Why I quit Facebook (video)

Rosa Golijan (MSNBC) [tweaked by Wisdom Quarterly]
(redactednews blog)

(MSNBC) Facebook gave its News Feed a makeover yesterday and many users got angry. How dare the social network suddenly change so much, after all? Well, hope you held back on the rage -- because a lot more changes are coming, [the CIA controlled company] announced at F8, Facebook's developer conference, today. [So long Netflix, so long Zuckerberg.]

• Facebook shows off new Timeline profiles, apps...
  

The official announcements will start trickling in once [titular] Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg takes the stage to give his keynote speech at 10:00 am PT/1:00 p.m ET. But there are already a lot of whispers regarding what's coming.

One of the key hints about all the announcements is F8's motto, which All Things D's Liz Gannes reports is "Read. Watch. Listen." This leaves us expecting a new way to consume text-based news, some sort of video component, and the long-rumored incorporation of music streaming.

When it comes to the "Read" element of the F8 motto, there's not much mystery regarding what's coming. We know that Facebook wants... More

• Facebook: The CIA Conspiracy
• You will obey [clandestine agency plant] Obama
  
• NSA Surveillance Program Gets Tiny Setback
• Trusted computing still waiting for the big dance
  
• Pentagon: Military ready for "don't ask, don't tell" repeal
  

It's funny because it's true, or it couldn't possibly be true because it was made into satire?

Meditation Flash Mob: Los Angeles

Meditation Flash Mob
Saturday, October 8, 2011
12:00 - 12:30 pm
Pershing Square

Against the Stream is facilitating a Flash Mob Meditation in Pershing Square -- the heart of downtown Los Angeles. It starts at high noon on October 8, 2011, 12:00 pm.

Flash mobs consist of individuals converging on a public space simultaneously, seemingly without leadership or direction, to create a public spectacle. This is done in various ways.

People will converge on Pershing Square near the corner of 5th St. and Olive St. The point is to simply sit down and meditate for 30 minutes. Join us. All forms of practice are welcome.

Feel free to bring a cushion or anything else needed. When arriving, sit and begin -- no need to check in. See you there!

Caught in The Web ("Connected" film)

Wisdom Quarterly

(thefilminformantt, Now Playing, Sept., 2011)

Buddhist cosmology speaks of devolutions and evolutions and epochs of quiescence and chaos, after Earthlings descended from space (Aganna Sutra), genetic manipulation (usually by nagas in a kind of creationism or celestial intervention), and always more revolutions through the aeons (kalpas in an Indian context of yugas).

US teachings about Evolution vs. Creationism

How things turn and have turned may only seem comprehensible as envisioned in the Wheel of Samsara, the "continued wandering on" or cycling through rebirths (due to our skillful and unskillful karma) in countless worlds within 31 Planes [broad categories] of Existence.

But for all that, we still get excited that our mobile device (cell phone) connects us to the Web and lets us tune in and drop out by feeling "connected." Tiffany Shlain is onto something: We are interdependent.

• Review: TheFilmInformant.com
• No Escape from the 31 Planes of Existence
  

If I Had a Pony: "Charlie the Unicorn" (video)

Wisdom Quarterly (post "Burning Man" post)

"Shun the nonbeliever" on the way to kidney-free Candy Mountain with Charlie and friends.

• Radical Truth: Knowledge and Revolution
  
• 5 Types of Men Women Want
• A Mournful Mix of Happiness and Math
• Post-Vacation Afterglow Fades Fast
• The new women of social media sites
• Be a college professor, brainiac
• Sacred Mysteries (longevity alchemy)

Burning Man from Space

Burning Man from 373 miles above Earth: A European space satellite took photos of the 2011 Burning Man [Labor Day week] festival in the Nevada desert.

(CSM) Burning Man is a weeklong art and self-expression festival that meets every year around Labor Day. This year, it runs from Aug. 29 to Sept. 5. Attendance was capped at 50,000, and the event sold out in July. This year marks the 25th anniversary... The event began modestly in 1986, when a handful of friends torched an 8-foot (2.4-m) wooden man on a San Francisco beach. More

• Few know that Russia has a similar absolute freedom hippie festival called the Empty Hills (Pustye Kholmy) festival.

(englishrussia.com)

Apple's newest release: The "iQuit"

Wisdom Quarterly (ANALYSIS)

The Steve Jobs and Apple Story (Telegraph.co.uk). "During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act" - George Orwell author of 1984.

Jobs quits. (Steve Jobs is the face and founder of Apple Computers). That was his latest bombshell announcement for Apple, a company with more discretionary cash than the United States and almost as much as oil industry giants. Some reports say more than them, too. Apple stock was down 5% on the news -- and this creates a great opportunity.



