Saturday, October 29, 2011

2012, #Occupy, and Everything

I'll tell you what #Occupy is all about.

And I'll set your mind at ease about the Mayan 2012 deal, too.

The Occupy movement is another manifestation of Freedom, which has been sweeping the world since the Arab Spring.

It's happening because it's Time.

And the important date to keep in mind is not December 21, 2012. It's 11/11/11.

That's in


It's time because we now have computers and understand binary. In binary, which is the language computers speak, there are only two values -- Off and On. These are represented by 0 and 1, respectively.

I believe that on November 11, 2011 -- eleven eleven eleven -- 11/11/11 -- much of Humanity will turn ON. And nothing will be the same.

What would it be like to wake up one day with a new sense? Suddenly you were aware of the other life in other places -- not intellectually, but FEEL it, a deep inner KNOWING... What does that life know?

Or just be able to smell as well as a bloodhound? How would your world change? How would YOU change?

It's all good, folks... Friends and Neighbors... We're all One.

These sick, un-sane, twisted structures around us will wither and die.

It's Ours to tend and nurture the webs of Life that will sustain the earth and those of us who survive and thrive.

We ARE the Ones we've been waiting for.

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Are there real monsters among us?

Stumbled over this: http://bit.ly/mj1IuT

Made me curious about the difference between sociopathy and psychopathy:

"Sociopathy and psychopathy share many traits, which is the main source of confusion for differentiating them in psychology. Traits that sociopaths and psychopaths share include:

    * a disregard for the rights of others
    * a failure to feel remorse or guilt
    * a disregard for laws and social mores
    * a tendency to display violent behavior and emotional outbursts

"Though not all psychology professionals agree on what exactly differentiates sociopaths from psychopaths, among those who believe each are separate disorders there is a list of definite differences. Sociopaths tend to be nervous and easily agitated. They are likely to be uneducated and live on the fringes of society, unable to hold down a steady job or stay in one place. Some sociopaths form attachments to an individual or group, though they have no regard for society in general. In the eyes of others, sociopaths appear clearly disturbed. Any crimes committed by a sociopath tend to be disorganized and spontaneous.

"Psychopaths, on the other hand, often have charming personalities. They are manipulative and easily gain people’s trust. They have learned to mimic emotion and so appear “normal” to other people. Psychopaths are often educated and hold steady jobs. Some are so good at manipulation and mimicry that they can have families and other long-term relationships without those around them ever suspecting their true nature.

"Psychopaths, when committing crimes, carefully plan out every detail and often have contingency plans in place. Because of this marked difference between the method of crimes committed by sociopaths and psychopaths, the distinction between these disorders is perhaps even more important to criminology than it is to psychology."

http://helpingpsychology.com/sociopath-vs-psychopath-whats-the-difference

Interesting that crime figures so prominently in both descriptions.... Makes me wonder about the recent "bailouts"... Are we ruled by psychopaths? And are they the vampires of our times? And is a stake through the heart and detaching the head the only "cure"?

War is Peace

There's a discussion going on at my Facebook page that prompted this 'rant':
(The following is opinion, not to be taken as necessarily true...)
 
I find it fascinating, sad and unnerving that people at both ends of the political spectrum describe the others' words and actions the same way... "more of the same ... twisting and distorting to support their emotion." I'm old enough to remember when facts were...... well... facts; that is, true; accepted as so; beyond dispute. (This would have been before 1980 or so...) In those days, people were open to changing their minds, accepting new understanding based upon further research or fuller context. Now we seem to have entered this weird Twilight Zone-like world where opinion is seized upon as fact (they're NOT the same) and ACTUAL facts are pooh-poohed as "spin". We *are* emotional beings, but we are RATIONAL beings too. We invented and once accepted the scientific method as The Best Way to determine the Actual State of Things. Now the Actual State of Things is up for grabs... I once heard an award-winning professor say "Assertion is not evidence", ie, 'Saying it doesn't make it so'. That's obvious on the face of it, but so many of us (please note, I'm not excluding myself here) are subject to reacting emotionally that we fail to actually THINK. I have my theories about how this happened, but they're Just One Man's Opinion, and I'm not immune to conspiracy theory thinking. After all, I'm in my sixth decade of life on this planet and I've learned a few things about myself. I've also learned that people, organizations, businesses and governments DO lie. (They also 'take out of context', 'mislead', 'spin' and obfuscate, but those are all lying at root.)
I think it bodes ill for us as a people (or as a species) finding and implementing viable solutions to the challenges we face when opponents can't even agree on what's real...
Fortunately, I'm quite happy with my understanding of reality, and it has very little to do with the doings on this physical spacetime plane...

Friday, April 22, 2011

The Unbearable Meaninglessness of Politics

This is why I've given up on the political process to address anything important in a meaningful way:

"Sadly, the budget 'cuts' proposed so far in Washington DC are too minuscule to assist in any credible way, and they practically represent a rounding error, given the numbers involved..."

