Sen. Barack Obama and his surrogates continued to criticize Charles R. Black Jr., a top adviser to Sen. John McCain, on Tuesday for saying a terrorist attack before the November election would help the presumptive Republican nominee.

This kind of tells us how some in that circle of influence think.

Makes us wonder about 9/11.

Maybe if we get the current line of thinking replaced with new line thinking nobody will want to attack us.

This is is your brand new weekly Open Thread.

Enjoy.

Another slow week here at IB. Talk amongst yourselves...

Here is that Trance Orb inducing ALtered States on You Tube. Some people can't stop watching it... till they get hungry of course.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGWjrup-5KU

Or ■ my name

46 posts last week, Irv, and
you know what this means so,
talk about your expectations.

Are you secretly snickering?
Are you waiting to be missed?
Are you now, or have you ever
been in such a position as 2?

An amazing character
Spinsters keen orbit
Wizard amongst men

Born twice for good measure
He stood at the narrow gate

Barring all holds
I slipped through

Who said otherwise?
Speak out for tolerance soon
Unity done washed

Richard
I watched some of your videos.
You are getting warmer.
There is a time of pushing and a time of letting go. The magic happens in the release.

A painter knows when a painting is done.

A good public speaker can feel his audience and knows just when to be quite.

The pause in music is often the most important component.

be more awake when dreaming and more dreaming when awake

everything is everything

and everything is already one

AND IT'S NO BIG DEAL

cyclical life is a choice
time is a choice
reality is a choice
illusion is a choice
truth is a choice

peace comes from peace

Are you finding marbles?

derek

Just pookin' around.

I love the orb. At times I could see a spiral galaxy.
Probably a map to my home.

Yo, it's nice to put a face to your magical words. I'm assuming that was you in the videos. I was pretty close in my imagined vision of your appearance.

derek

The reason it is so quiet on IB this week is because everyone is sick to death of hearing about the bleedin election.

Combine this with the fact that G W Bush is on his way out and it looks like Obama is on his way in there is nobody really in office to complain about at the moment.

But just hang in there; real soon you can go right back to moaning again.

LOL

Simon xx

Hey Derek, I guess then you know where this is all going?

For now check this out, it isn't magic it is science. Things really can float in the air.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=7w3jPQV71DM

Sometimes we must wait for the alignment of the Universal Forces to provide for the perfect timing.

Did you all know know Orb is Bro spelled backwards?

This poem-post dedicated to Baby D:

"BABY STARLING" by Steve Toth

Baby starling I see
no hope for you to have worked
your way inside the porch
from your nest jammed into the eaves
but here you are anyway
frightened wild thing
connecting to your survival instincts by
evacuating your bowels on the table

As I approach the door gently
you panic & start thrashing
trying to force your way
through the glass that has no give
but as I’m getting the door open
you switch your point of attack
to the window with its glass
just as hard as the door’s

How many times can you
evacuate your bowels
& still have something left?
More panic & thrashing but finally
as I get the window open
you make good your escape through the door
& with a couple of wing flaps
vanish in your own direction

(Jun 18, 2008)

The destruction of the world as we know it has been set in motion. A world built on fictions.

The question is will the participants be able to embrace the truth fast enough to accommodate.

An important talk on Climate Change by James E. Hansen is here:
NYT Dot Earth'
Are Big Oil and Big Coal Climate Criminals?
http://tinyurl.com/4lvx8c

He outlines the problems and the consequences fairly well.
He addresses the problem of political paralysis to move on the issue in Washington.

"Special interests have blocked transition to our renewable energy future. Instead of moving heavily into renewable energies, fossil companies choose to spread doubt about global warming, as tobacco companies discredited the smoking-cancer link. Methods are sophisticated, including funding to help shape school textbook discussions of global warming."

And,as I have pointed out here before:

"CEOs of fossil energy companies know what they are doing and are aware of long-term consequences of continued business as usual. In my opinion, these CEOs should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature."

And what is Our Savior, the Hope for Change Candidate planning to do about it, if elected? Sigh...don't get your hope up too high:

ScienceBlogs: The Scientific Activist
Obama's Support of Corn Ethanol Unlikely to Change
http://tinyurl.com/3v23ky

Support of corn ethanol is a politically savvy move for Obama: it brings Big Ag on board to his campaign (who will benefit greatly from corn subsidies) and he can get the high PR of standing up for Heartland Family Farmers (a constituency that has traditionally voted Republican, but has become disillusioned under W's reign). Small farmers won't see much benefit actually, but it sure plays well politically. Cool.

But will it help slow carbon emissions worldwide? Probably not. Science Blogger Nick Anthis helps explain why:

"The production of ethanol from corn is not an energy-efficient process, and it's unlikely that using ethanol fuel produced from corn will result in significantly lower carbon dioxide emissions. On top of that, diverting resources into corn ethanol production drives up food prices and could very well exacerbate world hunger. Therefore, by subsidizing corn ethanol, the government is not only not directly addressing global warming (and instead diverting resources away from more viable solutions) but also contributing to a variety of emerging problems. The only people likely to benefit from such subsidies are large agricultural corporations."

Yes it will be a change to go from Big Oil to Big Ag fore dependence on fuel. But is it a change we should hope for?

Yes if you want Obama elected. No if you want to actually have effective action against climate change supported by the next President.

“Fabulous flying
The Maglev actually does not touch the tracks when traveling. Its superconductors let the trains float above the rails. The Siemens-Alstrom train levitate 1cm (0,39 in) above the track. Japan's shinkansen runs 10 cm (3,9 in) above the tracks. The shinkansen uses wheels to reach 100 km/h (62 mph) before it levitates. At speed, supercold liquefied helium minimized energy loss in the magnetic field. The European model uses regular magnets, but enables immediate flight.”

Did you know everything is everything and peace comes from peace?
Do you also know that SB (Service Bulletin) can be spelled backwards?

15. Posted by yogi-one:

"And what is Our Savior, the Hope for Change Candidate planning to do about it, if elected? Sigh...don't get your hope up too high:"

"Yes it will be a change to go from Big Oil to Big Ag fore dependence on fuel. But is it a change we should hope for?

Yes if you want Obama elected. No if you want to actually have effective action against climate change supported by the next President."

Thanks for your CONCERN.

I for one am shocked that Obama has not been living in a Himalayan monastery all this time.

I'm so bitterly disappointed.

***

As regards to the substantive criticism by the Science blogger Nick Anthis, ""The production of ethanol from corn is not an energy-efficient process, and it's unlikely that using ethanol fuel produced from corn will result in significantly lower carbon dioxide emissions. On top of that, diverting resources into corn ethanol production drives up food prices and could very well exacerbate world hunger. Therefore, by subsidizing corn ethanol, the government is not only not directly addressing global warming (and instead diverting resources away from more viable solutions) but also contributing to a variety of emerging problems. The only people likely to benefit from such subsidies are large agricultural corporations."

This is a well known fact. No one disagrees with it.

But, Corn was NECESSARY on the way to Algae.

"In any case, algae biodiesel would not displace land currently used for food production and new algaculture jobs could be created."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodiesel

The financing of large ethanol refineries would not have come about without an immediately available feedstock, and, thankfully, Corn was at hand. Now, with that capacity online, new, non-food sources of ethanol can be developed, such as Algae. Its a "chicken-or-the-egg" dilemma. To jumpstart a renewable biofuels industry in the United States, it had to begin with Corn. It really doesn't matter how "bad" Corn is for biofuels, as its just a very temporary, intermediate step to the permanent, sustainable solutions.

Algal biofuel systems have now been demonstrated which can produce up to 200,000 gallons of biofuel per acre per year, on desert land (containing no soil Carbon) unable to grow food, with no tractors or heavy equipment, no fertilizers, pesticides, or herbicides, and powered entirely by solar energy. Algae systems produce Ethanol, Biodiesel, and Protein Meal simultaneously - from the same organisms - with no feedstock other than air, sunshine, and seawater. Not "Food vs. Fuel", but "Food FROM Fuel". Compared to the 300 to 600 gallons/acre/year from Soybeans and Corn, with all of their attendant problems, this is a transformational development.

But, we never could have gotten to 'feedstock-free' ("freedstock") Algal biofuels without a well capitalized, proven biofuels industry initially established with Corn Ethanol. It may be sad for the Corn farmers that Corn will be obsolete as an energy crop, but that doesnt matter. The ethanol refineries that Corn built will keep chugging away, producig fuel without the Corn. The only difference is that when powered by Algae, they will consume no fossil energy, and all of the CO2 emissions from fermentation will be recycled by the Algae into fuel.

Biofuels are still the 100% solution to energy and the environment; we've just had to learn how to do it without using feedstocks, such as food. So it took five years, so what? The hundreds of ethanol facilities now in use and unde construction provide the infrastructure for the next generation of freedstock biofuels, which are highly Carbon Negative, producible in vastly greater quantities, turn desert sand into fertile soil, and give off food as a free byproduct.

Its Amazing...

Ref. #15

Ever since Barack Obama sewed up the Democratic nomination, it has been both frustrating and interesting to see the way the news media has proceeded to chip away at his reputation as a reformer and as a new face in Washington. Some of these issues give me reason to pause, but most I shrug off as part and parcel of any politician running for high elective office.

I can understand why few people are willing to go into the meat grinder of politics. Those who run for elective office can never do much right but are capable of doing practically everything wrong. Political culture thrives on scandal and negative reinforcement, appealing to the part of us biologically programmed to recoil in disgust at the sinister side of human behavior. Every press expose seems to be designed specifically to induce outrage and rise everyone's blood pressure.

The role of lobbyists and money interests in politics is so deeply embedded in the framework that I would frankly be made uncomfortable if any candidate renounced them altogether. I'm not sure how any politician could escape their taint completely. The latest New York Times article that ties Obama to the ethanol industry is one such example.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/23/us/politics/23ethanol.html

And it seems to have got our Yogi-one all excited to make let his sarcasm steam out regarding Obama, Saviour, Hope & Change.

While I agree that increased ethanol production is no panacea, it does provide a cottage industry and creates jobs. In this day and age, where many traditionally sound jobs in industry have been uprooted to other areas of the world where they are more cost-efficient, ethanol appears to be an effective way to boost employment, or at minimum reduce the unemployment created by the growing recession. It's certainly not a flawless attempt to reduce this country's dependence on foreign oil, but the underlying intentions are good.

Eliminating the graft and corruption that goes along with any industry is easy said, hard to accomplish in reality. And underneath this recent ethanol flap is the peculiarly American deficiency of failing to understand that instant gratification is a product of good luck, obscene wealth, and material excess. It is not a God-given right or entitlement.

Many of us good-government liberals insist that the natural role of regulation and oversight ought to be to aim to eliminate these kind of offenses. In theory, that is how government ought to function, but when compromise, power, and profit meet, the net result is usually far less noble. Reform ought to be a constant process, since for every layer of oversight and regulation we provide, those whose inner motive is purely profit and material gain will push the envelope and attempt to exploit existing loopholes, create new ones, and in the process dare gatekeepers to catch them.

So reform isn't a destination, it's a journey. Furthermore, it's a journey that requires our participation and our attention, else it be rendered worthless.

Hey Richard
It's going where it's always been going. In circles, perfect little circles. But we are also traveling in a straight line as well. Leaving behind a spiral in our wake.
We are nothing more than a fireworks display that happened to create it's own way of experiencing it's self. Pretty cool but only a flash. The less we try to understand the longer we enjoy our flash.

Yo Mr. Wondering or Miss. or Mrs. or whatever
I'm full of more than BS but I do have plenty of that too. Just being apart of the fascinating experience of this mysterious and magical life we seem to have been blessed with, holmes.

Aren't you have fun too?

derek the dooldeman

oh, what does everything come from smarty pants?

Funny that you mentione circles and wake. I was watching rain sprinkling on a crystal clear lake, calm no wind. I was watching the ripples on the lake from the drops and the interferance patterns. I shifted my vision to see only the interference. A supporitng insight came.

I am beginning a new meme injection using the You Tube platform using the Exponential Communications System trick. {Click my name}

Did you see congress is going after the gamblers?

A mYsterious fORCE IS @ WORK

Has one ever been to the Brain Portal?

Click my name

Now that we have so many gray matter processors networked we can execute the code to reprogram reality. with a Memetic Engineering task force [Click my name].

Idea replication systems.

Does it seem quiet or is it just me?

#13 Unlucky for some!

I find that about Steve, too, as you will probably have noted, Irv ;))

Re. 15 by yogi-one

Instant troll give away:

"And what is Our Savior, the Hope for Change Candidate planning to do about it, if elected?"

Savior? It doesn't get any more obvious for a troll.

Yo Chris, he's laying it on thicker than Sean Hannity.

(And Hannity is pretty damn thick)

Where have I heard this before...

"The heavens shall open up... celestial choirs will sing....!"

Whatever.

Corn-based ethanol is something that is popular. WE have to change people's mindsets on that. The ethanol route is addled with potholes one way or another. Cane can't be grown in the united states except in a few places, and the corn-basket states would grow bankrupt in no time.

Obama talked a lot about solar, wind and geothermal energy rather than corn yesterday in Nevada. He came out staunchly against nuclear-power yesterday unless there is a safe secure foolproof waste disposal/elimination method.

I'm very concerned Yogi-one,

that you're so pissed.

Who's McCain?

It must be nice to have the luxury of being an ideological purist.

I have a friend who drew a halo on the wall in the bathroom so he could see a saint whenever he looked in the mirror (he tended to spend a lot of time doing that).

Hi mini, I am opposed to corn based ethanol.

I agree with you about that. I just don't see the point in feeding a troll.

Happy to hear he's talking about renewable sources and back tracking on nuclear. That's all excellent stuff! I'll have to see if I can find that speech, you have a link?

WHAT can a demon do for a quantum computer? It can slyly trap and cool atoms so that their properties can be measured.

Now a team has brought such a creature to life - using lasers. The demon in question is based on the one in a thought experiment devised by the Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell in 1871. He imagined a creature capable of seeing individual atoms in a container of gas that had a central barrier with a tiny trapdoor. Maxwell's demon could sort the atoms according to their energy by opening or shutting the trapdoor to incoming atoms, depending on their speed. The demon appears to bring order to chaos without expending energy, violating the second law of thermodynamics.

Daniel Steck at the University of Oregon and colleagues have recreated Maxwell's demon using a pair of parallel lasers that act as the trapdoor. The team confined rubidium ... violating the second law of thermodynamics?

Click my name.

Seriously, yogi-one needs to defend the post or this is nothing but concern troll time. I understand people have been deeply dissatisfied with Obama and FISA (so am I) but this is getting really stupid now.

"That's not change you can believe in." Says John McCain!

(in his infamous lime-green jello speech on the day Obama won the nomination.)

I'm so sick of the play on "change" and using it as an insult when Obama can't instantly change the whole world for the better quick enough for all the purity and concern trolls.

"The team confined rubidium ... violating the second law of thermodynamics?" asks Richard Thomas.

My friend, The "Second Law of Thermodynamics" is not a 'Law' in the traditional sense. It is purely a statement on probability. In a closed system Entropy always increases over time(or disorder increases.)

(And we talk about net result of order or entropy level. Not he exceptions. For ex, Humans are more complex and of high order (low entropy) than the molecules from which we are made of, or from the life forms from which we evolved. This doesn't violated the Second Law as some creationists and Intelligent Design proponents claim.)

But still, the Second Law can can be theoretically and practically be violated.

An egg breaks but we never see a broken egg coalesces together, although nothing in the Laws of Physcis deny that. The probability is very less, but is NOT impossible.

A a lake 'can' freeze in a 100 degree FH Summer, violating the second law, but it the probability is almost zero that it never happens in a billion years of Earth.

yes, under controlled experimental conditions at micro scales, the second law can be violated and this 'can' be observed. This is no big surprise for theoretical physicists, really.

Chris, here you go

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtYAPkOKEP4

Seriously though, we need to educate people/the entire country on corn-based ethanol though.
In this clip he tells that the oil companies have to pay a fine if they don't drill for oil in the places that have already been leased out. This was his anti-offshore drilling argument. Absolutely brilliant trap IMO.

Indeed Preity, The Second Law is not a law in the traditional sense of physics, like say the Universal Law of Gravity.

It basically says that if you tear a 500 page book into sperate pages and throw them up high in the air, and when you pile the pages back blindly, the chance of getting the book in exact order is almost impossible. (I mean you can try that for billions of current age of the universe but still it would be highly impossible.)

In a closed system, there are so many more ways to get disorder than order. That's what the second "law" effectively says.

***********

Re. Richard Thomas:

As preity pointed out about the "net" results, "Real-life versions of Maxwellian demons occur, but all such "real demons" have their entropy-lowering effects duly balanced by increase of entropy elsewhere."(Wiki)

As per Daniel Steck, "the Single-atom traps used by particle physicists allow an experimenter to control the state of individual quanta in a way similar to Maxwell's demon." (Wiki)

Experimental work based on Maxwell's Demon

In the 1 February 2007 issue of Nature, David Leigh, a professor at the University of Edinburgh, announced the creation of a nano-device based on this thought experiment. This device is able to drive a chemical system out of equilibrium, but it must be powered by an external source (light in this case) and therefore does not violate thermodynamics.

Previously, other researchers created a ring-shaped molecule which could be placed on an axle connecting two sites (called A and B). Particles from either site would bump into the ring and move it from end to end. If a large collection of these devices were placed in a system, half of the devices had the ring at site A and half at B at any given moment in time.

