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Thursday, December 20, 2007

Who is John Turmel?

John Turmel has achieved a lot in a few specific areas. But it not easy to start talking about a man who is notorious for losing. Losing what you may ask. He holds a Guiness Book of Records for the most elections contested and most elections lost.
But what has he achieved? He has annoyed a lot of local politicians in Ontario, Canada but what has he accomplished? He has helped the path toward legalization of Marijuana in Canada and some think that is important. But what else? He wrote an article proving that inflation is not cured by higher interest rates as many economists suggest.
(see http://www.cyberclass.net/turmel/bankmath.htm)

But most of all I'd say it's spreading the word about the problems with Usury. What most of us call loans that have an interest charge. Some of his most effective moments are his performances at the debates of these local Members of Parliament public meetings. He entertains and wakes people up to a certain reality. At least to those who see how fake and how poorly qualified each candidate often is. When he starts interjecting and ranting he actually is saying some important stuff. He'll say "Abolish interest rates" which is so fundamentally intelligent yet ludicrous that it usually gets a laugh.

I could not leave this story without commenting on two areas that he has had significant contributions. One is the legalization of gambling in Ontario and the other is the LETS system for which he is a good spokesman for which I hope to elaborate on more fully in a future article.

Saturday, December 01, 2007

Wired Science . Video: World War 2.0 | PBS

This is an excellent documentary showing the May 2007 cyber attack by the Russians on the whole country of Estonia. The attack was the result of the moving of a Russian statue erected to celebrate the Russian occupation of Estonia replacing the German occupation. The attack crippled the Banks, Radio stations etc.

read more | digg story

Thursday, November 15, 2007

No Kid Gloves from John Perkins

John Perkins the author of Confessions of an Economic Hitman has an important message. It's a dark message that paints a dark picture about the US government. His book released in 2004 reads like a spy thriller but is an apparently true account of real events. He is a slow talker and speaks in "monotone." This probably explains why he has not got the press he should. I'm sure to many it's a little like watching a reformed criminal trying to make amends.

But on Tuesday he spoke to students at Ohio University and somehow managed to get his message across. He recieved a standing ovation and drew positive comments from students afterward.

In fact he revealed the important facts and pointed out the relevancy of his actions and others like him and it's continuing relevance in Iraq and Iran. The "Hit men" as they're labeled succeeded in making a deal with the Arabs to only sell their oil for American currency. Some believe this has helped stablize the American dollar. Also some speculate that the threat of Iran choosing to accept the Euro for oil may be the real source of the power elite's outrage pushing the government to intervene with a military invasion.

Using "corporatocracy" to explain the cause and force behind much of the worlds problems is an understatement. Perkins is saying that it has been and still is the blind drive for profit that motivates US regimes to behave so badly. In many cases it's the shareholders that are the bottom line and the ways and means of keeping the shareholders happy can even drive a government to war. But now something new has emerged here that needs more clarification. Is the concern for a stable dollar what's really the motivating factor in US military aggression?

Perkins was inciting the students to realize their own power to change things. Maybe we could all use some of that advice. Digg This

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

The closest I've come to Road Rage

I was dowtown Toronto at the corner of Carlton and Church before 4:00 pm and stopped to consider making a left turn. Someone in a van behind me sits on their horn for what seemed like a minute but was probably 5 or 6 seconds. In what seemed like an innocent attempt to figure out if I was making a legal turn I was being bullied into hurrying through the intersection. I responded by driving straight instead of making the illegal turn. I decided to punish the driver by stopping in my streetcar lane abruptly. Of course he probably thought I was considering a U Turn. The best I could do was at the next intersection Beep back at the man. I have very few emotional encounters while driving. But I was wondering if this erratic behaviour of mine was partly triggerred by having taken for the first time a pill containing St. Johns wort. It's supposed to keep you in a good state of mind. The strange thing is I had just had thee pretty productive hours and shouldn't have become so easily agitated. I'm glad that I did not resort to the middle finger. That to me is just joining the rat race.

On fuel cells, paper battery and Nobel prizes




Hydrogen Fuel
Biodiesel Fuel
Canada's Green Party
Batteries and Supercapacitors


Nuclear Physics 101
Nuclear Paradigm Shift
Can Auto Dealers Go Green
Wind and Other Energy Alternatives

The stuff of science fiction. Nano seconds and quantum sized computing and supercapacitors. This technology will change our lives drastically within a few years.

read more | digg story

Monday, November 12, 2007

Suddenly, Impeachment Hearings Are Looking Like a Strong Possibility

After an appalling lack of news coverage it now looks like there is hope for a Cheney impeachment. Despite an attempt to block the impeachment process by Pelosi there were last minute legitimate vote changes that by normal legal practices should give Cheney reason to worry.

read more | digg story

Sunday, November 11, 2007

NEW Wiki MusicDocz.com

I have created a Musicians and Music lovers resource for Lists of Songs by the greats.

