Brian

Indeed, technology run amok in the form of wholesale genetic engineering of foodstuffs is quite frightening. I was really thinking, though, about genetic engineering of entire species to provide a government-controlled reproductive "switch" to allow selective population management. For... ummmmm... fighting the Zika virus for the good of humanity. I mean, no one would EVER consider using it on people. Would they? http://www.gomindsight.com/blog/the-new-strategy-to-stop-the-zika-virus-gene-drives-and-crispr-technology/

Half a crumb is a crumb.

I would agree but I have come to realize that this is the common misunderstanding of karma. I couldn't figure out how someone supposedly so in-tune as a Buddha could be teaching/preaching such schlock -- until one day the light bulb clicked on for me and I realized how few people have a personal insight into "how it works." Not saying I understand it all, mind you, much less that I can explain it, but I see now that it isn't a cause-and-effect tit-for-tat machine but a gentle and gradual (and only loosely coupled) positive-feedback drift. As we sow, so shall we reap, but not all at once and not in a direct one-to-one sort of relationship -- that isn't the point! In fact, it would be fair to say that exactly not the point. Doing good with the expectation of being rewarded for it is slightly better than not doing bad to avoid being punished for it, I suppose, but the point is to "do good" and avoid doing "bad" as you see it in each particular situation simply because you know or believe or feel that it is the right thing to do. At least, that's how I see it now.

Throw down an escalator!

Not to worry, though -- any horrible things you might do to others is because of something they did a thousand years ago (or whenever) so... <shrug> It took me a long time to see the reality behind this fundamental and pervasive misunderstanding of the principle.

I would like to request a name-change, please -- "Me the Omnipotent" has a nice ring to it. Naaah, not really.

If you are going to put me on your "ignore" list, at least have the courtesy to actually read my posts before you reply to them. Save your condescension for the lepidopterists and those butterflies.

What is it you want to write?

Human classification into "race" in English is referred to as "breed" or "variety" for many other species. A grayhound is faster than a pug but isn't as smart as a border collie and doesn't have the sense of smell of a bloodhound. A Plott hound is better at bear hunting than a King Charles cavalier spaniel. Many of the variations in domesticated animals are intentional results of human manipulation but often they are accentuations of pre-existing traits. For undomesticated species, the variations are naturally occurring based on small travel ranges or geographic boundaries or other limiting factors. The idea that variation within a species is a meaningless cultural invention is nonsensical political correctness which would be properly rejected for any other species but is somehow considered appropriate when speaking of our own. There have undoubtedly been historical abuses based on and falsely justified by such variations but those incidents of abuse don't negate the existence of such variations. https://www.nature.com/scitable/content/variation-within-species-4308521

Building quite a legacy: http://freebeacon.com/issues/obama-program-made-729-million-erroneous-payments-doctors/ Note that this is more than 10% "error."

