During times of universal deceit, telling the truth
becomes a revolutionary act. ~ George Orwell

TWICE (트와이스) ‘TT’ M-V via 문용필

Steven Leech ~ Boptime + Legends of Wilmington Jazz

Steven Leech has provided a second reading installment of his novel UNTIME.

Click for second installment: UNTIME2ndinstallment.m4v in new tab or window.

Click here for first two chapters: UNTIME1st2chapyers.m4v in new tab or window.

UNTIME "Searches for Truth In UNLIKELY WORLDS": sleechamanoutoftime.pdf

I would rather have questions that can't be answered than answers that
can't be questioned ~ Richard Feynman ~ via EljayShaun ~ Reddit Source

Nobody Forgets Nothing

Source via HazardousPork ~ 1963 Bumpersnicker via Paul Krassner

via blueberrywalrus

This will be really unpopular here, but honestly, I don't see what this nothingburger is all about. Its hard for me to see any Trump ties to Russia--I mean, except for the Flynn thing and the Manafort thing and the Tillerson thing and the Sessions thing and the Kushner thing and the Wray thing and the Morgan, Lewis, & Bockius “Russian Law Firm of the Year” thing and the Carter Page thing and the Roger Stone thing and the 198 Million voter records thing and the Felix Sater thing and the Boris Ephsteyn thing and the Rosneft thing and the Gazprom thing and the Sergey Gorkov banker thing and the Azerbajain thing and the “I love Putin” thing and the Donald Trump, Jr. thing and the Lavrov thing and the Sergey Kislyak thing and the Oval Office thing and the Gingrich/Kislyak phone calls thing and the Russian Business Interests thing and the Emoluments Clause thing and the Alex Schnaider thing and the hack of the DNC thing and the Guccifer 2.0 thing and the Mike Pence “I don’t know anything” thing and the Russians mysteriously dying thing and Trump’s public request to Russia to hack Hillary’s email thing and the Trump house sale for $100 million at the bottom of the housing bust to the Russian fertilizer king thing and the Russian fertilizer king’s plane showing up in Concord, NC during Trump rally campaign thing and the Nunes sudden flight to the White House in the night thing and the Nunes personal investments in the Russian winery thing and the Cyprus bank thing and Trump not releasing his tax returns thing and the Republican Party’s rejection of an amendment to require Trump to show his taxes thing and the election hacking thing and the GOP platform change to the Ukraine thing and the Steele Dossier thing and the Sally Yates can’t testify thing and the intelligence community’s investigative reports thing and the Trump reassurance that the Russian connection is all “fake news” thing and the Chaffetz not willing to start an investigation thing and the Chaffetz suddenly deciding to go back to private life in the middle of an investigation thing and the appointment of Pam Bondi who was bribed by Trump in the Trump University scandal appointed to head the investigation thing and the alfa-bank thing and the VEB thing and the The White House going into full-on cover-up mode, refusing to turn over the documents related to the hiring and subsequent firing of Flynn thing and the Chaffetz and White House blaming the poor vetting of Flynn on Obama thing and the Poland and British intelligence gave information regarding the hacking back in 2015 to Paul Ryan and he didn't do anything thing and the Agent M16 following the money thing and the Trump team KNEW about Flynn's involvement but hired him anyway thing and the let’s fire Comey thing and the Mueller let’s fire him too thing and the Election night Russian trademark gifts thing and the Russian diplomatic compound electronic equipment destruction thing and the let’s give back the diplomatic compounds back to the Russians thing and the let’s back away from Cuba thing and the donny Jr met with Russians thing and now Trump's secret second meeting with his boss Putin.

via ohaioohio

Recent /bestof of Republican hypocrisy:

The Party of Principles:

Exhibit 1: https://i.imgur.com/lTAU8LM.jpg

Opinion of Syrian airstrikes under Obama vs. Trump.

Democrats:

37% support Trump's Syria strikes

38% supported Obama doing it

Republicans:

86% supported Trump doing it

22% supported Obama doing

Exhibit 2: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/04/gop-voters-love-same-attack-on-syria-they-hated-under-obama.html

Exhibit 3: https://twitter.com/kfile/status/851794827419275264

Exhibit 4: https://i.imgur.com/OBrVUnd.png

Opinion of Vladimir Putin after Trump began praising Russia during the election. https://today.yougov.com/news/2016/12/14/americans-and-trump-part-ways-over-russia/

Exhibit 5: Opinion of "Obamacare" vs. "Kynect" (Kentucky's implementation of Obamacare). Kentuckians feel differently about the policy depending on the name. https://www.vox.com/2014/5/12/5709866/kentuckians-only-hate-obamacare-if-you-call-it-obamacare

Exhibit 6: Christians (particularly evangelicals) became monumentally more tolerant of private immoral conduct among politicians once Trump became the GOP nominee. https://www.prri.org/research/prri-brookings-oct-19-poll-politics-election-clinton-double-digit-lead-trump/

Exhibit 7: White Evangelicals cared less about how religious a candidate was once Trump became the GOP nominee. https://www.prri.org/research/prri-brookings-oct-19-poll-politics-election-clinton-double-digit-lead-trump/ ~ [Ed. Note: http://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2016/november/trump-elected-president-thanks-to-4-in-5-white-evangelicals.html]

Exhibit 8: Republicans were far more likely to embrace a certain policy if they knew Trump was for it—whether the policy was liberal or conservative. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/14/opinion/trump-republicans.html

Exhibit 9: Republicans became far more opposed to gun control when Obama took office. Democrats have remained consistent. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/07/20/republicans-skeptical-of-colleges-impact-on-u-s-but-most-see-benefits-for-workforce-preparation/

Exhibit 10: Republicans started to think college education is a bad thing once Trump entered the primary. Democrats remain consistent. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/07/20/republicans-skeptical-of-colleges-impact-on-u-s-but-most-see-benefits-for-workforce-preparation/

Exhibit 11: https://i.imgur.com/B2yx5TB.png

Wisconsin Republicans felt the economy improve by 85 approval points the day Trump was sworn in. Graph also shows some Democratic bias, but not nearly as bad. http://www.jsonline.com/story/news/blogs/wisconsin-voter/2017/04/15/donald-trumps-election-flips-both-parties-views-economy/100502848/

Exhibit 12: Republicans became deeply negative about trade agreements when Trump became the GOP frontrunner. Democrats remain consistent. http://www.people-press.org/2016/08/18/5-issues-and-the-2016-campaign/

Exhibit 13: 10% fewer Republicans believed the wealthy weren't paying enough in taxes once a billionaire became their president. Democrats remain fairly consistent. http://www.people-press.org/2017/04/14/top-frustrations-with-tax-system-sense-that-corporations-wealthy-dont-pay-fair-share/

Exhibit 14: Republicans suddenly feel very comfortable making major purchases now that Trump is president. Democrats don't feel more or less comfortable than before. http://news.gallup.com/poll/206792/republicans-upgrade-views-own-financial-situation.aspx

https://np.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/787fdh/after_gold_star_widow_breaks_silence_trump/dornc4n/

More:

"Trump fans are much angrier about housing assistance when they see an image of a black man"

In contrast, Clinton supporters seemed relatively unmoved by racial cues.

https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/9/8/16270040/trump-clinton-supporters-racist

Here's the vote for Hurricane Sandy aid. 179 of the 180 no votes were Republicans.

I count at least 20 Texas Republicans.

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2013/roll023.xml, https://twitter.com/MEPFuller/status/901871687532208128

via voksul

Might want to add this, too: As soon as Obama took office, Republicans switched from market-oriented solutions to full-on global warming denial.

Will the President Release All JFK Files,
Or Is This Just Another Twitted Tweet?

President Trump gave controllers of information 180 days to prove JFK files are actually a national threat and this information was paid for by taxpayers! Is it possible someone has something to hide from The People? ~ [Article Source]

via newsydsyder18

I was always interested in the case of Dorothy Kilgallen, a well known investigative journalist at the time (Had her column in over 200 newspapers). She was the only person who had interviewed Jack Ruby, twice I believe. 

She was highly influential, and was friendly with JFK and upper-class New York society (For example she had a friendship and feud with Frank Sinatra). She was a daily panelist on the hit TV show at the time "What's my Line", and was known for her celebrity-attended parties. She was on the show live, hours before her death. Be aware there is tons of hearsay when this is discussed, but it is still fascinating. 

She went full force into the JFK investigation, not believing Oswald acted alone, publicly stating that in her column. She allegedly carried a file around with her at all times, and told her close friend she was "going to release the largest story of the century, and blow the entire JFK case sky-high". Eventually she expressed fear for her life to her closest friends, became more paranoid and had bought a gun, which was out of her character. When in New Orleans investigating a contact, she had apparently told her assistant to go back to NYC and tell no one, in a frantic panic.

She was soon to submit her findings, but in 1965 she was found dead after having an affair with a much younger man who came out of nowhere. Her files were missing, and she was found by her hairdresser in a bedroom she never slept in, with clothes she would never wear to bed, reading a book she had finished and disliked, wearing glasses when she didn't need them for reading. Her case was closed as barbiturates and alcohol. NYC actually reopened an investigation into her death in 2016 due to a book published recently, but closed it in September this year with no evidence of foul play. 

I looked up her name out of curiosity, and there appears to be an entire file named "DOROTHY KILGALLEN", by Richard Nixon, it appears to still be classified for reasons of national security.

In another declassified document it just reads at the end "She has no idea as to how DOROTHY KILGALLEN came into possession of a copy of the deposition" 

EDIT 2: Found in Jim Garrison, Lead File 1a. Randomly when searching. Apparently a hotel owner, Mrs. Jackson said that a Robert Ahler had stayed in her hotel for 3 weeks, and she thinks she had seen him with a familiar face (Oswald) and left communist propaganda in one of the drawers, as well as a swastika.

Underlined by whoever did the investigation, was that he spent $2o a week on phone calls to New Orleans....interesting.

via iwasnottheone

Wasn't there another woman, an actress in 50's movies, later a radio personality, who claimed Frank Sinatra felt slighted by JFK? I remember reading that she was sure Sinatra had JFK killed via mafia connections, because, you just didn't publicly embarrass Sinatra then.

Reporter Dorothy Kilgallen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Kilgallen (best known for her appearances on "What's My Line") was about to release her story on who was responsible for JFK's assassination when she was found dead in her bed. From http://nypost.com/2016/12/04/dorothy-kilgallens-tell-all-on-a-mafia-don-might-have-got-her-killed/

The glamorous, razor-sharp Kilgallen delighted viewers, but behind the scenes, the dogged and courageous reporter was hot on the trail of the biggest story of her life: the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

The morning after that show, on Nov. 8, 1965, the 52-year-old newspaper columnist hailed by The Post as “the most powerful female voice in America” was dead in her Manhattan town house. Her body was found sitting up in a bed, naked under a blue bathrobe, with the makeup, false eyelashes and a floral hair accessory she had worn on TV still on.

After an autopsy, the city’s chief medical examiner, James Luke, put on Kilgallen’s death certificate: “Acute Ethanol and Barbiturate Intoxication, Circumstances Undetermined.” Luke ruled her death accidental, caused by a combination of sleeping pills and booze. Quickly closing the case, the city left a tarnished image of Kilgallen as a possible drug abuser and alcoholic.

The truth is far more complex and ominous, contends lawyer and veteran author Mark Shaw, whose exhaustively researched, true-life whodunnit, “The Reporter Who Knew Too Much” (Post Hill Press/Simon & Schuster), comes out Tuesday.

