition, the location of Barbury Castle was host to a crop circle in 1991, for which a universal correlation has since been found.

Da'ath: the mysterious knowledge, the great abyss

"Unlike the sephirah which represent states of mind rather than static placements, and the paths of lessons learned to move from one sephirah or concept to another, Da'ath is not represented upon the Qabalah tree. It is placed below the three supernal sephirah - Kether (the crown), Binah (+) and Chokmah (-). The polarities of positive and negative alternate up and down the tree and cause the energies to circulate as the universal input is pulled downward through the tree supernal sephirah to Da'ath. In this void between the higher and the lower the hither to formless energy of the universe takes on material shape by crystallization. Here is the highest point of the human mind: the home of the brainstorm or creative energy that is brought into manifestation on the earthly plain. As the sand passes through the narrow center of the hour glass, so does knowledge incoming from the universe pass into our consciousness in the machinery of Da'ath. Here is the ultimate home of intuitive knowledge from which all concepts stem.

"When working with the tree either to call down the greater knowledge of the superhuman universe and its infinite organization, or to bring our self up the tree from the lower sephirah for spiritual upliftment and higher perspective, all energy must pass through Da'ath on its way into matter or disintegration into the hypertext of the universe. Thus the term mysterious knowledge is given to Da'ath where wisdom (Chokmah) is combined with understanding (Binah) and melded to the material level through the influence of Tiphareth (sixth sephirah: balanced harmony), which pervades one's soul with the concealed light of illumination of consciousness."

Paradise2012.com

2007-05-10T16:51:00.000-07:00

http://paradise2012.com/neo/

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Urban Curators

2007-05-10T16:34:00.000-07:00

http://www.urbancurators.com/

Our Mission

The goal of the Urban Curators project is to engage the public in the celebration of the decaying urban environment, recognizing its inherent aesthetic qualities as well as the important role that it plays within our cultural habitat. The project achieves its goal by elevating common, overlooked objects and spaces within the city of Providence, Rhode Island to the level of high art.

Literally hanging gold, gallery-style frames in derelict spaces within the city, we are framing objects and views that are of aesthetic or cultural value. By utilizing frames that one might expect to find in an art museum or gallery, viewers are forced to make connections between the urban landscape and the museum environment. Viewers are likewise encouraged to reconsider their prior conceptions of beauty and worth, understanding that the spontaneity of decay offers an alternative aesthetic to excessive design.

Humans have for centuries sought after the grandeur of ruins that were once the glory of ancient cultures, recognizing them as windows into the lives of past civilizations. The Urban Curators project proposes that we should likewise cherish those ruins that reflect modern-day consumerism and industrialization, realizing them as vehicles by which we can gain insight into our own society.

Time & The Technosphere

2007-04-19T03:25:00.000-07:00

José Argüelles
Time & The Technosphere
The Law of Time in Human Affairs

http://bodhitree.com/lectures/Arguelles.html

José Argüelles has devoted his lifetime to a pursuit of the study of the nature of art, time and history. The course of his work reflects a highly intelligent, organized, original and independent spirit. His many books are a demonstration of the themes that have inspired him and evoke an original understanding of the evolving nature of consciousness. The root of all his endeavors lies in the examination of the holistic science that unifies body and mind, sense and nature. He writes, "From the beginning of my pursuits I have been moved by my intuitive awareness of our intrinsic wholeness as humans, and the knowledge that this wholeness is a reflection of the wholeness of Earth, the solar system, and the cosmos itself." His work expresses a profoundly radical break with Western scientific and academic modes of thought. By putting together the mathematical codes of the Mayan calendar and being initiated into the Mayan prophetic tradition, Argüelles has taken on the prophecy mantle, and his life task has become to define the "time science" of which the prophecies are a manifestation.

In Time & the Technosphere, José Argüelles presents a groundbreaking study that distinguishes the natural time of the cosmos from the artificial mechanistic time under which we currently live. He defines the actual nature of time as the frequency of sychronization. Applying this "Law of Time" to an understanding of the entire system of life on Earth, he shows that in order to not destroy Earth's ability to sustain life, we must change our definition of time and adopt a natural harmonic calendar based on the 13-moon 28-day cycle.

José Argüelles came to the Bodhi Tree in July, 2003 to discuss his book. What follows is an edited version of his presentation.

* * * * *

José Argüelles: I was last here at the Bodhi Tree in 1987 to present my book The Mayan Factor. And happily, The Mayan Factor is still sailing along. It has been translated into many languages, such as Yugoslavian, Russian, Japanese, Portuguese, Polish, Lithuanian, and French. The interest in The Mayan Factorcontinues because the overlooked factor of history is real and true time, and not mechanical, mechanistic, clock time, nor Gregorian calendar time. The main thrust of meaning of the book is that the actual nature of time is the overlooked factor of history.

After the harmonic convergence in 1987, my son was killed. In his honor, I wrote the book Surfers of the Zuvuya. But after a period of grieving, I knew that the time had come for me to leave civilization, as it were, and head off on my own to finish decoding the mathematics of the Mayan calendar. In 1989, after a brief sojourn in Malibu, I went to Maui. Towards the end of 1989, I found myself in Geneva, Switzerland. Now during all this time I had been studying and living the cycles of time of the Mayan calendar.

I was visiting the Museum of Time in Geneva on a cold day in December and after several hours I realized that the Museum of Time and the Mayan concept of time didn't even make it close to being on the same page. They both use the same word "time" but were two different things. I said to myself, "This museum has to be renamed the Museum of Mechanized Time." I saw in a spontaneous and instantaneous flash of monumental insight that the whole basis of everything that's called "modern civilization" is operating on an erroneous timing frequency, and that what the Mayans knew was that time is not something that's placed in a clock on a wall, but that time is the universal factor of synchronization. This is why the Mayans used 22 calendars.

The Mayans would say, "You guys are really primitive. You use this thing you call the Gregorian calendar, which makes you crazy - 30 days has September, April, June and November. All the rest have 31 except for February which has 28 and on leap years 29." Now why is it called the Gregorian calendar? Where did it come from? Why do we use it? Did we ever have a choice?

Don't ask me why it's so complicated and why the units of measure don't square up with each other. You use it for your appointments but you don't want to think about it. As a result, our concept of time is stunted. Most people might think who cares and what does that matter? But you only ask that question because your concept of time is already so stunted.

I saw this in a flash while in the Museum of Time on December 10th, 1989, because I had been living by Mayan timing cycles. I had been living 13-day, 20-day, 52-day, and 260-day cycles. I said, "Wow, this is really different." The Mayan concept of time is cyclical, it's fractal, it doesn't really have a beginning, and it doesn't really have an end. It is cycles within cycles within cycles. It is many different calendars, which means factors of synchronization.

We think it's a big deal when we have a synchronicity. I thought of that person and here they are. But the Mayan calendar and what the Mayans knew through their calendar system is that synchronicity is the norm. Everything is in a state of synchronicity. In fact, that's what the "Law of Time" refers to as the "synchronic order." We all know that time is the fourth dimension. The synchronic order is to the fourth dimension of time what gravity is to the third dimension of space. That holds everything together. And we're also in the fourth dimension and the third dimension this very moment. The fourth dimension is greater than and encompasses the third dimension. The third dimension is physical - it's space. We can touch it, see it, and we can feel what it is. It has texture, color, and sound, whatever you want. But show me where time is. It's not on your clock. You can't touch time. You can't see time. Maybe with an inner sense you can feel time. So, time is of the mind, just like third dimension space is of matter. Time is of the mind. That's where time exists. If you look into nature, you can see there are cycles and rhythms of time. You know the lunar cycles and the Circadian rhythms. There are different biological cycles. But the actual fact is that when you say, "Where is it? How do you know it?" is that time is of the mind. Who owns your time owns your mind.

Do you know who owns your time? The U.S. Army and the Vatican. The mechanical standard of time is kept by the U.S. Department of Defense, and they know exactly what time it is to the nanosecond. The Vatican is in charge of your daily appointment schedule. If you think you have trouble getting out of this chaotic civilization and you can't stop the war, that's because these instruments are owned by corporations, organizations or fictional ghost entities from the Vatican and the Pentagon.

Who owns your time owns your mind. Own your own time and you will know your own mind. And if you can own your own time, what does that mean? That means taking off your watch. It means getting another calendar, the Mayan calendar. The Mayan calendar system was the most sophisticated concept of time known by any culture or civilization on this planet, never surpassed.

If you go to Kitt Peak Observatory outside of Tucson, Arizona, you will find a whole array of very sophisticated astronomical instruments, telescopes, and where incidentally the Vatican has its observatory. On the side of the Visitors' Building there's a mural, and it's a mural of the Mayan civilization. And there's an inscription on it that says, "The Mayan calendar was more scientific than the calendar we are using today, which is the Gregorian calendar". If this is a scientific civilization, why are we not using a calendar that's more scientific than the one we are using? The interesting thing about the Mayan calendar is that the Mayans didn't have telescopes, yet their calendars are the most sophisticated measures of all the different planets and their synodical relationships to each other, to the Earth, as well as calendars of star systems like the Pleiades. And they did it by a mathematical system, and their mathematical system gave their calendars and astronomy as great an accuracy as we now get with our telescopes. The mathematical system was not a decimal system; it was a 20-count vigesimal system. So, it is a very different system. And they also used a positional zero. So, you can count up in the first position one dot equals one, and the second position one dot equals 20, and the third position one dot equals 400, and the fourth position one dot equals 8,000, in the fifth position one dot equals 160,000, in the sixth position one dot equals 3,200,000, etc. And you see that's the 20-count gives you an exponential curve that goes up with numbers that go much higher. But if you look at those numbers fractally - 1, 20, 400, 8,000... you see 1, and then you see 2, and then you see 4, and then you see 8, and 160,000, 16, 3,200,000, 32. What you have actually is both a vigesimal count and a binary doubling factor. It is an interesting mathematical system used to construct their calendars.

The Mayan base calendar is the very mysterious "Tzolkin", sacred count, which is a 260-day cycle. Archaeologists have always been scratching their heads about why they were using a 260-day cycle. A birth cycle is about 266 to 273 days so it's a little under a human cycle of pregnancy. This 260-day cycle, I discovered, is actually what we call a "fourth dimensional timing gauge." Now because time is of the mind, the standard of measure that you use to measure your time is actually going to create an unconscious program in you that will totally affect your entire attitude, function and the way you think. Ultimately, it affects the way the whole society functions.

I saw that the Mayan time was a measure of synchronicity, factors of synchronicity, and that it was cyclical and fractal. And I saw that the 260 count is actually a 13 x 20 ratio, and that this 13:20 ratio is a mathematical constant. It is a constant of time that runs through the universe. The difference between the 13 and the 20 is the 7, your mystical number. The 7, the 13 and the 20 are the key numbers of the fourth dimensional time that was understood by the Mayans in their mathematical, astronomical and calendarical system.

Now I'm still telling the story about the experience I had in the Museum of Time. It happened in what seemed like an instant but then it takes a long time to unfold. And so I saw that the Mayan measure of time was natural, universal, cosmic time, and that time is a frequency. They knew that time is a frequency of synchronization and that frequency is defined by a mathematical constant of a ratio of 13 to 20. And then I saw that what the Museum of Time was showing me was that the concept of time that developed in the West was originally developed in Babylonia and Sumeria, and then passed down to the Romans. It also spread from Sumeria to India and to China. It went to Egypt. Eventually it was picked up by Julius Caesar who gave us the Julian calendar in 45 BC. It is a 12-month calendar with all the uneven dates. The Gregorian calendar is based on the Julian calendar. So, irrationality and illogic is built into our system. That's why, no matter how many laws you make you can't keep the criminals down. It's a crooked system, so naturally you get crooks from a crooked system. You can't get rid of the criminals and they're ruling the country. So, this is like the final epiphany of crooked time that we're experiencing right now, this very moment, no exaggeration.

The Christians picked up the calendar from Julius Cesar and at the Council of Nicea in 325, they added the seven-day week to it, which came from the Babylonians. In 1452 there was a "Papal Edict" by Pope Nicholas the V called the "Doctrine of Discovery". This edict basically said any Christian who finds a land that's owned by a non-Christian has the right to dispossess the non-Christian from that land. That's why most of us are here right now! That became manifest destiny in American history. And so, 40 years later in 1492, Christopher Columbus was sent off to test that theory, that edict. When he got there, he said, "Wow, do we have real estate." And within 70 or 80 years, from 1492 to 1562, the Europeans mightily used the Doctrine of Discovery. They laid claim and took over the entire North and South America in one fell swoop in that short time. The Spaniards destroyed the temples. dwellings and the people. It was genocide. They especially erased the intellectual, the elite and the priest class, and burned every book they could find. In 1562, there was a major book burning, probably comparable to the burning of the library of Alexandria. The Bishop in charge of the burning returned to Rome to describe his adventurers and divulge everything that he discovered. One thing that they found out was that the calendar that the Mayans used was better than their calendar. It kept time better and they found out that on their calendar, what was then called the Julian calendar, that they were 10 days off from the solstices and the equinoxes. In 1572 the Bishop was sent back to Yucatan and a new pope was elected in Rome. He took on the name Pope Gregory the XIII, an interesting number. And he said, "The first thing I'm going to do is reform the calendar." So, the calendar reform that came to be known as the "Gregorian calendar reform" was a direct result of the aftermath of the conquest of the Mayan civilization and the discovery that their calendar was more precise and more accurate than the Julian calendar. So, 10 years later in 1582, 90 years after Christopher Columbus set off, we got the Gregorian calendar. You went to bed on October 5th and woke up on October 16th. They took care of those 10 days they lost. And that's where that calendar came from. At the same moment in time in history, what is called the mechanical clock attained its perfection.

In the Museum of Time, I saw all this in a twinkling. I saw that the actual measure and understanding of time that the Mayans knew about in their calendar was the mathematical constant ratio of 13:20, which was the natural timing frequency, and I saw that all of modern civilization was based on an artificial timing frequency which I refer to as a 12:60 frequency. It is the irregular 12-month calendar, with a mechanistic 60-minute hour of the clock. The combination of these two instruments created at that point in time, 1582, an unconscious mental frequency, the 12:60, which is an irregular, chaotic, macro program. This established the basis of the Scientific Revolution in the 17th century, and of the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century. The clock was the first machine. All machine technology is based on the fact that the clock is the first machine. The clock sets the pace for all the machines. And then, it sets the pace of the entire civilization. Once this was in place and because the Europeans had come to conquer and control the world, then this became the dominant frequency of the human species.

The result of this was that from 1750 to the present, in the short period of time of 250 years, the population increased twelve-fold from 500 million to over 6 billion. Over 5,000 years of the history of this cycle of civilization, the population of the human species has increased twelve-fold from 3113 BC when the Mayan measure of the cycle of history begins, to 1750 AD over something of a little under 5,000 years. During this time, the population went from 200 million to 500 million. It scarcely doubled in that time, but in the last 250 years after that, it increased twelve-fold from 500 million to over 6 billion. You're actually dealing with an exponential curve. It is an exponential curve that's based by the machine and by the almighty dollar. Time is money is the philosophy of 12:60 time. What does the word "calendar" mean? Calendar, comes from a Roman word, which means account book. The meaning of the calendar is it is an account book. Time is money is built into the system.

Slowly through the 19th century, other countries accepted the Gregorian calendar. Japan accepted it in 1873 and you can see what happened once they developed that and borrowed all the Western institutions. They became a leading technological power, at least in the second half of the 20th century. And today, all countries virtually have accepted it. China has now accepted the Gregorian calendar, as being their official calendar, along with the Chinese lunar calendar.

What I saw in that moment in the museum was that there was the natural timing frequency and the artificial timing frequency, and that the whole of modern civilization was based and founded in this artificial timing frequency, and as a result, was headed for disaster because the artificial timing frequency creates an artificial structure called the "technosphere." We live in the technosphere. The Earth itself, what we call the environment, is more appropriately and scientifically described as the "biosphere," this sphere of life and its support system that encompasses the Earth. Since the beginning of civilized history 5,000 years ago, the human species has slowly been reshaping the biosphere, but very slowly - through irrigation, terracing of mountainsides like in Peru, irrigation, canals and so on - in every part of the world. Then beginning around 1750, boom. The explosion of the 1260 civilization has resulted in the fact that the human species is in an out-of-control state with respect to population growth and the machine. The machine depletes natural resources faster than they can be replaced and creates more waste than can be disposed of. So, if you stop and think about it, how long can we go before there are no more possibilities and we have total chaos. Not too long.

In 1973 the Club of Rome met - bankers, etc. - and determined different future scenarios. They were trying to determine the best thing to do: shall we increase industrial production, shall we maintain industrial production at the current level, or shall we decrease industrial production in light of what its impact is on the environment? And they decided to go for what is called the "standard world model". The standard world model is to maintain industrial production at least at the level it was in 1973 and steadily go with that. It later came to be known as sustainable development, but it doesn't work. They figured that that would hold maybe till sometime between 2012 and 2020. I'm not sure what they were thinking would happen beyond that, but they figured most of them who were alive then would still be very rich and die with a lot of money before the world ended.

But I saw that this civilization is operating on artificial time. It has no real concept of time and it is devouring its biosphere. It's burning up its resources and creating global warming. It is destroying species at a very rapid rate and decimating the biodiversity. This civilization is creating a situation which in a very short period of time everything will become even more hellish than it is today. So, I said, "Well, if I know anything at all, it is that there is such a thing as natural time, and so, what are we doing on an artificial time that is destroying ourselves? We'd better get back to living in natural time." And I instantly also knew at that moment that the first step was to change the calendar. And to get a calendar that would be a harmonic standard, using the Thirteen Moon calendar , with 13 months.

What does a calendar measure? What a calendar measures is the orbit of the Earth around the sun. That's what a solar calendar measures. A lunar calendar measures the moon around the Earth. A lunar calendar is not a solar calendar. The 13-moon calendar is a solar-lunar calendar because it uses those two main measures of the moon - one is the 29-and-a-half day measure, new moon to new moon - it's called the synodical. And the other is the 27-day measure, the sidereal, which is from where the moon appears in the sky and when it returns to that same place again. Between the 27 and the 29 is the 28-day, which is also the mean measure of the lunar cycle as well as of the female menstruation cycle. So, it's a biologically accurate calendar for the human species as well as using a lunar measure as the unit of measure. This gets you back to 13. And we know that one of the diseases of civilization is a phobia or fear of the number 13. It's built into the civilization. It's been there since Babylon. Why? That's a very interesting question. My research showed me that throughout most of pre-history, the Thirteen Moon/28-Day calendar was probably the most prominently used instrument of all peoples. Both Egypt and China had it. It's still in use in South America in the Andean civilization. This is the year 5,511 of the Thirteen Moon calendar in South America. Of course, the Mayans had it and so did other peoples of North America as well as in Polynesia, and not to mention the Druids. 13 months, 28 days.

Now you know it takes 365 days to go around the sun. If you divide the year by a number that's going to give you the approximate relationship to the moon that's going around there, there's going to be 13 times 28 equals 364. That gives you 13 perfect months with 28 days, or 52 perfect weeks. It's logical. The one day that is left over is referred to as the "day out of time" because it's no day of the week or the month at all. And in that way, the calendar remains perpetual.

The League of Nations in 1930 announced to the world that on January 1, 1933 the world was going to have a new calendar. You don't read that in your history books. That was one of the main agendas of the League of Nations. And the most favorite calendar was the 13 month/28-day calendar. The French philosopher August Kant, who invented sociology as a modern discipline, took on the Vatican and said, "We have to change the calendar." He said it's obvious that the most logical calendar is the 13 month/28-day calendar. He also found out that the Polynesians used it, and then he found out many other people used it.

In 1933, the calendar reform didn't happen. The Vatican had a very big propaganda campaign. They said, "If you want to keep the 52 weeks of the year you have to have a day that's no day of the week at all. If we have that calendar it will break the succession of the week that was set in motion by God when he created the universe." And they added, "If we observe that day out of time, it will break the weekly succession, and it will plunge the world into barbarism, chaos and war." I don't need to comment on that.

Fortunately, when I was in the Museum of Time I didn't even know there was an earlier calendar reform movement. I probably would have dropped in my tracks if I had known how much had been done already and that it went down to dismal defeat and the matter was adjourned indefinitely at the United Nations in 1956. I didn't know about any of that at all. All I knew was that to save my modern civilization, or in other words, to save the Earth from modern civilization, I knew that the human species had to change its timing frequency and get back into living in the natural cycles of time, and the first step to do this was to change the macro program, the calendar, to replace the Gregorian calendar with the Thirteen Moon, 28-Day calendar.

In 1992 and 1993 I decided in earnest that I had to announce it to the world. In the meantime I had decoded the Mayan prophecy of Pacal Votan. Pacal Votan was the Mayan sage whose tomb was discovered in 1952 in the Temple of the Inscriptions located in Palenque, Mexico. I found out some interesting things about that because I had figured out that the artificial timing frequency was 12:60 and the natural timing frequency was 13:20.

The Pascal Votan tomb puzzled people for a long time. What did it mean? It is a very elaborate tomb inside of a pyramid. The tomb was dedicated in the year 692, and it was discovered in 1952 - 1260 years. That is 12:60. Now the Mayan cycle closes out in 2012, and that's really why I'm here. From 692 to 2012 - 1320 years or 13:20. I saw that the prophecy of time was coded into this tomb.

If the human species wants to save itself, it has to face up to the fact that it is living an error in time, and it can correct this error first of all by changing the calendar and returning to the most harmonic standard there is, the Thirteen Moon/28-Day calendar. And if it can do this before 2012, then it will have a chance. So, that was my mission. It was very definitely a mission impossible.

When I announced that I was going to do this, my friends thought that I had gone crazy for sure. But I was undaunted, and I knew I had to live an experiment. I had to live an experiment of 13:20 time.

In 1992 I kissed my credit cards goodbye. I had already left any kind of job three or four years prior. I went around the world a number of times giving my message with no credit card and no money but some people would hear it and say, "You are right, man, here's some bucks to get to the next place." I went throughout South America, Mexico, South Africa, Egypt, Russia, and Japan several times over with this message. And I found that people could hear it. I stayed away from America for a while because I saw what was happening here, except for when I came to the United Nations in 1995 and 1996. But I found out that everywhere I went that people said, "Hey, there's some logic to that. Let's try that." It is around this time that I started the "Thirteen Moon Calendar Change Peace Movement", which is beginning to take root in many countries. Around 1997 or 1998 I finally settled again in North America, in Tucson, Arizona so I could go to that Kitt Peak Observatory. In late 1998, I settled in Oregon. In the year 2000, I started the "Foundation for the Law of Time", which is a nonprofit organization devoted to the mission impossible - the calendar change - and to educating humanity about the "Law of Time". "The Law of Time" is something that just like when Newton discovered the law of gravity. It doesn't mean that gravity didn't exist before Newton discovered it. The beginning of my discovery of the "Law of Time" was in the Museum of Time, and then it worked its way through the decade of the '90s.

"The Law of Time" is a vast and extensive new realm of knowledge based on the fact that time is the universal factor of synchronization, but it's a knowledge base that is only comprehensible and utilizable if you're living in 13:20 time, if you're living in the correct standard of time. Today, there are probably at least a quarter of a million people around the world who have personally accepted changing their timing frequency. And for that reason we're preparing for the great calendar change of 2004.

One of the tools of fourth dimensional time we developed is called the Dreamspell: Journey of Timeship Earth 2013. The Dreamspell encodes a psycho-mythic cosmology known as the "Journey of Timeship Earth 2013". It is this cosmology that makes the Dreamspella psychoactive tool kit for personally engaging you in the fourth-dimensional synchronic order of time. The fundamental premise for making it psychoactive lies in finding your galactic signature, the color, icon, and tone that code your date of birth. This combination of factors - color, tone, and icon - establishes a mathematical code that allows you to use your galactic signature in mapping increasing orders of synchronicity. There are four colors, thirteen tones, and twenty icons. The four colors code each of five sets of icons and correspond to the base four-phasic function of the noospheric rainbow brain - red initiates, white refines, blue transforms, and yellow ripens. The icons themselves actually respond to the mathematical code 0-19.

The mapping of synchronicity through use of the galactic signature is done through a set of tools: the Galactic Compass, Journey Board, Oracle Board, and Time Atom Cube. The Dreamspell is indispensable for education concerning the radial, fractal nature of fourth-dimensional time and mathematics.

The Dreamspelldevice has 18,980 permutations. It's literally a digital computer - 18,980 permutations - the number of days in a 52-year cycle. In a 52-year cycle, when you combine the 260-day cycle with the Thirteen Moon/28-Day cycle, no day repeats for 52 years. That's on there. Today is the day of magnetic monkey [July 3, 2003]. It says, "I unify in order to play. Attracting illusion I seal the process of magic with the magnetic tone of purpose. I'm guided by my own power doubled, which means lots of magic. It is my purpose to be I'm a monkey on this calendar. I'm a spectral monkey." And today is a magnetic monkey so I have a special affinity with this day of monkeys love to play.

What we're talking about is replacing a lower illusion with a higher illusion. The lower illusion of time is the calendar and the clock while the higher illusion of time is timelessness. The whole point of getting into harmonic time and living in natural cycles is naturally coming to being in that condition of timelessness, which is the eternal here and now.

Let's consider the wavespell of the 26-year countdown from 1987 to 2013. 1987 was the Harmonic Convergence, which was the end of the fifth sun. 2012 is the beginning of the entrance to the sixth sun. It really takes full bloom in 2013 with galactic synchronization. Between the ending of the fifth sun in 1987 and the beginning of the sixth sun in 2012 and 2013, is the period called the "separation of the worlds", or the "splitting of the worlds". That's where we're living right now. It's also called the apocalypse. Now this period of time that we're in, the "splitting of the worlds", has, according to the Mayan prophecy of Pacal Votan, a window of opportunity that opens up beginning with the lunar eclipse of November 8, 2003. It is 260 days in length, lasting until July 26, 2004. On the "Dreamspell" calendar, the November 8 eclipse is on the day "Blue Crystal Storm", and 260 days later, July 26, 2004, the day of the great calendar change, it's "Blue Crystal Storm". So during this period of time there is going to be a heightened activation of consciousness. It's probably going to activate many destructive types of things happening, but also, there's the opportunity where we can develop a heightened activation of consciousness of time. When you change your time, when you go from one calendar to another calendar, you are changing your mental frequency.

Of course, most of us work in the Gregorian work-a-day world. But even to follow the Thirteen Moon calendar and correlate it with the Gregorian calendar, you're already increasing your synchronicity. When you put the 260 day cycle in there, you're actually entering into fourth dimensional time or living in fourth dimensional time. If you put your lunar cycles into that, then you are already beginning to live a very rich, harmonious life with much more synchronicity. And that's the beginning step. As I said, we've got over a quarter of a million people on the planet who have taken this option and are doing this. It's spreading very rapidly, especially in the underground rave culture.

People can get decoded and find out, for example that I'm "Blue Spectral Monkey". My apprentice and assistant Stephanie, is "Red Electric Serpent". My helper, Shamus, is "White Planetary Mirror". Those are our galactic culture names. What this is all about is bringing galactic culture to Planet Earth. It's all about implanting the vibrations of the higher galactic order and of the cosmos into our everyday life, and changing our timing sense altogether. This calendar shift is the paradigm shift. Einstein said, before he died, "Since the advent of the nuclear age, everything has changed except for the way people think." And it's still as true today as it was when he died in 1955. As a result, he said, "We drift toward unparalleled catastrophe." So, if you want to change the way people think, then you make one little change, which is changing the calendar. This isn't July 3rd, it's cosmic moon 7, "Blue Magnetic Monkey". And next cosmic moon 7, it will be "Yellow Lunar Warrior". No two days are the same for 52 years. Each day has an energy or vibrational frequency. There is one of 13 numbers and one of 20 solar frequencies or signs or tribes. Tomorrow will be "Yellow Lunar Human". The day after tomorrow will be "Red Electric Skywalker". The day after that will be "White Self-Existing Wizard".

When we get to July 26th [in 2003], this will be the year of the "White Spectral Wizard". It liberates and dissolves.

This is the year of the "Great Calendar Change" where we're dissolving the old concept of time and liberating us into fourth dimensional time. We have a date with destiny. And when we make that date with destiny, there are going to be many big events. For the last 10 years, July 25th, the "day out of time", has been celebrated around the world. Whatever you're doing that day this year, you have an unique opportunity. You want to get together and have an art, culture, peace and forgiveness of debts party. Whatever you are doing, just remember that this day is a "day out of time" event.

Next year [2004] the "day-out-of-time" will be a Sunday. We are planning a three-day event all around the world and we will maximize the publicity so that everybody knows about it. We expect millions of people by that time will have heard about this and will be willing to start living in the new time. We want everybody on the planet conscious of time, and that there's a choice of time. And that itself will begin to create what we refer to as the mind shift, changing the mental frequency to a more harmonic frequency. 2004 to 2012 gives us eight years - two 4-year cycles.

The only scientists next to the Mayans who have really gotten into the time thing are Russian scientists. Nicolai Kozyrev was the pioneer and he discovered that the velocity of time is instantaneously infinite, and therefore that you can't separate time from telepathy because telepathy is instantaneously infinite. At this very moment, if I exert my telepathy, I can contact one of my Russian friends to see if he's having his cup of coffee. It's the same moment in time even though on the clock it's a different time. But in actual time, it's the same instantaneous here and now all the way to the end of the universe. That's how we can channel from someplace way out there and get some information.

However, when we live by stunting, warped and incorrect third dimensional standards, we create a very low ceiling of concept of time. But when we move to harmonic time, we lift that ceiling. We will be able to access the vertical time vectors of time and different levels of synchronization and synchronicity that will put us in touch. Finally, we'll be able to say, "Hey, man, I got cosmic consciousness and so do you." We will be able to begin to live in a new way.

The changes and the implications of all this, of course, are enormous, which is why this book, Time and the Technosphere: The Law of Time in Human Affairswas written. It goes into all aspects of what I've been talking about with regard to the "Law of Time", to the time change and to the different tools and methods for accessing the actual nature of the fourth dimension. The technosphere is an intermediate artificial structure like a scaffolding. It's the scaffolding of the next phase of evolution, which is referred to as the noosphere. Some of you have read Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and know that he used the phrase, the noosphere, and he talks about the omega point. The omega point is 2012. And the noosphere literally means the mental sphere around the planet. The true mental sphere is not the Internet but telepathy. That's the true mental sphere. When we reach this, we will be operating like the dolphins and we will be reorganizing our society. We'll find by 2012 that we really do not need governments after all. Nor do we need money. And we can dispose of much of the machinery we have. For what we need, we can use wind and free energy and solar, and that will do it. Then we will be chastened and cleansed. We will have learned from history, and it will actually be heaven on Earth. Right now it's very close to hell on Earth, but we have to make this change.

