Opel Productions: Syd's Corner
Syd Gris Music
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Syd Gris Music
A Sampling of sets for your listening pleasure...
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I've posted some various sets from the last couple years to hear (or re-hear). Most are live recordings of the moment how it went down and so reflect the time and circumstance of that gig. These don't always translate into a listening experience out of the club environment, but these best represent what happens when I'm at the helm. Your feedback is always welcome.
Track listings for all of these sets can be found HERE. Check it if you're curious.
Download :: 'A 7 Year Old Set' -
Live at the Opel 7 Year Anniversary Party (Part 1) at Mission Rock. 4-25-09.
I went on after Meat Katie (who's mix, along with Dylan Rhymes & Zach Moore is available at the same link) at my anniversary party, so this one is special to me. A couple rough mixes, but the programming is sick, In My not so Humble Opinion. I played some tracks that appear in other mixes, but I was wanting to not be burdened by worrying about such things, and have a little indulgent fun alongside some new stuff as well. I consider this set another variation on quintessential Sydious Maximus, with a range of electro, dirty house, indie/nu-disco and break beat. Play it loud.
In Search of Tequila - Live from Ruby Skye (Tiesto Opening Set) 12-18-08.** (In 2 Parts)
Download Part 1 : In Search of Tequila. Syd Gris Live at Ruby Skye - 12-18-08
Download Part 2 : In Search of Tequila. Syd Gris Live at Ruby Skye - 12-18-08
I had the good fortune of opening up for Tiesto last December at Ruby Skye at a sold out show on a Thursday night. I played for 3 hours as the room reached capacity and played a range of techno flavored progressive, Balaeric trance, melodic electro, and other 4/4 variations of proper progressive music. Enjoying the art of a good opening set, it was a blast to stretch out musically, take my time, and bring the crowd up and back down in steady waves. Nice long mixes, hypnotic undertones, lots of melody of course. This is different than most everything else posted here, you closet trance fans will like it. Plus, it's a lot of music! In case you want to burn as a single track CD, it's separated into (2) 80 minute portions. Part 1 is the warm up, Part 2 is the peak time (for an opening set). Both are solid.
Download :: 'Temporarily Definitive' -
Live at the 'Music is Art' party at Mission Rock. 11-14-08.
I wanted to share my set from this party, in part because I had so much fun playing that night. It's live and on the fly so not without it's imperfections, but I'm digging the music I have right now in this vein more than usual and I think the set rocks. It's not for the faint of heart, with songs about doing coke and licking pussy (only the latter of which I condone), and some dirty, fuzzy, distorted, raucous sounds that are best heard loud. This is the core of where I'm at musically right now when I get to let it loose. Thus, it's definitive, but only for the moment. Tell me what you think.
New Download :: 'A Burning Set, Vol. VI.' Part 1
Live at Opulent Temple, Tuesday Night, Burning Man 2008
Prime time at Opulent Temple with brand new flame throwers to play with. Intro for context of the purpose of our efforts by myself & Shahid Buttar. Covering the music bases with purpose as well. A who's who of some of my favorite producers : Blende, Miles Dyson, Lee Coombs, Uberzone, Justice, Rogue Element, Dylan Rhymes, Alex Metric, with a great seldom heard mash-up of Freeland's 'Hate' with Bassbin Twins' 'Dogs'. This is Syd at OT.
Download :: Syd Gris, Live at The Deep End.
Thursday at Burning Man 2008.
For my last set at the legendary DE, I played an at times indulgent set, including some played out tracks and one particularly craptastic mix. I should not even be sharing this mix. But it was for the ladies, and all in fun. Accessible house that's a good one to put on at a party. Don't get too serious on this one, with re-mixes of Depeche Mode, Run DMC, Justin Timberlake, and Chic Flowerz side by side with some kick ass electro by Vandalism, Deadmau5, Beat Assassins, etc.
Download :: 'Just This Moment' .
Live from the Bada Big Boom Party at Mighty : 8-2-08.
Electro, breaks and tech funk. My goal for this set was to play all music I had never played out before, so 14 of the 16 tracks on here I had just gotten. As a live set of this kind, it's a bit unpolished and the programming a little uneven, but if you're looking for new music, here's one moment in my play list.
Download :: Live from Ruby Skye 1/05/08.
From an all night tag set Alain and I did, here's 45 minutes of my turn, with electro and dirty house of the moment, proper for the Ruby crowd without losing it's grit.
Download :: 'A Lovely Set'
Syd Gris, Live from the Opel float at SF LoveFest : 9/29/07.
A sampling of electro, breaks & tech funk big tracks I loved at that moment that seemed proper for the thousands on the plaza that day. (Plus a 'necessary' public service announcement at the beginning.) From the crowd pleasing Get Slippery remix, to the bombastically dirty Blende remix of Ironie, it's a bit all over the place, but so am I...
Download :: 'An Achtung Set', from April 2007.
Recorded for Hoj's Thick Frisky Radio show.
This was right after Meat Katie and Dylan Rhymes loaded me up on sick unreleased tracks after the Opel 5 Year Anniversary party in March. I made this up as I went along, with lots of Blende, Alex Metric and Miles Dyson. This was a departure for me at the time, and this is still one of my favorite sets to listen back to for it's deep, dirty and at times distorted groove. A clear precursor to how I play presently.
Download :: 'A Political Set'.
Syd Gris Live at Mighty Breaks, 4-21-06.
This was a favorite of friends and fans for a while, a showcase of my taste in breaks : tech funk, rock influenced, with some other heady, muscley fun thrown in w/ a cross section of breaks's biggest names of the time. I programmed it with the theme in mind of political thoughts and commentary, from 'Mad as Hell' and 'Obey', to 'We Want Your Soul' and 'Hope Time', thus it's called 'A Political Set.' When I first played it out a lot of these were unreleased and fresh, now of course breaks has peaked but I still think you'll find something to like in this prime time banger set. It's live and un-fixed so there's a couple rough mixes, hope you forgive me.
All of these sets have the track listings HERE if you want to check it.
"Syd Gris Music" perma-link
July 8, 2009 12:32 AM, by Syd Gris
Obama Can’t Turn the Page on Bush, by Frank Rich
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Obama Can’t Turn the Page on Bush
By Frank Rich
A Good Summary of why Obama needs to quit ducking the Bush / Cheny past and face it full on.NY Times)
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TO paraphrase Al Pacino in “Godfather III,” just when we thought we were out, the Bush mob keeps pulling us back in. And will keep doing so. No matter how hard President Obama tries to turn the page on the previous administration, he can’t. Until there is true transparency and true accountability, revelations of that unresolved eight-year nightmare will keep raining down drip by drip, disrupting the new administration’s high ambitions.
"Obama Can’t Turn the Page on Bush, by Frank Rich" perma-link
, or continue reading...
July 7, 2009 09:05 AM, by Syd Gris
Moral Kombat from John Stewart's Daily Show
PART 2:
"Moral Kombat from John Stewart's Daily Show" perma-link
May 16, 2009 02:30 PM, by Syd Gris
The GOP: divorced from reality
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The GOP: divorced from reality
By Bill Maher
The Republican base is behaving like a guy who just got dumped by his wife.LA Times)
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If conservatives don't want to be seen as bitter people who cling to their guns and religion and anti-immigrant sentiments, they should stop being bitter and clinging to their guns, religion and anti-immigrant sentiments.
