***HAPPY NEW YEAR***

In the quiet night
Candid fire in universal flicker
Shelter momentarily under time and truth
Light unburdened shows a way
Safe amidst the curdled cult of personality
Crystalize the every moment of Everyman.

~Ib


Auld Lang Syne

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Cheers to even you...you who are so devoted to the bullshit. I love you all,
I love you as I wish you well.
~Ib

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Diversions

The Explainer Explains the Unexplained

Listen

Day to Day, December 29, 2006 · Madeleine Brand talks to Slate's Daniel Engber about questions he didn't answer in his 2006 explainer columns at Slate.com. One example: If the universe is expanding, what is now in the space that will eventually be taken over?

New Year's Resolution

Non Sequitur

Romi Lassally Bio (HuffPo)

12.31.2006

Less marshmallows, more sex, no children: Last Call for Six Word New Year's Resolutions!

Last call to enter your Six Word New Year's Resolution and a chance to be the first one on your block wearing our new Huffpost t-shirt!!! Along with our friends at SMITH, we launched this contest a few weeks ago to resounding success (check out some of the entries here) and have almost six- thousand words of hopeful, heartfelt and hysterical sentiments for 2007.

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Don't counts as two words. -Ib

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Predictions 2007

Da Juana Byrd

Live. Love. Learn.

2007 Predictions

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And this (via: HuffPo):

AP-AOL Poll: Americans Look At The Year Ahead...

From blogging.no/AP

Global Warming, Military Draft, The Second Coming Of Jesus Christ Among Predictions…

Poll: Americans See Gloom, Doom...

Poll: Americans Optimistic for 2007...

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Educated guesses 2007: Predictions from UA experts

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Morally Bankrupt & Criminally Insane

SPEAKING OUT:

Bush Needs To Be Impeached for His Own Good

by PAUL LEVY

Bush is acting out the ignorant belief that “might makes right,” which is the universal mistake that has led to the fall of all major empires throughout history.

We are in a ridiculous situation. Our president is morally bankrupt and criminally insane. This is indisputable; all we have to do to see it is open our eyes and look at what he is doing. Bush defiantly continues to break innumerable domestic and international laws of basic ethical human behavior. Bush is literally embodying and acting out on the world stage what it is to be criminally insane. His pathology is symbolically expressed in his act of not only refusing to participate in the establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC), but threatening the use of military force in the event that any American national is tried before it...

Winged Wonder

Flying like a bird at 5,000ft, the winged wonder

By MICHAEL HANLON -Daily Mail

Man has dreamt of flight ever since our ancestors first saw birds soaring into the sky.

And even after the dream was realised, first with hot-air balloons and later with heavier-than-air aeroplanes, the dream remained unfulfilled.

video

Because being truly at one with the air, able to swoop and soar like a falcon or an albatross, remained an impossibility. And in legends where the dream became real, as in the myth of the Ancient Greek birdman Icarus, the price was a heavy one; an ignominious crashing to Earth.

But for one brave Swiss pioneer, a former military pilot called Yves Rossy, the dream has become reality.

For as these amazing pictures show, Rossy, 45, has managed to come as close as it is possible to get to the feeling of being truly like a bird.

Back in 2003 Rossy, now a commercial airliner captain, began his Flying Man project, when he strapped a pair of stubby wings to his back and leapt out of a plane, swooping eight miles in freefall for the loss of just 1000ft in altitude.

Strapping on the contraption, which is made of various metals, fibreglass, Kevlar and carbon fibre, Rossy climbs into the small aircraft which is to launch him into his flight.

At an altitude of some 7750ft, he leaps out, just like a skydiver. But unlike a skydiver, he does not plummet to the Alps below.

There is just enough lift generated by the 10ft aerofoil strapped to his back to negate the effects of gravity. At first, after the wings are unfolded electrically, he becomes a glider then, when the four kerosene-powered engines are turned on, he becomes a jetplane.

Psychopathic Politics

The Psychopathology of Politics by Henry See

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It is a truism that if you want to avoid arguments, you should never discuss politics or religion. Knowing this, and considering the fact that we discuss both subjects the Signs page, we aren't really surprised that our comments elicit a strong reaction of both argument and criticism!

The criticisms come from all sides. We get criticized by those who think that we are taking sides (of course, always the "wrong" side according to the writer), as well as from those who think that any discussion of politics is inappropriate because our "salvation" comes from elsewhere, usually, according to the critics, from thinking nice thoughts and understanding how "We are all One". This suggests that we should be "above the fray", as if the concerns of the material world were "beneath" those who were spiritual seekers.

Given the thousands of years of disinformation out there, not to mention the work done since WWII and catalogued in our Cosmic COINTELPRO Timeline, how is one supposed to even know what it means to be a "spiritual seeker"?

The more we discover, the more we realize that nearly everything we think we know is either out and out wrong, or manipulated, or disinformation. This condition exists whether we are dealing with ideas about the spiritual path, to the stories we are told about our history, to the day's news, to many ideas that are accepted as scientific knowledge. We live in a virtual reality of preconceptions, assumptions, clichés, stereotypes, habits, and mechanical responses.

How did we end up in this mess?

What can we do about it?

Politics and religion are often presented as two ways out.

"We are all One"
...

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Check out the Signs of the Times Archives

No Time...

The Surfing The Apocalypse Network

NO TIME LIKE THE PRESENT

Posted By: woody <Send E-Mail>
Date: Wednesday, 27 December 2006, 6:07 p.m.

Hello,
Well, here it is. My homework on the idea that there is no such thing as time. As I have posted in brief before, time, I feel is nothing but a device and thought process developed by those in charge to further enslave the masses. The concept of time seems to be that there is an interval between occurrences and cycles which must be calculated and divided up. This has only served one purpose, to enslave us. We go to work at 9am and arrive home at 6pm. We relax for half an hour and then eat dinner. Relax while the kids take their showers and prepare for bed at 9:30pm. Then mom and dad watch T.V. for an hour and a half then go to bed at the prescribed time. This scenario can be applied to all-family or no, day job or night job. I do believe you understand the concept I am laying out here.

