tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-66057615510191848862024-03-13T16:45:37.064-07:00What if?An Exploration into the possibility that everything we as individuals commonly see as fixed is actually infinitely variable.
Warning: This can cause headaches. In the event that you look at some of what you can find, parts of your personality may break up/break off/die.
While it is a frightening prospect for some, the actual pain
of that headache only lasts a short while relative to the big
picture of time as the language for measuring relativity of
experience.Tino Cogin of Samoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07995713740509502767noreply@blogger.comBlogger36125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6605761551019184886.post-68470970394861466082022-07-26T08:52:00.007-07:002022-07-26T10:53:37.832-07:00TwoowT Two an owT Two eza Too Two add Two Two By Two Π π toot a line <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXIEOrcFJSxk6CPq9ie_Wtw94W3a-H3oJC_1ud9dyXYSmHCnD_I3E_3u7ZHlV13tI1IwBngS4SuJ69MHadB2vve-roWyQKaoxkZMDHjVOFv36D1_M1Lql92nogo1jRR-VkothWZj2YSSTWhJGkjjZFkX6zv9ldxDLx4kgsF82GJg8dYRlCoggqnu8mOQ/s1734/Screenshot%202022-07-25%2016.19.45.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1734" data-original-width="1734" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXIEOrcFJSxk6CPq9ie_Wtw94W3a-H3oJC_1ud9dyXYSmHCnD_I3E_3u7ZHlV13tI1IwBngS4SuJ69MHadB2vve-roWyQKaoxkZMDHjVOFv36D1_M1Lql92nogo1jRR-VkothWZj2YSSTWhJGkjjZFkX6zv9ldxDLx4kgsF82GJg8dYRlCoggqnu8mOQ/s320/Screenshot%202022-07-25%2016.19.45.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /> <br /><span face="Roboto, arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: #202124; color: #e8eaed; font-size: 22px;">Lyrics</span><p></p><div style="background-color: #202124;"><div class="LuVEUc B03h3d V14nKc EN1f2d ptcLIOszQJu__wholepage-card wp-ms" data-hveid="CB0QAA"><div class="UDZeY OTFaAf"><div class="wDYxhc NFQFxe" data-attrid="kc:/music/recording_cluster:lyrics" data-md="113" lang="en-US" style="clear: none;"><div class="wGduib" data-hveid="CBYQAA" data-ved="2ahUKEwiCn4mF85b5AhXUJUQIHa0YBfcQsEx6BAgWEAA"><div class="Z1hOCe"><div class="PZPZlf zloOqf" data-lyricid="Lyricfind002-4025358" style="margin-top: 7px;"><div class="xaAUmb" style="line-height: 20px; margin: 16px 0px;"><div jsname="Vinbg" style="color: #bdc1c6; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"></div><div jsname="WbKHeb"><div class="ujudUb" jsname="U8S5sf" style="color: #bdc1c6; margin-bottom: 12px;"><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqD1w09F1gG7j2iUJvBAswPv3mxwoNxxZPOHVZDDvA_fahQ6AdOlgi00XV113meT-nt-DtH_Y1QDlhTeUEES2FJomPFOrHg6LkXCEmb-B9yuqseIrqqHAvFV2NgXqrP5xJox9IMbq_f4tvvZdSQhSvo_hGqFKppJ0il9PURZuiG64KWMOgQ0E4rm8l2w/s3835/Screenshot%202022-07-26%2010.51.24.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2158" data-original-width="3835" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqD1w09F1gG7j2iUJvBAswPv3mxwoNxxZPOHVZDDvA_fahQ6AdOlgi00XV113meT-nt-DtH_Y1QDlhTeUEES2FJomPFOrHg6LkXCEmb-B9yuqseIrqqHAvFV2NgXqrP5xJox9IMbq_f4tvvZdSQhSvo_hGqFKppJ0il9PURZuiG64KWMOgQ0E4rm8l2w/w320-h180/Screenshot%202022-07-26%2010.51.24.png" width="320" /></a></div></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;">I</span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"> FEE</span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Permanent Marker; font-size: xx-large;">l</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"> fi</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;">n</span></div><div style="text-align: right;">E</div><span style="font-family: Mr Dafoe; font-size: x-large;"><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;">don't </div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;">wake me </div><span jsname="YS01Ge"><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;">Again</div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">OHh</div><div style="text-align: right;"> </div><div style="text-align: right;">the young</div><div style="text-align: right;"> and</div><div style="text-align: right;"> the old </div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;">they</div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;"> get </div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;">everyt</div><div style="text-align: right;">hing</div></span><span jsname="YS01Ge"><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">and i</div><div style="text-align: left;">t's </div><div style="text-align: left;">my turn</div></span></span></div><div class="ujudUb" jsname="U8S5sf" style="color: #bdc1c6; margin-bottom: 12px;"><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;">NNNN</span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;">I'm </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;">hear</span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: Mr Dafoe; font-size: x-large;"><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;">I'm </div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;">someone </div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;">to know</div><span jsname="YS01Ge"><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;">I'm calling</div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;"> the tune now but</div></span><span jsname="YS01Ge"><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;">BUT</div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;">I'm losing</div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"> the words</div></span></span></div><div class="ujudUb" jsname="U8S5sf" style="color: #bdc1c6; margin-bottom: 12px;"><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><div style="font-size: xx-large; text-align: center;">losing</div><div style="font-size: xx-large; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-size: xx-large; text-align: center;"> the words</div></span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;">nnNNN Lauffing</span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;">hing</span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;">ly</span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"> I </span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;">take the </span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;">fevered </span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;">applause</span></div><span style="font-family: Mr Dafoe; font-size: x-large;"><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;">of the people by the</div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> riverside</div><span jsname="YS01Ge"><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;">I'm Walking</div></span><span jsname="YS01Ge"><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">walking on water</div></span><span jsname="YS01Ge"><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;">nnnn </div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;">God</div><div style="text-align: right;"> </div><div style="text-align: right;">knows</div><div style="text-align: right;"> why</div></span></span></div><div class="ujudUb" jsname="U8S5sf" style="margin-bottom: 12px;"><div style="color: #bdc1c6; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="color: #bdc1c6; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #999999; font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;">I And 'm</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #999999; font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #999999; font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"> </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #999999; font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;">losing the</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #999999; font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"> words</span></div><span style="font-size: x-large;"><div style="font-family: Tinos; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #999999; font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Tinos; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #999999; font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Tinos; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #999999; font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;">l</span></div><div style="font-family: Tinos; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #999999; font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Tinos; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #999999; font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;">osing the</span></div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xxx-large;"><span style="color: #999999;"> words </span></span><span style="color: #999999; font-size: xxx-large;">ds</span></div><span style="font-family: Mr Dafoe; font-size: x-large;"><div style="font-family: Tinos; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #999999; font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;">losing the</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xxx-large;"><span style="color: #999999;"> w</span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xxx-large;"><span style="color: #999999;">ords</span></span></div></span><div style="color: #bdc1c6; font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="color: #bdc1c6; font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="color: #bdc1c6; font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: center;">I </div><div style="color: #bdc1c6; font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="color: #bdc1c6; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Rock Salt;">am a {(m)an}</span></div><span jsname="YS01Ge" style="color: #bdc1c6; font-family: "Mr Dafoe";"><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;">well</div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;">nearly</div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div></span><span jsname="YS01Ge" style="color: #bdc1c6;"><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Permanent Marker;">celebrate life</span></div></span><span jsname="YS01Ge" style="color: #bdc1c6;"><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light;">be good to yourself</span></div></span></span></div><div class="ujudUb" jsname="U8S5sf" style="color: #bdc1c6; margin-bottom: 12px;"><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;">You Re</span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;">W</span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"> Ro ng</span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;">ThatZ</span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;">All</span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;">W</span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;">R</span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;">O</span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;">N</span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Mr Dafoe; font-size: xx-large;">G</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;">don't wake me like that</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: xxx-large;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: xxx-large;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: xxx-large;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light;">You Re</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light; font-size: xx-large;">W</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light; font-size: xx-large;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Shadows Into Light"; font-size: xxx-large; text-align: right;">Ro</span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light; font-size: xx-large;"> ng</span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light; font-size: xx-large;">ThatZ</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light; font-size: xx-large;">All</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light; font-size: xx-large;">W</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light; font-size: xx-large;">R</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light; font-size: xx-large;">O</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light; font-size: xx-large;">N</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light; font-size: xx-large;">G</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light; font-size: xx-large;">don't wake me like that</span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><span><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large; text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large; text-align: right;">I was dreaming and I'd rather just</div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large; text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large; text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">carry on</span></div><span jsname="YS01Ge" style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe";"><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-size: xx-large; text-align: right;"> zZz give me a </div><div style="font-size: xx-large; text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="font-size: xx-large; text-align: right;">love </div><div style="font-size: xx-large; text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="font-size: xx-large; text-align: right;">A</div><div style="font-size: xx-large; text-align: right;">A</div><div style="font-size: xx-large; text-align: left;">D</div><div style="font-size: xx-large; text-align: left;"> hate</div></span><span jsname="YS01Ge"><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large; text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large; text-align: right;">on both</div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large; text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Mr Dafoe; font-size: xx-large;"> </span><span style="font-family: Indie Flower; font-size: large;"><i>meyeyey</i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i style="font-family: "Indie Flower"; font-size: