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6 Jan 2003 @ 20:34, by ming. Broadcasting, Media
I get this stack of computer industry news magazines every week, and the past few months I haven't gotten around to reading them much. And now, reading InfoWorld today, I realize the world changed while I looked the other way. Or, rather, I was looking at where the action was, and now InfoWorld reflects it. This issue is about Disruptive Technologies, and I realize that I know most of the people saying anything important there from their weblogs, or from their friends' weblogs. Excellent frontpage interview with Ray Ozzie by Jon Udell and Steve Gillmor (Dan Gillmor's brother) about Groove and collaborative software. And in other places mentions of Dave Winer, Doc Searls, Tim O'Reilly, Lawrence Lessig, column by Robert Cringely and more. My point being that I read those people's weblogs regularly, and much of the contents of that magazine is what they've been discussing publically between themselves in the past few months. And weblogs have already changed the media world a good deal. A number of people have mentioned that it was quite clear that Trent Lott (former U.S. Senate Majority Leader) was brought down by bloggers, who spread around his racist comments that mainstream media was planning on ignoring. More >
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 6 Jan 2003 @ 19:17, by craiglang. Spirituality
In the Bible (NIV) it reads:
"Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away"...
[see Job 1:21 on Bible Gateway]
At about 5:00 PM on Christmas eve, a friend of mine met his sudden, untimely, and shocking death in a lake in norhtern Wisconsin. At about 9:30 PM that same evening, my cousin gave birth to a delightful, healthy, baby boy.
Also, in the days following Christmas, I have observed some truly amazing scenes of healing. I guess the Universe has a way of balancing the scales. More >
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4 Jan 2003 @ 05:28, by consultant. Counseling, Psychology
El Computador Humano
INTRODUCCION y CAPÍTULO 1
Estimados lectores,
More >
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1 Jan 2003 @ 18:31, by ming. Social System Design
Seems to me that the purpose of digital identity would be that others, also others' websites, will recognize WHO I am, so they can respond appropriately to me. Both for their sake and for mine. And that WHO structure will inevitably be some sort of simplified representation. The task would be to make it a useful and fairly truthful representation, both for me and others.
I can think of several sections of that, off the top of my head:- A. How to identify and maybe locate me, like a finger print or a GPS tracker. Making sure there is one and only one of me.
- B. How my various public facades and/or credentials are stored
- The, possibly several, masks I personally put on. Aliases, interests, contact address, website, preferences, etc
- The credentials I have from membership in various groups. My IDs, my job titles, degrees, credit cards, driving record, etc., which I can't directly change, but I can withdraw from a particular group.
- What various agencies collect about me without my explicit permission. Search engines, quotes, articles, credit reports, mailing lists, etc.
- C. How my actual reputation is represented. How well regarded I am, what I've actually accomplished, and how much people trust me.
A would be a binary thing. Is it me or isn't it me? B would be mostly a quantitative thing. How many so-and-so are recorded on me and where are they. C would be qualitative. What does it really add up to?
I am most interested in the problem of how to best approximate a truthful picture of my reputation, and that is probably the hardest part. There is no way around it, but that it has to be assembled from what other people think, not from what *I* think. Maybe there are automated algorithms that can help constuct it from incidental information, but I feel strongly that it has to mainly be from a record of personal relations and transactions, not from a frozen public records, automatic logs of my behavior, or from titles and memberships I hold. What is important is that there are some actual, real people who trust me, and that they themselves are trustworthy. Not whether I wen't bankrupt 10 years ago, or whether I visited a lot of pornographic websites last year, or whether I'm a Rotarian and a Ph.D. In some contexts those things are important, but as a universal index of my character, they're flawed.
I know a person who killed somebody else in a fight and who spent years in prison for it. He is now one of the warmest and most trustworthy people I can think of, and I wouldn't hesitate to trust him with my life. I'm sure he has many friends who would vouch for him, but he's a very low-key person.
I knew somebody else who killed another person in stupidity, but didn't go to prison, as he was a minor at the time. He was still a volatile person many years later, and I would not turn my back with him in the room. He had no friends, and it would be hard to find anybody who could say anything about him.
