inspiration


“Two things awe me most, the starry sky above me and the moral law within me." ~Immanuel Kant

“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader." ~John Quincy Adams

“To do something, however small, to make others happier and better, is the highest ambition, the most elevating hope, which can inspire a human being." ~John Lubbock

ping pong

sunrise



You can
die for it--
an idea,
or the world. People

have done so,
brilliantly,
letting
their small bodies be bound

to the stake,
creating
an unforgettable
fury of light. But

this morning,
climbing the familiar hills
in the familiar
fabric of dawn, I thought

of China,
and India
and Europe, and I thought
how the sun

blazes
for everyone just
so joyfully
as it rises

under the lashes
of my own eyes, and I thought
I am so many!
What is my name?

What is the name
of the deep breath I would take
over and over
for all of us? Call it

whatever you want, it is
happiness, it is another one
of the ways to enter
fire

~Mary Oliver

how will i die?

my guess would be while driving

selfish dollars




"Pictures of dollar bills, fantasies of wealth and even wads of Monopoly money arouse feelings of self-sufficiency that result in selfish and often anti-social behavior, according to a study published in the journal Science

"The mere presence of money changes people," said Kathleen Vohs, a professor of marketing at the University of Minnesota and lead author of the study

Money makes it possible for people to achieve their goals without asking for help. Therefore, Vohs and her colleagues theorized, even subtle reminders of money would inspire people to be self-reliant -- and to expect such behavior from others

A series of nine experiments confirmed their hypothesis. For example, students who played Monopoly and then were asked to envision a future with great wealth picked up fewer dropped pencils for a fellow student than those asked to contemplate a hand-to-mouth existence"

i for one am shocked to learn that money has an effect on people

if i had no money, i would be more selfish

if i had more money, i could help more people

that's how fucked up i am

i enjoy making others happy

that's what i would buy

classic jeopardy

who are we helping?



you want to help iraqis be free

instead you foment a civil war

the worst possible scenario

which was predicted pre-war

and the insurgency is now self-sustained financially:

"The insurgency in Iraq is now self-sustaining financially, raising tens of millions of dollars a year from oil smuggling, kidnapping, counterfeiting, corrupt charities and other crimes that the Iraqi government and its American patrons have been largely unable to prevent, a classified United States government report has concluded"

so who are we helping now?

here's who

i'm going to hell

who's coming with me?

youtube sellout?


insight from john aravosis

Something even more interesting

CBS is now a regular publisher on YouTube under username "CBS."

Yes, you see where this is heading

YouTube used to be about you and me

Now it appears that YouTube may be turning into one big corporate publisher

And I strongly suspect that this is Google's plan

Call it "corporate bait-and-switch."

Google buys YouTube

Google has millions of regular readers and publishers to YouTube who are loyal to the service because they think it represents the regular guy

Google quietly switches YouTube's main content - at least half of it - to corporate-published content like what CBS is now doing

Google hopes its users don't notice the shift and keep watching the videos, making Google and the companies involved lots of money

But in the end, YouTube, which started off as an experiment in citizen publishing, ends up as one big corporate community simply out to make a buck

That is of course their right, but I'm curious how many YouTube regulars are going to be happy when, and if, they find out that YouTube has sold out

here's a free million-dollar idea

someone start myTube

for all the conspiracy nuts



i wonder how the terrorists coordinated 3 controlled demolitions with 2 plane crashes?

i feel lucky

kramer goes nuts


wow

wtf

lol

here's his apology...


as if that wasn't enough, here's kramer acting black...


lessons from nam

olbermann special comment

It is a shame — and it is embarrassing to us all — when President Bush travels 8,000 miles, only to wind up avoiding reality, again

And it is pathetic to listen to the leader of the free world, talk so unrealistically about Vietnam, when it was he who permitted the "Swift-Boating" of not one but two American heroes of that war, in consecutive Presidential campaigns

But most importantly — important, beyond measure — his avoidance of reality is going to wind up killing more Americans

And that is indefensible — and fatal

Asked if there were lessons about Iraq to be found in our experience in Vietnam, Mr. Bush said that there were — and he immediately proved he had no clue what they were

"One lesson is," he said, "that we tend to want there to be instant success in the world, and the task in Iraq is going to take a while."

