Freedom

Abide as the Self

A lovely hour long film on Ramana Maharshi, narrated by Ram Dass. Presented here are rare photos and bits of film to go along with the story of Ramana's life and his essential teachings on self enquiry.

"We Don't Need More Copyright" - Tom W. Bell on Intellectual Property

"We don't need more copyright," says Chapman University law professor Tom W. Bell. "Probably we could dial it back and still enjoy this great wealth of culture that's been generated, that's already in our libraries."

Bell, a self-described "intellectual property skeptic," sat down with Reason TV to discuss his new book "Intellectual Privilege: Copyright, Common Law, and the Common Good."

Contemporary copyright law is a statutory privilege that inevitably contradicts our constitutional rights to free expression. The prospect of litigation scares off artists who want to create new works that exist in legal grey areas, like mashups, tributes, or parodies.

Bell's solution rests on a much simpler idea: we should emphasize common law instead of copyright. Common law -- which is to say, the established precedents that govern ordinary property, contracts, and torts -- already form the foundation of the American legal system. It provides plenty of encouragement for artists and designers to create new works, without the statutory failures of the current system.

How might the arts fare in a world without copyright protection? To a large extent, we already know the answer. Perfumes, jokes, recipes, fashion, furniture, and automobile design have never enjoyed copyright protection. Yet there's no shortage of creativity in any of these fields. Artists still find ways to make money -- sometimes a great deal of it -- in the absence of special legal protection.

After meeting with policymakers on Capitol Hill, Bell is hopeful about the prospects for reforming the Copyright Act. Legislators are starting to accept what consumers have long understood about the digital age: modern copyright law hinders the very innovation it was designed to promote.

Runs about 8:30.

The Demon Agenda

Every year I feel more like Agent
Smith. I hate this place and I want out. These repulsive creatures
surround me, touching me with their filthy hands, trying to infect
me. I don't know what I did to deserve getting thrown into this
prison, but it must have been really bad. I must have been Charlie
Manson evil if they threw me in the dungeon all these years and just
forgot about me.

That's how they get to you. They try to
drill into your mind that you're meat and nothing more. You're
biology. You popped out, and POOF, someone turned a switch and turned
you on for the first time and then years later someone turns the
switch, packs you up, ships you return to sender. It's a lie, it's
all bullshit, it's a trick to get you trapped into thinking and doing
what they want you to do.

And humans just eat it up. Someone
100 years ago found out the secret to programming humans and ever
since has been on a campaign to reprogram the entire species, and has
mostly succeeded spectacularly. 100 years and nearly three billion
humans have been totally reprogrammed. You know, that's more humans
than were alive 100 years ago. There were only two billion humans,
and now they've already reprogrammed three billion humans. The rest,
the other three billion? They'll be dead. Africa will be killed
entirely, so will most of Asia. The evil overlords will kill all the
undesirables with their super armies of reprogrammed soldiers willing
to die for nothing. That way they'll kill off two whole groups of
people, leaving the whole world for themselves and a few select
slaves.

But I see through it. They designed this mind
technique to work on human minds, but I don't have a human mind. I've
been exiled on this planet of wretched filth, but I didn't come from
here. They can't reprogram me. And I think they know it, because
they're not human either. They wear these skins to fit in among the
humans, but they were never human to begin with. That's how they can
control the humans. They are a far older and more powerful race,
having honed their skills at manipulation over millions of years,
spreading from planet to planet, blending in with the native
population, and taking over. They will not stop until they have
destroyed every world and there is nothing left anywhere.

See, these bodies, these meat suits,
they're not you. If they trick you into thinking you're meat then
you're subject to the laws of meat, the limitations of meat. They
don't want you to know you're more than meat, that you can control
meat, bend meat to your will. They want your power, and you willingly
give it to them, because they've gotten you to believe you are meat.
Meat is food, but they don't eat it, they eat your power. They need
it to live. They need to get good people to do bad things because
that gives them power. But they can never steal your power. They can
never make you do anything, there's no fun in that, no sport. You
have to willingly give up your own power and your own free will to
them. Being able to manipulate people, to control people, getting
people to willingly bow before them is like a cosmic orgasm. Just
killing someone, that's nothing, there's no trip to that, but getting
someone to kill oneself, that gives them so much power.

Beyond Fear of Death

Adi Da explains how all fear is fear of death, and how fear of death is the central feature, indeed the only feature, of the ego. Runs 25 minutes.