I knew somebody who was rich, and a respected leader for many people, who would probably have many people around who would vouch for what a stellar person he is, because they depend on him for making a living. His credit record is impeccable and he probably has no criminal record. But I think he wouldn't hesitate long to pay for having somebody else killed if they crossed him in a business deal.
Public records and credit reports would point me towards staying away from the first person, would probably tell me nothing about the second, and would tell me that the third would be somebody to get to know. If we went by testimonials from other people, the third would have the most, because he's known and admired by more people. The first person would have some, and the 2nd would have none.
So, a task is how to organize a system of personal relations and reputation, without having it be affected by peer pressure or large amounts of money. And it needs to remain current, so that we're talking about the situation now, not 20 years ago. People change.
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31 Dec 2002 @ 10:39, by theguider. Religion
Raising the Intelligence of the world
Applied Quantum Physics
A lion will seek out to attack and kill the weakest, or dumbest, or lamest, or the youngest wildebeest; one that the lion can kill with the least amount of effort. Once the death of this wildebeest occurs, the level of average health and/or intelligence of the wildebeest species has rose because of the removal of one lower than average in health or intelligence.
A lion that is too sick, or too old, or too lame, or too dumb, or too young will die because he cannot catch and kill another animal for food. When this occurs and the lion dies, the level of average in the lion species became higher because one at the lower end of the averages in this species is gone.
We - people, once thought that the sun was a God who was born as it rose in the east, and he lived as he traveled across the sky, and then died as he disappeared in the west, and then he traveled through the under-world of the dead, to be re-born again as he rose the next day in the eastern sky. Later, a theory that claimed that the earth revolves around the sun, and then, followed by proven facts, destroyed the belief that the sun was a God. And this knowledge raised the level in the average of intelligence of the human species.
Christianity followed the beliefs of Judaism about God placing intelligence into the first man and woman, Adam and Eve. This is proven in the story of the Apple; When God told Adam and Eve not to eat from the tree of knowledge, He placed intelligence into them to comprehend, understand, and the ability to reason that there would be a consequence if they did not follow His words.
The Islamic religion came into existence around the 700s AD, and Mohammed said, God placed intelligence into the first insect. This was a new theory and its proof came from seeing life, including the insect in the world contain some kind of intelligence.
Each of these two theories of intelligence was back by "facts of their beliefs" of that day while the Islamic theory proved more species than human had intelligence.
Then, God's Angels told me that He instilled intelligence into the first one-cell animal. Today, with the use of microscope, we can truly see that all life contains some kind intelligence.
Each of the three teaching of intelligence raised the level of average of intelligence in the human species and brought us closer to God. Quantum Theory and Physics - working together while changing from one form to another in a peaceful manner, thus - is God - is Love.
Peaceful Manner - the lifestyle of nature. God created all, even what we consider as bad and/or evil. God created bad and evil to give each his individual choice to choose between doing good or bad. The intelligence that He placed in that first one-cell animal gives us the comprehension, understanding and reasoning to know what our actions will
Bring. Whereas, animals live mostly for personal survival, and while the "lifestyle" of all species of plants is to root out the other for its survival.
Applied Quantum Theory
If the cycle of plant and animal life would continue without interference from the human species, someday the world would end up with only one type of animal and/or one type of plant species living. Therefore, we should not judge if it is right for one animal to kill another for food to sustain life. But we must understand that killing one of another species for food is needed in the cycle of life of the animal and insect, while we should also understand that it is wrong to kill another human. For when one kills another of his own species, he is diminishing the populous of his species, but when one kills one from another species for food, he is continuing the cycle of his species.
We cannot force our "teachings" upon others, we can only inspire them to seek the truth. My doctrines (the things God's Angels have told and shown me) cannot be forced upon another, for each must seek for personal and individual doctrines that are symbolic for his understanding, comprehension and reasoning. For if we force and/or push our doctrines upon others, we are no better (righteous) than they as we try to place them under our
domination. But, we can help raise the level of intelligence of the human species by teaching the proven facts in their religions; all religions speak of Love to all, and this is what we need to inspire in them.
Animal instincts of survival drive individuals to force their beliefs upon others. This is truly demonstrated in the business world by companies taking over other companies. If this continues, someday, we will end up with one person owning and in charge of all we buy and consume. And, if we continue to allow our animal instincts to lead, there will come a time when only one person is alive and is living in a world where no one else exist.
