Færsluflokkur: Bloggar
Ég sé marga skrifa, hún braut lög, hún braut lög. Ég sé ekki betur en að enginn dómur hafi fallið, aðeins fullyrðingar.
Svo virðist sem ekki hafi náðst að drepa dýrin nema að dauðastríðið hafi staðið lengur en lög segja til um.
Auðvitað fær fyrirtækið skaðabætur eins og réttlátt getur verið.
Þjóðirnar eru að færa sig frá þeirri heimsku að nota 30 manna matar daga af korni til að fá einn manna matar dag af nautakjöti.
Nú á fyrirtækið að snúa sér á fulla ferð í að rækta þörunga og þá að finna aðferðir til þess.
Einnig í að láta runna bera fiskibollur og kjötbollur svona 12 sinnum á ári.
Skapararnir leita lausna og finna.
Ég hef skrifað að garðyrkju skólarnir ættu að vinna við að búa til nytja jurtir með aðstoð háskólana.
Allir geri góðar hugmyndir að veruleika.
Einhvern tíma nefndi ég að það ætti búa til plast rollur, hreindýr og laxa til að einhverjir geti spreytt sig við að elta.
Núverandi fjárbændur fái greitt fyrir að vera varðveislu menn jarðana.
Takið eftir að engin fjölmiðill talar um að núna einu sinni en eru fjármáls fyrirtækin að hirða íbúðirnar til handa svokölluðum eigendum bankana.
Auðvitað vitum við að þetta upphlaup gagnvart Ráðfrúnni er til að við gleymum að fjármálakerfið er að færa til sín eignirnar, í búðir fólksins.
Bankinn á ekkert í húsinu og á enga vexti að fá, hann lánar ekki neitt.
Þú manst, bankinn skrifar aðeins tölurnar í bókhaldið hjá sér.
Egilsstaðir, 10.01.2024 Jónas Gunnlaugsson
Bloggar | Breytt 11.1.2024 kl. 19:22 | Slóð | Facebook | Athugasemdir (1)
Íslensk endursögn.
"Þú verður að skilja, að leiðandi Bolsjevíkar, sem tóku yfir Rússland voru ekki Rússar.
Þeir hötuðu Rússa. Þeir hötuðu kristna menn.
Þjáðir af þjóðernishatri pinntuðu þeir og drápu milljónir Rússa, án nokkurar miskunnar.
Það er ekki hægt að gera of mikið úr því.
Bolshevisminn stóð fyrir mestu drápum í sögunni.
Sú staðreynd að flestum í veröldinni er ókunnugt um þessa miklu glæpi, sýnir að fjölmiðlarnir eru í höndum gerendanna."
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
000
Egilsstaðir, 05.03.2022 Jónas Gunnlaugsson
Bloggar | Breytt s.d. kl. 00:49 | Slóð | Facebook | Athugasemdir (0)
How the Russian soul can save the American Empire RT Russia & Former Soviet Union
https://www.rt.com/russia/russian-soul-american-empire/
Auðvelt er að láta prógrammið þýða þetta.
Þetta er bráðnauðsynleg lesning
How the Russian soul can save the American Empire
Due to its unshakeable commitment to materialism and individualism, Americans now find themselves passengers on a spiritual shipwreck that perhaps only the Russian soul can salvage.
Today, the challenges now confronting the United States from protracted wars in foreign lands, to local wars on the home front seem lethal enough to sink the ship of the American superpower. Yet people around the world are not ready to give up hope on Uncle Sam just yet.
America makes prodigious mistakes, America has colossal faults, but one thing cannot be denied: America is always on the move, commented the American writer, E.E. Cummins. She may be going to Hell, of course, but at least she isnt standing still.
The problem with America (potentially) going to Hell is that this earth-straddling superpower carries enough economic, political and social baggage to drag the rest of humanity to Dantes depths with it. That was adequately proven during the latest economic meltdown, sparked by flawed US financial products, overspent consumers and pure greed. Even the ensuing rescue package was gift-wrapped by US-backed international lenders of last resort and overnight-expressed to their favorite too-big-to-fail friends.
Despite escaping from the financial jaws of death before the final buzzer, we already know from past experience that superpowers are not impervious to sudden death.
There comes a moment when complex systems go critical, historian Niall Ferguson wrote in the March/April issue of Foreign Affairs. A very small trigger can set off a phase transition from a benign equilibrium to a crisis a single grain of sand causes a whole pile to collapse, or a butterfly flaps its wings in the Amazon and brings about a hurricane in southeastern England.
One day maybe in 5 years, maybe in 500 the United States too will be forced to give up the ghost of global preeminence. But perhaps there is a way to not only extend Americas lease on life a bit longer, but also to help it become more of a benevolent superpower. This may be accomplished by borrowing a few tricks from Russia, a nation well-known for its gutsy survival instincts and resourcefulness.
First we should step back and consider the moral and physical condition of the United States. After all, empires usually collapse not from financial crisis, or greedy bankers, but from internal decay brought about by a precipitous decline in morals and civility. In other words, America has much more to fear from a moral meltdown than any existential threat from abroad.
Pass the Prozac, were feeling edgy
Since the advent of the Industrial Revolution, and despite its Puritan beginnings, America continues to pin its hope for eternal happiness and wellbeing on material progress. The endless inventions and gadgets provided courtesy of the church of science have turned a God-fearing people into tinkering gods themselves, capable of casting their own miracles and charting their own destinies.
To quote Nietzsche: God is dead.