It's been a week now, and I still don't know what those "tea bag" protests were about. I saw signs protesting abortion, illegal immigrants, the bank bailout and that gay guy who's going to win "American Idol." But it wasn't tax day that made them crazy; it was election day. Because that's when Republicans became what they fear most: a minority
"The GOP: divorced from reality" perma-link
, or continue reading...
May 15, 2009 03:19 PM, by Syd Gris
OPEN LETTER TO BARACK OBAMA : from Jello Biafra
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OPEN LETTER TO BARACK OBAMA
from Jello Biafra
PREAMBLE GAMBLE
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Dear Mr. Obama,
Congratulations on your recent victory, and for helping build such a strong mandate for change. In that spirit, please do not forget the other aisle you need to reach across. All the relief and publicity for the middle class won't do anything for the 40-100 million Americans who are starving, unemployed or just plain poor.
You have gone out of your way to build a bridge to those of us fed up with war, pollution, inequality, corporate lawlessness and business as usual. You have energized a whole new generation who is far ahead of their elders in knowing what urgently needs to be done. I have never seen such an outpouring of heartfelt emotion, hope and support for an American politician in my life, and I remember Kennedy well. You are the first president in my lifetime to have a bona fide grassroots movement behind you and ready to rock. I hope those crowds' hope and urgency has penetrated deeply enough that you won't let that bridge be washed away.
I remember another person who had the audacity to exploit and toss aside people's hope, and his name is Bill Clinton. Democrats fail time and again when they shirk responsibility and settle for being dealmakers instead of leaders. As important as it is to find common ground and build consensus for change, our situation is so dire we cannot afford any more dealmakers. The people voted for a leader. Anything less risks breaking the hearts of an entire galvanized generation who may then decide it is not worth it to get involved and participate any more.
Strong medicine is needed. Here are some ideas:
"OPEN LETTER TO BARACK OBAMA : from Jello Biafra " perma-link
, or continue reading...
April 15, 2009 07:40 PM, by Syd Gris
The Climate for Change :: By AL GORE
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The Climate for Change
By AL GORE
(Published: November 9, 2008 :: NY Times)
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THE inspiring and transformative choice by the American people to elect Barack Obama as our 44th president lays the foundation for another fateful choice that he — and we — must make this January to begin an emergency rescue of human civilization from the imminent and rapidly growing threat posed by the climate crisis.
The electrifying redemption of America’s revolutionary declaration that all human beings are born equal sets the stage for the renewal of United States leadership in a world that desperately needs to protect its primary endowment: the integrity and livability of the planet.
The world authority on the climate crisis, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, after 20 years of detailed study and four unanimous reports, now says that the evidence is “unequivocal.” To those who are still tempted to dismiss the increasingly urgent alarms from scientists around the world, ignore the melting of the north polar ice cap and all of the other apocalyptic warnings from the planet itself, and who roll their eyes at the very mention of this existential threat to the future of the human species, please wake up. Our children and grandchildren need you to hear and recognize the truth of our situation, before it is too late.
Here is the good news: the bold steps that are needed to solve the climate crisis are exactly the same steps that ought to be taken in order to solve the economic crisis and the energy security crisis.
Economists across the spectrum — including Martin Feldstein and Lawrence Summers — agree that large and rapid investments in a jobs-intensive infrastructure initiative is the best way to revive our economy in a quick and sustainable way. Many also agree that our economy will fall behind if we continue spending hundreds of billions of dollars on foreign oil every year. Moreover, national security experts in both parties agree that we face a dangerous strategic vulnerability if the world suddenly loses access to Middle Eastern oil.
As Abraham Lincoln said during America’s darkest hour, “The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew.” In our present case, thinking anew requires discarding an outdated and fatally flawed definition of the problem we face.
Thirty-five years ago this past week, President Richard Nixon created Project Independence, which set a national goal that, within seven years, the United States would develop “the potential to meet our own energy needs without depending on any foreign energy sources.” His statement came three weeks after the Arab oil embargo had sent prices skyrocketing and woke America to the dangers of dependence on foreign oil. And — not coincidentally — it came only three years after United States domestic oil production had peaked.
(continue below)
"The Climate for Change :: By AL GORE" perma-link
, or continue reading...
January 3, 2009 10:56 AM, by Syd Gris
Keith Olbermann on Prop 8 passing
As usual, Keith says it better than I could.
"Keith Olbermann on Prop 8 passing" perma-link
January 2, 2009 02:00 PM, by Syd Gris
A Letter to David Brooks
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A Letter to Conservative Columnist David Brooks
from Syd Gris
In response to the Darkness at Dawn Op-Ed piece, 11-10-08
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Hi David,
I'm one of those San Francsico progressives considered crazy and fringe by the Hannity-Limbaugh continuum. I'm also a member of what I imagine is a growing number of fans of your writings who don't agree with you on many an issue, but respect you for clearly thinking things through in a way that demonstrates at least your thinking, and not blindly allied with ideology.
I sometimes find it helpful to look at what's happening in America's conservative world through the lens of Don Beck and Chris Cowan's work on Spiral Dynamics, and Ken Wilber's work on integral theory. Have you had time to read any of their work? You'd appreciate it.
They both look at consciousness as coalescing in distinct 'waves' or 'layers' or 'values memes' that have particular world views, properties, etc. I see a large part of conservatism's current problems as a refusal of the old guard (traditionalists) to evolve out of their current lens of seeing self and world. At it's most rigid, it is conformist, absolutist, with unvarying principles of right and wrong. The Blue meme in Spiral Dynamics. It's frankly outdated by more evolved, integral ways of seeing the world; the gray, the networks of relationships you reference at times in your work.
It's inevitable the younger, more educated conservative class will evenutally win the war of ideas on that side of the aisle, but it will also, inevitably (to the dismay of the traditionalists) look more liberal, because, in a way - it is! I can feel the resistance based on ego to move in this direction, even though regardless of political affiliation, the truth should be apolitical. (Though I like to joke that truth has a liberal bias.)
These main players in the traditionalist world, I wonder what they do to evolve their consciousness and world view. Do they go to therapy? Have a truly introspective spiritual practice? Read things they don't already agree with? Open their hearts to others they deem as 'other'? Are they doing anything to grow up?
Holding on to some of the ideas they do, I can't help but wonder. I see a lot of the development of consciousness happening of it's own unfolding from childhood to adolescence to adulthood. But there's also a point, in some domains, that to keep growing it now takes a more concerted effort rather than letting the momentum of the unfolding of consciousness do much of the heavy lifting. Are these guys doing anything to continue to develop, or do they implicitly think they're perfect, and everything they think is right?
Obviously this dynamic is at work on both sides of the aisle, but luckily for people like me, who have lived as shamed American through the Bush years, the Right is way farther behind. And when they catch up, it will be OK, because truth inherently leans towards freedom, not constriction. And though the right will evolve in it's own fashion, it will inherently evolve. If you guys just wait around for the old guard to die, which is often how ideas finally evolve, (the outdated 'authorities on truth' people still listen to even though their now static world view are incorrect finally die off); if you wait that long, it will be a long wait. It would be better for the country if you Reformists didn't wait around, if you really asserted yourselves now while this conversation is fresh.