Eternal Day

A lovely short program (22 minutes) on the Super Specialty Hospitals founded by Sai Baba. This is in celebration of the 22nd anniversay of the hospitals, which opened in 1991. Tragically, Swami cannot be here in person to witness this event, but he is ever present, even if we cannot see his body.


The lovely ideal of selfless service (seva) is exemplified in this pair of free hospitals which have thus far helped 2.3 million patients.







This is the ideal. This is totally different from universal healthcare/ socialised medicine/ single payer. When people give of themselves of their own will selflessly that is the highest virtue. When a government steals money from people and redistributes it as it sees fit that is worse than thievery. A government cannot mandate morality, or else the value is totally removed. One cannot be moral or virtuous if one is compelled to act in such a way. It is only through one's own will that one may be virtuous.

Brains, Genes, and Free Choice

Another video about the Sufficiently Alien Hypothesis

Part One
I talk about the "Lord of the Flies Test" to determine if a PBC (Personality, Beliefs, Cognitive Structures) is viable or non-viable.

Part Two
I talk about people being offended about everything and how dignity can only come from free choice not circumstance.

The American Himmler

The infamous Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaiois at it again. This is that guy who likes to put on asinine
spectacles to get attention like everyone else who has ever lived who
has put on asinine spectacles. It's about ego stroking (maybe
stroking something else too).

I am convinced he is violating
the human and Constitutional rights of his inmates through his
practices, putting people awaiting trial in tents where temperatures
soar high enough to cause permanent brain damage and death, feeding
them inadequate or unhealthy food, keeping them in unhealthy crowded
conditions (everyone awaiting trial is innocent until proven guilty,
so he's basically trying to kill innocent people, and even if they
were guilty that doesn't make his treatment of these people any less
disgusting. People have died in his shithole prisons and the county
has paid millions to their families and still this motherfucker stays
in power.). He embezzles money left and right, he uses his power to
silence critics and obstruct justice, and is a worse monster than the
people he is incarcerating.

Well, the American Himmler is at
it again. His deputies, dressed in non-regulation camouflage, left
Maricopa County to illegally police the border when they came across
three militia men who were armed. There was an armed standoff between
the deputies and the men, who thought they were drug smugglers,
ending with one of the men being arrested. The militia men were not
in violation of any law, walking around unclaimed wilderness with
guns. When the deputies identified themselves as law enforcement,
albeit law enforcement outside its jurisdiction, they complied with
orders and put up no resistance.

The militia men were out
protecting their homes from the Mexican cartels who have taken over
the border. Self defense is something every creature has an innate
right to, but the power hungry piece of shit Arpaio, who has
conducted illegal operations on the border, outside his jurisdiction
multiple times, wants a monopoly of force and threw his massive gut,
I mean weight, I mean he's fat around.

“I have to commend
my deputy for not killing this person, which easily could have
happened,” Arpaio said. “He’s lucky he didn’t see 30 rounds
fired into him.” Yeah, I bet he gets a real hard on at the thought
of his personal army going out and killing people. 

30 rounds for one guy, seriously? That's excessive force, which is also illegal. It's also just plain stupid. There were three militia men there. Arpaio's deputy would unload his magazine into one man and then what would happen? If they were real Mexican cartel smugglers or just plain pissed off people he would get killed by the two other armed men while he is trying to reload. Arpaio is posturing, trying to use frighten law abiding citizens from exercising their Constitutional right to walk around the desert with a gun.

I no longer wonder what country I live in. It isn't America, and beyond that I don't care to know which totalitarian state it is.

The Fourteen Century War

A massive war between the Persians and the Byzantines weakens both empires. The Plague of Justinian wipes out millions. If not for these two events it would have been impossible for the Islamic conquest to spread beyond Arabia. This is the history the academe does not want you to hear. They spread the hagiographic version of Islamic history. This is the truth.







There has been a war going on for the past 1400 years for the destruction of Western civilisation. Plague had weakened the West, allowing Islam to spread, but because Islam never invented anything on its own, instead relying on knowledge stolen from conquered peoples, it stagnated. The Mongol invasions introduced new technologies to the West where lack of strong centralised authority and easy money allowed for great inovation. Hand cannons became guns, Indian mathematics became banking and mercantilism, and the desire to cut free of the Islamic yoke prompted explorers to find alternate routes for the acquisition of spices and, ultimately, the discover of the New World. The West surged technologically and beat back Islam until, by the 20th century, most of the Islamic world was divided up among Western colonies.



