Funky Zen Monkey Grin

Crossjostle Gospel

2009-12-05T23:40:00.001-08:00

Clutch - 10001110101

2009-10-17T14:34:00.000-07:00

Click title link above for discussion of what the lyrics might mean.

10001110101

Ribonucleic acid freak out, the power of prayer.
Long halls of science and all the lunatics committed there.
Robot Lords of Tokyo, SMILE TASTE KITTENS!
Did you not know that the royal hunting grounds are always forbidden?
Are you rolling tape now? Bits and pieces large and small
Sector, vector, eat them all.
It’s already in the rice!
Among the mental ones a messenger will soon arrive.

10001110101
Periodic table with a center piece of mind.
10001110101
Periodic table with a center piece of mind.

Man alive the jive and lyrics,
Radioactive, don’t come near it.
Temple of Syrinx having the bake sale of the year.
Man alive the jive and lyrics,
Radioactive, don’t come near it.
Temple of Syrinx having the bake sale of the year.

Ain’t nothing you can do about it. Gonna be a big brawl over it
Like them little bitty babies in the king cakes.
Bonnie & Clyde the whole dome,
The shackles of automaton will shatter like their bones.

10001110101
Periodic table with a center piece of mind.
10001110101
Periodic table with a center piece of mind.

Man alive the jive and lyrics,
Radioactive, don’t come near it.
Temple of Syrinx having the bake sale of the year.
Man alive the jive and lyrics,
Radioactive, don’t come near it.
Temple of Syrinx having the bake sale of the year.

Ribonucleic acid freak out, the power of prayer.
Long halls of science and all the lunatics committed there.
Robot Lords of Tokyo, SMILE TASTE KITTENS!
Did you not know that the royal hunting grounds are always forbidden?

10001110101
Half a mind to double up, baby. Three times is jive.
10001110101
Half a mind to double up, baby. Three times is jive.

Man alive the jive and lyrics,
Radioactive, don’t come near it.
Temple of Syrinx having the bake sale of the year.
Man alive the jive and lyrics,
Radioactive, don’t come near it.
Temple of Syrinx having the bake sale of the year.

radiofreedoghouse - "Tucson Blues"

2009-10-02T21:23:00.001-07:00

This, the Equivalent, or Whatever Would Be Better

2009-10-01T08:27:00.000-07:00

"When we release our deliberate intention, we rest in the willingness to receive "this, the equivalent, or whatever would be better," which settles the matter in our mind about further expression, including expression in fact.

It reminds us to release our will and stay released.

Now, this does not mean that we're to accept anything that comes along as automatically better, even if we don't feel that it is. Rather, it means that we're willing to release all willfulness, all urgency, all attempts to coerce or manage the form and timing of corresponding fulfillment in fact.

There are cases where, for reasons we may not see, not getting what we've deliberately intended would be better than getting it; keen Field training students recognize the paradox here: Release of deliberate intention means we're both willing to have what we've intended and willing to not have it. This isn't a contradiction, because being willing to not have is not the same as not being willing to have.

Receptivity must be there; we must be willing to receive. Resolve must be there---the resolve to remain true to the fulfilled identity no matter what may speak against it. But there's no way around the need for the unconditional release of our will, which means there can be no clinging, as clinging keeps the project within the limited jurisdiction of Particle will.

This may be challenging in cases where we don't believe that anything else could be better. Nevertheless, complete release of the will is essential---a release facilitated by our remembering that if the corresponding fulfillment turns out to be something better than we've envisioned, then we'll recognize it as better, and as the fulfillment of our deliberate intention."

(Field training)

http://www.fieldcenter.org/realities

The World as Inkblot

2009-09-20T22:28:00.000-07:00

...from the Field Center

If you want to develop your non-local awareness,
begin approaching the world as representing
your consciousness.

For example: If a billboard catches your eye,
consider how its meaning may go beyond the obvious.

Regard it symbolically, and see if this provides
a new angle of vision or insight
into whatever’s going on in your life.

Remember, the Field is holographic.

Another idea: When you’re listening to songs, hear the lyrics
as though either you’re talking to the Field
or the Field is talking to you.

It may surprise you how directly the meaning of the words
will speak
to a specific situation you’re facing.

