Restoring the American Dream: Fareed Zakaria

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/politics/2010/10/21/ps.zakaria.american.dream.cnn?iref=allsearch

I found this clip of Fareed Zakaria on Parker Spitzer's show on CNN. This is just a clip but Fareed also has a full length special that I DVRed Saturday nightj called "Restoring the American Dream". Though I couldn't find it online yet if you can see it at some point I think it is one of the most useful things I've seen in regard to understanding what happened to us from the global perspectives of CEOs of International Companies alike Coca Cola, Alcoa and Google. One of the things said is that we are in a 7 year cycle that will prevent major jobs coming back until then we are now 3 years into this 7 year cycle. However, you won't hear politicians talk about this. Though this wasn't in this program I also learned that unemployment cannot get that much better until the U.S has a yearly 3.3% or better increase in GDP. In fact until it gets to this place it is likely that unemployment will increase by at least 1% per year until then. Also, companies won't be hiring back as many employees in the big companies worldwide even then because they were hurt as much as individuals were by this crisis, so the only way the the big ones that survived did is that they laid of up to half or more of their employees. And at most even during good times they might hire back very few relatively of those they let go. So, the only way forward for most of these laid off people might be either retirement or retraining for a different job or starting your own business or businesses. Though this is hard to swallow it is likely a reality for all.

No Safe Dioxin Level of Human Exposure

New dioxin rules might force more cleanups

To Read dioxin News article click "New dioxin rules" above.

Since there is literally no safe level of dioxin exposure for humans finding ways to keep ALL Dioxin, every drop, out of water, air or land, is a good idea for everyone. Dioxon was in 2-4-D or agent Orange which was sprayed over the demilitarized area between North and South Viet Nam during the War. Babies are still being born today all these years later with multiple heads, legs, etc because of this. In the U.S. exposure can often lead to still births in women or fetuses which are just a mess and could never live if born. Toxic shock syndrome caused by feminine hygiene products has mostly been eliminated now. However, it is important to note that any paper of any kind (including toilet paper) would not be white if not for dioxins present. So, all of us are exposed to a little dioxin every day in the bathroom still, unless we use brown toilet paper that one buys from health food stores like Whole Foods. So, dioxin is an ongoing problem as even producing it at all harms all nearby and those who manufacture it. There is NO safe level of dioxin for any living thing on earth.

220,000 RSVP "Rally to Restore Sanity"

Stewart-Colbert rally attracts thousands

To read full news article click "Stewart-Colbert" above.

I have no idea how many actually were there even though 220,000 RSVPed the site saying they were coming. The permit to have a rally estimate was 60,000 when they obtained the permit way in advance. However, looking at the group there it was very very large and well behaved. Seeing this rally is likely a relief for most of the world after all the craziness of the last 10 years here on Planet Earth. I think everyone's nerves are frayed from just too much craziness and insanity.

It's not that this isn't the worst economic times since the great depression. It is that just like the miners stuck underground in Chile, if they hadn't got their group act together they would all be dead now. We here on Earth are all just like those miners. Do we live together or do we die together?

The Rocky Horror Picture Show

Though many of you know this to be a cult favorite that many of your compatriots, children, Aunts and uncles or parents dressed up as these characters and went to midnight showings of and sang and danced and carried on with hundreds of showings of this classic. (My wife was one of these happy dancing singing people back in the day).

However, you may not know some of the actual history behind Transylvania, Time Travel, or the whole Science Fiction, sometimes Horror genre or the wonderfully comedic version of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" that began on Broadway and then wound up as a movie with Tim Curry, Brian Boswick, and Susan Sarandon as the leads during the 1970s.

If you start to travel back in history you have the real horror of the French Revolution. This time period where the U.S. had just won its independence from Great Britain was a very heady time of changes in the group psyche of the world. One of the many revolutionaries of that time (intellectually speaking) was the Comte De Saint Germain, a European Nobleman. His ideas coupled with Prince Ragocy (several different spellings of this name Ragocy) of Transylvania and then the father of the Scientific Method, Sir Francis Bacon of England all became entertwined with concepts like Alchemy, mysticism, Time Travel, Immortality.

And the result today from all this are popular perversions of the actual truth which was way above most of the common people's heads of those times and have manifested themselves today as Bela Lugosi's Dracula ( a combination of Vlad the Impaler who was the physical Count Dracula of Transylvania) and Prince Ragocy of Transylvania who was and is associated with also possibly being the Comte De Saint Germain and Sir Francis Bacon, the Father of the Scientific Method. So, you can see the confusion as well as entertainment that this has generated among the religious faithful and all others ever since. So, in a sense: The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a way for unseen and unknown things to at least be laughed at even if the general public (at times) isn't ready for Prime Time.

As people become both more educated and enlightened worldwide there will be less confusion, I hope.
However, I hope there is always laughter, because no one can become  fully enlightened without being able to laugh at themselves and their own existence first. Heady thought, isn't it?

The 24 hour news Media Makes us Crazy

I think this might have been the most important thing the "Rally to Restore Sanity" had to say. That first of all if things get to crazy on something you are watching "Change the Channel". This is something I do regularly from all news channels. My reaction is something like "Oh. This is BS" so I change the channel. To do otherwise just would make me and any other rational person sort of in a state of temporary insanity. And those who are having really serious problems in their lives often go off into really dangerous tangents that sometimes are fatal if they can't get to the place of turning off the TV or changing the channel. I think rationality comes from discernment and discernment comes from maturity and experience in people not just so overwhelmed by their lives that they are still capable of rational thoughts.

The other important point made is that people (no one) is inherently democrat or republican but an American and he showed people in SUVs trying to lane merge into a tunnel going from New York under a river to New Jersey to demonstrate this point. Any kind of person or variation all does this together and what the talking heads have to say is usually pretty remote from all of our everyday reality.

So, the important thing here is reality and balance as opposed to unhealthy tangents on all levels. People of all kinds who go out to far out on a limb usually find the limb eventually breaks and so do they. So, moderation in all things tends to keep us all alive. My own father though very intelligent could get out onto extreme tangents sometimes so I understand the need for "moderation in all things" from my own growing up experience.

One year my father "who was very anti-smoking" and my family went to a Christmas party at my Uncle's who was a famous Hollywood Minister to the Stars in Hollywood, California. Two of his parishioners told my father that they were smoking cigarettes and using prayers to nullify the effects. My father's response, "Oh. B---S---!" We were promptly asked to leave that Christmas Eve party and went home. I thought to myself, "What a crappy Christmas Eve!" I was 12. Though of course my father was right, saying it got us kicked out of a real great Christmas Party with Movie Stars and all the rest really cool stuff going on. So, my motto as an adult became "moderation in all things" as a result.  In the same situation I might say to someone, "I don't think smoking is a good idea.", But I'm not going to get my whole family kicked out of a really great party unless someone is about to get really hurt or die or something like that.

Firework: The Song

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGJuMBdaqIw&feature=topvideos

I had just watched live the tail end of "Rally to Restore Sanity" and was looking for a video of the whole thing so I could watch the first 3/4 of it online and found instead "Firework" by Katy Perry(who recently married Russell Brand in India at a Tiger Refuge there).

I played "Firework" and found it just what people need to see to get them through the dark depressing times on Earth right now. Even if things are bad there is always hope and just hope can be enough to set off the Firework within each of us.

