Apech

Bishop Berkeley 1685 -1753

The puzzling thing is that Fillon is still in the race despite his corrupt nepotism. Macron is a front runner - and seems to have the support of Obama (!) ... and yes I'm hoping this will impact the EU stance on Brexit if Frexit is o the cards.

Oh don't say that! I've never voted Tory in my life - but I admit a slide to the right as I get older I guess I may be a classical liberal by now - but I have very different attitudes depending on the issue/policy area.

I did that quiz and came out 60% Tory and 58% Labour - but actually I am normally a Labour voter but this time cos of Brexit would probably vote Lib Dem ... so I think the quiz is not very good. I'm not actually voting tho cos I didn't renew my proxy vote arrangement. This election is actually an attempt to crush Labour because Corbyn is unelectable - but should have happened directly after the Brexit Referendum when Cameron resigned.

That's crazy why didn't they go for Ford?

Huh, I knew it!

Wot no Steven Seagal? (disgusted)

An "A" round table. Has too many articles Till you think 'bout it.

Majestic vistas Were glimpsed from my palanquin Without leaving home.

The knolls of your mind, Those piles of abandoned thoughts. Conceptual hillocks.

Both useless subjects, And royal heads they will roll, Are basket cases.

Here in Portugal pinecones are called pinhas and used for lighting fires. So you can imagine the number of times I have hilariously said 'I'm just going to put my pinhas on the fire' - ouch! Well it did make me laugh at least once.

According to this article in the Economist the growing population is masking the opposite - a fall in birth rate starting with the more prosperous countries and gradually spreading world wide until in around 2020 we will reach only replacement levels (2.1) globally: http://www.economist.com/node/14743589

Sorry to hear about your upgrade - if you press the back of your neck the top of your skull will flip open and you will be able to install the new RAM chips.

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170330-5-numbers-that-will-define-the-next-100-years some interesting stats.

you have to demonstrate a causal connection between these two similarly shaped graphs or it is meaningless

Photon and photon separated at birth.

Sure. Where I live now two generations ago it was common to have families of 10 - 11 children or more. This along with much higher levels of infant mortality. Their labour involved many hands working at agriculture and so whole villages (kids and all) would move on mass to work the land on a seasonal basis. Children as young as 5 would help in the work - later schooling was up to 11 and most were sent to work after this with basic primary education. Technology and the collapse of the agriculture based economy has put an end to this. At the same time the new generations are now highly educated (for the most) with a few choosing to take up the few remaining agricultural work or migrating to other European countries such as Holland. Now people have very few children - there is low welfare here and so it costs a fortune to bring up a child. The middle class women wait till mid/late 30's and often only have one child. The population is in decline especially in the rural areas. So the previous high birth rate was partly 'insurance' by the adults to have many hands to work the land, partly ignorance of birth control measures, partly to offset poor health conditions and partly just the way in which the economy and thus society was structured. I think its important to remember that this population thing is not just a numbers game - but numbers/quality of life balance. You could have many more people on earth than we have now and that would be ok if human dignity and freedom was also increasing. Or you could have a lot less in some post apocalyptical (yeah I know that phrase is self contradictory ) nightmare - would that be better? No.

Essentially what we are looking at is high birth rates in areas of high poverty and low income and low birth rates in more prosperous countries. This has a way of concentrating the problem in that local resources cannot meet demand and the result is starvation, poor health and living conditions. But this is a chicken and egg effect. The way to reduce resource stress in those areas where it is critical is to a ) provide good quality education especially to women, b ) provide high standard health care c ) ensure basic public health measures such as clean water and sewage. It has been shown in India that where this is done the birth rate drops naturally without any need for overt population control - people naturally take the option of having fewer children later in life once life expectancy increases and opportunities broaden. This is after all exactly what has happened in the 'developed' world. As this happens the average wealth also increases naturally and stable population numbers emerge.

I guess there's not enough people to listen to such a thing.

Just out of interest I was listening to a history podcast yesterday about the Elizabethan era - when because Elizabeth I was excommunicated, England was excluded from trade (particularly wool) with the rest of Europe. This led to an expansion in trade with North African states e.g. Algiers, the Levant e.g. Syria and particularly the Ottoman Empire in Constantinople. The formation of companies to manage this trade with royal assent were precursors to the East India Company. Many English travelled to the middle east and even converted to Islam and set up home there. Even though eventually England, under James I made peace with Spain and thus effectively reentered the European trade area - the old ties with the middle and far east did not completely go away. And remarkably up till 1922 when the Ottoman Empire collapsed (and the British Empire was declining) the most lucrative trading partner that Britain had was with the Turks! This despite India etc. There are tapestries showing Eliz. I holding the Koran and many noble men used to dress as sultans for show. Book on subject : https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Books/This-Orient-Isle-Elizabethan-England-Islamic-World/0141978678/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1490790089&sr=8-1&keywords=this+orient+isle I'm not saying this because I think Brexit is a good thing - I think it is a ridiculous policy - but it seems somewhere buried in English psychology is that we are better off being globalist than being European. Time will tell.

While this is true - within the vajrayana tradition there are Dharmapalas such as Mahakala which specifically are about taking negative energy and transforming it. There are specific prayers and mantras for this - but it is best to get transmission for them. From personal experience I would say that you can experience negative entities both related to yourself (arising from your own karmic connections) and also arising from the activity of other people - and they can affect you - ultimately they are 'empty' but then so is everything else - on a practical level sometimes they need addressing. Many negative things from others are unconscious on the part of the other person and should be understood as merely the product of confused minds and so in liberating the energy involved it is as much for them as for yourself you might do so.

You are being watched ... so relax

Citizen Brian, You are to report to Tractor Facility 777/23 the turnip production has fallen below acceptable quotas.

yeah