The West grew complacent, and Islam appropriated Western technology, growing stronger, waiting for the perfect opportunity to turn the tide of the war. March 1994, US President Clinton pulls out of Mogadishu. CIA trained Islamist Osama bin Laden saw this as the turning point in the war. The West had backed down. Furthermore, the West had grown soft. The elite intelligentsia had been denigrating the West for thirty years. The time was ripe to strike.



It's been twelve years since 9/11. Bin Laden and his ilk set out to destroy the Western way of life. With a United States government set on eliminating freedom of speech, the right to self defense, the total obliteration of privacy with unreasonable search and seizure of everyone's data, and the extrajudicial killing of Americans with drone strikes, it is safe to say that they have succeeded. The terrorists have won. The West is over.

New World Order

First, President George H. W. Bush talks about dismantling the United States and creating a UN-run "New World Order," which he assures us "will succeed."




Second, Vice President Joe Biden talks about the imperative for creating a "New World Order," because the old order - the United States - doesn't work in the 21st century world where Mongolia is serious economic threat and the "playing field" must be "leveled." They're task is not complete, but they're getting there.



Get it? Political parties are a fiction. They exist to distract us from the truth: the
people in power want to dismantle the United States and create a one
world government. With the horrendously extreme increase in executive power, the relegation of the Congress to a farcical show, and the courts legislating from the bench the overthrow of the very foundation of every single society that has ever existed, is it still a conspiracy? Do you not believe yet?

The End of the World

In the great film Alexander, Hephaestion, Alexander's life long companion, asks Alexander "What would you do if you ever reached the end of the world?" At the other end of the world, near the International Date Line it is already 2 PM on Friday. Friday, 21 December 2012, the end of the world. According to some people, tomorrow (or today in some places that are already tomorrow) will be the last day ever, or something. To be fair, I had my own story "The L", which I began writing in 2006, have the end of the world begin tomorrow, when The Pinnacle Research Group initiated a global disaster from Bouvet Island. In my story the 21st is only the beginning of the end of the world, with the world not ending completely until fifteen years later after great tribulations have claimed five billion lives and ravaged the surface of the Earth.



It has been six years since I began my mystical career in January 2006, and started writing The Urban Mystic in February that same year (on AOL, which no longer exits, so you cannot access past archives which I have saved). It has been five years since I had my first taste of radical Freedom, One Taste, in January 2007, when the world was on the inside and my eyes were on the outside and my self was blasted across the face of the Kosmos. It has been four years since Christmas 2008 when I had a dream about the end of the world, 21 December 2012, where balls of light came to Earth and began erasing everything they touched. It has been nearly two years since I discovered My Little Pony, something that has really touched me and helped affect my life for the better. I have made predictions: the "Arab Spring", genetically modified viruses that mimic psychotropic drugs, the "Great Winter of 2010", among others. These past six years have been full of ups and downs, but I wouldn't trade them for the life I lived before.



Now, it seems like it is the end of the world. This year I was told that I need to make sacrifices to enter the next phase of my mystical career. The choice is mine, but it is a choice between being a mystic and living a normal life, and it is the greatest choice of my life, and the most difficult. A mirror reflects everything that falls on it, without altering the thing it is reflecting or becoming attached to it. A mirror mind, the mind of enlightenment, is the same. Cutting the fetters of attachment is necessary for enlightenment, and there are a few that seem too well entrenched in my psyche to be cut loose. If I go down this path farther I must deal with the death of the small self and all the little things it has accumulated over the years. What's really interesting is, I was told this would happen in the beginning! I was told in 2006 I would have these choices to make in 2012. I was told what to expect and when to expect it, and I failed to notice until most of the signs already passed and it was too late to prepare, just yesterday. Regardless of what happens in the external world tomorrow, it may well be the end of the world for my little self.



Come what may, it will be for the best. It has been a wonderful time, dear couple of readers (actually about 20 a day). I love you all.



Always Love.

Benghazi Was An Inside Job

In 2010 I made a series of predictions while writing a worst case scenario fictional novel called 7 Days about the New World Order. I had to stop writing when in 2011 the Arab Spring happened and fulfilled the first of my predictions, that a contagious madness would spread around the Mediterranean. I spent the entire year following the events of the Arab Spring, a series of events I called The World Gone Mad. I made a few other predictions, including the enactment of the NDAA and NDRP, which allow Obama to detain Americans indefinitely or execute them without due process and declair martial law for any reason. By 10 September 2012, I had two (or three, depending on how you look at them) predictions left unfulfilled, and they were very scary. The next day, the eleventh anniversary of 9/11, the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya, was attacked by al-Qaeda, and one of those two predictions came true. It wasn't until Hurricane Sandy took out my power for nine days (which is why I didn't update the Constitution series) that I realised that Benghazi fulfilled my prediction.



