freedom?

Derrick Jenson: One of the primary fictions that governs our lives is that we are in any meaningful sense free. Our way of life is predicated on freedom, and is freer than any other way of life that has ever existed, we tell ourselves endlessly, drearily, compulsively, as sleep-deprived we look out the window at the concrete walls of a subway tunnel, on a cattle car carrying us too slow yet too fast toward a job we do not love to make money to buy things we do not want, in a life carrying us too slow yet too fast toward an end—death—for which we are not prepared, having never really lived.

A worthy article that prompts reflection. Read it here.

Australia pulling out of US

Costello seeks orderly $US withdrawal
John Garnaut Economics Correspondent
October 18, 2006

TREASURER Peter Costello has called on East Asia's central bankers to "telegraph" their intentions to diversify out of American investments and ensure an orderly adjustment.

Central banks in China, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and Hong Kong have channelled immense foreign reserves into American government bonds, helping to prop up the US dollar and hold down American interest rates.

Mr Costello said "the strategy had changed" and Chinese central bankers were now looking for alternative investments. "Of course you can have an orderly adjustment," he told reporters. "And what I would recommend is that these matters be telegraphed well in advance. I think we should begin preparing ourselves for it."

Read full article...

habeas corpus - gone

It is amazing to witness a country descend into fascism before our very eyes. The only thing that seems to make such things possible, so that we only see them when we look back fom a vantage point in history, is that human beings seem to have a remarkably short memory. We consistently fail to connect the dots and see the changes as part of a big picture.

Yesterday marked the signing of the Military Commissions Act by George W Bush and the loss of Habeas Corpus. A silent America watched in cowed silence but many, including myself, felt the first cold breath of fascism chilling our bones and the fall landscape. Last night Keith Olbermann, MSNBC, marked the death of habeas corpus with an eloquent speech which spoke to the heart of the matter. As he noted we have suffered similar temporary loses of freedoms, but we have never lost the heart of our liberty - habeas corpus which dates back to the Magna Carta in 1215. - Allen Roland

Olbermann: And lastly, as promised, a special Comment tonight on the signing of the Military Commissions Act and the loss of Habeas Corpus.

We have lived as if in a trance.

We have lived. as people in fear.

And now - our rights and our freedoms in peril - we slowly awake to learn that we have been afraid of the wrong thing.

Therefore, tonight, have we truly become, the inheritors of our American legacy.

For, on this first full day that the Military Commissions Act is in force, we now face what our ancestors faced, at other times of exaggerated crisis and melodramatic fear-mongering:

A government more dangerous to our liberty, than is the enemy it claims to protect us from.

infrastructure not being maintained

Few people know that I truly began my career as an investigative reporter with the 4-1-1 Blackout (it occurred at precisely 4:11pm) of August 14, 2003.

Jack Casazza, lifetime member of the IEEE, told me in a phone interview in 2003 that the commission that investigated the blackout was effectively involved in a cover up. Casazza has been on six such panels investigating blackouts in his career. Not once was he asked to sign a confidentiality agreement. In stark contrast, every member of the panel investigating the 4-1-1 Blackout was sworn to secrecy.

What was the big secret?

It is possible (and I believe highly likely) that the 4-1-1 Blackout was a test for the inevitable – cascading blackouts across the country: The Olduvai Gorge. No one is investing into energy infrastructure because there is not going to be enough energy to make such investments profitable. I will be commenting more on this soon. – MK

Dark Days Ahead

By Jason Leopold
Tuesday 17 October 2006
t r u t h o u t | Report

...On Monday, the North American Electric Reliability Council, an organization funded by the power industry, and that was named by federal regulators in July as the new watchdog group in charge of overseeing the rules for operating the nation's power grid, issued a grim report that confirmed an investigative story first reported by Truthout in August: three years after a devastating blackout left 50 million people in the dark in the Northeastern United States and parts of Canada for nearly three days, and forced the closure of the New York Stock Exchange, nothing substantial has been done to overhaul the country's dilapidated power grid.

"The adequacy of North America's electricity system will decline unless changes are made soon," said Rick Sergel, president and CEO of the North American Electric Reliability Council. "Our economy and quality of life are more reliant on electricity every day, yet the operation and planning for a reliable and adequate electricity system is becoming increasingly difficult. The transmission system requires additional investment to address reliability issues and economic impacts. Expansion and strengthening of the transmission system continues to lag demand growth and expansion of generating resources in most areas."

