Remember The Sabbath

Scientology - Circus of the Stars

Magic Mormon Underwear

The Bald Avenger

Welcome to this world

5 Ways To Hack Your Brain Into Awesomeness

http://www.cracked.com/article/127_5-ways-to-hack-your-brain-into-awesomeness/

Much of the brain is still mysterious to modern science, possibly because modern science itself is using brains to analyze it. There are probably secrets the brain simply doesn't want us to know. But by no means should that stop us from tinkering around in there, using somewhat questionable and possibly dangerous techniques to make our brains do what we want. We can't vouch for any of these, either their effectiveness or safety. All we can say is that they sound awesome, since apparently you can make your brain... #5. Think You Got a Good Night's Sleep (After Only Two Hours of Actual Sleep) So you just picked up the night shift at your local McDonald's, you have class every morning at 8am and you have no idea how you're going to make it through the day without looking like a guy straight out of Dawn of the Dead, minus the blood... hopefully. "SLEEEEEEEEEP... uh... I mean... BRAAAIIIIINNNSSS..." What if we told you there was a way to sleep for little more than two hours a day, and still feel more refreshed than taking a 12-hour siesta on a bed made entirely out of baby kitten fur? No more sneaking naps at the fry station for you! Holy Shit! How Do I Do It? It's called the Uberman Sleep Schedule, and besides having a totally badass name, it's a way to get the maximum amount of essential sleep for your body without wasting hours of precious time you could be using to work or drink or farm for World of Warcraft gold. The schedule consists of taking six, 20-30 minute power naps, every four hours during the day. Of course, this new sleep pattern blows donkey-dick to get used to, but it's a price you have to pay to basically extend your waking life by several years. We're pretty sure Kramer did this once on Seinfeld. So it's probably a great idea. The best way to start it off is to just jump right in. Get to sleep at 8pm, set your alarm for 8:30. Get up, play some Call of Duty, sleep again at 12, alarm at 12:30, and so on. After three or four days of this you will start to get high as fuck because of sleep deprivation, and might just want to kill yourself, but don't do it! That would be absolutely counter-productive. By day 10 or so, your brain will say, "Fuck! FINE, we'll do it your way," and will adapt to your new superhuman sleep schedule. How Does It Work? When you sleep normally, your body gets only about an hour and a half of REM sleep, the kind of sleep that is thought to be the most important to keeping your brain sharp. While other stages of sleep help your body to heal and grow, the REM sleep is what makes you feel rested. Of course, sleeping in a bed doesn't hurt either. The first few days of adjusting are tough because your body isn't getting ANY of this REM sleep, and your brain hates you for it. After the third day, or so, your brain figures out that you mean business, and every time you lay down for one of these naps, dives directly into REM sleep in an attempt to compensate for the deprivation. Do some quick math and that's two full hours of REM sleep, while those who are sleeping normally are only getting an hour and a half. Before you know it, while the rest of the world snores away, you'll be up and drawing dicks on their faces. #4. Hallucinate Like You Just Took LSD, Legally Yes, that's right kids! Tell your dealer goodbye and worry no more about winding up naked on the roof of an office building after a bad trip. Now you can be stoned out of your mind by building a homemade deprivation chamber out of some regular, completely harmless household objects. Holy Shit, How Can I Do It! You are going to need three things: a ping-pong ball, a radio with headphones and a red light. Step 1: Turn the radio to a station with just white noise (static), and put on your headphones. Step 2: Cut the ping-pong ball in half and tape each half over your eyes. Step 3: Turn the red light so it's facing your eyes. Step 4: Sit there for at least a half an hour. Step 5: Follow Ben Franklin and your new friend, Harold the unicorn, into the gumdrop forest, and live happily ever after. How Does It Work? It's called the Ganzfeld effect, and it works by blocking out most of the signals that go to your brain. It's the same kind of effect you get when looking into a soft light for a while and lose vision, except at a larger scale. The sound of the white noise and the light from the outside of the ping pong ball are eventually ignored by your brain. With all those signals out of the picture, your brain has to create its own, and this is where the hallucinations come in. We can't guarantee they won't involve, say, the ghost of Lizzie Borden trying to hack off your scrotum with an ax, but that's the risk you take, dammit. Now, if you want a little more control over your hallucinations... #3. Dream Whatever You Want to Dream What if we told you there was a way to make all your fantasies come true? You could have that sports car you've always wanted and the daily threesome with Sarah Palin and Cannonball Run-era Burt Reynolds. Hell, we'll even throw in a few superpowers for your enjoyment. We never miss an opportunity to use this picture. Welcome to the wonderful world of lucid dreaming. Holy Shit, How Can I Do It? Most of you reading this have had a lucid dream before. Every once in a while you wind up in a dream but somehow recognize it as a dream, and you may have found yourself able to pretty much program the dream to your specifications. While there are plenty of tips and tricks to make this happen on purpose, we've narrowed it down to what seems like the most useful, so that you can be riding dinosaurs with Gary Coleman in your sleep in no time: Cowboy hat, optional. 1. Keep a Dream Journal As soon as you wake up from a dream, write down every little thing you can remember about it. Supposedly by writing it down, your brain recognizes certain patterns that only occur in a dream (since most dreams are immediately forgotten) and if they are on paper, you can recall them easily. 2. Think about exactly what you want to dream right before you fall asleep. Makes sense. For instance you've probably fallen asleep watching MythBusters before and immediately dreamed you were flying through the air, using a giant version of Jamie's mustache as a hang glider. Just us? 3. The best time to have a lucid dream is either right before you regularly wake up, or right after. Studies have shown that more people have lucid dreams when they take a nap shortly after they first wake up in the morning. So you can do all that, or if you are the lazy type, get yourself something like the NovaDreamer, a device that detects when you've entered REM sleep and then makes a noise that's supposed to be not quite enough to wake you up, but enough to raise your awareness to, "Hey, this is totally a dream I'm having!" levels. How Does It Work? Obviously the big difference between a dream and real life is that if the Hamburglar came bursting out of your refrigerator right now and started screaming at you in Vietnamese, your first thought would be "This is a strange and unusual event that is occurring right now, and I should question my perceptions." If the same thing happens in a dream, you just go with it. Yes, Mel Gibson is dressed like Col. Sanders. No, this is not a dream. In a dream state, your mind mostly loses the ability to criticize anything that's happening because dreaming just doesn't involve the critical part of your brain. You're all worried that you're at work in your underwear, and don't even blink at the fact that your boss is a dragon who speaks in the voice of your old middle school gym coach. But if you change your mental state ever so slightly, that critical part of your brain can keep functioning even while in dreamland. If you can perfect the technique of dreaming while not all the way asleep, the next thing you know you're ordering up a Smurf orgy.

