The house voted another 33 billion to fund the Afghan war. The timing is a bit odd because it's after those 92,000 files (?) were disclosed on wikileaks.org. Personally I didn't do the 75 megabyte download or whatever it was. I just read the summary in the Times. Basically the biggest issue that seems to be disclosed is that the Karsai election was fraudulent and also that Pakistan has supported the Talliban in the past. As the President stated, we pretty much knew both of these factoids already. They have become part of the "dialog". Still it strikes me as a little funny that the House would pick yesterday of all days to snub the liberals of their own party and vote out the war funding. One hundred house Democrats voted against this funding measure. Only in the post Watergate era did congress finally find the gonads to stop funding of the Viet Nam war. I am not convinced the republicans will gain in November. When you are in a war you should plan as though you intend to win, because if you plan to lose you'd done half the enemy's job already. I saw that one web site with the luxury apartment built out in the middle of a bunch of rubble where the roads wern't even paved. They say that the only thing the "trickle down" theory leads to is a nation of peons. I have often employed the image of the evangelist standing under a torriential waterfall but the funny part is that no matter yow close you get to him, not a drop falls on you. So it is with these rich people who appropiate all the government money and build these luxury places to live in. And yet they are such skin flints just yards away, poverty abounds. Essentially I think the government is lying to us if they say "we're doing it for the people of Afghanistan". There are only a hundred or so Al Qaeda there on the Afghan border and now they have fanned out into various nations of the world including Yemen and Germany, and right here in the old U S of A. As Thom Hartman says "We aren't abolishing the enemy; we are creating it". We are the best recruitment poster for prospect Youth to join Al Qaeda. Maybe that guy on "Sixty Minutes" has disowned what he refers to as "The Narritive". But the narritive isn't far wrong. Maybe they'll stop calling Americans Satan when we stop acting like it.
A federal court had stricken out certain portions of the Arizona immigration bill the day before it takes effect, which I believe is tomorrow. You can't racially profile any more. And you can't take people into custody without a warrent. I didn't even know that was in the bill. Left intact was the prohibition against smugglers of illegal aliens. As you know I don't have real strong feelings on this issue one way or the other. I can see merit on both sides. It would seem that Las Enforcement generally does not like this bill because it generates a lot of paper work taking away valuable time from tracking the real bad guys comitting other crimes.
I would like to do a Mia Copa of sorts. Rush Limbaugh can say "I told you so". Remember how outraged I was when Rush Limbaugh said "The people in the boats out in the Gulf can't find any oil to skim". It appears as if this situation is in fact a reality. Not only this but clean up measures have paid off and many Gulf beaches are again clean and pristine. They say you can eat the fish that's caught, and even more you can eat the oysters that are caught. But they aren't reopening their establishments yet because they are deferring to the scientists who advise caution. Still I would like to know what happened to all the oil. We were told of the spreading slick, first the size of Rhode Island, then Maryland, then West Virginia, and then Kansas. And now the oil is gone. How did that happen? Did God eat the oil? I expect next Rush is going to say there was never a problem and those under water photographs of oil bellowing out are all just a media conspiracy. I don't see how the presence of that dispursant can explain this sudden disappearence.