This is the whole philosophy and prophecy of the Harmonic Convergence. The Harmonic Convergence called everybody to go out to sacred sites because we had to become one with nature again. But everyone came back from the sacred sites and made business cards because they didn't know the nature of time. But we found out, that to fulfill the prophecy, we have to go back to living in the cycles of nature. We have from 2004 to 2012 to make this shift so that in 2012, it's 13:20.

The choice is ours whether we create hell on Earth or whether we create heaven on Earth. Believe it or not, but the difference between the two is making the shift, changing our time and changing our mind. Who owns your time owns your mind. Own your own time and you will know your mind. That's the slogan.

This is for everyone on Earth who believes in peace and in bettering the environment. It is for everyone who believes that there shouldn't be violence against women and that children shouldn't be exploited. It is for everyone on Earth who believes that Nike shouldn't have sweatshops in Southeast Asia. How many of them are there? Every time the G7 or the G8 meets there's 40 finance ministers and 300,000 protesters. It's the same ratio. So, we have probably at least 5 billion people for peace, if not more. If every one of those people says, "Well, if you wanted to make a shift to peace and a time of harmony and you want to make it permanent, just take this calendar and start living on this."

We'll have a lot more information available. We are operating the "Foundation for the Law of Time". If you want to see the nature of fourth dimensional time, then take a look at this. Time is not linear, but is radial, fractal and about something totally different than you ever dreamed possible. Time is participatory. Time is one of the forces that we have never controlled. But we can control it, we can live it, and we can enter into the next stage of evolution where we are living fourth dimensionally and returning to the garden as a race of Earth wizards.

According to the Mayan calendar and the prophecies, 2012 is the end of a whole evolutionary cycle. 2013 begins a whole new evolutionary cycle. The Russian scientist Vladimir Vernadsky referred to the new cycle of time, which he saw imminent, as the era of the spiritualization of life on Earth. Not just human life, but all life. So, this is where we're going. This is the great opportunity. We're not too far from 2012 but we have time to make this shift and move forward and return to the evolutionary mainstream so that we can get our driver's license renewed and our DNA upgraded.

To do what we have to do in this next year requires a lot of that time stuff called money. So, please, if you feel that you've heard anything in this message at all and you feel at all moved, you can put money on our website, or send money to us through our Foundation.

We have been giving away Mayan calendars. They are available in both English and Spanish. They are gifts and not meant to be sold. Your donation funds will help print calendars and help us create the right kind of campaign that we need to make this final push as well as develop educational programs. Incidentally, the Law of Time is written "T" and then "E" equals art. Energy factored by time equals art. And that is why the universe is beautiful, and no one here has ever seen an ugly sunset. Time is art, not money. Do me a favor and get in the right time. Thank you.

Scientists say nerves use sound, not electricity

2007-04-19T03:23:00.000-07:00

Fascinating. I hope there is more research into this idea.

Scientists say nerves use sound, not electricity

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2007/03/09/science-nervessound-20070309.html

The common view that nerves transmit impulses through electricity is wrong and they really transmit sound, according to a team of Danish scientists.

The Copenhagen University researchers argue that biology and medical textbooks that say nerves relay electrical impulses from the brain to the rest of the body are incorrect.

"For us as physicists, this cannot be the explanation," said Thomas Heimburg, an associate professor at the university's Niels Bohr Institute. "The physical laws of thermodynamics tell us that electrical impulses must produce heat as they travel along the nerve, but experiments find that no such heat is produced."

Heimburg, an expert in biophysics who received his PhD from the Max Planck Institute in Goettingen, Germany — where biologists and physicists often work together in a rare arrangement — developed the theory with Copenhagen University's Andrew Jackson, an expert in theoretical physics.

According to the traditional explanation of molecular biology, an electrical pulse is sent from one end of the nerve to the other with the help of electrically charged salts that pass through ion channels and a membrane that sheathes the nerves. That membrane is made of lipids and proteins.

Heimburg and Jackson theorize that sound propagation is a much more likely explanation. Although sound waves usually weaken as they spread out, a medium with the right physical properties could create a special kind of sound pulse or "soliton" that can propagate without spreading or losing strength.

The physicists say because the nerve membrane is made of a material similar to olive oil that can change from liquid to solid through temperature variations, they can freeze and propagate the solitons.

The scientists, whose work is in the Biophysical Society's Biophysical Journal, suggested that anesthetics change the melting point of the membrane and make it impossible for their theorized sound pulses to propagate.

The researchers could not immediately be reached for comment.

User-generated content seen as threat by corporate media

2007-04-19T02:53:00.000-07:00

Media gurus: User-generated content a big threat
By Julian Goldsmith
Special to CNET News.com
Published: April 17, 2007, 11:54 AM PDT

Cnet link

Amateur videos, podcasts, wikis and blogs can compete effectively against offerings from big media companies, industry execs say.

User-generated content is one of the media and entertainment industries' biggest threats, according to a survey that also indicates established businesses are struggling to cope with some Web 2.0 trends.

In a survey sponsored by technology consulting firm Accenture, 110 senior executives across the U.S. and Europe expressed their views on how the growth of user-generated content, such as amateur digital videos, podcasts, wikis and blogs, will impact the film, advertising, music, publishing, radio and TV industries.

Only 3 percent of the executives surveyed think the use of social media is a fad that will pass in time, while more than two-thirds think current usage is likely to grow.

And while two-thirds are positive their organizations will find ways of making money out of user-generated content within three years, just under a quarter said they have no idea how this will be accomplished.

The study included interviews with industry giants such as Roger Faxon, CEO of EMI Music Publishing, and Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO of WPP Group.

"The winners will be those who can probe and analyze the changes, and manage and merge online and offline most successfully," Sorrell said in a statement.

Faxon predicted the music industry will be forced to alter its business model in significant ways to cope with the rise in user-generated content.

"In essence the commercial roles of music companies will be more as facilitators for bringing music and the rights that support them into the marketplace, as opposed to being originators of the content itself," he said in a statement.

Julian Goldsmith of Silicon.com reported from London.

How Police Interrogation Works

2007-04-19T02:49:00.000-07:00

Good to know.

How Police Interrogation Works
by Julia Layton

http://people.howstuffworks.com/police-interrogation.htm/printable

Introduction to How Police Interrogation Works

There are "Law & Order" addicts everywhere who think they could get a perp to confess. A little glaring, some getting in the guy's face, a revelation that his fingerprints are all over the murder weapon and voilà! He's recounting his crime. In real life, police interrogation requires more than confidence and creativity (although those qualities do help) -- interrogators are highly trained in the psychological tactics of social influence.

Getting someone to confess to a crime is not a simple task, and the fact that detectives sometimes end up with confessions from the innocent testifies to their expertise in psychological manipulation. No two interrogations are alike, but most exploit certain weaknesses in human nature. These weaknesses typically rely on the stress that results when people experience contrasting extremes, like dominance and submission, control and dependence, and the maximization and minimization of consequences. Even the most hardened criminal can end up confessing if the interrogator can find the right combination of circumstances and techniques based on the suspect's personality and experiences. In the United States, scholars estimate that somewhere between 42 percent and 55 percent of suspects confess to a crime during interrogation.

Police interrogations weren't always so complex. Until the early 1900s in the United States, physical abuse was an acceptable (if not legal) method of getting a confession. Confessions obtained by "third degree" techniques -- deprivation of food and water, bright lights, physical discomfort and long isolation, beating with rubber hoses and other instruments that don't leave marks -- were usually admissible in court as long as the suspect signed a waiver stating the confession was voluntary. Between the 1930s and 1960s, though, a crackdown on police tactics gradually changed the practice of interrogation.

While the Supreme Court had ruled as early as 1897 against involuntary confessions, it was in 1937 that things really started to change. In the case Brown v. Mississippi, the Supreme Court threw out a "voluntary" confession that was obtained after police officers repeatedly strung a suspect up in a tree and whipped him. The Court's decision was clear: Confessions obtained by force cannot be used as evidence at trial. By the 1950s, confessions were considered involuntary not only if police beat the suspect, but also if they held a suspect for an unnecessarily extended period of time, deprived him of sleep, food, water or bathroom facilities, promised some benefit if the suspect confessed or threatened some harm if he didn't.

When the case Miranda v. Arizona reached the Supreme Court in 1966, coercive police interrogation took another blow. Ernesto Miranda had confessed to rape and kidnapping after two hours of interrogation, and the appeal to the Supreme Court alleged that Miranda was not aware of his rights to remain silent (the Fifth Amendment) and to counsel (the Sixth Amendment). The Court ruled in favor of Miranda, and the decision instituted what we've come to know as the "Miranda Rights." To safeguard against a suspect falling into an involuntary confession because he thinks he has no choice but to speak, the police must expressly, clearly and completely advise any suspect of his rights to silence and counsel before beginning an interrogation or any other attempt to get a statement from a suspect. The Miranda decision attempts to eliminate suspect ignorance as a contributing factor to involuntary confessions.

In looking for a replacement for illegal forms of coercion, police turned to fairly basic psychological techniques like the time-honored "good cop bad cop" routine, in which one detective browbeats the suspect and the other pretends to be looking out for him. People tend to trust and talk to someone they perceive as their protector. Another basic technique is maximization, in which the police try to scare the suspect into talking by telling him all of the horrible things he'll face if he's convicted of the crime in a court of law. Fear tends to make people talk. For a while, police tried such things as polygraphs to determine if the suspect was being deceptive, but polygraphs and polygraph training are expensive, and the results are almost never admissible in court. But some polygraph analysts, including a man named John Reid, began noticing that subjects exhibited certain outward, consistent physical signs that coincided with the polygraph's determination of untruthfulness. Reid went on to develop a non-machine-based system of interrogation based on specific types of questions and answers that uncover weaknesses the interrogator can use against a suspect to obtain a confession. Reid's "Nine Steps" of psychological manipulation is one of the most popular interrogation systems in the United States today. In the next section, we'll find out about this system.

Common Interrogation Techniques

Modern interrogation is a study in human nature. Most of us are more likely to talk to people who appear to be like us. Once we start talking, it's hard for us to stop. Once we start telling the truth, it's harder to start lying. When a police officer tells us our fingerprints were found on the inside doorknob of a home that was robbed two days ago, we get nervous, even if we wore gloves the whole time we were inside.

With a few exceptions, the police are allowed to lie to a suspect to get him to confess. The belief is that an innocent person would never confess to a crime she didn't commit, even if she were confronted with false physical evidence of her involvement. Unfortunately, that's not always the case (more on false confessions in the next section), but it's a big part of the reason why the police are allowed to employ deceptive tactics in interrogation.

The psychological manipulation begins before the interrogator even opens his mouth. The physical layout of an interrogation room is designed to maximize a suspect's discomfort and sense of powerlessness from the moment he steps inside. The classic interrogation manual "Criminal Interrogation and Confessions" recommends a small, soundproof room with only three chairs (two for detectives, one for the suspect) and a desk, with nothing on the walls. This creates a sense of exposure, unfamiliarity and isolation, heightening the suspect's "get me out of here" sensation throughout the interrogation.

The manual also suggests that the suspect should be seated in an uncomfortable chair, out of reach of any controls like light switches or thermostats, furthering his discomfort and setting up a feeling of dependence. A one-way mirror is an ideal addition to the room, because it increases the suspect's anxiety and allows other detectives to watch the process and help the interrogator figure out which techniques are working and which aren't.

Before the nine steps of the Reid interrogation begin, there's an initial interview to determine guilt or innocence. During this time, the interrogator attempts to develop a rapport with the suspect, using casual conversation to create a non-threatening atmosphere. People tend to like and trust people who are like them, so the detective may claim to share some of the suspect's interests or beliefs. If the suspect starts talking to the interrogator about harmless things, it becomes harder to stop talking (or start lying) later when the discussion turns to the crime.

During this initial conversation, the detective observes the suspect's reactions -- both verbal and non-verbal -- to establish a baseline reaction before the real stress begins. The detective will use this baseline later as a comparison point.

One method of creating a baseline involves asking questions that cause the suspect to access different parts of his brain. The detective asks non-threatening questions that require memory (simple recall) and questions that require thinking (creativity). When the suspect is remembering something, his eyes will often move to the right. This is just an outward manifestation of his brain activating the memory center. When he's thinking about something, his eyes might move upward or to the left, reflecting activation of the cognitive center. The detective makes a mental note of the suspect's eye activity.

The next step is to turn the questioning to the task at hand. The detective will ask basic questions about the crime and compare the suspect's reactions to the baseline to determine if the suspect is being truthful or deceptive. If the interrogator asks the suspect where he was the night of the crime and he answers truthfully, he'll be remembering, so his eyes may move to the right; if he's making up an alibi, he's thinking, so his eyes might move to the left. If the interrogator determines that the suspect's reactions indicate deception, and all other evidence points to guilt, the interrogation of a guilty suspect begins.

The Reid technique is the basis of the widely used "Criminal Interrogation and Confessions" manual we already mentioned. It lays out nine steps or issues guiding interrogation. Many of these steps overlap, and there is no such thing as a "typical" interrogation; but the Reid technique provides a blueprint of how a successful interrogation might unfold.

1. Confrontation

The detective presents the facts of the case and informs the suspect of the evidence against him. This evidence might be real, or it might be made up. The detective typically states in a confident manner that the suspect is involved in the crime. The suspect's stress level starts increasing, and the interrogator may move around the room and invade the suspect's personal space to increase the discomfort.

If the suspect starts fidgeting, licking his lips and or grooming himself (running his hand through his hair, for instance), the detective takes these as indicators of deception and knows he's on the right track.

2. Theme development

The interrogator creates a story about why the suspect committed the crime. Theme development is about looking through the eyes of the suspect to figure out why he did it, why he'd like to think he did it and what type of excuse might make him admit he did it. Does the suspect use any particular mode of reasoning more often than others? For example, does he seem willing to blame the victim? The detective lays out a theme, a story, that the suspect can latch on to in order to either excuse or justify his part in the crime, and the detective then observes the suspect to see if he likes the theme. Is he paying closer attention than before? Nodding his head? If so, the detective will continue to develop that theme; if not, he'll pick a new theme and start over. Theme development is in the background throughout the interrogation. When developing themes, the interrogator speaks in a soft, soothing voice to appear non-threatening and to lull the suspect into a false sense of security.

3. Stopping denials

Letting the suspect deny his guilt will increase his confidence, so the detective tries to interrupt all denials, sometimes telling the suspect it'll be his turn to talk in a moment, but right now, he needs to listen. From the start of the interrogation, the detective watches for denials and stops the suspect before he can voice them. In addition to keeping the suspect's confidence low, stopping denials also helps quiet the suspect so he doesn't have a chance to ask for a lawyer. If there are no denials during theme development, the detective takes this as a positive indicator of guilt. If initial attempts at denial slow down or stop during theme development, the interrogator knows he has found a good theme and that the suspect is getting closer to confessing.

4. Overcoming objections

Once the interrogator has fully developed a theme that the suspect can relate to, the suspect may offer logic-based objections as opposed to simple denials, like "I could never rape somebody -- my sister was raped and I saw how much pain it caused. I would never do that to someone." The detective handles these differently than he does denials, because these objections can give him information to turn around and use against the suspect. The interrogator might say something like, "See, that's good, you're telling me you would never plan this, that it was out of your control. You care about women like your sister -- it was just a one-time mistake, not a recurring thing." If the detective does his job right, an objection ends up looking more like an admission of guilt.

5. Getting the suspect's attention

At this point, the suspect should be frustrated and unsure of himself. He may be looking for someone to help him escape the situation. The interrogator tries to capitalize on that insecurity by pretending to be the suspect's ally. He'll try to appear even more sincere in his continued theme development, and he may get physically closer to the suspect to make it harder for the suspect to detach from the situation. The interrogator may offer physical gestures of camaraderie and concern, such as touching the suspect's shoulder or patting his back.

6. The suspect loses resolve

If the suspect's body language indicates surrender -- his head in his hands, his elbows on his knees, his shoulders hunched -- the interrogator seizes the opportunity to start leading the suspect into confession. He'll start transitioning from theme development to motive alternatives (see the next step) that force the suspect to choose a reason why he committed the crime. At this stage, the interrogator makes every effort to establish eye contact with the suspect to increase the suspect's stress level and desire to escape. If, at this point, the suspect cries, the detective takes this as a positive indicator of guilt.

7. Alternatives

The interrogator offers two contrasting motives for some aspect of the crime, sometimes beginning with a minor aspect so it's less threatening to the suspect. One alternative is socially acceptable ("It was a crime of passion"), and the other is morally repugnant ("You killed her for the money"). The detective builds up the contrast between the two alternatives until the suspect gives an indicator of choosing one, like a nod of the head or increased signs of surrender. Then, the detective speeds things up.

8. Bringing the suspect into the conversation

Once the suspect chooses an alternative, the confession has begun. The interrogator encourages the suspect to talk about the crime and arranges for at least two people to witness the confession. One may be the second detective in room, and another may be brought in for the purpose of forcing the suspect to confess to a new detective -- having to confess to a new person increases the suspect's stress level and his desire to just sign a statement and get out of there. Bringing a new person into the room also forces the suspect to reassert his socially acceptable reason for the crime, reinforcing the idea that the confession is a done deal.

9. The confession

The final stage of an interrogation is all about getting the confession admitted at trial. The interrogator will have the suspect write out his confession or state it on videotape. The suspect is usually willing to do anything at this point to escape the interrogation. The suspect confirms that his confession is voluntary, not coerced, and signs the statement in front of witnesses.

It should be noted here that if, at any point during the interrogation, the suspect does somehow manage to ask for a lawyer or invoke his right to silence, the interrogation has to stop immediately. That's why it's so important to interrupt the suspect's attempts to speak in the initial stages -- if he invokes his rights, the interrogation is over.

The steps we've laid out here represent some of the psychological techniques that detectives use to get confessions from suspects. But a real interrogation doesn't always follow the textbook. Next, let's take a look at an actual police interrogation that ended with an admissible confession.

Billboard ban in São Paulo angers advertisers

2007-04-19T02:45:00.000-07:00

New 'clean city' law angers advertisers
By Larry Rohter

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/12/12/news/brazil.php

SÃO PAULO: Imagine a modern metropolis with no outdoor advertising: no billboards, no flashing neon signs, no electronic panels with messages crawling along the bottom.

Come the new year, this city of 11 million, overwhelmed by what the authorities call visual pollution, plans to press the "delete all" button and offer its residents unimpeded views of their surroundings.

But in proposing to transform the landscape, officials have unleashed debate and brought into conflict sharply differing concepts of what this city, South America's largest and most prosperous, should be.

City planners, architects and environmental advocates have argued enthusiastically that the prohibition, through a new "clean city" law, brings São Paulo a welcome step closer to an imagined urban ideal.

The law is "a rare victory of the public interest over private, of order over disorder, aesthetics over ugliness, of cleanliness over trash," Roberto Pompeu de Toledo, a columnist and author of a history of São Paulo, wrote in the weekly newsmagazine Veja. "For once in life, all that is accustomed to coming out on top in Brazil has lost."

But advertising and business groups regard the legislation as injurious to society and an affront to their professions. They say that free expression will be inhibited, jobs will be lost and consumers will have less information on which to base purchasing decisions. They also argue that streets will be less safe at night with the loss of lighting from outdoor advertising.

"This is a radical law that damages the rules of a market economy and respect for the rule of law," said Marcel Solimeo, chief economist of the Commercial Association of São Paulo, which has 32,000 members. "We live in a consumer society and the essence of capitalism is the availability of information about products."

The statute's most visible impact promises to be at eye level and above. The outsized billboards and screens that dominate the skyline, promoting everything from automobiles, jeans and cellphones to banks and sex shops, will have to come down. All other forms of publicity in public spaces, like distribution of fliers, will also stop.

The law also regulates the dimensions of store signs, and will force many well-known companies to reduce them substantially by a formula based on the size of their facades. Another provision, much criticized by owners of transportation companies, outlaws advertising of any kind on the sides of the city's thousands of buses and taxis.

The law, as passed, also applied to advertising banners trailed by airplanes and ads on blimps. But in the first of what promises to be a long series of legal challenges, a court ruled the clause unconstitutional on the grounds that the federal government, not the city, controls airspace.

"What we are aiming for is a complete change of culture," said Roberto Tripoli, president of the City Council and one of the main sponsors of the legislation. "Yes, some people are going to have to pay a price. But things were out of hand and the population has made it clear it wants this."

The law, approved by a vote of 45 to 1 in September, goes into effect on Jan. 1. Opponents complain that the date does not allow enough time for merchants to comply, that fines of up to $4,500 for violations are extreme and that the result will inevitably be a diminishing of urban life — "like New York without Times Square or Tokyo without the Ginza," Solimeo said.

"I think this city is going to become a sadder, duller place," said Dalton Silvano, who cast the sole dissenting vote and is in the advertising business. "Advertising is both an art form and, when you're in your car or alone on foot, a form of entertainment that helps relieve solitude and boredom."

This is not the city's first effort to regulate outdoor advertising. A few years ago it was prohibited in the historic downtown area. But there have been complaints about inspectors taking bribes and advertisers simply flouting the law.

"All our efforts to negotiate have had no effect because none of the accords and agreements we reached with the advertising sector were ever complied with," Mayor Gilberto Kassab said in an interview. "A billboard that was forced to come down would be back up a week later in a different spot. There was a climate of impunity."

Since "it is hard in a city of 11 million to find enough equipment and personnel to determine what was and wasn't legal, we decided to go all the way, to zero things out," Kassab said. "When you prohibit everything, society itself becomes your partner in enforcing the law" and reporting violations.

Popular reaction has largely been supportive.

"I'm in favor of anything that improves the way this city looks, and this law will definitely make things better," said Fernando Gil, 25, a student interviewed on Avenida Paulista, the main street in the heart of the financial district. "All that neon and bright lights, it just doesn't fit here."

Advertising companies generally acknowledge that abuses of public space have occurred and that a majority of the city's estimated 13,000 outdoor billboards have been installed illegally. But they also complain that they are being made scapegoats, and that the real problem lies elsewhere.

"It is not politically correct to talk about the million-plus posters and signs that small businesses and mechanics' shops have up all over the place, because they are poor," said Francesc Petit, a prominent advertising executive who has spoken out against the law. "It's easier to attack McDonald's and Coca-Cola and the banks, because that doesn't offend anybody."

Kassab said that once the situation is under control he hopes to allow limited, strictly regulated advertising at bus stops, newsstands, outdoor street clocks and public bathrooms. But some residents who support the new legislation hope that day never comes, even if it were to profit the city's coffers.

Faerie Worlds 2007

2007-04-05T22:22:00.000-07:00

http://www.faerieworlds.com/

WELCOME TO THE FAERIEWORLDS HOMESITE
Imaginosis and Woodland Productions invite you to join us at the 2007 Faerieworlds Festival. Called “mythically magical... a one-of-a-kind otherworldly event”, Faerieworlds is a festival phenomenon featuring international best-selling and award-winning artists, writers and world renown musicians. Faerieworlds attracts thousands of guests annually for a celebration of art, music and imagination for the whole family. We hope to see you all in the magical realm at Secret House Winery this summer!

“Whether being introduced to the world of Faerie through films or books, the consensus appears to be the same for the many thousands of festival-goers who have come out to enjoy the beautiful weather and wondrous sights of this special day. Some will sit comfortably in the soft green grass...listening to Celtic and Medieval European music, played live from the central stage... others will shop the Renaissance craft village, where sparkly geegaws, faerie-themed artwork and heavenly fragrances abound. While still others will spend the afternoon interacting with and photographing the many Faeries who flit hither and yon throughout the glen.”
-David Salcido2Camels.com

"You don't see grown men walking around with Hobbit sticks every day....Or a woman laying in cool mud, blending in so well with the troll sculptures in the "Mud Faery Sculpture Garden" that you have to strain to see that she's there. Nor do you usually see three generations of women walking around with purple wings."
-Mark Baker The Register Guard

4,000 flash mob dancers startle commuters

2007-04-05T22:17:00.000-07:00

Yes! I love it! Reclaim public spaces! Create art-focused temporary autonomous zones!

4,000 flash mob dancers startle commuters at Victoria
By Tim Stewart, Evening Standard 05.04.07
This is London link

More than 4,000 clubbers danced through the rush hour at Victoria station in Britain's biggest flash mob stunt.

Revellers responded to e-bulletins urging them to "dance like you've never danced before" at 6.53pm.

There were knowing looks and giggles among the casually dressed crowd that gathered from 6.30pm, wearing earphones.

A deafening 10-second countdown startled station staff and commuters before the concourse erupted in whoops and cheers. MP3 players and iPods emerged and the crowd danced wildly to their soundtracks in silence - for two hours.

University of London student Lucy Dent, 20, was among the flash mobbers. She said: "It was my first flash mob and I'm hooked. I've been dancing non-stop since we began.

"I didn't even notice the commuters. When you get into the dancing you're oblivious to them and forget you're at a railway station."

Chris Gale, 39, brought his daughter Sophia, three, and son Jacob, six. Mr Gale, a property entrepreneur from Bromley, said: "The children were a bit bewildered at first but then had fantastic fun. Some of the commuters are only interested in their trains and had to weave round us to the platforms. But most of them stood and stared, finding it hugely entertaining - and some even joined in.

"I saw the straightestlooking guy in a suit with his briefcase doing the freakiest dance moves."

Last night's flash mob ended when four vanloads of police dispersed the dancers. The event was staged by clubbing website mobileclubbing.com. Invitation emails and texts went out a week in advance.

One commuter failed to see the funny side: "I was trying to get my train home but the whole concourse was filled with students dancing and I couldn't get through. The last thing I wanted after a hard day at work was to miss my train because of the idiots."

Flash mobs, groups of people brought together via the internet who perform a bizarre act together before disappearing, took off in America in 2003.

Quantum Computer Reality?

2007-04-05T22:12:00.000-07:00

D-Wave Claims Quantum Computer Breakthrough

http://www.technewsworld.com/story/55801.html
By Chris Maxcer
TechNewsWorld
02/16/07 8:23 AM PT

Canadian company D-Wave Systems this week demonstrated Orion, a device the company calls the world's first commercially viable quantum computer. D-Wave has not presented many details of the computer for review by the scientific community, but if the Orion really has brought quantum computing to life, the results could be a tremendous -- though possibly painful -- leap forward.

In a move that could signal a massive leap forward in unlocking some of the most complex mysteries of our world, D-Wave Systems has demonstrated what it called the world's first commercially viable quantum computer.

The theories behind quantum computing have been around for decades, and the first real-world delivery of quantum computing was expected to take decades more. D-Wave, however, demonstrated a functioning prototype quantum computer in Mountain View, Calif., Tuesday at the Computer History Museum.

The small Vancouver, Canada-based company plans to deliver field-deployable systems as early as 2008.

Quantum's Qubits

A quantum computer is similar to a supercomputer Latest News about supercomputer in that it's designed to handle massive computations of very complex problems -- but that's where the similarity ends.

Traditional computing is based on the manipulation of bits, which are always read as either a 0 or a 1. Quantum computing is based on a qubit, which can be a 0, 1, or both at the same time. While that's a confusing enough concept on its own, it comes from quantum mechanics, where subatomic particles can persist in two or more states at once.

Theoretically, qubits are the keys that let quantum computers have the potential to make billions of calculations exponentially faster than traditional computers.
Small Size

Right now, D-Wave's Orion system only contains 16 qubits, which means it's far less "powerful" than traditional computers. However, the company plans to introduce a 512-qubit processor, followed by a 1,024-qubit processor in 2008.

If D-Wave is successful, Orion will be able to solve what are known as "NP-complete" problems, which are problems where the sheer volume of complex data and variables prevent digital computers from generating answers, the company said. For example, Orion could be able to precisely model complex molecules, which in turn could jump start nanotechnology.

In order to be useful, however, D-Wave needs software applications that can take advantage of quantum computing. For that reason, D-Wave plans to offer free access later this year to one of its Orion systems to people who want to either develop or port applications to it. Plus, the company is actively looking for business partners.
Real Deal?

Because Orion must be kept refrigerated and isolated from outside influences that could disrupt its computations, the company only remotely accessed the system Forge ahead and stay on budget with simple to install HP server technology. in its demonstration. Likewise, D-Wave hasn't proven Orion's exact nature to the scientific community, but may release details for scientific peer review. At that point, scientists can argue over the finer points of quantum mechanics and if Orion is truly a "quantum computer."

Regardless of scientific names and labels, what if it works? What will it mean for the current IT world?

"Quantum computing was supposed to be decades into the future," Rob Enderle, president and principal analyst at the Enderle Group, told TechNewsWorld. "The problem for IT is that Quantum level processing is capable of breaking virtually every level of encryption currently used by shear force, and it is a game changer in terms of total processing power. "

Basically, this means quantum computing will likely have the ability to crack every password currently used in the modern IT landscape. While our computer-based secrets are safe for now, they might not be in a few years, which may require a massive hardware change in a 6- to 10-year time frame.

"In short, this could predict one of the most disruptive changes we have seen since the PC hit the IT space," Enderle noted. "It will happen faster, and it will be a lot more painful."

CBS on global warming

2007-04-05T21:25:00.000-07:00

The Age Of Warming
60 Minutes Goes To The Bottom Of The World And To The Top of A Glacier To See The Fastest Warming Place On Earth

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/03/30/60minutes/main2631210.shtml

If you were waiting for the day global warming would change the world, that day is here. It’s happening, far from civilization’s notice, in a place about as remote as you can get.

Scientists believed Antarctica, at the bottom of the world, was too vast, too remote, to be bothered by climate change any time soon. But now glaciers are setting speed records for melting. Whole colonies of penguins are disappearing. Why does it matter? Antarctica is a climate giant, driving ocean and wind currents worldwide, with enormous potential to raise sea levels.

To find out what’s happening down south, 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley set out on an expedition; the first stop was the high mountains of Patagonia in Chile, where you can actually see a new age beginning.

The glacier O’Higgins, a mass of ice, has been frozen for tens of thousands of years in the mountains of southern Chile.

O’Higgins is spectacular for its beauty, but for a scientist like Gino Casassa it’s breathtaking for the speed it is disappearing – the glacier is morphing into a lake, retreating more than any glacier in South America.

The location where Pelley interviewed Casassa was covered by ice a hundred years ago. “I think it’s a very clear picture that the world is getting warmer and that the impacts that were projected even 10 or 20 years ago are happening right now,” Casassa explains.

