A couple months ago a cop gave me a ticket because he did not like the way I talked to him.
I wanted to stop in a loading zone because I was, uh, loading something. Perfectly legal. He told me to move on. I said no, that I was loading something in a loading zone. He got heavy on me asking me to step out of the ca, to show my license etc. I told him he was being an asshole. He gave me a ticket for parking in a loading zone and warned me he could do a lot worse if he wanted….I shut up because I had to get my family home.
I paid the ticket knowing my word against his would get me nowhere.
It left me with the clear understanding that the cops have total control over me. Once I am in their cross hairs I am a powerless victim. The best thing for my security is to kiss their ass like it tastes great. It is not a nice feeling. I guess I don’t have to worry about them coming in the middle of the night and making me disappear like in other countries, so I am lucky. But still…
The biker in the video below experienced what I felt on a much larger scale. The cop said the biker attacked him and the biker spent the night in jail with assured future jail time once he was convicted. The only problem is that somebody got it on video. The cop is disgraced. One more point for the little guy! Ah the joy! It is a small victory but still so sweet. I love biking in Brooklyn!
It is so cool that Brooklyn has lots of parrots who escaped from captivity and are now thriving in large parrot communities here.
Why there are almost only Quaker parrots I am not sure, probably because they are very hearty and smart - able to survive the winter and avoid predators.
Frienster has this great gadget where you can vote on your friends. It is set up as a multiple choice questionaire where your friends are randomly picked and paired.
For example you are asked to pick:
Who is happier, John or Jason.
Who is prettier, Bill or Bob.
Who would you marry, Joe or Ted.
Who is funnier Lucy or Jane.
When I take the questionaire all my friends are randomly paired. When my friends take it I appear randomnly in their questionaire.
As enough of your friends do it the random pairings start to create a great picture of how the world perceives you. Because the results are pooled it is an anonymous process, nobody feels bad about their choices and they stay honest. It is really a very accurate mirror of how you come across to the world.
I rank consistently the same ever since I chose to allow myself to be in my friends’ questionnaires:
Out of all my friends I dominate the number one place in these traits:
smartest
cutest
most studious
And I am always at the bottom for these traits:
most fashionable
happiest
I’d have to say this is a pretty accurate description of me. I’m a cute nerd.
What is strange is that I look at the rankings of other people and they seem totally off. People who I think are total losers are scoring first in “Most likely to succeed” and total space cadets are scoring in “Most punctual”.
It is strange that for me the scoring seems off for others but right on for me….hmm….
This video shows a Bush turncoat revealing how the Bush administration fed Fox news exactly what kind of news to air. Duh. I watched Fox news for five minutes a couple years ago before I decided it would be more fun to rub my face in dog shit.
This analysis of 9/11 film footage raises some important points. If is frustrating that 9/11 was washed over so effectively and that all this alternative information is not being addressed in the higher courts or police investigations. I look forward to the day when my government represents me.
Bottom line: the official story does not match film footage and eyewitness accounts, which vary enough to
It sucks that the JFK assassination was never resolved. Clearly the official facts are wrong or manipulated. The truth is less clear. Here is another attempt to prove the manipulation of the official evidence. It does seem to have evidence but it is also so hard to micro analyze film footage of such poor quality and short length.
Hopefully 9/11 will not go so long without the truth being revealed.
This video of Vincent Bugliosi shows in clear words how large of a lie it was to say we needed to go to war on Iraq and how George and Co. acted as murderers. Very worth watching because it has the power to lul you out of your daily life and shift your view to what is happening on a worldly level.
I keep wanting to know WHY Bush and Co. felt justified to create the war. What great gain could possibly justify destroying a country and killing so many people? Was it just the money they would make from “rebuilding” Iraq? Was it the control they would gain over oil pipelines? What pot of gold are they after? Or is it some ideological game they are playing? Could it possibly be a deluded Christian attempt to kill Muslims? Hell, I have no idea!
LONDON, England (CNN) — Imagine a life where each morning you cycle to work, and come home at night to tend your allotment and eat a dinner of locally produced food.
In order to move to a zero-carbon lifestyle, livestock and produce will need to be locally sourced.