#2.

Learn More While You Sleep

So say you haven't followed that first step up there and choose to continue sleeping like other mere mortals. A very minor change in your schedule can still let you use your sleep patterns to your advantage, by making you smarter.

Holy Shit, How Can I Do It?

No, we're not talking about those scams where they have you put a tape recorder under your pillow and let it teach you Spanish while you're asleep. What scientists have found out is if you need to remember a bunch of information (say, for a big exam), do NOT study right up until time for the exam. Study at least 24 hours before, and sleep on it.

Note: "Sleep on it" is simply an expression. You can sleep in a bed.

They did a study at Harvard that proved this technique works. Participants were separated into three different groups after being shown images that they were told to memorize. One of the groups was tested on the memorization after 20 minutes, the other after 12 hours and the last after 24 hours. You would expect that the ones who were tested just 20 minutes later would do best, but that would, of course, make a really shitty story.

No, the participants who slept on it and had 24 hours for the information to fester in their brain did the best on the test, while those who only had 20 minutes did the worst.

Wasting your time, nerds, go to sleep.

How Does It Work?

Scientists say the ability your brain has to retain information works in three different ways: acquisition, consolidation and recall. While the first and last occur while you're awake, it's the middle-man that is important during sleep.

When you sleep, your brain is constantly processing information that you couldn't have processed with everything going on up there during the day. This works to strengthen your neurological bonds in the brain. Think of it like downloading something on a computer. When you go to download something while your porn is up, it takes longer, right? Close up any applications that are running and you have a smoother, quicker download. Yeah, kind of like that... maybe.

So does this technique work with the "sleep two hours a day" system we mentioned earlier? We're not sure anyone has tried it, but by our calculations such a person would immediately gain mental superpowers, possibly including telekinesis. Somebody in the comments try it and let us know.

#1.

Believe Something Happened (That Totally Didn't)

Stop for a moment and recall your fondest childhood memory. Or your worst. In either case, there's a really good chance that it's total bullshit.

Memory is a funny thing. Research has consistently found that our memories from when we were kids are either extremely inaccurate, or didn't happen at all. They are just elaborate constructions of a memory storage system that isn't very good at distinguishing real memories from fake ones.

Are you positive this didn't happen?

So what if we told you that there was a way to do this on purpose? To hack your brain into believing (and "seeing" vividly) a completely made-up event that never actually happened?

Holy Shit! How Do I Do It?

The trick is you need somebody else to do it for you (or to you). But it takes very little effort, and no Total Recall-style brain-hacking machines.

Or torso mutants.

For instance, in a study in 1995 researchers sat down a group of people and mentioned four incidents from their childhood (gathered from family members) and asked subjects how well they remembered them. What they didn't mention was that one of the stories (a tale of them being lost in a specific shopping mall) was utter bullshit.

It didn't matter. Twenty percent came back with sudden memories of the event that, in reality, never happened. The sheer act of asking them if it did, caused them to manufacture the memory, filling in details on the fly.

Remember when Bruce Campbell was President?

Researchers knew they could up that 20 percent figure. In another test, an unsuspecting group of people who had visited Disneyland in the past were placed in a room with a cardboard cutout of Bugs Bunny and/or were shown fake ads for Disneyland featuring Bugs. Afterwards, 40 percent claimed they vividly remembered seeing a guy in a Bugs Bunny costume when they were at Disneyland. They didn't, of course (Bugs isn't a Disney character).

Another study took it a step further, and actually Photoshopped a picture of each subject riding in a hot air balloon. When asked if they recalled this non-event, 50 percent said they did. Other experiments successfully convinced people they had at one time nearly drowned, been hospitalized or been attacked by a wild animal.