The glacier has fallen back nine miles in 100 years, throwing off icebergs that roll, as they dissolve into the lake.

Casassa took Pelley and the 60 Minutes team to the face of O’Higgins, carefully measuring their approach; the glacier is a dynamic thing, cracking, popping, and changing, as huge pieces break off.

Casassa is a glaciologist who surprised 60 Minutes when he revealed what he used to think of global warming. “I just didn’t believe in global warming. I mean in global warming being produced by mankind, by us contaminating the atmosphere, I just refused to believe that,” he explains.

He says, now, the evidence has convinced him. Pelley set out to find more evidence, as Casassa went to measure the height of O’Higgins. The 60 Minutes team climbed to a spot where Casassa had crossed from earth to ice in 2004. But now, in 2007, that spot was covered by water.

Much to his surprise, there’s a thousand feet of water where he walked three years ago. The group had to hike for hours to get to the ice. When they got there, they found it blackened by earth and volcanic ash. Casassa set up a receiver to measure the distance from the top of O’Higgins to satellites overhead.

He measures the distance to get a contour line at the top of the glacier. “As we walk, the receiver, which is in my backpack, is capturing data every one second,” Casassa explains.

And the data showed Casassa that glacier O’Higgins has thinned 92 feet in seven years.

And it’s not unique. More than 90 percent of the world’s glaciers are retreating. And if you’re looking for early trouble from climate change, this is it. Glacial runoff provides water for 1.5 billion people, mostly in South America, China and India.

“In the medium term, depending on the size of glacier…30 years, just a few decades, the glacier will start to waste away in such a degree that you will see the runoff the glacial melt coming from that glacier starting to decline,” Casassa says.

Cities around the world, says Casassa, will be starved for water. And he says we now are seeing the first impacts.

60 Minutes wanted to see the evidence of warming nearer the bottom of the world. So Pelley and the team set sail from the last city south, Ushuaia, Argentina, on a two day voyage to Antarctica.

It is more than 1,000 miles from glacier O’Higgins in Patagonia and across the Drake Passage to the Antarctic peninsula.

Here, 60 Minutes found there’s green where the white used to be; on the coast, in summer, there’s grass where the scientists used to ski. The area is called “Paradise Cove,” and it is home to fur seals, lazy elephant seals and the Chinstrap penguin.

American biologists Sue and Wayne Trivelpiece were the first to find trouble in Paradise Cove. Wayne Trivelpiece says, over the years, the population of Chinstrap penguins has changed by about 60 percent.

The Trivelpieces live in a tiny American outpost, where they’ve studies penguins for more than 30 years with a grant from the National Science Foundation.

“I’m curious about the evolution. How long have there been penguins?” Pelley asks.

“Oh, millions of years 30, 40 million years,” Sue Trivelpiece says. “There have been six-foot penguin fossils found … and with ten-inch bills and I really don’t think I would want to band one of those guys.”

Banding modern penguins led to their discovery. It starts with a roundup: they’ve squeezed ID bands on 70,000 penguins to see if they survive their migration.

Penguins migrate up to 5,000 miles in the coldest water on earth. And if you think penguins don’t “fly” you’ve never seen them underwater, where they can hit 25 miles an hour.

But, after millions of years of endurance, many Chinstrap and Adelie penguins aren’t surviving anymore.

“We knew something was drastically wrong. Something had changed in the ocean,” Wayne Trivelpiece tells Pelley.

What do they think was happening?

“We didn’t really know. We knew it had to be something that was going on once they left land and went out to sea,” Sue Trivelpiece explains.

“We love working with the Chinstraps. They are far and away the most cooperative,” says Sue’s husband Wayne.

“But you know what, Wayne, I’m not sure they like working with you,” Pelley remarks.

Getting manhandled may ruffle their feathers, but it was key to discovering their fate.

There were some grown penguin chicks, chasing their mothers for food which she delivers beak to beak. Soon, the chicks will go to sea to hunt a shrimp-like crustacean called krill.

Krill grow beneath the sea ice, but in the warming ocean, the sea ice is melting away.

“So the penguins have been going to sea and starving to death?” Pelley asks.

“The chicks are declining and we think they just can’t find the krill,” Sue Trivelpiece says.

“When you can link a change in warming in air temperature to ice to krill to penguins and show a 50 percent reduction in the penguin population here and connect all the dots you really can’t make it any clearer than that,” her husband adds.

If it’s clear the south is warming, Paul Mayewski is also in the region to find out why. He is among the most accomplished Antarctic scientists. He’s director of the Climate Change Institute at the University of Maine and he has been exploring Antarctica since 1968. They’ve even named a mountain after him here.

Asked what some of the big questions are that he is trying to answer, Mayewski tells Pelley, “We’d of course like to be able to demonstrate that over the last few thousand years this temperature change truly is different.”

Is warming caused by man’s pollution in the atmosphere? Mayewski says the answer is under our feet. With the help of scientists from Poland’s Arctowski Research Station, 60 Minutes set out to climb to the top of a glacier that was fractured by deep crevasses covered in snow.

Mayewski trekked thousands of miles to discover what the climate was like before humans walked the earth. He’s found evidence all over the Antarctic continent.

Antarctica is one and a half times the size of the United States. It is covered in ice that averages a mile in thickness.

“If you want to learn about the climate you’ve got to get here and you’ve got to experience the place,” Mayewski tells Pelley.

One of the reasons you work so hard to get to a place like this is because it is just about as remote as one can imagine – there is dead silence. 60 Minutes was on the Warsaw Plateau, which is about 1,500 feet or so from sea level on King George Island in Antarctica.

The other reason one comes to the Warsaw Plateau is to see some of the most dramatic evidence anywhere in the world of climate change. Over the past 50 years, this region, the Antarctica peninsula, the northwestern part and the islands around it has been going up in temperature about one degree every decade and that makes the region the fastest warming place on earth.

Mayewski is on the plateau to drill an ice core because, when ice is laid down, it captures everything in the air. Drilling down is drilling through time.

“The ice cores are really the only way we have of demonstrating what greenhouse gas levels were like prior to their first measurement by humans,” he explains.

By chemically analyzing the core, he can see what was in the air thousands of years ago. Back in Maine, Mayewski has a vault of hundreds of ice cores. He once led a team that drilled a glacier core two miles deep. He and his colleagues have found some of the most powerful evidence that man is changing the climate.

What do ice cores tell him about greenhouse gases?

“Now we know from the ice core record that the levels and the speed of rise are significantly, significantly greater than anything in the last 850,000 years,” Mayewski explains. “And the levels that we expect to get by the end of this century are going to be double what we have today.”

Mayewski and his colleagues have timed the sudden rise in greenhouse gases to the start of the industrial revolution about 150 years ago. If, as expected, greenhouse gas pollution doubles by the end of the century, temperatures are predicted to rise four to six degrees.

“What kind of impacts would you expect to see in the world if the temperature does go up four degrees or six degrees?” Pelley asks.

“Tremendous redistribution of where one would be able to have agriculture, tremendous changes in storm patterns,” Mayewski predicts. “You could very well see sea level rises on the order of several feet and perhaps even several tens of feet.”

Asked what that would mean for coastal areas around the world, Mayewski tells Pelley, “If sea level were to rise like that, that would be tremendous changes. Immense migrations.”

“It would be the largest catastrophe that the modern world would have experienced,” he adds.

That rise in sea level would play out over decades. Some of it may be inevitable. It turns out that many greenhouse gases last a long time in the atmosphere—there’s a lot up there already.

“If we stopped every automobile every factory, every emission of a greenhouse gas, would the world continue to warm?” Pelley asks Mayewski.

“It would certainly for a while. And I think that’s one of the important thing for people to understand,” Mayewski says. “It is important that everybody really begins to make reductions in greenhouse gases all the toxic elements that go along with it in order to impact or to have a change in the future. And once we start it’s not going to be an immediate solution. We’re going to have to pay for a while for what we’ve done."

France opens secret UFO files concerning over 1,600 sightings

2007-03-25T10:40:00.000-07:00

Very interesting.... I'm glad that this has happened. People need to know the truth about "UFOs". This indicates that world governments have an active interest in documenting UFO activity and an active interest in keeping that data secret, which is contrary to our traditional view of the government being indifferent to the idea of UFOs. Why do governments document UFO sightings? Why is this information kept secret?

France opens secret UFO files covering 50 years
Breitbart link

France became the first country to open its files on UFOs Thursday when the national space agency unveiled a website documenting more than 1,600 sightings spanning five decades.

The online archives, which will be updated as new cases are reported, catalogues in minute detail cases ranging from the easily dismissed to a handful that continue to perplex even hard-nosed scientists.

"It is a world first," said Jacques Patenet, the aeronautical engineer who heads the office for the study of "non-identified aerospatial phenomena."

Known as OVNIs in French, UFOs have always generated intense interest along with countless conspiracy theories about secretive government cover-ups of findings deemed too sensitive or alarming for public consumption.

"Cases such as the lady who reported seeing an object that looked like a flying roll of toilet paper" are clearly not worth investigating, said Patenet.

But many others involving multiple sightings -- in at least one case involving thousands of people across France -- and evidence such as burn marks and radar trackings showing flight patterns or accelerations that defy the laws of physics are taken very seriously.

A phalanx of beefy security guards formed a barrier in front of the space agency (CNES) headquarters where the announcement was made, "to screen out uninvited UFOlogists," an official explained.

Of the 1,600 cases registered since 1954, nearly 25 percent are classified as "type D", meaning that "despite good or very good data and credible witnesses, we are confronted with something we can't explain," Patenet said.

On January 8, 1981 outside the town of Trans-en-Provence in southern France, for example, a man working in a field reported hearing a strange whistling sound and seeing a saucer-like object about 2.5 meters (eight feet) in diameter land in his field about 50 meters (yards) away.

A dull-zinc grey, the saucer took off, he told police, almost immediately, leaving burn marks. Investigators took photos, and then collected and analyzed samples, and to this day no satisfactory explanation has been made.

The nearly 1,000 witness who said they saw flashing lights in the sky on November 5, 1990, by contrast, had simply seen a rocket fragment falling back into earth's atmosphere.

Patenet's answer to questions about evidence of life beyond Earth was sure to inflame the suspicions of those convinced the government is holding back: "We do not have the least proof that extra-terrestrials are behind the unexplained phenomena."

But then he added: "Nor do we have the least proof that they aren't."

The CNES fields between 50 and 100 UFO reports ever year, usually written up by police. Of these, 10 percent are the object of on-site investigations, Patenet said.

Other countries collect data more or less systematically about unidentified flying objects, notably in Britain and in the United States, where information can be requested on a case-by-case basis under the Freedom of Information Act.

"But we decided to do it the other way around and made everything available to the public," Patenet said.

The aim was to make it easier for scientists and other UFO buffs to access the data for research.

The website itself -- which crashed host servers hours after it was unveiled due to heavy traffic -- is extremely well organized and complete, even including scanned copies of police reports.

To visit the website: www.cnes-geipan.fr.

David Lynch exhibition in Paris

2007-03-25T10:38:00.000-07:00

David Lynch's dark arts laid bare
By Caroline Wyatt
BBC News, Paris

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6412525.stm

Film director David Lynch has appeared in Paris to launch the first major exhibition of his paintings and photographs.

Lynch sits in front of a darkened cinema screen, telling us how much he likes the sound of fire and electricity, as his fingers flutter gently, rhythmically up and down beside his face.

It is a moment that can only be described as pure Lynch, thanks to the disconnect between his kindly James Stewart face and some of what he says.

For the most part, though, he seems surprisingly normal - for the director who gave the world the weirdness of Eraserhead, the dark vision of Blue Velvet and the compelling but unsettling Twin Peaks.

Few realise he started out as a fine artist. And if you thought Lynch's films were weird or impenetrable - just wait until you see the art.

Hidden fears

Walking into the exhibition is like walking into the mind of David Lynch - and you know it will not be a comfortable place.

In fact, much of it resembles your blackest nightmares or darkest hidden fears splattered onto canvas.

On the ground floor, mounted on brightly-coloured curtains, are huge paintings of people - men and women with their body parts splayed or dissected.

One couple is shown in the middle of a violent act of murder, while another a man is being shot, with shocking red blood spurting from his torso.

A mixed oil collage features a nude woman with half her torso torn off and leaking with what looks like yellow viscous blood.

So how does Lynch himself explain his art? The fingers flutter again as he responds.

"What I can say is what you see... what you see is what I can say. And the works - they're there and they speak for themselves," he says.

"Each thing - painting, watercolour, photography - so much of it is a wordless thing."

Dark fairytale

Downstairs in the darkened basement, the small cinema is showing some early Lynch films.

The first is Six Men Being Sick. Which is what it shows, literally, with six Monty Python-esque cartoon heads vomiting.

Next, the reassuringly-titled The Grandma, is actually a rather dark fairytale about a small boy who is abused by his parents.

So he grows his own grandmother from a seed he plants and waters in his bed - with a large, looming monstrous pod giving birth to the kindly old lady.

Everywhere, a soundtrack of industrial noise plays, adding to the unsettling atmosphere.

"There is a lot of disturbing imagery," admits the exhibition's curator Ilana Shamoon.

"Especially in the paintings and the distorted nude photograph series, because that darker side of humanity is something that interests David Lynch so, so much and comes through in both his artwork and his films."

Yet she insists there is also a brighter side, gesturing towards the brightly-painted room we're standing in.

'Humorous sculptures'

It has a child-sized zebra-striped sofa and cactuses around the edges.

"There is also a lot of hope and joy in his artwork - like in his humorous sculptures," Ms Shamoon says.

Hope and joy are not things one might associate with Lynch, though he himself insists he is a "very happy man" who has enjoyed transcendental meditation at least twice a day for 30 years.

Yet his art clearly comes from a deep, dark place. Lynch's photographs, the nude series, are extremely disturbing.

They display naked female bodies, many with odd protrusions or vital parts missing.

They look like a cross between Francis Bacon, Salvador Dali, Rene Magritte and the Chapman brothers.

"Francis Bacon is someone who's the obvious comparison," Ms Shamoon says. "He is someone who influenced David Lynch from the beginning, when he went to a fine arts school in Philadelphia."

The Independent on Sunday's film critic Jonathan Romney is impressed by the work.

"David Lynch is prolific," he says. "It's amazing that he's kept all this stuff down the years. And it's all done with such confidence. This is not amateur work."

So what inspires this dark art? Lynch says it can be anything.

"What fascinates me is ideas," he says. "Sometimes we get ideas for paintings, sometimes ideas for music, sometimes for cinema, but everything starts with an idea." And he smiles beatifically.

"Painting is the most beautiful act in solitude - it's you and the paint, and the ideas flowing."

Downstairs in the gloom of the basement, there are some black-and-white paintings that sum up the exhibition, featuring scribbled hands and body parts.

On one is a man whose head is floating away from him as he gropes desperately to get it back, with the slogan: "My head is disconnected."

Walking out of the exhibition and back into the spring sunshine, I knew exactly how he felt.

Tribal Caravan

2007-03-25T10:36:00.000-07:00

http://tribalcaravan.com/

Dance Performances featuring The Sisterhood Dance Collective

Live Music including Seeds of Whatever

Workshops with: Sharon Kihara & Zoe Jakes of the Belly Dance Superstars, Frederique of Belly Groove,

Heather Stants of Urban Tribal, Ayse Cerami,

Alexandra King, Marjhani, Sashi, Kristina Canizares,

and She'enedra.

In Calabasas - near Los Angeles ~

Workshops & Vendor info: TribalCaravan06@aol.com ~

Stay in touch @ http://tribes.tribe.net/tribalcaravan or http://www.myspace.com/tribalcaravan

~ dancer signups: tcladancers@yahoo.com

Volunteers may contact Portia at portiagypsy@msn.com

Re-examining the Wave-Particle Duality

2007-03-25T10:35:00.000-07:00

Is It a Particle, a Wave Or Both? Science Team Revisits Nature of Light
http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/528029

Newswise — Work completed by a visiting research professor at Rowan University, physics professors and a student from the institution shows that light is made of particles and waves, a finding that refutes a common belief held for about 80 years.

Shahriar S. Afshar, the visiting professor who is currently at Boston's Institute for Radiation-Induced Mass Studies (IRIMS), led a team, including Rowan physics professors Drs. Eduardo Flores and Ernst Knoesel and student Keith McDonald, that proved Afshar’s original claims, which were based on a series of experiments he had conducted several years ago.

An article on the work titled "Paradox in Wave-Particle Duality" recently published in Foundations of Physics, a prestigious, refereed academic journal, supports Albert Einstein’s long-debated belief that quantum physics is incomplete. For eight decades the scientific community generally had supported Niels Bohr’s ideas commonly known as the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. In 1927, in his “Principle of Complementarity,” he asserted that in any experiment light shows only one aspect at a time, either it behaves as a wave or as a particle. Einstein was deeply troubled by that principle, since he could not accept that any external measurement would prevent light to reveal its full dual nature, according to Afshar. The fundamental problem, however, seemed to be that one has to destroy the photon in order to measure either aspects of it. Then, once destroyed, there is no light left to measure the other aspect.

“About 150 years ago, light was thought to behave solely as a wave similar to sound and water waves. In 1905, Einstein observed that light might also act as being made out of small particles. Since then physicists found it difficult understanding the full nature of light since in some situations it acts like a particle and in others like a wave,” Flores said. “This dual nature of light led to the insight that all fundamental physical objects include a wave and a particle aspect, even electrons, protons and students.”

Afshar conducted his initial theoretical and experimental work at IRIMS, where he served the privately funded organization as a principal investigator. He later continued his work at the Harvard University Physics Department as a research scholar, where he was able to verify his initial findings before going to Rowan.

In 2004, Afshar claimed that he had devised an experiment that challenged Bohr’s principle of complementarity. The Rowan team was formed to verify Afshar’s claim at extremely low light intensity levels. Afshar, Flores and Knoesel conducted experiments at Rowan that validated Afshar’s initial findings for single photons.

In this modified double-slit experiment, a laser beam hits a screen with two small pinholes. As a particle, light goes through one of the pinholes. Through a lens system, the light is then imaged onto two detectors, where a certain detector measures only the photons, which went through a particular pinhole. In this way, Afshar verified the particle nature of light. As a wave, light goes through both pinholes and forms a so-called interference pattern of bright and dark fringes.

“Afshar’s experiment consists of the clever idea of putting small absorbing wires at the exact position of the dark interference fringes, where you expect no light,” Knoesel said. “He then observed that the wires do not change the total light intensity, so there are really dark fringes at the position of the wires. That proves that light also behaves as a wave in the same experiment in which it behaves as a particle.”

The findings of the Afshar experiment were published online on January 23 in the Foundations of Physics, an international journal devoted to the conceptual bases and fundamental theories of modern physics, biophysics and cosmology, with several distinguished Nobel laureates on its editorial board. The print version was published in the February 2007 edition and is now available in libraries throughout the world.

“The important new contribution is that light carries both wave and particle aspects at all times, and future experiments will further clarify the nature of each component.” Afshar said.

Flores continued, “It is interesting to note that even after 80 years we can still gain a better understanding about the nature of light using refined measurement techniques and creative ideas and therefore are able add to the vast insights of former scientists.”

"It Struck Me Then That We, The American Soldiers, Were The Terrorists"

2007-03-25T10:32:00.000-07:00

If you want to know the real truth about Iraq, the only place you're going to hear it is from the soldiers themselves. Most of them are afraid to speak out for fear of the repercussions, and because of their shame at the horrible things they've done. Here is an account from a soldier who realized the reality of the "War on Terror": American soldiers are the terrorists in Iraq.

"Given What We Were Doing To Them, Who Could Blame Them For Wanting To Kill Us, And All Americans?"

Thomas F. Barton
Albasrah.net
Sat, 10 Mar 2007 10:09 EST

Joshua Key. Excerpt from The Deserter's Tale, published by House Of Anansi

Joshua Key, 28, was a poor, uneducated Oklahoma country boy who saw the U.S. army and its promised benefits -- from free health care to career training -- as the ticket to a better life. In 2002, not yet 24 but already married and the father of two , Key enlisted. He says his recruiting officer promised he'd never be deployed abroad, but a year later he was in Iraq.

Only 24 hours after arriving, as Key recounts in The Deserter's Tale (Anansi), he experienced his first doubts about what he and his fellow soldiers were doing there:

In December 2003, Key went home on a two-week leave. He never returned to Iraq. Instead, Key went into hiding. The following March, he and his family crossed the Canadian border at Niagara Falls.

I was scared out of my wits that first day in Ramadi.

Our own air force had just finished bombing these people, but as soon as we got out of our vehicles we began patrolling their streets, on foot. With nearly 100 lb. of weaponry, equipment and clothing on my back, I was about as mobile as a cow.

It was just my platoon, 20 guys, walking single file through streets full of Iraqis. I could not stop thinking that anywhere, at any time, some half-starved sniper on a roof could have taken me out in no time flat. Iraqi kids surrounded me in swarms, hands out, asking for water and food.

I kept hearing the last words (my wife) Brandi said to me before I flew out: "Don't you let those terrorists near you, Josh. Even if they are kids. Get them before they get you."

I was awakened at 3 a.m. that first night and told to get my ass up quickly because in one hour we were going to raid a house full of terrorists.

Capt. Conde and some sergeants showed me and my squad mates a satellite photo of a house and a drawing of the layout of the inside. Our assignment was to blow off the door, burst into the house, raid it fast and raid it good -- looking for contraband, caches of weapons, signs of terrorists or terrorist activity, then rounding up the men and getting out damn fast. The longer we stayed in any one location, the longer somebody would have to put us in the sights of a rocket-propelled grenade or lob mortars at us.

I had no idea what to expect.

Would I charge through the door, only to be blown to bits by a grenade? Would somebody with an AK-47 knock my Oklahoman ass right back out that door?

Would some six-year-old terrorist with two days of gun training be waiting to put me in his crosshairs?

The minutes ticked on, and I wanted the hour to speed forward so we could get on with it. One or two guys did push-ups to pump themselves up. I borrowed Mason's portable CD player and bombed out my eardrums to the beat of Ozzy Osbourne. It got me going.

High and ready for action. I checked my watch, wished it would accelerate, and stuck some dip -- Copenhagen, bourbon flavor -- behind my lip. You can't manage a cigarette when you've got an M-249 automatic weapon on your arm. So dip was best. Makes your mouth black as sin, and rots the roots right out of your gums, but dip was my nicotine hit of choice going into that raid.

I committed our instructions to memory. I knew the angles of the house, what door I would help blow down, how many floors were in the house, and who would do what when we busted inside.

I would be third in the door, which means I was the second most likely to get shot if anybody had a mind to take us down, and I'd head to the left. Always, for every raid, I would be third in, heading left.

I gripped my M-249. Yes, it could belt out 2,000 rounds a minute but only in theory. You couldn't really hold your finger down that long. When you were blazing away like that, the bullets turned the barrel as hot as Hades. And if you held your finger down too long, it would warp the barrel.

It took thirty seconds for Jones and me to put the charge of C-4 plastic explosive on the door.

Then we dashed around to the side of the house so we wouldn't blow ourselves up. You'd be fried meat if you were anywhere near the explosion. I set off the blast, and then the six of us charged in. Jones went first -- that skinny, red-haired Ohio boy was always hot to trot. With Jones leading the way we burst into the house, armed to the hilt. Kevlar helmets, flak jackets, machine guns, combat boots, the whole nine yards.

I'd never been inside an Iraqi's house before.

We charged through a kitchen. I had been told by squad leader Padilla to check everything, so I even opened the fridge. Perhaps, I thought, I would find guns or grenades hidden inside. No such luck.

In the fridge, all I saw was a bit of food. In the freezer I found big slabs of meat, uncovered. No wrapping. No plastic. Frozen, just like that. We ran into a living room with long couches, one along each wall.

In this room with the couches we found two children, a teenager, and a woman. We also found two young men in the house. One looked like a teenager and the other was perhaps in his early 20s -- brothers.

We hollered and cussed. I spat dip on the floor and screamed along with the other soldiers at the top of my lungs. I knew they didn't understand, but I hollered anyway.

"Get down," I shouted. "Get the f--k down. Shut the f--k up."

They didn't know what "get down" meant, so we knocked the two brothers to the floor, face down.

We put our knees on their backs, pulled their hands behind them, and faster than you can bat an eye we zipcuffed them.

Zipcuffs are plastic handcuffs that lock on tight. They must have bit something fierce into those young men's skin. There was no key, nothing -- the only way to get them off was to slice them with cutters.

We pushed the brothers outside, where 12 other soldiers from our platoon were waiting.

The Iraqi brothers were taken away to an American detention facility for interrogation.

I don't know what it was called, and I don't know where it was. All I know is that we sent away every man -- pretty well every male over five feet tall -- that we found in our house raids, and I never saw one of them return to the neighbourhoods we patrolled regularly.

Inside, we kept on ransacking the house.

The more obvious it became that we would find no weapons or contraband, the more we kicked the stuffing out of the house.

We knocked over dressers, sliced into mattresses with knives, kicked our way through doors, raiding the three bedrooms on the second floor, then raced up to the third floor.

We turned over everything we could and broke furniture at random, searching for contraband, weapons, proof of terrorist activity, or signs of weapons of mass destruction.

We found nothing but a CD.

Soldiers initially said it showed proof of terrorist activity, but it turned out to have nothing on it but a bunch of speeches by Saddam Hussein.

Once we had everybody outside the house and had done our initial job of ransacking, another squad took over inside.

They kept raising hell in there, breaking and turning over more furniture, looking for weapons that we might have missed.

Outside, under a carport, I was assigned to watch the women and children. We weren't arresting them, but we weren't allowing them to go anywhere either. The family members couldn't go back inside, and they couldn't wander off into the neighbourhood. They had to stay right there while we tore the hell out of their house.

A girl in the family -- a teenager -- started staring at me. I tried to ignore her.

Then she began speaking to me. Inside, when we had been screaming at her and the others, I'd assumed that nobody understood a word of English. But this young girl spoke to me in English, and her eyes bored holes right through me.

She was skin and bones, not even 100 lb., not yet a full-grown woman, but something about her seemed powerful and disturbing.

I feared that girl, and I wanted to get away from her as fast as I could, but it was my job to stay right there and make sure she didn't move. I had my weapon ready. She was wearing a blue nightgown and had a white scarf covering her hair. She had no veil, so I could see her face perfectly. Her eyes were coal black and full of hatred.

In English, she asked me, "Where are you taking my brothers?"

"I don't know, Miss," I said.

"Why are you taking them away?"

"I'm afraid I can't say."

"When are you bringing them back?"

"Couldn't tell you that either."

"Why are you doing this to us?"

I couldn't answer that.

I hoped she would not raise a fuss. I didn't want her to start screaming, which could attract the attention of my squad mates. One or two, I feared, would be more than happy to use a rifle butt to knock out her teeth.

I hadn't been in Iraq more than 24 hours and already I was having strange feelings.

First, I was vulnerable, and I didn't like it.

Even with all these soldiers and all this equipment, I knew that anywhere, at any time, any Iraqi with a gun, a wall to hide behind, and one decent eye could pick me off faster than a hawk nabs a mouse.

Second, with hardly one foot into the war, I was also uneasy about what we were doing there. Something was amiss.

We hadn't found anything in this girl's house, but we had busted it up pretty well in 30 minutes and had taken away her brothers. Inside, another squad was still ransacking the house. I didn't enjoy being stuck guarding this girl under the carport, in the cool April air before dawn in Ramadi.

Her questions haunted me, and I didn't like not being able to answer them -- even to myself.

Busting into and ransacking homes remained one of my most common duties in Iraq. Before my time was up, I took part in about 200 raids.

We never found weapons or indications of terrorism.

I never found a thing that seemed to justify the terror we inflicted every time we blasted through the door of a civilian home, broke everything in sight, punched and zipcuffed the men, and sent them away.

One raid was far worse.

It was a handsome two-storey house and quite isolated.

As usual, I put the charge of C-4 explosives on the door and we blew it in. As we rushed into the house, women were staggering out of their rooms. Three teenage girls screamed when they saw us.

Some of my squad mates grabbed them and held them at gunpoint, and the rest of us ran through the house. We found no men at all, just six more women in their 20s and 30s. The guys in my squad couldn't find a thing, not even any guns -- and it seemed that the more incapable they were of locating contraband, the more destructive they became. They smashed dressers, ripped mattresses, broke cabinets, and threw shelves to the floor.

Outside I found Pvt. 1st Class Hayes with a woman under an empty carport. He pointed his M-16 at her head but she would not stop screaming.

"What are you doing this for?" she said.

Hayes told her to shut up.

"We have done nothing to you," she went on.

Hayes was starting to lose it. I told her that we were there on orders and that we couldn't speak to her, but on and on and on she bawled at Hayes and me.

"You Americans are disgusting! Who do you think you are, to do this to us?"

Hayes slammed her in the face with the stock of his M-16. She fell face down into the dirt, bleeding and silent. The woman lay still on the ground. I pushed Hayes away.

"What are you doing, man?" I said to him. "You have a wife and two kids! Don't be hitting her like that."

He looked at me with eyes full of hatred, as if he was ready to kill me for saying those words, but he did not touch the woman again.

I found this incident with Hayes particularly disturbing because during other times I had seen him in action in Iraq, he had showed himself to be one of the most level-headed and calm soldiers in my company. I had the sense that if he could lose it and hit a woman the way he had, any of us could lose it too.

Then something happened that haunts my dreams to this day.

All the women were led back inside the house and our entire platoon was ordered to stand guard outside it. Four U.S. military men entered the house with the women. They closed the doors. We couldn't see anything through the windows. I don't know who the military men were, or what unit they were from, but I can only conclude that they outranked us and were at least at the level of first lieutenant or above.

That's because our own second lieutenant Joyce was there, and his presence did not deter them.

Normally, when we conducted a raid, we were in and out in 30 minutes or less. You never wanted to stay in one place for too long for fear of exposing yourself to mortar attacks.

But our platoon was made to stand guard outside that house for about an hour. The women started shouting and screaming. The men stayed in there with them, behind closed doors. It went on and on and on.

Finally, the men came out and told us to get the hell out of there.

It struck me then that we, the American soldiers, were the terrorists.

We were terrorizing Iraqis.

Intimidating them.

Beating them.

Destroying their homes.

Probably raping them.

The ones we didn't kill had all the reasons in the world to become terrorists themselves.

Given what we were doing to them, who could blame them for wanting to kill us, and all Americans?

A sick realization lodged like a cancer in my gut.

It grew and festered, and troubled me more with every passing day.