Leigh made a minor change to the axle so that if a light is shone on the device, the center of the axle will thicken, thus restricting the motion of the ring. It only keeps the ring from moving, however, if it is at site A. Over time, therefore, the rings will be bumped from site B to site A and get stuck there, creating an imbalance in the system. In his experiments, Leigh was able to take a pot of "billions of these devices" from 50:50 equilibrium to a 70:30 imbalance within a few minutes.

Nature: A Demon of a Device
http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070129/full/070129-10.html

Richard
Try to visualize the pattern of our wake.

Exponential growth. Think of a gyro scope. It has one reality while sitting on a table and quite another when it is wound up and let go.

I do not know where we are going or where this all leads. I do know the potential and where we can go. But it is not my choice alone. We are and always have been a universal democracy. There is a fair balance to that.

While we spin around ourself and our star and the center of the galaxy, we also travel through space, I'm assuming in a straight line. This is also an example of our individual lives as well.

cyclical and linear

Jesus asked, how can bitter and sweet water come from the same well.

silly humans
center of the universe
oh how your beauty grows
your star is dwarfed
and planets obscured
by your egos radiant glow

we look through our lenses and telescopes
all pointing in your direction
we know from this safe and vicarious place
we are spared from your infection

Alien poetry, still rough but I know they're working on it.

derek

"In this clip he tells that the oil companies have to pay a fine if they don't drill for oil in the places that have already been leased out. This was his anti-offshore drilling argument. Absolutely brilliant trap IMO." mini

The 'popular' off-shore drilling argument can be defeated with this. The oil companies are hoarding oil by not even testing the grounds that have been leased for them. He called their bluff yesterday knowing that they would rather pay a fine than spend a lot more money and personnel on drilling oil in the leased lands.

Thanks mini - no sound at work

But I've bookmarked it for tonight!

- it sounds like this speech will warm my heart. :)

I heard a little about his fine for not using oil leases. I'm honestly not sure what to think about it yet, but I'm certainly intrigued.

OK, I Give, Now I Will Vote for McCain. I mean he is such a better choice!

He's got the better energy plan:

Drill, drill, drill!

*

Cellulosic ethanol

Google it.

Oh, well here's a link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellulosic_ethanol

"Construction of pilot scale lignocellulosic ethanol plants requires considerable financial support through grants and subsidies. On 28 February 2007, the U.S. Dept. of Energy announced $385 million in grant funding to six cellulosic ethanol plants. This grant funding accounts for 40% of the investment costs. The remaining 60% comes from the promoters of those facilities. Hence, a total of $1 billion will be invested for approximately 140 million gallon capacity. This translates into $7/annual gallon production capacity in capital investment costs for pilot plants (this would work out to $.35/gal over the 20-year life of a facility); future capital costs are expected to be lower. Corn to ethanol plants cost roughly $1–3/annual gallon capacity, though the cost of the corn itself is considerably greater than for switchgrass or waste biomass.

The quest for alternative sources of energy has provided many ways to produce electricity, such as wind farms, hydropower, or solar cells. However, about 20% of total energy consumption is dedicated to transportation (i.e., cars, planes, lorries/trucks, etc.) and currently requires energy-dense liquid fuels such as gasoline, diesel fuel, or kerosene. These fuels are all obtained by refining petroleum. This dependency on oil has two major drawbacks: burning fossil fuels such as oil may contribute to global warming; and for net-consuming countries like the United States, importing oil creates a dependency on oil-producing countries.

As of 2007, ethanol is produced mostly from sugars or starches, obtained from fruits and grains. In contrast, cellulosic ethanol is obtained from cellulose, the main component of wood, straw and much of the structure of plants. Since cellulose cannot be digested by humans, the production of cellulose does not compete with the production of food, other than conversion of land from food production to cellulose production (which has recently started to become an issue, due to rising wheat prices.) The price per ton of the raw material is thus much cheaper than grains or fruits. Moreover, since cellulose is the main component of plants, the whole plant can be harvested. This results in much better yields per acre — up to 10 tons, instead of 4 or 5 tons for the best crops of grain.[citation needed]

The raw material is plentiful. Cellulose is present in every plant, in the form of straw, grass, and wood. Most of these "bio-mass" products are currently discarded. It is estimated that 323 million tons of cellulose containing raw materials that could be used to create ethanol are thrown away each year. This includes 36.8 million dry tons of urban wood wastes, 90.5 million dry tons of primary mill residues, 45 million dry tons of forest residues, and 150.7 million dry tons of corn stover & wheat straw. Transforming them into ethanol using efficient and cost effective hemi(cellulase) enzymes or other processes might provide as much as 30% of the current fuel consumption in the United States — and probably similar figures in other oil-importing regions like China or Europe.[citation needed]

Moreover, even land marginal for agriculture could be planted with cellulose-producing crops like switchgrass, resulting in enough production to substitute for all the current oil imports into the United States.

Paper, cardboard, and packaging comprise a substantial part of the solid waste sent to landfills in the United States each day, 41.26% of all organic municipal solid waste (MSW) according to California Integrated Waste Management Board's city profiles. These city profiles account for accumulation of 612.3 tons daily per landfill where an average population density of 2,413 per square mile persists. Organic waste consists of 0.4% Manures, 1.6% Gypsum Board, 4.2% Glossy Paper, 4.2% Paper Ledger, 9.2% Wood, 10.5% Envelopes, 11.9% Newsprint, 12.3% Grass & Leaves, 30.0% Food Scrap, 34.0% Office Paper, 35.2% Corrugated Cardboard, and 46.4% Agricultural Composites, makes up 71.51% of land fill. All these except Gypsum Board contain cellulose which is transformable into cellulosic ethanol because they are the leading cause of methane plumes. Methane, a greenhouse gas, is 21 times more potent than carbon-dioxide.

Reduction of the disposal of solid waste through cellulosic ethanol conversion would reduce solid waste disposal costs by local and state governments. It is estimated that each person in the US throws away 4.4 lb (2.0 kg) of trash each day, of which 37% contains waste paper which is largely cellulose. That computes to 244 thousand tons per day of discarded waste paper that contains cellulose.[40] The raw material to produce cellulosic ethanol is not only free, it has a negative cost — i.e., ethanol producers can get paid to take it away.

The environmental company Wise Landfill Recycling Mining expects to start generating cellulosic ethanol product from trash early 2008. Their method also boasts of being not merely carbon neutral, but oil independent.

In June 2006, a U.S. Senate hearing was told that the current cost of producing cellulosic ethanol is US $2.25 per US gallon (US $0.59/litre). This is primarily due to the current poor conversion efficiency.[citation needed] At that price it would cost about $120 to substitute a barrel of oil (42 gallons), taking into account the lower energy content of ethanol. However, the Department of Energy is optimistic and has requested a doubling of research funding. The same Senate hearing was told that the research target was to reduce the cost of production to US $1.07 per US gallon (US $0.28/litre) by 2012. "The production of cellulosic ethanol represents not only a step toward true energy diversity for the country, but a very cost-effective alternative to fossil fuels. It is advanced weaponry in the war on oil,” said Vinod Khosla, managing partner of Khosla Ventures, who recently told a Reuters Global Biofuels Summit that he could see cellulosic fuel prices sinking to $1 per gallon within ten years.

University of Massachusetts at Amherst researchers have developed a streamlined technique which uses "catalytic fast pyrolysis" (heating to 400–600 °C followed by rapid cooling) and zeolite as a catalyst to produce cellulosic ethanol in about 60 seconds. They estimate improvements in the process should be able to generate ethanol at the equivalent of $1–$1.70/gal of gasoline. As of April 2008, the process has only been developed to work at laboratory scales."

"Cellulosic ethanol (also called ceetol) is a biofuel produced from wood, grasses, or the non-edible parts of plants"

Economic arguments on ethanol, revisited. Okay, currently U.S. farmers are affected disproportionately by higher gasoline and diesel prices: not just to run tractors, but because many of the materials farmers use like nitrogen is petroleum-derived. Now, farmers cannot just pass these costs along to consumers directly because they produce fungible commodities in a very fluid international market. Essentially, what ethanol subsidies are doing is allowing farmers to make a profit at a time when they otherwise wouldn't, because of these higher energy prices. This keeps more farmers growing, and encourages the ones growing already to grow more.

Essentially, in arguing for Congress to suppress ethanol-based demand for corn by stripping these subsidies, these newly reborn free marketeers would create circumstances under which many U.S. farmers could not afford to stay in business because they would face costs in the conduct of their business greater than they could recoup.

What do you think happens to the stability of world food supplies then?

It is a difficult fact for many Intentbloggers to accept, but farmers are engaged in a profit making endeavor. If the government makes it so that they can't make money doing it, then they don't have to.

Moreover, let's not hear the requisite "but it all goes to big agribusiness" canard. Not all of it does. My uncle--my father's brother--grows corn behind his house to supplement a meager pension. And his son, my cousin, grows corn part-time to basically keep the trappings of a middle class life in a time of stagnant wages. So don't talk about ethanol subsidies as if this is merely a matter of sticking it good to Archer Daniels Midland(ADM). It's not.

There are those of us who see Obama's position on ethanol as correct, pure and simple.

PS: If ethanol from corn keeps more farmers on the land for a time, that's a good thing.

Longer term, I would hope for a more rational agricultural economy. Intuitively, with the global food situation what it is, it is unreasonable that farmers can't make a living.

Reform of farm economics, like reform of the food distribution system, the sources and uses of energy, and many other urgently needed changes, can only happen in the context of overall economic reforms.

All of this is needed for global sustainability, but it has to be done somewhat methodically. Sudden, out-of-context moves (like abruptly shutting off ethanol subsidies without providing some other means for farmers to keep farming) will have precisely the wrong effect.

Britain faces calls for UFO inquiry
Wednesday, 25 June 2008 18:12
The British ministry of defence today faced calls to launch an official inquiry into a series of UFO sightings, including one filmed by a soldier on night patrol.

UFO experts believe the incidents, which happened in south Wales earlier this month, are 'particularly significant' because they included observations made by the crew of a police helicopter and military personnel.

The ministry confirmed today that it had been handed footage captured on a mobile phone by a corporal on guard duty at Tern Hill barracks, near Market Drayton, Shropshire, on 7 June.

AdvertisementCorporal Mark Proctor told The Sun newspaper that he witnessed a 'fleet' of objects zig-zagging across the sky at about 11pm.

The 38-year-old soldier, a member of the 1st Battalion Irish Regiment, said: 'I was on duty in the guard room when the other boys outside began shouting.

'I went out to see what the commotion was about and could see 13 craft in the skies. They were like rotating cubes with multiple colours.'

Former UFO expert at the British ministry of defence Nick Pope said that an inquiry to establish what had been seen by the witnesses was vital.

Mr Pope said: 'Something quite extraordinary does seem to be going on in British air space at the moment.

'There has got to be an official inquiry into all this and we need a senior air force officer to take personal charge and oversee the inquiry.'

Radar tapes, as well as footage of the incidents, should be examined as part of the investigation, said Mr Pope, who added: 'It's indisputable that something was seen - the very fact that it was seen by military personnel over a military base makes it a national security incident.'

A British army spokesman declined to comment in detail on the sightings at Tern Hill.

'The ministry examines reports solely to establish whether UK airspace may have been compromised by hostile or unauthorised military activity,' the spokesman said.

'Unless there is evidence of a potential threat, there is no attempt to identify the nature of each sighting reported.'

Yo, if there are aliens among us then they have been here for a long time. It would be quite the investment to get here.

We may not be able to SEE them any more than an ant can SEE us.

Even if they're poetry sucks.

Wait a minute, Did you say cubes. That would be the Borg my friend. They want to assimilate us into some sort of a collective. Sound familiar?

Deepak and all these people talking about a collective consciousness and that we are all one, spooky.

Yo, I want the nifty eye piece that Captain Picard had. With the cool green laser.

I wonder if Obama has ties with the aliens? He sure rose to power awfully quick.

Well I guess we'll see.

derek

excluding this post, hello to the five regulars...keith, richard, doodleboy, ed, y-one, & simon...and u all know who the other ^%** is...eeeuuuuhhhhh!

Hey Richard
Sorry if I got a little too playful.

Yo, there is something happening in our life right now that is so subtly powerful and so tied to exponential growth. Most mainstream belief systems are not set up to keep pace with it.
Science is doing it's best to keep up, while religion is getting left in the dust. Spirituality is also working hard to keep up.
How can even reason deal with exponential growth? It doesn't make sense to begin with. The idea that what we learned yesterday could already be out of date today. What we learned a minute ago, until what we are learning is instantly obsolete from moment to moment. Where does it stop?

How long will it take for such a dynamic to take place?

Will we reach a point where learning is obsolete. Where experience and being are not questioned.

Can we break from the cycles and live in a new moment every moment?

But then again the universe may have a trick up it's sleeve that will keep this pesky problem from getting out of hand.

derek

Yo Derek,
little quote from the 1600s:
"If you dissemble sometimes your knowledge of that you are thought to know, you shall be thought, another time, to know that you know not."

Francis Bacon.

Timeless, of course ;)

Hi again, Derek, (talking among ourselves ;) I was going to put a question to IB concerning exponential growth but decided I might be a bit hard-pushed for definition.

Hey, so now you've touched on it, I'll share your row-boat if you don't mind, and pose the question here in this lesser sea of sea-sickness. Pass the Quells, please.

"We all tend to think for ourselves, autonomously. Does that relative crystallisation stand in the way of group exponential growth?"

We'll use it as an anchor if it sinks, lol.

