Why is it that Kurzweil can focus so clearly and radically, acceptable as prophetic visionary, on the assumption of organized energy from the body into the machine, in other words the uploading of the self's architecture out of the short-lived corporeal into the mechanical and immortality that way, but it's laughable, ridiculous to insist that same process or something like it could take place from the body into say something like a 2000 year old tree? Could have been is taking place all along beside us around us through us in us.
Why is that absurd, but Kurzweil's vision of the uploaded self residing in an eternal mechanical housing is plain fascinating?
I'll tell you why.
Because the threat is there - in the tree, in the world, in organic life itself. The rejection of the failed and failing being, greedy grasping incapable, thwarted and petulant, etc and so on. Beauty and grace for all their benevolent lustre are implacable and uncompromising. Kurzweil's vision is a loser's alternative to what's been here from the beginning and won't accept that selfish uber alles mentality of spirit.
You can destroy the world but you don't have the skill or the grace to create it.
Or the humility to help bring it into being.

links from/to Shahidul Alam:

http://www.shahidulnews.com/2009/05/23/dreaming-of-tamil-eelam/

She, like so many others who have been oppressed, will forever yearn for freedom. Until another’s prosperity gives one joy; until another’s sorrow gives one pain; until the betterment of another becomes one’s concern; until one is liberated by another’s freedom; victory over another, will be a defeat for oneself.

http://www.shahidulnews.com/the-unfolding-crisis-in-pakistan/

Rahnuma Ahmed in a four part series, writes on the unfolding crisis in Pakistan

A largely defenseless people struggling to survive and hemmed in on a narrow strip of land, facing indiscriminate air strikes, assault from gun boats and cluster bombs by a well-equipped army...

Israel continues to supply Sri Lanka with arms and military training even after the United States and Britain cut off military supplies to Sri Lanka over the government’s human rights violations.

WMR/onlinejournal

Don't forget the blood of the lamb, honey!

On October 16, 2004, President George W. Bush signed the Israel Lobby’s bill, the Global Anti-Semitism Review Act. This legislation requires the US Department of State to monitor anti-Semitism worldwide.

To monitor anti-Semitism, it has to be defined. What is the definition? Basically, as defined by the Israel Lobby and Abe Foxman, it boils down to any criticism of Israel or Jews.

Rahm Israel Emanuel hasn’t been mopping floors at the White House. As soon as he gets the Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 passed, it will become a crime for any American to tell the truth about Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and theft of their lands.

It will be a crime for Christians to acknowledge the New Testament’s account of Jews demanding the crucifixion of Jesus.

It will be a crime to report the extraordinary influence of the Israel Lobby on the White House and Congress, such as the AIPAC-written resolutions praising Israel for its war crimes against the Palestinians in Gaza that were endorsed by 100 percent of the US Senate and 99 per cent of the House of Representatives, while the rest of the world condemned Israel for its barbarity.

Paul Craig Roberts

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Something much much more worrisome to me than Jewish control of US public discourse is the vectoring of "carbon footprint" worries with the increasing social and political dominance of Jewish power, as per Th. Friedman and Disney's "Earth".
A still unspoken but widely thought about aspect of the "too many people, not enough resources" thing is how much easier it would be to maintain consumption rates at present per capita levels but reduce the number of consumers, the number of capita per.
It solves the problem of resource scarcity at the same time it solves the uncomfortable problem of trying to get people to give up their toys and luxuries. Keep the toys and luxuries, get rid of the neighbors!
Keep in mind that the people now running the US and most of the rest of Western Civilization have as their central founding myth the "Passover" which is the biological removal of an enemy by the hand of God, operating through his angels. His exterminating angels. Who had to be specifically shown which houses not to infect when it came plague time. Divine power being somewhat myopic.
Thus the blood of the lamb reference.
Keep in mind that Christianity as presently iterated is pretty much just "Judaism for Dummies"
Crazy people who think their self-made deity uses disease to protect them.
Focusing exclusively on Israel - the crimes of mistreatment and subjugation visited on the Palestinians by gloating Israelis, the grotesque atrocities of Gaza, the glaringly obvious fact of Israeli/Jewish manipulation of the US government and public to accomplish the atrocity of Iraq - is no longer strategically accurate, true as it is, important as it is to keep the accusations loud and clear.
But Israel and the US are now part of the same geopolitical entity, as is England and possibly France. Israel is the head, the US is the body, sort of.
These are not sane men, they are not decent men, and they are not noble men. What they are is desperate and conscienceless men.
And just as with the Iraq debacle, it's vital that people get in front of them, not follow behind them cataloging their duplicities and crimes.
Reality isn't enough.
Predict what they'll do and make it plain and simple.
Sabotage their iniquity with truth. And quit worrying about hurting people's feelings.
They aren't.
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just wondering...