In the knowledge of mathematics, it if thought that there is a mathematical formula for life in this third dimensional realm, and it is said that once it is found it will be a one-digit equation.
The formula and equation to this mathematical question is zero. For zero plus zero always equal zero. No matter how many you place together as digits, the answer is always zero, and no matter how many you take away, you always end up with zero. While the symbol for zero is a continuous line that connects back to itself - the cycle of life, never ending life that contains nothing that we can feel, see, touch, smell or taste, and yet, it is opposite to what it is placed on and what it contains because you would not see it if it were the same color, and because it only contains energy while what you see is the line that makes the zero - the circle of life.
God can be symbolized as "0" because He is never-ending Love that continues out and returns as Divine Love - Parts of His energy that we know as Angels enters into our hearts and experiences the endurances (joys and distasteful things) of life. After our deaths, God's Angels ascend back to Him, and we embrace Him, thus, Divine Love returns to Him.
God contains energy of Love that cannot be seen, held, felt, tasted or smelled, but only experienced - He contains out-flowing energy of Love while animals - humans can only experience things that the animal can see, hold, taste, feel and smell - the human contains only selfish (drawn inward) energy. The Angels (parts of God) attempts to turn our selfish energy into Divine Love, but the human has the final choice of his actions.
Whatever you sow, you shall reap. Do good to others, and good shall be return to you. Do bad to other, and you shall receive bad from others. Allow the Angel within you to lead and he shall lead you to God - Eternal Heaven. Follow your feelings of the animal and it shall lead you to Satan - evil and Eternal Hell. For the cycle of life and the afterlife is the circle, the symbol of "zero."
The symbol "zero" that I refer to as God is a line that is arc - a continuous curve that returns back to its point of origin. This line is the geological location of Time, for the line is the cycle of Time. All that happens has its individual location on this line, and we live on that line.
One night as the Angel Joeen and I talked, I asked her to return the next night at 10:00 pm, and she said she would. The next night, she did not appear until after 11:00 pm, and when I asked she why she did not come at our appointed time, she replied that she was busy taking children to the Light. I recalled that she and I had traveled back into the past and into the future, but we never interacted with people during those times, we only interacted with people during the present time. Once she missed our appointed time, she could only go back to view the things that happened during the time of 10:00 pm, and she could not enter that time and interact with me at that location.
Angels and humans who are traveling in "out-of-body experiences" can travel to other places at this present time, or they can go back into the past or into the future, but they can only inter-act with people during the present time. Therefore, people "out-of-body," dead or alive, and Angels cannot change the past or future. Therefore, one cannot change his Hell to Heaven after death by removing past sins or changing his attitude that contributed to his Hell. Angels (parts of God) - Energy do not live on the line of time, the line of time is life (as we know it) and this third dimension.
The cycle of the Universe
The Universe is traveling of this continuous curve also, and as the Universe travels, it passes the speed of light as it continues to travel faster and faster. The faster it travels, the smaller it becomes, and the distances between planets, stars, etc. and including space become smaller, too, because it is the total of the Universe that is traveling on this curve, not just one or a few of the planets and stars. Once the Universe returns back to its point of origin, the Universe will collapse back into itself, and this cycle of life will end, and then, another cycle will start.
There may be other cycles occurring at this same time, and there may have been hundreds of cycles before, but we live in what is called the fifth cycle.
Life is simple, but we confuse it because all life is inter-woven, and you cannot examine one single piece of life and understand it. For all actions have re-actions - past, present and future, and in total, all pieces combine to form all of Life - God.
Once God placed intelligence into that first one-cell animal, all things to come was laid down in God's master plan - the domino chain-action effect - things that your ancestors believed in, thought and did contributed to your beliefs, thinking and attitude. Your ancestry goes back to the time that God placed intelligence into that first one-cell animal. That one-cell animal influenced what you think and do today, and while the one-cell animal's comprehension, understanding and reasoning combines with the new knowledge that you obtain and learn will influence your children of the future - the never-ending cycle of life.
We are here to enjoy, and experience, and to learn in knowledge that helps us understand life and death. Life may not seem grand, but to God all life is grandeur, for God did not promise us Heaven here on Earth, but He did promised us our individual pursuit of happiness.
