Last summer I was in Cottage Grove, Oregon buying gas as I traveled toward Mt. Rainier National Park, Vancouver, Canada, Whistler and Victoria. My wife and I and daughter really enjoy Canada the last few years during the summer.
I spoke with the Gas station attendant since there is no self serve in Oregon(something to remember if you travel there by car). He said that the droughts had reached up as far as Portland, Oregon. I could tell because there were fires as far north as Eugene, Oregon and beyond.
This year in Northern California where I live though we thought we would wash or blow away from all the wind in January and February along the coast, there was little if any significant rain after the beginning of March. This is very unusual(in the last 100 years) because we usually get significant rains into March, April or May and sometimes even in June. So, as a result of this historic lack of rain in March through June and incredible rains in January and February we have incredible fires here this early in June. Lightning this early in June is also very strange because where I live at least lightning is usually(if it comes at all) in August and September and maybe October. However, for most of the Northern California area there is significant lightning in July and August, especially in the Sacramento Valley and in the Sierras and Cascade mountain areas. So more lightning fires even if small are basically inevitable during those later summer storms. I suppose we could see some of the most remote and inaccessible fires now still burning when that occurs then as long as no legal structures are in jeapordy.
However, I think because of the melting northern Ice Cap, we should all prepare for the droughts on the west coast to slowly move northward and eventually all the way up into Canada. Desalinization anyone?
To the best of my ability I write about my experience of the Universe Past, Present and Future
Top 10 Posts This Month
- Because of fighting in Ukraine and Israel Bombing Iran I thought I should share this EMP I wrote in 2011
- Here Are the New Members of Donald Trump’s Administration So Far
- "There is nothing so good that no bad may come of it and nothing so bad that no good may come of it": Descartes
- Historicity of Jesus-Wikipedia
- US intelligence officials make last-ditch effort to sound the alarm over foreign election interference
- Holiday Fire in Goleta: 19 structures destroyed: 80% contained: evacuations lifted
- CAVE FIRE EVACUATIONS TO BE LIFTED WEDNESDAY
- Keri Russell pulls back the curtain on "The Diplomat" (season 2 filming now for Netflix)
- I tried to get a copy from France from French Wikipedia but it just took me back to English Wikipedia:
- 6 inches of Rain hit Santa Barbara tonight according to Weather Channel
Monday, June 30, 2008
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Prisoners of Smoke and Fire
As if the price of gas in California wasn't enough, then the stock market looks to be going Bear and now we haven't been able to leave our houses for fear of 2 to 10 times the unsafe level of air particulates from Bakersfield and San Luis Obispo to Redding, California, a stretch of about 450 miles at least south to north. I'm here on the Northern California Coast but had to pretty much stay in my house with my family most of the time with all the windows closed just so I and my families lungs would be okay. I would go out to see if the air was breathable every two hours or so and once every 2 or 3 days one could find the air clear enough for an hour or two to turn the fans on and open the windows to get a clean change of air.
I can't remember it being this bad this long along the coast. I have seen it much worse when I was younger in the 1970s and even 1980s in Mt. Shasta during summer fire season, but never have I ever seen the 1400 fires in California at once. This is completely unheard of in the last 100 years or so.
Since I live on the coast there is finally some good news. Tomorrow, the normal coastal fog will push the smoke south and east away from us so we can breathe once again outside. My adult son who is home from medical school this summer and I got into the hot tub for the first time in a couple of weeks outside in the back yard. It was such a relief not to be breathing smoke. The ash has been falling hard for several days now. It covers everything. I was a little concerned tonight because even though the particulate matter will all come to the ground tonight with the heavy dew from the ocean fog it will also make lye from the ash and water combination and lye is very acidic on car paint and plants. So though it will help us all breathe much better it won't help the plants or car paint for any car outside tonight.
I can't remember it being this bad this long along the coast. I have seen it much worse when I was younger in the 1970s and even 1980s in Mt. Shasta during summer fire season, but never have I ever seen the 1400 fires in California at once. This is completely unheard of in the last 100 years or so.
Since I live on the coast there is finally some good news. Tomorrow, the normal coastal fog will push the smoke south and east away from us so we can breathe once again outside. My adult son who is home from medical school this summer and I got into the hot tub for the first time in a couple of weeks outside in the back yard. It was such a relief not to be breathing smoke. The ash has been falling hard for several days now. It covers everything. I was a little concerned tonight because even though the particulate matter will all come to the ground tonight with the heavy dew from the ocean fog it will also make lye from the ash and water combination and lye is very acidic on car paint and plants. So though it will help us all breathe much better it won't help the plants or car paint for any car outside tonight.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Staying Alive
These are pretty tough times we live in worldwide. A lot of people just aren't going to make it in all countries for a variety of reasons. But the one thing I can say is: "Don't Panic!" Even though for some of you this has humorous connotations from Douglas Adams "Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy",it is also a very good idea in almost all situations unless being attacked by a bear or hanging from a rope at 100 feet that is about to break and even then panicking will only hasten the inevitable.
No. Keeping a cool steady head through all this is necessary for ongoing survival. This doesn't mean "Don't get Angry". As long as you are just angry and not going into a rage or something I have found anger has taken me to more good places in my life in the long run than almost anything else. People say, "Love is all you need.!", but if you don't know when to be angry not much will ever happen in your life in regard to money or property or moving to a new place to start over. Mostly, opportunities only come to those capable of feeling anger when things aren't working out. Useful anger can eventually if it doesn't go into rage take one to their next occupation, place to live, place to meet the person potentially of their dreams etc. Without righteous anger we would all be snails living within 25 feet of where they were born.
But first and foremost "Don't Panic!" because panicking is the most likely to temporarily or permanently ruin your life.
No. Keeping a cool steady head through all this is necessary for ongoing survival. This doesn't mean "Don't get Angry". As long as you are just angry and not going into a rage or something I have found anger has taken me to more good places in my life in the long run than almost anything else. People say, "Love is all you need.!", but if you don't know when to be angry not much will ever happen in your life in regard to money or property or moving to a new place to start over. Mostly, opportunities only come to those capable of feeling anger when things aren't working out. Useful anger can eventually if it doesn't go into rage take one to their next occupation, place to live, place to meet the person potentially of their dreams etc. Without righteous anger we would all be snails living within 25 feet of where they were born.
But first and foremost "Don't Panic!" because panicking is the most likely to temporarily or permanently ruin your life.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Institutional oil and food futures Investors killing the future
Because of the falling dollar institutional investors worldwide are looking to keep their jobs anyway they can. Unfortunately, their solution is helping kill the world economy.
In order to get their pensioners or states or counties or whatever the most bang for the buck they are forced to invest in one of the only good deals these days: oil and food futures which are skyrocketing. Though these institutional investors may keep their jobs and not get fired in these troubled times, these investments by driving up the retail cost of food and oil 30% to 50% worldwide are causing more problems for the whole world than they ever could solve for their pensioners portfolios.
This whole thing is backwards and until laws are put in place to protect the now global economy, the whole world economy is going down sort of like the Titanic, Slowly.
It isn't like the great depression. It reminds me more of the stagflation of Japan the last 10 years. What is happening to the largest nations is like Japan's stagflation. What is happening to smaller nations that are less adaptable is slow or fast death depending upon the nation or area.
The global economy has become so complex no one is in charge of it and as long as it stays the way it is we will all suffer. It is my hope that nations can join together to create new rules and enforceable laws so that we are all not just economically strangled right out of existence.
What is happening now doesn't really help anyone long term. Even investors from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Venezuela and even Canada, the United States and Mexico need somewhere to invest their money after they make it from oil. So both in the short run and the long run absolutely everyone is being harmed by what is presently happening on earth.
In order to get their pensioners or states or counties or whatever the most bang for the buck they are forced to invest in one of the only good deals these days: oil and food futures which are skyrocketing. Though these institutional investors may keep their jobs and not get fired in these troubled times, these investments by driving up the retail cost of food and oil 30% to 50% worldwide are causing more problems for the whole world than they ever could solve for their pensioners portfolios.
This whole thing is backwards and until laws are put in place to protect the now global economy, the whole world economy is going down sort of like the Titanic, Slowly.
It isn't like the great depression. It reminds me more of the stagflation of Japan the last 10 years. What is happening to the largest nations is like Japan's stagflation. What is happening to smaller nations that are less adaptable is slow or fast death depending upon the nation or area.
The global economy has become so complex no one is in charge of it and as long as it stays the way it is we will all suffer. It is my hope that nations can join together to create new rules and enforceable laws so that we are all not just economically strangled right out of existence.
What is happening now doesn't really help anyone long term. Even investors from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Venezuela and even Canada, the United States and Mexico need somewhere to invest their money after they make it from oil. So both in the short run and the long run absolutely everyone is being harmed by what is presently happening on earth.
If there is an ocean there is potential water to drink
Water is appearing to become more problematic with each passing year. The title I used to denote that even though all oceans are salty they are also potential drinking water. So all one really needs is an ocean even on the edge of a desert and about 12 feet by 4 feet wide of black plastic 4ml to 6 or even 8 ml thick. 6 feet by 4 feet of it one could gather about a gallon of water from the ocean after digging a hole about 1 foot deep in the sand. Then you need a cup or larger container to drip distill the water into. After placing your empty cup or bowl in the center of the water to be solar distilled then place your second 6 foot by 4 foot sheet of black plastic on top of the hole lined with black plastic and your empty cup or bowl to capture drip distilled water. Then place on top of the second plastic sheet a rock exactly where you want the drip distilled water to condense back from water vapor into water into the bowl or cup. Then leave for a few hours to a day and you have water to drink even if you are on the edge of a desert right next to you. Saltwater, sun, a cup or bowl and two sheets of plastic and a rock to weight the plastic are all you need. Also, a little sand to hold the top black plastic in place around the edges so it doesn't blow away in the sea wind and of course a sunny day.
The above is a survival idea I got from Bear Grylls on Man vs. Wild. However, water is becoming more of a problem and because of this in the end many of us might need to solar distill sea water in order to survive the coming years on earth.
Remember this one thing: Even if it never rained again on earth you could still survive by solar distilling sea water. If your plastic distilleries were large enough you could even make enough water to grow food if the soil was okay for that near the ocean. If you are concerned about pollution of sea water where you are then use some driftwood to build a small fire and boil the water you distill before you drink it just for safety.
When I stayed in India in one place more than one week I bought a kerosene cook stove and boiled any water I was going to drink for myself or my family 5 minutes at boil before we drank any. We boiled at least a gallon every night in our hotel room in the Himalayas for the next day. Each of us carried our own bottle for water. This was 1986.
Wind and the lack of rain water or snow melt will likely cause major migrations toward better water sources over the next 20 to 30 years. Those that migrate will survive. Those that don't might not. It's as simple as that worldwide.
Having given all this a lot of thought I have realized that High winds and long term droughts are much more problematic long term than floods, hurricanes or cyclones. At least water events bring water and move sometimes new fertile soil into your area. However, long term droughts combined with high winds just tend to kill everything from plant to animal to human.
Since I live in California and there are presently 1100 fires in the state(mostly lightning caused) I can see first hand what getting a lot of rain in northern California in January and February and almost no rain since does. The weeds grow statewide from all the rain then turn brown early and now for the past two months all the fires in northern California. Drought has plagued Southern California for several years. The 1100 fires mostly in Northern California are from the Driest March through May pretty much in history. So southern Oregon, Nevada and Northern and Southern California are in for it this summer and fall and maybe even next winter (or until the rains come again in earnest).
The above is a survival idea I got from Bear Grylls on Man vs. Wild. However, water is becoming more of a problem and because of this in the end many of us might need to solar distill sea water in order to survive the coming years on earth.
Remember this one thing: Even if it never rained again on earth you could still survive by solar distilling sea water. If your plastic distilleries were large enough you could even make enough water to grow food if the soil was okay for that near the ocean. If you are concerned about pollution of sea water where you are then use some driftwood to build a small fire and boil the water you distill before you drink it just for safety.
When I stayed in India in one place more than one week I bought a kerosene cook stove and boiled any water I was going to drink for myself or my family 5 minutes at boil before we drank any. We boiled at least a gallon every night in our hotel room in the Himalayas for the next day. Each of us carried our own bottle for water. This was 1986.
Wind and the lack of rain water or snow melt will likely cause major migrations toward better water sources over the next 20 to 30 years. Those that migrate will survive. Those that don't might not. It's as simple as that worldwide.
Having given all this a lot of thought I have realized that High winds and long term droughts are much more problematic long term than floods, hurricanes or cyclones. At least water events bring water and move sometimes new fertile soil into your area. However, long term droughts combined with high winds just tend to kill everything from plant to animal to human.
Since I live in California and there are presently 1100 fires in the state(mostly lightning caused) I can see first hand what getting a lot of rain in northern California in January and February and almost no rain since does. The weeds grow statewide from all the rain then turn brown early and now for the past two months all the fires in northern California. Drought has plagued Southern California for several years. The 1100 fires mostly in Northern California are from the Driest March through May pretty much in history. So southern Oregon, Nevada and Northern and Southern California are in for it this summer and fall and maybe even next winter (or until the rains come again in earnest).
Mars can support life
AFter testing the soil the latest robot we sent to Mars sent information back that life either once existed on Mars and/or the soil there would be great for growing asparagus right now, for example.
Ever since the Soviets sent a probe to the asteroid belt in the 1970s and found out that the asteroid belt was likely a planet blown up by a surface thermonuclear war I have suspected that Mars was once an inhabited planet like Earth and the Asteroid belt when it was a planet. I also suspect that a chunk of the Asteroid belt planet hit earth at that time and killed all the big dinosaurs who couldn't seek shelter in caves and cracks or under the ocean when it hit. Maybe humans are part Mars and Asteroid belt planet humanoids. Who knows. I think studying Mars might give us all clues about this.
It is possible that since Mars is nearer the Asteroid belt the explosion of the Asteroid belt planet from nuclear weapons blew off Mars' atmosphere and killed all or most of the people there.
Though the incident about the asteroids being a planet destroyed by thermonuclear war was suppressed in the western press likely by Christians who couldn't cope with this information, this information was published in Pravda and likely in Izvestia at that time as well.
Ever since the Soviets sent a probe to the asteroid belt in the 1970s and found out that the asteroid belt was likely a planet blown up by a surface thermonuclear war I have suspected that Mars was once an inhabited planet like Earth and the Asteroid belt when it was a planet. I also suspect that a chunk of the Asteroid belt planet hit earth at that time and killed all the big dinosaurs who couldn't seek shelter in caves and cracks or under the ocean when it hit. Maybe humans are part Mars and Asteroid belt planet humanoids. Who knows. I think studying Mars might give us all clues about this.
It is possible that since Mars is nearer the Asteroid belt the explosion of the Asteroid belt planet from nuclear weapons blew off Mars' atmosphere and killed all or most of the people there.
Though the incident about the asteroids being a planet destroyed by thermonuclear war was suppressed in the western press likely by Christians who couldn't cope with this information, this information was published in Pravda and likely in Izvestia at that time as well.
The Last Mimzy
I had seen this movie in the theater with my family. Recently, I rented it from Netflix. At the time I wondered why I was renting it. Tonight, my family and I watched a DVD of it and I realized why. The future I envision as a precognitive psychic reminds me a lot of what happens in this movie. Not the scientist making the Intel core processor doll, though Intel may still be around then.
What I remember about the future is the mountains, the flowers and the Alps or the Himalayas as a seat of world power at that time. Some children have developed way beyond the present and can actually levitate and stuff like that and adults too.
Perception of these folks since they tend to reinforce each others realities in some ways like enthusiastic college students reinforce each others dreams and ideas too, moves the civilization forward in ways that people would think impossible now.
In the end we are only as limited as we think. As more people learn to be unlimited or better to say less limited in their thinking almost anything is possible as long as infinite kindness and genius and being in the right place at the right time are all intertwined together in a large group of children, adults and wise elders. This group enthusiasm creates a future we all want to live in.
What I remember about the future is the mountains, the flowers and the Alps or the Himalayas as a seat of world power at that time. Some children have developed way beyond the present and can actually levitate and stuff like that and adults too.
Perception of these folks since they tend to reinforce each others realities in some ways like enthusiastic college students reinforce each others dreams and ideas too, moves the civilization forward in ways that people would think impossible now.
In the end we are only as limited as we think. As more people learn to be unlimited or better to say less limited in their thinking almost anything is possible as long as infinite kindness and genius and being in the right place at the right time are all intertwined together in a large group of children, adults and wise elders. This group enthusiasm creates a future we all want to live in.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Fourteen generations of American Survivors
In case you thought this was going to be about something else, let me say up front I want to speak about 14 generations of people since 1720 in America who used guns as a tool to survive, to hunt and as local pest control.
Since my Ancestors sailed up the river to Philadelphia in something probably resembling the Mayflower in 1720, guns have been a necessary survival tool for 14 generations. Since I didn't have anyone to talk to that remembered back as far even as the Civil War even though my grandfather's father fought in the civil war as a captain for the north and my Grandmother's uncle I believe was General Bullard for the South.
So outside of my Great Grandfather establishing a Drug store with remedies he got from a local indian tribe in Kansas around 1875 or so. I do know my Great Grandfather's drugstore was still around in 1925 or thereabouts when he sold it and retired to his ranch.
So, beginning with my Grandpa Mel I can speak about what I know about their sort of cowboy culture. My Grandfather was an electrical Contractor, so he wasn't a cowboy in that sense. However, in regard to guns, boots, hunting dogs and hunting Bear, elk, Deer and anything else one ate then he was the most like a cowboy than anything else I can compare him to today. My Grandpa after growing up on a ranch in Kansas had a nickname when he played baseball. They called him "Pinkie" because he had red hair. They say he was an excellent pitcher. However, since there really wasn't any money in baseball back in 1900 to 1905 or thereabouts when he played so he became an electrical contractor instead. Since red hair tends to go gray before any other color of hair I never saw my grand Dad's red hair as it was gray long before I was born in 1948. I lived my first four years on my grand ad's 2 1/2 acres of apples, Black cherries, raspberries and boysenberries. Raspberries and Black cherries were then and are now my favorites.
