Hi How are you?

I recently visited Amsterdam. It was quite the experience to see lots of tourists from all accross the world walking around completely off their heads on drugs, almost being run over by bikes and Trams.

One guy I met there was quite distressed because he had been part of a group that had taken some very potent magic mushrooms. He was tripping out quite badly and was wishing that it would stop. Then he would get on a high for a period and then begin to trip again. I stayed with him reassuring him that he would be ok and that the drug would ware off in a couple of hours and he would feel normal again. While I sat with him it was quite amazing to observe him as his awareness grew and his senses faded and how he was afraid of that.

I am no stranger to mild drugs myself I have in the past experimented with them in Vancouver a few years ago. What they do if you are not that familiar with Drugs is that they dull out your normal senses. Your normal senses condense reality into what you know as your normal state of awareness. The chemical has the effect of expanding ones awareness.

Meditation has a similar effect except that it is a more fulfilled experience of the hire levels of awareness. Plus you only get to levels of awareness that you are prepared for mentaly.

I explained this to the guy Andrew after he had come down. Drugs are dangerous because they are toxic to the body and also because they can increase your awareness to the extent that you may be exposed to something that you are not prepared for Mentaly.

This is something I have known about for some time now.

I would like to hear some insight from someone who has a deeper understanding of this subject and what their thoughts are on the two.

Meditation as a practice of reaching states of higher/different awareness

Drugs as a practice of reaching states of higher/different awareness

Love

Simon xx

Triumphant am I
To the top, Maestro Hoffman
Perfect substitute

.

If you must get high
On the sweet bye and bye,

Come with me!
We'll be free!
Don't you see?
Uncle TREE

.

Poison is the fruit
The antidote's a funny joke
Laugh until you spill

WV...u will live to regret ur ridiculous snubbing of our next prez...why did u vote so lopsidedly for a loser? is it because of race? low education? jerimyah who is not even running for prez? or what?

the country wants to move on, not remain in the past. and remember...billary voted for this disterous war which is costing the whole world...crude was $28.00 a barrrel then! and u have not seen a repub policy u did not like...why are u a dem?

and billary...why don't u do the honorable thing and pack it in and tell ur supporters to back barack? u once said that florida and michigan shudn't count because they broke the rules...now when it's convenient, u want them to count...shame on u!

Dear Simon

I don't have a deeper understanding, but I have personal thoughts to share.

Here's a link to an article about how meditation may affect body and mind:

http://web.ukonline.co.uk/buddhism/tinhtut6.htm

All drugs change brain chemistry to some degree. They may have side effects that are not noticeable right away, for both mind and body. There may also be immediately-noticeable side effects in some people. The fact that talking someone down from a high, or giving them alcohol to offset their distress (psychological and physical) are a commonly-known non-physician-provided interventions for hallucinogenic drug use tells me that immediate side effects are pretty common. I've never heard of anyone having to be talked down out of meditation, or needing a drink to offset some side effect of a relaxation techniques. Drugs are powerful and poorly understood. They can have irreversible bad results for some people, and short-term bad results for many more. Using them to achieve a new awareness is a form of risk-taking. Does the possibility of reaching a new awareness balance the risk?

When in college, I tried hallucinatory drugs several times (with a boyfriend). The experiences were very unusual, and sometimes beautiful. But unusualness is not a virtue -- it doesn't teach, it only surprises. And I have had many experiences that were more beautiful, in real life.

Of all the types of life experiences I've ever had, the five that taught me the most about higher or different states of awareness -- and I really mean taught, because the lessons learned were life-changing and have so far stayed with me permanently -- have been love, sex, childbirth, being injured, and meditation. All these have required me to suspend my ego. With love and sex, it's been intuitive and involuntary. With childbirth and being injured, it's been forced and involuntary. With meditation, it's been voluntary and mindful -- it's an effect I search for, or expect to come to me, when I meditate.

There are important physiological benefits to meditation, that affect body and mind. But for me, it's the suspension of ego during meditation that allows me to achieve higher states of awareness.

I've experienced so many lovely things -- truly amazing things -- and have had my mind turned around again and again, by the common big experiences in life, plus meditation (and I included prayer with meditation). Except for childbirth and being injured, these experiences have no potential for lethality. They've been far more effective at changing my understanding and awareness than anything I experienced while fooling around with my boyfriend in college.

I've lost friends to drug use, through both death and apparent madness, including that college boyfriend, and another man I loved when I was a little older. I've also seen lives sidetracked or ruined for years, by persistent drug use taking up all a person's focus and energies (and sometimes, all their money). For me, the potential for a damaged life is a risk that's too high to take. I can't see any justification for street drug use of any kind.

Thinking about it now, I realize that many aspects of street drug culture are expressions of masculine risk-taking. (I'd never have tried anything on my own, and not one of my women friends who's ever tried something ever did it on her own, they've always done it to please a lover, as I did.) There's almost a smell of testosterone, when I think of how people are around drugs. It's like guys driving lethally fast when they're nineteen years old. Many make it out alive, but some don't; and some are crippled. If one can find a greater awareness and joy in non-lethal pursuits, why accept the risk of death or injury?

Laziness is one reason. Being unsure that anything in real life can possibly be that great is another. And impatience is a motive, too. And then there's lack of self-respect and love, i.e., indirect suicide. And there's boredom, lack of challenges, too much money to spend, attention-seeking, etc., a perception of cool, and peer pressure. But that's all b-s. It's all ignorance mixed with wanting to touch death a little, for whatever reason.

For me, meditation has a higher, more sure payoff, and no risks. And it's a form of work, and work itself is beneficial. Drugs? Hah!

love, h

First, to all you Obama supporters like Diablo who are tempted to belittle or insult West Virginia, just remember how annoying it has been when the Clinton camp has done that to Obama states like Idaho and Utah and Mississippi. A 50-state strategy means just that. You don't go around insulting states. Its true that 25% of people in the sate beleive Obama is a Muslim, over 20% of people can't read and understand road signs and instructions on pills and tonics. Appalachia has one of the nations worst poverty, and worst low eduction levels which breeds ignorance and racial prejudice. But they are not inherently bad or not lovable. What's wrong with West Virginia is that we are not talking enough to all Americans.

My prediction for WV was 66-33

See how out of it I am? I didn't realize Edwards was still on the ballot. If I had edited my prediction to account for some Edwards votes, I would be spot on again!

Final results:

HRC 66.6 - BHO 26.4

That's an impressive 40+

Congratulations to Hillary and Team.

Hillary's margin of victory is comparable to Obama victories in

Idaho

Obama +62%

Hawaii

Obama +52%

Alaska

Obama +50%

Washington

Obama +37%

Georgia

Obama +36%

Colorado

Obama +35%

Minnesota

Obama +34%

..and not to forget Washington D.C. 52%...
No Democrat has won the White House while losing Washington, D.C....

oh, Also

Kansas
Obama 48+

Nebraska
Obama 36+

To the critics... Clinton didn't contest those states either just like Obama didn't contest W. Virginia...

As the odds get longer and longer, the obvious question is: Why doesn't Hillary Clinton gracefully concede defeat and throw her support behind her party's defacto nominee, Barack Obama?

Our own blog moron exasperatedly wonders "And billary...why don't u do the honorable thing and pack it in and tell ur supporters to back barack?"

Michael Crowley has his own interesting take:

"One gets the overall impression that the Clintons feel Obama shouldn't be here in the first place--that this 'young man's' very claim to power is itself questionable. In this sense, the Clintons may be victims of their own sense of victimhood. The vileness of the Clintons' past enemies seems to have convinced them that their enemies always are, by definition, in the wrong. And that Obama's candidacy is almost like another illegitimate attempt to steal a White House that, in some sense, belongs to them."

http://www.tnr.com/story_print.html?id=7aa100ee-a34d-4fa9-b041-154139207075

Speculating on the Clintons' motives and what they hope to achieve has become the media parlor game of the moment.

Opinions on this subject are a dime a dozen. Just go to RealClearPolitics.com and get your fill for free.

For Hillary, there may be very little downside in staying in the race until the bitter end, or at least until the final delegates are selected on June 4.

One thing I am sure of is the Clintons are not deluded, there is a sound logic and calculation in their tactics, and their actions:

Under one scenario - Obama gets the nomination but loses to John McCain - Clinton could begin her 2012 campaign on November 5, 2008, as a vindicated politician, using the narrative that she was the better candidate.

Under the alternative scenario - Hillary promptly concedes and Obama wins the presidency - she may well have lost her one shot at the highest office in the land, and the White House and the power, prestige and status that goes with it, will be forever out of her reach - a intensely painful prospect.

Interesting, Irv.

Mother Jones has what I find is the most reasonable and objective take on this subject.

MoJo blog: Is Clinton Staying In To Say, "I Told You So"?

Why is Hillary Clinton still in the race?

Ever since she failed to cream Barack Obama in Indiana, pundits and analysts have been chewing this over--and now that the West Virginia primary is done, even though she won by a more than two-to-one margin, the question still hovers. After all, Obama has racked up an insurmountable lead in pledged delegates and has pulled ahead in the superdelegate count, meaning the race is essentially complete. Clinton and her campaign advisers have argued that she can still win the nomination if she does well in the last few primaries and then persuades superdelegates she is the better candidate to do battle with John McCain. But the superdelegates don't seem receptive to her case. And the fact that she has throttled back on the anti-Obama rhetoric in recent days--she barely she criticized her in her not-so-jubilant West Virginia victory speech--is a signal that she may not believe her own spin and is merely halfheartedly trudging toward the last primaries (Montana and South Dakota) on June 3.

