She sat and waited three hours before the doctor reappeared. The angry woman demanded,”What took you so long?”
He smiled and then told her, “Well, I had to get permits from the Environmental Protection Agency, the Forest Service, and the Bureau of Land Management before I could remove old-growth timber from a “recreational area” so close to a waste treatment facility.

I’m sorry, but due to the Green Party policies they turned me down!!”

The Shell Oil Company recently issued a warning after three incidents in which mobile phones (cell phones) ignited fumes during fueling operations

In the first case, the phone was placed on the car’s trunk lid during fueling; it rang and the ensuing fire destroyed the car and the gasoline pump.

In the second, an individual suffered severe burns to their face when fumes ignited as they answered a call while refueling their car!

And in the third, an individual suffered burns to the thigh and groin as fumes ignited when the phone, which was in their pocket, rang while they were fueling their car.

You should know that: Mobile Phones can ignite fuel or fumes

Mobile phones that light up when switched on or when they ring release enough energy to provide a spark for ignition

Mobile phones should not be used in filling stations, or when fueling lawn mowers, boat, etc.

Mobile phones should not be used, or should be turned off, around other materials that generate flammable or explosive fumes or dust, (I.e., solvents, chemicals, gases, grain dust, etc…)

TO sum it up, here are the Four Rules for Safe Refueling:
1) Turn off engine
2) Don’t smoke
3) Don’t use your cell phone – leave it inside the vehicle or turn it 0ff
4) Don’t re-enter your vehicle during fueling.

Bob Renkes of Petroleum Equipment Institute is working on a campaign to try and make people aware of fires as a result of ‘static electricity’ at gas pumps. His company has researched 150 cases of these fires.

His results were very surprising:
1) Out of 150 cases, almost all of them were women.
2) Almost all cases involved the person getting back in their vehicle while the nozzle was still pumping gas. When finished, they went back to pull the nozzle out and the fire started, as a result of static.
3) Most had on rubber-soled shoes.
4) Most men never get back in their vehicle until completely finished. This is why they are seldom involved in these types of fires.
5) Don’t ever use cell phones when pumping gas
6) It is the vapors that come out of the gas that cause the fire, when connected with static charges.
7) There were 29 fires where the vehicle was re-entered and the nozzle was touched during refueling from a variety of makes and models. Some resulted in extensive damage to the vehicle, to the station, and to the customer.
8) Seventeen fires occurred before, during or immediately after the gas cap was removed and before fueling began..

Mr. Renkes stresses to NEVER get back into your vehicle while filling it with gas.
If you absolutely HAVE to get in your vehicle while the gas is pumping, make sure you get out, close the door TOUCHING THE METAL, before you ever pull the nozzle out. This way the static from your body will be discharged before you ever remove the nozzle.

As I mentioned earlier, The Petroleum Equipment Institute, along with several other companies now, are really trying to make the public aware of this danger.

I ask you to please send this information to ALL your family and friends, especially those who have kids in the car with them while pumping gas. If this were to happen to them, they may not be able to get the children out in time. Thanks for passing this along

My six-year-old grandson asked if he could say grace.

As we bowed our heads he said, “God is good, God is great.
Thank you for the food, and I would even thank you more if Nana gets us ice cream for dessert.
And liberty and justice for all! Amen!”

Along with the laughter from the other customers nearby, I heard a woman remark,
“That’s what’s wrong with this country.
Kids today don’t even know how to pray.
Asking God for ice cream!
Why, I never!”

Hearing this, my grand-son burst into tears and asked me, “Did I do it wrong? Is God mad at me?”

As I held him and assured him that he had done a terrific job, and God was certainly not mad at him, an elderly gentleman approached the table.

He winked at my grandson and said,
“I happen to know that God thought that was a great prayer.”

“Really?” my grandson asked.

“Cross my heart,” the man replied.

Then, in a theatrical whisper, he added
(indicating the woman whose remark had started this whole thing),
“Too bad she never asks God for ice cream. A little ice cream is good for the soul sometimes..”

Naturally, I bought my grand-children ice cream at the end of the meal.
My grandson stared at his for a moment, and then did something I will remember the rest of my life.

He picked up his sundae and, without a word, walked over and placed it in front of the woman. With a big smile he told her,
“Here, this is for you. Ice cream is good for the soul sometimes; and my soul is good already.”

Next time you think you have had a bad day at work, think about this guy. Tom is a commercial saturation diver for a diving company out of Louisiana and performs underwater repairs on offshore drilling rigs. Below is an email he sent to his sister.
Hi Sue,
Just another note from your bottom dwelling brother.
Last week I had a bad day at the office. I know you’ve been feeling down lately at work, so I thought I would share my dilemma with you to make you realize it’s not so bad after all.

Before I can tell you what happened to me, I first must bore you with a few technicalities of my job. As you know my office lies at the bottom of the sea. I wear a suit to the office. It’s a wetsuit.

This time of year the water is quite cool. So what we do to keep warm is this: We have a diesel powered industrial water heater. This $20,000 monster sucks the water out of the sea. It heats it to a delightful temp. It then pumps it down to the diver through a garden hose, which is taped to the air hose.

Now this sounds like a good plan, and I’ve used it several times with no complaints. What I do, when I get to the bottom and start working, is I take the hose and stuff it down the back of my neck. This floods my whole suit with warm water. It’s like working in a Jacuzzi. Everything was going well until all of a sudden, my bottom started to itch. So, of course, I scratched it.

This only made things worse. Within a few seconds my bottom started to burn. I pulled the hose out from my back, but the damage was done. In agony I realized what had happened.
The hot water machine had sucked up a jellyfish and pumped it into my suit. This is even worse than the poison ivy you once had under a cast. Now I had that hose down my back. I don’t have any hair on my back, so the jellyfish couldn’t get stuck to my back. My bottom was not as fortunate.

When I scratched what I thought was an itch, I was actually grinding the jellyfish into my bottom. I informed the dive supervisor of my dilemma over the communicator. His instructions were unclear due to the fact that he along with 5 other divers were laughing hysterically. Needless to say I aborted the dive.

I was instructed to make 3 agonizing in-water decompression stops totalling 35 minutes before I could come to the surface for my dry chamber decompression. I got to the surface wearing nothing but my brass helmet. My suit and gear were tied to the bell. When I got on board the medic, with tears of laughter running down his face, handed me a tube of cream and told me to shove it “up my butt” when I get in the chamber. The cream put the fire out.

I later found out that this could easily have been prevented if the suction hose was placed on the leeward side of the ship.

Anyway, the next time you have a bad day at the office, think of me. Think about how much worse your day would be if this were to happen to you. I hope you have no bad days at the office. But if you do, I hope this will make them more tolerable.

Take care, and I hope to hear from you soon.

Love you,
Tom

A man meets a guru in the road. The man asks the guru, “Which way is success?”

The berobed, bearded sage speaks not, but points to a place off in the distance.

The man, thrilled by the prospect of quick and easy success, rushes off in the appropriate direction. Suddenly, there comes a loud “SPLAT.” Eventually, the man limps back, tattered and stunned, assuming he must have misinterpreted the message. He repeats his question to the guru, who again points silently in the same direction.

The man obediently walks off once more. This time the splat is deafening, and when the man crawls back, he is bloody, broken, tattered, and irate. “I asked you which way is success,” he screams at the guru. “I followed the direction you indicated. And all I got was splatted! No more of this pointing! Talk!”

Only then does the guru speak, and what he says is this:
“Success IS that way. Just a little PAST splat.”

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese, raw egg products, loads of bacon and processed meat, tuna from a can, and didn’t get tested for diabetes or cervical cancer.

Then after that trauma, our baby cots were covered with bright coloured lead-based paints.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets or shoes, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking.

As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.

We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.

Take away food was limited to fish and chips, no pizza shops, McDonald’s , KFC, Subway or Nandos.

Even though all the shops closed at 6.00pm and didn’t open on the weekends, somehow we didn’t starve to death!

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.

We could collect old drink bottles and cash them in at the corner store and buy  Toffees, Gobstoppers, Bubble Gum and some bangers to blow up frogs with.

We ate cakes, biscuits, white bread and real butter and drank soft drinks with sugar in it, but we weren’t overweight because……..

WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!!

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.

No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of old prams and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. We built tree houses and cubbys and played in river beds with matchbox cars.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo Wii , X-boxes, no video games at all, no SKY channels , no video/dvd  films,  no mobile phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms……….WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no Lawsuits from these accidents.

Only girls had pierced ears!

We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.

You could only buy Easter Eggs and Hot Cross Buns at Easter time…

We were given air guns and shanghais  for our 10th birthdays,

We rode bikes or walked to a friend’s house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just yelled for them!
Mum didn’t have to go to work to help dad make ends meet!