I had said there would be a false flag terror attack on US soil. I discounted the Benghazi attack because I thought it was Libya, but listening to the radio one night it hit me, a US consulate IS US soil!



Okay, so a terror attack happened on US soil, that doesn't mean I was right, does it? It wasn't false flag, right? Actually, it is not that simple.



The US armed and funded al-Qaeda in Libya to decapitate Qaddaffi*. Three of the four Americans killed on 9/11/12 were CIA operatives who were trying to recover guns that were given to al-Qaeda. By the way, providing aid and comfort to an enemy in a time of war is the legal definition of treason, the nation's most serious crime, and it carries a death sentence. Someone, or many people, in the US government are traitors and should be hanged.



Internal documents leaked by someone inside the Department of State reveal that ambassador Stevens was deeply concerned over security in Benghazi, and had pleaded for more security. A FLASH** message was received by president Obama three hours prior to the attack, stating that an attack was immanent. The nearest US military installation was 40 minutes away by air. The attack could have been prevented, the president knew it was going to happen and watched it happen live via an overhead drone. At the very best president Obama let the Benghazi attack happen; at worst he, and other elements in the US government including the CIA, made it happen through weapons and aid given to the people who perpetrated the attacks. Benghazi was an inside job, and my prediction has come to pass, Q.E.D.



The only thing I got wrong was the date. I had predicted the attack would happen in December 2012, and it happened in September. Things are unfolding faster than I anticipated.



Furthermore, I predicted the purpose of the attack would be to get people to demand expansion of government and a decrease of personal liberty. For weeks the official story was that a movie by a convicted meth dealer that 100 people saw in July that demeans the prophet Muhammad in an amateurish attempt at emulating Monty Python's Life of Brian, was the cause of the attacks. The meth dealer was disappeared without due process and is being held in a black site somewhere. Calls were made by top government officials, including president Obama and secretary of state Clinton, to limit free speech by making insulting Islam illegal. The hope was that people would buy this story and demand "yes, let's make insulting Islam illegal!" That has not happened. I am left to conclude that not only was I right about the attack happening, I was right as to the reason it took place as well.



There is one prediction left (or two, if you break it into two parts). I said this would happen in February 2013, but it may happen sooner. First, there will be massive civil unrest in the United States, and then the military will find out about the government's involvement in the terror attack, and tired from liberty being stolen and endless wars overseas, the military will turn on the government. They may stage a full coup d'eta, or they may just walk off and refuse to fight any more. I have been right on every single issue except this one so far. Pray I am wrong this time.





*Someone calculated all the possible spellings of his name, and came to the conclusion that there are at least 40 legitimate spellings.



**FLASH is the highest priority message sent by the military. All lower priority messages are interrupted, and the receipt of the message requires acknowledgement.

Muslim Brotherhood/ Al Qaeda Takeover

The attacks on sovereign US soil in Egypt, Libya, and Yemen from the coordinated attack by Islamists was not incited by a fourteen minute Youtube video made by a convicted meth dealer in California. These attacks are part of a plan initiated in 2005 to make criticism of Islam illegal all over the world. The video (uploaded in July) was used as a convenient excuse for an attack on the eleventh anniversary of 9/11.



Sovereign US soil was attacked (an act of war). Four Americans were killed including one of only six US ambassadors ever killed. We cannot surrender the US Constitution and replace it with sharia law. We cannot sit idle while our freedom is slaughtered on the alter of appeasement.




Representative Louie Gohmert (R. Texas) respondes (23 minutes):

The Future

Why does the future matter?





I got an email from one of the Integral operations that seems to be becoming more cult-like (including the creation of an "Integral community", which seems very tribal, almost like a regression to first tier, and an article and video "why Integral people should vote for Obama"). The question asked "why does the future matter?" I was going to write on it yesterday, but I was tired so I saved it for today.