x-large;"> meyeyey</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i style="font-family: "Indie Flower"; font-size: x-large;">meyeyey</i><span style="font-family: Mr Dafoe; font-size: xx-large;"> </span></div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large; text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large; text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large; text-align: right;">hands</div></span><span jsname="YS01Ge" style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;">I'll show you what </div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;">I'm made of</div></span><span jsname="YS01Ge" style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;">wasting my breath when</div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;"> I Zzzay that</div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div></span></span></div><div class="ujudUb" jsname="U8S5sf" style="color: #bdc1c6; margin-bottom: 12px;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><span style="font-size: xx-large;"> I say that </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"> I say that </span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><span style="font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><span style="font-size: xx-large;"> </span>Loove</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;">Loove</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xxx-large; text-align: right;">Loove</span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><div style="font-family: Tinos; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><span style="font-size: xx-large;"> </span>Loove</span></div><div style="font-family: Tinos; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;">Loove</span></div><div style="font-family: Tinos; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xxx-large; text-align: right;">Loove</span><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large; text-align: right;"> </span></div><div style="font-family: Tinos; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xxx-large; text-align: right;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Tinos; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xxx-large; text-align: right;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Tinos; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xxx-large; text-align: right;">Loove</span></div><div style="font-family: Tinos; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;">Loove</span></div><div style="font-family: Tinos; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xxx-large; text-align: right;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Tinos; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xxx-large; text-align: right;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Tinos; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xxx-large; text-align: right;">Loove</span></div><div style="font-family: Tinos; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><div style="font-family: Tinos; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><span style="font-size: xx-large;"> </span>Loove</span></div><div style="font-family: Tinos; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;">Loove</span></div><div style="font-family: Tinos; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><div><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xxx-large; text-align: right;">Loove</span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><div style="font-family: Tinos; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><span style="font-size: xx-large;"> </span>Loove</span></div><div style="font-family: Tinos; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;">Loove</span></div><div style="font-family: Tinos; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xxx-large; text-align: right;">Loove</span><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large; text-align: right;"> </span></div><div style="font-family: Tinos; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xxx-large; text-align: right;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Tinos; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xxx-large; text-align: right;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Tinos; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xxx-large; text-align: right;">Loove</span></div><div style="font-family: Tinos; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;">Loove</span></div><div style="font-family: Tinos; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xxx-large; text-align: right;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Tinos; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xxx-large; text-align: right;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Tinos; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xxx-large; text-align: right;">Loove</span></div><div style="font-family: Tinos; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xxx-large; text-align: right;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Tinos; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xxx-large; text-align: right;">Loove</span></div><div style="font-family: Tinos; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"></span></div></span><div><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><div style="font-family: Tinos; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><span style="font-size: xx-large;"> </span>Loove</span></div><div style="font-family: Tinos; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;">Loove</span></div><div style="font-family: Tinos; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xxx-large; text-align: right;">Loove</span><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large; text-align: right;"> </span></div><div style="font-family: Tinos; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xxx-large; text-align: right;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Tinos; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xxx-large; text-align: right;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Tinos; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xxx-large; text-align: right;">Loove</span></div><div style="font-family: Tinos; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;">Loove</span></div><div style="font-family: Tinos; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xxx-large; text-align: right;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Tinos; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xxx-large; text-align: right;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Tinos; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xxx-large; text-align: right;">Loove</span></div><div style="font-family: Tinos; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"></span></div></span></div></div></div></span></div><div><span style="font-size: xx-large;"> </span>Loove</div></span><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;">Loove</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xxx-large; text-align: right;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xxx-large; text-align: right;">Loove 3.14159 etc</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xxx-large; text-align: right;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xxx-large; text-align: right;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xxx-large; text-align: right;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xxx-large; text-align: right;"> Youre</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xxx-large; text-align: right;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light; font-size: xx-large;">W</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light; font-size: xx-large;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Shadows Into Light"; font-size: xxx-large; text-align: right;">Ro</span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light; font-size: xx-large;"> ng</span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light; font-size: xx-large;">ThatZ</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light; font-size: xx-large;">All</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light; font-size: xx-large;">W</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light; font-size: xx-large;">R</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light; font-size: xx-large;">O</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light; font-size: xx-large;">N</span></div></div><div><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xxx-large; text-align: right;"><br /></span></div></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;">don't wake me like </span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;">tha</span><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xxx-large;">t</span></div><span><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large; text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large; text-align: right;">I was</div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large; text-align: right;"> </div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large; text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large; text-align: right;">dreaming</div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large; text-align: right;"> </div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large; text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large; text-align: right;">and I'm tired of </div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large; text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large; text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large; text-align: right;">everyone</div><span jsname="YS01Ge" style="font-size: xx-large;"><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: center;">Hearz opine</div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: center;"> Zhat </div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: center;">Youre</div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: center;"> Wrong </div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Dancing Script;">Gonnow</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Dancing Script;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Dancing Script;"> zZzolong </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Dancing Script;"> be wrong ldeave me alon</span><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe";">geeeeellalalalalone</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light Two;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light Two;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light Two;">Do</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light Two;">Not</span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light Two;">Wake</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light Two;">Me</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light Two;">Like</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light Two;">That</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light Two;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light Two;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: right;">Do</div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: right;">Not</div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: right;">Wake</div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: right;">Me</div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: right;">Like</div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: right;">That</div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: center;">IIIIIII</div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: right;">WAZZZa </div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: right;">Dreaminggggg</div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: right;">here's hoping that </div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: left;">you'll</div></span><span jsname="YS01Ge"><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large; text-align: left;">go</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Italianno; font-size: x-large;"><i> now</i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Italianno; font-size: x-large;"><i> </i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Italianno; font-size: x-large;"><i>so long</i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Italianno; font-size: x-large;"><i> leave </i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Italianno; font-size: x-large;"><i>me alone</i></span></div></span></span></div><div class="ujudUb" jsname="U8S5sf" style="color: #bdc1c6; margin-bottom: 12px;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;">give me</span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"> Aaua\</span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;">A </span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light; font-size: xx-large;">l</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light; font-size: xx-large;">ov</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light; font-size: xx-large;">A </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light; font-size: xx-large;">Hate</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light; font-size: xx-large;">E </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light; font-size: xx-large;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;">a </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"> H</span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"> </span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light; font-size: large;">hate</span></div><span><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large; text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large; text-align: right;">on</div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large; text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large; text-align: left;"> both my</div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large; text-align: right;"> hands</div><span