We, the Americans, had become the terrorists in Iraq

Gnomes and Elves, Fauns and Faeries, Goblins, Ogres, Trolls and Bogies, Nymphs, Sprites and Dryads, Past and Present

2007-03-14T17:26:00.002-07:00

An Historical Overview of the Whereabounts of Gnomes and Elves, Fauns and Faeries, Goblins, Ogres, Trolls and Bogies, Nymphs, Sprites and Dryads, Past and Present

by Buck Young
http://www.earthspirit.org/fireheart/fhfaries.html

A long, long time ago, the Earth belonged to the creatures of the wood. By creatures of the wood I mean gnomes, elves, faeries, etc. They tended it and took care of it, played in it, danced and sang in it, cared for wounded animals, worked out disputes between species, sat on mushrooms discussing matters of importance and drinking Labrador tea, rode down streams on leaves and bark, parachuted from trees on dandelion seeds. This was the world into which mankind was born. These early days, when man was but a newly arrived dinner guest who hadn't yet taken over the house, are fairly well documented in the literature and folklore of the world, so there's no need to go into it here. What I am interested in, and what I am asking you to be interested in, is the question, "Where did all the gnomes, elves, faeries, etc. go?"

The friction between man and the wood creatures began with the discovery of agriculture. With this discovery civilization arose and spread. The forests were cleared to provide wood for shelters and fields for pastures and crops. Mankind had set up camp. No longer just a visitor in someone else's world, he pushed the wild back from his newly built doorstep. At first, this wasn't a problem. There weren't that many people and everyone else felt that it was only fair to allot them their own half-acre to do with as they wished. Some of them even decided to help out. Gnomes moved into the barn houses and helped with the gardening chores. The devic spirits of the vegetables helped humans better organize their crops and plan rotation; taught them the correlation between planetary and lunar cycles and the agricultural year. They taught them to plant radishes when the moon is in Cancer, harvest when the moon is in Taurus. Many trolls felt that the heaping piles of manure were a change for the better, and decided to stick around too.

The rest of the wood creatures just backed off into the wood, occasionally playing tricks on the new settlers, like turning the milk sour, rearranging furniture, tipping cows, tickling people's faces in their sleep and once in a while stealing babies and leaving bundles of wood in their place.

But man's dominion spread (and spread and spread and spread) and the forests got smaller and smaller and smaller. Things got real crowded in the woods, and things were getting worse in civilization. Most farmers weren't listening to the devic spirits anymore. People found they could increase their output by disregarding the needs of the earth. They were raising productivity and killing the soil. Petrochemicals were just a step away. Most of the devic spirits and gnomes fled. The trolls stayed. Today, they live mostly under bridges and in the shallow mucky ditches beneath the metal grating on farm roads that cows are afraid to cross. Be sure to honk your horn before driving over one of these. A troll may be hanging from the grate, swinging over its living room, as they are apt to do after rolling in muck and manure. If you don't give a warning honk, you may run over its fingers, and it's not a great idea to get either your name or your license plate number on a troll's shite list.

Now, there is little wild land left at all, and even that is shrinking at an unprecedented rate. There is simply not enough wild space for all the gnomes and elves, fauns and faeries, goblins, ogres, trolls and bogies, nymphs, sprites, and dryads.

So where are they?

Are they dead?

No.

So, where did they go?

The answer is a bit surprising. They didn't go anywhere. We did. Early humans had an intuitive knowledge of their role in nature, just as bears and raccoons and mice and every other critter does. They understood, from the ways of the wild around them, that nothing ever comes from nowhere and nothing ever just disappears. Things change form. Death is necessary for life to continue. They offered up their kills as sacrifices to the gods of nature. They offered praise, prayer, sacrifice and song to the spirits of the wild, to brother buffalo, brother deer, and brother tree.

Now we know that everything that ever existed continues to exist, in one form or another, and as far as we can tell, they were more aware of that back then than we are now. So, the sacrifice, song and prayer did not ensure the immortality of the slaughtered, either in body or spirit. That was already taken care of. What it did ensure was the continuance of the connection between the spirit of the slaughterer and the spirit of the slaughtered. Killing is risky business. The membrane separating the internal from the external is not necessarily as thick or as clearly defined as we have come to believe. Every time we kill, we risk killing the reality of that thing inside ourselves as well as outside. We risk breaking the connections that lead in and out of the membrane. Taking a life to feed life requires a keen understanding of the natural law of give and take. When we lost that understanding, gave up the songs, the sacrifice, the prayers, we lost the connection. Saying grace is not enough.

When we lose those connections, everything becomes dead - fish, rivers, frogs, mice, even each other. There is no way they can reach inside us any more. The five senses we are left with are not enough. We have given up those connections in exchange for the freedom to clear-cut forests with skidders, turn cows into milk machines and chickens into egg factories. We can experiment with animals, club seals, wear fur, and exterminate entire species. Not a twinge of guilt. The lines have been severed.

And we are all under the impression that it is the forests, the creatures, the spirits and the wild lands that are disappearing from the universe and not us. This is not so. Thinking like that is like thinking that if you stand on the end of a limb and saw that limb from the tree, that the tree will fall and you will remain standing. Bugs Bunny might be able to get away with that, but we can't.

It is we who have fallen away from the real world into a world where we may carry out our twisted sterile dreams without threatening the earth and its inhabitants. Ever wonder why the trees, stones, rivers and streams, birds, bears, frogs and snakes no longer talk to us as they did in the early tales of Native America, the Hindu, the Africans, the bible? It's because we're not around to talk to anymore. Every clear-cut, every vivisection, every mechanized slaughter of cow, pig or chicken moves our dream world further and further from the tree, making a reunification, which is still possible, more and more difficult.

Somewhere not so far from here, in the real world, the ancient forests are still standing, the buffalo roams the prairies, the sky is full of condors, the deer and the antelope play, and dodo birds still wander the sandy beaches, bumping into things.

Where there are still wild lands in our dream world, strong connections still exist. Bridges, tunnels, portals. Occasionally a traveler will get lost in the wilderness and find himself in the real world, returning the next day to find that a hundred years have passed, or never returning at all.

There are more ephemeral connections as well - brooks and waterfalls where you can still here voices from the other side, if you listen carefully enough... When they sit by these waters, they hear loud clanking and screams. When they eat magic mushrooms, everything STOPS glowing and condos rise where forests stand. Our children can see their world in their dreams. Their children see our world in the nightmares.

And there is another connection. Sometimes agents from the other side infiltrate our world in an attempt to expedite reunification. Believe it or not, they miss us over there. Sometimes - more often than you might think - they send souls over to our world to be born as human babies. There are quite a lot of them actually - gnomes, elves, faeries, sprites, etc. running around in human bodies, doing crazy things like writing on walls, working in co-ops, running inns in the mountains, talking to themselves in the streets, making pottery, practicing witchcraft. They are planting biodynamic gardens, sitting in the back yard naked, arguing with satan. They are in asylums pumped full of Thorazine, in a classroom on Ritalin and lithium. They live with Indians. They run recycling centers. They are starting revolutions, corrupting the young, inventing paranoid conspiracy theories, making up religions. They're directing movies, gobbling acid, drinking heavily and writing poetry.

The transition from their world to ours is not an easy one. It's not easy on the soul and much is lost. They may have no idea who or what they are at first. They may or may not find out. They WILL know they are not like other people. They will know that this world is not theirs. They will faintly remember something better, where things made sense and worked like they ought to, where love and magic had the power to heal.

They will know what makes other people happy does not make them happy, and that what makes them happy makes them happier than anyone else alive.

They will see things others cannot see, hear things others cannot hear, feel things others cannot feel, and know things others do not know.

They will laugh a great deal or cry a great deal or both.

They will love humans individually, but have a hard time with humanity as whole, and that will occasionally approach loathing.

They will have a handful of very close friends, and often be very lonely.

They will be unhappiest when forced to act like a human and do things that humans do, want what humans want, or when they are convinced that they actually are one.

Things will not be easy for them. Because of their memories of the other side, the world will seem to them a wondrous calliope with just a few teeth missing on one of the cogs. Because of this tiny deficiency, the music is off key, the horses are crashing into each other and the children are frightened, bruised and crying.

The solutions will seem obvious, but no one will listen.

They will repeatedly be punished for shouting FIRE! in a crowded theatre, when the buildings really are in flames but no one else can see....They will get slapped on the wrist for pointing to the EXIT signs when everyone else is running around screaming and trampling one another.

They will be zealous, fanatical and didactic in their beliefs. They will feel utterly confused.

They will have ecstatic visions and babble incoherently. They will be extremely articulate.

They are prone to long periods of silence. They have no idea how to say what they really mean.

They spend a lot of time with children and animals.

They will become drunkards and dope fiends, organic gardeners, soap makers, carpenters, madmen, magicians, jugglers and clowns, lunatic physicists, painter and scribblers, travelers and wanderers...

They will dress in bright colors, frumpy sweaters or all black.

They will smoke too much and drink too much. They will eat only macrobiotic foods. They will develop addictions to Mountain Dew.

They will often be accused of living in their own fantasy world.

They will make great lovers. Yeah, even the trolls.

They will spend too much time either making love or thinking about it.

They will speak to inanimate objects. They will have much brighter eyes than everyone else. They will expect their magic to work in this world and their love to heal, and will be crushed by this world, and often won't expect it.

It will come close to killing them.

They will visit the places where the connections still exist: the waterfalls, the mountains, the oceans, and the forests. They will draw on all the power they have, and sometimes, sometimes, the magic will work. And everything will be wondrously easy. The teeth will grow back on the cog on the calliope, the tune will right itself, the horses will bob gracefully up and down, around and around, and the children will giggle and sing with cotton candy stuck to their cheeks and noses.

They will spend their days trying to reconnect a branch that millions are busy sawing away at. Often it will be more than they can bear.

While the rest of humanity is busy working on new and more efficient ways to lay waste to the Earth with the push of a button, they are saving it. A handful at a time.

They will share a common conviction that they are the only sane individuals in a world gone mad.

They are right.

BUCK YOUNG aka Mat Jacobsen wrote this article and it was originally published in Fireheart 6.

Mayan Priests to Purify Site After Bush Visit

2007-03-14T17:26:00.001-07:00

Priests to Purify Site After Bush Visit
By JUAN CARLOS LLORCA
The Associated Press
Friday, March 9, 2007; 12:20 AM

GUATEMALA CITY -- Mayan priests will purify a sacred archaeological site to eliminate "bad spirits" after President Bush visits next week, an official with close ties to the group said Thursday.

"That a person like (Bush), with the persecution of our migrant brothers in the United States, with the wars he has provoked, is going to walk in our sacred lands, is an offense for the Mayan people and their culture," Juan Tiney, the director of a Mayan nongovernmental organization with close ties to Mayan religious and political leaders, said Thursday.

Bush's seven-day tour of Latin America includes a stopover beginning late Sunday in Guatemala. On Monday morning he is scheduled to visit the archaeological site Iximche on the high western plateau in a region of the Central American country populated mostly by Mayans.

Tiney said the "spirit guides of the Mayan community" decided it would be necessary to cleanse the sacred site of "bad spirits" after Bush's visit so that their ancestors could rest in peace. He also said the rites _ which entail chanting and burning incense, herbs and candles _ would prepare the site for the third summit of Latin American Indians March 26-30.

Bush's trip has already has sparked protests elsewhere in Latin America, including protests and clashes with police in Brazil hours before his arrival. In Bogota, Colombia, which Bush will visit on Sunday, 200 masked students battled 300 riot police with rocks and small homemade explosives.

The tour is aimed at challenging a widespread perception that the United States has neglected the region and at combatting the rising influence of Venezuelan leftist President Hugo Chavez, who has called Bush "history's greatest killer" and "the devil."

Iximche, 30 miles west of the capital of Guatemala City, was founded as the capital of the Kaqchiqueles kingdom before the Spanish conquest in 1524.

Sony patents 'real-life Matrix' technology

2007-03-14T17:21:00.000-07:00

Sony patents 'real-life Matrix' technology

smh.com link

The Japanese entertainment giant Sony has patented an idea for transmitting data directly into the brain, with the goal of enabling a person to see movies and play video games in which they smell, taste and perhaps even feel things, New Scientist says.

The patent - based only on a theory, not on any invention - marks the first step towards a "real-life Matrix", the British science weekly says in the next issue.

In the sci-fi film of that name, cyber-reality is projected into the brains of people via an electrode feed at the back of their necks.

In Sony's patent, the technique would be entirely non-invasive - it would not use brain implants or other surgery to manipulate the brain.

The patent has few details, describing only a device that would fire pulses of ultrasound at the head to modify the firing patterns of neurons in targeted parts of the brain.

The aim, it says, is to create "sensory experiences" ranging from moving images to tastes and sounds.

New Scientist said it was denied an interview with the inventor, who is based at a Sony office in San Diego, California.

Sony Electronics spokeswoman Elizabeth Boukis said the work was a "prophetic invention" and no experiments at all had been done on it.

"It was based on an inspiration that this may someday be the direction that technology will take us," she told New Scientist.

Independent experts said they did not dismiss the idea out of hand, although they also cautioned about the proposed method's long-term safety.

So far, the only non-invasive way for manipulating the brain is crude.

A technique called transcranial magnetic stimulation uses magnetic fields to induce currents in brain tissue, thus stimulating brain cells.

But magnetic fields cannot be finely focused on small groups of brain cells, whereas ultrasound pulses could be.

Sex attacks blamed on bat demon

2007-03-14T17:16:00.000-07:00

Sex attacks blamed on bat demon
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6383833.stm

Men in parts of Tanzania's main city, Dar es Salaam, are living in fear of a night-time sex attacker.

A BBC correspondent says the attacks are being blamed by some on a demon called "Popo Bawa" meaning winged bat.

Some men are staying awake or sleeping in groups outside their homes. Others are smearing themselves with pig's oil, believing this repels attacks.

Reports of the demon's existence have been common for many years in Zanzibar, where locals claim it originated.

The BBC's John Ngahyoma in Dar es Salaam says not many people actually believe that the demon exists and there have been no sightings.

But Mbaruku Ibrahim, who hails from Zanzibar, says the story of the demon is common there and people in his village on Pemba island sleep beside a huge fire outside their houses whenever it is said to appear.

The story goes that the bat is able to transform itself into a man at night and it has also been blamed for rapes of women.

Sheikh Yahya Hussein, a prominent astrologer in Tanzania, claims that the demon is a spirit that is unleashed by witches to torment their opponents.

Belief in witchcraft and superstitions is widespread in Tanzania, especially in rural areas.

Edgar Cayce and the Akashic Record

2007-03-14T17:10:00.000-07:00

A few years ago I had a dream once wherein the sky opened up and communicated with me and I saw innumerable symbols and patterns and meanings written in gold star dust in the sky. It remains the most profound dream I have ever had.

ANCIENT DATABASE REVELED

http://atlantium.blogspot.com/2007/03/atlantium-episode-viii.html

The ancient Egyptians and Greeks spoke of an astral library known to them as the Akasha. The word Akasha means "Sky", "Space" or "Aether" intimating that it dwells outside the physical. The Akashic Records were described by the ancients as a "Hall of Knowledge" where everything that has ever happened, or will happen is stored in millisecond by millisecond detail. The Akashic Record also chronicles the details of all animals, plants, minerals, and objects that ever have or ever will exist. Every person dead, alive or to be born has every moment of their lives recorded in the great Akasha. A great computer database in the sky.

The Hebrew Bible refers to these records as the "Book of Life", an infinite scroll that God uses to record every thought of every individual. This record can be changed and cleansed, the mistakes and sins of individuals can be blotted from the "Book of Life". The Book is consulted as to whether a dead individual is to be permitted into Heaven. These stories are all composite elements of one first story that has been passed down from the ancient past. Edgar Cayce born in 1877 became world famous after discovering the cure to his own life threatening illness by tapping into the Akashic Records. Cayce had only an eighth grade education, yet he dictated volumes upon volumes of information about subjects like math, science, medicine, history and the future. When asked how he obtained this knowledge he claimed to be able to connect with the Akasha. He said he could know anything about anything that ever happened or will ever happen. Cayce would go into a self hypnotic trance and speak aloud about any subject he was asked about. Cayce was asked to look back as far as he could into the records and describe what he found. He told of the Atlanteans and their struggles with various factions within, and how their continent was destroyed by the explosion of an overcharged crystal. He concluded that refugees of Atlantis settled in Egypt and Central America. One of his most famous readings reveled that a Hall of Records would be found beneath the Sphinx at Giza. Cayce died in 1945 and his family maintains a library of all his readings over 14,000 of them in all.

Today scientists primarily in the realm of physics and quantum mechanics are looking at the idea of information being at the root of all existence. Evolving theories include ideas with names like Plank scale, zero point energy and the aether physics model. All matter and all the vacuum of space are made of atomic particles that when pulled apart continue to get smaller and smaller until you get down to the core building block. This bottom level is the Plank Scale. The lego of the Universe, from this the smallest of all elements, everything exists. In one compelling idea this element is called an Aether Unit a magnetic field that oscillates. Many Physicists believe that these smallest particles are a form of information energy, and that the Universe is an unimaginably vast sea of information energy. A well known physics experiment concluded that photons behave differently when being observed leading many to conclude that the consciousness of the experimenter was influencing the behavior of the photons. Some scientists believe that our thoughts could have a connection to this ocean of information energy and that this energy could be connected to us in some way. Is the Universe itself a giant ocean of data? Could the ancients have known what science is only now rediscovering? In the Atlantium continuum the answer is YES. The myths told by our ancestors are most likely encrypted ancient knowledge that has been passed down until today. Only now are we just beginning to decode these myths with science and reason. Edgar Cayce said that time was like a ball and that everything that has, or ever will happen is in that ball taking place all at the same time. It is only our human perception that makes it seem to flow in a progression. Are we ready to Google the "Book of Life"?

ATLANTIUM. Roc Hatfield/Author

The Discovery of the Next World: Reflections Beyond 2012

2007-03-04T10:27:00.000-08:00

This is an excellent article about the post-2012 tribal groups that are emerging as we move to a radically different society.

The Discovery of the Next World
Reflections Beyond the Maya Endtime
By John Lash

http://www.metahistory.org/DiscoverNextWorld.php

Additional to the slim chance that a few people with guts and intelligence might stand up to intimidation from the Abrahamic hordes and defy the taboo on critical thinking about faith issues, as suggested in the previous article, what other prospects might we envision for the Maya endtime?

Having pondered this matter for quite a few years, I am convinced that some kind of momentous shift is indeed immanent on this planet, although it will not, I believe, transpire in a sudden, spectacular way. In many respects, it is already unfolding, and has been for some time: it involves a progressive transformation, rather than a sudden, once-and-for-all breakthrough. I believe this is the view held by a good many people now writing and talking about 2012, such as Daniel Pinchbeck, but there is also a building expectation of a particular breakthrough tied to the date December 21, 2012. The progressive transformation underway might be compared to breaking the sound barrier in a jet: a steady acceleration up to the specific moment, BAZOOM, when the barrier is passed. (I went through the sound barrier twice on the Concorde, which used to level off at a little faster than Mach 2: you don´t feel or hear a thing, but the world outside gets seriously bazoomed!)

We may well wonder, Since when has the steady acceleration to 2012 been in effect, and detectible?

Temporal Vortex

It might be helpful to think of December 2012 as a nodal moment around which events are clustered, before and after. I have found this concept consistently useful in my studies of historical patterns, plotted against stellar and planetary cycles. For instance, 1821 is the nodal moment of the Romantic movement. Constellated around that moment, before and after, are the key events that defined the movement. A nodal moment signals a vortex in time—a "dissipative structure," to use the odd term proposed by Ilya Prigogine—where the innate evolutionary potential of the human species undergoes review and reworking. Some potentials (reflected in cultural tendencies, discoveries, currents of thought and behavior) dissolve into the vortex, others emerge, simultaneously. Patterns of change anchored in the nodal moment can be imagined as event-ripples that spread around the temporal vortex. (Obviously, current ideas of autopoesis, emergence, and fractality enter into this analogy, prompting us to consider how historical patterns might have self-similar and self-ordinating properties.)

1821 is a nodal moment in a pattern of 172-year intervals, following the cycle of the uranus-neptune conjunctions. It comes ahead to 1992-3, the last time such a conjunction occurred. (The middle node between 1821 and 1993 is 1907, the vortex moment of Modernism.) From 1993 to 2012 is 19 years. Could this be the period of sensed acceleration? Perhaps, but I propose a further permutation of the nodal dating: make 1993 the nodal year between 2012, which is 19 years ahead in time, and 1974, which is 19 years back in time. Then we arrive at the interval 1974 - 2012 (with the midpoint at 1992-3, a key pivotal moment) for the acceleration into the Maya endtime. Readers of Not in His Image may recall that in the last chapter I trace the co emergence of Gaia theory, Goddess studies, and the Gnostic revival ahead to today from around 1974.

One good thing about this timeframe is that it encompasses just one generation, which is neither too long nor too short an interval. People who were working out their world view in 1974 can relate to people coming into their world view on the approach to 2012. The interval is manageable in terms of generational continuity. The experiential lessons accrued by many people in this period of time can be compared and shared by direct interpersonal communication, one generation interfacing with another, without reliance on books, recordings, or other second-hand sources. This is a huge advantage for plotting and navigating the slope of the acceleration.

Mythic Orientation

The mythical date arrives if a series of circumstances combine to produce the event. Unlike the profane date, the sacred one is not a measure but a living reality, charged with supernatural forces, which is incarnated in determinate places.
~ Octavio Paz, The Bow and the Lyre (1967)

What makes 2012 important is that it has been identified as a sacred date, to be distinguished from mundane calendric time. Arguelles originally pointed out that we are entrained by the linear scheme of the Gregorian calendar—along with the patriarchal salvationist program attached to it, I might add. Thus he attempted to introduce a 13-moon, 28-day calendar related (he claims) to biological time, as an alternative way to keep track of what we´re doing. Arguelles´s calendric reform has been dismissed as a distortion of Maya calendrics (true), but it has value by reminding us to reground in lunar and biological timing. A sacred time-keeping device must incorporate both seasonal and (human) somatic rhythms, including, of course, the macro-rhythms of Gaia.

Octavio Paz points out that a sacred date is "not a measure but a living reality." One problem with Maya calendric speculations is that, once 2012 is identified as a sacred date, it is treated as a measure, factored down, permutated, analyzed, etc. I suggested in the previous essay that such computations can draw attention to themselves and away from what we need to discover in the progression to the endtime. The solution to the Long Count in historical and experiential terms will not be found in the Count itself, i.e., in some grand scheme encoded in it, but in the "living reality" of the eruptions and occlusions of human potential that are right now constellating around the forward nodal moment, 2012.

How, then, to read these "eruptions and occlusions of human potential"? It is tempting to jump imaginatively into a prospective stance and make an inventory of all kinds of events and tendencies that reflect the slope of acceleration. To some extent, this appears to be what I am doing here, but not really... To clarify my approach, I propose a metaphor that locates endtime developments within a single, comprehensive frame of reference. That way, rather than merely pile up an inventory of supposed endtime developments, we can each place ourselves in the developing wave. The language for this metaphor is: the discovery of Next World, compared to Columbus´s discovery of the New World. But with this qualification: Columbus did not merely discover the New World, he discovered the native peoples who inhabited it. Likewise, the discovery of 2012 depends on meeting the natives who inhabit the Next World, the endtime tribes.

Acceleration to the Maya endtime entails discovering the tribes of the Next World, in which human community will survive when civilization as we know it so far has dissolved into the temporal vortex of 2012.

The New World was discovered in 1492, so the old story goes. Not such a trustworthy story, we suspect, but there it is. To this sorry old tale let´s now add a futurist ending: the Next World will be discovered by 2012. This discovery unfolds as we meet the natives of that world, finding the endtime tribes among us, and ourselves in the tribes. As a mythologist dedicated to translating received myth into existential terms, I like this formulation because it says concisely and precisely all we know about what the Maya themselves must have thought of their calendar cycle: that in 2012 one world would end and another one would begin. By "world" they understood a world age, a long-term planetary cycle.

The end of a world age is not the end of life on this planet, it is the transition to another way of living here. This is the glorious promise of the Maya endtime.

Joseph Campbell had a term for the nodal moment or temporal vortex: he called it the mythogenetic moment. On the first page of Creative Mythology, he signaled the12th century as the last great mythogenetic moment in the history of Western civilization. (In the series, An Alternative History of the Grail, I have dedicated a lot of cyberink to this era, the seminal epoch of the troubadours, the cult of Amor, Arthurian legend, and the Grail quest.) Campbell felt passionately that the transition into the 21th century could be a mythogenetic moment morally and spiritually equivalent to the 12th century, and possibly even resonant with it. I find a lot of veracity in this view.

In Maya-Aztec calendrics, the current world is called Ollin (above) and designated as the Fifth Age or " Fifth Sun." This is a close equivalent to the Kali Yuga of the Hindus. Not much is said of Ollin except that it will end with "movement," possibly meaning earthquakes, crustal shift of the earth´s mantle, collapse of ice sheets, rising of sea levels, etc. Ollin also means "shift of consciousness, mind movement." Curiously, this glyph recalls intertwining strands of DNA, with the three-prong, four-notch motif suggestive of three-letter codons composed of four bases. Okay, so tell me I'm fabulating, but perhaps not. One of the several mysterious features of DNA is the shifting of histones, the chief proteins in the chromatin that act as spools around which DNA winds, keeping genes in place. In effect, histones lock or seal the genetic code, and when they move, they unseal it. This biochemical action is the equivalent to the mythological concept of the apocalypse, "the lifting of the seal." The apocalyptic moment when histones shift cannot be determined, because biologists are uncertain what makes histones shift. Could histone-shift happen massively for the human species at a particular moment—say, due to the traumatic impact of massive life-threatening events? No one knows, but it cannot be ruled out.

Whatever the Aztecs made out of it, I strongly maintain that we today can regard Ollin as an icon of genomic and phylogenetic shift, linked to the 2012 endtime. I will have more to say on this idea in the third article of this sequence.

Ollin is a day sign in the Aztec calendar. One of the better websites on MesoAmerican calendars (www.azteccalendar.com) gives this definition:

The protector of day Ollin (Movement) is Xolotl. This is an auspicious day for the active principle, a bad day for the passive principle. Ollin is a day of the purified heart, signifying those moments where human beings may perceive what they are becoming. A good day for transmutation, which arrives like an earthquake that leaves in its wake the ruins of rationality, order and the preconceived.

Which sounds pretty damn relevant, I´d say. The allusion to Xolotl (Sho-LOW-tul) is telling. He is the twin or double of Quetzalcoatl, the mythological figure most often associated with the Maya endtime. Xolotl is the evening star (Venus, appearing after sunset), the Lord of the West, a shapeshifter—that is to say, a sorcerer and master of occult powers, siddhis. I will return to this theme at the close of this article. (Below, Xolotl from the Codex Borbonicus.)

So, we are deep into a mythogenetic moment when human potential is arising in new expressions, simultaneously with the dissolution of old expressions, and this dynamic, two-way escalation, up and down (Ollin), is revealing the outlines of the Next World when the planet earth will be inhabited by the endtime tribes. Mythological figures such as the Gnostic Sophia and the Aztec Xolotl loom over the emergent tribes and in some manner preside over the birth of a transmuted, transmigrant humanity. Each such mythogenetic moment holds in solution a constellation of powerful choices, but the magic of the moment only becomes real when these choices are actually defined and made, one person at a time. Following the metaphor I've proposed, the essential choice we each face on the accelerating approach to 2012 could be stated like this:

Who do I want to be among in the Next World—Columbus and his crew, dumbfounded before the native tribes, or the tribes themselves?

"The mythical date arrives if a series of circumstances combine to produce the event" (Paz, cited above).

If some readers are now on board and find the language in use acceptable, how about we expand the guiding metaphor? To paraphrase Paz, "The mythical date 2012 arrives when a series of discoveries combine to produce the immanent event, i.e., the emergence of the Next World." These discoveries are all of one kind: social, interpersonal, and intimate meetings between people, members of tribes who recognize each other. To foster this recognition, it would be helpful to have a tentative sketch of the tribes. I characterize them by these names: the Originals, the Orgiastics, the Sustainers, the Evolvers, and the Visioneers.

Originals

Ceremonial dancers, Kamiura tribe, Xingu River, Brazil

The Originals are the first peoples of the earth, or what´s left of them. They live in reflective symbiosis with the places where they live, which gives them a special grounding power. At the same time, they are vulnerable to being uprooted and displaced by predatory societies driven by the double ideology of conquest and entitlement. Members of such societies believe that the planet belongs to them, materially, and they have an entitlement to claim it by force from any peoples who may be inconveniently sitting on resources they would like to possess for themselves. Their sense of entitlement is enforced by the belief that they are made in the image of a paternal deity who gives them permission to breed like lice and dominate the earth.

Consider this statistic: in 2006 around 40,000 indigenous people committed suicide. You don´t have to ask yourself why. It is painfully obvious that some people cannot live if their way of life is destroyed. A way of life is not a way to Earn a living," not a matter of holding down a job in the System, the dominant socioeconomic game. For the Originals, their way of life is rooted in the earth, framed by the stars, linked to plants and animals, nurtured by past generations and consecrated to future ones. Take all that away and some people will choose to die rather than accept the alternatives that "civilization" proposes to them: the San Bushman woman I quote in Tree and Well, for instance. She is an Original.

In the acceleration to the Maya endtime, we may be seeing the demise of the last remaining Originals, but there is also a resurgence of that tribe, for those who are still with us have a crucial role to play in the passage into the Next World. The global tour of the 13 Indigenous Grandmothers, for instance, is an endtime project conceived by Originals to alert the world to the healing and guiding power of entheogenic plants.

Members of the tribe of Originals include not only the remaining indigenous peoples of the world, but those who embrace their cause and work to protect and support them. Years, ago, when I first spoke at the Marion Institute, I proposed in the spirit of reviving the Mysteries that each person adopt an indigenous tribe and an endangered animal. The Originals and the animals come together, and they may disappear together. Upon signing a treaty with European settlers in 1854, "Chief Seattle of the Suquamish tribe of the North Pacific is reported to have said that when the last animals have perished 'humans will die of loneliness.' " (Loneliness and Presence by Thomas Berry, Parabola Magazine).

Animals, birds, fishes, and insects, also belong to the tribe of Originals. Most indigenous peoples around the world recognize the four-leggeds, the crawlies, and other species as kin to us, with no less dignity and intelligence, and no less value for the earth. Meeting blue whales, white lions, dolphins, scorpions, spotted owls and Andalucian golden eagles, is essential to discovering the Next World. The recognitions that shape the world ahead will have to be profoundly rooted in the all-species connection. Those who champion this connection belong to the tribe of the Originals.

