Friday, February 26

Big Brother is Here



Speaking of spying if you think our government isn't watching you, think again. Authorities are already spying on your kids, following you with your cell phone and tracking where you go on the internet. For instance, meet doubleclick:

"DoubleClick is often linked with the controversy over spyware because browser HTTP cookies are set to track users as they travel from website to website and record what commercial advertisements they view and select while browsing.[6] DoubleClick is considered to be malware by several commercial organizations (Adaware, Symantec, Spybot) which detect it and provide the tools to block/remove it.

DoubleClick has also been criticized for misleading users by offering an opt-out option that is insufficiently effective. According to a San Francisco IT consulting group, although the opt-out option affects cookies, DoubleClick does not allow users to opt out of IP address-based tracking."

That's right and if you think, "well I'm not doing anything wrong it doesn't matter." It does matter because you no longer have the most precious thing a citizen can have- freedom.

By the way Double click was bought by Google which owns this blogware but I'm sure they're not tracking me because they have vowed "to do no evil." Be sure to wave to their camera car taking a picture of your house for their maps application when you leave the house.

Some much for change we can believe in

The Patriot Act gets extended without a hint objection from Congress or the mainstream media. Of course it was folly to expect any administration to clip it's own wings, when it comes to gaining power, but shouldn't more people be upset about this? We really don't need to invade the privacy of American citizens to catch terrorists, we need the intelligence agencies to do their job better.

Wednesday, February 24

Olympic Fever? More like Olympic Headache

I tried watching the Olympics this week, really I did but NBC has made the experience unbearable. Cutesy stories that have nothing to do with the sports, reportage of anything and everyone American to the exclusion of other competitors including um, the winners. Scores and stats of events flashed across the screen for two seconds so I have no idea what the hell is going on, time delay for west coast viewers hours after the event even though we're in the same fucking time zone as the Olympics- can you say spoiler? The list goes on and on. As this NPR story so clearly points out NBC's coverage sucks.

I'm not a big sports fan but these are the best in the world and they only get to compete with their peers every four years so I love to watch them do their thing better than the rest of us mere mortals. The least the network numb nuts could do is let us see as much of the games as possible without all the flash and fluff. This may come as a surprise but this is a world wide event, could the TV network try to focus on that maybe.

The opening ceremony was cool ( despite the torch thingy glitch) and I'm sure the closing ceremony will be awesome too and we can vicariously join in the fun and thrills the athletes must be enjoying. At least then we'll see all the athletes. sheesh.

Monday, February 22

The holy Fraternity

The Catholic Church is in big trouble. They have violated the trust of Christians with their attempt to cover up evidence of decades of molestation and protect the perpetrators.

Covering up is not new. Police, military, gangs, sport teams and other groups have engaged in protection of what I call “the holy fraternity”. What ever group they belong to, the most important rule, above all others, is the protection of the fraternity.

I’m sure there are many studies describing the reasons and dynamics of such social behavior but suffice to point out that the church is doing the same in this matter. The rule assures it’s members that self protection is more important than the protection of the people it serves.

If you are in the police force, it doesn’t matter if your fellow officer has committed some heinous crime. Even if it were something the force would do everything in it’s power to enforce if it were someone, the brother hood must stick together. Too often defenders of the holy fraternity insist that policy and procedures were followed or a thorough investigation has showed no fault. The rest of us know this is a lie.

The problem with this code is that it holds the ego above altruistic duty. It needs to hold its own accountable to the standards it expects from others. If a holy fraternity wishes to maintain trust with those it serves, it must yield to the same laws.

So the church needs to atone for the sins, punish those who committed them and change the culture that allowed such actions to happen.

Wednesday, February 17

It's Official I'm defective.

After years of frustration, misunderstanding and puzzlement at my own self I finally figured it out. I have Asperger's syndrome..After reading the symptoms of it I thought, wow this makes so much sense.

What does this mean? I'm still weird, have a hard time being sociable and am as eccentric as ever. The good news is I know why. So keep this in mind when dealing with me ok?

Tuesday, February 16

Time for some civil disobedience

Great poster and not such a bad idea.



Check out more of Jake Lewis' designs.

Keeping America safe from 4 year olds

The TSA has an important job to do- unfortunately they don't know how to do it. They are supposed to protect the safety of airline passengers, but are so bad at their job they couldn't handle security at a senior prom.