We turned our backs upon the Spirit and embraced all that is material with excessive and unwarranted zeal, commented Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn during his oft-quoted Harvard Address (June 1978). Everything beyond physical well-being and accumulation of material goods, all other human requirements and characteristics of a subtler and higher nature, were left outside the area of attention of state and social systems, as if human life did not have any superior sense.
When an entire nation is radically conditioned to believe that an individuals inherent value is based purely on material success, then a persons inner sense of purpose and self-identity will collapse when the rickety scaffolding is suddenly removed.
Due to this inner emptiness, any sort of personal tragedy the simple loss of a job, for example, or a failed marriage is enough to push stressed-out Americans right over the edge.
At this point, desperation finds its way into the drivers seat, with a handgun or two in the glove compartment.
Here are a few of the fatal statistics for just one week this month: On June 15, Thomas Mortimer, 43, killed his wife and his two children, Thomas, 4 and Charlotte, 2, as well as his mother-in-law in an affluent neighborhood outside of Boston. The victims were found in their home lying in pools of blood with their throats slashed.
On the other side of the country (June 20), a man carrying two guns walked into a California fast food restaurant and shot four people who were eating lunch together killing two including an 8-year-old boy before turning the weapon ten minutes too late on himself.
Finally, a 16-year-old boy indiscriminately stabbed to death Kirill Attuso, 8, who got momentarily separated from his family while riding his bicycle in St. Francisville, Louisiana.
And these are just the most sensational murders from one week in June; hundreds of other daily assaults and homicides have become such regular occurrences that they no longer incite outrage, just a stunned I-cant-believe-that-could-happen-here sort of disbelief.
So what is the cause of this daily hemorrhaging of Americas vital lifeline? Is there something inherently flawed with free-market capitalism, the American psyche or our lifestyles that is causing Americans to commit the most heinous crimes against strangers and loved ones alike? How long can this worst form of terrorism far worse than anything that Osama bin Laden has delivered to date continue? Whatever the case may be, the dramatic upsurge in the use of antidepressant medication suggests that Americas general state of mind is under some heavy stress.
According to a report in the issue of Archives of General Psychiatry (August, 2009), antidepressant use in the United States doubled from 1996 to 2005. During that feel-good decade the last period that data was made available the percentage of Americans using such medication jumped from less than six percent to more than ten percent, or more than 27 million individuals.
It is certainly no small irony that the pursuit of happiness in a free-market economy seems to be largely dependent upon the beneficence of the pharmaceutical industry.
As more and more Americans are reporting symptoms of major depression, Time magazine reported (Antidepressants in America, Aug. 5, 2009) they are increasingly turning to prescription drugs for a cure. And the medical community has still not decided for certain if such medication is safe.
Problems that were once solved partly through hours of introspection on a shrink's couch are now considered curable with a simple pill, the article continued. It's up to us to determine whether this represents a step forward or back.
But perhaps the cause of the general malaise goes back much further, all the way back to childhood, which is nothing if not saturated with a constant TV blitz of violence, crude behavior and unrestrained commercialism. Today, children and adolescents, who have not completed their maturation process, are being exposed to a level of entertainment that is starkly different from what Walt Disney was delivering into our living rooms just a quarter of a century ago when we were the beneficiaries of the so-called golden age of television.
The so-called good ol' days are over.
Super Bowls and Circuses
Although a particular cultural influence cannot be criticized solely on the grounds of being radical and different, it can and should be criticized if it is potentially dangerous to the viewing audience, especially if the viewing audience is largely made up of children.
The Swiss developmental biologist Jean Piaget (1896-1980), who spent a lifetime analyzing the effects of culture on the mental development of children, declared that only education is capable of saving our societies from possible collapse, whether violent, or gradual.
Unfortunately, however, the greatest educator in America today is the TV, and it has proven itself to be completely unqualified for the task.
Children entertainment, which has featured wonderful titles like Sponge Bob Square Pants and Ren and Stimpy, are so bizarre, so borderline psychotic, so totally unhinged from any sense of reality that they should be forced to carry warning labels from the Surgeon Generals office just like any pack of cigarettes. But since this visual product potentially destroys the mind as opposed to just the lungs, it is the far greater risk, scientists like Piaget warn.
Since most people already understand the powerful connection between sound external influences and the maturation of our children, how is it that we now permit the basest form of entertainment to educate our kids at the most sensitive and impressionable period of their lives?
Actually, the so-called artists who manufacture these daily doses of hazardous waste, with characters so ridiculous they practically defy serious criticism, seem to be aiming their poisonous product more at adults than children. But dont take my word for it. Take a moment and watch one episode of these freak shows and then ask yourself if such programming is really geared toward the development of a childs impressionable mind.
Life imitating art?
Following Americas deadliest shooting massacre in its history [on April 16, 2007, Seung-Hui Cho, 23, killed 32 people and wounded dozens more on the campus of Virginia Tech before committing suicide], Mike White, a screenwriter, provided a candid commentary on how violence in the film industry is affecting Americas youth.
The notion that movies dont kill people, lunatics kill people is liberating to us screenwriters because it permits us to give life to our most demented fantasies and put them up on the big screen without any anxious hand-wringing, White wrote in the International Herald Tribune (Making a killing, May 3, 2007). Most of us who chose careers in this field were seduced by cinemas spell at an early age. We know better than anyone the power films have to capture our imaginations, shape our thinking and inform our choices. At the risk of being labeled a scold the ultimate in uncool I have to ask: before cashing those big checks, shouldnt we at least pause to consider what we are saying with our movies about the value of life and the pleasures of mayhem?
