all roads now lead to transmutation

Hallucinate Without the Use of Drugs

New Thought Sermon: Doghouseitis

Thomas Troward: How to Master Life

(The Science behind "The Secret")

From a century ago, in the formerly out of print, Edinburgh Lectures.

Glenn Greenwald: The Baseless, and Failed, ‘Move to the Center’ Cliche

Published on Monday, June 30, 2008 by Salon.com

Republican Nancy Johnson of Connecticut was first elected to Congress in 1982, and proceeded to win re-election 11 consecutive times, often quite easily.

In 2004, she defeated her Democratic challenger by 22 points. The district is historically Republican, and split its vote 49-49 for Bush and Kerry in the 2004 presidential election.

In 2006, Rep. Johnson was challenged by a 31-year-old Democrat, Chris Murphy, who ran on a platform of, among other things, ending the Iraq War, opposing Bush policies on eavesdropping and torture, and rejecting what he called the “false choice between war and civil liberties.” Johnson outspent her Democratic challenger by a couple million dollars, and based her campaign on fear-mongering ads focusing on Murphy’s opposition to warrantless eavesdropping, such as this one:

The result?

Johnson was crushed:

Rep. Nancy Johnson, a 12-term Republican who ran a tough-on-terror campaign and touted her co-authorship of the Medicare prescription drug legislation, lost her re-election bid Tuesday to anti-war Democrat Chris Murphy.

Murphy had 56 percent to Johnson’s 44 percent with 12 percent of the precincts voting.

Johnson was the longest serving representative in Congress in state history.

Johnson’s final margin of defeat was 12 points.


Despite continuing to represent a tough, split district, Rep. Murphy — as he runs for re-election for the first time — recently voted against passage of the FISA/telecom amnesty bill, obviously unafraid that such Terrorism fear-mongering works any longer.

That pattern has repeated itself over and over. In the 2006 midterm election, Karl Rove repeatedly made clear that the GOP strategy rested on making two National Security issues front and center in the midterm campaign:

Democrats’ opposition to warrantless eavesdropping and their opposition to “enhanced interrogation techniques” against Terrorists.


Not only did the Democrats swat away those tactics, taking away control of both houses of Congress in 2006, but more unusually, not a single Democratic incumbent in either the House or Senate — not one — lost an election.

With Rove’s National Security, Terrorist-fear-mongering campaign, huge numbers of GOP incumbents were removed from office and replaced with Democratic newcomers.

Voters were simply impervious to claims that Democrats should be denied power because their opposition to eavesdropping and torture made them Soft on Terror. Earlier this year, Bill Foster made opposition to the Iraq War a centerpiece of his campaign — and emphatically opposed both warrantless eavesdropping and telecom immunity — and then won a special election to replace Denny Hastert in his bright red Illinois district.

As the 2008 election approaches, the Democrats’ position has strengthened further still.

In fact, in attempting to determine the best targets for the $325,000 we have raised so far to target Bush-enabling Democrats in Congress, the most difficult obstacle by far has been to find even a single Democratic incumbent who is vulnerable.

Not only does it appear that they all are likely to be re-elected, it’s actually difficult to identify ones who have any real chance of losing. That’s how weakened the GOP brand is and how vehemently the country has rejected their ideology and politics — in every realm, including national security.

* * * * *



So what, then, is the basis for the almost-unanimously held Beltway conventional view that Democrats generally, and Barack Obama particularly, will be politically endangered unless they adopt the Bush/Cheney approach to Terrorism and National Security, which — for some reason — is called “moving to the Center”? There doesn’t appear to be any basis for that view.

It’s just an unexamined relic from past times, the immovable, uncritical assumption of Beltway strategists and pundits who can’t accept that it isn’t 1972 anymore — or even 2002.

Beyond its obsolescence, this “move-to-the-center” cliché ignores the extraordinary political climate prevailing in this country, in which more than 8 out of 10 Americans believe the Government is fundamentally on the wrong track and the current President is one of the most unpopular in American history, if not the most unpopular.

The very idea that Bush/Cheney policies are the “center,” or that one must move towards their approach in order to succeed, ignores the extreme shifts in public opinion generally regarding how our country has been governed over the last seven years.


One could argue that national security plays a larger role in presidential elections than in Congressional races, and that very well may be.

But was John Kerry’s narrow 2004 loss to George Bush due to the perception that Kerry — who ran as fast as he could towards the mythical Center — was Soft on Terrorism?

Or was it due to the understandable belief that his rush to the Center meant that he stood for nothing, that he was afraid of his own views — the real hallmark, the very definition, of weakness?

