I may be the only person here that believes free energy exists and has for some time, but is kept from the masses, until perhaps some maverick gets the information public, or until they have tapped what they will, and the emperor's new cloths are called for what they are- Why then use a pulpit of half-truths?? Global Warming advocates should come clean and tell the world how they thought they could topple the current paradigm-pimps, by making some shit up we can all be passionate about-a cessation of oil and gas use-what really needs to cease, is a bought sold and owed to economic system....we will see as the world nations and diversity creep towards one entity, just how fucking wild it really is-that they have kept from the world the next paradigm, in order to build and concentrate wealth and empire....

The planet's ebb and flow of climate phenom, has been weathered with and without humans for eons, along with her core belching gas and acid. Humans have more to worry about with the vortice of geopolitics than they do the earth cooling down....because solar cycles are the cause and effect primarily, for atmospheric changes...w/ the dance of oceans and core....

Be-damned the lies and the liars

You wanna hit the fuckers where they will listen? Stop paying your income taxes on a mass scale-
don't shop because you are bored and hawked-to
get yer cathode-ray nipple a hammer for New Years

Scientology, like any other contrived system, apparently works for some of the folks that follow the program....similar to the self-transformation of say, the main character in Fight Club, it is self-reprogramming-it has worked well enough to create a buzz, and an empire, and like fans following a pop-star, folks give their time and money to it. Like most entities that claim their way or the highway, their ranks include assholes, and idgits.

Scientology is a symptom, of a planet being corraled to perform according to meaningless diversions, concocted by a self-seeking few. Any entity that proves itself to be as influential as Scientology, is seen as a threat.

In other words, when people get to the point collectively, where they are unsure about the future of the planet, and can't seem to pin-point the root causes of the problems, they begin to make shit up. this is why, instead of crippling the current keepers of the world economic and social structures, we engage in falling for the ruse the same creates, in the form of so-called free elections, so-called human rights issues, or so-called environmental catastrophies......as long as the perpetrators of lies stay hidden, the common people of the planet will get crazier, stupider, and less able to take care of the basic human condition.

Scientology is but a symptom, of an overall diseased geopolitical and economic system.

I am taking preventive steps to ensure even after the clips are taken down they will re-appear..even if I have to get Burks permission. Great to hear m15m ^ - Wrote a short rant while I was in the middle of typing up this post, I am just amazed at how the mind flows when you watch Burke...although Marijuana surely helps, here is what I came up with while watching this clip... I don't any of it really helps in creating a description but hopefully it gets the thought muscles moving...

Burke mentions the importance of the first 7 minutes and how important it is to make quick decisions during the Nuclear age... that reminded me of this particular clip... I know..I know...too easy...but "Connections"... this is one I made during while watching this clip. But it's true, if anything that clip is simply an example of a world leader failing to recognize the importance of the first 7 Minutes.

But this is the reality of the nuclear age. I think the universe did change once the bomb was dropped, a new thought that the world can end abruptly. Also while on that topics, has Bush spoken at black elementary school since 9/11? Why does he spend billions on war at the drop of a hat, then vetoes a program that was aimed to improve the health of children? Shouldn't we all be working together to maybe produce peace during the nuclear age? Although 9/11 warranted a forceful response and America had the support of the world, Bush chose to take war to another level.

If you remember life on September the 10th 2001, you know the Universe has changed dramatically. If not because international terrorism clouds the minds of many with irrational fears, but because within the last 5 years the internet has developed into web 2.0...hear me out. Blogs, Social Networks, youtube, the amount of information available and speed in which we can communicate provides incredible opportunities and challenges, The Internet Grows. Can the internet build a new global conscience and save this planet...from said nuclear annihilation, or global warming, pick your poison, really either way both problems are spiraling out of control, while we all sit around and watch Bill O'Reilly and/or reality shows. Did you hear Bush warned of WWIII? Nifty. Fucking Liberals. We can do better then this right?

Sorry for going on, but this is what Burke does to the imagination, watch the clip...full screen of course...and your mind runs wild, adding links to your thoughts creates new life to this clip. This first clip is mainly an introduction to the series, but you can get an idea of how kick ass this adventure through time is going to be, the Crusades, exploration, minstrels the first media in the 15th century, the beginnings of modern science, beginning of industry, the French revolution, this series will have it all.