Display by reaching
All the same directions point
Ferris wheels delight

A lunchtime churning
To show up this retch again
A round of sarnies

````
Lead sinkers released
Corks bob to the top
No decision necessary

Hi Ed

You know; I am sure, there are many fragile psyches within the group that come unhinged without constant doses of hope and assurance they are right. So, taking in such traumatic information that this may not be true and transmuting it into life-affirming action may turn out to be the most advanced and meaningful spiritual practice of our time.

Have a great afternoon my dear.

Love
Bonnie

"Let me cut to the chase: If you want anything big to happen after January, you need to give President Barack Obama a big progressive majority. Period.

We need a more progressive Senate to fight for a better America. With your help, we can elect some more great progressives and take another jump forward to a government in DC that works for all of us.

Click on the button below to contribute to some great Democrats and work for a government in DC that reflects our values.

In my lifetime, there's only been one moment of truly progressive legislating - and it came in the 1960's. We've had great Democratic Presidents before and after those years - so why didn't we have comparable burst of major, dramatic legislative progress?

It's no secret - it's because it takes a President with big majorities in the Congress. Especially in the Senate where the truth is it takes 60 votes to do anything controversial. And it will take more progressive Democrats to fix the result of years of Republican assaults on our fundamental freedoms, our environment, and our workers.

In June of 2006, Russ Feingold and I stood up and demanded we set a deadline to get our combat troops home from Iraq. Yesterday, on FISA Russ and I stood together with Chris Dodd and voted against rubberstamping George Bush's abuse of the Constitution and retroactive immunity for the big telecom companies. Both times, we got around a dozen Senators to stand with us.

But in 2006, you spoke up during the election, helped us elect more progressive Democrats who agreed with us, and by the beginning of 2007, the Democratic caucus was united around a deadline for Iraq.

You'll watch that happen again and again after January if we elect more progressive Democrats who can help change Washington. As you know, I didn't get good grades in math, but I know how to count: we need more progressive Democrats and fewer Republicans.

Follow this link to help us get more progressive Democrats that will get us to 60 seats in the Senate and clear the Roadblock Republicans once and for all:

http://www.actblue.com/page/progressivesenate

Here are four Democrats we absolutely need to win to make that happen:

In Minnesota, running to win Paul Wellstone's seat, is a great progressive Democrat: Al Franken . Al's been a fighter for progressive causes for years and he'll be a Wellstone progressive in the Senate.

In my neighboring state of New Hampshire, former Governor Jeanne Shaheen lost a very close race in 2002 to John Sununu, a race marred by illegal voter suppression tactics by the state GOP. Some people have served time for that crime, and now it's time for us to put things to rights and elect Jeanne to the Senate to really represent the views and values of New Hampshire. We'll get universal health care for all kids when Jeanne comes to Washington.

In Alaska, Anchorage mayor Mark Begich is running against Ted Stevens, and the polls show Mark's got a fantastic shot at taking this seat. Mark's an exciting candidate, and he's been speaking out strongly in his campaign for the Constitution and our liberties.

And in Oregon, Speaker Jeff Merkley has a great progressive record, and he's running in a state that we kept blue in 2004. The GOP will do all they can to keep the whiff of George W. Bush out of Oregon this year, and we need to give Jeff the resources he needs to talk with Oregonians about why it'll take a Democratic Senator to clean up the mess eight years of Bush-Cheney have created for this state.

So please follow this link and contribute to these candidates right now:

http://www.actblue.com/page/progressivesenate

From gas prices to Iraq to universal health care and our economy, we have our work cut out for us. We can't afford to see a once in a lifetime moment of progressive legislating under President Obama lost to more delays and obstructions from the Roadblock Republicans.:" Quotation.

Hey Ed
I am a wild card indeed. I don't think we are in any danger of the few people who read my comments are going to put any weight in what I say.

I do get mischievous at times but that is my nature as it is for now.

Just playin' the Pook if may, dear Mr. Froud. I hope you don't mind.

But while we are in the boat rowing away, I will have to say that things are going faster and faster. While we gently row down the stream I think there are rapids ahead. I hope our boat will hold together but if not I hope we both can swim. I think Richard has the best boat, speaking only from intuition of coarse, not from learned knowledge.

I hope this doesn't clear things up but if it does I have a few more tricks up my own sleeve.

derek

Hey Diab, you got one finalist right.

It would have been great if my buddy and his Swiss team had gotten a little farther, but if one likes the beautiful game for its artistry, winning is not all-important. I don’t think any soccer coach ever said “winning is not everything, it is the only thing”, although some must think so.

When the Latins take possession of the ball with one touch, or pass it to the next guy with the same touch, that’s when the purists gets their kicks. The Germans are admired for their strength and will to win, less for their artistry. It will be an interesting game on Sunday. Germany against Spain in a final, finally! Wow. Viva España.

On the IB front, you, Diablo, still seem to be obsessed with the “multiples”. You feel it strange they all appear at the same time. But couldn’t we say the same about you, or Derek, or Ed and a few others. Mr Welsh and his club are here so often that there is a good chance they are here when anybody else posts a comment. That includes you. Does that make you Mr Welsh?

You, and the IB administration, seem to want me out of here, so I promise Mallika not to post between July 1st and September 1st and maybe not come back at all. Now, Mr Welsh may use this to further confuse you, Diablo, and disappear also or come up with other disguises. There is only one thing sure about this; it won’t be Skep even if it says Skep.

There is a reason I had to use different IDs and I may explain this before July 1st. My comments are direct and could offend many here, including Deepak, but I try hard not to get personal. I have called people gullible (naive and easily deceived or tricked) or ignorant (lacking information or knowledge) but never morons.

Many people here believe belief is a virtue and if you believe strongly enough it can become the truth. There is of course no evidence for this at all and that begs the big question:

Why do some people need evidence and critical thinking as a basis for the application of logical thought, while others are able to believe the strangest things without evidence?

Goodbye to That, too.

nice try Peks!

Welcome back, Bonnie!

.

Fishing fragile boobs
Catching flat landers for fun
Jerks hook nervous quirks

Worms are free to go
Hither fish lost on the road
Good tads have their poles

Mudslides down freeways
River folk generate quick
Bloomers ever loud

Big Mo showed me up
Dirty Miss sheds over roof
High waters fashion

"Why do some people need evidence and critical thinking as a basis for the application of logical thought, while others are able to believe the strangest things without evidence?"

How mischievous of that universe/God/human nature/nature/whatever to make us all different.

derek

pekS/BlogScanner/JustWondering/WorldGame: not sure what prompted your self-imposed exile, but I for one am not wishing you'd go away. I do wish, though, that you would share other facets of yourself than just the faith-vs-reason track you seem to stay on. I just noticed something (may be obvious to the old-timers here). Here are all the questions you have asked in your most recent blogposts (my websearch skills aren't the best, so I may not have got them all):
- Why do some people need evidence and critical thinking as a basis for the application of logical thought, while others are able to believe the strangest things without evidence?
- How can anyone disagree with your observation, Gotham, and the message attached to it?
- We all know that in the end we have to talk to each other, but if Democrats don’t talk to Democrats, what chance do we have?
- Should we laugh or cry?

Seems to me they're all rhetorical, and match with an old remark by our pal Skinny (or Steve, I forget who) that you "have all the answers". I’d like to know what you think of that. Regardless, I personally think that's nowhere near a good reason to get you banned from here; maybe there's something else I missed.

Also - *twinkle in eye* - whatever happened to the silverware deformation exercise?

Hello Keith. Thanks!
Glad to see you didn't get washed away.

Bonnie

I will be back

...riding a tsunami

Nest of tadpoles
An array of points perceived
Hard hold on the potential

Tsunami Of Silence

I was no-where near dry land
not in Chennai, Nanjing or Halawa Valley
when the last Tsnuami hit,
the Great Wall Of Silence,
larger than what I ever
had imagined of silence
as it were,
higher than all the sun-baked walls of Jericho
come crushing down
crashing in,
it tore my clothes to shreds and I was bare-faced
in all my unspoken lies,
undressed in any familiar
characters of which I most often do relate
oh, the trickster had laid hidden
like tender babies in Anne Geddes calendar hands,
I was dumb in an instant,
giftless of poetic or Socratic words,
Neruda was a drowning bird
and Cassals lost without his silver-mounted Mother-Of-Pearl Eye bow,
I ran hither and yon gathering my broken pail
I was Chiyono
looking for some balm or glue to put the light back in,
somewhere
to run to or from
to return this emptiness
that soaked through and through,
it clung to me
and it clings to me still
and I wear this new skin
and no-thing can I find in my new wet wilderness,
as if some impermanent yet eminent
final act of contrition,
I cough up more light
and wait for another drowning
watching with a newly found serene calmness
this volitional act of my surrender:
I dance with a bold blue-hued Shiva
into another golden-girded dawn
and the dawn always brings light to the
silent lotus essence
of a God-devouring night.

by Ana
Jan 2007

Ref #62

It is good to know that there is at least one poster here who does not think I am the other guy!

I personally don’t have any answers, and science does not have all the answers, but it does get us to the truth, or the closest approximation of the truth. Also, unfortunately, science may have had something to do with your son, but when they find, and they will, a cure for autism, there is a good chance it will be through the same science that fortunately cured the world of smallpox with immunizations.

That’s a far cry from pretending to know the unknowable!

You are one great guy, sWORDSMAN, otherwise you could not have written this:

“ One could just as well make the case, though, that I'm the lucky one to have him be my cute doorway into a whole new understanding of the world. So let's just chalk it up to leela/maya/that's-just-the-way-it-is, and look forward to the next moment as it unfolds”.

I may post something in regard to the silverware deformation exercise before July 1st, which will be, as always, removed in a hurry.

Parents magazine advisor Dr. Ari Brown recently poo-pooed allegations that vaccines like the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) cause autism. Here's why:

"Q. Does mercury in vaccines cause autism?
A. Thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative, is the main ingredient that gets blamed for autism, but it was removed from vaccines in 2001 and autism rates have continued to rise. Some flu shots still contain thimerosal preservatives, but you can ask your doctor for a thimerosal-free version. The truth is that a baby typically is exposed to 25 times more mercury by breastfeeding for six months -- which the AAP strongly recommends -- than by getting a flu shot. There is five times more mercury in a single tuna sandwich. Methyl mercury, found in fish, takes almost two months to break down and leave the body. Thimerosal, which is ethyl mercury, is rapidly eliminated -- within a week.

Q. Hasn't the MMR vaccine been linked to autism?
A. The MMR vaccine made news in 1998 when a research group claimed, after studying eight autistic patients, that the combination vaccine might cause autism. But in 2004, 10 of the 13 researchers withdrew their claims, and extensive research since then has also refuted this theory. Perhaps the most compelling argument against it is that doctors in Japan stopped using the combination MMR vaccine back in 1993 and started using separate measles, mumps, and rubella shots -- and autism rates there are still climbing."

http://www.parents.com/baby/health/vaccinations/autism-link/

Brown admitted there was a case, in which a patient was awarded a monetary settlement for getting "autism-like symptoms" after immunizations. But this patient appeared to already have a disease, making her more susceptible to the added stress of vaccinations.

What do you think, Intentbloggers? Do Brown's responses give you some peace of mind regarding the use of vaccines for your babies?

As Brown pointed out, as many as 14 million infections and 33,000 deaths have been avoided due to vaccines. So I, personally, am a fan.

I have a feeling that when scientists finally figure out what accounts for the worldwide rise in autism, it's going to be something that we can't even imagine right now. Some big surprise. It's possibly some combo of two or three things (environmental, genetic, chemical), making the hunt even more difficult.

I guess I think this way because a lot of smart and highly trained people are working on this problem, but we can't figure it out.

So there you are, Derek, bracing yourself for river white water whilst I'm all at sea, spewing up indigestibles.... I swallowed a row-boat.

Heath will like this article.

Andrew Miller talks to Joseph O'Neill, who has written one of the most acclaimed novels of recent months(or perhpas years):

'Cricket is my athletic mother tongue'

Joseph O'Neill's cricket-themed novel 'Netherland' has fetched him comparisons to Fitzgerald and Naipaul

Andrew Miller

June 27, 2008

[...]

...A new novel has just emerged that is taking the American literary scene by storm. The New York Times has described it as "the wittiest, angriest, most exacting and most desolate work of fiction we've yet had about life in New York and London after the World Trade Center fell," while the legendary James Wood, arguably the most influential critic of them all, has hailed the work as a post-colonial masterpiece, and happily bracketed the author alongside such luminaries as VS Naipaul, F Scott Fitzgerald and Salman Rushdie. High praise indeed. And cricket, remarkably, is right at the novel's core.

[...]

Read the full artcile:

http://ind.cricinfo.com/magazine/content/current/story/358238.html

***

O'Neill: 'Cricket is a metaphor for the boundaries of American perception. It's an invisible thing that they cannot see or understand'

Link to New York Times' Dwight Garner's review of 'Netherland' referred in the #71

The Ashes
www.nytimes.com/2008/05/18/books/review/Garner-t.html

Garner writes..."On a micro level, it’s about a couple and their young son living in Lower Manhattan when the planes hit, and about the event’s rippling emotional aftermath in their lives. On a macro level, it’s about nearly everything: family, politics, identity. I devoured it in three thirsty gulps, gulps that satisfied a craving I didn’t know I had."

***

Link to the 'legendary' James Wood referred in the Cricinfo article:

Beyond a Boundary
In a masterly new novel, two émigrés find a home in post-9/11 New York.

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2008/05/26/080526crbo_books_wood

Wood writes..."In Joseph O’Neill’s “Netherland,” cricket is at once an immigrant’s imagined community, an emblem of foreignness, and, most poignantly, a dream of America."

All at Sea with a Tsunami, by the way, Irv. I mean with. Yo, Ana.

Freyja: there are many angles to the vaccines-vs-autism issue, so I wouldn't be quick to come to a conclusion. First of all, it's misleading to make it a vaccines-vs-autism debate in the first place. Most of these parents merely want rationalization of the vaccine schedule, and some accomodation for that subset of kids that has a genetic predisposition that makes them vulnerable to the toxins/antigens that vaccines introduce into the body. There are many individual vaccines that are hard to defend, especially chickenpox, and the Hep B vaccine that is given to newborns on their first day outside the womb(!! yes, Hep B, the disease that's spread by sharing infected needles or unsafe sex with infected partners).

And as for Dr Brown's minimization of the case where the government admitted culpability, I'll just let that issue play out. You'll doubtless be reading soon about the cases that followed it and are being heard in vaccine court right now.

For a balanced view of vaccinations, by a generally respected physician, try this book:
"What your Doctor may not tell you about Children's Vaccinations", by Dr. Stephanie Cave.

http://www.amazon.com/What-Doctor-About-Childrens-Vaccinations/dp/0446677078

Global exhaustion
Good news has left the building
Feelings crumble quest

The Old Golden Rule
Leftist plot meddling drama
Reframe advantage

Not to be undone
Cook up or shut up for less
See the riverbend

Here is a challenge.

Name one ethical statement made, or one ethical action performed, by a believer that could not have been uttered or done by a nonbeliever.

Also, can any reader of this column think of a wicked statement made, or an evil action performed, precisely because of religious faith?

The second question is easy to answer, 911 comes to mind rather quickly? And we all know how violent Jews and Christians were in the past and can still be today.

The first – it has been asked for some time -- awaits a convincing reply. By what right, then, do the faithful and the pretenders assume this irritating mantle of righteousness? They have as much to apologize for as to explain.

Paraphrased from a Christopher Hitchens thought.

"mind creates the abyss, the heart crosses it."

'I Am That'

mini, re #69: actually, I think it won't be anything out of the blue. I think it will be merely a result of fallible humans and human tendencies combining in a spectacularly unfortunate way. Think mistakes (both understandable and inexcusable kinds), the urge to cover one's rear end afterwards, the profit motive, our incomplete understanding of the human body, healthcare's focus on covering up symptoms instead of resolving causes, the environmental ramifications of our current way of life, etc.

I am a handful of wet twigs

Scott Tiger's poetic prose:

For a while you'll see me in the tip of that wave, me that little foam, a handful of twigs dancing, you'll know me for that little tongue that the mighty ocean stretches (often timidly sometimes as roaring leviathans assaulting the shores), tasting a few shells on the the warm sand (and refreshing it), rolling little stones and playing with them, polishing pieces of glass for the pleasure of the sun, (who sends enjoyment of greens and blues into them), for a time you'll think, this is an individual person doing so and so; but i don't know how long i will hold that shape, eventually i have to recede, eventually i am called back to the blissful, silent belly of all lives, the dense and mighty steadiness of all matter that never knew any lives, the joy-of-no-need.

Who's Scott?

The Mystery of Scott/Tiger in Oracle...

If you are a software/database guy you must have wondered about the username/password scott/tiger in Oracle...

Oracle guru Tony Jambu published this great Oracle history on the origin of Scott / Tiger:

"In the online Select Star mailing list, the question was asked-Why was Scott’s password ‘tiger’? Nearly every response got it right.

It was Scott’s pet cat called ‘tiger’.

And, who was Scott? His first name was Scott but Bruce. Bruce Scott was employee number #4 at the then Software Development Laboratories that eventually became Oracle. He co-authored and co-architected Oracle V1, V2 & V3.

For those that do not know, Bruce Scott went on to co-found Gupta Technology (now Centura Software) with Umang Gupta in 1984.Where is he today? He’s the CEO and founder Pointbase, Inc."

Ah,Ah

Ah, ah cries the crow arching toward the heavy sky over the marina.
Lands on the crown of the palm tree.

Ah, ah slaps the urgent cove of ocean swimming through the slips.
We carry canoes to the edge of the salt.

Ah, ah groans the crew with the weight, the winds cutting skin.
We calm our seats. Pelicans perch in the draft for fish.

Ah, ah beats our lungs and we are racing into the waves.
Though there are worlds below us and above us, we are straight ahead.

Ah, ah tattoos the engines of your plane against the sky---away from these waters.
Each paddle stroke follows the curve from reach to loss.

Ah, ah calls the sun from a fishing boat with a pale yellow sail. We fly by on our return, over the net of eternity thrown out for stars.

Ah, ah scrapes the hull of my soul. Ah, ah.

...From "How we became Human", Joy Harjo

Here I are Ed, now embracing the white water and heading to sea. A few tumbles here a few tumbles there, I lost boat a long while back. I'm glad you found my little row boat. I'll need it to drift around the ocean.
I love the sun rays in the water.

derek

hey there mate!
Derek,any need for oars for that row boat of yours?
just drifting warm on sunshine today?
that's a nice way to spend a lovely summer afternoon

love,
~ Kate

Ref #74 sWORDSsman