Shaw makes a compelling argument that Kilgallen was the victim of foul play, likely orchestrated by New Orleans Mafia don Carlos Marcello, who feared the results of her 18-month investigation for a tell-all book that would accuse Marcello of masterminding the JFK and Lee Harvey ­Oswald assassinations.

The possibility that Marcello was responsible for JFK’s death came up in the 1991 Oliver Stone movie “JFK,” but New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, who launched a probe, dismissed the idea. “He missed it,” Shaw says. “He didn’t have access to Kilgallen’s research.”

Kilgallen died weeks before a planned second trip to New Orleans for a meeting with a secret informant, telling a friend it was “cloak and daggerish.”

“I’m going to break the real story and have the biggest scoop of the century,” she told her ­lawyer.

Her death brought all that to a halt. “The killers won, because she was eliminated and erased from any historical record about the JFK assassination,” Shaw says. Her JFK book was never ­published.

via juancarias

Downloadable documents links:

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/zip/jfk.zip

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/zip/jfk.z01

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/zip/jfk.z02

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/zip/jfk.z03

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/zip/jfk.z04

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/zip/jfk.z05

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/zip/jfk.z06

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/zip/jfk.z07

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/zip/jfk.z08

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/zip/jfk.z09

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/zip/jfk.z10

Download all to same directory and open jfk.zip to unzip all.

via ministryoftimetravel

Posted this elsewhere but here's a rundown of what I'm hoping to find 

Anything that sheds light on Oswald's pre assassination intelligence connections. Specifically the following:

1) Whether or. It his defection to the USSR was legitimate or part of a false defector "dangle" program.

2) Wherher or not Oswald was used as an intelligence asset, knowingly or unknowingly, by various agencies such as the CIA, the FBI, army intelligence and the IRS.

3) Oswald's actions in New Orleans with both Pro and anti Castro Cubans, and wether or not his setting up of a Fair Play For Cuba chapter there was part of a propaganda operation. His interactions with the local chapter of the DRE, Guy Bannister, and David Ferrie.

4) Anything that explains whatever the hell was happening with Oswald's alleged trip to Mexico City. How he got a passport in one day. Why there are no photographs of him at the soviet and Cuban embassies, who impersonated him on the phone and possibly in person in these embassies, and anything that sheds light on the Odio incident.

5) Just what was Oswald's relationship with James Angelton, the head of of CIA counterintelligence, who controlled Oswald's file before the assassination and lied under oath about his knowledge of Oswald to investigators. Whether or not Angelton used information about Oswald in a mole hunt.

6) Any information about the following people and thier relationship with the assassination: David Atlee Philips, head of Western Hemisphere operations for the CIA, who perjured himself to investigators and was seen in the company of Oswald by an anti Castro fighter. He was involved in propaganda operations and seems to have made efforts to blame the crime in Castro.

Bill Harvey: the head of ZRrifle, the CIA assassination program. He hated Kennedy and had links to the underworld, anti Castro Cubans, and many others enemies of the president.

George Joanides: the CIA handler for the anti Castro group Oswald interacted with in New Orleans. This same group on the day of the assassination published the first conspiracy theory in the local news trying to claim Oswald was an agent of Castro. He later ended up "helping" the House Select Comitee (who were unaware of his past) as their CIA liaison and may have sabotaged their investigation. The head of this investigation is on record saying that if they had known he would have been subpoenaed.

7) Details of the alleged other attempted assassination plots in Chicago and Florida that went uninvestigated. Specifically Thomas Arthur Vallee, who's life and actions eerily mirror Oswald's.

8) And basically anything related to Howard Hunt, David Morales, Johnny Rosselli, Jack Ruby, Santos Trafficante, George Demorrenschild, and Richard Case Nagel.

TL:DR clarity on Oswald's pre Assassination links to various agencies and people and his possible involvement in espionage operations.

JFK assassination files: Hoover said FBI
must "convince the public" Oswald acted alone

British newspaper received call about
'big news' in US 25 minutes before JFK was shot

---

---

World's witnessing a new Gilded Age as billionaires’ wealth swells to $6tn
Not since the time of the Carnegies, Rockefellers and Vanderbilts
at the turn of the 20th century was so much owned by so few

George H.W. Bush offers a second apology. Two actresses have accused him of groping.

---

Steven Leech ~ Boptime + Legends of Wilmington Jazz

On Saturday’s Boptime we begin with the 1954 revival of the 1936 Broadway musical On Your Toes from Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. We continue with music from this day in 1954 in the 7am (EDT) hour, including what was playing at the movies and what was on television. At 8am (EDT) it’s Rockabilly Ridge with Michael Ace, and at 9am (EDT) one of our regular listeners and contributors during our last Radiothon, Jim Matthews, has his Dream Hour where we play the music that Jim would like you to hear. ~ Steve

Boptime: Saturday, 6 AM Eastern, 3 AM Pacific
Go To: http://www.wvud.org/?page_id=24
Click on a listening link below the WVUD logo:

Keith Medley ~ Ancestors from Jon Grimson

The Rolling Stones | Doom and Gloom via Trunk Animation

Keep the Net Neutral

The FCC is expected to announce a vote to gut net neutrality rules the day before Thanksgiving. Only a big burst of phone calls to Congress can stop them from allowing ISPs to charge us extra fees to access sites, apps, games, and especially the music we all love. ~ [Source]

JPTIII: Hey everyone, the chairman of the FCC, is very likely to announce a vote to gut neutrality, possibly as soon as Nov. 22nd. Once a vote is called, it will become much, much harder to stop ISPs from charging us all extra fees to access streaming services or watch music videos -- and they can demand payment from independent artists and labels, stifling independent voices

But there’s still hope. The most effective way to can stop this is by driving as many calls as possible to our Senators and Representatives, now through Nov. 22nd. 

We're getting word that there are lawmakers who are sympathetic to our cause and considering taking action to slow the FCC down, but they won’t act unless they get more phone calls from constituents. Also, if your think your Rep's opposed to net neutrality, its all the more reason to call them. Those Reps need to hear your voice more than anyone.

Please, head over to https://www.battleforthenet.com , and give your Senators and Reps a call telling them to stop the FCC from slashing Title II net neutrality protections. The time to act is now.

To reach the call in line directly by phone, call 202-930-8550.

When you get through to your Rep's office, introduce yourself, be polite, and say: 

I support "Title Two" net neutrality rules and I urge you to oppose the FCC's plan to repeal them. Specifically, I'd like you to contact the FCC Chairman and demand he abandon his current plan.

We also have ready-made banners, modals, and graphics of various sizes here: https://www.battleforthenet.com/#join ~ Thanks.

---

crazycarl1: Imagine if your internet was bought like cable packages. You can pay $60 per month for "basic" websites like Amazon and Google. If you want to stream netflix, it costs the cable providers more since they have to give more bandwidth, so access to Netflix with basic websites is $80 per month. Want HD quality streams on Netflix? That's $100 per month. Want to visit hulu? Sorry, they're with our competitor so you can't.

The argument against net neutrality is that the internet providers want to make more money than they already do

xthatguy339x: But don’t we pay them for a certain amount of bandwidth already? If I pay them for 100 down and up then I should get that. What the data is and how much or little I use of it at any given time shouldn’t be an issue. If their cables can’t handle that then they fucked up somewhere along the line in planning. I must be missing something. If they want to charge me for using a service that uses a lot of bandwidth then just charge me a rate per gigabyte or something like water or electricity.

topper_reppot: There is no good reason other than they want more money. On top of charging you speed, they can discriminate against competitive traffic to funnel people into using their services. 

Think of it like this - Verizon has a cell phone network, and when you go into a Verizon store, they have "their" phones that they want you to buy. Verizon creates partnerships with the hardware manufacturers. Sure, you can bring your own phone, but it won't be easy or even necessarily supported. Note, this is an oversimplification. 

ISPs see the destruction of Net Neutrality to create more "competitive" features to their network, but ultimately the root reason is they want more money. There's no technical reasoning, anyone who tells you otherwise is a troll or lobbyist.

muaddeej:  This type of behavior usually doesn't happen because we have a free market and if a company acts shady, people just go to where it's cheaper and better. But you only have 1 or 2 choices for REAL internet, so you are stuck with it.

Railboy: It actually happens all the time. ISPs have been getting slapped by the FCC over this stuff for decades. Here's a good list of examples.

2005 - Madison River Communications was blocking VOIP services. The FCC put a stop to it.

2005 - Comcast was denying access to p2p services without notifying customers.

2007-2009 - AT&T was having Skype and other VOIPs blocked because they didn't like there was competition for their cellphones.

2011 - MetroPCS tried to block all streaming except youtube. (edit: they actually sued the FCC over this)

2011-2013, AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon were blocking access to Google Wallet because it competed with their bullshit. edit: this one happened literally months after the trio were busted collaborating with Google to block apps from the android marketplace

2012, Verizon was demanding google block tethering apps on android because it let owners avoid their $20 tethering fee. This was despite guaranteeing they wouldn't do that as part of a winning bid on an airwaves auction. (edit: they were fined $1.25million over this)

2012, AT&T - tried to block access to FaceTime unless customers paid more money.

2013, Verizon literally stated that the only thing stopping them from favoring some content providers over other providers were the net neutrality rules in place.

strixter: Honestly politicians selling out the American people in the name of corporate interest is the highest form of treason in my mind. Utter cancer to society

via McKenna Fryman

Steven Leech ~ Boptime + Legends of Wilmington Jazz

On Saturday’s Boptime we begin with the original Broadway musical of Brigadoon from this day in 1948, after which we’ll play Bebop selections heard around this time in the same year from George Shearing, Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk and Fats Navarro. At 7am (EDT) we present more musical selections from 1948, including a selection from a band playing in a Wilmington night club. At 8am (EDT) we bop on up to this day in 1950 with the music from that day, including news from the Korean War, and what was at the movies and on television. At 9am (EDT) we’ll hear tunes from this day in 1953, only three months after the end of the Korean War. ~ Steve

Boptime: Saturday, 6 AM Eastern, 3 AM Pacific
Go To: http://www.wvud.org/?page_id=24
Click on a listening link below the WVUD logo:

Santa Rosa couple claims
PG&E negligence led to wildfire

By EMILY DERUY | ederuy@bayareanewsgroup.com | Bay Area News Group

PUBLISHED: October 18, 2017 at 2:06 pm | UPDATED: October 19, 2017 at 3:16 am

The Mercury News Source

Wayne and Jennifer Harvell allege that PG&E failed to maintain power lines.

A Santa Rosa couple who lost their home in the deadly fires that tore through Sonoma County last week filed a lawsuit Tuesday blaming PG&E for the blaze.

The lawsuit is the first against the utility company for its possible involvement in the North Bay fires and comes even before investigators have determined what caused the deadly fires.

But Wayne and Jennifer Harvell say their lawsuit is the beginning of an attempt to figure out what happened.

“We lost everything,” said Jennifer during a phone interview. “We lost our lives. So did everyone we know in our neighborhood, and, basically, we want to find out the truth about this.”

The Harvells allege that the utility company failed to adequately maintain power lines, leading to the destruction of their Coffey Park house and at least 1,000 others in the neighborhood as the Tubbs fire consumed the region.

The Harvells had lived in Santa Rosa for more than three decades before the blaze turned their home on Mocha Lane just west of Highway 101 to ash. They hope the lawsuit, filed in San Francisco Superior Court, will prompt PG&E to maintain its equipment and prevent similar fires in the future, they said.