How Does It Work?

Your brain kind of plays it fast and loose when it stores memories, and for good reason: Usually the details don't matter. You remember your best friend's phone number but don't remember exactly where and when he told you. You remember that you hate zucchini, but don't remember what day of the week you tried it. Your brain breaks up memories into a stew of general lessons learned and important stuff you'll need later.

The problem is that same process makes it very difficult to distinguish real memories from fake ones since the source of a memory is so often discarded in the stew. A fact you think you read in a newspaper might in reality have been read in a fictional novel, or heard from a friend, or dreamed, or implanted by somebody who's fucking with you.

So not only could somebody do this for you (though it would have to be set up so that you don't know where and when) but it seems like you could run a pretty successful business just implanting happy childhoods for people.

You know, like that time you found out you were adopted, and that your real parents were the Thundercats.

Kalama Sutta

Kalama Sutta

The people of Kalama asked the Buddha who to believe out of all the ascetics, sages, venerables, and holy ones who, like himself, passed through their town. They complained that they were confused by the many contradictions they discovered in what they heard. The Kalama Sutta is the Buddha's reply.

– Do not believe anything on mere hearsay.

– Do not believe in traditions merely because they are old and have been handed down for many generations and in many places.

– Do not believe anything on account of rumors or because people talk a a great deal about it.

– Do not believe anything because you are shown the written testimony of some ancient sage.

– Do not believe in what you have fancied, thinking that, because it is extraordinary, it must have been inspired by a god or other wonderful being.

– Do not believe anything merely because presumption is in its favor, or because the custom of many years inclines you to take it as true.

– Do not believe anything merely on the authority of your teachers and priests.

– But, whatever, after thorough investigation and reflection, you find to agree with reason and experience, as conducive to the good and benefit of one and all and of the world at large, accept only that as true, and shape your life in accordance with it.

The same text, said the Buddha, must be applied to his own teachings.

– Do not accept any doctrine from reverence, but first try it as gold is tried by fire.



Marriage, Bible Style

A. Marriage in the United States shall consist of a union between one man and one or more women. (Gen 29:17-28; II Sam 3:2-5)

B. Marriage shall not impede a man's right to take concubines in addition to his wife or wives. (II Sam 5:13; I Kings 11:3; II Chron 11:21)

C. A marriage shall be considered valid only if the wife is a virgin. If the wife is not a virgin, she shall be executed. (Deut 22:13-21)

D. Marriage of a believer and a non-believer shall be forbidden. (Gen 24:3; Num 25:1-9; Ezra 9:12; Neh 10:30)

E. Since marriage is for life, neither this Constitution nor the constitution of any State, nor any state or federal law, shall be construed to permit divorce. (Deut 22:19; Mark 10:9)

F. If a married man dies without children, his brother shall marry the widow. If he refuses to marry his brother's widow or deliberately does not give her children, he shall pay a fine of one shoe and be otherwise punished in a manner to be determined by law. (Gen 38:6-10; Deut 25:5-10)

G. In lieu of marriage, if there are no acceptable men in your town, it is required that you get your dad drunk and have sex with him (even if he had previously offered you up as a sex toy to men young and old), tag-teaming with any sisters you may have. Of course, this rule applies only if you are female. (Gen 19:31-36)

Pictures of old people looking into a mirror at their younger selves

http://www.photographyserved.com/Gallery/Novartis-_quotReflections_quot-Campaign/329834

21 Habits of Happy People

“Happiness is a habit – cultivate it.” ~ Elbert Hubbard
Happiness is one aspiration all people share. No one wants to be sad and depressed.

We’ve all seen people who are always happy – even amidst agonizing life trials. I’m not saying happy people don’t feel grief, sorrow or sadness; they just don’t let it overtake their life. The following are 21 things happy people make a habit of doing:

1. Appreciate Life

Be thankful that you woke up alive each morning. Develop a childlike sense of wonder towards life. Focus on the beauty of every living thing. Make the most of each day. Don’t take anything for granted. Don’t sweat the small stuff.

2. Choose Friends Wisely

Surround yourself with happy, positive people who share your values and goals. Friends that have the same ethics as you will encourage you to achieve your dreams. They help you to feel good about yourself. They are there to lend a helping hand when needed.

3. Be Considerate

Accept others for who they are as well as where they are in life. Respect them for who they are. Touch them with a kind and generous spirit. Help when you are able, without trying to change the other person. Try to brighten the day of everyone you come into contact with.

4. Learn Continuously

Keep up to date with the latest news regarding your career and hobbies. Try new and daring things that has sparked your interest – such as dancing, skiing, surfing or sky-diving.

5. Creative Problem Solving

Don’t wallow in self-pity. As soon as you face a challenge get busy finding a solution. Don’t let the set backs affect your mood, instead see each new obstacle you face as an opportunity to make a positive change. Learn to trust your gut instincts – it’s almost always right.

6. Do What They Love

Some statistics show that 80% of people dislike their jobs! No wonder there’s so many unhappy people running around. We spend a great deal of our life working. Choose a career that you enjoy – the extra money of a job you detest isn’t worth it. Make time to enjoy your hobbies and pursue special interests.