Why are we doing this? Why should we watch every James Burke clip and think about them?

We are the pioneers of the Internet, just within the last ten years every piece of information known to man has been turning up online, and we carry the burden of having to sort it all out. Two years ago I started an archive of random internet pages, just that ability to categorize and search landed me a couple online jobs, my 90 year old grandma listened to the radio as a kid, she doesn't understand the what Internet is. Ted Stevens who recently was in charge of regulating the Internet is 84.

20 minutes of writing and researching links is just an appealing way, for me at least, to spend time I would have otherwise spent watching more videos/television, I don't know why but I just feel more active when I'm participating with the media rather then just consuming. Burke just gets me all typee.

Philosophize the clip, I am sure we can come with a description and a boatload of related links that go hand and hand with the clip above.

He definitely said "geopolitical tool".

In my eyes, a stable, free, and democratic Iraq must be considered the only acceptable outcome of this conflict, for their sake especially, for our sake partially, and for the sake of the middle east in general. Considering the problems with the recent decade's international geopolitical and religious situations, it would be the most valuable proof of concept in 50 years, maybe more. Surrender would be devastating to the political climate world-wide. Not to mention that it would severely damage the credibility of the US military. I think we'll all find very soon that the "surge" was a good idea and well handled. If I'm wrong, well, then we try something else. Put the white flags down folks. Failure cannot be considered an option whatsoever.

And the whole of the world outside of those countries amounts to how much spending? Not a lot. From what I just sourced that's not true anyway. The US spends, as I said above, about as much as the rest of the world. Not as much or more but about or nearly as much.

From globalissues.org

The 15 countries with the highest spending account for 84 per cent of the total;

The USA is responsible for 48 per cent of the world total, distantly followed by the UK, France, Japan and China with 4–5 per cent each.


http://www.globalissues.org/Geopolitics/ArmsTrade/Spending.asp

Now I don't know where you get your numbers but mine didn't just get pulled out of a hat, I used the term because it fit. 48% of the world total is about as much as the rest combined as I stated, and even if they overstate it, which is possible, we're still the biggest spender with NO nation or organized group of them to challenge us. The biggest behind us are mostly on our side.

whoa, whoa, whoa... i never said that YOU said that the us aided the taliban - read more carefully -- i also was not the first to bring it up... jon did with his graphic innuendo at 3:25 in the vid - when my correction of this misinformation was subsequently challenged by nebosuke, i reiterated the mistakes in the initial premise - then you came in chiding me for not providing references

but if you check carefully, you'll see that what i said to you in regards to the taliban was prefaced with:

'your cites also continue to claim...'

and

'basically what your skewed sources are claiming...'

so, am i offbase? not at all - your cites did indeed misrepresent...

'Backed by Pakistan’s military intelligence, which in turn was controlled by the CIA, the Taliban Islamic State was largely serving American geopolitical interests.'

'These organizations or movements, such as the Taliban, often foment “opposition to Uncle Sam” in a way which does not constitute any real threat to America’s broader geopolitical and economic interests. Meanwhile, Washington has supported their development as a means of disarming social movements, which it fears may threaten US economic and political hegemony.'

http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/americawarterrorism/americawarterrorism02.htm

so either you don't read your own sources, or you don't believe them -- nice

a. your cites, my cites - yeah, who cares? i at least carefully read both mine and yours -- what follows in this post should satisfy your need for a higher (both in number and quality) degree of sourcing than you've provided - speaking of which, bergen doesn't provide his sources because HE is the primary source -- your cites' quotings from the likes of abdel monem said ali and ahmed rashid are what are called secondary and tertiary sources -- finally, i think when you fully peruse the citations i'll provide, you'll see that the sourcing of the state dept webpage belies your opinion of it

b. lol - if you think i agree with you, then you are pretty dense -- you probably blame hurricanes on butterfly wings

c. 'And prior history notwithstanding, without the ISI's, and through them the US, insistance on bringing in Arabs to fight with the mujahideen there would LIKELY be no Al Qaeda.'

lol, again - what makes you think that the us and isi insisted on bringing in arabs to fight? you're very misinformed -- first of all, if they did insist, then why the hell didn't the arabs fight? heh --- what both the us and isi DID want was SUPPORT, re. cash and logistics

unfortunately, along with the cash, the arab states sent us their fundamentalist troublemakers and criminals given early parole to fight for islam in afghanistan, e.g. the folks who assassinated anwar sadat, etc -- the trouble came about after the afghans won and the arab states didn't want their 'jihadists' back - lol

but anyway, here are the cites and sources for you...