Yet there she is--an active and hard-working candidate. And the commentators have come up with several obvious explanations:

* She wants to remain in the hunt just in case something happens. (A video appears of Wright calling for armed revolution? Fox News produces Obama's Secret Muslim Membership card?)

* She is staying in for one last round of fundraising. (Her campaign is $20 million in debt and owes her $11 million.)

* She wants to end her historic campaign with a string of victories: West Virginia, Kentucky, and Puerto Rico. (Puerto Rico? She is a senator from New York.)

* And the most obvious of them all: she's not yet ready to face the music.

No doubt, a combo of these rationales is fueling Clinton's impossible ride. But let me add one more to the mix: Clinton is setting up the biggest I-told-you-so in recent American political history.

Assume Obama is the nominee and imagine that he loses to McCain in the fall. Where would that leave Clinton? She would be able to wag her finger at her party, and she wouldn't even have to say those haughty words. She and her die-hard confederates would be able to note simply and smugly, We did try to warn you. In the following four years, they would remind reporters, party leaders, Democratic voters, and everyone else, over and over, that they had said that Obama was unelectable, that they had said he could not win blue-collar (that is, white) voters. This Clinton chorus would not cease singing this song for a nanosecond. Can't you just see Bill Clinton and Terry McAuliffe lecturing cable news hosts on this point? Hiding their schadenfreude--just barely--they would note that they had won the fundamental argument of 2008: who understands American voters the best? And in this scenario, Hillary Clinton would be well-positioned for 2012. In fact, she would have such bragging rights as to be able to question any other Democrat's entry into the presidential contest. She might even expect the party this time to hand her the nomination on a platter--accompanied with one big apology.

This is not to say that Hillary Clinton is wishing for an Obama defeat in November. And there's little doubt that she will campaign fiercely and enthusiastically for Obama--if only to preserve her standing in the party and to earn good will among his devotees. But like any good politician, she now has to consider all the possibilities, all the angles. And as she determines what to do here and now, she must consider what an Obama loss would mean for her own political future.

Under the most reasonable set of assumptions, the 60-year-old Clinton's presidential ambitions can only survive if Obama falls to McCain. (She can run again in 2012, but seeking the presidency in 2016--when she would be 69 by the general election--would be rather tough.) Consequently, she must factor into her current decisionmaking what actions would best serve her should Obama fail in November.

By staying in the race, Clinton has been--and will be--able to pocket more of those blue-collar voters. And with a decisive win in Puerto Rico on June 1, she could cut into Obama's edge in the popular vote. Even if she has no shot at coaxing superdelegates with her blue-collar argument, she will be bolstering her you-should've-listened-to-me argument, in case the voters in the general election send Obama packing.

The final third of the Democratic primary contest has been dominated by questions related to blue-collar voters. Can Obama win them? If not in the primaries, then in the fall? Will white working-class Americans vote for a black Democrat? How important are they to the Democrats' prospects in the general election? Can a Democrat win without most of them? Are the Obama strategists correct when they assert their candidate can expand the Democrats' electorate--which would render white working-class voters not as important for the Democratic nominee as they have been in the past?

The Clinton camp has contended that white, lunch-pail voters are essential to Democratic victory in critical states, such as Ohio and Pennsylvania. And Clinton has promised that she will win West Virginia in the general election if she is her party's nominee, noting that no Democrat in recent decades has won the White House without bagging the Mountain State. (As if she can make such a promise.) But by winning West Virginia and Kentucky (which holds its primary on May 20), she can solidify her standing as the Dem preferred by white, blue-collar voters. And if Obama falls short on November 4, she will have all those voters standing behind her when she says....well, you know.

So remaining in the race may be more than just a matter of pride, money, or desire. It may be a calculation that looks past 2008 and to Hillary Clinton's next big thing.

We NEED another TERROR ATTACK... in the US?

Wow. Who knew a terrorist attack on the U.S. was a "correction"?

Who knew? Donald Rumsfeld, that's who.

On December 12, 2006, after the Democrats had taken control of Congress, his seat at the Defense Department still warm from his resignation in disgrace a few weeks earlier, Rumsfeld, addressing what he knew to be a friendly group of "cough*military analysts*cough," and bemoaning the deteriorating political environment in Washington brought about by the Democrats' ascendence, blurted out the secret wet-dream fantasy of every warmongering neocon Republican. In essence, Rumsfeld said,

"We need another terrorist attack on this country to further our political agenda."

As Jason Linkins at HuffPo reports, the diligent rummagers who have been combing through the Pentagon's document dump surrounding the "military analyst" propaganda campaign (as exposed by the shocking NY Times revelations a few weeks ago) have unearthed some nuggets -- but probably none so far as significant as this. It reminds me of the chilling revelations provided by the transcription of the Nixon tapes, when they finally were released.

Linkins' Article Link:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/13/rumsfeld-on-2006-election_n_101537.html

In the relevant clip, Rumsfeld is commiserating with the retired Pentagon whores, erm, military analysts, about the difficulty of selling the Iraq occupation, particularly given the new Democratic Congress. He bemoans the country's lack of gullibility sophisticated understanding about security matters, saying,

"It's a shame we [Americans] don't have the maturity to recognize the seriousness of the threats . . . You'd think we'd be able to understand it, but as a society, the longer you get away from 9/11 . . ."

The reason for the dropoff in TERROR!!!, of course, as Rumsfeld points out, is that - well, let's face it,

"This President's pretty much a victim of success. We haven't had an attack in five years."

But, ever the problem solver, Rumsfeld is not without a practical solution to the collapse of the Fear Mongering Bubble:

"The perception of the threat is so low in this society that it's not surprising that the behavior pattern reflects a low threat assessment. The same thing's in Europe, there's a low threat perception. The correction for that, I suppose, is an attack. And when that happens, then everyone gets energized . . ."

Yup - nothing energizes like a terrorist attack! Makes me, ahh, stand taller just thinkin' about it!

Good God.

Dear John and Irv

What about simple reasons? Like, she really wants to win, she's stubborn, she's a fighter?

love, h

I shall quote Catherine Crier, a New Yorker -- an Emmy, duPont-Columbia, and Gracie Allen Award-winning journalist and the youngest state judge to ever be elected in Texas, who wrote a few days ago:

" If you've been listening to the pundits, the campaign staff and the candidate herself, Hillary's pugilistic display is a prime reason to back her. Surely we want this fighter in the White House. It doesn't matter that the election numbers are overwhelmingly against her. It doesn't matter that party leaders and political experts are screaming about the damage to the Democratic Party. Pay no heed to glaring reality; damn the torpedoes -- full speed ahead.

Who does this remind you of? Who else is a fighter in the face of overwhelming opposition? Who else listens to no one holding contradictory opinions? Is there another politician who ignores the numbers, the advice of experts and the popular consensus on critical issues? [gas tax for example]

Can you say 'George Bush'?

Yes, Hillary has displayed great tenacity. Yes, she is impressive in her drive and commitment to her campaign. But these characteristics are not inherently valuable. We have an outstanding example of this residing in the White House right now."

President Bush has for the first time revealed the great sacrifice he's made in the light of Iraq War: he's given up golf for the soldiers.

From an interview with Politico and Yahoo News:

"I don't want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf," he said. "I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal."

Bush said he made that decision after the August 2003 bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad, which killed Sergio Vieira de Mello, the top U.N. official in Iraq and the organization's high commissioner for human rights.

"I remember when de Mello, who was at the U.N., got killed in Baghdad as a result of these murderers taking this good man's life," he said. "I was playing golf -- I think I was in central Texas -- and they pulled me off the golf course and I said, 'It's just not worth it anymore to do.'"

http://www.politico.com/blogs/jonathanmartin/0508/Bush_has_given_up_golf_for_troops.html

Now watch this gem:

Bush playing golf says: "We must stop these terrorist killers...now watch this drive..."

Watch it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3p9y_OEAdc

Is she really a fighter?

In recent history, the MSM has enjoyed writing the narrative of Hillary Clinton as a fighter. This is an image she has embraced and encouraged among her supporters. Perhaps they believe this because she's willing to go negative and throw punches more quickly than Obama? However, when it matters most, she doesn't seem to fight at all, instead she turns her back and slams the door. So is Hillary Clinton really the fighter she loves to portray herself as?

Lets see...

If Hillary Clinton was really a fighter, I would expect her to be doing a lot more "fighting." Instead, she has ceded ground in almost every area, but one.

Hillary Clinton cedes:

1. The African American vote -- This vote was much stronger for Clinton in the beginning of this primary process than it is now. Instead of FIGHTING for the African American vote Clinton dismisses Obama as the African American candidate; as if African Americans can't think for themselves and make educated decisions about who would be the best person to lead this country.

2. The youth vote -- Here is another demographic that supported Bill Clinton that has been ceded. It can hardly be said that Hillary Fights for the youth vote. She doesn't. Not only does she cede it, but her husband Bill Clinton makes disparaging comments about the types of decisions youth voters make.

3. The upper income, college educated vote -- again, strong vote for the Clintons in the 90s, Hillary totally cedes it now -- making disparaging comments about Obama's "latte-sipping" vote.

4. MoveOn / Daily Kos --the progressive vote -- Even for those (like myself) who didn't know the origination of MoveOn.org... realize what a powerful supporter of the Clintons MoveOn and the grassroots progressive movement was at one point. Once they endorsed Obama and began using their resources to his benefit, instead of fighting for the progressive vote -- instead of trying to win back progressive voters...she dismissed them out of hand with what we now know to be her typical stinging backlash.