Solzhenitsyn, from a slightly different angle, alluded to the decadence of art during his Harvard talk as one of the warnings of a society teetering on the abyss: There are meaningful warnings that history gives a threatened or perishing society. Such are, for example, the decadence of art, or a lack of great statesmen.
The Russian dissident, who was every bit as critical of his Soviet homeland as he was of his US host, then warned about the dangers associated with irresponsible freedoms that allow such decadent and dangerous productions to rear their ugly heads in the name of liberalism and the freedom of expression.
Destructive and irresponsible freedoms has been granted boundless space, he continued. Society appears to have little defense against the abyss of human decadence, such as, for example, misuse of liberty for moral violence against young people, motion pictures full of pornography, crime and horror. It is considered to be part of freedom and theoretically counter-balanced by the young peoples right not to look or not to accept [the damaged product].
Despite the endless opportunities that television has as an educational tool, statistics indicate that much of what is broadcast these days is disturbing and even destructive. Indeed, mass entertainment seems to be forever in search of the lowest common denominator and is largely responsible for dumbing down sections of the viewing public to unspeakable levels. The numbers speak for themselves.
The average child will watch 8,000 murders on TV before finishing elementary school, according to Norman Herr, Professor of Science Education at California State University. By age 18, the average American has seen 200,000 acts of violence on TV, including 40,000 murders.
Dr. John Nelson of the American Medical Association said that if 2,888 out of 3,000 studies show that TV violence is a casual factor in real-life mayhem, it's a public health problem.
The American Psychiatric Association addressed this problem, stating, We have had a long-standing concern with the impact of television on behavior, especially among children.
And then there are the advertisements, which, in an effort to keep the viewer from running to the refrigerator during commercial breaks, have become a form of entertainment unto themselves. The average American child watches four hours of television every day, which translates into about 20,000 30-second commercial clips per year.
Can an excess of mindless entertainment actually undermine a nation as big and powerful as the United States. Thomas Jefferson, Americas third president and one of the most influential Founding Fathers, seemed to think so.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, Jefferson wrote in a letter to Charles Yancey in 1816, it expects what never was and never will be."
In an age when nuclear missiles can be launched by the simple push of a button, should we not be taking extra precautions to nurture mentally healthy children? For the sake of future generations, the answer seems obvious.
A super diet for a super power
Americas obsession with the two-dimensional, virtual world of television is also connected with perhaps the greatest threat to the long-term health of the American empire: the battle of the bulge. Is the problem large enough to bring down the American Empire? Maybe.
According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), over the past 20 years there has been a dramatic surge in obesity rates across the United States. In 1985, America was more or less physically fit, with most states registering obesity rates less than 10% of the population.
By 2008, just one state (Colorado) registered an obesity rate of less than 20 percent of the population. Meanwhile, thirty-two states weighed in at equal to or greater than 25%; six of these states (Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, and West Virginia) tipped the scales with obesity rates equal to or greater than 30%.
Studies show that approximately 60 million American adults are classified as being obese, with another 127 million being overweight.
A simple trip along Main Street, USA, quickly betrays the source of the problem: a host of fast food restaurants available at practically every street corner, not to mention omnipresent vending machines serving up every greasy snack under the sun. The temptations are so omnipresent that a person must make a conscious effort to stay fit by either joining a fitness club, or signing up to the latest diet craze. One academic argues, however, that the easiest way to beat the bulge is to simply switch off the television set.
According to William H. Deitz, pediatrician and prominent obesity researcher at Tufts University School of Medicine, The easiest way to reduce inactivity is to turn off the television set. Almost anything else uses more energy than watching TV.
According to an American Journal of Public Health study, an adult who watches three hours of TV a day is far more likely to be obese than an adult who watches less than one hour.
But what are the choices? Weve already sacrificed the time-proven right to cultivate our own food, not to mention picking the right mushroom or wild berry in the forest without poisoning ourselves in the process. According to one study, less than five percent of the population could survive a fortnight in the lonely wilderness without a stocked refrigerator in tow.
Indeed, most of us have forgotten the painful lesson our grandparents were forced to learn about the importance of having a so-called root cellar in their homes just in case another economic catastrophe on the scale of a Great Depression makes landfall again and food suddenly becomes scarce.
This is yet another case where a perceived freedom to shop at will at any number of brand-name outlets has actually transformed into oppressive chains: we have become nearly 100% dependent on the corporations and agribusiness industry to provide for our daily sustenance. But if Corporate America ever decides (or simply suffers a colossal crisis) to turn off the lights and lock the doors, a lot of Americans will be in for a rude awakening.