Maybe after your meal you take a walk down the car-free streets to the nearest bar where you buy a round of drinks with locally produced currency and settle down in a corner to watch a troupe of musicians play some local folk music.
It might sound like some kind of fairytale arcadia — a return to the simple lives of our forefathers, before fossil fuels and consumer culture turned everything on its head.
In fact this is how many people are beginning to envision our future — a world where we come to terms with inevitable fuel shortages and work towards a less energy-dependent lifestyle.
This vision has found a voice in the “transition initiative,” a movement that encourages towns, villages and cities across the world to begin the process of preparing themselves for a carbon-free world.
The first so-called transition town was pioneered in the southwest English town of Totnes, by the inventor of the concept Rob Hopkins, 18 months ago.
Since then almost 50 other places in Britain have signed up to the movement, as well as a smattering of towns in New Zealand and Australia.
Hopkins, 38, who lives with his family in Totnes, says people have seized upon the transition initiative because it offers an “empowering, inspiring” vision of the post-oil age.
“It has grown into a vacuum — there is nothing else that looks at ways to respond to peak oil and climate change that feels good,” Hopkins says.
Hopkins’ beliefs about the looming energy crisis are summed up by the title of American environmentalist writer Richard Heinberg’s 2003 book on the subject — “The Party’s Over.”
Heinberg, who provides the foreword to a handbook Hopkins has recently published on the transition initiative, estimates we are very close to reaching a state of peak oil — the point at which half of the world’s oil reserves have been used up and thereafter supply goes into freefall.
A lack of any viable alternative energy sources means human communities will have no choice but to cut back energy use, the book argues.
Since governments and big business seem unable, or else unwilling, to deal with these problems head-on, Hopkins believes the change must come in the first instance from the grassroots.
“We have to be looking to break our oil dependence and get to being a zero carbon society within 20 years. We don’t have any choice in this if we want our children to have any kind of lives.
“Of course, much of this needs to come from government level, but to make cuts of that nature will need a lot of things that don’t tend to make governments very popular, such as carbon rationing.
“The idea with transition is to engage communities in pushing for these things, so as to take the fear out of making these decisions for politicians.”
One way of doing this is through an “energy descent pathway,” a step-by-step plan compiled by residents designed to wean the town away from a reliance on carbon fuels. Some transition towns are already beginning to implement the plan.
Other initiatives trialed in Totnes include planting nut trees to provide emergency food supplies and the setting up of locally-run energy and construction companies to increase self-reliance.
Just over a year ago the town also introduced its own currency — the Totnes pound. Accepted in 18 shops in the town and borrowing its design from an 1810 local banknote, Hopkins believes it is a sign of things to come.
“Historically, when economies run into trouble, local currencies proliferate. In Argentina when the economy collapsed a few years ago, they appeared all over the country.
“They are inevitable because we will need currencies that are locally loyal, that make more things happen before they leave the economy than (pound) sterling does.”
To some this return to localism might sound like a step back.
Although Hopkins acknowledges drawing inspiration from the past — part of the transition process involves consulting with older members of the community to find out what life was like when people were more self-reliant — he insists he’s not being regressive, only realistic.
“The transition approach is not about convincing anyone to give up anything. It is about saying that many of the things we increasingly take for granted will become steadily more expensive and less and less dependable.
“We are entering a world where there will be a lot less energy available, and this will affect all aspects of our lives, and we need to start planning creatively now.”
It seems there are doctors saying that the HIV virus can not be isolated and others who say it can me. Bottom line, there are people saying that HIV does not cause AIDS…..
Here is the mainstream view, although presented in a very dull and stilted way:
This video shows that what western doctors call AIDS is not the definition of AIDS in Africa. AIDS in Africa is classified as a set of symptoms: fever, weight loss, diarrhea. Anyone without access to clean water and good food has a large chance of having these symptoms and thus the huge numbers of “AIDS victims” in Africa.
Most of these “AIDS victims” do not have AIDS. Why does this inaccurate prognosis exist?
- African governments want the AIDS funding
- Western medical companies want to supply the medicine