Also, as a side note -- how much of a fighter is a person who dismisses caucuses (the forum for the "fighter" in terms of political passion) and "unimportant" states out of hand? She didn't fight for these states in the beginning of the primary season. You can argue that it's because she didn't think they were important or that she wouldn't need them (but, again, what does that say?) but Obama fought for nearly every state... even after his campaign said they would not surrender to the media narrative on Pennsylvania, Obama still toured the rural areas in the state reaching out to voters, fighting against heavy odds. He did the same in Indiana. Obama has fought for almost every state because he believes that almost every state can be a democratic state. Hillary Clinton believes in a few "big" states and a couple "swing" states; she abandons the rest of the states to the Republicans.

So what does Hillary Clinton fight for...?

1. The "hard-working white Americans" - let's not imagine she meant this to be a racist comment. Let's give her the benefit of the doubt and imagine she used this phrase to contrast the hard working white Americans that support her with the hard working black (and other ethnicities) Americans that support Obama. At some point the question comes up - After ceding all these other voter groups and categories - why does she fight for this particular group so hard? Well... perhaps, perhaps, perhaps it's because Hillary and the Clinton campaign have themselves stereotyped this group worse than any pundit has. Perhaps it is because Hillary HERSELF believes this particular voting block is racist and "low-information" thus she doesn't have that much work to do with them. She doesn't have to fight to make her positions clear and the strength of her candidacy clear, instead she mostly has to exploit the pre-existing weaknesses of Obama's candidacy with them and their hers for the taking.

Think it over for yourself - weighing the way this campaign has played out and all the steps along the way and ask yourself who the real fighter is in this campaign season?

I understand that nobody can make her drop out, but that is not the point here. The Democratic party is giving her the chance to end this with some of her dignity intact, yet I think we all know what is coming and it does not entail her leaving the race anytime soon.

But what does this whole "fighter" word actually mean? What is she fighting and what is she fighting for? Early in her campaign, her advisors would say that she is fighting to gain delegates. Now she is fighting for those "middle class" voters because she "is one of them." But in reality, she is fighting against public opinion. She is fighting against delegate math. She is fighting against superdelegates who are defecting from her camp on a daily basis. She is fighting against an agreement that she (and all other candidates at the time) signed regarding Florida and Michigan. Most importantly, she is fighting to get her own money back after multiple loans to her campaign. Absolutely she is a fighter in this sense of the word. But we might as well just call her a leech, sucking the blood from the party and hanging on until the last possible minute. That’s not a fighter, that’s a parasite.

What else should we expect from Hillary? Sure we could have deluded ourselves, but since the beginning of this race did anybody seriously think she would leave graciously? It was not something we had to think about early on as she had the lead, but once that changed, so did her rhetoric. We can talk about the obvious shifting of her message as to why she should be elected. But basically all I hear is "I think I deserve to be to nominee, so you should put me in office." The irony of her slogan "Solutions For America" is not lost on me. Can someone please inform me of the last plausible policy argument she made?

