Modal Ontological Argument for the Existence of God

Some definitions:

A necessary being is a being which must exist, a being which cannot not-exist. It would exist and be exactly the same as it is in any possible world. It woulld exist and would be exactly as it is, in this world, no matter how history had happened to work out.

An absolute God (the traditional G-d of Christianity, Judaism and Islam) is by definition a perfect being: omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent, eternal, immutable, and necessary.

A contingent being is a non-necessary being, a being which can not-exist. It is a being which may happen to exist, and to have certain characeristics, but which might not have existed, or which might have been different that it is, if history had worked out a little differently.

The Argument.

1. An absolute god by definition is a necessary being.

2. By definition, if a necessary being is possible, then it must exist.

3. A necessary being is possible (i.e., the concept of a necessary being involves no contradiction or category mistake).

4. But if a necessary being were merely possible and did not in fact exist, then the necessary being would not be necessary; and this is a contraditction, and therefore impossible.

5. Since the non-existence of a necessary being is logically impossible, a necessary being must exist.

6. Therefore, an absolute G-d must exist.

This idea also holds firm the notion that an objective morality exists.

End. Read more!

Dalai Lama Receives Congressional Gold Medal

WASHINGTON, Oct. 17 — Over furious objections from China, Congress bestowed its highest civilian honor today on the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader whom Beijing considers a troublesome voice of separatism.


Dressed in flowing robes of burgundy and orange, Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, beamed and bowed as President Bush and members of Congress gave him a standing ovation upon his arrival at the Capitol where he came to receive the Congressional Gold Medal. Lawmakers praised him as a hero of the Tibetan struggle. Mr. Bush called him “a man of sincerity and peace.”

But the Dalai Lama also said that he felt “a sense of regret” over the sharp tensions with China unleashed by his visit and the honors conferred upon him.

In gentle language and conciliatory tones, he congratulated China on its dynamic economic growth, recognized its rising role on the world stage, but he also gently urged it to embrace “transparency, the rule of law and freedom of information.”

The 72-year-old spiritual leader, reading at times with difficulty from the English translation of a speech written in Tibetan, made clear that “I’m not seeking independence” from China, a division that Beijing ardently opposes.

Nor, he said, would he use any future agreement with China “as a steppingstone for Tibet’s independence.”

What he wanted, the Dalai Lama said, was “meaningful autonomy for Tibet.”

After speeches by the president and the top leaders of each party as well as by the Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, another Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Congressional Gold Medal winner, the Dalai Lama accepted the medal, drawing a standing ovation from a crowd that included such Tibet sympathizers as the film director Martin Scorsese and the actor Richard Gere.

But earlier in Beijing, Chinese officials had offered sharp new criticism. The top Chinese religious affairs official condemned as a “farce” the American plans to honor the Dalai Lama.

“The protagonist of this farce is the Dalai Lama,” said Ye Xiaowen, director general of the State Administration for Religious Affairs, Reuters reported. Other officials have warned that the award ceremony could have a “serious impact” on American-Chinese relations.

But Mr. Bush, when asked about the political fallout from Beijing during a news conference earlier today, appeared unconcerned.

“I don’t think it ever damages relations when an American president talks about, you know — religious tolerance and religious freedom is good for a nation. I do this every time I meet with him,” he said.

The two men have met three times before. But in the face of the Chinese broadsides, their encounter on Tuesday was as low-key as possible in the circumstances, with the meeting in the White House residence, not the Oval Office, and with no cameras present. White House officials insisted that the meeting was that of a president and a spiritual, not a political, leader.

Mr. Bush reminded reporters that he had informed President Hu Jintao of China, when they met recently in Sydney, that he would be meeting with the Dalai Lama. Later, in his remarks under the Capitol Rotunda, the president urged the Chinese to do the same.

“They will find this good man to be a man of peace and reconciliation,” he said.

In apparent protest over the award for the Dalai Lama, China pulled out of a meeting this month at which world powers were to discuss Iran. It also canceled an annual human rights dialogue with Germany, displeased by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s meeting last month with the Tibetan spiritual leader.

Among the several lawmakers who spoke today, Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, the ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, took sharp aim at the Chinese Communist government. She spoke of Tibetans who “continue to suffer under the iron grip of Beijing’s rulers,” and said the Tibetans know “that truth and justice will prevail over evil and repression.”

Representative Tom Lantos, the California Democrat is who chairman of the committee, denied Chinese charges that the Dalai Lama is a separatist. And he issued a challenge to China: “Let this man of peace visit Beijing.”

The president’s 30-minute meeting with the Dalai Lama on Tuesday had been cloaked in secrecy.

“We in no way want to stir the pot and make China feel that we are poking a stick in their eye,” Dana Perino, the White House press secretary, told reporters. “We understand the Chinese have very strong feelings about this.”

White House spokesmen said the two men discussed the situations in Tibet and in Myanmar, formerly Burma, where that nation’s government, which has close economic ties with China, has cracked down recently on pro-democracy protesters. The United States has urged China to press the Burmese military government to ease off.