jsname="YS01Ge" style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large;"><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;">I'll </div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;">show </div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;">you </div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;">wh</div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;">at </div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;">I'm</div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;"> made</div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;"> of</div></span><span jsname="YS01Ge" style="font-size: xx-large;"><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Mr Dafoe;">wasting </span><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light;">my breath when I</span><span style="font-family: Mr Dafoe;"> zzZay that</span></div></span><span jsname="YS01Ge"><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; font-size: xx-large; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light; font-size: x-large;">love hate</span></div></span><span jsname="YS01Ge" style="font-size: xx-large;"><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light;">A pAIr of</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light;"> HA</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light;">n</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light;">zZzs</span></div></span><span jsname="YS01Ge" style="font-size: xx-large;"><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: center;">that'</div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: center;">szZz </div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: center;">where </div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: center;">WHERE</div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: center;"> </div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light;"> </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light;">EYE 3.14159 mark</span></div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: center;"> </div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Rock Salt;">began</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Rock Salt;"><br /></span></div></span><span jsname="YS01Ge" style="font-size: xx-large;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Rock Salt;">j</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Rock Salt;">us</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Mr Dafoe;">t</span></div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe";"> </span><span style="font-family: Kaushan Script;">be good</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Kaushan Script;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Kaushan Script;">BE</span></div></span><span jsname="YS01Ge" style="font-size: xx-large;"><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: right;">good to</div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: right;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Kaushan Script;">yeeour</span></div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light;">ZzZeself</span></div></span></span></div><div class="ujudUb WRZytc" jsname="U8S5sf" style="color: #bdc1c6; margin-bottom: 0px;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light; font-size: xx-large;">I </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light; font-size: xx-large;">feel </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light; font-size: xx-large;">fine</span></div><span style="font-size: x-large;"><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: right;">don't wake </div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: right;">me</div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: right;"> </div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: right;">up </div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: right;">yet</div><span jsname="YS01Ge" style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe";"><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">couzsZz </div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"> IEye</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> feel </div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"> T </div><div style="text-align: left;"> Ired </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;">Well Well</div></span><span jsname="YS01Ge" style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe";"><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">don't be like that AND</div></span><span jsname="YS01Ge"><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: "Mr Dafoe"; text-align: left;">we </div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light Two;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light Two;">don't need to work any more</span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Permanent Marker;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Permanent Marker;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light Two;"></span><span style="font-family: Permanent Marker;">now</span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light Two;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light Two;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light Two;">Now that Im</span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light Two;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light Two;">Grown own</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light Two;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Shadows Into Light Two";">Up</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light Two;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light Two;">And Sit </span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light Two;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light Two;">down</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light Two;">god</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light Two;">damn<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjft_3UQEccpoJtpVwixxeW0JkggfkHc1xmTzQNar2kp3YxE_V8NqD4EpjDPVeiiq1JuVLcDWbRyRaf2MKSrKBT3pziDcADasSDISjF26C6oonl6MWT0KpOik9Qyyr6Ic-r2FpUOQ2h5ofd5mjdtJ18xDSWmGhiI2yP0NuvMyDE-QixPU8bOzW4P__XHw/s3835/Screenshot%202022-07-26%2010.48.18.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2158" data-original-width="3835" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjft_3UQEccpoJtpVwixxeW0JkggfkHc1xmTzQNar2kp3YxE_V8NqD4EpjDPVeiiq1JuVLcDWbRyRaf2MKSrKBT3pziDcADasSDISjF26C6oonl6MWT0KpOik9Qyyr6Ic-r2FpUOQ2h5ofd5mjdtJ18xDSWmGhiI2yP0NuvMyDE-QixPU8bOzW4P__XHw/w640-h360/Screenshot%202022-07-26%2010.48.18.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Shadows Into Light Two;">it</span></div></span></span></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><br />Tino Cogin of Samoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07995713740509502767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6605761551019184886.post-44696596412764822552011-10-08T11:08:00.000-07:002011-10-08T11:08:20.408-07:00Why Do Some People Learn Faster? | Wired Science | Wired.com<a href="http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/10/why-do-some-people-learn-faster-2/">Why Do Some People Learn Faster? | Wired Science | Wired.com</a>:<br /><br /><a style="font-size:13px" href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pengoopmcjnbflcjbmoeodbmoflcgjlk">'via Blog this'</a>Tino Cogin of Samoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07995713740509502767noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6605761551019184886.post-4861053586977167192011-08-22T08:34:00.000-07:002011-08-22T08:34:47.010-07:00Immediate action | Daily Quotes Arquive - J. Krishnamurti Online<a href="http://www.jkrishnamurti.org/krishnamurti-teachings/view-daily-quote/20110821.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+JKOnline_DailyQuotes+%28JKOnline+RSS+Daily+Quotes%29">Immediate action | Daily Quotes Arquive - J. Krishnamurti Online</a>Tino Cogin of Samoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07995713740509502767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6605761551019184886.post-56062541729690331362011-08-19T11:30:00.000-07:002011-08-19T11:30:47.303-07:007 Sins of Memory: Complete Guide — PsyBlog<a href="http://www.spring.org.uk/2008/02/7-sins-of-memory-complete-guide.php">7 Sins of Memory: Complete Guide — PsyBlog</a>Tino Cogin of Samoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07995713740509502767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6605761551019184886.post-19646560702290773572011-08-04T18:35:00.000-07:002011-08-04T18:35:18.539-07:00To Err Is Primate | Conversation | Edge<a href="http://edge.org/conversation/to-err-is-primate">To Err Is Primate | Conversation | Edge</a>Tino Cogin of Samoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07995713740509502767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6605761551019184886.post-86228685089660607502011-07-21T20:19:00.000-07:002011-07-21T20:19:00.431-07:00Ray Dalio’s Richest and Strangest Hedge Fund : The New Yorker<div>worth the permanent bookmark...</div><div><br /></div><a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/07/25/110725fa_fact_cassidy?currentPage=all">Ray Dalio’s Richest and Strangest Hedge Fund : The New Yorker</a>Tino Cogin of Samoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07995713740509502767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6605761551019184886.post-76726448550102421502011-07-21T12:41:00.000-07:002011-07-21T12:41:41.863-07:00Picture Gallery | Lytro<a href="http://www.lytro.com/picture_gallery">Picture Gallery | Lytro</a>Tino Cogin of Samoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07995713740509502767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6605761551019184886.post-27064699774160897472011-06-30T20:28:00.000-07:002011-06-30T20:36:30.386-07:00Make a movie for freeI was trying to figure out if it was possible to take a photo with an Android phone and then have that synced to the web and the two Apple machines that I use at home. It turns out that this is quite possible meaning (to me anyway) that the 'cloud' is more or less already here. You just need to figure out how to use it. Aside from Picasa acting as the cloud hub for your photo 'data' you can, it turns out, also make movies with it........<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://goo.gl/photos/dWYhlARPX8" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-Sr2uIM4mhLQ/Tg08SsJYlkI/AAAAAAAABMo/-LpqJ_pnkJI/s200/Phone%252520sync.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Click on the black box for the magic</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Tino Cogin of Samoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07995713740509502767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6605761551019184886.post-2947719260202223932011-02-07T21:37:00.000-08:002011-02-07T21:41:08.753-08:00Synced Web Clips<a href="http://goo.gl/photos/4amKZ1h38E" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/_N3dtcCttDGk/TVDURWtGFpE/AAAAAAAAAgc/vJBTxRNfwxU/s160-c/SyncedWebClips.jpg" /></a><br />
Funny how sometimes you can be just bouncing around from one place to another and there are all these disconnected connected things that you stumble on to. This is one of them. From looking at the Google Project site with all of this amazingly detailed and old art. I wind up finding this.....excellent image in so many different ways.Tino Cogin of Samoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07995713740509502767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6605761551019184886.post-9790657057111205672011-01-14T21:32:00.000-08:002011-01-14T21:32:29.757-08:00Stoicism - Wikipedia<div>A quote from the article:</div><div>
<br /></div><div><meta charset="utf-8"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px; font-family: sans-serif; ">Make for yourself a definition or description of the thing which is presented to you, so as to see distinctly what kind of a thing it is in its substance, in its nudity, in its complete entirety, and tell yourself its proper name, and the names of the things of which it has been compounded, and into which it will be resolved. For nothing is so productive of elevation of mind as to be able to examine methodically and truly every object which is presented to you in life, and always to look at things so as to see at the same time what kind of universe this is, and what kind of use everything performs in it, and what value everything has with reference to the whole.<sup id="cite_ref-15" class="reference" style="line-height: 1em; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; "><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoics#cite_note-15" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; white-space: nowrap; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><span>[</span>16<span>]</span></a></sup></span></div><div>
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<br /></div><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoics#cite_note-15">Stoicism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia</a>Tino Cogin of Samoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07995713740509502767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6605761551019184886.post-23094654040980678462010-06-23T20:03:00.000-07:002010-06-24T19:48:06.458-07:00About the Unknown UnknownsI always appreciated Rumsfeld for that comment. It is very meaningful and here are some observations that demonstrate just how meaningful it is.<br />
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This series could be crudely called something like 'A Fresh Look At Stupidity'.....<br />
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Part I<br />
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<a href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/the-anosognosics-dilemma-1/">http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/the-anosognosics-dilemma-1/</a><br />
