"Injustice anywhere
is a threat to justice everywhere"
Martin Luther King Jr.
Letter from Birmingham Jail, April 16, 1963
Monday, January 18, 2010
Martin Luther King, Jr
Heinrich Himmler
Remember, when listening to this, that the Nazi party was voted into power.
A vote is a precious thing. Use it wisely.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
The Great Firewall
Has Google seen the Light?
Hooray for Google, here's their official comments...
"Like many other well-known organizations, we face cyber attacks of varying degrees on a regular basis. In mid-December, we detected a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google. However, it soon became clear that what at first appeared to be solely a security incident--albeit a significant one--was something quite different.
First, this attack was not just on Google. As part of our investigation we have discovered that at least twenty other large companies from a wide range of businesses--including the Internet, finance, technology, media and chemical sectors--have been similarly targeted. We are currently in the process of notifying those companies, and we are also working with the relevant U.S. authorities." (read more)
Internet censorship in the People's Republic of China is conducted under a wide variety of laws and administrative regulations. In accordance with these laws, more than sixty Internet regulations have been made by the People's Republic of China (PRC) government, and censorship systems are vigorously implemented by provincial branches of state-owned ISPs, business companies, and organizations.
Most national laws of the People's Republic of China do not apply to the Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong or Macau. There are no known cases of the Chinese authorities censoring critical political or religious content in those areas.
The escalation of the government's effort to neutralize critical online opinion comes after a series of large anti-Japanese, anti-pollution and anti-corruption protests, many of which were organized or publicized using instant messaging services, chat rooms, and text messages. The size of the Internet police is estimated at more than 30,000. Critical comments appearing on Internet forums, blogs, and major portals such as Sohu and Sina usually are erased within minutes.
The apparatus of the PRC's Internet repression is considered more extensive and more advanced than in any other country in the world. The regime not only blocks website content but also monitors the internet access of individuals. Amnesty International notes that "China has the largest recorded number of imprisoned journalists and cyber-dissidents in the world." The offences of which they are accused include communicating with groups abroad, opposing the persecution of the Falun Gong, signing online petitions, and calling for reform and an end to corruption. (read more)
Official Google Blog
God didn't make any "bad" people
Believe nothing,
no matter where you read it,
or who said it,
no matter if I have said it,
unless it agrees with your own reason
and your own common sense.
Buddha
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Friday, January 15, 2010
I Like Smoking
I like smoking...
I know it's bad for me...
and I know I should quit...
but I don't want to give it up...
it's like losing an old friend...
maybe I could find another friend...
I don't know what I'm going to do.
(link)
Haiti
People of Haiti
besieged by grinding and relentless poverty,
forever reminded of race,
children of sorrow
descendents of slaves
hounded, discredited, ridiculed
by those who have watched
with indifference your
descent into the abyss,
children of catastrophe
forsaken by the very earth
that rumbles beneath your feet,
people of Haiti
fragile is the fabric that
ties the human family to the
illusive specter of civilization.
besieged by grinding and relentless poverty,
forever reminded of race,
children of sorrow
descendents of slaves
hounded, discredited, ridiculed
by those who have watched
with indifference your
descent into the abyss,
children of catastrophe
forsaken by the very earth
that rumbles beneath your feet,
people of Haiti
fragile is the fabric that
ties the human family to the
illusive specter of civilization.
Fairy Tales
I once saw a television show about a woman who believed that humans, like some plants, could maintain their life force by converting the sun's light into usable energy.
I once read a book about a shaman who taught that humans could control their surroundings with the use of their will, which manifests itself as tentacles emerging from the torso.
I once heard the story of a woman curing her own lymphoma cancer by utilizing the Law of Attraction and employing positive thinking.
I once learned about a man who believed in nonviolent noncooperation; he stopped eating and then they abolished apartheid.
Every day of my life, I am told that magic is really an illusion; we have to play along with society's rules. The people who tell me these things consider themselves realists and label me a dreamer, a hippie, unrealistic, and even lazy.
Who do you believe?
I once read a book about a shaman who taught that humans could control their surroundings with the use of their will, which manifests itself as tentacles emerging from the torso.
I once heard the story of a woman curing her own lymphoma cancer by utilizing the Law of Attraction and employing positive thinking.
I once learned about a man who believed in nonviolent noncooperation; he stopped eating and then they abolished apartheid.
Every day of my life, I am told that magic is really an illusion; we have to play along with society's rules. The people who tell me these things consider themselves realists and label me a dreamer, a hippie, unrealistic, and even lazy.
Who do you believe?
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Warhol, Andy
Andrew Warhola (August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987), more commonly known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. After a successful career as a commercial illustrator, Warhol became famous worldwide for his work as a painter, avant-garde filmmaker, record producer, author, and public figure known for his membership in wildly diverse social circles that included bohemian street people, distinguished intellectuals, Hollywood celebrities and wealthy aristocrats.