Check it out

MusicDocz.com/wiki

Thursday, November 01, 2007

The Way of the Philosopher

In these difficult times we've seen some polarization occur that have brought about change for the worse. We're seeing extremes of religious zealots at one end of the scale, like the Creationists, Evangelicals and the Theocons, to the immoral pornographic and sexual perversions such as the two recent cases of Canadians in Thailand accused of abusing young boys between 10 and 14 years of age. All internet users know about the proliferation of pornography. And there have been some steps made to limit exposure, especially the work of the search engines with their filters. Although some could argue that the search engines are helping to perpetuate pornography's existence. Forget about porn just look at the idle time spent on blogs and chats motivated by sexually distracted individuals.

The ever increasing amount of news about fundamentalist Muslims and other fundamentalists of various kinds has chipped away at our phsyches. The pace of living has increased with the cost of living. The fragmenting of our focus and the little energy that's left after a days work all adds up to a loss of useful and much needed time for ourselves just to think. Maybe that's why belief systems are able to flourish. It makes things tidy and easier to manage for those wanting power. Sometimes I am shocked to learn that there are people out there who take the ancient Holy Bible as fact. People who say they don't believe in evolution.

What am I getting at: We would do well to develop our own analytical thinking. Jaspers spoke of the Axial Age as a 600 year period where a surprising overlap of philosophies emerged in totally remote areas where contact with each other didn't exist. Conclusions could be made that we are all capable of thinking and developing a belief system of our own based on our own investigation. Instead of reading all of the Harry Potter books for instance. How about an investigation of Bhuddism or study some writings by Blake or Milton. There is much to say about keeping an open mind. It could also be said that one should earn the right to have an opinion. In a time when ignorance and poor education is behind most of the conflicts we see it's the right moment to consider the way of the philosopher.

Here's
Krishnamurti on Fragmentation a symptom to our problems. Fragmentation, Negation and Wholeness

The specialist cannot perceive the whole; his heaven is what he specializes in but his heaven is a petty affair of the brain, the heaven of religion or of the technician. Capacity, gift, is obviously detrimental, for it strengthens self-centredness; it is fragmentary and so breeds conflict. Capacity has significance only in the total perception of life which is in the field of the mind and not of the brain. Capacity and its function is within the limits of the brain and so becomes ruthless, indifferent to the total process of life. Capacity breeds pride, envy, and its fulfilment becomes all important and so it brings about confusion, enmity and sorrow; it has its meaning only in the total awareness of life. Life is not merely at one fragmentary level, bread, sex, prosperity, ambition; life is not fragmentary; when it’s made to be, it becomes utterly a matter of despair and endless misery. Brain functions in specialization of the fragment, in self-isolating activities and within the limited field of time. It is incapable of seeing the whole of life; the brain is a part, however educated it be; it is not the whole. Mind alone sees the whole and within the field of the mind is the brain; the brain cannot contain the mind, do what it will.

To see wholly, the brain has to be in a state of negation. Negation is not the opposite of the positive; all opposites are related within the fold of each other. Negation has no opposite. The brain has to be in a state of negation for total seeing; it must not interfere, with its evaluations and justifications, with its condemnations and defences. It has to be still, not made still by compulsion of any kind, for then it is a dead brain, merely imitating and conforming. When it is in a state of negation, it is choicelessly still. Only then is there total seeing. In this total seeing which is the quality of the mind, there is no seer, no observer, no experiencer; there’s only seeing. The mind then is completely awake. In this fully wakened state, there is no observer and the observed; there is only light, clarity. The contradiction and conflict between the thinker and thought ceases.

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Opinion: Should Colbert Be an Independent

What if Colbert was serious? What if he looked out at the presidential candidates and realized that the parties have too much money behind them to trust any candidate. The argument being that there must be some corrupting influences behind all that support. Historically independent candidates do very poorly. But if he's already parting with tradition and if Colbert has any valuable lesson for us it should be that voting for the winners has been getting us into trouble for too long. The notion that Nader helped to split the vote causing Kerry to lose. This kind of thinking doesn't apply to Colbert. He is in a unique position to send a powerful message to those that will listen. Voting for a leader that we trust the most makes more sense than voting for the leader that has the best chance of winning and belongs to the same old party that your family usually votes for. Apathy has proven to be quite prevalent among young voters. Reading comments on the blogs has shown that a surprising number are showing interest in voting for the first time to show their support or in many cases to show their contempt for the existing choices. We're missing revolt. The tendency to believe that our individual vote means so little is stronger over the past eight years than ever. But now I'd like to see Colbert go independent and help wake up some of the people on the fence to take action.
You can comment at Support Colbert

Monday, October 29, 2007

My new musicians/arrangers service.

Musicians! Check out my Leadsheetz.com website. Looking for existing songs or want to have arrangements done or transcriptions made from recordings ceheck it out. You can also inquire by emailing me now.

rick@leadsheetz.com

(clicking here opens your email program)

The Flash work I did for Artsnetwork.tv has finally paid off. My latest offering is a service for new recording artists who don't have the budget for a new video but want some kind of motion grahics/animation with samples of their music. You can request that images, album art, song selections etc be added to your pages.



I've also have a new affiliate that allows me to offer a huge range of sheet music See browse by ... website that saves me the copyright hassles for the time being while my site is growing.