"For a balanced view of vaccinations, by a generally respected physician, try this book:
"What your Doctor may not tell you about Children's Vaccinations", by Dr. Stephanie Cave."

Well, Stephanie Cave published her book in 2002, testified during the 2001 autism-vaccination death case, but so did the Geiers and a bunch of other people who really have little expertise in this debate. Her name is listed here:

http://neurodiversity.com/weblog/article/128/

Her book is not one to read. Some suggested books:

Unstrange Minds by RR Grinker
Not Even Wrong by Paul Collins
No Time for Jello by Berneen Bratt
Vaccine by Arthur Allen
Vaccinated by Paul Offit
Anthropologist on Mars by Oliver Sacks

And a couple of very good fiction books:

Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon (mom of autistic son)
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time by Mark Haddon (former teacher of autistic children)

You would be better off reading the CDC Pink Book on vaccines, and learning how to find original research on the PubMed Index.

But, I did some of the work for you, here is a list of papers and resources (URLs truncated to avoid the spam filter, so just cut and paste):

"Impact of Specific Medical Interventions on Reducing the Prevalence of Mental Retardation ".... archpedi.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/160/3/302

"Economic Evaluation of the 7-Vaccine Routine Childhood Immunization Schedule in the United States, 2001"
archpedi.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/159/12/1136

"Health Consequences of Religious and Philosophical Exemptions From Immunization Laws "
jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/282/1/47

"Nonmedical Exemptions to School Immunization Requirements "
ama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/296/14/1757?

"Acute measles mortality in the United States, 1987-2002."
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15106092?

"Pediatric hospital admissions for measles. Lessons from the 1990 epidemic." pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedid=8855680

There is also a more complete list (several pages worth, there is a link on the bottom of each page for papers between 1999 and 2003) here:
immunize.org/journalarticles/conc_aut.asp
immunize.org/journalarticles/conc_thim.asp

Ref #74 sWORDSsman

"And as for Dr Brown's minimization of the case where the government admitted culpability, I'll just let that issue play out. You'll doubtless be reading soon about the cases that followed it and are being heard in vaccine court right now."

One is the Autism Ominibus case from June 2007. The first day's testimony for the Autism Omnibus has been posted here:

United States Court of Federal Claims -- Office of Special Masters
ftp://autism.uscfc.uscourts.gov/autism/index.html

and Autism Diva has a take:
http://autismdiva.blogspot.com/2007/06/cedillo-v-hss-vaccine-hearing.html

I haven't had a chance to peruse the PDF file of the testimony, but what the Diva reports is plenty damning. Dr. H. Vasken Aposhian's testimony is pretty lame. On the other hand, the emotionalism in this trial still worries me, as does the uncritical press coverage concentrating on the plaintiffs' "feelings" and only mentioning in a single sentence or two, down near the end of the article or report, that--oh, by the way--there is no science to support a link between vaccines and autism and the scientific consensus is that there is no link.

As bad is Dr. Arthur Krigsman, a Wakefield accolyte who also thinks that the MMR vaccine causes autism and "autistic enterocolitis." The Diva nails it:

"Today they have Dr. Krigsman on the stand. He says that Michelle Cedillo got damaged intestines from measles in the MMR vaccines, apparently. He spent a long time describing how he knew that her intestines are damaged (she has ulcers and nodular hyperplasia, inflammatory bowel disease, maybe Crohn's disease). He said when he put her on some prescription drugs to suppress her immune system, she stopped suffering from apparent bowel pain, diarrhea and that her arthritis got better. But if Michelle Cedillo has live measles virus in her gut that are causing the lymphoid hyperplasia, wouldn't it be a really bad idea to suppress her immune system with powerful immune suppressants? Didn't she get the measles in her intestines because the thimerosal in her other vaccination suppressed her immune system?

Does that make sense at all? "

Nope. Immune suppression is usually reserved for diseases with an autoimmune component, like inflammatory bowel diseases. But then no one ever said that the antivax contingent cared much for keeping their own stories straight. Any story will do, as long as it blames vaccines for autism.

Freyja: wow, that's a lot of info; thanks for the links. Homework for me during my vacation next week.

I'm curious to know your perspective on this matter, since you seem fairly interested/invested in the matter. Are you a physician or other healthcare professional, educated layman, related to someone affected by autism, etc?

Let me add, I wouldn't worry about the Special Masters basing their decisions on sympathy. They can be sympathetic and still find it against the claimants. They do it all the time.

Here's a good example -- the Grace case, in which the DTap was claimed to have caused "infantile spasms," a disorder featuring severe developmental delay and seizures.

www.uscfc.uscourts.gov/Opinions/Specmast/Hastings/HASTINGS.GRACE113006.pdf

The mom and grandma in Grace testified that Grace had been a perfectly normal kid until a couple of days after her DTaP vaccination, when she became almost completely nonresponsive. Special Master George Hastings compared what the family members said to the contemporaneous medical records and concluded that the testimony was inaccurate. He didn't believe it. He didn't call them liars, though, but graciously said that "it seems understandable that loving family members, desperate to pinpoint a cause for an awful disorder, may in such circumstances be greatly susceptible to exaggeration or to confusing the timing of events."

Special Master Hastings found against the claimants in Grace, but he was also sympathetic.

"The record of this case demonstrates plainly that Grace {redacted} and her family have been through a tragic and painful ordeal. The entire family is certainly deserving of great sympathy.

Congress, however, designed the Program to compensate only the families of individuals whose injuries or deaths can be linked causally, either by a Table Injury presumption or causation-in-fact evidence, to a listed vaccination. In this case, as described above, no such link has been
demonstrated. Accordingly, I conclude that the petitioner in this case is not entitled to a Program award."

________________________

Joey Nilson's case was even more difficult emotionally. The day after he received his DTP, OPV, and MMR vaccinations, Joey collapsed while at the playground with his grandma. He suffered encephalopathy leading to his death a few days later. The claim was that one of these vaccinations, or the combination of them, caused his encephalopathy and death.

www.uscfc.uscourts.gov/Unpublished%20Decisions/Sweeney.Nilson.pdf

The expert witness on behalf of the Nilsons was Stephanie Cave.

"Dr. Cave's clinical experience and focus on heavy metals, asthma, allergies, and vaccines led her to conclude that the vaccines administered to Joey on October 11, 1996, caused his encephalopathy and death. ... Dr. Cave explained that Joey was an immunocompromised, sickly child with a history of asthma who was on steroids much of the time. ... Despite that history, 'He was given very toxic vaccines. He was given ethylmercury and aluminum and viruses. And the very next day, within 24 hours, without any signs of asthma as he's had many times in the past, the child collapsed.'" Dr. Cave also thought it was significant that Joey received the whole-cell DPT vaccine because it has "10 times the safe level of ethylmercury, which can affect the neurological system and the immune system. It also had aluminum, which is a very toxic metal."

Special Master Sweeney concluded that Dr. Cave's opinion that these "toxic vaccines" caused Joey's death was scientifically unsupported. Instead, the evidence proved that Joey's death was caused by his chronic asthmatic bronchitis, a factor separate from the vaccines. About Dr. Cave, the Special Master said:

"Expert testimony must be "supported by appropriate validation." Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579, 590 (1993). Dr. Cave's expert testimony lacks
appropriate validation and thus falls into the realm of speculation and conjecture. Thus, petitioner's theory of causation rests on "personal opinion, not science." See Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 43 F.3d 1311, 1319 (9th Cir. 1995) (on remand from the U.S. Supreme Court). Regardless of how genuinely a theory is believed by an expert, the passion with which it is believed is no substitute for scientific support. In the absence of reliable medical evidence to advance a theory, petitioner cannot establish a claim by a preponderance of the evidence."

_________________________

It is true that serious injuries and death can occur from vaccines -- that's the reason why the vaccine program exists. I think that many of the cases filed under the vaccine program involve circumstances that are very difficult for the claimants. It doesn't seem to me, though, that the Special Masters overlook the scientific evidence (or lack thereof) in making their decisions.

_______________________

Ref. 87

In the Autism Omnibus 2007 case the emotional opening argument by petitioner's counsel wasn't for the benefit of the Special Masters. It was for the press. It was for the future jury pool for the case that will be filed against the pharmaceutical companies regardless of the outcome of this special proceeding.

By the way, did you know that, in a vaccine program proceeding, the petitioner's lawyers can get paid by the government even if they lose, as long as there was a reasonable basis for the claim? For example, in the Iannuzzi case,

www.uscfc.uscourts.gov/Opinions/Specmast/Hastings/HASTINGS.IANNUZZI032007.pdf

...the law firm of Conway, Homer, and Chin-Caplan -- the same attorneys who represent the Cedillos -- got an award of over $350,000.00 in fees after the Special Master denied compensation to their client on the basis that she failed to demonstrate that her child's autism was actually caused by a vaccination.

I suppose the reason for that is to encourage lawyers to take vaccine cases for people who can't afford their fee, thereby increasing vaccine claimants' access to the courts.

Ahoy there dear Kate
I think Ed kept the oars as toothpicks. So drifting along the surface and gazing into the rays as the disappear in the depths will do for now. Maybe some swimming later, I brought my fins.

peace and love

derek

Re. 88

I've got a few friends (five to be exact) who have studied clinical child developmental psychology, received their degrees and now work with autistic children. We've discussed the vaccine issue. And I personally know a few autistic parents who share similar views, and a few who don't.

(An interesting point to note -- not that it applies directly to autism cases across the world -- is that till the 1960 or even till 70s and 80s, in India, there were virtually zero clinical depression cases -- many researchers postulated that clinical depression(a well known illness in the west) doesn't exist in India; several ascribed it to the deep spiritual culture of the land, as against the stress in western world, or genetic factors or something -- but studies later found that depression cases were at par with the rest of the world only that they were rarely diagnosed ...due to the nature of Indian languages and their vocabulary, which limited the patient from expressing himself with the proper tools to give away symptoms of depression in his/her social circle and in standard tests. I believe the autism rates in India are low compared to the world rates, due to similar cultural and health care factors.)

Now if I were to belong to 'Age of Autism', 'Indigo Moms' or 'Turn Vaccines Green' etc crowd my perspectives would be completely different.

What's needed is better treatment of those with autism, as my friends in their very noble field have shown, that it just takes work and time.

it's a clear, blue sunny day at the beach! out in the distance the white top of the rolling waves seem small but grow larger as they wash ashore!

out in the warm waters are a few tethered rowboats, bobbing about aimlessly as the waves come in.

there's a brave, intoxicated man wandering out in the waters, frolicking....from the vantage point of the shoreline, he seems to be imitating dolphins, oblivious to the outside world at large!

just then... a female jumped into the waters and swam up to him... he seemed totally mesmerized and confused, but amorous and hopeful... they introduced themselvess...then locked in warm embrace...as they offered their real identities...what?

the man's name is revealed as doodleboy and the woman's kate! damn!

sWORDSman, thank you.
__________

Ref. 86 first URL...

http://neurodiversity.com

You will also find lots of resources on that website, since the owner is a super librarian!

Derek and sWORDSMAN, please try to understand the following:

An anecdote is not the same as data, and a coincidence is not the same as causation. The scientific method is not just one possible way of stating an opinion, but rather the best and most reliable method we have found, in hundreds of years of trying, for explaining how the world works. It is the method for arriving at the truth, or its closest approximation.

That is the honest and uncompromising desire any curious mind has, a desire to find out how the world works, starting by finding out what is true.

the tree does not know
how many read his words that
take root in our hearts

Freyja: all the info and background is much appreciated. It's always refreshing (to me) to encounter a person who can hold & defend a position strongly yet recognize the validity of others' perspectives.

WorldGame: I have no problems with you believing that the scientific method is the most superior one for investigation. I myself have a masters degree in engineering, use rigorous evidence-based methods daily to earn my living, and am usually accused by family and friends of being too logical or not emotional enough. I used to be very disdainful of people and methods that didn't rely on hard evidence, and have damaged many relationships when in that mode. But now, with more years (and less hair), I am learning that life is happening while I argue about what's Right. As Derek has pointed out, such arguments have gone on for centuries and millenia, and the world is no closer to agreement now. In fact, the righteousness around the issues obscures the more immediate need of the hour, which is understanding, and connection, and love. You have asked before - isn't finding the truth important ? I would say it isn't as important as loving your fellow man and treating him (and his views) with respect. Which is not the same as saying "let's agree to disagree", if it's merely a cover-up for saying "I think you're Wrong, and I don't want to work on understanding your viewpoint any more".

You posted that Hitchens point about righteous people of faith. Well, righteousness isn't the province of religion; it can be found in all fields involving humans, like science. And disdain and scorn are the first steps down the same slippery slope that leads to killing your enemies and bombing whole countries.

Welcome insiders brain machines
I hope you took time to relax and deeply meditate with birds and songs

Everybody is in
Mi-close the 5-doors
Take a big and slow breath

Are you ready for a shower?
The saucers are running
Let's the cells-brain being changed-crystal

Let it go, in the flow
Now throw me your garbages
Let it go in the round round...

Freyja: if you haven't checked it out yet, you and your friends in child developmental psychology may be interested in the Son-Rise Program:
www.autismtreatmentcenter.org

Ruth: not sure if I mentioned this to you earlier, but the autistic kid that was the subject of the original Son-Rise Program, is now the CEO of the Kaufmans' Option Institute. He (and the Institute) are doing some webinars these days that are fabulous. I especially liked the one on "Strength Without Anger":

http://www.option.org/video/index.php?video=Webinar20080507a.flv

The fish doesn't know
How many of us miss the waters
of life forgotten

In what is no doubt yet another amazing coincidence to those who don't accept evolutionary biology -- or those who argue about "missing links," to cast doubts and support mainstream Intelligent Design, or some version of it -- a fish with four, well formed leg-like paddles turns up in the fossil record:

"The aquatic creature, which lived during the late Devonian period about 365 million years ago, represented an evolutionary midpoint between Tiktaalik, one of the earliest fish to clamber onto land, and primitive four-legged land animals, or tetrapods."

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/06/080625-tetrapods.html

And would you believe the new critter, Ventastega curonica, was found at exactly the right time in paleohistory, and with the exact suite of anatomical characteristics to make it cleverly appear like a snapshot of major evolution in action literally cast in stone? I wonder, what the hell do these damn evil evoluushunists know about so-called "walking" fish anyway ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0puoduvfBxA

"Ignorance is no longer an excuse."

We are having some problems right now
Please take back your sit
Inside evening fresh air and stars
Please relax

We are crossing some turbulence
Please people keep your mind sharp
Sit inside the actual-present scenery

Yes, they are coming as usual
Shakers of bi-duality
Don't react on this flight or for sure we will crash
Keep constancy
In a few minute it will be over
Avoid to think about THAT...

Congratulation for our 100th post and lively discussion this week.

"One of the illusions of life is that the present hour is not the critical, decisive hour. Write it on your heart that every day is the best day of the year " ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Enjoy your Open Thread, as if it is new.

Just one mention of the counter culture hero George Carlin -- in the last OT -- by Keith.

So here we go.

Carlin:

The very existence of flame-throwers proves that some time, somewhere, someone said to themselves, Y'know, I want to set those people over there on fire but I'm just not close enough to get the job done.
.
Viruses, mold, mildew, maggots, fungus, weeds, the e-coli bacteria, the crabs...nothing sacred about those things. So, at best, the sanctity of life is kind of a selective thing. We get to choose which forms of life we feel are sacred, and we get to kill the rest. Pretty neat deal, huh? You know how we got it? We made the whole fucking thing up!
.
Human beings are kind of interesting from birth until they reach the age of a year and a half. Then they are boring until they reach fifty. By that time they're either completely defeated and fucked up, which makes them interesting again, or they've learned how to beat the game, and that makes them interesting too.
.
If crime fighters fight crime and firefighters fight fire, what do freedom fighters fight? They never mention that part to us, do they?
.
I distinguish between maniacs and crazy people. A maniac will beat nine people to death with a steel dildo. A crazy person will beat nine people to death with a steel dildo, but he'll be wearing a Bugs Bunny suit at the time.
.
If God had intended us not to masturbate he would've made our arms shorter.
.
Some see the glass as half-empty, some see the glass as half-full. I see the glass as too big.
.
If you love someone, set them free; if they come home, set them on fire.
.
We're all fucked. It helps to remember that.
.
One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor.
.
Frisbeetarianism is the belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck.

Who is this Ralph?
Who is talking?

We are balancing left-down
What is this illusion-record?
What is THAT?

But sir, it was written on hearts
It should balance everything, don't you think?

Forget any writings
Forget anybody!
It's an advice!

(Me I like what is saying Indy... it helps me to relax a bit more)...

Ref #96

“I have no problems with you believing that the scientific method is the most superior one for investigation”.

But sWORDSMAN, one does not believe in the scientific method, one applies the scientific method to find the truth, or the closest approximation of it. There is no belief present here at all.

“Such arguments (that science is the best method to find the truth) have gone on for centuries and millennia, and the world is no closer to agreement now”.

Maybe not enough people take time and give science an honest chance to find the truth, so we end up in a vicious circle killing each other because of a lack of understanding of the real world?

“In fact, the righteousness around the issues obscures the more immediate need of the hour, which is understanding, and connection, and love”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4Wonbqh6Tw

No argument with that, but does understanding include understanding the scientific method? And does righteousness around the issues include the issues around faith and religion? Why should believe without evidence be a virtue (a particular moral excellence)?

“It is a great tragedy that science, this wonderful process for finding out what is true, has ceded (relinquished control over) the spiritual uplift of its central revelations: the vastness of the universe, the immensity of time, the relatedness of all life, and life's preciousness on our tiny planet.”
Ann Druyan

Congratulation everyone!
We have been able to pass Master-Bath passions ;.)

Now looking up you'll see
Black-wolf sky

M'ma!! look down, I see two little rabbits
Look there I see two pink pigs sleeping together!

Girl, stop sucking lolli-thoughts so hard