With new iPhones everyone must have, apps, new modes of computing, and above new ways of looking cool in a down economy, Apple is set to rise. The stock is expensive, but when it corrects, it will be an easy profit of at least 5 percent. Technology, style, iTunes, eBooks, and Apple are not going anywhere but up. Jobs' replacement has already been at the job since January.



And Jobs is not leaving completely but will still be hanging on advising and trying to spend his hundreds of millions to get his health back, what with a recent liver replacement and pancreatic cancer and helping the CIA/NSC/TSA defeat the concept or possibility of "privacy" in the Orwellian world of today. Remember, new investors, "Buy low, sell high." That's all one needs to know to capitalize on stock trades. Lows only come on bad news or when things are new. And one never really knows when the high has been reached (until after the fact with 20/20 hindsight).

• Steve Jobs Resigns: Nothing Changes‎ (PC Mag)
• It Took Me 13 Years To Understand Steve Jobs
• Steve Jobs: Smart Move Resigning Now

CIA illegally helps NYPD become "Big Brother"

• NYPD, aided by CIA, secretly monitors citizens
• NYPD CIA operations conducted in Secret for years
• Absolute: The NYPD and the CIA dislike the fact that you
• Pres. Cheney begged Emperor Bush to dump Powell, waterboard, and bomb Syria, then got Israel to do it instead: Memoir
  
  

London Falling (rioters respond to police abuse)

Wisdom Quarterly

WARNING: Explicit lyrics ("Killing in the Name Of" by Rage Against the Machine)

• Wave of violent rebellion rages across London
• US Police execute Katrina victims (Reuters)
• New Orleans police convicted in Katrina killings (CNN)
  
  

The number of UK police, whose abuse brought on the rioting, is tripled to deal with the country's worst unrest since the 1980s, adding gasoline to the fire. More



Meanwhile, in the US, Orange County begins to brew.



Protect and Serve (Themselves)

Wisdom Quarterly (COMMENTARY)

Good thing our police do not abuse us in America. Our officers may be racist, sexist, and poorly educated, but they would never harm the most vulnerable members of our affluent society. Oh wait, unless such members are mentally disabled and helpless. Police can break laws, commit felonies on a routine basis, murder, execute, assault, and rape -- all under "color of law"?



But if abuse were ever the answer, the police would be right. And rioters should join the police force. The answer to all questions is compassion.



The wrongs police do are doubly wrong because they are done under color of law. A criminal act of mayhem is more reprehensible when six "officers" beat and electrocute a homeless and disabled man than when two sports fans beat a rival fan. The police were not satisfied to beat the face, Taser, and torment their victim; they thought it would be a good idea to kill him and then lie about it on official reports (a serious crime unto itself). But all of Los Angeles was in an uproar to find the assailant in the horrible Dodger Stadium beating. Now the same sort of crime that has sparked England, which twice before set off mass rioting in Los Angeles (most recently due to the abuse of Rodney King), threatens Southern California again.



It's good to "know your enemy." Most Americans watching riot footage on TV mistakenly assume that police protect citizens. The fact is they criminally abuse some of them.



But where will peace of mind and a serene heart be found? In a war zone? On the streets? During a riot? These things are of course found within and nowhere else. Paramilitary police forces cannot take them away even if they concentrate us in FEMA camps.



Having returned from the horrors of Afghanistan and Iraq, where do most soldiers want to show off their savage training? In police agencies around the country. It's the new world order -- force fighting force until nothing but force consumes the country.

• Fires blaze in London
• PHOTOS: Images of the UK violence
• Turkey presses Syria to end crackdown on protests
• [CIA's] social media used to spread Britain's riots
• Brazil fears Lost Tribe overrun by drug traffickers
• Fresh rioting touched off northwest England
• Farmers reject Paraguayan president's proposed tax
• Kenya burdened by famine refugees; Rape attacks up
• British police face public anger as riots rage
• 4 police officers found slain in western Mexico
• Germany at center of storm as stockmarkets dive

"Bulls on Parade" (RATM)

A dozen Buddhists to follow on Twitter

HuffPostReligion

(carrotcreative/flickr.com)

Buddhists and those curious about the tradition and the issues facing it today might be interested in the Twitter streams a dozen prominent tweeters have going. Social media is a great starting point to get in on the conversation. The Huffington Post has compiled a list of several prominent teachers, writers, and organizations it follows to help it stay clued in on the wide world of Buddhism. Suggestions?