Bill Robins, their lawyer, said the suit will put PG&E employees on notice that they need to preserve evidence, including any emails, related to the fires.

“We feel like there’s definitely sufficient evidence to suggest that PG&E’s lines and poles contributed to the fire,” Robins said. “There’s really, from our perspective, little doubt there were maintenance issues.”

As this news organization reported last week, Sonoma County emergency dispatchers received multiple calls of electrical transformers exploding and power lines falling in heavy winds, raising questions about PG&E’s maintenance of power lines and whether it cleared vegetation to reduce the risk of fire.

The power lines are only one of the many factors investigators from Cal Fire and the state’s Public Utilities Commission (PUC) are looking into as they search for the cause of the fire. Officials say it’s too early to determine the cause of the fires that started on Oct. 8 — a warm, dry, windy Sunday night — and spread into Santa Rosa neighborhoods early Monday morning.

The regulatory agency has already sent a letter to the utility ordering it to preserve any equipment possibly related to the fires and internal communications discussing the disaster.

In an emailed statement, Angela Lombardi, a PG&E spokeswoman, said, “As the fires continue to burn, we’re focused on supporting firefighting efforts to contain the fires and protect life and property. Once it is safe to do so, restoring power and gas service safely and as quickly as possible will be our priority. We aren’t going to speculate about any of the causes of the fires and will cooperate with the reviews by any relevant regulator or agency.”

While the Harvells’ suit is the first against PG&E related to the Wine Country fires, legal experts expect other families to file additional lawsuits against the company in the coming weeks and months.

“No question there’s going to be a large number of cases filed behind this,” Robins said. “We represent a number of other people already and are fielding calls quite frequently on a day-to-day basis.”

In a separate suit unrelated to the fires filed Wednesday, San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera sued PG&E to recover the costs, around $8 million so far, from a landslide that destroyed a home and damaged five others he says were caused by the company’s negligence.

PG&E has $800 million in liability insurance but estimates for fire damages are ranging as high as $3 billion already, which could affect the company’s financial stability.

In the days after the fire started, the company’s stock declined to $53.43 on Monday from $69.15 just a week ago as people questioned the company’s liability. The share price had rebounded somewhat to $56.77 on Wednesday.

In 2015, regulators fined the company $1.6 billion for the deadly 2010 San Bruno pipeline explosion. Federal investigators said flawed record-keeping by the company and poor maintenance caused the inferno. The PUC also fined PG&E more than $8 million for the Butte fire, which burned nearly 550 homes in Amador County and killed two people in 2015.

Emily DeRuy 

Emily DeRuy is based in Oakland and covers higher education for The Mercury News and East Bay Times. Previously, she covered education for The Atlantic in Washington, D.C. Before that, she wrote about politics and education for Fusion.

Mystery over Christ’s orb in $100m
Leonardo da Vinci painting

Crystal sphere in Salvator Mundi artwork lacks optical exactitude, prompting experts to speculate over motive and authenticity by Dalya Alberge, Wednesday 18 October 2017 19.00 EDT ~ [Click to continue reading at The Guardian: Source]

Free Orb Wallpaper
by Curtis Spangler, 200812.05
http://flyingsnail.com/Blender/wallpaper/index.html

Jeff Sessions shifts ground on Russia
contacts under Senate questioning

The attorney general concedes for the first time it was possible he had discussed Donald Trump’s policy positions with Russian ambassador by Julian Borger, Wednesday 18 October 2017 14.54 EDT ~ [Click to continue reading at The Guardian: Source]

Sessions refuses to discuss
Comey firing talks with Congress

WASHINGTON – Attorney General Jeff Sessions repeatedly insisted Wednesday that his private talks with President Donald Trump were off-limits to lawmakers – infuriating Democrats who for months have sought details of how the FBI director was fired amid a probe into Russia election interference. by Matt Zapotosky | Washington Post~ [Click to Continue reading at The Mercury News Source]

Sleepwalk, Steve Kimock Band via brown pelican

[Kudos KPFZ 88.1 FM for Fire Coverage ~ Live Stream]

Notes from ~@~

A Tribute to Dr. Strange
October 16, 1965

In October 1965, a small commune called the Family Dog threw an unusual dance at Longshoreman's Hall, starring a rock band called the Charlatans that had played the previous summer at the Red Dog Saloon, a restored silver rush dance hall in Virginia City, Nev. The second-billed group, which had an even weirder name, Jefferson Airplane, was making its first appearance outside the Marina District nightclub it had opened the month before. The third act on the bill, the Great Society, featured a former model from Palo Alto named Grace Slick.

George Hunter, Dan Hicks, Mike Wilhelm, Mike Ferguson, Richie Olsen
The Charlatans, 1964, Golden Gate Park Conservatory

More than a thousand people turned up for the dance. Hair flowing over their collars, the revelers were dressed cheerfully in colorful discards plucked from thrift stores. Many were on LSD, as were many of the musicians. Virtually everyone who attended "A Tribute to Dr. Strange," as the dance was called, seemed to have the same thought about the gathering: "I didn't know there were this many of us."

Click for: Live map of wildfires burning in Sonoma, Napa, Lake counties

201710.15 +/- 02:00 PDT ~ Looking South, Top of Mt. St. Helena
Photo taken 02:41 PDT and Fire No Longer Visible by 03:00 am

201710.14 09:30 am pdt #longfire
Due to new 100 Acre Long Fire,
Lake County Residents No Longer
Have An Escape Route From County.

California fire mystery:
[Convicted Felon & Murderer] PG&E lines
fell in winds that weren’t ‘hurricane strength’

By PAUL ROGERS | progers@bayareanewsgroup.com, LISA M. KRIEGER | lkrieger@bayareanewsgroup.com and MATTHIAS GAFNI | mgafni@bayareanewsgroup.com | Bay Area News Group PUBLISHED: October 12, 2017 at 7:38 pm | UPDATED: October 13, 2017 at 6:01 pm ~ Photos, etc. at The Mercury News Source

The heavy winds that downed power lines Sunday night at the start of the deadly wildfires raging across Northern California were far from “hurricane strength,” as PG&E has claimed, according to a review of weather station readings.

On Tuesday, theBay Area News Group reported that Sonoma County emergency dispatchers sent fire crews to at least 10 reports of downed power lines and exploding transformers as the North Bay fires were starting around 9:22 p.m.

In response, PG&E said that “hurricane strength winds in excess of 75 mph in some cases” had damaged their equipment, but they said it was too early to speculate about what started the fires.

However, wind speeds were only about half that level, as the lines started to come down, the weather station records show. At a weather station in north Santa Rosa where the Tubbs fire started, the peak wind gusts at 9:29 p.m. hit 30 mph. An hour later, they were 41 mph.

Similarly, at another weather station east of the city of Napa, on Atlas Peak, where the Atlas fire started, wind gusts at 9:29 p.m. peaked at 32 mph. An hour later they were 30 mph.

Both speeds were substantially under the speed that power lines must be able to withstand winds under state law: at least 56 mph.

“This is classic PG&E — trying to spin things without first taking a look at the hard facts,” said Burlingame attorney Frank Pitre. “The winds were well within the threshold of design standards. If they failed, this was a failure in their system.”

Investigators are looking at power line failures as a possible cause of the historic fires.

PG&E officials did not respond to specific questions about the wind speeds and whether their power lines were in compliance with state safety laws.

“There will likely be reviews of these wildfires by the appropriate agencies, but right now we are focused on life safety and service restoration,” said PG&E spokesman Donald Cutler.

Pitre sued PG&E after the utility was found responsible by the state Public Utilities Commission for starting the Butte fire in Amador County in 2015 because of the utility’s failure to maintain its power lines. That fire burned for 22 days, killing two people, destroying 549 homes and charring 70,868 acres. The PUC fined PG&E $8.3 million and Cal Fire sent PG&E a bill for $90 million to cover state firefighting costs.

According to the National Weather Service, the “hurricane strength winds” that PG&E referenced were not “hurricane strength.”

“It’s not a good analogy,” said weather service meteorologist Roger Gass in Monterey.

To qualify as “hurricane strength,” winds must be sustained — lasting for more than 1 minute — at a minimum 74 mph. Such winds are the speeds in a Category 1 hurricane, the weakest of five categories.

In the Napa-Sonoma area, one weather station used by the National Weather Service, on Hawkeye Peak near Geyserville, recorded gusts of 79 mph at 11:56 pm on Sunday night. But gusts are defined as lasting only 3 to 5 seconds, and the sustained wind speed there at that time was 48 mph. Also, Hawkeye Peak is 22 miles north of Santa Rosa and 50 miles north of Napa, far from where the major fires broke out.

Under state law, utilities are required to maintain power lines safely and cut back trees to prevent fires. When they are found to have started fires, they are liable for fines and damages in court to people who have lost homes, businesses and family members in the blazes.

If PG&E is found to be at fault in this fire, the utility could use an “act of God” defense, arguing that weather conditions were so bad it couldn’t do anything to stop power lines from coming down.

“They could use that as a defense,” said Britt Strottman, an Oakland attorney representing Butte fire victims in Calaveras County. “Then it will be up to the PUC and Cal Fire — along with any judge and juries in civil cases — to decide whether that holds water.”

In 1994, PG&E was found guilty of 739 counts of negligence and fined nearly $30 million by state regulators when trees touched its high-voltage wires in Nevada County in the Sierra foothills, sparking a fire near the town of Rough and Ready that destroyed 12 homes and a 19th century schoolhouse. Afterward, prosecutors found that PG&E had diverted nearly $80 million from its tree-cutting programs into profits.

“If PG&E is at fault or partially at fault for these fires, it could be devastating to the company,” Strottman said. “PG&E could face significant fines and penalties.”

The company was fined $1.6 billion by the PUC after it was found negligent in causing the 2010 San Bruno gas line explosion, which killed eight people and destroyed 38 homes.

Investigators continue to probe the cause of the more than 20 fires that are still burning across Northern California, killing at least 35 people, destroying more than 5,700 homes and charring more than 220,000 acres.

“There isn’t anything we can talk about because those are active investigations,” Cal Fire Chief Ken Pimlott said Thursday. “We all want to get to the bottom of what caused the fires. But at the end of the day, they need to do their job and we need to do the job of putting these fires out — and that’s going to be our focus.”

On Thursday, the PUC’s Safety and Enforcement Division sent PG&E a letter requiring it to “preserve all evidence” from the fires in Napa, Sonoma and Solano counties, including “all failed poles, conductors and associated equipment from each fire event” and “all electronic (including emails) and non-electronic documents related to potential causes of the fires, vegetation management, maintenance and/or tree trimming.”

Friday, the PUC sent a similar letter to AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, Frontier, T-Mobile and Comcast with a similar order.

Despite strong winds this week, parts of the Napa and Sonoma valleys have experienced stronger winds this year. Atlas Peak had gusts of 66 mph last February, for example.

“It was a strong wind event, but not unprecedented,” Jan Null, a meteorologist with Golden Gate Weather Services in Saratoga, said of the winds Sunday night.

Strong windstorms commonly send trees into power poles, cutting off electricity to thousands of customers. But what was different on Sunday night was the time of year: In the winter, downed power lines don’t cause giant conflagrations.

“Trees and power lines go down in winter winds all the time,” he said. “But that’s on wet ground, not ground that is tinder dry.”