Cause one love-day
Easy sugar-desire will put you down

Please listen what's mama saying
As we are passing through fancy-imagination
Don't fight
Let them melt and go away...

Mr Welsh, would you want to give these guys a hand?

“If you are familiar with adding to Wikis and are willing to donate a few hours over the next few weeks to the launch of the Reason Project website, we would be enormously grateful for your help (some knowledge of HTML would also be useful)”.

http://freeinquiryforum.com/2008/06/27/the-scripture-project-volunteer-editors-needed/

Swordsman: "Well, righteousness isn't the province of religion; it can be found in all fields involving humans, like science."

Sure, like Hitler used it a tool to mass murder. And those too who peddle snake oil.

There is a difference between science and psuedo-science. Non-evidence based medicine and evidence based medicine. Yes, the religious fundies share a common line with the New Age woo believers. There in lies the self-righteousness of people who deny scientific consensus on such issues as Global Warming, and vaccinations.

Having science degrees and doing original research and having rational though on many issues doesn't guarantee you that you are equally skeptical in all issues, or that your beliefs are more enlightened now that you passed through a certain phase in your life. There is always a next phase, or not; depends on how conditioned you become in the trait of human gullibility, but there's always hope.

Yes, the health care system is flawed, the laws may be flawed, but you wouldn't blame science or the scientific method -- which tries to constantly improve and self-correct itself -- for it.

CARL SAGAN: I think science is an incomplete and inadequate instrument for finding out about the world. But it's by far the best tool we have....

Swordsman: "“ One could just as well make the case, though, that I'm the lucky one to have him be my cute doorway into a whole new understanding of the world. So let's just chalk it up to leela/maya/that's-just-the-way-it-is, and look forward to the next moment as it unfolds”."

I hope -- like Jenny McCarthy's views of her son -- SMan doesn't believe in Crystal/Indigo Child or some such nonsense.

Since its weekended on the OT, its time for an excursion into camp woo, and one area of woo that apparently formed McCarthy's views of science.

Her idiocy, her arrogance of ignorance, and her antivaccination lunacy, not to mention her utter ignorance of science is fodder for fun. She richly deserves it. Indeed such reactions are actually mild in comparison to the sheer lunacy that she regularly spews and the threat to public health her ignorant antivaccinationist activism represents.

You see, before she discovered antivaccinationism last year, there was a gentler Jenny, a less angry Jenny, a Jenny who was into gentle, New Age woo, rather than into toxic, ranting antivaccinationism in which she followed a vision of a greater world, where special children with special powers would bring about a golden age. Wait, you say. What are you talking about? Surely you remember Indigo Children, don't you? You don't? Well, perhaps you should. After all, if you do, you might come to realize, as I have, that perhaps we should all be nice to Jenny. After all, she means well, and she is a special woman. She has a special son, a son who is a "crystal child."

Of course if you go looking for Jenny McCarthy's IndigoMoms.com website, you won't find it. It disappeared around July 3, 2007 as demonstrated by The Wayback Machine.

web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.indigomoms.com

After all, that was about the time that Jenny McCarthy's autism woo book was about to be released, and it just wouldn't do to have a website up that shows just what a flake Jenny was. Oh, no, she was about to be reborn as the "warrior mom" and crusader for "safe vaccines." However, also due to the glory of the Wayback Machine, you can still see a lot of it in teh archives, which was last updated on November 12, 2006. It begins thusly:

"The mission of Indigo Moms is to create a community where moms can meet to have fun, share stories, make new friends, join a support group, and hopefully learn and laugh on this adventure called life.

Your host is Jenny McCarthy. Jenny has a 4-year-old son, Evan, who is a Crystal child. Being blessed with Evan led Jenny to have the inspiring vision to create this meeting place."

But what is the whole "Indigo Child" phenomenon? Apparently this:

"The term "Indigo Child" originated from Nancy Ann Tappe, who classified people's personalities according to the hue of their auras. According to Tappe, Indigos are extremely bright, precocious children with an amazing memory and a strong desire to live instinctively. These children of the next millennium are sensitive, gifted souls with an evolved consciousness who have come here to help change the vibrations of our lives and create one land, one globe and one species. They are our bridge to the future (Understanding Your Life Through Color, 1982)."

Just to give you a flavor of what was on the old, defunct website, I'll also point out that there are articles there on Generational Healing with the Indigo Children, a column by an "angel therapist" (why do angels need therapy, I wonder?), among lots of other serious, serious woo. Indeed, this phenomenon even made it to the pages of the New York Times a couple of years ago.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/12/fashion/thursdaystyles/12INDIGO.html

Because Jenny's old website is only partially archived, I decided I wanted to really know what the whole "indigo" thing was about. Fortunately, I found the Indigo site to end all Indigo sites, the woo site to end all woo sites. Welcome to Generation Indigo (www.generationindigo.com):

"The term indigo generation is somewhat of a blanket term that refers to the increased amount of the color indigo present in new babies Auras. Around 30 years ago some babies were exhibiting this phenomena and the number has steadily increased until now where every new baby is an Indigo. Although all indigo babies have this increased amount of indigo in their auras they can vary widely in other ways. The majority of Indigo's are simply reincarnations of the same group of beings who have always made up the human race. For instance you may be 35 years old and you are not classified as being an Indigo and you may give birth to a child who is an Indigo. The being incarnating as this child could be someone who you had been with in another life who was at that time not an indigo but just a normal incarnation just like you are now. If you were to die tomorrow and reincarnate next week you would then be an Indigo. It is not that the Indigo's are different beings but simply that they are incarnating some energies which were not being incarnated in normal people 30 years ago or more.

This being said it is also true that some indigo children are incarnating more than an increased amount of Indigo energy or light and that they may actually be incarnating parts of other beings along with themselves. Another possibility is that they are in fact a being who has not incarnated on earth before and who may have had incarnations on other planets. Another possibility is that a being who is a part of the human race, who has had many incarnations on earth may have had a recent incarnation on another planet and may now incarnate on Earth again with a very strong connection to this other planet or group of beings. In this way energies and consciousness from other areas and beings throughout the universe are being grounded on earth now."

Yes! This is some seriously, rip-roaringly good woo! It has it all: auras, past lives and reincarnation, beings from another planet, and "energies" and "consciousness" from other beings throughout the universe! What more do you want from good woo?

But the key aspect of Indigo Children is apparently--what else?--Indigo Energy:

"Basically what is described as Indigo energy is a certain frequency of light which is a part of everyone's lightbody but which has been previously left behind during incarnation. As we are all vast beings of consciousness we all have much more to us than meets the eye during earthly life. In the past only mystics, monks and spiritual seekers succeeded in incarnating their indigo energy after a tremendous effort. Now all babies naturally incarnate this part of themselves and for spiritual seekers it is infinitely easier to do so."

http://www.generationindigo.com/#Indigo_Energy

Damn! I wish I was born into Generation Indigo. Well, apparently the Indigo Children didn't start showing up until the year 2000. But of course! Of course they had to appear around the turn of the millennium! When else? But reading all this I was a bit confused. I saw mentions of "Indigo" Children and "Crystal" Children, but I didn't know the difference. Actually, my reaction was more like, "What the hell are they talking about?" Did not knowing what a certain woo was ever stop me? Of course not! I dug deeper and found something valuable:

"The Indigo Children have been incarnating on the Earth for the last 100 years. The early Indigos were pioneers and wayshowers. After World War II, a significant number were born, and these are the Indigo adults of today. However, in the 1970s a major wave of Indigos was born, and so we have a whole generation of Indigos who are now in their late twenties and early thirties who are about to take their place as leaders in the world. Indigos continued to born up to about 2000, with increasing abilities and degrees of technological and creative sophistication.

The Crystal Children began to appear on the planet from about 2000, although some date them slightly earlier. These are extremely powerful children, whose main purpose is to take us to the next level in our evolution, and reveal to us our inner power and divinity. They function as a group consciousness rather than as individuals, and they live by the" Law of One" or Unity Consciousness. They are a powerful force for love and peace on the planet.

The Indigo and Crystal Adults are composed of two groups. Firstly, there are those who were born as Indigos and are now making the transition to Crystal. This means they undergo a spiritual and physical transformation that awakens their "Christ" or "Crystal" consciousness and links them with the Crystal children as part of the evolutionary wave of change. The second group is those who were born without these qualities, but have aquired or are in the process of aquiring them through their own hard work and the diligent following of a spiritual path. Yes, this means that all of us have the potential to be part of the emerging group of "human angels"."

It figures. I had it wrong. It was the Crystal Children that started showing up around 2000. I suppose I could be an Indigo Adult who is now making the transition to Crystal.

Of course, if I were an Indigo, I wonder what sort of Indigo I'd be. Supposedly there are four types:

http://www.generationindigo.com/#Types_Of_Indigo%92s

"1. Normal Indigo's: A normal Indigo is a recent incarnation of a normal person who has been incarnating on Earth for some time. The only difference between this incarnation and the ones of the past 10,000 years is that this time they are incarnating more of their Indigo energy. These people are typically full of samskara's just like everyone else and have a lot of work to do on clearing their astral body. (Hmmm. I probably do have a lot of work to do to clear my astral body.)

2. Dual Indigo's: There is another type of Indigo who has along with their own light body agreed to incarnate some forces of consciousness from another being. This is always done in agreement and the two beings usually have a relationship already. The main incarnating being will be a member of the human race just like the normal Indigo's who have many samskara's and who has lived many lives on earth. They have likely done spiritual work in past lives which has brought them to a level where they can safely help another being to incarnate with them. Indeed they may have been preparing for this incarnation for quite some time and will have become close to the other being. (Wow! Too beings in one brain! Wasn't there a Star Trek episode about that? Come to think of it there were more than one. I had no idea that these episodes were apparently documentaries.)

3. Extra Terrestrial's: Another possibility is that a being who has been incarnating on other planets and in other dimensions may incarnate on Earth. They are not a part of the human reincarnational cycle and although they may have incarnated here at some point in the past they can still be seen as Extra Terrestrials. Their make up is different to ours and they will not have the same type of samskara's as normal humans. There are a huge number of Extra Terrestrial races in our universe and they differ very widely. For this reason it is hard to describe what an extra terrestrial might be like. They could be extremely intelligent such as mathematical geniuses, they could be musical geniuses or extremely psychic. They will nearly always have an extreme talent which sets them apart from normal people and their heart may seem to be incorruptible. Just their energy alone will be different enough that people will notice that they are somehow different. If you meet one of these beings you get a feeling that they are different even if they look totally normal. If you are one of these beings you probably already know because they have such a strong connection with their home planet and the race of beings they belong to. They usually remember where they come from at a very early age and know that they are different. As they don't have the same sort of samskaras as normal humans their consciousness remains very clear even after going through childhood. (So that explains it. I'm E.T.!)

4. Recent Off Planet Incarnates: Another group of Indigo's are those who are a part of the human race but who have had recent incarnations on other planets. Like the Extra Terrestrials these beings have a strong connection to the planet that they were on, they help to ground these new forces and hold a channel for these other races to see what is happening here. This has been used as a method instead of ET's actually coming here because this can be very hard for them. It is much easier for a human to go to other planets because the energy there is so clear. Many of them have little or no negativity at all so it is extremely hard for ET's to incarnate here because they lack the defenses against our extreme negativity. Only the most adventurous of Extra Terrestrials have volunteered to come here. (I'm guessing my attitude towards the whole Indigo concept is part of that "extreme negativity" that these incarnates don't like.)"

One of the best parts of the whole Indigo thing are the testimonials. (It's woo; there must be testimonials. You know that.) For example, meet Jeff:

http://www.generationindigo.com/#Indigos_Stories

"One night when I was 21 years old as I was falling asleep I suddenly became paralyzed. I became frightened as I tried with all of my might to move but could not. Then suddenly I heard a loud wooshing sound like wind was blowing in my ears and suddenly felt myself being pulled out of my body, out the top of my head. After being pulled out I felt like someone was holding me as it pulled me way up into space. As we flew at tremendous speed though space I saw space ships that seemed to be conscious. There were many of them and they were maybe twice the size of our cars. They were being flown by people but the actual ships themselves seemed to be alive.

[...]

After this night I started to remember being on the ship before and knowing the people on it. I remembered being treated as very special and being taught what they knew about healing. It was in a higher dimension than here on Earth and I remember how happy and care free I was while I was there. I remember being loved there like I have never felt before and they all seemed to look up to me as though I was soooo special. It was because these people knew where I had come from and knew that I was going back there, to Earth. They knew how hard it was to be here and none of them would ever do what we do. They would never incarnate here on Earth... I lived there only until the age of 16 and I loved that girl so much. I was forced to leave her as I was to incarnate on earth again. They told me that they would be with me always and that they would send their love and energy to me. They said they could watch me on earth and that they would come to see me to remind me of them."

Yep, nothing like a little alien abduction to round out the complete Circle of Woo.

So there you have it, the Indigo and Crystal Child movement. Supposedly it's to be the next stage in human evolution, and before she discovered vaccines Jenny McCarthy was into Indigo woo in a big way.

Indeed, she went so far as to sell something called a Quantum Prayer Wheel while citing Deepak Chopra!

web.archive.org/web/20061019001439/http://indigomoms.com/serv_prayer.html

Heck, she even cited Dr. William Nelson, creator of one of the best bits of woo. But the best thing of all, the most hilarious thing of all is this: Jenny McCarthy charged $360 a year for a subscription to the Quantum Prayer Wheel, and this is where the proceeds were to go:

" A portion of the Quantum Prayer Wheel proceeds will be donated to Jenny McCarthy's fund for building schools for Indigo and Crystal children."

web.archive.org/web/20061019001439/http://indigomoms.com/serv_prayer.html

Gee, I wonder where the money went from Jenny McCarthy's Quantum Prayer Wheel. On the other hand, this has perhaps the best(most entertaining) disclaimer I've ever read:

"The Quantum Prayer Wheel is not a Medical Treatment.

This program does not provide subscribers with any form of Therapy, Counseling, Medical Treatment or Diagnosis. If you think you have a medical condition, please see your doctor.

The QPW is a spiritual technology using advanced mathematics, fractals and prayers."

web.archive.org/web/20061019002254/indigomoms.com/disclaimer3.html

Of course it does, and of course it's not a "Medical Treatment." (The capitalization was a nice touch!)

One final note. Given her involvement in the Indigo movement, I can't understand McCarthy's hatred of vaccines. Remember, one of the tenets of the Indigo movement is that ADHD and the milder forms of autism, like Asperger's syndrome, are in reality manifestations of Crystal children. I think you can see where I'm going with this. If Jenny McCarthy really, really thinks that vaccines cause autism, ADHD, and other neurodevelopmental disorders, she should be happy.

In Jenny McCarthy's fantasy world, vaccines are creating Crystal children. What's not for her to like?

To The World Game,

You have asked the question;

“Why do some people need evidence and critical thinking as a basis for the application of logical thought, while others are able to believe the strangest things without evidence?”

I think the problem you may be having in reconciling these two different kinds of people is in your’s and their definition of evidence.

I think you may have a somewhat rigid view of what constitutes evidence. Webster says it means “Grounds for belief; that which tends to prove or disproves something; proof; plainly visible; show clearly; manifest.

When someone is thrown off a motorcycle (as I was) at 90 miles per hour in rush hour traffic and experiences levitation and other seemly impossible movements to the right and left that avoided collisions, eventually winding up on the side of the road uninjured, their belief in the known laws of Physics suddenly becomes suspect by this new and plainly visible evidence.

When wounds that ordinarily take weeks and months to heal disappear overnight, and serious illnesses are cured instantly without conventional medicines this becomes proof for the evidence of other forces at work, that aren’t in the science books yet.

When a young child starts talking about another life she had as the wife of a certain man whom she names and eventually talks her parents into going to find in another city. When they arrive there and actually find the street she has talked about, and the man he then relates to them that his wife died almost exactly the same time their daughter was born. With proof like this one cannot help but acknowledge the probability of reincarnation.

The fact that you haven’t experienced any events like these, shouldn’t keep you from having an open mind to their reality and existence, anymore than the fact that you weren’t on the Apollo mission should keep you from believing that someone really has been to the Moon.

Kind Regards
Stan

Stan:

"When a young child starts talking about another life she had as the wife of a certain man whom she names and eventually talks her parents into going to find in another city. When they arrive there and actually find the street she has talked about, and the man he then relates to them that his wife died almost exactly the same time their daughter was born. With proof like this one cannot help but acknowledge the probability of reincarnation."

yeah, the probability.

And most of the time these stories used to happen in India. And mostly North India. And more frequently in village in the state o Uttar Pradesh.

And mostly, the child in question belongs to a poor family, and the one the story claims to be the reincarnation is a rich guy. And mostly, the rich family adopts the child. Yeah, they are convinced by the facts told by the child. And some rare cases the birth marks coincide with the accident marks of a dead man.

It is not a 'proof', moron. These are stories strongly driven by cultural factors and by possible parent induced false memories either consciously or unconsciously.

"The fact that you haven’t experienced any events like these, shouldn’t keep you from having an open mind to their reality and existence, anymore than the fact that you weren’t on the Apollo mission should keep you from believing that someone really has been to the Moon."

