Pietro

The following article is (methings) a must read. http://www.chicagoreader.com/features/stories/torture/ It is quite interesting in many respect it shows how much of torture although commaded by above happens because the soldiers feel passion to do it. It partially shows the way in which this kind of experience can really mess up a person (the torturer itself). It shows the level of bullshit that is being generated by torture. And bullshit is the technical term, (as used by Harry G. Frankfurt) of something that is unrelated with the truth. And it explains the kind of mess a soldier might find himself in, in which it becomes hard to find out exactly what is moral, what is ethichal and what is the law. And as long as the soldiers don't know that they are not going to protest. Because an illegal order must not be followed, but what is illegal?

I recently moved, and part of the new university are some kick us health center, which also include a swimming pool, sauna, jacuzzi, steam bath and more. I haven't actually gone in a swimming pool in ages. And I did not remember that caustic sensation of clore. Anybody knows what effect does it has on the body? I suppose that is there to kill the bacteria, while I, being on primal diet, thrive on bacteria, and use them to make me stronger. But clore is outside, and my bacteria are mostly inside. Hmm. I hope I don't have to renounce to my newfound jacuzzi bath

Karen, ok I shall try it (that is, when I have time, after Easter). But does it requires me to believe in it to work? Because I don't. I'll just try it to have some fun, like a kid would do. Thanks for all the work you put into in explaining the whole process. I was actually wondering how those preparations were made.

Thanks, I already use soap for the teeth. I don't know much about hemeopathy. Wouldn't know where to start to make myself a remedy. cheers, Pietro

Spyrelx, I know you closed the topic, but I just remembered that the Dalai Lama in "the art of happiness" claims that romantic love is an illusion. Since you asked what was the Buddhist position this might be of some help. Pietro

BS. If you look at the history: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...;action=history you'll see that ity has only one contributor. So essentially is someone who is writing about something they do in their school, and then claim universality. Compare to the history of tai chi chuan: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...;action=history sorry, Pietro

Sounds interesting. And I haven't read it all, yet. [why the hell do I comment then? because I am so busy in this sunday in which I can finally bring on my projects that I don't see myself reading it all in the immediate future) In italy there is a lot of discussion going on. Mainly sparked by a 'comedian' Beppe Grillo. Number 1 blogger in Italy, who uses irony and fun to bring on important political point, and expose lies of politicians and corporations. He is making a huge was against 'inceneritori' (burners?). Some sort of heaters where you dump the garbage and heat comes out. .. and micro powder. All the trash being converted into a very polluting powder dispersed int he atmosphere. Too thin to be detected by the law, it has been observed entering in the cells of living organism. Causing DNA mutations, and birth defects. The scientists who were studying this got sacked, and Beppe made asked for money through his blog and bought them a new powerful microscope to continue their work. Maybe if you heat things hot enough you might just make simple particles. But we are star powder. The carbon molecules that form us are coming from the combustion of the first generations of star (please correct me if I'm wrong). So heat by itself seems to make complex atoms more than simple ones. I hope this invention is truly revolutionary and does not leave a gas that is so thin not to be detected... until it is too late.