America's television addiction
I. FAMILY LIFE
Percentage of households that possess at least one television: 99
Number of TV sets in the average U.S. household: 2.24
Percentage of US homes with three or more TV sets: 66
Number of hours per day that TV is on in an average US home: 6 hours, 47 minutes
Percentage of Americans that regularly watch television while eating dinner: 66
Number of hours of TV watched annually by Americans: 250 billion
Value of that time assuming an average wage of $5/hour: $1.25 trillion
Percentage of Americans who pay for cable TV: 56
Number of videos rented daily in the US: 6 million
Number of public library items checked out daily: 3 million
Percentage of Americans who say they watch too much TV: 49
II. CHILDREN
Approximate number of studies examining TV's effects on children: 4,000
Number of minutes per week that parents spend in meaningful
conversation with their children: 3.5
Number of minutes per week that the average child watches television: 1,680
Percentage of day care centers that use TV during a typical day: 70
Percentage of parents who would like to limit their children's TV watching: 73
Percentage of 4-6 year-olds who, when asked to choose between watching TV
and spending time with their fathers, preferred television: 54
Hours per year the average American youth spends in school: 900 hours
Hours per year the average American youth watches television: 1,500
III. VIOLENCE
Number of murders seen on TV by the time an average child finishes elementary school: 8,000
Number of violent acts seen on TV by age 18: 200,000
Percentage of Americans who believe TV violence helps precipitate real life mayhem: 79
IV. COMMERCIALISM
Number of 30-second TV commercials seen in a year by an average child: 20,000
Number of TV commercials seen by the average person by age 65: 2 million
Percentage of survey participants (1993) who said that TV commercials
aimed at children make them too materialistic: 92
Rank of food products/fast-food restaurants among TV advertisements to kids: 1
Total spending by 100 leading TV advertisers in 1993: $15 billion
V. GENERAL
Percentage of local TV news broadcast time devoted to advertising: 30
Percentage devoted to stories about crime, disaster and war: 53.8
Percentage devoted to public service announcements: 0.7
Percentage of Americans who can name The Three Stooges: 59
Percentage who can name at least three justices of the U.S. Supreme Court: 17
Compiled by TV-Free America
1322 18th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20036
E Pluribus Unum: nice idea, but is it feasible?
The United States was built squarely on the idea of immigration, and this is witnessed by the engraved inscription at the base of the Statue of Liberty by the poet Emma Lazarus: "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, the tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door.
Well that pretty much includes every single person on the planet, I would imagine. But political pretensions and human right issues aside, some may argue that such a dubious recipe for nation-building, square on the backs of the worlds wretched refuse, may be somewhat flawed and even potentially hazardous in the long term. Indeed, French wine is a wonderful thing until you pour so much that it starts spilling over the rim of the glass and all over the floor.
In other words, America is failing to assimilate the millions of legal and illegal immigrants it now has inside its borders, and this is doing nobody not the native-born Americans, nor the newly arrived immigrants any favors.
In an interview with Sports Illustrated magazine in 2000, the outspoken American baseball player John Rocker gave the following description of New York City: The biggest thing I don't like about New York are the foreigners. I'm not a very big fan of foreigners. You can walk an entire block in Times Square and not hear anybody speaking English. Asians and Koreans and Vietnamese and Indians and everything up there. How the hell did they get in this country?
Rockers incendiary comments attracted the wrath of many people and organizations. Yet today, comments strikingly similar to the abovementioned are beginning to be heard on a regular basis. Moreover, the anti-immigration debate has already forced two states to rewrite their immigration laws over the stern objections of the White House.
In April, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed into force a bill on illegal immigration that aims to identify, prosecute and deport illegal immigrants. The southwestern state, which is witnessing a surge of illegal immigrants, shares a 389-mile (626 km) international border with the states of Sonora and Baja California in Mexico.
Yet what seems to be a reasonable solution to a real problem has been greeted with a flurry of condemnation, not to mention a lawsuit from the White House.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told a South American television interviewer (June 22) that the president had told the Justice Department to file the suit on the basis that it's the constitutional responsibility of the federal government not individual states to set immigration policy.
President Obama has spoken out against the law because he thinks that the federal government should be determining immigration policy, Clinton told NTN-24. And the Justice Department, under his direction, will be bringing a lawsuit against the act.
Yet on the same day that Hillary Clinton was threatening the people of Arizona with a lawsuit, voters in Fremont, Nebraska were busy passing an immigration measure on Monday that would prohibit businesses and landlords from hiring or renting to illegal immigrants.
According to a spokesperson for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which has also threatened to file a suit against the Nebraska town, We are not well-served when communities or states try to set policy on their own.
It would be interesting to know who the ACLU means by we. Perhaps they are talking about the corporations, who seem to be the only ones profiting from illegal immigrants applying for low-paying jobs.
Whats interesting is that even though the White House is showing very little interest in resolving this standoff between natural-born citizens and illegal immigrants, it does have the potential to cause a significant rupture between the federal and state authorities. About 2.5 million farm workers in the United States are illegal immigrants, while another 35% are not US citizens, according to Labor Department statistics.
The United Farm Workers Union recently launched a campaign to see how many US citizens and legal residents are willing to take over the jobs of 1.2 million illegal immigrants who work on farms across the United States, especially with national unemployment around 10%.
Is the end near?
Ironically, Igor Panarin, a Russian academic and former KGB officer, has been predicting for the last decade that the United States would fall apart in 2010 due to the myriad challenges connected with trying to hold together a multicultural society.
There's a 55-45% chance right now that disintegration will occur, he said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal (Dec. 28, 2008). Panarin, who now serves as dean at the Foreign Ministrys academy for diplomats, added that such a scenario, due to Russia and Americas economic links, is not the best scenario for Russia. Yet this polite insertion has not softened his grim prospects for the United States in the imminent future.
Panarin says that mass immigration, economic decline, and moral degradation will trigger a civil war and the collapse of the dollar. Around the end of June 2010, or early July, Panarin predicts, the US will disintegrate into five republics, which he has even gone through the trouble of naming: The California Republic, The Texas Republic, The Central North American Republic, and Atlantic America, which may join the European Union.
Alaska, of course, would revert back to Russian control.
Perhaps it would be easy to chalk up such dire predictions to wishful thinking on the part of a former KGB official. However, prominent Americans as well are beginning to note the dangers of letting the immigration issue get out of control.
Pat Buchanan, who served as senior adviser to three US presidents, echoed Panarins dire predictions when he told RT this month that Americas increasingly changing Lýðfræðilegar picture threatens to break down the country much like what happened to the Soviet Union.