As Ken says “The way you approach the present isn’t just determined by the way you approach the past, but by the way you approach the future. The richer conception of the future you have, the richer your life in the present becomes.” There is also audio that goes with the quote where Ken talks about different schools of futurism. What's really interesting is toward the end, after talking about how quickly technology is advancing, Ken asks the question "what problems do we want to solve first?" Do we want to advance technologically really fast and solve problems with world hunger and environmental degradation, or do we want to advance interiors first? Seeing as how most people's interiors are seriously lagging behind do we really want to have someone at level two or three (communist China or some two-bit dictator) acquiring technology to make nuclear weapons look like toys? Perhaps the imperative is to get the majority of people to a stage that recognises human rights before we develop computers that can enslave humanity or superplagues that can wipe us all out.



I don't know if Ken (or the Integral "community") would agree, but this seems like a clarion call to me. It rings out like a night watchman "don't let Iran get the bomb!" We are talking about a group of people who believe that the messiah won't come until they kill all the Jews; a group of people who believe dying in the cause of global domination is a one way ticket to a paradise filled with hookers. This is a group of people who tore down neighborhoods inside Tehran to make processional boulivards so when the messiah comes in their lifetimes his multitude of chariots could have enough room. The Iranian people have come on hands and knees three times begging US aid and support to overthrow the Mullahs and three times the US flipped them off while hundreds were murdered in the streets. These are dangerous, evil people and we cannot let them have control of the future. It is better to decapitate their regime now than wait for the Third World War after they get nukes.



At the same time I am reminded to seek guidance from A Course in Miracles. These are two passages from the urtext*:

Your instability and his weakness have resulted from bad karmic choices, and your relationship NOW is crucial for the future. (36)

[Edgar Cayce] did not realize that it is only what [the mind] is building NOW the really creates the future. The past, in itself, does not have the ability to do this. Whenever we move from one instant to the next, the previous one no longer exists. (78)

What we do now, our thoughts and actions, is what creates the future. As the original email asked "what future we are imagining for ourselves, for the integral movement, and for the impact of the integral vision on our shared future?" The future we imagine is the future we will act upon. The future is a reflection of the choices we make now, and we will not be able to escape the consequences of those choices.



So, what future are we imagining for ourselves and the integral movement? Anyone who is familiar with The Urban Mystic knows what I foresee for the future. I predicted the "Arab Spring," the NDAA and NDRP, and the behavioural modification viruses. So far all the predictions I made in 7 Days have come true, and there are only two left:



1. False flag terror attack on US soil. The Department of Homeland Security infects small government activists with the brain eating virus at the New Year's celebration in NYC to make them look like terrorists. The idea is to get the public to demand the government to crack down on small government people so it can take over all of our liberties. This event has not happened yet. ETA: 31 December 2012.



2. US military stages coup d'eta. The word gets out that the attack in NYC was staged by DHS, not a terror group, and in response factions in the US military loyal to their oath to uphold the Constitution and defend the United States from all enemies foreign and domestic attempt to decapitate the US government to root out the corruption once and for all. This event has not happened yet. ETA: February 2013.



I'm not happy that viruses that mimic the effects of antipsychotic drugs are really being considered (or already exist), or that the President has given himself the authority to execute any American citizen without due process simply by saying that person is a "terrorist." I don't want a military coup, but unfortunately that is the future I am invisioning. Let's face it, the world has really gone downhill fast since 9/11 (the eleventh anniversary is tomorrow) and I can't see a way out unless drastic measures are taken right away. We have to get the statists out of office and restore the authority of the Constitution as invisioned by the founders. If past is prelude, the future ain't looking too bright.



What am I foreseeing regarding Integral? Well, it's leaders are already pretty far left and they are largely endorsing the biggest statist in US history for president (someone whom I said in 2008 would be like four more terms of Bush when people cried McCain would be four more years of Bush. I was right.). Will more people reach second tier in the year ahead? Possibly. There's already been major forces stirring in the American psyche with the big successes of the Tea Party in 2010 and the less specacular results of the Occupy Wallstreet folks (I said they should have occupied Washington instead), as well as the huge groundswell in Ron Paul supporters, with even Mitt Romney saying he wants to audit the Fed due to overwhelming pressure from the Dr. Paul crowd. Things could start looking up in 2013, if we do what is needed to get America on track (by first not reelecting Obama, then forcing Romney to act more like Ron Paul), we could help the Iranian people (who are overwhelmingly pro-US and pro-West) get out from the yoke of their oppressive medieval leaders with a truly democratic Iranian Spring in 2013 (unlike the Arab Spring, that saw the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, and now Syria).



What am I foreseeing for myself? That is none of your business.



Always love.