Behold a another story illustrating the dumbfucks at TSA and their "Standard operating procedure". Pay attention to some important points in the story. The fact that a police officer's child was involved, the reaction to his objections to the procedure, when the TSA got around to apologizing and the piece de resistance, how the complainer finally concedes to the TSA in the last line.

It's the sheep leading the sheep.

Saturday, February 13

Potty mouth

I came across recent remarks made by Rep. Nancy Elliot of New Hampshire on The Stranger and was stunned by her comments. She just had to tell everyone at a public meeting how she felt about anal sex.

"We're talking about taking the penis of a man and putting it in the rectum of another man and wriggling it around in excrement. And you have to think, would I want that to be done to ME?"

Now I can swear like a sailor but I was also taught to be polite in public and I can not believe her vulgarity. She was interrupted at one point to stay on topic but continued on, much to the embarrassment of other I'm sure. And she thinks gays are disgusting? This reminds of a classic story.

Two Buddhist monks were traveling in Japan when they came to a small creek where a woman in a kimono asked if one of them could carry her across the water as she didn't want to soil her clothes. Despite the vow of celibacy the older monk agreed and gave her a piggy back to the other side. She thanked him profusely and went on her way. The younger monk was quiet for a long time as they walked on but could not contain himself any longer and spoke up.

"What did it feel like to carry that woman? To feel her breasts against your back and smell her perfume. Tell me what did it feel like to have her silky smooth legs in your hands?" he asked indignantly. The older monk stopped and thought for a moment.

"You tell me, I put her down a mile ago but you're still carrying her."

Thursday, February 11

An Introduction to Ki

Let us have a universal mind that love and protects all creation and helps all things grow and develop. To unify mind and body and become one with the universe is the ultimate purpose of my study. Four major principles to unify mind and body.
1. Keep one point
2. Relax completely
3. Keep weight underside
4. Extend ki


When you enter a Ki Society dojo for the first time you can get an introductory lesson on these four principles. I can only give you a rough idea of them in writing. Like tasting sugar, you need to experience the feeling yourself to understand the concept. So get thee to a dojo.


Our bodies are like the small visible segment of an iceberg floating on the water. There's’ a lot more under the surface, as the Titanic discovered. That part is our mind, hidden and intangible. When we coordinate our mind and body we can tap into ki- universal energy. When I explain this to most people they look at me like the RCA dog until I tell them it’s like the “force” and comprehension lights their face.

Keep one point.
When you are standing (you are standing for this aren’t you?) your natural center of gravity is a few inches below the navel and just above “the family jewels” as I like to call them. When you focus your mind at that one point (you can feel it by putting your finger on that spot) you are now centered. Another way to do this is to come up on your toes like a ballerina and come straight down gently, letting your weight settle to the tips of your toes-not the balls of your feet. To make sure you are coming straight down have someone rest their hand on your back as you do this exercise. Ok you have your center but the one point is not a not a fixed point on your body, it moves as your center of balance moves. Don’t focus on where it is physically, focus on the feeling you have as you sit, stand, walk around etc.

Relax Completely
Ah that’s easy you say, plop down in the big comfy chair with a brew, watch TV and -hold it right there. That’s not what I mean.

We tend to view relaxing as weak, as a state where the mind stops. That’s dead relaxation, when you’re dead you’ll have lots of time to practice that. While you’re alive, practice living relaxation. Living relaxation is when the body is relaxed but the mind is moving very rapidly.

Try this exercise. Stand with your hands at your side and keep them there as you shake them like you have some gooey stuff on the fingertips. Shake them faster and faster until you can’t go any faster physically then let them come to rest at your sides. In your mind imagine your hands are shaking so fast you can’t see the movement but you can feel it in the tingling at your fingertips.

Keep Weight Underside
In a natural state the weight of objects is always underside. Hold your arm out like you are opening a cupboard door or holding a steering wheel. Let it float there. Feel the weight on the underside of your arm? That’s gravity, it’s natural and it’s weight underside. Drop your arm to your side, feel the weight at your fingertips? Good.
Imagine your arm is hollow and has sand in it, the sand will settle to the lowest point. You don’t have to push down or make yourself feel heavy, in fact you should imagine you are as light as a balloon or a cloud. Perfectly balanced.

