Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in.

Mark Twain

Why should man expect his prayer for mercy to be heard by What is above him when he shows no mercy to what is under him?

~ Pierre Troubetzkoy

Think on This ...
And you each here may judge within yourselves as to whether the world is growing better or not according to that conviction, that feeling within thine own self that what the Christ-mass or Christmas spirit means is being manifested in thy daily life and thy associations with thy fellow men.

Edgar Cayce Reading 262-116

The cat could very well be man's best friend but would never stoop to admitting it.

~Doug Larson

Think on This ...
For, man in his nature-physical, mental and spiritual-is a replica, is a part of whole universal reaction in materiality. Hence there are those elements which if applied in a material way, if there is the activity with same of the spirit and mind, may bring into the experience of each atom of the body force or cell itself the awareness of the Creative Force or God. It may only rise as high as the ideal held by the body-mind. Hence there is the one way, the source. For in Him is all life, all health, all mind, all knowledge and immortality to the soul-mind itself.

Edgar Cayce Reading 3492-1

Why do "slow down" and "slow up" mean the same thing? Why is the third hand on the watch called the second hand?

George Carlin

After all is said and done, a lot more will have been said than done.

~ Unknown

Think on This ...
. . . the church is within yourself and not in any pope nor preacher, nor in any building but in self! For thy body is indeed the temple of the living God, and the Christ becomes a personal companion in mind and in body; dependent upon the personality and individuality of the entity as it makes practical application of the tenets and truths that are expressed.

Edgar Cayce Reading 5125-1

The highest use of capital is not to make more money, but to make money do more for the betterment of life.

~ Henry Ford

A dog teaches a boy fidelity, perseverance, and to turn around three times before lying down.

~ Robert Benchley

You cannot kill time without injuring eternity.

~ Henry David Thoreau

Life finds its purpose and fulfillment in the expansion of happiness.

~ Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

The average dog is a nicer person than the average person.

~ Andy Rooney

I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world

~ Albert Einstein

What you give you get, ten times over.

~ Yoruba Proverb

I've always believed that you can think positive just as well as you can think negative.

~ Sugar Ray Robinson

"You are what you do,not what you say you'll do." - Carl Jung

“With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil—that takes religion.” "---Nobel prize-winning physicist Steven Weinberg

Seriously have some vision people enough with trying to curry favor to win elections how about putting YOUR country first and to the devil if you get funded or not by the ruthless bastards who control the largess of our national wealth - deal those bums a blow legislatively and govern independent of their agenda for once in your lives.

Capitalism ungoverned devours its resources, bleeds its labor, and annihilates itself. - Paul Burke

To be of use to the world is the only way to be happy.

~ Hans Christian Andersen

In the final analysis, you have got not to forget to laugh.

~ Katherine Hepburn

"... I have found that in the simple act of living with hope, and in the daily effort to have a positive impact in the world, the days I do have are made all the more meaningful and precious." - Elizabeth Edwards

I love red so much, I almost want to paint everything red.

~ Alexander Calder

The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.

~ Mohandas Gandhi

When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.

~ Helen Keller

Let us not look back in anger or forward in fear, but around in awareness.

~ James Thurber

Republicans say a lot of things, but not a lot of them are true.

What really stimulates the economy is when people who are NOT rich have money to spend on the things they need.

It is time to let the tax cuts for the wealthy expire. We were told they would stimulate the economy and create jobs. They did not.

We've got real problems as a country - and none of them are going to be solved by giving millionaires more tax cuts.

Information is the currency of democracy....
-Thomas Jefferson

Life finds its purpose and fulfillment in the expansion of happiness.

~ Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

Americans have been living a middle-class lifestyle on working-class wages – and bridging the gap with credit.

If the toxic radiation released routinely from nuclear reactors and every other stop along the nuclear fuel chain were the color and texture of oil, or smelled like natural gas, no one would ever again confuse nuclear power with clean energy.

If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you; that is the principal difference between a dog and a man.

~ Mark Twain

The art of art... is simplicity.

~ Walt Whitman

Each moment of the year has its own beauty... a picture which was never seen before and which shall never be seen again.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

You should know by the kindness of a dog the way a human should be.

~ Don Van Vliet

92% of Americans say they want full disclosure of campaign contributions

Wealth concentration in too few hands while the general populace is saddled with too much debt to buy the goods and services produced by the corporations, in whom the wealthiest hold 81 percent of the stock, is a replay of the conditions leading to the crash of 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression.

The U.S. ranks 27th—nearly last—among developed countries when it comes to investments in education, health care and other vital social needs.

The sunrise, of course, doesn't care if we watch it or not. It will keep on being beautiful, even if no one bothers to look at it.

~ Gene Amole

Koch Industries is responsible for over 300 oil spills in the U.S. and has leaked 3 million gallons of crude oil into fisheries and drinking waters.

"...And so I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land...," - Mark Twain

Our life is what our thoughts make it.

~ Marcus Aurelius Antonius

“The best way to find yourself, is to lose yourself in the service of others.” ~ Ghandi

We The People - Aren't Ready

Nobody's going to read this post it doesn't have a hot topic gotcha lead line. It's not sexy and yet I feel the need to make this observation. The people not only of this country but the entire world aren't ready. This has nothing to do with education, time or opportunity but it has a lot to do with humanity, evolution, civility, logic, practicality and common sense.

The people just aren't ready. They are by and large still greedy, lusting for power consumed with self interest and exploitation as if that will bring satisfaction. It won't, it doesn't, and it hasn't, but until we all understand that we are going to have to suffer the fools who are obsessed with it and those that haven't comprehended for themselves what and why we are here for, and how that will bring about the world we all pray for.

We still have a lot of evolving to do as individuals and societies - a helluva a lot of evolving. If anyone thinks this is mankind at the uppermost reaches of his being laugh at yourself because of your conceit. In gods image please...not yet we aren't...not by a long shot.

How many train wreaks do we have to witness individually or globally to understand that fulfillment does not come through ruthlessness.

The struggles around the world and in the halls of governance are focused on the immediate gain of those who ruthlessly play the game, have a loud voice and have taken a seat at the table. They need to wake up and take those chairs at that table and turn them around. Drilling down on each other while facing off with each other until there are only a few ruthless power brokers left is so completely counter productive and narrow sighted. It gains them and everyone else nothing but annihilation and elimination. Whats going on and real success will come when they turn their attention outward. The choice is a Hitler world or a Mother Theressa world.

By and large the people aren't even ready to talk to each other - meaningfully. There is plenty of talk but it isn't meaningful.

The people just aren't ready. They exalt ignorance as some sort of creed that smart people are evil, that philosophers are dreamers, that art is for fools or investing and that a gun is an equalizer and way out. Weapons a tool of destruction are a path to destruction.

Mankind isn't ready to understand that and it doesn't even have a plan a vision for utopia. Yet utopia is easy beyond easy. Once we take a paradigm shift to a we society instead of a me society and help each other and actually care about each other we'll throw off the shackles of grid lock politics and govern from a human pragmatic center.

We do not have to be weighed down by arrogance, selfishness and the cowboy romanticism of the "rugged individual" going it alone. Its a stupid ideology that pits neighbor against neighbor as we ravage our resources and each other. The world is no longer big enough to accommodate that conceit.

Can you imagine a world where our national interest weren't defined by power and control for profit. What if we made a real commitment to feed the poor, heal the sick and provide for the disenfranchised a world in which the HAVES actually help the have nots and SHARE their wealth?

Can you imagine impoverished nations actually opening their borders and letting us take the food and education directly to the people? Can you imagine a society, nation and world that commits its resources to helping those in need with not just the bare essentials but uplifting them culturally, providing them the tools to better manage their lives, and philosophically with sustainability and spreading a feeling of well being?

