Summerlike holiday fun.
How is your sciatica going?
I wouldn't mind a part-time job but they don't pay any money so there's no point. There's little point going for a permanent job cos I could be off anytime to BG. So this could be a summer of earache. keep to the Fen Causeway
P.S. I may be up to April 26 diaries already, so check new comments. I have not even reached mine yet.
</boo> Our knowledge has surpassed our wisdom. -Charu Saxena.
I believe I want one... "Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.
That fact does not prevent me from wanting one, however. :) "Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.
I think Smart cars are quite cool but not worth the price! Ad astra per aspera
They even have Smart cars, which are actually fun to drive.
Very slowly, and mostly as a result of rising gas prices - not a feeling of responsibility toward the environment, things are changing around here. In another 50 years we may even catch up with Europe. ;) "Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.
In another 50 years we may even catch up with Europe. ;)
Rate we're going, you'll overtake UK in 50 months. keep to the Fen Causeway
I mean, seriously, when are stupidly big cars going to be prevented from using public spaces?
"What is zees space of parking you speak of?"
The penalty for not doing this is that your car will be pushed until another car can squeeze in (bumpers are very useful in Paris). In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
According to this, the emissions for the 1.3 litre petrol version are 138g CO2/km. That wouldn't even qualify for the UK tax break for low-emission cars, which kicks in at under 120g/km.
The 1.3 litre Yaris diesel I bought instead emits 117g/km. As much as 60mpg on a carefully driven long run. It isn't, of course, fair to make a direct comparison between petrol and diesel. But I had a wide choice of small cars under the 120g/km threshold.
Fortunately, it was "only" about 30 miles away...
Lot of them out here in the bay area too.
you are the media you consume.
thats 10 mpg less than my 4 year old polo, and 20 less than a new one. Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
I bought a slightly bigger car with a slightly smaller engine, which seems to work better overall. It doesn't look as trim but you can still pack it full of things - and it will even drive up a hill, if you're not in a hurry.
gets about 200 miles (IIRC) on electric.
Should have thought of this on friday for the ask the experts thread. Thanks for the link. Ad astra per aspera
Also, the really cheap calibrators are a total waste of space.
And if you need one, I can always lend you mine for a day or three.
There's no easy answer with monitors. You really need to spend around £300 to start getting reasonable-but-not-great colour at a good resolution.
For comparison, the ones used by colour professionals cost £1500 and upwards for a 19". £3000 for a 21" wouldn't be unusual.
Yikes.
300 I can just about stretch to but I can't justify super pro status ones. I need to get a new external hard drive too so I thought about pushing for a monitor as well. I've got to spend the money at some point on this, and my expenses have just come through so there's a bit of slack in my finances this month.
Once my thesis amendments are sorted I'm setting up my light table so I want a decent screen to work with, especially on macro stuff. Ad astra per aspera
Dells have a surprisingly good reputation. The 2208WFP is £258 inc VAT, and is 22" at 1680 x 1050.
There's a cheaper 22" but the colours on that will be mediocre.
The HP w2408h has good colour at 24" for £300 or so.
you'll probably need a vga connector to fit the socket on your laptop.
the important letters are TFT or LCD those say its a flatscreen, the DVI says what type of connector it has, you probably need one that has VGA or DVI/VGA there Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
A secret interrogation centre in Pakistan where British terrorism suspects are alleged to have been tortured after UK authorities had them arrested has been found by the Guardian. The centre, run by the country's Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI), is in the Saddar district of Rawalpindi. It is surrounded by high walls and watchtowers, and bristling with surveillance cameras. So notorious is the ISI that local photographers are reluctant to take pictures of the centre, although satellite images are readily available...
The centre, run by the country's Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI), is in the Saddar district of Rawalpindi. It is surrounded by high walls and watchtowers, and bristling with surveillance cameras.
So notorious is the ISI that local photographers are reluctant to take pictures of the centre, although satellite images are readily available...