Extend ki
In other words allow ki to extend infinitely. Ki flows by itself, what is Ki? It can be translated as “universal energy”. Everything is made of ki, you, me, all the plants and animals including the annoying dog barking next door- everything.

Imagine yourself at the bottom of a flight of stairs. At the top is the dentist office, an IRS audit, something really bad- whatever. Now walk up those stairs. Hard huh? Now this time imagine there is a winning lottery ticket, a hot date with the celebrity of your choice, whatever you most desire. Now walk up the stairs. It’s a lot easier right? Nothing could stop you if they tried.

In the first case, you were not extending ki, in the second one, you were. The difference is intention. Tohei Sensei says “Mind leads body.” The sequence is ki goes first, then mind, then body.

Here’s one you can do with a friend. Hold out your arm with it bent slightly at the elbow and make a fist. As your friend put’s one hand under your wrist and the other on top of the arm just above the elbow, resist physically as they try to bend the arm. Your friend should use gently but firm strength, the object is to bend the arm not break it.

Now hold it out again and let it float there. Imagine energy flowing from your fingertips and continuing infinitely. If you continue to focus your mind on the feeling of ki extending they will not be able to bend the arm this time.

The first time I did this was in an introduction class and let me tell you was I ever surprised. My reaction was dude, you weren’t really trying to bend my arm, were you? This is the same startled reaction everyone has. There’s no intrinsic value to this trick beyond winning bar bets but it is a clear demonstration of mind and body coordinated.

Tohei sensei extended this idea further with “Chido setsu” a phrase he coined which means that ki flows infinitely in all directions. Ki doesn’t come from you but flows through you.You don’t need to make it extend and it goes in all directions like a light bulb radiating heat off your body.

Don’t try to think of all four principles at once, you’ll go crazy. Sometimes keep one point will work better than say, relax completely. Use one and you have them all, lose one and you lose them all.

In Ki class we learn how to use these principles in our daily life. The dojo is for practice, real life is for application.

Tuesday, February 9

Notes From All Over

While I search the internet for interesting things to read, comment on and gather ideas for my own blog I collect bits and pieces. Here in no particular order are Notes from All Over:

A quote that well explains the extreme measures of terrorist thinking. In his book, "Reality vs. Subjectivity" Dr. Hawkins has this to say about ego:

"The ego is not only unable to correctly access situations that are fatal but it even willingly sacrifices life for its own ends. The ego is therefore potentially deadly and would rather 'see you dead than admit it is wrong. . . The ego is intran sigent in that it fails to learn from its mistakes. Failed policies are reinstated repeatedly, even in the face of major catastrophe, and the justification is almost always a resort to some moralistic catch phrase that services the political gains of the propagandists who exploit the gullibility of the naive public."


. . . “If Obama wants to support gay equality, he knows what to do. If Pelosi and Reid want to support gay equality, they know what to do. If HRC believes in gay equality, they also know what to do. So spare us the schmoozing and the sweet-talking and do it. Until then, Mr. President, why don't you have a nice steaming cup of shut-the-fuck-up?” -Andrew Sullivan

In the media everyone is the same size. Whether it’s OJ Simpson or Joe the Plumber. Everyone and everything becomes trivial. How can the viewer discern what is an important story?
Technology gives people the feeling they are more powerful (like Batman and his utility belt) than they really are, that’s why gadgets are so popular, but it’s a false sense of power.

“Gay people should be free to marry and other people should be free to believe that our same-sex marriages are wrong because their religion forbids it or because that's how they were raised or because they just think it's icky. Just because same-sex marriage is legal doesn't mean that everyone is required to approve. Interracial marriage is legal despite the disapproval of some; inter-faith marriage is legal despite the strong and sometimes violent disapproval of most religious traditions; divorce is legal despite the disapproval of Jesus Christ himself and despite being forbidden by the Roman Catholic Church. Gay people want the same deal interracial couples, inter-faith couples, and divorced-and-remarried couples all have now: our marriages should be legal even if some people disapprove.” Dan Savage

Once upon a time, I, Chuang Tzu, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was tzu. Soon I awaked, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man.



There was a lot being said after the idiot with the bomb in his underwear botched his ticket to martyrdom.

Security theater indeed. More like bad dinner theater. I knew from the moment TSA was formed it would be a joke and a huge waste of money. I am so tired of the agency talking about the seriousness of security ( which is important) only have something like this happen to prove what ignorant dumb fucks these people really are.

