there was a compilation with thomas brinkmann in the late 9os that was a cd on one side, and a lockgroove on the other... sounded like a fairly stupid, minimal electronic click beat.

i'm with other folks on the sound issues. totally fun idea, poor quality object. gotta love 45s though. i use final scratch, so i don't bring a lot records to a gig except my 45s in case of technical failure...

i love boingboing enough (and defend it enough) that i believe i have a right to complain a bit here.

i still think boingboing dropped the ball on not even referring to the controversy on the front page of this story. ALL the comments i've seen on this thread (on the original topic) are of this mindset.

for a website that loves bigfoot so much, and is obviously skeptical of the government, i'm surprised that this "conspiracy theory" dialogue isn't even alluded to, let alone the prominent standing it deserves, IMHO.

i don't care so much personally, but it would be nice for this woman's memory...

btw, great prostitution legalization discussion... it's one of the hardest questions (up there with what to do with violent people, and should property exist) and some really interesting data points have come out.

also, mintphresh... where did you get the seven years payment data? i'd love to add that link to my article...

in the update posted with "her" suicide notes, the retort against claims of her murder comes from the police that ruled it a suicide... so to lend any credence to the idea, they would have to admit failure... unlikely... even if they aren't in on it.

i still think there is enough evidence that this is a setup to at least consider showing that there is a dialogue...

eyes wide shut indeed.

@20 sluggo... some names have been released and are in my link in post number 8. my best theory for why she was killed is that even though she gave away the names to abc, they maybe didn't do as good a job looking through them as the courts might have had they had to go through them during a prosecution.

re: prostitution...

i think the conditions that make prostitution viable are at fault, not the prostitutes... finding a legal balance is tough, which is a good part of why i'm an anarchist. most johns are o.k., and even some pimps (or madams), so criminalizing those folks is tough, too...

i think the u.s. going after madams (or pot smokers or speeding drivers or other petty crimes) is pathetic, considering the crimes against humanity and the environment being perpetrated every day by corporations and the government in our names, so it's hard to get outraged

Actually, i think it would be of great service to the story to update the front page article with a link to at least one of the respective sites that document this...

again, my re-cap is HERE

the original story and the original interview where she said she would never commit suicide was alex jones... his link is HERE

the new york times article at least mentions the conspiracy theories, but not the most important evidence, namely the audio of the interview she did only in march where she stated firmly that she would not kill herself (linked to in both links above)

I'm surprised this hit the front page of boingboing with no mention of the extensive questions regarding the history of this story raises. i'm not saying xeni is in on the cover-up campaign, but...

my re-cap of the story is here. the money quote is "If taken into custody, my physical safety and most probably my very life would be jeopardized," she wrote. "Rape, beating, maiming, disfigurement and more than likely murder disguised in the form of just another jailhouse accident or suicide would await me."

note a couple things...

1. the interview where she said she WOULD NOT COMMIT SUICIDE was with alex jones, who is a little nutty, but her words stand. you can here them on audio clips linked to from my link above...

2. she already had released her phone records to a major news outlet a year earlier... it is a common thread that they killed her to stop that. however, she presumably had other personal evidence that may have been damaging.

3. some of her high-profile customers (like an ambassador and a conservative thinktank head) were already outed, and it seems pretty likely that others would have no problem offing her to keep their role quiet.

I've heard that "humanure" (composted human shit) is a valuable commodity... so much in fact that in korea people compete with each other (in markets?) to build the most aesthetically pleasing outhouse (to try to attract end-users!)

I'm not sure it is true, i'd love to find a link to it. mark dixon told me while we we're shitting in buckets during this project.

maybe this could offset the costs associated with these toilets?

@ #84 DMCK

"...and old hat "radical chic" may be, but still way sexier than, say, "culture jamming""

one thing we agree on... culture jamming (as a term) makes me feel sick somewhere deep down... ick.

and i love teresa! she's a GREAT moderator.

great dreams, albert hofmann...acid dreams for us...

"I believe that if people would learn to use LSD's vision-inducing capability more wisely, under suitable conditions, in medical practice and in conjunction with meditation, then in the future this problem child could become a wonderchild." - albert hofman "LSD, my problem child"

@79 coldster

"If Critical Mass really wanted to demonstrate the problems with cars, they should parade their cars around town (slowly) instead of their bikes."

why?

blocking up roads with fume-spewing auto traffic is already done by most of the "mainstream"...

also, a lot of critical mass attendants DON'T HAVE CARS (on purpose!)

@# 75

i'm familiar with the radical-chic lunacy that is in my mind completely privileged. however i don't think that it is fair to invoke godwin's law here in the case of my comparing the inconvenience of a driver (or pedestrian or biker) encountering an even unruly, mass-holish critical mass to an armless iraqi child. the point is they are of DIFFERENT scales.

my problem is i see a lot more outrage from critical mass's detractors about critical mass than about the issues that critical mass is addressing... especially concerning the "illegality" (imagine a whiny tone...). there are few things more "illegal" than wars... the war on public space, the war on public safety, and the war on public access to the means of survival.

note: i'm not saying you are pro war... i'm saying some of the vitriol at critical mass is misplaced... can you blame punks from being foolish in the face of such grander idiocy?

also, note: and i've never ridden in new york city's so i have no first-hand accounts. my local pittsburgh chapter is the height of creativity, open-mindedness and respect. it still gets the shit kicked out of it by police.

@ 51 dmck

"in reality, they fly in the face of public order simply for the egotistical fuck of it. "

no doubt there are those that do... but the gas-guzzling anti-massholes who think they have some great right to accelerate in between red lights belching carbon with there "support the troops" magnet are a BIGGER problem.

public "order" isn't orderly.

it's a fucking mess.

and also, the main idea of critical mass is to get city planning to account for bikers with bike lanes, bikeracks on buses and the like and to raise consciousness about the issues.

IT'S SUPPOSED TO DISRUPT YOUR COZY LITTLE ROUTINE> think of the "inconvenience" a child with their arms and legs blown off feels in iraq. and all these tech-obsessed blowhards (there i go again) spouting about how "annoying" or "juvenile" or "illegal" they are.

fucking tools for empire.

@ ll y blwhrds whnng about how the bikers are "breaking the law"... (nd ys, 'm gttng d hmnm r wrs hr...)

let's not forget that this country was founded on "breaking the law"... that laws are broken every day with much more dire consequences directly related to transportation issues (iraq war) and public awareness issues (the t.v. stations are supposed to broadcast "in the public interest").

and let's not forget good old tommyas jeffreyson:

"Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories. "

and...

"All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression. "

and...

"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it. "

s pls, st dwn, sht p, nd thnk...

oh, and takuan... word. where is the Bell coverage?

reminds me of this quote, i can't remember where i heard it, i think it was in some physics context, but...

"if you observe something once in the universe, it is unique, if you observe something twice it is infinitely duplicated elsewhere"...

@#6 buddy66

i used to hate warhol... but i live in pittsburgh (which andy hated) where the warhol museum is (he would have hated THAT) and i've actually come to appreciate his work. also reading please kill me helped to appreciate him at least a bit. i love his piss paintings, his prints about violence and the jesus-printed punching bags he did with basquiat... not to mention he was a shoe designer...

mcCain is so fullovit...

there is a lot more, but here is a good start.

@ 4 hassan-i-sabah
(peace be upon the mention of his name)

i'm sorry to hear about your loss. such is the life of an assassin.

download the last track (the forward kwenda) on this post, stick it into whatever you use to listen to music on headphones.

lie down, close your eyes, go to alamut (in your mind), listen...

and you'll feel better.

@ #13 jeff

yes there is a defense fund. he almost certainly still needs to recuperate dough... CAEDEFENSEFUND.ORG

@ #5 agent 86

probably. i wonder if they returned his papers, computers, information about his students, etc...

@ #10 mark, #11 jean, #12 error re: 4 years

the four years isn't surprising at all considering that the purpose of this case was an attempted "hit-job", harassment and VERY politically motivated. just read electronic civil disobedience and other unpopular ideas to get a small taste of kurtz's subversive skills. he was a teacher of mine in the carnegie mellon university art department. he basically taught anarchist theory and culture-jamming to some of the brightest minds of the youth. the government attention is proof he was being effective.

MOON,

101 - repeating your argument doesn't convince people.

and AGAIN, they didn't kill people with bombs.

and yes, they did turn some folks off, but they also scared a lot of higher-ups into worrying about greater civil unrest at continuation for the war.

by ruling out that property destruction may be useful to hastening the end of massive scale violence, you help to perpetuate a (violently) complacent mindset.