Warhol has been the subject of numerous retrospective exhibitions, books, and feature and documentary films. He coined the widely used expression "15 minutes of fame." In his hometown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, The Andy Warhol Museum exists in memory of his life and artwork.
The highest price ever paid for a Warhol painting is $100 million for a 1963 canvas titled Eight Elvises. The private transaction was reported in an article in The Economist, which described Warhol as the "bellwether of the art market." $100 million is a benchmark price that only Jackson Pollock, Pablo Picasso, Gustav Klimt and Willem De Kooning have achieved.
On June 3, 1968, Valerie Solanas shot Warhol and art critic and curator Mario Amaya at Warhol's studio.
Before the shooting, Solanas had been a marginal figure in the Factory scene. She founded a "group" called S.C.U.M. (Society for Cutting Up Men) and authored the S.C.U.M. Manifesto, a separatist feminist attack on patriarchy. Earlier on the day of the attack, Solanas had been turned away from the Factory after asking for the return of a script she had given to Warhol. The script, apparently, had been misplaced.
Amaya received only minor injuries and was released from the hospital later the same day. Warhol however, was seriously wounded by the attack and barely survived (surgeons opened his chest and massaged his heart to help stimulate its movement again). He suffered physical effects for the rest of his life. The shooting had a profound effect on Warhol's life and art.
The shooting was mostly overshadowed in the media due to the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy two days later.
Warhol had this to say about the attack: "Before I was shot, I always thought that I was more half-there than all-there – I always suspected that I was watching TV instead of living life. People sometimes say that the way things happen in movies is unreal, but actually it's the way things happen in life that's unreal. The movies make emotions look so strong and real, whereas when things really do happen to you, it's like watching television – you don't feel anything. Right when I was being shot and ever since, I knew that I was watching television. The channels switch, but it's all television."
(read more)
Andy Warhol's scars, New York City 1969
Photograph by Richard Avedon
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
The Simpsons
The Simpsons is an American animated television sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a working class American lifestyle epitomized by its eponymous family, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie. The show is set in the fictional city of Springfield, and lampoons American culture, society, television and many aspects of the human condition.
The family was conceived by Groening shortly before a pitch for a series of animated shorts with the producer James L. Brooks. Groening created a dysfunctional family and named the characters after members of his own family, substituting Bart for his own name. The shorts became a part of The Tracey Ullman Show on April 19, 1987. After a three-season run, the sketch was developed into a half-hour prime time show and was an early hit for Fox, becoming the first Fox series to land in the Top 30 ratings in a season (1989–1990).
Since its debut on December 17, 1989 the show has broadcast 451 episodes and the twenty-first season began airing on September 27, 2009. The Simpsons Movie, a feature-length film, was released in theaters worldwide on July 26 and July 27, 2007, and grossed US$527 million worldwide.
The Simpsons has won dozens of awards since it debuted as a series, including 25 Primetime Emmy Awards, 26 Annie Awards and a Peabody Award. Time magazine's December 31, 1999 issue named it the 20th century's best television series, and on January 14, 2000 the Simpson family was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The Simpsons is the longest-running American sitcom, the longest-running American animated program, and in 2009 it surpassed Gunsmoke as the longest running American primetime entertainment series. Homer's exclamatory catchphrase "D'oh!" has been adopted into the English lexicon, while The Simpsons has influenced many adult-oriented animated sitcoms.
(read more)
Monday, January 11, 2010
A Nation Out of Balance
There are a multitude of strident and cacophonous voices speaking out on the many issues that confront a nation that is in the midst of crisis. Yet, the critiques that range from unreasoned rage to unflinching and relentless recrimination, fail to reflect the underlying source of the national malaise.
We are a nation out of balance. As a people, we have allowed our intrinsic understanding of our place within the human community and the natural world to be supplanted by the artificial requirements imposed on individual lives by the demands of purely commercial interests.
There are millions of unemployed people who have lost their livelihoods as a direct result of the manipulation of the financial markets by those who remain untouched by the crisis that has gripped so many lives. We have engineered a social order that operates on the premise of the exploitation of need and the manufacture of desire. The majority of those who are employed spend their working hours performing tasks that fail to satisfy the fundamental need to do meaningful work.
We are a population so out of touch with our essential connection with the natural world that we still do not recognize our role in the inexorable deterioration of the natural environment to the degree required to make the changes that could avert future catastrophe.
The manufacture of armaments and weapons of mass destruction have become a fundamental part of the national economy. War and the accepted use of violence to resolve human conflict on the national and individual level has become a seemingly permanent aspect of our world view.