The Dalai Lama has lived in exile in India since the Chinese Army crushed an uprising in his homeland in 1959. Tibetan Buddhists revere him as their spiritual leader.

He has been pressing, without success, to go to China to advocate for greater cultural and religious freedoms for his followers. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989.

Read more!

Free Palestine

Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land

[Please watch all 73 minutes. It is very much worth your time. These are things you need to know. Be forewarned that some, many, scenes in this movie may shred your insides.]





Also, I will be going to a screening of Occupation 101 on this topic tomorrow, Tuesday the 16th in Irvine. I do hope to see a good turnout and that some of you can make it. For details on the screening click HERE, for details on the movie itself click HERE. Read more!

Big Brother is R E A L

Orwell in 2007
By Robert Weiner and John Larmett
The Oregonian
Sunday 07 October 2007

In "1984," the novel that most baby boomers read in high school, George Orwell creates a theoretical modern-day government with absolute power - a state in which government, called the Party, monitors and controls every aspect of human life to the extent that even having a disloyal thought is against the law.

On Sept. 26, a federal judge in Eugene ruled that crucial parts of the USA Patriot Act are unconstitutional because they allow federal surveillance and searches of American citizens without demonstrating probable cause. U.S. District Judge Ann L. Aiken said the federal government would "amend the Bill of Rights, by giving it an interpretation that would deprive it of any real meaning."


Ruling in favor of an Oregon lawyer who challenged the act after he was mistakenly linked to the 2004 train bombings in Madrid, Spain, Aiken stated: "A shift to a nation based on extra-constitutional authority is prohibited, as well as ill advised."

Earlier in September, another federal judge, this one in New York, ordered the FBI to stop obtaining e-mail and telephone data without first securing a warrant. The secrecy provisions are "the legislative equivalent of breaking and entering, with an ominous free pass to the hijacking of constitutional values," U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero wrote.

In "1984," the Party barrages citizens with psychological stimuli designed to overwhelm the mind. The giant telescreen in every room monitors behavior. People are continuously reminded of government's surveillance, especially by omnipresent signs reading, "BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU." Individuals are encouraged to spy on each other, even children on their parents, and report any instance of disloyalty to the Party - i.e., government.

"1984" is happening in 2007.

Signs along interstate highways urge citizens, "Report Suspicious Behavior." Cameras mounted at strategic locations monitor our everyday movement (just as in the novel). Red, orange and yellow are no longer just bright, pretty colors: They now represent levels of national security alerts. Intelligence agencies now define "chatter" as "terrorist speak."

The Party in "1984" uses psychological manipulation to make citizens "doublethink" - hold two contradictory ideas contrary to common sense.

Back to 2007: The Patriot Act by its very name defies individuals to disagree with it, for to do so would be "unpatriotic."

The Patriot Act was passed hastily in October 2001, under a cloak of fear in response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Some of the fundamental changes to American's traditional legal rights include:

Establishing a huge surveillance system on millions with no court approval, without probable cause.

Holding citizens indefinitely without access to the courts or counsel.

Monitoring library withdrawals and Internet communications.

Taping attorney-client communications.

Creating a national system for citizens to monitor and report on each other, regardless of reason, including paranoia or ethnic bias.

Developing a massive computer system to monitor every purchase.

Creating a national identification card.

The new federal court rulings are a step forward against threats to our freedom - as were other recent court rulings against the Bush administration's contention that the Geneva Conventions prohibiting torture were "obsolete" and "trite" and against our secret holding of prisoners abroad without due process.

9-11 was real, as the recent videos by Osama bin Laden confirm now more than six years after he attacked us. However, that fact does not allow playing on our fears and increasing our paranoia about our personal safety. Sen. Joseph McCarthy tried that with Communism in the 1950s. The administration has tried to condition the American people, just as Pavlov did with his dogs.

Congress is now revisiting the legality of the Patriot Act, warrantless surveillance programs, torture of prisoners in secret prisons and barring detainees from counsel and knowing the charges against them. By law, in the next few months, Congress must renew, change or end the Patriot Act and surveillance programs.

This week, House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) introduced legislation, passed by his committee and sent to the full House, guaranteeing that the courts oversee wiretaps and that the phone companies cannot just do what some federal investigator tells them and are held accountable for violations of civil liberties. The bill also requires independent audits by the DOJ Inspector General. These provisions continue effective monitoring of potential terrorists. As Conyers, a lifetime champion of individual rights, stated in introducing the bill, "It is possible to protect civil liberties and fight terrorism at the same time."

Senate Judiciary Chair Patrick Leahy (D-VT) has similar concerns, but both Conyers and Leahy must confront the different priorities of both bodies' Intelligence Committees. In addition, the Senate legislation does not penalize the phone companies for past abuses. The issues will be decided on the floor of both the House and Senate and in conference.

Congress must act quickly or the courts should permanently strike down presidential fear-based abuses. Americans' trust of the federal government is now lower than during Watergate, according to a Gallup poll released Sept. 26.

