These Aren't The Droids You're Looking For

If there's any doubt as to the veracity of the Kubler Ross model of dealing with grief there's acres of evidence in the commentary boxes of mass domestic denial at the moment that the US mainstream media regularly lies to its people with completely impunity. The denial is to be expected in much the same way as addiction to oil is evident from the most wasteful country on the planet. But after the denial comes anger and one thing I know about ordinary Americans is that while they may be easy to distract they are not cowards.

The only point to observe now is whether the string pullers will succeed in pitching groups of them against each other as divide and rule is the quintessential elite technique for maintaining their own comfort. I know this because the British taught them the trick. A new enemy is always being dreamed up by the real enemy.

We live in remarkable times and I believe there's an  emerging consciousness also at large. I've no idea how it will eventually manifest itself before the necessary changes reach consensus levels but change it will. When and how? My guess is as good as yours though the longer urgent action is delayed the more pain is inflicted on the self.

Kia Optima

I have no idea what the Kia people are trying to say but I just uncovered this ad from the Superbowl and the themes are:

Blackops Heli
Russian Criminal
Poseidon  
UFO           
Wormhole
Life on Mars
Stargate
Chitzen Itza Mayan Temple

One Cubic Milimetre

In a package that's just over one cubic millimeter, the system fits an extremely low-power microprocessor, a pressure sensor, memory, a thin-film battery, a solar cell and a wireless radio with an antenna that can transmit data to an external reader device that would be held near the eye. It's the worlds smallest computer (if we exclude those people who have previously unknown implants removed from them).

Via The Connective Net who has good work in progress for a free and open internet. Go check it out.

Lip Animals

Lip Animals Via the most excellent Tricia Wang

Ethos

Respect to Woody Harrelson for coming off the fence on what matters. This is a playlist embed so you can watch the entire thing without messing about.

Harrelson's father, Charles Harrelson, was part of JFK's assassination.

Twitter In Real Life

Via

DMT Just Went Prime Time

And while I'm at it, I came across this staggering Youtube viewer count for Charlie The Unicorn at 22.5 million views so I thought I'd check it out. It's so psychedelic (and funny) its off the scale. Which is making me curious about children's cartoons. 

Is Lara Logan The New Jessica Lynch

The details of the story are beginning to look fishy, and in the absence of independent media verification and neutrally-sourced supporting scientific evidence, coupled with this eyewitness foreign journalist account. It's now clear that the known facts sit uncomfortably with the spin emerging from the U.S. 

It looks eerily similar to elements of the Jessica Lynch story from Iraq. Most of you know that I participate in online conversations and I've learned to spot the smothering of dissent from tell tale clues in comment style.

In this instance the anonymity and feeble defense from those comments prompted me to post this. Manipulating the population in the States is well documented and the outrage of a fair maiden being ravaged by savage locals is the quintessential knee jerk response of a corn syrup nation reared to respond to anything but it's own vacuous morality, and in desperate need to distract attention from the Billions of dollars that the US provided to prop up the Egyptian dictator they had funded for decades. Money that went straight back into the Pentagon coffers with arm sales. 

It's a military affair after all.

What Planet Are They On?

The seven original Mercury astronauts participate in U.S. Air Force survival school at Stead Air Force Base in Nevada. Picture from left to right are L. Gordon Cooper, Jr., M. Scott Carpenter, John H. Glenn, Jr., Alan Shepard, Virgil I. Grissom, Walter M. Schirra, Jr., and Donald K. Slayton. Portions of their clothing have been fashioned from parachute material, and all have grown beards from their time in the wilderness. The purpose of this training was to prepare astronauts in the event of an emergency or faulty landing in a remote area. (NASA) More over here.

A Revolt Isn't The Same As A Revolution

Johan Galtung is widely known as the pioneering founder of the academic discipline of peace studies. He has served as a professor for peace studies and peace research at the universities of Oslo, Berlin, Belgrad, Paris and Hawaii, just to name a few, and has mediated in about 50 conflicts between states and nations since 1957. 

Clif High & Webbot

I'm amused yet totally unsurprised that social media research hasn't come even close to Clif High's Web Bot. We can see in emerging quantum theory that the future bleeds back into the past to change the present. From that premise (not the the one I prefer as my understanding of the Universe is fundamentally non material and non temporal much like Clif but I'm trying to make it easy for you) I'll lead you to a brief description of Clif's genius.

The Web Bot Project, developed in the late 1990's, was created to assist in making stock market predictions.

The technology uses a system of spiders to crawl the Internet and search for keywords, much like a search engine does. When a keyword is located, the bot program takes a snapshot of the text preceding and following the keyword. This snapshot of text is sent to a central location where it is then filtered to define meaning.

The projects concept is aimed at tapping into the "collective unconscious" of the universe and it's inhabitants. As well, there is an interesting time concept involved and an unusual concept of a "tipping point" regarding the past, current, and future times. It goes a bit deeper than viewing what those of us on the Internet are saying.

I'll just add to that what I've learned from listening to Clif which is that we have set patterns of language in normal use and our antenna to the future bleeds back (much like a Freudian slip) to give us atypical word usage that the Web Bot can spot and build hypotheses from. In an ideal world it would need a couple of hundred years to build 'form' and hammer out the idiosyncrasies of what is very much a craft instead of a science. However Clif's software picked up and predicted 911 before anyone else and so now the CIA have realised they'd made a mistake rejecting his business proposal to them which may explain the possible wire tapping because a lot of his broadcast telephone calls to radio station interviews go suspiciously weird at points which is why I'm going to throw my shoulder to his brilliance. Don't believe me? Listen for yourself. I listen to hundreds of hours of this kind of stuff and it's unusual.