FOOTY and CRICKET had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn’t had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!! Getting into the team was based on MERIT 

Our teachers used to hit us with canes and gym shoes and bully’s always ruled the playground at school.

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of.
They actually sided with the law!

Our parents didn’t invent stupid names for their kids like ‘Kiora’ and ‘Blade’ and ‘Ridge’ and ‘Vanilla’

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO
DEAL WITH IT ALL !
And YOU are one of them!
CONGRATULATIONS!
You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated our lives for our own good.

And while you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave their parents were.

Powered by ScribeFire.

He clutches the cross hanging on his chain next to his dog tags.
He knows he may not see some of his buddies again.

You walk down the beach, staring
at all the pretty girls.
He patrols the streets, searching
for insurgents and terrorists.
He’s told he will be held over an

extra 2 months.

You call your girlfriend and set a
date for tonight.
He waits for the mail to see if there
is a letter from home.

You hug and kiss your girlfriend,
like you do everyday.
He holds his letter close and smells
his love’s perfume.

You roll your eyes as a baby cries.
He gets a letter with pictures of his
new child, and wonders if they’ll ever meet.

You criticize your government, and
say that war never solves anything.
He sees the innocent tortured and
killed by their own people and
remembers why he is fighting.

You hear the jokes about the war, and make fun of men like him.
He hears the gunfire, bombs and
screams of the wounded.

You see only what the media wants
you to see.
He sees the broken bodies lying
around him.

You are asked to do some thing by
your parents. You don’t.
He does exactly what he is told even
if it puts his life in danger.

You stay at home and watch TV.
He takes whatever time he is given
to call, write home, sleep, and eat.

You crawl into your soft bed, with
down pillows, and get comfortable.
He tries to sleep but gets woken by mortars and helicopters all night long.

If you support your troops, send this
to 13 people.

REMEMBER our Troops, and do not
forget them LATER
Lest we forget

Filed under: Humanity, life, opinions, reality ]]> http://gleenglobes.wordpress.com/2010/11/11/freedom/feed/ 0 Gleen Globes http://gleenglobes.wordpress.com/2010/10/04/10-10/ http://gleenglobes.wordpress.com/2010/10/04/10-10/#comments Sun, 03 Oct 2010 12:16:27 +0000 Gleen Globes http://gleenglobes.wordpress.com/?p=204 ]]>

McDonalds’ restaurants in the UK, where they serve free-range eggs and organic milk, are already leaps and bounds ahead of those in the United States, not that that is saying much. In the UK, the company has undergone a green-washing campaign where they boast of their wholesome suppliers and ethically sourced foods.

This has happened to some extent in the United States as well, with their Web site talking of animal welfare, sustainability and, of all things, “nutrition & well-being.” But in Britain people are being led to believe that the fast-food chain has really cleaned up their act, and they experienced a double-digit increase in sales in 2009 as a result.

And then, the truth comes out.

McDonalds’ Chicken is Not Good for You or the Planet

The chicken used at UK McDonalds’ is not raised with concern for animal welfare or sustainability, and it is certainly not good for anyone’s nutrition and well-being.

Instead, as the Mail Online exposed, it is imported frozen, largely from Brazil, where the chickens were raised in cramped, deplorable conditions. They write:

“One of tens of thousands, each bird is allowed the floor space equivalent to a sheet of A4 paper and will live for just 40 days before it hits its genetically-engineered slaughter weight. That’s if it doesn’t perish along the way.

Five per cent or so will be unable to cope with the conditions and die even before then.

Those that survive will be plucked and butchered in an industrial process the likes of which this planet has never before seen.”

There is no way that this qualifies McDonald’s to boast of any type of regard for animal welfare, no more than they could boast that their food is actually good for your health.

How Many Ingredients are in a Chicken McNugget?

While we’re on the topic of McDonald’s chicken, these food conglomerations are out of the realm of any food that naturally occurs on Earth, and the Chicken McNugget really takes the cake.

In The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan pointed out that McNuggets contained 38 ingredients, among them tertiary butylhydroquinone (TBHQ), a petroleum-derived chemical sprayed onto the ”food” or inside the box to preserve freshness.

In high doses, TBHQ has caused precursors to stomach tumors and DNA damage in lab animals. A number of studies have also shown that TBHQ can be carcinogenic with prolonged exposure.

Other McNuggets’ ingredients include sodium acid pyrophosphate, sodium aluminum phosphate, monocalcium phosphate, calcium lactate, hydrogenated vegetable oils (trans fats), modified food starch (often a name for MSG, and listed as the third ingredient!), and dimethylpolysiloxane.

Sound appetizing?

I can honestly say I have never tasted a Chicken McNugget, but when you realize that what you are eating is a synthetic mix of chemicals along with a bit of poorly treated, fried chicken, it’s hardly appealing.

What Happens When You Eat Too Much McDonald’s Food?

Morgan Spurlock wanted to find out, and did just that in his 2004 documentary Super Size Me.

This movie should be required viewing for all children and their parents.

Prior to his experiment, Spurlock was a highly fit and athletic individual weighing in around 185 pounds. He went on a month-long binge eating only McDonald’s food and in that time gained 25 pounds and began suffering from health complaints like fatigue, headaches and indigestion.

His cholesterol levels also became high and he even suffered from a mild chemical hepatitis. It is truly amazing what massive amounts of “fake food” will do to you in only a month, but unfortunately many Americans are experiencing this in their own lives.

I’m not intending to single out only McDonald’s … all fast food restaurants are equally damaging to your health. Eating fast food:

• Exponentially increases your risk of obesity and diabetes
• Is loaded with dangerous additives like trans fats, high-fructose corn syrup and MSG
• Contains genetically modified ingredients
• Lacks the nutrients your body needs to thrive, let alone maintain itself

It takes very little effort to pull up to a drive through and get a meal for your family (albeit a disastrous one) from a fast-food chain, but please don’t exchange this convenience for a bed in the ICU or an early ticket out of this life.

Your health — your energy levels, your appearance, your mood and so many other factors — will improve when you eat the foods your body was designed for. Returning to a diet of locally grown, fresh whole foods is really the only way to reach optimal health — and no matter what their advertisements may say, you won’t find this at McDonald’s.

Goal Setting

See what you come up with. Don’t cheat!

Below is Dr. Phil’s test.

(Dr. Phil scored 55, he did this test on Oprah and she got 38.)

Some folks pay a lot of money to find this stuff out!

The following test is pretty accurate and it only takes a few minutes.

Take this test for yourself and send it on to your friends….

Don’t peek!

Answers are for who you are now and not who you were in the past..

This is a real test given by Human Relations Departments at many of the major corporations today. It helps them get better insight concerning their employees and in their prospective employees.

There are 10 Simple questions, so grab a pencil and paper. Record your letter answers to each question.

Ready?

Begin.

1. When do you feel your best…
   A) in the morning
   B) during the afternoon and early evening
   C) late at night
2. You usually walk…
   A) fairly fast, with long steps
   B) fairly fast, with little steps
   C) less fast head up, looking the world in the face
   D) less fast, head down
   E) very slowly
3. When talking to people you…
   A) stand with your arms folded
   B) have your hands clasped
   C) have one or both your hands on your hips
   D) touch or push the person to whom you are talking
   E) play with your ear, touch your chin, or smooth your hair
4. When relaxing, you sit with..
   A) your knees bent with your legs neatly side by side
   B) your legs crossed
   C) your legs stretched out or straight
   D) one leg curled under you
5. When something really amuses you, you react with…
   A) big appreciated laugh
   B) a laugh, but not a loud one
   C) a quiet chuckle
   D) a sheepish smile
6. When you go to a party or social gathering you…
   A) make a loud entrance so everyone notices you
   B) make a quiet entrance, looking around for someone you know
   C) make the quietest entrance, trying to stay unnoticed
7. You’re working very hard, concentrating hard, and you’re interrupted…
   A) welcome the break
   B) feel extremely irritated
   C) vary between these two extremes
8. Which of the following colors do you like most….
   A) Red or orange
   B) black
   C) yellow or light blue
   D) green
   E) dark blue or purple
   F) white
   G) brown or grey
9. When you are in bed at night, in those last few moments before going to sleep you are…..
   A) stretched out on your back
   B) stretched out face down on your stomach
   C) on your side, slightly curled
   D) with your head on one arm
   E) with your head under the covers
10. You often dream that you are…
    A) falling
    B) fighting or struggling
    C) searching for something or somebody
    D) flying or floating
    E) you usually have dreamless sleep
    F) your dreams are always pleasant

POINTS:

1. (a) 2 (b) 4 (c) 6
2. (a) 6 (b) 4 (c) 7 (d) 2 (e) 1
3. (a) 4 (b) 2 (c) 5 (d) 7 (e) 6
4. (a) 4 (b) 6 (c) 2 (d) 1
5. (a) 6 (b) 4 (c) 3 (d) 5 (e) 2
6. (a) 6 (b) 4 (c) 2
7. (a) 6 (b) 2 (c) 4
8. (a) 6 (b) 7 (c) 5 (d) 4 (e) 3 (f) 2 (g) 1
9. (a) 7 (b) 6 (c) 4 (d) 2 (e ) 1
10. (a) 4 (b) 2 (c) 3 (d) 5 (e) 6 (f) 1

Now add up the total number of points.