The stories I heard from my Dad and other relatives in regard to guns seem completely out of time now. But remember both my grand Dad and my Dad are now from a completely different era now. My Grand Dad was born during the 1880s and my Dad was born in 1916.
The stories I want to tell say a lot about how things were done during the 1800s and early 1900s in the western United States. I'm telling them to show what law abiding people were like in regard to their guns in those times.
The first useful story would be during World War II in regard to my Grand Dad. People were encouraged to grow Victory Gardens because most farmers(men) were off fighting the war. So the older, infirm and retired and left behind grew private gardens to sell to other people so people had enough food to eat during the war in America. I think Grand Dad was growing strawberries and Tomatoes on some rented land in Eastern Washington. So he went to get his gas coupons so he could bring his crop to the market to sell. They told him that the tomato and strawberry season was over. So Grand Dad went to his truck and got his double barreled shotgun. He walked back into the office and set his gun on the counter and said, "I want my gas coupons." They gave them to him no questions asked. This was how things were done in the west. You would go to jail now for this behavior but then people completely understood this behavior from Grand Dad's generation of "Cowboys". It was just how the west was in the old days. You often had to stand up for your own rights during the 1800s and early 1900s because the law might be 25 to 50 miles away. You might be dead before you got any help. This was just the way things were done.
The next story tells you two things: first Grand Dad like most of his generation felt that "the only reason to go to a hospital outside of a broken arm or leg was to die" and second, dying with his boots on was a necessity not an option to his generation.
Grand Dad had a D-9 Caterpillar tractor on his 2000 acre mining claim near Elk City, Idaho. One day he decided that he was going to pull a stump out with a drag line off his D-9 tractor. So he connected a large wire mesh line to a boulder and the drag line to the stump. He did not want to blow up the stump because he was getting older and his neighbors might complain. My father and his brother blew up stumps with dynamite when they were teenagers to make extra money. Grandpa taught them how.
Anyway, Grandpa pulled and pulled the line so taut that the bulldozer lifted up off the ground from the line tension and turned over on top of Grandpa. Since he was alone on his 2000 acres when this all happened hot radiator water, hot engine oil and diesel came down onto him and around him while he was pinned alone like the for several days.
Finally, a neighbor found him and dug him out. He had one collapsed lung so they took him to the hospital. However, remember grandpa hated hospitals so he somehow smuggled in a gun and with the gun he forced the nurses to get him cigarettes. He re-inflated his collapsed lung with Camels and Marlborough cigarettes, put his boots on and if anyone tried to stop him he simply showed them his gun as he walked out of the hospital. He was a force to be reckoned with. People usually left people like this alone who were both larger than life but also law abiding citizens. I don't think Grandpa ever went to a hospital again except to die.
The next story is also true and likely happened around the time of the previous incident. The first story took place during World War II regarding the Victory garden. The last story took place sometime between 1956 when I visited Grandma in Seattle and Grandpa in Idaho. He spent late fall to spring with Grandma and the late spring to early fall in Idaho alone on his 2000 acre mining claim. They stayed married this way.
Grandpa liked this arrangement but I don't think Grandma liked it at all. But she wouldn't leave her home in Seattle to go to the boonies in Idaho to live with Grandpa in his cabin there during the summers so that was the way it was from world War II until Grandpa passed away in the Fall of 1970 when I was 22. I saw him last in September 1970. I wasn't very happy then. I had just broken up with someone I wanted to marry so I was at loose ends. A month or two later Grandpa a wheel bearing froze in one of Grandpa's panel trucks(now they are called vans) and he went down a 100 foot embankment into a river. He passed away about 5 days later in a hospital in I think Grangeville, Idaho, the nearest hospital then to Elk City, Idaho. So, since Grandpa was born in the middle to late 1880s, then he would have been in his 80s when this happened in 1970.
The laws changed in the late 1950s to early 1960 that one could no longer have these large mining claims unless a certain amount of money per acre was being made from the claim. Since Grandpa after having this claim for probably 40 years at this point, he likely saw the land as his and wasn't going to let some young whippersnapper take it from him. So when the ranger came to notify Grandpa Mel he was going to have to leave his claim, Grandpa just took out his World War I 30 odd 6 army rifle and shot off the rangers hat. I am surprised he got away with this but they decided to leave him alone since he was so old and let him die on his claim which was within 10 years of this incident.
My father's experiences were a lot different that Grandad's since my Dad wasn't born until 1916. His experiences make a lot more sense to todays people born since World War II. My father was given his 22 rifle when he was 6, his 4 year old brother was given a 22 pistol when he was 4 and the older brother who was then 9 years old was given a low gauge shotgun for shooting doves and quail for dinner. They went hunting alone in Coos Bay, Oregon probably in 1922. Since they were all so young they brought back robins instead of doves or quail because they didn't really know the difference. My Dad who was the 6 year old said they had to pull the pellets out of the robins and there wasn't much meat on them. This was his first hunting experience in 1922.
Later, Grandpa ran up a tree when Dad was about 10 or 12 because he wanted the pelts off a family of raccoons. He took one baseball bat and gave my Dad another and told Dad to knock them in the head when they fell one by one. I heard this story recently from my Aunt before she died and it reminded me the kind of scary kinds of things my father had to do as a matter of course growing up. If you have ever seen what a raccoon can do to a person or a dog you would rather face most dogs than a raccoon because of their lightning fasts claws and razor sharp teeth. We lost our Jack Russel terrier-Corgi mix to a raccoon about 5 years ago near our trash can area in our back yard. She gave as good as she got but it wasn't enough. We were gone and someone else forgot to let her in after dark so one month later she passed on from her injuries.
I have also hand fed raccoons through a sliding glass door at my ex mother in laws house and they can be very cute when they bring their own families. But in my fathers and grandfathers generation they were not anything but food and pelts to those generations.
My father spoke of his father purchasing a German Luger. I have seen it and even fired it when I was 8. Unfortunately, the kick bloodied my forehead as I was young and inexperienced at the time with high caliber weapons. I stuck with .22 rifles and pistols after that in my childhood. I believe a German Luger is an automatic clip loaded pistol that is a 9mm which might be comparable to a .40 to .45 Colt automatic pistol in the U.S. at that time. I'm not certain on the caliber comparisons between milimeters and a U.S. caliber comparison so this is just an approximation on my part.
Anyway, since my Dad was a teenager, he and his brother snuck out the German Luger to try it out since they lived in an area where people hunted. They fired the gun many times into the dense forest thinking it would likely hit a tree. However, one bullet made it through the trees and through 3 or four walls and embedded on the front inside door of a house where a lady was playing the piano. It was so close that if she had stood up she would have been hit by the bullet. But by then they had returned the gun to its hiding place and their father nor anyone else but them realized what had happened.
When Dad was 18, he was hired by his Aunt Beulah in Prescott, Arizona to help operate her gold mine along with an older cowboy in his later 40s. This would have been 1934 in the Gila Bend area of Arizona. The problem was that the Native American that sold
the gold mine to Aunt Beulah tried to sell it again to another client. However, when he brought the new clients to see the mine, Dad had to shoot over the Native Americans head and he got upset. The new clients understood the problem immediately and restrained the Native American realizing that he didn't fully understand property ownership and that one could not sell the same thing twice.
The last story I want to tell about my father and guns was in the 1980s after Dad had retired out to his 2 1/2 acres and the house he and I and Mom had built there for them to retire to. It was about midnight to 2 am one Saturday night and two drunk guys drove up to their property and demanded their girlfriend come out. They obviously, were very drunk and when my Dad told them to leave and that their girlfriend didn't live there they didn't leave. First, he said if they didn't leave he was going to call the Sheriff. When the still didn't leave he got a .22 revolver and shot over there heads about 5 times. This time they left and got part of Dad's fencing caught under their car on the way backing out fast. The Sheriff later called Dad from Yucca Valley and said he caught them trying to get the wire fencing out from under their car there.
There are other stories about Dad shooting a cougar at his desert house because he didn't want it to eat his German Shepard or him shooting green mojave rattlesnakes because they are 9 times more deadly than a diamondback and cannot be tolerated around where people are living in their house. This was a problem then because most people treated for green mojave rattlesnake bites died back at that time because the anti-venom hospitals gave wasn't powerful enough. It would cure Diamondback rattlesnake bites but most green mojave bites killed people as a result. So Dad religiously shot any green mojave sidewinder rattlesnakes that came onto his property to keep himself, his german shepard, King, and his wife and anyone visiting alive.
Though I didn't cover much before 1875 and my ancestors first coming here to Philadelphia Harbor around 1720, I was mostly trying to give you a feel for what people who lived multi-generationally in the countryside of the western United States were like when I grew up. Though at times it could be very severe the way things were when I grew up. Still, I always knew exactly where I stood with them. They were all straightforward and honest to a fault. They were very cowboylike in an idealized sort of way. They all had the integrity of people who would survive anything and they raised people who would survive anything. This is the true legacy of frontier America.
Since my Ancestors sailed up the river to Philadelphia in something probably resembling the Mayflower in 1720, guns have been a necessary survival tool for 14 generations. Since I didn't have anyone to talk to that remembered back as far even as the Civil War even though my grandfather's father fought in the civil war as a captain for the north and my Grandmother's uncle I believe was General Bullard for the South.
So outside of my Great Grandfather establishing a Drug store with remedies he got from a local indian tribe in Kansas around 1875 or so. I do know my Great Grandfather's drugstore was still around in 1925 or thereabouts when he sold it and retired to his ranch.
So, beginning with my Grandpa Mel I can speak about what I know about their sort of cowboy culture. My Grandfather was an electrical Contractor, so he wasn't a cowboy in that sense. However, in regard to guns, boots, hunting dogs and hunting Bear, elk, Deer and anything else one ate then he was the most like a cowboy than anything else I can compare him to today. My Grandpa after growing up on a ranch in Kansas had a nickname when he played baseball. They called him "Pinkie" because he had red hair. They say he was an excellent pitcher. However, since there really wasn't any money in baseball back in 1900 to 1905 or thereabouts when he played so he became an electrical contractor instead. Since red hair tends to go gray before any other color of hair I never saw my grand Dad's red hair as it was gray long before I was born in 1948. I lived my first four years on my grand ad's 2 1/2 acres of apples, Black cherries, raspberries and boysenberries. Raspberries and Black cherries were then and are now my favorites.
The stories I heard from my Dad and other relatives in regard to guns seem completely out of time now. But remember both my grand Dad and my Dad are now from a completely different era now. My Grand Dad was born during the 1880s and my Dad was born in 1916.
The stories I want to tell say a lot about how things were done during the 1800s and early 1900s in the western United States. I'm telling them to show what law abiding people were like in regard to their guns in those times.
The first useful story would be during World War II in regard to my Grand Dad. People were encouraged to grow Victory Gardens because most farmers(men) were off fighting the war. So the older, infirm and retired and left behind grew private gardens to sell to other people so people had enough food to eat during the war in America. I think Grand Dad was growing strawberries and Tomatoes on some rented land in Eastern Washington. So he went to get his gas coupons so he could bring his crop to the market to sell. They told him that the tomato and strawberry season was over. So Grand Dad went to his truck and got his double barreled shotgun. He walked back into the office and set his gun on the counter and said, "I want my gas coupons." They gave them to him no questions asked. This was how things were done in the west. You would go to jail now for this behavior but then people completely understood this behavior from Grand Dad's generation of "Cowboys". It was just how the west was in the old days. You often had to stand up for your own rights during the 1800s and early 1900s because the law might be 25 to 50 miles away. You might be dead before you got any help. This was just the way things were done.
The next story tells you two things: first Grand Dad like most of his generation felt that "the only reason to go to a hospital outside of a broken arm or leg was to die" and second, dying with his boots on was a necessity not an option to his generation.
Grand Dad had a D-9 Caterpillar tractor on his 2000 acre mining claim near Elk City, Idaho. One day he decided that he was going to pull a stump out with a drag line off his D-9 tractor. So he connected a large wire mesh line to a boulder and the drag line to the stump. He did not want to blow up the stump because he was getting older and his neighbors might complain. My father and his brother blew up stumps with dynamite when they were teenagers to make extra money. Grandpa taught them how.
Anyway, Grandpa pulled and pulled the line so taut that the bulldozer lifted up off the ground from the line tension and turned over on top of Grandpa. Since he was alone on his 2000 acres when this all happened hot radiator water, hot engine oil and diesel came down onto him and around him while he was pinned alone like the for several days.
Finally, a neighbor found him and dug him out. He had one collapsed lung so they took him to the hospital. However, remember grandpa hated hospitals so he somehow smuggled in a gun and with the gun he forced the nurses to get him cigarettes. He re-inflated his collapsed lung with Camels and Marlborough cigarettes, put his boots on and if anyone tried to stop him he simply showed them his gun as he walked out of the hospital. He was a force to be reckoned with. People usually left people like this alone who were both larger than life but also law abiding citizens. I don't think Grandpa ever went to a hospital again except to die.
The next story is also true and likely happened around the time of the previous incident. The first story took place during World War II regarding the Victory garden. The last story took place sometime between 1956 when I visited Grandma in Seattle and Grandpa in Idaho. He spent late fall to spring with Grandma and the late spring to early fall in Idaho alone on his 2000 acre mining claim. They stayed married this way.
Grandpa liked this arrangement but I don't think Grandma liked it at all. But she wouldn't leave her home in Seattle to go to the boonies in Idaho to live with Grandpa in his cabin there during the summers so that was the way it was from world War II until Grandpa passed away in the Fall of 1970 when I was 22. I saw him last in September 1970. I wasn't very happy then. I had just broken up with someone I wanted to marry so I was at loose ends. A month or two later Grandpa a wheel bearing froze in one of Grandpa's panel trucks(now they are called vans) and he went down a 100 foot embankment into a river. He passed away about 5 days later in a hospital in I think Grangeville, Idaho, the nearest hospital then to Elk City, Idaho. So, since Grandpa was born in the middle to late 1880s, then he would have been in his 80s when this happened in 1970.
The laws changed in the late 1950s to early 1960 that one could no longer have these large mining claims unless a certain amount of money per acre was being made from the claim. Since Grandpa after having this claim for probably 40 years at this point, he likely saw the land as his and wasn't going to let some young whippersnapper take it from him. So when the ranger came to notify Grandpa Mel he was going to have to leave his claim, Grandpa just took out his World War I 30 odd 6 army rifle and shot off the rangers hat. I am surprised he got away with this but they decided to leave him alone since he was so old and let him die on his claim which was within 10 years of this incident.
My father's experiences were a lot different that Grandad's since my Dad wasn't born until 1916. His experiences make a lot more sense to todays people born since World War II. My father was given his 22 rifle when he was 6, his 4 year old brother was given a 22 pistol when he was 4 and the older brother who was then 9 years old was given a low gauge shotgun for shooting doves and quail for dinner. They went hunting alone in Coos Bay, Oregon probably in 1922. Since they were all so young they brought back robins instead of doves or quail because they didn't really know the difference. My Dad who was the 6 year old said they had to pull the pellets out of the robins and there wasn't much meat on them. This was his first hunting experience in 1922.
Later, Grandpa ran up a tree when Dad was about 10 or 12 because he wanted the pelts off a family of raccoons. He took one baseball bat and gave my Dad another and told Dad to knock them in the head when they fell one by one. I heard this story recently from my Aunt before she died and it reminded me the kind of scary kinds of things my father had to do as a matter of course growing up. If you have ever seen what a raccoon can do to a person or a dog you would rather face most dogs than a raccoon because of their lightning fasts claws and razor sharp teeth. We lost our Jack Russel terrier-Corgi mix to a raccoon about 5 years ago near our trash can area in our back yard. She gave as good as she got but it wasn't enough. We were gone and someone else forgot to let her in after dark so one month later she passed on from her injuries.
I have also hand fed raccoons through a sliding glass door at my ex mother in laws house and they can be very cute when they bring their own families. But in my fathers and grandfathers generation they were not anything but food and pelts to those generations.
My father spoke of his father purchasing a German Luger. I have seen it and even fired it when I was 8. Unfortunately, the kick bloodied my forehead as I was young and inexperienced at the time with high caliber weapons. I stuck with .22 rifles and pistols after that in my childhood. I believe a German Luger is an automatic clip loaded pistol that is a 9mm which might be comparable to a .40 to .45 Colt automatic pistol in the U.S. at that time. I'm not certain on the caliber comparisons between milimeters and a U.S. caliber comparison so this is just an approximation on my part.
Anyway, since my Dad was a teenager, he and his brother snuck out the German Luger to try it out since they lived in an area where people hunted. They fired the gun many times into the dense forest thinking it would likely hit a tree. However, one bullet made it through the trees and through 3 or four walls and embedded on the front inside door of a house where a lady was playing the piano. It was so close that if she had stood up she would have been hit by the bullet. But by then they had returned the gun to its hiding place and their father nor anyone else but them realized what had happened.
When Dad was 18, he was hired by his Aunt Beulah in Prescott, Arizona to help operate her gold mine along with an older cowboy in his later 40s. This would have been 1934 in the Gila Bend area of Arizona. The problem was that the Native American that sold
the gold mine to Aunt Beulah tried to sell it again to another client. However, when he brought the new clients to see the mine, Dad had to shoot over the Native Americans head and he got upset. The new clients understood the problem immediately and restrained the Native American realizing that he didn't fully understand property ownership and that one could not sell the same thing twice.
The last story I want to tell about my father and guns was in the 1980s after Dad had retired out to his 2 1/2 acres and the house he and I and Mom had built there for them to retire to. It was about midnight to 2 am one Saturday night and two drunk guys drove up to their property and demanded their girlfriend come out. They obviously, were very drunk and when my Dad told them to leave and that their girlfriend didn't live there they didn't leave. First, he said if they didn't leave he was going to call the Sheriff. When the still didn't leave he got a .22 revolver and shot over there heads about 5 times. This time they left and got part of Dad's fencing caught under their car on the way backing out fast. The Sheriff later called Dad from Yucca Valley and said he caught them trying to get the wire fencing out from under their car there.
