Synæsthesia

I wake up with badly congested information-channels ~ I see shifting patterns of different colors entering an open window ~ and watch the walls dissolve into orange dots before they reach the ceiling. I sit up and swing my feet over the edge of a pillowy sensation I comfortably rely on as my bed ~ but now the floor has dropped out of sight. I count the number of times this has happened and figure the odds of landing with both feet on the floor are in my favor. I decide to play it safe ~ take one step at a time ~ stopping frequently to make sure I am where I’m accustomed to be, and not where I appear to be, because I know my senses are deceiving me. Downstairs, scattered waves of light travel in every direction ~ except through the channels of my visual receptors. I find something likely to be my CD player and punch it in the vicinity of the on/off switch. A punk rock CD, left in there from the night before, starts to blare. The light waves begin bouncing to the rhythm, and, like little drops of colored water ~ they enter into the proper channels and float down streams of sensory-energy ~ until they fall into pools of stored-memory ~ and form the image of what I’m supposed to see. Like adjusting the focus of a camera lens ~ it all becomes clear. I drop to my knees and pay homage to the deities of music ~ then crank up the volume and go in the kitchen to prepare myself a thermos of coffee. Looks like it’s going to be a good day.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama

March 24, 2008

"China accuses

His Holiness the Dalai Lama

of being a terrorist."

HA!

5 Myths About Health Care Around the World

By T.R. Reid
Sunday, August 23, 2009

As Americans search for the cure to what ails our health-care system, we've overlooked an invaluable source of ideas and solutions: the rest of the world. All the other industrialized democracies have faced problems like ours, yet they've found ways to cover everybody -- and still spend far less than we do.

I've traveled the world from Oslo to Osaka to see how other developed democracies provide health care. Instead of dismissing these models as "socialist," we could adapt their solutions to fix our problems. To do that, we first have to dispel a few myths about health care abroad:

1. It's all socialized medicine out there.

Not so. Some countries, such as Britain, New Zealand and Cuba, do provide health care in government hospitals, with the government paying the bills. Others -- for instance, Canada and Taiwan -- rely on private-sector providers, paid for by government-run insurance. But many wealthy countries -- including Germany, the Netherlands, Japan and Switzerland -- provide universal coverage using private doctors, private hospitals and private insurance plans.

In some ways, health care is less "socialized" overseas than in the United States. Almost all Americans sign up for government insurance (Medicare) at age 65. In Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands, seniors stick with private insurance plans for life. Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is one of the planet's purest examples of government-run health care.

2. Overseas, care is rationed through limited choices or long lines.

Generally, no. Germans can sign up for any of the nation's 200 private health insurance plans -- a broader choice than any American has. If a German doesn't like her insurance company, she can switch to another, with no increase in premium. The Swiss, too, can choose any insurance plan in the country.

In France and Japan, you don't get a choice of insurance provider; you have to use the one designated for your company or your industry. But patients can go to any doctor, any hospital, any traditional healer. There are no U.S.-style limits such as "in-network" lists of doctors or "pre-authorization" for surgery. You pick any doctor, you get treatment -- and insurance has to pay.

Canadians have their choice of providers. In Austria and Germany, if a doctor diagnoses a person as "stressed," medical insurance pays for weekends at a health spa.

As for those notorious waiting lists, some countries are indeed plagued by them. Canada makes patients wait weeks or months for nonemergency care, as a way to keep costs down. But studies by the Commonwealth Fund and others report that many nations -- Germany, Britain, Austria -- outperform the United States on measures such as waiting times for appointments and for elective surgeries.

In Japan, waiting times are so short that most patients don't bother to make an appointment. One Thursday morning in Tokyo, I called the prestigious orthopedic clinic at Keio University Hospital to schedule a consultation about my aching shoulder. "Why don't you just drop by?" the receptionist said. That same afternoon, I was in the surgeon's office. Dr. Nakamichi recommended an operation. "When could we do it?" I asked. The doctor checked his computer and said, "Tomorrow would be pretty difficult. Perhaps some day next week?"

3. Foreign health-care systems are inefficient, bloated bureaucracies.

Much less so than here. It may seem to Americans that U.S.-style free enterprise -- private-sector, for-profit health insurance -- is naturally the most cost-effective way to pay for health care. But in fact, all the other payment systems are more efficient than ours.