Our President, members of Congress, corporate leadership and others who are relied upon for formulating public policy cannot help but reflect the hallmarks of our culture. We are a nation and people dramatically out of balance with the fundamental realities that are a necessary part of a sustainable future.
We are a nation out of balance. As a people, we have allowed our intrinsic understanding of our place within the human community and the natural world to be supplanted by the artificial requirements imposed on individual lives by the demands of purely commercial interests.
There are millions of unemployed people who have lost their livelihoods as a direct result of the manipulation of the financial markets by those who remain untouched by the crisis that has gripped so many lives. We have engineered a social order that operates on the premise of the exploitation of need and the manufacture of desire. The majority of those who are employed spend their working hours performing tasks that fail to satisfy the fundamental need to do meaningful work.
We are a population so out of touch with our essential connection with the natural world that we still do not recognize our role in the inexorable deterioration of the natural environment to the degree required to make the changes that could avert future catastrophe.
The manufacture of armaments and weapons of mass destruction have become a fundamental part of the national economy. War and the accepted use of violence to resolve human conflict on the national and individual level has become a seemingly permanent aspect of our world view.
Our President, members of Congress, corporate leadership and others who are relied upon for formulating public policy cannot help but reflect the hallmarks of our culture. We are a nation and people dramatically out of balance with the fundamental realities that are a necessary part of a sustainable future.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Simplistic Complexity...
The bad people never get away...
unless the good people give up.
Ahhh... If only such fantasy was true...
then the good would stand a better chance?
And so, I ask, is it all. . . Too Little, Too Late... (?)
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Pearls Before Swine
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny.......when the government fears the people, there is liberty.......Thomas Jefferson.
Oh God, oh God......I get in trouble every time I open my mouth......I just can't shut up.
Thank you......Father, God, Allah, Yahweh, Elohim, Jehovah, Krishna.......thank you for my life.
Religion should embrace science.......to know God's Truth is our greatest challenge.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.......but I have promises to keep.....and miles to go before I sleep.......and miles to go before I sleep......Robert Frost.
There's a war coming.......though they try to dumb us down, we slowly learn......and in the learning we finally see.......we are slaves......slaves to our fear, our ignorance, our hate......and in learning this......we begin the battle that leads us to true liberty.
In a forest of lies......it's hard to see the truth.
Smart money says......there's money to be made in prisons.......just ask investors who have seen their stakes in the private jailer more than triple in value in the past year......the prison business is booming.......yes indeed.......the profiteering prison-industrial complex has many government incentives to maintain a high prison population.......now we can profit from the poor and retarded......and mental patients.......and homeless.................I know some people need to be incarcerated but.............should this be a business?
Hunger.......makes a thief of any man........Pearl S. Buck.
Every person deserves respect.......as a person......an image of ourselves.......what we do to another can be done to us.......what example will you also endure?
I'm guilty......guilty as hell.......I've done things.......bad things.......I wish I could do it all over again......I'd change a million things........and nothing.
"The fact is, milk lacks some important nutrients needed for infant development"......this is the copy on the side of an infant formula box......that obfuscates the fact that.......breast milk.......is in fact recommended over any formula.......deception at the expense of a baby.
Every crime......................is a hate crime.
Now let's get down to the business of sucking every loose penny out of Mr. and Mrs. Average Knucklehead........Robots.
I can buy a kidney in India........for 20,000-30,000 bucks.......the poor sap that parts with it gets a thousand or so.......if they don't stiff 'em while he's still under.
Why is it okay for Google and Yahoo and Microsoft........to enable the Chinese to censor the internet?
Father................the sleeper has awakened!.......Muad'Dib.
Since 1950, an estimated 1.2 million Tibetans have been killed by the Chinese........cultural genocide can be overlooked.......when you offer cheap labor.
If those bible thumpin' moralists were so intent on preventing abortions........they'd be on every street corner passing out condoms........ya think?
CIA,TNT,NBC,DOA,NXS,MIA,KIA,BTW,FBI,NSA,EPA,FDA,SOS.
Read "A Culture of Corruption"......by Bill Moyers.
If those gays want to get married.......I think we should let 'em.........they have the right to be as miserable as the rest of us..........hee hee.
You ever seen a UFO?........I have........ask Travis Walton about it.
Money, money, money.......got to have it......really need it......O'Jays.
(read more)
Friday, January 8, 2010
Patience
When I was 5 I learned what patience was
When I was 10 I thought I knew what patience was
When I was 20 I thought I knew what patience was
When I was 30 I thought I knew what patience was
When I was 40 I thought I knew what patience was
When I was 50 I thought I knew what patience was
Now I know what patience is
Patience is never-ending
Thursday, January 7, 2010
The Copenhagen Climate Change Conference – A missed opportunity
The Copenhagen conference was a direct outgrowth of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that spawned the Kyoto Protocol of 1997. This agreement was largely ineffective; because, the major producer of green house gases, the United States, was not a signatory.