By the time of the 2004 election, huge numbers of Americans already turned against Bush’s position on the War and ceased trusting him even in the realm of National Security.

Thus, the defining claim of Bush’s 2004 acceptance speech at the GOP Convention — the central distinction he drew between himself and Kerry — was not that his National Security views were right, but rather, was this:

This election will also determine how America responds to the continuing danger of terrorism — and you know where I stand.

. . .

In the last four years, you and I have come to know each other. Even when we don’t agree, at least you know what I believe and where I stand.

Bush’s ability to project “Strength” came not from advocacy of specific policies, but from his claim to stand by his beliefs even when they were politically unpopular.

For that reason, isn’t the perception that Obama is abandoning his own core beliefs — or, worse, that he has none — a much greater political danger than a failure to move to the so-called “Center” by suddenly adopting Bush/Cheney Terrorism policies? As a result of Obama’s reversal on FISA, his very noticeable change in approach regarding Israel, his conspicuous embrace of the Scalia/Thomas view in recent Supreme Court cases, and a general shift in tone, a very strong media narrative is arising that Obama is abandoning his core beliefs for political gain.

That narrative — that he’s afraid to stand by his own beliefs — appears far more likely to result in a perception that Obama is “Weak” than a refusal to embrace Bush/Cheney national security positions.

What’s most amazing about the unexamined premise that Democrats must “move to the Center” (i.e., adopt GOP views) is that this is the same advice Democrats have been following over and over and which keeps leading to their abject failure.

It’s the advice Kerry followed in 2004. It’s why Democrats rejected Howard Dean and chose John Kerry instead.

And in 2002, huge numbers of Congressional Democrats voted to authorize the attack on Iraq based on this same premise that doing so would enable them to avoid looking Weak on National Security.

The GOP then based its whole 2002 campaign on attacking Democrats as Weak on National Security and the Democrats were crushed — because, having accepted rather than debated the GOP premises, there was no way to challenge GOP National Security arguments.

What makes Democrats look weak is their patent fear of standing by their own views.

A Washington Post article last week on Obama’s move to the center included this insight:

“American voters tend to reward politicians who take clear stands,” said David Sirota, a former Democratic aide on Capitol Hill and author of the new populist-themed book “The Uprising.”

“When Obama takes these mushy positions, it could speak to a character issue.

Voters that don’t pay a lot of attention look at one thing:

‘Does the guy believe in something?’ They may be saying the guy is afraid of his own shadow.”

The central problem is that if Democrats embrace the GOP framework of National Security — that “Strength” means what the GOP says it means — then that framework gets enforced and perpetuated, and it’s a framework within which Democrats can’t possibly win, because Republicans will always “out-Strength” Democrats within that framework. It’s only by challenging and disputing the underlying premises can Democrats change the way that “strength” and “weakness” are understood.

The Democrats had such a smashing victory in 2006 because — for the first time in a long time, and really despite themselves — there was a perception (rightly or wrongly) that they actually stood for something different than the GOP in National Security (an end to the War in Iraq).

Drawing a clear distinction with the deeply unpopular GOP is how Democrats look strong.

The advice that they should “move to the center” and copy Republicans is guaranteed to make them look weak — because it is weak. It’s the definition of weakness.

The most distinctive and potent — one could even say exciting — aspect of Obama’s campaign had been his aggressive refusal to accept GOP pieties on National Security, his insistence that the GOP would lose — and should lose — debates over who is “stronger” and more “patriotic” and who will keep us more safe.

The widely-celebrated foreign policy memo written by Obama’s adviser, Samantha Power, heaped scorn on Washington’s national security “conventional wisdom,” emphasizing how weak and vulnerable it has made the U.S. When Obama took that approach, he appeared to be, and in fact was, resolute and unapologetic in defending his own views — the very attributes that define “strength.”

The advice he’s getting, and apparently beginning to follow, is now the opposite: that he should shed his prior beliefs in favor of the amorphous, fuzzy, conventional GOP-leaning Center, that he should cease to insist on a re-examination of National Security premises and instead live within the GOP framework.

That’s likely to lead to many things, but a perception of strength isn’t one of them.

One of the very few things in the universe with a worse track record than America’s dominant Foreign Policy Community is the central religious belief of the Democratic consultant class and Beltway punditry that Democrats, to be successful, must shed their own beliefs and “move to the Center.”

* * * * *

As a brief follow-up to the Keith-Olbermann-promoted claim that Obama’s support for the FISA bill is justifiable not only because it lets him avoid being depicted as “soft on terror,” but also because it leaves open the possibility that Obama can criminally prosecute telecoms once he’s President, NPR correspondent Daniel Schorr said last January that he “can imagine Mr. Bush, if nothing else avails, issuing a blanket pardon for phone companies that may have broken the law.”