The bottom line is there is more than enough to go around. Once we start thinking about being our brothers keeper and making that who we are, and helping those that need a leg up we won't be so quick to tear down our forests to make a buck.

What good is a buck when a whole legion of people on the outside looking in are forced to take up violence to feed their children.

We the people just aren't ready. We aren't ready to cooperate, live together, understand each other or help one another. We're ready to steal from one another, to cheat one another to kill one another, to lie to one another, to beat one another, to torture one another, to make sick one another, to exploit one another, to hate one another. But the opposite of all that is what we need and We the people just aren't ready to collectively give up our self defeating ways.

It's considered naive, idealistic but I tell you it is the only way we are going to succeed as a planet and the only way to co-exist. Those that would excel at ruthlessness must be met and confronted and out numbered. But they won't be if its considered futile, unfashionable or unrealistic or profitable, or advantageous to saddle up to the ruthless. Yet history is littered with examples of the ruthless falling when confronted by the peaceful masses. It is the courage and ethics of the individual that are at play here and those ethics and courage of convictions should be what is celebrated but the people aren't ready.

We are still enamored with ruthless.

The resources we spend on making and creating war are astronomical. Once for a quick second we talked about a peace dividend. We need that to come back into the conversation. Violence is inherent in our culture animals hunt man kills. But the people aren't ready to overcome that because they are acting purely on self interest. As if its somehow not understood that every action has a reaction and that the choices that we make in our individual lives impact everything.

From what we throw out to what we recycle, to what we buy to how we live right down to what we say every individual action, thought and deed impacts the whole of humanity. But the people aren't ready to accept that fact.

The fact that their words have power their media has power, their thoughts have power and that we are all responsible for our global survival in what we do, say, and live and that each one of us is a shareholder, and that no action thought or deed exists in a vacuum. It all impacts the end result of survival or annihilation of our very species.

But the people aren't ready to see and understand we all have that great of an individual power and that we are on a finite planet that has plenty to go around if we all cooperate, share and help one another.

The people think or have been taught their actions don't matter, someone will clean up after their mess, and THEY CAN GET AWAY WITH IT. Well no one gets away with anything.

Self interest leads down a road where everyone squabbles over the last remaining resources.

At the end of the day its the road to ruin. Self interest does not have an invisible hand to guide it. But if we changed our priorities to helping one another in every way which was needed the benefits to our global well being, individual well being, discourse and health would be overwhelming. And we would have a market sector that brimmed with opportunity, and innovation bursting at the seams.

Our intellect projected outward instead of selfishly limited to "whats in it for me" would simply bring utopia.

There's employment opportunity in helping educate the poor, feed the hungry, cure the sick and protect and cultivate our environment. And the return on that investment would be threefold. Are we really that lazy that the only thing we can think to do with trees is to cut them down? Are we really that lazy and stupid to think that the only thing we can do with the ocean is fill it with garbage and over-fish it to death? Are we really that lazy to think the only thing we can do with a mountain is to blow it up? How is that governing, smart, practical or having even a hint of common sense?

Its the exact opposite and we are going in the wrong direction unless extinction and annihilation is our goal. People turn to crime as a last resort bravado and all no one wants to pick up a gun there's no glory or honor in it and you know it the minute you pick one up.

But there is a heck of a lot of honor in a barn raising.

We do not have to look far for examples but by and large the people just aren't ready. Enough of us haven't reached that necessary level to understand that money and power and control through money and enforcement can't fulfill that empty hole inside our collective and individual beings or give us the purpose we all crave.

The powers that be are wasting your time and my time with their stupid profit wars, consolidation and monopoly.

At the end of it all they'll wind up with a stinking, polluted, nuked out cesspool of a planet.

There is another way but the people aren't ready yet. They can't see the planet from their toes. If we all stood up and changed direction and started really caring about each other instead of only about ourselves well that's a world worth living on.


And a world worth returning to.
______________________________________
Paul Burke - Author-Journey Home

I must say that I find television very educational. The minute somebody turns it on, I go to the library and read a book.

~ Groucho Marx

If you think dogs can't count, try putting three dog biscuits in your pocket and then giving Fido only two of them.

~ Phil Pastoret

I must say that I find television very educational. The minute somebody turns it on, I go to the library and read a book.

~ Groucho Marx (my man pots and pans)

If there's a book you want to read but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.

~ Toni Morrison - got it Toni :)

In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but how many can get through to you.

~ Mortimer J. Adler

If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went.

~ Will Rogers

“If music be the food of life, play on.” ~ Shakespeare

Never does nature say one thing and wisdom another.

—Juvenal

Do we keep the Bush Tax Cuts for the Richest 2%? Or do we end them for good, and invest in the Other 98% of us instead?

Republicans = Bullshit

Republicans are full of shit - ban earmarks already - big full of shit talkers. Where's your jobs bill Boehner - you mean you haven't worked on one yet? What the hell have you been doing up there besides going to the tanning salon? Tax cuts for billionaires do not work, have not ever worked and continue not to work or we wouldn't be in this recession because they have been getting them since REGAN.

The big decades long behind the door scheme is to starve the government of tax dollars to make it smaller and ineffective when it comes to oversight and the rule of law. A government with already historically low tax rates, a government in charge of oversight for a three hundred million strong market sector, a government in charge of oversight on a huge continent that spans two of our planets biggest oceans from sea to shining sea. The richest 2% want to starve it of capital so it can't do its job and they can get away with murder...literally.

What a great idea starve the cop on the beat. Now who would think of that? A bunch of would be criminals that's who.

The end result of this decades long experiment to starve the government to make it smaller is that government ends up being a better investment than tax breaks for billionaires.

Billionaires hoard the money in foreign banks. Our Government could have/would have invested and will invest those tax dollars back into our economy across a wide sector including defense, infrastructure, research and development and education. All of those capital investments pay REAL DIVIDENDS back to our Country which is who we pledge allegiance to - right?

Republicans are full of shit and represent thieves who would take our tax dollars to their off shore accounts and hold the dollars there forever.

Dollars are useless unless circulating.

That these billionaires and millionaires do not feel a loyalty even to the military that protects their interest overseas and the police and fire departments at home is criminal and Un-American.

Do you realize its the Democrats and LIBERALS who advocated for the GI Bill and increased benefits for our young boys and girls in the service?

The Republicans and Bush CUT benefits for our veterans and yet started two wars. Happy Veterans Day - right...?

The Republicans talk a good game but they are completely full of shit and its written all over their wormy faces.

You're looking the other way if you voted republican because liberals with their open minds, generosity, live and let live mentality and welcoming attitude scare you to death. As if your mom taught you not to share, not to look out for your younger brother and to not help old ladies across the street. The republicans actions not words repudiate all of that. But it is their actions that count and count large as in large bills going overseas. They sneer back through the television screen all the way to the bank. A foreign bank in another country.

Why would a segment of the population continually vote against their own self interest unless they have been fooled by words and images to align themselves and trust the very same people that are RIPPING THEM OFF.

The republicans are whores for the wealthy and proud of it.

Unless you are worth a hundred million dollars voting for them is just plain stupid. They do not represent God, they do not represent Jesus, they do not represent mother earth, regular folks, they do not represent blue collar workers, country music or nascar. They represent money, money, money and as much of it as they can get their hands on.



That's not governing that's stealing. But because they look like you and put on the affects that are near and dear to you like religiosity, proselytizing and flag waving you ignore the fact that they just want your vote and then kick you to the curb immediately after the election.

Republicans represent 2% of the our so called citizens who do NOT need our tax dollars but get them anyway.

It's a real waste of money. They gobble up all our resources for themselves, hide the money in Switzerland, Bermuda and the Caymans and do NOT reinvest that money into the USA.

They leave their mess of pollution from their industries and cancer derived from their products for the poor and middle class wage earners to clean up and deal with. These people the wealthiest among us the richest 2% who rape our land and legal system deserve to be hung for treason.