IDLE UESDAY,

i agree with you that there is a risk of killing people when you set bombs. but again, there is a risk of "killing" more people if you don't at times. property is less precious than human lives, and arguably a handful of lives is less precious than millions. it's a hrad choice either way, but what if the marches and the voting and everything else hasn't worked? as noen hinted at, we are kind of at that point now.

i've marched, voted, done community organizing, street theatre, "culture-jamming", created media, done graffiti, gotten arrested, blocked roads, volunteered, done food drives, clothes drives, all that shit. we (the u.s.) still kill millions. not that all of that is useless, because it's not. it helps to educate people if nothing else. but it is still largely symbolic. direct action is still the most effective technique and the most noticed by the military-industrial complex. nearly every revolution has had destruction and violence and also had pervasive pacifism. they work in concert like yin and yang. the world is cyclic... a gyre!

@59 antinous

"I think that violence is a failure strategy in the long run. But I would never criticize the oppressed for rising up against their oppressors"

i think i agree, but i also think that hardline pacifism can be problematic. i think that jains or aikido students or whoever has the right to complete non-violence, i see the potential short-term benefits of violence. the problem with violence, as i've said before is that once you start justifying it , it gets easier and easier. it takes a very samurai to pull it off (tipped hat to takuan...)

@61 moon

"No, you're just defending violence. And no, the Weathermen set back the fight against the Viet Nam war. Unless you can show otherwise, I'll stick with that."

i could argue you defend a greater violence by attacking the WU, who again killed ZERO with their bombs. and while i love mlk jr, bobby k, and the yippies too, they weren't necessarily enough, were they.

and i think it was you that started this goofiness up there on #36, so the burden of proof is in your court... show me how they set back the fight against the vietnam war.

@ #48 brian carnell

there is a lot of that on the left. however, i think the bigger issue is that we get so much of the rightish slant that there comes a bit of the pendulum effect.

in this particular case, i think that ayers has gotten such hard right treatment that more than a little rebalancing is needed. even some of the super-glowing praise he's getting is deserved, considering what they were up against, and how little everything else was working.

of course, any examination of the weather underground has to include SOME criticism... even their own members critique themselves (bill included).

but i am surprised that even boingboing bit some of the bait that's out there in the corporate media. it's a very one-sided view to imply that property destruction or theft or even violence is reprehensible when one considers that it was in the course of trying to stop millions of deaths. that's a hard argument to swallow. even buddhism considers killing to protect others to be a good idea (for boddhisatvas, but still...)

@41 moon...

"The Black Panthers had a better handle on reality and a possible reason for hating Amerika. And the the Black Panthers didn't want anything to do with them"

moon, i've saw a former weather underground member speak on a panel with elaine brown, former head of the black panther party.

they seemed to get a long fine and have a lot of respect for each other.

and there is no question that while some of them individually were off-track, they were dealing quite relevantly with the issues of the day. 3,000,000 people dead in vietnam... what to do? maybe bombing some recruitment centers, etc... might get the attention and produce some pressure on our war machine to work things out. they have remained immensely influential and constantly re-examined.

also, if you want anyone to take you as anything other than a troll (which gets harder and harder for me to avoid) you might want to formulate more accurate and compelling arguments instead of just calling people "dicks" or "losers".

i believe in you.

war is "unsavory", too...

from my comment on bill ayer's blog:

"bill, it’s hard choices that you have made. i can see you thinking... even killing some (by accident or design) could be justified if it saved the lives of a thousand times more lives. one could say it is a violent act NOT to kill few to save many. so i’m sure you have regrets, but you also have courage.

now anyone reading this… it IS a slippery slope to ever justify killing anyone for any cause. but spew your hubris out somewhere else… it’s too hard to judge one way or another. bill tried his best given the incredible loss of life on both sides. pacifism isn’t so cut and dry when you’re trying to stop wars."

of course, like some have brought up, the WU only killed three people, by accident, all WU members. clinton really distorted the facts, as usual.

also, i think continue to think thatmy post about this controversy puts things in perspective when you read the first three links... many things we're distorted/fabricated during the debate besides bill ayer's history.

@kevink

"They attacked us because of our presence in the Middle East. Why were we there? Because Iraq attacked Kuwait. Osama didn't like the fact that there was US soldiers in his "holy land" that we were "desecrating" such land. That we should leave. That is what 9/11 was really about. That and our support of Israel. So if you are saying we deserved to get attacked because we had soldiers in the Middle East, then fine. If you think that's something to kill a bunch of people over fine. I don't agree. The only people responsible for that attack or those that carried it out, and planned it."

that was the U.S. fucking them over... we weren't just "having soldiers there", our soldiers killed anywhere between 20,000 and 200,000 depending on your source in the initial iraq war (that's a lot more than september 11th.) that was a huge miltary operation, largely for resource control.

and as far as kuwait and israel, they both owe their borders in part to european meddling, which is part of the reason they piss off the nearby nations. and while i have sympathy for the global plight of the jews, i don't think all their policies deserve the unilateral support of the u.s. talk about the region being fucked up before we got there... it was, but also by white folks.

"Please show me examples of how we trained them to kill innocent victims in terrorists attacks. You know, like the ones that has happened to us since the 70s."

fist off, the army kills innocent civilians in vast numbers. some might argue that it is an attack "in kind". infact we've killed hundreds of times more civilians than al qaeda, but you aren't ranting against us... but here are your examples...

afghanistan - this paper sums it up nicely... "(the u.s.) is waging a domestic war against terrorism, operating in some respects independently of the CIA which has --since the Soviet-Afghan war-- supported international terrorism through its covert operations." the mujadeen also greatly increased heroin production, which i only bring up because i am soon going to talk about colombia.

nicuragua - this wiki sums up nicely the "psychological operations in guerilla warfare" actions of the cia, which included for the murder of innocents. from that manual "to provoke riots or shootings, which lead to the killing of one or more persons, who will be seen as the martyrs; this situation should be taken advantage of immediately against the Government to create even bigger conflicts."

colombia - plan colombia. this wiki deals with it well. some quotes... "Colombian security forces, which receive aid and training from (the u.s. initiative), are involved in supporting or tolerating abuses by right-wing paramilitary forces against the population and left-wing organizations." also, "aerial fumigation to eradicate coca. This activity has come under fire because it damages legal crops and has adverse health effects upon those exposed to the herbicides" this is doubly problematic because most of the farmers of coca are forced into it, either by the drug cartels or economic circumstances.

"Ok so you admit that it was a mess before we got there at least. I don't think we are really making it worse. Before something gets better, it usually does get worse. I know it was that way with this country. Will be in the future as well."

we're not making it worse? basically forcing civil war through localized oil barons, over a million deaths from the current iraq war, taking a much greater percentage of oil revenues away nationally from the iraqis than they had under saddam. so i guess were making it better, if that means killing more people, giving them less money, and fucking up the environment and infrastructure. call that better to one of the children we "liberated" from their limbs.

"They BOTH said the SAME THINGS about Iraq." i'm not arguing that. but their policies are what is more important. clinton bombed iraq, but didn't invade. that's not the only difference.

"I am not the one exaggerating claims or happenstances."

i still claim that saying no one remembers before 2001 is hyperbole, as is claiming clinton and bush have identical policies. i'd also still argue that while i am making large claims, they are backed up by history enough to not be hyperbole. that's a minor point compared with your other, more misleading portrayals.

@ kevink 27

"I showed you exactly in what way I thought we were "culpable"

to use your metaphor, johnny wasn't rebelling against getting punished for tsomething he wasn't supposed to do, johnny was rebelling because he did what principal jim wanted and still got fucked over...

"I guess we trained them in the way the US army trained Timothy McVay. While yes, he was in the army, and yes he received training from our government, they didn't teach him to murder buildings full of innocent people because you think you are justified in doing so."

yes we did, in afghanistan against the russians. (we did the same in nicuragua and we do the same in colombia right now)

"The middle east has been violently disrupted for centuries. Where have you been?"

just because the middle east has had violence forever, that doesn't make adding more (and more damaging) violence correct. that's pissing in a black eye.

"Just being honest and realistic without the hyperbole."

you may be being honest about your opinion, but the truth is luckily a collective hallucination, not just yours. and as far as the hyperbole, you've got plenty.