This article by Ken Wilber on the Iraq War is a variation of what I'm talking about. http://wilber.shambhala.com/html/misc/iraq.cfm
Thanks for listening,
~Syd Gris,
San Francisco
"A Letter to David Brooks" perma-link
November 7, 2008 12:31 PM, by Syd Gris
I am Voting for Obama, but here's some thoughts on why there is still plenty of reason for pause.
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I am Voting for Obama, but here's some thoughts on why there is still plenty of reason for pause.
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A friend, artist, musician and respected member of the communiyt sent me this, and I thought it was worth sharing. Despite it's title, which is the author's, not mine, I am voting for Obama.
I post this as a reminder that if he wins, the work for truth and justice will be FAR from over, and the left can not be mulled to sleep that now everything will be OK because the Bush-Cheny gangsters have left the White House. There are much larger forces at work to be over come to save our asses from wide spread calamity.
Written by Chris Sia:
WHY I CAN'T SUPPORT BARACK OBAMA
"Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty."
–Thomas Jefferson
As we head into the home stretch of Election Day, I remember what the late great Bill Hicks had to say of American politics. He compared it to one puppeteer with puppets on both hands. And, essentially, this is true. The same forces control the nominations of the two parties, who work for the same man. Either we get the stern, patriarchal, protective Republican puppet or we get the kinder, gentler, matriarchal Democratic puppet. Whatever puppet ends up in the White House, it has already been groomed and spoonfed the agenda of the plutocracy–the ruling elite. The absurdity of the system has become surreal, in the face of what is purported to be democracy. The public is lied to on a daily basis, in the headlines of the newspapers, on the television, from the smiling plasticized faces of the anchorpersons. Proffered are myriad reasons to be afraid: religious extremists, Islamic terrorists, a crashing economy, global warming, text-messaging train drivers, crack-addicted carjackers, killer bees. More reasons to have Big Brother looking out for you, protecting you from yourself, and the xenophobic culture we have become. It's a system where a woman like Sarah Palin has a good shot at becoming the next president of the United States. It's a system where we ridicule other nations for human rights abuses and yet we legalize our own form of torture. We sing of the land of the free and the home of the brave, yet we are legislating our freedoms away, the very ones the Founding Fathers fought hard for, the rights given to U.S. citizens by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, that those serving this nation are sworn into office to protect, and yet slowly and incrementally we have been giving them up in the name of security. Benjamin Franklin once wrote, Those who sacrifice liberty for security, deserve neither.
"I am Voting for Obama, but here's some thoughts on why there is still plenty of reason for pause." perma-link
, or continue reading...
November 4, 2008 11:11 PM, by Syd Gris
Get Your War On - Sarah Palin & the Rape Kits
"Get Your War On - Sarah Palin & the Rape Kits" perma-link
October 20, 2008 09:07 AM, by Syd Gris
The World of 2108
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The World of 2108
Commentary by Captain Paul Watson (Co-Founder of Greenpeace) |
I was asked recently what I thought the world would be like in 100 years. The question was meant to solicit if I am an optimist or a pessimist.
The fact is that I am neither an optimist nor am I a pessimist. I am an ecologist which means that I view the world through the eyes of the laws of ecology and I try to do so as objectively as possible. I have faith in the laws of ecology, and I believe that these laws will ensure that the planet takes care of itself for billions of years more as it has for a few billion years already.
I actually find all the hysteria over global warming and climate change to be somewhat amusing. As an environmentalist I was speaking and writing about this problem thirty years ago. Of course my opinions were dismissed then as were other voices of ecological realism.
It just made sense to me back then that if we pump carbon into the atmosphere in the volumes we have been doing for over a century that there would be serious ecological consequences.
(Read on Below)
"The World of 2108" perma-link
, or continue reading...
July 9, 2008 11:15 AM, by Syd Gris
Why I'm Voting Republican
"Why I'm Voting Republican" perma-link
July 9, 2008 12:56 AM, by Syd Gris
Some Cool Thoughts on Consciousness
"Some Cool Thoughts on Consciousness" perma-link
July 8, 2008 11:17 PM, by Syd Gris
"We're toast if we don't get on a very different path"
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NASA warming scientist: 'This is the last chance'
"We're toast if we don't get on a very different path" |
WASHINGTON - Exactly 20 years after warning America about global warming, a top NASA scientist said the situation has gotten so bad that the world's only hope is drastic action.
James Hansen told Congress on Monday that the world has long passed the "dangerous level" for greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and needs to get back to 1988 levels. He said Earth's atmosphere can only stay this loaded with man-made carbon dioxide for a couple more decades without changes such as mass extinction, ecosystem collapse and dramatic sea level rises.
"We're toast if we don't get on a very different path," Hansen, director of the Goddard Institute of Space Sciences who is sometimes called the godfather of global warming science, told The Associated Press. "This is the last chance."
Hansen brought global warming home to the public in June 1988 during a Washington heat wave, telling a Senate hearing that global warming was already here. To mark the anniversary, he testified before the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming where he was called a prophet, and addressed a luncheon at the National Press Club where he was called a hero by former Sen. Tim Wirth, D-Colo., who headed the 1988 hearing.
To cut emissions, Hansen said coal-fired power plants that don't capture carbon dioxide emissions shouldn't be used in the United States after 2025, and should be eliminated in the rest of the world by 2030. That carbon capture technology is still being developed and not yet cost efficient for power plants.
Burning fossil fuels like coal is the chief cause of man-made greenhouse gases. Hansen said the Earth's atmosphere has got to get back to a level of 350 parts of carbon dioxide per million. Last month, it was 10 percent higher: 386.7 parts per million.
Hansen said he'll testify on behalf of British protesters against new coal-fired power plants. Protesters have chained themselves to gates and equipment at sites of several proposed coal plants in England.
"The thing that I think is most important is to block coal-fired power plants," Hansen told the luncheon. "I'm not yet at the point of chaining myself but we somehow have to draw attention to this."
Frank Maisano, a spokesman for many U.S. utilities, including those trying to build new coal plants, said while Hansen has shown foresight as a scientist, his "stop them all approach is very simplistic" and shows that he is beyond his level of expertise.
The year of Hansen's original testimony was the world's hottest year on record. Since then, 14 years have been hotter, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Two decades later, Hansen spent his time on the question of whether it's too late to do anything about it. His answer: There's still time to stop the worst, but not much time.
"We see a tipping point occurring right before our eyes," Hansen told the AP before the luncheon. "The Arctic is the first tipping point and it's occurring exactly the way we said it would."
Hansen, echoing work by other scientists, said that in five to 10 years, the Arctic will be free of sea ice in the summer.
Longtime global warming skeptic Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., citing a recent poll, said in a statement, "Hansen, (former Vice President) Gore and the media have been trumpeting man-made climate doom since the 1980s. But Americans are not buying it."
But Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., committee chairman, said, "Dr. Hansen was right. Twenty years later, we recognize him as a climate prophet."
""We're toast if we don't get on a very different path"" perma-link
June 30, 2008 09:56 PM, by Syd Gris
One Day of War in Iraq
"One Day of War in Iraq" perma-link
May 24, 2008 11:49 PM, by Syd Gris
The American Police State - this is Scary
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Report Says 1 In 100 Americans Behind Bars
Tougher Sentences Cited
A higher rate than any country in the World! |
For the first time in history, more than one in every 100 adults in America is in jail or prison, according to a new report released Thursday.