I would like to close this part of this posting with a few questions to you.
In regards to the Catholic child sex abuse scandal; How can a religion who's many leaders have abused children and will not remove the offenders, say it is a religion of God, and state it believes in God? And, how can so many people still believe in and follow such an evil religion and its clergymen? And, does God approve of the sexual abuse of children?
"The Gift of Choice"
To help illustrate "the Gift of Choices" in the "chain-reaction" of life, image if you will, setting dominos in a formation so that the first roll of dominos contains only one domino, the second roll has two dominos side by side, the third roll has three side by side, and so forth and so forth until millions of millions of dominos are arranged in this order, and think of each domino are representing an ancestor (person and/or animal) in the evolution of human life. And think of this domino formation as the span of total life here on earth, and near the end of this formation and onto the end of this formation, the dominos represent humans.
As we knock over the first domino at the beginning of this formation, it will touch another and knock over the next roll of two others, and in turn they will knock over more, and this "chain-reaction" of knocking down the dominos will continue until the complete formation of dominos are laying down.
Now, image that the distances between each of the standing dominos and the location that each domino will obtain when it falls as the time that each person lives, and during that time all that each domino's (person's life) experiences influence the next domino (next of kin) that follows it.
And once that first domino was sat in place, and as all the others were placed in this formation, and as the first domino was touched as to knock it down, the chain-reactions of all of the other dominos as to what direction, and to what other dominos it would come in contact with, and to where each domino would final lay, is known to God.
We as the dominos, in this chain-reaction, believe that we have control over which direction our individual lives will go, but our life's directions was known by God before the start of time. All of our individual choices as indicated as "Gods Gift of Choice," are merely the things that we do that was influenced and directed by what occurred in our ancestors and our past life up until this present time. The things that we will do in the future are influenced by those things as well as what we presently do, and while all in known by God. Therefore, we are at the correct place in knowledge, and location of time, and geological location, that it was planned for us to be.
"God's Gift of Choice" is our experiencing of the unknown, and that is what life is all about - experiencing as we enjoy life. And it is this "experiencing life;" the recorded experience on energy that is the Soul. The Soul is that part of you that will live forever with God, for each person is made up of two parts: 1. Energy that allows solid matter to think and also gives our bodies movement - that is the Soul, and 2. Matter which will return to which it came from - earth. These two things must come together to form a living being.
And while we live, even though our life's adventures are known to God, our choices of doing good or evil will either help our Angel-within to glow brightly or dim, depending on which you chose. And the attitude of your character is influenced by your ancestors and you past life experiences, will be placed upon your Soul. And after your death, it shall be forever engraved upon the Angel-within. But you may change the attitude of your character, and if you do allow changes in yourself, it was a known factor at the beginning of time.
Another way to view the "Concept of Life," is to think of your Soul as being a file that contains your life's experiences, and the Angel-within as a disk, and God as the Master Computer. And after you die, your file (Soul) is transferred to the disk (the Angel- within), and the Angel-within takes your file to God where the Soul (your life's experiences) are downloaded into the congregation of God - His Angels. For God is all Angels in congregation. And therefore, until your life ends, your file is not complete and may be changed, but once life is over, your Soul stands as the Memory of You that will live forever in God, as well as the feelings that you had toward others will influence your descendants in their life, and that is your everlasting Heaven or Hell that you shall live in forever.
Therefore, we do not have control over the future. We merely have the control over the future as was known by God before the start of time. For we cannot control what others do and think, we only control what we as individual think and do. More >
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 30 Dec 2002 @ 22:39, by ming. Networking
Something got me to start reminiscing about the history of the servers and websites I've been intimately involved with. Well, it is the end of the year, so I suppose it is appropriate.
I'm writing this in my weblog, which most people read at ming.tv, but which arises from the integrated NewsLog function of newciv.org - the New Civilization Network.