At the very least they need to pony up like the rest of us and pay the same tax rate that the rest of us pay. That's right middle America you pay a higher tax rate than Richie Rich.

Tax breaks for billionaires that's all that you get when you vote republican. Pat yourself on the back for voting with the 2% who don't give a damn about you or what your Mother taught you.

The end result of starving the government to make it smaller is that government ends up being a better investment than tax breaks for billionaires. Billionaires hoard the money in foreign banks while our Government could have/would have invested those tax dollars back into our economy across a wide sector.

Here’s a post-election fact that might have escaped you: 80% of the state ballot measures for land conservation passed, including in Maine, Oregon, Rhode Island and Iowa

Know thy ideal, and live to that. For, each soul must give account for its own self.

Edgar Cayce Reading 2803-2

Fun has a sacred dimension.

~ Adriana Diaz

Our resolve to change things for the better (sustainable) must match their resolve for greed, a quick buck and power.

Happiness comes when your work and words are of benefit to yourself and others.

~ Siddharthe Gautama

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes."

- Marcel Proust

With 100% of Precincts Reporting, We Are Projecting Corporate Money as the Winner

The destiny of man is in his own soul.

~ Herodotus

I have this theory that it is the dream of most educated people to own/work in a bookstore.

~ Megan Coughlin

After all is said and done, a lot more will have been said than done.

~ Unknown

Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.

Rachel Carson

If you want to be happy, be.

~ Leo Tolstoy

They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.

~ Andy Warhol

Until we get better media, we will not get better politics

Voters in swing congressional districts overwhelmingly reject privatizing Social Security and raising the Social Security retirement age, they oppose tax cuts for the top 2 percent who make more than $250,000 a year

Protecting the environment is a bedrock American value....

Big Oil and Dirty Coal spent $70 million on energy-related attack ads this election cycle and put $20 million directly into the pockets of their allies running for Congress....that's the story

Election Results and What You Can Do

Here are TEN things YOU need to do - TODAY.
_________________________________________________

1. Commit to Taking Down FOX News. So long as FOX News has any credibility within the Beltway, it will be a pipeline for malicious material that will poison our political culture. Join our friends at Color of Change: http://colorofchange.org/turnofffox/sticker/tof.html?&credo.

2.Tell the Senate to pass the DISCLOSE Act during the lame duck session. We were able to defeat the Texas Oil Initiative, Prop 23 in California, in part because we knew who the enemy was — having disclosure of corporate contributions brings the enemy out in the open for us to take on and fight. The DISCLOSE Act passed the House and came within a single vote of passing the Senate. One vote. You can join this fight by taking action with Public Citizen at http://www.citizen.org/disclose-act-action.

3. Keep fighting to end the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. This issue will get resolved during the lame duck session. Take action at http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/bushtaxcuts/index2.html?r=6072&id=12212-683909-S.Q5.Vx

4. Sign up for the fight for a constitutional amendment to reverse the Citizens United decision by declaring that corporations do not have the legal rights of humans. This may take years, if not decades, but we should start now. Please join Free Speech for People: http://freespeechforpeople.org/

5. Tell the FCC to use its existing authority to establish and defend net neutrality. Our friends at Free Press are leading this charge: http://act2.freepress.net/sign/put_up/.

6. Demand that the Department of Justice and the Internal Revenue Service investigate the political organizations set up by Karl Rove to launder millions of dollars in secret cash to change the outcome of elections. Act now at http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/investigate_crossroads/index2.html?r=6442&id=12212-683909-S.Q5.Vx

7. Defend the EPA from castration by pro-coal interests in Congress. The EPA accomplished almost nothing during the Clinton years because the Gingrich-led Congress used the budget process to prohibit the agency from doing its work. This battle has already started. The Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign is a great way to join this fight: http://www.sierraclub.org/coal/

8. Convince the Obama administration to stop appealing progressive court rulings on matters like the Defense of Marriage Act, Don't Ask Don't Tell, and the state secrets defense against torture and wiretapping. Urge the Department of Justice to change its approach at http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/stop_appealing/index2.html?r=6443&id=12212-683909-S.Q5.Vx.

9. Urge Democratic senators to do away with lifetime tenure for committee chairs and open up all chair positions to majority vote elections. This will go a long way towards more progressive legislation. Take action with us at http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/end_seniority_system/?r=6444&id=12212-683909-S.Q5.Vx

10. Demand that the Department of Justice enforce the provisions of the national voter registration law that require state governments to offer to register all voters at departments of public welfare and motor vehicles. Many state governments simply ignore these requirements and this is a cheaper and more inclusive way of registering voters than the campaigns of the now dead ACORN. Urge Attorney General Eric Holder to expand voter registration: http://www.credoaction.com/campaign/enforce_motor_voter/?r=6445&id=12212-683909-S.Q5.Vx

By a considerable 22 percent margin, battleground voters believe the Environmental Protection Agency should regulate emissions of greenhouse gases.

By a huge 41 percent margin, voters believe “we need to hold corporations accountable for their pollution,” rejecting the argument that “we should not impose new regulations that will hurt businesses.”

We lost too many friends in Congress last night. That means our efforts to move to a clean energy future will be much more challenging - I'm up to it how about YOU?

Don't watch the election on ABC! They've lined up known liar and race-baiter Andrew Breitbart to do Election Night commentary. Remember him? He got African American USDA employee Shirley Sherrod fired with his highly edited video appearing to show her giving a racist speech—when the full video showed the opposite. Viewers depend on news for facts—Breitbart lies. Watch anyone but ABC on Election Night!

It's game time. You've committed to vote -- now's the time to follow through.

Find your polling place here, and bring three friends along when you go:

http://ping.fm/E0Vlq

Say NO to the Party of No and deliver the message that's NO WAY to run a Country.

Vote Democratic Across the Board

I usually advocate for voting for the best person - ignore the 'd' or 'r' after the candidates name. Vote for the best resume whether its the green party, libertarian, democratic or republican. But after two years of petulant, ridiculous, childish, stupid, republican behavior saying 'no' to practically everything, across the board regardless of merit or reason I can not take that approach this election cycle.

Blatant obstructionism while families were losing their homes and in the midst of a national crisis by the republicans is inexcusable and boarders on treason.

I will not split my vote this year. It's a straight democratic vote for me across the board. We need to hand the President a clear majority and deliver a message that we want the parties to pull together for the good of the Country. If in two more years of a full proof majority the democratic party can't govern then let the chips fall where they may.

But I can not sit by for another round of No votes based on nothing other than obstructionism, hoping the President fails, and praying the economy doesn't get better just to gain personal, individual and corporate power.

That may be what career politicians want but its not what I want.

Vote Democratic across the board and give our President a real chance to unleash the green energy economy. Boehner, McConnell had a chance to help shape legislation. They opted to stall and shaft all Americans in a go for broke attempt at power while hard working middle class families were kicked out of their homes.

It's disgusting and beneath contempt. Apparently the party of no does not have the dignity or maturity to put the Country first. Just because they are old white guys doesn't mean they get what's good for America is good for all Americans.

I'm asking that we the people do not reward that type of behavior. How are we going to change Washington D.C. if that's the type of behavior we reward?

Say NO to the Party of No and deliver the message that's NO WAY to run a Country.

The Top 5 Reasons To Vote Tuesday 11/02/2010

Keep Your Government Hands Off My Corporate Overlords! (Ken, Washington)

"...much of the wealth at the top derives from environmentally ruinous activities...depleting the oceans of life, mountain-top removal mining, or selling people cigarettes and other carcinogens...," Juan Cole

Separation of Corporation and State (Elizabeth, North Carolina)

It’s a Democracy, Not an Auction (Eric, Washington)

Stunning Statistics of the Week:

* 149: Number of independent groups that have spent money to influence this year’s elections (according to Federal Election Commission (FEC) reports through Oct. 25)
* $176.1 million: Amount those groups have spent on the midterms
* 10: Number of groups responsible for the bulk of that spending
* 59.9 percent: The percentage of that money that comes from undisclosed sources

232 – Number of toxic chemicals found in the umbilical cord of tested newborn babies in the U.S.