North Carolina and Virginia are now virtually tied between Obama and McCain (demonstrating again why people should listen to me), despite the peak of Pastorgate. Throw a popular Virginian on the ticket (cough not Jim Webb cough), and it probably goes Blue. So score one for Governor Timmeh's Veep hopes. Peyote Bill easily gets you New Mexico and (probably) Colorado, I think, so score two for him, undoubtedly to AT's liking. I'll be interested to see how Missouri and Kansas poll once the nomination is done, as they relate to Kathy Sebelius. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin
what ? From a significant national like WaPo or NYT ? On page one and not in sction D-29 column 4 paragraph z. keep to the Fen Causeway
And the WaPo isn't even a national paper. It's a local paper that gets some attention from the national press purely because of its location and its history with Watergate.
The only truly national papers in the states are the NYT and the WSJ. USAToday, too, I guess, but only because they give it away in every hotel in the country. It's a liteweight.
The important traditional press movers are the network news broadcasts that run at 6.30PM every evening on NBC, CBS and ABC. (Fox, thankfully, doesn't have one on its main station.) McCain's people resigning over their Burma connections is getting a good bit of play, and Howard Dean's "100 Years" ad has been getting a lot of attention from the press. And McCain has been taking a hit over his gas-tax pander, as well as for trying to call Obama the candidate of Hamas. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin
Does seem like I see more FT's than WSJ's on the train these days, though.
"Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.
He'd be better as SecState.
Knocking off Liddy Dole and swinging North Carolina would be a major accomplishment. I don't know how close we are on Olympia Snowe in Maine, but that'd be a huge pick-up. I think we get the Virginia seat easily with Warner. Idaho might not be a half-bad bet with Craig bailing. Alaska has potential in the race against Stevens.
I think BooMan did a run-down on all the Senate seats a while back, and it looked to me like we had the potential to grab 12-14 if things went well. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin
There had been a pretty incendiary thread on dKos where a lot of this stuff got aired and I was able to do a lot of tracking back to real sources from it.
It turns out that the women allegedly mishandled weren't aware of it, the most you could say is that Bill's "charm" can be misread but, judging by what I remember of it, he did not do anything inappropriate.
Also it was obvious that the people (some miffed local dems) who were churning this rumour had personal grudges against him.
The rumours were/are common knowledge around NM and nobody will touch them. Not even the Repugs. If Drudge or Fox thought they could stand it up, they'd have tried before now. keep to the Fen Causeway
I think the whole thing started due to the normal conversation distance of Hispanos is closer than Anglos feel comfortable with.
Anyway, the rumors don't have to be True to be politically effective.
On electoral votes, he gives Obama 237 McCain 290 Ties 11 and Clinton 280 McCain 241 Ties 17.
Comments? When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done. — John M. Keynes
Clinton's Hard Negatives (percentage of people who say they would never vote for her) started in the 40%'s. Several weeks ago, on - take it for what it is worth - Kos someone posted those had risen into the 50 percentile range. I accept that because I think she has alienated the AA population with her and hubbies racist remarks about Obama. YMMV.
I'll let Drew monster-mash through the statistics.
This is before any active campaigning from Obama.
I'd like to be more optimistic, because these polls won't include new voter registrations, which should be giving the Dems some extra tail wind.
Also, I think McCain is more likely to implode than Obama is. He's such a pile of useless flesh that it's only going to take one slip to kill his campaign.
The chances of him getting to the end of the campaign without saying something cravenly stupid or spectacularly dishonest are not good.
Also, state-by-state polling data tends to lag the national polls, if I'm not mistaken. You'll see a candidate start to tick up in national polls, because his/her support is growing and hardening in base states while undecideds are growing in swing states before shifting to that candidate.
Obama's big pick-ups, based on my read of things, are the following: Iowa, New Mexico, Colorado, and Virginia. Those are the first-tier opportunities, and I think the chances are going to be better than 50/50, and probably a good bit better than that. Next would be Nevada, Montana, North Carolina, and Missouri. I think we could divide those states evenly if the campaign is managed properly.
The third tier would include Texas (much closer than expected and a majority-minority state), the Dakotas, and maybe Georgia.