The key to living non-locally is to realize
that everything is metaphor,
and that nothing that gets your attention
is insignificant.

G.K. Chesterton writes that fairy tales describe apples of gold
and rivers of wine
to remind us how amazed we were the first time we discovered
that apples were red and rivers ran with water.

The ability to see the world as metaphor, with new eyes,
marks a return to innocence and receptivity
that can never be experienced
within the endless replay of old conclusions.

The world is new each moment.

The only question is, do we have the eyes to see,
and the ears to hear?

source

Jed's a Millionaire - "Eyes"

2009-09-20T22:26:00.001-07:00

Your Beliefs Influence Matter

2009-09-20T22:02:00.000-07:00

Beat Your Drum

2009-09-20T14:55:00.001-07:00

Question: "Do I have a responsibility to make the whole world beat to my drum?"

Abraham: No, nor could you. You beat your drum,
and the Universe will respond
to the drum that you are beating…

There are as many different worlds being lived
by as many different perceivers of the world
as there are.

Abraham-Hicks

The Instant Classics take "Low" to New Heights

2009-09-17T20:50:00.000-07:00

Woolytooth - "Recipe 4 Indifference" (bootleg)

2009-09-17T18:26:00.001-07:00

Keep the Faith; Lose the Hope

2009-09-16T18:15:00.000-07:00

...from the Field Center

Many of us may spend long stretches hoping for something—
hoping that things will work out with someone else,
hoping for the best, hoping against hope, and so on.

And, while hope certainly is better than hopelessness
at least as far as the attendant feeling goes,
it has nothing to do with deliberate creating,
and in Field training terms, it actually works against
our deliberate engagement of our creative authority.

Because the world around us and everything we see in it
is the effect of our inner life,
hoping for something amounts to waiting for the world
to utter a magic word that only we can speak.

So, our waiting may keep us from outright despair,
but the problem is that the world also is waiting,
and must wait exactly as long as we do.

Florence Scovel Shinn tells the story of a young man
in one of her classes who always tried to come up with
questions she couldn’t answer.

One day, he asked, “Why is it then that a lot of women
who have hope chests never get married?”

(A hope chest is the traditional store of linens
and other household goods
that women used to acquire in anticipation of marriage).

Florence replied, “Because it is a hope chest,
and not a faith chest.”

Anticipation, like hope, looks to the future,
and in this respect alone,
abandons the only time that reality can be claimed,
which is right now.

Faith claims the thing as already done,
and rests fully in the feeling of that now
—and it is this claim, now, in the living present,
that has the power to fulfill itself.

Hope not only misses the creative opportunity of the present
but also exports the authority of creatorship to the thing created.

Imagine a writer who sits at his desk all day
looking at a blank piece of paper,
and when asked by friends what he is doing,
replies, “I’m hoping a book will be written.”

We may laugh at this writer’s confusion of cause and effect,
but aren’t we doing the same thing when, for example,
we hope that we will recover from an illness,
or that someone else will like us in a special way,
or that money will show up before the rent is due?

In the great story of our life, each of us is the writer.

We cannot dictate the timing, ways and means,
or exact form of fulﬁllment,
but we can choose who we are and refuse to settle for less.

We can stop hoping for happy endings along the way,
and instead, write them deliberately in the language of our belief.

By doing this, by aligning inwardly
with whatever fulﬁllment we want,
we not only immediately feel good, but also set into motion
everything needed for the realization of whatever we’ve claimed.

source

Jed's a Millionaire - "Nothing"

2009-09-13T17:28:00.001-07:00

The Very Best Time

2009-09-12T20:47:00.000-07:00

Your desires are eternally yours,
and they will come to you at
the very best time.

You can influence the very best time
by saying things like,

---
"The Universe knows the bigger picture."

"I'm going to let it deal with the timing of this."

"Meanwhile, I'll just do everything I can
to keep moving happily along."

Abraham-Hicks

Caroline Myss - "Stand Up to These Carnies"

2009-09-11T16:14:00.000-07:00

There is such a thing as a crime against the soul of a nation.

A person or a political party can deliberately incite actions that diminish the strength, the integrity, and the overall well-being of a nation's inner core.