There are other stories about Dad shooting a cougar at his desert house because he didn't want it to eat his German Shepard or him shooting green mojave rattlesnakes because they are 9 times more deadly than a diamondback and cannot be tolerated around where people are living in their house. This was a problem then because most people treated for green mojave rattlesnake bites died back at that time because the anti-venom hospitals gave wasn't powerful enough. It would cure Diamondback rattlesnake bites but most green mojave bites killed people as a result. So Dad religiously shot any green mojave sidewinder rattlesnakes that came onto his property to keep himself, his german shepard, King, and his wife and anyone visiting alive.
Though I didn't cover much before 1875 and my ancestors first coming here to Philadelphia Harbor around 1720, I was mostly trying to give you a feel for what people who lived multi-generationally in the countryside of the western United States were like when I grew up. Though at times it could be very severe the way things were when I grew up. Still, I always knew exactly where I stood with them. They were all straightforward and honest to a fault. They were very cowboylike in an idealized sort of way. They all had the integrity of people who would survive anything and they raised people who would survive anything. This is the true legacy of frontier America.
Guns for Self Defense
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080626/ap_on_go_su_co/scotus_guns;
The Supreme Court has ruled that hand guns can't be outlawed for Washington D.C. residents. In so doing it has affirmed the right of all Americans to own hand guns and rifles.
I believe that the only real reason that the United States hasn't been completely overun and our government overthrown formally from within or without is the fact that American citizens can arm themselves. You don't have to share my belief. However, I believe that the world is as free as it is mainly because all Americans can be armed if they want to. I believe the arming of Americans is the mainstay of a free world. Even when european nations take away most of the guns of their citizens, it only makes me think of Hitler first registering, then taking away the guns of everyone especially jewish people. Do you think the Holocaust could have taken place if Jewish and all people were allowed to keep their weapons in Germany and in Europe in general?
My family have owned guns since they first came here in 1720 from Switzerland and Germany. We needed them to settle the land from Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kansas and on to parts West in Washington and California and Texas. We still need them to prevent overthrow of our country from without or within. People who don't understand this haven't been outside this country to know just how difficult the rest of the world is. People obey our laws here in the U.S. because citizens have guns to enforce them if necessary. Both our military and police understand this too.
I was given my first rifle by my grandmother when I was 8 in 1954. I learned to be a an excellent marksman by the time I was 9 or 10. Even though the last time I had need to shoot a gun it was at a green Mojave sidewinder rattlesnake(which is 9 times more lethal than a diamond back rattler venom wise) as it tried to go into my father's desert house. This was probably in the early 1980s.
To me, a gun is a tool just like a hammer or a shovel. It is something you need only need when you need it. It is not a toy. I'm not even interested in target practice since I grew up and haven't even had need to shoot a gun for over 20 years. But when you need one you need one. It's a tool and I believe if you live in the country you should train your children young the rules of using a gun. To me, it is as useful as a bicycle or driving a car. It is about the survival of your nation, and your family. It is a useful tool when you need it. That's all.
The Supreme Court has ruled that hand guns can't be outlawed for Washington D.C. residents. In so doing it has affirmed the right of all Americans to own hand guns and rifles.
I believe that the only real reason that the United States hasn't been completely overun and our government overthrown formally from within or without is the fact that American citizens can arm themselves. You don't have to share my belief. However, I believe that the world is as free as it is mainly because all Americans can be armed if they want to. I believe the arming of Americans is the mainstay of a free world. Even when european nations take away most of the guns of their citizens, it only makes me think of Hitler first registering, then taking away the guns of everyone especially jewish people. Do you think the Holocaust could have taken place if Jewish and all people were allowed to keep their weapons in Germany and in Europe in general?
My family have owned guns since they first came here in 1720 from Switzerland and Germany. We needed them to settle the land from Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kansas and on to parts West in Washington and California and Texas. We still need them to prevent overthrow of our country from without or within. People who don't understand this haven't been outside this country to know just how difficult the rest of the world is. People obey our laws here in the U.S. because citizens have guns to enforce them if necessary. Both our military and police understand this too.
I was given my first rifle by my grandmother when I was 8 in 1954. I learned to be a an excellent marksman by the time I was 9 or 10. Even though the last time I had need to shoot a gun it was at a green Mojave sidewinder rattlesnake(which is 9 times more lethal than a diamond back rattler venom wise) as it tried to go into my father's desert house. This was probably in the early 1980s.
To me, a gun is a tool just like a hammer or a shovel. It is something you need only need when you need it. It is not a toy. I'm not even interested in target practice since I grew up and haven't even had need to shoot a gun for over 20 years. But when you need one you need one. It's a tool and I believe if you live in the country you should train your children young the rules of using a gun. To me, it is as useful as a bicycle or driving a car. It is about the survival of your nation, and your family. It is a useful tool when you need it. That's all.
Price of Regular Gas Worldwide
I thought that knowing some of the prices people are paying for regular gas around the world might bring a better perspective for all of us in these times.
The price I'm paying for regular gas is going up but it is usually:
$4.50 to$4.75 here in Northern California.
China was paying around $2.50 per gallon 2 weeks ago but the government decided to increase their price to around $2.95 to $3.00 a gallon by upping the price 18%.
http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/2653
As of June 15th 2008 theoildrum internet address is the source of the following gasoline statistics.
I'll do the top ten prices in Europe and then the lowest 10 on earth which are mostly oil producing nations.
All are per Gallon prices:
$7.76 Norway
$7.52 Netherlands
$7.32 Belgium
$7.15 United Kingdom
$6.99 Turkey
$6.98 Germany
$6.98 Denmark
$6.93 Finland
$6.65 Portugal
$6.50 Sweden
The 12 lowest prices in the world are:
$.19 Venezuela
$.29 Turkmenistan
$.33 Iran
$.45 Saudi Arabia
$.78 Kuwait
$1.92 Nigeria
$2.38 Mexico
$2.44 China Now raised to $2.95 as of June 20th
$2.61 Thailand
$2.68 Russia
$2.75 Kazakhstan
$3.10 United States as of June 15th
As you can see, the United States is not suffering the most from these prices, The top ten to twenty nations are. If it's this bad here, imagine how bad it is other places?
Looking lower on the page at the oildrum site I listed above I would like to quote the ten highest nations and 10 lowest nations in Gross Domestic product which then gives an average idea of the income of the average person in those countries. In this way we can better see how the price of gas in each of those countries affects the common man and woman there.
top ten Gross domestic product per capita(on referenced chart)
80.47 Luxembourg
44.09 Ireland
43.57 Norway
43.44 United States
37.37 Switzerland
36.55 Denmark
36.03 Austria
35.49 Canada
35.08 Netherlands
35.05 United Kingdom
Bottom 10 Gross domestic product per capita (on referenced chart)
1.21 Nigeria
7.17 Venezuela
7.60 China
8.55 Turkmenistan
8.62 Iran
9.08 Thailand
9.11 Turkey
9.11 Brasil
9.29 Kazakhstan
11.25 Mexico
By using these two charts one gets a better perspective of how those prices affect the average person. However, in many countries, especially in the bottom half of the GDP chart there really is no middle class within those nations, there is literally only rich and poor for the most part so this should be considered as well.
I have to seriously question the accuracy of my source material because as of June 15th I happen to know that the average price for gasoline in the U.S. was between $4.00 to $4.07 per gallon for regular nationwide. However, I still think that these references are valuable in showing a comparison in prices between countries. Also, the Gross domestic product per capita doesn't change that much year to year except in countries like China and India where they are growing by leaps and bounds. So the gross domestic product is likely valuable too on the charts.
It is obvious to everyone we have entered a Brave New World where nothing is as it was or likely will ever be the same again because of the end of cheap oil and Global Climate change. The biggest change likely will be a downward mobility of wealth in general because of high oil prices and more and more extreme weather changes which likely will cause the death of millions directly and indirectly. It is time for all of us to prepare in order to save our families and friends wherever possible from extinction.
The price I'm paying for regular gas is going up but it is usually:
$4.50 to$4.75 here in Northern California.
China was paying around $2.50 per gallon 2 weeks ago but the government decided to increase their price to around $2.95 to $3.00 a gallon by upping the price 18%.
http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/2653
As of June 15th 2008 theoildrum internet address is the source of the following gasoline statistics.
I'll do the top ten prices in Europe and then the lowest 10 on earth which are mostly oil producing nations.
All are per Gallon prices:
$7.76 Norway
$7.52 Netherlands
$7.32 Belgium
$7.15 United Kingdom
$6.99 Turkey
$6.98 Germany
$6.98 Denmark
$6.93 Finland
$6.65 Portugal
$6.50 Sweden
The 12 lowest prices in the world are:
$.19 Venezuela
$.29 Turkmenistan
$.33 Iran
$.45 Saudi Arabia
$.78 Kuwait
$1.92 Nigeria
$2.38 Mexico
$2.44 China Now raised to $2.95 as of June 20th
$2.61 Thailand
$2.68 Russia
$2.75 Kazakhstan
$3.10 United States as of June 15th
As you can see, the United States is not suffering the most from these prices, The top ten to twenty nations are. If it's this bad here, imagine how bad it is other places?
Looking lower on the page at the oildrum site I listed above I would like to quote the ten highest nations and 10 lowest nations in Gross Domestic product which then gives an average idea of the income of the average person in those countries. In this way we can better see how the price of gas in each of those countries affects the common man and woman there.
top ten Gross domestic product per capita(on referenced chart)
80.47 Luxembourg
44.09 Ireland
43.57 Norway
43.44 United States
37.37 Switzerland
36.55 Denmark
36.03 Austria
35.49 Canada
35.08 Netherlands
35.05 United Kingdom
Bottom 10 Gross domestic product per capita (on referenced chart)
1.21 Nigeria
7.17 Venezuela
7.60 China
8.55 Turkmenistan
8.62 Iran
9.08 Thailand
9.11 Turkey
9.11 Brasil
9.29 Kazakhstan
11.25 Mexico
By using these two charts one gets a better perspective of how those prices affect the average person. However, in many countries, especially in the bottom half of the GDP chart there really is no middle class within those nations, there is literally only rich and poor for the most part so this should be considered as well.
I have to seriously question the accuracy of my source material because as of June 15th I happen to know that the average price for gasoline in the U.S. was between $4.00 to $4.07 per gallon for regular nationwide. However, I still think that these references are valuable in showing a comparison in prices between countries. Also, the Gross domestic product per capita doesn't change that much year to year except in countries like China and India where they are growing by leaps and bounds. So the gross domestic product is likely valuable too on the charts.
It is obvious to everyone we have entered a Brave New World where nothing is as it was or likely will ever be the same again because of the end of cheap oil and Global Climate change. The biggest change likely will be a downward mobility of wealth in general because of high oil prices and more and more extreme weather changes which likely will cause the death of millions directly and indirectly. It is time for all of us to prepare in order to save our families and friends wherever possible from extinction.
Hundreds of Fires in Northern California
I live on the Northern California Coast. Even when there are fires what this usually means is that since most winds come off the ocean and go inland I usually have fairly fresh air where I live since it comes off 5000 miles or more of ocean and an upwelling ocean current in the ocean.
Not today. Today I walked outside my front door only to be met with smoke. I realized how important to prevent coughing from smoke keeping doors and windows closed today would be. The hundreds of fires, mostly started by lightning range from San Luis Obispo and Bakersfield north mostly. The go all the way up into Oregon and into Nevada.
There have never before in recorded history, as far as I know,been this many fires in Northern California at once, ever. The other day the number was up to 800+ fires. Most of these fires have no firefighters as there are just too many. Fires in Wilderness areas without structures nearby have been just left to burn because we have run out of firefighters to fight the fires.
We had the driest March through May this year in history, after having a very wet January and February. This made a lot of underbrush grow up and then quickly get dry like wild oats and the like which is a perfect combination for fires. Fires year around have started to be common in southern California. This year it is common in Northern California, Nevada and Southern Oregon as well.
I knew we were in for it last night when coming out of a restaurant with friends the sun was orange from the smoke. But by the time I was almost home I almost couldn't see the sun at all, so deep was the smoke. It's a different surrealistic world with the fires this summer.
Not today. Today I walked outside my front door only to be met with smoke. I realized how important to prevent coughing from smoke keeping doors and windows closed today would be. The hundreds of fires, mostly started by lightning range from San Luis Obispo and Bakersfield north mostly. The go all the way up into Oregon and into Nevada.
There have never before in recorded history, as far as I know,been this many fires in Northern California at once, ever. The other day the number was up to 800+ fires. Most of these fires have no firefighters as there are just too many. Fires in Wilderness areas without structures nearby have been just left to burn because we have run out of firefighters to fight the fires.
We had the driest March through May this year in history, after having a very wet January and February. This made a lot of underbrush grow up and then quickly get dry like wild oats and the like which is a perfect combination for fires. Fires year around have started to be common in southern California. This year it is common in Northern California, Nevada and Southern Oregon as well.
I knew we were in for it last night when coming out of a restaurant with friends the sun was orange from the smoke. But by the time I was almost home I almost couldn't see the sun at all, so deep was the smoke. It's a different surrealistic world with the fires this summer.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Supreme Court Says No execution for Rape
Despite any point of view you might have regarding this, all of us must admit one thing. Less people now will be killed after being raped. If a rapist knows they won't be executed for the rape there is less motivation for them to kill after raping. Females rapes of both females and males are also becoming more prevalent, this also brings new problems for society. There is also an increase of female assault and battery against both females and males as well. This is a logical reaction to equal rights for both sexes. It creates more equal problems and more equal solutions for all and a different kind of society worldwide than has ever existed before in recent world history.
I think the Supreme Court is moving down a path similar to most of Europe where it is considered uncivilized to execute anyone. This seems to be the direction of the way things are presently going.
I think the Supreme Court is moving down a path similar to most of Europe where it is considered uncivilized to execute anyone. This seems to be the direction of the way things are presently going.
Oil is the Enemy of all Democracies
I was watching Charlie Rose on PBS. He was interviewing a gentleman who was talking about democracy in the world in the last 100 years or so and had written a book about it.
One of the points he made was that oil was the enemy of all democracies because it gathers wealth to non-democratic nations like Saudi Arabia and Venezuela and also helps destroys democracies in Russia, Europe, and the United States. As power in the form of money flows to non-democratic regimes,especially now, power grows in the form of money in fewer and fewer hands worldwide. As oil creates worse and worse monopolies of nepotism all democracies and therefore most people in the world are harmed either directly or indirectly by this situation.
Here is one of the most powerful of arguments why alternative fuels and energy must be developed. For if alternative energies aren't now quickly and efficiently developed it could very well be the beginning of the death of all democracies on earth and an emerging of an extreme form of Corporate Warlordism based on Nepotism starting in non-democratic countries and slowly or quickly spreading to all countries which have oil or coal or both like the United States.(Coal can be converted to oil)
This is not difficult to imagine if one foresees $10 to $20 a gallon for gas and oil in the next 10 years or so.
I have heard rumors of regular gas at $11 a gallon or more in places like the Netherlands and possibly in Israel. If these rumors are true then $10 a gallon gas is already here some places.
One of the points he made was that oil was the enemy of all democracies because it gathers wealth to non-democratic nations like Saudi Arabia and Venezuela and also helps destroys democracies in Russia, Europe, and the United States. As power in the form of money flows to non-democratic regimes,especially now, power grows in the form of money in fewer and fewer hands worldwide. As oil creates worse and worse monopolies of nepotism all democracies and therefore most people in the world are harmed either directly or indirectly by this situation.
Here is one of the most powerful of arguments why alternative fuels and energy must be developed. For if alternative energies aren't now quickly and efficiently developed it could very well be the beginning of the death of all democracies on earth and an emerging of an extreme form of Corporate Warlordism based on Nepotism starting in non-democratic countries and slowly or quickly spreading to all countries which have oil or coal or both like the United States.(Coal can be converted to oil)
This is not difficult to imagine if one foresees $10 to $20 a gallon for gas and oil in the next 10 years or so.
I have heard rumors of regular gas at $11 a gallon or more in places like the Netherlands and possibly in Israel. If these rumors are true then $10 a gallon gas is already here some places.
Our Amazing Lives
It is said if one lives in the western world if one lives to 30 one can reasonably expect to live to 90. Though this is true one also has to watch anyone that one loves over 20 years older than one die, or go crazy or die as well. It also means that one has lost at least one good friend or relative to disease, or accident by age 30. It also means that one might meet the love of ones life, only to watch them go crazy or die or go off with someone else.
However, it also means that one gets to see all the amazing things that can happen in life. One can potentially experience all the joys that one can potentially experience(which is a lot). Life can be as amazing as we personally allow it to be, spiritually, physically, emotionally, mentally, in every way. The sky is literally the limit to all our dreams and actions in any given moment. If you are strong enough, mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually, there is no limit to just how amazingly great your life can be. That is not to say the first paragraph isn't going to happen to you as well. It's just to say that life really is amazing as long as you can handle the difficult parts as well. Almost anyone can handle the good parts but to experience the good one must also experience the difficult parts as well. It's life after all. C'est la vie!
However, it also means that one gets to see all the amazing things that can happen in life. One can potentially experience all the joys that one can potentially experience(which is a lot). Life can be as amazing as we personally allow it to be, spiritually, physically, emotionally, mentally, in every way. The sky is literally the limit to all our dreams and actions in any given moment. If you are strong enough, mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually, there is no limit to just how amazingly great your life can be. That is not to say the first paragraph isn't going to happen to you as well. It's just to say that life really is amazing as long as you can handle the difficult parts as well. Almost anyone can handle the good parts but to experience the good one must also experience the difficult parts as well. It's life after all. C'est la vie!
Belief Creates Reality II
I would now like to talk about apocalyptic thinking in regard to belief creating reality. The problem with apocalyptic thinking is what if you are wrong? What if you decided to create the apocalypse because all your relatives believed it needed to happen and you were all wrong? So you go out and get your one megaton to 20 megaton nuclear weapons and blow up a city. Then you are angry when people don't surrender immediately so you blow up another city. The Soviet Union and the United States and even Europe and China have already played this game with computers and all know that no one ever wins but also know that no one can afford to give up or surrender. So after one after another of all the big cities on earth are gone, what then? Earth?