China has fastest Supercomputer now

 Is China a supercomputer threat? (Q&A)

begin quote from above news article

 

Nvidia announced yesterday that its chips are powering the "Tianhe-1A" Chinese supercomputer that achieved 2.507 petaflops, beating a U.S.-based system that is currently ranked No. 1 on the June Top500 list of the fastest supercomputers in the world. The Chinese system is a unique hybrid design that uses approximately 7,000 Nvidia graphics chips along with 14,000 Intel Xeon CPUs. The graphics chips are what give the system the extra oomph to catapult it into the top supercomputer spot.

Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-20021122-64.html?tag=rtcol;pop#ixzz13pIlR4eQ

 

end quotes. 

I had heard of the new Chinese supercomputer but had never heard before of using this many Intel CPUs combined with 7,000 Nvidia Graphics chips. I was trying to picture what that would look like in one room and how many fans would be blowing to keep the heat it would generate moving away from the system so it could continue to operate ongoing without interruption.

 

 

California Chupacabra is a severely Mangy Coyote

Chupacabra Monster Actually Severely Mangy ... 

I saw one of these recently on the Northern California Coast near a golf course there. At first I thought it was a dog that had lost its hair to mange. But then I noticed it wasn't domesticated. You know, how dogs if not with their master walk out into the street to meet new human friends? Well. This thing acted more like a coyote, a hairless coyote and tried to hide in bushes. So I knew it wasn't domesticated. I sensed it was having problems (likely hypothermia from heat loss without fur) so I called the Humane society to come get it. However, I don't know if they got it or not as they didn't get back to me. I was mainly worried about friendly humans or children thinking it was a dog getting bit or harmed by something obviously that wild and having health problems and obviously confused and afraid.

Without driver or map, vans go from Italy to China

Without driver or map, vans go from Italy to China

Click word button right above to read full article:

I wrote some blogs about Google having done something like this from Silicon Valley to Santa Monica in California. These vans drove from Italy to China. So this technology is springing up all over now, much like powered heavier than air flight went worldwide after the Wright Brothers in Kitty Hawk in 1903. 

Here are some of the blogs and related articles I wrote and buttons to other news articles in the last month or so.

The problem with Google's Cars that drive themselv... 

Google's Cars that drive themselves on roads with ...

Earliest Photo and Charlie Chaplain Time Traveler

One has the feeling that everyone now(that has the time or inclination) will be pouring over photos and videos since 1838 and looking for cell phones or anything that shouldn't  be in that photo from that time period and looking for anomalies. What Fun! Good Luck folks!

Earliest Photo of a man: 1838 France

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Boulevard_du_Temple_by_Daguerre.jpg

• You can see a man getting a shoe shine if you look very closely. This is the first known photo of a person using any type of camera on earth. It is from Wikipedia.

Klyuchevskaya Sopka volcano spewing ash clouds 33,000 feet high

At 15,381 feet in height or 4688 meters Klyuchevskaya Sopka volcano on the Kamchatka Peninsula of Russia is spewing out gigantic clouds of ash over 30,000 feet into the atmosphere. Both Japan and Alaska are the nearest developed areas near to this event so likely their air and businesses will likely be affected the most.

Russian volcanoes spew giant ash cloud, divert flights

Begin quote from news article:
MOSCOW – Two volcanoes erupted Thursday on Russia's far-eastern Kamchatka Peninsula, tossing massive ash clouds miles (kilometers) into the air, forcing flights to divert and blanketing one town with thick, heavy ash.
The Klyuchevskaya Sopka, Eurasia's highest active volcano, exploded along with the Shiveluch volcano, 45 miles (70 kilometers) to the northeast, the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry's branch in Kamchatka said, adding that flights in the area had to change course.
Ash clouds from the remote volcanoes billowed up to 33,000 feet (10 kilometers) and were spreading east across the Pacific Ocean, vulcanologist Sergei Senyukov told Rossiya 24 television. Streams of lava flowed down the slopes of Shiveluch.
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration on Thursday issued a notice to pilots that they should remain alert for possible ash clouds, saying emissions have "intermittently complicated air travel" in the area of the Kamchatkan Peninsula.
"Any air carriers, including foreign air carriers, that observe or experience any difficulties resulting from an encounter with volcanic ash, please notify air traffic control immediately," the notice said.
Several pilots have reported seeing ash clouds in the Alaskan region, FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown said. However, the ash has been below 25,000 feet, while planes are assigned altitudes above that level so there was no difficulty, she said. Thus far FAA hasn't issued any flight restrictions due to ash, she said. end quote.

Growing up from Boy to Man

It's Kind of a Funny Story

Having just seen the above movie it took me back to being 10 to 25 years of age again and just how very close I came to not being here anymore during that time. The real trick for any boy becoming a man is to make it from ages 10 to 25 without killing oneself or someone else during that time. It is a real struggle for anyone with a reasonable amount of testosterone. However, with enough self discipline and a good enough life to make staying alive worthwhile one can manage this magic trick that anyone over 25 or 30 has already managed. If you are over 25 or 30 and a man then congratulations! If not, then good luck if you are a male.

It's Kind of a Funny Story: The movie

It's Kind of a Funny Story 

To learn more about the movie click  movie name right above this line.

I would not call this movie a comedy. But I would call it wonderful. It is the story of a very bright 16 year old boy in Manhattan who checks himself into a psyche ward in a local hospital because he feels suicidal urges. Or Another way to say it would be "How a 16 year old boy went from 'fake' to 'real' in one week. He didn't know he was fake or better said "He didn't understand himself much yet emotionally". However, he goes through a quantum jump that often takes many lives sometime during the growing up process into adulthood. Luckily, growing up doesn't take his life, it makes his life! Great Movie! Drama that is sometimes funny but also important and good for people mature enough to handle it, (somewhere between 10 to 14) depending upon the person's life experiences. However, likely whoever can go, will, that are interested in this subject.

Irreconcilable

I'm speaking of course, of the American people. I have never seen (in my lifetime beginning in 1948) Americans so upset and depressed about their futures and the futures of their children. And having lived through "The Golden Age of America" which I would say was between 1950 and 2000 I feel very lucky and privileged indeed. What the future will be for us I cannot say.

However, to be fair 1950 to 2000 was the exception for America and certainly never the rule. One could say it was a fluke brought on by perfect conditions for the U.S. to prosper and by the aftermath of World War II. However you want to look at it, it is over. At least that phase of American life and prosperity is over. If we become prosperous once again we will have to chart another course towards that end.

So, all those of you out there who are irreconcilable and presently live in (or want to) live in America, I  would ask (if you wish) that you study American history, so you can see what your forebears actually went through to create the "Golden Age of America" from 1950 until 2000. Only if enough Americans actually understand the level of sacrifice and blood that Americans gave for their people and country will we ever have a life like that again (or better) in America.

Democracies Need the Trust and Faith of all Citizens to Survive

It could be said that "Democracy is an extention of a belief in human rights and the brotherhood and sisterhood of all mankind".

So, for any democracy to long survive it needs a high enough percentage of its people to believe in its system of democracy. The biggest single threat that world democracies have faced is systems of belief that do not believe in the basic process of a living democracy. In other words people who only believe in certain parts of that democracy and not others.