“We’ve had stronger wind events, but it was during a different time of year,” Null said. “This was a matter of everything lining up” to bring down poles and wires.

“Should that happen? That is the overriding question,” Null said. “It’s not for me to say.”

[To Quell, Or Not To Quell
Corporate Death Penalty _or_ Public Tar and Feathering for PG&E Executives
Regarding September 12, 2015: Valley Fire Rumor

Most folks who live in remote, wooded, areas usually have a radio scanner which is used for listening to fire and weather reports.

For over two (2) years the following rumor has floated around Lake County, California regarding convicted felon & murderer PG&E's alleged involvement in starting the 2015 Valley Fire. Yes, ...the same fire that destroyed our little ranch; where I had asked for years that an ancient PG&E transformer [transformer photo here] be replaced, == which never happened ... not to mention what was done to property and water during clean-up [more photos?].

Rumor only: Allegedly, first reports stated Valley Fire was started because of "downed power lines, due to a tagged tree falling on them" and that the "tree had been tagged for removal for a very long time". Later, a photograph of the area where the fire started appeared, immediately disappeared, and could not be found after that. While this was happening four (4) Valley Fire fire fighters are initially injured by the fire. While this was happening, someone working on a hot tub was blamed for the fire, but neighbors said the fire did not start there, then that story disappeared!

It is
important
to remember what
was going on at the time:

Politicians: Politicians race to San Bruno

PG&E diverted safety money for profit, bonuses

PG&E collected millions more for pipeline repair than it spent

PG&E charged: multiple violations of Natural Gas Pipeline Safety Act

PG&E slapped with a record $1.6 billion penalty for fatal San Bruno explosion

On September 16, 2014, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Carol Brown,
chief of staff for the president of the California Public Utilities Commission,
had communicatedwith PG&E executives to help move litigation to judges  they
expected would be friendly to PG&E's side. [Judge scandal under federal
investigation ~ II Corinthians, 11:13-15]

PG&E customers face triple whammy in gas and electric bills

PG&E trial: Prosecution drops maximum penalty to $6 million

Mercury News editorial: PG&E leniency demands explanation

PG&E guilty on six charges connected to fatal San Bruno explosion

Mercury News editorial: Hold PG&E accountable

PG&E hasn’t learned lessons from San Bruno explosion, officials say

Editorial: PG&E found guilty, but it’s not enough (East Bay Times)

Politicians: Politicians’ talk of regulatory reform is just pious rhetoric

PG&E seeks to overturn guilty verdict in trial linked to San Bruno blast

Despite flawed records, PG&E raised pressure on pipe that exploded

PG&E criminal charges against agency ‘unwarranted,’ says it didn’t break the law

Politicians: Lawmakers kill major revamp of PUC, but some reforms get approved

PG&E: How does the piper pay? By Tom Cushing ~ [Article Source] ~ Plus:

PG&E was raked over coals due to some misinformation regarding Smart Meters

It is also important to remember PG&E was being coached by CPUC to find judges who would be friendly to them in order to reduce their (PG&E's) sentence of neglect, murder, mayhem, and massive lawsuits to nothing. It is also important to ask, would PG&E want to avoid any further finger pointing, like being responsible for the Valley Fire; especially while a jury is deciding their material fate!!!

Is it possible PG&E subverted 'the Valley Fire process'? Local news, archive.org, and this Valley Fire PDF GREEN SHEET issued by CAL FIRE seem to present this possibility and maybe it should finally be investigated in order to quell these rumors and perhaps place blame where blame is due ??? == On a corporation that cares more for profit rather than 'the people' it serves ?]

Steven Leech ~ Boptime + Legends of Wilmington Jazz

On Saturday’s Boptime we begin with Chico O’Farrill’s Second Afro-Cuban Jazz Suite followed by Stan Kenton’s West Side Story Suite, composed by Leonard Bernstein. At 7am (EDT) on the Legends of Wilmington Jazz we explore the work and career of Sam Wooding, who was one of Clifford Brown’s earliest teachers. Beginning at 8am (EDT) we meet on Clifford’s Corner with cohost Larry Williams and Kitty Mayo, and spin those rare 78 rpm and comment on those rare and unique jazz and R&B sides. ~ Steve

Boptime: Saturday, 6 AM Eastern, 3 AM Pacific
Go To: http://www.wvud.org/?page_id=24
Click on a listening link below the WVUD logo:

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Current Nearby Fires

http://www.lakeconews.com ~ @LakeCoNews ~ CDF Incidents

#californiawildfires ~ #sulphurfire ~ #pocketfire ~ #clearlake ~ #calistogafire

#norcalfires ~ #northbayfire ~ #sonomafire ~ #napafire ~ #santarosafire ~ #tubbsfire

Why? Because the September 12, 2015 Valley Fire destroyed our little ranch.

Click for: Live map of wildfires burning in Sonoma, Napa, Lake counties

PG&E Is A Convicted Felon & Murderer

PG&E source believes downed power lines,
blown transformers started deadly North Bay fires

PG&E power lines and exploding transformers may
have sparked the wildfires raging in the North Bay

Rose McGowan, one of Harvey Weinstein's accusers,
has account limited by Twitter ~ Source: BBC

Where's the 'Eff'n Military Support?

Northern California Does Not Have Resources to Handle these Fires!
Please don't allow your futher muckin narcissistic ego to burn California!

Click for: Live map of wildfires burning in Sonoma, Napa, Lake counties

Convicted Felon & Murderer: PG&E
power lines linked to Wine Country fires

PG&E and other large utilities in California have a long history of being found responsible for major wildfires because of inadequate maintenance of their power lines.

In April, the state Public Utilities Commission fined PG&E $8.3 million for failing to maintain a power line that sparked the Butte Fire in Amador County in September 2015. That fire burned for 22 days, killing two people, destroying 549 homes and charring 70,868 acres.

CalFire announced last year that it will seek to force PG&E to pay $90 million in firefighting costs. More than 1,000 lawsuits and claims are still pending against the utility.

“It was more than just a lack of maintenance. It was a complete disregard for their requirements of vegetation management in rural areas,” said Burlingame attorney Frank Pitre, who sued on behalf of the victims. [continue reading at The Mercury News Source] ~ Is it Time for a Corporate Death Penalty?

201710.11: Looking South ~ Fire is on other side of pictured mountains.
Area 5 miles away (Middletown, California) is currently being evacuated.

http://www.lakeconews.com and @Twitter

CDF Incidents ~ #SulphurFire ~ #LakeCounty ~ #ClearLake ~ #CalistogaFire

#NorCalFires ~ #SonomaFire ~ #NapaFire ~ #SantaRosaFire ~ #TubbsFire

Why? Because the September 12, 2015 Valley Fire destroyed our little ranch.

Infernal/Fire via ben williams

David Gilmour | Rattle That Lock via Trunk Animation

The Rolling Stones | Wild Horses via Trunk Animation

Dahbud Mensch ~ Stuck in the middle with WHO ?

Politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice! You have OWNERS!  They OWN YOU, THEY OWN EVERYTHING! ~ George Carlin

The Rolling Stones | Doom and Gloom via Trunk Animation

From the Politicians who voted for

the Patriot Act without reading it:

These 13 House Reps sponsored a bill
to legalize mass surveillance on
Americans
and called it the USA Liberty Act

Posted on  Oct 7, 2017 by Caleb Chen, Article Source

On October 6th, House Representative Goodlatte and 12 other Representatives proposed the USA Liberty Act (H.R. 3989) – which would renew the currently active NSA’s mass surveillance programs. We’ve known for the better part of a year that the Trump Administration intended to renew Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) which would otherwise expire at the end of this year. Section 702 is used by the National Security Agency (NSA) to justify its controversial UPSTREAM and PRISM programs, which were revealed by Edward Snowden in 2013.

Section 702 permits the warrant-less targeting of foreign targets located in international places, not on US soil. However, in practice, the mass surveillance has picked up US citizens data – and the NSA refuses to state how many Americans’ are caught up in this surveillance database. However, the USA Liberty Act would codify this mass surveillance. The USA Liberty Act is an affront on the average American’s intelligence – and is even worse than the “Restoring Internet Freedom” Act put forth by these 9 Senators.

These are the 13 House Representatives that are
sponsoring the poorly titled USA Liberty Act (H.R. 3989)

Rep. Goodlatte, Bob [R-VA-6] ~ Rep. Conyers, John, Jr. [D-MI-13] ~ Rep. Sensenbrenner, F. James, Jr. [R-WI-5] ~ Rep. Nadler, Jerrold [D-NY-10] ~ Rep. Smith, Lamar [R-TX-21] ~ Rep. Jackson Lee, Sheila [D-TX-18] ~ Rep. Collins, Doug [R-GA-9] ~ Rep. Johnson, Henry C. “Hank,” Jr. [D-GA-4] ~ Rep. Rutherford, John H. [R-FL-4] ~ Rep. Deutch, Theodore E. [D-FL-22] ~ Rep. Chabot, Steve [R-OH-1] ~ Rep. Raskin, Jamie [D-MD-8] ~ Rep. Johnson, Mike [R-LA-4]

The fact of the matter is, domestic law enforcement can still get a rubber stamp to view NSA collected data on Americans. The data shouldn’t be collected on Americans to begin with – but the legislation does nothing to address that, instead side stepping the issue with a flowery name and lip service to adding checks and balances to the FISA system. There aren’t any clauses that force the deletion of aggregated data after a certain period of time – and there isn’t a single mention of safeguards to prevent abuse of the system by those with access to it (even though such abuse has been revealed in the past).

But how can we stop terrorism
without mass surveillance ?

Patrick G. Eddington from the CATO Institute described the situation nicely:

“…it is important to remember that the underlying premise of the FISA Amendments Act and the PATRIOT Act—that 9/11 happened because we didn’t collect enough information on the terrorists prior to the attacks—has been refuted by the Congressional Joint Inquiry and the 9/11 Commission. This draft is proof that when it comes to rolling back unnecessary and ineffective mass surveillance programs, those facts simply don’t matter.”

Section 702 of FISA should not be extended – mass surveillance of Americans should not be allowed to be codified into law. If you are in the US the thought of this unconstitutional Internet surveillance continuing makes your blood boil, the right course of action is to reach out to Congress and let them know to “pull the plug on Internet spying programs.” The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has a handy page with information that makes it easy to contact your House Representatives to let them know to vote against H.R. 3989.

About Caleb Chen: Caleb Chen is a digital currency and privacy advocate who believes we must #KeepOurNetFree, preferably through decentralization. Caleb holds a Master's in Digital Currency from the University of Nicosia as well as a Bachelor's from the University of Virginia. He feels that the world is moving towards a better tomorrow, bit by bit by Bitcoin. ~ Twitter ~ More Posts (176)

You Do Remember
the Patriot Act Don't You?

permmalink

The Patriot Act Was Not About Terrorism,
It Was About Control of U.S. Citizens.

The PATRIOT ACT excretes on the fourth amendment. Simply, anyone doing anything "criminal" can be treated as a "terrorist". Sounds innocuous until you realize that speeding on the highway, on your way to work, is considered to be "criminal."

It is alleged the first major Spying on US Citizens was specifically done on media personnel & politicians previous to Bush becoming president during 2000. The Patriot Act, never read by politicians, was established October 26, 2001.

Ashcroft holds sign saying,
"The Bush Jihad Against The Bill of Rights" and says, "Freedom is Slavery!"