"Eight years of disastrous American foreign policy, conducted by the Cheney Presidency...
You mean the same foreign policy Clinton had?"
I guess I am one of the few people here that remembers before 2001"

while bill clinton was war-mongering and corrupt (see bombing sudanese pharmaceutical plants, nafta, etc...) he didn't manage to utterly destroy global trust in america the way bush has. calling their policies "the same" is hyperbole.

oh and i remember before 2001 too, that's more hyperbole.

@#34 posted by Takuan

"and what can any one person do with this office? In the end, even the strongest and best intentioned are slaves of their machine."

i agree mostly here, with two major exceptions. one was basically covered by antinous (some differences in policy can be implemented), the other is similar to what andrew #43 said...

while the election is in many ways symbolic and the power at the mercy of the ecocidal military-industrial-consumer-complex, just the narrative that obama chooses is a powerful symbol both internationally and at home... it could say to the world, "we have stopped choosing the monkey, and now will choose the nice man". and the fact that there is some substance to his choice of narrative, and that he appears to have (and most likely does have) some conviction to at least attempt to perform his narrative makes the prospect even more alluring.

for example, consider this quote from a recent post of mine about obama... it deals with the hip hop concept of "keeping it real" and why that is problematic when it relates to materialism, etc...

"art can't just be a rear-view mirror, it also has to have a headlight out there, pointing to where we need to go"

maybe i'm just biased because i'm an artist/musician/etc, but that's the ONLY quote i've ever heard a politican say about art, and it's true and useful. a guy like this would be a GREAT hood ornament, to use your metaphor.

anyway, i agree with your concern for america's global impact. i also dig global socialism as an idea, especially in smaller affinity group or tribe models. the possibility of larger state socialism makes me weirded out, but so does our "democracy". i'm an anarchist, so i'll wait until there is a government that has as it's first goal to destroy itself to be really excited about state politics, and in the meantime i'll just vote (and encourage others to vote) for the most impressive hood ornament.

@ - kevink #18

can you really, with a straight face, claim that the u.s. is in NO WAY culpable for 9/11?

even with the u.s. training al qaeda, violently disrupting the middle east, colluding with corrupt governments, etc..?

you're even more close-minded than i am, then...

@ takuan # 11

i love you, but could you unpack that a bit for me, i'm feeling slow... do you support a candidate? (bear in mind that while i support obama, i am also an anarchist...)

@ everyone else...

the first three links in my bill ayers post contain information about falsehoods presented as fact in the debates by the moderators...

oh, and funny piece, cory... i was missing the politics on boing boing. i think they can be wonderful, especially with sufficient satire, wit and balance, which boing boing seems to show (even while having bias, which is the mark of true thinkers).

i didn't really find reverend wright's comments offensive. i think holding america accountable for 9/11 (at least in part) isn't really a stretch. also some of his racial critiques are true (as witnessed by this white male who lives in a poor black neighborhood).

while i understand it for political reasons, obama's distancing himself from wright is one of my only qualms with his candidacy. in general i think obama is more erudite, more ideal, and a great dancer.

i felt it was one of the most philosophical error messages ever. i'll miss it (sort of).

to each one's own... that might mean guru, or dope, or math, or myth or none...

peak experiences can serve as "proof of concept"...

"if they want to help us, they should put in a bench" - friendly (seriously) drug dealer in response to people from the local development corporation and rick santorum's office having a press conference outside of an abandoned building on my street where friendly (and not so friendly) drug dealers hang out, talking about how they were going to "help" the neighborhood.

moral: put in benches (and parks, for that matter)

i'm boycotting disney because of abc's totally wack debate moderation. pathetic waste of an opportunity to help our withering democracy.

but enjoy your papercraft anyway, seriously.

smoking is the best habit i've ever quit.

just choose it, and do it. no drags.

(then everything else will seem easy by comparison.)

i like erotic art of a highbrow and lowbrow nature, and while i don't drive, i can appreciate interesting cars, but...

hope this story is popular enough that bill googles "goatse"...

one plant is always missing from discussions on biofuel, and it gets me... hemp.

from the great jello biafra spoken word piece "grow more pot":

"According to none other than the U.S. Department of Agriculture you can make four times as much paper from one acre of hemp plants as you can from an acre of trees. And instead of chopping down all the redwoods in Humboldt County and turning Northern California, Oregon and Washington and Appalachia into the Sahara Desert, if you do it with hemp plants, you can just grow another crop a few months later and make more paper! At one-quarter the cost of making paper from wood pulp and only one-fifth the pollution. The ancient Romans knew this and grew it, Henry VIII made each farmer in old England grow their share, because they knew if you want the strongest natural fiber there is, you all have gotta do your part for the King and grow more pot!

And we did, too! Guess what Levi jeans were originally made out of? And guess what American flags used to be made out of? And guess what the early drafts of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution were written on? And if that's too un-Christian for you, guess what they made Guttenberg and King James Bibles out of? Guess what you can use to power a car? You can get at least four times as much cellulose to make gasohol or methanol from hemp stems as you can from a corn stalk. Which along with solar energy would be a great way to avoid dying for oil in Saudi Arabia. "

but this algae fuel sounds cool, too... micro-organisms are our past, present and future...

@155 takuan

my pal and i we're unable to link up in nyc... he lost his cellphone (should have viewed for it!) and i din't know this till i was home. i'll give serious thought to a way to perform the test, or a different test.

it baffles me that no one has cashed in randi yet... my wife had an interesting theory in my opinion... two fold.

one part is that if you can even consider that psychic phenomena exists, than it isn't much of a stretch to suggest that the psychic climate might have a profound effect on the results, both that serious doubt might harm results, and serious attachment to success might harm results.

the second part is that because all of these phenomena still happen in physics, don't break the laws of physics, they aren't "magic" per se. if you test a number of people, you will find some that differ from the statistical average, even significantly, but almost never 100%. that's the whole theory behind the e.s.p. testing... some people consistently get higher levels than "should" exist, but almost never have it higher. it's a weird part of consciousness and in weird dimensions that these phenomena exist, it may be much harder to "prove" than more obvious physical experiments like billiards.

this might explain the beginners luck in both my remote viewing experience and the mind reading experiments with my wife (where i got 5 out of 5, when random choice would get 20%).

@noen and takuan

9 times out of 10, yinz make the comment threads worth reading... huzzah for you.

@74 keith

noen did a good job of replying to the tone of your argument, but as for the points you bring up... i'm just going to have to requote some things for you from my post...

"let me quickly dissuade people from wasting our time with these common counter-arguments:

1. he guessed... prints of that very specific type ("a man that looks like santa claus sitting on a rug with a woman playing what looks like a banjo or a fiddle!!!") are not a common fixture of sound studios. he also made no "wrong" guesses the whole time."

i hadn't seen the print the last time we spoke. i didn't forget describing a print this print to him because i hadn't seen it yet...

also, what about remote viewing correct atomic masses before atomic mass is even a concept yet? (my second example...)

also, when i first heard you say i had such an open mind it's a wonder my brain hadn't come out my nose i felt it was a compliment. take some cues from takuan for how to disagree (or be skeptical) with style...

i will happily continue this conversation with you if you do as takuan did and actually respond to the two retorts i raised above...

@74 noen

i'm inclined to agree with you, although as i've pointed out, one persons standard of proof is another's hokum. i'm inclined to think that people like randi probably wouldn't pay anyway, but it's odd no one has collected.

perhaps it's that whole thing about necessary conditions... siddhis aren't supposed to happen for profit or glory, according to the most ancient texts on the subject.

perhaps it's that those who could do it for profit see a benefit to widespread skepticism. many sufi teachers are famous for allowing people to think of them as charlatans. it keeps the greedy away.

perhaps it's that remote viewing only happens for flashes, and never behaves as reliably as other tools.