For example, the problem European democracies are facing is Islamic peoples not properly integrating into their societies by not learning the local languages and adopting local philosophies. This creates ongoing and increasing trouble for European democracies because in a democracy, if you don't join the democratic "family" in language and custom then eventually directly or indirectly you will be expelled one way or the other because the democracy can only continue to exist with enough people in that democracy who actually believe in all of it and who practice its tenents daily.

In the U.S. you have somewhat different problems. In order to even come to the U.S. Islamic families tend to be more affluent and well educated because they are going so much further away from their Islamic roots. So Islamic peoples in the United States are much better integrated and accepted by American societies than in Europe where many don't educate themselves into local languages and local culture. In the U.S.  Islam and being an American citizen in every way don't usually stand in contrast to each other like they do in Europe. So in the U.S. most Islamic peoples usually believe in democracy and human rights completely so they tend to be very good and productive citizens within American society.

However, since the advent of Islamic Terrorism we find an insidious terrorism that harkens back to ways of thinking the reminds one of some Islamic peoples in the 12th to 14th Century. In this type of thinking only people who are Islamic are to be tolerated. All other peoples are to be killed brutally, and in many other parts of the world they are, regularly.

This is very difficult for Christian democracies to deal with, especially with churches teaching, "Turn the other cheek" rather than an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth which is more common still in the Middle East.

So, the ongoing vulnerabilities of Democratic secular Christian Western Societies have been exposed. And even though it may not be the main cause of the decline of the western democracies, it is one of the main reasons of the decline of the western democracies, simply because money has to be spent killing terrorists who are constantly trying to destroy western democracies.

At this point I would like to try and bring in another model that also worries western democracies. And this model is built around State Capitalism. China and Saudi Arabia are the two biggest proponents of State Capitalism on earth. And China and Saudi Arabia right now in a way are competing for being the strongest (each in their own way). And right now China is winning this battle because its State Capitalism is a form that culturally goes back about 5000 to 6000 years.

China has a long history of taking care of itself. Ever since all the Chinese provinces became one under a King several thousand years ago, it has been almost impossible to rule ever since because it has been just so large that it was always on the edge of collapse. So, China invented ways to cope with this.

It's two basic rules seem to be, "Take no territory outside of China because we can barely cope with what we have already". And the second rule is, "Human rights are not possible in a Country as big as this". Instead, "The majority rule gets everything and everyone else gets wiped out". And these days "since Islamic peoples aren't a majority they will be rendered either powerless or extinct within China".

The whole world is watching the western democracies and their suffering caused by the changing world and Islamic Terrorism but also watching horrified as China spreads its 5000 year philosophy and its State Capitalism around the world in various ways. But also the world has a new respect for China, because even though people are horrified by its basic lack of human rights there, they are amazed by what China has accomplished even without any human rights. So the world keeps asking the question, "How is this possible?"

The Wind in the Future

The Day After Tomorrow?

I wrote the above blog about the lowest barometric pressure ever recorded in the U.S. within the last 24 hours near Chicago. It is comparable to a Category 3 Hurricane if it was over water. Nothing like this has ever been seen before in the United States.

I have written before as an intuitive about what I see coming in the future. I can't give you dates. I just know this sort of thing is coming. How fast it comes now depends upon how people live their lives, how they find ways to preserve the ice in mountains and polar ice caps, of how glaciers all over earth are kept in existence, how forests are cut down etc. etc. etc.

But let me share what I have seen (I also write about this in my blog article "The Day After Tomorrow?" above).

At some point (likely within 25, 50, 100 or more years) (depending upon what humans on earth choose to do en masse) winds will start to move more above 100 mph in all flat areas (without major mountain ranges nearby). Those that are not literally blown away never to be heard from again over the years and who learn to adapt to regular winds on the flat during parts of the year above 100 mph will have homes built with one or more hydraulic columns so it can be pulled under the earth and locked in place when necessary to avoid the winds. Or to avoid a flood it can be raised up.

Also, in high winds (especially gusts) one would have to be tethered to a house, large tree, heavy car or truck (something that won't blow away. One might even get used to being tethered on a tension line, rope, or metal cable to do work and have a personal winch to get to safety if and when necesary.

Sailors in the past and present often tether themselves to their sailboats for example so they don't fall overboard from a wave or wind. So if they fall or are pushed overboard they can haul themselves back on board with their tether line. So this would be just like that only on land.

If above 100 mph winds are common on deep water lakes or oceans then boats or ships would have to be designed to be submersible to avoid the wind and waves during these winds. If you have ever seen what a really high wind can do to a sea or ocean you know that during these times no ship or boat wants to be out of the harbor or near the shore if they are a big ship.

It is possible that these onshore low barometric (hurricane) like events will happen periodically since the one today. What it looks like on a satellite weather map reminds me the most of the storms we saw in the fictitious movie "The Day After Tomorrow".

Time Traveler from Charlie Chaplin's Era?

Time traveler' caught on film

Whether this is an actual person from today or the future or deep past or came from another planet who traveled back to Charlie Chaplin's times or just someone who is eccentric or someone who has an early large style hearing aid of those times, no one might ever know for sure because we are not there to actually find out which it is. But it sure looks like someone talking on their cell phone or interplanetary communication device. Back then who would know? They just might think she was strange or different but would have no real idea what she was doing because No one had a cell phone or any small personal wireless communication device then. Maybe 100 years from now a photo will show up that we will recognize someone doing something you could then but shouldn't be able to now as well.

Top 100 U.S. Metros: Model for Economic Growth

I want to quote from the latest Time Magazine with the cover "How to Restore the American Dream". Also, in this Time Magazine I found the article called, "City Center" by Bruce Katz.

Begin quote:
"We mythologize the benefits of small town America, but it's the major Metros that make the country thrive. Why?

When cities collect networks of entrepreneurial firms, smart people, universities and other supporting institutions in close proximity, incredible things happen.

People engage. Specializations converge. Ideas collide and flourish. New inventions and processes emerge in research labs and processes emerge in research labs and on factory floors. New products and companies follow. As Henry Cisneros, fomer U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban development likes to say, 'Cities are places where 2 plus 2 equals 5'."

2nd quote:

The following quoted percentages are from U.S. top 100 metropolitan cities:
65% of U.S. population
66% of research universities
81% of research and development
94% of public transit passenger miles
78% of patents
94% of venture capital Funding
75% of Graduate degree holders
67% of jobs

end quotes.

I live in California and fairly near to Stanford University and Silicon Valley. Stanford University and Silicon Valley are one of these places that a lot has been going on, especially since the microprocessor was invented I believe in the early 1970s. So, Hewlett-Packard is one of the first companies, and then many others like Apple Computer, the seeds of Microsoft, Oracle, and Sun Microsystems, then eventually Google and many many others. So this interplay between a good research university and new and great business Ideas and then actual businesses and then funding through Venture Capitalists all join together in such areas. As you noticed above in the statistics they are about metros, their best universities, and the interplay between brilliant people from these universities and venture capitalists who can make things happen for really great ideas. This is how great companies are formed, hire people and create jobs and change the world.

The following quote is from:
http://inventors.about.com/od/mstartinventions/a/microprocessor.htm

In November, 1971, a company called Intel publicly introduced the world's first single chip microprocessor, the Intel 4004 (U.S. Patent #3,821,715), invented by Intel engineers Federico Faggin, Ted Hoff, and Stan Mazor. end quote.

Surfers and Captain of "Southern Cross" found safe

Missing Aussie surfers found safe - smh.com.au

If you read a previous blog of mine you read that the Aussie Surfers and the Captian of the Southern Cross have been found safe. To read or see video click "Missing" above.