America's soul is in a fragile state. It has suffered severe violations over the course of this past decade and to lesser degrees, in previous decades. Through the years, the essential integrity of America has been eroded for various reasons but never was it so violated as during the Bush administration. The endless lies, the deceitful years of propaganda that flowed from the West Wing that fed the media, the bogus reasons for setting the Middle East on fire, and converting this country into a corporate state for personal gain are crimes that shattered the soul of this nation more deeply than we have even begun to realize -- if we ever will.

The consequences of puncturing the soul of a nation are witnessed in countless ways.

For example, there is a decline in the integrity of leadership and a growing apathy on the part of the public to care about keeping watch over its leaders. The nation ceases to produce statesmen or stateswomen. The best the public can do is to send semi-qualified individuals to Washington whose capacity to hold to their promises collapse within minutes of unpacking in their new offices.

As for the old guard, they are worn out good old boys mixed in with a few new and not-so-new women on the block, who continue to fall into their same old patterns of deal making and breaking. But nothing of great significance ever happens unless motivated by a catastrophe. Any truly positive ideas for change baffle the Congress. What could this be, they wonder?

But of all the crimes covertly and overtly committed by the Bush administration against the soul of America, none is as vile as the deliberate efforts they poured into turning American against American.

We see that in the near hatred between the Republicans and Democrats, between liberals and conservatives, between free-thinkers and evangelicals that continues to fester. This crime was a strategic one, a well thought out plan to fragment the people of this nation in a type of contemporary replay of the Civil War. And sadly, the Republicans succeeded. Thank you, Karl Rove.

The result is that the soul of America is exhausted, wounded, mistrusting, suspicious, fearful -- and compromised. This is not a soul that can rebuild a country, not if you know anything about the laws of nature and the fundamentals of healing.

So let's apply this to the Republicans present attack on Obama and his plan to address the children in the classrooms of our schools.

First, a comment on how education is respected in general by our Congress -- it isn't. And this crime against the soul of America is a travesty for which both Republicans and Democrats should hang their heads in shame.

Consider, for example, how the education system through the years has corroded into little more than a mindless competition for grades. And the "No Child Left Behind" program (which should be left far, far behind) is nothing more than an insult to a true educational system that holds in high regard the passing on of knowledge and wisdom and not just technical skills and information.

But such a program is in keeping with the insidious goal of the "dumbing down" of America plan that was consciously set in motion under the Reagan Administration (check out The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America by Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt).

Aside from all the many travesties that have resulted and continue to result from the covert dismantling of America's educational system, let us consider the equally significant if not more tragic consequence of the clever removal of courses that provide students with the essential language required in order to learn how to navigate through the deep and profound matters of the soul.

And note that my use of the word "soul" refers to that part of a human being that is more than matter, more than blood and bones. I am not using the word "soul" within the context associated with the politics of right-winged religious fanatics. Rather, I am referring to the essence of what makes a human being truly human, the inherent part of us that is more than meets the eye.

Students on a path toward becoming high functioning human beings must be guided in matters of their soul, namely, how to recognize and respond to a moral crisis; how to formulate a personal ethical code and to withstand challenges to that code within a society that thrives on predator instincts; and how to form and maintain an honor code within a society in which any sense of honor is now held together by legal contracts rather than the integrity of a person's word.

Giving our students a common ground for discussions of their fears and insecurities concerning emerging into adult life and how to cope with those difficulties is as much a part of their education as is math and the liberal arts (remember those?). If this is not the role of the classroom, then what is?

Should they take their forums into the streets so as not to upset the righteous Right? Should they continue to leave their souls at the doorway of their school buildings, sending in only their bodies and minds to attend their classes?

Where should they warehouse their consciences? Where should they store their moral crises that strike with such force during the teen-age years? Perhaps this is the comfort they find in drugs.

It is through discussions such as these that skills of introspection are awakened and a foundation is put in place for the wisdom arts: personal reflection and accountability, discernment, personal virtue, and stamina of spirit.

Is it any wonder that as a result of the horrendous decision of the American Congress to "dumb down" our educational system, we now have a public that cannot discern lies from truth?

Are we really surprised that we are now living in a society in which the news media saturates us with entertainment instead of actual news and that most of America was too asleep at the wheel to even notice?