7. Enjoy Life

Take the time to see the beauty around you. There’s more to life than work. Take time to smell the roses, watch a sunset or sunrise with a loved one, take a walk along the seashore, hike in the woods etc. Learn to live in the present moment and cherish it. Don’t live in the past or the future.

8. Laugh

Don’t take yourself – or life to seriously. You can find humor in just about any situation. Laugh at yourself – no one’s perfect. When appropriate laugh and make light of the circumstances. (Naturally there are times that you should be serious as it would be improper to laugh.)

9. Forgive

Holding a grudge will hurt no one but you. Forgive others for your own peace of mind. When you make a mistake – own up to it – learn from it – and FORGIVE yourself.

10. Gratitude

Develop an attitude of gratitude. Count your blessings; All of them – even the things that seem trivial. Be grateful for your home, your work and most importantly your family and friends. Take the time to tell them that you are happy they are in your life.

11. Invest in Relationships

Always make sure your loved ones know you love them even in times of conflict. Nurture and grow your relationships with your family and friends by making the time to spend with them. Don’t break your promises to them. Be supportive.

12. Keep Their Word

Honesty is the best policy. Every action and decision you make should be based on honesty. Be honest with yourself and with your loved ones.

13. Meditate

Meditation gives your very active brain a rest. When it’s rested you will have more energy and function at a higher level. Types of meditation include yoga, hypnosis, relaxation tapes, affirmations, visualization or just sitting in complete silence. Find something you enjoy and make the time to practice daily.

14. Mind Their Own Business

Concentrate on creating your life the way you want it. Take care of you and your family. Don’t get overly concerned with what other people are doing or saying. Don’t get caught up with gossip or name calling. Don’t judge. Everyone has a right to live their own life the way they want to – including you.

15. Optimism

See the glass as half full. Find the positive side of any given situation. It’s there – even though it may be hard to find. Know that everything happens for a reason, even though you may never know what the reason is. Steer clear of negative thoughts. If a negative thought creeps in – replace it with a positive thought.

16. Love Unconditionally

Accept others for who they are. You don’t put limitations on your love. Even though you may not always like the actions of your loved ones – you continue to love them.

17. Persistence

Never give up. Face each new challenge with the attitude that it will bring you one step closer to your goal. You will never fail, as long as you never give up. Focus on what you want, learn the required skills, make a plan to succeed and take action. We are always happiest while pursuing something of value to us.

18. Be Proactive

Accept what can not be changed. Happy people don’t waste energy on circumstances beyond their control. Accept your limitations as a human being. Determine how you can take control by creating the outcome you desire – rather than waiting to respond.

19. Self Care

Take care of your mind, body and health. Get regular medical check ups. Eat healthy and work out. Get plenty of rest. Drink lots of water. Exercise your mind by continually energizing it with interesting and exciting challenges.

20. Self Confidence

Don’t try to be someone that you’re not. After all no one likes a phony. Determine who you are in the inside – your own personal likes and dislikes. Be confident in who you are. Do the best you can and don’t second guess yourself.

21. Take Responsibility

Happy people know and understand that they are 100% responsible for their life. They take responsibility for their moods, attitude, thoughts, feelings, actions and words. They are the first to admit when they’ve made a mistake.

Begin today by taking responsibility for your happiness. Work on developing these habits as you own. The more you incorporate the above habits into your daily lifestyle – the happier you will be.

Most of all: BE TRUE TO YOURSELF.

50 Mind Blowing Facts About America That Our Founding Fathers Never Would Have Believed

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/50-mind-blowing-facts-about-america-that-our-founding-fathers-never-would-have-believed

If our Founding Fathers were alive today, what would they think of America? Surely they would be very proud that the United States stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific and has built some of the most amazing cities that the world has ever seen. They would probably be surprised that the country they founded went on to become the greatest economic machine in the history of the world, and they would be absolutely astounded by things like our interstate highway system and the Internet. However, there are quite a number of things that they would be horrified about as well. The fact that over 40 million Americans are dependent on the federal government for their daily food would be deeply disturbing to our founders. Also, the fact that the U.S. government has accumulated the greatest mountain of debt in human history would be incredibly distressing to George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and the rest of the founders. But perhaps most of all, our founders would be absolutely disgusted that the land where Americans could once be free to pursue life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness has become so tightly regulated and controlled that Americans dare not even squeak without the permission of the federal government.

Needless to say, our founders would certainly not understand many of our institutions or many of the advanced technologies that we have today. But without a doubt they would be able to grasp how far we have fallen as a nation and how far we have strayed from the fundamental principles that they enshrined in our founding documents. The United States is a much different place today than it was in 1776, and unfortunately many of the changes have been for the worse.

The following are 50 mind blowing facts about modern America that our Founding Fathers never would have believed....

#1 In 2010, not only does the United States have a central bank, but it also runs our economy and issues all of our currency. The Federal Reserve has devalued the U.S. dollar by over 95 percent since 1913 and it has been used to create the biggest mountain of government debt in the history of the world.