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Part II<br />
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<a href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/21/the-anosognosics-dilemma-somethings-wrong-but-youll-never-know-what-it-is-part-2/">http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/21/the-anosognosics-dilemma-somethings-wrong-but-youll-never-know-what-it-is-part-2/</a><br />
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Part III<br />
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<a href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/22/the-anosognosics-dilemma-somethings-wrong-but-youll-never-know-what-it-is-part-3/">http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/22/the-anosognosics-dilemma-somethings-wrong-but-youll-never-know-what-it-is-part-3/</a><br />
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Part IV<br />
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<a href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/23/the-anosognosics-dilemma-somethings-wrong-but-youll-never-know-what-it-is-part-4/">http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/23/the-anosognosics-dilemma-somethings-wrong-but-youll-never-know-what-it-is-part-4/</a><br />
<br />
Part V<br />
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<a href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/24/the-anosognosics-dilemma-somethings-wrong-but-youll-never-know-what-it-is-part-5/">http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/24/the-anosognosics-dilemma-somethings-wrong-but-youll-never-know-what-it-is-part-5/</a>Tino Cogin of Samoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07995713740509502767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6605761551019184886.post-18916308002129827472010-06-05T13:45:00.000-07:002010-06-05T13:45:55.513-07:00Cognitive Surplus-What is that?<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;"> ..........tap our cognitive surplus, the trillion hours a year of free time the educated population of the planet has to spend doing things they care about. In the 20th century, the bulk of that time was spent watching television........</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_N3dtcCttDGk/TAqua0SDy2I/AAAAAAAAARk/VP2Vi2bzXnQ/s1600/tv.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_N3dtcCttDGk/TAqua0SDy2I/AAAAAAAAARk/VP2Vi2bzXnQ/s320/tv.jpg" /></a></div><br />
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<a href="http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052748704025304575284973472694334.html%3Fmod%3Dwsj_share_facebook&h=a2509">Read it in context here</a><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">.......the cumulative time devoted to creating Wikipedia, something like 100 million hours of human thought, is expended by Americans every weekend, just watching ads. </span>Tino Cogin of Samoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07995713740509502767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6605761551019184886.post-4908901660521997902010-05-26T12:31:00.000-07:002010-05-26T12:31:38.071-07:00Extremely well saidVery interesting to see the date on this piece. As he says (a couple of paragraphs from the end) Algebra was invented by the Muslims. Many things begin with one intent and de-volve over time into something quite different, as in my view Mr. Harris' efforts appear to be.<br />
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The question raised: Is language ever not a metaphor? Can we ever lose consciousness of that?<br />
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Killing the Buddha<br />
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By Sam Harris<br />
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“Kill the Buddha,” says the old koan. “Kill Buddhism,” says Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith, who argues that Buddhism’s philosophy, insight, and practices would benefit more people if they were not presented as a religion. <br />
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The ninth-century Buddhist master Lin Chi is supposed to have said, “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.” Like much of Zen teaching, this seems too cute by half, but it makes a valuable point: to turn the Buddha into a religious fetish is to miss the essence of what he taught. In considering what Buddhism can offer the world in the twenty-first century, I propose that we take Lin Chi’s admonishment rather seriously. As students of the Buddha, we should dispense with Buddhism. <br />
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This is not to say that Buddhism has nothing to offer the world. One could surely argue that the Buddhist tradition, taken as a whole, represents the richest source of contemplative wisdom that any civilization has produced. In a world that has long been terrorized by fratricidal Sky-God religions, the ascendance of Buddhism would surely be a welcome development. But this will not happen. There is no reason whatsoever to think that Buddhism can successfully compete with the relentless evangelizing of Christianity and Islam. Nor should it try to. <br />
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The wisdom of the Buddha is currently trapped within the religion of Buddhism. Even in the West, where scientists and Buddhist contemplatives now collaborate in studying the effects of meditation on the brain, Buddhism remains an utterly parochial concern. While it may be true enough to say (as many Buddhist practitioners allege) that “Buddhism is not a religion,” most Buddhists worldwide practice it as such, in many of the naive, petitionary, and superstitious ways in which all religions are practiced. Needless to say, all non-Buddhists believe Buddhism to be a religion—and, what is more, they are quite certain that it is the wrong religion.<br />
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To talk about “Buddhism,” therefore, inevitably imparts a false sense of the Buddha’s teaching to others. So insofar as we maintain a discourse as “Buddhists,” we ensure that the wisdom of the Buddha will do little to inform the development of civilization in the twenty-first century. <br />
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Worse still, the continued identification of Buddhists with Buddhism lends tacit support to the religious differences in our world. At this point in history, this is both morally and intellectually indefensible—especially among affluent, well-educated Westerners who bear the greatest responsibility for the spread of ideas. It does not seem much of an exaggeration to say that if you are reading this article, you are in a better position to influence the course of history than almost any person in history. Given the degree to which religion still inspires human conflict, and impedes genuine inquiry, I believe that merely being a self-described “Buddhist” is to be complicit in the world’s violence and ignorance to an unacceptable degree. <br />
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It is true that many exponents of Buddhism, most notably the Dalai Lama, have been remarkably willing to enrich (and even constrain) their view of the world through dialogue with modern science. But the fact that the Dalai Lama regularly meets with Western scientists to discuss the nature of the mind does not mean that Buddhism, or Tibetan Buddhism, or even the Dalai Lama’s own lineage, is uncontaminated by religious dogmatism. Indeed, there are ideas within Buddhism that are so incredible as to render the dogma of the virgin birth plausible by comparison. No one is served by a mode of discourse that treats such pre-literate notions as integral to our evolving discourse about the nature of the human mind. Among Western Buddhists, there are college-educated men and women who apparently believe that Guru Rinpoche was actually born from a lotus. This is not the spiritual breakthrough that civilization has been waiting for these many centuries.<br />
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For the fact is that a person can embrace the Buddha’s teaching, and even become a genuine Buddhist contemplative (and, one must presume, a buddha) without believing anything on insufficient evidence. The same cannot be said of the teachings for faith-based religion. In many respects, Buddhism is very much like science. One starts with the hypothesis that using attention in the prescribed way (meditation), and engaging in or avoiding certain behaviors (ethics), will bear the promised result (wisdom and psychological well-being). This spirit of empiricism animates Buddhism to a unique degree. For this reason, the methodology of Buddhism, if shorn of its religious encumbrances, could be one of our greatest resources as we struggle to develop our scientific understanding of human subjectivity.<br />
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The Problem of Religion<br />
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Incompatible religious doctrines have balkanized our world into separate moral communities, and these divisions have become a continuous source of bloodshed. Indeed, religion is as much a living spring of violence today as it has been at any time in the past. The recent conflicts in Palestine (Jews vs. Muslims), the Balkans (Orthodox Serbians vs. Catholic Croatians; Orthodox Serbians vs. Bosnian and Albanian Muslims), Northern Ireland (Protestants vs. Catholics), Kashmir (Muslims vs. Hindus), Sudan (Muslims vs. Christians and animists), Nigeria (Muslims vs. Christians), Ethiopia and Eritrea (Muslims vs. Christians), Sri Lanka (Sinhalese Buddhists vs. Tamil Hindus), Indonesia (Muslims vs. Timorese Christians), Iran and Iraq (Shiite vs. Sunni Muslims), and the Caucasus (Orthodox Russians vs. Chechen Muslims; Muslim Azerbaijanis vs. Catholic and Orthodox Armenians) are merely a few cases in point. These are places where religion has been the explicit cause of literally millions of deaths in recent decades. <br />
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Why is religion such a potent source of violence? There is no other sphere of discourse in which human beings so fully articulate their differences from one another, or cast these differences in terms of everlasting rewards and punishments. Religion is the one endeavor in which us–them thinking achieves a transcendent significance. If you really believe that calling God by the right name can spell the difference between eternal happiness and eternal suffering, then it becomes quite reasonable to treat heretics and unbelievers rather badly. The stakes of our religious differences are immeasurably higher than those born of mere tribalism, racism, or politics. <br />
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Religion is also the only area of our discourse in which people are systematically protected from the demand to give evidence in defense of their strongly held beliefs. And yet, these beliefs often determine what they live for, what they will die for, and—all too often—what they will kill for. This is a problem, because when the stakes are high, human beings have a simple choice between conversation and violence. At the level of societies, the choice is between conversation and war. There is nothing apart from a fundamental willingness to be reasonable—to have one’s beliefs about the world revised by new evidence and new arguments—that can guarantee we will keep talking to one another. Certainty without evidence is necessarily divisive and dehumanizing. <br />
Therefore, one of the greatest challenges facing civilization in the twenty-first century is for human beings to learn to speak about their deepest personal concerns—about ethics, spiritual experience, and the inevitability of human suffering—in ways that are not flagrantly irrational. Nothing stands in the way of this project more than the respect we accord religious faith. While there is no guarantee that rational people will always agree, the irrational are certain to be divided by their dogmas. <br />
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It seems profoundly unlikely that we will heal the divisions in our world simply by multiplying the occasions for interfaith dialogue. The end game for civilization cannot be mutual tolerance of patent irrationality. All parties to ecumenical religious discourse have agreed to tread lightly over those points where their worldviews would otherwise collide, and yet these very points remain perpetual sources of bewilderment and intolerance for their coreligionists. Political correctness simply does not offer an enduring basis for human cooperation. If religious war is ever to become unthinkable for us, in the way that slavery and cannibalism seem poised to, it will be a matter of our having dispensed with the dogma of faith.<br />
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A Contemplative Science<br />
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What the world most needs at this moment is a means of convincing human beings to embrace the whole of the species as their moral community. For this we need to develop an utterly nonsectarian way of talking about the full spectrum of human experience and human aspiration. We need a discourse on ethics and spirituality that is every bit as unconstrained by dogma and cultural prejudice as the discourse of science is. What we need, in fact, is a contemplative science, a modern approach to exploring the furthest reaches of psychological well-being. It should go without saying that we will not develop such a science by attempting to spread “American Buddhism,” or “Western Buddhism,” or “Engaged Buddhism.” <br />
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If the methodology of Buddhism (ethical precepts and meditation) uncovers genuine truths about the mind and the phenomenal world—truths like emptiness, selflessness, and impermanence—these truths are not in the least “Buddhist.” No doubt, most serious practitioners of meditation realize this, but most Buddhists do not. Consequently, even if a person is aware of the timeless and noncontingent nature of the meditative insights described in the Buddhist literature, his identity as a Buddhist will tend to confuse the matter for others.<br />