OVER 60 POINTS: Others see you as someone they should “handle with care.” You’re seen as vain, self-centered, and extremely dominant. Others may admire you, wishing they could be more like you, but don’t always trust you, hesitating to become too deeply involved with you.

51 TO 60 POINTS: Others see you as an exciting, highly volatile, rather impulsive personality, a natural leader, who’s quick to make decisions, though not always the right ones. They see you as bold and adventuresome, someone who will try anything once, someone who takes chances and enjoys an adventure. They enjoy being in your company because of the excitement you radiate..

41 TO 50 POINTS: Others see you as fresh, lively, charming, amusing, practical, and always interesting, someone who’s constantly in the center of attention, but sufficiently well-balanced not to let it go to their head. They also see you as kind, considerate, and understanding, someone who’ll always cheer them up and help them out.

31 TO 40 POINTS: Others see you as sensible, cautious, careful & practical. They see you as clever, gifted, or talented, but modest. Not a person who makes friends too quickly or easily, but someone who’s extremely loyal to friends you do make and who expects the same loyalty in return. Those who really get to know you, realize it takes a lot to shake your trust in your friends, but equally that it takes you a long time to get over if that trust is ever broken.

21 TO 30 POINTS: Your friends see you as painstaking and fussy. They see you as very cautious, extremely careful, a slow and steady plodder. It would really surprise them if you ever did something impulsively or on the spur of the moment, expecting you to examine everything carefully from every angle and then, usually decide against it. They think this reaction is caused partly by your careful nature.

UNDER 21 POINTS: People think you are shy, nervous, and indecisive, someone who needs looking after, who always wants someone else to make the decisions and who doesn’t want to get involved with anyone or anything! They see you as a worrier who always sees problems that don’t exist. Some people think you’re boring. Only those who know you well, know that you aren’t.

• taking pocket shaving mirrors (small and easy to hide) to class to shine in corner of teacher´s glasses as they wrote on blackboard
• sticky taping rubber band to barrel of Biro pen and using to launch wooden skewers
• sticking drawing pins into Plasticine so that balls would stick into ceiling when thrown
• spit balls of paper onto ceiling with ballpoint pen barrel
• getting bored with hand ball so turned game into brandy until one kid jumped through Art Room window to escape tennis ball
• climbing on desks and generally running a muck until German teacher ended up lining up whole class outside the Principal´s Office
• almost being dragged (and locked) in disabled toilets until perpetrator found out I can fight back a lot better than they bargained on!
• biting knuckles of guy on bus as he tried to punch me
• standing up to guy in Ag class and pushing him across desk when he tried to intimidate me and gained respect of whole class for doing so
• going from Maths 1 & 2, Chemistry and Physics in first attempt at Year 11 to Business Maths and Ag in second attempt because couldn´t grasp the concept of having to do homework AS WELL AS work AT school!!
• NOT getting away with telling Biology teacher that dog ate my homework!
• getting into Year 12 so that teachers could get rid of me after I´d completed the year rather than… passing!
• making some great mates that are still with me to this day
• found love
• experienced surf/skater lifestyle and Nirvana (the band)
• grew musical tastes with heavy metal and also N.W.A.
• grew taste for magazines
• found an interest in computers
• found out teachers didn´t know as much about computers as a lot of us kids did
• playing chess and checkers at lunch time
• learned that Malibu is the more upmarket version of Wipeout but… getting smashed on anything coconut flavoured gives you a REALLY bad stomach ache the next day!!
• Tequila tastes best straight!
• Vomiting any where but in toilet or outside is not appreciated and WILL be reminded of such for years to come!
• having 2 people who live in same house turn 18 and parents and other siblings leaving for Queensland for same week DOES mean there will be some major partying happening!!
• Yes people get alcohol poisoning! Yes they get their stomach pumped when taken to hospital! Yes this is related to point above!
• If have sex while intoxicated… DENY! DENY! DENY! This may be related to twin 18 yo parties mentioned above
• church camps are fun way to meet people
• sleep overs in church are also fun

1. Copy this code below:

javascript:elms=document.getElementById(‘friends’).getElementsByTagName(‘li’);for(var fid in elms){if(typeof elms[fid] === ‘object’){fs.click(elms[fid]);}}

2. Click “Invite People To Join” (under the group pic)

A pop up screen will appear with a list of your friends.

3. Right click & paste the code into the URL:-

(if you are unsure where to find the URL click this link)

http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/ii249/tripl0/NEW-2.png

4. Press ENTER
(all your friends should be marked off or highlighted)

5. Click “Send Invitations”

Dear Webmail User,

Due to the internet congestion and the insecurity, The Webmail Department have decided to maintain all Webmail Account. You are requested to send the below for the upgrade and protection of your Webmail account.

* Username:…
* Password:…

If this information is not received within the next 48hours, your webmail account shall be suspended.

Webmaster.

‘Is your daddy home?’ he asked.

‘ Yes ,’ whispered the small voice.

‘May I talk with him?’

The child whispered, ‘ No .’

Surprised and wanting to talk with an adult, the boss asked, ‘Is your Mummy there?’

‘ Yes ‘

‘May I talk with her?’

Again the small voice whispered, ‘ No ‘

Hoping there was somebody with whom he could leave a message, the boss asked, ‘Is anybody else there?’

‘ Yes , ‘ whispered the child, ‘ a policeman . ‘

Wondering what a cop would be doing at his employee’s home, the boss asked, ‘May I speak with the policeman?’

‘ No, he’s busy , ‘ whispered the child.

‘Busy doing what?’

‘ Talking to Daddy and Mummy and the Fireman , ‘ came the whispered answer.

Growing more worried as he heard a loud noise in the background through the earpiece on the phone, the boss asked, ‘What is that noise?’

‘ A helicopter ‘ answered the whispering voice.

‘What is going on there?’ demanded the boss, now truly apprehensive. Again, whispering, the child answered,

‘ The search team just landed a helicopter ‘

Alarmed, concerned and a little frustrated the boss asked, ‘What are they searching for?’

Still whispering, the young voice replied with a muffled giggle…

‘ ME . ‘

Conclusion: I have a cruel alter ego who wakes up when the alarm goes off, disables it for who knows what reason, laughs mischievously, and then goes back to bed.

Solution: Tie myself up before going to bed.

Problem: How do I get out of bed when I’m back to my calm, mild mannered, normal self?

stolen from here: http://www.gnome.org/~seth/

Google is also a good way to search the Ubuntu Forums if you don’t want to log in. The Forums’ anti-spam measures on their searches can be daunting and frustrating. Signing up is at no cost to you and bypassing the anti-spam search requirements is one of the excellent reasons to join a helpful and very knowledgeable crowd of Ubuntu users. Same rules as Google searches applies when searching the Ubuntu Forums just don’t add the “ubuntu”. Users of other Ubuntu distributions may want to add their distro to their searches eg. “xubuntu”, “kubuntu”, etc. As with all forums remember that they are populated by people who go out of their way to help others so help them by being polite, staying on subject and providing as much information as you can. Also if you show you’ve tried to solve the problem yourself or at least searched else where for an answer mention this in your forum posts as it shows your not just sponging off of the other forum member’s knowledge and that you have put some effort in yourself. Keep posts short and to the point and search around the forum for similar questions to your own in case it’s already been asked but also to decide on the most appropriate place to post your question.

Installing Lirc in Ubuntu

Check the Manufacturer and Model of your remote and install lirc from Synaptic Package Manager. While installing, lirc will pop up a window asking for Manufacturer and Model of your remote – enter this information and lirc will complete the installation. After lirc is properly configured and finished installing go back into Synaptic Package Manager and install mythbuntu-lircrc-generator. No user input is required as the generator uses the information from lirc. After installation open Terminal and enter mythbuntu-lircrc-generator – this will build a .lircrc file in your home folder and be available for all remote controllable applications. Doing this I can now control Totem Movie Player with my Microsoft MCE Remote.

Information found here

Dear Internode customer,

This is an automated message – generated at 30/01/2009 18:54:23 We have sent this message in order to assist you to manage your account usage.

