Weapons Delivery

Unforeseen Consequences

American political leaders call for military action because it seems like a decisive and strong thing to do. But restraint often takes greater resolve. Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu once wrote: “Supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance by clever means ...before fighting. If you know neither your enemy nor yourself, you will be defeated in every battle." By repeatedly engaging in interventions without a proper understanding of our enemy ...and without a better understanding of the consequences of our own actions (stabilizing the region ?!) ...we have weakened our nation security, not bolstered it. Terrorism perpetuates terrorism ...and right now in the eyes of the Middle East we are the terrorists. The law of unforeseen consequences does not reward recklessness.

Orphan Black

Brit Marling for President

Qualifications:
Degree in Economics, Georgetown University, Valedictorian. Investment analyst (Goldman Sachs), Film maker, Producer, Screenwriter and Actor specializing in science-based films and documentaries. Successfully overcame gender stereotypes by writing her own roles in  complex and thought-provoking films. Proven ability to handle complex situations with deliberation and effectiveness.

transmission

"So much of who I am is because of Dr. Seuss."

[courtesy of humansofnewyork]

Sound of my Voice

Sound of my Voice  with Brit Marling

Somewhere in the valley, there is a woman living in a basement. She claims to be from the future and she’s amassing followers. These people believe that she will actually lead them to salvation. The FBI say she is perpetrating a con ..stockpiling weapons and forming a militia.

Kālī

"There are many ways to calm a negative energy without suppressing or fighting it. You recognize it, you smile to it, and you invite something nicer to come up and replace it; you go somewhere in nature, or you do some walking meditation.” — Thich Nhat Hanh

dissolution

In space, the powers of creation and destruction work differently than they do here on earth. Matter appears, dissolves and reappears just like here but  in  a   much   s l o w e r   m a n n e r.  Matter that makes up you and me. On earth we’re refreshed at such high rates of speed that the particles of matter disappear and reappear in essentially the same place ..making our position more or less predictable from one instant to the next. In space, however, it’s so cold that things take a little longer ..when measured in nano-seconds. So, instead of the high-speed collisions that we see on earth .. particles are refreshed by way of quantum tunneling in space [link]. This means we could wink out of one place one moment and reappear in another place the next ..kind of like looking at someone through a strobe light. And not only that .. this kind of delay lowers the probability of particles sticking together ..meaning there’s a good chance that we could dissolve in the process.

Tomorrow never knows

"Stop the fight ..turn off your mind, relax and float downstream ..tomorrow never knows"   ~   John Lennon

under the skin

The film was shot on location in Glasgow and the Scottish Highlands.

Scarlett Johansson plays an alien predator. She wears a black wig and is not immediately recognizable as she cruises through Glasgow and the surrounding countryside picking up hitchhikers in a van equipped with hidden video cameras. Like candid camera, their reactions are real and authentic. Their stories offer a glimpse of society from the point of view of the ultimate outsider. 

Adapted from the book by Michel Faber

Catching fire

"remember who the real enemy is"

(Image source: StalkerAE)

An interpretation:  The film shows what can happen when economic class differences are enforced by the Government. They become structured rather than fluid. The possibility for advancement is eliminated ..except by winning the hunger games ..inspiring a false sense of hope.

Attack of the jabberjays

Interdependent originations

from the journal science [ link ]

Peer-mediated buzz

   James Fowler, a professor of psychology at UCSD, found that messages from our peers are more likely to initiate action than messages delivered by a political committee [ link ]. Last year, Obama’s reelection committee learned the same thing. They developed a system that leverages database technology and social-media to deliver their messages. In an instant, this system allows them to:

1. mobilize grassroots support for White House concerns 
2. provide White House support for local concerns

Apparently they took an extra step, conducted surveys ..and learned that nothing energizes participation better than ‘reciprocity’. Brilliant use of technology combined with Obama’s experience as a community organizer. Politically I’m independent and pretty damn naïve ..but I can see why this might give Republicans cause for alarm.

Decision making

Decisions are mostly intuitive, logical explanations
catch-up milliseconds later ~ Robert Sapolsky [ link ]

Narrative culture

“Our lives, our cultures, are composed of many overlapping stories. Novelist Chimamanda Adichie tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice -- and warns that if we grow up hearing only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding"

presupposition

So true for me

A parable

Once upon a time in a world not long ago ..a succession of countries held sway over the planet. A great war ensued and two countries were left standing. The two countries remained in contention for nearly half a century. Then one let it’s infrastructure decay and economy falter while pouring it’s national treasure into the military. They became stuck in an unending war in Afghanistan. The other country watched in amazement while their former adversary became weaker and weaker and then totally disintegrated. Amazement gave way to arrogance. Arrogance gave way to recklessness and they made the most puzzling decision. They chose to follow the same path that lead to the downfall of their former adversary. Moral …? I guess strength doesn’t always override poor decision-making.

Fast and Furious

A federal program called Fast and Furious allowed weapons to be sold to gun smugglers in the U.S. so they could be traced to drug cartels in Mexico. However, they quickly lost track of the weapons and some of them turned up in the fatal shooting of a Border Patrol Agent near Tucson in December 2010. Since then, an ongoing investigation has looked into the possibility that it was a gun-running operation headed by the Department of Justice.

The investigation into the Fast and Furious program concluded yesterday saying “Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. had no knowledge of the problems surrounding Fast and Furious before the slaying of a U.S. Border Patrol agent brought them to light.” The Attorney General was quick to point out that this proves he “had neither knowledge of ..nor did he condone any such operation” [ link ]. Now, I’m not making a political statement here. ..but I am making a linguistic observation when I say that this proves nothing of the sort. Finding he had “..no knowledge of the problems” associated with the program does not necessarily mean that he didn’t know ..or wasn’t involved. This makes me suspicious because it sounds like a non-denial of a non-denial. Makes me wonder what the Feds are covering up, which leads me to conclude that they really were supplying guns to drug cartels. This doesn’t surprise me. It’s in their interest to keep smuggling operations alive and well. Not only does it keep the Justice Department in business ..but it provides a much-needed stream of revenue for the Federal Government when times get lean and Congress shuts down funding for other such operations.

Neurolinguistic programming

Hackers are sending messages over the Internet that bypass the usual centers for linguistic processing. They travel along the optic or auditory nerve and go directly into the deep structures of the brain ..those areas responsible for carrying-out parsing operations native to all languages. These messages arrive in their native state ..just out of the reach of the predicates of logic. Like a Trojan horse ..they deliver instructions that basically shred conditioned passageways in the brain, which causes the recipient to start raving incoherently. Like a virus .. anyone hearing the ravings of this lunatic will also be infected ..experience a similar disruption of linguistic pathways and start raving and spreading the virus to others. This isn’t new. 12th century practitioners of the Kabbalah realized the hypnotic power of messages that were composed of symbols taken from sacred texts. I have the Book of the Names on my shelf. It frightens me to take it down because when I do ..I lose hours, even days out of my life and I never know where I’ll end up. Click below and see. 

 

Percepts

The feeling of discourse

An MRI study reveals that emotion, not fact-sharing, promotes social interaction and facilitates interpersonal understanding. What researchers discovered is that emotions ‘synchronize mental networks’ between individuals. Synchronized network activity focuses attention on shared experience and produces a common framework for understanding. Sharing other people’s emotional state during discourse enables us to perceive, experience and interpret what others say in a like manner ..without separation [ link ].