The Day After Tomorrow?

The lowest barometric pressure ever recorded in the United States was in the last 24 hours. The storm which now stretches up into Canada and in an arc that reaches to Atlanta, Georgia and points south, resembles more a stretched out Hurricane more than any other single thing. The weatherman on CNN says that "If this thing were over water it would be a Category 3 hurricane."

I would say some kind of tipping point has been reached.

As an intuitive when I look forward through time it is not rain nor drought nor snow that is the single most severe problem, it is wind above 100 mph on a regular basis most places that are flat without mountains. We're not there just yet, but it is slowly coming in fits and spurts worldwide. This is just the beginning. And there is no end in sight to these progressively increasing changes worldwide at this point.

Where Did the U.S. Go Wrong?

I was watching the Charlie Rose Show on PBS. Previously, Timothy Geithner had been on and so on this show he started it with a clip of the Geithner interview in which he said, "The middle class from 2000 to 2010 had no increase in their real income". Then Arriana Huffington came on and introduced her book "Third World America". I believe three other gentlemen came on with her including a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist. They defined how the U.S. got to this state and all agreed that the problems started around 1979 and 1980, and that it wasn't just the last 10 years but at least 30 years of fundamental mistakes in governing.

They all said that, the real problem is short term thinking. This short term thinking of government of "this year or this four years" is what has temporarily ruined America. Even if you look at politicians now they aren't addressing "ANY" real problems, just putting each other down. There is a reason for this. If they dealt with the real problems, they couldn't be elected. Because just like France now, entitlements like Social Security and other retirement entitlements, Medicare, The military(like England), would all have to be cut about 10% or more considering the lack of taxes presently available given the present tax rates upon the citizenry. And just like France, even if the politicians did that, there would be rioting in the streets in the U.S. But without those cuts our children and grandchildren WILL live in a Third World America.

The other thing that needs to happen is to stop forcing people out of their homes nationwide. Things have no chance of getting back to normal if this "never ending cycle of foreclosure" continues. So, keeping people in their homes by joining together as a nation to support each other is another change that needs to happen.

But now I would like to go back to around 1970 when I believe the original problems began. If you remember back then or have studied that time you see the Viet Nam War and a worldwide social revolution that began in the U.S. through college students and traveled then through Europe and around the world. Even though this social revolution was absolutely necessary to avoid a nuclear war between The U.S. and Europe against the Soviet Union and China, it must be understood that this change also prevented addressing the real economic problems of the U.S. and Europe. So, even though the U.S. , Europe and the world survived by preventing a worldwide nuclear holocaust it also sowed the seeds of not dealing properly with real economic problems as the world changed at that time.

Meanwhile, when Nixon and Kissinger went to China in the 1970s, they began a relationship with China with the U.S. and Europe, that although it prevented a nuclear war with China and started it's relationship with the western world in a diplomatic and economic sense, it also sowed the seeds of the U.S. economic downfall. Now, the argument could be made that no nation stay on top forever. This is true. And it is also true that the U.S. was on top during the 1950s and 1960s literally because we were the last big nation on earth not completely devastated by World War II. So, we were on top economically by default. In other words because war didn't come into mainland U.S. our infrastructure hadn't been destroyed like the rest of the developed world had.

But by 1970, the rest of the world had rebuilt itself. Both Germany and Japan had rebuilt by 1970 and their economies were rolling forward. Also, by 1970, South Korea's economy was rolling as well. And the same with China and Russia. So, at this point we had some competition. Then something else happened- OPEC, the Middle East Oil Cartel. So when they doubled or tripled the price of oil and kept it there with the Arab Oil Embargo in 1973 there was not enough oil in the U.S. for it to function properly. This began the siphoning off of American Business profits. It has stayed this way ever since. It has had the effect of strangling the U.S. ever since by siphoning too much profit away from the U.S. for the U.S to continue to do well. The same is true of Europe and Japan and many other nations.

This directly created a recession from 1973 to 1975 in the U.S.
(see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recessions_in_the_United_States)

It along with debts piling up from the Viet Nam War also created the 1980 recession (six months) and the early 1980s recession of 1 year and 6 months from July 1981 to November 1982

1980 recession	1980Jan–July 1980	066 months	0584 years 10 months	07.8 7.8% (July 1980)	02.2−2.2%	The NBER considers a short recession to have occurred in 1980, followed by a short period of growth and then a deep recession. Unemployment remained relatively elevated in between recessions. The recession began as the Federal Reserve, under Paul Volcker raised interest rates dramatically to fight the inflation of the 1970s. The early '80s are sometimes referred to as a "double-dip" or "W-shaped" recession.[30][40]
Early 1980s recession	1981July 1981 – Nov 1982	161 year 4 months	0121 year	10.8 10.8% (Nov 1982)	02.7−2.7%	The Iranian Revolution sharply increased the price of oil around the world in 1979, causing the 1979 energy crisis. This was caused by the new regime in power in Iran, which exported oil at inconsistent intervals and at a lower volume, forcing prices up. Tight monetary policy in the United States to control inflation led to another recession. The changes were made largely because of inflation carried over from the previous decade because of the 1973 oil crisis and the 1979 energy crisis.[41][42]

Both the above quotes regarding the 1980 recession and the early 1980s recession are from wikipedia.

So, we see here that the Viet Nam War, and OPEC, the Iranian revolution and Tight monetary policy then all led to almost 10% unemployment just like now. For me, as a 32 year old in 1980 with a wife and 3 kids, I was forced by circumstances to sink my savings into inexpensive but beautiful forest mountain property and building an A-Frame inexpensively to be able to live without rent or utilities for 5 years so I could make it through this time relatively unscathed. Many many others weren't as lucky as I and my family.

But still, the basic problems of a completely  changing world economy were not properly addressed. And so these problems built and built to where we are now and these problems still are not being addressed because the average person in the U.S. does not either understand the problems or they don't want to see riots in the streets like France in response to what must be done here as well. We can no longer pretend we are a rich country like we were from the 1950s through the 1970s. Those times are gone. And until we find another way forward we must reduce entitlements at a Federal and state level by at least 10% or more just like France and England are doing now or things are just going to get worse and worse ongoing. If this isn't done we will live in a Third World Country soon, where there is ONLY rich and poor and nothing else. If that happens God Help Us!

Suburbs new place of poverty in U.S.

New poverty hotspot? The suburbs

Click on "New Poverty" above to read full news story.

It appear that there is now more poverty in the suburbs than in cities now. The real problem of this is that there are not enough services in the suburbs for people to survive well in suburbs if they are also in poverty experiences.

113 dead and scores missing from Indonesian Tsunami

Indonesian tsunami leaves 113 dead and scores missing

I have written several blogs about this Tsunami. I'm just trying to include enough up to date and useful information to be helpful internationally.

Paul, The Oracle Octopus

1. News for paul the oracle octopus

   Sydney Morning Herald

   Paul the oracle octopus dies, may get permanent shrine‎ - 3 hours ago By Brooks Peck Paul the octopus, the most famous octopus that has ever accurately predicted World Cup matches, died Tuesday morning in his German aquarium ... Yahoo! Sports (blog) - 1190 related articles - Shared by 20+ RIP: Paul the Octopus‎ - Reuters Oracle Paul The Octopus dies‎ - Sky News Australia If you are interested in Octopus stories I have some at my  dragonofcompassion - Home archive website. If you go to the site or more specifically it is at: http://dragonofcompassion.com/flame In this section I write about my Shamanic visionary experiences with "Flame" and his son. I also have added some research I did into Octopi including the Northern Pacific Octopus which is the largest that I know of.