You know who takes security seriously? The Israeli's. Do we hear about this kind of incompetence in other countries? No. We still think our country is invincible despite 9/11 so we don't need to be vigilant like Europe and the Middle East where they deal with these dangers every day. Shlomo Dror, an Israeli air-security expert, had it right in 2002 when he said: “The United States does not have a security system; it has a system for bothering people.”

The effect of the Patriot Act and Homeland Security gave intelligence agencies carte blanc to spy on American citizens. Another attack on this country will simply be used as an excuse to increase it's spying on us rather than actually stopping the terrorists. - My comments on Stranger blog about TSA security breach 12/8/09

Eisenhower warned of the excess of government and the military-industrial complex 60 years ago:

“in the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."


“stick to politics Wanda, I don't need celebrities to tell me what to think about political issues. CBS is a private corporation and has a right to decide their programming. The Super bowl is a family show and most people don't want to have to explain why two men are kissing to their children. That's not a personal statement on my part, that's a fact.” -Huffington post blog comment on Wanda Sykes critic of CBS banning a gay dating ad on the super bowl.

My reply:
The commentator has offered a typically pedantic response. Let's take a closer look at the rhetoric, shall we.

"CBS is a private corporation and has a right to decide their programming" the networks broadcast over the public airwaves. The FCC and profits, more than anything, determine what gets aired.

"The Super bowl is a family show" A family show where steroid injected athletes violently crash into each other while fans yell obscenities and consume large quantities of food and beer. Oooookay.

"most people don't want to have to explain why two men are kissing to their children. That's not a personal statement on my part, that's a fact."

Explaining uncomfortable things to your children is the job of a parent. You are perfectly free to tell them such behavior is immoral. Unless you have the right to speak for other people -which you don't, your last statement is an opinion- intellectually limited- but still an opinion.

Monday, February 8

Cartoons that rock

The New Yorker still has the best and funniest cartoons anywhere. They are the first thing I look at and I always check out the caption contest on the back page. Now for a good laugh.

Intelligence vs. nihilism

I was recently lectured on the futility of cynicism- which I agree but find it hard to look at the world any other way. Well I do believe cynicism used correctly in sharp intelligence discourse can make a difference I offer two stunning examples of the mind at work. First I suggest you watch Stephen Fry's eloquent smack down of the hypocrisy being dished out by the Catholic Church.

Ben Bernecke was recently reappointed as the nations' banker but Paul Krugman is the man should have that job. Maybe it's just as well he is a private citizen, free to give an honest opinion which a member of Congress couldn't do if you put a gun to their head. Sorry for the sarcasm, that's the way I am.

Thursday, February 4

Great Ads to Look Out For

Yours truly wonders, why are Public Service Ads, like this one, cooler than commercial ads?

Monday, February 1

Vitriol

Welcome to the age of bombast and vitriol. Where anyone can post scathing, mean spirited vitriol on any subject without ever having to defend ones self. Imagine a pedestal in the local park with “I am right and you are inferior” inscribed in stone. Everyone is welcome to stand on the pedestal as a monument to their own ego- with their head covered in a paper bag.

Ranting and raving is what every blogger does in one way or another. I used to think the internet chat rooms were vicious- I stopped visiting them, but comments left on blogs, YouTube and news sites make them tame by comparison. The worse part is that no one is saying anything of value.

Words have enormous power. The poet Thomas Paine wrote "These are the times that try men's souls" that was the rallying cry for the American Revolution. Emile Zola wrote “J'accuse” pointing the finger of blame at the French government in the Dreyfus Affair. Both offerings changed the course of history.

I look at the impact all this verbiage with growing concern. So much of it is judgmental blather after the fact rather than critical analysis. Someone posts a video on Youtube of say, kids getting splashed by a car going through a puddle and everyone is ready to charge the person with a crime. Someone makes a unsavory remark about women, Jews, blacks or gays and everyone expresses outrage even if they have the same thoughts in private.

We no longer burn people in a public auto de fe, we incinerate their reputations instead. We no longer place a person in stocks to be ridiculed in the town square, we vilify them in the media.

In this time of instant news and armchair punditry perhaps we should all step back and reflect before putting in our two cents worth and that's exactly what it’s worth, two cents.
Remember, what goes around comes around and the golden rule- treat others as you would be treated.