Al-Qaeda hates Americans of all creeds and races and will do whatever it can to destroy us and our way of life. James Madison warned, "If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy." With the mightiest military and strongest technology on Earth, democracy can stand up to terrorism without becoming the mirror of our enemies.
Read more!

Ancient Hindu Cosmology

Read more!

NOBEL PEACE PRIZE

October 13, 2007
Gore Shares Peace Prize for Climate Change Work
By WALTER GIBBS and SARAH LYALL
New York Times

OSLO, Oct. 12 — Former Vice President Al Gore, who emerged from his loss in the muddled 2000 presidential election to devote himself to his passion as an environmental crusader, was awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, sharing it with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations network of scientists.

Read more!

Good Ol' Hank

"If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise don't even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives, jobs. And maybe your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery, isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance. Of how much you really want to do it. And you'll do it, despite rejection in the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you're going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods. And the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It's the only good fight there is . . ." —Henry Chinaski


This quote is from the last book I read in full called Women by Charles Bukowski. (Highly recommended.)It's been a very Bukowski day for me minus the whiskey and beer and chauvinism. Cheers to you, Hank.

I also recommend the nearly 3-hour documentary I watched on him today called "Born Into This". The following is a clip from said documentary.

Read more!

South Park Meets Alan Watts

Trey Parker and Matt Stone are geniuses.
Not to mention Alan Watts always suggests a simpler and more sensible kind of world view. Ahh.. Enjoy.

"Music and Life"


"Prickles and Goo"


Gooey Prickles & Prickly Goos...
makes me happy.

no mas! Read more!

Que?!?

I don't if this is true. I don't have time to verify this.

Here's the site I found it on.

“There over 800 prison camps in the United States, all fully operational and ready to receive prisoners. They are all staffed and even surrounded by full-time guards, but they are all empty. These camps are to be operated by FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) should Martial Law need to be implemented in the United States and all it would take is a presidential signature on a proclamation and the attorney general’s signature on a warrant to which a list of names is attached. Ask yourself if you really want to be on Ashcroft’s list. The Rex 84 Program was established on the reasoning that if a “mass exodus” of illegal aliens crossed the Mexican/US border, they would be quickly rounded up and detained in detention centers by FEMA. Rex 84 allowed many military bases to be closed down and to be turned into prisons.

“Don’t think it can’t happen here!" – FEMA Concentration Camps: Locations and Executive Orders – Friends of Liberty (undated) 3sep04

“Operation Cable Splicer and Garden Plot are the two sub programs which will be implemented once the Rex 84 program is initiated for its proper purpose. Garden Plot is the program to control the population. Cable Splicer is the program for an orderly takeover of the state and local governments by the federal government. FEMA is the executive arm of the coming police state and thus will head up all operations.

The Presidential Executive Orders already listed on the Federal Register also are part of the legal framework for this operation.

“The camps all have railroad facilities as well as roads leading to and from the detention facilities. Many also have an airport nearby.The majority of the camps can house a population of 20,000 prisoners.

Currently, the largest of these facilities is just outside of Fairbanks, Alaska. The Alaskan facility is a massive mental health facility and can hold approximately 2 million people.

End Post. Read more!

First Step in Recognizing the Armenian Genocide

Armenia's president has welcomed a vote by US lawmakers backing the description of the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks after 1915 as genocide.

Robert Kocharian told reporters he hoped the vote would lead to "full [US] recognition... of the genocide".

Earlier Turkish President Abdullah Gul denounced the vote. Turkey has always denied any genocide took place.

The White House has also been critical, expressing fears Turkey could stop co-operating in the "war on terror".


The non-binding vote, passed by 27 to 21 votes by members of the congressional House Foreign Affairs Committee, is the first step towards holding a vote in the House of Representatives.



Divisions within the committee crossed party lines with eight Democrats voting against the measure and eight Republicans voting for it.

President Bush had argued against a vote in favour of the bill, saying "its passage would do great harm to our relations with a key ally in Nato and in the global war on terror".

Turkey is a regional operational hub for the US military, and some suggest access to Incirlik airbase, or other supply lines crucial to US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, could be cut in response.

The row has also erupted as US fears grow of a Turkish military incursion into northern Iraq to neutralise Kurdish separatist guerrillas there, who continue to cross the border to ambush Turkish troops, reports the BBC's diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus.

Talks appeal

Speaking after talks with EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, Mr Kocharian praised the committee vote.



"We hope that this process will lead to the full recognition by the United States of America of the fact of the Armenian genocide," he said.

Mr Kocharian also appealed to Turkey to join Armenia in talks to restore bilateral relations, reported the news agency Associated Press.

Wednesday's vote was received angrily by President Gul, who made a statement late in the evening accusing US politicians of "sacrific[ing] big problems for small domestic political games".

"This unacceptable decision of the committee, like similar ones in the past, is not regarded by the Turkish people as valid or of any value," Mr Gul said, according to the Anatolia news agency.