As I pointed out on Friday, a Bush pardon would completely foreclose any Secret Plan to prosecute the telecoms criminally, even if Obama really did harbor such a plan and intended to execute it (despite never having even hinted at any such thing).





On Friday, Olbermann announced that he intends to deliver a “Special Comment” on Monday’s show to elaborate on his “Obama/FISA” defense.

When doing so, he should address this rather towering defect in his Obama-defending theory.

UPDATE:

To clarify, I’m not making an argument here about why Democrats (including Obama) “really” support Bush policies in terms of their “true motives.”

The term “Democrats,” even when confined to those in Congress, includes several hundred individuals, and their motives can’t be discussed monolithically.

Many Democrats support Bush policies because they believe in them.


Others don’t believe in them but are persuaded that they must support them in order to be re-elected.


Still others have no beliefs at all other than their own re-election and do whatever they perceive is most likely to achieve that.

Here, I’m simply taking the political argument at face value — that Democrats must “move to the Center” in order to win — and arguing why that’s empirically false.


UPDATE II:

Without my endorsing every point that’s made, Digby adds several thoughts in a post that is well worth reading.

Glenn Greenwald was previously a constitutional law and civil rights litigator in New York.

He is the author of the New York Times Bestselling book “How Would a Patriot Act?,” a critique of the Bush administration’s use of executive power.

His second book, “A Tragic Legacy“, examines the Bush legacy.
© Salon.com

Grit TV with Laura Flanders

A Glimmer of Light in Television Wasteland
By MIKE WHITNEY

It's time to knock the cobwebs off the television and fish the remote from the trashcan. Believe it or not, there's finally something worth watching on TV. GRIT TV with Laura Flanders is a fast-paced political talk show that leaves its mainstream competitors in the rear-view mirror. This is the real deal and Flanders is hands-down the best interviewer in the business. She's bright, cheerful, well-informed and engaging. She also keeps the topic moving briskly from panelist to panelist, an art in itself. She even has a good handle on what's going on in the financial markets which is typically a weak-spot for liberals.

This isn't a half-hour free-for-all like the McLaughlin Group or another tedious spitting-match between a Loofah-wielding simian and his faux-liberal guest. GRIT TV is a forum for intelligent, articulate progressives to discuss the issues in depth without a script or an agenda. It's what TV is supposed to be, a way to strengthen democracy by maintaining an informed public. It's taken a while, but GRIT TV is headed in the right direction.

Political junkies don't have to wait for Bill Moyers Journal on Friday nights anymore to get their fix of thought-provoking analysis. GRIT TV runs Monday through Thursdays on Free Speech TV with a new panel every night covering everything from the environment, elections, race, gender, energy, to the economy. There's no lull in the action. The guests are the people who never get a shot at network TV; the activists and authors who are working for change but don't have the right-wing bone fides to appear on Chris Matthews, Wolf Blitzer or the other corporate-friendly talk shows. GRIT TV provides them with a platform to give their perspective and Flanders, thankfully, lets them talk. She doesn't sit like a coiled snake ready to pounce whenever someone challenges the conventional wisdom on the war or (heaven forbid) disparages a corporate sponsor. GRIT TV is not underwritten by big oil, Boeing or King Coal like so much of the crap on PBS. It’s all contributions from people who still believe that television can perform a public service.

Do you care whether your new "gas saving" Prius was made with sweatshop labor, or whether Obama's platform really offers progressive change, or what Kevin Phillips had to say about the global financial crisis? GRIT TV is a good place to start. It's all issues without the attitude.

Thursday night Flanders reviewed the recent Supreme Court rulings on the second amendment (gun rights) and habeas for Guantanamo detainees. That was followed by a 4 minute video which showed how African Americans were disproportionately victimized by the subprime meltdown. After that, Flanders led a lively discussion on "executive pay" and America's ever-expanding "wealth gap." It was all first-rate coverage.

This is television at its best; broadcasting that does not assume that its viewers are nincompoops that need plunging necklines and endless car chases to keep them entertained. GRIT TV doesn't provide bread or circuses, just hard-edged politics for people who really want to know what is going on. That's Flander's beat and she does it better than anyone in the business.

GRITtv airs Mon-Thurs,at 8pm & 1 am ET, on Free Speech TV (DISH Network ch. 9415) & at http://www.firedoglake.com. Laura Flanders is Alexander Cockburn’s niece.