I had my first website in early 1994. It was served over ftp rather than http, because real web hosting was harder to come by. I called my website World Transformation, because that sounded like a good thing I'd be interested in, and I just listed some sub-interests and some links for each. Today it looks quite similar to back then, I'm embarrassed to say, which makes parts of it very outdated now. Later in that year I got an offer of free hosting on protree.com. At the time it turned out to be THE starting place for a bunch of alternative/metaphysical sites that later made it big, like Rene Mueller's SpiritWeb. Bob Garth who was running the server had just a 28.8 modem connection, but that worked perfectly fine in those days.
When NCN happened in early 1995, the thought was that there would be a bunch of decentralized servers, owned and operated by different people. Max Sandor started the first one, which he called "Server One". A 16MHz 386 running Slackware Linux. This too had an always on 28.8 modem for the net connection. Max took care of that for several years.
At some point I took that server over, and connected it to a new T1 connection in Venice, California, in the Global Solutions Center, later Synchronicity Networks office. Many more stories to tell about much of that. The hardware got replaced since then a few times. A total sequence of about 4 servers since 95 I think, although there have sometimes been several at the same time. Once, for several months, the servers lived in a plastic box on the parking lot by the beach in Venice, which was rather strange and risky. Somebody else had moved into the premises, but the T1 connection was still on, so we drilled a hole in the wall and led the cable out to that rubbermaid storage container, which was made for garden tools or something. Luckily nobody stole it. After that, the servers moved to Beverly Hills with the T1 line for another year or so, where I worked with Julie on the Oasis TV website and other things.
Nowadays there are luckily more options. I work out of my house and have a few servers here. The current main server is now located in Irvine, California, on a T1 line at the offices of one of my clients. NCN and my own sites are on it, as well as many other good non-profit sites such as Global Ideas Bank, International Society for the System Sciences, BagelHole, Spirit Rising, Richard Hawkins' Synergetic Geometry animations, Art of Living, Unity-and-Diversity Council, CyberSangha and probably many more I'm forgetting. More >
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30 Dec 2002 @ 11:58, by theguider. Spirituality
December 29, 2002
Christmas 2002 with the Angels
As I sit here, a few days before Christmas and write the Message for December 29th, 2002, and as the world's conflict over religions heads toward World War, my Message is of both; hope and displeasure of things to come.
A few years ago, as a few friends, my oldest son and I sat in our kitchen and talked, my son and I told of visions of things to come; we had seen the war in Kosovo in which almost pulled China into conflict with the U.S., American Armed Forces fighting in South and Central American as well as islands (their locations, we did not know), Korea and Japan fighting (we did not know if it was North or South Korea, or if they joined together in the fight against Japan), an Atomic American Submarine and an Australian Submarine colliding together and both sinking somewhere in the seas (or waters) around Japan, a country in Asia or China "Sucker Punches" the United States (I do not think this was the 9/11 terrorists act, I think this will happen somewhere in the northwestern United States) because our forces will be too thinly spread around the world in different conflicts, an American civilian 777 airplane going down somewhere between the Hawaiian Islands and the western coast of the U.S. and the U.S. Navy will be needed to retrieve the wreckage because of its depth. All these things we both, my son and I saw, but while I also saw alone; mountains rising quickly where no mountains now found, mountains that now stand disappearing, water as oceans or seas in places where we now find land, towns, villages and cities fighting over food and drinking water as even family members fight among themselves for the necessities of life, people who are injured laying outside of hospitals because there beds are full inside, drought and famine and terrible weather conditions in different parts of the world. But I also saw a world where these things did not cover the complete world but only parts of it while other parts remained the same as they are now. But this is not the end of the world. They are only things that we were told that will come to pass. The people of the world have plenty of time to repent (change their views of the past) before the End of Time comes. But whereas, I see many that this will be the last Christmas Holiday for them to celebrate during their lifetime. Many, of all religions, will fall during this coming year as the Muslims and its terrorists find their Messiah that they seek, is recognized and comings into power, and the Catholic Church falls farther away from God as its new leaders direct the Pope as they continue to hide the final secret of Fatima which was pointed directly toward the corruption of the Church.
Whereas, not all that will occur in this coming year is directed by some people trying to dominate the majority, many of our friends and family will past on from old age, disease and accidental death, for the Angels of death walk firmly on the earth as they have done throughout the passage of time. But yet, we should look upon death as a blessing to seek
Eternal Life with God in Heaven. Rejoice for those that who have crossed over, for their job well done, but cry as you miss their presence here in body with you. And recognize that some of those who you wish "Merry Christmas" to this year will not be present next Christmas Season as you Cherish the memories of Christmas' past.