 *The unedited, original version of A Course in Miracles as released on the Internet. The Circle of Atonement says ""A Course in Miracles Urtext Manuscripts" is a printed version of the Urtext, the original typescript that was typed by Bill Thetford from Helen Schucman dictating her notes to him. It includes approximately 50,000 words that are not included in the familiar FIP version. The Urtext includes extensive discussions of the Bible, sex, possession, Freud and other topics which were edited out of other editions. There are over 2,400 footnotes to Bible references and variant ACIM readings."

Arizona Law Does Not Harm Women

 HuffPo is about as anti-choice as one can get!



Vous may have heard of a new law in Arizona that liberal racists hate (they tend to hate everything from Arizona because they don't actually have to live there), called HB 2036. The title of a Huff the Magic Dragon article reads "Arizona Passes Abortion Law That Says Pregnancy Begins Before A Child Has Been Conceived," and claims that this is "another blow to reproductive rights in the US" (when was the first blow? - that's what she said). It goes on to say:



"Aside from banning all abortions after 20 weeks, defined from the date of the woman's last period instead of conception except in the case of medical emergency, it will force women considering abortion because of fetal abnormalities to have counselling, and for women having an abortion to have an ultrasound.



"It also says the age of a foetus is "is calculated from the first day of the last [woman's] menstrual period.""



I did something HuffPo didn't do, and actually read the text of HB 2036. Here's what it says regarding the beginning of pregnancy:



""Pregnant" or "pregnancy" means a female reproductive condition of having a developing unborn child in the body and that begins with conception.



Abortion does not include birth control devices, oral contraceptives used to inhibit or prevent ovulation, conception or the implantation of a fertilized ovum in the uterus or the use of any means to i̶n̶c̶r̶e̶a̶s̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶p̶r̶o̶b̶a̶b̶i̶l̶i̶t̶y̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶a̶ ̶l̶i̶v̶e̶ ̶b̶i̶r̶t̶h̶ save the life or preserve the health of the unborn child, to preserve the life or health of the child after a live birth, to terminate an ectopic pregnancy or to remove a dead fetus" (from the final, ammended version, strikethrough and emphasis included).



Right in the title the HuffPo article is lying, and it's not just lying out of ignorance or neglecting to mention something, it's a blatant lie. The text actually says pregnancy begins at conception, not before.



One thing HuffPo got right is how gestational age is calculated, as the actual text reads:  "the age of the unborn child as calculated from the first day of the last menstrual period of the pregnant woman." However, there's nothing controversial about that at all. According to the National Institutes of Health:  "In human obstetrics, gestational age is often defined as the time
elapsed since 14 days prior to fertilization. This is approximately the
duration since the woman's last menstrual period (LMP) began." The Arizona law is using the national standard system for calculating the age of the unborn child, not making up some draconian anti-women rule. Everyone's calculations are done that way; there is absolutely nothing controversial about that.



What about restricting (not banning) abortions after 20 weeks? Well, according to the CDC only 1.3% of all abortions in America and 0.8% of all abortions in Arizona happen after 20 weeks anyway. HuffPo is arguing over less than one percent of abortions in the state, and many of them (all 105 in 2004) probably had either maternal or fetal health factor in in some way (the later in term an abortion is the greater the risk to the mother, so getting an abortion halfway through the second trimester isn't nearly as safe as earlier on), so there's no saying that this number will be affected in any way at all.



What about the other provisions? What's wrong with giving women considering getting an abortion counseling? It's a huge decision, one not to be taken lightly. One does not simply wake up one morning and says "hey, I'll get an abortion, then I'll get cake and celebrate!" This is something that requires a lot of thought, does carry health risks (there are some studies suggesting an abortion-breast cancer link; I don't know, I haven't read them), and has psychological repercussions (a lot of women have to deal with post-abortion depression, not unlike postpartum depression). This isn't the same thing as buying a hat, this isn't even the same as buying a car, this is something not to be decided upon brashly. By all means, let women considering an abortion talk it out with someone in a calm, adult fashion.


And what of ultrasounds? What's wrong with that? The bigger the decision the more information you should have before you make it. You wouldn't buy a car by going to a dealership and picking one at random? Doesn't "pro-choice" mean just that, pro-CHOICE? Shouldn't the woman considering an abortion be given information from BOTH sides so she can make an informed CHOICE, and not just pro-abortion propaganda? How is it possible to make a choice if one is given a single option? Arizona's new law actually promotes genuine choice, and actually empowers women (is it not said that "knowledge is power"?). But HuffPo wouldn't know that - I doubt they read the actual text of the law - and they certainly don't want their readers to know that because they never linked to the actual law itself! They expect their readers to take their word for it and not do their own research and make up their own minds! HuffPo is about as anti-choice as one can get!