Today, the US power grid - three interconnected grids made up of 3,500 utilities serving 283 million people - still hangs together by a thread. The slightest glitch on the transmission superhighway could upset the smooth distribution of electricity over thousands of miles of transmission lines and darken states from Ohio to New York in a matter of seconds, bringing hospitals and airports to a standstill and putting an untold number of lives at risk.

America - From Freedom to Fascism

I first posted information on this film back in early June. Well it has just hit the public domain. You can watch the entire film here at Google. And if you dont have time for the whole thing, then enter the search "freedom to fascism" in Google Video or You Tube. It will bring up lots of short (4-10 min) clips from the film.

I will work to get this into the Waiheke Cinema very soon! Here is the entire film...

oil, smoke and mirrors video

The work to reveal the facts behind the events of 9/11 continues, and as this film points out, is a pivotal issue in understanding many world events. The introduction focuses on Peak Oil and helps us see why it is understandable that we slip easily into denial of the facts - the implications are simply too great. Highly recommended...



For those who prefer to read the information contained in this video, you can do so here, in an article titled: Energy Depletion & the US Descent into Fascism, by Dale Allen Pfeiffer. You can also download the article in PDF form for printing and sharing.

New Poll of US citizens October 14th - Many adults in the United States believe the current federal government has not been completely forthcoming on the issue of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, according to a poll by the New York Times and CBS News. 53 per cent of respondents think the Bush administration is hiding something, and 28 per cent believe it is lying. [That's 81% of the population questioning and wanting to know the truth]

Source: The New York Times / CBS News
Methodology: Telephone interviews with 983 American adults, conducted from Oct. 5 to Oct. 8, 2006. Margin of error is 4 per cent.
Read more...

biggest bomb plot in UK history

But it doesn't make the news!

Why? Because the suspects are neither Arab nor Muslim. A retired Grange dentist is accused of being part of a bomb plot after a record number of explosives were seized in a Lancashire town. David Bolais Jackson, 62, of Trent Road, Nelson, was arrested on Friday in the Lancaster area after leaving his Grange practice for the last time.

Jackson was charged with being in possession of an explosive substance for an unlawful purpose. [Notice the absence of terrorism charges] However, it is unclear who or what the intended target might have been. Police found rocket launchers, chemicals, British National Party literature and a nuclear or biological suit [!!!] at his home. Read more...

Thank you to "The Truth Shall Will Set You Free" for this article.

mind over genes

Though mass consciousness is currently imbued with the notion that genes control the character of our lives, the results of the Human Genome Project completely undermine the long held concept of genetic determinism. Once thought to be in the domain of the genes, the control of health and behavior are now dynamically linked to the environment, and more importantly, our perception of the environment.

Though mass consciousness is currently imbued with the notion that genes control the character of our lives, the results of the Human Genome Project completely undermine the long held concept of genetic determinism.Dr. Bruce Lipton, noted lecturer and cell biologist, offers exciting new information on the molecular mechanisms by which animals, from single cells to humans, transduce environmental stimuli into physiological and behavioral responses.

The newly identified cellular mechanisms include master switches through which our thoughts, attitudes and beliefs create the conditions of our body and of our place in the world. These amazing advances provide a scientific foundation for the necessity of merging allopathic, complementary and spiritual healing modalities. Evolution of this molecular mechanism provides for human consciousness and contributes to our spiritual nature.

BRUCE H. LIPTON, PH.D., is author of the best selling “The Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter and Miracles.” As a scientist and lecturer, Bruce formerly served as an Associate Professor of Anatomy in the School of Medicine at the University of Wisconsin, where he participated in the medical curriculum as a lecturer in Cell Biology, Histology and Embryology. His laboratory research on muscular dystrophy focused on the biochemistry of cloned human stem cells. Subsequently, as a Fellow in Pathology at Stanford University’s School of Medicine, his published research on cloned human cells revealed how perception controls behavior and gene activity. Bruce has taken his award-winning medical school lectures to the public and is currently a popular keynote speaker and workshop presenter on topics of conscious parenting and the science of complementary medicine. To learn more of Dr. Lipton, visit www.brucelipton.com

There is also a torrent file here for a one hour presentation of this information that I can highly recommend watching.

when the water is gone?