#2 The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has ruled that U.S. government agents can legally sneak onto your property in the middle of the night, place a secret GPS device on the bottom of your car and keep track of you everywhere that you go.

#3 The 50 wealthiest members of Congress saw their collective fortunes increase by 85.1 million dollars to $1.4 billion in 2009.

#4 The U.S. government has accumulated a national debt that is rapidly approaching the 14 trillion dollar mark.

#5 All over the United States, asphalt roads are being ground up and are being replaced with gravel because it is cheaper to maintain. The state of South Dakota has transformed over 100 miles of asphalt road into gravel over the past year, and 38 out of the 83 counties in the state of Michigan have now turned some of their asphalt roads into gravel roads.

#6 Americans now owe more than $849 billion on student loans, which is more than the total amount that Americans owe on their credit cards.

#7 In 2010, Americans waste an astounding amount of food. According to a study by the California Integrated Waste Management board, 63 percent of the average supermarket's waste stream is food. When you break that down, it means that each supermarket wastes approximately 3,000 pounds of food each year.

#8 The city of Cleveland plans to sort through curbside trash to ensure that people are actually recycling properly. If it is discovered that some citizens are not recycling they will be hit with very large fines.

#9 Once upon a time, U.S. industry was the envy of the world. But since 1979, manufacturing employment in the United States has fallen by 40 percent.

#10 Even though the U.S. population has exploded in size, the number of Americans with manufacturing jobs today is smaller than the number of Americans who were employed in manufacturing in 1950.

#11 Having one out of every eight Americans enrolled in the food stamp program is now considered "the new normal" and Americans continue to drop into poverty in astounding numbers.

#12 One out of every six Americans is now being served by at least one government anti-poverty program.

#13 A family of four actually has difficulty surviving on an income of $50,000 a year in America in 2010.

#14 Barack Obama is backing a proposal to create a national database that will store the DNA of all individuals who have been arrested, even if they end up not being convicted of a crime.

#15 In 2010, it takes the average unemployed American worker over 8 months to find a job.

#16 The U.S. government has made some parts of Arizona off limits to U.S. citizens because of the threat of violence from Mexican drug smugglers. The federal government has actually posted signs more than 100 miles north of the Mexican border warning travelers that certain areas are unsafe because of drug and alien smugglers.

#17 One recent survey of last year's college graduates discovered that 80 percent moved right back home with their parents after graduation.

#18 In one of the very first military commissions held under the Obama administration, a U.S. military judge ruled that confessions obtained by threatening the subject with rape are admissible in court.

#19 The average American worker now pays literally dozens of different kinds of taxes each year.

#20 In recent years the U.S. government has spent $2.6 million tax dollars to study the drinking habits of Chinese prostitutes and $400,000 tax dollars to pay researchers to cruise six bars in Buenos Aires, Argentina to find out why gay men engage in risky sexual behavior when drunk.

#21 Christians are being arrested and thrown in jail in some areas of the United States for quietly passing out Christian literature on public sidewalks.

#22 The Florida State Department of Juvenile Justice has announced that it will begin using cutting edge analysis software to predict crime by young delinquents and will place "potential offenders" in prevention and education programs.

#23 Organic milk is now considered such a national crisis that the FDA has been conducting military style raids on Amish farmers in the state of Pennsylvania.

#24 The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently announced that they are considering a crackdown on farm dust.

#25 According to a new CDC report, nearly half of all Americans now use prescription drugs on a regular basis.

#26 Oakland, California Police Chief Anthony Batts says that due to severe budget cuts there are a number of crimes that his department will simply not be able to respond to any longer. The crimes that the Oakland police will no longer be responding to include grand theft, burglary, car wrecks, identity theft and vandalism.

#27 Today, Americans are losing their homes in staggering numbers. One out of every seven mortgages was delinquent or in foreclosure during the first quarter of 2010.

#28 Many of our leading scientists are now calling themselves "transhumanists" and are openly proclaiming that a future where men have fully merged with machines is inevitable.

#29 Americans who spend large amounts of cash are viewed as "potential criminals" by the U.S. government in 2010.

#30 New full body security scanners going into airports all across the United States can actually see through our clothing and produce very clear and very detailed images of our exposed bodies as we walk through them.

#31 The U.S. financial system has become a massive gambling parlor in 2010. As a result, a horrific derivatives bubble has developed that threatens to destroy our entire economy at any moment. Nobody knows exactly how big the derivatives bubble is, but low estimates place it at around 600 trillion dollars and high estimates put it at around 1.5 quadrillion dollars. Once that bubble pops there simply will not be enough money in the entire world to fix it.

#32 The U.S. government is spending an amount of money equivalent to approximately 25.4 percent of GDP this year.

#33 Today, 10,000 people make 30% of the total income in the United States.

#34 A 2006 Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigation discovered that 250 employees of the Defense Department used credit cards or PayPal to purchase images of children in sexual situations. However, the investigation also found that the Pentagon investigated only a handful of those cases.

#35 According to a recent poll of Americans between the ages of 44 and 75, 61% said that running out money was their biggest fear. The remaining 39% thought death was scarier.

#36 Approximately 57 percent of Barack Obama's 3.8 trillion dollar budget for 2011 consists of direct payments to individual Americans or is money that is spent on their behalf.