'Sobering'

Correspondents say the committee's vote means that only a change of heart by the opposition Democrats, who control Congress, can now stop a full vote on the bill.

Tom Lantos, the committee's chairman, had opened the debate by admitting the resolution posed a "sobering" choice.

"We have to weigh the desire to express our solidarity with the Armenian people... against the risk that it could cause young men and women in the uniform of the United States armed services to pay an even heavier price than they are currently paying," he said.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is expected to take up its version of the resolution in the future.

Iraq vote

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has meanwhile confirmed that the Turkish parliament could discuss a motion as soon as Thursday that would authorise incursions into northern Iraq to hunt down Kurdish PKK separatists.

The move comes after an escalation in attacks by the PKK killed almost 30 soldiers and civilians in just over a week.

The government is under immense pressure though to act, but Washington has warned Ankara against any unilateral moves that would destabilise Iraq even further.

After the Armenian vote in Congress, correspondents say, Turkey will be far less inclined to heed instructions from the US on anything.
Read more!

Doctor's Save Man With Vodka Drip

Australian doctors have kept an Italian tourist alive by feeding him vodka through a drip for three days, medical staff in Queensland say.

The 24-year-old man, who had swallowed a poison in an apparent suicide attempt, was treated while in a coma.

Doctors set up the drip after running out of medicinal alcohol, used as an antidote to the poison.

Medical staff said the patient had made a full recovery, and the hangover had worn off by the time he woke up.

He had been taken to hospital in the northern Queensland town of Mackay after swallowing ethylene glycol - a poison contained in anti-freeze.

"The patient was drip-fed about three standard drinks an hour for three days in the intensive care unit," Dr Todd Fraser said in a statement.

"Fortunately for him he was in a medically induced coma for a good portion of that. By the time he woke up I think his hangover would have well and truly gone."

He spent 20 days in hospital before being discharged.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/7037443.stm

Published: 2007/10/10 11:24:06 GMT

© BBC MMVII Read more!

Taking Out the Pawns

The House Passes The War Profiteering Prevention Act !!!!!!!

This bill makes war profiteering a federal felony. This bill strengthens the tools available to federal law enforcement to combat contracting fraud during wartime. Specifically, the bill makes war profiteering - overcharging in order to defraud or profit excessively from war, military action, or reconstruction efforts - a felony, subject to up to 20 years in prison and fines of up to $1 million or twice the illegal profits of the crime. The bill also confers jurisdiction to U.S. federal courts to hear such cases.

War profiteering and reconstruction fraud by U.S. companies has become a significant problem in the Iraq War - with billions unaccounted for. The United States has devoted more than $50 billion to U.S . contractors for relief and reconstruction activities in Iraq alone, with billions of these dollars unaccounted for. For example, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction outlined in a report that the former Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq could not account for nearly $8.8 billion.

The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction has more than 70 investigations open. The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction currently has more than 70 open and active investigations regarding contracting fraud and abuse related to the Iraq war. These investigations include, among other things, investigations of illegal kickbacks, bid-rigging, embezzlement, and fraudulent over-billing. However, given the large number of investigations, there have been relatively few prosecutions for reconstruction fraud. This highlights the need for this legislation - giving federal law enforcement additional tools for prosecuting wartime contracting fraud.

Despite the number of investigations, there have been few prosecutions - highlighting the need for this bill. The lack of prosecutions underscores the inadequacies of current law. There is currently no federal statute specifically targeted at prohibiting contracting fraud during times of war, military action, or relief or reconstruction activities. Moreover, no federal law provides enhanced criminal punishment for fraudulent acts during times of war, or relief or reconstruction activities. In addition, none of the current fraud statutes explicitly extend extraterritorial jurisdiction.

According to the Defense Contract Audit Agency, there have been more than $10 billion in suspect billings in Iraqi contracts. In February, the head of the Defense Contract Audit Agency testified before Congress that the agency estimated that there have been more than $10 billion in questioned and unsupported costs relating to Iraq reconstruction and troop support contracts since the war began in 2003.

Of the $10 billion in suspect billings, the Defense Contract Audit Agency has identified $2.7 billion from one contractor alone - Halliburton. The largest private contractor operating in Iraq is Halliburton. Through its KBR subsidiary, Halliburton has held three large contracts in Iraq. The Defense Contract Audit Agency has identified $2.7 billion in suspect billings in these three contracts. Specifically, under Halliburton's largest Iraq contract, providing support services for the troops, Pentagon auditors have found $2.4 billion in questioned and unsupported costs - including $1.9 billion in questioned costs and $450 million in unsupported costs. Former Halliburton employees testified that the company charged $45 for cases of soda, billed $100 to clean 15-pound bags of laundry, and insisted on housing its staff at a five-star hotel in Kuwait. Halliburton procurement officials described the company's informal motto in Iraq as "Don't worry about price. It's cost-plus." Furthermore, a Halliburton manager was indicted for "major fraud against the United States" for allegedly billing more than $5.5 million for work that should have cost only $685,000 in exchange for a $1 million kickback from a Kuwaiti subcontractor.