'Assess for me the role of Osama bin Laden and his fellow Afghan Arabs in the victory over the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.
The Arab element of the ten year engagement in Afghanistan was fundamental to its success, but within the context of fund-raiser.'

'The Saudi Arabian government, and rich, wealthy princes ... contributed and matched dollar for dollar the US government's money in the Afghan war?

That was within the context of the program that CIA was managing. And that's the way it was funded. And that is known. Beyond that, you had Saudi Red Crescent and all forms of Gulf Arab organizations who were drawn to the only operative jihad at the time, a very major event within the world of Islam. And they were fund-raisers. And they brought additional moneys into the Afghan program, into the resistance from their own sources, and did good works.

They built orphanages, they built homes for widows of martyrs, and brought in, after the war turned to the advantage of the mujahedeen, some ... 20 to 25 million dollars a month. ... So in that regard, they played a very major role. Now, part of your question is what about the combat role. Minimal. There were some Arabs that fought with some mujahedeen groups, but not many. At any given time, inside Afghanistan, [there were] maybe 2,000 Arabs. ... But the people of Afghanistan fought that war, they bled, they died, they were driven out of their country. To suggest that others were engaged in the combat activity to any extent is just simply wrong.'

'Who were the Afghan Arabs?

Muslims from all over the world: North Africa, Persian Gulf, but from all over the world. Other than that, you had a rag tag bunch of Muslims that were taken from one jail or another, whether it's in Cairo or in Algiers or any other country in the Gulf, and put on an airplane and flown to go do the jihad with the fondest hope that they not come back. They didn't die in great numbers. They died in tiny numbers, and they did come back. And my bet is that even the Saudis were terribly happy to see the son Osama bin Laden go off to war. And some might have thought wouldn't it be nice if he didn't return.'

'Because so much of what we hear about Osama bin Laden comes out of his Afghanistan experience, I'm trying to get this straight, he was mostly a philanthropist and a financial contributor, and a minor combat figure, who happened to dabble in combat?

... I can possibly give him credit for having been present and accounted for at one major battle in ... Baktia Province in 1987. Beyond that, I simply cannot say that there is any war record at all. What I can say is that the hype that surrounds Osama bin Laden--most of it generated by the US media and backed up by statements that verge on hyperbole from the United States government--that this man was literally swinging through the valleys of the Hindu Kush with a dagger in his teeth and single-handedly driving out the Soviet army, this did not happen. The Afghan people did that. The Arab role in the combat situation on the ground was minimal to nonexistent, period. And to suggest otherwise is simply to either gloss over history or to create history for your own reasons.

I can imagine someone out there watching saying. "This is the CIA talking." You're not going to admit that you created the most dangerous public enemy in the world.

You bet I would. If I could look you in the eye and say, "Trust me, Osama bin Laden was my guy. If it wasn't for the CIA he wouldn't be anything then, he wouldn't be anything today," if I could say that with a straight face, I think that would speed up the process of removing Mr. bin Laden as a source of great, great concern for the United States. I can't say that because it's simply not true. You can find nobody who is familiar with the situation in Pakistan and Afghanistan in those years that would say bin Laden played any role other than the fund-raiser.'

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/binladen/interviews/bearden.html

'MILTON BEARDEN, AUTHOR; FORMER STATION CHIEF, CIA: That's what it was. It was a jihad, and it was a jihad for ten years. There were a million Afghans killed, a million-and-a-half wounded or maimed, and five million driven into exile. That's -- it's awfully close to 50 percent of the population of the country. So it was in fact a jihad, and our role was pretty much tandential to what everybody else was doing. The Afghans were doing the dying and the fighting. The Saudis and the Americans were paying the freight. The Chinese were ordinance. They provided an awful lot of weaponry. The Egyptians provided a lot of weaponry. And bin Laden and a lot of young Gulf Arabs and other Arabs came to do the jihad.

ADAMS: It was quite a cause for them.

BEARDEN: Of course, it was.

ADAMS: Did you meet bin Laden then?