Ohio will be close, but I wouldn't bet on it because of the Appalachia factor. It could flip, but you'd need huge turnout from black folks and white suburbanites in Cleveland, Cinci and Columbus. Possible. Very doable. It's close there now, but Ohio is closer to static than other states, in my opinion, so it'd be an uphill battle. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin
I think most Ron Paul supporters (5-10% of the GOP) are going to go for Obama because of the war, and because Paul has already begun making noises that are, I think, intended to push his supporters that way. So what I'm saying is that I believe you're going to see some anti-war defections from the GOP to Obama, as well as some defections by the Huckabee crowd to Bob Barr. It hasn't gotten ramped up yet, but keep an eye on it. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin
He's on the right track, but I believe he's underestimating Obama's potential with the white vote, and is therefore writing off states without great reason. What he's really picking up on is that the demographics of the country are simply moving in a way that favors Dems over time.
He's writing some states off that I don't think the polling data supports writing off. Montana, Alaska, Virginia, the Dakotas, Missouri, Texas, and the Carolinas jump out to me immediately. As I said, Obama and McCain are tied in NC and VA, for all practical purposes, and the same goes for Montana, Alaska and Texas. We haven't had a poll out of SC since late-February (McCain only +3 at the time), so I can't judge that one.
When I choose my pick for The Big Possible SurpriseTM for the '08 election, there's a chance it might be Texas if this sort of thing keeps up. Again, it's a majority-minority state. Now, granted, whites in Texas are really white and a special kind of crazy, but you have a similar effect there to what you've got in places like Virginia, Georgia and North Carolina: At least one massive, diverse city that offers Dems an opening. In the case of Texas, there are actually four such cities: Houston, Dallas-Ft Worth, Austin, and San Antonio. If you can deliver massive turnout among Latinos and blacks, and then pick off those white suburbs around the big cities (one group to which Obama tends to sell very well), you've got a good shot. Maybe no better than even, but good.
Peyote Bill, especially, could offer some serious help. Sebelius, too. Less so Kaine, whose appeal is really just a one-state thing, along with a little help given his roots in Missouri and Kansas.
And, anyway, Obama's kind of a cocky little shit, so Texas would make sense.
The real point -- and Poblano's made this before -- is that, properly executed (and, to their credit, the Obama team seems to do that pretty consistently), I think we can bust up a lot of states and end this duopoly that Florida and Ohio have over the country. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin
But it's going to depend on how much crap the Rs can find to throw at Obama. I get the impression the Rs don't really have a strategy. They'll be doing tooting on the dog whistle, but that's not going to do anything for the 60-70% of the population who aren't racist little thugs.
McCain has no chance with the AA vote, and that leaves his constituency looking bare. Evangelicals won't be inspired, the Money will vote dutifully but not very significantly in terms of numbers, so overall McCain is going to be lucky to get >45% of the total vote.
Obama's campaign so far has responded to attacks blindingly quickly, and I don't think McCain has either the smarts of the stamina to put up a convincing fight.
It's not too much of an exaggeration to suggest that all Obama has to do is be polite and reasonable and wait for McCain to lose his temper on TV.
McCain's real problem is that any bit of ammo he's got to go after Obama is matched by much heavier artillery that Obama can use on McCain. So Obama can say to him, "Alright, asshole, wanna run Wright commercials? Great, let's introduce Catholics to Hagee and the country in general to Parsley." McCain will be reduced to a stuttering idiot.
"My friends, I don't think Catholics are whores or that my wife is a trollop or a cunt."
"Elitism"? McCain's got his own private jet. End of story.
Even on the silly identity games, McCain is a lot more vulnerable.
It'd be great. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin
Guardian - Jackie Ashley - Beware cosy deals between politicians and their pundits
Nobody interested in how people in power manipulate public opinion can afford to miss the exposé of the Bush administration's use of "experts" to sell the Iraq war and defend itself over Guantánamo. This is an old-fashioned investigative scoop by a New York Times reporter, David Barstow, that is convulsing the US media with accusation and counter-accusation - a huge story there that has made surprisingly few ripples here. It should.
What is less known is the extent to which news is direct advertising, from corporations or the government - with newsroom budgets on the decline for many years now, especially local offices, it fits their business model to have other people do their work for them.
BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Thousands dead in Chinese quake
A powerful earthquake has killed at least 8,500 people in China's south-western Sichuan province, up to 5,000 of them in just one county. Many more are feared killed and injured in other parts of the country after the 7.8-magnitude quake struck at 1428 local time (0628 GMT). At least 50 bodies have been recovered from the rubble of a school where an estimated 900 students were buried. President Hu Jintao has urged "all-out" efforts to rescue victims. The epicentre of the earthquake was about 92km (57 miles) from Chengdu, Sichuan's provincial capital.