The report by the Pew Center on the States’ Public Safety Performance Project said 2,319,258 adults were held in American prisons or jails at the beginning of 2008, which is one out of every 99.1 adults. That's more than any other country in the world.
States spent more than $49 billion on corrections, the report said, which is up from $11 billion 20 years before.
"For all the money spent on corrections today, there hasn't been a clear and convincing return for public safety," Adam Gelb, director of the Public Safety Performance Project said in a news release. "More and more states are beginning to rethink their reliance on prisons for lower-level offenders and finding strategies that are tough on crime without being so tough on taxpayers."
According to the report, the prison population rose by more than 25,000 inmates in 2007, with 36 states and the Federal Bureau of Prisons seeing population increases.
Among the seven states with the largest number of prisoners, three (Ohio, Florida and Georgia) increased in populations, while four (New York, Michigan, Texas and California) saw reductions.
Texas surpassed California as the nation's prison leader after a decline in both states' inmate populations, the report said, and Kentucky had the largest percentage increase at 12 percent.
One in 30 men between the ages of 20 and 34 is behind bars, according to recent U.S. Department of Justice data, which also shows that men are about 13 times more likely to be incarcerated than females. However, the data shows, the female population is expanding at a faster pace.
The Pew Center report noted that prison growth and higher imprisonment rates do not reflect a parallel increase in crime or a corresponding increase in the nation's overall population.
Instead, it said, tougher sentencing measures, such as the three-strikes law, are leading to longer prison stays.
"States are paying a high cost for corrections -- one that may not be buying them as much in public safety as it should," Susan K. Urahn, managing director of the Pew Center on the States, said in a news release. "There are other choices. Some state policy makers are experimenting with a range of community punishments that are as effective as incarceration in protecting public safety and allow states to put the brakes on prison growth."
The report said the United States leads the world in incarcerations, far ahead of more populous China with 1.5 million people behind bars.
"The American Police State - this is Scary" perma-link
May 8, 2008 03:35 PM, by Syd Gris
Watch and share, pretty hard to refute
"Watch and share, pretty hard to refute" perma-link
, or continue reading...
May 7, 2008 07:24 PM, by Syd Gris
Bush is a liar, but you knew that...
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Our so called president is a lying piece of shit.
Study: Truth was first US casualty in Iraq war: |
WASHINGTON (AFP) - US President George W. Bush and his top officials ran roughshod over the truth in the run-up to the Iraq war lying a total of 935 times, a study released Wednesday found.
Bush and his then secretary of state Colin Powell made the most false statements as they sought to drum up support for the March 2003 invasion to topple Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, the study alleged.
In a damning report, the Center for Public Integrity found "935 false statements by eight top administration officials that mentioned Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction, or links to Al-Qaeda, on at least 532 separate occasions."
"Bush and seven of his administration's top officials methodically propagated erroneous information over the two years beginning on September 11, 2001," the center said.
"These false statements dramatically increased in August 2002, just prior to congressional consideration of a war resolution and during the critical weeks in early 2003 when the president delivered his State of the Union address and Powell delivered his memorable presentation to the UN Security Council," the CPI added.
The study calls into question "the repeated assertions of Bush administration officials that they were merely the unwitting victims of bad intelligence," it added in a statement.
The US president was found to have made the most false statements referring a total of 260 times to Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction and Al-Qaeda alleged links to the Baghdad regime.
But then-secretary of state Powell only just lagged behind with 254 false communications, said the study by the center's founder Charles Lewis and researchers.
Charges that late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had stockpiled an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction were the main argument used publicy in parliaments around the world and in the United Nations to justify the US-led invasion.
But after the invasion they turned out to be untrue, when no weapons of mass destruction were found by the invading forces.
Former national security advisor Condoleezza Rice, then defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and ex-deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz were also fingered in the study, along with former White House press secretaries Ari Fleisher and Scott McClellan.
"This is a report like no other, which calls into question more than 900 false statements that were the underpinnings of the administration's case for war," argued the CPI's Executive Director Bill Buzenberg.
Cheney, for example, on August 26, 2002, in an address to the Veterans of Foreign Wars national convention, asserted: "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.
"There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us."
Former CIA chief George Tenet later noted Cheney's assertions exceeded his agency's assessments at the time, the report said.
In late September 2002, Bush with a congressional vote approaching on authorizing the use of military force in Iraq, insisted in a radio address that the Baghdad regime posed a global threat.
"The Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons, is rebuilding the facilities to make more and, according to the British government, could launch a biological or chemical attack in as little as 45 minutes after the order is given," Bush said.
"This regime is seeking a nuclear bomb, and with fissile material could build one within a year."
Other administration officials muddied the waters on the alleged relationship between Iraq and the Al-Qaeda terror network, the CPI said.
Asked in July 2002 if Iraq had relationships with Al-Qaeda terrorists, Rumsfeld said: "Sure."
Still, an assessment the same month by the Defense Intelligence Agency, confirmed by later by CIA chief Tenet, found an absence of any "compelling evidence demonstrating direct cooperation between the government of Iraq and Al-Qaeda."
"Bush is a liar, but you knew that..." perma-link
March 28, 2008 12:30 PM, by Syd Gris
Outrage fatigue? Get over it.
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Outrage fatigue? Get over it.
Are you sick of being sick? Suffering way too much Bush-induced nausea? Well, tough
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Wednesday, November 14, 2007 |
(Note from Syd: Mark communicates exactly what I've been thinking, but as usual, says it in a much more articulate fashion!!)
I know how it is. You've had it up to here. There are only so many stories about blood and death and pain you can take, only so many times you can hear about random shootings and corporate malfeasance and how BushCo's squad of scabrous flying monkeys have, say, supported torture or endorsed wiretapping or gouged the nation for another $200 billion to pay for a failed war. Your nerves are raw and your heart is tired and the media will just not shut the hell up already about the sadness and the war and the mayhem and the Cheney and the doom doom doom.
It is outrage fatigue, and it is epidemic. It's that feeling that we are being hammered unlike any time in recent history with so many appalling and disgusting and violently un-American incidents and scandals and manipulations that our b.s.-detectors are smoking like an old V-8 engine on a hot summer's day and it's all we can do to get up every day without screaming.
What's more, it's not the mere quantity of moral insults, either. It's the bizarre absurdity of the subject matter, the things we are being forced to consider, or reconsider, that seem to make it all so horrific.
Torture? Are you kidding? Allegedly the most civilized, the most morally aware nation on the planet and we are still debating, in the highest courts and government offices in the land, about whether the United States should strap human beings to gnarled metal benches in rancid foreign bunkers and inflict such inexplicable terror and fear upon them that they confess to things they didn't even do just to get us to stop? Is this the Middle Ages? Are we regressing back to the goddamn cave?
"Outrage fatigue? Get over it." perma-link
, or continue reading...
January 14, 2008 10:35 AM, by Syd Gris
The Coup at Home by Frank Rich (I thought this summed it up nicely)
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The Coup at Home
By FRANK RICH |
Published: November 11, 2007 : NY Times Op-Ed
AS Gen. Pervez Musharraf arrested judges, lawyers and human-rights activists in Pakistan last week, our Senate was busy demonstrating its own civic mettle. Chuck Schumer and Dianne Feinstein, liberal Democrats from America’s two most highly populated blue states, gave the thumbs up to Michael B. Mukasey, ensuring his confirmation as attorney general.