Cut that bullshit. That's a ridiculous analogy. personal experince is no guarantee of truth. there are many who claim(and strongly believe) to have been kidnapped by aliens. The fact that you believe in anything either with your own experience or believing in others' subjective experiences means that you are liable to believe all sorts of bullshit. But you don't, you believe what you want to believe. These are the areas where science becomes important. There were some After Life scientific studies which 'supported' the reincarnation hypothesis. But the consensus is that the study is flawed. And after many years of major search there is no further scientific evidence to support this theory.

And Stan's ridiculous notion of "proof":

A year ago and a week ago, responding to a story at IB, about a child prodigy named Akiane(who appeared on Oprah) who claims to hear and see visions from God and Jesus who directed her to paint Jesus and Biblical themes, he says:

"All the atheists that Blog here should have a look at the story of this child. What more proof would they need of the reality of God?"

I mean, "a week over a year ago." #111

***

Here's the link to Ian Stevenson of Virginia Univ. and his reincarnation studies of over 2,000 cases world wide from 1980's which have become a fodder for reincarnation proponents.

http://skepdic.com/stevenson.html

Great artcile, and stories of reincarnation cases...enjoy.

Closing words:

What possesses a man of Stevenson's intelligence to chase after chimeras and produce thousands of pages of detailed reports that amount to a heap of rationalizations?

As Michael Shermer succinctly put it:

"Smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for non-smart reasons."

Stevenson spent about half his life trying to find support for his beliefs in reincarnation and their relationship to medicine. The beliefs came first. The intelligence was applied to confirming the beliefs. I don't think he is unique in this regard. Those of us who are skeptical of Stevenson's work might like to think that we are exercising more critical judgment on these investigations than he did because we have chosen to be disinterested and objective in our research and he chose to be biased. Any of us could have ended up as Stevenson did, however, had we his intelligence and had we not been led down a different path by many accidents over which we had no control. I can only speculate what other path Stevenson might have traveled had the American Society for Psychical Research rejected his essay in 1958 when he entered a competition for work on survival of personality after death (Wilson 1982: 2). If, instead of awarding him first prize for his entry based on the work others had done collecting stories of past life experiences, the Society had told him that this line of inquiry was a colossal waste of time and that he was foolish for even considering these stories credible evidence for life after death, would he have been inspired to spend the rest of his life tracking down such stories?

Few critics will be willing to spend much time poring over his detailed anecdotes and tedious reports. (One journalist, Tom Shroder of the Washington Post, spent a year following Stevenson around, assisting him in his investigations, and came back to write a book about it and how it made him a believer. Old Souls is an interesting read but the author is not very critical in his observations. He takes a lot at face value and seems not to understand the dangers of confirmation bias. Mary Roach went on location with one of Stevenson's fellow PLE story collectors and came back asking: "is he investigating reincarnation, or merely hunting for evidence in its favor? How can he remain unbiased?" (2005: p. 48).)

Those who want to believe in survival of a personality after death will likely ignore the weaknesses in Stevenson's methods and praise him for his meticulousness, his devotion to detail, his zeal to get every claim verified or disproved. For my part, I have to agree with Stevenson's own assessment of his work: he's provided evidence, but no compelling evidence for reincarnation. I see no way to move forward using his methods or his data, so I see his work as a colossal waste of time. On the positive side, however, I agree with him that past life regressive therapy, which uses hypnosis, is rife with methodological problems, not the least of which is the problem with suggestion contaminating any evidence that might be uncovered for a past life. Hence, past life regression cannot provide good evidence for reincarnation. Neither can collecting more stories from children who claim to have lived previous lives unless better methods of documentation, questioning witnesses and alleged experients, and verifying claims are developed.

hello everyone,

just came across this line, "It is not a 'proof', moron."....re #110

The author of this lovely comment is my "proof" that there is a potential "Mugabe" persona in all of us....

It is not enough for the author, our multiple id-er, who usually writes love letter comments to itself, most always attacks someone who differs in opinion with him/her id-er.....by calling them a "moron"....their fave word...

so to save us all from a, "potential Mugabe persona attack," in the future, let it be known that if your opinion differs from the author of #110 he/she/it considers that cause to call you a moron because...well....because....the id-er is emotionally mature, beyond measure :)))))and handles differences so well.

oh, I feel a moron attack coming my way.....better duck, duck, goose.....you're it!!

happy Sat..everyone, ruth....

Stan is at it again? It doesn't take much to threaten his closely held beliefs. It doesn't take too long to spew his self-righteousness, intolerance and stupidity.

Why do you think eye-witness accounts are deemed unreliable in the court of law? Even though the witness has no relation to the victim or the defender, has no reason to lie and strongly believes in his/her testimony?

For all we know it cold be some sort of hidden social agenda conspiracy by people using science to reduce the number of criminals in the prisons.

You don't have to "believe" science which provides proof that eye witness accounts are unreliable. Because there are some places, like Saudi Arabia, where you will be beheaded based on such testimonies. You got great company, bigot.

oh I see the IW is bringing out his John persona to back him up....who will be next....Chris, etc?

hmmmmmm.

Indy wrote"...one of the tenets of the Indigo movement is that ADHD and the milder forms of autism, like Asperger's syndrome, are in reality manifestations of Crystal children."

You should see the colors of the aura of a child in the midst of a seizure. It's like looking at a disco ball through a kaleidoscope while on LSD. Truly a beautiful thing to see (assuming you have the gift.)

On another note, I feel so sorry for her child. First he was touted as Special, an angelic being who will help lead the human race into a higher plane-- and now she's holding him up as a child who is "broken." I find this nothing less than tragic.

If she realized that the Indigo children movement is bunk (probably mainly from the evidence where her child isn't behaving as expected), then there may be hope for her yet. Although even if that happens, she might just be jumping to some other crackpot theory.

Ah yes indeed, how interesting is it to note that all of those evil vaccine toxins are apparently the catalyst for conversion to a higher form of being.

I have a feeling that we will hear more about this from Jenny, I guess she hasn't abandoned it altogether after all.

So let's get this straight..... "Indigos are extremely bright, precocious children with an amazing memory" #108

Jenny McCarthy has a Crystal Indigo child.

Now , I do seem to recall reading somewhere (I forget exactly, just at the moment) that Jenny's child was also vaccinated, presumably just before his gifts would have become apparent.

Does this not imply an obvious causal association? Surely this is irrefutable evidence that vaccine "damage" results in extremely bright, precocious children with an amazing memory? Shouldn't someone tell the antivaxers before its too late, and they end up with a bunch of unvaccinated, dumb offspring?

Hi ruth!

"I have a feeling that we will hear more about this from Jenny, I guess she hasn't abandoned it altogether after all."

You are right, John.

Jenny McCarthy has announced that her next book is an Indigo book and her website will be back. Follow the links in the post and comments here at to hear her being interviewed and going on about it.

http://stopthinkautism.blogspot.com/2008/06/today-autism-recovery-tomorrow-crystals.html

"A portion of the Quantum Prayer Wheel proceeds will be donated to Jenny McCarthy's fund for building schools for Indigo and Crystal children." quoted by Indy

That's really bad, that these children are brought up to believe this--it brings to mind the kids from evangelical parents, raised as preachers, or the new messiah, or whatever nonsense they're up to now.

Right... Indigo . . . a good article on this can be found here:

http://www.skepticreport.com/newage/indigoblues.htm

I first heard of this bunk when a local TV morning chat show that masqueraded as news broadcast a segment on it in Houston.

When I stopped laughing I went to the web to look into this and found that excellent article above.

Jenny recently said she's still an Indigo as per Chris's link in #118 ....Jenny says her next book is "an indigo book." She's still a "lightworker." On Oprah, Jenny was talking about "visioning" things to make them come true and about how she prayed to the archangel Michael to get a man. That's how she got Jim Carey. The angel therapist from her indigomoms.com site claimed to have some kind of special connection to the archangel Michael.

I expect Jenny will milk the antivaccine-autism angle as far as she can and then go back to being out of the closet Indigo, selling quantum prayer wheels and gemstone necklaces to balance out your crystal child's qi.

JB Handley and the rest of the troops from generationindigorescue.org must be indigos, too, otherwise would they be enlightened enough to follow the queen of woo, Jenny McCrystal?

TWG, #106, thanks for the heads-up on the Wiki project. I shall check it out. Certainly a worthy endeavor.

I guess, people like Stan, and the gullible find the Jeff's testimony quoted by Indy in #108 as a 'proof' of "things you probably should believe although you haven't expreinced 'em".

http://www.generationindigo.com/#Indigos_Stories

The whole post is an excellent excellent read indeed, Indy. Thanks.

"Then suddenly I heard a loud wooshing sound like wind was blowing in my ears and suddenly felt myself being pulled out of my body, out the top of my head."

That sounds like a Hypnagogic hallucination.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnagogia

It's probably not that unusual.

That and partial seizures from Temporal Lobe Epilepsy.

That's all so-called "out of body" experiences are, most likely.

a little Nisargadatta before I start my chores for the day....

"When you realize that all is in your mind and that you are beyond the mind, that you are truly alone, then all is you. (457)

Where there is a universe, there will also be its counterpart, which is God. But I am beyond both. (264)

Even faith in God is only a stage on the way. Ultimately, you abandon all, for you come to something so simple that there are no words to express it. (469-70)

Consciousness and life - both you may call God; but you are beyond both, beyond God, beyond being and not-being. (475)

You cannot know the knower, for you are the knower. The fact of knowing proves the knower. You need no other proof. The knower of the
known is not knowable. Just like the light is known in colours only, so is the knower known in knowledge. (360)

Before you can say "I am", you must be there to say it. Being need not be self-conscious. You need not know to be, but you must be to know. (452)

You need not know what you are. Enough to know what you are not. What you are you will never know, for every discovery reveals new
dimensions to conquer. The unknown has no limits. (372)

Do understand that you cannot ask a valid question about yourself, because you do not know whom you are asking about. (452)

The known is accidental, the unknown is the home of the real. To live in the known is bondage, to live in the unknown is liberation. (446)"

later......ruth

The Insanity of the Sane

One of the symptoms of insanity is to be fixated on one idea. If I'm fixated on the idea that people are out to get me, I'd view everyone, and their actions through that distorting prism, and I'd be labeled a paranoid. If my fixed idea is that I am Jesus Christ, everyone would think I'm nuts, but if I just think that I'm Irvine, everyone would think that I'm fine.

Well, is really thinking that I'm Irvine that different from thinking that I'm Jesus? Are they not both fixed ideas through which I view everything? To be fixed on any identity distorts and colors the new with the past. It's a life sentence to repeat, to never experience life afresh. It's to be a little paranoid, to think people talk about you, if they object to things you do. Do I want that insanity to be reborn? Do I want that fixed idea that I'm a Irvine to awaken in my brain everyday?

No I don't. That's insane! Why would I wish that idea to survive death, or reincarnate?

Good grief!

Irvine

#124 Keep going, 'Irv.' Now you're grabbing me. See if you can grab a few more.

Awesome Irvine, #124

The present moment,
it's so fresh and new,
and there is nothing like it to compare too!

You are right - every thought that arises, dies,
and new thoughts arise,
and recycle.

But,
in reality, Truth- Each Moment is
new,
and you are Who you Are.

love ~~~ Me, Kate

Ed,
we can have a go,
on
the carousel
and grab for the brass key
;)

Facts undoubtedly exist. If you say "Light travels faster than sound", and someone else says the opposite is the case, you are obviously right and he is wrong. The simple observation that lightning precedes thunder could confirm this. So not only are you right, but you know you are right. Is there any ego involved in this? Possibly, but not necessarily. If you are simply stating what you know to be true, the ego is not involved at all, because there is no identification. Identification with what? With mind and a mental position. Such identification however, can easily creep in. If you find yourself saying, "Believe me, I know", or "Why do you never believe me?", then the ego has already crept in. It is hiding in the little word "me". A simple statement: "Light is faster than sound", although true, is now in the service of illusion, of ego. It has become contaminated with a false sense of "I"; it has become personalized, turned into a mental position. The "I" feels diminished or offended because somebody doesn't believe in what "I" said.

Ego takes everything personally. Emotion arises, defensiveness, perhaps even aggression. Are you defending the truth? No, the truth, in any case, needs no defense. The light or sound does not care about what you or anybody else thinks. You are defending yourself, or rather the illusion of yourself, the mind-made substitute. … If even the simple and straightforward realm of facts can lend itself to egoic distortion and illusion, how much more so the less tangible realm of opinions, viewpoints and judgments, all of them thought forms that can easily become infused with a sense of "I".

- Eckhart Tolle, in "A New Earth".

WorldGame: thanks for the YouTube link, and the reminder that there indeed is a lot of love going around the world right now. In fact, I belive you can find just about anything you want if you only look for it - love, selfishness, violence, guilt, caring, sacrifice... and by corollary, whatever you do find is because you were looking for it in the first place.

#128: Belive -> believe.

Mr. Welsh, your #124 was neat!

Some more from Eckhart Tolle, who nails the workings of the ego better than anybody else I've read.

The content of the ego varies from person to person, but in every ego the same structure operates. In other words,: Egos only differe on the surface. Deep down they are all the same. IN what way are they the same? They live on identification and separation. When you live through the mind-made self comprised of thought and emotion that is the ego, the basis for your identity is precarious because thought and emotion are by their very nature ephemeral, fleeting. So every ego is continuously struggling for survival, trying to protect and enlarge itself. To uphold the I-thought, it needs the opposite thought of the "other". The conceptual "I" cannot survive without the conceptual "other". The others are most other when I see them as my enemies. At one end of the scale of this unconscious egoic pattern lies the egoic compulsive habit of faultfinding and complaining about others. Jesus referred to it when he said, "Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?" At the other end of the scale, there is physical violence between individuals and warfare between nations. In the Bible, Jesus' question remains unanswered, but the answer is, of course: because when I criticize or condemn another, it makes me feel bigger, superior.

Thanks sWORDSman, Son-Rise seems to be an interesting program . A uncle of mine has been dealing with a bunch of this for almost twenty years (his son- my cousin- is presently in community college and is presently getting supervised work experience, hoping for real employment this summer). To understand his seizures my uncle first read lots of books on neurology (like by Oliver Sacks and William Calvin's "Conversations with Neil's Brain"), and then for his speech delay, books on speech development (like by Patricia McAleer Hamaguchi), and since the preschool program he was in was a direct offshoot of the deaf and hard of hearing, my uncle read sign language books and deaf-ed books (like "Train Go Sorry" by Leah Cohen-Hager and "Deaf Like Me" by Spradley). As his classmates were more and more diagnosed with autism (he started preschool before autism was added to the IDEA, or redefined in DSM-IV) my uncle read more and more autism books (during his son's last year of high school was when the term "Asperger's" was first uttered by the school psychologist).

By the way, all of the books listed in post #86 -- i read them over the years -- are good reads. The first two are written by fathers of autistic children. RR Grinker is an anthropologist, so he talks of his own daughter's experience and he looks at the autism in other countries like Korea and India. The website is

http://www.unstrange.com/

The second one is a father of a son who is a writer who is mostly interested in history, writing and biographies of unusual people. So along with writing about his son, he describes historical depictions of autism.

The next book is not about autism, but about a family whose son has cerebral palsy. It is about their experience with the Doman-Delacato methods of patterning. I find it an antidote to reading Doman's truly horrible book length ad for his program called "What to do About Your Brain Damaged Baby". It should be a must-read to any family who learns their child is not "normal".

The next two books are history of vaccines, with the latter being a biography of a vaccine researcher. Both very readable, and a great easy education in vaccines, diseases and history of vaccines.

I had to throw in an Oliver Sacks book. They are usually essays on interesting people and cases he knows or has dealt with as a neurologist. If you have time, you should read his autobiography: Uncle Tungston, A Chemical Childhood.

The last two are fiction. The first one is kind of science fiction. The author is a scifi writer and was a nurse. She used lots of their own experience in the book, and she has more on her website (her autism essay is

www.elizabethmoon.com/autism-general.htm

... with a link to more books, and if you poke around you will see pictures of her family). The very last is a very sweet and very funny book... definitely a good vacation read!

Good luck and have a good vacation.

Irving

My comments were addressed The World Game, but I guess you and he are probably the same person. It is interesting to see how easily you get wound up and start firing ad hominine attacks, and off colour language to bolster what can only be called a pusillanimous rebuttal on your part; otherwise why do you need to use the name calling? A scientific guy like you should be able to think up all kinds of factual scientific rebuttal stuff to discredit what I’ve shared.

Then when you run out of gas, you bring in John to further tell me how self righteous, intolerant and stupid I am. He goes on to talk absolute nonsense about the value of eye witness accounts, which any lawyer will tell you is a nail in the coffin of any defendant who is so unfortunate to have one say they saw him commit the crime.

Summing up boys these two sides of your multiple personality might reflect on how those definitions of self righteousness and intolerance more accurately describe your own beliefs on this subject, but it’s probably had for you to see that through those coke bottle lens in your glasses when you’re always hunched over that computer in your bathrobe waiting for Mom to bring supper.

Cheers,
Stan

Stan is a gullible man and harbors all sorts of false beliefs. It is a common thing though. I only hope that the old dog is open to learn new things other than how to play better golf.

He writes..."He goes on to talk absolute nonsense about the value of eye witness accounts, which any lawyer will tell you is a nail in the coffin of any defendant who is so unfortunate to have one say they saw him commit the crime."

You are right. Eyewitness identification evidence is the leading cause of wrongful conviction in the United States. Of the more than 200 people exonerated by way of DNA evidence in the US, over 75% were wrongfully convicted on the basis of erroneous eyewitness identification evidence.

See the Innocence Project's page on Eyewitness Misidentification
http://innocenceproject.org/understand/Eyewitness-Misidentification.php