However this division of cycles and events called time is non existent in reality. Philosophers of time have divided concepts of time into a sort of ontological question. Presentists will say that only present objects and present experiences are real-"present experience". Those supporting the growing universe theory state that the past and present are both real but the future is not yet real. Then a more popular theory-Eternalism or "the block universe theory"-in other words there is no ontological difference between present, past and future.

Physical time/Psychological time...physical time implies 'public' time which clocks measure. Psychological time is synonymous with the old saying that a watched pot never boils, inferring that the person boiling the water without watching it will presume the water went to a boil faster because they were occupied with other events. Yet the clock on the stove records the exact duration until the boil. The watcher and the occupied both have a different sense of the passage of time, from one another and from the clock. This simple analogy characterizes time as being subject to the individuals frame of reference or perspective. Take a clock that operates by pendulum...there must be a physical, mathematical relationship between the length and weight of the pendulum to work for each specific clock. Take a clock and use a longer, shorter, varied weight pendulum and it is out of sequence...again subjective.

Aristotle asked the metaphysical question when he stated "Whether, if soul (mind) did not exist, would time exist or not?". He would not answer his own question because he states profoundly that it depends on whether time is the conscious numbering of movement or instead just the capability of movement's being numbered, were consciousness to exist. St. Augustine said it well, "...time is nothing in reality but exists only in the mind's apprehension of that reality." In the late 18th century, Kant suggested that there is a subtle relationship between time and mind--that our mind structures our perceptions therefore time is like a mathematical line--a form of conscious experience.
-more

Integral Naked

Ken Wilbur: Anchoring I-Amness

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFFMtq5g8N4

You already knew that Ken has no heart, You already knew that Ken has no heart, now we find out that he has no brain, either!

That's right, Ken can stop his brainwaves on demand. Actually—and in a more serious vein—this is the famous EEG machine recording where Ken enters various meditative states, one of which is a type of "thoughtless," "image-less," or "formless" state, whose correlate is that his brainwaves come to an almost complete stop, as clearly recorded on this portable electroencephalograph (EEG) machine. (This video is discussed in One Taste, April 10 entry.)

We asked Ken to do a short 10-minute commentary on these various meditative states and the corresponding brain-wave patterns that are shown on the EEG machine in the video. Ken enters four meditative states (nirvikalpa closed eyes, nirvikalpa open eyes, sahaj, and mantra-savikalpa), each of which has a very distinctive brain-wave pattern. In his commentary, Ken emphasizes that the patterns shown on this machine may or may not be typical, but they do emphasize that profound consciousness states can be evoked at will, and these show immediate correlation in brain-wave patterns.

If nothing else, seeing somebody's brainwaves flatline in about 4 seconds is a sight not easily forgotten! It also explains why we once heard Ken's girlfriend say, upon delivering news that she thought might not be happily received, "Now, um, honey, make your brain waves go to zero...."

More seriously, as Ken often says, "If you want to know God, you've got to get your brain out of the way first. It's just one big stupid filter...."

-Integral Naked

People's Revolt

People's Revolt in Lebanon

Mohamad Bazzi -The Nation

Beirut

Ever since Hezbollah and its allies began an open-ended protest against the US-backed government on December 1, Beirut's gilded downtown--built for wealthy Lebanese and foreign tourists--has become more authentically Lebanese. Where Persian Gulf sheiks once ate sushi, families now sit in abandoned parking lots, having impromptu picnics, the smell of kebabs cooked over coals wafting through the air. Young men lounge on plastic chairs, smoking apple-scented water pipes, and occasionally break out into debke, the Lebanese national dance.

Most protesters are too poor to afford $4 caffe lattes, but men hawking shots of strong Arabic coffee for 30 cents apiece are doing a brisk trade. Nearly all businesses are shuttered, but a few enterprising store owners have figured out how to cater to the crowd. One hair salon converted itself into a sandwich shop, selling cheese on bread with a cup of tea for $1. The smiling cashier works behind a counter filled with L'Oréal hair products.

"I never came to downtown before these protests. I can't afford to come here. If I ate a sandwich here, I'd be broke for a week," says Emad Matairek, a 35-year-old carpenter from the dahiyeh, the Shiite-dominated suburbs of Beirut. "It's well-known that this area was not built for us."

The protests are being portrayed in much of the Western media as a sectarian battle, or a coup attempt--engineered by Hezbollah's two main allies, Syria and Iran--against a US-backed Lebanese government. Those are indeed factors underlying the complex and dangerous political dance happening in Beirut. But the biggest motivator driving many of those camped out in downtown isn't Iran or Syria, or Sunni versus Shiite. It's the economic inequality that has haunted Lebanese Shiites for decades. It's a poor and working-class people's revolt.

Metaphysics of Everything

A Provisional Metaphysical Theory of Everything

[As regards] those who seek the right path. When one of them rejects anything as false, he will be lifted towards a better symbol which is nearer to the truth and is not open to that objection; and if he is satisfied with it, he will be left where he is. When that better symbol is also rejected by him as false, he will be lifted to another rank, and if he is then satisfied with it, he will be left where he is.

Whenever a symbol of a given standard is rejected by him as false, he will be lifted to a higher rank, but when he rejects all the symbols as false and has the strength and gift to understand the truth, he will be made to know the truth and will be placed into the class of those who take the philosophers as their authorities.

If he is not yet satisfied with that and desires to acquire philosophical wisdom and has himself the strength and gift for it, he will be made to know it.

Orion's Arm

Statement of Purpose

Orion's Arm is a bold new shared worldbuilding and creative writing project, creating and exploring a new vision of the future of humanity and other sentient beings, ten thousand years hence.

Our goal is to create a dramatic far-future universe that is internally consistent and abides as much as possible with the accepted facts and theories in the physical, biological, and social sciences. Thus matter cannot travel faster than light, matter and energy are conserved, no evolved humanoid aliens have been discovered, future ultratech social issues are likely to be very different to those of today, and so on. We embrace speculative ideas like drexlerian assemblers, mind uploads, posthuman intelligences, femtotech, magnetic monopoles, wormholes, as it is proposed that future sciences, technologies, and developments will make these possible. And we attempt a logical explanation for even the most fantastic-seeming elements in OA. We aim to paint a future that is plausible at every level, from the scientific to the social to the psychological.