Target: 'Narco-Terror' [Broken Link. Was:
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/WorldNewsTonight/victory_act030820.html]

ABCNEWS.com has obtained a draft of the Vital Interdiction of Criminal Terrorist Organizations Act of 2003, or VICTORY Act, which could be introduced to Congress this fall, and which appears to have been prepared by the office of Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Ashcroft says, Uh, yah ... I still need more emergency powers. Our Republic remains endangered.

Provisions in the draft would:

Raise the threshold for rejecting illegal wiretaps. The draft reads: "A court may not grant a motion to suppress the contents of a wire or oral communication, or evidence derived therefrom, unless the court finds that the violation of this chapter involved bad faith by law enforcement."

Melba says, Edith, I hear the Government can tap our phones whenever they damn well want to!!
Ashcroft, who is listening to the conversation says, That's not true, Edith - It's only to catch terrorists!
Edith questions by asking, Melba is a terrorist?

Extend subpoena powers by giving giving law enforcement the authority to issue non-judicial subpoenas which require a person suspected of involvement in money laundering to turn over financial records and appear in a prosecutor's office to answer questions.

Ashcroft, while devouring United States Citizens' CIVIL LIBERTIES, demands MORE.

Extend the power of the attorney general to issue so-called administrative "sneak-and-peak" subpoenas to drug cases. These subpoenas allow law enforcement to gather evidence from wire communication, financial records or other sources before the subject of the search is notified.

Mr. Ashcroft wants people who go into American homes to snoop while they're there. USPS,
FEDEX, UNITED PARCEL, ACME EXTERMINATORS, and ED'S PLUMBING are depicted.
At the door a woman says,
I'm sorry Alice, I'll come back later, I didn't know you had snoops.

Allow law enforcement to seek a court order to require the "provider of an electronic communication service or remote computing service" or a financial institution to delay notifying a customer that their records had been subpoenaed.

Ashcroft says, IF AT FIRST YOU DON'T SUCCEED... & is about to blow-up American Civil Liberties

"This bill would treat drug possession as a 'terrorist offense' and drug dealers as 'narco-terrorist kingpins,' " the aide argued. "To say that terrorist groups use a small percentage of the drug trafficking in the United States to finance terrorism may be a fair point, but this bill would allow the government to prosecute most drug cases as terrorism cases."

John Ashcroft's War on Terrorists ~ A large eye watches a couple in bed, who are trying to sleep.

Concluded the aide: "It really seems to be more about a political agenda to jail drug users than a serious attempt to stop terrorists."

WAR ON TERROR thugs destroy a home, hold a gun on a dog, and look at women's
underwear during a raid. Not finding anything terror related, one thug says,
So...As long as we're here... Does your evil kid smoke dope?

Terror Alert ~ Have You Seen This Man (Ashcroft)? Targets May Include:
* Your privacy rights * Your right to know what your government's up to
* YOUR PROTECTIONS UNDER THE JUSTICE SYSTEM [continue reading?]

In memory of Paul Krassner's Fuck Communism! (sic) bumpersnicker

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A Narcissist’s Guide to Helping OTHERS
Understand It Is All About You

By Dana Milbank  Opinion writer, October 4 at 6:20 PM, Article Source ~ via Fred

Excerpted from “The Me-Driven Life: A Narcissist’s Guide to Helping Others Understand It Is All About You,” by John Barron.

Reprinted without permission.

Chapter 12, “Coping with Natural and Man-Made Disasters,” pp 269-277

Natural disasters and their man-made counterparts (mass shootings, terrorist attacks) pose an obvious challenge for those living the Me-Driven Life. These events are frustrating, and inconvenient, because they tend to cause those people to think about their own problems: their injuries, the loss of loved ones, their hunger, thirst, discomfort, life-threatening cholera, what have you.

This is a common character flaw, and it is harmful because it distracts them from their more pressing obligation to think about you.

It is likely that this loss of perspective is temporary, but even a temporary loss of focus on you is dangerous. It must be arrested and reversed as quickly as possible. You can help these people by getting them to stop thinking about their own concerns and to redirect such destructive thoughts. Here are a few practical steps to return others’ focus to where it appropriately belongs.

First, show them what extraordinary things you are doing for them. Use adjectives such as “great,” “amazing” and “incredible” frequently when referring to the work you have done. Some examples: “I think it’s now acknowledged what a great job we’ve done.” “We get an A-plus.” “We have done an incredible job.” Don’t be afraid to tell them the work you and those who work for you have done “is really nothing short of a miracle.”

Be sure to highlight those who affirm you and your centrality to the situation. This positive reinforcement encourages others to drop thoughts of themselves in favor of thoughts about you. If somebody praises you, say, “He started right at the beginning appreciating what we did,” or, “He was saying it like it was, and he was giving us the highest grades.”

If somebody has praised you, you might even try to get that person to repeat the praise in front of an audience. Note that the person has said “such nice things” about you and suggest, “Jenniffer, do you think you can say a little bit of what you said about us today?” If Jenniffer does as requested, encourage others to do the same by saying, “I saw those comments, and everybody saw those comments, and we really appreciate it.”

Visual aids can help. If people need food, for example, don’t just hand out bags of rice and paper towels. Make a show of it! Toss supplies through the air as if shooting baskets. If people gather at the scene of disaster, make them all appear to be your fans simply by saying “What a crowd!” or “What a turnout!”

The sad fact is, when a disaster causes somebody to dwell on his or her pain or loss, they are not capable of fulfilling their obligation to you. They must be jolted back to reality. Tell them what they are going through is not a “real catastrophe.” Tell them the death count is low, or say their disaster doesn’t measure up to other disasters. Telling them to “have a good time” and letting them know “you don’t need” emergency supplies will help them realize their catastrophe is not as central to them as you are. To the extent they believe they are suffering, you need to convince them that this is only because they are not helping YOU. Say, “They have to give us more help,” or, “They want everything to be done for them.”

Don’t hesitate to remind others of your importance to them. Say that everything you’re spending to help them has “thrown our budget a little out of whack.” Remind them that they “owe a lot of money” and “we’re going to have to wipe that out.”

Never forget that what should matter to them most is you: your role, your experience, your needs. If they have suffered loss, tell them that “it’s a very, very sad day for me, personally.” After consoling people, say that “it was really something that I enjoyed very much.” Try to mention some association you have with the place: a business transaction you made, something you own, a victory you won. Offer them what they want most — an invitation to visit you.

If you employ these techniques, you will find that you can successfully divert others’ attention from whatever “catastrophe” distracts them — and back where it belongs. When you depart the scene of tragedy, you will be able to say: “I think it means a lot to the people . . . that I was there.” And you will mean it.

Twitter: @Milbank ~ Read more from Dana Milbank’s archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook. Dana Milbank writes about political theater in the nation’s capital. He joined the Post as a political reporter in 2000. ~ Images and Video @ Source.

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The Glory Of Love from Nabuke O

Words to the above tune written by Billy Hill, recorded by Benny Goodman in 1936, and performed by The Five Keys during my day:

You've got to give a little, take a little ~ And let your poor heart break a little ~ That's the story of, that's the glory of love ~ You've got to laugh a little, cry a little ~ Before the clouds roll by a little ~ That's the story of, that's the glory of love ~ As long as there's the two of us ~ We've got the world and all its charms ~ And when the world is through with us ~ We've got each other's arms ~ You've got to win a little, lose a little ~ And always have the blues a little ~ That's the story of, that's the glory of love ~ As long as there's the two of us ~ We've got the world and all its charms ~ And when the world is through with us ~ We've got each other's arms ~ You've got to win a little, lose a little ~ And always have the blues a little ~ That's the story of, that's the glory of love ~ That's the story of, that's the glory of love

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Message to the Future, Bertrand Russell from Zoltan Malik

What would you think it’s worth telling future generations about the life you’ve lived and the lessons you’ve learned from it?

"I should like to say two things, one intellectual and one moral. The intellectual thing I should want to say is this: When you are studying any matter, or considering any philosophy, ask yourself only what are the facts and what is the truth that the facts bear out. Never let yourself be diverted either by what you wish to believe, or by what you think would have beneficent social effects if it were believed. But look only, and solely, at what are the facts. That is the intellectual thing that I should wish to say.

The moral thing I should wish to say… I should say love is wise, hatred is foolish. In this world which is getting more closely and closely interconnected we have to learn to tolerate each other, we have to learn to put up with the fact that some people say things that we don’t like. We can only live together in that way and if we are to live together and not die together we must learn a kind of charity and a kind of tolerance which is absolutely vital to the continuation of human life on this planet." Face to Face (BBC) 1958

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Targeted By
Malignant Narcissism?

Brief History

The social psychologist, Erich Fromm first coined the term "malignant narcissism" in 1964, describing it as a "severe mental sickness" representing "the quintessence of evil". He characterized the condition as "the most severe pathology and the root of the most vicious destructiveness and inhumanity."

What is Narcissistic Personality Disorder?

Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) is a disorder, characterized by exaggerated feelings of self-importance, an excessive need for admiration, and a lack of empathy for others.

People with the disorder are often perceived as arrogant, callous, envious and tend to be exploitative in their interpersonal relationships.

They can be excessively preoccupied with personal adequacy, power, prestige and vanity.

Those with NPD generally lack emotional awareness and insight into their own condition, and fail to acknowledge that their behavior is at the root of their own problems as well as the problems they cause for others because, as a personality disorder, their thoughts, perceptions, and actions are generally consistent with their sense of self.

In cases of child sexual abuse that lead to narcissism, blaming the victim expands the trauma.

Are malignant narcissists cases of arrested development?

They are perpetually living in a mind set of a young child. The age when a child is old enough to know the difference between right and wrong but very willing to do wrong if they think they won't get caught. Like a child, they feel entitled to whatever they want. Like a child, they recreate reality to suit their fantasy about themselves and the world around them. Like a child, they want all attention focused on them. But, unlike a child, the narcissist is not subject to being molded and shaped by authority figures or reality. The narcissist is determined (read here, conscious choice) to remain a child whereas most children are driven by a desire to grow up. Children are childish and there is no crime in that. I'm not pathologizing childhood. I'm highlighting that malignant narcissists are pathological children.

They reserve to themselves the right to define reality to all in their domain.

What are Phobic Symptoms?

For example:

Feelings of uncontrollable anxiety when a narcissist is about to be exposed for __

Feelings that everything possible must be done to avoid __

Inability to function normally because of anxiety due to __

Having knowledge that fears are unreasonable or exaggerated, but feeling powerless to control them, which will sometimes lead to panic attacks.

What is Narcissistic Abuse?

Narcissistic abuse is one of the most pervasive forms of abuse. There really isn't much worse and this condition is increasingly spreading throughout our society.

The increasing use of illegal drugs, abuse and the general social breakdown occurring world wide is a major cause.

A person with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) will emotionally damage their families. This damage can last more than a life time, it will also affect the next 3 or 4 generations.

Many children of NPD elect to not perpetuate the craziness another generation by not having children. NPD can also be passed down through the generations. Great grandma had NPD and one of the great grand children also is afflicted with NPD.

NPD's are very good actors and actresses. They can feign love or whatever they need to get what they want. They tend to attract empaths or people that really want to help them. These make wonderful victims, especially the type that can keep turning the cheek.

18 Ways To Spot A Narcissist

1). They’re likable — at least, at first glance. ~ 2). Not all narcissists are loud and proud. In fact, some are quiet and shy. ~ 3). They can often be found in leadership roles.