America is breaking down as a nation, Buchanan told RTs Dina Gusovsky in an exclusive interview. America is breaking down into ethnic enclaves and risks the same thing that happened to the Soviet Union in 1991 where it flew apart into 15 nations based primarily on ethnicity.
In conclusion, empires fail not because they are financially insolvent, but because they become morally and spiritually bankrupt and lose their self-identity, as was the case with the Roman Empire at the end of its rope.
America can and will continue to survive economic crises for a long time. But what no empire can sustain for long is internal rot.
Can a little Russian soul save America?
First, it needs to be said that many of the abovementioned problems attributed to the United States like acts of random violence and obesity are beginning to appear in other nations as well. But given Americas powerful influence, not to mention its innate weaknesses, many global trends get their initial start there.
Although the United States deserves credit for its democratic principles, not to mention introducing the world to an array of top-shelf technological wonders, it must also accept the blame for cultivating some very disturbing trends that now demand serious consideration not just for Americas sake, but for the sake of the world. In addressing these issues, can America learn anything valuable from Russia to stem its decline?
In order for this to work, the United States would first have to admit that it can learn something from Russia. This in itself would be a tremendous challenge given that many Americans still suffer from a Cold War hangover and cannot see Russia as anything besides the former Soviet Union. Yet Russia is a mature country and has passed through many historic stages, not just communism, and now has many lessons to teach if we are willing to listen.
Some things America could learn from Russia
Get back to the natural
Russians, for a variety of reasons, continue to nurture strong bonds with Nature. Now some may hastily interpret that to mean something inherently backwards, as opposed to being modern. But nothing could be further from the truth. Nature, after all, is a timeless concept, not relegated by anthropomorphic notions of past or future. What matters instead is how we relate to it in the here and now. We can either totally cut ourselves off from the natural world (or pretend that we can), destroy it, or agree to meet Nature halfway. There is everything to gain in making peace with Nature and nothing to lose.
The immediate advantages of reconnecting with nature are threefold: first, it could inspire a whole generation of American children to appreciate the health advantages of organically grown food, as opposed to sodium-phosphate-laced pre-packaged garbage that passes for food today. Eating more naturally would help to reduce obesity rates. This may come as a surprise to some, but the entire notion of obesity in Russia is practically unheard of. It simply does not exist. Thus, the regularly regurgitated notion in the western media that obesity is some sort of incurable, genetic defect in a victimized portion of the population is total hogwash. Just half a century ago obesity was also unheard of in America. But what changed was not our appetites, but rather the available food, as well as our attachment to a severely kyrrsetu lifestyle.
Second, reconnecting with nature reduces stress, and if there is a place in the world that could use some stress relief it is the United States. In Russia, it is part of the summer ritual for families to escape to the dacha for rest, clean air and an abundance of freshly grown food. Alongside the rest and relaxation, being outdoors also occasionally demands rigorous exercise, something which we Americans are not getting nearly enough of.
Last year, this writer went native and purchased a tiny dacha outside of Tula with about 600 square meters of land (sutka as the Russians call it). It was the best investment Ive ever made, even though my interest only derives from the things that are naturally obtainable from the land: spring water hauled about one mile away from a nearby forest; exercise from chopping down trees and pulling out the endless weeds; and the renewed sense of invigoration from escaping the highways and airports in a frantic search for a vacation (that word, incidentally, derives from vacatio Middle English for "freedom").
How many times have we gone on vacation only to return feeling more exhausted than when we left? On this tiny plot of land in the verdant outdoors with only the chance car or person all day, I can honestly say Ive have never felt more alive and relaxed. I shudder to think how fast our killing sprees would end if more American men went on vacation in such a manner. And with a little piece of land you can cancel your expensive spa membership and silly trips to the tanning bed: working outdoors is the best exercise youll ever need with no shortage of ultraviolet rays.
Lastly, reconnecting with nature teaches us how to cultivate, at least to a limited degree, our own food supply a timeless, ancient art that a few industrial farms have literally stolen from us. These days I spend my time googling such prosaic activities as how to prune an apple tree, and how to operate a chain saw without severing an artery and when is the best time to harvest those fields. How many of us know which mushrooms to eat without dying a swift death? No, not me either. But Im learning.
Once upon a time in America, about 15 years ago, I got the first indication that the Russian people, despite all of their dreadful losses under communism, still retained some critically fundamental wisdom that we spoiled capitalists have casually forgotten.
Walking through a baseball field to university in the city of Pittsburgh, my hometown, my Russian friend approached a large tree whose branches were practically breaking from the weight of tremendous white berries. Personally I had never seen anything like them before in my life. Despite my initial fear of poisoning ourselves, we stood in the glorious shade of that berry tree in the outfield of that baseball field for a good hour happily devouring the delicacies.
But the really incredible thing, which only dawned on me much later, was that just the day before dozens of kids were standing under that same tree in the sweltering heat, playing baseball all afternoon, oblivious to the tasty treasure hanging above their heads. Nobody knew that the berries were not only edible, but absolutely delicious.
Sadly, in America it is becoming the general rule that if our food is not plastic-wrapped, zip-locked and bought at a supermarket we will simply not eat it. This, I beleive, is a tragedy of the first order.
Another thing Americans could learn from the Russians is how to enjoy a profound attachment to literature spoken, written, in prose or in verse it doesnt matter. Go to any Russian home, no matter how small, and the rooms will most likely be filled from floor to ceiling with a wide assortment of books. And not just the immortal Russian writers, like Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, but the famous American and British and everything-in-between writers as well. If you think you are a serious reader, go to Russia and you will probably discover that you are not.