Orgiastics

Amber mask of Dionysos, Roman, 1st Century

This tribe is a kind of distant reflection of the Originals, or perhaps a forward projection in evolutionary terms. It consists of a huge spectrum of "urban tribes," the diverse community of younger people who share a clan sense of identity and a common spirit of celebration; the followings of Burning Man and the Rainbow Tribe, for instance. There are thousands of clans within the Orgiastic tribe, some of them consisting of no more than two or three members. Many of them use the Internet to organize their activities and keep communication up and running, yet they stand apart from the cybernetic community as such by their pronounced affinity for the natural world and native-mind peoples, the Originals.

It could be said that the next generation of Originals is being recruited from the Orgiastics. Many of this young tribe will be elders in the tribal communities that emerge after 2012.

As Dale Pendell (Pharmakopoeia) noted, "There are no plants in cyberspace... nor in the noosphere." Nothing happens on the Internet, which is an electronic grid dependent on wired-off acres of blinking consoles in featureless concrete warehouses, but it a great medium for announcing things that happen, and even generating the "buzz" that makes them happen. Many Orgiastics are inclined to chemical highs and the vacant cybernetic ideologies that come with it, but they are essentially organophiles and nature-lovers, and as such, they ought not be confounded with the segment of the younger generation that does not know where eggs come from (which is, according to a recent study in France, sixty percent of the twenty-somethings surveyed).

Why Orgiastics? The Greek orgia means "operation, working." In the Mysteries, orgies were group events like collaborative seminars in which members worked together on certain projects. Sometimes, but not always, orgies had a sexual component. But even when they did, sexual activity was not merely hedonistic. Rather, it was more like a group Tantric session intended to raise and fine tune somatic, emotive, and cognitive intensity. Members of the Orgiastic tribe share an innate longing to revive this kind of communal synergy, and connect through it to the body of the earth and the cosmos at large. Hence, they are prone to trance and dance, celebrating the Dionysian arts of music and mime, not to mention divine mania. Even when they do this in an urban setting, surrounded by the blast and blare of electronic gimmickry in total oblivion to natural conditions, their inborn ritual rapture reprises the ecstatic celebrations that were originally enacted free of the electronic setting and the urban venue.

Sustainers

Foundation text for the sustainability movement

This tribe shares with the Orgiastics a primary orientation to group effort and the pleasures of the natural world, but they enact it in a more conservative manner. The movement for sustainable living is the brainchild of the Sustainers. Much of what they do overlaps with the Orgiastics who, like them, look to primitive and indigenous peoples to model the future. Members of the Sustainer tribe tend to be homebodies, attached to creature comforts, focused on self-reliance and socioeconomic independence. They network a great deal, but for the purpose of implementing specific programs and plans rather than to party.

By necessity, Sustainers take an adversarial stance to the System with all its economic and political tyrannies, because they recognize that so much of what is done in the System is non-sustainable. Their overriding desire is less to improve the System, than to come up with alternatives to it. They often tend to live on the borderline, in the System but not of it, driving a hybrid car, for instance, but their preference is to get clear of it entirely, if that were possible. If you have the spirit and outlook of a Sustainer, it makes no sense to stake your life on something that is unsustainable. This tribe contains the true survivalists whose knowledge of natural ways will be indispensable to founding the endtime communities. The ecomimicry of Jeanine Benyus represents the focal point of the Sustainers´ mission, the tip of their visionary arrow.

Sustainers have a huge and voracious hunger to learn. They are forever collecting and disseminating information on"alternative lifestyles," organic food, natural healing, edible gardens, solar heating, earth and straw bale bale houses, and proposing innovative ways to create a sustainable society. Their role in the five-tribe world is sober, stable, and generationally based, by contrast to the free-form hedonism and teepee-style living of the Orgiastics. The Marion Institute, which sponsors this site, exemplifies the mission of the Sustainers, combining visionary and practical elements into a futuristic world view with a focus on "connecting for change." Some of its projects offer service to the Originals, such as Mangari Maathai, winner of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize, who founded the Greenbelt Movement. Planting trees is a Sustainer ritual—performed, in her case, by an Original. The Institute´s support of Jeremy Narby´s Nouvelle Planete, a program to establish the legal claim of the indigenous peoples of the Amazon to their native plants and medicinal knowledge, is another good example of Sustainer-Original crossover.

Evolvers

Nomad, an ecotourist lodge on the south coast of Kenya

This tribe shares many of the characteristics of the Sustainers, with one crucial difference: Evolvers work within the System, seeking to improve it rather than create something else, something better than the System. The Natural Capital Institute founded by Paul Hawken, which promulgates methods and models for socially responsible investment, is typical of this tribe. The Marion Institute also supports the NCI, so TMI is actually a hybrid organization, inspired equally by Sustainer and Evolver incentives. This coordinative or balancing role in endtime projects is reflected in the fact that the Marion Institute was founded in 1992 at the pivotal node of the 1974 - 2012 interval.

Coming into the interval in the early 1970s, Fritz Schumacher's manifesto Small is Beautiful (1972) set the trend for Evolver programs fitted to the human scale, and many have followed his lead. More recently, Capitalism 3.0 by Peter Barnes attempts to redefine the operating principles of free market economy. If I am reading the signs correctly, Daniel Pinchbeck´s Evolver project is , like the Natural Capital Institute, dedicated to creating and promoting new and progressive forms of commerce within the System. The operative word here is commerce. By contrast to this approach, the incentives of the Sustainer tribe do not generally include programs set up to yield capital gains. What is sustainable has merit in the way it sustains itself: it does not have to "grow" economically. There is an ideological divide between the tribes here, for sure, but (let´s hope) no cause for intertribal warfare. As long as the current economic system does not fall into total chaos, there will always be opportunities for Evolvers to work out benevolent forms of capitalism and planet-friendly free enterprise. At the same time, in parallel efforts, the Sustainers will be working with other models that do not depend on economic return.

The natural food market is a prime example of the profit-making incentive of the endtime tribes. Wild Oats and Whole Foods are shrines to Evolver economics. Ecotourism also exemplifies the kind of commercial services set up by Evolvers for others of like mind as well as consumers in the general public. In many instances, Originals or their descendents are employed to feed, lodge, guide, and entertain ecotourists, allowing the natives to live a double life, working in the System yet free to maintain their ways of life independent of it as well. Ecotourism is not a perfect thing, but it´s a great challenge for Evolvers who believe in benevolent capitalism. Given that the entire economy of certain regions of the planet depends on tourism, it may be the leading edge of the Evolver tribe´s global outreach, an optimal place for them to center their efforts. Sustainers, by contrast, are more likely to be stay-at-home types. Orgiastics, who are unlikely to be able to afford the price of ecotourist package deals, usually manage to make life itself into a grand touristic adventure.

Members of the Evolver tribe tend to take a utopian or at least optimistic view of technology, if they are not out-and-out technophiles. The aim of the Evolver project is to promote "technologies in sustainable food-production, community organizing, alternative energy, complementary currency, shamanic and meditative transformation, etc. Then through the membership organization, we will help people access these tools as quickly and locally as possible. We are counting on an active and engaged membership who will help us to envision, and implement, a new planetary culture" (Daniel Pinchbeck, cited from the interview with Tim Boucher). The new planetary culture so envisioned is not an educational and cultural venture, it is new phase of planetary commerce, far more sophisticated than anything that emerged from the hippie movement of the 1960s. If Evolvers have true entrepreneurial flair, there is a great deal they can do to make the current economic picture more human and innovative, with a reduced ecological footprint.

The issue of profit versus non-profit runs through intertribal relations, as I just noted. In some respects, the difference cannot be reconciled. According to the lesson of an old planetary fable (called "the rise of agriculture"), the profit motif spreads tension among the tribes, tension that leads to social division and war. But all tribes would agree, I believe, that we as a species will view survival (i.e., food, water, clothing and shelter, if you need to be reminded) more wisely, and have a better chance of achieving it, if we do not make it a for-profit venture.

Visioneers

"Elfstar" by Rebekah Bovey-LeBuillou

The mark of the Visioneers is, obviously, their visionary capacity, their talent to frame the grand overview and propose models that help all the tribes to navigate the evolutionary bend of the endtime. Originally bring to the modern world various visionary systems of ancient provenance, such as the glorious sky-serpent cosmology of the Desana of the Northwest Amazon. (See Amazonian Cosmos by Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff. I cite this vision in my book on astral phylogenetics, Quest for the Zodiac, explaining how the sky-serpent-brain motif of Desana cosmology triggered a profound insight that allowed me to decode the stellar writing.) The songlines of the Australian Aborigines present another example of Visioneer tribe legacy that can enrich our self-knowledge as a species, and assist us to devise our evolutionary niche. Members of this tribe hold the long view of human experience.

It would be tempting to try to inventory the grand schemes produced by various Visioneers since 1974, but such a list would be hard to be complete within the limits of this article. First and foremost, of course, is Gaia theory, developed by James Lovelock (atmospheric aspects) and Lynn Margulis (bioevolutionary aspects). It came to definition at the start of the 1974- 2012 period, and is without question the overarching vision of our time, and the endtime. The interactive model of Gaian planetary symbiosis is far from finished. I would say that we are only at the elementary stage of defining it. As the vision unfolds through the collaboration of many people, we are challenged to become discerning and selective, able to choose wisely among those visionary models that contribute to Gaia theory, perhaps even enhance and deepen it, and those which do not.

A well-known example of Visioneer talent is the noosphere concept of Teilhard de Chardin (1881 - 1955), the French Jesuit priest and paleontologist who proposed a teleological scenario in which the culmination of human history at the "Omega Point" would be achieved through "Christogenesis," with the human species somehow completing the mission of Christ. Although Teilhard rejected the literal interpretation of Genesis, he retained the religious belief that Jesus Christ somehow embodied or focalized the fullness of human potential and holds the Omega Point until humanity can advance to it. This Christocentric view strongly recalls the teachings of Rudolf Steiner (1875 - 1925), the Austrian philosopher and founder of Anthroposophy, who regarded Jesus Christ as the "representative of mankind." The works of Steiner and Teilhard exemplify what I call totalistic male-mind models in which feminine, ecofeminist, or Sophianic aspects of cosmology are downplayed, if not entirely absent. The vast scope of such visionary scenarios appeals to many people, despite these (to me) serious shortcomings. Some leading voices in the counterculture find in Teilhard´s noosphere a prefiguration of the Internet as a global collective mind in cyberspace.

In The Seeker´s Handbook (1991, coming into the nodal midpoint), I ventured a tentative short list of theories of planetarization: Teilhard's orthogenesis; Dane Rudhyar's vision of eonics and the shishta, the avant-garde of planetary evolution; McLuhan´s Gutenberg galaxy and the global village; Oliver Reiser´s cosmic humanism and embryogenesis (lately reprised by John Major Jenkins for 2012 ruminations ); the evolutionary spiral of Barbara Marx Hubbard; the Aquarian conspiracy of Marilyn Ferguson—this last being a summary of visionary models and programs, rather than a model itself. Obviously, the list is paltry. Today it could be expended by a factor of ten. It would have to include everything from Terence McKenna´s timewave (also closely linked to 2012 calendrics) to Irving Lazlo's connectivity hypothesis, and on and on. Ken Wilbur, who is by now regarded as the tenured dean of Visioneers, would have to be included. I only include him to admit that I exclude him. I can´t read Ken Wilbur. Nor can I get my head around a great many of these grandiose schemes.

Truth be told, I have a strong aversion to totalistic male-mind models, even when they are produced by women such as Barbara Marx Hubbard. I am also in diametrical disagreement with Hubbard´s view, shared by many others, that the human species is the glory-crowned animal at the growing point of millions of years of cosmic evolution. I don´t believe that self-consciousness in our species is a great achievement, toward which all of nature have been laboring for untold eons. I am more inclined to view it as our worst handicap, the ego hangup of a wounded animal that has lost its way.

I am slipping into I-language here because, considering the "Sophianic vision of the Mysteries" developed in this site and in my new book, Not in His Image, I myself might be placed among the Visioneers tribe, perhaps in competition with the names on the marquee. But there is no competition. I do not compete. The Sophianic vision based on the sacred myth of the fallen goddess is not my invention. It is a legacy I have recovered and restored. I would not place myself in the Visioneer tribe, but among the Sustainers, in the clan of deep ecology. I have not developed a cosmic evolutionary scheme of vast scope and detail. That´s not been my calling in this life, although for a long time I thought it was. Because I worked in astrology and naked-eye astronomy, I thought that I was a cosmologist, an originator, but it would be more accurate to say that I am a teacher of cosmology and a consumer advocate of cosmologies. I assess and critique the master schemes, but I do not offer one of my own. (The system of astral phylogenetics I present in Quest for the Zodiac is not a cosmological scheme, it is a cosmographic method, a way of decoding the endowment of an individual out of the genomic potential of the species.)

Bioneers, founded by Kenny Asubel and Nina Simons, is the flagship event of the tribe of Visioneers. At bioneers the five tribes converge, and members of the Visioneer tribe are often invited to give plenary talks, providing a sense of holistic orientation for a vast diversity of projects and programs. Clearing houses such as Esalen, the Noetic Institute, Omega, Hollyhock, also provide platforms for Visioneers to hold the talking stick. The biomimicry of Jeanine Benyus is an offering from the Sustainers to the Visioneers, a savoury evolutionary potlatch. I would probably place Terence McKenna among the Orgiastics, but he is known for his Visioneer-like modeling genius. Members of the Visioneers tribe include not only those who produce the defining visions and cosmic scenarios, but also those who embrace and propagate them. The cosmic model of Brian Swimme, "The Story of the Universe," has spawned an entire movement in which other people spread the evolutionary myth that Swimme initially articulated.

So much for a rundown of the five endtime tribes. In the Next World, we will find ourselves living on a five-tribe planet. People who represent the five tribes and speak of their hopes and fears for emergent communities in the future can be heard on futureprimitive.org, the sister site of metahistory.org, produced and broadcast by Joanna Harcourt Smith. Many other examples could be cited (The Nature Conservancy, for instance.) I have certainly overlooked some of the more obvious and vivid. It would be fun to make an inventory of tribal activities. Any volunteers?

The characterization of the tribes is not a game for stereotyping people. It is a loose frame for recognition. Tribal identity is a volunteer process. The Next World will be discovered in the eyes of those who bring it forth. As Thoreau noted at Walden Pond, the great adventure of each day, which we each share with the sun, is to make the day.

The End of the New Age

Time does not end when the defining moment of the endtime comes in 2012, but time is running out for a lot of things humans do. Among the activities that are getting close to their expiration date, I would place new age spirituality. Many of you who are reading this article to the end might think that new age spirituality, in some respects, at least, points the way to the endtime and what´s possible in the coming shift, but I would suggest another view. I sense that much that passes for spirituality today will be shed rapidly as we enter a time when real spiritual trials, formidable tests of intent and imagination, are forced upon us, individually and collectively. With the acceleration toward 2012, the game may be expiring for new age pretensions and empowerment regimes such as come under the catch-all term, "shamanism."

This may sound extremely perverse on my part, I realize. But hold on a sec. I have been following the New Age from its inception out of the Psychedelic Revolution of the 1960s. I wrote a critical guidebook to the phenomenon of alternative spirituality, a rather naive work, but useful nonetheless. I do not say casually that new age spirituality is expiring. I say it with a sober view toward how transformation comes out of death, when an impulse is genuine and rooted in the evolutionary potential of humankind. By this I mean that all that has been so far categorized as new age spirituality may have been, up to now, the mere husk of a deeper, richer fruit. The New Age, fraught with so much pretending and false pretence, so much phoniness and disguised narcissism, will have served its purpose well if now it leads to something truly genuine that transcends it.

The discovery of the Next Age will come in part through the end of the New Age as a phenomenon of spiritual naivety uncritically embraced by many who are seeking a genuine commitment to humanity... but this demise might open the way into a deeper path, the way of the double, the shapeshifter, Lord of the Evening Star... Xolotl.

jll 28 January 2007 Andalucia

Russian Murals

2007-03-04T10:21:00.000-08:00

I have no clue what the website says but the murals are pretty sweet.

International Alchemy Conference 2007

2007-03-04T10:17:00.000-08:00

Join Us in the Great Work!

http://www.alchemyconference.com/

Don’t miss this rare opportunity to meet and work with practicing alchemists from around the world! Practitioners will share both practical and spiritual techniques in this intensive, multimedia event. The emphasis is on real alchemy, and the goal is to inform and empower individuals with the ancient wisdom. Practical methods of transformation in both laboratory and inner work will be featured throughout the event. There will be lots of opportunities for informal meetings, plus free prizes, entertainment, and other fun surprises.

Largest Gathering of Alchemists in 500 Years!

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Practicing Alchemists from 12 Countries

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Reunion of Frater Albertus Graduates

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Famous Authors, Consultants and Researchers

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Lectures on All Aspects of Alchemy

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Alchemy Students and Guild Members

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Certification Workshop in Spagyrics

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Reception and Lunches with Speakers

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Free Entertainment and Prizes

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Scores of Unique Vendors

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. . . and much more!

Learn!

· Discover the secret history of alchemy and how it is practiced today.

· Learn the secret formulae and processes of the alchemists.

· Learn how to set up an alchemical laboratory in your own home.

· Be able to recognize hidden “signatures” of people and events.

· Learn to make tinctures and elixirs that capture spiritual energy.

Experience!

· Resonate with the magical power of alchemists’ symbols and drawings.

· Awaken powerful energies to fuel your continuing transformation.

· Understand how the ancient principles work in your own life.

· Learn how to transmute emotions and thoughts into purified consciousness.

· Take part in meditations and experiments demonstrating esoteric principles.

Accomplish!

· Discover ways to harness the life force for alternative healthcare and continuing rejuvenation.

· Exchange the latest research in such diverse areas as the history of science and quantum chemistry.

· Learn to make alchemical tinctures, oils, elixirs, and other products in the privacy of your own kitchen.

· Become a certified alchemical practitioner or apply the principles in your present career.

· Turn lead of everyday life into the gold of health, wealth, and new opportunities.

Oregon mushroom is world's largest living organism

2007-03-04T10:09:00.000-08:00

A Fungus Among Us
http://www.extremescience.com/biggestlivingthing.htm

People have known about the "honey mushroom" for some time, but were not aware of how large and invasive this species of fungus could be. The fungus was investigated more closely by researchers when they realized that it was responsible for killing large groves of evergreen trees. When foresters cut into an infected tree they would find spreading white filaments, mycelia, which draw water and carbohydrates from the tree to feed the fungus. Researchers collected samples of the fungus from a widespread area and analyzed the DNA. A large sample of the specimens they collected turned out to be from a single organism.

Humongous Fungus

Until August of 2000 it was thought that the largest living organism was a fungus of the same species (Armillaria ostoyae) that covered 1,500 acres (600 hectares) found living in the state of Washington. But then mycology experts surmised that if an Armillaria that large could be found in Washington, then perhaps one just as large could be responsible for the trees dying in the Malheur National Forest in the Blue Mountains of eastern Oregon. Researchers were astonished at the sheer magnitude of the find. This most recent find was estimated to cover over 2,200 acres (890 hectares) and be at least 2,400 years old, possibly older.

To go into the forest where this giant makes its home you would not look at it and see a huge, looming mushroom. Armillaria grows and spreads primarily underground and the sheer bulk of this organism lies in the earth, out of sight. Occasionally, during the fall season, this specimen will send up golden-colored "honey mushrooms" (see photo, above left) that are the visible evidence of its hulking mass beneath. Scientists have not yet begun to attempt to estimate the weight of this specimen of Armillaria.

How is it possible for a single fungus to get so big? Scientists who study this species of funges have postulated that the huge size may be a function of the dry climate in eastern Oregon. Spores have a hard time establishing new organisms, making room for the old-timers to spread. Without competition from other specimens this enormous Armillaria has been able to grow and spread unchecked.

And yes, the honey mushrooms are supposedly edible, but apparently not very tasty. Several Extreme Science readers wrote to complain that yes, in fact, the Honey mushrooms are very tasty. Good taste is a matter of opinion and if you will allow me an opinion, I don't care for any mushrooms, honey or otherwise.

Daniel Pinchbeck- "The Open Hand"

2007-02-24T11:02:00.000-08:00

The is the first of a series of articles Pinchbeck is writing that will appear in four magazines across the country: Conscious Choice in Chicago and Seattle, Whole Life Times in LA, and Common Ground in San Francisco.

The Open Hand
By Daniel Pinchbeck
http://consciouschoice.com/2007/02/prophetmotive0702.html

Traditionally, writers have the job of defining the zeitgeist, but that task has never been as difficult as it is today. While this seems a singular and remarkable moment in human history, there is something indefinable about it. The weather is certainly strange—I live in New York City, where temperatures in early January remain about fifteen degrees above normal, and spring flowers started to bloom before Christmas. The political situation is most definitely peculiar—our military engages in a senseless campaign that has lasted longer than World War II, with hundreds of billions of dollars spent on spreading death and misery. We read about icebergs breaking up and a frightening lack of fish in the seas, yet there is plenty of ice for our drinks, and caviar is making a comeback.

We swim in new psychic waters. We may understand, to a greater or lesser degree, that global civilization has hit the resource limits of the biosphere, but such a general foreboding is useless. We can recycle light bulbs or build a green roof. These gestures are meaningful, but they seem almost farcical compared to the magnitude of the problem. The contradictions between our intentions and our actions are almost head-splitting.

My perspective is that we are experiencing an accelerated evolution of human consciousness. Right now, we find ourselves in an awkward transition between steadier states. For the last centuries, a limited form of scientific rationality ruled the modern world, a mindset that denied intuitive thought and saw nature as an enemy to be conquered. We developed technologies that embodied our sense of alienation and isolation. Many of us are now reaching a different perspective. As we make connections between quantum physics and Eastern mysticism, we realize we live in a participatory universe, with no place for an objective observer. Intuition is not irrational, but arational—it is the way our mind processes the overload of information that doesn’t enter our conscious filter.

My own quest for understanding led me from being a somewhat embittered New York journalist to hitting a massive spiritual crisis in the late 1990s. In the throes of existential despair, I remembered my psychedelic experiences from college, and decided to pursue the subject as a journalist. I took an assignment to undergo a tribal initiation in Gabon, in West Africa, where I ate a visionary rootbark, iboga (also known as ibogaine). I traveled to the Amazon in Ecuador to drink ayahuasca—a hallucinatory potion—with the Secoya Indians, and visited the Mazatecs in Mexico, who preserve a sacred culture using mushrooms.

The results of these investigations, and more, are recorded in my first book, Breaking Open the Head, which described my shift over time from cynical materialism to an acceptance of other dimensions and occult aspects of the psyche. By the end, I had plunged into Carl Jung, Rudolf Steiner, Walter Benjamin, Carlos Castaneda and many more, in an attempt to figure out what was going on. For my second book, 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl, I investigated the nature of prophecy, particularly the sacred calendar kept by the Classical Mayans in the Yucatan, which completes a “Great Cycle” of more than 5,000 years in the year 2012. Most modern people find it far-fetched that a non-technological and myth-based civilization, such as the Maya, might have developed a different system of knowledge that is more advanced than our own, in certain respects. In 2012, I conclude that this is possible.

Somehow, from over a thousand years ago, the Maya predicted that this time would be crucial for humanity—and, indeed, it is. In the next few years, I believe that we are either going to slide into chaos, or institute a new planetary culture based on compassion and rational use of resources. The second option requires a quantum leap in consciousness—but, as I argued in 2012, our entire history has prepared us for that leap, when we view it from a certain perspective.

It has been exactly forty years since the heyday of the 1960s. That epoch could be viewed as an attempted voyage of initiation for the modern world. Today, we have embarked upon a new phase of the initiatory journey begun a generation ago—with the opportunity to avoid the tactical mistakes, strident statements and polarizations of the past. Increasing numbers of people pursue spiritual practices, such as yoga and shamanism, with disciplined intensity. Perhaps, with an inchoate sense of foreknowledge, many people are preparing themselves for the transformation just ahead.

If some elements of the 1960s are returning, they are doing so without the oppositional anger of the past. The open hand, offering friendship and reconciliation, has replaced the raised-fist symbol of old-style activism. In this column, I will offer my perspective on this on-going process of transformation, which has both psychic and physical dimensions. With its tremendous pressures and opportunities, I consider this the most exciting time to be alive in the history of our species, and I look forward to exploring it with all of you.

Daniel Pinchbeck is the author of Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism (Broadway Books, 2002) and 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl (Tarcher/Penguin, 2006). His features have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, Esquire, Wired and many other publications.

Blind people regain sight thanks to "bionic eye" implant

2007-02-24T10:58:00.000-08:00

Six blind people regain partial sight thanks to 'Bionic eye' implant

· More advanced implant possible in two years
· Father tells of joy at being able to see his son again

James Randerson in San Francisco
Saturday February 17, 2007
The Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/medicine/story/0,,2015269,00.html

Six blind patients have had their sight partially restored by a "bionic eye" surgically implanted on to their retina. Although it restores only very rudimentary vision, the device has proved so successful that its developers are about to begin a study of a more sophisticated version with between 50 and 75 patients.

If this trial goes to plan the device could be available to patients in two years, and one day it could be used to digitally enhance human sight. The bionic eye works by converting images from a tiny camera mounted on a pair of glasses into a grid of 16 electrical signals that transmit directly to the nerve endings in the retina.

"It's amazing that even with 16 pixels how much our subjects have been able to do," said Mark Humayun, of the Doheny Eye Institute at the University of Southern California, who has pioneered the device. "We were completely wrong," he said. "We thought from simulations that 16 would only give you distinction between light and dark and maybe some grey scale." In fact, subjects are able to tell the difference between objects such as a cup, a plate and a knife. They can also tell which direction objects are moving in front of them. "The brain is able to fill in a lot of the information," he added.

One of Prof Humayun's patients is Terry Byland, 58, from Corona, near Los Angeles. He used to sell power tools before going blind from a condition called retinitis pigmentosa in 1993. "At the beginning, it was like seeing assembled dots - now it's much more than that," he said. His field of view is about 30 centimetres wide, but it allows him to cross a busy street and see white lines on the road. "When I am walking along the street I can avoid low hanging branches - I can see the edges of the branches, so I can avoid them."

And it has had a profound impact on his life. "I was with my son, walking, the first time - it was the first time I had seen him since he was five years old. I don't mind saying, there were a few tears wept that day." The camera in the glasses sends a signal to a pocket device the size of a Blackberry which processes the images in real time into a grid of electrical signals. This is then beamed to the eye implant, which sends it directly to nerve endings in the retina.

In the current devices the receiver for the signal is implanted under the skin behind the ear with a wire connection to the eye implant, but the team have shrunk the electronics so much that the improved version fits under the skin around the eye. More significantly, it now has 60 pixels instead of 16 and because it is smaller the operation to implant it is much less traumatic, taking just an hour and a half instead of eight hours. Prof Humayun predicts that it will cost around $30,000 (£15,400).

All of the image processing happens instantaneously. "It has to be real time because if it isn't and you move your head and the screen is delayed, you start to feel sick and dizzy. I'm sure you've experienced that in movie theatres," he said. Developing the first device took 16 years of research, but the 60 pixel version has taken just four. The implant is not suitable for every form of blindness. Prof Humayun believes his implants will be most successful in patients who were once fully sighted rather than people who were blind from birth. However, he wants to try the device out in those people too. "I don't think it will be as effective as somebody who had vision into their 20s, 30s and 40s, but it is definitely a population we would like to try."

Stevie Wonder is one of his patients who has expressed an interest in the technology, but as someone who lost his sight very early in life, he will not be one of the initial trial patients. "He is very much for really raising awareness of the technology so that people can get to hear about it and really understand it." Prof Humayun predicts that future versions of the bionic eye would need at least 1,000 pixels for patients to recognise faces.

RAW Cosmic Meme-Orial & Lasagna Levitation Celebration

2007-02-24T10:55:00.000-08:00

This happened last week. If I were still in California I totally would have gone.

http://www.impermanentpress.com/pages2/raw-tix.html

Join us at The Cocoanut Grove, one of Santa Cruz' premier seaside venues and enjoy mind-expanding RAW media presentations, a raucous processionary send-off, top-notch hors d'oeuvres, a variety of soft beverages, cash bar, old friends and new, comedy, levity and hilaritas!

WHEN:
Sunday, February 18, 2007
1:00 - 6:00 PM

WHERE:
The Cocoanut Grove on the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk in Santa Cruz, CA
400 Beach Street
Santa Cruz, CA 95060
www.cocoanutgrovesantacruz.com

COME HELP US KICK OUT THE JAMS AND KEEP BOB'S COSMIC, COMIC SPIRIT ALIVE!

IMPORTANT: THIS EMAIL CONFIRMATION IS YOUR TICKET TO THE EVENT. PRINT THIS CONFIRMATION AND BRING IT WITH YOU TO THE DOOR.

No other ticket will be issued.
Sorry, we're just not capable of handling checks or mail orders.

YOUR EMAIL CONFIRMATION CONTAINS A UNIQUE ID NUMBER ASSIGNED TO YOUR PARTY. YOUR NAME AND THIS ID WILL BE ON OUR GUEST LIST AT THE DOOR.

If you don't plan to arrive with your party, make sure they have this number.

KEEP THE LASAGNA FLYING!

Solar Powered Cinema

2007-02-24T10:53:00.000-08:00

The Palm: Solar Powered Rep Cinema
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 02.17.07

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/02/the_palm_solar.php

Second run repertory movie theatres are on the wane, under pressure from the earlier releases of DVDs. Yet the big screen provides a much richer movie experience, the second run houses are often as cheap as the DVD rental and you don't have to own any equipment to play it- dare we call them a PPS? Furthermore they often show movies that the big chains just don't bother picking up. (Like the fabulous "The Lives of Others" seen last night in a rep house). We would have loved to see it in San Luis Obispo's Palm Theatre, a three screen house that is solar powered. Since the theatre doesn't open until 3:45 the panels collect enough energy to cover all its electricity use in summer months. The theater still remains on the grid for less sunny days when there is not enough sunlight to produce an adequate amount of power. Since installing the solar panels in July 2004, the theater's energy costs have already decreased by at least 50 percent. "We have hopes that the annual energy costs will be cut by 70 percent in next three years," Theatre Manager Jack Conroy said.

Invisible Pink Unicorn

2007-02-15T15:13:00.000-08:00

It is hilarious to me how easy it is to undermine the whole ontological edifice of Christianity by using an example as simple as this one. There is no God watching over you and trying to dictate your morality. There is only you and the universe, and the people in it.