An overwhelming body of scientific evidence demonstrates that climate change poses a real threat to the planet; that it is a direct result of human activity and that an increase of 1.5C in average world temperature is assured regardless of what is done to mitigate the severity of the outcome.
The Copenhagen Accord was essentially brokered by President Obama with representatives of the developing countries of China, India, Brazil and South Africa. Most countries gave the accord their support, but Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Cuba were opposed. It should be remembered that the United States and China collectively produce 41% of the world’s greenhouse gases. In that sense, the Copenhagen Accord achieved what the Kyoto Protocol failed to do.
In many ways, however, it was a missed opportunity. None of the conclusions that were reached are legally binding, nor is there any commitment to come to one in the future. There has been no global target set for emission reductions by the year 2050, as anticipated. A goal was envisioned in which the developed countries would contribute to a fund to be used to aid the developing countries in the quest to curb greenhouse gas emissions. The amount stated was 100 billion dollars a year, yet no mechanism was suggested to reach this ambitious goal. In essence, a gentleman’s agreement was reached with the aim of holding the increase in global temperature to under 2C with the added goal of reaching a peak level of international and national emissions as soon as possible.
One could argue that this accord is a significant first step in the process of addressing a serious global issue with the participation of those countries that contribute significantly to the problem. The failure to take more decisive action, however, suggests a lack of real commitment to deal with a reality that can have such a destabilizing impact on world climate and ultimately on human civilization. A fundamental change in human behavior is required that we are apparently not yet willing to accept.
An overwhelming body of scientific evidence demonstrates that climate change poses a real threat to the planet; that it is a direct result of human activity and that an increase of 1.5C in average world temperature is assured regardless of what is done to mitigate the severity of the outcome.
The Copenhagen Accord was essentially brokered by President Obama with representatives of the developing countries of China, India, Brazil and South Africa. Most countries gave the accord their support, but Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Cuba were opposed. It should be remembered that the United States and China collectively produce 41% of the world’s greenhouse gases. In that sense, the Copenhagen Accord achieved what the Kyoto Protocol failed to do.
In many ways, however, it was a missed opportunity. None of the conclusions that were reached are legally binding, nor is there any commitment to come to one in the future. There has been no global target set for emission reductions by the year 2050, as anticipated. A goal was envisioned in which the developed countries would contribute to a fund to be used to aid the developing countries in the quest to curb greenhouse gas emissions. The amount stated was 100 billion dollars a year, yet no mechanism was suggested to reach this ambitious goal. In essence, a gentleman’s agreement was reached with the aim of holding the increase in global temperature to under 2C with the added goal of reaching a peak level of international and national emissions as soon as possible.
One could argue that this accord is a significant first step in the process of addressing a serious global issue with the participation of those countries that contribute significantly to the problem. The failure to take more decisive action, however, suggests a lack of real commitment to deal with a reality that can have such a destabilizing impact on world climate and ultimately on human civilization. A fundamental change in human behavior is required that we are apparently not yet willing to accept.
Courage Campaign -- Ask Judge Walker to televise Prop 8
Let’s do it right this time.
Re-post if you don’t believe in an authoritative collective dictating what love and passion between two human beings should mean.
http://www.couragecampaign.org/page/s/TeleviseTheTrial
http://www.couragecampaign.org/page/s/TeleviseTheTrial
http://www.couragecampaign.org/page/s/TeleviseTheTrial
Re-post if you don’t believe in an authoritative collective dictating what love and passion between two human beings should mean.
http://www.couragecampaign.org/page/s/TeleviseTheTrial
http://www.couragecampaign.org/page/s/TeleviseTheTrial
http://www.couragecampaign.org/page/s/TeleviseTheTrial
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Monday, January 4, 2010
Happy 367th Birthday Sir Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton (4 January 1643 – 31 March 1727) was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian who is perceived and considered by a substantial number of scholars and the general public as one of the most influential scientists in history.
His 1687 publication of the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (usually called the Principia) is considered to be among the most influential books in the history of science, laying the groundwork for most of classical mechanics. In this work, Newton described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries.
Newton showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.
His 1687 publication of the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (usually called the Principia) is considered to be among the most influential books in the history of science, laying the groundwork for most of classical mechanics. In this work, Newton described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries.
Newton showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.
"I do not know what I may appear to the world,
but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy
playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself
in now and then finding a smoother pebble
or a prettier shell than ordinary,
whilst the great ocean of truth
lay all undiscovered before me."
Sir Isaac Newton
(read more)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)