Does anyone have experience in dumping LJs ‘data-load’ into Wordpress? Posts, Memories and all?
Think LJ Archive without the need to archive, but simply the desire to create and manage their own blog.
***Update***
Am I the only one getting this weird ‘Authentication required’ every time I visit someone’s page?
Why is it beyond the comprehension for (many) others to entertain the thought that the real danger any terrorist presents is that Govco feels that to best combat them we need to erode that which we are protecting; namely privacy, the constitution and other beacons of freedom?
Have others simply chosen to skirt their civic responsibility to restrain Govco and question and be skeptical of everything Govco?
It seems that almost everyone in the country has one eye closed. Half the country has their left eye closed, and the other half has their right eye closed.
Conservatives who bashed Clinton as being a corrupt, dishonest, war-mongering socialist (which he was) seem unable to see all the same qualities in THEIR chosen tyrant dujour, George W. Bush. They don’t even notice that in most cases, their own complaints about Clinton could be used, word for word, to justifiably criticize THEIR megalomaniac of choice.
And it goes the other way, as well. The following is a link to a video of a talk given by Naomi Wolf, regarding the end of America. She gets a lot right, regarding the historical pattern of how countries turn into fascist dictatorships. But what struck me most about her talk, though it was very subtle, was the fact that she SUPPORTS the American left-wing tyrants, and even fails to notice that they are the SAME THING as what she now paints as Hitlers-waiting-to-happen. Here is the link to her speech:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjALf12PAWc
She is a Democrat, and talks about “restoring liberty.” When has the Democratic party ever been about individual liberty? When it tried to confiscate more from everyone? When it tried to nationalize/socialize health care? When it tried to disarm all its victims? (I found it very odd that disarming the populace was NOT one of the ten points Ms. Wolf discusses, since it is such an obvious one.) BOTH parties–or both faces of the one ruling class–are ALWAYS expanding their power in any way they can. And yet Ms. Wolf spoke of having a resolution signed by all the Democrat tyrants in Congress as something to prevent a police state. Good grief. (That’s like saying a letter signed by all the Cryps, denigrating the Bloods, will reduce gang violence.)
Does she not remember Waco, where the jackbooted thugs of a DEMOCRAT administration murdered nearly a hundred men, women and children? How about Ruby Ridge? How about the Clinton regime using the IRS to harass its political opponents–plainly a symptom of an out of control, lawless police state? How about the dozens of “mysterious” deaths in Arkansas, when King Clinton reigned there?
Oddly, people are so accustomed to the “two party” view of the world, that when I bash THEIR party’s tyrant, they assume I like the OTHER party’s tyrant. I bash Bush, and Republicans assume I’m a Democrat. I bash Clinton, and the Democrats assume I’m a Republican. Apparently the only political question most people are capable of considering is WHICH tyrant should oppress us all, rather than asking WHETHER we should be oppressed by anyone.
———< "How To Be a Successful Tyrant" >———-
These days the most popular illusion of “peasant power” is the voting both. Open resistance has been averted numerous times by offering the peasants a choice between Tyrant A and Tyrant B.
“A man is no less a slave because he is allowed to choose a new master once in a term of years.” [Lysander Spooner]
No matter how many times the people are stomped on, harassed, and oppressed by “elected” tyrants (usually taking turns, as one tyrant is replaced by another), the vast majority of the peasants will continue to fall for the idea (pushed by you, of course), that another “election” is their only civilized recourse to any government-imposed injustice they see.
“Perhaps the fact that we have seen millions voting themselves into complete dependence on a tyrant has made our generation understand that to choose one’s government is not necessarily to secure freedom.” [F. A. Hayek]
People would think it insane to have an election to choose a carjacker or bank-robber for their town. The only difference between that and choosing a “ruler” comes from the now deeply ingrained assumption that having a ruler is necessary and essential to society (a delusion you should reinforce constantly). The question must always be which person or group of people should have the power to rule everyone else; the question must never be whether anyone should have such power.
“We vote? What does that mean? It means that we choose between two bodies of real, though not avowed, autocrats. We choose between Tweedledum and Tweedledee.” [Helen Keller]
If the peasants accept the assertion that someone must rule them, their thoughts and efforts will revolve, not around preserving their own freedom, but around deciding whom they should surrender their freedom to.