Thank you for sharing this, Brion! You have inspired me to share a story from November, which I don't think I posted here before... ------------------------------------------------------ My office is across the street from the nearest hospital. First thing Tuesday morning, I get a text from "one of my guys" (a direct report) that another had just called 911 and was being brought to that hospital via ambulance. I immediately walked across the street and started negotiating with the staff to let me in. (An aside -- they actually advised me to say I was a family member but I wouldn't lie about it so it took a while to get the doctor on the phone to let me back.) By the time I got back into the Emergency Department, he had been there about 30 minutes and they'd hooked him up to all sorts of monitors. He was in respiratory distress and they were suspecting pulmonary embolism (blot clots in the lungs) but they hadn't yet done anything other than put an oxygen mask on him (his O2 levels would plummet if they took him off) and connect him to the monitors. I should mention that he's in his early forties, is 6-feet 8-inches tall and weighs about 480 pounds... His color was horrible and his resting pulse rate was between 135 and 145 bpm. Any time they had him move or lie flat, it would spike to the 165 to 170 range and alarms would sound both in the room and throughout the Emergency Department. It was clear to me that they were very concerned that they might lose him. They asked him who should be listed as his emergency contact and he just pointed at me. I sat beside him and created a sacred space around us, asking for guidance and praying that the will of the Light be done. Knowing that they would boot me in a second if I started doing anything witch-doctor-like, I did the "stealth projection" I've been practicing for some time -- sitting in "business meeting qigong" posture and projecting without any outward indications. I continued projecting when they wheeled him out and down the hall for a CT scan (the monitors were all wireless so I could see his vital signs and hear the alarms the whole time) and continued projecting for the next two hours. He had massive clotting in both lungs (lots and lots of little clots which were determined to come from a large clot behind his left knee). The medical staff were clearly in shock at the amount of blockage they were seeing and were doing a poor job of hiding their expectation but he was, fortunately, too distressed to recognize it. Over the time I sat with him, though, his pulse rate began to drop back into non-terrifying range and they were able to switch from a mask to a nasal cannula (the little tube under the nose with the small extensions into each nostril) -- all good signs. The doctor came in and explained that they were going to put him on Heparin to reduce the chance of additional clots forming and to help minimize the chance of infection but they would just have to wait to see if his body would start to reabsorb the clots on its own. The next 24 hours would tell them lots. They transferred him from the ED to the cardiac step-down floor that afternoon. The next day, they told him to expect to be in the hospital for at least a week and probably eight to ten days, and to be out of work for at least six to eight weeks after that. They sent him home after five days with no oxygen needed, cleared him to return to work four days later and he was back in the office Monday morning -- less than two weeks from when he called 911. Today, with a co-worker accompanying him and an oximeter on his finger to be safe, he walked up the hill to the building next door to get a snack and walked back, roughly a hundred yards each way. He still has a long way to go and some major lifestyle changes he needs to make but he is out of the woods and at least gets the chance to makes those changes. ------------------------------------------------------ Now, more than six months later, he has had no more issues related to this.

Welcome back, Drew!

Welcome back, Drew!

Clearly, you're not lithium-8. OK, a day then. That's... like... a whole lifetime in mayfly years.

A second. Configure the forum to auto-delete content after one second -- sort of the digital analog (if you follow) of the "shrinter" or the ever-favorite "disappearing ink."

On second thought, you are right.

Pardon my feet...

Brazilian, I think.

$166B & counting... https://capitalresearch.org/app/uploads/CRC_ClimateDollars_Study_finalv2.pdf

Thank you, Gregg. Give our best to Skydog.

For clarity, "Skydog" was a reference to Duane Allman's nickname -- not the forum member with that screen name.

I got a cupcake. OK, not really. It was a doughnut.

Familiar with this chart? How about Agenda 21 or the 2030 Agenda?

So, population control, both in terms of behavior and reproductive rates. Remember me mentioning CRISPR a bit ago? That wasn't just a random reference. The concern isn't really the Earth's average temperature (since that's well within historical ranges and history also shows both the biosphere and human civilization thrive in periods of relative warmth) but the fact that human population growth is changing things -- too many people, too many cows, too many pigs, too many everything related to people. Hoping for an asteroid, are we?

That all sounds great, Jetsun, except it simply isn't true. The modeling has been both self-serving and wrong. Over and over, the modelers have made dire predictions and, over and over, have quietly rejiggered the parameters when the predictions have been substantially off-target. The data clearly show that temperature changes have historically preceded CO2 changes, not the other way around. This isn't to say, necessarily, that the current increase in measured atmospheric CO2 is harmless, or even not that it may contribute to atmospheric warming, but that the data simply don't support this conclusion. This is truly a case of the cart before the horse on several levels -- first, the data don't support the conclusions (a "scientific method" null hypothesis would make this abundantly clear), second, the dependent and independent variables have clearly been reversed, and, third, the models are being deemed reliable when they obviously are not. The whole thing stinks. In addition to the entire green surface of the Earth being a CO2 reprocessing system specifically geared towards converting CO2 into oxygen, there are quite a number natural CO2 sinks in the system. Three of note are plant life (which is also a reprocessing system), glaciers and oceans. The latter two are particularly significant when discussing the lagging historical relationship between temperature and CO2 -- unless discussions include these major players and theories/models incorporate them, we are substantially off-base. The fact that these aspects of the climatic system are conspicuously neglected is just one more strike against the call for urgent action on a poorly understood "crisis." (Note that I am not even getting into the question of whether "global warming" is a good thing or a bad thing, but the historical record is pretty clear here, too -- and it doesn't favor the doomsday-criers...)