More to the point: "For the record, these 'cuts' work out to ~$3 billion less in spending each month, or less than the amount the Fed has been pouring into the Treasury market each business day for the past five months." same source

‎"...the entire $38 billion is just 2.3% of the deficit and slightly under 1% of the total 2011 budget."

http://www.chrismartenson.com/blog/breakdown-draws-near/56594

Monday, April 18, 2011

Rev. Peter Panagore's "Daily Devotions"

I am so fortunate to live in a place where I can view this 2-minute God-shot every single morning on TV. For those not so fortunate, here's a taste.



You can get the text version in your in-box for free. Please consider donating regularly, as I do.

Blessed Be All.

Saturday, April 16, 2011

The Power of Words

Maybe the most powerful 1:48 you'll ever watch...



I particularly like that it was made by other Feather People...

Silence is.... Eloquent

I'm trying to avoid politics, but every so often something just grabs me by the neck and shakes me like a terrier with a rat... Wow.

Saturday, April 9, 2011

Fear or Faith: Your Call

Your entire life
is flavored
by the choice you make
between Faith and Fear.

All else
flows from that.

It is written:
"As ye believe,
so your All Is"
And it is true.
The wide world is
for you
just as you expect.

Seek and ye shall find.
Choose well what you seek.

Free to copy elsewhere, with link to my site and this attribution: Written by Jackson W Barnett, all rights preserved. 2011

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Things to Do or Think About Now... for Tomorrow



Stoneleigh's talk about the economy invites us to imagine what life might be like if you had 1/10th or 1/100th of the buying power you do today. Whether that be from deflation or scarcity of goods, what would life be like? The exercise in our "End of the Economy" gathering could go like this:
Think of all the things you currently purchase with money. These would be all the things you don't make or grow yourself, all the things you can't barter for within your community. Which of these are absolutely essential, and which are something you could live without?
Of those things that are absolutely essential, how could you possibly go about obtaining them without money? If you could redesign your habits and your community so that you COULD make, grow locally, or barter for these essentials, what action might you take right now? What systems would you put in place? What skills would you personally need to acquire? What tools and supplies would you need to have on hand?
And after hearing Stoneleigh's talk, what's stopping you from putting those things in place right now?
... within [this new awareness] lies, as in the bleak opening chapters of most adventure stories, a call to adventure. You will come to look back on this as a major, but positive, transition in your life.

--Rob Hopkins, The Transition Handbook

Economic Contraction | Energy Bulletin

Economic Contraction | Energy Bulletin

Monday, April 4, 2011

Blowing Green Smoke - Clusterfuck Nation

Couldn't resist posting this...
A special shout-out here to The New York Times, whose abysmal reporting on these issues, once again, is due to their reliance on a single source: the IHS-CERA group, Cambridge Energy Research Associates, the paid public relations auxiliary of the oil industry, led by that mendacious sack of shit Daniel Yergin, whore-in-chief.
How do you REALLY feel, James?

Sunday, April 3, 2011

The earthquake kit: How to unpack for a disaster and survive the unexpected | Grist

The earthquake kit: How to unpack for a disaster and survive the unexpected | Grist

Excellent post.

In a disaster, you will want to bring your identity, so we are often instructed, meaning some government-issued form of identification. But you will also want to bring a deeper identity, a sense of who you are and who we are. This matters greatly, because disaster tests our nature, even as it requires us to cooperate with those who are in it with us.

The usual emphasis on "panic" in disasters implies that, in a crisis, we're all sheep wheeling around idiotically, incapable of making good decisions, and selfishly trampling those around us. The emphasis on looting implies that, in a crisis, we're all wolves, taking ruthless advantage of and preying on each other. Both presume that during a disaster social bonds will break. In fact, as the records of disaster after disaster show, mostly they don't. In fact, those who study the subject (and reams of testimony by those who have lived through it) confirm that, in catastrophe, most of us behave remarkably beautifully, exhibiting presence of mind, altruism, generosity, bravery, and creativity.

Most of us.

Who, then, does it serve to imagine that we are wolves and sheep, fools and savages? Lee Clarke, a disaster sociologist and professor at Rutgers, wrote after Hurricane Katrina, "Disaster myths are not politically neutral, but rather work systematically to the advantage of elites. Elites cling to the panic myth because to acknowledge the truth of the situation would lead to very different policy prescriptions than the ones currently in vogue." That is to say, if we are wolves and sheep, and so not to be trusted, then they are the shepherds and the wolf-killers.

12 Warning Signs of U.S. Hyperinflation -- FORT LEE, N.J., Mar. 26, 2011

Just a snippet of things to come...
6) Year-Over-Year CPI Growth Has Increased 92% in Three Months...
7) Mainstream Media Denying Fed's Target Passed.
You would think that year-over-year CPI growth rising from 1.1% to 2.11% over a period of three months for an increase of 92% would generate a lot of media attention, especially considering that it has now surpassed the Fed's informal inflation target of 1.5% to 2%. Instead of acknowledging that inflation is beginning to spiral out of control and encouraging Americans to prepare for hyperinflation like NIA has been doing for years, the media decided to conveniently change the way it defines the Fed's informal target.

The media is now claiming that the Fed's informal inflation target of 1.5% to 2% is based off of year-over-year changes in the BLS's core-CPI figures. Core-CPI, as most of you already know, is a meaningless number that excludes food and energy prices. Its sole purpose is to be used to mislead the public in situations like this....