The Custer Battles case in 2006, in which a verdict against a U.S. contractor for contract fraud in Iraq was overturned, also highlights the need for this bill. In the famous Custer Battles case, one contractor in Iraq was found guilty of 37 counts of fraud, including false billing, and was ordered to pay more than $10 million in damages. A federal judge subsequently overturned the decision on a technicality that the contracts were let through the Coalition Provisional Authority, which the court held not to be part of the United States government. This legislation addresses such gaps in existing law - including clarifying that the Coalition Provisional Authority is part of the U.S. government.

So we should all be happy with what has been accomplished. But this is no time to rest on our laurels. The fight to take our government back from the toe-tappers, Abramoff's tee-time partners and various "Dukesters" is ongoing.

Hmm.. I wonder how Dick Cheney's buddies at KBR must feel now that their greedy gods have decided to pull back one of the teets they've been so advertently nursing on..

This is really great news. Hallelujah for hope!

PLEASE DO READ MORE! Ah Said-- Read more!

Emerson on Success

"To laugh often and much; To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; To earn the approbation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; To appreciate beauty; To find the best in others; To give of one's self; To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; To have played and laughed with enthusiasm and sung with exultation; To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived - This is to have succeeded."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Have an exceptionally blessed and conscious day, readers.

Do Not! Read more!

The Brits Like to Use Allitteration

"Fasting fakir flummoxes physicians"
By Rajeev Khanna
BBC correspondent in Ahmedabad





Doctors and experts are baffled by an Indian hermit who claims not to have eaten or drunk anything for several decades - but is still in perfect health.

Prahlad Jani, a holy man, or fakir, who is over 70 years old, has just spent 10 days under constant observation in Sterling Hospital, in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad.

During that time, he did not consume anything and "neither did he pass urine or stool", according to the hospital's deputy superintendent, Dr Dinesh Desai.

Yet he is in fine mental and physical fettle, say doctors.

Most people can live without food for several weeks, with the body drawing on its fat and protein stores. But the average human can survive for only three to four days without water.

Followers of Indian holy men and ascetics have often ascribed extraordinary powers to them, but such powers are seldom subject to scientific inspection.

Mouthwash

"A series of tests conducted on him show his body mechanism is that of a normal person," said Dr Desai.

Mr Jani spends most of his time in a cave near the Ambaji temple in Gujarat state.

"He has never fallen ill and can continue to live like this"
-- Bhiku Prajapati, Mr Jani's devotee

He spent his 10 days in hospital in a specially prepared room, with a sealed-off toilet and constant video surveillance.

To help the doctors verify his claims, Mr Jani agreed to avoid bathing for his time in hospital.

The only fluid he was allowed was a small amount of water, to use as mouthwash.

One hundred millilitres of water were given to him, and then collected and measured in a beaker when he spat it out, to make sure none had been drunk.

Thank goddess

A statement from Ahmedabad's Association of Physicians says that despite no water entering his body, urine nonetheless appeared to form in his bladder - only to be re-absorbed by the bladder walls.

At the end of his confinement, doctors noted no deterioration in his condition, other than a slight drop in his weight.

"I feel no need for food and water," says Mr Jani, who claims he was blessed by a goddess at the age of eight and has lived in caves ever since.

He grew up in Charod village in Mehsana district and wears the dress of a devotee of the goddess Ambaji - a red sari-like garment, nose ring, bangles and crimson flowers in the hair.

He also wears the vermilion "tika" mark on his forehead, more often seen on married Hindu women.

His followers call him "mataji" or goddess.

More tests

He says he has survived several decades without food or water because of a hole in his palate.

Drops of water filter through this hole, he says, sustaining him.

"He has never fallen ill and can continue to live like this," said Bhiku Prajapati, one of Mr Jani's many followers.

"A hole in the palate is an abnormal phenomenon," says Dr Desai.

His colleague, Dr Urman Dhruv, told the BBC a full medical report is being prepared on Mr Jani's 10 days under observation.

Doctors say they cannot verify his claim to have not eaten or drunk for decades - but by observing his feat under laboratory conditions, they hope to learn more about the human body.

It is likely that doctors will want to examine Mr Jani again in order to solve the medical mystery he has presented them with.

End Post. Read more!

Into The Wild

End Post. Read more!

For Our Authors

"Dealing With Depression"


"Procrastination"





fin. Read more!

HAARP's Demonic Powers

Excerpts from Youth Action News July 1996 Issue

- "Such 'microwave weapons are almost uniquely intrusive' (especially when they are pulsed at ELF frequencies). 'They do not simply attack a person's body, they reach all the way into a person's mind...They are meant to disorient or upset mental stability.'"

- "The Soviets aimed one of these weapons at the American Embassy in Moscow for years and caused enormous physical and emotional damage amongst the Americans working there. It is thus shocking to see the U.S. military now preparing, with the help of the Justice Department, to use such electromagnetic totalitarian zapping devices against American civilians."