"We'll succeed," the President concluded, "unless we quit."

If that's the lesson about Iraq that Mr. Bush sees in Vietnam, then he needs a tutor. Or we need somebody else making the decisions about Iraq

Mr. Bush, there are a dozen central lessons to be derived from our nightmare in Vietnam, but "we'll succeed unless we quit" is not one of them

The primary one — which should be as obvious to you as the latest opinion poll showing that only 31 percent of this country agrees with your tragic Iraq policy– is that if you try to pursue a war for which the nation has lost its stomach, you and it are finished. Ask Lyndon Johnson

The second most important lesson of Vietnam, Mr. Bush: if you don't have a stable local government to work with, you can keep sending in Americans until hell freezes over and it will not matter. Ask South Vietnam's President Diem, or President Thieu

The third vital lesson of Vietnam, Mr. Bush: don't pretend it's something it's not. For decades we were warned that if we didn't stop "communist aggression" in Vietnam, communist agitators would infiltrate and devour the small nations of the world, and make their insidious way, stealthily, to our doorstep

The war machine of 1968 had this "Domino Theory."

Your war machine of 2006 has this nonsense about Iraq as "the central front in the war on terror."

The fourth pivotal lesson of Vietnam, Mr. Bush: if the same idiots who told Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon to stay there for the sake of "Peace With Honor," are now telling you to stay in Iraq, they're probably just as wrong now, as they were then… Dr. Kissinger

And the fifth crucial lesson of Vietnam, Mr. Bush, which somebody should've told you about, long before you plunged this country into Iraq — is that, if you lie us into a war — your war, and your presidency, will be consigned to the scrapheap of history

Finally, in Vietnam, we learned the lesson. We stopped endlessly squandering lives and treasure and the focus of a nation on an impossible and irrelevant dream

But you are still doing exactly that, tonight, in Iraq

And these lessons from Vietnam, Mr. Bush, these priceless, transparent lessons, writ large as if across the very sky, are still a mystery to you

"We'll succeed unless we quit."?

No, sir. We will succeed — against terrorism, for our country's needs, towards binding up the nation's wounds — when you quit — quit the monumental lie, that is our presence in Iraq

And in the interim, Mr. Bush, an American kid will be killed there, probably tonight — or, if we're lucky, not until tomorrow

And here, sir, endeth the lesson

practice



“An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching." ~Mahatma Gandhi

“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion." ~Dalai Lama

"Stretch your vision. See what can be, not just what is. Practice adding value to things, to people and to yourself." ~David. J. Schwartz

if you want to get better
just keep doing it
over and over again

my high's



from tuesday, november 21 2006

basketball

barbie girl



i just got banned by someone who cares about money more than people

i care more about people

maybe that's because i have money

peace takes courage



who will pay for iraq and when?

"Regardless of how you feel about the war, you must concede that it is going to cost us all dearly.

The Iraq war is consuming over $1.4 billion a week - or $200 million a day. In the time it takes you to read this article, the American government will have spent $700,000 on the war. The war has cost $200 billion already.

Economists have estimated the war's ultimate bill will be $1-2 trillion, which includes costs such as the hospitalization and long-term care of tens of thousands of wounded veterans, interest payments on the wartime debt and replacement of worn-out equipment.

In the case of Iraq, instead of raising taxes to pay for the war, the current Bush administration is cutting them, adding hundreds of billions of dollars to the federal deficit. The Bush administration has raised the ceiling on the national debt from $5.95 trillion in 2001 to $9.62 trillion in 2006, an increase of over 60 percent in five years.

All this debt must eventually be repaid by taxing us, our children and our grandchildren."
 
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