So what if America’s chief law enforcement official won’t say that waterboarding is illegal? A state of emergency is a state of emergency. You’re either willing to sacrifice principles to head off the next ticking bomb, or you’re with the terrorists. Constitutional corners were cut in Washington in impressive synchronicity with General Musharraf’s crackdown in Islamabad.
In the days since, the coup in Pakistan has been almost universally condemned as the climactic death knell for Bush foreign policy, the epitome of White House hypocrisy and incompetence. But that’s not exactly news. It’s been apparent for years that America was suicidal to go to war in Iraq, a country with no tie to 9/11 and no weapons of mass destruction, while showering billions of dollars on Pakistan, where terrorists and nuclear weapons proliferate under the protection of a con man who serves as a host to Osama bin Laden.
"The Coup at Home by Frank Rich (I thought this summed it up nicely)" perma-link
, or continue reading...
January 14, 2008 10:15 AM, by Syd Gris
George Bush’s Criminal Conspiracy of Torture
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Special Comment: George Bush’s Criminal Conspiracy of Torture
By Keith Olbermann |
This from a piece that aired on MSNBC, watch it HERE
No matter how thorough you might try to brand disagreement as disloyalty, Mr Bush, there are still people like Daniel Levin who believe in the United States of America as true freedom, where we are better not because of schemes and wars, but because of dreams and morals. And ultimately, sir, these men, these patriots will defeat you and they will return this country to its righteous standards, and to its rightful owners: The People.
Transcript below the fold…
Finally tonight, as promised, a Special Comment on the meaning of the story of former U.S. Acting Assistant Attorney General Daniel Levin.
It is a fact startling in its cynical simplicity and it requires cynical and simple words to be properly expressed:
The presidency of George W. Bush has now devolved into a criminal conspiracy to cover the ass of George W. Bush.
All the petulancy, all the childish threats, all the blank-stare stupidity;
All the invocations of World War Three, all the sophistic questions about which terrorist attacks we wanted him not to stop, all the phony secrets; all the claims of executive privilege, all the stumbling tap-dancing of his nominees, all the verbal flatulence of his apologists…
All of it is now — after one revelation last week — transparently clear for what it is: the pathetic and desperate manipulation of the government, the re-focusing of our entire nation, towards keeping this mock president, and this unstable vice president, and this departed wildly self-over-rating Attorney General — and the others — from potential prosecution for having approved or ordered the illegal torture of prisoners being held in the name of this country.
“Waterboarding is torture,” Daniel Levin was to write.
"George Bush’s Criminal Conspiracy of Torture" perma-link
, or continue reading...
November 15, 2007 11:39 AM, by Syd Gris
Will the GOP Election Theft Machine Do It Again in 2008?
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Will the GOP Election Theft Machine Do It Again in 2008?
By Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman |
The Free Press, ( copied from truthout.org )
With record low approval ratings for the Bush/Cheney regime and the albatross of an unpopular war hanging from the GOP's neck, do you think that a Democratic presidential candidate will win the White House, get us out of Iraq, and end our long national nightmare?
Think again - the mighty election theft machine Karl Rove used to steal the US presidency in 2000 and 2004 may be under attack, but it is still in place for the upcoming 2008 election.
With his usual devious mastery, Rove has seized upon the national outrage sparked by his electoral larceny and used it as smokescreen while he makes the American electoral system even MORE unfair, and even EASIER to rig. Thus the administration has fired federal attorneys when they would not participate in a nationwide campaign to deny minorities and the poor their access to the polls. It has spent millions of taxpayer dollars to install electronic voting machines that can be "flipped" with a few keystrokes. And under the guise of "reforming" our busted electoral system, it is setting us up for another presidential theft in 2008.
Thus it should come as no surprise that our exclusive investigations into the firings of eight federal prosecutors who refused to execute Rove’s plans for massive disenfranchisement of Democratic voters reveal a pattern of illegalities and fraud aimed at reducing the number of minority, poor and young voters at the core of Democratic support. In the wake of major news breaks, two felony convictions have come from the rigging of the illegal Ohio 2004 vote count and recount that gave George W. Bush a second illegitimate term. Stunning new admissions from county election boards that illegally destroyed voter records will almost certainly lead to new convictions. And the multi-million-dollar electronic voting machine scam that made possible the biggest electoral frauds in US history is under massive new attack, with key states moving to scrap the machines altogether in a desperate attempt to restore American democracy - but with the job far from done.
(continued below)
"Will the GOP Election Theft Machine Do It Again in 2008?" perma-link
, or continue reading...
November 14, 2007 10:27 AM, by Syd Gris
LoveFest video from Opel float
From our friend Paul who rode along on the opel float,
Check it....
and a great Metrowize one from the whole event - feel the love! (Depending on your computer and connection, you might want to pause video to let it download the whole video or it will pause a few times to catch up....)
"LoveFest video from Opel float" perma-link
November 12, 2007 03:39 PM, by Syd Gris
Opel V Call to Arms Video!
A special message from V in dark times, shown at midnight at the Opel 5 year Anniversary party. Please spread this link and let the message go viral!!
Production by On the Fly Films .
Words by Syd Gris
Voice work by Isaac Rodriguez
"Opel V Call to Arms Video!" perma-link
November 12, 2007 12:54 PM, by Syd Gris
Brain Scans Reveal Why Meditation Works
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Brain Scans Reveal Why Meditation Works
By: Melinda Wenner |
If you name your emotions, you can tame them, according to new research that suggests why meditation works.
Brain scans show that putting negative emotions into words calms the brain's emotion center. That could explain meditation’s purported emotional benefits, because people who meditate often label their negative emotions in an effort to “let them go.”
Psychologists have long believed that people who talk about their feelings have more control over them, but they don't know why it works.
UCLA psychologist Matthew Lieberman and his colleagues hooked 30 people up to functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machines, which scan the brain to reveal which parts are active and inactive at any given moment.
They asked the subjects to look at pictures of male or female faces making emotional expressions. Below some of the photos was a choice of words describing the emotion—such as “angry” or “fearful”—or two possible names for the people in the pictures, one male name and one female name.
When presented with these choices, the subjects were asked to pick the most appropriate emotion or gender-appropriate name to fit the face they saw.
When the participants chose labels for the negative emotions, activity in the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex region—an area associated with thinking in words about emotional experiences—became more active, whereas activity in the amygdala, a brain region involved in emotional processing, was calmed.
"Brain Scans Reveal Why Meditation Works" perma-link
, or continue reading...
November 11, 2007 01:05 PM, by Syd Gris
Why We Do It
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Why We Do It :: Why we put so much effort into one week in the desert.
by Syd Gris |
It has come up as a frequent topic of conversation. The country has slowly descended into a subtle police state run by morally corrupt gangsters. They are highly effective at accomplishing many of their goals (financial gain for their cronies), but highly ineffective at being leaders of pluralistic vision and progress for those not connected by money and political lineage. They successfully stole 2 elections and were probably complicit in some form in the 9/11 attacks. (Up for debate of course, but if you still buy every spoon of the official story you haven't done your homework.)