But the real importance of reading, it seems, is not just about making people more intelligent and knowledgeable, although that, of course, is a big part of the story. Its also about making people more civilized and thus less prone to fly off the handle in a rage, for example, or be too quick to start another senseless war. In fact, during my lengthy stay in Russia I have begun kicking around a theory that perhaps somebody in the world of academia may want to test: mikil munnleg færni reduces the incidence of violence.
As John Keating, Robin Williams character in The Dead Poets Society said, No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world.Personally, I have witnessed extremely few incidences of violence in Russia. Although fights certainly occur, and with occasionally fatal outcomes, a full-blown fist fight seems to be something of a last resort between two opponents; more of the exception as opposed to the rule. What always comes first, however, is a slew of choice vocabulary words, volleying back and forth between the individuals, who dont always necessarily have to be of the male persuasion. In the majority of cases, berating an individual with words easily substitutes for fisticuffs.
Russia first employ to the fullest of their ability the power of words, not weapons, and it certainly does not hurt that Russians are not armed to the teeth with every imaginable assault weapon as in the US.But in America, where the verbal skills have not been pounded into our heads from the age of three with the help of poems from Alexander Pushkin et al, I have seen far too many cases of fights erupting simply because the color phraseology stopped; at this point, one or both individuals will feel as if they have been cornered, and a fight will quickly ensue.
This failure to impress upon people the power of literature has even had implications on the foreign-policy front.
Or to quote Tom Daschle, the former US Democrat, on the eve of war in Iraq: This president [George W. Bush] failed so miserably in diplomacy that we are now forced to war.
Finally, America needs to invest far greater resources in the advancement of its people. The US public school system receives about one percent of what is invested annually into our out-of-control, trillion-dollar military industrial complex. And the results are becoming apparent, both by the rising prison population, as well as the overall declining moral climate.
If we dont start trusting the people and educate them appropriately, Americas heady days as a global superpower may soon go the way of other great empires in the past to the ash heap of history.
Bloggar | Breytt s.d. kl. 04:26 | Slóð | Facebook | Athugasemdir (0)
Við búum í heimi sem er andlegur, og erum látnir halda að hann sé efnisheimur. Af hverju? Ef til vill er verið að kenna okkur að vera ekki flögrandi úti um allt en læra að vera fastir í punkti, miðju, og þaðan getum við náð í alla eiginleika sem vit og þroski okkar skilur eða getur látið sér detta í hug að leita eftir.
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Nú semjum við frið með skilmálunum, lögunum sem kallinn með skeggið gaf okkur.
Skilmálarnir, lögin voru, tönn fyrir tönn og auga fyrir auga.
Jesú sagði ég er kominn til að uppfylla lögmálið, ekki einn stafkrókur fellur úr gildi. (skoða, þetta er eftir minni).
Þá skoðum við, sá sem fyrirgefur öllum allt, verður fyrirgefið allt.
Þú skalt ekki halda að þú getir framið óhæfuverk í trausti þess að þú getir á eftir sagt, ég fyrirgef öllum allt, eins og að fá aflátsbréf fyrir fram.
Munum að fortíðin, nútíminn og framtíðin eru nú, allt er í heilmyndinni, heilmyndunum.
Ef við bætum okkar ráð batnar heilmyndin, heilmyndirnar, fortíðin, nútíðin og framtíðin sjálfvirkt.
Hér verðum við að hugsa, með leitun (þá) kemur lausn.
Egilsstaðir, 23.12.2023 Jónas Gunnlaugsson
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Gleðileg Jól frá Egilsstöðum. 24.12.2023
21.12.2023 | 12:22
Gleðileg Jól frá Egilsstöðum.
24.12.2023 | 18:28
klikka mynd þá stærri
Egilssta[ir, 21.12.2023 Jonas Gunnlaugsson
Bloggar | Breytt 23.12.2023 kl. 18:22 | Slóð | Facebook | Athugasemdir (0)
Hringurinn ---- Tveir jólasveinar? ---- Jólin 2023
8.12.2023 | 07:01
Bloggar | Breytt s.d. kl. 14:00 | Slóð | Facebook | Athugasemdir (0)
Við verðum allir að bæta okkur, heimurinn er að breytast.
Heyrði umræðu um banka og lífeyrissjóði á Bylgjunni, í þættinum Bítið - Hagfræðin er í öllu: Allt frá ástarsamböndum til morgunbollans.
Ég fór að hugsa málefnið aðeins.
Peningar og peningar er ekki alltaf sami hluturinn.
Selabankinn hefur falið bönkunum að "prenta", skrifa tölur, bókhald úr sjóði-0 og "lána", afhenda það til fólksins sem notar "peninginn" bókhaldið til að byggja íbúðir.
Þegar byggingar aðilar, fólkið sem byggði íbúðirnar og fólkið sem kom með efnið í húsið hefur fengið greitt er húsið skuldlaust.
Þá er húsið eign framkvæmda getu þjóðarinnar og við getum sagt að húsið sé veð fyrir töluna í SJÓði-0, til að sjá flæðið og auka skilning.
Peningur, bókhald lífeyrissjóðsins er aftur á móti eign þeirra sem greiddu í lífeyrissjóðinn.
Ef lífeyrissjóðurinn fær leyfi hjá Seðlabankanum til að "prenta" peninga, bókhald eins og bankarnir frá SJÓÐI-0, þá er komin upp ný staða.