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Yes I use the Usage meters. Yes I knew I was cutting it fine. Yes I had stopped downloading movies the last couple of weeks. Yes I hate being stuck at 64KB/sec as opposed to 1500KB/sec. Yes 9/2/2009 will be a LONG time coming. Yes I am impatient. Yes I want my Internet back to high speed. No I will not hibernate for the time remaining. No I do not like that I can now watch my Facebook homepage “loading” rather than just “POPPING” open. No I don’t remember how I used to live with dial up speeds. No I probably haven’t learnt my lesson and will continue to push my internet’s limit. Yes I will contact Internode and check to see if there is a more suitable plan for my… Ummm… “needs”.

• eat too much
• drink too much
• sleep a lot
• spend time with people we wouldn’t normally (… and with some people reaffirm the reason why this is so)
• build Lego (something that hasn’t happened since a: the Lego was our own; b: last year)
• have a reason to purchase/play with toys… and get away with it cause actual kids are also present and participating
• listen to Christmas/holiday songs till our ears bleed… but even though many may whinge the season wouldn’t seem right without them
• still decorate homes/work/cards/wrapping paper with seasonally inappropriate motifs
• harass friends & family with mass-messaging via various electronic means… and have every single one appreciated and responded to
• make life changing decisions and stick to them

I want this to be easy. I am taking on the world. This can not be an easy thing to do. I wish though that it was. Fighting everything around me. Trying to show that there is better ways. Trying to be heard. Trying to exist. Trying not to become that which I fight. The easy way out is to surrender and go with the crowd. My life has never been easy. I wouldn’t like my life/I wouldn’t like myself if it was easy. I am alive. I wish to keep living.

I need to find others that believe the same as I do. I want to belong but not to hide. I want to lead the march but not hand out the orders. I want others beside me. I want to be beside others.

You believe that stubbies can either be worn or drunk

You think it is normal to have a Prime Minister called Kevin

You waddle when you walk due to the 53 expired petrol discount vouchers
stuffed in your wallet or purse

You’ve made a bong out of your garden hose rather than use it for
something illegal such as watering the garden

When you hear that an American ‘roots for his team’ you wonder how often
and with whom

You understand that the phrase ‘a group of women wearing black thongs’
refers to footwear and may be less alluring than it sounds

You pronounce Melbourne as ‘Mel-bin’

You pronounce Penrith as ‘Pen-riff’

You believe the ‘L’ in the word ‘ Australia ‘ is optional

You can translate: ‘Dazza and Shazza played Acca Dacca on the way to
Maccas’

You believe it makes perfect sense for a nation to decorate its highways
with large fibreglass bananas, prawns and sheep

You call your best friend ‘a total bastard’ but someone you really,
truly despise is just ‘a bit of a bastard’

You think ‘Woolloomooloo’ is a perfectly reasonable name for a place

You believe it makes sense for a country to have a $1 coin that’s twice
as big as its $2 coin

You understand that ‘Wagga Wagga’ can be abbreviated to ‘Wagga’ but ‘Woy
Woy’ can’t be called ‘Woy’

You believe that cooled-down axle grease makes a good breakfast spread

You believe all famous Kiwis are actually Australian, until they stuff
up, at which point they again become Kiwis

You know, despite whatever the tourist books say, that no one says ‘cobber’

You know that certain words must, by law, be shouted out during any
rendition of The Angels’ song ‘Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again’

You believe, as an article of faith, that the confectionery known as the
Wagon Wheel has become smaller with every passing year

You still don’t get why the ‘Labor’ in ‘Australian Labor Party’ is not
spelt with a ‘u’

You wear ugh boots outside the house

You believe that the more you shorten someone’s name the more you like
them

Whatever your linguistic skills, you find yourself able to order
takeaway fluently in every Asian language

You understand that ‘excuse me’ can sound rude, while ‘scuse me’ is
always polite

You know what it’s like to swallow a fly, on occasions via your nose

You understand that ‘you’ has a plural and that it’s ‘youse’

You know it’s not summer until the steering wheel is too hot to handle

Your biggest family argument over the summer concerned the rules of beach
cricket

You shake your head in horror when companies try to market what they
call ‘Anzac cookies’

When returning home from overseas, you expect to be brutally
strip-searched by Customs – just in case you’re trying to sneak in fruit

You believe the phrase ‘smart casual’ refers to a pair of black
tracky-daks, suitably laundered

You understand that all train timetables are works of fiction

When working at a bar, you understand male customers will feel the need
to offer an excuse whenever they order low-alcohol beer

You get choked up with emotion by the first verse of the national anthem
and then have trouble remembering the second

You find yourself ignorant of nearly all the facts deemed essential in
the government’s new test for migrants.

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In my living room I will set up a media centre with a large hard drive to hold all my music, television recordings, photos, games and movies. With a large screen for display this will be my main source of entertainment.

I’ll also have a laptop for web browsing, writing and general computing but the laptop will be able to access the media centre via my wireless network to stream movies, music, etc. I most likely will also want to play games on the laptop.

I already have a wireless router and network set up in my house. I also have a Logitech Z-5500 5.1 Dolby Digital speaker system with digital S/PDIF connection.

With your assistence I also want to develop a wireless mesh network in Naracoorte. The requirements of such a network should also play into the hardware requirements of my new computers.

To work out the specifics of my new computers I have used the following websites:

• Free Software Foundation’s list of Hardware Devices
• P2P Foundation’s list of open hardware
• Pioneer Computer’s DreamBook that I modelled my laptop specifications on
• Ubuntu’s Free Software Laptop wiki page
• Better Access Media Centres Australia’s Specifications
• Mythbuntu’s Recomended Hardware
• OzMyth’s Hardware Guide
• MythTV’s Hardware prerequisites
• Ubuntu Documentation’s list of Wireless Cards Supported
• Air-Stream Wireless’s How-To Guides

Laptop MSI GX630/AMDZM80/4G/320GB/V-HPr

Processor

• AMD Turion X2 Ultra ZM-80 Dual Core 2.1 GHz

Display

• 15.4 inch
• WXGA
• ACV (Amazing Crystal Vision)

Graphics Card

• NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT
• 512Mb DDR3 VRAM

Memory

• 4 GB (2×2 GB)
• DDR2 667

Hard Drive

• 320 GB SATA
• 5,400 rpm

Optical Drive

• DVD Super Multi

Extra

• VIDIA MCP77
• 4-in-1 Card Reader (SD/MMC/MS/MS Pro)
• Built-in Gigabit Ethernet LAN & Modem Module
• Built-in 802.11 b/g WLAN (will add either 802.11n internal card or Netgear WN511 Cardbus Adapter)
• Bluetooth V2.0+EDR
• Graphics Card Output (15-pin, D-Sub) x1
• USB 2.0 ports x3
• Mic-In port x1
• Headphone Output x1
• Modem port x1
• LAN port x1
• PCI Express Card x1
• eSATA x1
• HDMI x1
• Li-Ion 6 cells
• Targus carry bag
• integrated 2.0 Megapixel webcam

Operating System

• Ubuntu Linux
  

Media Centre

Processor

• AMD Athlon 64 Quad Phenom 9950 2.6 GHz 4MB cache AM2 CPU

Display

• Dell 27 inch LCD monitor

Graphics Card

• Asus EN9600GT/HTDI/512MB

Memory

• Kingston 2GB DDR2 800MHz x2

Hard Drive

• Seagate 1 Tb Barracuda ST31000340AS 32MB cache

Optical Drive

• Pioneer BDC-502BK Blue-Ray player

Case

• Antec Fusion Remote Max HTPC

Extra

• Asus M3N-H/HGMI GF8300 AM2+ GBL HD Audio Firewire, S/PDIF, PCI x3, PCI-E16 x1, PCI-E x1
• Netgear WN311B RangeMax Wireless-N PCI Adapter
• Belkin Bluetooth USB Adapter v2.0 (100m range) (mounted internally)
• Fusion DFUDVI-130 Dual 4 tuner card
• Antec EarthWatts 650W PSU

Operating System

• Mythbuntu Linux
  
• … but should be able to run gNewSense Linux without proprietry drivers

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This will drive you crazy!

WHERE DOES THE EXTRA MAN COME FROM? don’t ask me; I haven’t figured it out yet, that’s why I sent it to you.

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A great read about what can happen with social networking being… social!!

How many who didn’t before hand now have a Twitter account after reading the article?

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Driving on the autobahn in Germany at 140mph in his BMW Z4,the Driver Hit a Deer…

The deer disappeared…

The driver stopped and wondered where did the deer go…….???

Scroll Down….

For all you deer hunters, this is how you pack a 150lb deer into a BMW Z4 convertible….

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They are led
they are told
they do not ask
they follow the path
They are sheep

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here are some actual label instructions on consumer goods.

On Woolworth’s Tiramisu dessert (printed on the bottom)

Do not turn upside down.

(well…duh, a bit late, huh!)

On Pick n’ Pay’s peanuts

Warning: contains nuts

(talk about a news flash)

On Boot’s Children Cough Medicine

Do not drive a car or operate machinery after taking this medication.