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There is a reason that we don’t talk about “Christian physics” or “Muslim algebra,” though the Christians invented physics as we know it, and the Muslims invented algebra. Today, anyone who emphasizes the Christian roots of physics or the Muslim roots of algebra would stand convicted of not understanding these disciplines at all. In the same way, once we develop a scientific account of the contemplative path, it will utterly transcend its religious associations. Once such a conceptual revolution has taken place, speaking of “Buddhist” meditation will be synonymous with a failure to assimilate the changes that have occurred in our understanding of the human mind. <br />
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It is as yet undetermined what it means to be human, because every facet of our culture—and even our biology itself—remains open to innovation and insight. We do not know what we will be a thousand years from now—or indeed that we will be, given the lethal absurdity of many of our beliefs—but whatever changes await us, one thing seems unlikely to change: as long as experience endures, the difference between happiness and suffering will remain our paramount concern. We will therefore want to understand those processes—biochemical, behavioral, ethical, political, economic, and spiritual—that account for this difference. We do not yet have anything like a final understanding of such processes, but we know enough to rule out many false understandings. Indeed, we know enough at this moment to say that the God of Abraham is not only unworthy of the immensity of creation; he is unworthy even of man.<br />
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There is much more to be discovered about the nature of the human mind. In particular, there is much more for us to understand about how the mind can transform itself from a mere reservoir of greed, hatred, and delusion into an instrument of wisdom and compassion. Students of the Buddha are very well placed to further our understanding on this front, but the religion of Buddhism currently stands in their way.<br />
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Killing The Buddha, Sam Harris, Shambhala Sun, March 2006. <br />
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To order this copy of the Shambhala Sun, click here.Tino Cogin of Samoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07995713740509502767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6605761551019184886.post-54740310022962201352010-05-12T14:05:00.000-07:002010-05-12T14:05:35.656-07:00this one is worth bookmarking for reference<a href="http://www.jkrishnamurti.org/krishnamurti-teachings/view-daily-quote/20100512.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+JKOnline_DailyQuotes+%28JKOnline+RSS+Daily+Quotes%29">Self-esteem | Daily Quotes Arquive - J. Krishnamurti Online</a>Tino Cogin of Samoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07995713740509502767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6605761551019184886.post-51452322636175877572010-05-10T03:10:00.001-07:002010-05-10T03:10:58.231-07:00things are probably going to get better soon (relatively speaking)if i appeared to be making a case for eliminating belief then this would be another example of my poor ability to explain my own thoughts. <br />
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not believing the santa claus story does not imply an absence of belief. same with use of the Burqua. <br />
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these are nothing more than systems of control. so if you understand that (even if you are five years old) you have an edge on the rest of the world. and you can be thinking about ways to get out of your situation if that is what you need to do. then you can make a choice.<br />
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you know at least one person who does not believe just about everything around them. that is me. <br />
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for a long time i went right along with it but at some point it just stopped making sense and it is not always particularly pleasant living this way but it is a choice.<br />
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i think the true scientist is always hoping that his/her conclusion will be transcended as you say with a more complete belief. call it refined. yes, this is part of the question of understanding belief to begin with. that is where i like to tell myself that i am. sure i believe certain things about certain things and i am always willing to update those beliefs when new information comes along. infinite empiricism rules.<br />
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the popular argument against that is to portray it as a pointless existence centered on doubt and negativism. but this too is just another attempted system of fear based control. ultimately a lot more gets learned when a lot more is doubted. when it became obvious to me how much there was to know and how little i would ultimately know it was a very cathartic realization to say wow so i get to learn something new constantly. how cool is that.<br />
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i also understand that everyone has a unique perspective and that there are lots of different beliefs resulting from that but i am committed to not encouraging people to believe junk. so if i find someone who appears to be committed to junk ideas i just keep my distance. this is a sort of passive resistance to junk thinking. if i get pinged on something that i have given a good deal of thought to however then i generally have something to say. and sadly for me, it often comes out in a caustic sort of way. this is good old New York enculturation. <br />
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generally there is a giant shortage of empathy in the world. or at least the expression of it. the way it appears to me, getting along is not much more complicated than understanding that concept.<br />
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i believe that there already is a common morality. always has been, always will be. the generic term for it is empathy.<br />
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we all know it intuitively. it is pretty apparent in children pre language acquisition. you can see it in their frequent expressions of empathy. <br />
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i believe that our in-ability to practice it actively comes along post language acquisition. because language is always partial. always assumptions of assumptions and most people fail to give that any thought. most children are taught that not knowing an answer is bad so most stop asking questions at some point early in the game and just succumb to the systems of control. particularly the fear based ones. toe the line in their immediate vicinity and survive at some level. recognizing at some point how often they were lied to with impunity and not being able to do a whole lot about that, other than seethe with anger.<br />
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maybe this explains why so many people fly off the handle when their opinions are challenged in any way.? or why so many scheme to deceive others?<br />
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there have been a number of people who have come to understand this in the last two or three thousand years and when they attempted to explain what they came to see, it all gets muddled with language. eventually some creative manipulator puts together another system of fear based control using fragmented pieces of those observations. the cycle continues. <br />
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my ideas about belief come from Krishnamurti. yes, there appears to be a contradiction in the absolute certainty of non absoluteness and i do not particularly mind being here because the belief that i hold in this only comes from having systematically ruled out all of the other popular possibilities that i have looked at. including what i understand Denett, Harris etc to be saying along with the way that they are saying it.<br />
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it is something akin to the truth in the statement that the only thing that does not change is that things are changing all of the time. <br />
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while these statements may appear to be recursively contradictory on the surface, they are probably just very clear examples of the poor quality of language as a medium for the expression of truthful phenomenon.<br />
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if you think about it, in terms of the length of time that most things that are around have been around, it is still early days for language, not to mention belief systems. so things are probably going to get better in the next few million years. i believe that.Tino Cogin of Samoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07995713740509502767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6605761551019184886.post-2802647121291278192010-05-09T14:25:00.000-07:002010-05-09T14:25:17.889-07:00infinite empiricism vs one assumptionAndre, if someone comes to you for a hair cut, you put them in the chair, say close your eyes, make noise with your scissors but never cut a strand of hair and then say: look beautiful YES! most elegant haircut you have ever had. then you are an alchemist. (successful if they pay and come back for more!).<br />
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if you cut hair people will like the result or not. sure you should advertise. you have every right to do so. <br />
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is there a universal law for good haircuts though? <br />
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don't think so. beauty is in the eye of the beholder. <br />
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this is my point. i can not tell you what is beautiful to you. that is your belief. i can though encourage you to understand your process of believing itself and potentially from your greater understanding of the process you might change your beliefs. <br />
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maybe not though. because belief is ultimately an intangible and ultimately self recursive right back to the moment that you first began to believe what the word 'me' or 'I' or 'it' means.....this is how complicated that process actually is. everything in our head (stored in language) is an assumption at some level. <br />
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everything needs to be questioned. and questioning does not mean rejecting full stop. questioning means shifting perspective to see from another angle. just as you do when you walk around a head of hair and what you see directly is never what your client sees in the mirror. and how often do they agree with you on some assessment of two different things?<br />
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there is a reason that someone came up with the very idea of Burqua to begin with this is what needs to be questioned to produce real change. i.e. the reason for the very idea. i.e. something at a much deeper level. not the Burqua itself or the system to put it to use.<br />
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Once the Burqua is eliminated (if so) something else will take its place if the process of belief is not more closely understood. <br />
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This is where Harris says he wants to make a difference but not where his efforts are directing attention. <br />
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when Bruce says that he is questioning whether science is more than empiricism. i would say that this is what science is: infinite empiricism questioning every answer and every assumption that led to any answer. <br />
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and the practice that replaces infinite empiricism with an end no matter where that end/assumption lies in the explanation is called religion/dogmatism.Tino Cogin of Samoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07995713740509502767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6605761551019184886.post-84533794247393963372010-05-09T13:24:00.000-07:002010-05-09T13:24:18.033-07:00from the Burqua to the cell phone?perhaps my ultimate point is questioning the validity of his method as you mentioned in your second sentence. <br />
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isn't that exactly what all of the things that they (the righteous four) classify as 'bad' do already? i.e. challenge your existing beliefs? attempt to replace one set of incomplete/inaccurate/partial assumptions with yet another?<br />
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i need to get a tattoo because the people who do not have them are "------" fill in the blank and people who do have them are '_______' fill in the blank.<br />
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a fat man in a red outfit lands on my roof in the middle of winter and comes down my chimney with presents for me only if i eat my peas...<br />
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solving the dilemma of ridiculous beliefs has to start with understanding belief itself. not with claiming that certain beliefs are ridiculous and then saying something like 'how can you be so dumb as to not have seen that already like me!' <br />