Auðvitað er ekkert vit í því að einkabanki þykist eiga peningaprentunina, tölurnar, bókhaldið sem bannkinn færir skrifar í bókhaldið sitt.
Öll skuld Bandaríkjanna er aðeins færsla einka aðila í bankanum sínum.
Meira ?
Egilsstaðir, 05.12.2023 Jónas Gunnlaugsson
Bloggar | Breytt 7.12.2023 kl. 14:53 | Slóð | Facebook | Athugasemdir (3)
Mér fannst þetta forvitnilegt og ég les þetta þegar ég hef tíma.
Þið lesið þetta fyrir mig núna og komið lagi á veröldina, ég kem á eftir.
Það er auðvelt að þíða þetta hér í programinu.
If I can't advertise it like that, I'll take it out right away.
The York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/
Turmoilat OpenAI
TIMES INSIDER
A Conversation With Sam Altman, Cast in a New Light
Two podcast hosts recorded an interview with the chief executive of OpenAI. Two days later, he was fired.
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Times Insider explains who we are and what we do and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.
In early November, a few days before a meeting of developers at OpenAI, the journalist Casey Newton bumped into Sam Altman, the companys chief executive, at a birthday party. Mr. Altman had an idea: They should discuss the future.
Mr. Altman had been on a glide path to Silicon Valley pre-eminence since last November, when OpenAI burst onto the scene with ChatGPT, a chatbot powered by artificial intelligence. The next technological shift had arrived, and Mr. Altman was the face of it.
Mr. Newton, who with Kevin Roose hosts Hard Fork, a New York Times technology podcast, didnt hesitate. The two interviewed Mr. Altman on Wednesday, Nov. 15, in their San Francisco studio. They planned to publish the conversation the day after Thanksgiving on an episode of Hard Fork.
But on Friday, Nov. 17, two days after their interview, the board of OpenAI fired Mr. Altman.
It was like, Oh God, what does this mean for what we just recorded? Mr. Newton said in an interview.
The news of Mr. Altmans ouster rocked Silicon Valley and sent journalists in pursuit of breaking developments. By Saturday, Mr. Altman was in talks to return to OpenAI. By Monday coincidentally the day Hard Fork published its interview Microsoft had announced Mr. Altman would lead a research group there. Soon, hundreds of OpenAI employees threatened to leave and join Mr. Altman at Microsoft.
And then late Tuesday, less than four days after he had been fired, OpenAI announced that Mr. Altman would return as chief executive and the board would be overhauled.
In an interview with Times Insider hours before Mr. Altmans reinstatement, Mr. Newton and Mr. Roose discussed why his (brief) ouster was so shocking, and how it had changed the way they think about artificial intelligence. This conversation has been edited.
You interviewed Sam Altman last week and were probably eager to get that material to your audience. Then Friday arrives: Hes out at OpenAI. What was your immediate reaction?
CASEY NEWTON Disbelief. It didnt make any sense. We had just talked to the guy 48 hours earlier, and he seemingly had no indication that this was coming. OpenAI was riding high, on top of the world, and all of a sudden hes fired. The blog post from OpenAI didnt even really explain why it just insinuated some things without really saying anything. So my first reaction was, What is happening? Shortly after that, Kevin and I hopped on a Google Meet with the podcast team to figure out what we were going to do.
Did you worry that the news would blow up the interview, which you had yet to publish?
KEVIN ROOSE Obviously the best thing would have been to interview him about all of this after it happened, to get his take on it. But we couldnt do that. We just happened to have this very fresh interview with him in which he didnt know he was about to get fired. But he did talk about a lot of the issues that we have since learned are at the heart of the conflict between him and the board of OpenAI. To me, it felt revelatory, illuminating and urgent to get it out as soon as we could.
Did you detect any hint of the rift?
NEWTON I wish I could tell you that I knew, but I dont think any of us knew.
ROOSE No, absolutely no indication that this was coming. The reporting that we have since then backs up the fact that this was a complete surprise to him and to everyone except those on the board.
Which parts of the interview did Mr. Altmans ouster cast into new light?
ROOSE It was clear to me that Sam was trying to walk a careful line between these two warring factions in the A.I. world: You could call them the optimists, the people who think that this technology should move faster, and the pessimists, the people who think that its already moving too fast. Sam was trying to be very thoughtful and deliberate about aiming down the middle of that debate. But he was very clear with us that he believed this technology needed to move faster. I thought that was illuminating at the time he said it, and even more so after he was fired, because, while we still dont know the exact cause of the firing, it seems to have been a source of conflict within OpenAI.
Based on the reporting over the past few days, does this drastic move by the board make you reconsider the speed of artificial intelligence technology and how it will change the society around us?
ROOSE To me, it crystallized something that I have been trying to communicate in my columns and on our podcast for months now, which is that the people who are building A.I. technology are not motivated by the things most business people are. This is less an industry than a religious movement. And I say that with no condescension. They dont approach advanced artificial intelligence as someone who went to business school would, as a cost-benefit calculation. They have feelings that are deeply ideological and personal. Some of them think they are building a new God. In the context of that world, something like what happened at OpenAI makes a lot more sense than if its just a routine business transaction.
How do you explain the insular world of Silicon Valley to a broad readership?
NEWTON We have the advantage of this being a really crazy human story. Technology stories sometimes get really tedious when youre talking about the technology itself. It can be hard to understand. This is easy to understand. Everybody knows somebody whos been fired. So I think this was a moment where the world, who has already been interested in A.I., is starting to learn. And Im glad theres an appetite for it because I think its really important.