@ #70 takuan

no sweat... although i am even less confident he has a good shot at it... i'll still see if he will try. i think that if remote viewing exists, my friend has to have some beacon... he says he had to aim at me. (he had been to my house before, pre studio, pre print...)

and buenas noches to you as well, thinker...

takuan.

groovy. let's leave it at that... except...

leave that object on your computer until tuesday. coincidentally, i'm likely going to see my friend this weekend because i'm going to a funeral. maybe we'll take a shot at seeing it...

if you could, post your rough location. it might help. i'm not terribly hopeful we'll get it. i chalk a lot of our earlier success up to my recent receptivity and unattachment and my friend's fresh tuning from his classes. it's almost as if it had to happen that time, to help us believe. it definitely changed our lives, our minds, our path...

and thank you

@ takuan

well put. that describes my own position on the topic fairly well up until two important experiences in 2004, notably "direct personal observation" and the of changing my "paradigm subscription"

i described my personal experience in an old thread on boing boing, so i'll copy it here:

"people have tried to find holes in this story since i started telling it, but i assure you it is the truth and that i am reporting it accurately. a friend (who happened to be recently taking some higher level philosophy and shamanism classes at the tracker school) accomplished a successful and detailed remote viewing of my basement music studio. i was lamenting the fact that he couldn't see it because he was 7 hours away and he suggested that he try anyway! i was on the phone with him at the time. i didn't say a word the whole time. he instructed me to try to feel happy and enjoy what i was seeing and that that would help him locate me. he began by describing what i was looking at, including simple, guessable (but correct) things like the hole where the doorknob was to go and some of the complex sound-disrupting angles we used in the wall design. but then the real kicker came. he said he saw "a man that looks like santa claus sitting on a rug with a woman playing what looks like a banjo or a fiddle." i had no idea what he was talking about. i turned my head (important!) and saw on the wall behind me a print that my housemate had just put up the day before of a man in a red coat and hat both with white trim sitting on a rug with a woman playing the saw-u (aptly named!) which is a thai instrument that looks like a cross between a banjo and a fiddle. my jaw dropped. then he said he was seeing blue and white birds. the border of the print featured blue and white birds. at this point i interrupted him to tell him of his great success. he was as surprised as i was. what i think separates this from what could be called telepathy is that i was not looking at the image when my friend saw it. i didn't even know it was there. the closest i had gotten to it was that i dumpster-dived the book it was torn out of two days before. i believe (as much as i ever "believe") he was truly non-local during those moments.

let me quickly dissuade people from wasting our time with these common counter-arguments:

1. he guessed... prints of that very specific type are not a common fixture of sound studios. he also made no "wrong" guesses the whole time.

2. my friend told him about the print... absolutely not. i brought up the studio, if my friend was planning this he would have needed to get an immense amount of specific data for every room. this would have also had to happen in the two days previous to the conversation. my housemate does know the remote-viewer, and they talk, but they didn't have any conversation like that in those two days. my housemate who has no need to lie to me has sworn that he didn't tell him anything. i even woke him up early in the morning to ask him during the hypnotic moments right after sleep. no, no, no...

3. he set up a spy camera... seriously, i've heard this. my friend is not in the c.i.a."

anyway, that's the experience i had. my tracker school pal was as shocked as i was. he had tried it with a skeptical friend and bombed. this fits the pattern of complaints (and jeers) that this cannot be accomplished when the "energy isn't right" or some other such fluffiness. i realize it's a frustrating aspect, but consider this:

demonstrable isn't the same thing as repeatable. while some scientific traditions seem to think repeatable is required to prove a possibility, i don't. i think quite possibly that we may not understand the prerequisite conditions well enough to repeat them. even if my friend and i try again, we might be too invested in a new experiment's success to succeed. but that wouldn't prove it didn't happen, or couldn't happen again.

as for shifting my "subscribed paradigm", i experienced similar stories from other trusted sources, including some that involving non-linear time (wowza, that's a whole other thread), and also encountered some mainstream science that supported these ideas. besides the whole body of quantum non-locality research, one of my favorites is a bit older than that...

stephen m phillips did some remarkable historic and scientific research in which he examined over ten years of physics research done with remote viewing by annie besant and c.w. leadbeater (occult chemistry). basically, they viewed a ton of very detailed, numerically correct aspects of the different elements. the modern research examining this data (by phillips, a cambridge and UC educated physicist) is in a couple of books (i have "anima - evidence of a yogic siddhi" but there are others listed on his website), and is summed up quite well in this quote by phillips:

"the excuses for disbelieving the claim of psychics are irrelevant in the context of their (besant & leadbeater's) highly evidential descriptions of subatomic particles published in 1908, two years before rutherford's experiments confirmed the nuclear model of the atom, fiver years before bohr presented his theory of the hydrogen atom, 24 years before chadwick discovered the neutron and heisenberg proposed that it is a constituent of the atomic nuclei, 56 years before gell-mann and zweig theorised about quarks. their observations are still being confirmed by discoveries of science many years later."

along with my direct personal evidence witnessing remote viewing, finding that data helped to confirm that this wasn't just a story, but happened, at least occasionally.

sorry for the length there, but it's a lot to chew. i have yet to hear compelling evidence either of those experiments show anything other than a positive light on remote viewing, but i'm open too it... (but have hope... if i'm right, and i think i am, the universe IS that much more interesting.)

cheers!

@ antinous

i can sit in padmasana (lotus) forever, just the bound version makes my shoulder go (uncomfortably) numb after a while. i've never timed how long i can do sirsasana (headstand), although i used to do it upwards of 10 minutes for my iyengar program. i've thought of marathon headstand for charity though...

as for pranayama and bhakti yoga, i agree, those are sufficient, but the question is circumstances. most westerners who practice yoga aren't practicing all eight limbs or anything. they use it as an extension of their workout, with maybe a little meditational bonus. a westerner practicing pranayama (which some teachers forbid to practice in cities at all because of the poor air), and expecting that to make their body harmonious has to do a lot more than pranayama. they have to change their entire lifestyle. same for a bhakti yoga. love and devotion are great, but unless you remove all non-sattvic activity, it's kind of empty.

to sum up... your right, but only in the cases where someone gives their path 100%. in those other cases, choosing just padmasana, or just pranayama or whatever is likely just going to be an attempt at a shortcut, most likely damaging to the student's health. which is why i warn my yoga students against that path unless they have shown total dedication.

@takuan

re: invitation - apologies accepted. oh well.

re: remote viewing - similar to your (accurate) claim about mythbusters above, your experiment isn't "scientific authority". at best, it can only prove that no one on this thread can remote view your object. it does nothing to disprove the possibility of remote viewing globally. do you have (different, more fleshed out) grounds for stating that "remote viewing is bullshit".

note: i've got grounds for believing it's real, but i'll wait to hear your position first, so as to address your specific doubts.

@antinous

devotional sculpture... nice idea.

BUT the question is whether (bound) lotus is all that's necessary to practice to maintain health, energetic or otherwise. i'd say you could be right on the energetic side, but not on the "strength and stretch side". and i don't know about the royalty of various poses, but the yogis i met spoke of headstand as the father and shoulderstand as the mother of all asanas.

mmm... headstand. if i was forced to do just one pose, that's it... (admittedly, lotus headstand is probably the best headstand.)

@ antinous

i have done padmasana (lotus) my whole life, and do love it... i just contend it isn't enough to do just that posture, even if it's the more complete bound version. i tried what you suggested, and it is nice, although i like the hip stretch of lotus and find balasana (child's pose) sufficiently orgasmic on it's own...

@ noen

well said. fractal. receding determinism. yes.

my question is, if we can be convinced enough that something happens at least some of the time, is there some way this can be accounted for in theories or even practices, even without "provability" or "reliability"?

@ takuan...

i am saddened that this conversation wasn't moved, but i will continue here for the sake of an important discussion. so,

note that the question is not whether i am able to remote view, but whether anyone can. that being said, i am not able to remote view personally. i have had flashes of siddhis, but never that one. even the person who has performed remote viewing for me has failed on other occasions. however, the performance for me was so unquestionable (and there are so many other examples...) that i remain convinced it is possible.

@ antinous...

yes. only for maybe 8 minutes, though. i was told by a yogi in india that 30 minutes of bound lotus is sufficient yoga practice, though i doubt that gives the maximum physical benefit that an hour of more diverse poses would...

@takuan...

i admire your stylish challenge (and generally admire your comments) so it is, with the utmost respect, that i ask you move the rest of this battle here. i find it annoying to follow long comment threads, and would like to document this sure-to-be-epic intellectual struggle for my readers. sooo...

jamesgyre immediately sits in bound lotus and pronounces "remote viewing is an ancient and proven practice with some adherents even in mainstream physics. i have witnessed it performed perfectly first-hand. oh, and my yak butter isn't rancid, it's fermented."

let the games begin!

@ paul maurice martin #20:

someone with occult knowledge wouldn't be looking for a book at all... (nice website, btw...)

@ takuan #21:

they actually could, but would probably just use the card catalogue rather than bust out some remote viewing... (which exists, btw...)

