thelerner

Hmnn, I wonder in the end, if the greatest weapon of all is the camera? This is from the top of my head and sounds extreme right wing and fascist even to me, anyhoo... I just entered my kids high school and had to give them my drivers license and they took a picture of me and printed a sticker I had to wear. What if all housing required not just name, address but also picture to be sent to some database. Make it mandatory, immediate and easy, take a clear picture with a camera and email or text it to a number. A crime is committed take a picture, its linked to the database and most of the time the perp might be caught, less need for force, literally shoot first, A Picture, sent to a 911 kind of place that matches it as quickly as possible and pertinent information is relayed. <<edited to read goodlier

Like bigu (not eating) it seems to be a siddhi best arrived at naturally, coming without over due strain. Reading an interview with one woman (forget her name from the book Masters of the Way) she'd go days without eating or sleeping, not on purpose, she just didn't feel like it, and was very intuned with her body. Very high practitioners seem to run multiple brain waves at the same time (see Anna Wise's work), which may alleviate some need for sleep. Which might be the phenomena of meditating once a day 'for 24 hours'. High level indeed, cause not sleeping causes psychosis after 2 or 3 days.

Seems like your idea might end all War also

Unfortunately not only is the answer no, but there's whole new problem of police forces getting military leftovers. So in times of trouble instead of foot cops who can possibly be sympathetic and talk people down, we have mini-tanks, armored carriers and full battle gear that looks like its out star wars except they're carrying M16's (which actually would have been way more effective the inaccurate blasters). John Olliver in his program Last Week had a great segment on the problem. Its sad when the best muck raking is from comediennes. <<later add just found this: new warships only $13 billion dollars each. Yay http://edition.cnn.com/videos/tv/2015/06/18/uss-gerald-ford-orig.cnn

I'm sure its been studied and dismissed but rubber bullets sound good to me. Yet as always unintended consequences will show up. Even tasers have known to kill, and who knows, maybe rubber bullets would make some people more shot happy? And ofcourse cops themselves may balk at having rubber bullets when the bad guys use lead.

In about half (maybe a quarter) of his movies, you see Jet Li (who I believe is Chinese MA champion) do forms that combine slow and fast, smooth and jagged, always dynamic. I've wondered if some of these forms were show pieces of authentic old style forms? Sorry if I'm getting off track.

Quote Yang Pan-hou taught the Kuang Ping form to Wong Jiao-yu. His followers claimed it was a secret of the Yang family's that was never taught to the hated Manchus. Wong supposedly taught Kuo Lien-ying, who was already a master of northern Shaolin kung fu. Kuo was also a famous master of pa-kua chang. Kuo later shortened the form and taught his condensed version to thousands of students. When Mao Tse-tung seized power in China, Kuo fled to Taiwan and later to San Francisco's Chinatown, where he taught the art. Its amazing that people in the U.S were learning more authentic tai chi in the mid and late 1900's then was done in many parts of China itself.

The case mentioned in the OP is horrible, but there was call about a stolen bike and it said they may be armed. It was dark, the victim had his arms up, then brought them down, then walked towards the police.. He didn't deserve what happened, but for God's sake. When a guns is pointed at you from a cop or crook, keeps your hands up and mouth shut. Movement can be misinterpreted and its a dangerous mistake. I'm sorry this comes off so callous but within the calls for justice from police violence there has to be a message in how to react when arrested or pulled over. In too many of these shootings the victim would have been fine if they hadn't resisted arrest or literally charged at an armed officer. That's what lawyers are for.

I understand that. There's a bitterness when you see people seemingly praising someone you consider evil. They may not be praising the man, only an aspect of there work, but even that creates anger and feelings of betrayal of the victims left in the wake. I've been there. You are totally right to bring up the evil done and lives ruined. and yet.. what ever I said above. Some do so much bad, their very name is cursed.

If you read the article, then read the link to the police report, you get an idea of how complicated life must be for police and what a tangled hell it is to answer domestic violence/disturbance calls. It's not that the police officer was right, but there's ambiguous, questionable things going on. Some, a small minority of officers act criminally because they're bad people, others are making bad decisions because they're used to bad situations and in fear for there safety. Police here are more violent because the U.S society is more violent, stratified and gun ridden.

I am mellow.. damnit. I'm just being truthful. Long time ago I got a book by a woman who was into Osho and wrote down some of his meditations. She didn't promote the man so much as write up some of the meditations he 'invented' that she liked, and some of them were good imo. By that time I knew about his craziness, and repeat for the 3rd time I think the man was a lunatic and evil. There's a group called IMU in Chicago that would do Full Moon Meditations; a bit of dharma talk, followed by 3 rounds of 45 minutes meditation, 15 minutes dance. Osho was never mentioned, it had nothing to do with him, yet in my mind it was an Osho-like event. Meditate then freestyle dance, repeat. It was/is good stuff. A break from orthodox meditation mindset. Apart from that, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln; ..apart from his evil doings and lunacy that unique eccentric; dance, experience joy, no boxes, was an aspect of his teaching that I admire. Its too bad his brand of Crazy Wisdom, came with so much other crazy. Watching the video, it seemed like his commune could have been a heaven on earth kind of place. It had so much going for it, but alas he himself was the snake. And attracted a few others but the ideal, drive, most of the people held promise.

nope.. djf;asfj <<me making aggressive pointless comment guys I called him a 'crazed hypocrite' (and almost added lunatic, probably should have) If you want a long deep discussion I can bring up some of his writings and meditations that I think were solid and we can judge each piece independently. He certainly did evil and was horrible role model. Yet like a certain type of manic person he produced a huge amount of work much bad, much contradictory and some good. You guys are the ones bringing him up, not me. I found the documentary tame, there have been nastier exposes. Out of curiosity, if you've studied his life, would you say he always dark and crazy, or got increasingly so with age, drug use and disciple worship?