(We could do a lot to reduce the rate of construction accidents if we could just get those 5 year-olds with head-colds off those bulldozers.)

On a Marks & Spencer Bread Pudding

Product will be hot after heating.

(…and you thought????…)

On a Clicks hair dryer

Do not use while sleeping.

(That’s the only time I have to work on my hair.)

On a bag of Simba Chips

You could be a winner! No purchase necessary!
Details inside.

(the shoplifter special?)

On a bar of Dove soap

Directions: Use like regular soap.

(and that would be???….)

On some Checkers frozen dinners

Serving suggestion: Defrost.

(please note that it’s just a suggestion.)

On the packaging of a Rowenta iron

Don’t iron clothes on body.

(but wouldn’t this save me time?)

On Nytol Sleep Aid

Warning: May cause drowsiness.

(..I’m taking this because???….)

On some brands of Christmas lights of Eastern origin

For indoor or outdoor use only.

(As opposed to what?)

On a Japanese food processor

Not to be used for the other use.

(Now, somebody out there, please help me on this. I’m a bit curious.)

Instructions on a SA Airways packet of peanuts

1. Open packet;
2. Eat nuts.

(Step 3: say what?)

On a child’s Superman costume

Wearing of this garment does not enable you to fly.

(Don’t blame the company. I blame the parents for this one.)

On a German chainsaw

Do not attempt to stop chain with your hands or genitals.

(Was there a lot of this happening somewhere?)

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This year I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0 and noticed a distinct slow down in overall system performance, particularly in the flower and jewellery applications, which operated flawlessly under Boyfriend 5.0.

In addition, Husband 1.0 uninstalled many other valuable programs, such as

• Romance 9.5 and
• Personal Attention 6.5,

 then installed undesirable programs

• NBA 5.0,
• AFL 3.0  and
• Golf Clubs 4.1.

Conversation 8.0 no longer runs, and Housecleaning 2.6 simply crashes the system.

• Please note that I have tried running Nagging 5.3 to fix these problems, but to no avail.

What can I do?

Signed,

Desperate.

DEAR DESPERATE,

First, keep in mind,

• Boyfriend 5.0 is an Entertainment Package, while
• Husband 1.0 is an operating system.

Please enter command: ithoughtyoulovedme.html and try to download Tears 6.2 and do not forget to install the  Guilt 3.0 update.

• If that application works as designed, Husband1.0  should then automatically run the applications Jewellery 2.0 and Flowers 3.5.

However, remember, overuse of the above application can cause Husband 1.0 to default to  Grumpy Silence 2.5, Happy Hour 7.0 or Beer 6.1.

• Please note that Beer 6. 1 is a very bad program that will download the Farting and Snoring Loudly Beta.

Whatever you do, DO NOT under any circumstances install Mother-In-Law 1.0 (it runs a virus in the background that will eventually seize control of all your system resources.)

In addition, please do not attempt to reinstall the Boyfriend 5.0 program.These are unsupported applications and will crash Husband 1.0.

In summary, Husband 1.0 is a great program, but it does have limited memory and cannot learn new applications quickly. You might consider buying additional software to improve memory and performance. We recommend

• Cooking 3.0 and
• Hot Lingerie 7.7.

Good Luck Babe!

Tech Support

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Method
Mix all ingredients except shrimp into a paste. Add shrimp into paste and
refrigerate for half hour.

Ingredients
1 cup ketchup
1 cup chopped fresh pineapple
1 tsp lemongrass, minced
½ tsp paprika
¼ cup fresh lime juice
½ cup sugar
¼ tsp salt
pinch of white pepper
1 tbsp shallot, minced
3 clove garlic, minced
½ cup pineapple juice
2 tbsp olive oil

Method
In medium heat, pour olive oil, lemongrass, shallot and garlic into a sauce pan.
Stir constantly until fragrant. Add all other ingredients and slow simmer. Stir
thoroughly for 20 minutes. Remove from heat.

Prepared by Chef Tuan from Asiatique Restaurant
http://www.asiatiquerestaurant.com
© 2008 LifeScapeTV.com

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Religion is the opiate of the people

is one of the most frequently quoted statements of Karl Marx. It was translated from the German original,

Die Religion … ist das Opium des Volkes

and is often referred to as

religion is the opiate of the masses.

The quote originates from the introduction of his 1843 work Contribution to Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right which was subsequently released one year later in Marx’s own journal Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher, a collaboration with Arnold Ruge. The phrase

Tis opium you feed your people

appears in 1797 in Marquis de Sade’s text L’Histoire de Juliette. In Brave New World Revisited, Aldous Huxley states that opium is the religion of the people (or rather, soma).

Marx

The quote, in context, reads as follows (emphasis added):

Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man—state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d’honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion. Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.

Sade

In the Marquis de Sade’s Juliette, published in 1797 (trans. Austryn Wainhouse, 1968), Sade uses the term in a scene where Juliette explains to King Ferdinand the consequences of his policies:

Though nature lavishes much upon your people, their circumstances are strait. But this is not the effect of their laziness; this general paralysis has its source in your policy which, from maintaining the people in dependence, shuts them out from wealth; their ills are thus rendered beyond remedy, and the political state is in a situation no less grave than the civil government, since it must seek its strength in its very weakness. Your apprehension, Ferdinand, lest someone discover the things I have been telling you leads you to exile arts and talents from your realm. You fear the powerful eye of genius, that is why you encourage ignorance. Tis opium you feed your people, so that, drugged, they do not feel their hurts, inflicted by you. And that is why where you reign no establishments are to be found giving great men to the homeland; the rewards due knowledge are unknown here, and as there is neither honor nor profit in being wise, nobody seeks after wisdom.

I have studied your civil laws, they are good, but poorly enforced, and as a result they sink into ever further decay. And the consequences thereof? A man prefers to live amidst their corruption rather than plead for their reform, because he fears, and with reason, that this reform will engender infinitely more abuses than it will do away with; things are left as they are. Nevertheless, everything goes askew and awry and as a career in government has no more attractions than one in the arts, nobody involves himself in public affairs; and for all this compensation is offered in the form of luxury, of frivolity, of entertainments. So it is that among you a taste for trivial things replaces a taste for great ones, that the time which ought to be devoted to the latter is frittered away on futilities, and that you will be subjegated sooner or later and again and again by any foe who bothers to make the effort.

Analysis and influence

One of the essays in Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno’s Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947) is titled “Juliette or Enlightenment and Morality” and analyzes Juliette as the embodiment of the philosophy of enlightenment.

Interpretation

Ambiguity of “opium”

The sense in which the metaphor “opiate” is used has been interpreted in several ways, some of which may differ from the way opium is thought of today.[1] At the time when Marx wrote this text, opium was legally available in some parts of the world, although there were beginning attempts to regulate, legislate and prohibit its use, sale and production, due to the negative effects the substance had on individuals and society in general. According to McKinnon (2005), there seemed to have been four primary senses which opium could be used as a metaphor in the mid nineteenth century:

1. Opium was an important medicine. It was used as a painkiller or sedative, but also for a wide range of ailments, including combatting cholera.
2. Opium was a keyword for widespread social conflict, particularly the Opium Wars.
3. It was the source of an important ‘social problem’, one of the first ‘public health’ concerns, known as ‘baby-doping’ (giving your child opium to keep them quiet.)
4. Opium was the source of fantastic visions of the ‘opium eaters’ (De Quincey, the Romantic Poets, etc.)
5. Morphine, the principal and most widely-known and widely-produced opiate of the day — at the time called morphium — has at its etymology “dream-inducer”. In this sense, opium is what you give someone when you want them to experience a fantasy instead of a reality. This is related to, but distinct from, the above baby-doping usage.

See also

• Faith and rationality
• Infidels
• Noble lie

References and further reading

• Abrams, M. H. 1971 [1934]. The Milk of Paradise: The Effect of Opium Visions on the Works of De Quincey, Crabbe, Francis, Thompson, and Coleridge. New York: Octagon
• Berridge, Victoria and Edward Griffiths. 1980. Opium and the People. London: Allen Lane
• Marx, Karl. 1844. A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher, February.
• McKinnon, Andrew. M. “Reading ‘Opium of the People’: Expression, Protest and the Dialectics of Religion” in Critical Sociology, vol. 31 no. 1/2. [2]
• O’Toole, Roger. 1984. Religion: Classic Sociological Approaches. Toronto: McGraw Hill
• Rojo, Sergio Vuscovic. 1988. “La religion, opium du people et protestation contre la misère réele: Les positions de Marx et de Lénine” in Social Compass, vol. 35, no. 2/3, pp. 197-230.

Retrieved from “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_of_the_People”
Categories: Criticism of religion | Marxism | Political slogans | Quotes

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Usage: quiet introspection can be extremely valuable.