The problem with all this is like when someone owns a football when they are a kid and unless that kid gets to be quarterback he takes his football home so no one can play. It is really kind of like this. Only in this case all life on earth is gone. What if what you believe turns out to be a fairy tale and you just drove all life on earth extinct? So just because what you believe wasn't true you ended it for everyone.
Now, one with this kind of belief system might say, "It has to be real because all my relatives and friends believe it." No. It doesn't. Look how many people believed the earth was flat or believed that the earth rode on the back of a turtle for thousands of years. Millions of people believed those things too but it didn't make them true either.
All humans need to believe in something so parents thousands of years ago made up stuff so kids could sleep at night. Slowly, over thousands of years those things got codified into what we believe now. However, how much of what people believe is actually true and what just makes people feel good so they don't kill themselves.
The answer is no one really knows. Only Time will tell.
The problem with all this is like when someone owns a football when they are a kid and unless that kid gets to be quarterback he takes his football home so no one can play. It is really kind of like this. Only in this case all life on earth is gone. What if what you believe turns out to be a fairy tale and you just drove all life on earth extinct? So just because what you believe wasn't true you ended it for everyone.
Now, one with this kind of belief system might say, "It has to be real because all my relatives and friends believe it." No. It doesn't. Look how many people believed the earth was flat or believed that the earth rode on the back of a turtle for thousands of years. Millions of people believed those things too but it didn't make them true either.
All humans need to believe in something so parents thousands of years ago made up stuff so kids could sleep at night. Slowly, over thousands of years those things got codified into what we believe now. However, how much of what people believe is actually true and what just makes people feel good so they don't kill themselves.
The answer is no one really knows. Only Time will tell.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
"Let them eat cake"
At least in the western world only the rich have the resources to begin to solve the problems of the masses. The middle class and poor are scrambling just too hard just to survive another day.
It is not by accident that I chose this title because like many I can see the writing on the wall. Because the United States still has programs like food kitchens for the poor and food stamps for some the types of problems seen in France at the time of Queen Marie Antoinette aren't likely to happen in the U.S. However, as an American the downward mobility taking place in both middle class and poor people is astounding for my lifetime(I was born in 1948).
I was reading an article about the thousands of people living in Los Angeles, California(now the homeless mecca for america) who are living in their Recreational vehicles, Vans, trucks and cars. Some are working at jobs, some are on disability income or retirement income, but none can afford rent or to own their own homes. I found this article odd because traditionally, the mecca for homeless without vehicles was always San Francisco. For a long time, other states paid to bus their homeless people so they wouldn't freeze to death in the winter to San Francisco where the winter temperature range tends to be about 40 to 70 degrees farenheit on an ordinary year. It could be higher or lower in a non ordinary year.
So, to make a long story short, the rich are the only ones in the western world, at least who can help solve these systemic problems for the middle class and poor. If they don't solve these problems in some useful way then their wealth likely will be chipped away by the middle class and the poor trying to survive any way they can.
It is not by accident that I chose this title because like many I can see the writing on the wall. Because the United States still has programs like food kitchens for the poor and food stamps for some the types of problems seen in France at the time of Queen Marie Antoinette aren't likely to happen in the U.S. However, as an American the downward mobility taking place in both middle class and poor people is astounding for my lifetime(I was born in 1948).
I was reading an article about the thousands of people living in Los Angeles, California(now the homeless mecca for america) who are living in their Recreational vehicles, Vans, trucks and cars. Some are working at jobs, some are on disability income or retirement income, but none can afford rent or to own their own homes. I found this article odd because traditionally, the mecca for homeless without vehicles was always San Francisco. For a long time, other states paid to bus their homeless people so they wouldn't freeze to death in the winter to San Francisco where the winter temperature range tends to be about 40 to 70 degrees farenheit on an ordinary year. It could be higher or lower in a non ordinary year.
So, to make a long story short, the rich are the only ones in the western world, at least who can help solve these systemic problems for the middle class and poor. If they don't solve these problems in some useful way then their wealth likely will be chipped away by the middle class and the poor trying to survive any way they can.
Monday, June 23, 2008
Belief Creates Reality
Some of you might say,"No. Reality creates a belief system." But for me after observing how things work the last 60 years it is more useful to say, "Belief creates reality."
This I have found to be philosophically true but also scientifically true in the world of particle physics in which it has been proven that there can be no objective reality because any observer just by observing changes any scientific experiment just by watching it.
You might say, "What!" No. I'm not kidding at a particle physics level there can be no objective reality because any observer affects his or her experiment just by observing it. So, though one might be able to replicate any experiment over and over, one might also say that the observation and beliefs of the observer created the same outcome over and over.
So, since this appears to be true it also appears that what we believe not only affects reality but also changes it. So, from this point of view the consciousness of all life on earth is constantly changing everything on earth to conform to its belief system or another way to put it is, "Be careful of self fulfilling prophesies." You might be either creating or uncreating your existence or the existence of those around you by everything you think, feel, as well as every thing you do, everything you eat and every movement you make throughout your life.
So, given this ongoing dynamic of all life in its affect on all other life all the time, taking responsibility for ones thoughts, feelings and actions turns one into an adult responsible being who is beginning to generate consciously positivity and life for all life around them on into infinity.
I had a very strange experience here in California on the coast when I was talking on my cellphone and watering my backyard at the same time. My wife had wanted me to set up a free standing 2 person hammock stand and hammock on our deck in our backyard. At the time I got a strange feeling about doing this for some reason but rather than upsetting my wife I set it up. Soon, I realized what the problem was.
It was a very rare hot day since I live within 1 mile of the coast and ocean so I decided to sit on the back part of the hammock. However, I hadn't sat in a hammock for almost a year and because I was both watering and gabbing to a friend on my cell phone in intercom mode I didn't think about how different hammocks were from other things on might sit on. Immediately, found myself sitting hard on the ground after making a drum sound that 2 of my children could hear from inside the house against the side of the house with the back of my head. Luckily, I had no warning when this happened or I might have gotten more seriously injured. Because of this I was completely unprepared for this and relaxed and very stunned.
I had learned that the easiest way to die after 50 is through panic, so I chose to after and expletive just say to my friend on the phone, "Hey, Anton. I think I just hurt myself. He had arrived at his destination and so just said, "Well. I'm sorry to hear that, Fred. I better get off the phone then.
I sat there awhile assessing my situation. I didn't feel any pain but knew I had hit the ground with my rear end and house wall with my head very hard. I was amazed I didn't have a headache. Luckily, my son who is in medical school said to me, "You've got to keep the blood flowing to your brain especially at your age Dad. You've got to put your feet higher than your head as he and my wife checked for concussion signs with a flashlight on my pupils of both eyes. Luckily, they both dilated correctly.
Since I am usually a fairly gifted precognitive psychic, I began to psychically and through other information track down the cause of this anomaly.
Within 1/2 hour I began to hear lightning which I found very odd because I had noticed that there really hadn't been any lightning storms for several years in the area I live in along the ocean. Then I got an impression of how many fires would be started by these lightning strikes because of the dry conditions. However, through California news outlets I was able to find out there had been about 750 fires started in Northern California all the way over to Nevada and north to the Oregon California border. Today I'm happy to report that all but about 250 of these fires have been put out. But our Governor (Arnold S.) the Governator said that when he came on duty yesterday he was told there were about 520 new lightning caused fires which was the most he had ever heard of at one time since he has been governor(over 4 years).
From years of experience I have found that anomalies usually create a lot of change in people's lives including my own. I complained to God of having to recover from this blow because 3 days later I'm having pain in my shoulder, neck and back on the left side as well. However, God seemed to think everything was in order and explained to me that I have only partial knowledge of things. This kind of exploded my concept of reality and forced it to expand. Though this can be a good thing how I usually experience this at first is like if I was putting together a puzzle with 500 pieces and all the pieces suddenly explode into the air. Even though something much bigger forms soon there is the feeling of falling through space and disorientation until God puts it all back together in some spectacular new way that I then have to get used to.
This I have found to be philosophically true but also scientifically true in the world of particle physics in which it has been proven that there can be no objective reality because any observer just by observing changes any scientific experiment just by watching it.
You might say, "What!" No. I'm not kidding at a particle physics level there can be no objective reality because any observer affects his or her experiment just by observing it. So, though one might be able to replicate any experiment over and over, one might also say that the observation and beliefs of the observer created the same outcome over and over.
So, since this appears to be true it also appears that what we believe not only affects reality but also changes it. So, from this point of view the consciousness of all life on earth is constantly changing everything on earth to conform to its belief system or another way to put it is, "Be careful of self fulfilling prophesies." You might be either creating or uncreating your existence or the existence of those around you by everything you think, feel, as well as every thing you do, everything you eat and every movement you make throughout your life.
So, given this ongoing dynamic of all life in its affect on all other life all the time, taking responsibility for ones thoughts, feelings and actions turns one into an adult responsible being who is beginning to generate consciously positivity and life for all life around them on into infinity.
I had a very strange experience here in California on the coast when I was talking on my cellphone and watering my backyard at the same time. My wife had wanted me to set up a free standing 2 person hammock stand and hammock on our deck in our backyard. At the time I got a strange feeling about doing this for some reason but rather than upsetting my wife I set it up. Soon, I realized what the problem was.
It was a very rare hot day since I live within 1 mile of the coast and ocean so I decided to sit on the back part of the hammock. However, I hadn't sat in a hammock for almost a year and because I was both watering and gabbing to a friend on my cell phone in intercom mode I didn't think about how different hammocks were from other things on might sit on. Immediately, found myself sitting hard on the ground after making a drum sound that 2 of my children could hear from inside the house against the side of the house with the back of my head. Luckily, I had no warning when this happened or I might have gotten more seriously injured. Because of this I was completely unprepared for this and relaxed and very stunned.
I had learned that the easiest way to die after 50 is through panic, so I chose to after and expletive just say to my friend on the phone, "Hey, Anton. I think I just hurt myself. He had arrived at his destination and so just said, "Well. I'm sorry to hear that, Fred. I better get off the phone then.
I sat there awhile assessing my situation. I didn't feel any pain but knew I had hit the ground with my rear end and house wall with my head very hard. I was amazed I didn't have a headache. Luckily, my son who is in medical school said to me, "You've got to keep the blood flowing to your brain especially at your age Dad. You've got to put your feet higher than your head as he and my wife checked for concussion signs with a flashlight on my pupils of both eyes. Luckily, they both dilated correctly.
Since I am usually a fairly gifted precognitive psychic, I began to psychically and through other information track down the cause of this anomaly.
Within 1/2 hour I began to hear lightning which I found very odd because I had noticed that there really hadn't been any lightning storms for several years in the area I live in along the ocean. Then I got an impression of how many fires would be started by these lightning strikes because of the dry conditions. However, through California news outlets I was able to find out there had been about 750 fires started in Northern California all the way over to Nevada and north to the Oregon California border. Today I'm happy to report that all but about 250 of these fires have been put out. But our Governor (Arnold S.) the Governator said that when he came on duty yesterday he was told there were about 520 new lightning caused fires which was the most he had ever heard of at one time since he has been governor(over 4 years).
From years of experience I have found that anomalies usually create a lot of change in people's lives including my own. I complained to God of having to recover from this blow because 3 days later I'm having pain in my shoulder, neck and back on the left side as well. However, God seemed to think everything was in order and explained to me that I have only partial knowledge of things. This kind of exploded my concept of reality and forced it to expand. Though this can be a good thing how I usually experience this at first is like if I was putting together a puzzle with 500 pieces and all the pieces suddenly explode into the air. Even though something much bigger forms soon there is the feeling of falling through space and disorientation until God puts it all back together in some spectacular new way that I then have to get used to.
Out of Control
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080621/
ap_on_re_us/out_of_control;
Some people see the world as spinning out of control. However, if you talked to most people on earth what Americans call out of control is just standard operating procedures for most of the world. In a sense most of the world has NEVER been in control really. Take a look at Africa. When has Africa EVER been in control really. And the same with South America and Asia. When has either South america or Asia ever really been IN CONTROL, unless you mean in control as under a dictator or Emporer or Warlord.
No. Things in most of the world have ALWAYS been relatively out of control and even here in the U.S. during most of its existence things have been relatively chaotic since its inception and have only given the illusion of being in control during the 1950s and maybe 1990s. I don't think anyone who was over 16 in the late 1960s would have said things were in control in the United States then. Thing didn't feel in control to most people until Carter and Reagan were President. And even then, did anyone feel in control during the Cold War where we lived every day with the possibility of accidental nuclear war by either side. This made many people crazy on both sides of the Cold War.
NO. The only times things ever felt IN Control to me were the 1950s and the 1990s. Those were the only two decades that I ever felt things were in control in any useful way.
I just think that the 2000s are just so crazy and chaotic that they are a complete contrast and it just seems worse. The late 1960s felt just as nuts as things do now caused by Viet Nam and an extreme worldwide Social revolution that is still going on today.
I think a better way to put it than saying the world is "Out of Control" would be to say the "The world is going through major growing pains". I think that would be more useful.
ap_on_re_us/out_of_control;
Some people see the world as spinning out of control. However, if you talked to most people on earth what Americans call out of control is just standard operating procedures for most of the world. In a sense most of the world has NEVER been in control really. Take a look at Africa. When has Africa EVER been in control really. And the same with South America and Asia. When has either South america or Asia ever really been IN CONTROL, unless you mean in control as under a dictator or Emporer or Warlord.
No. Things in most of the world have ALWAYS been relatively out of control and even here in the U.S. during most of its existence things have been relatively chaotic since its inception and have only given the illusion of being in control during the 1950s and maybe 1990s. I don't think anyone who was over 16 in the late 1960s would have said things were in control in the United States then. Thing didn't feel in control to most people until Carter and Reagan were President. And even then, did anyone feel in control during the Cold War where we lived every day with the possibility of accidental nuclear war by either side. This made many people crazy on both sides of the Cold War.
NO. The only times things ever felt IN Control to me were the 1950s and the 1990s. Those were the only two decades that I ever felt things were in control in any useful way.
I just think that the 2000s are just so crazy and chaotic that they are a complete contrast and it just seems worse. The late 1960s felt just as nuts as things do now caused by Viet Nam and an extreme worldwide Social revolution that is still going on today.
I think a better way to put it than saying the world is "Out of Control" would be to say the "The world is going through major growing pains". I think that would be more useful.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
It is Very Important that we Blog
I have had this blog site here since last fall. During this time I have realized just how important blogging is to all of us. Especially if we all:
1. Define the problems(that we are having individually and collectively
2. Do research on how to solve the problem and share it(including relevant web sites)
3. Draw conclusions from your research in solving these problems.
4. With these conclusions do even more research.
5. Publish your refined research so others can be helped in this way.
These blogs are read by people who read English in a lot of the world. They don't just go to the U.S.,they go all over. You never know what people will read your problems and research and how it might help them in their lives in solving their problems as well.
For example, blogging has been therapeutic for me personally being able to express in words what is bothering me in my life and what I consider to be real problems in the world that affect all of us either directly or indirectly.
Some of the problems that have been solved through thousands and millions blogging worldwide that I have been personally affected by: are first, the LBAM (Light brown apple moth) aerial spraying of where I live which was done twice. They had planned to spray urban and suburban areas about once a month for several years. However, because of many civil suits filed against the state of California by educated Californians who were either made ill or who had studied the problem created California to give up the spraying of any urban or suburban area in California and to use sterile moths instead as a real solution. Since my wife got severe asthmatic bronchitis for one week right after the spraying my family was severely affected during the first spraying. However, 8 months later all spraying has been ended by thousands of us blogging and educating the state about the health problems caused by not the synthetic pheromone but by the propelent that gives painters lung and asthma problems when it is used in paints.
The second problem that has temporarily or permanently been solved is the noise in my local theater during the pre-preview times of just advertisements. I went to see The Love Guru today and I could actually hear myself think for a change during this pre preview time of advertisements.
Though the oil and alternative fuel problem worldwide is far from being solved now at least more people than before are beginning to understand that oil is becoming only more of a problem and less of a solution every day. Watching the documentary "A Crude Awakening" available from Netflix online DVD rentals demonstrates that no new BIG oilfields have been discovered since 1967 and that all the piddly oil fields still untapped are many times more expensive to develop than the oil being pumped out of the ground now.
Most people haven't done enough research to actually realize that oil at this point is only a problem and no longer a solution. At this point oil is headed for $10 or $20 a gallon within 10 to 20 years and is no longer viable as a cheap enough fuel to be practical likely ever again.
So, the more people that realize this as soon as possible the better. This will create more and more people creating alternative energy sources and vehicles to run on those alternative sources of energy. Doing research on potential energy sources and helping to educate the public worldwide in all languages might be one of the most important things we can all blog about and do research about for the next few years to try to allow as many people on earth as possible to survive these difficult transitional times here on earth for everyone.
1. Define the problems(that we are having individually and collectively
2. Do research on how to solve the problem and share it(including relevant web sites)
3. Draw conclusions from your research in solving these problems.
4. With these conclusions do even more research.
5. Publish your refined research so others can be helped in this way.
These blogs are read by people who read English in a lot of the world. They don't just go to the U.S.,they go all over. You never know what people will read your problems and research and how it might help them in their lives in solving their problems as well.
For example, blogging has been therapeutic for me personally being able to express in words what is bothering me in my life and what I consider to be real problems in the world that affect all of us either directly or indirectly.
Some of the problems that have been solved through thousands and millions blogging worldwide that I have been personally affected by: are first, the LBAM (Light brown apple moth) aerial spraying of where I live which was done twice. They had planned to spray urban and suburban areas about once a month for several years. However, because of many civil suits filed against the state of California by educated Californians who were either made ill or who had studied the problem created California to give up the spraying of any urban or suburban area in California and to use sterile moths instead as a real solution. Since my wife got severe asthmatic bronchitis for one week right after the spraying my family was severely affected during the first spraying. However, 8 months later all spraying has been ended by thousands of us blogging and educating the state about the health problems caused by not the synthetic pheromone but by the propelent that gives painters lung and asthma problems when it is used in paints.