Spyrelx, thanks for your answer. I do find that knowing somethng about a person life gives me a better appreciation about the questions asked, and this puts it all in the right context. I really can't stop bringing on the bible thread by saying that I heavily doubt that a powerful man could go so far off the ethic and morality of its society and remain a powerful man. Even in a non democracy. Emeperors have been put down in history, so if powerful man act in a way it probably tells us something of what is at least accepted in the society. I try to add a few extra details on taoism and multiple partnership, now that I understand better where you are coming from. I said that there are people engaging in having none, one or multiple partners. And that part of the training might include having multiple partners before having the partner you want to have kids with. but this kind of behaviour is advocated only for people who follow a very thorough training. Example, a practice might be to be present while a person you are attracted with have sex with someone else. And not interfere. Such practice could totally break a person who does not know how to handle it, while a taoist would meditate and dissolve any feeling of jelousy, anger, attachment. Until they are ok with what is going on. So before doing a practice like a person need to be fairly good in dissolving. This, by the way, is an example of a taoist practice, which is not a water method technique, and yet it involves dissolving. I mention this because many people identifies water method tradition with the practice of dissolving. On the contrary a person who has not been trained and is forced/required to look at a person that they are attracted to make love with someone else might have energetic blockages out of it that hunts him (or her) down for their whole life. This is just one of the possible practices. So I think you need to divide between way of life, and practices. And you need further to divide between what you do when you are dealing with only taoists, and when you are dealing with other folks. Generally with other folks you might need to be more uptight, as they might not have the tools to handle and process your taoist way of life. Having multiple partners might be ok for you, but in our society most people just cannot handle it. Could you train them... maybe, but then you are entering in the whole issue of, am I their teacher or am I their lover. I should also note that Bruce once gave us a long speach on Jelousy, and why it wasn't a good emotion to have in your relationship. This independently if a person is monogamous or poligamous. The fact of having to act differently with only taoists than with other folks is at the base of my desire, at some point to join/found a taoist village/community. Pietro

I wish I knew it. I know I haven't made it up. But I might be repeating something someone else made up. I am just wave handing here, but could it be in the torah, or other jewish sacred texts?

yes, BK Frantzis. It is difficult for me to answer your question from a personal POV without refering to my new PU understanding. I'll just say that if you are naturally poligamous you don't lose energy from multiple partners, in fact you lose energy from having a single partner because of the hidden (often even to you) regret you have against that partner as she stops you from the rest of life you feel is awaiting for you. The fact is that around sex there is this aura of sacredness. Now in Taoism (as it has been presented to us...) they try to shred it, up to the point where making love is just something that happens in life. So some taoist groups will have multiple relationships, before having a single relationship. We are speaking about men who are requested to make love with 1000 women before entering in a relationship. On the opposite in Judaism this sense of something special happening during sex is not only honored, but enhanced in all possible ways. So havng sex with many people tend to water down the experience. I even remember some parts of the bible which said that if you have had with 3 people you basically lost all. While Taoism values equanimity, balance, and the feeling that all is the same, all is smooth and all is ok, Judeo-Christian seem to value having a strong polarity, and chosing clearly between the two poles. But may I ask you why are you asking those questions?

Since you don't want the PU view I'll stay clear of it and answer only for what I know about Taoist and Chinese POV. Essentially Taoism is not, as it has been presented to us by Bruce, fixated on either Monhogamy, or Polygamy or Celibacy. It is all about finding your true nature and sticking to it. And this might mean that some people should (read must) follow a monogamous route, because that's what they are. And some remain celibate, or get into multiple relationships. But then you have Confucianism. And for Confucians, from what I understood not being a Confucian myself, the family is the center of the society. I am not sure if you are allowed lovers on the side. I am not even sure they give much weight to the thing at all. I am quite sure that your wife is supposed to be faithful to you, but how much is a man required to be faithful to his wife I ignore. But what is really important for confucians are the ancestors and the descenents. Because your descendents are the ones that are going to do sacrifices for you once you are dead. And for this reason some Taoists who are also Confucianists (and many neo-taoists are, since neotaoism came out when taoism started to merge with Buddhism and Confucianism), will make sure they have a family, and kids. That's as much as I know about it. I am sure there are then differences between the various types of taoism. Maybe someone else might integrate what said with some more info from China.

It is funny. Buddhism is more popular than Taoism. But Tai Chi is about as popular as Buddhism, while Vipassana is about as popular as Taoism

maybe a google calendar with those dates might coma handy. i would have to check for a few years if they are effectively strange. The day Ian pointed out I had nearly a brawl with a collegue from the other group. But I remember in the past days in which EVERYTHING was going wrong. Up to the point that one day with my gf we just went to bed to sleep at 5pm. Because enough is enough.

so that is how. Because I know that snowball earth is an attractor in so many models. Just out of the fact that ice reflects sunlight so brings in a positive feedback that makes the system even cooler. But historically did the system had to go all the way to full ice covered, or has did it binge back before?