Should we really have to wonder for more than three seconds as to why so many media reporters have turned into nothing more than gossip mongers and paparazzi, lacking all courage to do actual hard core news, substituting their own hysterical opinions for informed reporting? I'm not surprised at all.

A conscious effort to "dumb down" the education of this nation qualifies as a crime against the soul of America. And dare I say this? If there was something as grievous as a mortal sin committed by a group against its own people, then the Republicans -- with Reagan at the helm -- and all the Democrats who stood by, or worse, backed this catastrophe -- committed that sin when they choreographed how they would dismantle the intellectual power and potential of our own children. (You should check your age -- you could be a product of this crime.)

So is it really any wonder why the Republicans would stage this outlandish outcry over President Obama addressing the schoolchildren of America?

You would think that everyone would support the President's desire to inspire our children to want an education. Who would not want to see their children enthusiastic about an education?

Hum ... Well, could it be that education intimidates them? I mean, given their history with education and their experience with their recent president as well as their recent candidate for vice-president, you can appreciate that the education of President Obama would engender a bit of jealousy.

Consider that when Bush showed up in a classroom, they gave him My Pet Goat to read to the students. Why was that, ya think? Perhaps his team feared a more sophisticated book would be a bit too much for him. Or maybe he was providing students with an example of how "dumbing down" works.

Or maybe, just maybe, given Bush's overall success and reputation for brain-power, Republicans fear Obama would inspire students instead of generating the jokes and comedic responses Bush did every time he opened his mouth.

I can't begin to count the number of times I listened to Bush joke about his own lack of intelligence before an audience. The audience members that included some now former as well as present members of the Congress and Senate, actually laughed as he made these comments. Whether they were laughing with him or at him, I couldn't tell. I know I was laughing at him, but I was also embarrassed and ashamed that this man was leading our country.

How could he possibly joke about his lack of intelligence before a State Dinner? How could he laugh about his inability to comprehend matters of great importance?

Why would he think that the public would find that funny? And if the public did find that funny, shame on them.

The vice-presidential candidate that the Republicans ran in the past election against Obama was of equal educational quality. We all know who I mean, Miss Lipstick-on-a-Pig. Even her humor is low-class, in keeping with her intelligence.

One has to ask, "So this was the candidate Republicans believed could handle the cosmic-sized dilemmas we now have facing this nation?" Sarah Palin? Are they nuts?

Listening to those Republicans lie about their support of her in the face of the crises facing this nation was a crime against the soul of America. Why? Because they did not believe a word of what they were saying and that was obvious. Most of them could barely cough up their contrived words of support. How they could possibly live with themselves is beyond me.

But that is the blessing, I suppose, of having no conscience whatsoever. You're free to say whatever is required in the moment.

But if you want to talk about an educational violation, Palin is the poster child.

She is a perfect example of the success of the "dumbing down of America" program. No wonder she is a Republican. Birds of a feather, as the saying goes.

But you have to give credit where credit is due, yes?

So no wonder they fear Obama coming near the classroom. Republicans have little experience with a refined intellect. (They probably are wondering how Obama escaped the, "dumbing down" system. They certainly didn't. Check out Eric Cantor. There's a "dumbing down" success story if I've ever met one.)

I don't blame them for being upset, really. They actually owe America an apology for their actions and for their choices of candidates and for their overall quality control when it comes to who they believe qualifies for leadership positions.

Truth is, the Republicans are embarrassed by their own actions and they are poor losers, not to mention unethical and immoral opponents. We just have to get them to own that, right?

We have to hold all Democrats to the same standard as well. If a Democrat is unethical or immoral -- burn them at the stake. (That will probably clear out most of the Congress, but in the end, we'll all be better off.)

There comes a time when we have to just stand up to these carnies (slang for carnival barkers) and tell them to stop polluting the soul of America with their constant and endless transmission of psychic free radicals in the form of lies, negative press, ridiculous criticism, overall lack of intelligent ideas and comments, and complete absence of creative thought. We should just blast them with emails and tell them to stop polluting the soul of our nation. Just stop it. We've had enough. I know I have.