The second problem that has temporarily or permanently been solved is the noise in my local theater during the pre-preview times of just advertisements. I went to see The Love Guru today and I could actually hear myself think for a change during this pre preview time of advertisements.
Though the oil and alternative fuel problem worldwide is far from being solved now at least more people than before are beginning to understand that oil is becoming only more of a problem and less of a solution every day. Watching the documentary "A Crude Awakening" available from Netflix online DVD rentals demonstrates that no new BIG oilfields have been discovered since 1967 and that all the piddly oil fields still untapped are many times more expensive to develop than the oil being pumped out of the ground now.
Most people haven't done enough research to actually realize that oil at this point is only a problem and no longer a solution. At this point oil is headed for $10 or $20 a gallon within 10 to 20 years and is no longer viable as a cheap enough fuel to be practical likely ever again.
So, the more people that realize this as soon as possible the better. This will create more and more people creating alternative energy sources and vehicles to run on those alternative sources of energy. Doing research on potential energy sources and helping to educate the public worldwide in all languages might be one of the most important things we can all blog about and do research about for the next few years to try to allow as many people on earth as possible to survive these difficult transitional times here on earth for everyone.
The Love Guru
Having been to India and having experienced a lot of the same concepts that are mangled by this movie I found myself entertained by it. However, if you weren't fairly educated and sophisticated in your humor it might have been a little difficult to follow for some people. It could have been called Dr. Evil becomes the Love Guru because he uses a lot of the same shtick in The Love Guru as the Austin Power series of movies.
The main difference was that Austin Power is a recognizable parody of James Bond and those kinds of larger than life series of secret agents. In this movie unless you have some cultural experience with Indian ideas and concepts one might just get lost and miss a lot of the jokes, parodies and double entendres.
I had a great ride with this movie. I think it will do well worldwide especially in India and southeast asia where people will totally get this movie. However, I don't think it will go in blue collar america and even white collar might have had too much of this kind of thinking since the 1960s so it's hard to say.
I was 21 in 1969 and I have been to India and hung out with a lot of people who studied with Gurus and I myself studied SRF and studied with Tibetan Lamas in India and Nepal. So I get a lot of the jokes. One of the things all Teachers I knew of or met of the Guru or Tibetan Buddhist persuasion is that, "Until you can laugh at your very existence you cannot become enlightened." This is because as long as you are so serious you can't laugh at yourself you are just too stiff to ever become enlightened. Or "It's a sorry Saint that can't dance."
The main difference was that Austin Power is a recognizable parody of James Bond and those kinds of larger than life series of secret agents. In this movie unless you have some cultural experience with Indian ideas and concepts one might just get lost and miss a lot of the jokes, parodies and double entendres.
I had a great ride with this movie. I think it will do well worldwide especially in India and southeast asia where people will totally get this movie. However, I don't think it will go in blue collar america and even white collar might have had too much of this kind of thinking since the 1960s so it's hard to say.
I was 21 in 1969 and I have been to India and hung out with a lot of people who studied with Gurus and I myself studied SRF and studied with Tibetan Lamas in India and Nepal. So I get a lot of the jokes. One of the things all Teachers I knew of or met of the Guru or Tibetan Buddhist persuasion is that, "Until you can laugh at your very existence you cannot become enlightened." This is because as long as you are so serious you can't laugh at yourself you are just too stiff to ever become enlightened. Or "It's a sorry Saint that can't dance."
Laugh or Die
As one begins to remember past lives for those of you who have lived them like me, one must learn to be able to laugh about all the contradictions and paradoxes that arise.
For example, last night my wife dreamed I was a five foot four inch cave yogi about 1000 years ago. She got very mad at me for being this cave yogi and said, "Fred, you get back into my six foot four inch present day Fred right now." When she told me this dream I said, "Yes. That is true. I once was someone like that." She said, "He said he couldn't deal with all the conflagrations that were taking place." Though I didn't laugh then I was laughing inside and have had to laugh on multiple occasions throughout my life as I remembered past lives. I said to her, "What it is like for me to remember thousands of lives is like all the lives are happening right now and that they are all aspects of me right now, full of infinite paradoxes." Also, I said, "I think you might be having this dream because 'The Love Guru' is out and it is affecting everyone's subconscious and dreams who sees the advertisements or goes to the movie.
If I wanted to explain what it is like to remember past lives I think a good way to say it would be to imagine yourself as the main character in every movie you have ever seen. Though the actor(you) might always be basically the same person at core in a male or female body, still how one was raised, their health, their social and physical and mental and emotional and cultural influences all affect ones decisions and attitudes. Also, how one was conditioned through religion or philosophy or culture also affects how one operates both internally and externally within ones self, soul and culture.
So, when I view all this I feel deep deep compassion for not only myself but also for every human beings experience on earth at present. There is a saying, "There but for the Grace of God go I." However, experiencing reincarnation this all changes to, "By the Grace of God I have already been most places."
Thinking in this way develops a being toward infinite compassion for all beings in the universe.
For example, last night my wife dreamed I was a five foot four inch cave yogi about 1000 years ago. She got very mad at me for being this cave yogi and said, "Fred, you get back into my six foot four inch present day Fred right now." When she told me this dream I said, "Yes. That is true. I once was someone like that." She said, "He said he couldn't deal with all the conflagrations that were taking place." Though I didn't laugh then I was laughing inside and have had to laugh on multiple occasions throughout my life as I remembered past lives. I said to her, "What it is like for me to remember thousands of lives is like all the lives are happening right now and that they are all aspects of me right now, full of infinite paradoxes." Also, I said, "I think you might be having this dream because 'The Love Guru' is out and it is affecting everyone's subconscious and dreams who sees the advertisements or goes to the movie.
If I wanted to explain what it is like to remember past lives I think a good way to say it would be to imagine yourself as the main character in every movie you have ever seen. Though the actor(you) might always be basically the same person at core in a male or female body, still how one was raised, their health, their social and physical and mental and emotional and cultural influences all affect ones decisions and attitudes. Also, how one was conditioned through religion or philosophy or culture also affects how one operates both internally and externally within ones self, soul and culture.
So, when I view all this I feel deep deep compassion for not only myself but also for every human beings experience on earth at present. There is a saying, "There but for the Grace of God go I." However, experiencing reincarnation this all changes to, "By the Grace of God I have already been most places."
Thinking in this way develops a being toward infinite compassion for all beings in the universe.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Obama
Barring an all out bloody war with Iran before the November election I would likely vote for Obama, not because I think he will make a good U.S. President, because I think he won't. I would vote for Obama because I think the world needs another JFK or Martin Luther King, or Obama about now just to have enough hope not to extinct themselves within the next 100 years by accident.
The time since 2001 has been the most paranoid I have seen in the world since the Cold War, and 2001 was in some ways as crazy as the Cuban Missile Crisis where everyone almost died in a nuclear flash or series of flashes.
No, after the complete insanity worldwide since 2001 we need another JFK, Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy, Mandela and even Gandhi if he wants to show up.But Obama has to do for now. It is as if the whole human race has Post traumatic Stress disorder from everything that has happened since 2001. I think what I have learned the most is that Political Correctness is the most likely thing right now to cause the extinction of the human race. Strange but true. Without enough hope and truth all the people perish.
The time since 2001 has been the most paranoid I have seen in the world since the Cold War, and 2001 was in some ways as crazy as the Cuban Missile Crisis where everyone almost died in a nuclear flash or series of flashes.
No, after the complete insanity worldwide since 2001 we need another JFK, Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy, Mandela and even Gandhi if he wants to show up.But Obama has to do for now. It is as if the whole human race has Post traumatic Stress disorder from everything that has happened since 2001. I think what I have learned the most is that Political Correctness is the most likely thing right now to cause the extinction of the human race. Strange but true. Without enough hope and truth all the people perish.
Friday, June 20, 2008
No matter what U.S. does oil is still a problem
I think it is that the U.S. has perceived itself to be(rightly or wrongly) as the center of the known universe since the heady days of World War II. However, news flash,
EVEN IF THE U.S. STOPPED USING ALL OIL PRODUCTS LIKE GAS AND DIESEL AND PLASTICS OIL WOULD STILL BE A BIG PROBLEM FOR THE WORLD.
Americans have this incorrect idea that conservation will solve the problem. That might have been true until maybe the middle 1980s but those days are gone. Even if the U.S. stopped using all oil cold turkey tommorrow the world would still run out of oil basically between 2015 and 2075, even without us consuming a single drop of oil.
If more americans understood this they would then realize that alternative fuels and energy sources to oil are about the SURVIVAL OF THE HUMAN RACE THIS CENTURY AND AFTER.
EVEN IF THE U.S. STOPPED USING ALL OIL PRODUCTS LIKE GAS AND DIESEL AND PLASTICS OIL WOULD STILL BE A BIG PROBLEM FOR THE WORLD.
Americans have this incorrect idea that conservation will solve the problem. That might have been true until maybe the middle 1980s but those days are gone. Even if the U.S. stopped using all oil cold turkey tommorrow the world would still run out of oil basically between 2015 and 2075, even without us consuming a single drop of oil.
If more americans understood this they would then realize that alternative fuels and energy sources to oil are about the SURVIVAL OF THE HUMAN RACE THIS CENTURY AND AFTER.
Healing the Wounds
Most writers I know who actually write from the heart write to heal the wounds of life. Most peoples wounds you don't necessarily see unless they open up and talk to you about them. But we all have them. In my mothers and fathers generation there saying about this "Deal with what you can and the rest can." Or in other words can it, stuff it, shut up about it. The problem with this way of thinking is that unless you life or livelihood is in jeapordy then this long term only will make you sick, crazy or even give you cancer. "Deal with what you can and the rest can" is ONLY a short term solution to be used only until you are out of danger physically or financially.
I grew up when Americans as a group were the richest in the world. This time would be the 1950s through the 1970s. After that things started to go downhill for everyone who wasn't really rich. Who was in good shape in the 1980s? The middle and upper classes. Who is okay now? Only the richest. But in the 1950s through the 1970s everyone was rich because of all the social programs for education, welfare and social security. Now, it is definitely not that way.
I write to heal not only the wounds of this life but also the wounds of all the thousands of lives I remember human and extraterrestrial and others. I sort of see this life as a day in the life of my soul. The very fact that I can remember so much might mean that reincarnating is something I might not have to do anymore. Maybe not at all.
I think I chose to reincarnate originally just for the adventure of it all. Because still at heart I am always an adventurer. However, after 60 years of adventuring and raising kids I'm a little different than I was in my teens and twenties. So, anyway, I write to heal all the wounds of millions of years of adventures past, present and future. If you remember your lives maybe you are an adventurous soul traveler as well.
In this life I find myself very gifted as in many other lives I remember. Even though I find it strange to know many things before they happen I have had this same ability in hundreds and possibly even thousands of lives I can remember to a greater or lesser degree.
When I first wrote of Arcane, who was born about 1,000,000 years into the future as a human descended from present day stock whose race had been genetically modified to become human amphibians. IN 1980 when I lived in the little city of Mt. Shasta, California I wrote the first few pages about Arcane on a paper grocery bag from an organic grocery store there. I had walked 1/2 mile home on a beautiful clear sunny day and experienced Arcane's life and decided to pull out a pen and write it outside sitting on my front lawn looking up at a beautiful clear Mt.Shasta. It wasn't until 1998, I believe when doctors expected me to die that I was shocked into evolving enough to realize this wasn't a made up story but my reading of the akashic records of my own past life that I lived in the future and present since Arcane travels back through time to earth starting in 1987. Even though he visits eventually any time past, present or future that he wants to or needs to on earth, my memories of these experiences are integrated into my own here now as Fred. Sometimes, I believe that all these memories allow me somehow to know things before they happen like I do.
I don't want you to think I know everything. I just know what God wants me to which is a lot. Sometimes, if I need to know something I will be aware of what people are thinking or even saying right now or the past or future anywhere on earth. Though this is still a strange experience even for me I have learned that I can usually stake my life on the information I receive.
However, I have had experiences in knowing the future that were very emotionally difficult to deal with. When I saved the life of my 2nd wife and step daughter I didn't know what the consequences would be. I'm sort of glad no one could tell me all the consequences of saving those lives because I would be hard pressed to know what to do had I known then what I know now.
The same is true of knowing when the Loma Prieto earthquake would occur in California with the epicenter within 12 miles of where I lived then. I took my family to Hawaii the week before it occured and watched it all unfold on CNN tv in Hana, Maui, Hawaii. Though I met many other people who had been shown to leave and avoid the earthquake to, they all were kind of disturbed by the whole process like I was. I think for me, because about 50 people died and most houses from San Francisco to WAtsonville were thrown off their foundations then in Fall 1989 I had a very hard time coping and having been in a position that telling a whole bunch of people beforehand would have been counterproductive. I told a few close friends and one lady who was a friend of the family had her home torn in half in the earthquake never wanted to talk to me again because I knew the quake was coming. Sometimes I wonder the usefulness of this gift and yet I know what it is after saving many many lives including my own many times from death and maiming because of this gift. Usually, I don't tell people what I know because they just couldn't cope with that and instead I just redirect them into a non-maiming or non-lethal situation so their lives are saved. This is just what I do and have always done by God's Grace.
I grew up when Americans as a group were the richest in the world. This time would be the 1950s through the 1970s. After that things started to go downhill for everyone who wasn't really rich. Who was in good shape in the 1980s? The middle and upper classes. Who is okay now? Only the richest. But in the 1950s through the 1970s everyone was rich because of all the social programs for education, welfare and social security. Now, it is definitely not that way.
I write to heal not only the wounds of this life but also the wounds of all the thousands of lives I remember human and extraterrestrial and others. I sort of see this life as a day in the life of my soul. The very fact that I can remember so much might mean that reincarnating is something I might not have to do anymore. Maybe not at all.
I think I chose to reincarnate originally just for the adventure of it all. Because still at heart I am always an adventurer. However, after 60 years of adventuring and raising kids I'm a little different than I was in my teens and twenties. So, anyway, I write to heal all the wounds of millions of years of adventures past, present and future. If you remember your lives maybe you are an adventurous soul traveler as well.
In this life I find myself very gifted as in many other lives I remember. Even though I find it strange to know many things before they happen I have had this same ability in hundreds and possibly even thousands of lives I can remember to a greater or lesser degree.
When I first wrote of Arcane, who was born about 1,000,000 years into the future as a human descended from present day stock whose race had been genetically modified to become human amphibians. IN 1980 when I lived in the little city of Mt. Shasta, California I wrote the first few pages about Arcane on a paper grocery bag from an organic grocery store there. I had walked 1/2 mile home on a beautiful clear sunny day and experienced Arcane's life and decided to pull out a pen and write it outside sitting on my front lawn looking up at a beautiful clear Mt.Shasta. It wasn't until 1998, I believe when doctors expected me to die that I was shocked into evolving enough to realize this wasn't a made up story but my reading of the akashic records of my own past life that I lived in the future and present since Arcane travels back through time to earth starting in 1987. Even though he visits eventually any time past, present or future that he wants to or needs to on earth, my memories of these experiences are integrated into my own here now as Fred. Sometimes, I believe that all these memories allow me somehow to know things before they happen like I do.
I don't want you to think I know everything. I just know what God wants me to which is a lot. Sometimes, if I need to know something I will be aware of what people are thinking or even saying right now or the past or future anywhere on earth. Though this is still a strange experience even for me I have learned that I can usually stake my life on the information I receive.
However, I have had experiences in knowing the future that were very emotionally difficult to deal with. When I saved the life of my 2nd wife and step daughter I didn't know what the consequences would be. I'm sort of glad no one could tell me all the consequences of saving those lives because I would be hard pressed to know what to do had I known then what I know now.
The same is true of knowing when the Loma Prieto earthquake would occur in California with the epicenter within 12 miles of where I lived then. I took my family to Hawaii the week before it occured and watched it all unfold on CNN tv in Hana, Maui, Hawaii. Though I met many other people who had been shown to leave and avoid the earthquake to, they all were kind of disturbed by the whole process like I was. I think for me, because about 50 people died and most houses from San Francisco to WAtsonville were thrown off their foundations then in Fall 1989 I had a very hard time coping and having been in a position that telling a whole bunch of people beforehand would have been counterproductive. I told a few close friends and one lady who was a friend of the family had her home torn in half in the earthquake never wanted to talk to me again because I knew the quake was coming. Sometimes I wonder the usefulness of this gift and yet I know what it is after saving many many lives including my own many times from death and maiming because of this gift. Usually, I don't tell people what I know because they just couldn't cope with that and instead I just redirect them into a non-maiming or non-lethal situation so their lives are saved. This is just what I do and have always done by God's Grace.
IT'S TOO LOUD
The loudest theater I ever went to was in New Delhi, India in 1986. I took my Tibetan Lama friend, Geshela and his translator, Lobsang, to Return of the Jedi. It was the only time in my life that I literally had to watch the whole movie with my fingers in my ears so I wouldn't go deaf from the loudness. I sometimes wonder if people's hearing there was so affected by no mufflers on car and truck engines that they had already lost most of their hearing there.
Today, though was a different experience. I was home here on the Coast in California. Lately, though I go to a lot of movies at the local theaters, there has been a change. This change is the 1/2 hour or more of LOUD LOUD commercials that NO ONE WANTS TO SEE OR HEAR way before the previews and movie even start.
In order for me to get angry enough to write this article I had to go out and ask the theater manager on ten different occasions on ten different movies to turn down the volume on the advertisements because it hurt our ears. Out of those ten different movies where advertisements played that NO ONE wants to hear or see the volume went down only 3 to 5 times. The rest of the time it remained so deafening that many of us just considered going home. Today was one of the times it stayed deafening.
At the end of the movie the ushers came in and told us all to leave because there wasn't any more movie so those of us who wanted to watch the credits couldn't. I think theaters need to be more careful who they hire. If they hire thugs people will stop coming. Also, we are paying you to see the movie. You are not paying us to watch commercials. If I wanted to watch commercials I can do that at home NBC,CBS,ABC on TV. I know there are a lot of problems for theaters staying in business these days. But unless "The customer is always right!" there is really no point at all to be in business in the first place. I like watching movies I just don't want (there are thousands and millions of us) to be deafened unnecessarily and intimidated by people who know absolutely nothing, obviously about running a successful business about creating satisfied customers.