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that, i believe, was the point that some of those guys were making in the recent piece. harris is drawing his own personally believed conclusions (Burqua use is BAD!!!!!) and insisting that there is empirical evidence to prove that it is so (i.e.UNIVERSALLY BAD!!!!!) therefore should not be done. PERIOD. <br />
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their point being that Burqua use (forced or voluntary) is a behavior that results from a belief. the content of the belief is random. for some it works. for others it does not. there is no universal for content (i.e. the belief). there is potentially universal law for understanding/explaining the context i.e. belief itself.<br />
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Harris claims universal BADNESS for all. immediately citing some (or many) extreme cases where the behavior generated by the belief has been really really bad for some (or many) <br />
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is he wrong about the extreme cases? no of course not but that does not extrapolate to: he is right about all. <br />
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this is not science. this is dogmatism. and his method is alchemy because he appears to be intelligent enough to understand exactly what he is doing. i.e. creating controversy (always talking about the extreme really bad things) for personal profit. <br />
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as you pointed out, he is supposedly a scientist not a novelist. so he should be writing research papers for peer review. <br />
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or maybe he could change his subject to the use of cell phones while operating a motor vehicle? there have been instances of people who believed that they could simultaneously safely drive a motor vehicle while not paying attention to the machine or their surroundings. <br />
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people have been killed or maimed in really horrific ways because of that ridiculous belief. <br />
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should we eliminate the motor vehicle? the cell phone? <br />
or tell everyone that does the same thing that they are idiots and need to change their belief?<br />
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or is there another possibility such as a concerted effort to get children from the age of 5 for instance to start to look at belief (not beliefs) and understand what it is as a process and what it does in terms of generating behavior?Tino Cogin of Samoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07995713740509502767noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6605761551019184886.post-79386289619687484292010-03-25T21:04:00.000-07:002010-03-25T21:25:01.253-07:00Fore-casting is generally WRONG. Watch an expert explain thatThere was a piece on Huffpost today (the link for that is on my Facebook page) where the guy was parsing a recent Greenspan talk and then accusing him of being a bunch of things. As with these pieces generally, rather than say what was not said, he just rips the guy and implies deceit. If you are doing your homework, then you should understand what he is saying and what he is not saying. Remember Parsing the FED? In order to understand clearly, you need to have the Greenspan perspective. You get that from his testimony to the Senate Banking Committee in Oct 08 where he explains very very clearly that the best of the best (supposedly those working at the FED) in Forecasting (what Greenspan does now privately and essentially what he did publicly at the FED) are wrong 40 percent of the time.<br />
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The implication of that is what?<br />
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Got the answer?<br />
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Watch <object id='cspan-video-player' classid='clsid:d27cdb6eae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000' codebase='http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=9,0,0,0' width='410' height='500' align='middle'><param name='allowScriptAccess' value='true'/><param name='movie' value='http://www.c-spanvideo.org/videoLibrary/assets/swf/CSPANPlayer.swf'/><param name='quality' value='high'/><param name='bgcolor' value='#ffffff'/><param name='allowFullScreen' value='true'/><param name='flashvars' value='system=http://www.c-spanvideo.org/flashXml/196328&style=full'/><embed name='cspan-video-player' src='http://www.c-spanvideo.org/videoLibrary/assets/swf/CSPANPlayer.swf' base='http://www.c-spanvideo.org/videoLibrary/assets/swf/' allowScriptAccess='always' width='410' height='500' bgcolor='#ffffff' quality='high' align='middle' allowFullScreen='true' type='application/x-shockwave-flash' pluginspage='http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer' flashvars='system=http://www.c-spanvideo.org/flashXml/196328&style=full'/object>, the written comments given by Greenspan at the beginning are well worth listening to and then you skip ahead to minute 108 to listen to the explanation in plain English that the very best forecasts are wrong 40 percent of the time meaning that the average forecast is more often wrong than it is right. Now if you are making a lot of bets and your average is wrong 40 percent of the time this is not such a bad thing, on average you win as long as you have a consistent exit strategy for both winners and losers. When you are making very few very long term bets however, with no particular pre-planned exit strategy and nothing going on simultaneously, you are playing a different game. At least Greenspan was honest enough to say that his premises, (ideology is the word he used) were wrong and he recognizes that. Whoops. Well, this is bad when you are assuming he is always right but not particularly bad when you have his perspective which is that he is quite often wrong. Unfortunately the 'I was wrong' explanation is generally not what people in this country want to hear. Which is exactly why education is failing to advance at the rate that it might otherwise advance at. Students are taught both implicitly and explicitly that the phrase 'I was wrong' is anathema.<br />
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In justification of Greenspan for not apologizing or stating again that he was wrong and that there was some sort of problem with him being wrong you might look at it this way.<br />
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The fact is that the forecasts were wrong.<br />
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The assumption was that the forecasts would be wrong.<br />
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So there was nothing wrong and no need to apologize only to understand the second statement. Which Mr. Greenspan appears to be assuming that everyone understands.<br />
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The follow on from this of course is that if the forecasting business is not a single factor process i.e. that if your forecast of one thing is always multi factor involving essentially forecasts of one thing based on forecasts of other things which of course any economic analysis is and you have this error rate of wrong more than half the time then you would simply multiply the probability of being wrong on one factor with each other factor to determine the probability of being wrong on any multi factor analysis. Guess it is a good thing that the FED is not getting paid on accuracy and no one is keeping very close score of private economic forecast records. If anyone was then it would be a sparsely populated profession.<br />
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Tino Cogin of Samoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07995713740509502767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6605761551019184886.post-38046482899743195982010-03-13T07:37:00.000-08:002010-03-13T07:43:59.877-08:00Are you a scientist? Are you willing to experiment on yourself?<blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_N3dtcCttDGk/S5uxvpLzDPI/AAAAAAAAAQY/XGUwoI1UiqI/s1600-h/kahneman200.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_N3dtcCttDGk/S5uxvpLzDPI/AAAAAAAAAQY/XGUwoI1UiqI/s320/kahneman200.jpg" /></a></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">.....</span><span style="font-size: x-small;">So Easterlin as an economist caused some distress in the profession with these results.</span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">So what is the puzzle here? The puzzle is related to the affective forecasting that most people believe that circumstances like becoming richer will make them happier. It turns out that people's beliefs about what will make them happier are mostly wrong, and they are wrong in a directional way, and they are wrong very predictably. And there is a story here that I think is interesting. ......</span></div></blockquote><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">So if you are intrigued i.e. a scientist, you need to go <a href="http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/kahneman07/kahneman07_index.html">here</a> and read the whole series of talks.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">This guy is a scientist (if you are unfamiliar with him, Wikipedia or links in the link are good places to learn more) so what he is doing here is proposing a theory and claiming that there is empirical evidence to support his conclusions. If you are a scientist, you will work with him and through the process of self reflection (free for everyone) analyze his theories and change your mind (or not).</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Oh, the contra-positive, you are a sheep. You choose. </span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br />
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</span>Tino Cogin of Samoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07995713740509502767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6605761551019184886.post-60012323585602506412010-02-28T21:48:00.000-08:002010-02-28T21:54:14.288-08:00Involves quite a bit of re understandingFirst there is learning the vocabulary. Then the concepts behind the definitions of the words and then the burning down of old ingrained assumptions of assumptions. This is going to take some time to grok.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.anintroductiontoawareness.com/Awareness/Introduction.html">An Introduction to Awareness</a>Tino Cogin of Samoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07995713740509502767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6605761551019184886.post-25733310205477817672010-02-24T21:17:00.000-08:002010-02-24T21:21:58.553-08:00can you see the contra arguments to the arguments?my personal belief is that these guys are more interested in selling books so that they can buy stuff than they are interested in making the world a better place for those who come after us. but i have no real evidence of that so perhaps i am an idiot.<br /><br />i am bookmarking this because it is a beautiful summary of all that is highly inefficient in their approach to the situation that consumes their time (and fills their bank accounts). i want to come back to this and understand it in more detail.<br /><br />plus they are very intelligent guys and you get a lot of good vocabulary.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DKhc1pcDFM">part 1</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaeJf-Yia3A&NR=1">part 2</a>Tino Cogin of Samoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07995713740509502767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6605761551019184886.post-22246211549716846452010-02-24T19:39:00.000-08:002010-02-24T19:42:40.064-08:00Is there only one way to get an education?The Zen pumpkin guy has some interesting ideas on the question.<br /><br /><a href="http://thesciencenetwork.org/programs/the-science-studio/neil-degrasse-tyson">Watch it here.</a>Tino Cogin of Samoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07995713740509502767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6605761551019184886.post-48839704754126613292009-01-29T20:50:00.000-08:002009-01-29T20:53:35.978-08:00The zen pumpkinsThis is a tremendous video. There are clips of the end of this on You Tube that skip what in my opinion is the essence of the message. Go to about 1 hour and 2 minutes into <a href="http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5559355597212327756">this</a> to get to the beginning of the talk by Neil Degrasse TysonTino Cogin of Samoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07995713740509502767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6605761551019184886.post-76029867817023092862008-08-23T21:25:00.000-07:002008-08-23T21:26:49.006-07:00Where's The Mouse?A trillion hours a year. That's a lot of brain drain.....<br /><br /><br /><embed src="http://blip.tv/play/AbTSFAA" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="320" height="242" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed>Tino Cogin of Samoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07995713740509502767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6605761551019184886.post-74003545128716034782008-03-27T00:12:00.000-07:002008-03-27T00:14:25.512-07:00How have we allowed this to happen?Taking stock of the war on terror<br /><br />Not only has America not defeated al-Qaida -- but now terrorism has gone viral.<br />By Mark Danner<br /><br />Mar. 27, 2008 | To contemplate a prewar map of Baghdad -- as I do the one before me, with sectarian neighborhoods traced out in blue and red and yellow -- is to look back on a lost Baghdad, a Baghdad of our dreams. My map of 2003 is colored mostly a rather neutral yellow, indicating the "mixed" neighborhoods of the city, predominant just five years ago. To take up a contemporary map after this is to be confronted by a riot of bright color: Shiite blue has moved in irrevocably from the east of the Tigris; Sunni red has fled before it, as Shiite militias pushed the Sunnis inexorably west toward Abu Ghraib and Anbar province, and nearly out of the capital itself. And everywhere, it seems, the pale yellow of those mixed neighborhoods is gone, obliterated in the months and years of sectarian war.