2010 Indonesia Tsunami Deaths and Missing and Homeless Rising

Death Toll Rising After Tsunami Hits Indonesia

begin quote from above article "Death Toll Rising"

JAKARTA — Indonesian authorities scrambled to deal with two deadly disasters on Tuesday after a tsunami and volcanic eruptions struck in separate regions of the vast Indonesian archipelago.

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Rus Akbar/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

A rescue team loaded a ship in Padang, West Sumatra on Tuesday to prepare for the evacuation and rescue of victims of the 7.7-magnitude earthquake and resulting tsunami.

Enlarge This Image

Enlarge This Image

Dwi Oblo/Reuters

Evacuees aboard a truck in Sleman, near Yogyakarta in Java, Indonesia, on Tuesday as danger of an eruption of the Mount Merapi volcano grew.

In the first, rescue workers and fishermen scoured for survivors through waters west of Sumatra Island after a powerful earthquake and resulting tsunami killed at least 113 people and left hundreds missing, including at least eight foreigners, officials said. Thousands more were homeless.
The tsunami, triggered by a 7.7-magnitude undersea quake, slammed into the remote Mentawai Islands late Monday, wreaking havoc in villages in the south of the island chain and, the authorities believe, sweeping scores out to sea. The islands are a popular destination for foreign surfers, particularly Australians.
The disaster recalled the series of tsunamis set off by a much more powerful earthquake in December 2004. Those waves killed over 230,000 people in 14 countries, but hit hardest in the northern Sumatran province of Aceh.
The surge late Monday was not as powerful, but it reached as high as 10 feet and advanced as far as 2,000 feet inland, according to officials at the Health Ministry’s crisis center.
At one surf resort, a wall of water smashed apart wooden bungalows and left one tour boat flaming on the beach, said Rini Arif, a booking agent in the nearby city of Padang, on mainland Sumatra.end quote.

Last night late I was interested in this story but it wasn't getting any play in the U.S. because of mid term election week. At the time I didn't realize just how hard the Tsunami in the new movie "Hereafter" when the French lady almost died when hit in the head and had a near death experience both physically and psychologically, had also affected my own psyche last week.

I couldn't sleep last night because of hearing about the exploding Surf Yacht burning on the beach from the wall of water and then later from the then 160 women and children missing. It hit in the night between 9 and 10 PM local time so people just weren't ready for this earthquake hit or the following Tsunami hit. They were hit completely unawares when most seismic and governmental officials in their country likely were either asleep or getting ready for bed. So there may be many more people affected because of the time of day this occurred.

 

U.S. Government approves it's largest solar plant in California

Feds approve largest-ever solar project in Calif.

So, with the planned New Jersey to Virginia 15 miles off shore super wind generators and this the largest Solar powered electrical generating plant approved in the U.S. to be built in California that can supply enough power for 2 million homes things are beginning to change in the U.S. in regard to fossil fuels (at least for electrical power generation).

Cell phone in pocket a Health Risk?

Is putting a mobile phone in your pocket a health risk?

If you click on "health risk" above you can read the news article.

I have had several cell phones over the years and I know that they might be dangerous to one's health whether they are on in your pocket or whether you are using them to talk to someone. So, if I'm not walking somewhere I take my cell phone out of my pocket and set it in a cup holder in my car or on a table of my home. This reduces my "On phone" exposure to the constant signals between the cell phone and a tower to tell it it is on and connected into the cell system. When making a phone call from a cell 90% of the time I turn the speakerphone on so I don't have to have it up to my face and expose myself to even more problems over time. Though I see cell phones as useful I constantly take precautions to keep my exposure to a minimum.

At least 160 missing after tsunami hits Indonesia

At least 160 missing after tsunami hits Indonesia

As information comes in in dribs and drabs first it was 8 to 10 Australian Surfers missing along with the ship "Southern Cross" of Indonesia. Now it is women and children from a village hit by the tsunami in Indonesia. 

begin quote from above reuters news article:

(Reuters) - At least 160 people, mostly women and children, are missing from an Indonesian village that was pounded by an enormous wave after an earthquake off the coast of Sumatra caused a local tsunami, officials said on Tuesday.
The 7.5 magnitude quake hit 78 km west of South Pagai in the Mentawai islands late Monday and destroyed most buildings in the coastal village of Betu Monga, said Hardimansyah, an official with the regional branch of the Department of Fisheries.
"Of the 200 people living in that village, only 40 have been found. 160 are still missing, mostly women and children," he told Reuters by phone.
"We have people reporting to the security post here that they could not hold onto their children, that they were swept away. A lot of people are crying." end quote.

Tsunami off Indonesia

 If you click on "Surfers"  or "Mentawai"  below you will read the two articles about how the Tsunami triggered by the 7.7 earthquake there today destroyed one ship when it collided with another and drove the occupants of the ship into shore and into trees to escape the tsunami.

 

Aussies flee as quake triggers tsunami

Mentawai Islands hit by Tsunami - SURF2SURF

quote from Mentawai article:

The 9.42 pm quake (0342 NZ time) triggered a tsunami warning that sent thousands of panicked residents fleeing to high ground. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries from the tsunami - or quake -but witnesses reported people were carried 200 metres inland and scrambled up trees as the wall of water hit. At least five towns in the provinces of Bengkulu and West Sumatra were badly jolted, officials and witnesses said, as were the nearby Mentawai islands. "Every was running out of their houses," said Sofyan Alawi, a resident in the city of Padang, adding that roads leading to surrounding hills were quickly jammed with cars and motorcycles. "We kept looking back to see if a wave was coming," said 28-year-old resident Ade Syahputra. There were no immediate reports of damage or casualties , said Ade Edward, a disaster management agency official. Indonesia, the world's largest archipelago, is prone to earthquakes and volcanic activity due to its location on the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire. end quote. 

begin quote from "Aussie's Flee" article:

Up to 10 Australians are missing after a powerful undersea earthquake struck a popular surfing area in west of Sumatra in Indonesia.

The 7.7-magnitude undersea quake hit the Mentawai Islands, off the west coast of Indonesia, at 9.42pm yesterday (1.42am today AEDT). Do you know more? Message 0424 SMS SMH 764, email us or direct message us on Twitter with information or images.

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The earthquake in the Mentawai Islands region off Sumatra, Indonesia. Photo: USGS

The Australia embassy in Jakarta said it was trying to contact the captain of a boat which was in the area when the quake struck. They believe between eight to 10 Australians were on the boat, Southern Cross, which is owned by Sumatran Surfariis. "There is one boat that we haven't been able to make contact with, the Southern Cross," said Yuli, a staff member at Padang-based Sumatran Surfariis.end quote. 

 

 

Tsunami: No sign of nine surfers

Surfaid's Mentawai Islands Program Manager Tom Plummer confirmed the boat was missing. "It was close to the epicentre," he told AAP. "There are genuine fears." Another group of surfers from Melbourne, Sydney and the Gold Coast surfing in the trouble... Full Article at The Courier Mail

More Aussies unaccounted for as 3m wave hits near Mentawai Islands after Indonesian earthquake

This is the Indonesian "Southern Cross" that is missing with at least 8 to 10 Australians on board.