For those who can read the writing on the wall but refuse to acknowledge it just come across the same as Hillary at this point. Spin it any way you want, but the party is giving Hillary a gracious way to leave this race and she should take it. My guess is that she will not and most superdelegates will continue to align themselves with Obama until it is mathematically impossible for her to win, effectively ending this madness. Obama is the winner and Hillary is, well, I don’t think she would like the word "loser," so I’ll just say that she is still the fighter she claims to be. Unfortunately for her, she will now have to take her fight to some other forum not known as the Democratic Nomination Process.

````

Anybody who uses the internet should read E.M. Forster's "The Machine Stops." It is a chilling, short story masterpiece about the role of technology in our lives. Written in 1909, it's as relevant today as the day it was published. Forster has several prescient notions including instant messages(email!!) and cinematophoes(machines that project visual images).

http://brighton.ncsa.uiuc.edu/prajlich/forster.html

Dear Irv

W isn't the fighter, it's Cheney, et al, who were. Cheney hid behind the mask of his supposed superior (W). Most people couldn't see what they were really choosing in the two previous elections. Cheney was unmasked for most people only in 2007.

Compare the characterization of W as a fighter, with the image of W in your giving up golf post. W is more like a stubborn kid than a fighter. A fighter who golfs wouldn't give up golf, I think.

Dear John

She's a fighter, but she's shy and feminine, too. She went back and forth between being tough and not, for most of her campaign. It was only recently that she became consistently tough.

Dear Bonnie

I'm going to put that on my reading list. Thanks.

love, h

Heather

It's a good read and is free at the above link. Only takes about 30 minutes.
You might also enjoy Paul Rajlich's site which the above link will lead you to also.

E. M. Forster also wrote A Room With a View, Howard's End and A Passage to India and some other good stuff.

Bonnie

the country wants to move on from clinton fatigue! they have had their day in the sun...now it's time for them to go...they are looking more and more like lingering lingering guests who cannot sense that their host really wants them to leave!

That’s more like the old Diablo, the smart young one.
In # 207 of the last open thread, are you addressing Irv or Skep?

Why is it so difficult to “believe” they or not one and the same but different dudes? Skep’s comments may have sarcasm but hardly ever venom. Repeating something constantly will not turn fallacies into truth. Have you ever considered you might be wrong? That your own venom and insults are completely misdirected when you send them in Skep’s direction?

A great man once said this about bamboozlement:

If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to acknowledge -- even to ourselves -- that we've been so credulous.

Hi Heather,

Thanks for the link and your personal story.

My Cousin is addicted to Heroine and is pretty much a wraith. He has almost died numerous times and almost lost his arm with infections from needles etc. He is always going to jail etc and I can't see him ever getting clean now.

As a person he is so Intelligent and creative. In different circumstances he could have had such a happy life.

Is there any Similarity then to the stages of awareness achieved by Drug use and the states of awareness reached through Meditation

Love Simon xx

Simon, raising the awareness by drugs is similar to pumping something into the body of a child to enable him to enjoy sex.

Dear Simon

Harb makes a very apt analogy in his #19.

There was a death in my family from a similar addiction recently. The child had been addicted since his very early teens. Real opiates like heroin are a special case when it comes to street drugs. They change the brain to create a chemical addiction that is extremely hard to break. Many of the causes of illness and death among heroin addicts are due to the street life they must live to serve their addictions.

I wonder if there are any countries in which heroin is legal, and if addicts can lead healthy lives legally in those countries. I lost one of the great loves of my life to an OD. We didn't know he was addicted, he hid it so well. He was able to afford his habit, so he had none of the obvious signs of addiction in the US. He often seemed tired and like to sleep in the afternoon, but he had a very hard job and worked long hours. He was trying to get clean, but because he was well-to-do, he had to wait behind indigent addicts to get into a treatment program. While waiting for that, he tried to get clean himself, he relapsed, and apparently had something strong and pure, passed out, fell over a couch head-down, suffered a concussion, and wasn't discovered for about half a day. By that time, the bleeding in his skull had done so much damage that they couldn't save him. We found all this out after his death.

Some people do finally break out of addiction. Here's hoping your cousin's life gets back on track -- while it may seem hopeless, looking at it from the outside, he is continuing to evolve as a person, and he may be able to get control at some point. If you recall Trainspotting, that is an incredibly accurate portrayal of what happens to heroin addicts -- the personal destruction -- and yet the hero is finally able to break out of it -- and that is accurate, too. When a recovery is made, most of the damage doesn't show. There is the issue of the missing years, when the person wasn't being productive in life, but people adapt anyway. With other, non-opiate drugs, there is actual damage to the brain, and the person is never the same again.

In my personal experience, meditation takes you on a journey that you're in complete control of, though it doesn't always feel like it at the time, if it's a very profound session. There's no distortion to undo. Whatever you get out of meditation, you get to take home and keep, and it continues to grow as you go about your everyday life.

I find Zen meditation most helpful, and after that, personal prayer.

If you're looking for a fast track in meditation, I can't think of a better one than hours (or days spent) in a formal Zen session at a monastary. You learn by doing, and by discreetly observing the others around you in the zazen. The results are often amazing, even for first-timers.

Dear Bonnie

Thank you again!

love, h

Jaipur is under curfew now.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/15/world/asia/15india.html

(Coincidentally, I watched Mr. & Mrs. Iyer last night, otherwise I wouldn't have understand the effect of this kind of curfew. The film stars Rahul Bose, who has blogged at IB in the past.)

OK, so IB has had two blogs about Myanmar, and no blogs about either China or Jaipur. Hmmmm. Or maybe huh, kya, kyo ??!!

NY Times on China's earthquake:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/15/world/asia/15china.html

Beginning with the Potomac primaries, a trend emerged: Hillary Clinton posted overwhelming victories across the Appalachian region. The trend continued through the Ohio and Pennsylvania primaries.

The media bloviators have lapped up the silliness from the Clinton campaign that Obama has a "white working class problem." If that were true, we would see the evidence in the election results. I am not sanguine about racism in America; racism permeates almost every facet of life around Detroit, for example. There are some voters who will never vote for a black man. But most of those people who can not get beyond a person's race are Republicans. I don't believe Obama "transcends race," whatever that's supposed to mean. Few people don't notice or think about his race. But most swing voters who could succumb to veiled racial appeals are comfortable voting for this particular Black man.

I don't believe Obama has a significant "race problem." However, I do believe that he has and will continue to have a problem with some white voters who are clustered mostly in Appalachia.

According to Wikipedia...

"...In the 1960's, one out of three people in Appalachia lived in poverty, per capita income was 23% lower than the national average, and the region was rapidly losing population. In 1963 the Appalachian Regional Commission was created by Congress and President Kennedy to address the problems in the area. Since the 1960's counties near Atlanta, Huntsville AL and Pittsburgh have become wealthier much more developed. But much of the region remains well below national standards in most measures of economic and social well-being.

... The ethnic and cultural character of this part of the country has been more static since the 19th century than anyplace in America. Outside of some of the new growth areas north of Atlanta or Huntsville, or in some of the college towns, most of the people in Appalachia trace their heritage back to immigrants from the borderlands of Northern Britain who began settling the region over 200 years ago. Outside of the Northern part of Appalachia—Pennsylvania in particular—relatively few Eastern or Southern Europeans from the great waves of immigration that started in the 1880's have moved in to the area. It's the most homogeneous region in America. The region is home to few Catholics, and is heavily Baptist and Methodist.

...In the 19th century, migrants from Appalachia moved west. People from Appalachia settled and put their stamp on the Ozark region of Missouri and Arkansas, on Okalahoma and the southern Plains, on North Texas, and eventually they were a big part of the initial growth of Southern California. "

From TMP:

"...some basic demographics. It's widely accepted that Hillary Clinton does better with older voters, less educated voters and white voters. These demographics perfectly match West Virginia -- and, more loosely, the entire Appalachian region. A few key points from exit polls demonstrate the point: 4 out of 10 voters were over 60 years of age. 7 out of 10 lacked a college degree -- the highest proportion of any electorate in the country. And 95% of the electorate was white.

...Basically you have a state that is made up almost exclusively of Clinton's voters. But there's a deeper historical explanation that we have to apply as well -- one nicely illustrated by the origins of West Virginia itself.

...These regions were settled disproportionately by Scots-Irish immigrants who pushed into the hill country to the west in part because that's where the affordable land was but also because they wanted to get away from the more stratified and inegalitarian society of the east which was built by English settlers and their African slaves. Crucially, slavery never really took root in these areas. And this is why during the Civil War, Unionism (as in support for the federal union and opposition to the treason of secession) ran strong through the Appalachian upcountry, even into Deep South states like Alabama and Mississippi.

As I alluded to earlier, this was the origin of West Virginia, which was originally the westernmost part of Virginia. The anti-slavery, anti-slaveholding upcountry seceded from Virginia to remain in the Union after Virginia seceded from the Union. Each of these regions was fiercely anti-Slavery. And most ended up raising regiments that fought in the Union Army. But they were as *anti-slave* as they were *anti-slavery*, both of which they viewed as the linchpins of the aristocratic and inegalitarian society they loathed. It was a society that was both more violent and more self-reliant.

This is history. But it shapes the region. It's overwhelmingly white, economically underdeveloped (another legacy of the pre-civil war pattern) and arguably because of that underdevelopment has very low education rates and disproportionately old populations.

For all these reasons, if you're familiar with the history, it's really no surprise that Barack Obama would have a very hard time running in this region."

:::
::::

Clinton, like Obama, has posted solid wins (55% and up) in many different parts of the country. But her biggest wins--the places where she beat Obama by margins of 2 to 1 or better--have come almost exclusively in Appalachia or in areas originally settled by Appalachian migrants that remain relatively homogeneous compared to the rest of the country.

Race doesn't appear to have been much of a hindrance for Obama in the Democratic primaries, except, it appears, in Appalachia and in some regions where descendants of Appalachian migrants settled, such as the Ozarks, Oklahoma, and some isolated rural communities on the Plains. Obama doesn't appear to have much of a problem with white voters. But it seems quite likely Appalachia has a bit of an Obama problem.

In West Va. It's not racism that caused the blowout, it's that HRC basically attached herself like a leech to Appalachia in order to win Pennsylvania by a huge margin (which she failed to do.)

For good reasons, people in the Appalachian areas have suspicions and resentments of outsiders, and HRC remade herself into a rural Appalachian white person fighting for them against 1) San Fransciscans 2) Economists 3) Democratic Activists 4) Those blacks playing the race card.