#37 A recent Department of Justice guide for investigators of criminal and extremist groups lists "constitutionalists" and "survivalists" alongside organizations like Al-Qaeda and the Aryan Brotherhood.

#38 The U.S. trade deficit has exploded to nightmarish proportions over the past two decades. Every single month tens of billions more dollars goes out of the United States than comes into it. Essentially, the United States is becoming far poorer as a nation each and every month.

#39 Factories are closing in droves across the United States because the American people would rather buy things made in China.

#40 Millions upon millions of good paying middle class jobs are being shipped off to China and they are never coming back. Meanwhile, U.S. politicians stand by idly and do nothing.

#41 Some analysts now believe that China could become the largest economy in the world by the year 2020.

#42 If the U.S. government was forced to use GAAP accounting principles (like all publicly-traded corporations must), the annual U.S. government budget deficit would be somewhere in the neighborhood of four to five trillion dollars.

#43 According to one recent survey, 28% of all U.S. households have at least one person that is currently searching for a full-time job.

#44 The U.S. dollar continues to rapidly decline in value. An item that cost $20.00 in 1970 will cost you $112.35 today. An item that cost $20.00 in 1913 will cost you $440.33 today.

#45 Major international organizations are actually proposing that the United States start considering the adoption of a truly global currency.

#46 Students at a high school in Missouri have built a car that they claim can get up to 450 miles per gallon. On another note, some of the top energy experts in the world believe that thorium could solve our energy problems and supply very cheap energy for society for hundreds of thousands of years. But in today's world technologies such as these are endlessly suppressed by the rich and powerful.

#47 One Colorado high school student is seeking an explanation from officials at his school after he was ordered by security guards to remove American flags from his truck because they might make other students at the high school "uncomfortable".

#48 Three California high school students were recently forced to remove their American flag T-shirts on Cinco de Mayo.

#49 Memorial crosses erected along Utah public roads to honor fallen state troopers have been found unconstitutional by a federal appeals court and now must be removed permanently.

#50 One group of high school students made national headlines recently when they revealed that a security guard ordered them to stop singing the national anthem during a visit to the Lincoln Memorial.

Learn something everyday

http://www.pete.com/media/1464/Learn_Something_Everyday_Part_2/

Philip K. Howard: Four ways to fix a broken legal system

Selling Out

Selling Out

April 12, 2010

by David McRaney

The Misconception: Both consumerism and capitalism are sustained by corporations and advertising.

The Truth: Both consumerism and capitalism are driven by competition among consumers for status.

Beatniks, hippies, punk rockers, grunge rats, metal heads, goth kids, hipsters – see a pattern forming here?

It goes back farther than these examples, the baton of counter culture – the mantle of anti…whatever the mainstream is doing – it gets passed from generation to generation.

Whether you lived through Freedom Summer or “Jem and the Holograms” – somewhere in your youth you started to realize who was in control, and you rebelled. You started to discover the paradigms of censorship and consumerism – and they repulsed you.

You needed to self actualize, to find your own way, and you sought out something real, something with meaning. You waved your hand at popular music, popular movies, and popular television. You dug deeper and disparaged all those mindless sheeple who gobbled up pop culture.

Yet, you still listened to music and bought shirts and went to see movies. Someone was appealing to you despite your dissent.

If you think you can buy your way to individuality, well, you are not so smart.

Since the 1940s, when capitalism and marketing married psychology and public relations, the market has been getting much better and more efficient at offering you something to purchase no matter your taste.

See the punk rocker up there? Yeah, he bought all of those clothes. Someone is making money off of his revolt.

That’s the strange paradox – everything is part of the system. There is no such thing as selling out, because there is no one to sell out to.

Every niche opened by rebellion against the mainstream is immediately filled by entrepreneurs who figure out how to make a buck off those who are trying to avoid what the majority of people are buying.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, there were many stabs at trying to thwart this through artistic gesture – “Fight Club,” “American Beauty,” “Fast Food Nation,” “The Corporation,” etc.

The creators of these works may have had the best intentions, but their work still became a product designed for profit. Their cries against consumption were consumed.

Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky, Kurt Cobain, Andy Kaufman – they may have been solely concerned with creating art or illustrating academic principles, but once their output fell into the marketplace it found its audience, and that audience made them wealthy.

Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter, both philosophers, wrote a book about this in 2004 called “The Rebel Sell.” It’s available in the United States as “Nation of Rebels.”

The central theme of the book is you can’t rage against “the system,” or “the man” or “the culture” through rebellious consumption.

Here’s the conventional thinking most counter cultures are founded upon:

All the interconnected institutions in the marketplace need everyone to conform in order to sell the most products to the most people. The media through press releases, advertising, entertainment and so on works to bring everyone into homogeneity by altering desires.

To escape consumerism and conformity, you must turn your back and ignore the mainstream culture. The shackles will then fall away, the machines will grind to a halt, the filters will dissolve, and you will see the world for what it really is.

Finally, the illusory nature of existence will end and we will all, finally, be real.

The problem, say Heath and Potter, is “the system” doesn’t give a shit about conformity. In fact, it loves diversity and needs people like hipsters and music snobs so it can thrive.