Like all good art, this project is never complete but ever growing and evolving. We know that our duty is to create a universe that is interesting, inspiring and provocative - to theorize on a future that may, or may not, come to be. And we invite you to join us on this adventure.

To quote Arthur C. Clarke's Second Law:

The only way to explore the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
________
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Future Full of Dread

Archbishop warns of a future full of dread
for the Middle East

By KIRSTY WALKER@Daily Mail

The Archbishop of Canterbury used his Christmas message to issue a veiled attack on the policies of Tony Blair and George Bush in the Middle East.

In a frank speech, Dr Rowan Williams said it was "chilling" to find in the troubled region an "almost total absence" of any belief in a political solution to the crisis.

In an address inspired by a recent visit to Bethlehem, Dr Rowan Williams called on individuals not to forget the Israeli and Palestinian communities.

He said that both groups of people feared a future in which they were allowed to disappear "while the world looks elsewhere".

The message from Dr Williams comes came only days after he clashed with the Government during his trip after claiming in a newspaper article that the "shortsightedness" and "ignorance" of Britain's policies on Iraq were putting Christian communities in the region at risk.

A Fairytale Of New York

Christmas Crimewave

Christmas brings strange seasonal crimes

By LARRY McSHANE, Associated Press WriterSun Dec 24, 6:08 AM ET

There's nobody nice on this Christmas list: snowman stabbers, Grinch snatchers, wreath-robbing weasels. 'Tis the season for strange crimes by even stranger people, with police blotters expanding faster than a 6-year-old's wish list of gifts.

David Allen Rodgers, 42, was arrested Dec. 3 for driving while intoxicated — at the wheel of a float during the annual Christmas parade in Anderson, S.C. According to witnesses, Rodgers sped down Main Street in the Steppin' Out Dance Studio float with 19 people aboard, ran a red light and led police on a 3-mile chase.

Police said that when Rodgers finally stopped, they found an open container of alcohol in his truck. "I made a very bad judgment on my part," Rodgers said at a court hearing.

In Chicago, 32 plastic baby Jesus dolls were stolen from nativity scenes set up in people's front yards. The kidnappers then lined up all the dolls along the fence outside a Chicago woman's home; she rounded them up and turned them over to her parish priest.

Similar creche crimes occurred in 35 cities from Fayateville, N.C., to Mission Viejo, Calif., according to The Catholic League, which tracks nativity vandalism.

In Houghton, Mich., somebody stole an inflatable Grinch from outside an apartment complex. That was just one instance in the area's rash of seasonal thievery: Two brown plastic reindeer, a baby Jesus statue and several wreaths were also stolen.

In Ohio's Hamilton County, a pair of 18-year-olds were arrested for using screwdrivers to stab an inflatable 12-foot-tall Frosty the Snowman. "Why me?" asked Frosty's owner, Matt Williquette. "And why Frosty?"...

Blood Sacrifice

Time to Drop the Face-Saving Fictions

The Rape of Iraq

Let's stop using the word war to describe our action in Iraq. While it is terribly true that we are killing and maiming and destroying and being killed and maimed and morally destroyed we should shelve the word war. It constructs a righteous cause and compels a rhetoric of winning. Winning sets figures of contest and domination and triumph and prevailing victory and honoring those who died in the cause, "We are committed to winning. It is our only course," says Cheney.

'Iraqi Freedom' was not a righteous war but a preemptive attack rationalized on faulty ideas, imaginations, and greed. Better to think of it as rape.

We raped Iraq. We began our action with forced, non-consensual penetration and despoilation of that country. Our Vice President publically imagined they wanted us and would welcome us, would love us and our intentions. Guilt followed, and more delusion, and stubborn refusal to admit the action. So stopping the rape, getting out, is where the figure flags. Rather than withdrawing and taking a shower, we've continued the rape and recast the story.

Our story now is that we're waging a war on terror and evil in Iraq a sufficiently abstract story to distract us from the ongoing rape of Iraq.

Rape stories may be instructive.

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via: counterpunch

Disappearing World

Disappearing world:

Global warming claims tropical island

For the first time, an inhabited island has disappeared beneath rising seas. Environment Editor Geoffrey Lean reports

news.independent.co.uk

Rising seas, caused by global warming, have for the first time washed an inhabited island off the face of the Earth. The obliteration of Lohachara island, in India's part of the Sundarbans where the Ganges and the Brahmaputra rivers empty into the Bay of Bengal, marks the moment when one of the most apocalyptic predictions of environmentalists and climate scientists has started coming true.

As the seas continue to swell, they will swallow whole island nations, from the Maldives to the Marshall Islands, inundate vast areas of countries from Bangladesh to Egypt, and submerge parts of scores of coastal cities.

Eight years ago, as exclusively reported in The Independent on Sunday, the first uninhabited islands - in the Pacific atoll nation of Kiribati - vanished beneath the waves. The people of low-lying islands in Vanuatu, also in the Pacific, have been evacuated as a precaution, but the land still juts above the sea. The disappearance of Lohachara, once home to 10,000 people, is unprecedented.

It has been officially recorded in a six-year study of the Sunderbans by researchers at Calcutta's Jadavpur University. So remote is the island that the researchers first learned of its submergence, and that of an uninhabited neighbouring island, Suparibhanga, when they saw they had vanished from satellite pictures.

Deep Survival

What does it take to survive? Do we all have it in us? Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why, provides some startling answers to these questions for people facing any sort of major crisis, from being lost in the wilderness to the death of a loved one.

Although Deep Survival analyzes many remarkable cases of survival in the wilderness, people suffering from serious illness or recovering from addiction have already adopted it as a metaphorical framework for understanding what they're going through and what the keys to a successful outcome are. By analyzing cases in which people have survived against seemingly impossible odds, often with no equipment or training, we see that there is an intangible quality of attitude, a set of psychological and emotional skills built over a lifetime, that ultimately determine how well we survive life's big challenges.