- Captain Tyler of the U.S Air Force: "'...One last area where electromagnetic radiation may prove of some value is enhancing abilities of individuals for anomalous phenomena,' which appears to be a veiled reference to the Federal government's use of electromagnetic and psychotronic devices to create artificial UFO abductions amongst unwitting civilians. Such government-staged UFO encounters (not to be confused with the many real UFO events, such as the Roswell crash) are now being used a cover for widespread physical and psychological experimentation upon U.S. civilians."

*GULP*

End Pp-p-posssstt. Read more!

MIND IS A RAZORBLADE

I've been meditating on this Sony commercial most of this morning. I think you all will like it.



The artist is José Gonzalez and the song's name is Heartbeats. The real video for it is really good too but I don't want to be redundant with the song. Find it on YouTube. But trip on the following, also by José Gonzalez.



This is the author's cut. No editing has been made to this post.
Do Not! Read more!

HAARP

High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program



They're making Ice-Nine!
They're making Ice-Nine!

End of post/world. Read more!

Corporation Conglomerate Kings of the Concrete Jungle

How's that title for alliteration?

Please Click This Link before reading the article.
(Credit is due! I was forwarded to this link on a post by Alx B.)

What's Wrong With This Picture?

by MARK CRISPIN MILLER
[from the January 7, 2002 issue, the Nation]

For all their economic clout and cultural sway, the ten great multinationals profiled in our latest chart--AOL Time Warner, Disney, General Electric, News Corporation, Viacom, Vivendi, Sony, Bertelsmann, AT&T and Liberty Media--rule the cosmos only at the moment. The media cartel that keeps us fully entertained and permanently half-informed is always growing here and shriveling there, with certain of its members bulking up while others slowly fall apart or get digested whole. But while the players tend to come and go--always with a few exceptions--the overall Leviathan itself keeps getting bigger, louder, brighter, forever taking up more time and space, in every street, in countless homes, in every other head.

The rise of the cartel has been a long time coming (and it still has some way to go). It represents the grand convergence of the previously disparate US culture industries--many of them vertically monopolized already--into one global superindustry providing most of our imaginary "content." The movie business had been largely dominated by the major studios in Hollywood; TV, like radio before it, by the triune axis of the networks headquartered in New York; magazines, primarily by Henry Luce (with many independent others on the scene); and music, from the 1960s, mostly by the major record labels. Now all those separate fields are one, the whole terrain divided up among the giants--which, in league with Barnes & Noble, Borders and the big distributors, also control the book business. (Even with its leading houses, book publishing was once a cottage industry at both the editorial and retail levels.) For all the democratic promise of the Internet, moreover, much of cyberspace has now been occupied, its erstwhile wildernesses swiftly paved and lighted over by the same colossi. The only industry not yet absorbed into this new world order is the newsprint sector of the Fourth Estate--a business that was heavily shadowed to begin with by the likes of Hearst and other, regional grandees, flush with the ill-gotten gains of oil, mining and utilities--and such absorption is, as we shall see, about to happen.


Thus what we have today is not a problem wholly new in kind but rather the disastrous upshot of an evolutionary process whereby that old problem has become considerably larger--and that great quantitative change, with just a few huge players now co-directing all the nation's media, has brought about enormous qualitative changes. For one thing, the cartel's rise has made extremely rare the sort of marvelous exception that has always popped up, unexpectedly, to startle and revivify the culture--the genuine independents among record labels, radio stations, movie theaters, newspapers, book publishers and so on. Those that don't fail nowadays are so remarkable that they inspire not emulation but amazement. Otherwise, the monoculture, endlessly and noisily triumphant, offers, by and large, a lot of nothing, whether packaged as "the news" or "entertainment."

Of all the cartel's dangerous consequences for American society and culture, the worst is its corrosive influence on journalism. Under AOL Time Warner, GE, Viacom et al., the news is, with a few exceptions, yet another version of the entertainment that the cartel also vends nonstop. This is also nothing new--consider the newsreels of yesteryear--but the gigantic scale and thoroughness of the corporate concentration has made a world of difference, and so has made this world a very different place.

Let us start to grasp the situation by comparing this new centerfold with our first outline of the National Entertainment State, published in the spring of 1996. Back then, the national TV news appeared to be a tidy tetrarchy: two network news divisions owned by large appliance makers/weapons manufacturers (CBS by Westinghouse, NBC by General Electric), and the other two bought lately by the nation's top purveyors of Big Fun (ABC by Disney, CNN by Time Warner). Cable was still relatively immature, so that, of its many enterprises, only CNN competed with the broadcast networks' short-staffed newsrooms; and its buccaneering founder, Ted Turner, still seemed to call the shots from his new aerie at Time Warner headquarters.