- ————-< end >—————
I don’t know how people, like this Naomi Wolf, can be so perceptive and so completely oblivious at the same time. And the “selective blindness” afflicts all statists, Democrats and Republicans alike. And when some fringe wacko suggests that NO ONE should be oppressing us, BOTH groups of pro-tyrannt folk can be counted on to lash out against him as the biggest threat in the world. (Ron Paul anyone?)
Go figure.
Created this EDM mix a few weeks back but only just recently had time to upload it, so enjoy……
The Quasi Photon Series Mix – Sessions 1 (100mb)
Audiomind – Tracklisting for The Quasi Photon Series – sEsSiOn 1
Also, check out the pictures from The Touch Samadhi Music and Arts Festival in Asheville @ Deerfields…..definitely good times had by all. For those unfamiliar with this event you can check it out here ==>
http://www.touchsamadhi.com/events/2006/09/22/ka_pow
http://www.deerfields.com/
I’m not really a psytrance fan, but who can pass up a full weekend of music while camping in the beautiful wilderness of Asheville, NC.
Thirty-eight million arrests, most for simple possession. Lives ruined, families disrupted. America turned into the most prison-happy nation on the face of the Earth. Illegal rewards incentivizing shooting fields in inner-city neighborhoods — enough bloodshed to appall even an Al Capone. Over $1 trillion in taxpayer outlays.
Thirty-six years after President Nixon inaugurated this country’s misbegotten “war on drugs,” worldwide narcotics markets are booming, drug ring profits are higher and drugs cost less than ever on the street.
Our “war” is a miserable, incredibly costly failure.
But now, we’re learning, there’s a jarring new dimension. The drug war is directly feeding international terrorism. The most startling new evidence comes from Afghanistan, where the U.S. is leading a full-blown NATO campaign to eradicate production of poppies, the plant from which heroin is derived.
Colossal failure is already apparent. Afghanistan is producing 95 percent of the world’s poppies; its production rose 58 percent last year alone.
And the biggest beneficiary? It’s the Taliban, gaining popularity as it protects local poppy farmers against the Western-led eradication campaign. Then it becomes the opium sales agent into international markets, reaping huge amounts of money it can plow back into its terrorist campaign against the West.
One result: American soldiers, dying in skirmishes in Afghanistan, are the latest casualties in our campaign to make drugs globally illegal. American administrations, Republican and Democratic, persistently blame foreign countries and international drug supplies for our own domestic narcotics appetite. And then, notes Jack Cole, executive director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, “we go to countries like Afghanistan, spend millions or billions over the years to spray poppies and coca plants, in the process risking poisoning of other crops and people on the ground. And despite that, every year we see bumper crops.”
The other prime example is “Plan Colombia” — our $4.7 billion (so far) campaign to stamp out coca production by spraying farms and providing the Colombian government with military helicopters and intelligence-gathering technology. Our billions are also supposed to fight back FARC, a 17,000-strong peasant-based army described by terrorism expert Misha Glenny as “by far the largest terrorist organization in the Southern Hemisphere.” But FARC, like the Taliban, allies itself with local farmers and finances operations through the drug trade. Last year, coca production was up 8 percent.
Will we ever learn? President Bush now wants to channel about $1 billion to Mexico to fight “narco-trafficking and violence on our border.” Felipe Calderon has pledged a major anti-trafficking campaign, fighting drug cartels responsible just this year for more than 1,000 murders (including reporters, police and judges).
But more drug-fighting money to Mexico won’t do any good, says Cole: The United States’ prohibition policy has created a “super-obscene profit motive.” The inducements are so powerful that for every drug kingpin, domestic or foreign, that we put out of business, there’s an aspirant ready to coerce and, if need be, kill his way to dominance.
Will we find any presidential candidate willing to talk honestly about our disaster-strewn policy, to suggest rational paths toward drug legalization? To credit us with intelligence — that if we care enough about our personal health to reduce drastically our consumption of readily available red meat, alcohol and tobacco, we might be smart enough to resist narcotics?
The rest of the world is starting to think afresh. A prime example: The Senlis Council, a European-Canadian drug-policy institute that’s done major research in Afghanistan, proposes licensing Afghanistan with the International Narcotics Control Board to sell its opium legally. Even a Western subsidy to pay Afghan farmers the same price the Taliban and drug lords do — about $600 million a year — would be well below what we’re spending on eradication.
Here’s a chance for the West to spend money, visibly, helping poor Afghan farmers survive, instead of destroying their livelihoods. Simultaneously, the Taliban would lose its big revenue source for terrorist activities. Couldn’t we be this humanitarian and smart — for once?