Not that that makes them good leaders, notes Jean Twenge, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Psychology at San Diego State University and co-author of The Narcissism Epidemic with Campbell. But narcissists often find themselves in leadership positions because "people who are narcissistic want to be leaders. They don't necessarily make better leaders, but they want to do it, so they're more likely to end up in those positions."

4). They always manage to make the conversation about themselves. ~ 5). They’re also guilty of name-dropping. ~ 6). Not every story a narcissist tells is one of victory. But even in the stories of tragedy or failure, there’s an air of entitlement and victimization. ~ 7). They like nice things. ~ 8). Appearance is everything to them. ~ 9). On Facebook, they have lots of friends — and not a single bad picture. ~ 10). They are strongly averse to criticism. ~ 11). Excuses are a narcissist’s best friend. ~ 12). They leave a trail of wreckage behind them. ~ 13). And in that vein, they may be more likely to cheat. ~ 14). Everything is personal. ~ 15). A narcissistic person probably has no idea he or she is a narcissist. ~ 16). You find yourself resorting to flattery just to maintain the peace with a narcissist. ~ 17). Narcissists are not low in self-esteem. ~ 18). Men are more likely to be narcissists than women.

Are you a target of narcissistic abuse?

If you have been the target of a severe narcissist, severing ties may be necessary. Others may never understand why you had to make this choice. Without exposure, a capacity for insight, concern and curiosity, they cannot perceive the destructiveness. It may make you feel alone, but so be it. Do what you have to do.

Once you are removed and safe, thoughts about what happened—why, how, makes no sense, they do not care about the damage they caused, etc,—may haunt you. You may feel damaged or tainted because you are now saddled with the memories and feel you cannot get them out of your head.

You can...

Heal Yourself, Ruthie Foster, film: Road To Austin from Gary Fortin

Here's how: Develop the ability to change your thoughts or your relationship to your thoughts. There are many options such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Mindfulness-Based Therapy and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

It can be done.

Regarding the incredibly seductive pull of a very skilled narcissist, be wise.

When the bombs of life hit us, our world view is shattered. Our assumption of a fair world run by a benevolent deity is brought into direct conflict with the hell of our pain. Experiencing extreme pain affects how we view ourselves. The picture of the beautiful, happy loving world we used to live in, involved our own part of that picture. We all carry pictures of ourselves in our heads. Most of us have the belief that we are capable to wake up in the morning, shower, get ourselves dressed and proceed throughout our day making our living. The trauma of victimization changes all this. We seriously question ourselves after a narcissist victimizes us. Are we weak? Are we needy? How did we not see them for who they were? Weren't we intelligent? How did we not pick up on the lies? Are we out of control? It makes no sense to us when we face unwarranted, irrational and undeserved mental /emotional torture by a narcissist.

The victimization of us was neither expected nor intended to be our choice. We did not want to be lied to, cheated, cheated on, stolen from, lied about, sold down the river and thrown away. We did NOT see this coming. We perceive ourselves as helpless and powerless. Our self perceptions change. Will we now always be victimized in relationships? Will we be singled out again? These new self perceptions can cause us to act out again, from this perception; becoming another victim to a narcissist.

As you can see, the skillful narcissist is a person with some pretty amazing traits. In my opinion, they can be formidable. They can be impressive in power, strength, intelligence, size, and difficulty. If you find one opposing you, they can be astounding enemies. They are not omnipotent, though they might think so. They do have limitations. Their ego is their own undoing. Many times, when they discover that you are on to them, they disappear. They do this if they perceive that you can blow their cover and expose them as a sham. For an extreme narcissist, being fully exposed to the world is the greatest pain in their lives. It is also the best medicine to their disease because it will force them to look inside and deal with their pain and wounds. If and when that happens, they will become like the rest of us, realizing that we do need others to help and love us. They will see how they need to love from a genuine heart that does not seek to use people. A former and healed narcissist can turn all his powerful assets, which he used to advance himself, to making a powerful contribution in the lives of others and being realistically liked. In the meantime, be careful and avoid being duped and drawn by the amazing magnetism of this kind of person.

Conclusion

If you have been targeted by a Malignant Narcissist for serious abuse, be aware that the abuse includes character assassination ~ the annihilation of who you are as a person.

Just as through murder a careful criminal leaves no witnesses, a malignant narcissist is careful to abuse on the sly and destroy the victim's credibility in advance in order to "leave no witnesses."

Character assassination is the premeditated murder of the target's image, their good name, their reputation, and ultimately their life.

Malignant Narcissism, Rush from Ed

Steven Leech ~ Boptime + Legends of Wilmington Jazz

On Saturday’s Boptime we begin with the Pinocchio television special from October 1957 starring Mickey Rooney and Fran Allison, then wind out the hour with a jazz selection from Kenny Dorham with Sonny Rollins. At 7am (EDT) we continue with more music from this day in 1957, just three days after the beginning of the space age. It’s the Morrie Sims Show 8am (EDT) followed by the Delaware Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame with some late 50s rockabilly from Blue Hen Records in Harrington Delaware. On the Club Baby Grand at 9am (EDT) we play some of the jazz tunes composed and played by Lem Winchester and Clifford Brown. ~ Steve

Boptime: Saturday, 6 AM Eastern, 3 AM Pacific
Go To: http://www.wvud.org/?page_id=24
Click on a listening link below the WVUD logo:

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Free Your Mind

Apathy Sucks!

by ~@~ = user formally known as:

cspang @ mit~ai.arpa • ccs.cspang @ mit~oz.arpa • bliv.~cas~ @ mit~oz.arpa
l5!cas @ lll~crg.arpa • cas @ su~shasta.arpa • cas%umunhum @ su~csli.arpa • ect.
[Above email addresses are no longer active and have been slightly altered to bounce.]

The Rolling Stones | Doom and Gloom via Trunk Animation

At this point (201710.04 04:00 PDT) I'm clearing this page,
for a while, because there are some things that need to be said.
Announcements will continue to be posted here.
ARCHIVEs on bottom right & left sides of this page. Current October archive is here: 2017.10.

On Keeping the Net Neutral

tl;dr: If one does not become publicly active regarding Net Neutrality, one will end up paying higher fees for decent Internet access; plus, I have grown tired warning of trending bully viciousness on socnets.

This morning, 201710.04, I noticed the following article on reddit, "More Than 80% Of All Net Neutrality Comments Were Sent By Bots, Researchers Say - 95% of all organic comments favored net neutrality (motherboard.vice.com)" submitted by mvea ~ [Source Page] and was especially impressed by a comment made by crookedsmoker:

And this is exactly why the internet is such a dangerous medium these days. Corporations, lobbyists and other malicious organizations have realized its potential as a tool for propaganda and are using it as such -- disturbingly effectively. 

Here's my personal opinion on why I think it's so dangerously effective:

1. It is a completely virtual medium which can easily, cheaply and extremely quickly convey information. It's very easy to reach an extreme level of exposure compared to traditional media, by using bots for example.

2. Because of its interactive nature, people choose what they see, read and hear. This happens consciously as well as subconsciously, which means the information they are exposed to on hot button topics is biased and incomplete because of people's preconceptions. People choose to read and watch things that validate and enforce their views.

3. Because more and more content on the internet is user generated, more and more information people receive is incomplete, incorrect and skewed, both unintentionally because of bias and ignorance as well as intentionally by people feeding misinformation that suits their personal views or agenda.

4. Because of the trend mentioned in point 3, malicious organizations have unprecedented power to feed people misinformation and influence their views and opinions by having bots impersonate real people. They can manipulate and create content on sites like Reddit. They can disguise lies as truths, propaganda as science fact. They can pose as lots of real people voicing their opinions, manipulating our view of the rest of the population. Propaganda is becoming increasingly convincing because of this.

5. Maybe most importantly: Most people are partially or completely unaware of these things. People around the world are used to the old media, like newspapers and TV. Those media are monitored and held accountable, at least to a certain degree and in developed, democratic countries in particular. Professional journalists have good intentions and a strong work ethic, striving for true impartiality, objectivity and full disclosure. People in developed countries are used to taking information from these media at face value, without much skepticism. They implicitly trust it to be correct. The internet is none of these things, obviously but the vast majority treats it the same. People need to be trained, drilled even to question everything they read on the net, especially concerning hot button topics. They need to be taught to check for sources when reading news. They need to be taught how to assess the credibility and trustworthiness of sources of information.

Let's hope these issues can still be considered growing pains of the internet, as a new technology that has become too large and powerful way too quickly for society to adapt.

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Like Hari Seldon's holographic laws of mass action messages to Foundation, it is important to step in here amongst super wealthy wannabe's, every once in a while, and tell real stories.

As one who had far more to do with establishment of Internet than ex-Vice President Al Gore, here are some things that appear to be missing from local computer history. Oh, and if one is not aware, I was a domain postmaster at one of the first one hundred dot com sites on the planet, which was in our San Francisco basement:

{sun,pacbell,uunet,pyramid,amdahl}!hoptoad

I am sure this will be argued, but we [Nebula Consultants of San Francisco @ Toad Hall] were the folks who, for the most part, implemented UUCP/USENET at a majority of colleges and universities, and most .alt and .rec Usenet newsgroups were established in our basement.

My recollection of what gave birth to Internet was a question that constantly manifest during the early days, "Wouldn't it be wonderful if everybody had access to this information?"

I advocated extending our computer based research facilities to the public because the concept of free sharing 'with everyone' appealed to me.

When UUCP/USENET became established, the educational level was primarily graduate, with some undergraduates, and a small group of astute tinkers. I believe this may have encompassed approximately twenty-eight thousand (28,000) to thirty-two thousand (32,000) people at Internet entry point.

Then it happened... I started seeing 'group' messages having a section marked <flame on> (usually saying something emotional), followed by <flame off>, references to "flame proof suit", and a 'negative trend' forming, which I had experienced before.

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There was a gathering in our hoptoad basement on Clayton Street and talk of getting as many universities linked into USENET, as possible, using their WATS telephone lines during off hours.

The excitement was high as I stepped out from the corner shadows and said, "I'm not so sure expanding Usenet is a good idea anymore and here is why."

I pointed out negative stuff starting to appear in Usenet 'groups' and told them about a personal experience that had recently occurred in San Francisco's Tenderloin District, involving a wild west gun shootout, over who controlled a Citizen Band (CB) Frequency, where one man died.

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Long before this 'shootout' or 'CB Craze' struck the United States, there was a wonderful San Francisco based CB community made up of very nice people who would chat during commute times. Some of the folks were amateur radio operators, some of the folks had no technical background but liked to talk, and for all the years of participation as a Universal Traveler a.k.a. "UT", I do not recall one negative incident. [(fwiw) My Amateur Radio page.]

As this new CB fad became popular something new manifest called "Channel Master," which can be portrayed as cercopithecoid male dominance, and unfortunately there is evidence this type of behavior is appearing within socnets, corporate media blogs, yada, etc., now.

Anyhow... Two men wanted to be dominate (alpha) male of a San Francisco CB frequency. They refused to share or work it out, continually insulted each other, interfered with each others communications and lives (cutting antenna cables, slashing tires, etc.), until they 'popped' or 'became unglued'.

When this happened they met in a vacant Tenderloin lot and, as if in an old western movie, had a shootout, where one man died over control of a stupid CB frequency!

I made more than one attempt to parallel what happened in CB radio to the new 'flames' appearing in 'groups', but it did no good, and I was voted down, causing that which became Internet to continue moving forward.

I now believe Internet has reached a stable negative threshold and all I can say is, "Be careful out here, because Nobody will protect you all the time."