Most people are surprised to learn that survival isn't a battle and that the winners aren't always the toughest people. Rather it is a spiritual journey, and it's remarkably similar for all of us, whether it plays out in the wilderness, in a cancer ward, in a prison camp, in the executive boardroom, or in a recovery group.

The clear message in Deep Survival about who lives and who dies is this: “It's not what's in your pack that separates the quick from the dead. It's not even what's in your mind. Corny as it sounds, it's what's in your heart.”

Here are some excerpts from Deep Survival that may make a difference in your life.

Santa's Trick

How Does Santa Do It?

He does it with quantum physics

Some of us are skeptical about whether traditional Christmas symbols such angels really exist. Kids find it hard to believe that Santa Claus could deliver presents to millions of homes and children in just one night. But there's a scientific explanation for this.

Engineer Larry Silverberg says is plausible science that could allow Santa to pull off this magical feat year after year. You just have to realize that Santa and his elves are quantum physicists, who have advanced knowledge of electromagnetic waves, the space/time continuum, nanotechnology, genetic engineering and computer science.

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via: unknown country

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“If there were no Santa Claus, it would have been necessary to invent him.”

Voltaire

Peace on Earth

House of Ill Repute

House of Ill Repute: Reflections on War, Lies, and America's Ravaged Reputation

Book Description

The presidency of George W. Bush promised to restore integrity to the White House, but instead it has been plagued by scandal. With his strong voice and biting humor, William Rivers Pitt guides readers through a jaw-dropping series of presidential blunders. In this collection of articles that first appeared on truthout.org, he dissects the entire war on Iraq, including the relentless push toward war, the missing weapons of mass destruction, the Halliburton contracting scandals, sectarian violence, and the possibility of a regional conflagration. Others pieces tackle the outing of Valerie Plame, the NSA’s warrantless wiretaps, the Abramoff scandal, Lewis Libby’s indictment, and the incompetent response to Hurricane Katrina. Several essays focus on Cindy Sheehan and other citizen activists. For anyone who suspects the Bush administration of playing fast and loose with the facts, William Rivers Pitt provides a welcome voice of truth, untainted by corporate ownership.



Link: http://www.amazon.com/House-Ill-Repute-Ref...

Martha Beds Borat

Idiocracy

More Idiocracy Idiocracy. Plus, An Idiocracy Index.
12/20/2006 2:00:00 PM

One would have thought – or maybe just hoped – that the outrages concerning Twentieth Century Fox’s mishandling of Mike Judge’s Idiocracy would come to an end with the film’s upcoming January DVD release. (I can report, btw, that I’ve finally seen the film, and it’s good – look for a DVD review on the Nerve Film Lounge the week of release.) But no. It turns out that, for some reason, Fox is still eager to suppress the film.

Check out this link. (It leads to a PDF file; read the “Cinema Talk” column on the left side.) John Ewing at the Cleveland Cinematheque has apparently been trying to book the film for months. In October they even got to host the film’s legally mandated trade screening, only to be informed the day of the screening that the film had been pulled from release. And now, even after the film comes out on video, they are not allowing theaters to book a print of the film.

As a friend speculated, “It's either the theatrical division that trying to keep the film down. Or there's something that's been changed for the video release and they don't want the theatrical cut in circulation.” Admittedly, it might also be as simple as them not wanting anything getting in the way of their DVD profits for the film – most of which the studio gets to keep for itself.

None of this surprises me, of course. The downright criminal handling of Idiocracy will one day have to be documented in greater detail, maybe after Mike Judge finally has his say about it. (That might have to be after King of the Hill stops airing on Fox.) But for now, it’d be silly to expect the studio to do anything decent regarding this film. I’ll be curious to see if the DVD even comes out on the stated release day. Don’t hold your breath.

-more

Run Rudolph Run

KEITH RICHARDS, "RUN RUDOLPH RUN" (1978)
This 45 - the first solo recording Keith Richards ever released - predates the fabled New Barbarian tour by a year and Keith's first proper solo album by a decade. In fact, both sides of the single - the Chuck Berry Christmas chestnut featured here and Jimmy Cliff's reggae anthem "The Harder They Come" - had their genesis in some aborted sessions circa 1976-1977. Regardless, the sound is classic Keef - raw, rockin', spirited, and soulful. Out of all the reindeer, we know who's the mastermind....

MP3, 2.9 MB (ripped from vinyl)

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via: randy's rodeo

Skeleton and Skin

enlarge

Satchmo Sings Christmas

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also: A Christmas Gift For You... Rare MP3's!

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Satchmo's 'Twas the Night Before Christmas -mp3 mix

thanks maven

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***bonus***

getting Whiskeyfied with Satchmo

The strange tacky lady in my office, the one who reminds me of Divine in her more frumpy roles, the one who's always asking me 'what is that tune you're playing, it's lovely', the lady with the thinning hair and the pictures of penguins hanging on her walls.

She says today, loud and spirited:

"Well, I guess it's time to get the Christmas Mug out!"

Lowered into a large aquarium filled with pretty orange darting fish. she flails about, splashing and yelping, as the tiny orange fish begin to nibble at her exposed parts.

I think Nico once claimed that she saw Marilyn Monroe piss herself with nervousness at an acting class.

Nico is trying to help me drown out the jolly crap radio christmas music. If only she could appear in the flesh, with a large basket of snakes.

I need a tree now. I have the balls, you know.

Please read this, then go here and make that. I'm thinking about it. I'm almost there.

%%prev_desc%%--%%next_desc%%

all the things that used to be here
are now there.

via

Yes to Mess

Saying Yes to Mess

By PENELOPE GREEN

Published: December 21, 2006 -NYT

IT is a truism of American life that we’re too darn messy, or we think we are, and we feel really bad about it. Our desks and dining room tables are awash with paper; our closets are bursting with clothes and sports equipment and old files; our laundry areas boil; our basements and garages seethe. And so do our partners — or our parents, if we happen to be teenagers.