@ artistvictoriac #22:

exactly. "occult" describes a much broader scope of study than "science" or "philosophy"...

some clues to this "special treatment" of occult works can be found in the Dictionary.com definition... pay special attention to #3 and #5a...

1. of or pertaining to magic, astrology, or any system claiming use or knowledge of secret or supernatural powers or agencies.
2. beyond the range of ordinary knowledge or understanding; mysterious.
3. secret; disclosed or communicated only to the initiated.
4. hidden from view.
5. (in early science)
a. not apparent on mere inspection but discoverable by experimentation.
b. of a nature not understood, as physical qualities.
c. dealing with such qualities; experimental: occult science.
etc...

much occult phenomena cannot, by it's very nature be written down. one sufi commentator on el-ghazali puts this well, stating that comprehensive experience "cannot be penned by a bumbling wordsmith anymore than he himself would accept a paper copy of a fruit as edible or nutritious".

while this is the case, much occult material has been made accessible through symbol and gesture, albeit only to those who have the experience necessary to interpret the symbols. this goes a long way towards explaining how some librarians (read: "gatekeepers to knowledge") may dismiss some of this material, judge it incomprehensible or reprehensible. (i elaborate on this concept in the mission statement for my blog)

while i have some fear this may elicit the fundamentalist backlash i have come to expect on tech-oriented blogs, i also harbor some hope that a balanced appraisal can be made of the occult... famous arthur c. clarke quote aside, jabir ibn hayyan, a sufi, is one of the most influential chemists ever and credited as one of the developers of scientific method. charlatans aside, real occult knowledge becomes (through science) obvious truth.

thanks agent 86, your answer "the non-ionizing radiation is less harmful than radio, tv, etc... part" was good...

as for the "science... it works, bitches" comic in your link, i'm torn between saying... "sometimes" or "the use of bitch in this case equates women with property, stupidity, lower animals or all three and doesn't help your argument appear any more convincing." i know basic feminism (and skepticism about the perfection of the scientific method) bores people, but it's still important to consider.

@chronophobe

if you think "male gaze" or "heteronormaive" is buzzword hell, try this one: "homosocial." it's use in modern times comes from eve sedgwick and her assertion that there is an oppressive effect on women from relationships because "of a cultural system (the 1900s in her opinion) in which male-male desire became widely intelligible primarily by being routed through triangular desire involving a woman." basically that for the "mainstream man", the most important relationships he has are "non-sexual" relationships with other men, and his relationships with women are largely there to compete with/impress other men... which oppresses women. insert additional homoerotic subtext here.

note: i actually agree with her for the most part, and i don't think buzzwords are pointless... seomtimes they are simply the only word to describe a phenomena. sometimes something IS "synergistic" or "heteronormative."

BUT, you have to laugh at the aesthetics of some of that language. for as accurate as it can be, it's basically designed to turn off "mainstream" audiences.

same here... super slow.

here's my mixtape anyway...

a mix of dubstep, hiphop, sufi and electronic music.

my blog has mp3s of the same and a lot more...

anyone able to provide sound evidence one way or another as to whether wifi is actually a potential danger?

and please... direct research preferred, hopefully by you. no knee-jerk reactions from either camp.

@48 bookyloo

while this may not be true in your town, everyone I know that steals books ONLY steals from the big boxes, and never from the local yokels.

it is a shame that people do sometimes target the little folks (lack of security, etc...) but it isn't actually a safer bet. it's common knowledge in our city that barnes & noble doesn't chase, although borders does.

#49 takuan

i could never justify the stealing of tools from an individual, but i feel BAD giving money to the home despot or any other company that likes to annihilate rainforests. so i can see why some might steal from them instead. also, stealing fancy books for cash would be a good way to eat if you don't have other options... just saying.

i have a cuff lock like this and it's ok, but very heavy, easier to cut than a u-lock, and real chain is the shit... especially the neon stuff the home despot sells (although, sure, the hexagonal thick stuff is the safest)

this post from cake and anrachy details discusses how awesome mushrooms are, including a link to a project where people used oyster mushrooms to CLEAN UP OIL SPILLS... WOW.

http://gyreworks.blogspot.com/2008/02/oyster-mushrooms-if-you-have-some.html

i find this a fairly awesome use of plasma:
http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2007-03/prophet-garbage

it's a machine that eats garbage with plasma and generates a lot of energy, useful gas and glass. many governments own them, including NYC and japan, and the military has a few. i don't know why it isn't a bigger news item, though i have a guess.

i've even submitted it to boing boing, but they've never bitten, but it seems to have that "amazing mind-blowing use of science to get really efficient energy output" that boing boing likes without the wonky "completely free energy" taint that it's readers hate.

this is the work of the one and only mark dixon (and a pal who's name i am forgetting.)

i had the great pleasure of being locked in a room with him and three other people for two weeks while we took apart a saab 900 turbo and turned it into 17 musical instruments. that project was called "automobile revision". there has never been a suitable website for this project. you can probably find the old one, or a link on eric nugent's page. the video we shot and edited for this is awesome, but although there were plans for crimethinc to release it on dvd, i don't think that ever happened.

he did a similar project where he turned a bicycle into a record player locked in a 15 foot square room for two days.

i don't know squat about ru sirius, nor how many times he's failed, but there is potential when people get together, even if it's for a dubious reason initially, or under a flawed leader.

being that as it is, i offer one critique and one congruent platform idea.

i like the goal of being able to effect the next election, but let us not forget that this next election can be effected as well. there are new games afoot, with the internet taking a very serious role this year, don't sleep on opportunities to turn it your way. rove wouldn't! (the candidates are a bit wack... it's like you get "honest", "electable" and "wise", pick two!)

the congruent idea comes from an old friend of mine, muskrat. he's definitely reaganite to my lennonist (john, folks, not vlad!) but we agree on this point. there should be an un-legislative branch. the point of this branch is to make sure time is made to remove laws that are irrelevant, stupid, insane, or otherwise useful to remove. the fact is congress is too busy with formalities and making new legislation to really ever spend time removing laws, so the law is incomprehensibly large, even for congress.

the law should be simple enough that it could at least be read in a year, one hour a day. that extra fat makes it much easier to store carcinogens.

@ ark #12

speak for yourself.

"a way to retool the essential impulse behind that platform point" isn't nonsense.

it means:

"congress putting two brain cells together to recognize the wisdom inherent in the constitution, and making sure the law expresses this wisdom."

(not that everything the founding fathers did was great, but most of them would vomit at the sight of our government's current state.)

oops, in #24 above, that should have read "the use of (even lesser) force is justified only in the case that the person is going to harm another person.

and about the cop-hating... i don't cops, i hate the fact that if you want to protect people, the only way you are legally permitted to do that is by enforcing a bunch of insane laws. be that as it is, most cops aren't evil, just too stupid to realize that it is made VERY HARD for them to do any real, lasting good in society. there are some intelligent cops, and i wager that they are split between the ones who do make a real positive difference despite the largely corrupt "justice" system and those who do great harm at great personal gain because of the largely corrupt "justice" system.

@ #12 jack w

as regards the question of him being a "violent criminal" by engaging in property destruction and that as such the police were justified in their use of force i have to try to shut that down.

even though property destruction is criminalized in our society, it does not justify the use of deadly force, or really even force at all... for example, if i was to go into circuit city right now and started smashing computers into each other, that would not justify the use of any force that MIGHT KILL ME. that would be like saying that my life was worth less than the tech...

in this case i think the officers should have waited it out... he had to sleep eventually, or maybe a translator could have been contacted. the use of (even lesser) force is justified only if only if the case that person is going to harm another person. fuck the overhead, THAT GUY IS DEAD NOW. a long-term solution would be to require police officers to be black belts in aikido. that would weed out the over-eager.

i'll never forget the headline from boston after the sports riot (the only way to get the average american to riot) that read:

"woman killed by non-lethal weapon"

@phasor3000

3.5 million tons, or 7 BILLION POUNDS is a fuckload of garbage. it isn't just "polluted water." also, even if the trash doesn't surface alot, it would still be continent like in size, and horrible for marine life under the surface.

it seems like you're trivializing an important issue to nitpick about it's label.

i'd like to see photos at all... i've heard of this for a long time, but never seen a pic...

@ wwe

really in both cases, most of the most opinionated are those with the least first hand research. i suspect you are in that category. oh, and luckily, due to the freedom of information act, we can find out about most conspiracies after the fact. why people who know the government lied to them in the past still think it's impossible to happen now is beyond me...