BEARDEN: No, no. Bin Laden was one of many. Bin Laden is becoming a myth that I'm a little uncomfortable with. When bin Laden was in Peshawar in Pakistan where he spent almost all of the war, but he was a fundraiser. We are talking about money that came from Gulf Arabs in a given month could have been $20, 25 million in a given month.

ADAMS: Had you heard about this man, though, that had $250 million of his father's money from Saudi Arabia to bring to the cause?

BEARDEN: Had I heard of him? I knew bin Laden was out there. I knew that the Saudi Red Crescent was out there. I knew that all of the Red Crescent organizations of the Gulf Arab states were out there. But did I take a look and say that this tall thin ascetic-looking Saudi was special? No. To be perfectly frank, the money that they brought in relieved the United States and Saudi Arabia of going deeper into their own national treasuries for more money.'

'ADAMS: When the Gulf War starts and bin Laden says never has Islam suffered a greater disaster than this invasion, meaning the presence of U.S. forces there to defend Kuwait and to support Saudi Arabia, and you hear this, and you know these are the guys that you helped -- the CIA helped fight against the Soviet Union -- what do you think? What's your reaction at that time?

BEARDEN: Well, a couple of reactions. One, CIA, CIA as the executive instrument of the United States government, you know, three presidents beginning with Jimmy Carter were helping the Afghan people resist the Soviet invasion. It's a real stretch in my opinion to say we helped bin Laden or even cared about him. That he participated in it most certainly -- it was OK with us. It was his business and all that.

Now on the one hand, it was fundamentalist Islam that defeated the Soviet Union, and it set in play or set in motion the history that played out through 1989. November 9th, the Berlin Wall is breached, and it's all over.

Now that some of the Arabs that went to that jihad have remained problematic, sure. Am I shocked? Not really. You know, war brings strange allies together, doesn't it? I mean, if you had to worry about unintended consequences, then would we have ever helped Joseph Stalin deal with that other great acute evil, Adolph Hitler? Sure we would, even though 200 million people get subjugated for 50 years; and we spend our nation's treasure for half a century dealing with the Soviet Union.'

http://www.asms.net/facultymanaged/srou/osamabinladen/real%20Articles/Interview%20with%20CIA%20agaent.htm

'Most of the leadership and the whole ideology of Al Qaeda derives from Egyptian writer Sayyid Qutb (1906–66) and his progeny, who killed Anwar Sadat and were arrested in October 1981. President Mubarak generously allowed them to be released in 1984.

Many of the released men, harassed by the Egyptian police, migrated to Afghanistan. With the end of the Soviet-Afghan War, they continued on to jihad. These Arab outsiders actually did not fight in the Soviet-Afghan War except for one small battle at Jaji/Ali Kheyl, which was really defensive: the Arabs had put their camp on the main logistic supply line, and in the spring of 1987 the Soviets tried to destroy it. So they were really more the recipient of a Soviet offensive, but they really did not fight in that war and thus the U.S. had absolutely no contact with them. I heard about the battle of Jaji at the time, and it never dawned on me to ask the Afghans I debriefed who the Arabs were. They turned out to be bin Laden and his men at the Al-Masada (Lion’s Den) camp.

After the war, a lot of these foreigners returned to their countries. Those who could not return because they were terrorists remained in Afghanistan.'

http://www.terrorisminfo.mipt.org/Understanding-Terror-Networks-Sageman.asp

'REPORTER: Mr. Bin Ladin, tell us about your experience during the Afghan war and what did you do during that jihad?

BIN LADIN: Praise be to God, the Cherisher and Sustainer of the worlds, that He made it possible for us to aid the Mujahidin in Afghanistan without any declaration for jihad. It was rather the news that was broadcast by radio stations that the Soviet Union invaded a Muslim country. This was a sufficient motivation for me to start to aid our brothers in Afghanistan. I have benefited so greatly from the jihad in Afghanistan that it would have been impossible for me to gain such a benefit from any other chance and this cannot be measured by tens of years but rather more than that, Praise and Gratitude be to God. In spite of the Soviet power, we used to move with confidence and God conferred favors on us so that we transported heavy equipment from the country of the Two Holy Places (Arabia) estimated at hundreds of tons altogether that included bulldozers, loaders, dump trucks and equipment for digging trenches. When we saw the brutality of the Russians bombing Mujahidins' positions, by the grace of God, we dug a good number of huge tunnels and built in them some storage places and in some others we built a hospital.'

http://www.anusha.com/osamaint.htm

'Was this the origin of al Qaeda?