• See the list
• VIDEO: The Pyramid Code
• Christian couple's suicide pact in Church
• Gay teen suicides linked to Bachmann's backyard
  
• Is default deadline truly Aug. 2? No (Reuters)
• Mother of all polar bears came from Ireland
• VIDEO: Florida sinkhole swallows building
  

Poor Casey Anthony! (video)

Wisdom Quarterly, TheGrio.com

Hating hateful actions (like murder) or hateful actors (like murderers) makes us guilty of hate. Hate is toxic to all who harbor it, and it is not cured by vigilantism or revenge.

There are those who give free rein to hate when it arises like stampeding horses. There are others who pull the reins and control their chariot even when the horses are bolting. The Buddha called the latter "charioteers," whereas the former are merely holding the reins.

American hatred has grown so great -- animosity at a mother or a trial gone wrong -- that citizens are ready to lynch anyone named Casey Anthony.

Searching Facebook, many have found a man by the same name and tormented him. His response to the vigilante mob? "I can't change my name, ladies and gentlemen."

"Casey Anthony" is a 43-year-old African-American male. He lives in Darby, Pennsylvania, and just happens to share the name of a 25-year-old Anglo-American female from Orlando, Florida, who is infamous for being found not guilty of killing her 2-year-old daughter.

• PHOTO: The other Casey Anthony from Pennsylvania (NBC Philadelphia)
• She's to be released Sunday; some fear for her safety
• Casey Anthony gets and loses job in pornography

Mr. Casey Anthony has been bombarded on Facebook. He estimates that he has gotten at least 300 friend requests, messages, and posts, all targeting the other Casey Anthony.

"After the verdict that day, it went crazy. It was like everybody wanted to know and wanted to comment on this Casey Anthony situation," he explains.

The Antidote is the Opposite
There are Three Poisons of the heart/mind: greed, hatred (often expressed as fear), and delusion. It is wise to root them out at every opportunity. It is easier to transmute or transform them into something useful than it is to rid oneself of them.

But surely if they remain, they are serving as the basis of unprofitable karma (unskillful action of mind, speech, or body). Their "antidotes" are categories of opposite states -- nongreed, nonhatred, and nondelusion. Three immediate remedies are given as:

1. letting go
2. generating compassion
3. being mindful of the present moment.

Why would one even try to avoid or abandon hatred if it is manifesting as "righteous indignation"? Surely, that justifies it and strengthens us to act in opposition!?

No, what it does is obscure the mind, cause one to act in ways that result in remorse, that bring about suffering for us (when those actions later ripen), the bring humans down to subhuman states.

Hate helps no one. And those who say it does are trying to make the best of a bad situation. Transform it, transmute it, let it go, be freed from it, free others from it -- for it will surely drag us down, and we will only realize it too late.

• A man named Casey Anthony (thegrio.com)
• What if Casey Anthony were black?
• The notion of race and coverage disparity also applies to Casey Anthony herself. Would she have been so easily acquitted if she were a Black woman?
• Prof. Boyce Watkins: Would a black Casey Anthony been exonerated? Most blacks don't think so
  

Facebook's facial recognition: CIA jackpot!

Lauren Effron (Nightline, ABCNews.com, June 10, 2011)

User browses the social networking site Facebook that now identifies "friends" in photos automatically without their permission (Chris Jackson/Getty Images).

Oh, Facebook, here we go again. The social media giant is facing a new wave of concerns over privacy protection after launching its latest feature:

It "allows" [forces unless one opts out] users to identify their friends automatically in photos without their permission.

The photo tagging tool, called Tag Suggestions, was put into place in December. But it was listed as unavailable until recently. Here's how it works:

When a user uploads new photos to his or her Facebook profile, the new feature then scans them with [police-approved] facial recognition software to match the people in the photos with other photos in which they might have been previously tagged.

• Nightline's Facial Recognition Challenge (CIA thanks you)

The feature also offers "group tagging," which allows [pressures] users to type in a person's name and "apply it to multiple photos of the same person," according to Facebook's blog post on the subject. The problem is that users can do this without their friend's permission. More

Ex-Agent: CIA Seed Money Helped Launch Google
An ex-CIA agent has gone further than ever before in detailing Google's relationship with the Central Intelligence Agency.

He claims sources told him that CIA seed money helped get the company off the ground and has for the first time named Google's CIA point man.

Robert David Steele, a 20-year Marine Corps infantry and intelligence officer and former clandestine services case officer with the Central Intelligence Agency, is the CEO of OSS.net.

Speaking to the Alex Jones Show, Steele elaborated on his previous revelations by making it known that the CIA helped bankroll Google at its very inception.