The land of the free has become a well crafted machine that fits our own definition of a terrorist state. We don't really support democracy, we support the interests of the elite corporate hierarchy. This is not news, this is simply fact. And here we are, perhaps the most educated generation to date in the most progressive area of the country. What are we doing about it? Not much, really. We like to bitch and moan, we might attend a protest or sign an on line petition that literally is as much work as the click of a mouse. We vote (sometimes) and try to be conscious about our choices as consumers. But have we really held our representatives to task for being a pathetically weak voice of opposition to the trampling of the constitution or an illegal and immoral war? The last election may suggest so, and my yearning for hope wants to say yes, but the jury is certainly still out on that. I haven't seen many signs the fundamental workings of the maching have been or will be altered (though the recent lobbying reform legislation was a nice step, forgive me for being cynical it will significantly take money out of politics). The moral back bone of our country remains far from the good of the many. Our military spending is a disgusting and obscene orgy of waste beyond anything we can take in all at once.
"Why We Do It" perma-link
, or continue reading...
August 26, 2007 08:34 PM, by Syd Gris
Fascist America - It Could Happen Here
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Fascist America, in 10 easy steps
by Naomi Wolf |
From Hitler to Pinochet and beyond, history shows there are certain steps that any would-be dictator must take to destroy constitutional freedoms. And, argues Naomi Wolf, George Bush and his administration seem to be taking them all
Tuesday April 24, 2007
The Guardian (UK)
Last autumn, there was a military coup in Thailand. The leaders of the coup took a number of steps, rather systematically, as if they had a shopping list. In a sense, they did. Within a matter of days, democracy had been closed down: the coup leaders declared martial law, sent armed soldiers into residential areas, took over radio and TV stations, issued restrictions on the press, tightened some limits on travel, and took certain activists into custody.
They were not figuring these things out as they went along. If you look at history, you can see that there is essentially a blueprint for turning an open society into a dictatorship. That blueprint has been used again and again in more and less bloody, more and less terrifying ways. But it is always effective. It is very difficult and arduous to create and sustain a democracy - but history shows that closing one down is much simpler. You simply have to be willing to take the 10 steps.
As difficult as this is to contemplate, it is clear, if you are willing to look, that each of these 10 steps has already been initiated today in the United States by the Bush administration.
(Read on below)
"Fascist America - It Could Happen Here" perma-link
, or continue reading...
May 28, 2007 12:38 PM, by Syd Gris
The Promise of Religion
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The Promise of Religion: If Only it could Evolve with the Rest of Us (well... most of us...)
By Syd Gris |
Easter Sunday made me think, as it often does, of my Christian faith, it's promises and perils. I say 'my' Christian faith loosely. I don't identify myself as a Christian in the average use of that term, but it is my cultural heritage and part of my family heritage as well and I have no qualms standing up for the teachings of Jesus as I understand them that I have come to respect and honor as I do other teachings from other traditions that feel aligned with my felt sense of Spirit.
Phrases such as: 'as I understand' and 'my felt sense' are a kernel of the problem Easter and other religious holidays make me think about. This whole enterpirse of knowing God and truth and purpose is wildly open to interpretation and speculation and subjective forms of knowing. The early Christian pioneers operated in an age of hostility to their message where you could literally die a horrible death for your beliefs. Add to this the fact they were trying to establish a teaching across disparate beliefs and cultures with slow forms of communciation, it's obviously quite the uphill battle. In their eyes, only in the uniformity of the canon, and the conformity of its adherents, could this new teaching take root and spread- the so called words of Jesus Christ.
(read on)
"The Promise of Religion" perma-link
, or continue reading...
April 28, 2007 05:19 PM, by Syd Gris
My New Age Pet Peeves
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My New Age Pet Peeves: My take on the bullshit involved in 'You Create Your Own Reality' and 'Everything Happens for a Reason.'
By Syd Gris |
If you know me or have taken anytime to read what I'm about and what Opel is about, you know I'm a huge proponent of reminding people of the 'spiritual' dimensions of reality, and the need to pay attention to that part of ourselves. When I say 'spiritual,' which is obviously a loaded word used in a variety of ways, I mean it as well in a variety of ways. One's relationship with that which they deem sacred, one's ultimate priorities of existence, a state of consciousness in which our individual concerns seem to melt away to allow access a greater connection with the present, or even our felt sense of Source, or God. All these can suggest shades of how spirituality can be regarded.
Within the post-modern landscape of America, it's a confusing picture. Intellectual, secular perspectives have disdain (rightly so) for popular religion's hold on mythic and out dated ways of seeing the world that contribute to oppression, ignorance, and when applied through a fundamentalist lens - murder and war. (That applies to many religions, not just the obvious examples of Islam and Christianity). On the other side, those with a strong spiritual orientation have disdain (rightly so) for the modern emphases on the accumulation of wealth, materialism, living without a moral compass, and the unhealthy trappings of pop culture devoid of reverence.
(Read on...)
"My New Age Pet Peeves" perma-link
, or continue reading...
April 27, 2007 10:46 AM, by Syd Gris
One Day This Hell Will All be Over
It should never have happened.
But it did.
Twice. The world will be better off when this
pathetic misguided war mongerer is no longer
our leader.
"One Day This Hell Will All be Over" perma-link
April 26, 2007 04:14 PM, by Syd Gris
US Government Ignorance & Arrogance
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Insider: Missteps soured Iraqis on U.S.
By CHARLES J. HANLEY, AP |
NEW YORK - In a rueful reflection on what might have been, an Iraqi government insider details in 500 pages the U.S. occupation's "shocking" mismanagement of his country — a performance so bad, he writes, that by 2007 Iraqis had "turned their backs on their would-be liberators."
"The corroded and corrupt state of Saddam was replaced by the corroded, inefficient, incompetent and corrupt state of the new order," Ali A. Allawi concludes in "The Occupation of Iraq," newly published by Yale University Press.
Allawi writes with authority as a member of that "new order," having served as Iraq's trade, defense and finance minister at various times since 2003. As a former academic, at Oxford University before the U.S.-British invasion of Iraq, he also writes with unusual detachment.
The U.S.- and British-educated engineer and financier is the first senior Iraqi official to look back at book length on his country's four-year ordeal. It's an unsparing look at failures both American and Iraqi, an account in which the word "ignorance" crops up repeatedly.
(read on...)
"US Government Ignorance & Arrogance" perma-link
, or continue reading...
April 16, 2007 10:46 PM, by Syd Gris
Check this Bill Moyers speech
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"Big Media is Ravenous. It Never Gets Enough. Always Wants More. And it Will Stop at Nothing to Get It. These Conglomerates are an Empire, and they are Imperial."
By Bill Moyers |
Transcipts of an excellent speech given by Bill Moyers regarding the dire need to rally against on going media consolidation and it's harmful effects on democracy.
Read it: www.democracynow.org
"Check this Bill Moyers speech" perma-link
March 19, 2007 12:18 PM, by Syd Gris
This Could Get Interesting
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Evangelicals, scientists join on fighting global warming
By JOHN HEILPRIN, Associated Press Writer |
WASHINGTON - Saying they share a moral purpose, a group of evangelicals and scientists said Wednesday they will work together to convince the nation's leaders that global warming is real.
The Rev. Rich Cizik, public policy director for the National Association of Evangelicals, and Nobel-laureate Eric Chivian, director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School, were among 28 signers of a statement that demands urgent changes in values, lifestyles and public policies to avert disastrous changes in climate.
"God will judge us for destroying the Creation. Therefore, we as evangelicals have a responsibility to be even more vigilant than others," Cizik told a news conference.