Yes. al Qaeda wasn't an outgrowth of Adbullah Azaam's "Office of Services," as has been suggested elsewhere. al Qaeda grew in opposition to Azzam's organization, not out of it. Azzam's organization had been becoming something like an NGO, which provided education and the like. Bin Laden didn't want to do that. He wanted to fight the Soviets by forming his own group. But this is also an early example of an interesting trait of bin Laden's: He acts on impulse and doesn't follow good advice. Azzam didn't think the Arab jihadists in Afghanistan were all that important to the anti-Soviet effort. So Azzam wanted to pepper them among different Afghan units and use them as morale-boosters. Bin Laden didn't listen. And at the end of the day Azzam was right: It was the blood of Afghans that won the war against the Soviets, along with lots of money from the United States and Saudi Arabia.'

http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/31205/

'Peter, what is the--you talk a little bit in the book about this notion of blowback, the fact that the CIA really created al-Qaeda or the entire--this sort of Muslim fundamentalism network that we're now facing and more or less put lie to that, or at least minimized the impact of the CIA and say that Osama bin Laden had a bigger part in that.

Mr. BERGEN: Well, I mean, I--just for clarity's purposes, the CIA, you know, obviously had a big role in the Afghan resistance, $3 billion they supplied, but they were basically signing checks. And it's interesting--it's a widely held view on the left that somehow CIA was involved in the founding of al-Qaeda or helped bin Laden, and conspiracy theorists around the world believe this, but there's just no evidence for it. Surprisingly, there are very few things that the US government and bin Laden agree upon, but Ayman al-Zawahiri has released statements that there was no backing from the United States. Other people within al-Qaeda--there really is just simply no evidence for that. The real story is not that the CIA knew who--you know, was helping out bin Laden 'cause they had no idea who he was until about 1995 when they first set up a unit in--specially looking at him directly in January of 1996. So really the story is not one of CIA complicity in the rise of bin Laden; it's actually ignoring the problem before it was too late.'

http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=5151657

d. i have a very open mind, but it's also quite critical - i try to check the facts that i choose to believe very carefully, and if i ever see a source that intentionally tries to deceive, well, they lose all credibility with me - that's why all these CT nuts with their tongue-in-cheek logical fallacies and faulty syllogisms hold no truck with me -- if that means i have a closed mind, in your opinion, so be it - i'm more than fine with that

Diogenes is on PAR, with the best of em.....so being on a payroll perhaps, the kinna person who is either to dense t and believes official, promulgated "facts", or some internets blurb from a stroker,
or to blind to see his own shadow, in broad daylight, won't make this stream anything but a convoluted circle-jerk.....Afraid it is like a big contest for power-grabbing Diogenes, and while personally, can't stands the spokesmouth (dailyshowguy) most times, we can see what tossing so-called reports from both camps, without having allll the intel, and truth, on a subject as elementary as global proprietary geopolitical information is going to amount to....JACK SHIT. No one has a complete set of player, information, and timeline, how about those 3 for starters.....so, prove there is not a behind the official story set of circumstances, to begin.

I'm most interested in your suggestion that you can use current events to detail how non-religious groups have fucked the world up. I would LOVE to see a cogent argument concerning current geopolitical messes that doesn't involve religious nutjobs. Seriously. Back up your bullshit.

As for the amount of people needed to carry off such an operation, well I don't see how it would be in the thousands.

Think about it - Dick Cheney orders a couple of different exercises to be carried out by the Nation's military on the day of the event, to keep them busy. Those exercises have the nicely added effect of putting false radar signals on various control tower's radar, etc - as they are taking part in the exercises, and thus NEED to be able to instruct various military personnel as to where the false planes are, all as part of normal military exercises(yes, former mil here, too - all of what I'm saying is actually well documented).

To get some form of explosive in the tower - well, I don't know where you heard the "proposed 26 hours" that you cite above, but the WTC towers were being worked on for about 2 weeks prior to 9/11. Various parts of the towers were having power turned on and off, and only during the last weekend, both building's power and security systems were shut down.