For example, say there is this awesome band no one knows about except you and a few others. They don’t have a record contract or an album. They just go out there and play, and they are great.

You tell everyone about them as they build a decent fan base. They make an album which sells enough copies to allow them to quit their jobs. That album gets them more gigs and more fans. Soon, they have a huge fan base and get a record contract and get on the radio and play on “The Tonight Show.”

Now, they’ve sold out. So you hate them. You abandon the band and go looking for someone more authentic, and it all starts over again.

This is the pump by which artists rise from the depths into the mainstream. It never stops, and over time it gets faster and more efficient.

Unknown bands are a special sort of commodity. Living in a loft downtown, wearing clothes from the thrift store, watching the independent film no one has heard of – these provide a special social status which can’t be bought as easily as the things offered to the mainstream.

In the 1960s, it took months before someone figured out they could sell tie-dyed shirts and bell bottoms to anyone who wanted to rebel. In the 1990s, it took weeks to start selling flannel shirts and Doc Martens to people in the Deep South. Now, people are hired by corporations to go to bars and clubs and predict what the counter culture is into and have it on the shelves in the cool stores right as it becomes popular.

The counter-culture, the indie fans and the underground stars – they are the driving force behind capitalism. They are the engine.

This brings us to the point – competition among consumers is the turbine of capitalism.

Everyone who lives above the poverty line but isn’t wealthy pretty much has no choice but to work for a living doing something which rewards them with survival tokens.

Working as a telemarketer, for example, allows you to have food, clothing and shelter, but doesn’t put you directly in charge of creating, growing or killing those things you need for sustenance. Instead, you trade in tokens for those things. As a result, you have a lot of free time and some leftover tokens.

We don’t directly compete with each other for resources like we did for the millennia before mass production.

Before this setup, people were often defined by their work, by their output. The things they owned were usually things either they handmade, or were things other people made by hand. There was a weight, an infusion of soul, in everything a person owned, used and lived in.

Today, everyone is a consumer, and has to pick from the same selection of goods as everyone else, and because of this people now define their personalities on how good their taste is, or how clever, or how obscure, or how ironic their choices are.

As Christian Lander, author of “Stuff White People Like,” pointed out in an interview with NPR, you compete with your peers by one-upping them. You attain status by having better taste in movies and music, by owning more authentic furniture and clothing.

There are 100 million copies of every item or intellectual property you can own, so you reveal your unique character through how you consume.

Having a dissenting opinion on movies, music or clothes, or owning clever or obscure possessions is the way middle-class people fight each other for status. They can’t out-consume each other because they can’t afford it, but they can out-taste each other.

Since everything is mass-produced, and often for a mass audience, finding and consuming things which appeal to your desire for authenticity is what moves these items and artists and services up from the bottom to the top – where it can be mass consumed.

Hipsters, then, are the direct result of this cycle of indie, authentic, obscure, ironic, clever consumerism.

Which is ironic – but not like a trucker hat or Pabst Blue Ribbon. It is ironic in the sense the very act of trying to run counter to the culture is what creates the next wave of culture people will in turn attempt to counter.

“I think ‘sell out’ is yelled by those who, when they were selling, didn’t have anything that anyone wanted to buy.” – Patton Oswalt

Wait long enough, and what was once mainstream will fall into obscurity. When that happens, it will become valuable again to those looking for authenticity or irony or cleverness. The value, then, is not intrinsic. The thing itself doesn’t have as much value as the perception of how it was obtained, or why it is possessed, does.

Once enough people join in, like with trucker hats or slap bracelets, the status gained from owning the item or being a fan of the band is lost, and the search begins again.

You would compete like this no matter how society was constructed. Competition for status is built into the human experience at the biological level.

Poor people compete with resources. The middle class competes with selection. The wealthy compete with possessions.

If you live in a jungle and forage for food between spear-sharpening sessions, you compete for status with talent or prowess or…something.

If you get a paycheck, someone out there is buying what you are offering. You are selling – they are buying.

You sold out long ago in one way or another. The specifics of who you sell to and how much you make – those are only details.

Writers Urge U.N. to Abandon Efforts to Prohibit Defamation of Religions, Concentrate Instead on Respect-Building Initiatives

http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/September2010/20/c3348.html

GENEVA, Switzerland, Sept. 20 /CNW/ - At a panel held in conjunction with the Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva, writers and free-expression advocates from around the world today warned of the potential harm of imposing legal restrictions on expression considered offensive or defamatory to religions, arguing that such restrictions not only would do little to foster mutual understanding and respect, but also could easily be used to stifle creative freedom and suppress minority views and religions.

"Human rights are attached to individuals, not to states or organized groups or ideas," said International PEN President John Ralston Saul, who chaired the two-hour session entitled Faith and Free Speech: Defamation of Religions and Freedom of Expression. "When governments attempt to limit the rights of citizens, they are not seeking to protect faith or belief. They are seeking increased power over the citizenry."