She appeared on O'Reilly. She drank. She pumped gas. She fumbled with coffee machines at the quick-mart. She went on about hunting.

And no mention of gays, or mandates, or abortion, or the supreme court, or a rainbow coalition. Shhhhhhh. It's not about what you are for. It's about who you are against.

She joined the culture war on the red side.

It's basic politics of division, again, this time dividing democrats.

Obama wants to get past that sort of thing, and the good news is.....HRC has lost ground nationally.

Turns out...even white working class people in other states aren't all that much like Appalachian people. Whites are too diverse, even working class whites. Most are younger than West Va., for one thing, but let's not get too complicated: Indianans aren't going to give a crap that HRC spent summers in Scranton.

She barely scraped by in Indiana, needing Rush Limbaugh voters. Her patter didn't even work in a white, conservative state outside of Appalachia. It's only good for a niche, in Appalachia itself.

SurveyUSA says that if the California primary were re-run today, Obama would beat Hillary by SIX POINTS. SIX. And New Jersey by 12. I'm assuming that Hispanic voters in Los Angeles got the heebie jeebies with Hill's antics, and not all whites feel great about doing shots, hunting, and suppressing the liberal social agenda.

Clinton gets off plane, waves to... well, no one.... In yet another sign that her campaign is over, the Washington Post reports that a good deal of the press and many of Clinton's supporters have pretty much stopped caring about her next moves.

In a hilarious and sometimes sad article, Dana Milbank tells a new story of Hillary Clinton -- that of an "Ex-Candidate." In chronicling a day in the life of the new-and-not-so-improved Hillary Clinton, Milbank shows just how delusional her campaign has become.

For the hilarious (and depressing) Clinton campaign antics read the WaPo article:

This Is an Ex-Candidate
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/13/AR2008051302862_2.html

:::
::::

In one of the saddest moments of the election cycle, Milbank tells this fine tale from West Virginia:

"2:57 p.m., Yeager Airport, Charleston, W.Va.: A steep descent brings Clinton's plane to Charleston's hilltop airport. After an appropriate wait, she steps from the plane and pretends to wave to a crowd of supporters; in fact, she is waving to 10 photographers underneath the airplane's wing. She pretends to spot an old friend in the crowd, points and gives another wave; in fact, she is waving at an aide she had been talking with on the plane minutes earlier."

And the fun doesn't stop there!

"She stops at Ellen's Homemade Ice Cream and orders a scoop of espresso Oreo and a scoop of butter pecan. "Ooh, that looks good," she says after taking the confection, then pauses. "Now, let's see. Who's got my money?" asks the woman who has lent her campaign $11 million to keep it afloat. She laughs. "Where -- where'd they go, the people with my money?" Finally, two aides arrive to retire Clinton's dessert debt."

And who can forget this crazy delusional moment?

"9:06 p.m., still in the South Hall: The announcer has just introduced "the next president of the United States." And with the TV now turned off, it almost seems possible. The confetti guns are loaded and ready. The streamers hang from the ceiling. And the crowd -- now up to 500, all but about 10 of them white -- is rapturous as Clinton rebukes the "pundits and the naysayers.""

So there we have it; not only is this race over, but it's become funny, awkward, and sometimes downright depressing. Surprisingly, it's tough to watch someone you fought so hard against fall so very hard.

afternoon all,

just got this info in an e-mail and thought I would pass it along...about buyers taking more control in the high-priced gas fest our oil companies are having with us consumers.....

How? Since we all rely on our cars, we can't just stop buying gas.

But we CAN have an impact on gas prices if we all act together to force a price war.

Here's the idea: For the rest of this year, DON'T purchase ANY gasoline from the two biggest companies (which now are one), EXXON and MOBIL.

If they are not selling any gas, they will be inclined to reduce their prices. If they reduce their prices, the other companies will have to follow suit.

But to have an impact, we need to reach literally millions of Exxon and Mobil gas buyers. It's really simple to do! Now, don't wimp out on me at this point...keep reading and I'll explain how simple it is to reach millions of people!!

I am sending this note to 30 people. If each of us send it to at least ten more (30 x 10 = 300) .. and those 300 send it to at least ten mor e (300 x 10 = 3,000)...and so on, by the time the message reaches the sixth group of people, we will have reached over THREE MILLION consumers.
If those three million get excited and pass this on to ten friends each, then 30 million people will have been contacted!

If it goes one level further, you guessed it..... THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE!!!

what do you folks think....I am all for it!! My neighboorhood Mobil Station is so convenient and that is where I alway go....but I am very willing to go out of my way to try and have some kind of impact.....

drugs....can be more trouble than they are worth..for sure....meditation.....is very worth the trouble it may be to take the time to practice...

have a good one...ruth

#25 Ruth.

The stupidity and gullibilty of IB folks never ceases to amaze me.

It not about BUYING gas. Its about stop USING gas.

For the past instances of idiocy at IB on this glurge email about NO GAS DAY.

Check this comment by UG from this blog entry:

May 22nd 2006- for those living in India
Suchitra Krishnamoorthi - May 16, 2006
Check this comment by UG:

" I made an attempt to go to the bottom of the origins of this particular Chain Email. What I found out was that, this is not a original idea in itself.

Anonymous Chain Emails advocating a one day gasoline boycotts have been first noticed in USA during 1999. Then again in 2000, 2004, 2005 and 2006. This is the first seen in Indian circles in 2006 soon after the "May 15 no gasoline day" first circulated within MySpace members initially in the US.

In all the previous attempts there was no considerable impact anywhere in the US.

snopes.com has made a great deal of research on the Gasoline Boycott Claims in email circulations.

This is what they have to say:

-Moreover, the primary potential effect of the type of boycott proposed in the "gas out" messages is to hurt those at the very end of the oil-to-gasoline chain, service station operators — the people who have the least say in setting gasoline prices. As such, the "gas out" is a punch on the nose delivered to the wrong person.

-Gasoline is a fungible, global commodity, its price subject to the ordinary forces of supply and demand. No amount of consumer gimmickry and showmanship will lower its price in the long run; only a significant, ongoing reduction in demand will accomplish that goal. Unfortunately, for many people achieving that goal would mean cutting down on their driving or opting for less desirable economy cars over less fuel-efficient models, solutions they find unappealing.

-An event like a "gas out" can sometimes do some good by calling attention to a cause and sending a message. In this case, though, the only message being sent is: "We consumers are so desperate for gasoline that we can't even do without it for a few days to demonstrate our dissatisfaction with its cost." What supplier is going to respond to a message like that by lowering its prices? Those who really want to send a "message" to oil suppliers should try not buying any gasoline for several months in a row.

If people in India take it seriously, there will be no impact on the Oil Companies at all!

I hope a huge percentage of Indian people are not stupid not to buy petrol for a day, eventhough they might be stupid enough to circulate chain emails beleiving the false claims.

Click my name UG to go to Snopes website where indepth analysis of the chronological origins of this particular email, any effects in the past and the validity of such a claim is available.You will also find some other bizzare claims like: Call to Spurn Gasoline from Particular Suppliers to Cut Off Funding of Terrorists, Call to Spurn Gasoline from Particular Suppliers to Bring Price Down.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/gasoline/nogas.asp

48. Posted by UG on May 19, 2006 02:06 PM"

***

I also remember someone, I think it was, doodleman, who posted a similar "no gas day" post like Ruth's with lost of excitement, a few months back. There was some discussion about this scam then.

I wonder how ruth had missed those two threads. She may have. Or she may be losing her mind.

Ruth's math like her idea is flawed and pathetic.

Check the Snopes Page
http://www.snopes.com/politics/gasoline/gasout.asp

Gas Out

Claim: Participating in a boycott of selected oil companies[like EXXON and MOBIL] will lower gasoline prices.

Status: False.

Example:

GAS WAR - an idea that WILL work

This was originally sent by a retired Coca Cola executive. It came from one of his engineer buddies who retired from Halliburton. It 's worth your consideration.

Join the resistance!!!! I hear we are going to hit close to $4.00 a gallon by next summer and it might go higher!! Want gasoline prices to come down? We need to take some intelligent, united action. Phillip Hollsworth offered this good idea.

This makes MUCH MORE SENSE than the "don't buy gas on a certain day" campaign that was going around last April or May! The oil companies just laughed at that because they knew we wouldn't continue to "hurt" ourselves by refusing to buy gas. It was more of an inconvenience to us than it was a problem for them.

BUT, whoever thought of this idea, has come up with a plan that can really work. Please read on and join with us! By now you're probably thinking gasoline priced at about $1.50 is super cheap. Me too! It is currently $2.79 for regular unleaded in my town. Now that the oil companies and the OPEC nations have conditioned us to think that the cost of a gallon of gas is CHEAP at $1.50 - $1.75, we need to take aggressive action to teach them that BUYERS control the marketplace..... not sellers. With the price of gasoline going up more each day, we consumers need to take action. The only way we are going to see the price of gas come down is if we hit someone in the pocketbook by not purchasing their gas! And, we can do that WITHOUT hurting ourselves. How? Since we all rely on our cars, we can't just stop buying gas. But we CAN have an impact on gas prices if we all act together to force a price war.

Here's the idea:

For the rest of this year, DON'T purchase ANY gasoline from the two biggest companies (which now are one), EXXON and MOBIL. If they are not selling any gas, they will be inclined to reduce their prices. If they reduce their prices, the other companies will have to follow suit.

But to have an impact, we need to reach literally millions of Exxon and Mobil gas buyers. It's really simple to do! Now, don't wimp out at this point.... keep reading and I'll explain how simple it is to reach millions of people.

I am sending this note to 30 people. If each of us sends it to at least ten more (30 x 10 =3D 300) ... and those 300 send it to at least ten more (300 x 10 =3D 3,000)...and so on, by the time the message reaches the sixth group of people, we will have reached over THREE MILLION consumers. If those three million get excited and pass this on to ten friends each, then 30 million people will have been contacted! If it goes one level further, you guessed it..... THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE!!!

Again, all you have to do is send this to 10 people. That's all. (If you don't understand how we can reach 300 million and all you have to do is send this to 10 people.... Well, let's face it, you just aren't a mathematician. But I am, so trust me on this one.)

How long would all that take? If each of us sends this e-mail out to ten more people within one day of receipt, all 300 MILLION people could conceivably be contacted within the next 8 days!!!

I'll bet you didn't think you and I had that much potential, did you?

Acting together we can make a difference. If this makes sense to you, please pass this message on. I suggest that we not buy from EXXON/MOBIL UNTIL THEY LOWER THEIR PRICES TO THE $1.30 RANGE AND KEEP THEM DOWN.

THIS CAN REALLY WORK.

*

Check the Snopes Page to educate yourself on why the claim is false, and actually counterproductive:

http://www.snopes.com/politics/gasoline/gasout.asp

On why Hillary is still in the race with the kind of tactics,

Walter Shapiro at Salon.com puts it:

"What motivates her? Is it ambition, pride, feminism, vindication, public service or ideology? Or is it some combination of all of them?"

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/05/12/end_game/

"... it's time for them[Clintons] to go...they are looking more and more like lingering lingering guests who cannot sense that their host really wants them to leave!"