U.S. health insurance companies have the highest administrative costs in the world; they spend roughly 20 cents of every dollar for nonmedical costs, such as paperwork, reviewing claims and marketing. France's health insurance industry, in contrast, covers everybody and spends about 4 percent on administration. Canada's universal insurance system, run by government bureaucrats, spends 6 percent on administration. In Taiwan, a leaner version of the Canadian model has administrative costs of 1.5 percent; one year, this figure ballooned to 2 percent, and the opposition parties savaged the government for wasting money.

The world champion at controlling medical costs is Japan, even though its aging population is a profligate consumer of medical care. On average, the Japanese go to the doctor 15 times a year, three times the U.S. rate. They have twice as many MRI scans and X-rays. Quality is high; life expectancy and recovery rates for major diseases are better than in the United States. And yet Japan spends about $3,400 per person annually on health care; the United States spends more than $7,000.

4. Cost controls stifle innovation.

False. The United States is home to groundbreaking medical research, but so are other countries with much lower cost structures. Any American who's had a hip or knee replacement is standing on French innovation. Deep-brain stimulation to treat depression is a Canadian breakthrough. Many of the wonder drugs promoted endlessly on American television, including Viagra, come from British, Swiss or Japanese labs.

Overseas, strict cost controls actually drive innovation. In the United States, an MRI scan of the neck region costs about $1,500. In Japan, the identical scan costs $98. Under the pressure of cost controls, Japanese researchers found ways to perform the same diagnostic technique for one-fifteenth the American price. (And Japanese labs still make a profit.)

5. Health insurance has to be cruel.

Not really. American health insurance companies routinely reject applicants with a "preexisting condition" -- precisely the people most likely to need the insurers' service. They employ armies of adjusters to deny claims. If a customer is hit by a truck and faces big medical bills, the insurer's "rescission department" digs through the records looking for grounds to cancel the policy, often while the victim is still in the hospital. The companies say they have to do this stuff to survive in a tough business.

Foreign health insurance companies, in contrast, must accept all applicants, and they can't cancel as long as you pay your premiums. The plans are required to pay any claim submitted by a doctor or hospital (or health spa), usually within tight time limits. The big Swiss insurer Groupe Mutuel promises to pay all claims within five days. "Our customers love it," the group's chief executive told me. The corollary is that everyone is mandated to buy insurance, to give the plans an adequate pool of rate-payers.

The key difference is that foreign health insurance plans exist only to pay people's medical bills, not to make a profit. The United States is the only developed country that lets insurance companies profit from basic health coverage.

In many ways, foreign health-care models are not really "foreign" to America, because our crazy-quilt health-care system uses elements of all of them. For Native Americans or veterans, we're Britain: The government provides health care, funding it through general taxes, and patients get no bills. For people who get insurance through their jobs, we're Germany: Premiums are split between workers and employers, and private insurance plans pay private doctors and hospitals. For people over 65, we're Canada: Everyone pays premiums for an insurance plan run by the government, and the public plan pays private doctors and hospitals according to a set fee schedule. And for the tens of millions without insurance coverage, we're Burundi or Burma: In the world's poor nations, sick people pay out of pocket for medical care; those who can't pay stay sick or die.

This fragmentation is another reason that we spend more than anybody else and still leave millions without coverage. All the other developed countries have settled on one model for health-care delivery and finance; we've blended them all into a costly, confusing bureaucratic mess.

Which, in turn, punctures the most persistent myth of all: that America has "the finest health care" in the world. We don't. In terms of results, almost all advanced countries have better national health statistics than the United States does. In terms of finance, we force 700,000 Americans into bankruptcy each year because of medical bills. In France, the number of medical bankruptcies is zero. Britain: zero. Japan: zero. Germany: zero.

Given our remarkable medical assets -- the best-educated doctors and nurses, the most advanced hospitals, world-class research -- the United States could be, and should be, the best in the world. To get there, though, we have to be willing to learn some lessons about health-care administration from the other industrialized democracies.

T.R. Reid, a former Washington Post reporter, is the author of "The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care."

Something to be sure of

Will we ever be safe...?

no...

death stalks you.

Teddy joins his brothers

"The work begins anew.

The hope rises again.

And the dream lives on."

Rest In Peace.