Today the telejournalistic firmament includes the meteoric Fox News Channel, as well as twenty-six television stations owned outright by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation (which holds majority ownership in a further seven). Although ultimately thwarted in his bid to buy DirecTV and thereby dominate the US satellite television market, Murdoch wields a pervasive influence on the news--and not just in New York, where he has two TV stations, a major daily (the faltering New York Post) and the Fox News Channel, whose inexhaustible platoons of shouting heads attracts a fierce plurality of cable-viewers. Meanwhile, Time Warner has now merged with AOL--so as to own the cyberworks through which to market its floodtide of movies, ball games, TV shows, rock videos, cartoons, standup routines and (not least) bits from CNN, CNN Headline News, CNNfn (devised to counter GE's CNBC) and CNN/Sports Illustrated (a would-be rival to Disney's ESPN franchise). While busily cloning CNN, the parent company has also taken quiet steps to make it more like Fox, with Walter Isaacson, the new head honcho, even visiting the Capitol to seek advice from certain rightist pols on how, presumably, to make the network even shallower and more obnoxious. (He also courted Rush Himself.) All this has occurred since the abrupt defenestration of Ted Turner, who now belatedly laments the overconcentration of the cable business: "It's sad we're losing so much diversity of thought," he confesses, sounding vaguely like a writer for this magazine.

Whereas five years ago the clueless Westinghouse owned CBS, today the network is a property of the voracious Viacom--matchless cable occupier (UPN, MTV, MTV2, VH1, Nickelodeon, the Movie Channel, TNN, CMT, BET, 50 percent of Comedy Central, etc.), radio colossus (its Infinity Broadcasting--home to Howard Stern and Don Imus--owns 184 stations), movie titan (Paramount Pictures), copious publisher (Simon & Schuster, Free Press, Scribner), a big deal on the web and one of the largest US outdoor advertising firms. Under Viacom, CBS News has been obliged to help sell Viacom's product--in 2000, for example, devoting epic stretches of The Early Show to what lately happened on Survivor (CBS). Of course, such synergistic bilge is commonplace, as is the tendency to dummy up on any topic that the parent company (or any of its advertisers) might want stifled. These journalistic sins have been as frequent under "longtime" owners Disney and GE as under Viacom and Fox [see Janine Jaquet, "The Sins of Synergy," page 20]. They may also abound beneath Vivendi, whose recent purchase of the film and TV units of USA Networks and new stake in the satellite TV giant EchoStar--moves too recent for inclusion in our chart--could soon mean lots of oblique self-promotion on USAM News, in L'Express and L'Expansion, and through whatever other news-machines the parent buys.

Such is the telejournalistic landscape at the moment--and soon it will mutate again, if Bush's FCC delivers for its giant clients. On September 13, when the minds of the American people were on something else, the commission's GOP majority voted to "review" the last few rules preventing perfect oligopoly. They thus prepared the ground for allowing a single outfit to own both a daily paper and a TV station in the same market--an advantage that was outlawed in 1975. (Even then, pre-existing cases of such ownership were grandfathered in, and any would-be owner could get that rule waived.) That furtive FCC "review" also portended the elimination of the cap on the percentage of US households that a single owner might reach through its TV stations. Since the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the limit had been 35 percent. Although that most indulgent bill was dictated by the media giants themselves, its restrictions are too heavy for this FCC, whose chairman, Michael Powell, has called regulation per se "the oppressor."

And so, unless there's some effective opposition, the several-headed vendor that now sells us nearly all our movies, TV, radio, magazines, books, music and web services will soon be selling us our daily papers, too--for the major dailies have, collectively, been lobbying energetically for that big waiver, which stands to make their owners even richer (an expectation that has no doubt had a sweetening effect on coverage of the Bush Administration). Thus the largest US newspaper conglomerates--the New York Times, the Washington Post, Gannett, Knight-Ridder and the Tribune Co.--will soon be formal partners with, say, GE, Murdoch, Disney and/or AT&T; and then the lesser nationwide chains (and the last few independents) will be ingested, too, going the way of most US radio stations. America's cities could turn into informational "company towns," with one behemoth owning all the local print organs--daily paper(s), alternative weekly, city magazine--as well as the TV and radio stations, the multiplexes and the cable system. (Recently a federal appeals court told the FCC to drop its rule preventing any one company from serving more than 30 percent of US cable subscribers; and in December, the Supreme Court refused to hear the case.) While such a setup may make economic sense, as anticompetitive arrangements tend to do, it has no place in a democracy, where the people have to know more than their masters want to tell them.

That imperative demands reaffirmation at this risky moment, when much of what the media cartel purveys to us is propaganda, commercial or political, while no one in authority makes mention of "the public interest"--except to laugh it off. "I have no idea," Powell cheerily replied at his first press conference as chairman, when asked for his own definition of that crucial concept. "It's an empty vessel in which people pour in whatever their preconceived views or biases are." Such blithe obtuseness has marked all his public musings on the subject. In a speech before the American Bar Association in April 1998, Powell offered an ironic little riff about how thoroughly he doesn't get it: "The night after I was sworn in [as a commissioner], I waited for a visit from the angel of the public interest. I waited all night, but she did not come." On the other hand, Powell has never sounded glib about his sacred obligation to the corporate interest. Of his decision to move forward with the FCC vote just two days after 9/11, Powell spoke as if that sneaky move had been a gesture in the spirit of Patrick Henry: "The flame of the American ideal may flicker, but it will never be extinguished. We will do our small part and press on with our business, solemnly, but resolutely."