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(fwiw) The idea for this page occurred this morning when the following error message popped up on my computer Console:

10/4/17 3:41:13.110 AM com.apple.preference.network.remoteservice[536]: It does not make sense to draw an image when [NSGraphicsContext currentContext] is nil. This is a programming error. Break on void _NSWarnForDrawingImageWithNoCurrentContext() to debug. This will be logged only once. This may break in the future.

[Ed. Note: On a Mac, Console is located: Macintosh HD > Applications > Utilities > Console and I watch SYSTEM LOG QUERIES > All Messages ++ and under Unix variants I still use: sudo tail -f /var/log/messages]

(imo) A bazillionaire corporation should be able to provide clean software, with no warnings or errors, for their end user base; especially after all this time, (sic) butt... that is another story. (otoh) Maybe it is time for a Corporate Death Penalty or public Tar and Feathering of corporate executives who break law like common criminals and never go to jail [for example corporate criminal & Convicted Felon PG&E] ?

In the meantime, I want to stick with Net Neutrality and this short video will simply explain what that is about:

from McKenna Fryman

The battle for the future
of the Internet ends soon.

Comcast, Verizon and AT&T want to end net neutrality so they can control what we see & do online. First, they want to gut FCC rules. Then, they plan to pass bad legislation that allows extra fees, throttling & censorship. Time is running out to stop them. Write Congress & the FCC now!

What is net neutrality?

Net neutrality is the principle that Internet providers like Comcast & Verizon should not control what we see and do online. In 2015, startups, Internet freedom groups, and 3.7 million commenters won strong net neutrality rules from the US Federal Communication Commission (FCC). The rules prohibit Internet providers from blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization—"fast lanes" for sites that pay, and slow lanes for everyone else.

We are Team Internet. We support
net neutrality, freedom of speech.

Nearly everyone who understands and depends on the Internet supports net neutrality, whether they're startup founders, activists, gamers, politicians, investors, comedians, YouTube stars, or typical Internet users who just want their Internet to work as advertised—regardless of their political party. But don't take our word for it. Ask around, or watch some of these videos. ~ https://www.battleforthenet.com

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Evidence Grows That Online Social
Networks Have Insidious Negative Effects

A study of 50,000 people in Italy concludes that online social networks have a significant negative impact on individual welfare.

MIT Technology Review, August 29, 2014

Online social networks have permeated our lives with far-reaching consequences. Many people have used them to connect with friends and family in distant parts of the world, to make connections that have advanced their careers in leaps and bounds and to explore and visualize not only their own network of friends but the networks of their friends, family, and colleagues.

But there is growing evidence that the impact of online social networks is not all good or even benign. A number of studies have begun to find evidence that online networks can have significant detrimental effects. This question is hotly debated, often with conflicting results and usually using limited varieties of subjects, such as undergraduate students.

Today, Fabio Sabatini at Sapienza University of Rome in Italy and Francesco Sarracino at STATEC in Luxembourg attempt to tease apart the factors involved in this thorny issue by number crunching the data from a survey of around 50,000 people in Italy gathered during 2010 and 2011. The survey specifically measures subjective well-being and also gathers detailed information about the way each person uses the Internet.

The question Sabatini and Sarracino set out to answer is whether the use of online networks reduces subjective well-being and if so, how.

Sabatini and Sarracino’s database is called the “Multipurpose Survey on Households,” a survey of around 24,000 Italian households corresponding to 50,000 individuals carried out by the Italian National Institute of Statistics every year. These guys use the data drawn from 2010 and 2011. What’s important about the survey as that it is large and nationally representative (as opposed to a self-selecting group of undergraduates).

The survey specifically asks the question “How satisfied are you with your life as a whole nowadays?” requiring an answer from extremely dissatisfied (0) to extremely satisfied (10). This provides a well-established measure of subjective well-being.

The survey also asks other detailed questions such as how often people meet friends and whether they think people can be trusted. It also asked about people’s use of online social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.

This allowed Sabatini and Sarracino to study the correlation between subjective well-being and other factors in their life, particularly their use of social networks. As statisticians they were particularly careful to rule out spurious correlations that can be explained by factors such as endogeneity bias where a seemingly independent parameter is actually correlated with an unobserved factor relegated to the error.

They found for example that face-to-face interactions and the trust people place in one another are strongly correlated with well-being in a positive way. In other words, if you tend to trust people and have lots of face-to-face interactions, you will probably assess your well-being more highly.

But of course interactions on online social networks are not face-to-face and this may impact the trust you have in people online. It is this loss of trust that can then affect subjective well-being rather than the online interaction itself.

Sabatini and Sarracino tease this apart statistically. “We find that online networking plays a positive role in subjective well-being through its impact on physical interactions, whereas [the use of] social network sites is associated with lower social trust,” they say. “The overall effect of networking on individual welfare is significantly negative,” they conclude.

That’s an important result because it is the first time that the role of online networks has been addressed in such a large and nationally representative sample.

Sabatini and Sarracino particularly highlight the role of discrimination and hate speech on social media which they say play a significant role in trust and well-being. Better moderation could significantly improve the well-being of the people who use social networks, they conclude.

Facebook, Twitter, and others take note.

Ref: arxiv.org/abs/1408.3550: Online Networks and Subjective Well-Being

Hackers ~ Missing BBS Files 1970s

Curtis Spangler, the CommuniTree's First Fairwitness
Click to visit: The San Francisco CommuniTree ~or~ BBS Index Source

Let's look at some of the earliest electronic virtual communities. This kinship chart shows the origins of the first computer bulletin boards (BBSs) that supported social interaction. Prior to this moment, BBSs messages were organized by alphabetical order, or by date. BBSs were metaphors for physical bulletin boards... objects for the exchange of simple messages, not conversations. Now, in 1978 a group of people in Northern California designed a BBS that used message attachment protocols that facilitated conversations. As a metaphor for this structure they used a tree, firstly because it was based on a principle of computer science called binary tree protocol, and secondly because Northern California near Silicon Valley was a land of hot tubs, Eastern mysticism, and computer hackers, and the organicity that the word "tree" suggested was important to those hackers' worldview.

The story of the life and death of the first CommuniTree tells us how and why the later virtual community systems were designed. The original CommuniTree was designed with the idea that the community it facilitated would be completely free. Anyone could enter any sort of message. In fact, censorship was completely prohibited at the level of the code, of the Tree's program. It worked this way: First, the system operator was prevented from reading messages as they arrived. Second, messages were hard to remove once they were entered. Third, anything could be entered into the system, including so-called control characters, which are not part of the standard alphanumeric set and which can be used to control the operation of the host computer. Lastly, to make sure that no system operator could tamper with the system, the code was written in language called Forth, and not documented. Now Forth is a religion unto itself, and if you know anything about Forth you recognize that this makes the system a total black box -- it's impossible to know anything about how the code works.

CommuniTree went online in 1978. The kinds of conversations they had in there were of a high intellectual and spiritual character. They talked about new philosophies and new religions for post-Enlightenment humanity, the first time such conversations had taken place online.

Now, at the same moment Apple Computer had reached an agreement with the U. S. Government that in return for a tax break, Apple put computers into primary and secondary schools in the U.S., and some of those computers had modems. This meant that quite suddenly a lot of kids could get online. At first both boys and girls had access, but the boys quickly elbowed the girls out of the way -- high tech was men's work. The boys quickly found out CommuniTree's phone number and logged on. They were clearly unimpressed with the high intellectual level of the discourse on CommuniTree, and they expressed their dissatisfaction in ways that were appropriate to their age and linguistic abilities. Now, the hardware of the Tree was the best that Apple had to offer in 1978, it had two floppy disk drives with a combined total of 300 kilobytes of storage. At the time, the folks who designed the Tree said "300K -- we can go on forever. We'll never fill this up." A common BBS today would have at least 100 megabytes of storage, many orders of magnitude greater than the Tree. So it didn't take long for the kids to fill every byte of disk space with every word they could think of that meant shitting or fucking, and then they'd add control characters on top of that, characters that could mess with the program or stop the floppy drives. The sysops couldn't see the messages arriving and couldn't remove them afterward. The Tree was doomed.

One of the participants in the Tree discourse said "Well, the barbarian hordes mowed us down." And the people who were on the Tree ran away, just like the population of a village during a sack. It was a kind of scattering of the tribes. Some of those people went off and designed BBSs of their own that had built into them the elements of control and surveillance that appeared to be necessary to ensure the BBS's survival in a real world that included roaming barbarians. That kind of surveillance and control continues to the present day, built right into the software; we don't think about it much any more.

And that's how, back at the beginning of virtual time, the first virtual community left the Magic Garden, and entered the "real" virtual world in which good had to find ways to coexist with evil.

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Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie and Brian Kernighan
admit Unix is an elaborate prank

In an announcement that has stunned the computer industry, Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie and Brian Kernighan admitted that the Unix operating system and C programming language created by them is an elaborate prank kept alive for over 20 40 years. Speaking at the recent UnixWorld Software Development Forum, Thompson revealed the following:

"In 1969, AT&T had just terminated their work with the GE/Honeywell/AT&T Multics project. Brian and I had started work with an early release of Pascal from Professor Niklaus Wirth's ETH labs in Switzerland and we were impressed with its elegant simplicity and power. Dennis had just finished reading 'Bored of the Rings', a National Lampoon parody of the Tolkien's 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy. As a lark, we decided to do parodies of the Multics environment and Pascal. Dennis and I were responsible for the operating environment. We looked at Multics and designed the new OS to be as complex and cryptic as possible to maximize casual users' frustration levels, calling it Unix as a parody of Multics, as well as other more risque allusions. We sold the terse command language to novitiates by telling them that it saved them typing.

Then Dennis and Brian worked on a warped version of Pascal, called 'A'. 'A' looked a lot like Pascal, but elevated the notion of the direct memory address (which Wirth had banished) to the central concept of the language. This was Dennis's contribution, and he in fact coined the term"pointer" as an innocuous sounding name for a truly malevolent construct.

Brian must be credited with the idea of having absolutely no standard I/O specification: this ensured that at least 50% of the typical commercial program would have to be re-coded when changing hardware platforms. Brian was also responsible for pitching this lack of I/O as a feature: it allowed us to describe the language as "truly portable".

When we found others were actually creating real programs with A, we removed compulsory type-checking on function arguments. Later, we added a notion we called "casting": this allowed the programmer to treat an integer as though it were a 50kb user-defined structure. When we found that some programmers were simply not using pointers, we eliminated the ability to pass structures to functions, enforcing their use in even the Simplest applications. We sold this, and many other features, as enhancements to the efficiency of the language. In this way, our prank evolved into B, BCPL, and finally C. We stopped when we got a clean compile on the following syntax:

for (;P("\n"),R-;P("|"))for(e=3DC;e-;P("_"+(*u++/8)%2))P("|"+(*u/4)%2);

At one time, we joked about selling this to the Soviets to set their computer science progress back 20 or more years.

Unfortunately, AT&T and other US corporations actually began using Unix and C. We decided we'd better keep mum, assuming it was just a passing phase. In fact, it's taken US companies over 20 years to develop enough expertise to generate useful applications using this 1960's technological parody. We are impressed with the tenacity of the general Unix and C programmer. In fact, Brian, Dennis and I have never ourselves attempted to write a commercial application in this environment.

We feel really guilty about the chaos, confusion and truly awesome programming projects that have resulted from our silly prank so long ago."