<br /><br />I start with those maps out of a lust for something concrete as I grope about in the abstract, struggling to quantify the unquantifiable. How indeed to "take stock" of the "war on terror"? Such a strange beast it is, like one of those mythological creatures that is part goat, part lion, part man. Let us take a moment and identify each of these parts. For if we look closely at its misshapen contours, we can see in the war on terror:<br /><br />Part anti-guerrilla mountain struggle, as in Afghanistan;<br /><br />Part shooting war-cum-occupation-cum-counterinsurgency, as in Iraq;<br /><br />Part intelligence, spy vs. spy covert struggle, fought quietly -- "on the dark side," as Vice President Dick Cheney put it shortly after 9/11 -- in a vast territory stretching from the southern Philippines to the Maghreb and the Straits of Gibraltar;<br /><br />And finally the war on terror is part, perhaps its largest part, virtual war -- an ongoing, permanent struggle, and in its ongoing political utility not wholly unlike Orwell's famous world war between Eurasia, East Asia and Oceania that is unbounded in space and in time, never ending, always expanding.<br /><br />President Bush announced this virtual war three days after Sept. 11, 2001, in the National Cathedral in Washington, appropriately enough, when he told Americans that "our responsibility to history is already clear: to answer these attacks and rid the world of evil."<br /><br />Astonishing words from a world leader -- declaring that he would "rid the world of evil." Just in case anyone thought he might have misheard the sweep of the president's ambition, his national security strategy, issued a few months later, was careful to specify that "the enemy is not a single political regime or person or religion or ideology. The enemy is terrorism -- premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against innocents."<br /><br />Again, a remarkable statement, as many commentators were quick to point out; for declaring war on "terrorism" -- a technique of war, not an identifiable group or target -- was simply unprecedented and, indeed, bewildering in its implications. As one counterinsurgency specialist remarked to me, "Declaring war on terrorism is like declaring war on air power."<br /><br />Six and a half years later, evil is still with us and so is terrorism. In my search for a starting point in taking stock of those years, I find myself in the sad position of pondering fondly what have become two of the saddest words in the English language: Donald Rumsfeld.<br /><br />Remember him? In late October 2003, when I was in Baghdad watching the launch of the so-called Ramadan Offensive -- five simultaneous suicide bombings, beginning with one at the headquarters of the Red Cross, the fiery aftermath of which I witnessed -- then Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld was in Washington still denying that an insurgency was under way in Iraq. He was also drafting one of his famous "snowflakes," those late-night memorandums that he used to rain down on his terrorized Pentagon employees.<br /><br />This particular snowflake, dated Oct. 16, 2003, and titled "Global War on Terrorism," reads almost poignantly now, as the defense secretary gropes to define the war that it has become his lot to fight: "Today we lack metrics to know if we are winning or losing the global war on terror," he wrote. "Are we capturing, killing or deterring and dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrassas and the radical clerics are recruiting, training and deploying against us?"<br /><br />Rumsfeld asks the right question, for beyond the obvious metrics like the number of terrorist attacks worldwide -- which have gone up steadily, and precipitously, since 9/11 (for 2006, the last year for which State Department figures are available, by nearly 29 percent, to 14,338) -- and the somewhat subtler ones like the percentage of those in the Middle East and the broader Muslim world who hold unfavorable opinions of the United States (which soared in the wake of the invasion of Iraq and has fallen back just a bit since); apart from these sorts of numbers that, for various and obvious reasons, are problematic in themselves, the key question is: How do you "take stock" of the war on terror? At the end of the day, as Secretary Rumsfeld perceived, this is a political judgment, for in its essence it has to do with the evolution of public opinion and the readiness of those with certain political sympathies to move from holding those opinions to taking action in support of them.<br /><br />What "metrics" do we have to take account of the progress of this "evolution"? Well, none really -- but we do have the guarded opinions of intelligence agencies, notably this rather explicit statement from the U.S. government's National Intelligence Estimate of April 2006, titled "Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States," which reads in part: "Although we cannot measure the extent of the spread with precision" -- those metrics again -- "a large body of all-source reporting indicates that activists identifying themselves as jihadists, although still a small percentage of Muslims, are increasing in both number and geographic distribution. If this trend continues, threats to U.S. interests at home and abroad will become more diverse, leading to increasing attacks worldwide."<br /><br />Dark words, and yet that 2006 report looks positively sanguine when set beside two reports from a year later, both leaked in July 2007. A National Intelligence Estimate titled "The Terrorist Threat to the US Homeland" noted that al-Qaida had managed to -- in the summary in the Washington Post -- reestablish "its central organization, training infrastructure and lines of global communication" over the previous two years and had placed the United States in a "heightened threat environment ... The U.S. Homeland will face a persistent and evolving terrorist threat over the next three years."<br /><br />This NIE -- the combined opinion of the country's major intelligence agencies -- only confirmed a report that had been leaked a couple of days before from the National Counterterrorism Center, grimly titled "Al Qaeda Better Positioned to Strike the West." This report concluded that al-Qaida, in the words of one official who briefed its contents to a reporter for the Christian Science Monitor, was "considerably operationally stronger than a year ago," "has regrouped to an extent not seen since 2001," and has managed to create "the most robust training program since 2001, with an interest in using European operatives." Another intelligence official, summarizing the report to the Associated Press, offered a blunt and bleak conclusion: Al-Qaida, he said, is "showing greater and greater ability to plan attacks in Europe and the United States."<br /><br />Given these grim results, one must return to one of the more poignant passages in Secretary Rumsfeld's "snowflake," released to flutter down on his poor Pentagon subordinates back in those blinkered days of October 2003. Having wondered about the metrics, and what could and could not be measured in the war on terror, the secretary of defense posed a critical question: "Does the U.S. need to fashion a broad, integrated plan to stop the next generation of terrorists?"<br /><br />For me, the poignancy comes from Rumsfeld's failure to see that, in effect, he and his boss had already "fashioned" the "broad, integrated plan" he was asking for. It was called the Iraq war.<br /><br />That the Iraq war is "fueling the spread of the jihadist movement," as the 2006 National Intelligence Estimate put it, has been a truism of intelligence reporting from the war's beginning -- indeed, from before it began. "The Iraq conflict has become the cause célèbre for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of U.S. involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating support for the global jihadist movement" -- this point from the 2006 NIE is truly an example of a "chronicle of a war foretold" (to borrow from García Márquez). In fact, that NIE cites the "Iraq jihad" as the second of four factors "fueling the jihadist movement," along with "entrenched grievances, such as corruption, injustice, and fear of Western domination, leading to anger, humiliation, and a sense of powerlessness"; "the slow pace of real and sustained economic, social, and political reforms in many Muslim majority nations"; and "pervasive anti-US sentiment among most Muslims."<br /><br />Any attempt to "take stock of the war on terror" must begin with the sad fact that the story of that war has largely become the story of the war in Iraq as well, and the story of the Iraq war (all discussion of the so-called surge aside) has been pretty much an unmitigated disaster for U.S. security and for America's position in the Middle East and the world. Which means that telling the story of the war on terror, half a dozen years on -- and taking stock of that war -- merges inevitably with the sad tale of how that so-called war, strange and multiform beast that it is, became subsumed in a bold and utterly incompetent attempt to occupy and remake a major Arab country.<br /><br />That broader story comes down to a matter of two strategies and two generals: Gen. Osama bin Laden and Gen. George W. Bush. General bin Laden, from the start, has been waging a campaign of indirection and provocation: That is, bin Laden's ultimate targets are the so-called apostate regimes of the Muslim world -- foremost among them, the Mubarak regime in Egypt and the House of Saud on the Arabian peninsula -- which he hopes to overthrow and supplant with a new caliphate.<br /><br />For bin Laden, these are the "near enemies," which rely for their existence on the vital support of the "far enemy," the United States. By attacking this far enemy, beginning in the mid-1990s, bin Laden hoped both to lead vast numbers of new Muslim recruits to join al-Qaida and to weaken U.S. support for the Mubarak and Saud regimes. He hoped to succeed, through indirection, in "cutting the strings of the puppets," eventually leading to the collapse of those regimes.<br /><br />In this sense, 9/11 proved the culmination of a long-term strategy, following on a series of attacks of increasing lethality during the mid- to late 1990s in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; Nairobi, Kenya; Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; and Aden, Yemen. The 9/11 attackers used as their climactic weapon not transcontinental airliners or box cutters but the television set -- for the image was the true weapon that day, the overwhelmingly powerful image of the towers collapsing -- and used it not only to "dirty the face of imperial power" (Menachim Begin's description of what terrorists do) but also to provoke the United States to strike deep into the Islamic world.<br /><br />It is clear from various documents and from the assassination, days before 9/11, of Afghan Northern Alliance leader Ahmed Shah Masood, that bin Laden expected this American counterstrike to come in Afghanistan, which would have given al-Qaida the opportunity to do to the remaining superpower what it had done -- so the myth went, anyway -- to the Soviet Union a dozen years before: trap its arrogant, hulking military in a quagmire and, through patient, unrelenting guerrilla warfare, force it to withdraw in ignominious defeat. In the event, of course, the Americans, by relying on air bombardment and on the ground forces of their Afghan allies in the Northern Alliance, avoided the quagmire of Afghanistan -- at least in that initial phase in the fall of 2001 -- and instead offered bin Laden a much greater gift. In March 2003, they invaded Iraq, a far more important Islamic country and one much closer to the heart of Arab concerns.<br /><br />Why did Gen. George W. Bush do it? Lacking in legitimacy and on the political defensive, the president and his administration moved instantly to transform the war on terror into an ideological crusade, one implicitly crafted as a new Cold War.<br /><br />"They hate our freedoms," Bush told Congress and the nation a few days after the 9/11 attacks. "Our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with one another ... We are not deceived by their pretenses to piety. We have seen their kind before. They are the heirs of all the murderous ideologies of the 20th century. By sacrificing human life to serve their radical visions -- by abandoning every value except the will to power -- they follow in the path of fascism, and Nazism, and totalitarianism. And they will follow that path all the way, to where it ends: in history's unmarked grave of discarded lies."<br /><br />Drawing a lurid picture of a new Cold War, with terrorists playing the role of communists, Bush rallied the country behind the war on terror, obliterating the subtleties of the struggle against al-Qaida and with them the critique of U.S. Middle East policy implicit in the assault. "This is not about our policies," as Henry Kissinger put it soon after the attack. "This is about our existence." In this view, the attack came not because of what the United States actually did in the Middle East -- what regimes it supported, for example -- but because of what it stood for: the universalist aspirations it symbolized. Iraq quickly became part of this crusade, the great struggle to protect, and now to spread, freedom and democracy.