And while I write this Christmas 2002 and 2003 New Year's Message, I see hope for each person to find his individual Salvation and his direction toward God. And once again as with all Christmases, I see the miracles shown to me by God's Angels.
After my wife, Chris, our son and I had spent the evening of December 24th of this year together, and after "Santa's" presents were placed under our tree, Chris and I walked out onto our front porch, it was around 11:30PM. We gazed around at our neighbors' Christmas Lights in the crisp night air and we smoked a cigarette as we killed the time before our Christ-Mass. At precisely at 11:45, the Angel Joleen entered into Chris' body as the Angels Michael, Gabrael, Jesus and others gathered around us.
I said to them, "How can one stop evilness without trying to dominate other? Is it wrong if one knows and allows another to kill people or to place them into slavery, without trying to stop the terrorists? Is it right to defend yourself or to let another take what is yours without trying to stop them? Can I stand-by and watch terrorists destroy others
without trying to warn them or even help them? You do not have the same compassion as human; you know what will happen, you know all that happens is because of the things that we have decided to do has led us to where we are. But the human does not know that; he does not understand that what is happening is what will happen. He does not know what will happen as it is known by God. I know that if I say sometime, and it is not to be known, no body will listen to what I say, but if I speak, and 10 people are to listen and be saved, then they shall hear my words and be saved, for if that is what to be, it will be. I know that I cannot change the future just as I cannot change the past. But yet, I am sad because of all the people who are being killed or who are being placed into slavery daily. Can I allow this to continue? But yet, if I kill to keep others from being placed into slavery or murdered, then I am as bad as the evil ones."
The Angels looked at me as they spoke in unison, "You cannot change what will be, do not try to change the future. Stand where you are, you need not kill or dominate, for others will do that. Allow all others their choice as you too allow yourself your personal and individual choice. Speak if you feel that is what you are supposed to do. Follow what is in your heart. For if you speak and others listen to what you have said, then it was meant for them to hear."
Then at the stroke of midnight, the Angel Joleen took my hand and we walked into the yard, she said, "Pray with meÂ…"
Then she looked up into the star lit sky and said, "Do you hear all the prayersÂ…they contain so much unhappiness." And I heard the prayers flowing throughout the world. And then, she pointed to a place to the right of the moon and near a shinning star, and she said, "That is where all the prayers first go, and then they spread out and throughout the Heaven." All the Angels that surround us and us embraced as we wished each other a Merry Christmas.
Afterward, we entered back into out home and placed a tiny Santa and sled beneath our Christmas tree. And the Angel Joleen said, "The Children are happy with it, see them playing with it?" I took a few pictures of the smoke-like images of the deceased children that drifted and/or raced around the room; these children had stopped by here on their way to God.
After a few minutes, the other Angels left her and I standing alone in our living room, and Joleen turned to me and said, "It is time for me to go."
We hugged and kissed as we said our goodbyes, and then she went limp in my arms as if she had died, and then within a few seconds, then she started breathing again as my wife, Chris, returned back into her body once again.
I hope that you had a wonderful Christmas, too. Please refer to our Archive pages for other Christmases spent with God's Angels.
FREE CONFERENCE and/or MEETING
To be Held in Your Area
Next year, during late spring or early summer, I will traveling across the United States, starting off in North Carolina and going through Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and finishing up in California. And then after that, I will be traveling to England to hold Free Meeting and/or
Conferences there as well.
If you live in or near the areas that I will be coming through and would like to meet with me to discuss God, His Angels or anything that I have written here upon this web site. I would be most happy to meet with you and /or with your family or group to talk with you.
Email me through our "contact The Guider," and I will schedule our meeting into my travel plans.
Web site; [link]
Thank you.