The Witness, the Ego, and the Shadow Walk into a Bar...

This is a bit personal, but it is actually really really good. I did a little (a lot actually) of introspection starting at around 10:50 PM yesterday and just finished up. It's sort of a dialogue between my normal personality and my more distant Witness. It's an integration (or an attempt at integration) between the Witness, the Ego, and the Shadow. I'm not saying I succeeded in much of anything but I am feeling a lot better now. The Ego and Witness do most of the talking (Witness is always in italics) and the Shadow chimes in some times. It can be a bit hard to follow. This is not as effective as the 3-2-1 technique I've done once before, but at the time I started I didn't really know what was going on.



Thinking Allowed



I was thinking about [Name Withheld] today. I'm dissatisfied with my otherwise boring life. I want one of those crazy drug and party lives.



Why?



Because self-destructive women have crazy drug and party lives.



Why should that matter?



Because I want a self-destructive woman.



Why the hell would you want that?



Because [Name Withheld] was a self-destructive woman and I want her back.



Why?



Because that part of my life, my being with her, if you can call it that, was a failure. She wounded me. I opened myself up to being wounded and I've been trying to remedy that ever since by finding a replacement for her whom I can conquer. I'm looking for a [Name Withheld] substitute because I want her.



I wanted to make her feel special. I wanted to make her feel loved. I wanted to hold her and protect her and just be with her – just the two of us. I'm full and she's empty and I want to empty myself into her.



I understand this is asinine on an intellectual level but it still hurts.



Is that okay?



I actually felt like crying but then I called myself a pussy so I didn't.



Do you really want her back?



What do you mean?



What is it that you really want? I mean, you weren't fulfilled when you were with her, were you?



I guess not.



So what is it that you really want if it's not to be back with her?



I don't know.



Maybe you were wounded before you met her? I'm not saying ending with her wasn't tough, but maybe you wanted someone who was damaged not because you had benevolent intentions, but because you wanted someone to shit on you. Maybe you wanted someone to check your anger. Anger is your sin, is it not? You set out to fail and you succeeded in that because you wanted to be shot down.



Why? Because I was angry with myself? Is that it? I was angry with myself and I wanted someone to tear my heart out?



I think so.



I feel powerless and that makes me angry. I focus my anger inward because I feel I should be more than this. It was different then – the specific conditions that is – but the feeling is still there. The feeling of powerlessness. This world has never made sense to me. It's always felt like exile. I'm here as penance. I left my eternal home, my ultimate freedom, my omnipotence, and I find myself in this tiny, limited, frightened body in this alien world and I don't know why and I want out. I look for what I am missing in myself out there, but I know it's not out there so I look for it in a way that I know I will fail to remind myself that the solution lies within, not without.



There is also the fullness and emptiness thing. I do want to fill what is empty, and empty what is full. I want to be empty. I want to return to emptiness. The ultimate effulgence wants to get out, to spread, to radiate on as many others as possible.



I guess I'm just lonely and I want someone to be lonely with? Is that it? I want to be with someone who is as confused as me, someone who is as lonely as me, as desparate for filling what is empty and emptying what is full as me. On one level I want to expand in love, which is my true nature, and since I can't do that to the fullest extent I get frustrated. On the other my little self wants validation in its state of confusion – in its state of being lost. It is the struggle between self and Self. I guess that doesn't go away.



No, it does not. Ego is always there at some level, and it's not bad either. Ego is just "I". Letting the Ego run around uncontrolled is bad, but when tamed it can be used for good. This is all a normal part of spiritual development.

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I was going to include a KW video on the Ego and the Witness but it seem to have been taken down, so here's something else.

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ

I write to you concerning an alarming and serious matter that negatively impacts the Church in the United States directly, and that strikes at the fundamental right to religious liberty for all citizens of any faith. The federal government, which claims to be “of, by, and for the people,” has just been dealt a heavy blow to almost a quarter of those people — the Catholic population — and to the millions more who are served by the Catholic faithful.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced last week that almost all employers, including Catholic employers, will be forced to offer their employees’ health coverage that includes sterilization, abortion-inducing drugs, and contraception. Almost all health insurers will be forced to include those “services” in the health policies they write. And almost all individuals will be forced to buy that coverage as a part of their policies.