Group Wants Pot-Smoking Allowed in Airport Lounges

By Felisa Cardona
The Denver Post

Marijuana proponents want to know why federal officials continue to allow people to use alcohol on airplanes, but won't allow pot smoking in the lounges at Denver International Airport.

"Does it make sense to allow adults to use a drug that causes problems on airplanes and not allow them to use one that does not cause problems on airplanes?" asked Mason Tvert, executive director of Safer Alternatives For Enjoyable Recreation.


SAFER held a press conference on Tuesday outside the offices of the Federal Aviation Administration in Denver to propose a solution to the rash of in-flight disturbances on airplanes over the last year.

Last week, a New York woman, Christina Szele, was arrested after she started smoking in her JetBlue airline seat and punched a flight attendant who stepped in to stop her. Her plane, enroute to San Francisco from New York, was diverted to Denver because of the situation.

And in the last few months, DIA has been a hot spot for arrests of drunken, unruly airplane passengers.


Tvert argues that marijuana alleviates anxiety for people who are afraid to fly and that passengers could use pot in the smoking lounges at the airport as a safer alternative to alcohol.


DIA spokesman Chuck Cannon said he does not foresee marijuana smoking in the airport.

"Marijuana is illegal isn't it?," he said. "All the bars and restaurants are concessions and they sell what they sell. I do not know that we are going to tell them what they can sell. Alcohol is legal and tobacco is legal and marijuana is not."

Tvert said he doesn't have a problem with alcohol being sold in airports, he just wants people to have another option, which he believes is more sensible, available to them when they are flying.


"It just goes to show how brainwashed they are," Tvert said. "Alcohol and pills are perfectly acceptable, but they have a problem with marijuana being available in any way, shape or form. God forbid you use a drug that is proven less harmful than both of them."

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_9688987

Royal Freeloaders

Friday, Jun. 27, 2008
UK Royals: We Don't Cost Much
By AP/GREGORY KATZ

(LONDON) — Buckingham Palace accountants insisted Friday that the cost of maintaining Queen Elizabeth II and the royal family is a bargain for taxpayers, despite a price tag of 40 million pounds ($80 million), while a prominent anti-monarchist group said many of the true costs are hidden.

The Republic group also complained that the queen and her husband, Prince Philip, spent more than 22,000 pounds ($44,000) of public money to take a helicopter to the Kentucky Derby during a prolonged official visit to the United States.

"She took a day off and went to the horse races and it cost the taxpayers a lot of money," said Republic spokesman Graham Smith. "We're going to raise serious questions about that. Why are we paying for a day at the races?"

The figures released Friday are incomplete, he said, because they don't include such things as security and the costs to local governments of royal visits.

In their annual report on the use of public money to support the queen and senior royals in their officials duties, Buckingham Palace officials stressed that the cost of the monarchy for each taxpayer is just 66 pence ($1.30) for each British subject.

It costs each Briton "less than the cost of two pints of milk or a download to an iPod" to fund the monarchy, according to a statement posted Friday on the queen's Web site.

Palace officials said public spending on the monarchy has increased from 38 million pounds ($76 million) to 40 million pounds ($80 million) for the year ending March 31 compared with the year before, but accountants said this was because of rising travel and maintenance costs, not a freespending lifestyle.

Accountants pointed out that real costs had dropped more than 3 percent in the last seven years due to cost-cutting measures.


Sir Alan Reid, Keeper of the Privy Purse, said the queen's financial advisers pay "continuous attention to obtaining value for money."


He said the increase in overseas travel spending is a result of a higher number of requests from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office for the queen and other senior royals to make official visits abroad.

The reports made public Friday also show that taxpayers kicked in more than $560,000 to pay for an official two-week visit to the Caribbean by Prince Charles and his wife Camilla. This included $420,000 for a 12-day yacht
charter.

What's Up, Doc?

Work like you don’t need the money
Love like you’ve never been hurt
Dance like no-one is watching
Screw like it’s being filmed
And drink like a true Irishman.

Anonymous

Politics and the Big Picture

A citizenry always gets the government that is a perfect vibrational match to the national consciousness. A nation of people who resonate to freedom cannot and will not have a dictatorial government. Political organizations and societies are not immune to the operation of the Law of Attraction. Neither can governmental edicts negate the operation of the Law of Attraction.


If your government suspends the constitution and declares martial law, you may find policemen on every street corner. You can either rage, or wave. Freedom depends on your state of mind, not the decisions of some paranoid political leader. In any political environment, it is possible to remain positive and so attract positive things.


Many people consider it their duty to 'stay informed,' but ask yourself "Of what am I being informed?" Ask yourself whether the latest disaster is relevant to your life, and whether you can do anything about it. If you carefully examine the information being fed to you in the “news,” you may discover its true value.