Head case

A model for the fabric of the mind has been tentatively settled-on. It’s one that characterizes what’s inside my head as a 3-dimensional network of delicately connected instances of prior experience and feeling. Under ordinary circumstances, incoming sensory and verbal events produce ripples that spread out over this fabric, like stones on a pond, activating network-connections until a clear mental representation is formed. However, when something goes wrong, and there’s a disturbance in the fabric, activation may become amp’d, unfettered and diffuse ..compounding insubstantial phenomena until, what may have started out as a gentle hummingbird, for example .. becomes a ferocious beast. Sometimes I think it’s only a matter of degree between clarity and delusion ..especially when I consider how many times I mistook a perfectly innocent remark as hostility.

Dovima with Elephants

Richard Avedon

Dovima with elephants

evening dress by Dior

Cirque d'Hiver, Paris

August 1955

Galileo Galilei, 1564-1642

It is the 400th anniversary of Galileo's telescope, a moment defined as the beginning of the end of the childhood of mankind, a moment when our eyes where opened to the truth of the universe.

Galileo had lived a long and very productive life before he revolutionized astronomy by turning a telescope to the sky. He learned medicine and mathematics at the University of Pisa and became an able instrument builder. He performed many experiments in the motion of bodies and convincingly toppled some of Aristotle's notions, most notably the notion that heavier objects fall faster. Galileo proved soundly that all falling objects fall at the same rate, regardless of mass.

While a professor of mathematics at Padua, Galileo heard descriptions of a recent Flemish invention, the telescope, built with two convex lenses. Galileo worked out the geometry of this arrangement and built a telescope that magnified objects by a factor of ten. After getting a pay raise for this, he designed a more powerful version and pointed it at the sky, thereby changing astronomy forever.

"The moon was seen to have mountains, craters, and sea-like dark smooth areas. The sun had blemishes, or sunspots. The planets were seen as disks! The stars remained point-like. Venus showed phases like the moon. Jupiter had four moons, the inner ones revolving faster than the outer ones."

Around 1611, Galileo ran into some trouble with the Church, which had embraced the Aristotlean cosmology. He was made to promise not to publish anything that implied that the Copernican view was real. He was careful to keep any remarks on the correctness of the Copernican sun-centered view repressed or expressed hypothetically until 1632, when, emboldened by good relations with the pope and some cardinals, he published his "Dialog on the Great World Systems" which was blatantly pro-Copernican.

In 1633, at age 70, Galileo was ordered to stand trial on suspicion of heresy. The sentence of the Inquisition was in three essential parts:

Galileo was found "vehemently suspect of heresy," namely of having held the opinions that the Sun lies motionless at the centre of the universe, that the Earth is not at its centre and moves, and that one may hold and defend an opinion as probable after it has been declared contrary to Holy Scripture. He was required to "abjure, curse and detest" those opinions.

He was ordered imprisoned; the sentence was later commuted to house arrest.

His offending Dialogue was banned; and in an action not announced at the trial, publication of any of his works was forbidden, including any he might write in the future.

It took nearly 400 years but, on November 4, 1992 Pope Paul II issued a formal and public apology concerning the treatment of Galileo saying, "The error of the theologians of the time, when they maintained the centrality of the Earth, was to think that our understanding of the physical world's structure was, in some way, imposed by the literal sense of Sacred Scripture...."

Religion should embrace science, to seek the truth is to seek god, there is nothing to be gained by replacing truth with belief.

(excerpts from astro.wsu.edu and wikipedia.org)

Nothing

No-"thing" is inherently evil...


it's like guns, drugs and money...


the important thing...


is what WE DO with them.

TALIBAN EXCHANGE PROGRAM - HEROIN, OPIUM AND HASHISH FOR WEAPONS

John Podesta on Disclosure

Art Imitates Life

District 9 earned overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics. On the film review website Rotten Tomatoes, it currently holds a "Certified Fresh" rating, with 89% of critics giving it a positive review, with the consensus being, "technically brilliant and emotionally wrenching, District 9 has action, imagination, and all the elements of a thoroughly entertaining science-fiction classic".

Some critics have been ecstatic about the film. Sara Vilkomerson of The New York Observer writes, "District 9 is the most exciting science fiction movie to come along in ages; definitely the most thrilling film of the summer; and quite possibly the best film I've seen all year." Christy Lemire from the Associated Press was impressed by the plot and thematic content, claiming that "District 9 has the aesthetic trappings of science fiction but it's really more of a character drama, an examination of how a man responds when he's forced to confront his identity during extraordinary circumstances." Entertainment Weekly's Lisa Schwarzbaum described it as "...madly original, cheekily political, and altogether exciting..."