Surfers 'climbed trees to escape tsunami'‎

My IBM Clone At 286 20 Megabyte circa 1985

Though I bought a TRS-80 4k in 1978 for $600  and taught all my children starting around 1980 the Basic Programming Language so they could program their own games to play on it when they were 5,6, and 8 years old, The IBM Clone 286 that I bought around 1985 in Silicone Valley, in Northern California was the first computer that has any real resemblance to today's desktops and todays laptops at all. It was a desktop and ran DOS and I think it might have run eventually some Windows format as well that could be laid on top of DOS (Disk Operating System). DOS allowed one to sort of be a user-operator-programmer so if one wasn't techy enough they might not figure it out. It definitely was not very user friendly like the later 386 and 486 computers were. And I don't think full USER friendliness  arrived until Window 95 and after.

However, since the KRNL that windows was originally built upon didn't expect anything like the Internet to happen it was vulnerable to viruses and the like. So, finally after years of staying with the PC platform I finally said, "I'm just tired of my PC's crashing so much from viruses and spyware. I'm going with Mac by Apple. And for the last 5 years the whole family has switched from PC's to Apple products. (about 10 or 12 computers worth).  So if an Apple product goes down (once every 6 months to a year) you then have a serious problem. Whereas with PCs they were going down and slowing down about every 2 weeks to a month so I finally gave up. My loyalty to PCs up until that time was mainly that my son is a Computer Gamer and was a computer Tech in his 20s (being a tech is just a hobby for him now). So, he is still calling me up and asking me to buy or share some new gadget. Like the other day he wanted me to download something called "Facetime" which is a way to make phone calls from your cellphone through the internet  wifi like skype to avoid big cellphone bills. Also, Magic Jack does this kind of thing too.

My daughter and I Skype regularly now too. The amazing thing about Skype is that as long as you are computer to computer anywhere on earth you can video talk back and forth for free with anyone with a computer and a DSL or better connection on earth. Sometimes if the internet traffic is high it can fuzz out on you but it is really great to see your friend or loved one alive and well live through your computer anywhere on earth and be able to talk to them like you would on  a phone only this time through your computer.

After the Election: Gridlock?

I remember well when in 1994 Newt Gingrich led the Senate as a Republican. However, then he shut down funding to many programs like the National Parks, so they were not open much during parts of 1995. For me, this turned out very fortuitous because I was able to get married in the Chapel at Yosemite National Park, stay at the Yosemite Lodge with my wife and wedding party and even stay 2 nights at the Ahwahnee Hotel and have my Wedding Reception at the Ahwahnee Hotel as well. Because everyone canceled their reservations thinking the park would continue to be closed. Instead it opened only for a week or two and we got married during the week or two it opened up again by being intuitive enough to plan it and create it.

However, the other side of this was when we got to the Big Island of Hawaii with a fly and drive from Honolulu where we stayed at the Sheraton at Waikiki Beach, we couldn't go to:

Kilauea Volcano, Hawai`i

because the National Park was closed. So we experienced both sides of the Closed National Parks problem during this time.

The Republican Party paid a very big price for the Gridlock in Congress because almost nothing important was accomplished during this time and the American people, fed up with this re-elected President Clinton because of it. It is 50% or more likely that this sort of thing will happen again with President Obama. However, the world is not as happy a place as it was then. Since it is a lot more like the 1930s than the 1990s now it is in the end almost anyone's guess what actually will happen in 2012.

Rally to Restore Sanity Goes Global

Jon Stewart's 'Rally to Restore Sanity' goes global, sparking events all the way to Mt. Everest 

It seems kind of ironic to me that Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show" which is a news parady show and The Colbert Show are behind a now international event to restore sanity to the world political process which now reminds me of a bunch of people in a lifeboat all thinking they are going to die. So, any attempt at rationality can be helpful. If the Chilean miners had all acted like all the panicked people on earth now do you actually think ANY of them would be alive now? NO.

Hard times and bad times have always been with humans periodically. This is just one of thousands of times in the past where the planet has gone through extreme changes. And one of the things that has gotten people through these extreme times is to have enough leaders who could keep their heads cool so people just didn't form mobs and run amok all over the earth.

Yes. Unfortunately, people will have to right the world problems from the grass roots movements up. Top down solutions will only breed revolutions in many countries. So, the idea of a "Rally to Restore Sanity" going Global is a beginning of people trying to keep cooler heads so something positive can actually be accomplished during these very dangerous economic and political times worldwide.

49,000 paths to enlightenment

By the time I had reached my early to mid 20s I knew there was not just one path to enlightenment or heaven. I realized by this time that there were at least 5 or 10 or more basic paths. So, when Tibetan Lamas told me that within Buddhism there were 49,000 correct paths to enlightenment I thought, "Wow! You guys have really done some research. I've just scratched the surface of what is actually possible!"

I had had the misfortune that many of you have also had worldwide where I was told within my parents religion that only the people within my specific religion (in which there were only about 10,000 worldwdide at that time) were the only ones going to heaven. As I was growing up it sort of made me nauseous to think about what was going to happen to the other billions of humans on earth?

When I parted ways with my parents Sect or Cult when I was 21 I had already realized that there was something really wrong. Though as an intuitive many of the things I was taught rang true for me and so I continued to believe in the things that actually worked, I started to look more at all religion in a completely pragmatic way. In other words, "What actually worked down through the generations of time and what didn't?" In other words what happened to me after growing up in this sect or cult was completely insane when I was asked to leave. So I knew something was screwy. So, as I approached not only my own religion but all religions on earth with the scientific method founded by Sir Francis Bacon I found through studying comparative religions that they all basically were cultural ways (in the area of the earth where they arose) to basically keep people alive with basic health codes. So, for example in the desert where pig meat won't keep long, Arabic Muslims and traditional Jewish people were forbidden to eat pork, simply because if you didn't kill the pork and eat it right then it would kill most of your tribe that  tried to eat it later. So, this kind of thing I found was what most religions were about. So, mostly it was about keeping the adherents of their religions alive in ancient times. In the end in regard to spiritual stuff there was very little real difference between all religions on earth. In fact, the differences were so slight that I found it sort of ridiculous that religions made such a big deal about all these little differences. I'm not alone having discovered this, by the way. There are millions who have seen this worldwide by studying comparative religion.

So then, I studied cultural anthropology because after comparative religion this made the best step after studying philosophy, comparative religion and then cultural anthropology. So this then led me to cultural relativism and religious relativism. But what I found interesting was that through all these studies I came to feel all beings on earth were my family. I may have Loyalties to a mystical Christian Culture and the secular Christian Culture of the U.S. and Europe but I found myself thinking of myself at core as a citizen of Earth and that my loyalty was to the souls of all mankind. And then I thought, "This is how Jesus and Buddha must have thought too!"

So, when Tibetan Lamas told me that there were 49,000 correct paths to enlightenment I thought to myself after having studied all that I had, "Yes. That's about right!"

Jack LaLanne's Forever Young

In the 1950s Jack LaLanne had a fitness program that my mother and I watched and exercised with on Channel 11 during the late 1950s in Los Angeles when we lived there as I grew up. My mother and I would do his exercises sometimes between my ages 8 and 12 years of age. We even bought his "Glamour stretchers" which were sort of like Los Angeles "Whamo Frisbees" at the time. They were a new type of rubber bands about  the size in diameter of your little finger and about 6 or 7 feet long with built in rubber handles. If you put these rubber band "Glamour Stretchers" on your feet and hands you could simulate lifting weights and do a lot of other stuff with them as well.