The Guider, David Haven
A Ministry as directed by Garbael More >
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 29 Dec 2002 @ 18:12, by ming. Politics
I was watching a documentary on Jimmy Carter's presidency the other day. It is striking how he is such an intelligent and hardworking person, who's always trying to do what his heart tells him is the right thing to do, so he can act with integrity. And he accomplished some remarkable things both while he was president and after, in terms of brokering peace internationally. But at the same time he was one of the most unpopular and unsuccessful U.S. presidents ever, according to popularity polls during his presidency, lower than any previous president in history. Which points us to something very important which he didn't do. He didn't manage the public perception of him or the country or the world. He speaks in a boring monotone and doesn't pay much attention to public relations. So things go badly in the economy and in polls, because people don't have confidence that things are good. Whereas an actor like Ronald Reagan gave great speeches, and seemed confident and inspiring, so people responded accordingly. He mushroomed taxes and national debt more than any U.S. president every had, effectively nationalizing several trillion dollars worth of private property, while pretending that the government was being trimmed down. What mattered the most was the perception, not what actually happened. And fast forward to George W. Bush, and it is now ALL about perception. He's half illiterate, knew nothing about history or foreign policy, is a recovering alcoholic and cocaine addict, and has many other problems that other candidates would have been nailed for. Now it is no longer necessary to get all the details right, and in most situations it doesn't really matter much if the facts are all wrong. As long as the president is looking good, looking confident while he says the right things, and as long as there are a bunch of people supporting him who do likewise, it doesn't really matter if the only reason for bombing Iraq is to get at its oil business. Doesn't really matter if nothing much came out of the investigation of 9/11. Doesn't really matter if Bin Laden gets to go free for no good reason. Doesn't really matter that the U.S. is now more in debt than ever before, and that military expenditures are skyrocketing. All that matters is managing the confidence in the system as it is.
My point here is not the politics. Rather, the world seems to have gradually changed so it is more and more about the perception of what is going on, rather than what really is going on. It is a virtual reality. That is both good and bad. The bad part is that slick political and corporate rulers can use the mass media to create the picture of reality that they would like to create. The good part is that it is public opinion that really rules the world. It is what you and I think, and what you and I see, that makes a difference, if there are enough of us. Which means, you don't necessarily have to figure out how to be president, or how to run a billion dollar company, or how to own an army. You just need to figure out how to influence public opinion in a more useful direction. It is not controlled, only influenced or inspired. If most people in the world stopped voting for people who mislead them, while pursuing special interests; if most people in the world stop buying products from companies who don't have their best interest in mind - the power structures would change very quickly. And how it all looks is now more important than who owns what. If public opinion changes its mind, and starts believing in totally different structures, and SEEING different structures - that would be the new world order. More >
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 29 Dec 2002 @ 13:34, by jewel. Activism
I had to grab this wonderful 'Daily Mirror' cover that Flemming had in his Blog yesterday... when referring to the launch of a new website, http://www.rootingoutevil.org. Go there and sign up as a 'weapons inspector'.
Yes, let's really look into what 'we' American cowboys have stock-piled for the last 50 years! What IS underground, in The Four Corner States? California? Washington D.C.? How about full disclosure of all our alterior motives? Where did Amthrax come from--a biological engineer in the US, eh? I saw a (BBC, I think) documentary about it last year in the UK -- There was this top investigator, handwriting expert and he was able to narrow it down to what laboratory it was created in, in the US! It was the same expert who helped find the 'Unibomber'. In the end, he got so close to unlocking the case, that he admitted it seemed like 'someone' from high up had put a stop to his investigation in the end. Another Oly North? Lee Harvey Oswald? ....