1 – The number of votes it takes to decide a close election

12 Environmental Facts to Keep in Mind on Election Day

389 – The concentration in parts per million of carbon dioxide, a leading greenhouse gas, in the earth's atmosphere today.

38 – Percent increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration since the industrial revolution.

18 – Number of countries that have set all-time heat records so far in 2010.

82 – Percent decline in U.S. corn, cotton, and soybean production possible under current warming scenarios.

1 – Rank of 2010 so far as the hottest year on record (tied with 1998).

16 – Estimated number of Exxon Valdez-sized spills it would take to equal the amount of oil spilled into the Gulf after the BP Blowout.

4,342 – Total number of oiled birds collected by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the Gulf Coast region.

$68.5 million – Amount spent by Big Oil and its special interests allies this year on TV ads designed to elect pro-polluter candidates.

$514 million – Amount spent on lobbying and advertising by big polluters to stop the Senate from passing global warming legislation.

23,000 – Number of Americans whose lives will be saved in 2010 alone because of the Clean Air Act, according to EPA estimates.

232 – Number of toxic chemicals found in the umbilical cord of tested newborn babies in the U.S.

1 – The number of votes it takes to decide a close election.

Dirtier air. More dirty energy. Greater dependence on our enemies' oil. Fewer new jobs...the Republican Platform

Vote the "Party of NO" - OUT!

A dysfunctional political system is one that knows the right answers but can’t even discuss them rationally, let alone act on them, and one that devotes vastly more attention to cable TV preachers than to recommendations by its best scientists and engineers. http://ping.fm/icjCU

It’s a Democracy, Not an Auction (Eric, Washington)

Separation of Corporation and State (Elizabeth, North Carolina)

If It Weren’t for CNN, I’d Have No Idea What Was Happening on Twitter (Claire, New Jersey)

Keep Your Government Hands Off My Corporate Overlords! (Ken, Washington)

We, the People NOT We, the Corporations (Alan, Colorado)

A Harvard economist, Jeffrey A. Miron, calculates that marijuana could generate $8.7 billion in tax revenue each year if legalized nationally, while legalization would also save the same sum annually in enforcement costs.

Regulators are accepting public comments on the new law’s important “Volcker rule.” http://ping.fm/J2C6T

"If You Think Money Is Speech, Try Paying Your Visa Bill With an Essay" - (Bruce, Michigan)

It’s a Democracy, Not an Auction!

"There ain't no revolution, it's evolution..." Duane Allman

The incomes of the top 400 American households soared to a new record high in dollars and as a share of all income in 2007, while the income tax rates they paid fell to a record low, newly disclosed tax data show. - Go to the link below to read more http://ping.fm/ZySiE

Rove's Crossroads GPS and American Crossroads groups are running ads around the country which FactCheck.org says are "badly misleading" and which Politifact.com simply called "false." http://ping.fm/XsT3m

Fascism - all that is required is that we do nothing.

More Americans are hit by lightning every year than commit voter fraud.

Even the politicized Department of Justice under Bush, which spent a huge amounts of time and resources scrutinizing allegations of voter fraud, were unable to locate any widespread problems.

When a stupid man is doing something is he ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty. George Bernard Shaw

Good governance requires effective regulation to make sure capitalism doesn’t create tyranny, as well as economic and health catastrophes. - Paul Burke

You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.

~ Ray Bradbury

Today's Poll Numbers These races are virtual ties. That means your vote and the votes of your family and friends can absolutely make the difference. Here's a sampling of recent polls:

CA-Sen: 48% Boxer (D), 46% Fiorina (R) (Rasmussen 10/21)
CO-Gov: 44% Hickenlooper (D), 43% Tancredo (C), 9% Maes (R) (Magellan 10/20)
FL-Gov: 45% Sink (D), 45% Scott (R) (Sunshine State News 10/20)
IL-Gov: 42% Brady (R), 41% Quinn (D) (PPP 10/16)
KY-Sen: 48% Paul (R), 43% Conway (D) (Mason-Dixon 10/18-19)
MN-Gov: 44% Dayton (D), 41% Emmer (R), 10% Horner (I) (Rasmussen 10/20)
OH-Gov: 48% Strickland (D), 47% Kasich (R) (CNN/Time 10/15-19)
PA-Gov: 49% Corbett (R), 44% Onorato (D) (Quinnipiac 10/13-17)
PA-Sen: 43% Sestak (D), 43% Toomey (R) (Muhlenberg 10/21)

Polluting corporations have virtually unlimited amounts of money they can spend to influence elections, but they do not have the right vote. Only citizens -- real people, like you and me -- can vote. And I am writing today to ask you to exercise that right.

The soul is the same in all living creatures, although the body of each is different.

~ Hippocrates (philosopher)

I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world

~ Albert Einstein

Even The Wall Street Journal—not exactly a cornerstone of the supposed “liberal media”—just published a survey with some revealing results about who and what is to blame for our nation’s poor economy:

* 86% of Americans believe that offshoring of jobs by U.S. companies contributed to our sluggish economy.
* Nearly 7 out of 10 people—an all time high—say that “free trade” agreements with other countries cost us jobs here at home.
* Over three-quarters of Americans consider corporate profit-seeking a factor in the downturn.

Robert Plant- Music Review

This is a quick one - Robert has a new album out Band of Joy personally I'm not feeling it but that's how I felt about his Alison Krauss release Raising Sand. Loving both of those musicians we ran out and got it right away and it sat after initial listening for a year. I finally took it to the office and really developed an appreciation for it over time. You're not putting it on at a keg party but who of us growing up with Led Zeppelin are throwing keg parties anymore (we had a few monster parties - wow - that I would not want to repeat).



For those of us not willing to buy the mans entire back catalog I recommend these few discs: Sixty Six to Timbuktu - is an off the beaten path collection of rarities (disc two) and not so obvious selections from his solo output (disc one).



Dreamland is a collection of covers which really rocks - you get the idea that if Robert showed up at a coffee house these are the songs he would want to sing. It's one of my favorite discs in a ridiculous A to Z collection any former DJ would have.



Mighty Rearranger - I like this one a lot. If you need to hear Classic Zep put on some Classic Zep. If you want to hear some spacey, rock that slithers and gets down in the gutter but floats along the heavens this disc should get you there. Its not Zep its different but it has a lot of the elements. The production is fine and it has many sonic surprises. It builds and falls like waves crashing slowly on the beach with bursts of energy worthy of any great Zep album. Its a cool, earthy effort and I highly recommend it - after all you want Plant to add to your Zeppelin palate not just keep splashing the same color all over the place.

These four albums will round out your collection quite nicely.

Enjoy the Journey ;)

Poison Ivy Cure

I never had poison ivy my sibling used to get it but it never bothered me go figure. But due to that super human strength and genetic hiccup I had no idea what the stuff looked like or little did I care. Poison sumac, oak, ivy all similar what's the big deal. Well I screwed up. Apparently our back yard is covered in the stuff. For seven years I have been crawling around in poison ivy ripping up shrubs, tearing down trees, replanting trees that nourish the birds, pushing a hand mower, planting wild daisies, jasmine, milk weed and whatever else came out of our container pots.

Then it happened and I still didn't know what was wrong with me just the upper arms. I washed treated the scars with rubbing alcohol and just couldn't figure out what was what. One day I laid my arm down on the hot upholstery of the car at the height of summer - sweet relief I burned the stuff off. Well I don't recommend that. It wasn't a bad case of poison ivy and it eventually went away.