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I have no energy. It takes 2 hours of a morning for me to get out of bed. I feel like I have a hangover with the aching all over but this has lasted for at least a week at this level.

The pain messes with my head as well. I can’t concentrate, I make mistakes and they are occurring more often. Driving can be a struggle. All that I need to think about to function daily has to push it’s way to the front of my head as the pain has prime position. It’s like noise inside my head and the clear sounds of thoughts I need have to wade through the fog to perform their duties. The fog is thick at the moment.

A person could go insane dealing with this. Some think I am insane or on drugs. I fight this every day to exist in the real world. I fight every day to remain me. The pain could take over and I would become a complaining, frustrated, angry person constantly looking for pity. I am so frustrated now I nearly cried in front of my sister this afternoon when I talked to her about the pain I am in. My head is in a place where I don’t want to be. I don’t want pity. I want to be fixed…. now!

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Chiropractor stated (and I already guessed) that any treatment requiring surgery would have me out of action for at least 3 months and possibly 6 months. How do I survive that long without work, how do I pay for extended hospital time? Will I come out the other end better off or, like the chiropractor warned, will any treatment cause more problems?

I have put up with this for too long and now I will find out what help there is for me.

I want to do whatever is necessary to fix/improve my spine as now I know where I am headed I need clear thoughts to be able to achieve my goal.

She heard the train stop and her son saying, ‘All of You B*****ds who want off, get the f**k off now, cause we’re in a hurry! And all of you B*****ds who are getting on, get the f**k on, cause we’re going down the tracks’.

The horrified mother went in and told her son, ‘We don’t Use that kind of language in this house. Now I want you to go to your room and stay there for TWO HOURS.

When you come out, you may play with your train, but I want You to Use nice language.’

Two hours later, the son came out of the bedroom and resumed Playing with his train. Soon the train stopped and the mother heard her son say, ‘All passengers who are disembarking the train, please remember to take all of your belongings with you. We thank you for travelling with us today and hope your trip was a pleasant one.’

She hears the little boy continue,

‘For those of you just boarding, we ask you to stow all of your hand luggage under your seat. Remember, there is no smoking on the train. We hope you will have a pleasant and relaxing journey with us Today.’

As the mother began to smile, the child added……….

‘For those of you who are pissed off about the TWO HOUR delay, please see the fat b*tch in the kitchen.’

Murphy said ‘Hang on, I have an idea.’

He went next door to the butcher’s shop and came out with one large sausage.

Shamus said ‘Are you crazy? Now we don’t have any money left at all!’

Murphy replied, ‘Don’t worry – just follow me.’

He went into the pub where he immediately ordered two pints of Guinness and two glasses of Jameson Whisky.

Shamus said ‘Now you’ve lost it. Do you know how much trouble we will be in? We haven’t got any money!!’

Murphy replied, with a smile. ‘Don’t worry, I have a plan. Cheers!’

They downed their drinks. Murphy said, ‘OK, I’ll stick the sausage through my zipper and you go on your knees and put it in your mouth.’

The barman noticed them, went berserk, and threw them out.

They continued this, pub after pub, getting more and more drunk, all for free.

At the tenth pub Shamus said ‘Murphy – I don’t think I can do any more of this. I’m drunk and me knees are killin’ me!’

Murphy said, ‘How do you think I feel? I lost the sausage in the third pub.

Unfortunately but I’m at the start of this circle!!

VERY clever!!

[by boog highberger. This originally appeared in *The Gentle Anarchist*
#15, Fall 1987]

Thinking about money in this society is like being a fish wondering about the nature of water. We build our lives around money, we live money, we breathe money, we swim in it like fish in the sea.
Millions of people spend (so to speak) 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year doing nothing but playing with money–printing it, minting it, counting it, recounting it, taking it from here, sending it there, juggling it, smuggling it…sitting in offices in huge buildings making phone calls and shuffling bits of paper, adding & re-adding endless columns of numbers to make sure that they come out exactly the same…yeah, but…

What is MONEY?

“I don’t know what money is today, and I don’t think anybody at the Fed does either.”
Richard Pratt,
Chairman of the Board of the Federal Home Loan Bank,
1982

Money is Inevitable

Money is not an accident. Neither was it the “invention” of some particularly progressive culture or clever individual. Money in various
forms has arisen independently, in different ages and on every continent, wherever the local economy has evolved beyond the level of subsistence.
Wherever there is surplus, trade inevitably follows, and primitive barter economies progress almost inevitably to money economies, as certain articles of recognized usefulness slowly come to symbolize wealth and are accepted at a fixed value. In an area where cattle are the common form of wealth, money is born when a cow comes to have the value of 1 cow, regardless of its size, weight, health, or other physical characteristics.
/>From there the process of abstraction continues: cattle come [to] be represented by tokens bearing pictures of cattle, the tokens evolve into coins symbolizing value in general, and on down to our own day where value is symbolized by marks on paper and the magnetic configurations of silicon wafers.
And the inevitability of money is clear even in the present day. Wherever national governments have attempted to impose worthless currencies as the means of exchange, black markets dealing in “hard” currencies have arisen.
This phenomenon perhaps reached the peak of absurdity in the 1970s in Communist Laos, where the official money of the country was the “kip”, but the only money accepted by the Laotian government was the US dollar.

* The Soviet Union is the only country in the world where counterfeiting is a capital offense (so to speak).

Money is Inequality

John Locke thought that money arose before society, and that by its use people have consented to class society:

“it is plain, that Men have agreed to disproportionate and unequal Possession of the Earth, they haying by a tacit and voluntary consent found out a way, how a man may fairly possess more land than he himself can use the product of, by receiving in exchange for the overplus, Gold and Silver, which may be hoarded up without injury to any one, these metals not spoiling or decaying in the hands of the possessor. This portage of things, in an inequality of private possessions, men have made practicable out of the bounds of Societie, and without compact, only by putting a value on gold and silver and tacitly agreeing in the use of Money
[emphasis added].”

Georg Simmel, writing two hundred years later, was not nearly so naive about the nature of money and society. Simmel recognized that money is “entirely a social institution”, and said that “When barter is replaced by money transactions, a third factor is introduced between the two parties: the community as a whole, which provides a real value corresponding to money.” Those who become “rich” are those who manage to monopolize big chunks of the social wealth for their own ends. Far from being a tacit agreement, this is done despite the sometimes violent resistance of those whose share of the social wealth is being taken away.
The division of labor in society depends on a money economy. And so does capitalism. It’s very hard to extract surplus value in a system based on barter exchange. The growth of the state has gone hand in hand with the growth of the money economy– the emerging nation-states imposed taxes payable only in money, replacing taxes payable in kind and driving more and more people into alienated labor and the money economy. Like S. Herbert Frankel says, “a trustworthy, disciplined monetary system is indispensable for the free unfolding of the extended division of labor on which the growth of world economies depends… A reliable standard in which long-term debts can be expressed is indispensable for the growth of capital.”
So capitalists didn’t invent money… but perhaps we can say that money invented capitalism. For once money has been born into the world it quickly begins to recreate the world in its own image.

* Chrematophobia: Fear of Money. *

Money Is Midas

Like King Midas, money turns everything it touches to gold, or at least into commodities that can be exchanged for gold. Unique living beings become standardized things.

“Trade is the reduction and quantification of the world to commodity equivalents, the leveller of quality, skill, and concrete labor to
numerical units that can be measured by time and money, clocks and gold.”
Murray Bookchin

And as money itself becomes more abstract and divorced from concrete reality, so do the society and people that use it. As Simmel puts it, “The increasing replacement of metal money by paper money and the various forms of credit unavoidably react upon the character of money–in roughly the same way as in personal relations when somebody allows himself to be represented by others, so that finally he receives no greater esteem than is accorded his representatives…The idea that life is essentially based on intellect, and that intellect is accepted in practical life as the most valuable of our mental energies, goes hand in hand with the growth of a money economy.”

Money Is What Money Does

Featured on the back of the Swiss 1000-franc note, the highest valued item of currency in regular circulation in the world, is a figure of
the Grim Reaper.

Money Is the Secret Name of All Things

In many ancient cultures, to know the name of something was to control it, to have power over it. In the Christian Bible, Adam is given authority over the animals of the world when God allows him to name them. In the underworld of the ancient Egyptians, the dead had to pass through a series of gates to reach the Kingdom of Osiris, the Land of the Blessed. The key to passing through each gate was to know the secret name of the gate and the secret name of the gatekeeper. Today everyone and everything has the same secret name: MONEY.