Thanks for the needed clarification. Pietro

I can't. There is the myth that when there are two sides the truth is always in the middle. This is false. There are times where the truth is not in the middle, but one side is right, and one side is wrong. This is particularly clear in science, as things can be demonstarted, while in social topics is much harder to demonstrate things. It's still true, it's just harder to demonstarte. 2+2=4 everything else follows. Even if some people say that it is eqaul to 5 it STILL is equal to 4. It doesn't become 4.5. 4. epsilon. Is still 4.00000... I could go through that Video and pick up one after the other the thing they say and explain why they are wrong. From the: and satellite who STILL give a raise in temperature.(WTF, you pick an example... and you pick the wrong one?) To the assumption that if the sun becomes warmer the earth becomes warmer (wtf, ever heard of the work by Lovelock). In a planet inhabited, the living organism can be able to stabilise the temperature against external variation (within limits, of course). But if we fuck up the forest, we are fucking up the very same process that would be balancing the system. And so on. But my palm of most dishonest article goes to this article here. I am seriously thinking of writing a blog entry or something exposing the scientific fallacies in the reasoning. I just need to fing the way to make the most noise... (suggestions welcome... if I wasn't so full with the PhD right now). From this article: yes, FUCKING YES!!! Lorenz didn't tought you nothing. You can't predict the bubbles in a boiling pot, but you can predict the state that it will reach once it has cooled down. You can't predict the weather tomorrow, but you can predict the average weather. You cannot predict the place in the strange attractor, but YOU CAN speak about what attractor you are in. It's called being globally stable and locally unpredictable. And if the fluctuatione becomes too big, guess what can happen. It goes to another attractor. Still globally stable. But globally stable somwhere else. It's 30 years that we have chaos theory. It's a whole fucking generation. This is what you get when you get a political journalist speaking about science.

Thanks, I have been waiting for it from quite some time. But still we are far away from our aim. The possibility to pick up the scent in a place and send it through the net. Immagine smelling your lover natural scent. Or that particular smell of dust and old air that some books have or the house where you would pass the vacations when you were a kid had. That we cannot do, and that is what we are really after.

define huge. I saw the movie from al gore, an inconvenient truth. And the data about the amount of co2 in the atmosphere, and the temperature were evidence, observations, not suppositions. And you could see how those data wente back in time through measurement in the ice carrots taken from the ice caps. Co2 and temerature fitted each other quite well. Now I am not sure how goes the casuality, here. If it is temperature that releases CO2 or CO2 that raises temperature. But they fitted. And we know that greenhouse effect is real. SO CO2 in some ways raises temperature. Well, CO2 right now is way beyond what it has ever reached. If the variation was around 10% of the absolute value, now it is like double the original value. Something like a variation of a 100%. That's not business as usual state. The movie is worth just for that one graph, and is available on p2p. Not that I am suggesting you to downlaod it. I just noticed it

The argument doesn't actually stand. If a person has reached that place of not needing to prove, he would still want to have the new generation reach it too, instead of just playing the external martial art game. So he would still compete. Just not to win for himself, but to show what can be accompliced to have more people reach the enlightenment he has reached.

i think there are competitions of bagua. Why don't you ask Frank Allen from NYC? He surely will know.