"Science can be an ally in helping us understand what faith is telling us," he said. "We will not allow the Creation to be degraded, destroyed by human folly."
"This Could Get Interesting" perma-link
, or continue reading...
March 19, 2007 12:21 AM, by Syd Gris
When Love Beckons You...
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When Love Beckons You...
~from "The Prophet" by Kahlil Gibran |
When love beckons you, follow her,
Though her ways are hard and steep.
And when her wings enfold you yield to her,
Though the sword hidden among her pinions may wound you.
And when she speaks to you believe in her,
Though her voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.
For even as love crowns you so shall she crucify you.
Even as she is for your growth so is she for your pruning.
Even as she ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall she descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.
Like sheaves of corn she gathers you unto herself.
She threshes you to make you naked.
She sifts you to free you from your husks.
She grinds you to whiteness.
She kneads you until you are pliant;
And then she assigns you to her sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God's sacred feast.
All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life's heart.
But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor,
Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.
Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;
For love is sufficient unto love.
When you love you should not say, "God is in my heart," but rather, "I am in the heart of God."
And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.
But if you love and most needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love.
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.
~from "The Prophet" by Kahlil Gibran
"When Love Beckons You..." perma-link
February 21, 2007 12:26 AM, by Syd Gris
Musings on the scene in 2K7
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Some thoughts, predictions, and musings on the scene in 2007
by Syd Gris |
It's typical to read musings from pundits and wanna be experts in a given genre of pop culture in the new year. Whether it be sports, politics, art, or science, it's a fun mental masturbatory exercise to wax analysis on things. So, this little Syd blog is my version of that. Off the cuff and perhaps full of shit, let's discuss where we are and perhaps, where we're going.... **Disclaimer** This is just one guy's late night opinion, not intended to be any scale of grand statement, state of the scene address, etc. It's supposed to be light hearted and in fun. Please dont' take any of this too seriously, I don't.**
As a long time student of the scene as dancer, promoter and dj I have windows into some worlds and of course am ignorant of others. I would dare to say I walk in more worlds than many of my peers who are a bit more tied to genre or community. With that in mind, let's talk bidness.
Context
Of course, the SF EDM (electronic dance music) scene is among the strongest in the world. No doubt. I dare to hope 2007 might be a year of positive transition. After the hey day of the late 90's crashed with the dot com bust and ecstasy frenzy and the Rave Act, things didn't look so hot. There was a great retraction, trance wasn't cool anymore, the underground crept back into greater relevance as the clubs sucked, and we adjusted. Few parties, or even venues still survive from those days. Wicked and Come Unity are of course quiet. Spundae has carried on despite taking some lumps by staying at 1015 for too long. But through tenacity and wisdom have positioned themselves in the world of big name dj's quite well by moving to the only consistent venue left for the big boys with any credibility - Ruby Skye. With their Thursday night in Vegas, Friday night option in SF, and Saturdays in LA (now at former rival Avalon), they'll be just fine. Release, another former heavy weight party, (Martel & Nabiel's) only do parties when their dwindled pool of dj talent comes around and they can stick their name on it. They seem fine focusing on their restaurants and perhaps a new lounge in the future...
"Musings on the scene in 2K7" perma-link
, or continue reading...
January 18, 2007 12:13 AM, by Syd Gris
Man Burns Himself Alive - No one hears about it
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Mission Statement / Suicide Note of Malachi Ritscher
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mission statement
My actions should be self-explanatory, and since in our self-obsessed culture words seldom match the deed, writing a mission statement would seem questionable. So judge me by my actions. Maybe some will be scared enough to wake from their walking dream state - am I therefore a martyr or terrorist? I would prefer to be thought of as a 'spiritual warrior'. Our so-called leaders are the real terrorists in the world today, responsible for more deaths than Osama bin Laden.
I have had a wonderful life, both full and full of wonder. I have experienced love and the joy and heartache of raising a child. I have jumped out of an airplane, and escaped a burning building. I have spent the night in jail, and dropped acid during the sixties. I have been privileged to have met many supremely talented musicians and writers, most of whom were extremely generous and gracious. Even during the hard times, I felt charmed. Even the difficult lessons have been like blessed gifts. When I hear about our young men and women who are sent off to war in the name of God and Country, and who give up their lives for no rational cause at all, my heart is crushed. What has happened to my country? we have become worse than the imagined enemy - killing civilians and calling it 'collateral damage', torturing and trampling human rights inside and outside our own borders, violating our own Constitution whenever it seems convenient, lying and stealing right and left, more concerned with sports on television and ring-tones on cell-phones than the future of the world.... half the population is taking medication because they cannot face the daily stress of living in the richest nation in the world.
"Man Burns Himself Alive - No one hears about it" perma-link
, or continue reading...
January 17, 2007 10:12 PM, by Syd Gris
Something to consider...
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10 laws of the Warrior Code
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1. Pay Attention
2. Take Responsibility
3. No whining.
4. Don't take any shit.
5. Choose with integrity, not convienence.
6. Don't quit.
7. Keep your agreements.
8. Keep your sense of humor.
9. Love one another.
10 Honor your connection to Source.
"Something to consider..." perma-link
December 12, 2006 07:30 PM, by Syd Gris
The Myth of the Liberal Media
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National Impeachment Movement Ignored by Corporate Media
By Peter Phillips |
If a national movement calling for the impeachment of the President is rapidly emerging and the corporate media are not covering it, is there really a national movement for the impeachment of the President?
Impeachment advocates are widely mobilizing in the U.S. Over 1,000 letters to the editors of major newspapers have been printed in the past six months asking for impeachment. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette letter writer George Matus says, “I am still enraged over unasked questions about exit polls, touch-screen voting, Iraq, the cost of the new Medicare…who formulated our energy policy, Jack Abramoff, the Downing Street Memos, and impeachment.” David Anderson in McMinnville, Oregon pens to the Oregonian, “Where are the members of our congressional delegation now in demanding the current president’s actions be investigated to see if impeachment or censure are appropriate actions?” William Dwyer’s letter in the Charleston Gazette says, “Congress will never have the courage to start the impeachment process without a groundswell of outrage from the people.”
City councils, boards of supervisors, and local and state level Democrat central committees have voted for impeachment. Arcata, California voted for impeachment on January 6. The City and County of San Francisco, voted Yes on February 28. The Sonoma County Democrat Central Committee (CA) voted for Impeachment on March 16. The townships of Newfane, Brookfield, Dummerston, Marlboro and Putney in Vermont all voted for impeachment the first week of March. The New Mexico State Democrat party convention rallied on March 18 for the ”impeachment of George Bush and his lawful removal from office.” The national Green Party called for impeachment on January 3. Op-ed writers at the St. Petersburg Times, Newsday, Yale Daily News, Barrons, Detroit Free Press, and the Boston Globe have called for impeachment. The San Francisco Bay Guardian (1/25/06) The Nation (1/30/06) and Harpers (3/06) published cover articles calling for impeachment. As of March 16, thirty-two US House of Representatives have signed on as co-sponsors to House Resolution 635, which would create a Select Committee to look into the grounds for recommending President Bush’s impeachment.