To me, the Invisible Pink Unicorn seems a lot more friendly than the Christian God. I would choose a friendly delusion instead of a wrathful one any day!

http://www.invisiblepinkunicorn.com/

The Invisible Pink Unicorn logo represents atheism.

It is a fusion between the mathematical void symbol and the stylized representation of an unicorn.

The void symbol (empty set Ø) is an allusion to nothingness and in this case meaning "no faith" or "no god".

The unicorn is a reference to a kind of story that atheists often tell to make their point. In this case one of the first stories to circulate the Internet newsgroups: The Invisible Pink Unicorn.

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

The Invisible Pink Unicorn (IPU) is the goddess of a satiric parody religion aimed at theistic beliefs, which takes the form of a unicorn that is paradoxically both invisible and pink.[1] These attributes serve to satirize the apparent contradictions in properties which some attribute to a theistic God.[2]

The IPU is commonly used to highlight the perceived fallacious or arbitrary nature of supernatural beliefs by, for example, replacing the word "God" in any theistic statement with "Invisible Pink Unicorn".[3] A quote from the alt.atheism FAQ sums up this use of the Invisible Pink Unicorn:

"The point of this silliness is to prod the theist into remembering that their preaching is likely to be viewed by atheists as having all the credibility and seriousness of [the atheists'] preaching about the IPU."[4]

It is accepted that there are no actual believers in this mock goddess, but it has become popular, especially on atheist web sites and on-line discussion forums, to feign belief in her both for the sake of humor and as a form of critique or satire of theistic belief. These professions of faith also serve to demonstrate the difficulty of refuting avowals of belief in phenomena outside human perception.

It is common when discussing the Invisible Pink Unicorn to point out that because she is invisible, no one can prove she does not exist. This is a parody of similar theistic claims about God, i.e. that because God is omnipresent, inability to detect Him does not reduce His believability. The IPU serves as a parodic demonstration that utilizing a lack of evidence as proof of a deity's nature is ultimately absurd; that by this logic the IPU is just as credible as God. The IPU's two defining attributes, invisibility and color (it is pink), are inconsistent and contradictory; this is part of the satire. The paradox of something being invisible yet having visible characteristics (eg. color) is reflected in the mythology of some East Asian cultures, wherein an "invisible red string" is said to connect people who have a shared or linked destiny.[2]

Mycology World Map

2007-02-15T15:11:00.000-08:00

A handy tool for any would-be amateur fungus hunters. Find mushroom patches and tag others so that people will know where to look. Free fungus for all!

http://shroomr.com/

Assassinate the TV

2007-02-15T15:07:00.000-08:00

Turn off peoples' televisions. They will thank you for it later.

Tiny remote ready for secret missions
http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/electronic/884f/

This little universal remote is the newest (secret) weapon in the Ninja's arsenal and we assure you in the right hands it can be used to quickly assassinate dangerously annoying TV shows. Simply point the Ninja Remote at the intended target (a television set) and press the mute button for a few seconds - once the TV mutes the remote is now ready to assume full control of its victim. Innocent bystanders will be frozen with fear (or very animated with anger) as the volume and channel change magically in front of their eyes, seemingly controlled by some mysterious force.

The Ninja Remote's powers will work on a wide variety of televisions (Sony, Panasonic, Samsung, Toshiba, Sanyo, Aiwa, Mitsubishi, Philips, JVC, Sharp, etc) and its small size will safeguard you against discovery.

* Tiny Universal remote, easy to operate
* Control volume, channel, mute, off/on
* Takes one CR2032 battery (included)
* Will work on most European TVs
* Keychain attachment
* Dimensions: 2.3" x 1.4" x .25" (5.8 x 3.6 x .6 cm)

“Vulture Fund” Company Seeks $40 Million Payment from Zambia on $4 Million Debt

2007-02-15T15:04:00.000-08:00

This is outrageous. The fact that this kind of price gouging is somehow acceptable under international commerce law is absurd. If an individual tried to pull off this kind of scheme they would probably be jailed for fraud. Why should it be any different when an multi-national corporation does something like this?

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/15/1528209

“Vulture fund” companies buy up the debt of poor countries at cheap prices, and then demand payments much higher than the original amount of the debt, often taking poor countries to court when they cannot afford to repay. Investigative journalist Greg Palast reports on one company trying to collect $40 million from the government of Zambia after buying its debt for $4 million. [includes rush transcript] In his recent State of the Union address, President Bush declared the United States was taking on the challenges of global hunger, poverty and disease, and urged support for debt relief, which he called the best hope for eliminating poverty. But what exactly are wealthy nations doing to reduce the debt of impoverished countries?

Today we take a close look at companies known as “vulture funds.” Vulture fund companies buy up the debt of poor countries at cheap prices, and then demand payments much higher than the original amount of the debt, often taking poor countries to court when they cannot afford to repay. For an in-depth look at this issue, we turn to a BBC Newsnight documentary by investigative reporter Greg Palast.

* Greg Palast’s BBC report on vulture funds.

Today a high court judge in London rules on the case of whether a vulture fund can extract more than $40 million from Zambia for a debt which it bought for just $4 million. To tell us more about this case and more we now turn to Greg Palast.

* Greg Palast. Investigative reporter with the BBC and author of the books “Armed Madhouse”, “The Best Democracy Money Can Buy” and “Democracy and Regulation.”

RUSH TRANSCRIPT

AMY GOODMAN: Today, we take a close look at companies known as vulture funds. Vulture funds buy up the debt of poor countries at cheap prices, then demand payments much higher than the original amount of the debt, often taking poor countries to court when they cannot afford to repay. For an in-depth look at this issue, we turn to BBC Newsnight documentary reporter, Greg Palast.

BONO: So, this is our moment. This is our time. This is our chance to stand up for what's right. We're not looking for charity. We're looking for justice. [singing] It was a beautiful day…

GREG PALAST: And it was a beautiful day. Bono asked, and the world responded. It was a heartwarming story. All the nations of the world getting together with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to reduce the debts crushing the poorest nations on earth and killing their people. It all looked good. Then, down swooped the vultures, who bought up the debt cheaply and then squeezed these poor countries to pay them ten times what the speculators originally paid for the debt.

Five years ago, Gordon Brown told the United Nations that the vultures were perverse and immoral: “We particularly condemn the perversity where vulture funds purchase debt at a reduced price and make a profit from suing the debtor country to recover the full amount owed, a morally outrageous outcome.”

Yet today, the vultures are still demanding huge payoffs. One of them expects to win $40 million this week from Zambia. We thought we’d track him down. We set out on our vulture hunt by going to their natural habitat: Washington, D.C.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Our priority is to make sure our troops have what it takes to do their jobs.

GREG PALAST: Our hunt took us to a man who loves Cadillacs, customized with mag wheels. On the Caddie owner's website, he calls himself Goldfinger.

SHIRLEY BASSEY: [singing] Goldfinger, he’s the man, the man with the Midas touch.

GREG PALAST: Who is Goldfinger? We know that Michael Francis Sheehan owns Debt Advisory International, which manages vulture companies run out of the British Virgin Islands, including one called Donegal, which is suing Zambia. It's quite a complex web. And we hoped Sheehan -- Goldfinger -- would untangle it for us, but he wouldn't grant us an interview. So we thought we’d say hello to him, while on his morning stroll through the wooded suburbs of Washington.

Greg Palast, BBC Television Newsnight. I just want to ask you, Mr. Sheehan, why are you squeezing the poor nation of Zambia for $40 million? Doesn't that make you a vulture?

MICHAEL SHEEHAN: No comment. I’m in litigation. It's not my debt.

GREG PALAST: Well, you’ve been avoiding this question. Aren't you just profiteering off the good work of people who are trying to save lives by cutting the debt of these poor nations?

MICHAEL SHEEHAN: Well, there was a proposal for investment, but that's all I can talk about.

GREG PALAST: A British court is about to rule on whether the Goldfinger-linked companies will walk away with $40 million from the Zambian government. I asked an adviser to Zambia's president what this judgment means to a nation where the average wage is a dollar a day.

If these bondholders get their $40 million, what does that mean to Zambia?

MARTIN KALUNGA-BANDA: The kind of money we are talking about, in excess of $40 million, is literally wiping out Zambia's annual savings arising from debt relief.

NELSON MANDELA: Sometimes it falls upon a generation to be great…an end to the debt crisis for the poorest countries.”

GREG PALAST: Celebrities and pop stars campaigned for ten years for debt relief. And the wealthier nations responded.

ADVERTISEMENT: A child dies completely unnecessarily as a result of extreme poverty every three seconds.

GREG PALAST: Speculators, the vultures, realized they could make massive profits off everyone else's generosity by diverting into their own pockets the debt relief meant for the poor.

UNIDENTIFIED 1: You look at an animal. The meat’s all been picked off. The country seems bankrupt. And these guys can double, triple or make even more of their money. Debt relief is actually just clearing a path for the vultures to walk in right behind them.

GREG PALAST: Here's how the vultures got Zambia. In 1979, Romania lent them $15 million. By 1998, Zambia was broke, so Romania offered to write off the entire debt for just $3 million. But before the deal was final, a vulture swooped in, and somehow snatched Romania’s cheap offer for his own company.

Michael Sheehan and his associates are now suing Zambia, not for the $3 million they paid, but for the original debt, plus interest: $42 million. But even bigger money is to be made in the US courtrooms, where Sheehan and others are asking for hundreds of millions of dollars from several desperately poor nations.

And George Bush can put an end to it all with a stroke of a pen. Under the US Constitution, the President has the power to stop the vultures from collecting a penny in a US courtroom, but he hasn't done it, even though just last month George Bush publicly committed his government to debt relief.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: And let us continue to support the expanded trade and debt relief that are the best hopes for lifting lives and eliminating poverty.

GREG PALAST: To ensure that President Bush won't put his words into action, the debt speculators will need political clout. The money trail has led us up Pennsylvania Avenue to this building, right up close to George Bush's house. Sheehan’s operation, Debt Advisory International, paid a quarter million dollars a year to this outfit for their political advice and access, until they got into a bit of trouble.

These are the offices of Goldfinger's former lobbyists, once the most powerful in Washington, ’til one of their partners was caught bribing a couple politicians. Jack Abramoff was recently sentenced to five years in prison for the bribery. His partners at the firm of Greenberg Traurig use more traditional legal means to stay tight with President Bush and Republican powerbrokers.

UNIDENTIFIED 2: Well, the White House is just on the other side of this park.

GREG PALAST: You ever get over there?

UNIDENTIFIED 2: Yeah, absolutely. These are the agencies, the places we have to go to help our clients do what they want to do.

GREG PALAST: And many others, besides Goldfinger and crew, were doing it. Preying on third world debt is a global industry with dozens of players worth hunting.

I’ve decided to get out of town, because I’ve heard there's an even bigger flock of vultures up north, here in New York City. One hot dog, please.

JAY-Z: Welcome to the Empire State, home of the World Trade, home of Biggie Smalls, Roc-A-Fella headquarters. Ladies and gentlemen, I’m a BK brawler…

GREG PALAST: Here they are feeding on poor nations all over the globe. 36th floor, Elliott Associates, home of billionaire Paul Singer. Singer practically invented the vulture fund. In 1996, he bought up some of Peru's debt for $11 million, then threatened to bankrupt Peru if they didn't give him $58 million. He got his $58 million. Then Singer bought some discounted debt from Congo Brazzaville for only about $10 million. His company then sued the Congo and turned the $10 million into $127 million. But that still wasn't enough.

I’m right here, in fact, at 712 Fifth Avenue. OK, is there any time or any place where I can meet with Mr. Singer? Absolutely no way ever?

Singer's company says the Congo government is corrupt and hid assets from creditors. Courts have agreed, allowing Singer to seek tripled damages under US racketeering law. They could get $400 million. Not bad for a $10 million bet. Congo was counting on George Bush to use his legal authority to stop Singer's court action. That hasn't happened. Paul Singer is the number one donor to George Bush and the Republican cause in New York City. In the run-up to the 2000 election, he gave them $300,000. In 2004, he gave them $1.2 million, including money for the so-called Swift Boat campaign, which smeared the war record of George Bush's opponent. His spokesman told us, “We have nothing to hide. We just don't do interviews.”

Back in London, in this courthouse, the government of Zambia alleges that Goldfinger paid a bribe, $2 million to the previous president of Zambia to make sure they’d collect. And we've obtained this email. It says that they'll collect more money from Zambia in return for a donation to, quote, "the president's favorite charity." The president at the time was Frederick Chiluba. He’s now on trial on wide-ranging charges of corruption. As it happens, Goldfinger’s old lobbyists are also experts on bribery law, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

UNIDENTIFIED 3: Even for a charitable organization, you simply can't offer something of that value to a foreign official with the understanding you're going to get something in return.

GREG PALAST: You can't say we'll give the money to the charity, you give us a better deal on our agreements?

UNIDENTIFIED 3: Yeah, that's going to be a problem.

GREG PALAST: Jail time?

UNIDENTIFIED 3: Well, hopefully not, but you're certainly -- if you're found out and the government can prove that case, you're looking at multimillion-dollar fines from the company, for sure.

GREG PALAST: We showed him the email. He hadn't seen it before.

We’re looking at this. The deal is going to get done for political reasons. We are going to discount a bunch of whatever to get to the president's favorite charity. Does that make you nervous, if your client wrote that?

UNIDENTIFIED 3: Extremely, extremely.

GREG PALAST: Mr. Sheehan says it wasn't a bribe. They were only trying to help the Zambian people.

MICHAEL SHEEHAN: We offered to donate debt to a low-income housing initiative, which was a charitable initiative, which did end up building over several thousand houses for the poor. You're contorting the facts. You're on my property, and I would ask you to step off.

GREG PALAST: We showed this to the current president's advisor. He was not impressed.

MARTIN KALUNGA-BANDA: When you are talking about any amount, $40 million or thereabout, to be paid to service some unfair debt, you are talking about in excess of 300,000 children being prevented from going to school.

GREG PALAST: Bribery or not, donation or payoff, British courts are only concerned with legal technicalities, not moral verities. Does Zambia stand a chance? If they lose, that would be another $40 million for the speculators, and the debt relief meant for the poorest people on the planet would just go to feed the vultures.

AMY GOODMAN: And special thanks to producer Meirion Jones and cameraman Rick Rowley. This is Democracy Now!, www.democracynow.org. That, Greg Palast's BBC report on vulture funds. Stay with us.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: I’m Amy Goodman, joined by Greg Palast, who just filed that report with BBC Newsnight and Democracy Now! Yesterday, a high court judge in London ruled on the case of whether a vulture fund could extract more than $40 million from Zambia for a debt which it bought for just $3 million. To tell us more about this case, we turn to Greg Palast, investigative reporter with BBC Newsnight, author of the bestselling Armed Madhouse. Welcome to Democracy Now!

GREG PALAST: Glad to be with you, Amy. We're still waiting for word outside the courthouse for the judge to issue the order, but we have no doubt that under British law, they're going to order the poor nation of Zambia to give up 100% of the value of its debt relief to this vulture fund. And then they're going to come to the United States to try to collect it. And that's where George Bush comes in.

AMY GOODMAN: OK, first, start with the vulture fund, for people who are not familiar with this term.

GREG PALAST: Yeah, vulture fund is a term that’s used for bond speculators who take the bonds, the cheap debt of the third world, that may sell ten cents on the dollar, because no one expects to ever collect on these debts, they buy up the debts really cheap, and then they use political muscle, bribery or lawsuits to try to squeeze, not only get back the money that they put down -- in the case of Zambia, $3 million by Mr. Goldfinger -- or they'll try to get $40 million. In the case of the number one vulture here in New York City, Paul Singer, he's paid about $10 million and expects to collect $400 million from the Congo.

AMY GOODMAN: And tell us who these people are.

GREG PALAST: Who they are, in the case -- for example, Paul Singer is the number one donor to George Bush at the moment, has given over a million-and-a-half dollars in the last campaign. He’s Rudy Giuliani's chief fundraiser, raising $15 million now for his presidential campaign. He's a billionaire. He controls a $7 billion fund, and he's obviously very close with the Bush administration, which is crucial, absolutely crucial to his making these profits.

AMY GOODMAN: Why?

GREG PALAST: Under US law, the President of the United States has the absolute power to stop any vulture fund from collecting money from a poor nation, under the US Constitution. It’s called the power of comity. The African nations are pleading with George Bush to stop his big donors from collecting. Now, what's happening is, is that in the State of the Union, George Bush said we have to give debt relief to the poorest nations. The US taxpayers are putting up more than a billion dollars to write off the debts of the African nations, but what Bush isn't saying is that he is then allowing that money to be captured by his biggest donors, like Paul Singer, so that the money for debt relief is not going to the African nations, where they're desperately in need for, you know, funding for medicine for AIDS, for education, which is what it's earmarked for. These guys are actually going into US courts and saying, “Give us the money.” Now, George Bush, again, has the absolute power, and the judges are waiting for him to write a note. They're saying, “George Bush can ask us to dismiss this case in one minute, but we need something in writing from the White House.”

AMY GOODMAN: At the end of 2005, Zambia announced the United States had agreed to cancel debts owed by Zambia worth $280 million. So what’s happened in this past year?

GREG PALAST: OK. The US taxpayer takes a hit. We pay $280 million. Zambia saves, in interest, around $40 million. The problem is, is that you have the vulture go into court in London and then use the court judgment in London to come into the United States and seize the $40 million from the government of Zambia's bank accounts in the United States, so that the money never gets to Zambia or never gets to be used by Zambia to buy medicine--

AMY GOODMAN: The guy you caught up with on his walk, Michael Sheehan?

GREG PALAST: Yes. Michael Sheehan, he uses the domain name “Goldfinger” and, you know, uses his money for mag wheels and fancy Cadillacs, and you saw he has a mansion out there in Virginia. The other point that we're making there is that these vultures are able to do this not just because they have a political end, but in his case $2 million was paid to what he called a charity of the Zambian president. And I have to say that while the Bush administration hasn't acted -- the Justice Department has just asked me to provide the information to them, because it is against the law to bribe a foreign president to make this money. But again, George Bush can put an end to it tomorrow morning. All he has to do is just sign a piece of paper saying debt relief goes to the nation, it does not go to the vultures, and as far as the courts are concerned, that's the final word.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you expect him to do that?

GREG PALAST: We've asked the White House again and again. We called 10 Downing Street. The British government is absolutely adamant that the money should not go to the vultures. They call them vultures. It should go to the people of Zambia, the people of Congo and other suffering people in Africa. The Bush administration has been completely silent. Completely silent. We can't get them to respond. I stood outside the White House. I’m trying to get some type of response.

I mean, you have to understand, like the guy that uses the Goldfinger moniker, he hired Jack Abramoff’s firm for influence. These guys are rewriting the laws, for example, of New York, to make it easier for them through their lobbyists, to make it easier for them to seize Africa's money. Tremendous political clout. You're talking, you know, like I say, the number one donor for Bush, the number one donor for Giuliani. They've hired the big heavyweight lobbyists, like Abramoff's firm, and then they’re even, in one case we know, they're making payments that are seriously questionable right now to, you know, to corrupt the governments of Africa.

AMY GOODMAN: And the effect on the ground in Zambia?

GREG PALAST: Horrendous, because this $40 million for Zambia was specifically earmarked for fighting AIDS, where there's a 20% HIV/AIDS rate among adults in Zambia, and for education. 300,000 school kids are not going to be able to go to school because of this, unless Bush steps in. What's horrendous is the kind of con that's going on. You have a president of the United States standing up in front of Congress, saying give us money, give us billions to write off, in the State of the Union. He puts it in the budget, without anyone saying that, in fact, it's not getting to Africa, it's going to his biggest donors, who are short-stopping it by interjecting themselves and buying up the right to collect and then using the US courts and the British courts. Bush can put a stop to it tomorrow morning. The problem is, is that he's not been responding.

I know that the president of Congo came to visit the White House, and the vulture, Paul Singer, his operation ran a whole smear campaign in the US press about what a terrible Marxist, horrendous president this is of the Congo. They did kind of a Hugo Chavez on the guy, to try to dissuade Bush from listening to him. But it's not the corrupt government that would be making the -- it’s not the guys who’ve put money in their Swiss bank accounts that will be making the payments to the vultures, it's the people of the Congo, the people of Zambia. That's the problem.

AMY GOODMAN: Greg Palast, thank you very much for joining us. Greg, investigative reporter for BBC, he’s author of the bestselling books, Armed Madhouse and The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.

To purchase an audio or video copy of this entire program, click here for our new online ordering or call 1 (888) 999-3877.

Open Source Genome

2007-02-15T14:59:00.000-08:00

Of course the genome should be open source. Everyone should have access to fundamental scientific knowledge. The restriction of genome sequence information is detrimental to the advancement of the human race, and the quest to understand the human body.

Biology Goes Open Source
Matthew Herper and Robert Langreth 02.12.07, 9:20 AM ET

Forbes link

Some of the world's biggest drug companies are finding that their genetic research is worth more to them if they give it away.

Novartis, the Basel, Switzerland, drug giant, has helped uncover which of the 20,000 genes identified by the Human Genome Project are likely to be associated with diabetes. But rather than hoard this information, as drug firms have traditionally done, it is making it available for free on the World Wide Web.

"It will take the entire world to interpret these data," says Novartis research head Mark Fishman. "We figure we will benefit more by having a lot of companies look at these data than by holding it secret."

Researchers at Novartis partnered with Sweden's Lund University and the Cambridge, Mass.-based Broad Institute, a joint venture between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard that is funded by billionaire Eli Broad. This international team compared the genomes of 1,500 people who had diabetes with 1,500 who were disease-free. All the patients were from Sweden. To do this quickly, the scientists used gene chips from biotech Affymetrix (nasdaq: AFFX - news - people ) that allowed them to track 500,000 places in the genetic code where past experience has shown that there are likely to be differences.

The result: a library of genetic differences that are likely to increase a patient's risk of diabetes. Researchers don't know what most of these errant genes do, or exactly why diabetics are more likely to have these genes. That is exactly the puzzle a world's worth of scientists are needed to unravel. But Fishman says 12 genetic differences turned up by the work are promising enough to pursue further. More leads are expected to emerge.

There was a time when drug giants tried to keep leads like that to themselves in an attempt to gain an advantage over their competitors. They paid lots of money for the privilege, too. In 1993, GlaxoSmithKline (nyse: GSK - news - people ) tied up with Human Genome Sciences (nasdaq: HGSI - news - people ) to develop drugs based on genome data. Five years later, Bayer (nyse: BAY - news - people ) spent $465 million to get access to the genetic library being assembled by Millennium Pharmaceuticals (nasdaq: MLNM - news - people ). Neither collaboration has led to a marketed drug.

Harvard geneticist David Altshuler, who worked with Novartis on the diabetes study, says that genetic research is only now progressing to the point where large numbers of human genes can be linked to common diseases like heart disease, diabetes or depression. Also, too much of the previous research has been done on single cells or in other species, such as mice or rats.

"How can we say we understand these diseases when we can't say why people pass them on to their children?" asks Altshuler. "That's why it's so hard to develop drugs."

But another requirement of making the leap from genes to drugs is making the research public--a step that will make it difficult for researchers elsewhere to patent any of this raw genetic information.

Novartis isn't the only drug firm embracing this "give it away for free" mentality. Pfizer (nyse: PFE - news - people ) has promised to make available for free a swath of genetic information emerging from a three-year collaboration with the National Institutes of Health.

For its part, the NIH has suggested making this kind of free access the standard operating procedure for all of its genetic research.

The Internet Rainbow

2007-02-05T19:26:00.000-08:00

Pretty.

http://www.the-internet-rainbow.co.nr/

The Athiest Delusion

2007-02-05T19:25:00.000-08:00

http://atheistdelusion.cf.huffingtonpost.com/

Mooninites Scare Police

2007-02-05T19:09:00.000-08:00

Cartoon promo causes panic in Boston
Marketing ploy for ‘Aqua Teen Hunger Force’ leads to disruption, 2 arrests

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16902707/

BOSTON - Several illuminated electronic devices planted at bridges and other spots in Boston threw a scare into the city Wednesday in what turned out to be a publicity campaign for a late-night cable cartoon. Most if not all of the devices depict a character giving the finger.

Peter Berdovsky, 27, of Arlington, and Sean Stevens, 28, of Charlestown, were each charged Wednesday night with one count of placing a hoax device and one count of disorderly conduct, state Attorney General Martha Coakley said.

The two men worked together to place the devices, Coakley said in a news release announcing Stevens' arrest.

Highways, bridges and a section of the Charles River were shut down and bomb squads were sent in before authorities declared the devices were harmless.

Turner Broadcasting, a division of Time Warner Inc. and parent of Cartoon Network, later said the devices were part of a promotion for the TV show “Aqua Teen Hunger Force,” a surreal series about a talking milkshake, a box of fries and a meatball.

Authorities are investigating whether Turner and any other companies should be criminally charged, Coakley said. It wasn’t immediately clear Wednesday who might have hired Berdovsky.

“We’re not going to let this go without looking at the further roots of how this happened to cause the panic in this city,” Coakley said at a news conference.

Those conducting the campaign should have known the devices could cause panic because they were placed in sensitive areas, she said. Turner did not notify officials of the publicity campaign until around 5 p.m., nearly four hours after the first calls came in about the devices, she and others said.

‘Kind of freaked out’
Berdovsky and Stevens were scheduled to be arraigned Thursday in Charlestown District Court, Coakley said.

Berdovsky was arrested at 8:15 p.m. at his lawyer’s office, Coakley said. His lawyer’s name wasn’t available, and phone number believed to be Berdovsky’s did not accept messages.

Berdovsky planted many of the devices, Coakley said, although he is charged in connection with just one.

Stevens was arrested at his home in Charlestown at about 11:30 p.m., Coakley said. It could not immediately be determined if Stevens had legal counsel.

Berdovsky told The Boston Globe earlier Wednesday that he was an artist and installed the devices for an advertising company hired by Turner. He described himself as “a little kind of freaked out,” the Globe reported.

The law under which the two men were charged allows the state to pursue restitution. Mayor Thomas Menino said the security scare may have cost the city more than $500,000.

At least 14 of the devices were found, and at least 24 more are still around the city, officials said.

“The packages in question are magnetic lights that pose no danger,” Turner said in a statement.

It said the devices have been in place for two to three weeks in 10 cities: Boston; New York; Los Angeles; Chicago; Atlanta; Seattle; Portland, Ore.; Austin, Texas; San Francisco; and Philadelphia.

“We regret that they were mistakenly thought to pose any danger,” the company said. As soon as the company realized the problem, it said, law enforcement officials were told of their locations in all 10 cities.

The marketing firm that put them up, Interference Inc., has been ordered to remove them immediately, said Phil Kent, Turner chairman.

“We apologize to the citizens of Boston that part of a marketing campaign was mistaken for a public danger,” Kent said. “We appreciate the gravity of this situation and, like any responsible company would, are putting all necessary resources toward understanding the facts surrounding it as quickly as possible.”

Interference Inc. had no immediate comment. A woman who answered the phone at the New York-based firm’s offices Wednesday afternoon said the firm’s CEO was out of town and would not be able to comment until Thursday.

There were no reports from police Wednesday of residents in the other nine cities spotting similar devices.

Homeland Security Department spokesman Russ Knocke praised Boston authorities for sharing their knowledge quickly with Washington officials and the public.

“Hoaxes are a tremendous burden on local law enforcement and counter-terrorism resources and there’s absolutely no place for them in a post-9/11 world,” Knocke said.

Subway service suspended
Authorities said some of the objects looked like circuit boards or had wires hanging from them.

The first device was found at a subway and bus station underneath Interstate 93, forcing the shutdown of the station and the highway.

Later, police said four calls, all around 1 p.m., reported devices at the Boston University Bridge, which spans the Charles River, and at a Boston street corner.

A similar device was found Wednesday evening just north of Fenway Park, police spokesman Eddy Chrispin said.

The scare caused some subway service to be suspended and closed a road.

Wanda Higgins, a 47-year-old Weymouth resident and a nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital, heard about the threat as she watched television news coverage while preparing to leave work at 4 p.m.

“I saw the bomb squad guys carrying a paper bag with their bare hands,” Higgins said. “I knew it couldn’t be too serious.”

Messages seeking additional comment from the Atlanta-based Cartoon Network were left with several publicists.

“Aqua Teen Hunger Force” is a cartoon with a cultish following that airs as part of the Adult Swim late-night block of programs for adults on the Cartoon Network. A feature length film based on the show is slated for release March 23.

The cartoon also includes two trouble-making, 1980s-graphic-like characters called “mooninites,” named Ignignokt and Err — who were pictured on the suspicious devices. They are known for making the obscene hand gesture depicted on the devices.

LSD blotter art archive

2007-02-05T19:08:00.000-08:00

Some chemicals are magic.

http://www.blotterbarn.com/

The Rapture Index

2007-02-05T18:52:00.000-08:00

In case you were wondering how to tell an approximate time when the Rapture will occur, this site will tell you everything you need to know.

http://www.raptureready.com/rap2.html

The Purpose For This Index

The Rapture Index has two functions: one is to factor together a number of related end time components into a cohesive indicator, and the other is to standardize those components to eliminate the wide variance that currently exists with prophecy reporting.

The Rapture Index is by no means meant to predict the rapture, however, the index is designed to measure the type of activity that could act as a precursor to the rapture.

You could say the Rapture index is a Dow Jones Industrial Average of end time activity, but I think it would be better if you viewed it as prophetic speedometer. The higher the number, the faster we're moving towards the occurrence of pre-tribulation rapture.

Rapture Index of 85 and Below: Slow prophetic activity
Rapture Index of 85 to 110: Moderate prophetic activity
Rapture Index of 110 to 145: Heavy prophetic activity
Rapture Index above 145: Fasten your seat belts

Ohio 2004 election workers convicted of election fraud

2007-01-28T13:29:00.000-08:00

This will come as no surprise to anyone was really paying attention during the 2004 "election".

Ohio election workers convicted of rigging '04 presidential recount
By M.R. Kropko
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Sign on Dan Diego link

3:08 p.m. January 24, 2007

CLEVELAND – Two election workers were convicted Wednesday of rigging a recount of the 2004 presidential election to avoid a more thorough review in Ohio's most populous county.

Jacqueline Maiden, elections coordinator of the Cuyahoga County Elections Board, and ballot manager Kathleen Dreamer each were convicted of a felony count of negligent misconduct of an elections employee. They also were convicted of one misdemeanor count each of failure of elections employees to perform their duty.

Prosecutors accused Maiden and Dreamer of secretly reviewing preselected ballots before a public recount on Dec. 16, 2004. They worked behind closed doors for three days to pick ballots they knew would not cause discrepancies when checked by hand, prosecutors said.