It is irrelevant whether you agree or disagree with the madness presented on the news. It is your focus upon it that activates it within your vibration. Therefore, if you are a person who becomes emotionally involved with the news, you may want to rethink your participation.


Once a person truly understands universal principles (which can only occur by applying them in daily life and noting the results) he or she cannot ever be fooled again. No one can ever convince such an empowered person that danger exists anywhere that must be fought or protected against.


Once one understands that what is resisted always persists, no one can ever persuade you of the necessity of fighting war, or fighting poverty, or fighting pollution, or fighting anything; for those who hope to continue such things must count on your active cooperation in the continuance of them, or your resistance to them, which amounts to the same thing. Remember that resistance to "X" or participation in "X" both focus your attention on "X"! This is the brilliant equation of all master manipulators.


By the way, here’s what I call the First Law of Politics: “Politics is a subset of economics.” In other words, if you really want to discover the political truth, find out where the money’s going.



Ignorance is Bliss

When talking about politics or ‘current events’ (what are “current events” anyway? Stuff that other people write about), the common idea is that if you are ignorant of current events, you are some kind of moron, or a sort of air-head that hasn't a clue about the important things in life, and that in this state of ignorance you are likely to be blind-sided by the latest terrorist, murderer, or government edict. But this is backwards. Only by NOT activating the thoughts, feelings and vibrations corresponding to the murderer, terrorist, or government edict, will you be safe from it!


Current events are all about what-has-already-manifested. Most people would consider that if something has happened, then it is true, and that if something is true, then it is important, but this too is backwards. An event (like a war or an earthquake or the Fed raising interest rates) might be interesting, but it cannot influence your life until you get on the vibrational bandwagon.


Truth is what comes forth from the thoughts and feelings of a conscious being, for that is what is always being manifested, in every instant. Truth is consciousness, not the creations or manifestations of consciousness! So if you really want to change something, pay no attention whatsoever to what exists. Place your attention solely upon what you want to create, keep it there, act upon it, allow it to come into your experience, and watch the world change around you.


Become ignorant only of what you do not want. Ignorance is truly bliss, IF you are ignorant of that which you don't want.

-

(from the website, The Big Picture)

Despite Media Blackout, Protests Against Secretive Group Gaining More Attention

-

(Bilderberg Conference ... June 5-8, 2008 ... in Northern Virginia)



For more information about the global elite knuckleheads, click here.

-

13 Principles of Spiritual Activism
-

‘Friendly Disrespect’ for Market

by Linda McQuaig

It’s been refreshing to see the General Motors workers in Oshawa refusing to submit passively to the dictates of the market.


We’ve been taught that the market knows best. So workers are supposed to simply accept that market conditions have dictated the closure of their plant, eliminating 2,600 jobs. (The company’s signed commitment to keep the Oshawa truck plant operating is supposed to count for nothing, when the market speaks.)

Some 180,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost in Canada in the past two years while the federal government stood by doing nothing.

Such wilful impotence wasn’t always the norm. In the 1930s, the brilliant British economist John Maynard Keynes figured out that the marketplace isn’t the all-perfect instrument it’s cracked up to be, and it’s sometimes necessary for government to intervene.

That insight effectively solved the Depression.


Such interventionist thinking was also behind the 1965 Canada-U.S. Auto Pact. Rather than leaving it to manufacturers to decide where cars should be produced, the Auto Pact imposed “domestic content” requirements ensuring jobs for auto workers on both sides of the border. (Essentially, for every car sold in Canada, one had to be produced here.)

Within five years, the production of assembled vehicles in Canada had doubled, driving up employment in the auto industry and spurring economic growth throughout the country.

But starting in the 1980s, neo-conservatives revived the notion that decisions should be left to the market. In that spirit, the North American Free Trade Agreement ruled out “domestic content” requirements and the World Trade Organization outlawed the Auto Pact.

So pervasive is this market orthodoxy today that it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that it’s just one school of economic thought, not a set of immutable laws.

Even Donald Macdonald, who headed the 1980s royal commission that endorsed Canada’s move to a more market-oriented approach to trade, described the conversion as requiring a “leap of faith.”

And nations that now urgently insist other nations abide by strict market rules haven’t always played by those rules themselves.

Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz notes that both the United States and Britain defied market orthodoxy by using strong measures to protect their domestic industries in the early stages of their development.

Only after their industries were internationally competitive did these countries become advocates of “free market” economics, vigorously preventing others from using the protectionist strategies that had worked so well for them.

It would make sense for Canada to press for a new auto pact with countries like Japan, China and Korea, requiring their auto makers to build as many cars here as they sell here.