The fact of the matter is, food and energy are the two most important things Americans need to live and survive. If the BLS was going to exclude something from the CPI, you would think they would exclude goods that Americans don't consume on a daily basis. The BLS claims food and energy prices are excluded because they are most volatile. However, by excluding food and energy, core-CPI numbers are primarily driven by rents. Considering that we just came out of the largest Real Estate bubble in world history, there is a glut of homes available to rent on the market. NIA has been saying for years that being a landlord will be the worst business to be in during hyperinflation, because it will be impossible for landlords to increase rents at the same rate as overall price inflation. Food and energy prices will always increase at a much faster rate than rents.
This is why by turns, I laugh at, and tear my hair out over, the news as presented by the mainstream media (MSM). When they aren't leaving out or glossing over important stories, they're actively distorting the truth.

It's not foolish to be paranoid if the whole power structure is lying to you.

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Tax the Super Rich now or face a revolution Paul B. Farrell - MarketWatch

Tax the Super Rich now or face a revolution Paul B. Farrell - MarketWatch

Wow... neither ironic, nor a straw man... from Marketwatch!!!

Check the stats folks: The last time America’s wealth gap between the Super Rich and the other 99% was this big was just before the 1929 Crash and the Great Depression.

You can’t remember? Or you won’t? America is trapped in “terminal denial,” a setup for failure. Too many still live in the false hope of this Super-Rich Delusion. Do you believe government stats hyping a recovery? Believe Wall Street’s nonsense about a new bull market ahead? Believe Exxon-Mobile’s misleading ads about energy stocks. Believe Bill Gross’ when he says dump Treasuries, and buy his emerging country bonds? Dream on.
Start preparing for the third meltdown of the 21st Century, and depression

Denial and lies. Remember, 93% of what you hear about markets, finance and the economy are guesses, wishful thinking and lies intended to manipulate you into making decisions that suck money from your pockets into Wall Street. They get rich telling lies about securities. They hate any SEC fiduciary rules forcing them to tell the truth.

WSJ Shifts EPA Attack To Accuse Supreme Court Of "Judicial Invention" | Media Matters for America

WSJ Shifts EPA Attack To Accuse Supreme Court Of "Judicial Invention" | Media Matters for America

Now, as the Senate prepares to vote on a proposal that would repeal the EPA's scientific endangerment finding on greenhouse gases and prohibit the EPA from addressing GHG emissions, the Journal has produced another editorial bashing the agency's regulations. This time the Journal acknowledges the 2007 Supreme Court ruling, but claims that the Court "broadly rewrote the definition of 'pollutant'" to "create new powers via judicial invention":

The story of how we arrived at this pass begins in 1999, when Clinton EPA chief Carol Browner floated the idea that carbon dioxide could be regulated as a pollutant under the 1970 Clean Air Act and its later amendments. The Bush Administration rejected Ms. Browner's theory, in part because Congress kept rejecting statutory language to that effect.

Several states and green groups sued, and the question reached the Supreme Court in 2006. With Massachusetts v. EPA, a 5-4 majority broadly rewrote the definition of "pollutant," but it also narrowly held that "EPA no doubt has significant latitude as to the manner, timing, content, and coordination of its regulations" (our emphasis). In other words, the Court created new powers via judicial invention but left their use to the discretion of the executive branch.

Did the Court broadly rewrite the definition of pollutant? You be the judge. The Court's decision quotes the definition of pollutant provided by Congress in the Clean Air Act. From the ruling:

The Clean Air Act's sweeping definition of "air pollutant" includes "any air pollution agent or combination of such agents, including any physical, chemical ... substance or matter which is emitted into or otherwise enters the ambient air ... ." §7602(g) (emphasis added). On its face, the definition embraces all airborne compounds of whatever stripe, and underscores that intent through the repeated use of the word "any." Carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and hydrofluorocarbons are without a doubt "physical [and] chemical ... substance[s] which [are] emitted into ... the ambient air." The statute is unambiguous.

The Court concluded: "Because greenhouse gases fit well within the Clean Air Act's capacious definition of 'air pollutant,' we hold that EPA has the statutory authority to regulate the emission of such gases from new motor vehicles." The majority further ruled that "Under the clear terms of the Clean Air Act, EPA can avoid taking further action only if it determines that greenhouse gases do not contribute to climate change or if it provides some reasonable explanation as to why it cannot or will not exercise its discretion to determine whether they do."

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Are We Running Out of Oil? | The Nation

Peak Oil and a Changing Climate: An Introduction
Featuring Bill McKibben, Noam Chomsky, Nicole Foss, Richard Heinberg and more
Watch here.

Richard Heinberg, "The Globe's Limitations: How Peak Oil Threatens Economic Growth"
Watch here.

Nicole Foss, "We Need Freedom of Action To Confront Peak Oil"
Watch here.

James Howard Kunstler, "Peak Oil and Our Financial Decline"
Watch here.

Dmitry Orlov, "Peak Oil Lessons From The Soviet Union"
Watch here.