16. Posted by Diablo"

Mary Sanchez at the Kansas City Star writes:

'A lady always knows when to leave the party.' Or so my mother used to say. It's time for Hillary Clinton to take a tip and leave - not the party, of course, but the presidential race....She should save her political future and concede the nomination to Obama. The Democratic Party's chances to win the White House are at stake now, not just her own career. Or her husband's ambitions, if it is he who is pushing her to continue in a race she cannot win.

http://www.kansascity.com/276/story/616781.html

In response to Simon #1,
You've probably already heard about Timothy Leary and his practices to use LSD to achieve spiritual enlightement. Anyway, you probably want to check out his followers, including Ram Dass... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram_Dass and their take on drug use to enlightenment... never done it myself because I like to learn from other people's mistake... why bother to do something that might kill you when you can actually get a similiar effect from meditation?

Also seems to me that how are you ever going to be sure if it's a true spiritual experience if you have an artificial substance clouding the journey?

"On September 19, 1966, Leary founded the League for Spiritual Discovery, a religion declaring LSD as its holy sacrament, in part as an unsuccessful attempt to maintain legal status for the use of LSD and other psychedelics for the religion's adherents, based on a "freedom of religion" argument. (Although The Brotherhood of Eternal Love would subsequently consider Leary their spiritual leader, The Brotherhood did not evolve out of IFIF International Foundation for Internal Freedom.) On October 6, 1966, LSD was made illegal in the United States and controlled so strictly that not only were possession and recreational use criminalized, but all legal scientific research programs on the drug in the US were shut down as well."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Leary

For you Ruth...

Raspberry for Barry
MAUREEN DOWD
Published: May 14, 2008
WASHINGTON

In grim times, a bitter Hillary clings to bitter voters who in grim times supposedly cling to guns, religion and antipathy to people who aren’t like them.

Mining that antipathy, the New York senator has been working hard to get the hard-working white voters of hardscrabble Appalachia so she can show that a black man can’t yet be elected president.

Obama breezed through West Virginia, the state he couldn’t charm even wearing a flag pin and promising to invest in “clean coal.” Fast Barry shot some pool Monday afternoon at Schultzie’s Billiards in South Charleston, including prophetically sinking an eight-ball in the pocket, and then fled from Hillary territory to pursue white, blue-collar workers in battleground states and convince them not to vote for John McBush.

Obama is acting the diffident debutante, pretending not to care that he was given a raspberry by a state he will need in the fall. He was dismissed not only by the voters Hillary usually gets, but was also edged out in blocs that usually prefer him — the under-30 set, college graduates and affluent voters.

Interviews with West Virginians leaving the polls showed some profound weaknesses that could haunt the Illinois senator in the fall. More than half said they would be dissatisfied if Obama was the nominee. Half believe he shares the views of the Rev. Wright, and more than half said he does not share their values. More than half also said that he is not honest and trustworthy. Just under half of the Clinton voters said they would not support Obama in the fall.

Obama may have started the primary season with an inspiring win in 94-percent-white Iowa, but he is winding it up with a resounding loss in 94-percent-white West Virginia.

“As the song says, ‘Almost heaven,’ ” Hillary said at her Charleston victory party, hailing herself as “the strongest candidate,” the one who can win swing states, and urging again that Michigan and Florida votes be counted.

“You know I never give up,” she said, with a W.-strength denial of reality.

Two in 10 white voters said race was important in how they voted, and more than 8 of 10 of these went for Hillary. This echoes an article in The Washington Post on Tuesday that chronicled the racism that some Obama volunteers found in Indiana and Pennsylvania.

The story quoted Victoria Switzer, a retired social studies teacher, who could take only one night on an Obama phone bank in the nearly all-white Susquehanna County, Pa.: “One caller, Switzer remembers, said he couldn’t possibly vote for Obama and concluded: ‘Hang that darky from a tree!’ ”

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution wrote about complaints of racism after a bar in Marietta, Ga., began selling an Obama 2008 T-shirt with a picture of Curious George peeling a banana.

Charlie Peters, the legendary former editor of the liberal Washington Monthly who ran Jack Kennedy’s campaign in Kanawha County, W. Va., said Obama should study how J.F.K. managed to win there despite raging anti-Catholicism.

(My father, in West Virginia once on business, found his car had been flipped over by some locals furious about a sign on it supporting the first Catholic Democratic nominee, Al Smith.)

“The point of West Virginia in 1960 is that you can change attitudes,” Peters, an Obama supporter, said on Tuesday evening. “But if you don’t act to change them, he could lose West Virginia and I think he could lose the country.

“He has to change those perceptions of the people who think he could actually agree with the Rev. Wright.”

J.F.K. bought affection in West Virginia. “The boss of Logan County said 35,” Peters recalled. “He meant $3,500, but Kennedy thought it was $35,000, so he gave him $35,000. They put out all this money and they carried the precincts.” (Hillary has been using street money more than Obama, though it is unclear how much it has helped.)

West Virginia loved F.D.R. “because the Depression had been very tough for them and F.D.R. was kind to them,” Peters said. (On my father’s trip, he was threatened by a man who asked him about “rumors” that President Roosevelt was in a wheelchair and threatened to thrash any man who said so. My dad, a detective who served on protective details for F.D.R., assured the ruffian that Roosevelt was “a fine, athletic man.”)

So the campaign brought down F.D.R. Jr., Peters recounted, to “say it’s O.K. to vote for this Catholic.” Because West Virginia had a lot of veterans, they distributed a little tabloid emphasizing J.F.K.’s war record, including a Reader’s Digest piece about his heroism in the Pacific.

And finally, there was the beguiling Kennedy wit and smile. “Kennedy turned out to be this engaging person,” Peters said, “especially with young people, and children talked to their parents.”

Peters says Obama needs imagination and a “tremendous effort” to dispel bias in West Virginia, and quickly, “because once it’s set in concrete, you’ll have a hell of a time.”

Hi Steve,

Interesting article. I have been ignoring all the news articles and news and talk shows if it is election, delegate or primary talk...I am turned off and tuned out.

I am happy to see that Hillary is fighting to the end and not giving up until the last vote has been cast.

I think it is interesting that the racist complaints from the Obama supporters has emerged at this point in the campaign...maybe, they are feeling the same vulnerability that Hillary's campaign felt when there were sexist complaints from their side..I suspect there is an equal measure of both...people will not vote for a different race or gender than what they are comfortable with...that is to be expected on both sides.

It looks to me as though Obama is the man the Democratic Party wants to nominate the man the press and media always gives a thumbs up to, no matter what. Obama is the man, their ticket to win.....the Democratic Party has pushed him ahead every step of the way in order to get him the nomination....he has the Democratic Party's confidence...so it is on to the next step... the Obama/McCain race.

November is not that far away...6 months..

It is a disappointment to me that the Democratic Party chose Barak Obama instead of Hillary Clinton but such is life and politics....

the television coverage of these primaries has gotten so insane, it is simply overkill, you get to a point and you say okay enough is enough...no more delegate counts....frankly, November will be a welcome relief to it all!

have a good evening Steve....ruth

btw mr. multiple id-er who writes "Ruth's math like her idea is flawed and pathetic"

it is neither my math or my idea....I was simply passing on info from an e-mail.....boy talk about RUDE...and, well, much more pathetic!
hahahaha...too funny bunny....

Ref # 30 and LSD

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

“Albert Hofmann (January 11, 1906 – April 29, 2008) was a Swiss scientist best known for having been the first to synthesize, ingest and learn of the psychedelic effects of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD). Hofmann authored more than 100 scientific articles and wrote a number of books, including LSD: My Problem Child. On January 11, 2006, Hofmann became a centenarian, and the occasion of his 100th birthday was the focus of an international symposium on LSD”.

#1..........................Hello, Simon!...........................

I chased Time backwards and found some goodies from the old days.

A couple of years at IB, perhaps, and I have changed...I think?

Good laughs! Good fun! All the old-timers, including you!

I used to talk a lot, and B.S.'d even more! Am I still like that?

Anyways, for anyone with some spare time on their hands, here it is:

Part Seven of The Spiritual Laws, from Deepak Chopra

http://www.intentblog.com/archives/2006/05/seven_spiritual_5.html

Pardon me, Maestro Hofmann, for my prior mistake!

I owe you way more than one, really.

102 years old, my friend! Fantastic! What a life of discovery!

P.S. You are still here, right? There's no place to go, right? Albert?

John Edwards Endorses Obama

Edwards... the champion of working class Americans...

Conservatives freak out over MS-01 loss...

No exaggeration there.

As I reported in the last open thread... Democratic Childers won in the reddest district(which wnet to Bush 65-30 in 2004) in Red Missipi by 54-46.

Obama endorsed Childers. The GOP ran negative ads on the endorsement, used Wright cursing Amercia, and Obama being Liberal and elite. They spent over a million dollars, they brought in Mike Huckabee, Dick Cheney, Roger Wicker(hose seat is being filled), and many GOP big shots, to campaign, but lost!

Check out the headlines:

Newsmax: "GOP Loses Congressional Election, Faces Bloodbath in Nov."

Hot Air: "Disaster: Democrat beats Republican in Mississippi special election; Update: Panic time, say Boehner, Cole"

Red State: "Clean House at the NRCC"

RealClearPolitics: "GOP Stunned By Loss in Mississippi"

NRO: "We Are Totally Frakked [Mark Krikorian]"

Add this to the mix:

Politico: "Cole issues surrender declaration following Mississippi loss

"This whole statement is an admission by Cole that he does not now how House Republicans can win in November as a group, so each member better protect himself or herself. To his credit, Cole has been warning his members that they need to run as outsiders this fall, but beyond that general admonition, the Oklahoma Republican can't show them a path to victory. It's an extraordinary statement by the head of a national campaign committee, but it is not one that's going to inspire any warm feelings from his GOP colleagues."

::::

MSNBC: Why GOP’s Mississippi House loss resonates

"Stunning? Only if you haven’t been paying attention in recent weeks.

Sickening? Yes, if you are a Republican."

::::

US News: Mississippi Burning

"The message is clear: Voters are angry with the Bush-Cheney administration, and some punishment is forthcoming. The economy, the war in Iraq, and the president's bull-headedness on the environment and energy are all in play"

:::

First Read: House GOPers Stomping Mad Over Prospects

"House GOP leaders huddle at 11 a.m. today. That will be watched closely for any possibility of a coup or insurrection against leadership in the wake of this third consecutive loss of a GOP seat.

Imagine that... a consensus. The MS-01 special election bodes disaster for the GOP in November. Couldn't happen to a nicer minority party."

MS-01: The Backbreaker -- This is it, folks. The one. The final piece of straw set atop the shambling camel of the GOP, the one which clove its dessicated humps in two.

Only it's more like a ton of bricks crushing the Republican roach.

Let's take stock of this race to see what this meant:

* This district is R+10. It voted for Bush 65-30 in the last election. Only seven Democrats sit in comparably red seats - and not a single Republican sits in a seat as blue as this one is red. And almost every major prognosticator (at least at the start) treated this as a safe seat.