Now, the people to plant the explosives, etc - would they really have to have very little moral character? How did 9/11 benefit the American economy?

Well, prior to 9/11, Iraq's Saddam Hussein had announced that it would start accepting Euros as payment for Oil("In November 2000, Iraq became the first OPEC nation to begin selling its oil for Euros." - http://www.projectcensored.org/Publications/2004/19.html). Due to our embargo on Iraq, and the subsequent "Oil for Food" program that the UN announced, it made sense that, in order for them to get at least some funding to feed their economy in at least the slightest way...maybe to be able to afford weapons - maybe even just to be able to buy building materials for their own country - who knows?

Thing is, as part of a 1972-1973(can't remember which year) agreement between President Nixon and OPEC, OPEC agreed to accept only USD as payment for oil. This subsequent agreement occurred one or two years after Nixon stopped the backing of the USD by gold for foreign investors, on August 15, 1971. The USD hadn't been backed by gold for citizens of the U.S., but foreign investors could cash in their USD for gold up until that point.

What does this mean? Well, basically it means that the USD stopped being backed by gold in 1971 and OPEC started accepting ONLY USD for oil in 1972 or 73...essentially backing our currency by what?....oil!

So, as you can probably understand, it's quite a threat for Iraq to start accepting Euros for oil(and the USD has taken a hit because of it - around 17% loss in value, so far).

Now, however(and this might explain a lot to you), Iran has opened it's "Oil Bourse" - accepting what for oil?....Euro and Yen. What further complicates matters with Iran, however, is that China is now buying 50% of it's oil from Iran in Yen, because, of course, it's easier for them(easier than having to try to get USD to buy oil from OPEC with).

Well, that kindof complicates things on a global geopolitical stage. What it means is that, as more countries start buying oil with Euro and Yen, they will stop trying to get USD, and even use the last of their USD and not really have a need to get more(since they can now buy oil in Euro or Yen - or even diversify between Euro, Yen, and USD - either way, the demand for USD lowers).

On a global scale, this will most certainly disrupt the value of the USD like never seen before.

Had Iraq actually gotten clients for his "Oil for Euro/Yen" program, it would have been devastating for the USD back in 2001...but 9/11 happened, giving us a "reason"(even if only superficially and even a lie) to go into Iraq.

In effect, those that may have taken down the towers did us a favor - they stopped millions from being killed by what would be an ensuing recession/depression in the value of the USD(as is kindof happening now) by killing only 2000 people in the towers, and a couple thousand killed in a war to hold onto Iraq's oil as a type of backing for USD.

Don't believe me, though - look into it yourself. All of the above described events and places are well documented. Look into the "Iranian Oil Bourse" in particular.

OK, I've been thinking about this a little more, and here you go: The title isn't totally wrong- it only got it half right. It would be more correct to say, cars suck, cars rule, it's not quite so obvious as you think.

It is difficult to overstate the transforming effect of motorised transportation on humanity as a species. It's not for nothing that Douglas Adams joked in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy that Ford Prefect thought that cars were the dominant species on the planet and nearly got run over when he first tried to make contact.

Cars affect how and where we live, how and where we work, play, raise our families, design our cities, get our food- the effect has been so enormous that it would not be an exaggeration to say that they have transformed us as a species. I've been trying to imagine what it would be like to live in the country before automobiles, and it is very difficult to do. When a trip in to town suddenly takes several days rather than a half hour, this represents a very different sort of living. Forget about a commute to work.

Urban centres are bigger and bigger as cars allow for sprawl to take place. Produce has to travel further, and is able to travel further- pretty much anything you can point to exists because humanity is motorised.

ANY technology that is so universally transforming will have its downsides. We have paid an ENORMOUS price in blood, tears, and geopolitical enmity. Traffic Deaths, Globalism, Middle East Conflict, Urban Sprawl, Road Rage, Greenhouse Emissions, Noise Pollution, the list of what's WRONG with cars is almost as long as the benifits that they have brought.

Arguing about that is completly moot however, and I think that's the problem in this thread, and, by extension, with this video.

I think that many of the people in those cars may very well have been douchebags. Dudes, that bus totally just PWNED all of you. Figure it out.