In England, the Criminal Law Review Committee, writing in 1971, stated that cases of mistaken identification "constitute by far the greatest cause of actual or possible wrong convictions".

Source: Criminal Law Review Committee Eleventh Report, Cmnd 4991

Yet despite substantial anecdotal and scientific support for the proposition that eyewitness testimony is often unreliable, it is held in high regard by jurors in criminal trials, even when "far outweighed by evidence of innocence."

Source: Elizabeth Loftus, Eyewitness Evidence 9 (1979).

In the words of former US Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, there is "nothing more convincing [to a jury] than a live human being who takes the stand, points a finger at the defendant, and says 'That's the one!'"

Source: Watkins v. Souders, 449 U.S. 341, 352 (1982) (Brennan, J. dissenting).

A lot of reform efforts are going on though in light of the scientific evidence.

My, Freyja, you certainly seem to be in quite deep. I shall do my best to peruse those books, though it might take a while. I have read the Mark Haddon book (and mightily agree with your review), and I suspect I've read the Paul Collins book, though I can't recall any part of it now. Thanks again for all the references.

Hi Stan,
speaking of golf - which John mentioned in his post,
did you ever read Scott Peck's book and perspective on
the Game?

love,
~ Kate

sWORDSman,
have a great vacation.
You have lots to read, if there is time!
:)
love

Hey Stan,

Although I agree with everything Irvine said I would not call anybody a moron even if s/he appears to try hard to deserve such a title.

You say about Irvine:
“He goes on to talk absolute nonsense about the value of eye witness accounts, which any lawyer will tell you is a nail in the coffin of any defendant who is so unfortunate to have one say they saw him commit the crime”.

Why don’ you take your bicycle story in front of a judge and see if he takes it as evidence that god exists. Have you ever wondered why god let you fly off that bicycle in the first place?

Your god has a strange way of showing he is real! Why not regrow an amputee’s leg or something?

http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/journey/

Forza Espana!

I think the way the tourney has gone, Spain totally deserves to lift the cup. But the Germans always seem to step up when it matters. I'll be rooting for Spain, but I won't be surprised if the Spaniards choke.

Go Spain! Go Spain! Vamos Espana!

My prediction: Spain wins 1-0 (or 2-0)

PS: #135 by TWG, that comment was targeted at me(John), in a comment addressed to "Irvine."

Questions to the faithful:

Why did Jesus refuse to heal a sick child?

Why did he condemn a fig tree for not bearing fruit?

If he could heal the blind...why didn't he heal blindness?

If he could raise the dead...well you get the idea.

And how on earth does his death take away our sins?

Sorry John, how could I mix you guys up?

Your soccer analysis is also mine and I am the other guy.
Good night.

#138Why did Jesus refuse to heal a sick child?

Why did he condemn a fig tree for not bearing fruit?

If he could heal the blind...why didn't he heal blindness?

If he could raise the dead...well you get the idea.

And how on earth does his death take away our sins?

That's for me to know and you to find out ;)

Those damned starlings, Irv?

A MATTER OF TASTE

Hearing a disturbance out back
we look out in time to see
a purplish black starling landing
in the garden so hotly chased
that it hits the ground hopping
followed closely by
a larger fluffier gray bird with
a loud voice & an irritating tone

While its pursuer stands shouting demands
the starling seems to be getting away
until we see it pick up a good sized insect
march smartly to the larger bird & deposit
it into the gaping void of its open beak
There's no conflict here just a parent
demonstrating to its chick
the skills it will need to feed itself

This is where the food you've been
eating in the nest comes from
& this is how we get it
First find a place like this
& this hopping is how you search
Then this is the kind of prey you seek
This is how you capture it
& this is how it tastes

The parents hunt with such urgency
almost as if something
about the chick's barking voice
is making the parents ready
to do anything even give up
their prey for that moment's peace
as the chick prepares to swallow
The hunt's better than the kill anyway

~~Steve Toth~~

We are One.

#126 Kate, m'dear, grabbing the brass-faced in a roundabout way...
carousal; we could make a feast of it.....feist of it.....fist of it (US dialect for small aggressive doggy)......from fisten (ME,)to break wind...or take the wind out of one's sails.(ED)

Be calm X

The World Game,

First it was a motorcycle not a bicycle, and I was talking to John about eye witnesses not Irving, but I can understand your confusion having that a multiple personality disorder.
Second, I did not give these examples as a proof of God as you mistakenly surmise, so I would have no reason to ask him why he let me get knocked of the motorcycle in the first place.

The reason for my examples was to try and help you answer your own question in #54 but you obviously don't want an answer.
Relative to the invalidity of eye witness accounts
175 cases in which John claims it happened falsely is a mere drop in the proverbial bucket when looking at the hundreds of thousands of cases out there, but never mind; science depends everyday on the observations of the scientist preforming experiments. These eye witness accounts are what advances science when new material is observed. So please spare me the blanket disregard of the eye witness.

At the end of the day I am not trying to convince you or anyone else of anything. I am comfortable with my open mind and welcome new information and experiences.

Kind Regards
Stan

First, I humbly suggest, people like Stan to stop spewing their stupid understanding of science in his comments.

Moving on, stan said "So please spare me the blanket disregard of the eye witness."

No, I didn't make a blanket statement about falsity of eye-witness accounts in getting the right judgment. My comment was on the "unreliability" of eye witness accounts. Depends on how you interpret "unreliable." They are 'often' unreliable. The tendency of going wrong is shared by all humans. That's how the human brain is wired. It is gullible. It is good to acknowledge that fact than believing the occasional lies and distortions the brain tricks you in.

This reminds me of the MIT team of scientist recently found an explanation regarding deja vu experiences as a memory problem -- Ian Stevenson of reincarnation studies claimed that deja vu could be related to past life experiences, and of course so did Deepak Chopra and a bunch of others who conveniently sit on the fringe areas of science until the chair is pulled away from right under their asses --

Time article notes..."It's an eerie experience that just about everyone has had more than once: you walk into a room or find yourself in a conversation, and suddenly you have the overwhelming sense--even though you know it's impossible--that you've been here before. Psychologists call it déjà vu--"already seen," in French--but despite the phenomenon's universal familiarity, no one has offered a convincing explanation for why it happens."

Too bad "the mystery may have been solved, by a team of neuroscientists at MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory. "

www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1651507,00.html

The Japanese Nobel Laureate Susumu Tonegawa who led the team said :

"Déjà vu is a memory problem occurring when our brains struggle to tell the difference between two extremely similar situations. As people age déjà-vu-like confusion happens more often. It also happens in people suffering from brain diseases like Alzheimer’s."

Now, here's the part that I wanted to HIGHLIGHT:

As an aging neuroscientist, Tonegawa admitted it’s a typical phenomenon with him:

“I do a lot of traveling so I show up in brand new airports, and my brain tells me it’s been here before, he said. “But the rest of my brain knows better."

There is a valuable lesson to be learned here. Accepting the gullibility of your own experiences is important.

Getting back to the eye witnesses, yes the 150 odd cases that where eye-witnesses went wrong were small compared to hundreds of thousands more where they turned out to be on the right side of right judgment, but so are the handful of people who claim to have been abducted by aliens, and the handful of people who claim to have seen and heard Angels, Jesus and God, fairies, you name it. And handful who claim to have recollected past life memories. You get the picture.

Eyewitness memory, which is relied upon in the process of eyewitness identification, is thought to be fragile and easily distorted by information obtained post-event. The distortion of memories by has been widely studied in relation to interference theory in cognitive psychology.

www.psypress.com/ek5/resources/demo_ch06-sc-05.asp

In the case of eyewitness memory, retroactive interference perhaps as a result of police questioning, can lead to difficulty in accurate recall.

For example, A 1974 study by Loftus and Palmer suggests that eyewitness memory is highly vulnerable to post-event distortion. Participants were presented with photographic slides of a multiple-vehicular accident. Experimental group participants were then asked either "About how fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?" or "About how fast were the cars going when they hit each other?". Participants were questioned a week later as to whether they had seen broken glass in the photographic slides. Although no broken glass was in actuality present in the slides, 32% of participants originally asked if the cars had "smashed into each other" reported they has. This was in comparison to only 14% of those asked if the cars "had hit each other". The conclusion being that the information in the question affected recall of the event.

www.psychexchange.co.uk/file17.html

Extensive studies in the social sciences have shown that "confidence" of a person's recollection of an event is unreliable as a predictor of "accuracy". Social scientists and legal scholars have also expressed concern that the current remedial steps followed in admission of eye witness accounts in US courts leaves opening the courthouse doors to the admission of unreliable evidence.

www.psychology.iastate.edu/faculty/gwells/homepage.htm

Its not just about "unreliability" of eye witness accounts, there is whole lot of neuroscience over there why people form false beliefs based on false memories and such.

In Stan's case it could be any one of or combination of low IQ, conditioning into Christian woo, newage woo, possible senility, or the likely brain damage when he fell off his golf cart.

Hi Kate,

No I haven't read the book you refered too but I will put it on my "to read" list

Thanks
Stan

John,

You just can't seem to get through even your first sentence without an ad hominine attack. May I suggest counselling, or a course in anger management?
BTW No one can remember the last time you did anything humbly Sir.

You say, "The tendency of going wrong is shared by all humans." This of course excludes you.

You go on to say, "There is a valuable lesson to be learned here. Accepting the gullibility of your own experiences is important." This may be important to you Sir. Perhaps due to the quality of your experiences, but don't ask or expect me to accept gullibility as possible scenario for mine.

Have a nice day
Stan

"You just can't seem to get through even your first sentence without an ad hominine attack. "

The correct usage is “Ad hominem”

Stop acting like a sissy when insulted. You richly deserved it. You did the same(insulting) in your comments. (now, cut that christian morality crap arguments like "I am only retorting.") Looks like your ego was bruised bad and the remarks were right on mark.

You don't deserve a fair treatment in a dialogue; at times fallacious arguments, an inability to concede the possibility of being wrong, fixed ideas and a lack of flexibility in thought processing - an inability to show progress or show intent in improving in the areas of critical thinking skills - are self revelatory.

Leave the golf course and join an ego management course - mediation, prayer or whatever - before the early onset of senility takes over you completely.

-_-_-_-----------------------------------

To Err is Human

"To err is human. Understanding the mechanisms by which humans repeatedly make errors of judgment has been the subject of psychological study for many decades. Why do people disagree about beliefs despite access to the same evidence, and why does evidence so rarely lead to belief change? Psychological research has examined numerous risks of assessing evidence by subjective judgment. These risks include information-processing or cognitive biases, emotional self-protective mechanisms, and social biases.

All of these factors play a major role in both sides of the debate betwen proponents and opponents of psychic phenomena. No analysis of the controversies surrounding the nature of the human spirit, and its propensity for greatness, would be complete without a realistic look at the human proclivity for folly. "

Read the full artcile ...

http://www.williamjames.com/Science/ERR.htm

If my accusations of "self-righteousness" about Stan seem without a basis to some of you folks - especially the new readers who are not aware of Stan's antics - don't worry, he is doing a good job in casting off any such doubts with statements like this: "don't ask or expect me to accept gullibility as possible scenario for mine."

This can be 'bias blind spot' at work.

"The bias blind spot is a cognitive bias about not compensating for one's own cognitive biases.

...Pronin ... explained to subjects the better-than-average effect, the halo effect, self-serving bias and many other cognitive biases. According to that better-than-average bias, specifically, people are likely to see themselves as inaccurately "better than average" for possible positive traits and "less than average" for negative traits. When subsequently asked how biased they themselves were, subjects rated themselves as being much less subject to the biases described than the average person."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bias_blind_spot

But wait, no! Stan thinks he doesn't have 'any' of the several cognitive biases at all! (and even thinks that second party stories - those he 'likes', those that reiterate his beliefs - are told by people who lack any bias; like him.)

One must define a special term in explaining his case. The good old 'bigot' or 'stupid' might do, though.

If my accusations of "self-righteousness" about Stan seem without a basis to some of you folks - especially the new readers who are not aware of Stan's antics - don't worry, he is doing a good job in casting off any such doubts with statements like this: "don't ask or expect me to accept gullibility as possible scenario for mine."

This can be 'bias blind spot' at work.

"The bias blind spot is a cognitive bias about not compensating for one's own cognitive biases.

...Pronin ... explained to subjects the better-than-average effect, the halo effect, self-serving bias and many other cognitive biases. According to that better-than-average bias, specifically, people are likely to see themselves as inaccurately "better than average" for possible positive traits and "less than average" for negative traits. When subsequently asked how biased they themselves were, subjects rated themselves as being much less subject to the biases described than the average person."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bias_blind_spot

But wait, no! Stan thinks he doesn't have 'any' of the several cognitive biases at all! (and even thinks that second party stories - those he 'likes', those that reiterate his beliefs - are told by people who lack any bias; like him.)

One must define a special term in explaining his case. The good old 'bigot' or 'stupid' might do, though.

”You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep seated need to believe”.

“What I'm saying is, if God wanted to send us a message, and ancient writings were the only way he could think of doing it, he could have done a better job”.

“My faith is strong I don't need proofs, but every time a new fact comes along it simply confirms my faith”.
CS

Have a good day Stan.

Yo.
Indigo faith science you moron
You're more on than off
When off you're more on

Dizzying carousal
believers and not
living the life
or arguing the plot

Carl twitching
when fighting prevails
the gentlest of giants
no coffins he did nail

And me drifting out at sea watching the ever shifting play of refractioning, refracting, prismy, why do the streamy shafts of light come to a point when I look at them from above.............God if you are there send me a scientist to explain why I am so mesmerized by this dance of light beneath me or else I might jump in and find out for myself.

What the hell was all that?

Yo

derek

http://www.jeffersonhour.org/

Show #720 Civility

It's free
All you have to do is listen

derek

# 151
“What the hell was all that?”
Enjoyable!

¡Viva España, I hope!

stan...

that man is not well...

but u have to give it to him...he uses a clear, distinct writing style as his main 'persona' ## and a trade-mark one when he refers to CS and science...and then vigorously goes into denial mode when caught like a deer in the headlights...sick! damn!

Hey guys, if you haven't yet, check out the Weekly Intent thread. If you follow the link in yogi-one's post, you'll get to a fascinating series of talks by Osho. The 4th one (if I'm counting right) has some really neat points about what/who God is, whether He exists, why He lets people fly off bikes, etc.

http://www.oshoworld.com/biography/innercontent.asp?FileName=biography6/06-27-qreligion.txt

Now I gotta add Osho to my reading list... gosh, Kate, I need a separate vacation just to do all my reading :-).

#155 Yo sWORDSman, Osho certainly takes his horse to the water. I love him.

One wonders just where 'gullibility' does reside, if at all.

#95

.

Pardon TREE's fishing
Perplexing purplish appeal
My last twilight fell

Famous for nothing
No thing for a good reason
Simmer down by shades

sWORDSman,

Thanks for the Osho link. He is one of my favourite teachers.

He once told the story of the rich man who wanted to give the teacher one million dollars. After much thought, the teacher said "OK I'll take it". A few months when by, and the rich man began to think to himself, Damn that was a million dollars you would think that the teacher could a least say thank you. He finally went to the teacher and told him this. The teacher looked at him smiled and said, "The giver should be thankful"!

After reading this story many years ago, I became enlightened on the subject of love.

Kind Regards,
Stan

Ed #116:
"One wonders just where 'gullibility' does reside, if at all."

Calder:

"...Rajneesh's teachings were full of intentional lies and unintentional falsehoods, which were born out of his own ignorance, gullibility, and Indian
cultural conditioning. His psychic presence, however, was 100% real and extremely powerful."

What do you think of this:

Calder on Rajneesh:

"Acharya Rajneesh was 39 years old when I first met him at his Bombay apartment in December of 1970. With long beard and large dark eyes, he looked like a painting of Lao-Tse come to life. Before meeting Rajneesh, I had spent time with a number of Eastern gurus (see pictures) without being satisfied with the quality of their teachings. I wanted an enlightened guide who could bridge the gap between East and West, and reveal the true esoteric secrets without the excess baggage of Indian, Tibetan, or Japanese culture. Rajneesh was the answer to my quest for those deeper meanings. He described for me in vivid detail everything I wanted to know about the inner worlds, and he had the power of immense being to back up his words. ..."

Read the full artcile....

http://home.att.net/%7Emeditation/Osho.html

"The Ridiculous Teachings of Wrong Way Rajneesh"

Here are some of the lies, false prophesies, and ridiculous teachings of Chandra Mohan Jain: alias "Acharya Rajneesh," alias "Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh," alias "Osho."

"Don't advise me. Everything is clear before my eyes." - Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh 1973

[...]

http://home.att.net/~meditation/wrong-way.html

****

There are too many to quote...

Read on...

PS: One must give it to Osho though, he told a whole lot of good stories (it doesn't matter that many of them contradict each other) in the line of Indian tradition...

#160/161 Yes, Irv, that really puts us into context. I have no truck with gurus or teachers, but people manifestations do intrigue me.

I don't really go seeking. My life is what wholly flows my way.
Osho's rebelliousnes is probably what appeals to me the most, since, if gullibility is an acceptable concept, I think the whole human race is gullible, (it being an Osho opposite, of course, re: sWORDSman's link)
By all standards, Osho's (Rajneesh') was an appalling resolution of where he found himself. I still love the man, though, as all men, or I could not love myself...my own seeming insanities.
I'm always careful not to categorise and reject a blundered foray into human life, inasmuch we react ethically or innately to it. Rather I would empty myself and try to stand in those shoes. To enter into the madnesses where clues abound.
Would I have the courage of my convictions to leap beyond myself, or would I end up pushing others to the edge first having succumbed to addictive vested material interests.
I don't find the words easily here, but there seems to me a fine line I must facilitate, where all flows through me, so subtle, and yet synchronicitous to everyone. I must quietly tune in to that gossamer connection and wait patiently for it to register with everyone.

Okay, so i'm 'gullible' lol.

Ed,