I have run many successful businesses and success always came for me when I understood what my customers wanted and gave it to them. These were always my most successful businesses. I think this is somewhat true of all businesses.
Today, though was a different experience. I was home here on the Coast in California. Lately, though I go to a lot of movies at the local theaters, there has been a change. This change is the 1/2 hour or more of LOUD LOUD commercials that NO ONE WANTS TO SEE OR HEAR way before the previews and movie even start.
In order for me to get angry enough to write this article I had to go out and ask the theater manager on ten different occasions on ten different movies to turn down the volume on the advertisements because it hurt our ears. Out of those ten different movies where advertisements played that NO ONE wants to hear or see the volume went down only 3 to 5 times. The rest of the time it remained so deafening that many of us just considered going home. Today was one of the times it stayed deafening.
At the end of the movie the ushers came in and told us all to leave because there wasn't any more movie so those of us who wanted to watch the credits couldn't. I think theaters need to be more careful who they hire. If they hire thugs people will stop coming. Also, we are paying you to see the movie. You are not paying us to watch commercials. If I wanted to watch commercials I can do that at home NBC,CBS,ABC on TV. I know there are a lot of problems for theaters staying in business these days. But unless "The customer is always right!" there is really no point at all to be in business in the first place. I like watching movies I just don't want (there are thousands and millions of us) to be deafened unnecessarily and intimidated by people who know absolutely nothing, obviously about running a successful business about creating satisfied customers.
I have run many successful businesses and success always came for me when I understood what my customers wanted and gave it to them. These were always my most successful businesses. I think this is somewhat true of all businesses.
Good News regarding LBAM urban spraying
http://www.ksbw.com/news/
16658069/detail.html
For all you urban and suburban Californians there is good news. Sterile moths are going to be used instead of pheromone spraying of urban and suburban areas by 2009. Too much resistance and claims of human health damage has caused this change. All urban and suburban aerial spraying of pheromones in California has been stopped.
16658069/detail.html
For all you urban and suburban Californians there is good news. Sterile moths are going to be used instead of pheromone spraying of urban and suburban areas by 2009. Too much resistance and claims of human health damage has caused this change. All urban and suburban aerial spraying of pheromones in California has been stopped.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Being in the Right place at the Right time
It is said all enlightened beings like Jesus and Buddha and the rest are like this. Being in the right place at the right time is not just physical. It is being in the right state of consciousness at the right moment to most efficiently affect all the trillions and trillions of beings not only in this galaxy but all others whether any of them are aware of it or not. It is very much like being an atom bomb of enlightenment each moment in your affect throughout all time and space.
Maybe its because of studying with many masters in previous lifetimes who were like this I came into my body even as a child knowing this intuitively. As a child I watched people do amazing physical feats and intellectual ones as well. What I noticed about all of them from the time even before I was 2 was that they all were "in tune" with the infinite. There was no accident in consciousness or in action. They were perfect in what they did this particular moment because they had learned intuitively how and when to be in that special moment. Even at 2 years old no one had to tell me when someone was 'there'. They either were or they weren't. Like Yoda once said, "There is no try only do." If you know its your moment you simply do.
Some people might have only one or a few moments like this in their entire lives. Others might have their whole lives as this one moment. It all depends on the soul and the intuitive timing of things.
I'm 60 now. I notice it is more important than ever to make certain that I am in the right place and the right time because I can. I'm much more aware of being a master of this in my life. I'm very aware that when I can be perfect at this it can affect trillions of beings throughout the universe. It is kind of like a dance. Some call it the Dance of Shiva. Some call Shiva the destroyer but my experience is not that.
What Shiva does is like the cleansing of a wound filled with dirt and blood to begin the healing. What Shiva does is take away the pain or even the memory so one can begin again, sometimes reincarnated into the same life anew or even as a whole new person in a whole new body. My experience of Shiva is about unimaginable kindness so one must not suffer forever in a body that no longer works. I would say a better way to call Shiva would be Shiva the Renewer of souls. Saying Shiva the Destroyer is when one wants to scare children into following the rules. But the adult kind being that most of us really are experiences the Dance of Shiva as renewal and reawakening!
Maybe its because of studying with many masters in previous lifetimes who were like this I came into my body even as a child knowing this intuitively. As a child I watched people do amazing physical feats and intellectual ones as well. What I noticed about all of them from the time even before I was 2 was that they all were "in tune" with the infinite. There was no accident in consciousness or in action. They were perfect in what they did this particular moment because they had learned intuitively how and when to be in that special moment. Even at 2 years old no one had to tell me when someone was 'there'. They either were or they weren't. Like Yoda once said, "There is no try only do." If you know its your moment you simply do.
Some people might have only one or a few moments like this in their entire lives. Others might have their whole lives as this one moment. It all depends on the soul and the intuitive timing of things.
I'm 60 now. I notice it is more important than ever to make certain that I am in the right place and the right time because I can. I'm much more aware of being a master of this in my life. I'm very aware that when I can be perfect at this it can affect trillions of beings throughout the universe. It is kind of like a dance. Some call it the Dance of Shiva. Some call Shiva the destroyer but my experience is not that.
What Shiva does is like the cleansing of a wound filled with dirt and blood to begin the healing. What Shiva does is take away the pain or even the memory so one can begin again, sometimes reincarnated into the same life anew or even as a whole new person in a whole new body. My experience of Shiva is about unimaginable kindness so one must not suffer forever in a body that no longer works. I would say a better way to call Shiva would be Shiva the Renewer of souls. Saying Shiva the Destroyer is when one wants to scare children into following the rules. But the adult kind being that most of us really are experiences the Dance of Shiva as renewal and reawakening!
My Enlightened Dog
For those of you laughing, I understand. I got my dog Furby in 2000. At that time he was 17 months old. I went to Blockbuster to return some videos and he was there with the SPCA in a cage. I just had to look in his eyes and I knew he was my dog. He had the look of my father's German Shepard, King had just before my Dad died. My father once said to me,"When a man gets old he doesn't need a wife or a woman, he needs a good dog." It wasn't that Mom wasn't a good wife for Dad, it was that Dad was always hiking or building something on his land, and King was his loyal companion who was with him through everything, while Mom watched her Soap Operas or went to the shopping Mall 30 miles away in Palm Springs. I was in my 30s at the time and didn't really think to much about what Dad said at the time. At the time I was raising 4 kids on the northern California coast and running a business, so I pretty much had my hands full.
When Dad died since King was a one man German Shepard, he began to scare my mother and didn't do well at all with Dad gone.
Flash forward 15 years to 2000 in front of Blockbuster I saw Furby, a 17 month old Australian Shepard and German Shepard mix. Furby has much shorter ears and much softer long hair like a long hair German Shepard but his tail goes up in the air like Pampas grass. I'm not sure where this characteristic comes from. Being Shepard variation, Furby, is probably the single most intelligent and loving large dog I've ever met.
When I first got him he was a little much even for me. He was very intelligent and very headstrong and at 75 pounds would have been a little intimidating for most women even though he had been fixed. If he hadn't been fixed he likely would have been an ideal attack dog or Shepard dog or Guard dog because he is very wolf like in his fearlessness and intelligence. He even like wolves. He has made friends with wolves I have met with their owners on nearby trails. I am always amazed that wolves don't bark and can run backwards as well as forewords. This is a survival tool. Wolves howl at the moon but don't bark because they are not regular dogs. When they attack in the wild they likely don't make much noise. This is likely why they are so successful.
Our Tree trimmer had a huge wolf that rode with him in his truck. I can remember the look on his wolfs face. It was like, "If I wanted to I could eat you right now!" When I looked in that wolfs eyes I knew completely that was a one man wolf. This wasn't a creature to be silly around or to take chances around. I've only had this experience a few times in my life and usually looking at a lion or a bear in a cage and not with an unrestrained animal.
Furby at first tried to outsmart me. He knew even at 17 months that he had already outsmarted his female owner since birth. Even his name she gave him denoted a puppy kind of relationship. At some point I think Furby scared her pretty bad. However, I am not one to easily be intimidated by anyone. Being six feet 4 1/2 inches tall and well over 200 pounds I don't get intimidated very often by anyone or anything.
I started to worry that I wouldn't be able to demonstrate to Furby my Alpha Dog state without breaking his spirit in a way I didn't want. I wanted his spirit to remain because he was and is an amazing amazing dog. Finally, I got my wish. He stole 1/2 a large pizza off the stove. I saw my chance and I pounced as alpha dog(man). I didn't have to scare him too bad and I was able to make him cow without hurting him. I just scared the hell out of him and took away the pizza. This was exactly what our relationship needed. I was the leader of his pack and he has recognized me ever since.
The same day we got Maggie Mae, a slightly troubled 5 to 7 year old Jack russel terrier and Corgi mix. She had been stepped on by her previous owner's horse and so
every 4th or 5th step she would limp with her left hind leg. She was very sweet but also extremely eccentric. My wife loved her. I had a lot of trouble with her because she absolutely had to always always roll in poop. Her favorite excrement was horse. So if we were out on the trail and she found horse poop and I wasn't watching she would roll in it. she did this to mask her scent because Jack Russells do this instinctively to mask their scent for hunting with any kind of poop available. No matter what I did(including outside hose baths at 40 degrees farenheit) I couldn't stop her rolling in poop. I liked her except this one trait. So at least once a week she would find poop while in the forest with me and Furby and roll in it or try to. The poop roll was always impossible to deal with for me because I don't like to keep dogs tied up if 1 mile from the nearest person in the forest on a good trail. As long as they will do whatever I say when I say it it is usually okay except for the poop rolling.
Furby knows about 300 words. He knows people's names. A friend of ours was a horse whisperer and his brother still is. He says Furby is the single most intelligent dog he has ever met in his life and he is 50 years old. He grew up on a cattle ranch with in about 50 miles of where I live and was a cowboy for his father's ranch as he grew up there.
AS time has gone on many people have fallen in love with my dog. My dog has soul. Some people say he is just like a human being in a dog body. He is definitely the single most amazing dog I've ever met in my life and though people have offered again and again to take him off my hands or to buy him from me I have always said, "No. Furby is family." My wife and daughters and son feel this way too.
In Tibetan Buddhism they have a concept of a Maha Kala dog, which is a magic like spiritual protector dog. Furby is like this for me. Sometimes he will sit in front of my spiritual altar or sit in the grass outside in the back yard and look up into the sky and sigh. He is like no other dog I've ever met. For my whole family and all my friends, he is the Furbinator, our enlightened dog.
When Dad died since King was a one man German Shepard, he began to scare my mother and didn't do well at all with Dad gone.
Flash forward 15 years to 2000 in front of Blockbuster I saw Furby, a 17 month old Australian Shepard and German Shepard mix. Furby has much shorter ears and much softer long hair like a long hair German Shepard but his tail goes up in the air like Pampas grass. I'm not sure where this characteristic comes from. Being Shepard variation, Furby, is probably the single most intelligent and loving large dog I've ever met.
When I first got him he was a little much even for me. He was very intelligent and very headstrong and at 75 pounds would have been a little intimidating for most women even though he had been fixed. If he hadn't been fixed he likely would have been an ideal attack dog or Shepard dog or Guard dog because he is very wolf like in his fearlessness and intelligence. He even like wolves. He has made friends with wolves I have met with their owners on nearby trails. I am always amazed that wolves don't bark and can run backwards as well as forewords. This is a survival tool. Wolves howl at the moon but don't bark because they are not regular dogs. When they attack in the wild they likely don't make much noise. This is likely why they are so successful.
Our Tree trimmer had a huge wolf that rode with him in his truck. I can remember the look on his wolfs face. It was like, "If I wanted to I could eat you right now!" When I looked in that wolfs eyes I knew completely that was a one man wolf. This wasn't a creature to be silly around or to take chances around. I've only had this experience a few times in my life and usually looking at a lion or a bear in a cage and not with an unrestrained animal.
Furby at first tried to outsmart me. He knew even at 17 months that he had already outsmarted his female owner since birth. Even his name she gave him denoted a puppy kind of relationship. At some point I think Furby scared her pretty bad. However, I am not one to easily be intimidated by anyone. Being six feet 4 1/2 inches tall and well over 200 pounds I don't get intimidated very often by anyone or anything.
I started to worry that I wouldn't be able to demonstrate to Furby my Alpha Dog state without breaking his spirit in a way I didn't want. I wanted his spirit to remain because he was and is an amazing amazing dog. Finally, I got my wish. He stole 1/2 a large pizza off the stove. I saw my chance and I pounced as alpha dog(man). I didn't have to scare him too bad and I was able to make him cow without hurting him. I just scared the hell out of him and took away the pizza. This was exactly what our relationship needed. I was the leader of his pack and he has recognized me ever since.
The same day we got Maggie Mae, a slightly troubled 5 to 7 year old Jack russel terrier and Corgi mix. She had been stepped on by her previous owner's horse and so
every 4th or 5th step she would limp with her left hind leg. She was very sweet but also extremely eccentric. My wife loved her. I had a lot of trouble with her because she absolutely had to always always roll in poop. Her favorite excrement was horse. So if we were out on the trail and she found horse poop and I wasn't watching she would roll in it. she did this to mask her scent because Jack Russells do this instinctively to mask their scent for hunting with any kind of poop available. No matter what I did(including outside hose baths at 40 degrees farenheit) I couldn't stop her rolling in poop. I liked her except this one trait. So at least once a week she would find poop while in the forest with me and Furby and roll in it or try to. The poop roll was always impossible to deal with for me because I don't like to keep dogs tied up if 1 mile from the nearest person in the forest on a good trail. As long as they will do whatever I say when I say it it is usually okay except for the poop rolling.
Furby knows about 300 words. He knows people's names. A friend of ours was a horse whisperer and his brother still is. He says Furby is the single most intelligent dog he has ever met in his life and he is 50 years old. He grew up on a cattle ranch with in about 50 miles of where I live and was a cowboy for his father's ranch as he grew up there.
AS time has gone on many people have fallen in love with my dog. My dog has soul. Some people say he is just like a human being in a dog body. He is definitely the single most amazing dog I've ever met in my life and though people have offered again and again to take him off my hands or to buy him from me I have always said, "No. Furby is family." My wife and daughters and son feel this way too.
In Tibetan Buddhism they have a concept of a Maha Kala dog, which is a magic like spiritual protector dog. Furby is like this for me. Sometimes he will sit in front of my spiritual altar or sit in the grass outside in the back yard and look up into the sky and sigh. He is like no other dog I've ever met. For my whole family and all my friends, he is the Furbinator, our enlightened dog.
A Safe Place During Corrupt Times
The present times we live in 2001 to the present are the most corrupt times for my country in my lifetime. Yes. the Johnson and Nixon administrations were corrupt too but mostly in a different way than now. Then it was more about Viet Nam for Johnson and then add Paranoia for Nixon. However, the times now are about scaring the money out of the American people and the whole world. Just like a mugger if you scare the people bad enough they will give you their money and run. Just like now worldwide.
I was reading about how someone in our government was fired recently because they wouldn't pay KBR(formally a subsidiary of Halliburton) for unsubstantiated bills for 1 billion dollars in Iraq. The government watchdog was doing his job and got fired for it. 1 BILION DOLLARS COULD BUY EVERY AMERICAN A WHOLE LOT OF GASOLINE! AND IT WAS STOLEN BY KBR AND THE GOVERNMENT WATCHDOG WAS FIRED FOR NOT GIVING IT TO THEM! If that isn't corruption I don't know what is!
I did the math at $4.50 a gallon that would buy 222,222,222 gallons of gas or if we take the 2007 population of the United States 301,139,947 (July 2007 est.)
that would buy 3/4 a gallon of gas for every man, woman, child and baby in the U.S.
I would say that Osama Bin Laden didn't screw the American people half as bad as DaddyWarbucks companies have and still do! Yes. There are some very good and reputable companies. However, there appear to be less and less of them that care whether the U.S. rises or falls. That is the tragedy!
So, I was thinking how people should respond to all this. The first thing is that one really can't trust the U.S. Government lately to be on the side of the people, their soldiers or especially the poor. All are equally thrown into the meat grinder of out of control capitalism during war by daddy warbucks companies. Sometimes I wonder if anyone will be able to reign in some of these corrupt companies ever? They have their own private mercenary armies that can assassinate anyone who gets in their way. Money talks and money kills!
One of the ways to make sure you and your family survive all this is to have a plan of what to do given whatever problem arises. For example, I live in California. The most likely problems I will have to deal with are earthquakes and fires and maybe and outside change of a tsunami. And like Hurricane Katrina, I really don't expect the government to be there for me when I need them. If they are there, wonderful. But I think assuming no one is going to be there when you need them is a good place to start just like our pioneer forefathers and mothers thought during the last 400 years or so here in the U.S.
Depending upon your personal finances one might need a bunch of bicycles for ones family and a bicycle backpack for a bike trailer, or it could be a motorcycle with a trailer, or it could be a economy car with a tent, or it could be an SUV or Truck with a camper shell or full size Camper on board, or it could be a motor home, large or small.
I think it is important for everyone now more than ever to have a plan of escape to a safer location and to purchase bicycles, motorcycles, cars, trucks or motorhomes for this escape. For whether you are escaping from fire, earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, drought, or floods or even terrorists I think now is a good time to plan ahead for your families safety!
Though I don't think ufo aliens should necessarily be feared, I noticed while I was watching Independence Day(1996) with Will Smith, that the people who were most likely to survive a catastrophe had motor homes as they drove across the salt flat to Area 51 together. Being mobile in a catastrophe as long as there are roads and gas or diesel for fuel can save lives in a big way. Even if your families home is gone for whatever reason, a mobile place to live might keep them alive a long time until you can find another place.