"I think Google took money from the CIA when it was poor and it was starting up and unfortunately our system right now floods money into spying and other illegal and largely unethical activities, and it doesn't fund what I call the open source world," said Steele, citing "trusted individuals" as his sources for the claim.

"They've been together for quite a while," added Steele....

Weiner admits lying: "Weinergate" (video)

Some people say "sexual misconduct" is harmless or a relatively small thing these days. But the fact is it is just as devastating to family, society, and the individual. Arnold Schwarzenegger was in good company.

NEW YORK – A tearful Representative [and likely sex addict, narcissist, sociopath, adulterer, liar, possible Internet pornographer, Twitter abuser, childhood bullying victim, and megalomaniac] politician Weiner today admitted sending a lewd photo of his underwear-clad crotch to a young woman over Twitter and then lying repeatedly to protect himself.

In a flash of defiance, Weiner refused to resign even as Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi called for a House ethics investigation into whether he broke the rules. The extraordinary confession at a packed Manhattan news conference was a remarkable turn of events for the brash Weiner, who conceded to a "hugely regrettable" lapse in judgment. More

• VIDEO analysis: Daily Conversation
• Man outs girlfriend's abortion on billboard after being jilted
  

1984: Who's Blocking the Truth?

Wisdom Quarterly

(Based on Xomba.com) What is the largest impediment to disclosure? The mainstream media. How will natural cures, planet-saving energy technologies that already exist, and information about our place in the cosmos get out to the world?

It will not be through the White House, Congress, Parliament, or the UN. Monopoly-corporations have too much potential profit to lose. So it has to be word-of-mouth and any other form of communication that goes against the stream.

But where is the media, the "fourth estate" in this democracy? It has failed us in favor of obscenely rich interests.

There were checks and balances built into our system of government. But when they don't check, they have no power to balance.

That is when and why we need "watch dogs" to keep an ever-attentive eye on all three branches of the government (executive, judicial, and legislative).

Someone on the board of AOL Time Warner and CBS is said to have declared in 1992,"The fourth estate is dead!" A Washington Post reporter is alleged to have bluntly pointed out that nothing important will ever be published in the major media.

Why? Corporate news outlets are part of the fiction, part of the PR campaign, part of the propaganda machine. We must look elsewhere to find out what is really going on. One outlet is the disclosureproject.org.

• VIDEO: Pilot chased UFO, saw it crash, visited site
• Ignoring science: Gary Null's double blind studies
• VIDEO: Invisibility (optical suit) being used in Iraq?

What 1984 is really about
Wisdom Quarterly


People imagine that Orwell was worried about war, invasion of privacy, or torture. That was not his main concern. All of those things were going on in Buddhist Burma where imperial terrorist state England had created a police state in Southeast Asia.

Orwell imagined that given what was happening in England, Europe and the rest of the world was soon to follow the same course. He was writing in 1948 and chose the title of the book by simply inverting the last two digits. In the book, it is not possible to know what year it really is. The government has altered history, dates, the "truth."

What the book is really about is how the government got inside and altered people themselves. It was done systematically through language. By whittling down vocabulary, soon people did not have words for how they felt or what they thought. So they could no longer think it. They could no longer think of revolution, resistance, or rebellion. There was finally full-spectrum control.

This had first been achieved by shortening everything to acronyms and military-style short hand. The ubiquitous "telescreen" (all TVs, smart phones, cameras, video spying equipment) had helped this along. Today we see that texting is overcoming all other forms of communicating.

And this has affected our attention spans, ability to think critically, and watching what we say fearing we might get in trouble. What will the future be link if we continue in this way? We don't read. We won't email. We hardly speak face to face...

Fun with Texting!!!

Steven Hodson (Inquistr.com, Australia)

"OMG, hi!!! this is so fun!!!" "0.k., now u send me 1."

As a society we seem to love nothing better than creating psychological disorders around every new fad that comes our way. And it seems that texting is no different.

The Sydney Morning Herald in Australia has a post up in which Jennie Carroll, a Melbourne technology researcher with RMIT University, claims to have "discovered" four separate disorders when it comes to texting and children.

Yes, children are once again in danger of themselves and this wicked and evil texting thing. Why? Well, they just don’t know any better.

Carroll says teenagers who text too much could find themselves suffering from:

1. Textaphrenia: thinking we’ve heard or felt a new text message vibration when there is no message.
2. Textiety: a feeling of anxiety from not receiving or sending any text messages.
3. Post-Traumatic Text Disorder: injuries related to texting, such as walking into objects by not paying attention to surroundings.
4. Binge Texting: sending massive numbers of texts to build self-esteem among peers. More