But I bet more than one of them was headed somewhere the bus doesn't go. Halifax has one of the worst transit systems EVAR, but they do have one feature that i think is, in principle at least, very clever. They call it park&ride. Don't take your car from the rural community where you live all the way to downtown halifax, where parking is 1.50 an hour at a meter, or more in a parkade.

Instead, just drive to a parking lot maybe a 15 or 20 minute drive away from the city centre, then grab a bus in. It reduces traffic in the crowded downtown, you never have to search for a parking spot, and you pay less for gas.

Brilliant idea, but I suspect that not many people take advantage of it. Because they love their cars. Heck, I probably would too, had I a car. I grew up downtown, and hope to live downtown my entire life. I want a car for going on trips, hauling gear to a gig, and getting groceries.

Not for going to work. That's what my sneakers are for.

/endrant

Yet another movie from the past that has become relevant to our current geopolitical debacle

You're absolutely correct - this video does portray the refusal of the exchange economy.

I did not make myself clear - I was not speaking about the video, by my statement, nor did I mean to imply(however such implication was made) that I support the system of "take from the rich, give to the poor."

I was talking about the widespread implications of such a choice - I do not believe that people could continue such a system of "steal necessities simply because you feel you should," even if, out of impossible coincidence, many or all people around the country did choose to do so - they would need to form some type of exchange economy.

i.e. - Would the rich really allow themselves to have their globally-recognized resources/commodities taken away for any length of time at all?

The example above continues with my next musing - essentially: "why do the poor and middle-class tolerate their earning's devaluation?"

A devaluation, like the one currently being proposed by the World Bank(of around 50%, which, by the way, I do support), can essentially change the average American family's income from around $53,000 per year to around $26,500 per year.

For those that are not millionaires(a large percentage of the country, I assure you), this will spell disaster - they have become so dependent on foreign imports, just to survive, that a 50% devaluation will affect them dramatically. If the local industries refuse to drop their prices, as may easily happen, this country may easily be plunged into poverty.

This are many reasons that I oppose the existance of the Federal Reserve System. As I'm sure you're aware, the Federal Reserve was established within the Federal Reserve Act of 1913.

Since the structure of the Fed is little more than that of a corporation whose chairman is chosen by the President, the choices within this corporation are by the representatives of the member banks. Much of those representatives(the entire list is kept quite secret, so I may be wrong on this one - If you happen to find such a list, please post it here) are not citizens of this country, therefore, the value of the USD will not always be in their interests.

Putting my concerns about internal manipulation of the monetary supply aside for a moment(because I will agree that internal manipulation is most likely NOT the problem, however it did cause one very notable depression as well documented by author Milton Friedman), there are also the issues of fractional reserve lending and central bank interest rates to contend with.

I agree that the people shown in the video you posted are very much NOT the idealistic people to make such economic decisions.

I do not agree that the central bank is doing it's job well, however. In the past, the value of a country's money was based on the resources of the country - a reserve of gold, or a reserve of silver that could be increased or decreased as more mines were found and drilled.

Such a system would be considered archaic, by today's standards, as the rush for gold and silver is far over, but a reserve based system, in general, would be far less prone to any such manipulation. It would also insure that the country's currency is limited by its' commodities' values - be they mineral values, or even exportable human resources(as is the case with highly populated countries around the world).

A corporation is not required to keep the sovereignty of it's host nation in it's best interests, nor is it required to establish a system of value to benefit the people that give such a system inherent value.

i.e. - basing a form of currency on faith is to forming a religion around that currency as basing a form of currency on worldwide geopolitical and commodity value is to assignment of that currency to the population that SHOULD be responsible for it.

Russia had much worldwide geopolitical and commodity value when it's currency faced such a devaluation(as far as I know, Russia still does), so what was the root cause of its devaluation?

Why do currencies whose host countries have little worldwide geopolitical and commodity value, or almost none at all, have a world-recognized form of currency at all(especially ones that do not intend to trade on the world market)?

The American goverment would like us to believe that 9/11 was a result of massive inter-agency intelligence failure regarding the threat of a terrorist attack on US soil. The American goverment would also like for you to believe that despite the given massive intelligence failure, the entire cause and nature of the attack was worked out in a mere 72 hours of investigation. Primarily because of one key piece of evidence that implicated everyone else in the plot.