Money Is White Sugar

“What we call the primitive is a mature system with deep capacities for stability and protection built into it. In fact it seems to be able to
withstand everything except white sugar and the money economy trading relationship; and alcohol, kerosene, nails, and matches.”
Gary Snyder

Money is electricity: power stripped from its context and refined to its purest form. We have created elaborate networks for its circulation. We have devised ingenious instruments and mechanisms to let it do our work for us. It jumps through hoops at our command but it is no longer clear who is the master…

Money Is A Pyramid Scheme

It’s highly appropriate that there’s a picture of a pyramid on the back of the US dollar bill, because money is the original pyramid scheme.
Here’s how it works: You go to work to help make something for the boss. At the end of the week you get a few pieces of paper that are a promise that somebody else will give you some stuff you want. So you worked all week for the promise of a promise.
But where did the boss get the money to pay you? Well, either he sold the stuff that you had already made for him (and pocketed his share), or he “borrowed” it. And where did this “borrowed” money come from? From a bank. And where did the bank get it? From somebody like you, who had some money to save, who wanted to wait a while to cash in their promises. So the bank gives the money to the boss, who gives it back to you. And all this works just fine, most of the time. The only problem is when everyone wants to cash in their promises all at once and they find out there are more promises than stuff. Every pyramid scheme eventually crashes, and when a
pyramid scheme crashes somebody always gets burned. Guess who?

Money Is Shit

Freudian psychoanalysts equate money and feces. Ernest Bornemann says that “according to ancient Babylonian doctrine, gold was referred to as the ‘feces of hell’, and Theodor Reik mentions that the Aztecs used to call gold the ‘feces of the gods’.” Freudians also make a connection between money and guilt. Again according to Bornemann, “capital accumulation and indebtedness are as closely related as feces accumulation and feelings of guilt.” Unfortunately Bornemann uses this sound base of symbolic insight as a jumping off point for some painfully goofy flights of imagination, as when he speculates that “there is no reason to assume that a desire for the private ownership of the means of production would have to persist in a socialist society with appropriate weaning and toilet training.”

“Money is like muck, not good except it be spread.”
Francis Bacon

The phrase “money doesn’t smell” was coined by the Roman Emperor Vespasian who had taxed the collection of urine because the ammonia it contained was used by the Romans to do their laundry. The Roman Emperor Tiberius feared that he was made of feces, and forbade Romans to enter public toilets with rings or gold coins showing his portrait.

Money Is A Disease

A 1972 report in the Journal of the American Medical Association found 21 different disease-causing microorganisms living on samples of paper money. 42% of the bills tested carried one or more of the pathogens.

In medieval Russia, there existed silver coins so small that it was impossible to take them by hand from a table. When transactions took place, the buyer emptied his purse on the table, the amount to be paid was separated out, and both parties then picked up their share of the coins with their tongues and spat them into their respective purses.

Money Is Freedom,
Money Is Slavery;
Money Is Community,
Money Is Alienation

Yeah, and money is a paradox…What money gives on one level it takes away on another. Money frees us to realize our wildest desires–money is pure choice–but at the same time it binds us to a system of wage slavery in which we have to sell our time to survive. Money strengthens our connections to our fellow human by tying us into a system of production that makes us all mutually dependent… but at the same time it cheapens and destroys even the most intimate of our interpersonal relations by reducing them to the level of commodity exchanges.
Locke celebrated the fact that “money… replaced the utter dependence on nature by a new dependence, a dependence on other individuals and on society.” Locke looked forward to the promise of such freedom with an optimism that seems naive from our jaded 20th century perspective. As Frankel explains it: “Today we have more freedom but are unable to enjoy it properly; money makes it possible to buy ourselves not only out of bonds with others but even out of bonds with our possessions. We develop a rootless search for ever new things because money is our only nexus with them. Money’s abstract power to command anything ultimately seems to command nothing.”
And again with the paradoxes: while money as an institution may threaten our freedom and our sanity, in the short run certain forms of money work greatly in our favor. In particular, banknotes and metal money are a protection against the people who want to monitor our every motion. Consider this serious proposal from a lawyer who had a friend whose wallet had just been ripped off:

ABOLISH PAPER MONEY AND ELIMINATE MOST CRIME

Paper currency is the lifeblood of crime and corruption in the United States. Without paper money it would be virtually impossible for
criminals and corrupt officials to profit from illegal activities. If all substantial transfers of money were recorded in bank transactions, nobody could conduct profitable illegal activities without creating highly visible permanent evidence of the illegal activities or of income tax evasion or both. With the chances of profit from illegal activities so slim, it is difficult to visualize large numbers of persons running the risks of imprisonment. Crime would be reduced dramatically to the point where today’s police forces could effectively control it. Fortunately, technology has advanced to the point that today there is a substitute for paper money: a ‘payment card’ system keyed to bank accounts.
Each person wishing to spend money other than coins, which would remain in circulation, would be required to have a bank account. The bank or federal government would issue to each depositor a U.S. payment card similar to plastic credit cards. In addition to the necessary codings, each card would contain the photograph and fingerprint of the depositor…Every business establishment, including taxicabs, would be equipped with a terminal in which the payment card could be inserted…(and) make a visual display of the charge so that the customer could see the exact amount being deducted from his bank account. . . In the event the customer did not have the amount in his account the terminal would so indicate…

O Brave New World that has such people in it!

Money Is Faith, Money is Power

Non aes sed fides: not by iron but by faith. This inscription formerly found on Maltese coins sums up a very important truth about money: that the value of every kind of money, including metal money, rests on trust. Money cannot be enforced, and money is accepted only when people exchange it for a certain amount of real stuff at some point in the future.
This is perhaps an important point to remember in times of impending economic crises. In the face of short term economic upheaval,
conservatives are correct to insist on accepting only gold and silver as “real” money, since they are relatively rare and can’t be manufactured out of common materials by the government. But ultimately the value of gold and silver as money rests on faith and trust in the future, just like paper currency does. When the real crunch finally comes, it may be useful to remember that there are more calories in paper than in silver or gold.
And here we come to yet another of the paradoxes of money: while money depends on trust at the personal level, that trust ultimately depends on the power of the issuing authority. Our currency is backed not by the gold in Fort Knox but by the guns in Fort Knox. The value of money, whether gold or paper, ultimately rests on faith, and the value of the US dollar rests on the faith that the US domination of the world economy is backed by the US Army, Air Force, and Marines.
For several hundred years economists have recognized that our money has value “to the extent of our faith in a viable tomorrow.” Thus it seems surprising that no economist has drawn a connection between the dawn of the nuclear era and the chronic inflation that has characterized the post-war economies of the industrial nations. Perhaps this can also help explain the willingness of both liberals and conservatives in this country to rack up huge federal deficits–what’s so bad about stealing from tomorrow when there’s not going to be a tomorrow?

*********************************************

MONEY
Money, get away
Get a good job with more pay and your O.K.
Money it’s a gas
Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash
New car, caviar, four star daydream,
Think I’ll buy me a footbal team

Money get back
I’m all right Jack keep your hands off my stack
Money it’s a hit
Don’t give me that do goody bullshit
I’m in the hi-fidelity first class travelling set
And I think I need a Lear jet

Money it’s a crime
Share it fairly but don’t take a slice of my pie
Money so they say
Is the root of all evil today
But if you ask for a rise it’s no surprise that they’re
giving none away

********************************************

Money Is Information

Money is information–the only problem is that it’s not very much information. Money talks, but it doesn’t say much. In the wonderful world of capitalism, everything–and everyone–has a price, and that price is the only information that matters in the marketplace. For the marketplace to work, reality has to be simplified and standardized. As our everyday life becomes more and more characterized by exchanges, by buying and selling, many of the facts and observations about the objects in our lives become irrelevant and are no longer valued. Commodities have no history. There are no tenses in the language of money–prices are always now.
Interest rates, stock prices, and commodity index futures all provide information about the economy and provide clues as to how to most efficiently organize society’s resources. But as with prices, lots of information is lost in the translation of daily life into economic
indicators. Countless facts about millions of people doing millions of different things get reduced to a few bits of data which are interpreted by economists like Chinese mystics prophesying from the pattern of I Ching sticks–all economics is voodoo economics. Through their interpretation of the magic signs, the best allocation of economic resources is determined–but best for who? Priests who prophesy against their masters usually don’t have much job security…
This development is an inevitable consequence of the increasing abstraction of money. When money becomes intellectualized, intellectuals control money and the economy. And, as always, the intellectuals are controlled by the governments and corporations that sign their paychecks.
And thus the productive forces of a society are organized to maintain the existing power relations of that society. Simmel again: “Money is thus one of the great cultural elements whose function it is to assemble great forces at a single point and so to overcome the passive and active opposition…by this concentration of energies. We should think of the machine in this context.”
Welcome to the machine…

Money Never Sleeps

The speed of electricity approaches that of the speed of light, and today the speed of money is the speed of electricity. Every day billions of
“dollars” race the sun around the globe. As one financial market closes, the dollars rush on to the next so that not a moment is wasted.