A powerful earthquake has killed at least 8,500 people in China's south-western Sichuan province, up to 5,000 of them in just one county.
Many more are feared killed and injured in other parts of the country after the 7.8-magnitude quake struck at 1428 local time (0628 GMT).
At least 50 bodies have been recovered from the rubble of a school where an estimated 900 students were buried.
President Hu Jintao has urged "all-out" efforts to rescue victims.
The epicentre of the earthquake was about 92km (57 miles) from Chengdu, Sichuan's provincial capital.
But earthquakes are just gonna happen. keep to the Fen Causeway
I wish I had enough perspective to know if this is a sign the earth is freaking out on us, or just routine weather disasters.
Heh. Did you miss this morning chatter?
Perspective is what I was lamenting. Not the absence of a retributive sky god... "Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.
Do you ever have days when, even as an atheist, Praying for the human race might actually seem to be a good idea? Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
Actually, that is funny. lol... "Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.
Maybe mammals are a bad idea in general?
Sponges seem quite tame. You can't do a lot of damage as a sponge. And if you get to be a really really big sponge, you might even get around to discovering relativity - just because it's more interesting than being stuck to the bottom of the ocean all day without your mouth open.
But stop me if I'm being too optimistic here.
:-)
Carry on among yourselves.
I'm quitting my end of this conversation. right. here. "Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.
They are retribution for homosexual sins... or commie chinese.
A pleasure I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude
That's not a duck. That is a drake.
I'm taking a break from remodeling to do some contract work. (Money makes the world go around, the world go around)
More arrests in Zim as Tsvangirai prepares return : Mail & Guardian Online
Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe's government intensified a crackdown against its political opponents on Monday, as the leader of the opposition prepared to return home to contest a run-off election. Journalists, union leaders and hundreds of political activists have been arrested since general elections in March that were lost by the ruling party, but Monday brought news of the first lawmaker to be taken into police custody. Heya Shoko, a Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) parliamentarian who won a seat in the Masvingo province formerly held by Mugabe's Zanu-PF party, was arrested in connection with post-election violence in his constituency, a colleague said. "I was with him in town when three detectives ... took him away saying it was in connection with some incidents in his constituency," fellow MDC lawmaker Ernest Mudavanhu said by phone from Masvingo, south-east Zimbabwe. News of the arrest came as the president and secretary general of the country's main labour organisation, the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), were denied bail as they made a first court appearance on charges of incitement to rebellion in connection with speeches delivered at a May Day rally.
Also, I've on and off reported about my contact who went back into Zim a few weeks ago for the purpose of arranging the paperwork for him and his two children and to get them into SA legally ASAP. He was supposed to travel to Joburg past week - but was refused to exit Zimbabwe at the (Zimbabwean) border. He was told his children could go on alone. They returned, he re-applied today and was officially denied border movement now. He now is going to take the dangerous route and will have to attempt bribery - he does not want to be locked in Zimbabwe. It suggests that a (targeted?) border lock-down may be in place.
Furthermore, there are rumours that Mugabe has called to kick out the illegal Zimbabweans out of South Africa and back to Zim. Whether true or not, these rumours have resulted in riots in Alexandra township - where I do my volunteering work on Saturday. Two people are reportedly killed. The Children of Fire NGO has been asked (by the governmental department!!!) to supply aid and food for the immigrants who have been kicked on the street. The volunteers couldn't go in tonight - it was to dangerous without a police escort, and they didn't get one.
It's getting scary.
TWENTY British Euro MPs are milking taxpayers' cash to bankroll wives and family | News | News of the World
OFFICIAL documents obtained by the News of the World reveal TWENTY British Euro MPs are milking taxpayers' cash to bankroll wives and family as highly-paid "assistants". Tory toff North West MEP Sir Robert Atkins, pictured above, has admitted paying his pensioner wife Lady Dulcie Mary Atkins, also pictured above, over £30,000 a year as his secretary. She squeezes this role in alongside her work as a busy member of Wyre Borough Council, and Garstang Town Council, as well as holding down a string of community and charitable commitments.