Defense attorney Roger Synenberg has said the workers were following procedures as they understood them.

Ohio gave President Bush the electoral votes he needed to defeat Democratic Sen. John Kerry in the close election and hold on to the White House in 2004.

Special prosecutor Kevin Baxter did not claim the workers' actions affected the outcome of the election – Kerry gained 17 votes and Bush lost six in the county's recount.

Maiden and Dreamer, who still work for the elections board, face a possible sentence of six to 18 months for the felony conviction. Sentencing is on Feb. 26.

A message left for Elections Board Director Michael Vu was not immediately returned Wednesday. The board released a statement that said its goal is to restore confidence in the county's election progress and pursue reforms in addition to those made since 2004.

ACLU Report Shows Widespread Pentagon Surveillance of Peace Activists

2007-01-28T13:27:00.000-08:00

ACLU Report Shows Widespread Pentagon Surveillance of Peace Activists (1/17/2007)
http://www.aclu.org/safefree/spyfiles/28024prs20070117.html

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: media@aclu.org

Pentagon Tracked at Least 186 Anti-Military Protests

NEW YORK - The American Civil Liberties Union today released a new report revealing that the Pentagon monitored at least 186 anti-military protests in the United States and collected more than 2,800 reports involving Americans in an anti-terrorist threat database.

“It cannot be an accident or coincidence that nearly 200 anti-war protests ended up in a Pentagon threat database,” said Ann Beeson, Associate Legal Director of the ACLU. “This unchecked surveillance is part of a broad pattern of the Bush administration using ‘national security’ as an excuse to run roughshod over the privacy and free speech rights of Americans.”

The ACLU report reviews hundreds of pages of Defense Department documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed last year. The documents revealed that the surveillance of peace groups and anti-war activists was more widespread than previously known.

The latest document obtained by the ACLU, and released today, is an undated 2006 memo reviewing the Defense Department’s Threat and Local Observation Notice (TALON) database, which was found to list several peaceful protesters as potential threats to the military. According to the memo, as of February 10, 2006, the Defense Department had deleted 186 TALON reports that involved “anti-military protests or demonstrations in the U.S.” In addition, the Defense Department identified 2,821 TALON reports remaining in the database that contain what the Department describes as “U.S. person information,” but it is unclear whether those reports pertain to protest activities.

The memo also states that “personnel from 28 organizations were authorized to use TALON” and 3,589 users have been authorized to submit TALON reports or access the database. Because of such wide access to the database, even deleted reports may still appear in the files of other government agencies, the ACLU said.

The ACLU said the Pentagon’s misuse of the TALON database is just one example of increased government surveillance of innocent Americans. With the help of phone companies, the National Security Agency has been conducting warrantless wiretapping of U.S. phones and reading the e-mails of countless Americans, all without a warrant. The FBI has gathered information about peace activists and recruited confidential informants inside lawful advocacy organizations like Greenpeace and PETA. Less than a month ago, President Bush signed a statement declaring that he is authorized to open the domestic mail of American citizens without a warrant. This weekend, The New York Times revealed that the Pentagon has been using “National Security Letters” to obtain banking and credit records of hundreds of Americans.

“Congress should not let this president off the hook for inappropriate surveillance by the Pentagon,” said Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. “Americans must once again be confident we can exercise our constitutionally protected right to protest without becoming the subject of a secret government file.”

In response to the ACLU’s FOIA requests filed on February 1, 2006, the Defense Department has released dozens of TALON reports that were compiled on Americans. Many of the reports focus on anti-military recruitment events and protests, including activities organized by the Quaker organization American Friends Service Committee, United for Peace and Justice, Veterans for Peace, and Catholic Worker. The TALON reports tracked events in 13 states and the District of Columbia: Alabama, California, Georgia, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island, and Texas.

The ACLU said that, even though the Defense Department has conceded that much of this information should not have been retained in its TALON database, there are still many unanswered questions.

“We do not know whether the Department of Defense maintains other threat databases that include similar information, nor whether Department of Defense personnel are engaged in other information-gathering about United States citizens,” said the ACLU in its report. “We do not know the extent to which other federal agencies might have been involved in collecting this information. We do not know whether the information improperly included in the TALON database was distributed to other government agencies.”

The report added, “we have only the Pentagon’s word that the errors and misjudgments that led to widespread surveillance of U.S. citizens have been corrected.”

The ACLU report, No Real Threat: The Pentagon’s Secret Database on Peaceful Protest, is available online at: www.aclu.org/safefree/spyfiles/27988pub20070117.html

The Pentagon document released today as a result of the ACLU lawsuit is online at: www.aclu.org/safefree/spyfiles/28021lgl20070117.html

More information on government surveillance is online at: www.aclu.org/spyfiles

A Periodic Table of Visualization Methods

2007-01-28T13:26:00.000-08:00

http://www.visual-literacy.org/periodic_table/periodic_table.html

Italian court rules files sharing not illegal

2007-01-28T13:23:00.000-08:00

Muted reaction after Italian court says file-swapping is not illegal

The Associated Press
Published: January 22, 2007
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/01/22/business/pirate.php

MILAN: The top criminal court in Rome has stated that downloading computer files containing films, music or software is not a crime if not done for profit, but analysts said Monday that they expected the ruling's impact to be muted.

The court's decision, issued earlier this month but not reported until this weekend, overturns earlier convictions against two former students from the Turin Politechnic Institute who set up a peer-to-peer network in 1994 that was shut down within months. They had been convicted of illegal duplication and given a one- year sentence, which was reduced to three months on appeal.

The top criminal court in Rome threw out the convictions, ruling that it was not a crime to download computer files from so-called peer-to-peer networks — used for sharing digitalized files among computer users over high- speed broadband connections — if there was no financial gain.

"I consider this sentence as a very intermediate step in clarifying what is legal and what is not legal," said Carlo Alberto Carnevale Maffè, president of Assodigitale, a research institute on digital technology. "This sentence marks an important step in that peer- to-peer per se is not an illegal activity. What stays and remains illegal is copyright infringement by cracking copyright files, and distributing it for commercial purposes."

The Italian agency that monitors copyright issues, known by the acronym SIAE, said that the ruling did not bring any "revolutions" in terms of author's rights because the case predates current legislation calling for a fine for anyone who shares protected material over the Internet without financial gain.

The Ayahuasca Monologues: Tales of the Spirit Vine

2007-01-21T17:12:00.000-08:00

http://souldish.com/monologues

Thursday, January 25th 2007

7:30pm at Eyebeam - 540 W. 21st St. btw 10th & 11th Ave.
Take C or E train to W. 23rd St.
$10, proceeds go to Souldish!

Five dynamic storytellers will describe their visionary experiences with ayahuasca, the renowned sacred brew of the Amazon. For centuries, shamans have drunk this powerful concoction to heal illness, obtain mystical insights, contact spirit guides, and explore magical worlds. Hear of experiences both miraculous and terrifying when Westerners access ayahuasca’s incredible gifts. Q & A session to follow. Proceeds benefit Souldish.com.

Featuring:
Daniel Pinchbeck - author of Breaking Open The Head: Psychedelics and Contemporary Shamanism and 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl
Jamye Waxman - sexplorer, Playgirl advice columnist, “Sex and Spirit” podcaster
Nat Bletter – ethnobotanist
Bill Kennedy – actor/storyteller and ayahuasca guardian
Jonathan Phillips - founder of the NYC Gnostics, executive editor of Souldish.com

Members of the press and public may contact Michael O’Neil at michael@souldish.com or 917-825-3562 with questions.

Sound Bombs

2007-01-21T17:04:00.000-08:00

Wonderful idea. Spontaneous performances like this are a kind of artistic anarchy.

http://www.soundbombs.info/eng/index.html

Soundbombs are New-Media-Accessories. Each one a lowtech object for interactive transmission. An integrated soundmodul makes it possible to record any given sound and then activate it through a motiondetector. As a Non-Visual Graffiti, with its origin in streetart, Soundbombs give the possibility to tag a place in an accoustic form: a welcoming greeting at the entrance or a warning of a bad restaurant. Each owner can leave a personal message anywhere and at any time. Soundbombs can whistle, laugh, belch or recite a poem.

One can apply for the purchase of a Soundbomb – only those who deserve a Soundbomb, get a Soundbomb! if one is elected, he/she obtains an unique "accoustic" email addresse (e.g. thud@soundbombs.info).

Journalist Express

2007-01-21T17:02:00.000-08:00

A network of (corporate-only) news sites.

http://www.journalistexpress.com/

15 minutes of fame

2007-01-21T17:01:00.000-08:00

Do you want your 15 minutes of fame?

http://www.15x15.org/

Grass Wheel

2007-01-21T16:57:00.000-08:00

Take the Park With You
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 07.10.06
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/07/take_the_park_w.php

If you liked Rebar's instant San Francisco park, you will love David Gallaugher's grass-lined wheel. He and three other Dalhousie architecture students built it to make a social statement- we need more green space. Their contraption is a way to "take the park with you" ..."We're looking at the idea of green space in the city," said grad student Kevin James. "Even in the Public Gardens [in Halifax, NS], you're not allowed to walk on the grass." People who were curious enough to ask one of the students what it was all about got slips of paper explaining the students' ideals."They're just really curious about it," said James. "And we get a lot of hamster jokes."

Robert Anton Wilson dies

2007-01-11T15:19:00.000-08:00

RAW Essence
http://robertantonwilson.blogspot.com/2007/01/raw-essence.html

Robert Anton Wilson Defies Medical Experts and leaves his body @4:50 AM on binary date 01/11.

All Hail Eris!

On behalf of his children and those who cared for him, deepest love and gratitude for the tremendous support and lovingness bestowed upon us.

(that's it from Bob's bedside at his fnord by the sea)

RAW Memorial February 07
date to be announced

* * * * *

Robert Anton Wilson quotes:
http://thinkexist.com/quotes/robert_anton_wilson/

“Belief is the death of intelligence. As soon as one believes a doctrine of any sort, or assumes certitude, one stops thinking about that aspect of existence.”

“The Bible tells us to be like God, and then on page after page it describes God as a mass murderer. This may be the single most important key to the political behavior of Western Civilization.”

“. . . there are periods of history when the visions of madmen and dope fiends are a better guide to reality than the common-sense interpretation of data available to the so-called normal mind. This is one such period, if you haven't noticed already.”

“If you think you know what the hell is going on, you're probably full of shit.”

David Lynch Website Gallery Focuses on 9/11 Truth Art

2007-01-11T15:18:00.000-08:00

Thank God for David Lynch.

David Lynch Website Gallery Focuses on 9/11 Truth Art
Aaron Dykes / Jones Report | January 3, 2006
http://www.jonesreport.com/articles/030107_lynch_art.html

Auteur film director David Lynch has recently gone public with 9/11 questions on Danish TV, showing clips from Loose Change and purpoting that there are "many questions and no answers."

He has also designated part of his website as the 'Interesting Questions' art gallery, giving users a space to reflect on 9/11 and submit works of art that range in style and depth.

It is an interesting and worthwhile contribution to the 9/11 Truth movement-- as the tableau of thoughts, questions, examinations and calls for action, impeachment, a new investigation, justice grows, it is meaningful to have venues for artistic expression and individual reactions to the events that affective the lives of nearly everyone around the world.

Though Lynch expressed in his TV interview that 9/11 was not something that changed his life, it is clear from his reaction that he wants an answer to these disturbing variations from the government Official Story.

His interesting website allows users to browse through a virtual gallery in and glance at the submissions on the wall, or take a closer look. (Choose Floor 'A' in the elevator to find your way to the gallery, which may take a moment to load)

The gallery is in interesting blend of art from all different perspectives.

Burning Man Founders Mired in Dispute

2007-01-11T15:10:00.000-08:00

Nooooooooooo! If Burning Man goes into the public domain, it will be ruined by corporate invasion. I sincerely hope and pray that this does not happen.

Burning Man Founders Mired in Dispute
By MARCUS WOHLSEN

http://abcnews.go.com/US/LegalCenter/wireStory?id=2786125&page=2

SAN FRANCISCO Jan 10, 2007 (AP)— There's trouble in the desert.

A co-founder of Burning Man, the annual six-day festival of self-expression that culminates in the torching of a 40-foot effigy on the salt flats of northern Nevada, has sued his ex-partners to strip them of ownership of the event's name and logo and to place the rights to their trademarks in the public domain.

John Law, who helped transform a series of small bonfire parties on a San Francisco beach into a phenomenon that drew more than 39,000 last year, sued Burning Man board members Larry Harvey and Michael Mikel in federal court Tuesday.

Harvey and Mikel have both recently tried to claim sole ownership over Burning Man's trademarks, violating an agreement the three signed after Law split with the organization in 1996, Law alleged.

"I decided to fight to keep anyone from having an exclusive right to capitalize on these brands," Law wrote on his blog. "Burning Man belongs to everyone."

Law's suit also seeks unspecified damages.

Both Harvey and Mikel were "surprised and disappointed" by the suit, said Marian Goodell, a spokeswoman for the corporation that runs Burning Man.

The pair have agreed to go into arbitration in their own dispute over the rights to Burning Man's trademarks, Goodell said. "They're working to get these issues resolved in a reasonable manner," she said.

The announcement of the lawsuit on San Francisco culture blog Laughing Squid quickly spread across the Internet, spawning emotional debate among Burners, the self-given nickname of Burning Man participants.

Some supported Law's suit as a return to the ideals on which Burning Man was founded. Organizers bill it as "an annual experiment in temporary community dedicated to radical self-expression and radical self-reliance."

Money is eschewed at the event in favor of a "gift economy," but recent ticket prices $195 to $280 for Burning Man 2007 have stirred complaints.

But many Burners worried that putting the Burning Man name in the public domain would result in an avalanche of commercial exploitation, from Burning Man-branded cigarette lighters to Burning Man sneakers made by multinational corporations.

Burning Man organizers have worked rigorously over the past decade to protect the event's name and what it stands for, turning down offers of corporate sponsorship and use of Burning Man images in advertising, Goodell said.

"It's kind of hard to imagine that the principles of Burning Man would remain intact if the name was in the public domain," Goodell said.

But Law argued on his blog that Burning Man participants would see through any attempt to use its name for commercial purposes.

"Those who really are part of it and support it will never mistake the event, and their involvement in it, with 'Burning Man condoms' or 'Burning Man antacid tablets,'" Law wrote.

The World's Smallest Thinker

2007-01-11T15:09:00.000-08:00

By Charles Q. Choi
Special to LiveScience
posted: 08 January 2007
11:58 am ET

Using lasers, Korean researchers have crafted a microscopic version of Rodin's famed sculpture "The Thinker" just about twice the size of a red blood cell at 20 millionths of a meter high [image].

Muscles and even toes are visible in the tiny model.

The new technique could help develop novel biosensors and other complicated microscopic devices, the scientists said.

For more than a decade, researchers worldwide have experimented with lasers to fabricate elaborate 3-D creations. They start with a resin that hardens when exposed to certain frequencies of light. Using overlapping beams of lasers, researchers can then solidify a sculpture with details measuring less than a wavelength of visible light in size.

While the skins of these sculptures are hard, their innards remain soft. This leaves them vulnerable to surface tension, the same force that causes water to bead up into droplets. The surface tension of the fluid in which the sculptures are immersed can cause them to deform.

These sculptures can by made stronger by increasing the power of the laser beams or leaving the beams on longer. This makes each spot on the surface of these sculptures extend deeper, yielding a thicker skin. Unfortunately, each spot now also takes up more surface area, sacrificing detail.

To solve this problem mechanical engineer Dong-Yol Yang at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology in Daejeon, South Korea, and his colleagues use multiple laser beams focused at and below each spot on the surface of thea sculpture [graphic]. The result is a thicker skin without each spot taking up more surface area.

With this new approach, the scientists scanned a replica of Rodin's popular masterpiece "The Thinker," originally sculpted in 1880, and created a version 93,000 times smaller than the roughly 6-foot-high original.

Yang and his colleagues reported their findings online Jan. 4 via the journal Applied Physics Letters.

Otaku Love

2007-01-11T15:07:00.000-08:00

Love Train
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.01/posts.html?pg=4

IT WAS A FAIRY-TALE ROMANCE. A very nerdy fairy-tale romance.

On March 14, 2004, the guy who would become known across Japan as Train Man was just a lonely otaku heading home from Tokyo's Akihabara district, famous for its gadgets and anime. A pretty young woman sat next to him on the subway. He likely wanted to talk to her, but, being a geek, he just sat there.

When an elderly alcoholic began harassing women in the car – and accidentally hit the pretty girl in the face – the geek summoned his nerve and confronted the drunk. When the train stopped, the police arrived and apprehended the old man. All the ladies – including the pretty girl – crowded around the nerd-hero, praising his bravery and asking for his address so they could send formal thank-yous. Train Man scribbled his information in the pretty woman's notebook. Then he fled.

When he got home, he posted the entire story on 2Channel, a Japanese Web site that's a bit like Slashdot and LiveJournal combined. He ended his post by cursing himself for leaving before he got the girl's address. "I totally freaked out," he wrote.

A few days later, a package arrived in the mail. In it were two fancy tea cups ... from the pretty girl! With her phone number on the packing slip! He naturally passed the news along, and the 2Channel bulletin board buzzed with excitement. Train Man – as he's known – posted again, noting, "My hands are shaking. I'm holding the phone, but I can't dial." Forum members did their best to stoke his courage. One wrote: "Remember: She's only one girl. You have all 2Channel on your side!"

Readers anxiously hit Refresh as Train Man updated them in real time during that awkward phone call. (A typical post: "DINNER! WHERE?") Then the 2Channel community became his crowdsourced dating adviser: "Get enough sleep, cut your nose hair, have breath mints, charge your cell phone, brush your teeth, take enough money, take a shower, and – in case of an emergency – wash your penis properly."

Train Man tirelessly chronicled his courtship. On May 9, 2004, the thread exploded when he reported, "I kissed her lightly, but she said, 'More,' kissing me 3-4 times." Overnight, he became Otaku no Kamisama – God of the Geeks.

In October 2004, a book-length transcript of the 2Channel threads sold over a million copies. Several manga serializations followed, as well as an anime, a live-action film (set for US release on DVD in February), a TV drama, a stage play, and even a porn knockoff. So far, though, Train Man's actual identity remains a mystery.

Some say he's real, others insist he was cooked up by some clever 2Channel posters. The book's publisher, Shinchosha, agreed to set up an email interview with Train Man, but acted as an anonymizing go-between.

"I don't think I could've done it without 2Channel," writes Train Man, who says he's still dating the pretty girl. So far, his life hasn't changed much: He works at the same company, visits Akihabara, buys comics, and watches anime. And, of course, he still posts about stuff like videogames on 2Channel. Once an otaku, always an otaku.

– Brian Ashcraft

UFO watched by many over O'Hare airport

2007-01-03T11:04:00.000-08:00

Am I really supposed to believe that a group of more than a dozen trained airport technicians, whose job it is to monitor and control the skies, mistook an object flying in the sky, and didn't know what they were seeing? That seems pretty implausible. United airlines tells their employees not to speak about it. And the FAA isn't investigating whatsoever? The FAA lied, saying that they didn't have any information on the incident, when in fact, they did? How odd...

In the sky! A bird? A plane? A ... UFO?
Video: UFO over O'Hare Airport?

Published January 1, 2007
Chicago Tribune link

It sounds like a tired joke--but a group of airline employees insist they are in earnest, and they are upset that neither their bosses nor the government will take them seriously.

A flying saucerlike object hovered low over O'Hare International Airport for several minutes before bolting through thick clouds with such intense energy that it left an eerie hole in overcast skies, said some United Airlines employees who observed the phenomenon.

Was it an alien spaceship? A weather balloon lost in the airspace over the world's second-busiest airport? A top-secret military craft? Or simply a reflection from lights that played a trick on the eyes?

Officials at United professed no knowledge of the Nov. 7 event--which was reported to the airline by as many as a dozen of its own workers--when the Tribune started asking questions recently. But the Federal Aviation Administration said its air traffic control tower at O'Hare did receive a call from a United supervisor asking if controllers had spotted a mysterious elliptical-shaped craft sitting motionless over Concourse C of the United terminal.

No controllers saw the object, and a preliminary check of radar found nothing out of the ordinary, FAA spokeswoman Elizabeth Isham Cory said.

The FAA is not conducting a further investigation, Cory said. The theory is the sighting was caused by a "weather phenomenon," she said.

The UFO report has sparked some chuckles among controllers in O'Hare tower.

"To fly 7 million light years to O'Hare and then have to turn around and go home because your gate was occupied is simply unacceptable," said O'Hare controller and union official Craig Burzych.

Some of the witnesses, interviewed by the Tribune, said they are upset that neither the government nor the airline is probing the incident.

Whatever the object was, it could have interfered with O'Hare's radar and other equipment, and even created a collision risk, they said.

The Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (the term that extraterrestrial-watchers nowadays prefer over Unidentified Flying Object) was first seen by a United ramp worker who was directing back a United plane at Gate C17, according to an account the worker provided to the National UFO Reporting Center.

The sighting occurred during daylight, about 4:30 p.m., just before sunset.

All the witnesses said the object was dark gray and well defined in the overcast skies. They said the craft, estimated by different accounts to be 6 feet to 24 feet in diameter, did not display any lights.

Some said it looked like a rotating Frisbee, while others said it did not appear to be spinning. All agreed the object made no noise and it was at a fixed position in the sky, just below the 1,900-foot cloud deck, until shooting off into the clouds.

Witnesses shaken by sighting

"I tend to be scientific by nature, and I don't understand why aliens would hover over a busy airport," said a United mechanic who was in the cockpit of a Boeing 777 that he was taxiing to a maintenance hangar when he observed the metallic-looking object above Gate C17.

"But I know that what I saw and what a lot of other people saw stood out very clearly, and it definitely was not an [Earth] aircraft," the mechanic said.

One United employee appeared emotionally shaken by the sighting and "experienced some religious issues" over it, one co-worker said.

A United manager said he ran outside his office in Concourse B after hearing the report about the sighting on an internal airline radio frequency.

"I stood outside in the gate area not knowing what to think, just trying to figure out what it was," he said. "I knew no one would make a false call like that. But if somebody was bouncing a weather balloon or something else over O'Hare, we had to stop it because it was in very close proximity to our flight operations."

Some joke, others research

The databases of various UFO-watching groups are full of accounts filed by pilots about sightings of unknown aircraft and anomalies that affected navigational equipment onboard planes.

Whether any of the UFO incidents are real or merely the result of individual perceptions, some experts say the events pose a potential safety risk to pilots and their passengers.

"There have been documented cases where safety appears to have been implicated, and more and more we are coming to the point of view that we are dealing with an intelligent phenomenon," said Richard Haines, science director at the National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena, a private agency.

"We must be proactive before an aircraft goes down," said Haines, a former chief of the Space Human Factors Office at NASA's Ames Research Center.

Haines is investigating the O'Hare incident. He said he has determined that no weather balloons were launched in the vicinity of O'Hare on Nov. 7.

"It's absurd that the military would be conducting aerial test flights" near the airport, Haines said.

All the witnesses to the O'Hare event, who included at least several pilots, said they are certain based on the disc's appearance and flight characteristics that it was not an airplane, helicopter, weather balloon or any other craft known to man.

United denies UFO report

They're not sure what was hanging out for several minutes in the restricted airspace, but they are upset that no one in power has taken the matter seriously.

A United spokeswoman said there is no record of the UFO report. She said United officials do not recall discussion of any such incident.

"There's nothing in the duty manager log, which is used to report unusual incidents," said United spokeswoman Megan McCarthy. "I checked around. There's no record of anything."

The pilots of the United plane being directed back from Gate C17 also were notified by United personnel of the sighting, and one of the pilots reportedly opened a windscreen in the cockpit to get a better view of the object estimated to be hovering 1,500 feet above the ground.

The object was seen to suddenly accelerate straight up through the solid overcast skies, which the FAA reported had 1,900-foot cloud ceilings at the time.

"It was like somebody punched a hole in the sky," said one United employee.

Witnesses said they had a hard time visually tracking the object as it streaked through the dense clouds.

It left behind an open hole of clear air in the cloud layer, the witnesses said, adding that the hole disappeared within a few minutes.

The United employees interviewed by the Tribune spoke on condition of anonymity.

Some said they were interviewed by United officials and instructed to write reports and draw pictures of what they observed, and that they were advised by United officials to refrain from speaking about what they saw.

Federal agency backtracks

Like United, the FAA originally told the Tribune that it had no information on the alleged UFO sighting. But the federal agency quickly reversed its position after the newspaper filed a Freedom of Information Act request.

An internal FAA review of air-traffic communications tapes, a step toward complying with the Tribune request, turned up the call by the United supervisor to an FAA manager in the airport tower, Cory said.

Cory said the weather might have factored into what the witnesses thought they saw.

"Our theory on this is that it was a weather phenomenon," she said. "That night was a perfect atmospheric condition in terms of low [cloud] ceiling and a lot of airport lights. When the lights shine up into the clouds, sometimes you can see funny things. That's our take on it."

----------

Contact Getting Around at jhilkevitch@tribune.com or c/o the Chicago Tribune, 435 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL 60611. Read recent columns at chicagotribune.com/gettingaround

Trip Fantastic

2007-01-03T11:03:00.000-08:00

Trip Fantastic
By ALASTAIR BLAND
Article Published Dec 27, 2006

http://www.sfweekly.com/Issues/2006-12-27/news/suckafreecity.html

Mother Nature acknowledges no federal prohibitions on hallucinogenic substances, and, in spite of the law, soils across the city are coming alive with mushrooms of the intoxicating genus Psilocybe.

"They're everywhere," says Dr. Dennis Desjardin, a professor of mycology at San Francisco State University. "It's mostly Psilocybe cyanescens. They come up all over the State campus here — in the parks, in yards, San Jose, in Marin. They grow almost anywhere that people have spread wood chips."

According to Desjardin, Psilocybe cyanescens will grow independently on most available soils, especially those that have been disturbed by gardening activity. As the mushrooms sprout, they draw up wholesome minerals and nutrients, then reconstruct them into the unlawful psychedelic alkaloids that have been sending free spirits on lofty trips for decades.

But the mushrooms haven't always grown wild here.

"The reason they're really starting to show up around the Bay Area is that people have them in cultivation," says Phil Carpenter, co-manager of the Fungus Federation of Santa Cruz. "They grow them and they escape. That's the best guess, because they're not native to here."

Rudy Johnson, a 54-year-old amateur naturalist and mushroom hunter from the Marina District, has enjoyed this influx every season for years, getting high every few days throughout the winter. Johnson has his secret patches throughout the city, and he discourages pesky journalists from blundering into the woods to report on subjects with which they have no business.

"I know the sort that reads the Weekly!" he scoffs. "You're going to get hundreds of yahoos out there. I've seen fools come to the Presidio with shovels and sacks, ruining everything and not even knowing what they're looking for, anyway."

Many Psilocybe hunters, he adds, are unfamiliar with the Death Cap, Amanita phalloides, an abundant mushroom that can add some nice character and flavor to pasta sauces and cream soups but will begin to dissolve your liver within 24 hours. Johnson encourages interested parties to pick mind-altering fungi with care and respect — and in moderation — and to cultivate the spores at home. He says the mushrooms often take well to backyards fertilized with mulched woodchips of fir and alder.

Dr. Desjardin, meanwhile, suggests caution.

"It's illegal to pick mushrooms in the first place in a lot of the parks, and it's important to know that if they catch you out there with these Psilocybe mushrooms, they could throw you in jail."

Possession, production, distribution, or purchase of these little cappers is a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration Schedule 1 misdemeanor, just like pot. If you should discover a patch of wild Psilocybe mushrooms, we advise that you carefully record the location and report immediately to editor@sfweekly.com. We know the sort.

I'm Dreaming of an Orgiastic Christmas

2007-01-03T11:00:00.000-08:00

I say, let's take our holy time of celebration back from our consumption-insane corporate masters! Re-pagazine Christmas!

I'm Dreaming of an Orgiastic Christmas
By Edward Comor

Today's Christmas is a consumerist orgy — a festival of purchases aimed at expressing how much we care for others. But there are fundamental contradictions in the "tradition".

Indeed, today`s Christmas wouldn`t be what it is had it not been for the power of both the Church and, much more recently, corporations to tame and shape another, more traditional, kind of orgy.

The origins of Christmas can be traced back to the 3rd century AD, when the emerging religion Christianity and the Church hierarchy sought to eclipse remaining cultural influences of the Romans and snuff out an annual pagan festival called Saturnalia. Saturnalia took place every year to signify the end of the growing season, a time to enjoy a final taste of fresh fruits, vegetables, and meats before they were dried and stored for the winter. It also marked an annual orgy; a week of drinking, over-indulgence and sinful excess; a remarkable surge in childbirths followed nine months later.

The Church hoped to end the debauchery by falsely declaring December 25th as the day of Christ`s birth. Villagers and peasants throughout Europe subsequently were expected to worship the Virgin Birth at the end of the year, instead of celebrating nature`s produce and one another.

Unfortunately for the Church, cultural change tends to be slow, especially when trying to transform those aspects of culture that most enjoy. Centuries later, for a few decades preceding the American Revolution, leaders of various Protestant sects in New England gave up even trying to change public behavior on December 25th and banned Christmas altogether.

However, about 150 years ago, another group of powerful interests sought to change the meaning and celebration of Christmas. Just as the Church tried to reform the cultural norms of the Romans, an emerging corporate elite sought to transform how people behaved at the end of December. Rather than a time of communal debauchery or, subsequently, a period in which all were expected to worship Christ, corporate interests looked for opportunities to change Christmas into a time for individuals to purchase and exchange commodities.

Unlike the Church`s efforts, the corporate transformation proved incredibly successful, probably because it involves a way of celebrating that many, at least to some level, find hard to resist. For thousands of years people found meaning in their lives, a sense of identity and, pleasure through their relations with others; and Saturnalia, was certainly one of most exciting of these communal events.

Alongside industrialization came the fragmentation of communities into individualized contract workers. And with urbanization and its displacement of millions from their villages and traditional extended families came a kind of social-psychological vacuum. Accompanying this growing culture of isolation and emptiness was a broad range of “inventions” primarily developed to serve the interests of corporations, including electricity, the telegraph, and the Department Store. Together, they facilitated further urbanization, more efficiency, and importantly, more potential sales. The Department Store, for example, became a central gathering place in most cities; people were free to browse and, for the first time, were not expected to buy anything. Through the magic of electrical illuminations, potential customers now could see all the goods and potential lifestyles available to those hard-working individuals with money.