Dennis Ritchie said: "What really tore it (just when ADA was catching on), was that Bjarne Stroustrup caught onto our joke. He extended it to further parody, Smalltalk. Like us, he was caught by surprise when Nobody laughed. So he added multiple inheritance, virtual base classes, and later ... templates. All to no avail. So we now have compilers that can compile 100,000 lines per second, but need to process header files for 25 minutes before they get to the meat of "Hello, World".

Major Unix and C vendors and customers, including AT&T, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, GTE, NCR, and DEC have refused comment at this time. Borland International, a leading vendor of object-oriented tools, including the popular Turbo Pascal and Borland C++, stated they had suspected this for a couple of years. In fact, the notoriously late Quattro Pro for Windows was originally written in C++. Philippe Kahn said: "After two and a half years programming, and massive programmer burn-outs, we re-coded the whole thing in Turbo Pascal in three months. I think it's fair to say that Turbo Pascal saved our bacon". Another Borland spokesman said that they would continue to enhance their Pascal products and halt further efforts to develop C/C++.

Professor Wirth of the ETH institute and father of the Pascal, Modula 2 and Oberon structured languages, cryptically said "P.T. Barnum was right." He had no further comments.

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Thank You Tom Petty!
October 20, 1950 – October 2, 2017

Tom Petty ~ Learning To Fly via Pylos Live

Know Your Earth: A Simple Start

ARPSN ~ Amateur Radio Public Seismic Network ~ Associated with PSN

FlyingSnail ~ Permmalink

#7. I know great earth changes have been predicted for the future, so if you're looking to avoid earthquakes, my advice is simple. When you find a fault, just don't dwell on it.

Personal Associated Subjects: Seismology ~ Geology ~ Physics ~ Astrophysics ~ Celestial Mechanics ~ Quantum Mechanics ~ Eigenmodes ~ Heart Nodes ~ String Theory ~ Yantra ~ Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Plates of the Earth

USGS Plates image source ~ Large Image

Large image

Wikipedia Definition of Plate tectonics

Volcanoes of the Earth

Smithsonian Global Volcanism Image source ~ Smithsonian Global Volcanism Home

Faults of the Earth

NASA SESWG ~ NASA Research ~ Wikipedia Plate tectonics

Earthquakes of the Earth

USGS World Seismic Map

USGS World Seismicity Maps

Centre Sismologique Euro-Méditerranéen
European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre Seismic Map

Centre Sismologique Euro-Méditerranéen, European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre

Tsunamis

NOAA Pacific Tsunami Warning Center

Notes from ~@~

Carlin Step, DJ Steve Porter & Eli Wilkie from Roland Kardeby

The Great Bell Chant (The End of Suffering) from R Smittenaar

One Day, Matisyahu from 100%

Unsung Hero from Rattakarn Srithavatchai "Garn"

Belote's Studio 354 ~ Artist's Gallery & Bay Area Showcase, Oakland, CA

Richard Kurtz will be the sole featured artist of our Fall Showcase.
October 4th - November 22nd,  2017

Karl Cohen ~ Association International du Film d'Animation SF Newsletter

ASIFA-SF October 2017 Newsletter.pdf

Mike Wilhelm ~ Charlatans, Flamin' Groovies, Loose Gravel, and more

The San Francisco Rock Band
That Was Too Wild For the Sixties

By Ben Marks ~ July 19th, 2017
Article Source ~ Photographs, Posters, etc. at Source

Charlatans, 1966 in front of former Barbary Coast hot spot:
Hippodrome, Pacific St., San Francisco. [Photo provided by Mike Wilhelm]

George Hunter of the Charlatans never shot Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead, not even once. But in the spring of 1966, on the grounds of Rancho Olompali just north of San Francisco, Garcia had reason to believe Hunter was gunning for him, causing the great guitarist to royally freak out. The misunderstanding unfolded when Hunter decided to drop some LSD and bring a loaded .30-30 Winchester rifle to a party at the Dead’s new Marin County hangout. Hunter never intended to strike fear into the heart of his genial host, but when he did, he was so high that he began to panic—perhaps he had accidentally shot someone, if not Garcia, after all. It took a long bummer of a night, and three of Hunter’s closest friends, to shake that demon thought from his troubled mind.

You’ve probably never heard of the “Incident at Olompali,” as no one has called it since, and your awareness of the Charlatans is likely limited to seeing the band’s name on scores of vintage rock posters, alongside more familiar monikers such as Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Big Brother and the Holding Company, and Grateful Dead.

That’s too bad, because in their heyday, from 1965 to 1968, the Charlatans were a lot of people’s favorite band, thanks to a danceable mix of distinctively American musical genres—from the blues and rock to Western swing and jazz. Around the time of the Charlatans’ first paying gig, in June of 1965, the Grateful Dead were still playing pizza parlors as the Warlocks, Jefferson Airplane had yet to take off, Big Brother was a year away from handing Janis Joplin a microphone, and Quicksilver was not even a gleam in anyone’s eye. By 1966, the Charlatans had a record deal with the same label that had released the 1965 smash hit “Do You Believe In Magic?” by the Lovin’ Spoonful.

Given their head start as performers, the Charlatans should have been one of the biggest music acts of the 1960s. They were doing acid tests before anyone even called them that, and were the first band to promote itself with a poster and perform while bathed in the glow of a light show. Just as importantly, the Charlatans were trailblazers at a moment in musical history when rock bands were being rewarded for conforming to the new psychedelic orthodoxy. In particular, the band’s embrace of Americana was years ahead of the Byrds, Grateful Dead, and Eagles, who also wove threads pillaged from those genres into their repertoires. That’s not to give the Charlatans credit for “Sweetheart of the Rodeo” and “Workingman’s Dead”—or blame for “Desperado”—but they got to the Americana party first.

All of this should have worked in their favor, but by the Summer of Love in 1967, the band was self-destructing, and by the time Jimi Hendrix was playing the last notes of “Hey Joe” at Woodstock in the summer of 1969, the Charlatans were history. What happened? == [Click to Continue Reading]

Visit Mike Wilhelm's page at: http://mike-wilhelm.com

Mike Wilhelm & C. Spangler

Great MP3 Podcasts via Mike Wilhelm

Hear The People ~ http://www.flyingsnail.com/Podcast/HearThePeople.mp3

Sympathy For The Devil ~ http://www.flyingsnail.com/Podcast/SympathyForTheDevil.mp3

When You Got A Good Friend ~ http://www.flyingsnail.com/Podcast/WhenYouGotAGoodFriend.mp3

Louie, Louie ~ Mike Wilhelm & Hired Guns from ed chatham

Notes from ~@~

On the Bus, Carolyn Mountain Girl Garcia from vimeo

Steven Leech ~ Boptime + Legends of Wilmington Jazz

Steven has provided The Heterodoxical Voice which was a local "underground/counter-culture" newspaper from the late 60s.

From 1968 to 1970, radical members of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) at the University of Delaware and other community activists published The Heterodexical Voice. We present searchable PDF files made from microfilm copies as a public service. La Lucha Continua!

Heterodoxical Voice Index ~ xlsx*** ~ Heterodoxical Voice 1-9 PDF ~ 10-17 PDF ~ 18 PDF

***[Note to Mac Users: Heterodoxical Voice Index 1-9 is a Windows .xlsx file that will appear in your Downloads directory and can be open with Apple Numbers. ~@~]

Steven has also provided a reading of the first two chapters of his novel UNTIME which "Searches for the Truth In UNLIKELY WORLDS": sleechamanoutoftime.pdf : Click to listen to: UNTIME1st2chapyers.m4v in new tab or window.

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Freedom of expression and freedom of speech aren't really important unless they're heard...It's hard for me to stay silent when I keep hearing that peace is only attainable through war. And there's nothing more scary than watching ignorance in action. So I dedicated this Emmy to all the people who feel compelled to speak out and not afraid to speak to power and won't shut up and refuse to be silenced. ~ Tom Smothers

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Cree Prophecy

Only after the last tree has been cut down,

Only after the last river has been poisoned,

Only after the last fish has been caught,

Only then will you find money cannot be eaten.

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Develop Your Mind, Not Sacred Sites

In an 1868 treaty, drafted at Fort Laramie in Sioux country, the United States established the Black Hills as part of the Great Sioux Reservation, set aside for exclusive use by the Sioux people. However, after the discovery of gold there in 1874, the United States confiscated the land in 1877. To this day, ownership of the Black Hills remains the subject of a legal dispute between the U.S. government and the Sioux.

Dakota by Elizabeth Jackson from OWU Media Center via Dr. Mary Howard

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Where Have All the Flowers Gone?

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Sacred Clowns

The Heyókȟa symbolize and portray many aspects of the sacred, the Wakȟáŋ. Their satire presents important questions by fooling around. They ask difficult questions, and say things others are too afraid to say. By reading between the lines, the audience is able to think about things not usually thought about, or to look at things in a different way.

Principally, the Heyókȟa functions both as a mirror and a teacher, using extreme behaviors to mirror others, thereby forcing them to examine their own doubts, fears, hatreds, and weaknesses. Heyókȟas also have the power to heal emotional pain; such power comes from the experience of shame--they sing of shameful events in their lives, beg for food, and live as clowns. They provoke laughter in distressing situations of despair and provoke fear and chaos when people feel complacent and overly secure, to keep them from taking themselves too seriously or believing they are more powerful than they are.

In addition, sacred clowns serve an important role in shaping tribal codes. Heyókȟa's don't seem to care about taboos, rules, regulations, social norms, or boundaries. Paradoxically, however, it is by violating these norms and taboos that they help to define the accepted boundaries, rules, and societal guidelines for ethical and moral behavior. This is because they are the only ones who can ask "Why?" about sensitive topics and employ satire to question the specialists and carriers of sacred knowledge or those in positions of power and authority. In doing so, they demonstrate concretely the theories of balance and imbalance. Their role is to penetrate deception, turn over rocks, and create a deeper awareness. From Word Worlds, Where simplifying complexity becomes art.

Nobody for President ~ NONE of the ABOVE should be a choice on voter ballots

Curtis Spangler & Wavy Gravy, Nobody for President Rally, 197610.12 ~ Photo: James Stark

American Dream, George Carlin from Ishtar [Not Work Safe] Audio Alternative from Felly

Nobody should have that much power

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Oh, I hope that I see you again I never even caught your name As you looked through my window pane ~ So I'm writing this message today I'm thinking that you'll have a way Of hearing the notes in my tune ~ Where are you going? Where have you been? I can imagine other worlds you have seen ~ Beautiful faces and music so serene ~ So I do hope I see you again My universal citizen You went as quickly as you came ~ You know the power Your love is right You have good reason To stay out of sight ~~ But break our illusions and help us Be the light ~ Message by Mike Pinder

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Why I Think This World Should End, Brandon Sloan

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Without love in the dream, it will never come true. ~ Jerry Garcia/Robert Hunter

And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make. ~ John Lennon

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The man whispered, "God, speak to me" and a meadowlark sang. But the man did not hear. So the man yelled "God, speak to me" and the thunder rolled across the sky. But the man did not listen. The man looked around and said, "God let me see you" and a star shined brightly. But the man did not notice. And the man shouted, "God show me a miracle" and a life was born. But the man did not know. So the man cried out in despair, "Touch me God, and let me know you are there" Whereupon God reached down and touched the man, But the man brushed the butterfly away and walked on.

Don't miss out on a blessing because
it isn't packaged the way you expect!

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