And I deeply believe the soul of our nation can't take much more of their strategy of deliberate division against the people of their own nation. That is a true crime -- and perhaps their greatest crime -- against the soul of this great nation.

source

#37 in Healthcare song...

2009-09-10T11:15:00.000-07:00

Jed's a Millionaire - "Gotta Believe"

2009-09-09T20:30:00.000-07:00

Don't Worry About Others

2009-09-09T20:28:00.000-07:00

Don’t worry about this world;
it is not broken.

And don’t worry about others.
You worry more about them than they do…

Don’t try to protect people from life;
just let them have their experience
while you focus upon your own experience.

-Abraham-Hicks-

Mice Levitated in Lab using Magnetic Fields

2009-09-09T14:54:00.000-07:00

Scientists have now levitated mice using magnetic fields.

Other researchers have made live frogs and grasshoppers float in mid-air before, but such research with mice, being closer biologically to humans, could help in studies to counteract bone loss due to reduced gravity over long spans of time, as might be expected in deep space missions or on the surfaces of other planets.

Scientists working on behalf of NASA built a device to simulate variable levels of gravity. It consists of a superconducting magnet that generates a field powerful enough to levitate the water inside living animals, with a space inside warm enough at room temperature and large enough at 2.6 inches wide (6.6 cm) for tiny creatures to float comfortably in during experiments.

Disoriented

The researchers first levitated a young mouse, just three-week-old and weighing 10 grams. It appeared agitated and disoriented, seemingly trying to hold on to something.

"It actually kicked around and started to spin, and without friction, it could spin faster and faster, and we think that made it even more disoriented," said researcher Yuanming Liu, a physicist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. They decided to mildly sedate the next mouse they levitated, which seemed content with floating.

A plastic cage was also designed by physicist Da-Ming Zhu at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, to keep the mice in during levitation. Its top remained open to let in air, food, water and video surveillance, and its bottom was filled with small holes to allow waste removal.

From time to time, mice would kick the walls of the cage, causing it to briefly drop off from the levitation zone before re-entering it and floating again.

Although the researchers could levitate mice with or without the cage, "it's easier to house a mouse in a cage when you bring it to the levitation zone," Liu explained. Also, if you want to run an experiment comparing mice living inside and outside the levitator, you want to set up exactly the same living conditions to match results up as best as possible.

Results

Repeated levitation tests showed the mice, even when not sedated, could quickly acclimate to levitation inside the cage. After three or four hours, the mice acted normally, including eating and drinking. The strong magnetic fields did not seem to have any negative impacts on the mice in the short term, and past studies have shown that rats did not suffer from adverse effects after 10 weeks of strong, non-levitating magnetic fields.

"We're trying to see what kind of physiological impact is due to prolonged microgravity, and also what kind of countermeasures might work against it for astronauts," Liu said. "If we can contribute to the future human exploration of space, that would be very exciting." They are now applying for funding for such research with their levitator.

The researchers also levitated water drops up to 2 inches wide (5 cm). This suggests the variable gravity simulator could be used to study how liquids behave under reduced gravity, such as how heat is transferred or how bubbles behave.

Liu, Zhu and their colleagues detailed their findings online Sept. 6 in the journal Advances in Space Research.

Blooper Scooper

2009-09-09T14:47:00.000-07:00

The 13 Funniest Local News Segments Of All Time (VIDEO)

When Reporters Are Attacked...By Animals (VIDEO)

The 17 Best News Bloopers Ever: Pick Your Favorite! (VIDEO)

the hugs anD rugs experiment

2009-09-04T23:31:00.000-07:00

Japan's first lady: "Venus is a beautiful place."

2009-09-04T23:07:00.000-07:00

Miyuki Hatoyama . . . 'While my body was asleep, I think my soul rode on a triangular-shaped UFO'.

-----------------

As Japan's new prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, agonises over the formation of his government, he is unlikely to be losing much sleep dreaming up a role for his first lady. While Michelle Obama, Carla Bruni and Sarah Brown have all had to strike an awkward balance between supportive wife and public figure, Miyuki Hatoyama has cultivated a third role – that of pedlar of new age bunkum.

With the dust barely settled on last Sunday's election, Miyuki – whose husband will officially become Japan's leader on 16 September – is already emerging as a gloriously eccentric foil to her humdrum hubby. While he reassures the US that his country is committed to the bilateral alliance, she regales the media with tales of interplanetary travel and, er, solar breakfasts.