For Department Stores and the capitalists behind the production, Christmas soon became an opportunity to sell more goods by associating these commodities with social-psychological needs emerging in people`s lives. As urbanization and industrialization proceeded, corporations successfully associated Christmas with what we now take for granted; December 25th became a time for individuals and families to re-unite and, in the absence of truly intimate relationships, familial bonds were expressed through an exchange of purchased clothes, toys and innumerable other products.

Quite suddenly Christmas had become a family holiday, something quite different from what the Church originally intended when it labeled the day as Christ`s birth. Also, through the mystical re-manufacturing of Christmas by corporations as a day – and now a “season” – for buying and exchanging gifts, the emerging world of atomized relations and fragmented communities could them-selves be exploited as a social-psychological vacuum in which the selling of commodities could be perpetuated.

Today, through the twists, turns and power interests shaping history, Christmas again has become a time of debauchery. From its roots as an agrarian pagan orgy, followed by the attempt to transform it into a religious holiday for the community, it`s now become another kind of orgy, this time a capitalist one.

In our economic system, this faith in Christmas as a celebration of love through consumption has become so deeply entrenched, it exists in the very marrow of our cultural existence. But more significantly, and paradoxically, its ascendancy has paralleled the near collapse of the bases of life and love itself the environment in which we all live.

Over these past 150 years, humanity has consumed more of the earth`s resources and has caused more ecological damage than all the generations, living tens of thousands of years before the mid-19th century, combined. Now, the “developing” world is being told about the wonders of our consumerist religion, and Christmas is being used as a core means of promulgating the faith; a faith being promoted even in non-Christian cultures.

During this annual period of mass manipulation and worship of consumption that is ever-more tenuously disguised as a Christian holiday, I think we might want to peel back the mythologies surrounding this particular celebration. The holiday`s superficial embrace of the family and exploitation of humanity`s search for meaning and identity, in the name of selling, cannot survive if we strip away its veneer and refuse to play the games associated with its mystical, commodities-equals-love` equation.

Instead, let us celebrate Christmas in the spirit of the original Roman festival let`s have a really good time as members of a community rather than just individuals and fragmented families. Even better, give everyone you know (warning: here comes a Madison Ave clich) “the gift that really matters.” Refuse to use cash as an expression of your feelings. By not taking part in our religious celebration of commodity exchange, not only will we make a tiny dent in the capitalist machine that eats away at our ecological existence, we`ll also remind ourselves (and others) that time and community need to be embraced more than money and isolation.

Above all else, by taking even a small step in challenging our culture`s latest version of Christmas, we begin the process of collectively realizing that, as human beings, we manufacture our own existence. Indeed, we`ve even manufactured something as seemingly timeless and sacred as Christmas.

Instead of an orgy of consumption, I`d like to think that we can apply our faith and mystical resources towards cultural vibrancy, the nourishment of community, and a belief system based not on happiness through consumption but, instead, on happiness through creativity and environmental sustainability.

On December 25th let`s toast the beginning of yet another re-invention of Christmas, this time with an emphasis on savoring the joys of being part of a community with an emphasis on an emerging ecological peace on earth.

Let the new orgiastic Christmas tradition begin!

Edward Comor is an Associate Professor at the University of Western Ontario

This article originally appeared on COA News

Global warming claims tropical island

2007-01-03T10:59:00.000-08:00

Entire coastlines and cities at sea level may be submerged soon if preventative action is not taken.

Disappearing world: Global warming claims tropical island
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article2099971.ece

For the first time, an inhabited island has disappeared beneath rising seas. Environment Editor Geoffrey Lean reports
Published: 24 December 2006

Rising seas, caused by global warming, have for the first time washed an inhabited island off the face of the Earth. The obliteration of Lohachara island, in India's part of the Sundarbans where the Ganges and the Brahmaputra rivers empty into the Bay of Bengal, marks the moment when one of the most apocalyptic predictions of environmentalists and climate scientists has started coming true.

As the seas continue to swell, they will swallow whole island nations, from the Maldives to the Marshall Islands, inundate vast areas of countries from Bangladesh to Egypt, and submerge parts of scores of coastal cities.

Eight years ago, as exclusively reported in The Independent on Sunday, the first uninhabited islands - in the Pacific atoll nation of Kiribati - vanished beneath the waves. The people of low-lying islands in Vanuatu, also in the Pacific, have been evacuated as a precaution, but the land still juts above the sea. The disappearance of Lohachara, once home to 10,000 people, is unprecedented.

It has been officially recorded in a six-year study of the Sunderbans by researchers at Calcutta's Jadavpur University. So remote is the island that the researchers first learned of its submergence, and that of an uninhabited neighbouring island, Suparibhanga, when they saw they had vanished from satellite pictures.

Two-thirds of nearby populated island Ghoramara has also been permanently inundated. Dr Sugata Hazra, director of the university's School of Oceanographic Studies, says "it is only a matter of some years" before it is swallowed up too. Dr Hazra says there are now a dozen "vanishing islands" in India's part of the delta. The area's 400 tigers are also in danger.

Until now the Carteret Islands off Papua New Guinea were expected to be the first populated ones to disappear, in about eight years' time, but Lohachara has beaten them to the dubious distinction.

Human cost of global warming: Rising seas will soon make 70,000 people homeless

Refugees from the vanished Lohachara island and the disappearing Ghoramara island have fled to Sagar, but this island has already lost 7,500 acres of land to the sea. In all, a dozen islands, home to 70,000 people, are in danger of being submerged by the rising seas.

Richest 2% own 'half the wealth'

2007-01-03T10:57:00.000-08:00

Something is seriously wrong here...

Richest 2% own 'half the wealth'
By Andrew Walker
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6211250.stm

The richest 2% of adults in the world own more than half of all household wealth, according to a new study by a United Nations research institute.

The report, from the World Institute for Development Economics Research at the UN University, says that the poorer half of the world's population own barely 1% of global wealth.

There have of course been many studies of worldwide inequality.

But what is new about this report, the authors say, is its coverage.

It deals with all countries in the world - either actual data or estimates based on statistical analysis - and it deals with wealth, where most previous research has looked at income.

What they mean by wealth in this study is what people own, less what they owe - their debts. The assets include land, buildings, animals and financial assets.

Different assets

The analysis shows, as have many other less comprehensive studies, striking divergences in wealth between countries.

Wealth is heavily concentrated in North America, Europe and some countries in the Asia Pacific region, such as Japan and Australia.

These countries account for 90% of household wealth.

The study also finds that inequality is sharper in wealth than in annual income.

And it uncovers some striking differences in the types of assets that dominate in different countries.

In less developed nations, land and farm assets are more important, reflecting the greater importance of agriculture in those economies.

In addition, the report says the weighting is the result of "immature" financial institutions, which make it much harder for people to have savings accounts or shares.

In contrast, some citizens of the rich countries have more debt than assets - making them, the report says, among the poorest in the world in terms of household wealth.

However, they are presumably better off in terms of what they consume than many people in developing countries.

Comprehensive

The survey is based on data for the year 2000. The authors say a more recent year would have involved more gaps in the data. As it is, many figures - especially for developing countries - have had to be estimated.

Nonetheless, the authors say it is the most comprehensive study of personal wealth ever undertaken.

Why does it matter? Because wealth serves as insurance against times when income tends to fall, such as unemployment, sickness or old age.

It is also a source of finance for small businesses, a particularly important point since it is the countries with lower levels of personal wealth which also tend to have weaker financial systems without the funds, ability or inclination to lend to small firms.

The report is not about policy recommendations.

But one of the authors, Professor Anthony Shorrocks, says it does draw attention to the importance of enhancing banking systems in developing countries to help generate the funds for business investment.

2012 the Odyssey

2006-12-23T09:46:00.000-08:00

2012 the Odyssey
http://www.2012theodyssey.com/
http://www.sacredmysteries.com/

Is it the End of Time?

The Mayan Calendar is ending on December 21st, 2012. What will happen to us between now and then? Are there other prophecies that also predict the closing of this world age and the start of a new beginning?

Join Author Sharron Rose on an adventure into the future. In this exciting and thought-provoking feature documentary she travels across the entire United States speaking to the many experts on this fast approaching prophecy. They help her to reveal the secrets that will unfold before out eyes and will shape our future.

Featuring noted experts Jose Arguelles, Gregg Braden, John Major Jenkins, Rick Levine, Geoff Stray, Moira Timms, Alberto Villoldo, Jay Weidner, the Incan Elders and more, this film shows us that the coming world is ours to reshape and remake in any way that we deem possible.

Discover the secrets of the Mayans, the Incans, the Alchemists, the Christians, the Masons and others of our ancient ancestors concerning the end of time and the promise of our destiny as human beings.

The Datachurch

2006-12-23T09:43:00.000-08:00

Like something out of a Neal Stephenson or an Isaac Asimov novel. I hope they get the funds they need to do what they are envisioning.

http://www.datachurch.com/

The Datachurch Project Datachurch strives to be a centralized location for the secrets of the universe and those who pursue them. It's primary purpose will be to make available this information by means of directly downloadable or watchable audio, video and text. We believe that cultural develoment begins with personal development, and we hope the information we compile will lead to both.

The Birth and Future
The current site is merely a model showing the concept of what Datachurch could be. In it's true form, Datachurch will be a massive crosslinked database of all media types. The database will be fully searchable with a google based search engine. In addition, users will be able to add new content and both comment and rate material as they examine it. The next step will to implement a system to allow the users to create "projects" of thier own. These projects will be collections of materials with a common theme or thesis. This will allow for new and original thoughts and ideas to be created and shared with everyone.

When real fairies help real people

2006-12-23T09:39:00.000-08:00

Of course fairies are real. People have been communicating with them for thousands of years. They are also called elementals, or spirits. There are many names. We don't see them as often any more because they are wary of us, and most of the time we don't have the right kind of frame of mind attention to be able to witness them. Who can see fairies when they're busy watching television?

When real fairies help real people
http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/viewnews.php?id=77636

George Ellory Hale was the driving force behind building the world’s largest observatory till then -- the 200-inch glass giant of Palomar. He also revolutionized our understanding of the sun, inventing the spectroheliograph, with which he made his discoveries of the solar vortices and magnetic fields of sun spots. And who was Hale’s primary science advisor? An elf. Beginning at age 42, Hale says a “little elf” appeared in his window sill and told him to get the Palomar project started. Hale says his “little elf” also advised him on other scientific work.Hales relationship with his “little elf” is documented in Helen Wright’s 1966 book, “Explorer of the Universe.” Some have disputed Wright's account of Hale’s elf, pointing out that the astronomer suffered from mental illness his entire life, while others have claimed that Hale’s frequent reference to his elf guide was merely a metaphor for his inner imagination. Yet, that’s not how Hale viewed it. Hale thought his elf was just that -- a living, breathing elf. Hale relied heavily on his “little elf.” His attitude toward his helper was remarkably similar to that of another great man, the writer Robert Louis Stevenson.

Stevenson gave us such classics as “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” and “Treasure Island” but he had a guilty secret. Stevenson felt that he did not actually write these books by himself, but rather, the stories were given to him by fairies -- little people he called “Brownies.” Stevenson claimed the Brownies came to him in his sleep to give him story ideas, plots and narratives, and all he had to do when he woke up is write them down. Stevenson said: “The whole of my published fiction should be the single-minded product of some Brownie, some Familiar, some unseen collaborator, whom I keep locked up in the back of a garret ... the more I think of it, the more I am moved to press upon the world my question: Who are the Little People?”Who are they indeed? That’s the question writer, philosopher and ethnobotanist Terrence McKenna wondered about when he frequently confronted what he called “the machine elves.” McKenna describes the machine elves this way in his book, “True Hallucinations”: “Dozens of these friendly, fractal entities, looking like self-dribbling Fabergé eggs on the rebound had surrounded me and tried to teach me the lost language of true poetry.” Of course, one must take into account that McKenna only contacted these elves when smoking synthesized DMT, or under the influence of certain natural hallucinogens. Yet, the machine elves have been encountered independently by others researchers, including University of New Mexico's School of Medicine Professor of Psychiatry Rick Strassman.

Strassman was a researcher who administered more than 400 doses of DMT to some 60 subjects, many of whom said it put them in contact with the machine elves. Interestingly, the LSD-soaked music of Pink Floyd appears to make reference to the machine elves in their song "The Gnomes have Learned a New Way to Say Hoo-Ray?" Why is this significant? Because those who have encountered the machine elves say that they announce themselves by saying something like “hhhyeaaaaaayyy!” Finally, a primitive tribe of people in the Upper Amazon called the Witoto have a long tradition of contacting “little men” which very closely match the description of the machine elves encountered by modern psychotropic drug researchers and artists.As interesting as these cases are, the most fascinating case of an elf or fairy helping real people was told to me personally by a friend whom I met while working as a VISTA Volunteer in a homeless shelter in North Dakota. My friend, whom I’ll call Jubal, was also working as a volunteer at the shelter. He had a good job, but liked to help out at the shelter on weekends because Jubal had once been a homeless drug addict. He also suffered from a life-time of debilitating seizures and panic attacks. His attacks were caused by Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome which resulted from being attacked, mauled and almost killed by a bear when he was a child.Jubal was about to commit suicide after some 25 years of homeless wandering around the United States, and a daily diet of marijuana, booze and barbiturate pills. Jubal craved “downer” drugs because they were a way to stay calm and prevent panic attacks or full-blown seizures. Jubal was near the end of his rope -- but one day, he was saved by a fairy which called itself an “Elemental.”

Here is how he met this Elemental:Jubal learned an unusual method of creative visualization from the son of an anthropologist. The exercise consisted of staring intently at an ordinary potted plant. The idea was to focus all one's attention on the plant until you could visualize yourself as actually being on the plant -- as if you were a tiny bug crawling among the leaves and stems. Jubal discovered after much practice that he could do this very well. Before long, he was spending hours a day focused on his plant, and, in his words, “actually existing in the plant world.” Jubal spent many happy days just sitting on a leaf, or walking up and down his plant’s green stems and fronds. The plant world became so real to him, he said, that it was actually like a virtual reality experience -- it was as if he really was a tiny, bug-sized man crawling around on a giant plant. While inside his personal plant world, Jubal found that he could remain panic and drug free -- although as soon as he released his mind from the plant world, he would go right back to his old, shattered self. Still, his life began to improve somewhat because now he took far less drugs, and had far fewer panic attacks. The only drawback, of course, was that he had to spend many hours a day staring at a potted plant!But then something exceedingly strange happened one day. While walking blissfully along a stem in his personal plant world, he was shocked to suddenly discover that he was not alone in that world. Up ahead on the green stem was a fairy -- a little man with sharp features, wearing a tunic of dragonfly skin, green leggings and a soft red hat! Seeing the fairy, Jubal should have immediately suffered a panic attack, but that never happened in the plant world. Instead, the fairy provided him with detailed instructions on how he could “cure” all his conditions -- from his addictions to his panic attacks. To make a long story short, Jubal did what the fairy instructed, all of his problems disappeared, and the fairy continues to advise him to this day, he says.Again, one could question the sanity and mental state of someone like Jubal, who had been frying his brain for more than two decades with drugs. You might say: “I might start talking to fairies at that point too!” Fair enough, but remember, Jubal didn’t start communing with his fairy until he actually started freeing himself from drugs -- and his fairy has stayed with him in his new clean and sober life.

Incidentally, the story of the grueling task -- which was actually a quest -- that Jubal’s Elemental required him to perform is a long and detailed story, which I have documented in a 10,000-word story. Anyone interested can find more information about Jubal’s fairy-driven odyssey on my blog, which is linked below.In the meantime, when it comes to man’s relationship with the Little People of the Faery Realms, I think it’s best to keep an open mind, and also consider the probability that fairies or elves may actually exist, even if we can only commune with them in altered states of mind. Think of it this way: The human brain cannot pick up radio waves or satellite TV without some kind of mechanical aid to help our brains harvest this information from out of an environment of ambient energies that are swirling around us at each instant. Just as we need a satellite dish to capture, tune and interpret movies that are beaming down from outer space, we probably need other kinds of tools to tune in the existence of the Little People, who may also be living in close proximity with us in our environment -- if only we could open our minds to them.

Ken’s Blog: http://www.ironghost.wordpress.com

We Feel Fine (global emotion tracker)

2006-12-23T09:34:00.000-08:00

This is a really amazing applet. Anyone can log in and input text that describes their current emotional state. Using the applet, you can view the responses in real-time, and in an objective way, experience the emotions of people all over the world. Very interesting...

http://www.wefeelfine.org/wefeelfine_pc.html

We Feel Fine is an exploration of human emotion on a global scale.

Since August 2005, We Feel Fine has been harvesting human feelings from a large number of weblogs. Every few minutes, the system searches the world's newly posted blog entries for occurrences of the phrases "I feel" and "I am feeling". When it finds such a phrase, it records the full sentence, up to the period, and identifies the "feeling" expressed in that sentence (e.g. sad, happy, depressed, etc.). Because blogs are structured in largely standard ways, the age, gender, and geographical location of the author can often be extracted and saved along with the sentence, as can the local weather conditions at the time the sentence was written. All of this information is saved.

The result is a database of several million human feelings, increasing by 15,000 - 20,000 new feelings per day. Using a series of playful interfaces, the feelings can be searched and sorted across a number of demographic slices, offering responses to specific questions like: do Europeans feel sad more often than Americans? Do women feel fat more often than men? Does rainy weather affect how we feel? What are the most representative feelings of female New Yorkers in their 20s? What do people feel right now in Baghdad? What were people feeling on Valentine's Day? Which are the happiest cities in the world? The saddest? And so on.

The interface to this data is a self-organizing particle system, where each particle represents a single feeling posted by a single individual. The particles' properties – color, size, shape, opacity – indicate the nature of the feeling inside, and any particle can be clicked to reveal the full sentence or photograph it contains. The particles careen wildly around the screen until asked to self-organize along any number of axes, expressing various pictures of human emotion. We Feel Fine paints these pictures in six formal movements titled: Madness, Murmurs, Montage, Mobs, Metrics, and Mounds.

At its core, We Feel Fine is an artwork authored by everyone. It will grow and change as we grow and change, reflecting what's on our blogs, what's in our hearts, what's in our minds. We hope it makes the world seem a little smaller, and we hope it helps people see beauty in the everyday ups and downs of life.

- Jonathan Harris & Sepandar Kamvar
May 2006

Christian video game 'is a force for evil'

2006-12-23T09:31:00.000-08:00

Sketch!

Eternal Forces is set in post-apocalyptic New York. It features the Christian Tribulation Force against the keepers of the Antichrist, said to be based on the UN

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2488931,00.html

Christian video game 'is a force for evil'
Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent
* Call for ban on bestseller 'crusade'
* Fantasy based on Book of Revelation

A video game that depicts a crusade of violence by Christians could be heading for the bestseller charts this Christmas, even though it has been condemned by Muslims and secularists.

The game, Left Behind: Eternal Forces, is set in post-apocalyptic New York and features God’s army battling the Antichrist.

Based on Left Behind, the bestselling Christian fantasy book series created by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, it puts players in command of brainwashed legions fighting for Christianity.

Players are ordered to convert or kill to advance to the next level and remodel America as a Christian-controlled state, and establish its world vision of Christ’s dominion.

They pit battles between the paramilitary Christian Tribulation Force and the grey, faceless, Global Community Peacekeepers of the Antichrist, said to be modelled on the United Nations. The fantasy is based on what might happen if the events of the Book of Revelation, the last book of the Bible, happened today.

Critics accuse its creators of mixing religion and violence to appeal to teenage fans of violent games such as Grand Theft Auto.

The game was sold originally in the US. British outlets are releasing the game for the Christmas market. The Left Behind books have sold more than 63 million copies.

Muslim groups have denounced the game as portraying Islam as evil and accuse its creators of insulting their faith. The Muslim Association of Britain called for the game to be banned, describing it as evil.

It said: “This game is irresponsible and highly racist. It demonises every other religion which isn’t Christianity. People must boycott this violent game.

“Games like this poison the minds of young people.”

Terry Sanderson, the president of the National Secular Society, said: “Fundamentalists on both the Christian and the Muslim side are creating this kind of nasty, extreme propaganda and aiming it at young people. I’m not into banning things or censoring them, but I think most Muslims and most Christians would recognise that this is crude and despicable hate-mongering and give it a wide berth.”

The creators of the game have dismissed the criticism, saying that the religious story- line in the game is not taken from the Bible and is a creation of the Left Behind authors, which should not be taken seriously.

Troy A. Lyndon, the chief executive of Left Behind Games, said: “The game is designed to be a classic battle between good and evil. We have deliberately censored the blood and it does not gratuitously depict death or violence. Left Behind is not taken from the Bible, it is a fictional story.”

A meeting of fiction and theology:

* Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins’s bestselling series of 12 novels started in 1995 with Left Behind: A Novel of the Earth’s Last Days

* President Bush is said to be a fan of the series

* The theological doctrine in the books and the new game is known as premillennial dispensationalism

* Neither the Church of England nor the Roman Catholic Church has said officially that it does not believe in this apocalyptic scenario

* Christians in both churches endorse their belief in it in the Nicene Creed: “He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead.”

Galactic Diplomacy

2006-12-07T00:55:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the Home of Galactic Diplomacy
http://galacticdiplomacy.com/index.htm

This website is dedicated to the development of 'track two' or 'citizen diplomacy' with extraterrestrials. This is a process whereby individuals and groups with no official government standing can establish contact and communications with extraterrestrial races in ways that promote peace, fraternity and cooperation between humanity and extraterrestrial races. This process is designed to complement 'official' or 'track one' Galactic Diplomacy that is secretly conducted by appointed government representatives without the awareness of the general population or elected political representatives .

The Galactic Diplomacy website offers resources in terms of seminars, courses, articles and communications with extraterrestrials that will assist individuals and citizen organizations in developing the necessary skills to contact, communicate and interact with extraterrestrials. A chief goal of this website is to promote diplomatic solutions to the challenges that confront humanity in becoming a galactic society while most of the human population remains unaware of the extraterrestrial presence and of secret communications, agreements and interactions between extraterrestrials and select government agencies.

* * * * *

The Emergence of ‘Track Two’ Galactic Diplomacy with Extraterrestrial Races – The Role of Private Citizens & Groups in Establishing Communications & Agreements With Extraterrestrial Races

http://galacticdiplomacy.com/GD-Art-1.htm

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has!" (Margaret Mead)

Introduction
There are dozens of different extraterrestrial races with a variety of motivations that are interacting with global humanity. These extraterrestrial motivations span the spectrum from 'benevolent' activities aimed at uplifting humanity towards a fuller expression of its collective potential’, to manipulative activities designed to undermine human sovereignty. There is extensive evidence of government agencies in the United States (US) and elsewhere having held meetings and having reached agreements with some extraterrestrial races. These official diplomatic meetings have been highly classified and suggest that ‘galactic diplomacy’ at an official level has been secretly underway for at least 50 years without the knowledge of most citizens and elected representatives. [2] A detailed explanation of the seventeen most significant extraterrestrial races interacting with humanity reveals the role played by national security agencies in the US secretly reaching agreements with some extraterrestrial races while suppressing information about these agreements, and of the existence and activities of extraterrestrial races in general. [3]

There is extensive evidence that a number of extraterrestrial races are assisting in the evolution of human consciousness, and communicating with private citizens and groups that are interested in more peaceful and harmonious policies at a global level. These communications and initiatives linking private citizens and groups with some extraterrestrial races suggests the potential for an unofficial form of ‘galactic diplomacy’ to be practiced that complements the official form of galactic diplomacy secretly conducted by government agencies.

There is also evidence that the various extraterrestrial races interacting with Earth are locked into a low intensity conflict over the direction and potential of global humanity in the wider galactic community. [4] These extraterrestrial races work through their respective 'human allies' in the form of global elites, national security agencies, private citizens, and/or non-government organizations to promote their respective agendas. Competition involving extraterrestrial races and their 'human allies' on Earth appears to mirror conflicts at the galactic level between major extraterrestrial races. [5] This makes the extraterrestrial rivalry over the Earth's population and resources something that has interest to the wider galactic community which apparently is monitoring events on Earth in large numbers.

'Track two’ or 'citizens diplomacy' offers the opportunity for private individuals or ‘citizen organizations’ to open communication channels and develop agreements between nations experiencing diplomatic impasses and/or violent conflict. Track two diplomacy has been shown to be effective process in helping establish diplomatic relations and developing suitable confliction resolution strategies for difficult global conflicts. Extending the practice of track two diplomacy from the global arena involving international actors, into the exopolitical arena involving different extraterrestrial races is both possible and necessary due to the long history of secrecy, hidden rivalries and low intensity conflicts that exist between extraterrestrial races and government agencies. Given government secrecy over the existence of extraterrestrial races; the diverse motivations, agendas and conflicts involving extraterrestrial races and various government agencies; there is an urgent need for track two diplomacy with extraterrestrial races or what might be better described as ‘track two galactic diplomacy’. There is a need for private citizens to establish communications with extraterrestrial races, play roles in mediating between different extraterrestrial races and global humanity, establishing track two diplomatic relations with extraterrestrial races, and assist official diplomatic relations between government agencies and extraterrestrial races or what might be described as ‘track one galactic diplomacy’.

This paper examines the key principles of ‘galactic diplomacy’ at the unofficial level, as a form of ‘track two’ diplomacy aimed at establishing contact and communications with different extraterrestrial races. The paper analyses the nature of diplomatic representation on Earth that might be recognized by various extraterrestrial races. Particular focus will be on the representative status of different global constituencies such as politically organized humanity, cetaceans, alleged subterranean civilizations, and the role of Earth or ‘Gaia’ as a living organism. The paper examines the need for ‘track two galactic diplomacy’ as a means of complementing official diplomatic relations between major nations and extraterrestrial races. Finally, the paper examines how national security agencies will respond to ‘track two galactic diplomacy’ between private citizens/groups with extraterrestrials in terms of four key challenges confronting the practice of this form of diplomacy: 1. the extent of private communications and interactions with extraterrestrial races; 2. the coercive resources of shadow government agencies; 3. the degree to which extraterrestrial races may manipulate citizens engaging in track two galactic diplomacy; and 4. implications of initiatives and agreements reached through track two galactic diplomacy

David Lynch's "Inland Empire"

2006-12-07T00:51:00.000-08:00

OMFG I can't wait to watch it.

Wild at Heart
Armed with a digital camera and his own brand of logic, David Lynch forges inward
by J. Hoberman
December 5th, 2006 1:31 PM
http://www.villagevoice.com/film/0649,hoberman,75219,20.html

No director works closer to his unconscious than David Lynch, and, stimulated by the use of amateur digital-video technology, his latest feature ventures as far inland as this blandly enigmatic filmmaker has ever gone.

A movie about Lynch's obsessions, Inland Empire is largely a meditation on the power of recording: The first image is a shaft of projected light; the second is a close-up of a phonograph needle dropping on a record's groove. Familiar tropes include a movie-within-the-movie and the notion of Hollywood as haunted house. But nothing in Lynch's work is truly familiar, as when a TV sitcom features a cast of humanoid rabbits. For most of Inland Empire, sinister East Europeans are "looking for a way in"—whether to the industry or the narrative or the empire itself. Reality is first breached when a ditzy Polish Gypsy traipses into the vintage, disconcertingly empty Hollywood mansion that belongs to actress Nikki Grace (Laura Dern). Spooking the star with her wolfsbane accent and aggressive prophesies, she casts a spell of weirdness that lasts throughout the movie.

Suddenly it's tomorrow and Nikki has the role she covets, working with an over-eager director (Jeremy Irons) and acting opposite young rapscallion Devon (Justin Theroux), who's been touted by a nasty TV gossip (Dern's mother, Diane Ladd) as the biggest womanizer in Hollywood. An adulterous affair seems over-determined, particularly as that's the premise of On High in Blue Tomorrows, the unlikely title of the movie that Nikki and Devon are making. Script inevitably merges with life. "Hollywood is full of stories," someone remarks, referring to the rumor that the Blue Tomorrows screenplay is itself haunted. A previous version was abandoned when "they discovered something inside the story. . . . The two leads were murdered."

Something or someone is lurking in the recesses of the set—and as Nikki's c haracter fissures, it turns out to be her. (Dern is in nearly every scene, and pondered by Lynch's DV camera, her long, angular face is taffy-pulled by wide-angle close-ups into a mask of anguish.) As if in a dream, Nikki is both spectator and protagonist. At one point she is trapped by a mysterious spotlight and spooks herself; at another, she climbs a shabby stairway somewhere in Poland and, suddenly another character altogether, launches into an outrageous, tough-girl confession that might be the world's most preposterous screen test.

Inland Empire is Nikki's world, but she doesn't live in it. She's variously threatened by characters out of On High in Blue Tomorrows—taunted, for example, by a lascivious girl gaggle who break into a choreographed version of "The Loco-Motion," thus providing Lynch's obligatory burst of '60s pop. Nikki's mansion devolves into a squalid dump, and a scary Pole known as the Phantom appears next door. Blood mixes with ketchup at a backyard barbecue. Nikki plays her big scene at 4 a.m. on the intersection of Hollywood and Vine, staggering across the star-spangled pavement to collapse amid the homeless.

Inland Empire is Lynch's most experimental film since Eraserhead. But unlike that brilliant debut (or its two masterful successors, Blue Velvet and Mulholland Dr.), it lacks concentration. It's a miasma. Cheap DV technology has opened Lynch's mental floodgates. Inland Empire is suffused with dread of . . . what? Sex, in Lynch, is a priori nightmarish. But there's a sense here that film itself is evil. Movies are all about editing and acting—which is to say, visual lies and verbal ones—and Inland Empire makes sure you think about both.

Lynch's notion of pure cinema is a matter of tawdry scenarios and disconcerting tonal shifts. Everything in Inland Empire is uncanny, unmoored, and out of joint. The major special effect is the creepy merging of spaces or times. Do the characters travel through wormholes from Los Angeles to Lodz and the sad, shabby rooms of the On High in Blue Tomorrows set? Are these memories or alternate worlds? Is Lynch looking for some sort of movie beneath the movie? (His long search for closure may be turgid and unrelenting, but it hardly lacks for conviction.) The heroine's persistent doubling and Lynch's continuous use of "creative geography" reinforce the sense that he assimilated Maya Deren's venerable avant-noir Meshes of the Afternoon at an impressionable age. And like Meshes, Inland Empire has no logic apart from its movie-ness.

It's three hours before Nikki is transfigured (by the "power of love") and her fearful trip is done. But given its nonexistent narrative rhythms, Inland Empire doesn't feel that long. (In fact, it doesn't feel like anything but itself.) It's an experience. Either you give yourself over to it or you don't. And if you do, don't miss the end credits.