Merchants Of Death

Individuals, companies and corporations have always taken advantage of warfare to make enormous economic profit. For centuries, ordinary people, who suffer most from war, have resisted these war profiteers. One of the major factors in Harry S. Truman's (Give 'em Hell, Harry!) rise to the U.S. presidency was his relentless pursuit of war profiteers.

But now the nature and power of these war profiteers have changed. Instead of racing in after the war begins, they're stepping up before a war even starts. In the last 20 years or so, these war profiteers have acquired more and more power over U.S. policy-making. Our Stop the Merchants of Death [SMoD] program uncovers the many ways these corporations are literally calling the shots when it comes to deciding what weapons systems to buy, what countries to invade, what foreign resources to seize. At the War Resisters League we say, It's not so much true anymore to say that they make profit from war. They have such power that it's more accurate to say they now make war for profit.

In 1992, then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney hired a private company to answer the question: Is it economically feasible to outsource military logistics from the Department of Defense to private companies? That is, should we let private companies take care of building barracks, delivering fuel and ammunition, delivering and cooking and serving food, etc? Of course, the private company said, yes.

The private company's name was Halliburton.

In 1992, Cheney left public office and with no previous business experience at all, became the CEO of a major private company.

The private company's name was Halliburton.

For the next eight years, thousands of military logistics contracts were outsourced. One thousand of these contracts went to one private company.

The private company's name was Halliburton.

In 2000, Dick Cheney became the Vice President of the United States. A little over a year later, the United States went to war against Afghanistan. Halliburton's profits jumped.

About two years after that, the United States went to war against Iraq. Halliburton, whose former CEO was now Vice-President of the United States, got hundreds of no-bid contracts. That is, contracts for Iraq were simply given to Halliburton, with no competitive bidding at all. Half a billion dollars worth in 2003, three billion dollars in 2004, and eight billion dollars in 2005.

Halliburton's profits spiked again. And so did the value of Dick Cheney's 433,000 deferred stock options in Halliburton. We cannot help but wonder if there is a conflict of interest here. With so much personal profit at stake, can we honestly say that Dick Cheney was using his voice solely for the well-being of the United States?

The War Resisters League wants to stop all war profiteering. And we want to start by getting Halliburton out of the business of war-making. Halliburton has multi-billion dollar contracts for military logistics. Through their subsidiary, Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR), they have a multi-billion dollar contract for Iraqi oil.

Make no mistake. Halliburton's first priority is that of most corporations, to make as much money as they can. One set of results is predictable: shoddy supplies and service, and at least a billion dollars in charges not considered acceptable by the Defense Contract Audit Agency.

The other set of results is also predictable, the Merchants of Death and its agents are going to continue to push for war because there is so much profit in it.

(read more)

happiness

...is a warm gun!

(just to share the huge amount of love and happiness we've got during this trip... the kind of thing i wish every being on earth to achieve! ...and the same way i use to share my worries here i thought that this time i should share this another mood!)

Permanently Protect the Arctic Refuge!

Click here ~> Urge Congress to Permanently Protect the Arctic Refuge! - The Petition Site

North West Passage

The ice age is melting and the Arctic is turning into water. On some days temperatures can hover around 70 degrees fahrenheit ..turning ice shelves into tropical zones. For me, this conjures up images of smooth sailing, sunbathing on sandy beaches and swimming in emerald lagoons. But I’m a fucking dreamer who needs to see things the way they are. What this really means is greater opportunity for fortune-seekers looking for trade routes to China. What is now home to Eskimos, who still hunt whales and live in igloos ..is about to become an international trade zone ..occupied by oil barons ..land developers ..and casino operators. I have the feeling we are looking at the next wild frontier. Now I picture myself sailing through the North West Passage like it was California during the gold rush ..shooting polar bears instead of buffaloes.