This is why sales of home-organizing products, like accordion files and labelmakers and plastic tubs, keep going up and up, from $5.9 billion last year to a projected $7.6 billion by 2009, as do the revenues of companies that make closet organizing systems, an industry that is pulling in $3 billion a year, according to Closets magazine.

This is why January is now Get Organized Month, thanks also to the efforts of the National Association of Professional Organizers, whose 4,000 clutter-busting members will be poised, clipboards and trash bags at the ready, to minister to the 10,000 clutter victims the association estimates will be calling for its members’ services just after the new year.

But contrarian voices can be heard in the wilderness. An anti-anticlutter movement is afoot, one that says yes to mess and urges you to embrace your disorder. Studies are piling up that show that messy desks are the vivid signatures of people with creative, limber minds (who reap higher salaries than those with neat “office landscapes”) and that messy closet owners are probably better parents and nicer and cooler than their tidier counterparts. It’s a movement that confirms what you have known, deep down, all along: really neat people are not avatars of the good life; they are humorless and inflexible prigs, and have way too much time on their hands...

Related

The Secret Order of Disorder

Dick in a Box

***Merry Christmas***

London Braces

London Braces for Attack; 'Miracle' If There Isn't One

December 21, 2006 10:42 AM -abc news.com

Brian Ross and Richard Esposito Report:

British intelligence and law enforcement officials have passed on a grim assessment to their U.S. counterparts, "It will be a miracle if there isn't a terror attack over the holidays in London," a senior American law enforcement official tells ABCNews.com.

British police have been quietly carrying out a series of key arrests as they continue to track at least six active "plots" tied to what they call "al Qaeda of England."

Officials said they could not cite any specific date or target but said al Qaeda had planned previous operations during the Christmas holidays that had been disrupted.

THE BLOTTER RECOMMENDS

• Al Qaeda Recruitment Ongoing in Pakistan
• Pakistan Tracking American al Qaeda
• Click Here for to Check Out the Brian Ross Investigative Webcast

"It is not a matter of if there will be an attack, but how bad the attack will be," an intelligence official told ABCNews.com.

Click Here for Full Blotter Coverage.

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Timeout for peace, I say. Miracles are due. (The comments are scarier than the article.) -Ib

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Crusading Forth

Robin Hayes says we will win in Iraq by "spreading the message of Jesus Christ" there.

Submitted by LiberalNC @ BlueNC

Robin Hayes has the solution to the Iraq war: have our soldiers convert all Muslims to Christianity.

Having won the election by only a hair’s width and almost getting himself kicked out of Congress seems to have had some profound psychological effects on poor Mr. Hayes. A speech that flip-floppin’ Robin gave last week at the Concord Rotary Club seems to prove he has finally gone off the deep end.

Our local weekly newspaper the “Concord Standard and Mount Pleasant Times” reported on Mr. Hayes speech in his hometown:

First there’s the usual talk of how we’re “winning” over there:

“The war in Iraq has got to be won; it’s being won”

(A couple of months ago Hayes said that the rise in violence in Iraq was an indication that we’re winning.)

Then comes the real kicker:

“Stability in Iraq ultimately depends on spreading the message of Jesus Christ, the message of peace on earth, good will towards men. Everything depends on everyone learning about the birth of the Savior.”

Determined or Delusional?

PRESIDENT BUSH: Determined or Delusional?

-Part 2-

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also:

Desperation in the White House

BY JOSEPH L. GALLOWAY

jlgalloway2@cs.com

The power brokers in Washington spent the week carefully arranging fig leaves and tasteful screens to cover the emperor's nakedness while he was busy pretending to listen hard to everyone with an opinion about Iraq while hearing nothing.

-cut to final paragraphs-

What will happen to that impossible dream in the coming year if the congressional Democrats begin to do their job, issuing subpoenas and holding oversight hearings into the looting of billions from the national treasury by defense contractors and other fat-cat donors to the GOP?

What will happen if everything that President Bush does to string things along in Iraq fails, as has everything else he has done there so far, and the Iraqis ask, order or drive us out of their country?

Did you notice that at every stop on the president's information-gathering tour this week, there was a very familiar face looming over his shoulder?

It can be argued that Bush understood little about war and peace and diplomacy and honesty in government. Vice President Cheney understood all of it, and he bears much of the responsibility for what's gone on in Washington and in Iraq for the last six years. Keep a sharp eye on him. Desperate men do desperate things.

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Joseph L. Galloway is former senior military correspondent for Knight Ridder Newspapers.

Psilocybin Relieves OCD

Study: Psilocybin Relieves OCD Symptoms

TUCSON, Ariz. - A preliminary study of the active ingredient in psychedelic mushrooms has found it is effective in relieving the symptoms of people suffering from severe obsessive compulsive disorder, a University of Arizona psychiatrist reports.

Dr. Francisco A. Moreno led the first FDA-approved clinical study of psilocybin since it was outlawed in 1970. The results of the small-scale study are published in the latest edition of the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.

Moreno said the study's intent was only to test the safety of administering psilocybin to patients, and its effectiveness is still in doubt until a larger controlled study can be conducted.

But in each of the nine patients in the study, psilocybin completely removed symptoms of the disorder for a period of about four to 24 hours, with some remaining symptom-free for days, Moreno said.

"What we saw acutely was a drastic decrease in symptoms," Moreno said. "The obsessions would really dissolve or reduce drastically for a period of time."

Best known among the drug culture as magic mushrooms, the hallucinogenic fungus remains a popular illicit drug. Although banned by Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970, research into medical uses is allowed.

The new research does not reflect any change in government policy, said Rogene Waite, a spokeswoman for the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Currently, there is no treatment that eases symptoms of the disorder as fast as psilocybin appears to, Moreno said. Other drugs take several weeks to show an effect, but the psilocybin was almost immediate.

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We always seem to abuse our medicines, in one way or another.

Ib

Nearly Nuked

(The Nation) BLOG | Posted 12/18/2006 @ 11:57am

A Near-Miss Nuclear Explosion

Ari Berman

In March 2005, a nuclear warhead almost exploded in Texas. The near miss accident occurred in Amarillo, when workers at the Pantex nuclear weapons plant bungled the dismantling of a W-56 warhead, a weapon 100 times stronger than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima during World War II.