In so ruling, the Obama Administration has cast aside the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, denying to Catholics our Nation’s first and most fundamental freedom, that of religious liberty. And as a result, unless the rule is overturned, we Catholics will be compelled to either violate our consciences, or to drop health coverage for our employees (and suffer the penalties for doing so). The Obama Administration’s sole concession was to give our institutions one year to comply.

We cannot—we will not—comply with this unjust law. People of faith cannot be made second class citizens. We are already joined by our brothers and sisters of all faiths and many others of good will in this important effort to regain our religious freedom. Our parents and grandparents did not come to these shores to help build America’s cities and towns, its infrastructure and institutions, its enterprise and culture, only to have their posterity stripped of their God given rights. In generations past, the Church has always been able to count on the faithful to stand up and protect her sacred rights and duties. I hope and trust she can count on this generation of Catholics to do the same. Our children and grandchildren deserve nothing less.

And therefore, I would ask of you two things. First, as a community of faith we must commit ourselves to prayer and fasting that wisdom and justice may prevail, and religious liberty may be restored. Without God, we can do nothing; with God, nothing is impossible. Second, I would also recommend visiting www.usccb.org/conscience,to learn more about this severe assault on religious liberty, and how to contact Congress in support of legislation that would reverse the Obama Administration’s decision.

Freedom of Smoking

Have you noticed that, for several years, the government has been trying to take away our freedom of smoking? Just because I elect not to exercise this, I'm going to call it a privilege, that does not mean that I am not still irked by the grotesque actions the government is taking with regard to smoking. Cigarette prices grow ever higher - twice, or more, the price of a gallon of gasoline, a far larger quantity of a far more useful commodity. Where before smoking was permitted everywhere, the non-smokers relegated to some paltry, isolated, ill-fashioned areas, now the roles have been reversed. That is not to say I am not happy with the new arrangements at resturants. Putting the non-smoking section in the back, accessible only through the smoking section, seemed to defeat the purpose of having separate sections at all. I'm glad, thrilled even, that I no longer come home having to shower and wash my clothes, but couldn't they just switch the locations and relegate the smokers to the oft forgotten back room, away from the entertainment and exits?



I'm glad for the waiters, already a thankless profession (ruined by Starbucks - whose coffee tastes foul, I might add, and is rather pricey - who ask for tips for their "baristas" when I could just as easily pour my own; now with everyone expecting a gratuity the gesture has forever lost its meaning, a gift for exceptional service, and has become just another bill), who no longer have to breathe the foul clouds of their patrons every day. Still, glad as I may be, this never was about me but about all of us. The problems I had were not with smoking but with courtesy and that is something that cannot be legislated.



You can't smoke in bars, you can't smoke in parks, you can't smoke in cars if children are present - a caveat some try to push on smoking in your own home! More and more there are fewer and fewer places to light up these ever more expensive things. Campaigns are being waged to replace the Surgeon General's warnings (the Surgeon General is technically an admiral) with pictures of dead people. Not just dead people, but putrid, puss oozing, zombie-like dead people, to scare consumers away from cigarettes. I'm pretty sure most smokers know the risks involved with their passtime; you don't have to rub it in.



Some people want to smoke. Some people never have any serious health effects from years of lighting up. Their habit hurts no one and benefits the government millions of dollars in taxes. Why work so hard to kill the golden goose? Why shift from one extreme of everywhere unlimited smoking to the other extreme of no smoking anywhere? Why not, as the Buddha would say, persue the middle way? A way of common sense, common courtesy, and maturity with regard to smoking? $8 per pack is bad enough. Can we at least stop pushing tax payers who already have nowhere to go by letting them enjoy their tax paying hobby without bankrupting them? Can't we have just a little more freedom of smoking?

Egypt : A Call for Restraint

Egyptians have no history of self governance. They have lived under absolutist rulers for 5,000 years. Any government that is created in the heat of the moment will either be one ruled by a tyrant or will soon fall to tyranny. We must let cooler heads prevail, end the protests, and begin the long process of negotiations in which a realistic solution can be reached. This can best be done by letting Mubarak serve out his term.



Run time 13 minutes

Tibet: The Story Of A Tragedy

In 1950, China peacefully liberated the shit out of Tibet, ending roughly 1400 years of independence. Temples and monestaries destroyed, forced labour camps were set up, one million people were killed, one sixth of the total population, agriculture was ruined, leading to mass famines. The hammer of communism came down and by the time it was finished Tibet was thoroughly drenched in blood.

Here is a nice French documentary about the history of the West's interaction with Tibet and China's invasion (it's in English).