Tory toff North West MEP Sir Robert Atkins, pictured above, has admitted paying his pensioner wife Lady Dulcie Mary Atkins, also pictured above, over £30,000 a year as his secretary.
She squeezes this role in alongside her work as a busy member of Wyre Borough Council, and Garstang Town Council, as well as holding down a string of community and charitable commitments.
[Murdoch Alert] Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
IMO Watching the UKIP vote at the next General Election will be interesting. Member of the Anti-Fabulousness League since 1987.
The reason why the UKIP guy surprised me is that I thought it was part of a campaign to discredit not only the European Parliment and EU as a whole, but also the Conservative politicians in Europe. It would raise the issue of Europe back into the Conservative agenda, either forcing some kind of proper position from Cameron, or at least damaging them yet again so that UKIP will continue to benefit in elections until the Conservative party moves to a more Eurosceptic position.
That's partly why I think UKIP will be an interesting party to watch come the next election. For a small party, they take a respectable number of votes, averaging at about 1,000 per consituency. But in reality they can top 3,000 in some places, which could prove a spoiler for a Conservative candidate. I want to see if its supporters go back to the Conservative party now that it looks like it may win, or whether they continue to support UKIP. The party has recently changed its name, and developed policies for all the major areas, so now it looks like a proper party in itself, instead of a pressure campaign against the Conservatives. If it doesn't get killed off at the next election, it could hang around for a good while longer.
At least, that's my analysis. Member of the Anti-Fabulousness League since 1987.
Bill Newton Dunn MEP: MEPs' assistants (March 13, 2008)
There has, rightly, been an outcry against the confidential auditors' report about dubious assistants employed by some MEPs. Being a member of the parliament's Budgetary Control committee, I read the full report - in a sealed room and had to sign that I would not reveal its contents nor take any notes. The report by a team of auditors said that they had looked at a sample of the contracts between some MEPs and the assistants whom they employed. No names, no political parties, no nationalities were identified. It was clear to me that some - but not all - un-named MEPs have stretched the rules beyond breaking-point. The problem, in my opinion, is that the parliament's staff is grossly overstretched : they have to try to verify contracts in any of three alphabets (ours, Greek, or Bulgarian cyrillic) and in any of the 23 official EU languages, and there are not enough of them to do the job effectively. When the full committee met, the Liberal MEPs moved that the report be made public. The committee chairman, an Austrian socialist, insisted that a vote was not on the agenda so it would have to be part of Any Other Business just before the meeting's end on the following afternoon. When we reached that moment, a lawyer was given the floor and he argued why a vote was not possible (not least because the report did not belong to the committee and was therefore not ours to publish). The clock ticked rapidly towards 18.30 when the language interpreters are entitled to go home. As the wrangling continued, suddenly the committee room filled with arriving Christian-Democrat and Socialist MEPs to fill the empty places. At 18.29 the vote was called - and we Liberals lost it. I love the work of the parliament, but at that moment I felt ashamed at the blatant cover-up by the Conservatives' allies and by Labour's allies.
Being a member of the parliament's Budgetary Control committee, I read the full report - in a sealed room and had to sign that I would not reveal its contents nor take any notes. The report by a team of auditors said that they had looked at a sample of the contracts between some MEPs and the assistants whom they employed. No names, no political parties, no nationalities were identified. It was clear to me that some - but not all - un-named MEPs have stretched the rules beyond breaking-point. The problem, in my opinion, is that the parliament's staff is grossly overstretched : they have to try to verify contracts in any of three alphabets (ours, Greek, or Bulgarian cyrillic) and in any of the 23 official EU languages, and there are not enough of them to do the job effectively.
When the full committee met, the Liberal MEPs moved that the report be made public. The committee chairman, an Austrian socialist, insisted that a vote was not on the agenda so it would have to be part of Any Other Business just before the meeting's end on the following afternoon. When we reached that moment, a lawyer was given the floor and he argued why a vote was not possible (not least because the report did not belong to the committee and was therefore not ours to publish). The clock ticked rapidly towards 18.30 when the language interpreters are entitled to go home. As the wrangling continued, suddenly the committee room filled with arriving Christian-Democrat and Socialist MEPs to fill the empty places. At 18.29 the vote was called - and we Liberals lost it.