* The GOP had a perfectly serviceable candidate in Greg Davis - a standard wingnut with none of the baggage of Woody Jenkins in LA-06 or Jim Oberweis in IL-14 -- two other red seats the GOP lost just recently.

* The NRCC spent $1.3 million on this race. The shady Freedom's Watch spent at least half a million more -- and used illegal tactics to boot. And Davis himself raised over a million.

* They sent in Mike Huckabee, Thad Cochran, Trent Lott, Haley Barbour, and Roger Wicker.

* And when that wasn't enough, Darth Cheney came to town, to stump and raise money.

* The GOP played up Obama/Pelosi/"librul" fear-mongering to the hilt. They were shameless in exploiting whatever racial angle they thought would work.

And yet what happened? Despite all this, Travis Childers just became the newest member of the Democratic Caucus with a resounding 54-46 win. It's utterly unspinnable. Even Tom Cole knew not to try.

But a sober press release only sees him through a single night. At dawn the next day, he has to face the same vast universe of problems that existed even before Childers won, except they will loom much larger and much more sharply. Almost every potentially contestable Republican seat is in play now. The "every man for himself" mentality that has taken hold amongst the GOP will become even more firmly entrenched, dooming already-weak NRCC fundraising. In Congress, discipline will likely suffer as vulnerable members (ie, much of the caucus) are tempted to side with the Dems. And we may even see some more retirements. Things are going to get much, much worse before they ever get better for the GOP - if they do at all.

For a lot of reasons, this is the sweetest of the three recent special election victories. But to the GOP, seldom has more bitter medicine passed their lips. Glib commentators will say that the Republican brand is tarnished. The fact is, it is the Republican Party which itself is broken.

And this election is what helped break it.

today as i was flipping thru the channels...i saw an infomercial of some old and dead comedians...and there was this homely charater named ruth buzzi...immediately i thought of our granny ruth who must be of the same generation...

i just read her post above...and it seems like she is in grief mode and i doubt she will go out to vote this november...too bad...as they say granny...u'll get over it...time heals most wounds...

NARAL, the most prominent pro-choice abortion rights group which supported the Clintons throughout their career, endorsed Obama a couple of days ago.

John Edwards endorsement is the big news today.

Anyway, this race is all but over, and Obama will declare victory on May 20.

Lets talk more about MS-01 ...where Republicans lose in their last *regional* stronghold

Love the line!

CNN: Dem beats Republican in a race that may predict November

"For Republicans, Davis' defeat is viewed as a possible preview for a widespread GOP thrashing in November, and it shows that trying to link local Democrats in conservative districts to Sen. Barack Obama and his former pastor was not a winning strategy."

The 2008 Republican brand is in deep, deep trouble. As Al Hunt at International Herald tribune noted a few days ago:

"With few other reeds, embattled Republicans see McCain as a lifeboat. They know voters don't like President George W. Bush or being in bed with sleazy special interests. That's the identity of the national party."

More than that, the Republicans are not trusted on any of the issues that matter to Americans.

How bad is it? Chris Cillizza at the Washington Post dissected the recent ABC/WaPo poll a bit more and gleaned this:

"A look at the presidential vote by region suggests a shift in political inclination is at work. Not surprisingly, Obama holds his largest lead over McCain (18 points) in the Northeast -- an area that has become increasingly dominated by Democrats in recent elections.

But, Obama also holds a lead in the traditional battleground area of the Midwest -- where Obama takes 54 percent to McCain's 41 percent -- and in the Republican-leaning territory of the West where Obama holds a double-digit lead at the moment. And, even in the South, where Republicans have dominated at the federal level for much of the past four decades, Obama is competitive; McCain takes 49 percent to 45 percent for the Illinois senator.

While McCain trails by double digits in three of the four regions of the country, he actually far over performs his own party's showing in the Post poll.

Asked which party they trusted to "do a better job of coping with the main problems the nation faces over the next few years," voters across the country opted for Democrats by wide margins.

In the Northeast, Democrats outpaced Republicans by 29 points while the margin was 26 points in the Midwest. The news wasn't much better for Republicans in the West (Democrats +18) or the South (Democrats +15).

Those two sets of numbers provide clear evidence of two things: the Republican brand is badly damaged and McCain may be the GOP's best (and only) chance to redefine it and win in November."

Know what else it means? The Republicans, under George W. Bush, have succeeded in remaking themselves from a national party into a REGIONAL PARTY (the South). In that context, losing Hastert's seat in IL-14 isn't so much of a shocker, nor is it an isolated phenomenon. Baltimore Sun:

'"After three consecutive Special Election defeats in districts President Bush twice won easily, it is abundantly clear the American people have turned their back and shut the door on the special interest driven agenda of the Republican Party," Van Hollen said. "There is no district that is safe for Republican candidates because President Bush's failed policies have hurt every community in America."

House Minority Leader John Boehner said the election "should serve as a wake-up call to Republican candidates nationwide."

"As I've said before, this is a change election, and if we want Americans to vote for us we have to convince them that we can fix Washington," Boehner said. "Our presidential nominee, Senator McCain, is an agent of change; candidates who hope to succeed must show that they're willing and able to join McCain in a leading movement for reform.'

MS-01, wherein Travis W. Childers (D) beat Greg Davis (R), makes it 3 of 4 districts that now field a Democratic congressman in redder than red Mississippi (65% Bush in 2004). That means that the GOP may be a regional party, but the Democrats just beat the Republicans in their own region. No wonder no one wants to be a Republican.

The only way for McCain to win is to run away from the Republican brand. But if he does that, he runs the risk of alienating the knuckle-draggers who ARE the Republican party, at least what's left of them.

Running Green in Oregon? I don't think so. Running as a change agent in PA? Wait until we start talking about health care, and social security. The Midwest? Wait until we focus on the economy. And Republican George W. Bush is just so popular everywhere. Hunt from IHT again:

"The party's fundamental situation is terrible: Republicans are saddled with an enormously unpopular president, a war, a troubled economy and a Democratic opposition that's being energized by important constituent groups."

Frankly, I don't think McCain can pull it off, nor will he have coattails. This is not going to be a good year to be a Republican.

Thank you, George W. Bush, for ruining the brand. It's just the beginning of what history is going to credit you with.

Numbers that 'might' surprise you:

Estimated number of Iraqis still in exile outside their country, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees: 2.5 million.

Number of Iraqi refugees admitted into the United States since March 2003: 5675

Number of Iraqi refugees admitted into Sweden in the same period: 90,000.

Hi Guys,

Yeah, Drugs are pretty nasty things. I think we already knew that. It does not however stop the notion of people taking drugs to reach alternate states of awareness. What I was asking the question for is that maybe if there is similarity between being high on drugs and high on a spiritual practice we might find a level of education for people to embrace.

Hi Kieth

Thanks for referring to me as an old timer. a 30 year old - old timer. I looked back at the posts you linked to. It seems like some of those guys are no longer around now; or maybe they just changed their Name on here?

I have not seen Marek on here for ages now. Does anyone know how he is? He was the first person I met on here when the blog first came online.

quite funny to read back through some of the things I wrote. Some things are almost like it was another person who wrote those posts. Maybe it really was another person. As Deepak points out a lot of the time, the Me I had last time I was here is not the same Me that is here today. I have a different body and even my mind is different in one way or another. The me of the past is no more than a ghost now.

Very Interesting

Love

Simon xx

Let's not generalize, Simon. Some 'drugs' are very, very important in times like these.

.

L.S.D. helped me to undo some major programming in my faith-based brain.(1978)

Inevitably it would happen during the course of an 8-hour trip.

I would have to go off and be alone to...you know, get my act together.

The coolest thoughts would come at me, one after another.

Some of them would metaphorically 'blow my mind'.

Believe Me2, before I became experienced, there was one way and one way only.

.

Woops! Time's up for this morning.

Gotta go. Chow! Uncle TREE

to the older white women (a few here...like ruth, bonnie and lady H) who are die hard billary suppoters, wud u still feel the same way if things were differet...what if she was black and obama...white... wud u still be so commited to her? i'd be curious to know, but this question probably traps u like a deer caught in the headlights...hmn..right?

We do not need another terror attack anywhere in the world. What surprises me is that the terror attacks that happen anywhere in the world except India receive the attention of the news media in the US. I wonder why they just mentioned once or twice the recent Jaipur terror incident, even that as one of the world news items but not as a top item even in that category. That is it, no follow up ever again. If it were in Britain they would have a whole day coverage on all cable channels. They only talk aboout terrorism against the US, Britain, Israel, and the West and sometimes even Pakistan but India - No! Why I do not understand. India is living under the threat of terrorism everyday all over the country. I wonder why there is no post on the Jaipur incident even on this blog. Can somebody explain?

#44 Daiblo

Its amazing what a piece of sh*t this moron is.

Ruth, Bonnie, hq need not respond to this stupidity from this f*ckwit. And please don't take this opportunity to generalize and paint Obama supporters as a typical Diablo. Thanks.

The most natural reaction from some Hillary supporters would be the what if Hillary is a man...what if Obama is a white...if only my mother had a d*ck and a big black one at that ...shall we stop this IF business?

What the sick dude is suggesting is that some Hillary supporters support her out of racial prejudice towards her opponent. But then the same can be said about people who don't want to vote for a woman. But these two kind of people generally tend to be republicans and are a small minority. And certainly the Hillary supporting IB folks (at least the three people mentioned)are better than that. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about all Obama supporters at IB, at least in one case who has been consistently misogynistic. This dude has issues, perhpas rooted in a sad childhood and abuse, and may need some serious psychological help.

Dear Irish and Irv

It's an interesting question.

BO has no slave blood; he didn't grow up in US African American culture, in terms of his family environment. So I don't consider him black, in the usual US meaning of the word.

If the two candidates were from different cultures and they looked different in any way, and even if they swapped genders, if they were the same otherwise, I'd still prefer HC.

Dear Syamala

Good points.

Dear Keith

Why did a one-way-only man choose that way? That's the young male speed-driving pressure at work. If meditation had been the cool thing, you'd have chosen that, and it would have worked, too.

love, h

"BO has no slave blood; he didn't grow up in US African American culture, in terms of his family environment. So I don't consider him black, in the usual US meaning of the word."

It is very clear that he grew up being more close to his father's heritage than his mothers white, even in Hawaii where he was considered a black in school (because of his appearance and skin color) He married a black woman in Chicago and embraced black culture through out his adult life.

In the usual US meaning of the word, he is black --

Its really amazing. Blackness doesn't come from your blood and genes. But from your appearance. If a black man enters an elevator, an old white woman might hold her purse tight, seeing his appearance. In that sense Obama is black.