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Bloggar | Breytt 5.12.2023 kl. 11:20 | Slóð | Facebook | Athugasemdir (0)
Gott að lesa þetta, farðu yfir fyrirsagnir hér niður, fróðlegt. Það á að vera auðvelt að íslenska þetta. We live in a virtual reality, now what? Multi-dimensional beings.
26.11.2023 | 14:02
Gott að lesa þetta, farðu yfir fyrirsagnir hér niður, fróðlegt.
Það á að vera auðvelt að íslenska þetta
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Our Greater Destiny Blog
We live in a virtual reality, now what? - by Doreen (ourgreaterdestiny.ca)
https://www.ourgreaterdestiny.ca/p/we-live-in-a-virtual-reality-now
We live in a virtual reality, now what?
Multi-dimensional beings.
The Gateway Experience
It was called the Gateway Experience b/c techniques used in the scientific experiments opened a gateway to different modes of perception.
Robert Monroe [Oct 30, 1915 Mar 17, 1995], established the Gateway Experience with a physicist and engineer to create a rule set in the non-physical as predictable as the rule set in the physical based on objective science. They discovered 4 hertz brain waves allowed man to access non-physical information independent of time and space.
Monroe, a radio broadcasting executive founded The Monroe Institute, [TMI] the most renowned institute for consciousness studies. The US government was anxious to know what was taking place at TMI in the 70s, so the army sent officers and scientists to investigate the Gateway Experience.
Analysis and assessment of the CIA Gateway Process
The Gateway Process was explained in a report completed in 1983 revealing scientific evidence of how to produce states of expanded human consciousness.
CIA declassified documents include a system to teach people how to focus their brainwaves. This process alters their consciousness and allows it to move outside the physical sphere and ultimately escape restrictions of time and space. The participant then gains access to higher levels of intuitive understanding.
This declassified document, titled 'Analysis and Assessment of Gateway Process', demonstrates there is clearly a larger reality beyond our physical reality. 06:42 mins
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP96-00788R001700210016-5.pdf
Simply put, the CIA believes in the paranormal.
Extended consciousness reveals we are multidimensional beings
Tom Campbell was a graduate scientist in the 70s when Bob Monroe brought him on board. Tom is a former NASA nuclear physicist.
For decades, Tom explored alternate physical realities and presented a theory, scientifically proven and documented by the CIA, that models our reality in a way everyone can understand.
Tom Campbells experiences reflect what Peter Russell wrote about in From Science to God, A Physicist's Journey into the Mystery of Consciousness. It is the story of Peters lifelong exploration into the nature of consciousness, how he went from being a strict atheist studying mathematics and physics at Cambridge University, to realizing a profound personal synthesis of the mystical and scientific. 03:37 mins
From ignorance to enlightenment in Platos allegory of the cave 2,000 years ago, to 21st Century objective science in from Science to God.
https://archive.org/details/fromsciencetogod00pete_1
Telepathy
There is a set of tapes unique to the Monroe Institute Research Division. Each tape consists of actual recordings taken during experiments, which explored far reaches of altered time and space.
The following link provides recordings and PDF transcripts of the explorer series tapes. Perhaps select a topic that interests you.
https://archive.org/details/monroe-institute-explorer-series-1/Explorer+01+-+Communication+with+Non-Physical+Entities.mp3
Without prejudice and without recourse
Doreen A Agostino
Archive - Our Greater Destiny Blog
gateway
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Undralyfið - The wonder drug - Ivermectin
Hvísla Er verðið svona hátt af því að það læknar svo margt?
Taflan er þá 179 sinnum dýrari á Íslandi.
Ca. 17857% dýrara.
Taflan er þá 297 sinnum dýrari á Íslandi.
Ca. 31250% dýrara.
Ég finn ekki verðið á ivermectin í dag 07.11.2023 í lyfja verðskránni.
Mig minnir að verð á fjórum þriggja mg töflum hafi verið á milli 10 og 12 þúsund krónur, einhvern tíma á tveim síðustu árum.
Þá eru 10.000 kr deilt með 4, þriggja mg töflum 2.500 kr
Ein tafla yrði þá á 2.500 kr á Íslandi.
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Vara: Iverheal 3 mg töflur.sl
Pökkun : 10*10 (100 töflur)
Verð : 6 USD
Sendingarkostnaður er aukalega
100 töflur 3 mg - $6 USD - Isl 841 kr
Ein tafla yrði þá 8,41 kr
Taflan er þá 297 sinnum dýrari á Íslandi.
Ca. 31250% dýrara.
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Þetta er Rahul Kewalramani frá Silverline Medicare Private Limited.
Við erum með Ivermectin 3mg töflur með eftirfarandi verði:
200 töflur (2 kassar) -- $20 US dollarar
Sendingargjöld aukalega.
100 töflur 3 mg - $10 US dollarar - Isl 1402 kr
Ein tafla yrði þá 14 kr
Taflan er þá 179 sinnum dýrari á Íslandi.
Ca. 17857% dýrara.
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Ekkert covid í ríkjunum sem notuðu ivermectin.
klikka mynd stærri
New_Delhi capital of India and other provinces and big cities
used ivermectin to stop covid á ca 24 dögum.
klikka stærri mynd
Egilsstaðir, 07.11.2023 Jónas Gunnlaugsson
Bloggar | Breytt s.d. kl. 16:48 | Slóð | Facebook | Athugasemdir (0)
Fascinating stuff.
This stuff should be leaked sooner.
We need a safe haven for whistleblowers.
https://joshketry.substack.com/p/why-not-a-decentralized-safe-haven