I love the work of the parliament, but at that moment I felt ashamed at the blatant cover-up by the Conservatives' allies and by Labour's allies.
For political reasons in some countries, MEP salaries are not as high as they should be; instead, they get generous expense accounts and secretarial budgets that they can use freely, including to hire family members (as if that did not happen in national parliaments, and as if that were a bad thing per se).
There is no scandal. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
Privex
I did think of tipping off the FSA, but they can look after themselves, whereas anyone who operates out of that well known financial hub
Unit 13, Shakespeare Ind Est Watford WD24 5RR United Kingdom
needs all the help they can get...
Good luck, guys.... "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
Wild Polar Bear vs Dogs
The Polar Bear returned every night that week to play with the dogs.
As to our children and their inheritance of the world, they will have to deal with it on the terms its presents itself to them in their own times. At some level, I am happy that the shallow materialism that kept us so numb is ending. Yet, quite naturally, at this point they are succumbing to it as we did. But it's unsustainable, regardless of what the powerful and rich of the earth may think. Hubris is the most common element of power. When the game is up, the game is up. Meanwhile, we stand here at the edge of a new age, aware of what comes next. An undetermined period of horror. Still, there is a certain liberation in that if we apply ourselves we can understand what those before us could never have hoped to realize -- Liberation not as a species or a select group, but as individuals who pass through this veil as anonymously as did billions before us. Truth be known, I'd rather be here at the crest of the tectonic shift in humanity than in the numb age in which I was led to such illusion as has plagued Americans and the Western World for the past hundred years or so. And the despots and the liars? I suspect we will have to suffer them for some time to come, but collapse has no favorites. It falls upon us all equally as a species. Somehow, in that there is sort of a cosmic justice. You may not like such a term as cosmic, I dunno. But it's the only term I can think of that alludes to the scale of change we are about to encounter as an insignificant smear of biology hurtling through the interstellar void. Disillusionment is not everything, and it is the rightful inheritance of the privileged. And in looking at the Third World half the year as I do (and by no means the worst conditions of the Third World) I hopefully grasp that we are far, far beyond privileged. We are princes of the earth and rightfully have fallen, or soon will have. To have seen a specter is not everything (to quote Neal Cassady). And yes, there are skulls piled clear to heaven. But the purpose at hand, in as much as there ever was any purpose for you and me, is to savor realization, not mourn it.
As to our children and their inheritance of the world, they will have to deal with it on the terms its presents itself to them in their own times. At some level, I am happy that the shallow materialism that kept us so numb is ending. Yet, quite naturally, at this point they are succumbing to it as we did. But it's unsustainable, regardless of what the powerful and rich of the earth may think. Hubris is the most common element of power. When the game is up, the game is up.
Meanwhile, we stand here at the edge of a new age, aware of what comes next. An undetermined period of horror. Still, there is a certain liberation in that if we apply ourselves we can understand what those before us could never have hoped to realize -- Liberation not as a species or a select group, but as individuals who pass through this veil as anonymously as did billions before us.
Truth be known, I'd rather be here at the crest of the tectonic shift in humanity than in the numb age in which I was led to such illusion as has plagued Americans and the Western World for the past hundred years or so.
And the despots and the liars? I suspect we will have to suffer them for some time to come, but collapse has no favorites. It falls upon us all equally as a species. Somehow, in that there is sort of a cosmic justice. You may not like such a term as cosmic, I dunno. But it's the only term I can think of that alludes to the scale of change we are about to encounter as an insignificant smear of biology hurtling through the interstellar void.
Disillusionment is not everything, and it is the rightful inheritance of the privileged. And in looking at the Third World half the year as I do (and by no means the worst conditions of the Third World) I hopefully grasp that we are far, far beyond privileged. We are princes of the earth and rightfully have fallen, or soon will have. To have seen a specter is not everything (to quote Neal Cassady). And yes, there are skulls piled clear to heaven. But the purpose at hand, in as much as there ever was any purpose for you and me, is to savor realization, not mourn it.
yeah joe! ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