WAYNE DYRE IS AT IT AGAIN
You know I can't listen to a spiritual person a few minutes without taking issue with virtually everything that comes out of his mouth. On the Bonnie Hunt show today, Wayne Dyre was on and making his various proclamations. He said "You are what you think about". This isn't true because when I was a kid nine or ten I fantacized about running away a lot - -either to a friend's house who lived miles away- - or else off to some undiscovered island- - - or my own version of the Bat Cave or some secret hideaway I would construct myself that required secret passwords and stuff. But I didn't grow up to be either a ditch digger or a sailor. "Yo no soy maninero, soy capitan!" is my motto. You know when I was drinking I prayed every morning that this would be the day I'd stop drinking. I didn't think "If you continue drinking you'll end up in here". If I had perhaps things would be different. I think I don't have money. But first money had to be a problem. My lack of money wasn't CAUSED by thinking about it. Next Dyre said not to be Against things but to be FOR things. Again I take issue. Mother Teresa once said she would not participate in a march against the Viet Nam war but she would march FOR peace. I'm sure that even Adolph Hitler made speeches touting peace- - a thousand years of it. But it's the peace of the graveyard- - with all your enemies dead. No, the issue is the War. The issue is getting rid of IT. You need to focus on the problem and eliminate THAT from your life rather than engage in pie in the sky platitudes. Wayne Dyer said "It isn't what you Have or Do that defines you but rather that essential spark of Divinity we all have". Dyre says we are all a part of God. Again this fits in with the metaphysics of "Monism, which the Gnostics believe. All I can say "If this is true, how come loved ones and Christians don't treat me better? It "sounds" nice. Again I take issue. What Dyre is describing is Gnosticism. You come to the "knowledge" of redemption. And you are thence transformed into something "New". And Christianity is an offspring of Gnosticism. Even Dr. Levy when I asked him, said that Buddhism was a religion of "enlightenment". Hindus on the contrary, have their heads screwed on right on this issue believing that change is an ongoing struggle for growth and evolution. I have my own scripture called Mark Lindsey 3:16 that goes "You'll never run away from You". People are looking to be transformed where everything they were and believed about the world up to that moment is suddenly wiped away. - - - But the human soul, as far as can be determined, is something you are born with. James Dobson says "environmentalism goes only so far. It's a fact that different babies are born with entirely different personalities". When you think about it, it's a lot more interesting for parents that way. You wouldn't want all your kids to grow up as Commander Data's. You wouldn't want an automoton for a child, who believed every word you said. Where Gnosticism and Christianity and Buddhism all get off the track is in their essential denial of the nature of the human soul. Sure you can brainwash a man or drug a man or put him in a sensory deprevation tank to drive him crazy. But it's still the same essential soul you are dealing with. The soul is NOT somehow a part of God or the "Creation energy". There are any number of fundamentalist theologians who will line up to agree with me on this issue. The human soul is unique to itself. It is not part of God. There is no "undiscovered divine spark that will transform your whole being" as the Gnostics and Christians teach. Sure they use different termonology but they are describing essentially the same thing. They speak of some "Knowledge" of a Higher Power that they themselves contain the spark of". In terms of not being what you DO, I believe you indeed ARE what you DO. What you DO defines you in a way nothing else can. Being doesn't define you - - DOING defines you. Inanimate objects can BE but only the living can DO.
You know, Rush Limbaugh made another of his endless parade of absurd statements this morning. He said that poor people are responsible for the economic collapse and the corporate bail out, and all the economic problems we are having. He said that people like Jesse Jackson took over the economic decision in the Bush administration and "demanded" that the worthless poor be "entitled" to own a home, and of course the Bush Administration was powerless in the face of these left wing demands. There is a grain of truth in this absurdity in that nobody held a gun to these people's head to make them sign a real estate deed to a home they could not afford, and probably KNEW it at the time. But the statement none the less offended me greatly. But if I'm going to give myself the Michael Benner test and ask "Just what about this statement really enrages you by Pushing your Buttons?" I would have to say it's this basic contempt the Rush Limbaugh has for those who Don't Have, ie. the Poor. Rush shows his sheer contempt for the poor every day. He despizes anybody who isn't Rich, like himself. Of course the Calvary Chapels do the same thing with people who visit their church. They judge you not by what you DO but by what you HAVE, in this case, Salvation, and after that they want to know how many Blessings of God you've received. The more blessings, the more you earn Praise from them. So what you HAVE assumes importance, not in defining your Essential nature but rather how you are judged by the world. A college degree will come in handy for instance in getting a high paying job. And for some positions you already have to BE employed with another company- - before they will hire you. Jesus never judged people on what they HAD, but Calvary Christians do, and they do so to the exclusion of your character, your karmic deeds, or your essential nature.
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