Certainly the FCC has never been a democratic force, whichever party has been dominant. Bill Clinton championed the disastrous Telecom Act of 1996 and otherwise did almost nothing to impede the drift toward oligopoly. (As Newsweek reported in 2000, Al Gore was Rupert Murdoch's personal choice for President. The mogul apparently sensed that Gore would happily play ball with him, and also thought--correctly--that the Democrat would win.)

What is unique to Michael Powell, however, is the showy superciliousness with which he treats his civic obligation to address the needs of people other than the very rich. That spirit has shone forth many times--as when the chairman genially compared the "digital divide" between the information haves and have-nots to a "Mercedes divide" between the lucky few who can afford great cars and those (like him) who can't. In the intensity of his pro-business bias, Powell recalls Mark Fowler, head of Reagan's FCC, who famously denied his social obligations by asserting that TV is merely "an appliance," "a toaster with pictures." And yet such Reaganite bons mots, fraught with the anti-Communist fanaticism of the late cold war, evinced a deadly earnestness that's less apparent in General Powell's son. He is a blithe, postmodern sort of ideologue, attuned to the complacent smirk of Bush the Younger--and, of course, just perfect for the cool and snickering culture of TV.

Although such flippancies are hard to take, they're also easy to refute, for there is no rationale for such an attitude. Take "the public interest"--an ideal that really isn't hard to understand. A media system that enlightens us, that tells us everything we need to know pertaining to our lives and liberty and happiness, would be a system dedicated to the public interest. Such a system would not be controlled by a cartel of giant corporations, because those entities are ultimately hostile to the welfare of the people. Whereas we need to know the truth about such corporations, they often have an interest in suppressing it (as do their advertisers). And while it takes much time and money to find out the truth, the parent companies prefer to cut the necessary costs of journalism, much preferring the sort of lurid fare that can drive endless hours of agitated jabbering. (Prior to 9/11, it was Monica, then Survivor and Chandra Levy, whereas, since the fatal day, we have had mostly anthrax, plus much heroic footage from the Pentagon.) The cartel's favored audience, moreover, is that stratum of the population most desirable to advertisers--which has meant the media's complete abandonment of working people and the poor. And while the press must help protect us against those who would abuse the powers of government, the oligopoly is far too cozy with the White House and the Pentagon, whose faults, and crimes, it is unwilling to expose. The media's big bosses want big favors from the state, while the reporters are afraid to risk annoying their best sources. Because of such politeness (and, of course, the current panic in the air), the US coverage of this government is just a bit more edifying than the local newscasts in Riyadh.

Against the daily combination of those corporate tendencies--conflict of interest, endless cutbacks, endless trivial pursuits, class bias, deference to the king and all his men--the public interest doesn't stand a chance. Despite the stubborn fiction of their "liberal" prejudice, the corporate media have helped deliver a stupendous one-two punch to this democracy. (That double whammy followed their uncritical participation in the long, irrelevant jihad against those moderate Republicans, the Clintons.) Last year, they helped subvert the presidential race, first by prematurely calling it for Bush, regardless of the vote--a move begun by Fox, then seconded by NBC, at the personal insistence of Jack Welch, CEO of General Electric. Since the coup, the corporate media have hidden or misrepresented the true story of the theft of that election.

And having justified Bush/Cheney's coup, the media continue to betray American democracy. Media devoted to the public interest would investigate the poor performance by the CIA, the FBI, the FAA and the CDC, so that those agencies might be improved for our protection--but the news teams (just like Congress) haven't bothered to look into it. So, too, in the public interest, should the media report on all the current threats to our security--including those far-rightists targeting abortion clinics and, apparently, conducting bioterrorism; but the telejournalists are unconcerned (just like John Ashcroft). So should the media highlight, not play down, this government's attack on civil liberties--the mass detentions, secret evidence, increased surveillance, suspension of attorney-client privilege, the encouragements to spy, the warnings not to disagree, the censored images, sequestered public papers, unexpected visits from the Secret Service and so on. And so should the media not parrot what the Pentagon says about the current war, because such prettified accounts make us complacent and preserve us in our fatal ignorance of what people really think of us--and why--beyond our borders. And there's much more--about the stunning exploitation of the tragedy, especially by the Republicans; about the links between the Bush and the bin Laden families; about the ongoing shenanigans in Florida--that the media would let the people know, if they were not (like Michael Powell) indifferent to the public interest.

In short, the news divisions of the media cartel appear to work against the public interest--and for their parent companies, their advertisers and the Bush Administration. The situation is completely un-American. It is the purpose of the press to help us run the state, and not the other way around. As citizens of a democracy, we have the right and obligation to be well aware of what is happening, both in "the homeland" and the wider world. Without such knowledge we cannot be both secure and free. We therefore must take steps to liberate the media from oligopoly, so as to make the government our own. [Source]

Please Do! Read more!