"# FBI Director Robert Mueller insisted officials had no idea this kind of attack could happen when in fact the FBI had been investigating the possibility of EXACTLY this kind of attack for almost TEN YEARS. Numerous previous attempts at using planes as weapons, intimate knowledge of terror plans called Project Bojinka, and knowledge of suspicious characters attending flight schools who were being monitored by the FBI make his utterance a clear lie on its face.

In the weeks before 9/11, the U.S. received warnings from all over the world that an event just like this was about to happen, but FBI investigations into suspected terrorists were suppressed and those warnings were deliberately disregarded.

# The names of the alleged hijackers, all ostensibly Muslims, were released to the public only hours after the attacks, despite Mueller saying we had no knowledge this would happen. This is an impossible twist of logic. If he didn't know of a plan to strike buildings with planes, how would he know the names of the hijackers? Various artifacts were discovered in strategic places to try to confirm the government's story, but these have all been dismissed as suspicious planting of evidence. Since that time several names on that list have turned up alive and well, living in Arab countries. Yet no attempt has ever been made to update the list. And why were none of these names on the airlines' passenger lists?"

# The Patriot Act was presented in the days after the tragedy supposedly as a response to it, yet it was clear that this heinous act, drafted to nullify provisions for freedom in the U.S. Constitution, was put together long before 9/11. In addition, testimony by Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) revealed that most members of Congress were compelled to vote for the bill without even reading it. This was a vote to eliminate the Constitutional Bill of Rights, which has defined American freedom for 200 years, and it was accomplished when legislators voted for the bill without even reading it.

# The invasion of Afghanistan was presented as an attempt to pursue the alleged perpetrators of 9/11, yet it had been discussed for years prior to the tragedy and actually planned in the months before the attacks on New York and Washington. Statements by Zbigniew Brzezinski and the Republican-written Project for a New American Century have stressed that America needed a formidable enemy to accomplish its aggressive geopolitical aims. The supposed enemy we attacked in Afghanistan was a diverse group of men from all over the world who were initially recruited, encouraged and supported by the American CIA.

http://www.serendipity.li/wot/911_a_hoax.htm

"In 1992 Rick Rescorla warned the Port Authority (owner of the World Trade Center) about the possibility of a truck bomb attack on the pillars in the basement parking garage, but was ignored. When Islamist terrorists used this method in the 1993 attack, Rescorla was instrumental in evacuating the building, and was literally the last man out. He and Dan Hill then prepared a report that warned of another attack, this time from a commercial aircraft crashing into the complex, but he was again ignored.

Rescorla recommended to his superiors at Morgan Stanley that the company leave Manhattan. Office space and labor costs were lower in New Jersey, and the firm's employees and equipment would be safer in a proposed four-story building. However, this recommendation was not followed as the company's lease at the World Trade Center did not terminate until 2006. At Rescorla’s insistence, all employees, including senior executives, then practiced emergency evacuations every three months."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Rescorla

* Who benefited from the suspiciously high numbers of put options purchased prior to September 11 for shares in companies whose stock prices subsequently plummeted, on the supposition that whoever was behind the hijacking was also behind most of the purchases of these put options? And what was the role of the new executive director of the CIA, Buzzy Krongard, who handled these transactions?

* Why was the debris from the collapsed Twin Towers removed from the site with no forensic examination? Why was almost all of it sold to scrap merchants and shipped abroad where it would not be available for scientific examination?

* Why does the government refuse to release any transcripts of communications or any records at all relating to signals of any form transmitted by those jets?

* Why do all the major U.S. media continue to act as if none of these questions is legitimate or relevant?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saleh_Ibn_Abdul_Rahman_Hussayen

I don't have any problem with people who are religious. I understand that it is the current zeitgeist. My point, and Dawkins' is that religion does a tremendous amount of evil in the world, on personal and geopolitical levels.

If a person told you that they were in contact with an alien race of beings that wanted humans to burn our toenail clippings, what would you think? So why is it any different when somebody tells you that god doesn't want them to turn on a lightswitch on a saturday, or that they need to turn towards mecca 5 times a day, or that wine somehow turns into blood?

As I said, I'm intelligent enough to understand why there is a difference, but my point is that you can also see how in some ways there isn't any difference. The only difference is cultural, and the culture of religion is deeply deeply flawed, because religion itself is deeply deeply flawed.