random notes on the fly:

Disney's Earth can be readily interpreted, the phrase not the television program, as a statement of territoriality and possession.
Which seems banal and adolescent until you set Thomas Friedman's eco-posturing next to it. And if like me and more than a few others you have this sense of a restrained hunger for eugenic cull fermenting at the edges of public discourse.
I'm not suggesting there's anything conscious or overt in that. Just one of those happy accidents brought about by the limits of language and the partiality of enlightened consciousness in the main players.
An automatic and obvious response to the excesses of humanity's carbon footprint isn't just the lessening of the carbon footprint itself - using less, using more green tech, etc - in fact built into the frame of the question as it's presented is that the foot itself could well be reduced, the size of the foot itself could be made smaller, and this would lower the carbon footprint as well as making available much that is scarce and growing scarcer now.
In fact it's suspicious that there's so little talk of eugenics at a time like this.
Suspicious to the edge of alarming, except that everything's pretty alarming anyway.
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The term "hyper-Semitic" could be introduced into the discourse now, it would help.

You never know for sure, and that's key, that's the small art, the banal skill, that you never know. There's parallels, threads of identical aspect and manner and codes of dress and vibe, but you never know for sure.
The guy that wrote this was healthy looking, stocky, white, mid-30's maybe, a little too muscled for his purported station, though no station was purported, until you read the thing he left.
Where this is is a library at a major university, open to the public, but on a semi-remote campus, I have a library card here of which I very proudly am in possession of which also I got by plunking down 50$ when I had 73$ to my name and no particular prospect of any further$$.
Which gives my presence here among these young bright minds a quasi-legitimacy that's paper thin and no less dubious than anything but I have it and I'm proud of it and of getting it etc.
So the pigs.
They're not smart, but have resources that create a kind of organizational intelligence and of course have force, power of weaponry and statute, and a proven record of severity and ignorance that makes them dangerous and threatening, and especially for me, way out here on the loopy scary margins of moral integrity and performance.
So I'm reading Moses Maimoniodes up on the fourth floor or the third floor, I can't remember today, it was over two weeks ago, and dude comes in huffing and puffing sits down and starts doing that "Got to win got to win got to win" smashfinger keyboard attack and twice I glanced at his back while he made particular loudness and he turned enough around to catch me looking at the corner of his peripheral and then after a while of smashfinger exercize he splits. Leaving his writing in a word document displayed on the screen. Didn't copy it to other media as far as i know tho maybe he did I just didn't see it, and didn't erase it on completion.
I went and did other stuff but curiosity drove me to check it, I resisted as long as I could so then I read it.
I have psychic armor that's very thick, old, rusted in spots, dented, cratered, spiky in places, things don't get through right away, I read it, then copied onto an SD card and back to the woods I.
Then read it again next time in.
Pigs/not pigs, who knows.
Anyone with literary skill will see the threat in it, the fakeness of "Sequoia" is glaring to me but...you never know, and that's the art, small and uninterestingly banal as it is. Interesting to me because it's one of a novella's worth of similar incidents and similar individuals and similar vague unpinnable threatening moves, some which were obviously swine-origin, some, like this one, you never know for sure.

A Travel & Observation report by Tharon Chandler
04/09/2009
The town of Santa Cruz is in some ways a poorly kept secret. The weather is not the best all the time yet perhaps the People are. The territory is kind to a traveling bum, as the creek swells and flows to the sea. A man can swim in the Ocean, though the air temp nor the water is warm, and then clean off even more in fresh-water of the creek, which is a little warmer and very clear.
Nice ducks land in the creek waters and one female cares for a bubbling brood, even while she still must flee from the aggressive males. The males have a ring-neck and a vivid green head while the female looks are more plain. She seems to be running or flying for her life when three or more males pursue, yet one of the males helps protect the brood of half a dozen chicks, with her. The little chicks must strive against the current of the creek and the parents will not help too closely, this helps the babies to get stronger by the hour.
In the town the bus service is good without being too expensive and attractive people ride the bus; some go to the University. UC Santa Cruz is set in a forest of massive evergreens; probably some kind Sequoia and lush like a rain forest. The forest is mature in that the upper canopy makes for a soft but clear lower level, on the ground. People had lived comfortably in the woods here, as there still are ancient kilns with a view of the sea. The woods have no venomous snakes; not that I have seen, and there are some snails that look like a Mexican Pepper. There are many shelled snails and likely this served as a food source for some people.
The people here are as cordial and beautiful and sophisticated and friendly as anywhere on Earth. Likely a pretty tough security force lurks just behind the scenes. I’d be on their side, against any people who’d do harm, and even to protect the pristine place from unfortunate bums; even as I’m starting to look rather haggard, myself.