<br /><br />One can argue long and hard about the roots of the Iraq war, but in the end one must tease out a set of realist compulsions (centrally concerned with the restoration of American credibility and American deterrent power) and idealist aspirations (shaped around the so-called democratic domino effect). The realist case was well summarized, once again, by Kissinger, who, when asked by a Bush speechwriter why he supported the Iraq war, replied: "Because Afghanistan wasn't enough." In the conflict with radical Islam, he went on, "they want to humiliate us and we have to humiliate them." The Iraq war was essential in order to make the point that "we're not going to live in the world that they want for us."<br /><br />Ron Suskind, in his fine book "The One Percent Doctrine," puts what is essentially the same point in "geostrategic" terms, reporting that, in meetings of the National Security Council in the months after the 9/11 attacks, the main concern "was to make an example of [Saddam] Hussein, to create a demonstration model to guide the behavior of anyone with the temerity to acquire destructive weapons or, in any way, flout the authority of the United States."<br /><br />Set alongside this was the "democratic tsunami" that was to follow the shock-and-awe triumph over Saddam. It would sweep through the Middle East from Iraq to Iran and thence to Syria and Palestine. ("The road to Jerusalem" -- so ran the neoconservative gospel at the time -- "runs through Baghdad.") As I wrote in October 2002, five months before the Iraq war was launched, this vision was detailed and well elaborated:<br /><br />Behind the notion that an American intervention will make of Iraq "the first Arab democracy," as Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz put it, lies a project of great ambition. It envisions a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq -- secular, middle-class, urbanized, rich with oil -- that will replace the autocracy of Saudi Arabia as the key American ally in the Persian Gulf, allowing the withdrawal of United States troops from the kingdom. The presence of a victorious American Army in Iraq would then serve as a powerful boost to moderate elements in neighboring Iran, hastening that critical country's evolution away from the mullahs and toward a more moderate course. Such an evolution in Tehran would lead to a withdrawal of Iranian support for Hezbollah and other radical groups, thereby isolating Syria and reducing pressure on Israel. This undercutting of radicals on Israel's northern borders and within the West Bank and Gaza would spell the definitive end of Yasir Arafat and lead eventually to a favorable solution of the Arab-Israeli problem.<br />This is a vision of great sweep and imagination: comprehensive, prophetic, evangelical. In its ambitions, it is wholly foreign to the modesty of containment, the ideology of a status-quo power that lay at the heart of American strategy for half a century. It means to remake the world, to offer to a political threat a political answer. It represents a great step on the road toward President Bush's ultimate vision of "freedom's triumph over all its age-old foes."<br /><br />One can identify two factors underlying this vision: first, the great enthusiasm for a moralistic foreign policy based on universalized principles and democratic reform that dated back to containment's main rival, the "rollback" movement of the 1950s, and that had been revivified by the thrilling series of Eastern European revolutions of the late 1980s and by scenes of popular, American-aided democratic triumph (as it was then thought to be) in Afghanistan; and, second, the recognition that terrorism, at the end of the day, was a political problem that arose from a calcified authoritarian order in the Middle East and that only a dose of "creative destabilization" could shake up that order. "Transforming the Middle East," in Condoleezza Rice's words, "is the only guarantee that it will no longer produce ideologies of hatred that lead men to fly airplanes into buildings in New York and Washington."<br />The latter perception -- that terrorism as it struck the United States arose from political factors and that it could be confronted and defeated only with a political response -- strikes me as incontestable. The problem the administration faced, or rather didn't want to face, was that the calcified order that lay at the root of the problem was the very order that, for nearly six decades, had been shaped, shepherded and sustained by the United States. We see an explicit acknowledgment of this in the "Bletchley II" report drafted after 9/11 at Defense Department urging by a number of intellectuals close to the administration: "The general analysis," one of its authors told the Washington Post's Bob Woodward, "was that Egypt and Saudi Arabia, where most of the hijackers came from, were the key, but the problems there are intractable. Iran is more important ... But Iran was similarly difficult to envision dealing with. But Saddam Hussein was different, weaker, more vulnerable."<br /><br />In this sense, many of the Bush administration's leading Iraq war backers constituted a kind of guerrilla force within the U.S. government, fighting against a long-standing strategic alignment in the Middle East. This guerrilla status, which defined many of the government's most knowledgeable Middle East hands as enemies to be isolated and ignored, helps to account, at least in part, for a great many of the extraordinary incompetencies and disasters of the war itself. That the roots of the war lie in stark opposition to established U.S. policy also helps explain the central conundrum of the current U.S. strategic position in Iraq and the Middle East. This was defined for me with typical concision and aplomb by Ahmed Chalabi in Baghdad last year. "The American tragedy in Iraq," said Chalabi, "is that your friends in Iraq are allied with your enemies in the region, and your enemies in Iraq are allied with your friends in the region."<br /><br />Chalabi's concision and wit are admirable (and typical); but his point, once you look at the map, is obvious. The United States has made possible the rise to power in Iraq of a Shiite government that is allied with its major geopolitical antagonist in the region, the Islamic Republic of Iran. And the United States has been fighting with great persistence and distinctly mixed results a Sunni insurgency that is allied with the Saudis, the Jordanians and its other longtime friends among the traditional Sunni autocracies of the Gulf.<br /><br />This is another way of saying that the U.S. policy built on the famous meeting between President Franklin D. Roosevelt and King ibn Saud aboard Roosevelt's cruiser on the Great Bitter Lake near the end of World War II -- a policy that envisioned a vital, mutually beneficial and enduring alliance between the Saudis and the Americans -- having been put in grave question by the Saudi insurgents at the controls of those mighty airliners of Sept. 11, now smashed full on into the strategic assault perpetrated by the Bush administration insurgents led by Paul Wolfowitz and his associates. Their "creative destabilization" was aimed not just at Saddam Hussein's Iraq, but at more than half a century of American policy in the Middle East.<br /><br />Al-Qaida, opportunistic as always, was willing to play this game, seizing on the occupation of Iraq as the golden opportunity it most certainly was and focusing on the Shiite-Sunni divide on which U.S. policy was foundering. The late Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's famous intercepted letter to Ayman al-Zawahiri and bin Laden, in which the insurgent leader of al-Qaida in Mesopotamia told the al-Qaida potentates -- the front office, as it were -- that his aim in Iraq was to "awaken the sleeping Sunnis" by launching a vast bombing campaign against the "Shiite heretic," describes precisely both the national and the regional strategy: "If we manage to draw them into the terrain of partisan war, it will be possible to tear the Sunnis away from their heedlessness, for they will feel the weight of the imminence of danger."<br /><br />This is a strategy that, after the bombing of the revered al-Askari mosque and shrine in Samarra in February 2006, bore terrible fruit. My map that shows divisions running through Baghdad will show, if one zooms out, those same divisions running through Iraq and beyond its borders. Like the former Yugoslavia, Iraq is a nation that gathers within itself the cultural and sectarian fault lines of the region; the Sunni-Shiite divide running through Iraq in effect runs through the entire Middle East. The United States, in choosing this place to stage its democratic revolution, could hardly have done al-Qaida a better favor.<br /><br />At this moment, the Iraq war is at a stalemate. Confronted with a growing threat from those "enemies allied with its friends in the region," the Sunni insurgents, the Bush administration has adopted a practical and typically American strategy: It has bought them. The Americans have purchased the insurgency, hiring its foot soldiers at the rate of $300 per month. The Sunni fighters, once called insurgents, we now refer to as "tribesmen" or "concerned citizens."<br /><br />This has isolated al-Qaida, a tactical victory. But because these purchased Sunni fighters have not been accepted by the Shiite government -- the allies of our enemies -- the United States has set in motion a policy that will require, to keep violence at current levels, its own permanent presence in the country. This at a time when two in three Americans think the war was a mistake and when both surviving Democratic presidential candidates vow to begin bringing the troops home "on Day One" of a Democratic administration.<br /><br />On the horizon, after such a withdrawal, is a reignition of the civil war at an even more brutal level, helped by the American rearming of the Sunni forces -- and indeed the American arming of Shiite government forces as well. It is a curious reality, if we look again at the regional map, that the current geostrategic situation in the Middle East resembles nothing so much as the Iraq-Iran war of the 1980s, in which the United States, along with Egypt, the Saudis and the Jordanians, supported Saddam Hussein's Iraq in its great war against Ayatollah Khomeini's Iran. We see a similar array of forces today, with these two differences: First, we must move the line of conflict about 200 miles west, shifting it from the Iraq-Iran border to a line running through Baghdad along the Tigris River. Second, the United States is now arming and supporting both sides. And behind the current configuration and the supposed "success of the surge" looms the darkening threat of regionalization -- a regionwide struggle fought over the body of Iraq in the wake of an American withdrawal. It has become, to appropriate a phrase, a very complicated war.<br /><br />Whether or not this darkest of dark visions comes to pass, that very complicated war in Iraq, as the intelligence analysts and our own eyes tell us, will continue to pay vast dividends into the account of political grievances with which terrorist groups recruit. This has only partly to do with the original al-Qaida itself (or "al-Qaida prime," as some analysts now call it); for however much it has managed to "reconstitute" itself, the true game has moved elsewhere, toward "viral al-Qaida" -- "spontaneous groups of friends," in the words of former CIA analyst and psychiatrist Marc Sageman, "as in [the] Madrid and Casablanca [bombings], who have few links to any central leadership, [who] are generating sometimes very dangerous terrorist operations, notwithstanding their frequent errors and poor training."<br /><br />While U.S. and allied intelligence agencies have had considerable success attacking the various formal nodes of al-Qaida prime on the Arabian peninsula and elsewhere, those struggles have about them the air of the past; we have really passed into a different era, the era of the amateurs. Today's network is self-organized, Internet reliant and decentralized, dependent not on armies, training or even technology but on desire and political will. And we have ensured, by the way we have fought this forever war, that it is precisely these vital qualities our enemies have in large and growing supply.<br /><br />So how, finally, do we "take stock of the war on terror"? Let me suggest three words:<br /><br />1. Fragmentation -- brought about by "creative destabilization," as we see it not only in Iraq but in Lebanon, Palestine and elsewhere in the region;<br /><br />2. Diminution -- of American prestige, both military and political, and thus of American power;<br /><br />3. Destruction -- of the political consensus within the United States for a strong global role.<br /><br />Gaze for a moment at those three words and marvel at how far we have come in half a dozen years.<br /><br />In September 2001, the United States faced a grave threat. The attacks that have become synonymous with that date were unprecedented in their destructiveness, in their lethality, in the pure apocalyptic shock of their spectacle. But in their aftermath, American policymakers, partly through ideological blindness and preening exaggeration of American power, partly through blindness brought about by political opportunism, made decisions that led to a defeat only their own actions -- that only American power itself -- could have brought about.<br /><br />A small coven of America's enemies, using the strategy of provocation so familiar in guerrilla warfare, had launched in spectacular fashion on that bright September morning a plan to use the superpower's strength against itself. To use a different metaphor, they were trying to make good on Archimedes' celebrated boast: Having found the perfect lever and place to stand, they proposed to move the Earth. To an extent I am sure even they did not anticipate, in their choice of opponent -- an evangelical, redemptive regime scornful of history and determined to remake the fallen world -- lay the seeds of their success.<br /><br />This piece originally appeared on TomDispatch.com.<br />-- By Mark DannerTino Cogin of Samoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07995713740509502767noreply@blogger.com0