"I eat the sun," Miyuki says, raising her arms as if to tear pieces off an imaginary sun. "Like this: yum, yum, yum. It gives me enormous energy. My husband has recently started doing that too." Clearly, this is where Gordon Brown has been going wrong.

When she isn't tucking into the centrepiece of our solar system, the 66-year-old former dancer pens cookbooks with humble titles such as Hatoyama Miyuki's Hawaiian Spiritual Food. She makes her own clothes (including a skirt made from hemp coffee bags) and, as she demonstrated during the election campaign, can also do a very passable Moonwalk.

But it is her extraterrestrial experiences that have triggered an avalanche of media coverage her husband could never hope to match. In a book entitled Very Strange Things I've Encountered, his wife has claimed that she was abducted by aliens as she slept one night 20 years ago, then whisked off to the final frontier. "While my body was asleep, I think my soul rode on a triangular-shaped UFO and went to Venus," she wrote, adding: "It was a very beautiful place, and it was very green."

By happy coincidence, Miyuki is married to a man whom his parliamentary colleagues once nicknamed "the Alien", a comment on his sometimes otherworldly manner and an unkind reference to his prominent eyes. His wife's revelatory book was published last year, but only now have her foibles become staples of daytime television. Perhaps revealingly, she says that when she recounted her Venusian encounter to her first husband, he suggested it had probably been a dream. But her second, the 62-year-old Hatoyama, is more accommodating: "He has a different way of thinking and would surely say, 'Oh, that's great.'"

Michelle Obama, too, will surely be delighted to learn that Miyuki sees in her a kindred spirit. "I think she is so natural and has a kind of sensibility similar to mine. If I get the chance to meet her, I'd look forward to it."

Hatoyama appears admirably unruffled by his wife's idiosyncrasies, saying: "I feel relieved when I get home. She is like an energy-refuelling base." Miyuki, too, paints an idyllic picture of life chez Hatoyama, where her husband indulges his love of animal movies and feeds his addiction to prawn crackers.

She honed her theatrical delivery back in the 60s when performing for the Takarazuka Revue, an all-female theatrical troupe that specialises in kitsch adaptations of classics such as Guys and Dolls and The Sound of Music. After six years on the stage, she moved to the US with her Japanese restaurateur husband. It was there that she met Hatoyama, then a graduate student of engineering at Stanford University. They married in 1975.

The popular notion that Japanese women are demure and subservient is a lazy stereotype, but Miyuki's behaviour would seem bizarre in any country. Judged by the standards set by previous Japanese first ladies, it borders on the impertinent. In a TV interview earlier this year,she claimed she had met Tom Cruise in a previous life, in what must have been an unnerving meeting of Scientology and new age spiritualism.

"I have a dream that I still believe will come true, which is to make a film in Hollywood," she said. "The lead actor is Tom Cruise, of course. Why? Because he was Japanese in a previous life."

Cruise, whose closest professional brush with Japanese culture was a leading role in the ludicrous 2003 film Last Samurai, "would recognise me when I see him and say: 'Long time, no see!'" Michelle Obama may not be quite so effusive.

---------

Stealing the show

Tim Dowling rates world leaders' partners for their 'colourful' personality traits.

Joachim Sauer

Married to Angela Merkel

Wacky rating 0.1 out of 5

Quiet and reserved, Sauer rarely appears in public and didn't even attend his wife's 2005 inauguration. Holds certain views about the nature of the universe that most ordinary people would find incomprehensible, in keeping with his job as a quantum chemist. No pictures of him with Tom Cruise.

Sarah Brown

Married to Gordon Brown

Wacky rating 1 out of 5

The very picture of common sense, British reserve and tireless discretion. May have married the only person in the world in contrast to whom she could be described as devil-may-care. And she picks out his ties for him.

Michelle Obama

Married to Barack Obama

Wacky rating 1.5 out of 5

Consistently down-to-earth, even when interviewed by Oprah. No known new age proclivities. Like Miyuki Hatoyama, claims to have met Tom Cruise - but photographic evidence would appear to support this. Did not say if she thought he was weird.