Mr William “Tharon” Chandler

Earth Day every day:

The giraffe population of Kenya's Masai Mara reserve has declined by up to 95%
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Even more than in 1970, what’s needed now is an outpouring that organizes itself—with millions of people and, for good measure, some stinky dead fish in the streets.

Sexless, sexual:

In comments at the Vatican that are likely to provoke a furious reaction from homosexual groups, Benedict also warned that blurring the distinction between male and female could lead to the "self-destruction" of the human race.
In his address to the Curia, the Vatican's central administration, he described behaviour beyond traditional heterosexual relations as "a destruction of God's work" and said that the Roman Catholic Church had a duty to "protect man from the destruction of himself".

Telegraph UK 23.Dec.08
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What is intersex?

“Intersex” is a general term used for a variety of conditions in which a person is born with a reproductive or sexual anatomy that doesn’t seem to fit the typical definitions of female or male. For example, a person might be born appearing to be female on the outside, but having mostly male-typical anatomy on the inside. Or a person may be born with genitals that seem to be in-between the usual male and female types—for example, a girl may be born with a noticeably large clitoris, or lacking a vaginal opening, or a boy may be born with a notably small penis, or with a scrotum that is divided so that it has formed more like labia. Or a person may be born with mosaic genetics, so that some of her cells have XX chromosomes and some of them have XY.

Though we speak of intersex as an inborn condition, intersex anatomy doesn’t always show up at birth. Sometimes a person isn’t found to have intersex anatomy until she or he reaches the age of puberty, or finds himself an infertile adult, or dies of old age and is autopsied. Some people live and die with intersex anatomy without anyone (including themselves) ever knowing.
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How common is intersex?

To answer this question in an uncontroversial way, you’d have to first get everyone to agree on what counts as intersex —and also to agree on what should count as strictly male or strictly female. That’s hard to do. How small does a penis have to be before it counts as intersex? Do you count “sex chromosome” anomalies as intersex if there’s no apparent external sexual ambiguity?1 (Alice Dreger explores this question in greater depth in her book Hermaphrodites and the Medical Invention of Sex.)

Here’s what we do know: If you ask experts at medical centers how often a child is born so noticeably atypical in terms of genitalia that a specialist in sex differentiation is called in, the number comes out to about 1 in 1500 to 1 in 2000 births. But a lot more people than that are born with subtler forms of sex anatomy variations, some of which won’t show up until later in life.

Mondoweiss: Why can't you find normanfinkelstein.com on google?

Rachel Corrie birthday observed at Tiny Revolution

Tesla, Steinmetz, GE, hink:

Subsequent photos of this meeting, located in the GE Archives and made available by UPI, curiously (and with poor retouching) show only Einstein and Steinmetz. The original photograph of all three personalities (accompanied by another unidentified individual) are rare and difficult to find.

radlab
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Slightly more effusive more information-bearing site with clearer full picture of Einstein, Steinmetz, the unidentified man, and Tesla here

Can't see what you can't see:

The security operation at this week’s G20 summit was thrown into chaos last night when it emerged that the entire network of central London’s wireless CCTV cameras will have to be turned off because of a legal ruling.

The Department for Transport (DfT) has ruled that Westminster council’s mobile road cameras - a third of the authority’s CCTV network - “do not fully meet the resolution standards required” and must be switched off by midnight tomorrow.

The blackout begins on the eve of the summit, when world leaders arrive in the capital and protesters take to the streets.

Guardian/Cryptogon

This should get things moving:

Americans may still may favor Bud Light, but it's no longer the top beer in the world. That distinction now belongs to a Chinese beer named Snow

FOXNews 31.Mar.09

What in tarnation is happening here:

Obama to Automakers: It's My Way or the Highway

Headline this morning from Reuters
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Obama to Bankers: Hit Me Baby One More Time

Headline sort of burbling up from the under-people that hasn't appeared anywhere yet exactly.
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Does God have a bailout plan for Detroit auto makers? Area churches, both Protestant and Catholic, are praying that God does. How about Jews?
Why are no synagogues mentioned in the coverage of religious institutions whose members are asking for God to help save the auto industry? Are Jews not participating in this new call upon the Almighty?