@ bzishi

i didn't read that report, but the artic ice melted MORE this year than predicted by most studies. regardless of these specifics, it is still relevant to stop these polluting behaviors, because they have impact beyond "flooding cities" like "annihilating biodiversity" and "lung cancer"

don't think for a second the u.s. government wouldn't love to silence bloggers, if no one else, at least bloggers who oppose any aspect of the current oligarchy. this seems to be a lot of what the internet regulation that has been kicked around recently in the u.s. is really about. and it would be a lot more dangerous if it happened here, because the u.s. is the major conduit for worldwide internet traffic.

and on the gun issue, i might have to agree with flamingphonebook on this point. i live in a dangerous neighborhood where the bulk of the guns are owned by the two most dangerous groups, the cops and the "criminals". neither of those groups follow the laws that are set out to control them. in that case i feel a little safer knowing that it would still be possible to acquire one to protect myself. several hundred million metal objects are not going to disappear at once...

and yes i know guns are terrible. shots are fired on my street with some regularity. i know owning one gives you a higher percentage of getting shot. but that is a statistic and doesn't account for the fact that many gun owners are ignorant of safety issues. note: i do not own a gun, i just worry about the ignorant call for "control" and it's misplaced application of "caring-for-others-safety." it's just not that black and white.

now regulating which weapons governments could have would be an interesting idea... not that most would follow any limitations set, but just for contemplation's sake, think whether the government would do a better job listening to the people if the people were armed or if they weren't?

to quote the tao:

"If the government is sluggish and tolerant, the people will be honest and free from guile. If the government is prying and meddling, there will be constant infraction of the law. Is the government corrupt? Then uprightness becomes rare, and goodness becomes strange. Verily, mankind have been under delusion for many a day!"

from my post on the light black out below... some things you can do to reduce carbon emissions and help the environment...

on an individual level, vegetarianism is a great help to the environment. i'm not ethically against eating animals as an idea, but the current industrial methods are horribly ill-designed. some concerns with meat production are the large amounts of fossil fuel and water resources consumed by intensive animal farming and the consequent emissions of harmful gases and chemicals. animal agriculture has been pointed out as one of the largest sources of greenhouse gases — responsible for 18% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions as measured in CO2 equivalents. by comparison, all transportation emits 13.5% of the CO2. animal farming produces 65% of human-related nitrous oxide (which has 296 times the global warming potential of CO2) and 37% of all human-induced methane (which is 23 times as warming as CO2). it is also accused of generating 64% of the ammonia, which contributes to acid rain and acidification of ecosystems. when tracking food animal production from the feed trough to consumption, the inefficiencies of meat, milk and egg production range from 4:1 energy input to protein output ratio up to 54:1. it takes half of the u.s's water supply to raise animals for food, to the tune of 2,500 gallons for 1 pound of beef. a lot of the rain-forest gets clear-cut to feed livestock and as we all (should) know, the less plants, the less we can pump CO2 out there. the habitat for wildlife provided by large industrial monoculture farms is very poor, and modern industrial agriculture has been considered a threat to biodiversity compared with farming practices such as organic farming, permaculture, arable, pastoral, and rainfed agriculture. on a human rights note, the U.S. could feed 800 million people with grain that livestock eat.

other personal things you can do involve not moving somewhere you have to drive all the time, not buying a lot of packaged, complex products, or technology or even things you have to recycle. utilize the bulk section of your local health food store. you can also plant trees or grow your own food. really the more self-sufficient you are, the less you have to harm. (ie: if you want to eat meat, it's better to hunt some over-populated deer or raise your own chickens...)

on a a societal level, not having a bunch of laws that coddle polluters would be a great step... we could sign the kyoto protocol like every other western nation. i'm into taxing people the cost of reparing the harm of the production of the products you buy. so if you buy a computer, you should have to pay the enviromental costs of the coltan mining, emissions and waste chemicals from the factory and the health costs for the workers (computer manufacturing is one of the most highly carcinogenic fields.) on the flipside, if there must be laws, you could have laws that encourage rational resource use. one of the first things reagan did when he took office was to remove the tax benefits of installing solar panels, which many more homes would have by now. i know solar isn't a flawless plan, but it helps. i'm not as cozy with nuclear power as some are, considering our government's irrational handling of other dangerous responsibilities. luckily, there are certainly a wealth of alternative energy production methods out there that have largely been stopped from being implemented for monopolistic reasons. i've been pretty annoyed that the fact you can get FOUR times as much ethanol from an acre of hemp as you can from an acre of corn hasn't come up in the brouhaha about ethanol... it's got a few thousand other uses too (like making plastic, paper, beams, cloth and rope. henry ford built a hemp plastic car fueled on hemp ethanol over 50 years ago...) i also like in concept the generators that harness the ocean's waves, too, but i'm not sure how practical they are.... but really, we just need to ask nikola tesla how we can get energy from space... oh, he's dead.

just HONESTLY trying to help is the biggest thing.

gosh do people love to get polarized about the environment or what?

this IS a bit fluffy of a stunt, and doesn't address a lot of root issues, but, it MIGHT get people who don't buy the LED lights and the F.S.C.-certified wood and the local, organic produce and all the other REALLY better alternatives to use less power...

again, though, there ARE much more important things that can be done.

on an individual level, vegetarianism is a great help to the environment. some concerns with meat production are the large amounts of fossil fuel and water resources consumed by intensive animal farming and the consequent emissions of harmful gases and chemicals. animal agriculture has been pointed out as one of the largest sources of greenhouse gases — responsible for 18% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions as measured in CO2 equivalents. by comparison, all transportation emits 13.5% of the CO2. animal farming produces 65% of human-related nitrous oxide (which has 296 times the global warming potential of CO2) and 37% of all human-induced methane (which is 23 times as warming as CO2). it is also accused of generating 64% of the ammonia, which contributes to acid rain and acidification of ecosystems. when tracking food animal production from the feed trough to consumption, the inefficiencies of meat, milk and egg production range from 4:1 energy input to protein output ratio up to 54:1. it takes half of the u.s's water supply to raise animals for food, to the tune of 2,500 gallons for 1 pound of beef. a lot of the rain-forest gets clear-cut to feed livestock and as we all (should) know, the less plants, the less we can pump CO2 out there. the habitat for wildlife provided by large industrial monoculture farms is very poor, and modern industrial agriculture has been considered a threat to biodiversity compared with farming practices such as organic farming, permaculture, arable, pastoral, and rainfed agriculture. on a human rights note, the U.S. could feed 800 million people with grain that livestock eat.

other personal things you can do involve not moving somewhere you have to drive all the time, not buying a lot of packaged, complex products, or technology or even things you have to recycle. utilize the bulk section of your local health food store. you can also plant trees or grow your own food. really the more self-sufficient you are, the less you have to harm. (ie: if you want to eat meat, it's better to hunt some over-populated deer or raise your own chickens...)

on a a societal level, not having a bunch of laws that coddle polluters would be a great step... we could sign the kyoto protocol like every other western nation. i'm into taxing people the cost of reparing the harm of the production of the products you buy. so if you buy a computer, you should have to pay the enviromental costs of the coltan mining, emissions and waste chemicals from the factory and the health costs for the workers (computer manufacturing is one of the most highly carcinogenic fields.) on the flipside, if there must be laws, you could have laws that encourage rational resource use. one of the first things reagan did when he took office was to remove the tax benefits of installing solar panels, which many more homes would have by now. i know solar isn't a flawless plan, but it helps. i'm not as cozy with nuclear power as kevitivity is, considering our government's irrational handling of other dangerous responsibilities. luckily, there are certainly a wealth of alternative energy production methods out there that have largely been stopped from being implemented for monopolistic reasons. i've been pretty annoyed that the fact you can get FOUR times as much ethanol from an acre of hemp as you can from an acre of corn hasn't come up in the brouhaha about ethanol... it's got a few thousand other uses too (like making plastic, paper, beams, cloth and rope. henry ford built a hemp plastic car fueled on hemp ethanol over 50 years ago...) i also like in concept the generators that harness the ocean's waves, too, but i'm not sure how practical they are.... but really, we just need to ask nikola tesla how we can get energy from space... oh, he's dead.

just HONESTLY trying to help is the biggest thing.

well o.k. here goes an attempt at a reconciliatory theory. i'm going to use a lot of quotation marks (or dubious marks, as etta cetera calls them) here to hopefully aid clarity by reducing specifics.