Also, I appreciated Flemming bringing to my attention this fascinating list Who sold what to Iraq, as contained in the Iraqi arms declaration, brought to you by Andreas Zumach of Die Tageszeitung:
Who sold what weapons technology to Iraq
USA
1. Honeywell (rockets, chemical)
2. Spectra Physics (chemical)
3. Semetex (rockets)
4. TI Coating (atomic, chemical)
5. Unisys (atomic, chemical)
6. Sperry Corp. (rockets, chemical)
7. Tektronix (rockets, atomic)
8. Rockwell (chemical)
9. Leybold Vacuum Systems (atomic)
10. Finnigan-MAT-US (atomic)
11. Hewlett-Packard (atomic, rockets, chemical)
12. Dupont (atomic)
13. Eastman Kodak (rockets)
14. American Type Culture Collection (biological)
15. Alcolac International (chemical)
16. Consarc (atomic)
17. Carl Zeiss - U.S (chemical)
18. Cerberus (LTD) (atomic)
19. Electronic Associates (rockets)
20. International Computer Systems (atomic, rockets, chemical)
21. Bechtel (chemical)
22. EZ Logic Data Systems, Inc. (rockets)
23. Canberra Industries Inc. (atomic)
24. Axel Electronics Inc. (atomic)
Britain
1. Euromac Ltd-Uk (atomic)
2. C. Plath-Nuclear (atomic)
3. Endshire Export Marketing (atomic)
4. International Computer Systems (atomic, rockets, chemical)
5. MEED International (atomic, chemical)
6. Walter Somers Ltd. (rockets)
7. International Computer Limited (atomic, chemical)
8. Matrix Churchill Corp. (atomic)
9. Ali Ashour Daghir (atomic)
10. International Military Services (rockets) (owned by the British Ministry of Defence)
11. Sheffield Forgemasters (rockets)
12. Technology Development Group (rockets)
13. International Signal and Control (rockets)
14. Terex Corporation (rockets)
15. Inwako (atomic)
16. TMG Engineering (chemical)
17. XYY Options, Inc (atomic) More >
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 27 Dec 2002 @ 23:59, by ming. Environment, Ecology
Evolution on this planet has gone through many steps towards developing gradually more complex creatures. There seems to be a fractal nature to evolution, where for example stages that microbes pass through in a small scale are later repeated at higher levels of complexity. Young life forms will often irresponsibly try to use up all available resources, and will act aggressively against their neighbors, but later on in the cycle, as they become more mature, the various players will negotiate mutually beneficial arrangements amongst each other. The microbes are in many ways ahead of us complex humans in terms of figuring out how different kinds of beings can live together in peace, to everybody's mutual benefit.
Even the most small and simple single celled organisms, bacteria, classified as monera, specialized themselves in amazing ways and organized themselves into complex social structures where they were supporting each other's existence. They specialized in breaking down different kinds of chemicals, and other bacteria would start using the chemicals the first produced, etc., forming a complete ecosystem. That was 1.7-3.7 billion years ago. These organisms then moved on to a higher level of cooperation. Multiple different kinds of creatures together formed a cell. These cells, which formed another kingdom called protista, were around a thousand times bigger than the monera. They were still single-celled, but we could say that they are multi-creatured, because they combine many previously separate creatures into one unit.
The protists, large multi-creatured cells, further evolved. At first they were prokariotes (before nucleus) and then they developed into eukariotes (cells with a nucleus). Eukariotes are now around a thousand times bigger than the prokariotes. Essentially they are very complex bacterial cooperatives, in many ways as complex as human cities, containing millions of specialized parts that would have been independent life forms in previous evolutionary steps. The nucleus of the cell is the information center, containing a DNA blueprint of how things are arranged.
Next step is that multiple nucleated cells combine into multi-celled creatures. And on and on to more and more complex multi-celled creatures, with more and more different specialized parts. Along the way death is invented, to make it easier to improve on the designs along the way, while recycling the old models.
Now, billions of years later, we humans have developed reflective intelligence, so we have the luxury of being able to sit and think about these things. But we are also rather ignorant about the complex social order that adds up to our existence. And we tend to be rather arrogant about it, even thinking that all these tiny creatures are nothing but a nuissance to us. Not realizing that our own bodies are amazingly complex cooperative organizations of billions of cells that each are complex organizations of millions of smaller specialized creatures. And all of it is pretty much working in perfect unison. And we humans tend to be so naive that we think that our conscious awareness is somehow in control of all of this, despite that we hardly understand it, and we mostly are totally unconscious of it.
Anyway, a question is what comes next, beyond us humans maturing into figuring out how we all can co-exist on the same planet. One quite logical thought would be that we all will arrange ourselves as components of a bigger organism of a higher order. That we'll be cells in the global brain, so to speak, and that humanity maybe will become conscious as a whole. Or, maybe other, more unexpected things will happen. Maybe parts of each of us will start cooperating with each other, and new kinds of life forms will emerge.
I'm no biologist. Better places to study some of this would be, for example the book Earth Dance - Living Systems in Evolution by Elisabet Sahtouris. More >
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