Toodeloo toodeloo blissfully unaware I'm back in my garden next year height of summer, scorching 100 degree heat, shorts and a tank top, sweat pouring off of me and I'm crawling around clearing vines from a pup of an evergreen that had decided to grow.

Bamm, poison ivy - hey what's this stuff I got it last year. So I don't know everything (hardly) anyway. I dealt with the minor outbreak, laughed at myself for crawling around in the stuff for seven years pores wide open, and forgot all about my new allergy.

Boom last week, crawling around yet again in the back garden and weeds planting well now I'm a pro at catching the stuff and still blissfully unaware. But I think I've found a home remedy that I wanted to pass on.

For minor poison ivy sufferers I recommend Fels Naphta. It's an old fashion laundry detergent soap from the late 1800's. Invented in Philadelphia.

I tried all the over the counter stuff and it was bunk.

Shower your infected areas with the soap. Apparently the poison ivy fests on our body oils so the trick is to dry those oils out. Here's what I do. After my shower and drying off I grab the hair dryer and aim it at the infected areas.

You're going to dry your hair right? Take a second or two and balst the poison ivy on your skin. You can literally see the oils weeping out of the scars. Then after I'm done with the dryer I wet a bar of Fels Naphta just on the edge and spot apply it to the scars, cake the soap on and leave it there. It dries in seconds. Now the Fels Naphta can get kind of slick and messy so just store it in a plastic baggie under the sink.

Between the hair dryer and the Fells Naphta I have been itch free from day one of the outbreak, and slowly watching the scars disappear. I hope I remember to wear a freakin' long sleeve tee shirt next time I'm digging around back. But absent short term memory loss I think I have found a sure cure to speed the poison ivy outbreak along and neutralize the itch.

The hair dryer is key. Be careful not to burn yourself but take as much heat as you can stand. You'll see the oils weep out dry that off apply the soap and enjoy your day. Never mind the occasional flaking of the soap throughout the day its minor compared to poison ivy.

And go enjoy your garden.

Religion Creates Arrogance (republicans)

Got into a little discussion on religion out at Digg - thought I would share - just jump in the deep end its okay.....
____________________________________________________________

"The truth is what Jesus proclaimed" (from another poster) - My response is what follows:

.....that truth as to what Jesus proclaimed is up for interpretation since it was over a hundred years after his death that the first books of the bible were written....and if Jesus existed in the flesh and blood why are there no artifacts - where's his cereal bowl - his cloths - the crown of thorns - where is his tooth brush - anything. If such a remarkable being actually walked on water some people might have actually saved his sandals - a lock of his hair...heck we have the horse hair from Stonewall Jackson's Horse Little Sorrel...and Jackson was a Confederate - you see what I'm saying - we have Caesars coins but nothing from the most amazing man of all time?

Now the truth my friend is this - we live on a planet- it is the only one we have and if we value money, and power more than the earth itself we have our priorities dangerously wrong and we are in the fast lane to extinction. We can not survive without the planet. We can survive without money and personal power.

Religion was just the first attempt by the powers that be to set up codified law to control peoples behavior not only to bring order but to solidify those at the top their control, authority, power and money.

I for one do not need a myth about a man walking on water to realize that this planet - floating in space - is a flat out miracle of creation. All I need to do is look around and see "ALL" that was not made by man's hand.

Religion creates arrogance - "the beast are here to serve us..." really - or is that just a written justification authored by a human being to somehow excuse our violent tendencies to slaughter and tear down everything and each other.

No all written dogma, books of religion written by men have at their heart an agenda for control, power and money. The truth - whatever you proclaim it to be does not need to be written down. It is there plainly to see for all of us every day - there is no need for a book - we have the stars, and all the world around us.

Creation and the act of creation is our god- we destroy it and ourselves because we have abandoned common sense and follow men - whose agendas may not be so noble as life itself.

We need to stop pushing dogma on each other and live sustainably on the Earth. If we can't get that together we don't deserve to be here because we are idiots. We have been given brains use them. At the end of the day belief is just that - whole sale acceptance of the unprovable as if what is provable is any less miraculous.

Ho hum we live on a planet spinning in space whats so special about that - hey Peter, Paul - how about a guy walking on water - now that would be cool....what the heck we're spinning in space, there's dirt and mountains and things grow right out of the ground - you really need to up the ante?

I've got news for its the natural Earth that's sacred and all of man's institutions pale immensely in comparison - including organized religion and its pedestrian fear and saber rattling ....puhlease....

We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.

~ Anais Nin

You can say any foolish thing to a dog, and the dog will give you a look that says, 'Wow, you're right! I never would've thought of that!'

~ Dave Barry

The Scary News: In California, big polluters are spending millions to promote a cynical ballot initiative to kill that state's landmark climate bill – and recent polls suggest a close vote.

The Bad News: Environmental issues are barely registering in this year's midterm elections – and in many races, candidates are openly running against existing environmental protections.

The Good News: A Pew poll last month found that 81% of Americans favor tougher environmental standards.

Breaking News: Fox News' parent company has written another mega-check to the Republican Governors Association.

Regan Our Savior Governement Bad

I think we should return to trickle down economics and not tax the richest 1%. They are the most wonderful people on the face of the Earth and gosh aren't they so special in their secluded neighborhoods, yachts and secret, private special clubs. They should live in this country for free. I think more of our children should die horribly for them so they can further their profit only empires.

And more deregulation please, please, please I love my savings wiped out every boom and bust cycle. Government is bad, bad, bad, filled with awful laws like the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Ben Franklin was a complete idiot he spent all that time reading and writing and using the scientific method to discover actual facts about our world. He should have been watching football and campaign ads then he would have been told what to think.

Trickle down economics has worked wonders for the past three decades. Ronald Regan was the smartest man who ever lived...

Ohh wait the country is completely wrecked because of deregulation and the money is hoarded at the top and not reinvested. Why that jerk Obama its all his fault didn't he fix everything he had two whole years? Hang him...

What a bunch of dupes people are complete and utter dupes. You can't see the forest from the trees and Rove and Cheney laughing all the way to the bank. Dear god how could you have missed the sneer on W.'s face for eight years? What a bunch of imbeciles you deserve to be ripped off by the wealthiest in complete and utter control of your country, media and banking.

The republicans do not get a pass for voting no on everything, abuse of the filibuster and anonymous holds.

Vote your own pocket book people big business isn't going to save YOU. They want to rape you for every last cent they can get away with. Their marching orders are to maximize profit at any and all cost. They don't give a rats ass if your drinking water is polluted, your town is buried by a mountain top and you get cancer. They're invested in the cancer medicine on the side geniuses.

Government is the only cop on the beat we have the only one capable of leveling the playing field for innovation and new technology. The only one big enough to sue Goldman or Exxon...so they're the enemy - oh them and the trial lawyers. Now who told you that? Seriously who told you that hmmmm....big corporate media, funded by big business and their think tanks and puppet politicians?

What a bunch of idiots people are they don't know what side their freakin' bread is buttered on. Hey lets give it all to the rich people they'll let us wait on them in their country clubs....while they get rid of the minimum wage, outlaw class action law suits and bust our unions....oh wait they're wavin' the bible - they must love us.....freakin' morons.

Hey Eric H. Holder Shut the Hell Up!

Eric Holder the man who doesn't have the balls to go after war criminals who purposely defrauded the American tax payers out of billions of dollars wants to prosecute the state of California for trying to "govern" practically.

Holder who hasn't even cleaned house of the Bush DOJ attorneys who on orders went after political opponents of Bush and Rove has zero credibility.

Eric Holder who doesn't have the guts to close Guantanamo Bay or try alleged terrorist in Federal courts is going after pot heads, and the end of the underground drug economy that only benefits criminals.