I'm Going Home

The Un-training

The "un-training"...

everything you've been taught

is a lie...

well, not everything

and...

there are only two levels

above death...

acceptance and sharing

Selfish

"To me it seems that to give happiness is a far nobler goal that to attain it: and that what we exist for is much more a matter of relations to others than a matter of individual progress: much more a matter of helping others to heaven than of getting there ourselves."-Lewis Carroll

Imagine
Everyone in the world living selflessly.
We wouldn't have to worry about whether people had enough to eat,
or whether they had a good place to sleep.
We wouldn't fight over issues with health care,
and we wouldn't be fighting wars.
You'd be taking care of the others around you,
and the others around you would be taking care of you.
Why do we fear this kind of life?
What is so distasteful about peace?
People are so blind, so ignorant.
They're so stuck in what they already know.
You must discover love!
You must discover what is right!
I'm wrong, you're wrong, we'll all wrong starting now.
Figure it out, the truth, what do you see?
Death gives no satisfaction
Because how can you enjoy anything without life?
Satisfaction should be found in the eternal.
Our humanities should not depend on money or possession,
but we should invest in each other.
Humanity should be the controller of its destiny,
rather than the victim of its fate.
Work with me people.
Despite what I've heard,
it takes more than one boy's ambition to change the entire world.

Fire In The Sky

On November 5, 1975, seven men witnessed a spacecraft from another world hovering silently between tall pines in the Apache-Sitgreaves National forest of north-eastern Arizona. One of those men, Travis Walton, became an unwilling captive of an alien race when the other men fled in fear. See what these seven men experienced in the movie based on the true story, "Fire in the Sky."

"If I had to do it over again I wouldn't get out of the truck."

Pluto’s neighborhood

Admittedly, Pluto is a fringe dweller. It orbits at the outer-most edge of the solar system. Lately, however ..it’s been seen passing in and out of mainstream consciousness .. like the punks and the freaks we see in high school. Now, we may diss’ Pluto, and even question it’s right to exist as a planet ..but we can’t deny its presence. It’s there ..way out there ..twisted and possibly trans-gender .. but definitely there. And it’s not alone. It travels with a swarming pack of fellow Plutinos and other planetoids we still haven’t been able to identify. We know one of its peers is Neptune ..or what the early Vedic Seers called Varuna ..the goddess of the oceans. Another companion is Tau ..or what the local tribesmen call Quaoar .. a formless, genderless force that brought into existence some of the cosmic beings we know as Father Sky, Mother Earth and Grandfather Sun. I’d say Pluto lives in a pretty respectable neighborhood. I wouldn’t dismiss it as a backwater space entity any longer.

Running Up That Hill

Kate Bush - Running up that Hill
Uploaded by scopitones. - See the latest featured music videos.

Star Trek

I believe in a Star Trek world

I believe that food and housing and education

would seem to be better weapons against

extremism and violence

than murder, mayhem and war

I believe that when we put profit above human life

we are feeding on our young

Open your eyes to the new galactic perspective

we are not alone in the universe

human beings are but one race among many

I believe it is time to reject our

culture of scarcity and corruption

the drive for profit alone is self destructive

The New Age of Enlightenment is upon us

and Gene Roddenberry had a perfect vision of it in Star Trek

I believe it is time to change the world......

......we are feeding on our young

press sure

"You can ask any question,
as long as this* is the answer..*"
~ RE: Public CAN!

Elon Musk

Elon Musk (born 1971) is an American engineer, entrepreneur and philanthropist best known for co-founding PayPal, SpaceX and Tesla.

He is currently the CEO and CTO of SpaceX, CEO and Product Architect of Tesla Motors and Chairman of SolarCity.

The White Zombie

The oil industry doesn't want you to know about the electric car...
with an electric car and a small solar panel you could drive for free.

Zippy the Pinhead

"All life is a blur of Republicans and meat!"

...Zippy the Pinhead...

Message in a Bottle

Roz Savage, Ocean Rower

Roz Savage is a British ocean rower, author, motivational speaker and environmental campaigner. She has rowed solo across the Atlantic Ocean and is now rowing across the Pacific Ocean.

Roz Savage rows near Diamond Head in Hawaii. You can see where Roz is at any time using "RozTracker." (Roz & "Junk" meet...video.)

Roz Savage is my new hero. You can visit her website if you click on this post title. Godspeed and good luck to Roz. Wish I was there.

Do you share...?

I saw the mistakes of society and thought it was the governments fault.

Well, I believe I was wrong.
The world's condition can't be blamed on a few individuals.
The world's condition is solely dependent on all of humanity.
We all contribute to the world's state

Now that fact stumps me.
If the world's state depends on everyone,
well then how do we go about changing the world?
How does one boy's ambition matter at all?

Do you share my ambition?
If you don't, then mine doesn't matter.

Where did this ambition come from?
Haha, I laugh now at what I had once thought possible.
But I still won't give up.
I'm just stubborn like that.