What stands in the way is the same rigid thinking that blocked innovative action in the 1930s.

We should take inspiration from Keynes. “The future holds in store for us far more wealth and economic freedom and possibilities of personal life than the past has ever offered,” he wrote in the depths of the Depression, when the established order stood firm against government intervention. “There is no reason why we should not feel ourselves free to be bold … to try the possibilities of things.

“And over against us, standing in the path,” Keynes continued, “there is nothing but a few old gentlemen tightly buttoned up in their frock coats, who only need to be treated with a little friendly disrespect and bowled over like ninepins.”

Linda McQuaig’s column appears every other week in the Toronto Star.

New Door Opens

last show

Submitted by SEDER on Sun, 06/01/2008 - 10:35am.

cross posted at aar

After 4 plus years, this Sunday's Seder on Sundays very well may be my last regular appearance on the Air America Radio schedule. I've been told that I am one of those being considered for the 3-6pm slot but,frankly, particularly in this economy, I'd advise you not to place a bet on it.

Anyway,...I will remain and am very appreciative to AAR for letting me continue as the online editor for AirAmerica.com. We are building an important online component to progressive talk.

That said, I am confident this will not be the last opportunity for you to hear/watch me on political talk.

I am proud of my work over the past four years. I started out as a pretty bad broadcaster, but think I 've certainly become mediocre! Whether on the Majority Report, The Sam Seder Show or Seder On Sundays, my ratings have always been an improvement of the show that I have replaced, or better than those that have replaced mine.

Some moments I am particularly proud of..

On the Majority Report, we gave now Senator Jim Webb his first national exposure when he was still a primary candidate, during our Fighting Dem series we did with DailyKos.

I gave Ned Lamont his first national exposure before he declared for Senate in CT, and he ultimately first "unofficially" declared his run with me on a Friday when I was filling in for Randi.

The time I got the right wing caller Dewey to cop to having some "feminization issues".

My long talks with the disputed Senator of Florida, Katherine Harris.

Just last month in the 3-6p slot, in interviewing Phillipe Sands, author of "Torture Team," I played some exclusive audio of John McCain for him which he then went on to cite in Congressional testimony.

I've had a great opportunity to interview folks like Eddie Vedder to Ricky Gervais to Desmond Tutu to Gore Vidal to Howard Zinn to Sen. Russ Feingold to Robert Altman to Fran Liebowitz, Triumph, Lawrence Lessigand on and on and on (and of course, Peaches).

Geek Alert...Believe it or not, some of my biggest thrills were having the opportunity to meet bloggers I had read before starting doing radio--

It was and remains a real honor to have been part of launching Air America and institutionalizing commercial Left Talk Radio.

Finally, thank you folks for the tremendous support you have shown me through the years. I have an unfortunate habit of being outspoken about things that don't behoove me professionally, and I suspect I would have been gone long ago without you folks watching my back.

All is Well

Olympic torch burns US candidates

-

Looking for the Olympic torch in San Francisco on Wednesday was every bit as uncertain as a snark hunt and, by the end of a bleak day for Chinese dignity, the likelihood of a US boycott of the opening ceremony in Beijing in August had markedly increased.

San Francisco was selected for transit by the torch on its tumultuous journey from democracy's cradle to the people's republic because the city has many Chinese. No doubt the majority of these turned out to cheer for the motherland, but the Bay Area also holds many passionate supporters of Tibet's rights.

The trans-Pacific China trade is a very significant factor in California's economy and Gavin Newsom, the city's mayor, supervised an intricate plan to avoid any embarrassment. After landing at San Francisco airport the torch appeared briefly at an opening ceremony, then scuttled into a warehouse and was rushed off in a car, away from a scheduled event on the Embarcadero where protesters had gathered.

It popped up again on the other side of the city, near the Golden Gate bridge, where relay runners carried it south, back towards the airport. One such bearer, 41-year old Majora Carter, whipped a small Tibetan flag from her sleeve, but was swiftly pounced upon by San Francisco cops.

Soon the torch was airborne. Mayor Newsom wiped the sweat from his brow and the Chinese press said the torch's San Francisco touch-down had been "a harmonious journey". This was an overly rosy assessment since Barack Obama chose that same day to inch closer to his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton's call upon President Bush to boycott the opening ceremonies.

Obama said that a boycott "should be firmly on the table" but that a decision should be made closer to the Games. "If the Chinese do not take steps to help stop the genocide in Darfur and to respect the dignity, security and human rights of the Tibetan people, then the president should boycott the opening ceremonies."