The program, hosted by International PEN and co-sponsored by the Norwegian and American PEN Centers and Index on Censorship, the International Publishers Association, and Article XIX, presented the views of writers from a wide range of countries and religious traditions. Saul was joined on the panel by Agnes Callamard, Director of Article 19, Swiss-born and Oxford-based Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan, and Budhy Rahman from the Asia Foundation in Indonesia. Four internationally acclaimed writers—Nobel Prize laureate Wole Soyinka, Ariel Dorfman, Azar Nafisi, and Kwame Anthony Appiah—made statements by videotape. All of the participants echoed Saul's message that individuals have an absolute right to practice their religion freely and without discrimination or threat of violence, and that prohibitions on religious defamation are not an effective means to reduce bigotry or religious hatred.

While laws protecting religious freedom and barring incitement to violence and hate crimes already protect against religious discrimination, the United Nations Human Rights Council and General Assembly have passed a series of resolutions in recent years calling on countries to pass laws specifically prohibiting defamation of religions—laws that writers believe carry significant dangers for freedom of expression. As Nigerian poet and playwright Wole Soyinka told the audience, "Many countries already have laws against hate and hate preaching, and I think that's already enough to guide the citizens about what is required for harmonious existence."

"We are at a critical juncture," said Agnes Callamard, executive director of Article XIX. "There had been a decrease in support for prohibitions on religious defamation here at the U.N. But recent events—the Florida pastor's plan to burn copies of the Koran, bans on wearing the veil in Europe, the ban on the construction of minarets in Switzerland—mean there is again pressure to entrench this concept in international law."

Callamard suggested that "instead of heavy, blunt instruments of censorship and the negative interventions of states, we need positive and balancing measures."

Buhdye M. Rahman, from the Asia Foundation in Indonesia, pointed to Indonesia's experience with such laws. "The U.N. resolutions on defamation of religion are incompatible with the fundamental freedoms of individuals to peacefully express their thoughts, ideas and beliefs," he said. "Measures prohibiting the defamation of religion punish the peaceful criticism of ideas and disfavoured political or religious beliefs. We need more concrete dialogue."

Tariq Ramadan, currently a professor of Islamic Studies at Oxford University, agreed that the question is how to respond to emotional issues without recourse to more restrictive laws. "We must open closed circles. The dialogue should be not only with religious groups but with agnostics, atheists etc., in the surrounding society, not just an ivory tower of specialists. We need education. We need a balanced, nuanced approach that does not undermine universal values."

Ghanaian-born scholar and writer and PEN American Center President Kwame Anthony Appiah pointed to what he called "the current climate of hostility towards Islam in the United States" as an example of a situation where laws restricting religious defamation might seem warranted. "But what would happen if we had such laws?" Appiah asked. Using such laws against individuals fermenting Islamophobia in the U.S. would just turn them into martyrs of free expression, he warned.

"We are not going to create respect for Islam in the United States by locking up people who speak disrespectfully about Islam," Appiah insisted. "We are going to create it by working to remind everyone of our fundamental values of respect and of the equal dignity of human beings, whatever their religion."

Appiah, Soyinka, and Chilean-born novelist and playwright Ariel Dorfman and Iranian-born scholar and writer Azar Nafisi all expressed apprehension about placing the power to judge what constitutes defamation of religions in the hands of the United Nations and of government officials around the world. "I worry about a situation where an international governmental organ like the U.N. takes it upon itself to wade into these nebulous areas," Soyinka stated.

Nafisi, who like Soyinka and Dorfman has seen governmental censorship and suppression of freedom of expression first-hand, agreed, noting that "the first aftermath of such laws is that they give governments more power to repress their own citizens. Citing Iran in particular, Nafisi asked, "What will happen to women right now who are fighting against being stoned to death? What will happen to someone who is accused of warring with God, and to those who defend her right to say that the state is not representative of God?"

Recalling that he had watched his own books burned "in the name of security and peace and supposedly in the best interests of everybody," Ariel Dorfman reminded the audience that "the transgressive ideas of today are the consensus ideas of tomorrow, and we need to make sure they are protected."

"It was once very transgressive to think that people should not be slaves, or that women should have a vote, or children should not work," Dorfman said. "In certain times, these were almost heretical ideas. And yet those ideas are now common values of humanity. We should really look at the long trajectory of humanity when we are suggesting the possibility of suppressing anyone who criticizes religion."

Speaking movingly about the "horrendous" toll of religious violence in Nigeria—violence he said reminded him of the "horrors of pogroms that have been going on since time immemorial in the world"—Soyinka asserted that, in the end, it comes down to a question of whether we will choose to emphasize our differences or our common humanity. "I'm not a religionist, but I do appreciate the spiritual dimension of humanity that leads to the formation of religions," he said. "But since you have so many religions in the world, and there is only one humanity, that one humanity and the fundamental claims of humanity have to take precedence over the conflicting claims of religion."

"The most violent attacks on organized religions do not come from religious individuals or even atheist individuals, but from other organized religions or sects and from their religious leaders," Saul noted in conclusion. "The problems of religious denigration are not legal. They are political and cultural problems that can only be resolved through strengthening respect among nations and a shared understanding of our common humanity."

PEN celebrates literature and promotes freedom of expression. Founded in 1921, our global community of writers now spans more than 100 countries. Our programmes, campaigns, events and publications connect writers and readers wherever they are in the world.