My wife and I bought a small motorhome a few years ago that is self contained, shower, electrical generator, water pressure, shower, toilet, Dvd, vcr, microwave, flat screen tv built in and sleeps 3 comfortable or 4 less comfortably, 12volt dc, 110 ac or propane powered refrigerator, indoor and outdoor shower with a hot water heater, etc. With this vehicle I could easily go anywhere at any time of day up to 300 miles without refilling my tank(which I always keep completely full year round) and be safe there for 3 months time if necessary off the grid. Now, you might think this is silly. Tell that to people who watched their houses float away in Iowa recently. Tell that to those who got left behind in Hurricane Katrina and died horrible deaths.
I was reading about how someone in our government was fired recently because they wouldn't pay KBR(formally a subsidiary of Halliburton) for unsubstantiated bills for 1 billion dollars in Iraq. The government watchdog was doing his job and got fired for it. 1 BILION DOLLARS COULD BUY EVERY AMERICAN A WHOLE LOT OF GASOLINE! AND IT WAS STOLEN BY KBR AND THE GOVERNMENT WATCHDOG WAS FIRED FOR NOT GIVING IT TO THEM! If that isn't corruption I don't know what is!
I did the math at $4.50 a gallon that would buy 222,222,222 gallons of gas or if we take the 2007 population of the United States 301,139,947 (July 2007 est.)
that would buy 3/4 a gallon of gas for every man, woman, child and baby in the U.S.
I would say that Osama Bin Laden didn't screw the American people half as bad as DaddyWarbucks companies have and still do! Yes. There are some very good and reputable companies. However, there appear to be less and less of them that care whether the U.S. rises or falls. That is the tragedy!
So, I was thinking how people should respond to all this. The first thing is that one really can't trust the U.S. Government lately to be on the side of the people, their soldiers or especially the poor. All are equally thrown into the meat grinder of out of control capitalism during war by daddy warbucks companies. Sometimes I wonder if anyone will be able to reign in some of these corrupt companies ever? They have their own private mercenary armies that can assassinate anyone who gets in their way. Money talks and money kills!
One of the ways to make sure you and your family survive all this is to have a plan of what to do given whatever problem arises. For example, I live in California. The most likely problems I will have to deal with are earthquakes and fires and maybe and outside change of a tsunami. And like Hurricane Katrina, I really don't expect the government to be there for me when I need them. If they are there, wonderful. But I think assuming no one is going to be there when you need them is a good place to start just like our pioneer forefathers and mothers thought during the last 400 years or so here in the U.S.
Depending upon your personal finances one might need a bunch of bicycles for ones family and a bicycle backpack for a bike trailer, or it could be a motorcycle with a trailer, or it could be a economy car with a tent, or it could be an SUV or Truck with a camper shell or full size Camper on board, or it could be a motor home, large or small.
I think it is important for everyone now more than ever to have a plan of escape to a safer location and to purchase bicycles, motorcycles, cars, trucks or motorhomes for this escape. For whether you are escaping from fire, earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, drought, or floods or even terrorists I think now is a good time to plan ahead for your families safety!
Though I don't think ufo aliens should necessarily be feared, I noticed while I was watching Independence Day(1996) with Will Smith, that the people who were most likely to survive a catastrophe had motor homes as they drove across the salt flat to Area 51 together. Being mobile in a catastrophe as long as there are roads and gas or diesel for fuel can save lives in a big way. Even if your families home is gone for whatever reason, a mobile place to live might keep them alive a long time until you can find another place.
My wife and I bought a small motorhome a few years ago that is self contained, shower, electrical generator, water pressure, shower, toilet, Dvd, vcr, microwave, flat screen tv built in and sleeps 3 comfortable or 4 less comfortably, 12volt dc, 110 ac or propane powered refrigerator, indoor and outdoor shower with a hot water heater, etc. With this vehicle I could easily go anywhere at any time of day up to 300 miles without refilling my tank(which I always keep completely full year round) and be safe there for 3 months time if necessary off the grid. Now, you might think this is silly. Tell that to people who watched their houses float away in Iowa recently. Tell that to those who got left behind in Hurricane Katrina and died horrible deaths.
Why the US can't Compete with China now
http://www.forbes.com/home/2008/05/27/
gas-inflation-china-oped-cx_dhs_0528oilchina.html
Begin quote:
Consider the following: Since January 2007, global crude oil prices have risen by 109%; gasoline prices in the U.S. have risen by 77% (roughly apace); gasoline prices in China have risen only 9%. endquote
Since January 2007,if U.S. gasoline prices have risen 77% and China gasoline prices have only risen 9%, you tell me why the U.S. can't compete with China?
gas-inflation-china-oped-cx_dhs_0528oilchina.html
Begin quote:
Consider the following: Since January 2007, global crude oil prices have risen by 109%; gasoline prices in the U.S. have risen by 77% (roughly apace); gasoline prices in China have risen only 9%. endquote
Since January 2007,if U.S. gasoline prices have risen 77% and China gasoline prices have only risen 9%, you tell me why the U.S. can't compete with China?
China's subsidized Gas
http://www.forbes.com/home/2008/05/27/
gas-inflation-china-oped-cx_dhs_0528oilchina.html
What do Mexico and China have in common? Both Governments subsidize the price of gas and diesel that their citizens pay. For example, San Diego, California residents now commonly drive to Tijuana, Mexico across the border to buy gas for $2.53 a gallon for regular since it is at least $4.50 a gallon in San Diego for regular.
However, Mexico is a neighbor and friend and at present not an economic threat to the United States like China tends to be more and more.
I believe the United States must begin to subsidize our gas down to about $2.50 a gallon for regular too. There is only one reason why this might not being done right now. This reason has to do with American inventiveness and ingenuity. If gasoline is kept above $4 a gallon for about 2 years it will do 2 things. The first thing is that it will at first devastate the economy in regard to the movement of goods and people, and people will be forced by economics to buy locally grown food or to grow their own. And the second thing is that it just might make America once again the single most innovative nation on earth in regard to solving the fuel crisis that looks right now to be going on forever until new fuels are brought online.
However, if this crisis of $4 a gallon plus for regular continues more than 1 or 2 years then our government MUST begin to subsidize fuel for our nation also down to whatever Mexico and China are paying for regular per gallon. It is only fair if we expect to compete with other countries subsidizing gasoline and diesel for their citizens.
gas-inflation-china-oped-cx_dhs_0528oilchina.html
What do Mexico and China have in common? Both Governments subsidize the price of gas and diesel that their citizens pay. For example, San Diego, California residents now commonly drive to Tijuana, Mexico across the border to buy gas for $2.53 a gallon for regular since it is at least $4.50 a gallon in San Diego for regular.
However, Mexico is a neighbor and friend and at present not an economic threat to the United States like China tends to be more and more.
I believe the United States must begin to subsidize our gas down to about $2.50 a gallon for regular too. There is only one reason why this might not being done right now. This reason has to do with American inventiveness and ingenuity. If gasoline is kept above $4 a gallon for about 2 years it will do 2 things. The first thing is that it will at first devastate the economy in regard to the movement of goods and people, and people will be forced by economics to buy locally grown food or to grow their own. And the second thing is that it just might make America once again the single most innovative nation on earth in regard to solving the fuel crisis that looks right now to be going on forever until new fuels are brought online.
However, if this crisis of $4 a gallon plus for regular continues more than 1 or 2 years then our government MUST begin to subsidize fuel for our nation also down to whatever Mexico and China are paying for regular per gallon. It is only fair if we expect to compete with other countries subsidizing gasoline and diesel for their citizens.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Forcing Oil to remain world fuel standard:Suicide
Humanity in order to survive this century needs to have 30%, then 50%, then 70% of the population of earth using fuels that are not oil based fuels. In other words the fuels that 30%, then 50%, then 70% of humanity use must (as quickly as possible) move to are biofuels, water(hydrogen and oxygen) based fuels and lastly wind and solar power. The most effective way presently is for these fuels to run electric vehicles. These vehicles could either be plug-in hybrids or completely electric plug in vehicles.
Just like President Kennedy had a space race to the moon, our present space race is toward moving humanity away from oil so humanity can survive this century. The alternative if you observe the present consumption curve and price curve of oil based fuels is worldwide chaos. The chaos is already beginning. Read about it in the news worldwide. Without switching to cheaper fuels immediately I'm very concerned there will be violent revolutions and even possibly a world war over oil. If you want your children to stay alive and not die in one of these wars you must become a part of this technological revolution away from oil. If this move away from oil isn't recognized as a serious solution by enough people, then soon it will be too late!
Just like President Kennedy had a space race to the moon, our present space race is toward moving humanity away from oil so humanity can survive this century. The alternative if you observe the present consumption curve and price curve of oil based fuels is worldwide chaos. The chaos is already beginning. Read about it in the news worldwide. Without switching to cheaper fuels immediately I'm very concerned there will be violent revolutions and even possibly a world war over oil. If you want your children to stay alive and not die in one of these wars you must become a part of this technological revolution away from oil. If this move away from oil isn't recognized as a serious solution by enough people, then soon it will be too late!
The problems of Corn Biofuel
Though I think Biofuel is a necessary idea these days worldwide, I think that Corn is not a very good choice as a biofuel. The first problem is that it takes more energy to produce corn biofuel from corn than one receives from burning corn ethanol.
Next, Corn seriously depletes soil each time it is grown. What this means realistically, is that unless one grows legumes, various kinds of beans to renew the soil, the soil just gets more and more depleted. Corn cannot be realistically grown season after season without serious soil depletion.
The third problem is that since corn is a food, growing corn for biofuel causes the price of corn worldwide to skyrocket and people especially in Central and South America to starve because of their dependence on corn tortillas as a food staple.
So, I think a better solution would be sugar cane, which could be grown further south in places like Florida and some southern states. Brazil has already perfected using sugarcane ethanol and so we could benefit from their success. Since sugarcane is only used to make molasses and sugar, it is not a food staple and doesn't contribute to world starvation.
So, because of Brazil's success in refining Sugarcane into ethanol, growing sugarcane in the southern U.S. and refining it into ethanol could become a win win situation for everyone.
Next, Corn seriously depletes soil each time it is grown. What this means realistically, is that unless one grows legumes, various kinds of beans to renew the soil, the soil just gets more and more depleted. Corn cannot be realistically grown season after season without serious soil depletion.
The third problem is that since corn is a food, growing corn for biofuel causes the price of corn worldwide to skyrocket and people especially in Central and South America to starve because of their dependence on corn tortillas as a food staple.
So, I think a better solution would be sugar cane, which could be grown further south in places like Florida and some southern states. Brazil has already perfected using sugarcane ethanol and so we could benefit from their success. Since sugarcane is only used to make molasses and sugar, it is not a food staple and doesn't contribute to world starvation.
So, because of Brazil's success in refining Sugarcane into ethanol, growing sugarcane in the southern U.S. and refining it into ethanol could become a win win situation for everyone.
One Energy Solution To be developed now
http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/13/
genepax-shows-off-water-powered-fuel-cell-vehicle/
If you view the demonstration video found lower down on the page of the above internet address you can see the water powered hydrogen fuel cell in action. They say that in that little test vehicle that 80 kilometers per hour can be maintained for about 1 hour on one bottle of water, salt water, river water or even tea. If this is true then this is a remarkable breakthrough.
I would like to see this device sold separately without a vehicle so that all hybrids worldwide could add this device as an electrical generator. In this way even if gas was prohibitively expensive people could still just get water out of a tap anywhere or even dip into an ocean or river to power their hybrids worldwide. So in an emergency or just
driving to work or on business people could still get where they need to go. A device like this would be an excellent backup for home or business solar powered systems as well worldwide. Power could be stored in batteries for present or future use.
genepax-shows-off-water-powered-fuel-cell-vehicle/
If you view the demonstration video found lower down on the page of the above internet address you can see the water powered hydrogen fuel cell in action. They say that in that little test vehicle that 80 kilometers per hour can be maintained for about 1 hour on one bottle of water, salt water, river water or even tea. If this is true then this is a remarkable breakthrough.
I would like to see this device sold separately without a vehicle so that all hybrids worldwide could add this device as an electrical generator. In this way even if gas was prohibitively expensive people could still just get water out of a tap anywhere or even dip into an ocean or river to power their hybrids worldwide. So in an emergency or just
driving to work or on business people could still get where they need to go. A device like this would be an excellent backup for home or business solar powered systems as well worldwide. Power could be stored in batteries for present or future use.
No to Coastal Oil Drilling
A world oil based economy is no longer practical. Yes. It will take time for enough people to study the problem enough to understand. However, those of us who have taken the time to study the problem all know that for more humans to survive the present oil crisis, other fuels must now be developed. We must all, just like Brazil, move on to other fuels.
To continue to believe that oil will solve our problems is to stick our heads in the sand and to pretend 2010 is 1960. THE PAST IS OVER! Everything has changed. It's just that most people are so busy trying just to survive worldwide that they haven't studied the problem enough to see that oil is over.
Yes. There is propaganda continuing from oil producing nations and oil companies that want you desperately to believe that oil is the only solution. Though that will put money in their pockets it very well may kill your children by starvation or citizen unrest worldwide when oil becomes $20 a gallon likely within 10 years.
Oil is already cost prohibitive so let's just move on to other fuels and other energy sources. To not do so is suicide for humanity right now!
To continue to believe that oil will solve our problems is to stick our heads in the sand and to pretend 2010 is 1960. THE PAST IS OVER! Everything has changed. It's just that most people are so busy trying just to survive worldwide that they haven't studied the problem enough to see that oil is over.
Yes. There is propaganda continuing from oil producing nations and oil companies that want you desperately to believe that oil is the only solution. Though that will put money in their pockets it very well may kill your children by starvation or citizen unrest worldwide when oil becomes $20 a gallon likely within 10 years.
Oil is already cost prohibitive so let's just move on to other fuels and other energy sources. To not do so is suicide for humanity right now!
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Apocalyptic Thinking
I grew up with people in my church always talking about "The Change". This meant to them that the coasts would flood and everone not living on a mountain or at high altitude was going to be washed away in a flood. I listened to people talking like this growing up. I finally in my 20s came to the conclusion that they thought like this because they had been mistreated as children, psychologically, physically, sexually or all three. I find if I talk to apocalyptic people they have this one quality in common, childhood abuse(psychological, physical or sexual).
When I realized that every person I talked to who thought the end of the world was coming soon had been abused it started to make sense to me.
However, unless someone has had family members die in a disaster or watched their house or livelihood be destroyed I just don't see the usefulness of apocalyptic thinking. However, if someone was very poor or just had a really terrible life then maybe that would be the only thing they had to look forward to, death.
I have a different way of looking at all this. Since I not only was raised to believe in reincarnation but in addition to this I remember many or most of my recent lives past, present and future I see all this in a much different context than many people.
Whether you believe what I believe or not is irrelevant to me. It is just my experience of life and you are entitled to your own experience of life just like I am entitled to my own. And just like you I would fight and die to be able to have my own experience of life and have many many times in past lifetimes. I remember these deaths and how important it was at the time to defend whatever it was I believed and my friends and family at the time.
However, in addition to this I remember being Christian, Islamic, Buddhist, Hindu and animist when I died on many occasions to protect my family, friends and beliefs. It has always been like this. Always someone didn't want other people to believe or do what they did and killed them like animals in a slaughter. Most people don't want to be slaughtered so they fight back any way they can. It is just human nature.
So, to my present way of thinking, apocalyptic thinking I only find useful for those who have just lost relatives and friends in a catastrophe like in China or the Flooding in Iowa and Illinois etc. Other people who might be having really terrible lives might also want to believe in apocalypse just to have something to look forward to. Otherwise I generally see apocalyptic thinking as counterproductive to a good life.
The reason it is counterproductive to a good life is that one tends to just sit in their home and not do anything but wait for the end when one thinks this way. So it not only interferes with a better future for that person but it interferes with a better life for all their friends and relatives that could be helped to survive better in a multitude of ways. Just waiting for the end becomes only a self fulfilling prophesy and ends everyone's life sooner and makes everyone's life worse in the meantime.
I believe "God helps those who help themselves!" If you can't pick yourself up and move on and create a life you can stand to live in then "God Help You!"
Be the change you want to see. Be God manifesting on earth. Invent ways for people to survive and be happier. Help Earth become a heaven so everyone goes from Earth heaven to a real heaven. So the trip from Earth heaven to a real heaven won't be so far.
Let's stop all this apocalyptic stuff and make earth a heaven for all of us now!
When I realized that every person I talked to who thought the end of the world was coming soon had been abused it started to make sense to me.
However, unless someone has had family members die in a disaster or watched their house or livelihood be destroyed I just don't see the usefulness of apocalyptic thinking. However, if someone was very poor or just had a really terrible life then maybe that would be the only thing they had to look forward to, death.
I have a different way of looking at all this. Since I not only was raised to believe in reincarnation but in addition to this I remember many or most of my recent lives past, present and future I see all this in a much different context than many people.
Whether you believe what I believe or not is irrelevant to me. It is just my experience of life and you are entitled to your own experience of life just like I am entitled to my own. And just like you I would fight and die to be able to have my own experience of life and have many many times in past lifetimes. I remember these deaths and how important it was at the time to defend whatever it was I believed and my friends and family at the time.
However, in addition to this I remember being Christian, Islamic, Buddhist, Hindu and animist when I died on many occasions to protect my family, friends and beliefs. It has always been like this. Always someone didn't want other people to believe or do what they did and killed them like animals in a slaughter. Most people don't want to be slaughtered so they fight back any way they can. It is just human nature.
So, to my present way of thinking, apocalyptic thinking I only find useful for those who have just lost relatives and friends in a catastrophe like in China or the Flooding in Iowa and Illinois etc. Other people who might be having really terrible lives might also want to believe in apocalypse just to have something to look forward to. Otherwise I generally see apocalyptic thinking as counterproductive to a good life.
The reason it is counterproductive to a good life is that one tends to just sit in their home and not do anything but wait for the end when one thinks this way. So it not only interferes with a better future for that person but it interferes with a better life for all their friends and relatives that could be helped to survive better in a multitude of ways. Just waiting for the end becomes only a self fulfilling prophesy and ends everyone's life sooner and makes everyone's life worse in the meantime.