Details of the averted catastrophe have been kept under wraps until last month, when the Department of Energy (DOE) fined the company that operates the plant, BWX Technologies, $110,000 for safety violations.

In a letter obtained by the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), technicians at the plant blamed the accident on severe working conditions, including mandatory 72 to 84 hour work weeks. One nuclear scientist told POGO that he "would not work on his car engine if he were fatigued from a 72-hour work week, and sure as hell would not work on a nuclear weapon."

Besides hellish hours, workers described the "degrading" physical state of the plant in the letter to the BWX board. "Look around the plant. You will find leaking roofs, crumbling buildings, waist-high weed-infested landscapes, barricades and safety tape that makes this once-proud plant look like a crime scene."

Diet of Garbage

A Steady Diet of Garbage

It started back in 2003, when I was taking a course in college called 'Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves,' which dealt with urban outcasts. During one of the discussion sections, a privileged white girl who came from Westchester in New York shared with us a bit of divine wisdom. See, I went to college at Johns Hopkins University, in the city of Baltimore, and every student knew that going to 'Greenmount' (the actual name of the neighborhood was Waverly) at a certain time by yourself was tempting fate. However, this girl expressed that if SHE were a big black guy, she wouldn't feel awkward about going to Greenmount after dark at ALL. Another girl (also white, also rich), chimed in that she was offended that there were groups for people of Indian descent and for black folk, but where was the group for white people??

I remember being astounded at the stupidity of these remarks. I had grown up in a small town, surrounded by ignorance and small minds, but naively expected something more when I went away to college. How silly of me. This restless feeling grew last year, when I was listening to the radio one morning on the way to work. The morning guys at the time (Reno and Frankenberry at 101.5 WPDH) were interviewing a couple of interns, asking them questions about current events. The two interns were both college students from either Marist or Vassar. This was around the time that Porter Goss resigned as director of the CIA. They were asked to name the retiring CIA director was, and they could not do it. They were asked who his replacement was, and they could not do it. They were asked WHAT FRICKIN' CONTINENT IRAQ is on, and they couldn't answer the question. However, when asked the name of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes' baby, they knew right away.

I think I almost swerved off the road at that point. These are COLLEGE STUDENTS, supposedly educated and intelligent people, and they didn't know jack about the world they lived in. As I listen to the radio, I hear so many people call in spouting opinions about Iraq and terrorism that they were fed by the media that were either slightly wrong or really, really tragically wrong. Even the hosts themselves (I've heard 3 different morning teams so far), sometimes spout these lies with absolutely NO AWARENESS of the truth. They have no idea of what is really going on in the world around them, but when it comes to celebrities, they know everything.

Welcome to America in the 21st century. The rise in power of the corporate media (aided by Reagan's de-regulations in the 80's), combined with the doublespeak of the Bush administration and Fox News, has produced something wondrous strange in our country. The truth is not made readily available to Americans...the news that they are exposed to is only what the corporate media wishes them to see. Yet, the myth of the media being 'liberal' still persists and refuses to die...a clever tactic that has allowed Fox News to gain so much of its power as a 'Fair and Balanced' network.

This lack of truth in reporting contributes to the ignorance of the populace. We are fed, again and again, tons of gossip news about celebrities, as if we are expected to care about their lives. Their existences become drama for us to consume, and we devour it greedily, just as we devour stories about missing white girls. Everything the media does is designed to manipulate our emotions and our thoughts...we are given the drama to distract us from what is really going on. We are being given bread and circuses, and most Americans consume it with alacrity.

Our world is filled with celebrity, fast food, mass media, fast living, and decadent wastefulness. We have become, in our power, a fat, contented nation too lazy to challenge ourselves or seek the truth, but rather perfectly satisfied to digest what is given to us without question. From childhood, we are fed on a steady diet of garbage, and the result is the America we see before us. Small towns are being consumed by developments for the privileged, small businesses are being muscled out by mega corporations, more and more strip malls are erected and our country's beauty diminishes bit by bit. The threat of global warming looms large on our horizon, yet still we purchase gigantic gas-guzzling SUVs and consume our natural resources with wild abandon.

This year, in November, we finally succeeded in triumphing over the GOP and voting in a Democratic majority to Congress, giving us full control for the first time since the 90's. However, why did we win? I doubt we would've won if not for the Iraq War. Plain and simple, it was a single issue election. Never mind all of the corruption, the violation of the constitution, the raping of our environment...people care about Iraq, and that's all. Of course, it doesn't apply to us DUer's...but for most Americans, it's simply all that really mattered to them. They developed this perspective because of what the media told them...but even there, they are not getting the full story, they are unaware of how bad it truly is.

The only thing that REALLY bothers us is how American troops have been killed. We don't REALLY care about all of the dead Iraqis, unless the media tells us to. Stalin once said that one death is a tragedy, while a million is a statistic. The death of one American soldier is weighed much more heavily then the dozens, even hundreds of Iraqis being killed each day. Yet, it's so easy to ignore even the dying American troops, just as long as we're getting a steady dose of news about TomKat or Brangelina.

They sent you off to school as a child, to be indoctrinated as a patriotic little citizen, given a whitewashed propagandized version of our history. If you are raised in a strict Christian family, and further indoctrinated with a healthy respect for being obedient, complaint, and unquestioning of authority, then so much the better. Children are inundated with commercialism, mind numbing television shows, and fast food, fed garbage from the moment they can process what they are seeing and experiencing.

As they grow, boys are taught to take advantage of women, be strong and domineering, authoritative but unquestioning of the authority that governs them. Women are taught to be obedient and submissive, and told what their body image should be, and how they should value themselves, by a shallow mass media with no concern whatsoever for the psychological damage they inflict on young minds. As they grow older, the damage leads to eating disorders, objectification of the opposite sex, and worse.