Eric Holder who doesn't have the balls to prosecute the perpetrators of an unjust war on ginned up charges of weapons of mass destruction which lead to the dumping of tax payer dollars by the truck load, unaccounted for, into the heart of the Mideast and into the pockets of Bush, Rove and Cheney's friends has zero credibility.

Eric Holder who's refusal to look into the actual shooting of a man by the Vice President of the United States wants to perpetuate the humongous waste of tax payer dollars in an illegal and unnecessary drug war locking up millions of non-violent recreational drug users has now spoken up.

This is your goddamn issue Eric Holder after the violations of the Geneva Convention on torture, after the politicized witch hunt by people still in your employ, after an illegal war based on lies and media manipulation for the profit of a few.

This is your big moment to open your mouth - the decriminalization of marijuana?

Well I have one thing to say to your wimpy, ineffective, ball-less soul - SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU ASSHOLE and get back to work on purging your Justice Department of traitors to the Constitution. They are not supposed to do what they did and use your office to gain political power for one party over the other - that Eric Holder is TREASON.

You asshole. You want to come after sensible, practical Governance then you better do something real to protect America from tyranny or shut the hell up. What are we paying you for anyway to cripple a solution to our economic recovery or protect the United States from Fascism?

Get back to work you completely ignorant asshole. You can start by firing those traitors from the Bush regime, and investigate the supreme court ruling from 2000 that stopped a vote count. Start protecting America from being hijacked by those who can and will and have done it - you completely worthless piece of shit.

The increased revenue from restoring the top tax rates would raise an estimated $700 billion over the next decade. This revenue should go toward making investments in job creation, education, health, transportation, infrastructure, and green energy systems.

Republicans = pat answers and poor policy

* Prop. 23 will result in 169 million tons more air pollution, and will increase public health risks;

* It will jeopardize 500,000 jobs and $10 billion in private investment in California clean energy businesses (already we've seen a significant slowdown in the green energy market because of Prop. 23); [1] and

* Increase consumer energy costs by up to $650 per year by keeping us addicted to costly oil.

EVIL only hath its appearance in the mind, in the shadows, in the fears of those that know not the light in its entirety.

Edgar Cayce Reading 689-1

Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of nonessentials. ~ Lin Yutang

CASABLANCA - Movie Review

It has been said that this is the greatest movie of all time and you know what I think they are right. Yes I've seen Citizen Kane. With the romance the tension between right and wrong, fascism and freedom, tyranny and excess, and an outstanding script Casablanca sets the standard for what a movie should be including great music.

The song As Time Goes By is one outstanding piece of music and lyric. Much like the movie it says it all and has the guts to say it.....

I've seen a bunch of Humphrey Bogart movies with Lauren Bacall, Jimmy Cagney and Peter Lore but this ensemble is second to none. We finally watched it again last week and fell in love with the movie all over again. The dialogue is incredible. The movie is a sophisticated look in the mirror at ourselves. There is no toilet humor, no excessive violence, the gun play is proportional to the situation and the acting top notch. Who doesn't love Claude Rains, Sidney Greenstreet, or Peter Lore, Ingrid Bergman and of course Bogey at his most vulnerable but dignified.



You know, Rick, I have many a friend in Casablanca, but somehow, just because you despise me, you are the only one I trust.

Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine.

Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Here's looking at you kid.



The microcosm of this film encapsulates all of the human spirit from war and oppression to love and redemption, struggle and survival, drinking and gambling, manipulation and opportunism, fear and happiness, failure and success, luck and not so lucky. They hit every note right knock it out of the park and move on. There isn't a wasted moment, word, look or action. It is so well crafted you can not even tell. The lighting, the sets, the costumes, the camera angles, the mood, tone and atmosphere are all calibrated beautifully.

Watch it again or watch it for the first time and maybe you'll remember how to be and what dignity, and class are really all about. It's certainly not about money and being a jack ass.

Casablanca is a brief glimpse into the entirety of the human condition a snap shot in time filled with eternal truths that fashion can not change no matter how much time has gone by. The movie has a firm understanding of "same as it ever was" and accentuates that reality to perfection. In all its glory, horror, humor, stupidity, and heroics all the world's a stage. Casablanca is the movie of our world and ourselves as it apparently always has been and always will be.

Don't forget the second disc with Carrotblanca starring Bugs Bunny and his Warner Brothers cohorts it's a must see after the movie.

A kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh, the fundamental things apply
as time goes by....

Conceive of Nothing While you live And I give you Heaven. ~ Jack Kerouac

Tumbleweed Connection - Music Review

I love Elton John's first few albums; Elton, Tumbleweed Connection, Madman Across the Water and Honky Chateau. I got off the band wagon after that. Of these albums Tumbleweed Connection is by far my favorite. I love both versions of Madman Across the Water, Take Me To The Pilot is one of my favorites, Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters one of the best written songs ever, but song for song Tumbleweed is outstanding.

There's a three song sequence I always played on my old radio show. I couldn't get away from it even after I was painfully aware it was my go to set and tried to change up. It starts with Where to Now St. Peter, Love Song, and then Amoreena.

This is what I wanted from commercial radio and now even satellite radio (during drive time) but somethings changed in the world - its apparently hip to be shallow, stupid and un-inquisitive, don't ponder and stop thinking so much, just watch television and read people magazine we'll tell you what to say and buy. Sorry for the digression but its just killing our Country and World.

Come Down in Time is another beautiful song on Tumbleweed Connection that just reaches me. I think at this point Elton was still trying to be a poet musician instead of just a pop star. Anyway I prefer my life deep, dripping with meaning where coincidences knock your lights out because there is no such thing as a coincidence. Its reflected in the music I listen to and play. I like fun too and there is plenty of upbeat sonic adventures on this album.

But when push comes to shove Love Song may have been the best thing he and Bernie ever did together. I'm not talking sonically because the next tune Amoreena has a great sonic tone, but for just putting it out there Love Song stops all the bull shit and does what we always said we all loved back in the day and tells it like it is. After all that's how I want my life, love, country and world to be....so don't waste my time if you don't have the courage or ethic to "tell it like it is..."

A great, great, great album when albums were made from beginning to end as a whole continuous event the sum greater than its parts and when movies and music still tried to create art and not just distraction.

I hope I live long enough to see meaning come back to being valued at the top of our "pop charts" along with fun and that meaning comes back to our literature, and art, music, literature and theater get reinstated in our schools. Because without them life is just a banal existence, an unexamined distraction fearful of challenging our pre-conceived notions. That to me adds up to being a waste of an opportunity and flat out boring. And someday soon I hope that entertainment gets banned from the news and politics and we get back to creating a meaningful existence for the societies we live in and realize a renaissance in our civilization. We are falling way short of the mark.

Tumbleweed Connection is a great album by any standard. Enjoy and don't worry - that thing you feel stirring is your soul.

Tully - Movie Review

Get this one - rent it on netflix. If you are tired of what passes for thoughtful, introspective, heartfelt movie making, tired of the shoot em up or same old same old situation comedies or dramadies, if you want a movie to remind you what exactly character development and movie making is supposed to be about, if you have an attention span more than a nanosecond, if you like the slow unfolding of life and love then I highly recommend this movie. If you don't like any of the aforementioned you quit reading a few syllables ago.

Julianne Nicholson is the moral center of this movie and I can not gush enough about her role, what the writers wrote for her and her delivery. The story centers on a father and his two sons and their Nebraska life on a farm, in a small town. There is something at the root of all of us when it comes to living off the land something in the DNA that just connects. Its part of our being. Careful not to romanticize that reality Tully distills the feeling and the mood and wraps it all up in simple truth and the complexities that can be fall us all. How you deal with what life throws at you is after all the journey. I just loved the last scene, line and shot of the movie.



This is a good one - I loved it the first time I saw it years ago in 2000 and yet again a decade later last week. It's rare that I watch movies more than once.