I believe "God helps those who help themselves!" If you can't pick yourself up and move on and create a life you can stand to live in then "God Help You!"
Be the change you want to see. Be God manifesting on earth. Invent ways for people to survive and be happier. Help Earth become a heaven so everyone goes from Earth heaven to a real heaven. So the trip from Earth heaven to a real heaven won't be so far.
Let's stop all this apocalyptic stuff and make earth a heaven for all of us now!
Enhance your Karma by being kind to everyone
I refound a fortune cookie fortune on my wooden valet that holds my clothes next to my bed. It said, "Enhance you karma by being kind to everyone you encounter.
Most of my life I have lived this saying and because of it I am a very fortunate 60 year old man with good health and a good family.
Sometimes, being kind is as simple as not leaving your car unlocked or not leaving your keys in the ignition so that someone doesn't have to go to jail because you left your keys in the ignition or left your car unlocked. Some people just aren't self disciplined and so they deserve our protection from themselves.
Most of my life I have lived this saying and because of it I am a very fortunate 60 year old man with good health and a good family.
Sometimes, being kind is as simple as not leaving your car unlocked or not leaving your keys in the ignition so that someone doesn't have to go to jail because you left your keys in the ignition or left your car unlocked. Some people just aren't self disciplined and so they deserve our protection from themselves.
Monday, June 16, 2008
So Many Deaths yet my body still lives
I have died many many times in my life yet my body, by God's Grace, still lives on.
By the time I was 2 years old I knew that the only reason I was alive was by God's grace. This had sort of a crazy affect on me and seemed to make me a risk taker. It was as if since God was always bringing me close to death and then rescuing me at the last moment that I figured I might as well finish the job and accidentally go out in the process.
The first time I died inside I was two. I had whooping cough so I coughed until I turned blue and passed out. Then my body took over and I could breathe again. This happened over and over again until I learned at 2 that the way to live was to let go and die. Over and over again until I survived. Before the whooping cough I was a very intense demanding child. After 6 months of whooping cough I was beaten and was afraid of my shadow and especially open water like the ocean. I would look at the ocean and cry hysterically as a child looking at the Puget Sound in Seattle after having had whooping cough.
Next, at age 9 I was playing in too hot of weather with friends and everything turned yellow. I was terrified and so ran to my bike and peddled the 5 miles home to my parents from G Hill in Glendale, California. Luckily, riding my bike fast, the wind cooled me down and I didn't die of heat prostration. Instead I had a headache for 3 days.
The year before I had been molested by my 13 year old cousin but didn't know boys or men could have sex. I only knew that men and women mated not boys with boys. I had a lot to learn.
At age 10 I saw two dogs copulating and went home and went back to sleep after delivering my newspapers on my route at 6 am on a sunday. I had my first epileptic seizure. I woke with my head in my mothers lap. I was on the floor. My mother looked pale and scared. She said I had a bad dream. I had a bad dream about every 6 months until I turned 15 years old and had a seizure only during a nightmare at night each time. I thought at the time that someone or something was trying to kill me supernaturally, I was terrified and almost died each time, especially the last 2 times when I was 14. I got into my body enough and ran for my parents room. Unfortunately, my bedroom door was ajar and then end caught my nose and broke it. I woke up an hour or two later with my head surrounded by a pool of blood. I was shaking and completely traumatized. My father said, "Son, you've got to get some religion under your belt." I took him serious and applied myself the next year so when the next seizure tried to happen I invoked God into my body to live with me always. This worked. He's still here. But this changed EVERYTHING in my life. I was no longer me but God and me combined. At first I was scared when my appearance completely changed over the next two months and then many women started to fall in love with me. At first I was jealous because I knew that they were falling in love with God living in my body with me and not me. But soon I decided that if I had no choice but to live all the time with God living in my body with me that I would make the best of it. I would have fun being a man with God living inside of me 24 hours a day.
I became amazed at just how fun this could be. I looked around me at people terrified out of their minds trying to obey God. I thought this was so sad because I was able to live like an angel or Arcangel just by having fun serving God and seeing just how efficient I could do that. My Swiss background lent to this kind of ever increasing efficiency in having fun serving God. I called this the "alchemy of Joy". I saw this as a supernatural way to increase the fun of serving God and helping all beings.
But I was not through dying. I would not have a long lasting disease that I would need to recover from until I was about 48 or 49 but my pride as a man would die starting at age 18 and completely die at age 21.
I was excommunicated from my parents religion at age 21. It was 1969 and the world was changing and I didn't want to be a hypocrite like many people I knew of all ages. So I confronted the church leadership about this and was asked to leave. Churches then and now were not ready for this depth of honesty. This taught me more than anything else that organized religion was for me and most really intelligent people counterproductive to the survival of life on earth.
I saw first hand that churches that lied to their people to keep the money flowing in would never adapt fast enough to the changes that were coming on earth. It's still that way only now it is not just religions aren't changing fast enough for people to survive it is also all governments and corporations and most big companies worldwide. Without a mechanism to speed up important change based upon the survival of mankind and all life on earth, human life was either going extinct or back to the stone age.This was obvious to me in 1968and9 and it is still obvious to me now.
When God first came into my body when I invited the Being in 1963, God stayed and never left. At first I was terrified by this and then over time got used to it and finally became completely comfortable by the time I was 32 and met my first Tibetan Lama. Meeting this lama explained everything to me that I needed to know.
It was in Ashland, Oregon. It was winter time and I walked through the snow up to where the room where the Lama Gyaltrul Rinpoche was going to give a Thousand Buddhas Empowerment, I think it was winter 1980. As I walked into the room I experienced being physicially in two places at once. This experience was different than soul bi-location that I had mastered in my early twenties after God granted me the blessing to consciously soul travel throughout the Galaxy and through time. This was different than that. Looking back, I think the Lama simply brought the memory of a past life I had had with him and made it so real that I had two physical experiences at once. One was present day 1980 and one was some time between 1500 and 1900 in Tibet with him. I wore a loincloth and I looked down at my hands and they were a darker hue than my present lifetime. Also I was shorter than now(now I'm 6feet 4 1/2 inches tall). In the second lifetime I was shorter than the lama. He was obviously then my teacher and I was a cave yogi who was doing long term practices under his tutelage. He said to me, "You don't belong in any church. You are doing spiritual research for all mankind. You belong in nature."
When I reached my seat in Ashland I almost fainted from this experience. I had heard about people having experiences like this in conjunction with some lamas but since this happened effortlessly without any sort of struggle on his part or mine I was surprised in an amazing way. So I looked deep into what this meant. I thought to myself, "I must ground myself into the religion of America like I grounded myself into the religion of Tibet in that lifetime." I thought to myself, "What religion came up out of the ground in America?" Then I had it, native american shamanism was the only religion that came up out of the ground in America. So I asked then, "God, send me a medicine man to study with."
He arrived at my friends house within one week.
Three years later I knew it was time after my vision quest had led me back to Tibetan Buddhism. I reached out telepathically to the lama. He said, "You are not my student in this lifetime. You have a much different path this time. I will send you a teacher that you need right now." I said, "Okay." I picked the teacher up hitchiking toward my land on Mt. Shasta. The man said he was going to do advanced Tibetan Buddhist practices. I worried about this man as he was going to do these practices while in a tent and it was going to snow about 2 feet and I knew it would collapse the tent. So I left the man where he wanted to do practices in the middle of nowhere. But after it snowed two feet I told my wife, "I can't leave him in two feet of new snow because his tent will collapse." She agreed. So I went to him and sure enough the tent had collapsed. However, he was not scared, he was not unhappy about any of this. He was just glad to see me. I said, "A friend has parked his converted bus motorhome on my land and is storing it there for the winter. Would you like to stay there and teach me and my family about Tibetan Buddhism in exchange?" He said, "Yes. I'm authorized to give some initiations and teaching and I can introduce you within the next month to many lamas you have connection with in San Francisco, Berkeley and Santa Cruz, California. So this began a 5 month Odyssey of initiations from various lamas in California. Looking back on this initiations were given to me, my wife and family that were only usually given to monks and lamas over 40 or 50 years old.
They often said to me, "We are giving these powerful initiations to you because we don't want these teachings to be lost." So we received amazingly powerful initiations. My life has not been the same in any way since then. The initiations bring such primally powerful beings from throughout the universe to life here on earth the like of which I have never seen or heard of before. I think I could only receive these initiations because I am a very old soul who seems to naturally understand such things. Plus I remember several lifetimes in Tibet, Nepal, India and China between 1200 and 1930 which is when I passed on last in India after having been born in Nepal high in the Himalayas around 1850. Then I was born in Japan and then died around age 12 in Nagasaki in the atom bomb and was born in 1948 in Seattle, Washington, which brought me here to now.
The last death since my 1948 birth was when I was 49. The Dalai Lama often talks about how monks and lamas often die in their 49th year or barely survive it. I was no exception to this rule. When I thought I might die my wife insisted I retire. However, 7 months later I had recovered but by then I was retired. Recently, I learned that my thyroid glands hadn't been working properly since my middle thirties, so now it is like being about 30 years old again except with more pain from age all the time. But it is okay because I have had tendonitis since I was 30 from working doing electrical work, Cement work and Carpentry a lot during my 20s. In my late 20s I learned that I prefered to own my own businesses so I started owning and running businesses starting at age 28. This worked out fairly well for me and my family.
After my "death" at age 49 I received the "leisure to practice" which I had prayed for since my early 30s. Though it was a shock at first, I realized I could do much more for all beings by being in a constant state of consciousness like a generator of prayer 24 hours a day. I literally finally became a 24 hour a day householder yogi and like an electrical generator that kept increasing in size and output exponentially learned just how powerful the "leisure to practice" really is. There is literally no limit to how one can help all life by God's Grace.
By God's Grace my body still lives to do God's work. So many deaths yet my body still lives(By God's Grace).
By the time I was 2 years old I knew that the only reason I was alive was by God's grace. This had sort of a crazy affect on me and seemed to make me a risk taker. It was as if since God was always bringing me close to death and then rescuing me at the last moment that I figured I might as well finish the job and accidentally go out in the process.
The first time I died inside I was two. I had whooping cough so I coughed until I turned blue and passed out. Then my body took over and I could breathe again. This happened over and over again until I learned at 2 that the way to live was to let go and die. Over and over again until I survived. Before the whooping cough I was a very intense demanding child. After 6 months of whooping cough I was beaten and was afraid of my shadow and especially open water like the ocean. I would look at the ocean and cry hysterically as a child looking at the Puget Sound in Seattle after having had whooping cough.
Next, at age 9 I was playing in too hot of weather with friends and everything turned yellow. I was terrified and so ran to my bike and peddled the 5 miles home to my parents from G Hill in Glendale, California. Luckily, riding my bike fast, the wind cooled me down and I didn't die of heat prostration. Instead I had a headache for 3 days.
The year before I had been molested by my 13 year old cousin but didn't know boys or men could have sex. I only knew that men and women mated not boys with boys. I had a lot to learn.
At age 10 I saw two dogs copulating and went home and went back to sleep after delivering my newspapers on my route at 6 am on a sunday. I had my first epileptic seizure. I woke with my head in my mothers lap. I was on the floor. My mother looked pale and scared. She said I had a bad dream. I had a bad dream about every 6 months until I turned 15 years old and had a seizure only during a nightmare at night each time. I thought at the time that someone or something was trying to kill me supernaturally, I was terrified and almost died each time, especially the last 2 times when I was 14. I got into my body enough and ran for my parents room. Unfortunately, my bedroom door was ajar and then end caught my nose and broke it. I woke up an hour or two later with my head surrounded by a pool of blood. I was shaking and completely traumatized. My father said, "Son, you've got to get some religion under your belt." I took him serious and applied myself the next year so when the next seizure tried to happen I invoked God into my body to live with me always. This worked. He's still here. But this changed EVERYTHING in my life. I was no longer me but God and me combined. At first I was scared when my appearance completely changed over the next two months and then many women started to fall in love with me. At first I was jealous because I knew that they were falling in love with God living in my body with me and not me. But soon I decided that if I had no choice but to live all the time with God living in my body with me that I would make the best of it. I would have fun being a man with God living inside of me 24 hours a day.
I became amazed at just how fun this could be. I looked around me at people terrified out of their minds trying to obey God. I thought this was so sad because I was able to live like an angel or Arcangel just by having fun serving God and seeing just how efficient I could do that. My Swiss background lent to this kind of ever increasing efficiency in having fun serving God. I called this the "alchemy of Joy". I saw this as a supernatural way to increase the fun of serving God and helping all beings.
But I was not through dying. I would not have a long lasting disease that I would need to recover from until I was about 48 or 49 but my pride as a man would die starting at age 18 and completely die at age 21.
I was excommunicated from my parents religion at age 21. It was 1969 and the world was changing and I didn't want to be a hypocrite like many people I knew of all ages. So I confronted the church leadership about this and was asked to leave. Churches then and now were not ready for this depth of honesty. This taught me more than anything else that organized religion was for me and most really intelligent people counterproductive to the survival of life on earth.
I saw first hand that churches that lied to their people to keep the money flowing in would never adapt fast enough to the changes that were coming on earth. It's still that way only now it is not just religions aren't changing fast enough for people to survive it is also all governments and corporations and most big companies worldwide. Without a mechanism to speed up important change based upon the survival of mankind and all life on earth, human life was either going extinct or back to the stone age.This was obvious to me in 1968and9 and it is still obvious to me now.
When God first came into my body when I invited the Being in 1963, God stayed and never left. At first I was terrified by this and then over time got used to it and finally became completely comfortable by the time I was 32 and met my first Tibetan Lama. Meeting this lama explained everything to me that I needed to know.
It was in Ashland, Oregon. It was winter time and I walked through the snow up to where the room where the Lama Gyaltrul Rinpoche was going to give a Thousand Buddhas Empowerment, I think it was winter 1980. As I walked into the room I experienced being physicially in two places at once. This experience was different than soul bi-location that I had mastered in my early twenties after God granted me the blessing to consciously soul travel throughout the Galaxy and through time. This was different than that. Looking back, I think the Lama simply brought the memory of a past life I had had with him and made it so real that I had two physical experiences at once. One was present day 1980 and one was some time between 1500 and 1900 in Tibet with him. I wore a loincloth and I looked down at my hands and they were a darker hue than my present lifetime. Also I was shorter than now(now I'm 6feet 4 1/2 inches tall). In the second lifetime I was shorter than the lama. He was obviously then my teacher and I was a cave yogi who was doing long term practices under his tutelage. He said to me, "You don't belong in any church. You are doing spiritual research for all mankind. You belong in nature."
When I reached my seat in Ashland I almost fainted from this experience. I had heard about people having experiences like this in conjunction with some lamas but since this happened effortlessly without any sort of struggle on his part or mine I was surprised in an amazing way. So I looked deep into what this meant. I thought to myself, "I must ground myself into the religion of America like I grounded myself into the religion of Tibet in that lifetime." I thought to myself, "What religion came up out of the ground in America?" Then I had it, native american shamanism was the only religion that came up out of the ground in America. So I asked then, "God, send me a medicine man to study with."
He arrived at my friends house within one week.
Three years later I knew it was time after my vision quest had led me back to Tibetan Buddhism. I reached out telepathically to the lama. He said, "You are not my student in this lifetime. You have a much different path this time. I will send you a teacher that you need right now." I said, "Okay." I picked the teacher up hitchiking toward my land on Mt. Shasta. The man said he was going to do advanced Tibetan Buddhist practices. I worried about this man as he was going to do these practices while in a tent and it was going to snow about 2 feet and I knew it would collapse the tent. So I left the man where he wanted to do practices in the middle of nowhere. But after it snowed two feet I told my wife, "I can't leave him in two feet of new snow because his tent will collapse." She agreed. So I went to him and sure enough the tent had collapsed. However, he was not scared, he was not unhappy about any of this. He was just glad to see me. I said, "A friend has parked his converted bus motorhome on my land and is storing it there for the winter. Would you like to stay there and teach me and my family about Tibetan Buddhism in exchange?" He said, "Yes. I'm authorized to give some initiations and teaching and I can introduce you within the next month to many lamas you have connection with in San Francisco, Berkeley and Santa Cruz, California. So this began a 5 month Odyssey of initiations from various lamas in California. Looking back on this initiations were given to me, my wife and family that were only usually given to monks and lamas over 40 or 50 years old.
They often said to me, "We are giving these powerful initiations to you because we don't want these teachings to be lost." So we received amazingly powerful initiations. My life has not been the same in any way since then. The initiations bring such primally powerful beings from throughout the universe to life here on earth the like of which I have never seen or heard of before. I think I could only receive these initiations because I am a very old soul who seems to naturally understand such things. Plus I remember several lifetimes in Tibet, Nepal, India and China between 1200 and 1930 which is when I passed on last in India after having been born in Nepal high in the Himalayas around 1850. Then I was born in Japan and then died around age 12 in Nagasaki in the atom bomb and was born in 1948 in Seattle, Washington, which brought me here to now.
The last death since my 1948 birth was when I was 49. The Dalai Lama often talks about how monks and lamas often die in their 49th year or barely survive it. I was no exception to this rule. When I thought I might die my wife insisted I retire. However, 7 months later I had recovered but by then I was retired. Recently, I learned that my thyroid glands hadn't been working properly since my middle thirties, so now it is like being about 30 years old again except with more pain from age all the time. But it is okay because I have had tendonitis since I was 30 from working doing electrical work, Cement work and Carpentry a lot during my 20s. In my late 20s I learned that I prefered to own my own businesses so I started owning and running businesses starting at age 28. This worked out fairly well for me and my family.
After my "death" at age 49 I received the "leisure to practice" which I had prayed for since my early 30s. Though it was a shock at first, I realized I could do much more for all beings by being in a constant state of consciousness like a generator of prayer 24 hours a day. I literally finally became a 24 hour a day householder yogi and like an electrical generator that kept increasing in size and output exponentially learned just how powerful the "leisure to practice" really is. There is literally no limit to how one can help all life by God's Grace.
By God's Grace my body still lives to do God's work. So many deaths yet my body still lives(By God's Grace).
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