India Digs Deeper, but Wells Are Drying Up

India is using groundwater so rapidly that some areas have already run out.
In a village in Rajasthan, above, the state sends in water by train.

crisis in the amazon

Taken directly from Earth Future's web site - September 2006.

CRISIS IN THE AMAZON

I wish you didn’t have to read such news in a small newsletter like this, when it should be hammered across the front pages of the world’s newspapers. I wish I didn’t have to write it at all.

The Amazon rainforest, home to a fifth of the planet’s plant and animal species, 200 indigenous cultures, and 30 million people, is in danger of dying.

Once, there was a river

The Amazon is in the second year of its worst drought on record. Rivers and lakes have turned to sand and mud, and millions of fish have died. Brazil’s government has declared a state of emergency across all 253 towns in the region that depend on boats for food, medicines, and fuel.

The drought is being linked to record water temperatures in the south-west Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico, and the constant destructive logging.

But here’s the alarming bit. Starting in 2002, Dr Dan Nepstead from the world-class Woods Hole Research Centre did an experiment in which he covered 2.5 acres of the rainforest with plastic sheets to see how it would cope when deprived of rain, and surrounded the area with sophisticated sensors.

In the first year, the trees managed okay. In the second year, they dug their roots deeper in search of water. In the third year they started dying. The tallest trees crashed to the ground, exposing the forest floor to the sun. By the end of the third year, they had released 2/3rds of the carbon dioxide they had been storing, adding it to the atmosphere’s burden. The Amazon stores 90 billion tonnes of carbon, enough to increase global warming by 50%.

If the drought continues next year, Dr Nepstead expects mega-fires to sweep across the forest. "With the trees gone, the soil will bake in the sun and the rainforest could become a desert."

If the Amazon were to die, the impact would affect the entire planet, since the hot, wet Amazon evaporates vast amounts of water that rises high into the sky, drawing in the wet north-east trade winds which pick up moisture from the Atlantic. Without the forest to absorb the water and store the carbon, much of the world would become hotter and dryer. (Thanks to Geoffrey Lean, The Independent, July 23, 2006)

Once, there was a river

The speed of deforestation is a big factor behind the drought. About a fifth of the Amazon rainforest has been razed completely, but another 22% has been logged enough to allow sun to penetrate the forest floor and dry it out. That brings the total to 42%, close to 50%, which the climate models predict to be the tipping point for the death of the Amazon.

The Amazon in happier days

urban agriculture

A Growing Opportunity
Urban agriculture takes root in empty lots and abandoned spaces
Don Butler
The Ottawa Citizen Sunday,
June 18, 2006

Argentina's 2001 meltdown hit the city of Rosario hard. Fully 800,000 of its 1.2 million residents were plunged into poverty because of widespread unemployment caused by the economic crash.

To cope, the city, located about 300 kilometres northwest of Buenos Aires, turned to a seemingly quixotic strategy -- urban agriculture.

It turned over public land, offered tax breaks to owners of vacant lots who agreed to let poor residents grow organic produce on their property, and began to supply tools, seeds and other supplies.

Before long, more than 800 community gardens had sprung up, supporting 10,000 farmers and their families. What they didn't need for themselves, they could sell in one of seven new farmer's markets established by the city. Read on...

mutual support

Hi Helen,

I was up at 6:00 this morning to meditate, and was drawn to spend an hour transplanting seedlings from a tray into pots of six seedlings in each.


I now have 60 healthy Loose Leaf Mixed Lettuce seedlings, and to my amazement I have only taken from one fifth of the tray! Just one of those packets you sent me held 300 viable seeds. What abundance!


It was delightful contemplating what a lovely gesture of mutual support that gift of seeds from you was.

Economics is everything people do for each other. Whether actions are taken for love, barter or money, they contribute to mutual provision. I use the phrase "mutual provision" synonymously with "economics" to make it clear that the whole process is, in essence, about people taking care of each other. This reassuring perspective is often lost in the shadow of the competitive economic model now in command. To the extent that the present model no longer serves the common good, it will change as conventional wisdom recognizes the deviation. - Mike Nickerson

I have been focusing on the money systems and looking for these wonderful human gestures which will ultimately transcend and transform the money system as we know it.

Thank you,

James