I found a jewel of a program on KQED this sunday morning so I programmed my DVR to record it and when I woke up I had a new exercise program that reminded me of when my mother was still alive and of us exercising together with Jack LaLanne in Glendale, California while watching on our black and white TV (Color sets weren't good yet) from about 1956 to 1960. Great Memories!

The specific name of this video is: Jack LaLanne's Forever Young (just like his book name)

If you want to watch this program you will  find it on:

http://www.jacklalanne.com/store/catalog/DVD_VHS_Videos-3-1.html

I guess I was just lucky enough to find it on the PBS schedule so I could once again (over 50 years later)  DVR and work out with Jack LaLanne and his wife Elaine from one of his many many videos.

quote from Jack LaLanne's site at wikipedia:

Jack LaLanne (born September 26, 1914) is an American fitness, exercise, nutritional expert, and motivational speaker who has been called "the godfather of fitness".^[1][2] He has published numerous books on fitness and hosted a fitness television show between 1951 and 1985. He has 4 children.
LaLanne gained recognition for his success as a bodybuilder, as well as his prodigious feats of strength. He has been inducted to the California Hall of Fame and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. end quote from wikipedia.

He is still going strong today and is still an amazing character who actually lives his beliefs every day.

Jack was 95 in 2009 and still going strong.

second quote from wikipedia "Jack LaLanne" site.

At the age of 96, LaLanne continues to work out every morning for two hours. He spends 1½ hours in the weight room and half an hour swimming or walking. LaLanne and his wife Elaine (84) live in Morro Bay, California.^[12] When interviewed by Katie Couric on NBC's Today show, LaLanne said his two simple rules of nutrition are: "if man made it, don't eat it", and "if it tastes good, spit it out." He often says, "I cannot afford to die, it will ruin my image." Interviewed on his 93rd birthday, he said his feat of strength was going to be "towing my wife across the bathtub."

Much Later: Jack LaLanne passed away on January 23rd 2011. He will be missed by all the people he kept healthy since the 1940s:

begin quote:

Jack LaLanne

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jack LaLanne
LaLanne in 1947
Born	Francois Henri LaLanne September 26, 1914 San Francisco, California, United States
Died	January 23, 2011 (aged 96) Morro Bay, California, United States
Cause of death	Pneumonia
Residence	Morro Bay, California
Nationality	American
Occupation	Chiropractor, fitness expert, television host, inventor, entrepreneur
Years active	1936–2011
Home town	Bakersfield, California
Height	5'6"
Television	The Jack LaLanne Show
Spouse	Irma Navarre (m. 1942–1948) Elaine Doyle (m. 1959–2011) (his death)
Website
jacklalanne.com

Francois Henri "Jack" LaLanne (September 26, 1914 – January 23, 2011) was an American fitness, exercise, and nutritional expert and motivational speaker who is sometimes called "the godfather of fitness" and the "first fitness superhero."^[1] He described himself as being a "sugarholic" and a "junk food junkie" until he was 15. He also had behavioral problems, but "turned his life around" after listening to a public lecture by Paul Bragg, a well-known nutrition speaker.^[2] During his career, he came to believe that the country's overall health depended on the health of its population, writing that "physical culture and nutrition — is the salvation of America."^[3]

Hereafter Reviews

After reading several "Hereafter" reviews I was surprised by many things. The first was that many people saw this as a Science Fiction movie and the second thing I was surprised by is that Clint Eastwood made this movie at age 80. I find this incredible that someone 80 could put together something this amazing.

I think many younger people sort of miss the point of the movie. As one ages, the point of life is not necessarily all the panic attacks, jumping off of cliffs, trying to have sex with as many people as you can like one finds in movies directed at the young (under 30) crowd. No. If you survive past 30 or 35 you find that life is not just a time of continual extreme experiences. Not many people survive continual extreme experiences past 35 or 40 years of age. The mind and body and emotions appear to only take so much without starting to break down.

So, life  needs some thoughtfulness to be meaningful. This is a very thoughtful movie and subtle in it's powerful message. It is designed to underwhelm on some levels after the Tsunami experience. It is like a Zen Koan that grows more powerful as you contemplate the deeper meaning. It is like a beautiful painting that increases it's real meaning over hundreds of years. I think "Hereafter" is a Clint Eastwood classic that he likely wouldn't have made until at least his 70s. But to underestimate the power within this movie is to demonstrate ones youth and one's folly rather than the immortality of each of our souls. This movie demonstrates the immortality of each of us. How beautiful is that? How priceless is that?

Citizens of the Universe

When I was young I heard my parents talk once in a while about a network of beings that spanned all galaxies and all time and space. At the time I thought this was just some metaphysical concept sort of like when one reads Science Fiction or studies religions based upon mystical positive thinking, especially of the Christian mystic variety.

However, as I progressed through various levels of awareness much like one does when going from Kindergarten through College one realizes many many new things in the process.

So, at a certain point I realized this almost infinite (by human standards at least) concept was a reality.

It was during the early 1980s and I kept hearing more and more about this sort of universal compassionate brotherhood that spans all time, space and consciousness, and I was trying to keep my mind open to the possibility that this was all true.

In a way this wasn't that hard because the the practices to increase my compassion towards all life in the universe seemed to be working and I was losing whatever fear and hate that was an obscuration to my forward progress towards enlightenment.

And then one day (for around 24 hours) I experienced the complete terror of joining supernaturally with trillions of compassionate beings throughout all time and space. And after this 24 hours of "The Joining" which could also be called "The Infinite Compassionate alliance of all compassionate beings in all time and space and consciousness" I realized I didn't really ever have to be afraid again about anything.

This was something I had never expected in the end to be true.

So, that when I was supernaturally attacked by beings that just thought I was one person, they would be very rudely surprised to be literally taken over by trillions of compassionate beings throughout all time and space. So they would always lose this battle because attacking me or any other member of this "Infinite compassionate brotherhood and sisterhood and beinghood of trillions" (probably many more than that) is amazing in a way I can't really describe.

I realized that this was the way beings like Buddha and Jesus succeeded in the way they did because nothing in the universe can stand up to beings like this. Because these beings are all the Jesus' and Saints and Buddhas of all their planets and dimensions too. And like, me and thousands to millions of others on earth they know what I do: "Time and space is no barrier at all when one is perfectly aligned with trillions of other beings like Jesus and Buddha". There is a saying that says, "One with God is a majority". What I'm talking about is how this actually manifests through all the Angels and Saints of the Universe.

I just wanted to share with you this truth tonight because the world needs this knowledge right now a great deal, that this state of grace actually exists anywhere one can evolve enough in consciousness to participate in this way. I'm witnessing this by the Grace of God to all who have ears to hear or eyes to see. Blessings be upon you all.