The Republican nominee, John McCain, has thus far been playing for time, caught between popular dislike for China and the fact that a Republican president, George Bush Jr., has declared that sports and politics are differing realms. McCain's spokesman says his boss condemns "the brutal oppression" of Tibet, and advises the president to "keep his options open".

But that's a fence-straddling posture which McCain, eager to burnish his reputation as a straight-talking, two-fisted kind of guy, will find hard to maintain. If he finds it politically necessary to call on Bush to avoid Beijing this August and go off to Texas and ride his mountain bike instead, the President will be in an awkward spot. Bush, a big sports fan, yearns to go to Beijing. Such outings are among the few pleasures left for a deeply unpopular president who will at that point be four months shy of retirement.

Pious talk from the White House about keeping sports and politics apart will certainly raise a snigger in the Kremlin, whose

Bush yearns to go to Beijing. Such trips are among the few pleasures he has left denizens will remember that in 1980 President Jimmy Carter led an international campaign which in the end prompted 62 nations - including the US, West Germany and Israel - to boycott the Olympics in Moscow because the previous year the Soviet Union had invaded Afghanistan.

In 1984, a year after the US had invaded Grenada, the Olympics were held in Los Angeles. No Western nation felt the need to boycott, though Russia and 13 of its allies did stay away, citing only "security concerns".

The official position of the US government has long been that Tibet is part of China. Cheap goods from China sold through Wal-Mart and other chains are a vital prop for lower-income Americans reeling at the inflation in the price of fuel, milk and other essentials.

A boycott by Bush could lead to reprisals by a furious Chinese leadership, which could make life difficult for the US in any number of ways. Life is not as simple as it was in 1980, though John McCain appears to think otherwise.

-Alexander Cockburn-

Thanks to Eric M. in San Francisco for the photos.

For Alice

With Love

-

It’s ok, allow yourself a little hate
Hatred is not so bad when directed at injustice
You can turn the other cheek, just don’t turn the other way

Enemy of the planet we finally have a common aim
a reason to forget about our differences
and stand as a united front

It’s up to us, we must expose,
Humiliate American errorists
We’ll start with one
The war has just begun

The war has just begun!

-



nofx

What Are You Going to Allow?

We Can Choose It!

Whatever you choose to give your attention to is your choice, and whatever you give your attention to, will activate a vibration within you. Whatever activates a vibration within you, will eventually manifest into your experience. And whatever manifests into your experience is always a perfect vibrational match to your vibration. The way you’ve been feeling matches your vibration; your vibration matches the way you’ve been feeling—and everything is in perfect order when you understand the management of Law of Attraction.

As we talk about Creation, we say to you that there are three parts in the equation: The first is asking: When you ask, Source Energy always answers. Step two: Source Energy answers. Step three: You allow it.

The Universe is big enough for all to create whatever it is they choose.



We Can Prefer It!

You are not asking with your tongue or words, you are asking with a vibration that emanates from you. You’re asking from that which you feel, know, and desire. You are asking from your preferences. And every preference is read, and instantaneously responded to, by the Energy that creates worlds—by the Energy that has the ability to line up circumstances and events for the fulfillment of any amazing thing that you have conjured or determined in your physical environment. And the next thing that you must do is be a vibrational match to that which you are asking for. So the big question is, what are you going to allow?



We Can Allow It!

It is a vibrational Universe. The Universe is magnetic, in the same way that your radio signals are, and when you come to accept that what you think and feel is always a vibrational match to what you get—then everything else falls easily into place.

When you understand that nothing comes to you that you are not vibrationally inviting or allowing, then you are less needing to change conditions around you—that you really have no control about—in order to be in your happy place.

--Abraham-Hicks--

Olympic Torch Anarchy

Sensible Regulation & the Mortgage Fiasco

Ashley Alexandra Dupre & Eliot Spitzer

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Changing the Game

There is something else going on that does not relate to programmed astrological movements or cycles of time.

It is a transformation emitting from a level of awareness in which illusions like cosmic cycles are irrelevant.

To continue the computer analogy, Oneness is hacking into the system.

Synchronicity or coordinate ‘coincidence’ can have many causes.

It can be the Matrix program;
it can be consciousness caught in the cause and effect illusion we call the cycle of reincarnation and karma;
and it can be reconnecting in awareness—knowing—with the One, All That Is, and being drawn to similar states of consciousness.

The synchronicity of knowing frees you from the synchronicity of the program.
The trick is knowing which is which.

It is reconnecting with Oneness that carries the energy of true transformation and anyone can do this by ceasing to identify with the illusion and being the One that they are.

The Matrix ‘transformation’ and the Oneness transformation are running together and the way to tell them apart is their effect.