I know, I know, not a respected anything but I still like some of his stuff. We could add crazed hypocrite to the list, but there is also (imo) some genius there too, certainly of the manic kind. Highs, lows.. little inbetween. Possibly a brain imbalance that created both.

Seems to me we have 100,000's even millions of average persons going to war, following the dictates of their rulers. Not the smartest thing we do. We may not like it, but we may be a species of (mostly) followers. I've always said mankind is more rationalizing then rational.

I watched this video (crap didn't mention name),>>addon Game of Thrones-The Musical at Burning Man, I thought it was hilarious. Amazing they got so many cast members. Great production values. Particularly loved the song 'Wildling' at 5:55, enjoyed Rastafarian Targaryen was moved by Nice Day for a Red Wedding. A must see for any fan of the show.

I'm a big fan of Yoga Nidra. I collect guided meditations and they are a great form of it. I don't know the history, the style I've used seem very modern. I see many guided meditations from Taoist(as per Wudangtao Master Chen) to ultra modern like The Monroe institute take many ideas from it. Particularly the body asleep, mind awake approach. A very good source is here- http://www.yoganidranetwork.org/downloads . Here's a link to a comprehensive article on Defining Yoga Nidra http://www.yoganidranetwork.org/sites/default/files/downloads/files/Yoga%20Nidra%20The%20Future_0.pdf Please let me know which about any other links and sources you've found.

Yes, but I think most things, don't end up quite as plannned.

and thats why the gods invented alcohol.

As a business major and even more so as a business owner (w/ 12 employees) I disagree with the absolutism of your thinking. Since the USSR couldn't find a sweet spot then regulation should be done away with? I've read static economic thinking with its mathematics and closed system thinking and its largely an academic exercise. In the real world you have to take into account basic human self interest/greed- people will pay others as little as possible and also to cut corners to the point of danger to employees, customers and the environment. Intelligent regulations are good. Is your 'Real free market Capitalism' a real entity or an ideal? Which countries that practice it? I'd add, that I'm arguing as Centrist and Pragmatist. What some remember as 'Golden Age' for the United States economy was due to hard won benefits from unions. Though that historic tidbit didn't keep me from trying to stop the Teamsters when they came to my small establishment.

In the real world, historically Fred can become so rich and powerful he buys the pond, bakery and farmland thus Bob's production is zero. Fred can then put Bob to work, take all his production and pay him a minimalist wage. Fred is very happy, Bob lives a relatively poor life and society is the worse for it. Aren't we seeing something like that going on in the U.S with wage stagnation? The middle class getting poorer and wealthiest getting richer? Thankfully the middle class is recovering from the 'jobless' recovery and wages are beginning to rise. Its taken a long time and its devastated 10's of millions of lives. I think Capitalism has many benefits, but left unchecked can devolve into near feudalism. Its the job of sound economic theory to run the numbers and find the 'sweet spots' that protect workers and employers. To me, part of that sweet spot includes a minimum wage. Society needs a safety net. There is a problem with too much wealth inequality. Eventually it leads to the system shattering.

No, that sounds more like Monday morning to me, then refugees.

While I consider Taomeow to be brilliant, I don't buy this. Shit happens; happens more as populations grow and people fight over resources and trinkets. I don't believe in monsters, rather bad circumstances cause bad (sometime good & neutral) people to do bad things to each other and the environment. Not only don't we need to create a boogie man or group to explain it, its detrimental because it makes us blind to the fact the same impulses and evil potential is within us as well. Seems to me in the creation phases of her early empire there would be the creation of the very controlling illuminatti groups she's against. Still, monsters aside, I admire the long view she is takes in shaping her empire; a very big, long term vision and path, that would probably turn out pretty good. Course the modern world has set a relatively low bar, versus its potential. <funny.. i misspelled believe as beleive and the spell checker didn't catch it. Gotta remember you can't believe without lie s.

You show a picture with no details, no explanation, no particular conflict, and we're supposed to immediately understand its a picture of horrendous civil war because... they're black people in the picture?? Seems a bit prejudiced. Happiest nation on Earth?? I didn't mention that, from the picture you don't know what's going on and the assumption one group is happier then another seems filled with materialist assumptions.

Hmmn, in one picture I see 100's of people in the other 4. Truthfully I don't know if those 4 are happier then the 100's above. Yes they're carrying large colorful bundles but that could be for a festival or positive event. Those 4 waiting on a bullet train in an empty station might be there at an ungodly hour trying to get to a far away job they have to go to each day. I don't know. We don't know, so its easy enough for our prejudices to fill in the gaps. High tech, socioeconomical-success and money may not be the keys to happiness. It has been repeatedly found that while living in poverty does suck, that after a certain point, more stuff, more money has nothing to do with happiness.

Its small but there's a verbal bias here. Concentration tends to denote force/work. If we substitute the word Awareness we can keep the same phenomena but stay away from the forehead creasing stereotype. I tend to agree with some advance people that what most think of as MCO is not. Its a body/nerve mantra that can possibly lead to MCO but its more a drip then fire hose of the full blown 'real' phenomena. note I am certainly at drip level though like any mantra there are benefits there. I think getting more familiar with the points along the route is a must.