I would like to put the accent on Chuang Tzu. It is a wonderful set of stories, much easier to start with. Also the I Ching is a sort of Taoist Bible. It tells for all the situation you might be in (this) life what is the correct way to deal with it. Don't throw the coins, instead read it as a book. I would agree on those that warn on the Healing Tao. Although there are good thing to be learned there, please understand that it is a neo-taoist school. Neo taoism came about around a 1000 years ago by the connection of Taoism-Confucianism and Buddhism. If I recall well Eva Wong had a good and not incredibly complex history of taoism that was available. Please understand that Taoism is a huge river, with many internal sub traditions. Before starting with this or that school I would suggest you to read read and read. Just having a vague idea of what is around and available will give you a lot more opportunities to find what you are really looking for. FOr example, are you looking for practices to become immortal, or are you looking for practices to go with the flow, even when this mean leaving the human body (dying). Are you looking to become a healer, a man of power, a martial artist. Just someone who follows the superior man point of view in his life? There are a certain number of arts that has been developped by taoist along the centuries and finding a man who is really good in those arts is often a good way to find a real taoist. That's because at a certain level the understanding you have in the tao will move directly to your understanding of the art. Thus the suggestion of finding a good Tai Ji Teacher. But also a Feng Shui teacher might do. Or an i-ching divination teacher. This community (the tao bums) is quite unique in the sense that it contains people who are studying in different schools. There are people who are from the HT. Others like seandanty student of less famouse and more extreme paths. Some are trying to become immortal. Some just enlightened. And some happy. For me I fell in love with Taoism when I was 16. Soon I was reading every book I could find on it. I started Indu Yoga when I was 19. Started in the HT when I was 24, and became an instructor at 27. And yet all the time I was there I did not felt I was really following a taoist school. Yes the practices (the arts) might have been taoist, but the underlying philosophy did not seem so. Now I switched school again and I am studying with Bruce Frantzis, and I finally feel I am learning in a Taoist school. Not just Taoist arts. But many people around here would disagree with me.

The 3 party system does not work, because they 3 parties are generally divided into right, left, and center, with the right and left that would NEVER EVER UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES join forces and make a government together. With the accusation of Fascist! Communist! they block the new possibilities, on the other side no party ever is able to govern alone. So the result is that the center is in EVERY SINGLE government, and so is de facto able to impose its point of view. We had a similar system in Italy for ages. It was not three parties, but we had a strong Christian center, and any law that was against the Christian values was stopped. So was for abortion, so was for divorce, and so on. They only were imposed to the politicians with a Referendum. The solution is not just to have more parties, but detach them from a position in a one dimensional space. There are some studies about it that are being done where you take what each parliamentary has voted, and use it to plot it into a multidimensionality space (maybe 100 dimension or similar). Then you squeeze this space into 2 dimensions, using mathemathical modeling. Or you just get a person to tell you what would he vote for, and find out what parliamentaries are near him. Of course the more something is simple the more people will easily understand it. Which undermine most of those efforts

Hmm, my take is that all those camera makes it impossible. And there are all those stories where someone disappears, then they ask the people to keep an eye, and suddenly the person is found 900 miles far away after having been seen by ... people who are just looking for an excuse to be famouse for 5 minutes. In Central London you cannot walk without being caught on camera. It has been proven. Might be a side effect of becoming a global village. You can't run away. In Italy it is rarer and rarer that someone kills someone else and gets away with it. People are caught on camera from the gas station far from where they claimed they were. Happens all the time. There is no more fantasy even in italian driving. With camera on the crossroads I went back after some months and the first thing I was told by my friends as soon as they saw me driving was: you can't drive like that anymore. You would make so many automatic thing go off. From here there is no turning back: either we transform into a transparent society or into an orwellian nightmare. Can't see other possibilities

call me psychic but I kinda of imagined that YOU had a MYSPACE account. Cameron, why exactly do you get extra credit for being in MS? Do you get extra credits for other things: like having a blog, having your own domain, participating on wikipedia, participating in online taoist discussion groups, making a startup company or trying a start up project? And can you sum up extra credits from different activities? I am quite interested, since I followed the raise of the participatory web quite closely. Cheers, Pietro

It is Swedish, if I recall well. Another game I like very much is On Stage. For what I know it has never been translated. Was done in Italian by a friend of mine, and became a big success in Italian. it is a one evening RPG. Which is by itself a great base, for us adults. Every player is an actor in a comedy. And then there is the Director who has limited power (not like normal RPG). The game is divided into different sceenes, and each player bets at the beginning of each sceene to buy it. Who wins decides everything, the setting, who is inside, in what costumes, and so on. Then player has some card with which they can get in, get out, close a scene, throw anothe player in the scene, make a mess, kill another player. Also each player has a certain number of objectives and quotes from the actual piece of theater that they have to reach and to say. For Hamlet in Hamlet, "to be or not to be..." is one. When they say it, in what context can be totally different. The game is a riot. It's just too funny. And as board games I love playing Quoridor and Go.