Even genetically speaking, if you have half black or a quarter or less black blood, you are considered black in US. Its kind of like sin in many people's senses, doesn't matter if there is a drop of poison or a ten drops of poison in a glass of mill. It is still poison.

Here's a wake-up call on the state of race in America:

Some people might wonder why is it that Obama, half-black and half-white, is the "black" candidate who is being asked to represent blacks in America? Why is it that it is so readily accepted that he's "black," when his mother, his grandparents and the household he grew up in are all white? Why is it that being half-black makes you fully black, yet being half-white doesn't make you white at all?

Even if you are a bi-racial American, the product of a black father and a white mother you are black. To put it succinctly, that person identifies more as a "black" American, as the black community would be the one to more readily accept him/her, and that he/she was always treated as black by other communities, the police, etc.

But it's an interesting thought. In Australia, an Aboriginal with a few drops of white blood is considered white, yet in America, a white person with a few drops of black blood is considered black.

They are marginalised away from being white which is held up as some standard of perfection only to be reached if one is pure, and so, being half-white isn't good enough. You have to be fully white(i.e. no black blood, American Indian, Mexican, etc are fine.)

Funny thing is, while Obama might call himslef black and others might call him balck, I agree with hgquinn he's not 'really' black. The black community has accepted him. He may have never been never given the "fear the police and watch out for white people who'll try to kill you!" growing up, he might have been always told that he could be whatever he wanted to be, so he might lack the anger many blacks have. he might lack the self-confidence problems that plague many blacks and cause them to act out and be retaliated against, having always expected that retaliation.

Genetically half-black-half-white may sit on a unique fence inbetween the races, accepted with some reservation on one side and, on the other, pushed away in to the group that would take him/her. Obama, in his book "Dreams From My Father," speaks of walking a similar line. Not one and yet not the other. But, as the "black" candidate, he is asked to speak for all of black America, to heal the racial wounds and relate black anger to white Americans, all things that he's had no part in and only a tangential understanding of.

In other words, institutionalized racism is alive and well in this country, including in how we see our candidates in "black or white." Obama is neither, yet he has been forced on to one side by a media that has never even questioned why it did so. If a candidate was half-Mexican and half-Indian, people would want to know more about their upbringing and look at them as two unique races. Yet, if you're half-white, mixed with anything, that side may as well not exist as the country looks at you as existing fully in the domain of the non-white race.

Food for thought.

I appreciate hgquinn's enlightened personal perspective, however, people generally judge race on how someone looks, regardless of their actual ethnicity. Because Obama looks black, he would be labeled black, whether he chose to identify as African American or not.

To a biologist, "race" doesn't exist. The sociologists have to catch up.

Black is a social construct and 1/2 black is "black" under that social construct.

As someone said; "a white woman might have a black baby but a black woman can never have a white baby". Such is America.

With all due respect, it gets really tired of hearing the "but he's half white!" argument, this year. I think is a pretty straightforward explanation of the problem with this line of thinking: If Obama is pulled over for "Driving While Black", the white half of him has to stop, too.

"Race" has never made any sense from a genetic point of view, we just didn't know that until (relatively) recently. Once you start admitting categories like "bi-racial", you have to just throw out the idea of race altogether.

The problem is, there are people who aren't ready to throw it out. They're called racists. And they operate based on their perception of a person's race, and not any careful, logical analysis of biology or genealogy.

One of my friend in Houston is a bi-racial, very light skinned but still didn't look "white", not really accepted by either group, and painfully shy about it, to boot. I can't claim to know how that feels, but the sense I got from knowing him was that it was a difficult place to be in.

Maybe all this discussion of Obama being bi-racial will help to wake some people up to the pointlessness of the whole concept of race, but for the people who have a problem with him being black, I really doubt it's going to help to tell them he's half-white.

PS. If you haven't already check out Obama's book Dreams From My Father. Gives an excellent description of his insights on race and ethnicity.

When the MSM gets a hold of a theme, they hate letting go -- the fall-out from the MS-01 loss -- the Media narrative Continues: Republicans in trouble this Fall.

Slate: Panic at the House

NY Times: Republican Election Losses Stir Fall Fears

canada.com: GOP officials despair as 'safe' seats choose the other team

globeandmail.com: Wake up and smell the disenchantment

cqpolitics: GOP Seeks to Rebrand After Childers Victory (good luck with that, boys)

AFP: Shaken Republicans look to McCain as savior (good luck with that, too)

WaPo: After String of Losses, Republicans Face Crisis

Reuters: US Republicans scramble in wake of defeats

USAToday: Republicans fear public has lost confidence (pssst... they have)

AP: Third House loss shakes GOP, raises fears for fall

MSNBC: GOPer compares brand to bad 'dog food' (points for originality and honesty)

You get the picture.

:::
:::::

So, imagine this: The GOP that has always despised and derided John McCain.

"Senator Thad Cochran had this to say: "The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me."" CNN

...now turns to him as 'savior'. Meanwhile McCain tries to make nice to the GOP base (and of course, the press, which is McCain's base)

:::
::::

Novak: McCain, GOP in Trouble as Obama Wraps it Up

"The claims that McCain has a united Republican Party behind him are greatly exaggerated. We find considerable opposition on the right, ranging from economic conservatives (who consider him too green) to evangelicals. The biggest problem is that he does not realize he has a problem." www.humanevents.com

Welcome to the 2008 election.

Do you not find it extremely boring to constantly talk about an Election.

At the end of the day one of the candidates will win, then after three months you will all be on here complaining about them just as you have complained about the current one and the one before him. Do you not see the pointlessness in discussing politics over and over and over again?

In the words of the almighty Omah Kiam

"Get a life man"

Love

Simon xx

Keith Olbermann does an excellent Special Comment on Bush's ...war and golf.

To Bush: "This War Is Not About You...Shut The Hell Up!"

A MUST READ AND MUST WATCH

Check it out...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/14/olbermann-to-bush-this-wa_n_101831.html

As a side note, isn't it amazing how Bush used the plural "Internets" to refer to internet on several occasions?

I suspect Bush's IQ levels are worst than say...ruth's (certainly, she is more internet savvy though.)

...asked if he ever used Google, Bush says yeah he used "The Google."! to pull out maps and such.

['The Google' was launched by Google for older adults.]

Ref. Simon xx

This is not about "an" election. Its about politics, society and human progress. And who is "complaining" and about what? Is it okay to complain about spiritual and religious bigotry, injustices in the world, oil companies, pharma companies, drug companies, narrow mindedness, etc?

Is presenting political insights any different from presenting insights on arts, issues such as drugs usage and society, poetry, spiritual discussions, science etc? Not in my world, I am not that intolerant to complain about other' passions and life's philosophies which may be different than mine.

Yes, "get a life" and stop "complaining."

"Do you not see the pointlessness in discussing politics over and over and over again?"

Really? Is that so?

Just shows what a (socio-political) bigot some are.

Political intolerance?

Most of us who write voluminously on politics here, are passionate about Progressive politics with ideals and principles and believe in political activism; there is hell of a lot of point in expressing and discussing these things and spreading political awareness, even though we acknowledged some might be tuned off by too much political discussions and any other topics if it hits saturation levels like poetry, science and spiritual discussions.

Red Cross: Up To 128,000 May Have Died In Myanmar

RedCross.org

China Earthquake Death Toll Could Reach 50,000

BBC.co.uk

Suprise Surprise...

McCain Sets Timetable For Getting Out Of Iraq

He sees 2013 when all troops are out.

CNN.com

PS: Sorry, if I offended someone by "complaining"(writing/reporting) about natural disasters, and the pointlessness(from an enlightened spiritual perspective?) about "worrying" about it as they will keep on coming month after month, year after year.

Gas drugs and rockin' roll.

Gas out, yah Irvine, I don't remember your name back then but I tried to explain it was the internet experiment that fascinated me. You or who ever it was focused on the argument of legitimacy of the gas out. So I gave up arguing about it. Whatever.

Drugs. Hum. I am neither for nor against drugs. Everyone has their own journey, what they use to alter their state of mind is their business.
I view meditation as just another altered state of mind no different than taking drugs. I do not believe in enlightenment or higher states of consciousness. I do believe that we humans have a brain that can transport us to seemingly mysterious places whether through drugs or meditation.
Drugs are no more nasty that meditation to me. I have not experienced anyone who seems any better than anyone else because they meditate everyday.

There are some dangerous drugs that can rot your body and there are spiritual practices that rot the mind.
I am still a firm believer that drugs played a significant roll in early human's development of what we call spirituality and religion and still do. To me meditation is just another altered state. I have practiced meditation. I find my art zone as a good meditation for me. Oh, and from the years between 1976 to 1980 I took more than 200 hits of acid. The world of meditation is the same as trippin'. I have been in both. Reality is your creation, no rules, no right or wrong ways, just whatever you decide.

As for rock and roll. I find it humorous that we have Christian Death Metal. For those who don't know what Death Metal is, just google, Cannibal Corpse, or Type O Negative. Both are great examples of some rockin' dead fun. Type O does a great cover of Neil Young's Cinnomon Girl.

peace comes from mushrooms, meditation or cornbeef on rye.

derek

This one's for you North, miss you girl.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0bHCY865xs

Wow the singer for Type O is freakin' buff.

Yo, I found some christain death metal. A little compilation thing.

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

Scary fun boys and girls.

derek

Yo, for all the things I say I don't believe or do believe in, which is all bs anyway, there is one thing I know that I know.
When I have compassion in my heart I create compassion around me.
When I have anger in my heart I create anger around me.
What I have in me I experience outside of me.

peace comes from my peace

derek

as expected Heather responded in a classy and intellectually superior mannner...

on the other hand, the dimwit right above her must have some serious mental issues!

Goodmorning, I am on a mission now, with every ounce of passion I contain.
The Question "DNA", dose it mutate or could it? and what about the phonominon know as the "kiner theory" I WILL, some how, some way, brake the bank on this one.. as I believe my freedom depends on it. Any info would be GREATLY helpful. Also the theory study of six sigma, how could this be used in regards to the question. Please HELP any of you.
Love Tammy Christine

Goodmorning, I am on a mission now, with every ounce of passion I contain.
The Question "DNA", dose it mutate or could it? and what about the phonominon know as the "kiner theory" I WILL, some how, some way, brake the bank on this one.. as I believe my freedom depends on it. Any info would be GREATLY helpful. Also the theory study of six sigma, how could this be used in regards to the question. Please HELP any of you.
Love Tammy Christine jupiteratirfiredancer@yahoo.com

See what happens when leftists take over this forum?

People naturally flee oppressive totalitarian thought and action.

So sad to see everyone leave, I don't know why I even bother.

But it's for the greater good right lefties?

Adios,

Steve