i'm going to focus this "argument" around one of the major debates around "god," which is whether any "being" can have instantaneous control over vast reaches of space and time (non-locality.)

first, let it be said that regardless of who is correct there are extensive parallels between modern science and mystical traditions. for example the hindu concept of indra's net is remarkably similar to the non-locality that has been described in quantum physics. this is the concept that every "thing" in the universe is both connected to every other "thing" in the universe and in some cases acts upon "things" that aren't nearby. i find the hindu image of a multi-dimensional net with jewels reflecting each other a vivid way to imagine this.

second, let me say that i have experienced non-local space very vividly. people have tried to find holes in this story since i started telling it, but i assure you it is the truth and that i am reporting it accurately. a friend (who happened to be recently taking some higher level philosophy and shamanism classes at trackerschool.com) accomplished a successful and detailed remote viewing of my basement music studio. i was lamenting the fact that he couldn't see it because he was 7 hours away and he suggested that he try anyway! i was on the phone with him at the time. i didn't say a word the whole time. he instructed me to try to feel happy and enjoy what i was seeing and that that would help him locate me. he began by describing what i was looking at, including simple, guessable (but correct) things like the hole where the doorknob was to go and some of the complex sound-disrupting angles we used in the wall design. but then the real kicker came. he said he saw "a man that looks like santa claus sitting on a rug with a woman playing what looks like a banjo or a fiddle." i had no idea what he was talking about. i turned my head (important!) and saw on the wall behind me a print that my housemate had just put up the day before of a man in a red coat and hat both with white trim sitting on a rug with a woman playing the saw-u (aptly named!) which is a thai instrument that looks like a cross between a banjo and a fiddle. my jaw dropped. then he said he was seeing blue and white birds. the border of the print featured blue and white birds. at this point i interrupted him to tell him of his great success. he was as surprised as i was. what i think separates this from what could be called telepathy is that i was not looking at the image when my friend saw it. i didn't even know it was there. the closest i had gotten to it was that i dumpster-dived the book it was torn out of two days before. i believe (as much as i ever "believe") he was truly non-local during those moments.

let me quickly dissuade people from wasting our time with these common counter-arguments:

1. he guessed... prints of that very specific type are not a common fixture of sound studios. he also made no "wrong" guesses the whole time.

2. my friend told him about the print... absolutely not. i brought up the studio, if my friend was planning this he would have needed to get an immense amount of specific data for every room. this would have also had to happen in the two days previous to the conversation. my housemate does know the remote-viewer, and they talk, but they didn't have any conversation like that in those two days. my housemate who has no need to lie to me has sworn that he didn't tell him anything. i even woke him up early in the morning to ask him during the hypnotic moments right after sleep. no, no, no...

3. he set up a spy camera... seriously, i've heard this. my friend is not in the c.i.a.

anyway, that significantly ruptured my sense of local space. i have similar stories about time, but as they are friend's experiences and not mine, and this is already getting longer-winded then i like, i will not recount them here unless asked.

note that almost every mystical tradition speaks about these powers as real, usually for the highly "evolved." (they also note that if you really want these powers you probably wont get them, that they arise out of wanting "good" if wanting at all...)

now, if we stir a big theoretical stew of jung's collective unconscious, quantum physics, 100th monkey syndrome, deep meditation, shamanism, brain-programming in the robert anton wilson sense and a heaping of fortean ideas, you arrive at my theory.

my theory, which might be over-simplified as agnosticism, is:

1. while "god" may exist, it may be entirely different than the bible or any other "text" or tradition puts it.

2. while "god" might not exist, there may be "action" in the universe that is "god-like."

3. while most of us don't (and so far can't) know one way or the other, we can experiment in belief one way or another.

4. a traditional scientist may find it beneficial to believe that there is no "god", if for no other reason than it makes for less variables.

5. a spiritual seeker may find it beneficial to believe that there are "gods", if for no other reason than to keep humble in light of "skills".

6. i don't belive it can be proven one way or another yet.

7. this means that it isn't stupid to believe one way or another (with some shades of stupidness reserved for some of the more "limited" reasons to go one way or the other, of course.)

i find my life goes better and i am more successful in my activities when i interact with "spiritual" "forces" like "gods" or "goddesses" or "animal spirits" AS IF THEY ARE REAL. i find myself more moral if i view karma as LAW. i also find it explains more of my personally observed data if there were powerful forces in the universe that aren't typically included in the old-school scientific picture of our reality, (the typical completely-materialistic, deterministic model.) modern science is a lot older-school in that it resembles mysticism more than newton.

however i don't KNOW "gods" exist. i reserve some doubt. it might be all the biology of the brain, and that the "forces" i observe may be human in origin (the "god-is-all-of-us-acting-as-one-without-our-individual-knowledge" model) or simply a trick of the mind to convince us to strive.

either way it is quite beautiful and marvelous...

i'm waiting to really weigh in with a full theory, but i wanted to add this one caution to the debate.

it is logically wobbly to equate all the interest in "spirituality" out there with dogmatic religious worship. many "spiritual" paths warn against dogma!

keep it up, though...

@phasor

i didn't read your #9 post before writing my last entry, but i have only one additional response:

you say, "but in recent times, to say that Islam and Christianity are roughly equivalent, or that there is not a large segment of Islam that is barbaric and violently intolerant, is itself either self-deluding, pathologically polite, or ignorant."

i agree there are large amounts of barbarism in islam. however, it does not matter which amounts of individual muslims (or christians) would appall you, but the effect that those groups have worldwide. arguably christianity is a BIGGER threat, considering the specific guns that back it. (think the u.s. military!) in that sense i agree that they are NOT roughly equivalent. islam is FAR less powerful...

and on a more nit-picky note, there are plenty of christian preachers in this country that give equivalent sermons, and even if they aren't on t.v. some of them are in mega-churches. i believe it's as much of a holy war for them as for jihadists. if it's not, the reason is that the jihadists are also reacting against western imperialism, for which there is no eastern equivalent.

@phasor3000

rossifumi has already touched on a bunch examples of what i was talking about (in regards to the non-homogeny of christian interests in violent coercion), but missed four crucial examples.

1: the crusades!
2: the inquisition!
3: the annihilation of "latin" "america"!
4: our current pseudo-theocratic administration's wars which have some very strong religious influence, and cause a lot more death of civilians than any suicide bomber ever has!

while i am appalled at, say, the saudi government, or the iranian government's treatment of people, they do not represent the people of those countries or islam well at all. at best they represent the most facist aspects of each. the bible has plenty of passages that are just as horrific when followed literally in the way that some of the koran has. in fact, some of the bibles most hideous passages are justification for atrocities carried out right now in our name.

most religions have a violent history and some elements of violence today by at least some group within them... so why go after islam itself? how about attacking the repressive elements in it that have brought it to this place where it can be so easily maligned?

a quote i find relevant from rumi, a persian people's hero (stress on the people's!) -

"What is justice? Giving water to trees.
What is injustice? Giving water to thorns.
Justice consists in bestowing bounty in its proper place,
not on every root that will absorb water."

phasor3000 says: "The religion of peace, love, and fluffy bunnies strikes again!"

are you intending this to be coarse, flip and over-simplistic? if so, stop reading here.

1: you don't know this was done by muslims, which i assume you are referring to.

2: even if it was, muslims are hardly a homogeneous group. some are into peace and love, some are into violent coercion of others. kind of like christians.

3: it is just as likely that the bombs were accomplished by the I.S.I. (the pakistani military secret service) or their cronies in our government or any other powerful group that would benefit from the assassination of a popular leader in an important nation.

also i must issue a caveat here to anyone unfamiliar with my alliances: i do not hold islam to be particularly less culpable for the violence gripping our planet at this time. i've been to the vatican and seen all the gold that blood can buy. almost every wisdom tradition has it's "followers" who have polluted the original teachings for personal gain. islam is no exception. however, i have enough respect for some muslims to defend it from bigots as i have done here.

muhammad said to search far and wide for wisdom, even as far as china, which at his time would be pretty fucking far. if muslims attacked benazir bhutto, they had probably only recieved very local and very distorted "wisdom", if you can call it that.