The Genius of Steve Jobs

Being Steve Jobs' Boss

John Sculley opens up in this above article about being Steve Jobs' boss in 1984. He illustrates the genius of Steve Jobs and how his ideas changed many digital products companies and electronic products companies to what they are today. 


begin quote:



Steve Jobs was 28 years old in 1983 and already recognized as one of the most innovative thinkers in Silicon Valley. The Apple (NasdaqGS: AAPL - News) board, though, was not ready to anoint him chief executive officer and picked PepsiCo (NYSE: PEP, News) President John Sculley, famous for creating the Pepsi Challenge, to lead the company. Sculley helped increase Apple's sales from $800 million to $8 billion annually during his decade as CEO, but he also presided over Jobs' departure, which sent Apple into what Sculley calls its "near-death experience." In his first extensive interview on the subject, Sculley tells Cultofmac.com editor Leander Kahney how his partnership with Jobs came to be, how design ruled — and still rules — everything at Apple, and why he never should have been CEO in the first place.

More from BusinessWeek.com: • Apple Refocuses on Mac With Lighter MacBook Air, Lion Software • Apple's Jobs at the Helm • Welcome to Planet Apple

You talk about the "Steve Jobs methodology." What is Steve's methodology?
Steve, from the moment I met him, always loved beautiful products, especially hardware. He came to my house, and he was fascinated, because I had special hinges and locks designed for doors. I had studied as an industrial designer, and the thing that connected Steve and me was industrial design. It wasn't computing.
Steve had this perspective that always started with the user's experience; and that industrial design was an incredibly important part of that user impression. He recruited me to Apple because he believed the computer was eventually going to become a consumer product. That was an outrageous idea back in the early 1980s. He felt the computer was going to change the world, and it was going to become what he called "the bicycle for the mind."
What makes Steve's methodology different from everyone else's is that he always believed the most important decisions you make are not the things you do, but the things you decide not to do. He's a minimalist. I remember going into Steve's house, and he had almost no furniture in it. He just had a picture of Einstein, whom he admired greatly, and he had a Tiffany lamp and a chair and a bed. He just didn't believe in having lots of things around, but he was incredibly careful in what he selected. end quote.

I like the concept of "The Bicycle for the mind". I remember I too, shared the dream of home computers but had no idea the DARPA redundancy computer program invented to keep going in all government mainframe computers worldwide all information necessary to continue if one or more locations were nuked would be turned into the internet where Wikipedia could be literally asked any question about anything and have a reasonable chance of having the right and useful answer by any internet user worldwide. What has happened is pretty unbelievable, and I have the feeling the world is just getting started in unbelievable things created by people like Steve Jobs and others internationally.

Pets Need Protection Too

Though it could be said that all wild and domesticated life needs protection, there is only so much anyone can do for wild creatures. However, once you take responsibility of a wild thing as a pet or even a previously domesticated animal (bred in captivity) then you have a responsibility to that animal almost as if it were one of your own children.

During times when most people are financially flush this is less of a problem because most people take fairly good care of all their pets unless they are children who don't know any better.

But in times like these all creatures that are domesticated from horses, cattle, livestock in general, pets in general are often suffering. The main reason during times like these is people don't have enough money to even feed themselves and their children so pets do without often or die starving in a foreclosed house or are abandoned in a rural area and especially if it is a dog bigger than 50 to 70 pounds it often joins with other dogs to create a "Wolf Pack" to hunt together for food. When I lived on a 7 acre ranch with a Shetland pony for my 5 year old daughter,  goats, Fuzzy lop bunnies and pumpkin, "The scariest Tomcat" I have ever known or had as a pet that literally eventually bit everyone nearby. However, he was also the best mouser or ratter I have ever seen which is why we put up with him on the ranch for so long. He was a completely feral kitten that we then raised.

Anyway, we had to deal with packs of large dogs in that area killing or maiming goats or sheep so the locals eventually just shot the dogs to get rid of the problem. Especially the Goat herds with milkers whose goats were very valuable and would sometimes "dry up" (stop giving milk) if they were too scared by the dogs.

So, I guess what I'm saying is that if people are upset during these times by people abandoning their pets because they simply can't afford them any way they can, then local cities and counties or Humane societies have to be willing to either accept these pets for free or pick them up from these financially desperate people. Otherwise, you will find more and more dead pet carcasses in the foreclosed houses or rented houses and apartments when people go homeless when their Unemployment compensation runs out.

So, rather than put people in jail or fining them because they can't take care of their pets which just means that more people who can't find good homes for their pets will turf them somewhere or leave them to die in abandoned homes or apartments, why not have a pet amnesty where people can drop off their pet much like they can a baby now rather than put it in a trashcan somewhere. I think pets need this kind of protection too, so they at least have some chance of a good life somewhere.

Life After Death

I have never seen an audience as stunned as the auditorium full of people watching the movie "Hereafter". Hereafter is presented in such a deep and yet scientific and humanistic way that one is left "no matter their belief system" with something new to ponder and to think about.

As an intuitive I had to deal with the reality of these questions very young. Mostly between ages 10 to 15 but also when I had whooping cough at age 2 did I have to deal with mortality and what comes after this if I die? Death has always all my life been looking over my shoulder. I could never escape death and so because of this sometimes I felt like I wanted to welcome death because I was just tired of struggling against death any longer. It also added to my "Terminal Macho" attitude of living life on the edge.

But as I grew older and mellowed I realized as a real intuitive that I can live in both worlds "of the living and the dead" simultaneously that life after death really isn't that much different really than life here on earth. I"m not saying this to depress you but just to express to you that there is work to do wherever you are. There is just different kinds of things to be done on behalf of your life and all other lives depending upon where you are (living or dead or both). So, for me the equanimity of realizing that whether I am alive or dead it is much the same thing allows me to have peace being here on earth or on the other side when it is my time to be there. For me, being here and there is an everyday occurrence so I allow it to be what it is.

When I was young and really starting to soul travel a lot in my late teens and early 20s I was allowed to look into various heavens of different religions. This changed me and how I saw the universe a lot just like traveling to countries different than your own does. From this, I for one and for all realized that heaven is for all peoples not just one religion or another. I also realized how you treat yourself and all other beings decides what happens to one after death as well. So, I endeavored to be as kind as I could to all beings everywhere in all time and space and to be as helpful as I could to all beings as I could and still survive well in a physical body here on earth.

Hereafter: The Movie

So, the four of us went to see the movie tonight and it was much different than I had expected. I was surprised with the level of adultness that this movie dealt with the whole subject. They tried to approach it more from a scientific point of view, which worked in this movie and of many people's experiences. Though the movie is supposed to be fictional whoever wrote it did very good research because all the characters were very believable. The message of the movie is: There is something after this life. How we all deal with that appears to be our own business.

Watching Matt Dillon and the heartbreak of trying to live a full life even though he could literally speak with the dead rang true in many ways. And the story of the French lady and the 2004 Earthquake and Tsunami was really chilling in Asia in the ocean.

I'd like to tell a true story about my experience as an intuitive during this time. I told my wife the month before the 2004 Tsunami and Earthquake that took place just after Christmas 2004 that the heaven realms had come closer to earth than I had ever seen before and that I knew a whole lot of people were likely going to die. The problem with my gifts is that I'm not able to separate my own death from the deaths of others beforehand. So, the day before the Tsunami I was throwing up thinking that a whole lot of people were going to die and one of them was going to be me. So when I got up on December 26th the day after Christmas Day 2004 and saw it all live on CNN I was actually relieved that it wasn't me and my family dying too. I felt really bad for all those who were dying but because the heaven realms had drawn so close to earth I knew they would be safe and cared for. This was my very real (almost too real) experience of the month leading up to this event.