Carla Bruni

Married to Nicolas Sarkozy

Wacky rating 3 out of 5

Formerly given to pronouncements about being "bored by monogamy", and claimed her husband had "five or six brains which are remarkably irrigated", though she may not have meant it literally. The only G20 spouse (so far) to have nude photos and sex tapes stolen. Author of some decidedly flaky song lyrics ("I'm that time slipping by is a bastard making coats of our sorrow . . .")

Cherie Blair

Married to Tony Blair

Wacky rating 4 out of 5

The only G20 spouse, past or present, capable of giving Mrs Hatoyama a run for her mystical money. The crystal-pendant wearing, con-man consulting, magic-circle casting QC was said to have sought the help of the late Jack Templeton, a "homeopathic dowser healer" whose clients also numbered Jerry Hall and Princess Diana.

Miyuki Hatoyama

Married to Yukio Hatoyama

Wacky rating Off the scale

This professional "life composer" claims she once flew on a triangle-shaped UFO to Venus, and says she met Tom Cruise in a past life when he was Japanese. Makes her own clothes from hemp sacks and starts every morning by pretending to eat bits of the sun. "I get energy from it," she says, adding helpfully, "my husband also does this."

Just Deal With Today

2009-08-31T09:17:00.001-07:00

You don't have to go back
and deal with childhood issues,
because those childhood issues
produced a vibration within you
that you are still offering
-- which is producing today issues.

You can shift your vibration
a whole lot easier
when you're dealing with today issues,
than trying to deal with childhood issues.
...
It's the same vibration.

That vibration that was creating
childhood issues,
now it's creating today issues.

Deal with it in your now.
...
"Which thought feels better?
Which thought feels better?
Which thought feels better?"

Abraham-Hicks

2009-08-30T18:20:00.000-07:00

Emerson Crossjostle - "I wonder if I could take it pass/fail?"

Occidental College Offers Course In Stupidity

We honestly don't know what's funnier the class title or the hyper-deconstructionist language used in the course description. Only in the bubble of the academy is it acceptable to use these words and phrases: organicity, post-modern discourse, Beavis and Butthead.

Flashback: Republicans trying to scare seniors with page 425 of health care bill otherwise known as HR 3200

2009-08-30T10:21:00.000-07:00

And, they succeeded. It was removed from the bill.

Below is an article from last month explaining the truth
about Section 1233 of HR 3200.

It seems Republicans are sinking to a new low in their all-out attempts to stop health care reform from happening.

First Republicans called it socialism, then they said it would raise costs, now they say it will force the elderly to have end of life consultations.

In a recent interview with between Fred Thompson and Dr. Betsy McCaughey claims are made that the elderly on Medicare will be "forced" into a consultation every five years to decline services and basically end their life. So basically Republicans are making HR 3200 out to be and enactment of euthanasia for the elderly.

The Republican claims are of course false.

Page 425 can be found in Section 1233 of the full text of HR 3200 here.

The Republicans chose to misconstrue the section and focus in on only that section but a broader reading is key to understanding statutes.

You will notice that Section 1233 is actually under the larger category of "Miscellaneous Improvements" to Medicare Beneficiaries. There is a simple explanation for this.

Section 1233 actually provides more benefits for seniors rather than denying any benefits.

You can read the full section for yourself but nowhere in the language of the bill does it say seniors are forced to undergo end of life consultations.

In reality, what the section does is expand benefits to include advanced care planning so that if seniors want to see a doctor or nurse to, for example, be consulted on how to make a living will they can do so but are not forced to do so.

The bill expands Medicare benefits to include such consultations.

So in reality HR 3200 lets seniors, by their own choice, go to practitioner to find out about living wills, power of attorney, or health care proxies and have such visits covered by Medicare.

Does that sound controversial to you?

To me it sounds entirely practical that someone the age of 75 would want to see a doctor or nurse so they could let their wishes be known about end-of-life care.

However, in order to scare people from reform the Republicans are twisting and torturing the language of this section to mean something it does not.

http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-5738-St-Louis-Political-Buzz-Examiner~y2009m7d27-Republicans-trying-to-scare-elderly-with-page-425-of-health-care-bill-otherwise-known-as-HR-3200

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