@JUNE -

i'm gonna have to play p.c. cop here and point out the obvious... "white trash" is a racist and classist term. the modifier "white" is added on to trash, which is to say that "trash" wouldly black and poor, or maybe just poor (the reason being that whiteness isn't normally associated with "trash")

either way, i think you really mean "making fun of idiots never gets old," which is elitist, but less offensive, or "making fun of ignorant white people and their particular style of ignorant expression never gets old," which is different but less offensive. on some level i agree with the sentiment (think the anti-anti-war protesters who's signs said "get a brain morans" and "war=peece") but i don't think their is anything "trashy" about black people or anything wrong with poor people.

i'm just sayin... language has powerful effects.

gonna have to quote bill hicks twice here folks...

the first is an approximate quote:

"if you are high on acid or anything else, and you think you can fly... do us all a favor and try taking off from the ground..."

the second is actual. it's about marijuana, but you can just as easily substitute shrooms here:

“Why is marijuana against the law? It grows naturally upon our planet. Doesn’t the idea of making nature against the law seem to you a bit … paranoid? You know what I mean? It’s nature. How do you make nature against the fucking law? It grows everywhere. Serves a thousand different functions, all of them positive. To make marijuana against the law is like saying God made a mistake. You know what I mean? It’s like God, on the seventh day, looking down on his creation:

‘There it is, my creation, perfect and holy in all ways. Now, I can rest …’

Oh my me! I left fucking pot everywhere. I never should have smoked that joint on the third day. Shit. That was the day I created possums! If I leave pot everywhere, that’s going to give humans the impression they’re supposed to USE it. Now I have to create Republicans!”

AND IN somewhat good news, a somewhat positive article on entheogens in a mainstream press: http://www.maps.org/sys/nq.pl?id=1278

AND A big thank you to everyone who pointed out the insane hypocrisy of supporting an alcoholic paradigm with it's extremely violent and unhealthy nature while demonizing psychedelics with it's extremely peaceful and relatively healthy nature.

@MARK FRAUENFELDER

on the legality question, i think that while something does not have to be legal to be art, often something illegal has to be labeled "art" to exist long enough to be effective. this practice was almost discussed in the debate about steven kurtz. it is my opinion that critical art ensemble only call their work "art" because it is easier to accomplish their work within that context. it's a lot easier to get grant money, media attention and cultural currency as "artists" than as "anarchists" (which i believe steve is.)

@PHASOR3000

this time (as opposed to the steven kurtz thread) i think our cynicisms are more in line. it's a less powerful statement because of the consumer indulgences of the playstation and even considering un-sustainably farmed lumber. it kind of makes it just a fort. they could have taken it further with "bucket & sawdust" style composting toilets and the use of re-used materials. however, inspection of their website reveals they were instead "committed to the pursuit of normalcy and the purchase of objects and clothing that would help define me an active participant in the great things the mall has to offer." although, perhaps like you, i wonder why. there is more than enough normalcy to go around that we don't need it in otherwise creative squat/art projects!

@all yinz other folks reading this...

this project made me think about my friend mark dixon, one of the world's best artists (in my opinion,) who once spent 49 hours inside a wal-mart with no supplies. he ate, slept, photographed and wrote about it here.

but seriously folks,

several items in defense of steve kurtz:

BACTERIA:

the strains of bacteria kurtz obtained we're all of the sort you might find in a high school biology lab. so even though he wasn't certified to work with it, he wasn't putting anyone in danger. the friend he got it from was the chairman of a science department at the university of pittsburgh, so was in a better position than most to judge the safety of helping steve out.

CRITICAL ART ENSEMBLE:

C.A.E.'s whole work seems to be about demystifying scientific practices, and this sometimes means doing things that most civilians don't think of as o.k. to do or even possible to do without the blessing of some company or government. C.A.E. never does anything dangerous, but as simple artists, simply do what is usually done with an air of mysticism in a faraway lab in plain view. they add a form of humor and attention-grabbing to their harmless acts to facilitate critique on the more dangerous potentials of the sciences they employ, be it genetics, germs or grant money.

SOME HUMOROUS ANECDOTES ABOUT STEVEN KURTZ:

i am lucky enough to have known steve from three years of him teaching "art n'at" at carnegie mellon university. we we're both selected in 2001 to be in an art show in amsterdam. his piece with c.a.e. was brilliant. they obtained (who knows how) a genetic sample from the woman who is the sole human blood donor to the human genome project. they then spliced it (who knows how) to yeast. they then made beer and bread from the genetically modified yeast in a piece called "the cult of the new eve." what's awesome about the piece is that the beer and bread are harmless, yet provide a very palpable way of experiencing the dangerous (yet strangely alluring) potentials of genetically modified organisms and the H.G.P. the bacteria "attack" re-inactment is another harmless version of something with much more sinister aspects designed to facilitate education on the topic.

steve used to deliver three hour lectures that were totally captivating and loaded with factual detail without any notes. he could do this about a number of topics, ranging from film, art history, critical theory, tactical media, literature and politics to much more esoteric topics touched on in his office after class.

what i'm saying is steve is no idiot. c.a.e. know they are doing things that alarm the authorities. their point (as far as i can tell) is that it is important to exercise our (legal or human) rights, sound some alarms, then educate and entertain away the ignorance that causes the alarms to go off. it isn't baiting the government, it's shocking us "viewers" out of our own ignorant assumptions about how we can interact with new sciences and the powers that attempt to regulate this ability.

BOTTOM LINE:

because they are intelligent, relevant and funny, the C.A.E. and steve kurtz pose a threat to the current u.s. government and it's economic allies. they write books and make public performances that consistently shatter the public's illusions of governmental (and scientific) infallibility. so when they thought they could silence steve, they tried... and failed so far, luckily. this was hopefully a great publicity gift to C.A.E.

hang in there steve, someday people will learn.

but seriously, june...

JUNE says: As for aspartame being bad for you: well, duh. Anything is bad for you if you drink 2 liters of it a day. I've drunk 12-24 ounces of Diet Coke nearly every day for more than 2 decades now, and I don't yet appear to be suffering from it.

jamesgyre says: JUNE, you actually do appear to be suffering from several symptoms of aspartame exposure including irritability, aggression and anxiety. your need to insult people as "asinine" or "pinheaded" that have witnessed different observational data than you is strangely unscientific for someone that encourages research.

you betray some intelligence, so in an appeal to that, i encourage you to take the "aspartame challenge." stop all intake of aspartame products for a month. see if you find yourself less eager to insult others for poor spelling when you could instead be generously providing some solid research for them to think over (like research that proves that mercury poisoning has no connection to autism.)

AGAIN:

but seriously folks,

ASPARTAME:

PERLA says: "About aspartame, sheesh, cigarettes are probably worse for you and they are legal. Yea, it's all part of the conspiracy to make you fat and stupid. Coke in general is terrible for your health."

of course. the problem is that (almost) everyone knows about the dangers of cigarettes, but many consider aspartame to be healthy alternative to sugar. of course, large amounts of even unrefined sugars aren't that healthy, but i'd take honey or evaporated cane juice over aspartame unless i was dangerously overweight.

but to bring this back to the original topic...

CONSPIRACY:

it does seem somewhat conspiratorial that some of the most dangerous and questionably useful drugs are legal and easily available (low-quality alcohol, tobacco with additives, coffee with hormone-laden milk and white sugar, etc...) while the drugs with the most well-documented therapeutic benefits and lower health risks (cannabis, psilocybin, dmt, etc...) are illegal and even damned to "schedule 1" status.

it's totally obvious that the "public health" isn't something that governments, pharmaceutical companies or vice industries give a shit about, legal or illegal. just because you can acquire something doesn't mean it is good to consume.

so, as usual, you have to research your own interpretation of health. because every time someone makes themselves sick, the "illuminati" has an orgasm. a big, profitable orgasm.

but seriously folks...

ASPARTAME:

57 reports that aspartame is dangerous from mainstream scientists:
http://aspartametruth.com/57reports.html

i had a personal experience with my mentally sharp mother experiencing bizarre early memory loss and having the symptoms i was able to notice disappear when she stopped drinking diet coke.

here are 100s of other personal accounts of aspartame toxicity:
http://www.holisticmed.com/aspartame/adverse.txt

donald rumsfeld being CEO of g.d. seale & co. at the time of aspartame's approval gives some credence to the "powerful people make other people sick or die on purpose" theory as it reminds me of other homicidal/ecocidal acts he has been very openly involved with, although he may have made less money on the iraq war than he made with aspartame.

CONSPIRACIES:

each person forms multiple "conspiracies" with each other person they interact with, forming tangled alliances. even though you might be a skull & bones member, you might also be a bohemian grove attendee, or part of another "group of friends". that being said, it is obvious that people get powerful when they get together. what is in question is the specific scale of some powerful collectives on earth, and who does what.