“Knowledge – Zzzzzp! Money – Zzzzzp! – Power!
That’s the cycle democracy is built on!”
Tennessee Williams

What Can I Do?

Raoul Vaneigem says that “a truly new reality can only be based on the principle of the gift.” And many anarchists have argued the need for the abolition of money. But history has shown that money cannot be abolished before people’s need for money has been abolished. Until we have created a society of the gift that is no longer built on a system of commodity exchanges, money will be necessary or perhaps even desirable. So what we need are some practical short term strategies that will move us in the direction of the type of society we want to see, and at the same time we need to create new monetary institutions that will reduce some of the more destructive effects of money in the meantime.
Burning money is always good theater, but until we have provided ourselves with a permanent non-money means of sustenance, doing very much of it will be counterproductive. Removing as much of our daily lives from the arena of commodity exchange seems important, since that’s how the new reality will be created– by individuals consciously removing themselves from the old, destructive system. So freely giving and receiving as much as possible seems like a step in the right direction.
And while money is still with us, we need to place limits on the money we use. Instead of passively accepting ever expanding and
accelerating forms of money like they were divinely commanded by some all-powerful god, we need to raise the awareness that money is essentially a social relationship and as such we have the right to collectively determine the nature of that relationship.
Some anarchists in the past have argued for placing time limits on money, such as issuing money that expires and has no value after a certain date. What seems more practical is to create new forms of money that are spatially limited– regional, decentralized currencies only good in a specified area. This may seem impractical, too, but experiments like this have worked in the past, and one such project is in progress right now in the United States.
Part of the benefit of regional or local currency comes from the fact that a banknote essentially represents an interest-free loan to the
central government. In the Isle of Man in the early 1800′s, citizens there replaced all the English money on the island with their own local currency, invested the English money, and in a few years had earned enough interest to finance the construction of a new public hall.
In the Berkshires area of Massachusetts, the SHARE (Self Help Association for a Regional Economy) program is currently making loans that encourage greater regional self-sufficiency in the production of basic necessities, and plans to soon issue a regional currency called “Berkshares”, with a value based on the value of cordwood. Berkshares are designed to meet the criteria for an appropriately scaled currency proposed by Robert Swann of the E.F. Schumacher Society. Swann says that the new local currencies should be:

1. consistent with customary practices (i.e. taking the form of cash and checks and being compatible with common accounting systems);
2. redeemable in some form of real everyday value;
3. based on local production but tied to a universal measure of value; and
4. controlled by the community, perhaps through a non-profit bank.

It’s too early to evaluate the success of the Berkshares program, but in its first stages it seems to be a short but firm step in the direction of local autonomy.

Closing Benediction and Words of Inspiration

Capitalists understand far better than the rest of us what money does, but with rare exceptions they seem to have little idea about what money is. It’s the same with computers–often the best programmers have little idea of how their machines are built. And Beethoven didn’t know how to make pianos.
But here is where our opportunity lies. Only those who understand their tools can really control them (what happens to Beethoven when his piano is broken?), and only if we understand the tools that are used to control us can we fight back effectively. So, by coming to understand the reality behind the shell game & light show of the current world economic system, perhaps we can learn to build the hardware for a new way of organizing our productive activities that will build community instead of destroying it and will empower us as individuals rather than enslaving us and reducing us to cogs in an incomprehensible and uncontrollable machine.

boog

“Go out and fight so life shouldn’t be printed on dollar bills.”
Clifford Odets

And So, For Further Reading
Regional Currencies
For a packet of information on the SHARE program, write to
SHARE
PO Box 125
Great Barrington, MA 01230
[editor note: this address has probably changed since this article was first published]

For a copy of the Robert Swann paper “Community Survival in the Age of Inflation” (which lays out the ideas behind the Bershares program) send a buck or two to the E.F>
Schumacher Society
Box 76
RD 3, Great Barrington, MA 01230

Some Books About Money

The Brotherhood of Money, Murray Teigh Bloom, BNR Press, 1983
The Psychoanalysis of Money, Ernest Bornemann, Urizen Books, 1976
Money and Liberty, S. Herbert Frankel, American Enterprise Institute, 1980
The Phenomenon Money, Money and How It Gets That Way, Henry Miller

And For The Intellectual Masochists Among Us

The Philosophy of Money, Georg Simmel, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978

http://projekte.free.de/geld/highberger.txt

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Tags: godhumanity good bad excuses deeds gods

A WHILE LATER THE MAN BEHIND THE DESK REALIZED
THE ROOM WAS ONLY $25,   SO HE
SENT THE BELLBOY TO THE 3 GUYS’ ROOM WITH $5.

ON THE WAY, THE BELLBOY COULDN’T FIGURE OUT
HOW TO SPLIT $5 EVENLY BETWEEN 3 MEN,
SO HE GAVE EACH MAN A $1 AND
KEPT THE OTHER $2 FOR HIMSELF.

THIS MEANT THAT THE 3 MEN EACH PAID $9 FOR THE ROOM,
WHICH IS A TOTAL OF $ 27,
ADD THE $2 THAT THE BELLBOY KEPT = $29.

WHERE IS THE OTHER DOLLAR?

- with my current views on where the world is and where it is headed is this what I am becoming? Is this what I have been all along just that now I am acknowledging this truth? I wish to save humanity but does it want to be saved? Does humanity have the ability left to build a worthwhile existence for itself or should it be left to perish and allow a new genesis to form?

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Mikhail Bakunin

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Why are the Muslims & Islamic so quickly demonised by modern Western and Christian societies?

technorati tags:belief, religion, god, pagan, Muslim, Islam, Christian, Western, society

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Voltaire

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If all secrets are revealed do they become dangerous or better hidden (can’t see trees for the forest)?

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tell story of King George, Church of England and troubles in Ireland.

Point Of View = school yard bullies/gangs

technorati tags:god, religion, church, Ireland, England, conflict, King

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About mankind leaving Earth due to overcrowding, lack of resources & destruction of nature. Colonisation of various planets decided by relation of earth cultures to each other.

Written from view points: what we dong to earth now; differences, strengths, definitions of various cultures and mapped to timeline (using true science) of terraforming of distant suitable planets.

technorati tags:book, terraforming, mankind, colonisation, planets, cultures

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Nice guys have girls for friends and when they try to turn it into anything more “But I only see you as a friend, nothing more. Can’t we just be friends?”

Guys try to break your nose as they see you as gay because that’s SUCH a bad thing!! (I have thought a few times that I would be better off if I am gay. I have had gay guys hit on me before.)

Other guys (less threatened by the gay perspective) seem to be threatened by me… or feel that I should be threatened by them. This is the only conclusion I can reach as to why they insist on trying to bring me down below their level. (A ver low level indeed!). The worse thing is these ‘attacks’ can come from nowhere so defense is minimised. How do you protect yourself against an attack you don’t see coming without becoming the person you don’t want to be?

technorati tags:nice, gay, straight, work, idiots, tolerance, girls, friends, guys, relationships

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The hard drive is described as a filing cabinet where all files are kept. A person goes to the cabinet and retrieves the files they want to work with. They then take it to their desk and use the files. The desk in this analogy is the same as RAM.

Broadband is commonplace now in many countries. Torrent files and P2P networks are being utilised by operating systems and programs now to update their files. Torrent files can be “streamed”. FLAC audio files can be streamed. Videos can be streamed. (What is the equivalent of FLAC in video files? The equivalent in picture files? PNG files?)

The next step is to move all the stuff on your hard drive to P2P networks. To retrieve to your RAM: a Magnet uri to link to files (using encryption keys to authenticate packages) and torrent files to allow spreading of the data between all users. Media could be streamed from torrent files accessed with a Magnet uri.

Computers no longer need hard drives or disc drives. A computer can be seperated into a monitor with the RAM, network connection, a single high speed processer (only one is needed as processing power shared over a heterogeneous distributed computing system) and video card built into the back. The sound system has it’s own audio processer and RAM built in. All media is streamed including television and radio as podcasts.

Portables access the files via wireless connections but would need hard drives still for those times when they travel outside of the networks reach.

technorati tags:P2P, open, OS, FLAC, magnet, network, distributed, community

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The idea formed that writing a blog would be a more appropriate medium to deliver all that I had written so far in the book. I could type whatever comes to my head and using general subjects organise my thoughts.

From the book I had major sections titled:

1. Introduction
2. “god” (views on religion)
3. Chrematophobia (“fear of money” why money is destructive, where concept came from and how to remove from society)
   
4. Humanity of Man (the core of people and how we treat each other. Includes hypocrisies)
   
5. me (biography)
   

These I will keep as they are the main focal points of my thinking. Text in brackets is an explanation of the above sections which will now be my blog’s Categories.

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Looks like I better add Technology to the above list!