The final straw for me was reading the article in Rolling Stone about the factory farms. We consume, we pollute, and we cause such suffering to the environment and to the animals that we devour. We think we're so big, so important, but the world doesn't exist just for us. Ann Coulter said that God told us to take the world and rape it. We certainly are. I don't know about all of you, but I've been having an ominously warm winter up here in upstate New York. We haven't had so much as a lick of actual snow so far, and that worries me. Cause it's happening all over the world...and we, America, are the world's biggest contributor to the problem.

Not only do we consume a steady diet of garbage, but we produce it as well. Our factory farms produce tons of toxic pig excrement, our cars belch tons of pollution into the atmosphere, and we as individuals produce tons of waste, filling more and more landfills with the fruits of our great society. The world is our victim, and we are sheltered from its effect by a largely indifferent media that wants us to stay uninformed.

An informed society is dangerous to its leaders, because they will be held accountable for their actions. Due to the controls enacted by a corporate media and the rising power of fundamentalist mega churches, we are a largely uninformed society. We have begun to make steps in the right direction, but there is still so much misinformation out there. The first step you can take to free your mind is to turn off your damn television.

I haven't regularly watched tv since 2004, and let me tell you, it's a wonderful feeling. Just turning on the tv these days make my mind ache, I can hardly believe I used to watch that garbage. If there's something from the Daily Show or Countdown that I really want to see, I can find it on You Tube or Comedy Central's website, usually.

In addition, we should do our best to inform those that do not know that the truth is out there if they seek it out. The government WANTS us to be ignorant, and little by little, we are breaking that down...but we haven't won a total victory yet. The media is still corporate controlled, and they will be against us...so we must find other ways to reach the people.

Also, we need to be stewards of the earth...when we take control of Congress in January...we need to start pushing...and pushing hard...for changes in our environmental policy. We can't afford to wait to meet the threat of global warming head on.

Finally, do yourself a favor...if possible, do not shop at Walmart. Try to stick with smaller local businesses. Support small businesses, clean farms, and independent media outlet. The only way to put an end to our steady diet of garbage is to cut it off at the source.
If we want America to survive for much longer, we must take up this burden, for it was the time of bread and circuses which preceded the downfall of Rome...

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via: democratic underground
(thanks to longhair @ sensibly eclectic)

The Raw and the Cooked

The Great American Rat Experiment:

by Raw Food Vs. the Cook, American Die
Wednesday Dec 20th, 2006 9:57 AM

rats eating vegetables and fruit are healthy
rats eating cooked food become diseased

The following is an account of an interesting three-part experiment comparing the effects of raw foods versus cooked foods with rats. This account is taken from a book titled Goldot, by Lewis E. Cook, Jr. and Junko Yasui:

“It has been found that a group of rats were fed diet of raw vegetables, fruits, nuts and whole grains from birth grew into completely healthy specimens and never suffered from any disease. They were never ill. They grew rapidly, but never became fat, mated with enthusiasm and had healthy offspring. They were always gently affectionate and playful and lived in perfect harmony with each other. Upon reaching an old age, equivalent to 80 years in humans, these rats were put to death and autopsied. At that advanced age their organs, glands, tissues all body processes appeared to be in perfect condition without any sign of aging or deterioration.

“A companion group of rats we fed a diet comparable to that of the average American and included white bread, cooked foods, meats, milk, salt, soft drinks, candies, cakes, vitamins and other supplements, medicines for their ails, etc. During their lifetime these rats became fat and, from the earliest age, contracted most of the diseases of modern American society including colds, fever, pneumonia, poor vision, cataracts, heart disease, arthritis, cancer and many more.

“Most of this group died prematurely at early ages but during their lifetime most of them were vicious, snarling beasts, fighting with one another stealing one another’s food and attempting to kill each other. They had to be kept apart to prevent total destruction of the entire group. Their offspring were all sick and exhibited the same general characteristics as there parents.

“As this group of rats died one by one or in epidemics or various diseases, autopsies were performed revealing extensive degenerative conditions in every part of their bodies. All organs, glands and tissues were affected, as were the skin, hair, blood and nervous system. They were all truly total physical and nervous wrecks. The same condition existed in the few, which survived full duration of the experiment.

“A third companion group of rats was fed the same diet as the second group to an age equivalent to about 40 years in humans. They displayed the same general symptoms of the second group – being sick and vicious so that they had to be separated to prevent them from killing each other and stealing one another food.

“At the end of this initial period all rats in this group were placed on a strict fast, with o water to drink for a period of several days. Then they received the natural (raw) diet o first group of rats. This diet was alternated with periods of fast and within one mouth behavioral pattern had changed completely so that the now docile, affectionate, playful creatures were once again able to live together in a harmonious society and from this point on never suffered any illness.

“Several rates put to death and autopsied at the end of the initial period revealing the same general deterioration as that exhibited in the second group of rats. However, the remaining rats lived out the full duration of the experiment, to the equivalent of 80 years in humans, and when they were topside there were no signs of aging or deterioration or disease - just as those in the first group. The obvious disease, degeneration and deterioration of body parts evident in their first half of life had been completely reversed and excellent health restored.

“The same principles apply to human life as there is only one TRUTH! Thus it may be concluded that sick people may be restored to health simply by choosing the proper diet, fasting observing the other rules of health. There is no mystery. There is no external force that will help – all healing being accomplished within the body in accordance with the laws of organic life and health.”

From:
God’s Way to Ultimate Health
By
Dr. George H. Malkumu
with Michael Dye

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via: Indybay.org

Virgin Birth

Virgin birth expected for Komodo dragon

By Patricia Reaney

LONDON (Reuters) - Flora, a pregnant Komodo dragon living in a British zoo, is expecting eight babies in what scientists said on Wednesday could be a Christmas virgin birth.

Flora has never mated, or even mixed, with a male dragon, and fertilized all the eggs herself, a process culminating in parthenogenesis, or virgin birth. Other lizards do this, but scientists only recently found that Komodo dragons do too.

"Nobody in their wildest dreams expected this. But you have a female dragon on her own. She produces a clutch of eggs and those eggs turn out to be fertile. It is nature finding a way," Kevin Buley of Chester Zoo in England said in an interview.