Does a change or event bring love or conflict?
Balance or imbalance? Justice or injustice?
Does it further divide or bring together?
Does it imprison or does it set free?

The Matrix transformation is about changing the game;
...
the Oneness transformation is ending the game
as we have come to know it.

David Icke

The Frequency-Holders

The outward movement into form does not express itself with equal intensity in all people.

Some feel a strong urge to build, create, become involved, achieve, make an impact upon the world.

If they are unconscious, their ego will, of course, take over and use the energy of the outgoing cycle for its own purposes.

This, however, also greatly reduces the flow of creative energy available to them and increasingly they need to rely on “efforting” to get what they want.

If they are conscious, those people in whom the outward movement is strong will be highly creative.

Others, after the natural expansion that comes with growing up has run its course, lead an outwardly unremarkable, seemingly more passive and relatively uneventful existence.

They are more inward looking by nature, and for them the outward movement into form is minimal.

They would rather return home than go out.

They have no desire to get strongly involved in or change the world.

If they have any ambitions, they usually don’t go beyond finding something to do that gives them a degree of independence.

Some of them find it hard to fit into the world.

Some are lucky enough to find a protective niche where they can lead a relatively sheltered life, a job that provides them with a regular income or a small business of their own.

Some may feel drawn toward living in a spiritual community or monastery.

Others may become dropouts and live on the margins of society they feel they have little in common with.

Some turn to drugs because they find living in this world too painful.

Others eventually become healer or spiritual teachers, that is to say,
teachers of Being.

In past ages, they would probably have been called contemplatives.

There is no place for them, it seems, in our contemporary civilization.


On the arising new earth, however, their role is just as vital as that of the creators, the doers, the reformers.

Their function is to anchor the frequency of the new consciousness on this planet.

I call them the frequency-holders.

They are here to generate consciousness through the activities of daily life, through their interactions with others as well as through “just being.”

In this way, they endow the seemingly insignificant with profound meaning.

Their task is to bring spacious stillness into this world by being absolutely present in whatever they do.

There is consciousness and therefore quality in what they do, even the simplest task.

Their purpose is to do everything in a sacred manner.

As each human being is an integral part of the collective human consciousness, they affect the world much more deeply than is visible on the surface of their lives.

...from the book,
"A New Earth,"
by Eckhart Tolle

Hello New Day

The Fake Transformation

“We are in the midst of a collective transformation, at least at this level of perception, although I don’t believe it’s the one the New Age and others talk about.

I would suggest there are actually two ‘transformations’ and one is a fake designed to mislead us.

The year 2012 would appear very significant to the Illuminati and this is also the point at which the Mayan Calendar says there will be a transformation to a new world.

The ancient Mayans, in what is now Central America, developed their own measurement of time and observed repeating cycles that they detailed in the calendar.

They said that a Great Cycle began on August 11th, 3114 B.C. and would end on the winter solstice, December 21st, 2012, the point when a ‘Great, Great Cycle’ of 26,000 years would also come to a conclusion.

It relates to the New Age belief about moving from the astrological Age of Pisces to the ‘enlightened’ Age of Aquarius.

This is the moment when new cycles will begin,
it is said, and humanity will be infused with love and light. A Mayan Calendar website summarized this basic theme:

‘There is no reason not to take a leap of faith into imagining what may be in store.

We may trust that it is time for humanity to awaken in to a true partnership with each other, with the earth, and the Cosmos.

By accepting this partnership we may claim our birthright and become Galactic Citizens who care for and sustain the planet, thus sustaining ourselves.

This is clearly the challenge of our times.

Yet, arriving just in time and on schedule is the Winter Solstice dawn on the day we may remember that we are truly Children of the World.’

At the risk of upsetting many in the New Age, I say this is the fake transformation.

I have no problem with the fact that 2012 is significant in Time Loop terms, nor that the Mayans clearly had a remarkable grasp on the planetary and cosmic cycles they related to time.

I just say they were measuring the computer program, the cosmic planetarium, and that the predicted transformation is as illusory as the rest of this holographic reality.

It is another part of the DVD, another diversionary subplot.

There is no time, and anything that identifies with it is not a transformation to Oneness.

We are not ‘truly Children of the World’, we are truly Infinite Consciousness.

Identifying self with the ‘world’ is identifying with the Matrix.

It is a belief system that still relates to form, with being ‘human’, ‘Galactic Citizens’, and sustaining a holographic illusion we call ‘earth’.

Millions are caught by the Matrix in the fake transformation.

The Mayan Calendar is one example…”

(David Icke)

Electric Funeral