If you read the Calder essay on 'Osho'(the first one), you will see many things "+ve," with the usual warnings of Osho's untruthiness thrown in to remind the readers not to get carried away. The +ve parts are there to supply "credibility" and "balance," to make the rest of his crusade more believable. And they also justify to himself how he could have stayed (as his student) as long as he did.

I did some digging on Calder. He was not involved directly with Osho for a terribly long time -- as far as I know -- but i imagine he might have had to justify to himself how he could have hung out for as long as he did, so he found something to criticize. Untruthfulness would be especially good in that regard, as he could thereby justify being
impressed at first by this manipulating cad and then later disappointed.

So that's my little speculation :-)

***

It was mainly critics who focused on sex. Osho did say, "Hey, what about sex, we can't leave that out, it's our basic biological energy," (paraphrased) but always indicated we had to go through it to go beyond, not bypass it in the typically repressive way applied by organized religion and by traditional gurus.

***

Osho taught so many different things that people mostly have selected parts of it to emphasize. There is nothing wrong with his "feelgood" part, but it has been elevated by some of his people to something which supersedes all the rest of it, including the obligation to be aware, which was much more consistently and pervasively Osho's message throughout all he was saying imo.

"gullibility" is a trait shared by the human mind, including Osho, of course.

(Osho didn't say that he was Enlightened -- although he didn't feel the need to fiercely refute it if some of his followers considered him as such -- he did name some spiritual masters both past and and a couple of contemporaries as 'Enlightened.' When he first came to the west he said Jesus was enlightened ...but later said, Jesus was NOT enlightened and that he was only saying what his followers were willing to listen so that they come to higher path before they are willing to listen to the truth -- that Jesus was not enlightened, and such.)

Ed: "Osho's rebelliousnes is probably what appeals to me the most..."

Sometime back at Borders, I saw the back of an Osho book, and it says something like "Osho was the most dangerous man to live since Jesus."

What does this mean? Why was he dangerous and to who? Why was Jesus dangerous? And do they usually kill these kind of people who are so dangerous?

And was not Buddha, Mahavira, Lao Tzu, etc dangerous too? I was Curious why his books promote him as the most dangerous man since Jesus.

I asked around among Osho followers, but didn't hear any "significant" answers. One amusing opinion ventured was:

"a dubious accolade indeed. To call anyone the most dangerous man since jesus christ is a bit like calling someone the most gentlemanly chap since ghengis khan. or the best dressed man since diogenes!" (paraphrased)

This does not address the question of whether Osho was or is dangerous.

It's a question with many angles.

I realized that there is certainly a level of hype in this dust jacket bumf. Osho was and is a dangerous man still, though less since his physical departure, and also less now since many of his ideas have become more acceptable in the mainstream.

To some extent any "enlightened" master will be dangerous, since much of what s/he has to do is upset your apple-cart. Osho has been considered more so than most, since, in part, he has commented more than most, and more scathingly, on the deficiencies of particular religious and political leaders. This was partly to gain notoriety but also to undermine the politician / priest in us. Additionally he has tried to dismantle all philosophical and religious systems, leaving his people with nowhere to stand, or now-here if you prefer.

Who knows how dangerous Jesus or the other guys were? Jesus caused a kerfuffle by turning the money-changers' tables in the temple, but i would say that Buddha really was more dangerous, since he was undermining the whole Hindu structure. Mahavira was possibly the least dangerous since he came as the culmination of a whole series of Jain Teerthankaras, the 24th and last. Lao Tzu, again who knows? Since he was philosophically a will-o'-the-wisp he might have been dangerous only to his disciples.

Osho has told a story about Lao Tzu which may be apocryphal:

Once Lao Tzu was made a magistrate. The Emperor of China, thinking him the wisest man of the country, persuaded him to become a magistrate, the highest magistrate of the country. But only one case was enough and he had to be dismissed, because in the first case it became clear to the Emperor and to everybody else that Lao Tzu was dangerous, because he gave six months' jail to a man who had been caught stealing red handed -- and he also gave six months' jail to the person in whose house he had been stealing! Nobody could understand what was the matter.

The Emperor called him: "Are you mad or something? Why have you punished the man who has been robbed of his money?"

Lao Tzu said, "That man has accumulated so much that it is natural that he will be robbed. He should be thankful that he is not murdered! In fact, I am not fair in giving them both a similar kind of punishment. The rich man needs a harder punishment than the poor man who is a thief, because the first crime has been committed by the rich man, not by the poor man. The poor man has done a secondary thing; his crime is secondary, it is not that important. "

And this story about Ronald Reagan may also be apocryphal:

George Bush, the vice president of America, walks into the Oval Office one morning to find Ronald Reagan laughing hysterically. "Mr. President, sir," inquires Bush, "what on earth is so funny?"

"I just found out that Ed Meese has been paying twenty dollars every time he screws Nancy," chokes the delirious president. "My God!" screams Bush. "That is not funny! That is a national scandal!"
"Why?" laughs Reagan, wiping his eyes. "That idiot! I screw her for free!"

Re: Reincarnation

Another angle from Osho:

The very idea of reincarnation, which has arisen in all the Eastern religions, is that the self goes on moving from one body to another body,
from one life to another life. This idea does not exist in the religions that have arisen out of Judaism, Christianity and Mohammedanism. But now
even psychiatrists are finding that it seems to be true. People can remember their past lives; the idea of reincarnation is gaining ground.

But I want to say one thing to you: the whole idea of reincarnation is a misconception. It is true that when a person dies his being becomes part of
the whole. Whether he was a sinner or a saint does not matter, but he had also something called the mind, the memory. In the past the information was
not available to explain memory as a bundle of thoughts and thought waves, but now it is easier.

And that's where, on many points, I find Gautam Buddha far ahead of his time. He is the only man who would have agreed with my explanation. He has
given hints, but he could not provide any evidence for it; there was nothing available to say. He has said that when a person dies, his memory travels into a new womb -- not the self. And we now can understand it, that when you are dying, you will leave memories all around in the air. And if you have been miserable, all your miseries will find some location; they will enter into some other memory system. Either they will enter totally
into a single womb -- that's how somebody remembers one's past. It is not your past; it was somebody else's mind that you have inherited.

Most people don't remember because they have not got the whole lump, the whole heritage of a single individual's memory system. They may have got
fragments from here and there, and those fragments create your misery system. All those people who have died on the earth have died in misery.
Very few people have died in joy. Very few people have died with the realization of no-mind. They don't leave a trace behind. They don't burden
anybody else with their memory. They simply disperse into the universe. They don't have any mind and they don't have any memory system. They have already dissolved it in their meditations. That's why the enlightened person is never [re-]born.

But the unenlightened people go on throwing out, with every death, all kinds of misery patterns. Just as riches attract more riches, misery
attracts more misery. If you are miserable, then from miles, misery will travel to you -- you are the right vehicle. And this is a very invisible
phenomenon, like radio waves. They are traveling around you; you don't hear them. Once you have the right instrument to receive them, immediately they
become available. Even before the radio was there, they were traveling by your side.

There is no incarnation, but misery incarnates. Wounds of millions of people are moving around you, just in search of somebody who is willing to
be miserable. Of course, the blissful does not leave any trace. The man of awakening dies the way a bird moves into the sky, without making a track or a path. The sky remains empty. Blissfulness moves without making any trace. That's why you don't get any inheritance from the buddhas; they simply disappear. And all kinds of idiots and retarded people go on reincarnating in their memories and it becomes every day thicker and thicker.

Today, perhaps, it has come to the point to be understood and to be dissolved; otherwise it is too thick to allow you to live, to allow you to
laugh.

***

I know some of you spiritual types would neither believe nor disbelieve the explanation above, but you might find it interesting and potentially useful to "explain" why some people seem to remember parts of their past lives. I find it beautiful that Osho has found a middle way between the reincarnation believers and the one-life believers, presenting it in away that it is NOT a new dogma for the faithful.

I don't expect anyone else to believe it, but maybe some boats will be floated, some people will enjoy.

Osho was obviously trying to internalize the supposed authenticity of reincarnation and past-life regression studies of his day -- Basically, Ian Stevenson's research from the 70 and 80s -- assuming that those studies were sound, he came up with this middle of the path nonsensical hypothesis.

See: http://skepdic.com/stevenson.html
&
skepdic.com/reincarn.html

After all Osho was emphatic about not believing anything.

He says, "You come to me seeking knowledge. You want set formulas so that you can cling to them. I don't give you any. In fact, if you have any I take them away. By and by, I destroy your certainty. By and by, I make you more and more hesitant. By and by, I make you more and more insecure."

As Osho said misery reincarnates. Not because memories survive as vibrations in the air, but because bad memes survive in culture, because the sins of the parents are visited on the children via education. Culture reincarnates. Poverty and abuse of women and the powerless reincarnate. Bad ideas are very slow to die. They reincarnate.

John,

Excellent prediction! #137

Spain won 1-0

Just like your primary season election outcomes were spot on!

#164 Irvine

"(Osho didn't say that he was Enlightened -- although he didn't feel the need to fiercely refute it if some of his followers considered him as such -- he did name some spiritual masters both past and and a couple of contemporaries as 'Enlightened.' When he first came to the west he said Jesus was enlightened ...but later said, Jesus was NOT enlightened and that he was only saying what his followers were willing to listen so that they come to higher path before they are willing to listen to the truth -- that Jesus was not enlightened, and such.)"

Can you post Ohso's own words on this?

Hi IW & John,
It seems Osho possessed 'crazy wisdom' :)

If one meets the day fresh and new, there is little chance of misery repeating itself, but
I think, John - you are correct in saying that it repeats and passes from generation to generation.

The good news is - it can be transcended, and one can live awake, and live freely.

Hooray!

love,
~ Kate

Most dangerous? I suppose anything which stops the world will be fatal, as Osho and Jesus found out! Not ultimately as dangerous for Jesus, eh? nice sense of drama, though.

Ronnie and Maggie, the most unlikely of couplings. It seems he gave her the virus!

Chris, try this. On Jesus:

Question: ONCE YOU SAID JESUS WAS FULLY ENLIGHTENED. RECENTLY, I HEARD YOU SAY JESUS WAS NOT ENLIGHTENED. YOU TELL US THAT YOU ALWAYS SAY THE TRUTH. HOW CAN TRUTH CHANGE SO FAST?

Osho: Truth never changes, but statements about truth can change. When we start teaching a child, his book is full of big pictures and very little written matter. If he is learning the alphabet, then every letter stands for something. "M" stands for mango. The child can understand the mango, not the "M," and he can see the mango -- a colorful, beautiful picture. But slowly slowly the mango will be dropped. Now when you read, have you to repeat every time, "M stands for mango"? You have completely forgotten what stands for what. Now you can read the alphabet directly.

Yes, I had said to you, "Jesus is enlightened." It was "M stands for mango," because you were not in a state to understand that Jesus is not enlightened. To say to you something which you cannot comprehend is meaningless. For centuries you have become accustomed to believe that Jesus is the only begotten son of God: he is light, he is love, he is life, he is the savior -- twenty centuries of conditioning.

Now you can understand my problem. I have to start with conditioned people, programmed people. Their conditioning is thick; I have to go with them so that they can go with me! So I had been going with all kinds of people: Hindus -- and I have spoken twelve volumes on Krishna; Jainas -- and I have spoken many volumes on Mahavira; Buddhists -- and I have spoken more on Buddha than anybody else; Christians.... And even bishops and cardinals have written letters to me, "It is surprising -- you are not a Christian, and in two thousand years nobody has shown such insight into the meanings of the statements of Jesus Christ."

And I had a belly laugh. Those statements are third-rate -- not only third rate, but wrong too; the meaning that I had given to them was mine. But that was the only way that a Christian could become available to me, a Buddhist could become available to me.

Now I have found my people, I need not say, "M stands for mango." Now I can say to you exactly what is in my heart, and I know you will be able to understand. I have walked so long with you, can't you walk a few steps with me? I have suffered so much, managing your conditionings, giving them meaning. Now I want you to listen to the naked truth.

Jesus was not enlightened.

From Bondage to Freedom Answers to the Seekers on the PathTalks given from 15/09/85 am to 27/10/85

PS: As per contemporary saints, Osho was inconsistent about Jiddu Krishnamurthy's enlightenment(not sort of flip flopping as in the case of Jesus,) but for the most part when he said so one way or the other, it was to acknowledge it. Such acknowledgement was rare for him, regarding a contemporary sage.

This did not stop him from CRITICIZING JK, on the basis of ineffective methodology, but most of the time he did say he was enlightened.

Ramana Maharshi's enlightenment was one of the few themes he was consistent on, as far as I can tell.

Thanks Irvine.

I may have something to do with Jesus's belief in eternal damnation and demons.

Or St Paul's wrestling matches with principalities and powers?

reallY?

"Thanks Irvine.....

172. Posted by Chris on June 30, 2008 10:39 AM.

as if!

thinking about talking to urself....without shame...how vulgar! eeekkkk! what an insult to the trusting type?

The artists beat the journeymen and at times played cat and mouse with them.
Congrats España.

John, we guessed it just about right.

The puppy asks, “...do u really think we are all that dumb?”

The answer to that one would be:

There are some smart people here at IB, but you Diablo, are trying your very, very best to show everyone that you are not one of them; you appear to be one gullible Dummkopf who swallows hook, line and sinker time and again.

Hear ye! Hear ye! Now,
Someone tell TREE, "WTF?"
Trouble me2 once.

continually using insults to smear others, whether thru one of ur million aliases, or u, shows clearly who u really are skeptish... a classless, isolated, bitter IB reject/addict! and u are the sore loser who recently brags to have never used the word "moron" to slight anyone. is it any wonder that u'll never be able to use ur favorite aliase "skeptisch" ever again or keep spewing ur sick obsession with spoon-bending? eeuuhhhh!

and by the way, carl sagan idolite skeptisch, if u were all that smart, how come u are so scornfully unwanted and kicked out from ur home away from ur pathetic shack for good? dude...u shud be the last one to pretend how smart u are...u are not in the same class as kate, stan, UT, ed, and all the great regs here...shame u, spurned ole man! go retire on a lake in BC? eeuuhhh!

The ignorant (lacking information or knowledge) observer often feels science has a need to be right but that is only half right. Science wants to be right OR WRONG and feels it can’t be both at the same time. If you give a scientist evidence that his hypothesis (a proposal intended to explain certain facts or observations) is wrong, he will feel you have done him a favour and he will accept proven evidence thankfully. This evidence may be anecdotal but can be produced and reproduced through experiment.

Unfortunately science has failed miserably to convince the common masses that science is the way to go. Many New Age people, or other religionist or supernaturalist for that matter, have no need for science because they have found something that is easier to grab. In many cases they just have to listen to a pastor, priest or guru and they will get wise through their words and wisdoms.

A scientist gets wise and knowledgeable through investigation, validation or falsification of a hypothesis. A religionists does not have that need, to him faith without evidence is all that is needed. While the educated world has accepted science as a way to a better future, the religionists, especially in America, have managed to turn science into something evil.

The god men have swayed the majority of gullible US citizen into believing that faith is a virtue (a particular moral excellence) not a mental handicap.

What a tragedy!

Distract and discard
The heart full of faith is shit
Simply dirty minded

.

Mental health bargain
Two for one brain cell going
Know thyself alone

.

Quit old chase cake walk
Blown candles dynamite booms
Senseless leaves enough

.

commmadia

Have faith tragedia. It will all come right at the end ;)

the tragegy of 175 quickly morphed overnight into his latest mishap...skeptical 179...while that, odd old fella in London Square keeps boosting this angry little man's thin, fragile ego! eeuuhhh!

The 'IB blogmoron of the Week' title -- unfortunately tagged to Stan -- is now triumphantly reclaimed by the perennial blogfool, Diablo.

freyja u are one of this sick little man's million aliases...just in case the sleep-heads did not notice...well excuse me that 'u' shud take offense to anything at all when 'u' weren't even the subject...well u are...oh and did u forget to book ur wellness appointment for today &*%%%$#@? damn!

hi, from village green, Diab. All men are equal. Some are more equal than others!
"But equal to a woman...eeuuhhh!" I hear you say.

The great 'Irv,' has recognised and referred to my feminine side, so I freely interpret his.

I suspect that you have many faces that you don't share with us here.....go on, give them a suitable name and join the game.
What we find here, in its context, is a reflection of ourselves. I welcome that and interpret accordingly. I appreciate it will not be the same for you....but it is nevertheless a reflection.

Have faith, Diab. It will come right at the end!

Grumpy Gramps ;)

Fight for the last word
Run until you get it right
Turtles know hedges

Hey Mr. Welsh,

Today is July 1st, Canada Day and I promised to leave IB after that day. Many here will figure you are talking to yourself, again. But I, Skep, am actually honoured that some people confuse me with you. The fact is though that I am fairly well educated in the sciences but have nowhere near the range and scope of knowledge that you have. Also, when I see who thinks we are the same the whole notion is greatly devalued.

I never read your play-by-play descriptions of Obama vs Hillary but most of your other posts. You are the reason I stuck around as long as I did. It is good to have someone here who knows what he is talking about. It never mattered to me whether you were one or many; your logical and reasonable mind, in the mould of Ron Saywack’s, was a treat to be around and a far cry from the lady with the poisoned fangs or the guy who thinks he was spoon-fed by god himself.

But Ron’s approach was with satin gloves rather that the sledgehammer you sometimes use. I guess there is an application for both.

I am done here after one more comment on Deepak’s “Atheists and the will to believe”. Of course there is a good chance our supposedly young and healthy Californian, with Irish ancestry, will never accept my departure. It would be too painful for him to realise that all the insults he hurled at Skeptisch for months now, were thrown in the wrong direction.

It does not make much sense that a young man would want to spend a Californian summer checking IDs on a blog monitor. Something is not quite right here.

As for me, I will be at that BC Lake and some of my “think alike friends” will be there too, most of them in spirit only, through their books and notes. Yes CS will be there as well as Dennett, Dawkins and Harris and that American biologist who is walking more and more in CS footsteps, PZ Myers.

Have a good summer everyone and Irv, please trop me a line once in a while.
Thanks.

the master of spin and multiple ids is trying to 'sing' us his swan song...again...he's supposedly gone but really?

hey...CS+DDHPZ will u be doing any trout fishin' in that u in the water...am told u can't swim...hehe!