Stunning Statistics of the Week:

* Amount expected to be spent on the upcoming midterm elections: $5 billion
* Amount expected to be spent on TV ads this election cycle: $3 billion
* Amount spent in 2006 election cycle: $2.8 billion

Life finds its purpose and fulfillment in the expansion of happiness ~ Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

Let’s say that you have an affair while your wife is suffering from cancer, and that you visit your wife in the hospital, while she is recovering from surgery, to discuss a divorce. That seems dishonorable.

I didn’t do that. Newt Gingrich did.

Let’s say that the House of Representatives votes 395 to 28 to reprimand you, and fines you $300,000 for an ethics violation. Now, that’s a disgrace – a public disgrace.

That didn’t happen to me. It happened to Newt Gingrich.

Let’s say that you write a bad check to the IRS for almost $10,000. That seems dishonorable.

I didn’t do that. Newt Gingrich did.

A modest tax on Wall Street financial speculation could raise more than $150 billion a year -- money that would go a long way toward funding a serious jobs agenda

Jerry's First Time Back with Brent

Well I was dialed up last night and enjoyed a spectacular rendition of Standing on the Moon. It was other worldly but calm, pure, good ol' grateful dead bopping along, floating, as if I was at a show - thousands of stars representing those listening and of course the purple lights but not coming from spot lights rather awash in purple like galactic clouds stretching out from the source.

Listen any telling of this is going to pale in comparison to the right here, right now, conscious but not knowing I was asleep state. If you are lucky enough to have been through that you know what I mean. I was out there among the cosmos and the full band sound with a host of sources was effortlessly flying along, floating along in perfect harmony and timing, unforced, but delivering, flowing and lyrics clear as a bell sung on key.

When I awoke I thought it was perhaps the wheel and spidergawd but dozing back off I realized it had been "standing on the moon" - in that slowed down perfect grateful dead way - only spot on without transition from consciousness into the human realm mind to hands and delivered to our ears. There was none of that this was unfiltered from the source like waves of water flowing from a wide, vast stream.

The ability as a musician to do that is what makes legends...but I digress. Back to the dream as if in a swirling bowl of dark matter, and purple illumination with pinpoint bright white stars swirling around a bed of creativity from which the sound came from - very much a stage in my minds eye. I was in the back on a lip but heard it all as it washed around my head.

Comfortable vibes, bouncing along, floating, pure and then the outro - the crescendoing, crashing but not jarring sustained. A swirling mass of culmination of intensity and purity that astonished me in its clarity, breadth and vortex. Swept along with the music (as always) and it swirled and melded and intertwined like wind chimes dancing on the wind only the full band sound plus more subtle horns and synth like waves upon the shore all mingled together swooping through space and ears swirling in dark matter black whole finishing on a soft clear final culmination and soft uplifting note....then clear as a bell as if listening to a radio broadcast - the voice from the original grateful dead hour (remember him) - behind me - said to my utter astonishment and flash of realization, "how about that outro from Jerry's first time back with Brent" and wow - the flash of understanding. Instant realization, and comprehension and glow I realized I had just witnessed the encore from that reunion in some sort of time warp or rebroadcast because I know they didn't wait this long to orchestrate together. Did I really just get to witness and hear Jerry and Brent lay down Standing on the Moon in the vast reaches of space......I slowly awoke and then jotted everything down (believe me I used those notes here) but now can recognize it and see it as an impression in my mind - the scene - palled in comparison to being there and fumble with words to share it with you to express some how the magnitude - the purity of the phenomenon and to let you know that it is out there and happening.

Sweet recognizable but without the frailty of our human body filter - straight no filter and the easy feeling.



It was so beautiful - Brent working his magic swirling synth sounds and keys Jerry dancing in the back ground adding touches and flourishes - both of them expanding on the sounds that they were able to create here and that voice - clear as a bell, "how about that outro from Jerry's first time back with Brent," whoa nelly. On the other side now momentarily experiencing beautiful beyond music boys and girls and dreams like that - where you wake up and realize - hells bells I've been asleep - well some sort of harmonic convergence is going on and there is more to it all than meets the eye.

The music to try and reduce it to what we know had that Bralove touch too it - think the Infrared Roses Release....that will get you part of the way there.

What a sound what an honor and yeah baby the outro was well oh what the heck other worldly, awe inspiring, comfortable, swirling, not overwhelming but intense, thoughtful, clean, clean, clean and intricate. Greater than the sum of its parts and the parts all illuminated and bigger than the whole swirling through dark matter a black whole, laced with sound and purple flowing clouds and pin prick small brights of light the other ones so to speak ever so slight but bright as all heaven to see and hear the music stirred as with a spoon through airy soup - awake - with a dawning stun - I was asleep and here comes awe and one of those after show moods.

Have a great weekend and as always - enjoy the Journey!

Paul

“There’s class warfare, all right. But it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” - Warren Buffett

The annual economic gain from having the UN headquarters, missions, and consulates in New York City is nearly $3.3 billion.

More than 1,800 American vendors are contracted by the UN for millions of dollars worth of vital services and goods

More than 2,000 jobs for Americans are created or sustained by UN operations;

For every $1 the U.S. invests into the UN, we receive $1.50 in return.

Enjoy every sandwich ~ Warren Zevon

Americans for Job Security: In a Federal Elections Commission complaint, Public Citizen wrote that Americans for Job Security is a "sham front group that would be better called Corporations Influencing Elections...masquerading as a non-profit to conceal its funders and the scope of its electioneering activities." As the Media Matters Action Fund reports, this group's ads seek to mislead viewers to think that clean energy would be bad for the economy.3

American Crossroads: American Crossroads receives significant support from Texans who made their fortune in the oil and gas industry. With donors like these and the support of Karl Rove, it isn't too surprising that one of American Crossroads' priorities is blocking any legislation that meaningfully addresses the very real problems of climate change.2

Americans for Prosperity: A corporate-funded group that is spreading junk science and misleading messages across the country. This year, this front group has launched a $45 million campaign -- including TV ads and phony grassroots events -- in a number of congressional districts to confuse people about clean energy legislation and to promote a pro-corporate agenda. Americans for Prosperity is also supporting many Tea Party groups who oppose clean energy reforms. For example, the group has developed content and planned events in New Jersey, Arizona, New Hampshire, Missouri, Kansas and several other states.1

The U.S. Census Bureau says 43.6 million Americans are now living in poverty -- the highest number of poor Americans in the 51 years that records have been kept.

In 2008, 1.2 billion cellphones were sold worldwide. How many of them were manufactured inside the United States? Zero.

The United States has lost approximately 42,400 factories since 2001. About 75 percent of those factories employed over 500 people when they were still in operation.

Sometimes I think we're alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we're not. In either case, the idea is quite staggering.

Arthur C. Clarke

The Republican Flip Flop Isolationism to Imperialism and the Big Sounding Excuse American Exceptionalisim

For decades isolationism used to be the hot conservative concept - screw the rest of the World - Pat Buchanan comes to mind - but ooooppps we built our industrial complex on burning oil and we only have 2% of the worlds supply.

So "now" the complete opposite is being trotted out as Conservative and Imperialism is suddenly excusable and promoted by calling it American Exceptionalisim. That's one helluva flip-flop Republicans.

Apparently we're so exceptional that its okay to trample other peoples rights culture, land and take their natural resources for our own. Baloney, and it makes a mockery of the alleged free market system, Constitution, Declaration, Bill of Rights - you should try reading them some day - and the Federalist Papers.

Modern day conservatism is just an excuse looking for a theory to justify lawlessness, greed, and corruption. It stands diametrically opposed to any thing good we might have stood for one day long ago.

Ask yourself this America: How would you like a Saudi military base in your back yard? Think about it driving by it every day, wondering what they were really doing in there...who at home is actually receiving the pay off for this and what for...whats with all those towers and satellites, and why do they need so many weapons? Don't they just mean us harm and why can't the locals get jobs there? Think about it a bunch of Saudis running around on a military base in your neighborhood on your soil...not too cool huh?