It's alway the linguistic thinkers who appeal to me. First Chomsky, then Wittgenstein and after many hours of listening to Clif I learned he too is a trained linguist. Even if you find his thinking overwhelming on many subjects, anybody can see he's a polymath of extraordinary pattern recognition. He's got a good sense of humour, a disciplined code of conduct and if as I believe he's on to something is possibly one of the most important and interesting people alive. Which is why his work is way above the commercial world even though it's a small team and very much a work in progress. Listen to him on his channel over here. I'll paste one episode below but it's best to listen as a playlist if this doesn't automatically roll over into the second part. He's a smartbomb genius.

Sweet

The Solowheel. I'm gobsmacked how negative the press is for this.

Look At Me

After just 30 seconds of watching television the brain begins to produce alpha waves which indicates torpid (almost comatose) rates of activity. When you watch TV, brain activity switches from the left to the right hemisphere. In fact, experiments conducted by researcher Herbert Krugman showed that while viewers are watching television, the right hemisphere is twice as active as the left, a neurological anomaly. The crossover from left to right releases a surge of the body's natural opiates: endorphins, which include beta-endorphins and enkephalins. Endorphins are structurally identical to opium and its derivatives (morphine, codeine, heroin, etc.). Activities that release endorphins (also called opioid peptides) are usually habit-forming (we rarely call them addictive). These include cracking knuckles, strenuous exercise, and orgasm. 

External opiates act on the same receptor sites (opioid receptors) as endorphins, so there is little difference between the two.In addition to its devastating neurological effects, television can be harmful to your sense of self-worth, your perception of your environment , and your physical health. Recent surveys have shown that 75% of American women think they are overweight, likely the result of watching chronically thin actresses and models four hours a day.

Television has also spawned a "culture of fear" in the U.S. and beyond, with its focus on the limbic brain-friendly sensationalism of violent programming. Studies have shown that people of all generations greatly overestimate the threat of violence in real life. This is no shock because their brains cannot discern reality from fiction while watching TV. Television is bad for your body as well. Obesity, sleep deprivation, and stunted sensory development are all common among television addicts.

The nearest analogy to the addictive power of television and the transformation of values that is wrought in the life of the heavy user is probably heroin.~ Terence McKenna

It Aint Disney

I've never seen a more brutal American cartoon. It's so English. Both funny and revealing of the shift in American reality or at least a shift at a certain level. More important than Wisconsin in my opinion. Correct me in the comments in case I've missed out on a mainstream media cartoonist that works like this. It was in the LA Times

Foreigners In China

Dark Side of the Moon

I had one of the best weekends I've had for ages. Nothing too specific as I'm philosophically happy with much of  life at the moment, but it just seemed that everything was in harmony. I did a lot of jobs that I'd put off for far too long, got rid of more stuff that I don't need, met some terrific people who are comfortable talking about the kind of things I find interesting without choking over the pasta and chardonnay, and I even got some exercise in and watched a couple of great movies.

But the real leap I've been waiting close to 40 years for. I've been looking at the moon all my life and have always felt there is something provocative yet also uber tranquil about it. There was always a sort of mild taunt in its presence which I couldn't articulate. Well, while I may not have secured the answer to the question I realised this weekend that there is a question I must know the answer to. 

That might not seem all that exciting but knowing there is a question is significant progress and so I've added a Lunar Widget to the blog to celebrate the event on the right of this post. With elegant symmetry of timing, a comprehensive post has also been written in the last few hours that covers most of the questions that helped me get to mine.  Don't read it if keeping an open mind is too disruptive and paradigm challenges are too upsetting. 

There are questions raised that I've spent many more hours than most and which I can't secure a conclusion on. Then there's my question to answer now which will probably take another 40 years if the past is any indicator of the future.

By chance while studying solar system moons I learned that Iapetus is uncannily like George Lucas' death star. Which chimes oddly with my synchronicity post from way back.

And If You Tolerate This. Then Your Children Will Be Next

So young, so articulate. So unscripted. Millennial copywriting?


Via Tim

Jaeger - London Fashion Week

Jaeger's colours and proportional straight line cuts at London Fashion week are working for me. I've always enjoyed the quality of this business but this latest show is most elegant. almost worth reconsidering the value of cold weather.

John Carpenter's 'They Live' & Banksy

I'm watching the Banksy documentary which is well worth downloading from www.nikflix.com (somebody should buy that domain). I'm struck how politically it closely ties in with the movie 'They Live'. It's practically a palimpsest.

Update: ODD has produced an excellent analysis of They Live.

The Disney scene in the Banksy movie is extraordinary. It morphs from family fun to plain clothes Guantanamo Mickey Mouse security on Robocop pathology. To quote The Beatles I was playing earlier, "It wont be long, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah".

It's a very provocative and entertaining movie and possibly the most self referential piece of art I've come across for some time. Part postmodern, part self fulfilling prophecy. Watch it if you can. Maybe I should come back to the John Carpenter movie They Live some time because of Freeman's slick sick synchronicity spiel on it. Mind blowing stuff.

With Thanksy to Banksy

As Above So Below

Japanese artist Isao Hashimoto has created a beautiful, undeniably scary time-lapse map of the 2053 nuclear explosions which have taken place between 1945 and 1998, beginning with the Manhattan Project's "Trinity" test near Los Alamos and concluding with Pakistan's nuclear tests in May of 1998. This leaves out North Korea's two alleged nuclear tests in this past decade (the legitimacy of both of which is not 100% clear).

Each nation gets a blip and a flashing dot on the map whenever they detonate a nuclear weapon, with a running tally kept on the top and bottom bars of the screen. Hashimoto, who began the project in 2003, says that he created it with the goal of showing"the fear and folly of nuclear weapons." It starts really slow — if you want to see real action, skip ahead to 1962 or so — but the buildup becomes overwhelming.