Crime is Back

Crime is Back--How Long Can We Avoid Talking About It?

Josh Sugarmann @ HuffPo

Bio

photo by Paula Daunt

The shouts from police, mayors, and scholars are getting louder, but is anyone listening? The latest evidence that America is facing a coming tide of violent crime can be found in data released this week by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. According to the FBI, violent crime continued to rise with a 3.7 percent jump in the first half of 2006 compared to same period in 2005 (which showed similar increases compared to 2004).The report documented a 9.7 percent jump in robbery, a 1.4 percent increase in murder, and a rise in aggravated assault of 1.2 percent. While murder in cities over one million increased 6.7 percent, the biggest jump--8.4 percent--was seen in cities between 500,000 to 999,999. The data, contained in the FBI's Preliminary Semiannual Uniform Crime Report, January-June, 2006, compiles the voluntary submissions of 11,535 law enforcement agencies and is the precursor to the agency's annual Uniform Crime Reports.

The report documented a 9.7 percent jump in robbery, a 1.4 percent increase in murder, and a rise in aggravated assault of 1.2 percent. While murder in cities over one million increased 6.7 percent, the biggest jump--8.4 percent--was seen in cities between 500,000 to 999,999. The data, contained in the FBI's Preliminary Semiannual Uniform Crime Report, January-June, 2006, compiles the voluntary submissions of 11,535 law enforcement agencies and is the precursor to the agency's annual Uniform Crime Reports.

According to today's front-page Washington Post story, "James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University in Boston who has been critical of the Bush administration's crime-fighting strategies, said the overall rise in violent crime should be expected given dramatic cuts in assistance to local police and simultaneous increases in the population of males in their teens and 20s." The Post quotes Fox as stating, "We have many high-crime areas where gangs have made a comeback, where police resources are down and where whatever resources there are have been shifted to anti-terrorism activity. It's robbing Peter, and maybe even murdering Peter, to pay Paul."

So far, the repeated warning signs over the past two years that America's crime lull is coming to an end have been ignored. On Capitol Hill, all too many Members of Congress--with notable exceptions--find themselves at the same quiescent place: mute on the issue of increasing violent crime. But for different reasons. Some engage in the time-honored tradition of blaming the victim, viewing the issue solely through prisms of race, class, or an equally false urban/rural divide. Others, on both the left and right, fear that talk of violent crime in general, and increasing homicide rates in particular, could lead to talk of gun control. Others simply don't care and hope that by ignoring the problem it will magically evanesce.

If today's story in the Post is any indicator, all these hopes, regardless of their origin, are false. Crime is back. And the issue can't be avoided.

FBI's Lennon File

FBI Releases Last Pages From Lennon File

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The FBI has released its final surveillance documents on John Lennon to a university historian who has waged a 25-year legal battle to obtain the secret files.

The 10 pages contain new details about Lennon's ties to leftist and anti-war groups in London in the early 1970s, but nothing indicating government officials considered the former Beatle a serious threat, historian Jon Wiener told the Los Angeles Times in Wednesday's editions.

The FBI had unsuccessfully argued that an unnamed foreign government secretly provided the information, and releasing the documents could lead to diplomatic, political or economic retaliation against the United States.

The newly released documents include a surveillance report stating that two prominent British leftists had courted Lennon in hopes that he would finance "a left-wing bookshop and reading room in London" but that Lennon gave them no money. Another page states that there was "no certain proof" that Lennon had provided money "for subversive purposes."

"I doubt that Tony Blair's government will launch a military strike on the U.S. in retaliation for the release of these documents," Wiener told the newspaper. "Today, we can see that the national security claims that the FBI has been making for 25 years were absurd from the beginning."

Chaos, Revolution, and Rebirth

Special Alert: Horoscope U.S.A.

A planetary configuration not seen since 1776 is coming our way, heralding chaos, revolution, and rebirth. Let the stars guide you through the coming storm.

by Michael Lutin

VanityFair.com December 6, 2006

Illustration by John Craig.

All alone and more paranoid by the day, President George W. Bush is getting it from all sides, and despite his bravado, which some people call a defensive, adolescent swagger, he can't trust anybody, not even his mother. (Especially not his mother.) His detractors blame him for the state the world is in. Extremists go one further and say the world is coming to an end. Most of us in this country just want gas prices to go down, the dollar to go up, and America to go back to the good old days.

Astrologers can tell you that that's not going to happen, but that, no matter what, we'll never go broke either. They can also explain George Bush's predicament by pointing out that he's a Cancer, and that in coming years Cancers are going to be challenged to expand their whole worldview. In fact, we can all gain perspective on what is happening politically, culturally, and socially in America by turning to the Zodiac, especially the signs of Cancer and Capricorn. For nations, like people, have horoscopes.

America was born on July 4, 1776, when the Founding Fathers decided it was time to separate from England and start a new life as an independent entity. That makes America a Cancer nation. Cancer is the sign of fertility, and America sees herself as the world's nurturing mother. But because of the hostile presence of Mars and Uranus in our solar 12th house, we're the kind of nurturer that can bomb the hell out of a country one day and send over sandwiches and coffee the next. That makes the rest of the world love us and hate us. We're like the rich relative everybody is jealous of but still visits for the holidays because there's always plenty of food. It is the sincere and conscious wish of every Cancer, including the U.S.A., to make sure that all those under its wing are safe—and if you mess with them, you must be ready to face the Special Forces.

Security and home are primal drives of this sign, sometimes to the point of clannishness or even xenophobia. America is and always has been about property, taxes, and land ownership. Conveniently, we forget that when the early settlers arrived they took one look around and said to the Indians, "What a gorgeous place you've got here! Get out!" Territory is everything, and if anyone tells you that the essence of the American Dream is just about liberty and freedom, don't kid yourself. It's about mortgage rates.

But are we, in the end, ruthless imperialists doomed to be brought down by our degenerate culture? That is the question Pluto's transit through the sign of Capricorn over the next 19 years will answer. It will challenge us as we have never been challenged before—until it will seem that the whole world is against us—but it will also reveal the secret of how we need to change.