Rabbi Brad Hirschfield, author of You Don’t Have To Be Wrong For Me To Be Right: Finding Faith Without Fanaticism. Listed as one of the nation’s 50 most influential rabbis in Newsweek, and a regular commentator on Court TV
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Because Jews were unable to own land in the Middle Ages, they became proficient in commerce and money changing, where literacy and knowledge of languages stood them in good stead. Therefore, some Jews were in a good position to benefit from the rise of commerce. Jews were excluded from leadership and even from employment in most of the major basic industries.

Zionism and Israel Web Log
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Oh, Henry:

Ford’s attempt to prevent unionism at his plants produced strikes and violence, mostly provoked by Ford’s own strikebreakers. He opposed various symbols of social and cultural change around him, including Hollywood movies, out-of-home childcare, government regulation of business, Eastern European immigration and new styles in dress and music. His anti-Semitism reduced him in 1927, for one of the few times in his life, to the position of acknowledging error and asking publicly for forgiveness.

Henry Ford Invents a Jewish Conspiracy
Jewish Virtual Library/American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise
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The social currents of the Age of Enlightenment were generally favorable to Jews. In France the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen granted equality to the Jews. Napoleon extended Jewish emancipation throughout much of Europe. From that time, many Jews began to shed their particularistic ways and adopt the norms of European culture. Jews of ability joined the elite of Europe and made numerous contributions to the arts, science and business. Yet anti-Semitism continued nonetheless. The visibility of wealthy Jews in the banking industry led to a resurgence of conspiracy theories about a Jewish plot to take over the world, including the fabrication and publication of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion by the Russian secret police. So this improvement in the status of Jews which enabled them to mix freely in society paradoxically led to modern anti-Semitism...

Anti-Semitism entry in the New World Encyclopedia
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Google returns 250,000 252,000 hits for "Jews in the auto industry" without quotes

Google returns 224,000 hits for "Jews in the banking industry" without quotes

Ten years later, we remember those ordinary people:

...we have been inspired by their struggles and persistence against difficult odds in difficult conditions. They are the erased, the ignored, the missing and the forgotten of the NATO military campaign, the post-Yugoslav transition, and the intervention of the international community, and we name their situations and think of them today, and invite those who read this to join us in doing so.

GBN/Znet

loosely related, with inverted relative motion:

Hot on the heels of last week's FDA approval, on Monday PepsiCo subsidiary Taco Bell launched its controversial "morning after" burrito, a zesty, Mexican-style entree that prevents unwanted pregnancies if ingested within 36 hours following intercourse.
Developed by a team of top Taco Bell gynecologists, the $1.99 "ContraceptiMelt" burrito creates an inhospitable environment within the womb, causing fertilized ovum tissue to be flushed from the body.

WhoElseButThoseGuys
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President Obama likes to tease Larry Summers as a "propeller head" and a "numbers guy," shorthand for a policy wonk who relishes the kind of esoteric arguments that everyday people might find boring and incomprehensible. But Summers doesn't seem to mind. In fact, the former Harvard president takes the joking with good cheer, his White House associates say, because he is so pleased to be back in power at a historic time.

USNews

Significant risk to somebody, for sure:

Mondoweiss has had its Google Ads disabled.

Celebrations in Nazareth... were also cancelled by the police.

I haven't read or seen Obama's response to his unfortunate simile, I imagine it's a fine example of what an articulate intelligent person with lots of good image advice would say.
What caught him is probably not some inherent bigotry or insensitivity, but his spontaneity, and maybe some leakage from the locker room, like that.
It testifies to how genuine he is, how freestyle he'll take it. Improvisation carries all the risk.
Most of the hollow suits in Washington are incapable of saying something like that, not because they're sensitive to the Special Olympics demographic, but because they're so intent on creating and maintaining an image that will sell, and have been for years. They're good at it, they're pros, but they're as genuine as masks. Obama the few times I've watched him speak was clearly winging it.
That business aside, some noise has been generated by the reversal of official US sentiment about the Armenian genocide. Hard to say from way out here but it's likely the same guys who had him bow to their collective majesty when he got the nomination. They were pretty active in the resistance to recognizing what happened in Armenia as Holocaust-level murder. Them, and the Turks of course. The Turks don't have quite as much power in the US though.
The Zionist cabal/whatever does, and they need the landscape free of all and any other victims of that stature. Can't have anyone watering down the awful.
They own genocide, it's their private copyright, no one uses the term without a license.
Thus Sudan/Darfur, genocide. Sri Lanka/Eelam, not genocide.
Because the Zionists have an active interest in what happens in Sudan/Darfur, and they could give a shit about the Tamils being wiped off the map, or driven into the sea.

Special Olympics bowler with a consistent near double score over Pres. Obama.