Until the Status Quo with its entrenched power and refusal to get its act together as long as they are making money lets go of its bully mentality as a justification for being too lazy to innovate America will be reduced to common thugs who push weak kids over for their lunch money. Is that what your bible teaches you?

We need to become 100% self sufficient and close all of our money draining bases around the world what a waste of blood and treasurer. We need to worry about protecting our own shores and living sustainably within our own borders and environment.

Ruling the world is for idiots, big stupid, maniacal, sociopathic idiots and reigns down destruction on your own head (see Hitler, Napoleon, Cesar).

We need to get our own house in order and then we can help those who legitimately need it if they ask us, and if they honor the principles on which this Country was founded.

Right now the modern Conservative movement does not even come close to honoring those principles unless lying, propaganda, complete and utter bullshit, hypocrisy, thuggery, tyranny and theocracy are clauses I missed in my reading of the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

I haven't understood a bar of music in my life, but I have felt it. ~ Igor Stravinsky

Up to 1 million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals are dying every year due to the ingestion of or entanglement in plastic.

Approximately 40 million barrels of oil are used to produce 100 billion plastic bags in the USA annually.

Nationwide fewer than 5% of single-use plastic bags are recycled, leading to choked sewer systems and marine life.

On average, a disposable bag has a useful life of 12 minutes, from the store to your home, to the trash.

Blessed are they who can laugh at themselves for they will never cease to be amused.

~ Anonymous

Sometimes I think I'm diagonally parked in a parallel universe. ~ Diana Britt

The verdict is in on all the tax cuts for those who did not need tax cuts during the economy decimating Bush years. Not only did they not
stimulate the economy, which has done nothing but tank under their weight, but then have in fact only resulted in a further wealth transfer to America's corporate elite. The richest have just gotten richer, as if they needed any help.

End Bush Tax Cuts Action Page:
http://ping.fm/0Qisf

Republicans Worship False God - Money

It's perception some of us revere all living things in fact everything that wasn't created by the hand of men including mountains, streams and all forms of life.

We were invited into this garden and we tear at it, trash it and each other like wild boars of course god also created them. Its a conundrum and a mystery and probably meant to be that way so each individual can draw their own conclusion.

Whats right for you may not be right for me. But at the end of the day we have been given brains, and reasoning skills and we need to use them. In my humble opinion if you are not living by these two rules; live and let live, and do unto others as you would have them do unto you then it is you who are doing the wrong thing, and that ain't cool no matter how you spin it.

If you think dogs are soulless and that killing for sport is fun you might want to take a step back and think about how you got here and were is here actually in the first place.

We did not build this little, planet in the corner of the cosmos we are guests and some feel stewards of creation, but we worship money and I think that is a classic example of barking up the wrong tree....

Its a question of perception and mind set. Just because things were done a certain way in the past doesn't excuse us or forgive us of our current actions. We need a gut check as to what are we doing and why are we here? Is this a pointless existence and even if it is shouldn't we make the best of it to not make it so pointless....?

I could go on but you get the picture - just look outside at the stars above - and get outside your immediate self, ask yourself those questions, remind yourself of the extraordinary and let that impression guide your day and your actions.

Too bad our politicians and captains of industry worship money and profit a man made tool and convention. They are leading us down the proverbial primrose path. And for the record they have got it completely wrong.

Take action here

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To be "led down the primrose path" is an idiom suggesting that one is being deceived or led astray, often by a hypocrite. The primrose path also refers to someone living a life of luxury apparently linking primroses to libertine indulgence.

"America is not a perfect country... they have to review a lot of their policies because they are pushing secular, moderate, liberal and progressive people on the other side of the line of divide”

Dr Farooq Sattar

Love is what's in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen.

Eight-year-old

Republicans, Bullies and Greed

The over simplified concept that leaves out the necessity and need for government, assumes that markets work in a vacuum freely (they don't and they never have) and that men aren't crooks, liars, cheats, and greedy.

The crisis is one of principle as well.

If the powers that be weren't gaming the system through bribes (lobbying) to maximize their profit margins we wouldn't be in this mess.

Small government is a wonderful idea but it better be powerful because what the status quo really wants is an inept, powerless cop on the beat so they can rob us blind (our tax dollars) park that money off shore thereby pulling it out of our markets completely. It renders the money useless and stored as if literally under a mattress.

Necessity is the mother of invention and so education has to be improved. If you want the so called lazy people (those disenfranchised by no fault of their own) to again have a productive life you have to SHARE the tools with them to achieve that productive life.

At the end of the day money is just a tool. It's how we use it that tells us who and what we are, and greedy little whores make terrible sheriffs.

The idea is to "govern" enforce the anti-trust act and stop selling out. Unfortunately our political system the way it is designed right now rewards the sell out.

Fair election laws and public financing take the bribery out of the system. But men being what they are crooks, liars, hypocrites and cheats struggling for power to stroke their own ego will stop at nothing.

When profit is the end all be all goal of existence this is the world we get. A world of resource wars and a vast divide between the haves and the have nots. Fairer more equitable societies are more peaceful and that affects productivity in a very positive way. So if you want productivity make it an equitable society.

Ethics, conflict of interest and a real gut check as to what is it we are actually doing and trying to accomplish with our existence needs to be addressed.

Otherwise we are doomed to our orchestrated treadmill money chase that benefits the few at the top of this so called fair market pyramid scheme, and we are left to wonder why our lives are so busy, but un-fulfilling.

We have a nice market idea of a system but it has been so fully corrupted that it is sputtering and almost inoperable and right now benefits the few.

That will change hopefully peacefully. Making government so small "you can drown it in the bathtub" as one right wing bully thief spoke isn't the answer either.

We are already the lest taxed western civilization and lowering taxes isn't a panacea when you are trying to "govern" a continent and market sector with global ramifications.

It's time to spend those tax dollars more wisely yes but not going off on resource wars rather by unbridling the strangle hold the status quo has on the economy and politics.

That is the way out of our self inflicted wounds. Wounds brought on by those who govern by greed and wanting more, more, more, more and more and those servile enough to give it to them as long as they get more, more, and more.

Do you really think its lack of innovation that has kept electric cars off the road, solar panels off your roof tops, city centers from being retrofitted, high speed rail from being developed, wind farms from going up, solar thermal from being hooked up to a modern grid - NO IT IS NOT - its the vested self interest of last centuries dirty energy conglomeration that is protecting its share of the market place by hook or by crook.

A healthy law enforcing government plenty big enough to enforce the laws in a fair and equitable way to level the playing field so innovation can emerge is just exactly what is being prevented by those who have already "got theirs" and fear dramatically not being able to keep up with the Jonses.

Its all about the pathetic sociopaths and we have let these greedy psychopaths dictate our laws to us - literally by letting their minions actually write the laws and then accepting their campaign checks.

It is the status quo that shuts down innovation scoops new patents up and sidelines innovation in order to protect THEIR bottom line.

In a society that worships money and has been brain washed to see protecting the environment as a jobs cutter - do not underestimate the power of the corporate kleptocracy and their corporate owned media messaging system that for some reason forgot the lessons of sharing and the lessons of their bible.

They are the men doing the evil every minute of every day and all their nice sounding words of FREE markets, LOWER taxes are designed for one thing and one thing only - to make government impotent, useless and easily manipulated by the NEW ruling class of uber wealthy.

The richest 2% have taken over our Country and bled it dry but that's okay turn on the television, and by no means get involved or vote more than once every four years. Look the other way now you and whatever you do don't join a union. YOU can not make a difference.

Of course we all know that is utter hog wash meant to protect the hogs.

The magic of the unregulated invisible hand of the markets is no more real than the tooth fairy, and they'll steal that twenty five cents from under your pillow as well if you let them.