Polls show that nearly a majority of Americans favor impeachment. In October of 2005, Public Affairs Research found that 50% of Americans said that President Bush should be impeached if he lied about the war in Iraq. A Zogby International poll from early November 2005 found that 53% of Americans say, "If President Bush did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq, Congress should consider holding him accountable through impeachment." A March 16, 2006 poll by American Research Group showed that 42% of Americans favored impeaching Bush.
Despite all this advocacy and sentiment for impeachment, corporate media have yet to cover this emerging mass movement. The Bangor Daily News simply reported on March 17 that former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark has set up the website Votetoimpeach.org and that other groups are using the internet to push impeachment. The Wall Street Journal, on March 16, editorialized about how it is just “the loony left” seeking impeachment, but perhaps some Democrats in Congress will join in feeding on the “bile of the censure/impeachment brigades.”
The corporate media are ignoring the broadening call for impeachment — wishing perhaps it will just go away. Television news and talk shows have mentioned impeachment over 100 times in the past 30 days, mostly however in the context of Senator Russ Feingold’s censure bill and the lack of broad Democrat support for censure or impeachment. Nothing on television news gives the impression that millions of Americans are calling for the impeachment of Bush and his cohorts.
The Bush Administration lied about Iraq, illegally spied on US citizens, and continues war crimes in the Middle East. Despite corporate media’s inability to hear the demands for impeachment, the groundswell of outrage continues to expand.
Peter Phillips is a Professor of Sociology at Sonoma State University and Director of Project Censored a media research organization. Impeach the President: The Case Against Bush and Cheney by Dennis Loo and Peter Phillips is scheduled for release this summer by Seven Stories Press
"The Myth of the Liberal Media" perma-link
October 30, 2006 12:14 AM, by Syd Gris
Syd Barrett : R.I.P.
You shone like the sun
Syd Barrett was the prodigiously talented founder of Pink Floyd, but after just two years at the centre of the 60s psychedelic scene, he suffered a massive breakdown and has lived as a recluse ever since. In this extract from his candid new book, Tim Willis tracks him down and pieces together the story of rock's lost icon
Sunday October 6, 2002
The Observer
Remember when you were young, You shone like the sun. Shine on you crazy diamond. Now there's a look in your eyes, Like black holes in the sky. Shine on you crazy diamond.
Pink Floyd's tribute to Syd Barrett on Wish You Were Here, 1975
The received wisdom is that you don't disturb him.The last interview he gave was in 1971, and from then until now, there are only about 20 recorded encounters of any kind. His family says it upsets him to discuss the days when he was the spirit of psychedelia, beautiful Syd Barrett, the leader of Pink Floyd. He doesn't recognise himself as the shambling visionary who, during an extended nervous breakdown exacerbated by his drug intake, made two solos LPs, Madcap and Barrett , which are as eternally eloquent as Van Gogh's cornfields. He doesn't answer to his 60s nickname now. He's called Roger Barrett, as he was born in 1946.
On a blistering hot day, pacing the cracked tarmac pavement in this suburban Cambridge street, I wonder if I can act honourably by him. When the DJ Nicky Horne doorstepped him in the 80s, Barrett said, 'Syd can't talk to you now.' Perhaps, in his own way, he was telling the truth. But I could talk to him as Roger; ask him if he was still painting, as reported. I could pass on regards from friends he knew before he became Syd.
Two housewives in the street say he ignores their 'Good mornings' when he goes out to buy his Daily Mail and changing brands of fags. Apart from his sister, they don't think he has any visitors - not even workmen. But they don't see why I shouldn't take my chances. It's been a few years since backpackers camped by his gate. 'He didn't open the door for them, and he probably won't for you.'
So I walk up the concrete path of his grey pebble-dashed semi, try the bell and discover that it's disconnected. At the front of the house, all the curtains are open. The side passage is closed to prying eyes by a high gate. I knock on the front door and, after a minute or two, look through the downstairs bay window. Where you might expect a television and a three-piece suite, Barrett has constructed a bare, white-walled workshop. Pushed against the window is a tattered pink sofa. On the hardboard tops, toolboxes are neatly stacked, flexes coiled, pens put away in a white mug.
Then, a sound in the hall. Has he come in from the back garden? Perhaps it needs mowing, like the front lawn - although, judging by the mound of weeds by the path, he's been tidying the beds today.
I knock again, and hear three heavy steps. The door flies open and he's standing there. He's stark naked except for a small, tight pair of bright-blue Y-fronts; bouncing, like the books say he always did, on the balls of his feet.
He bars the doorway with one hand on the jamb, the other on the catch. His resemblance to Aleister Crowley in his Cefalu period is uncanny; his stare about as welcoming...
(Read on below)
"Syd Barrett : R.I.P." perma-link
, or continue reading...
August 9, 2006 09:46 AM, by Syd Gris
Essential viewing and reading of the Moment
|
Please take a look at this and share what you learn and think with others.
|
Yes, it's true, you really gotta go see An Inconvenient Truth. It's everything you've heard it is, and a must see for every patriot.
If you haven't watched the Loose Change documentary on questions related to the official 9/11 story, what are you waiting for?
If you're not mad enough to punch walls on a daily basis as it is, check out this informative article by Robbert F. Kennedy on voter fraud in Ohio during the 2004 presidential election that very well may have tipped the election (again) to the guy who actually lost.
"Essential viewing and reading of the Moment" perma-link
August 8, 2006 06:48 PM, by Syd Gris
A Culture of Corruption: by Bill Moyers
|
A Culture of Corruption
Let's Save Our Democracy by Getting Money Out of Politics
by Bill Moyers |
Money is choking our democracy to death. Our elections are bought out from under us and our public officials are doing the bidding of mercenaries. So powerful is the hold of wealth on politics that we cannot say America is working for all Americans. The majority may support such broad social goals as affordable medical coverage for all, decent wages for working people, safe working conditions, a secure retirement, and clean air and water, but there is no government "of, by, and for the people" to deliver on those aspirations.
Our system of privately financed campaigns has shut regular people out of any meaningful participation in democracy. Less than one-half of one percent of all Americans made a political contribution of $200 or more to a federal candidate in 2004. When the average cost of winning a seat in the House of Representatives has topped $1 million, we can no longer refer to that chamber as "The People's House." Congress belongs to the highest bidder.
At the same time that the cost of getting elected is exploding beyond the reach of ordinary people, the business of influencing our elected representatives has become a growth industry. Since President Bush was elected the number of registered lobbyists in Washington has more than doubled. That's 16,342 lobbyists in 2000 and 34,785 last year: 65 lobbyists for every member of Congress. The total spent per month by special interests wining, dining, and seducing federal officials is now nearly $200 million. Per month.
" A Culture of Corruption: by Bill Moyers" perma-link
, or continue reading...
July 8, 2006 10:31 PM, by Syd Gris
A Must Read about still unanswered questions about 9/11
 | Long Live The 9/11 Conspiracy!
Anyone still care about the heap of disturbing, unsolved questions surrounding Our Great Tragedy? |
- By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Here is your must-read for the month. Here is your oh-my-God- I'm-sending-this-piece- to-every-smart-person-I-know hunk of outstanding, distressing, disquieting media bliss.
Here it is: an absolutely exceptional inside scoop on the white-hot world of Sept. 11 conspiracy theories, writ large and smart by Mark Jacobson over at New York magazine, and it's mandatory reading for anyone and everyone who's ever entertained the nagging thought that something -- or rather, far more than one something -- is deeply wrong with the official line on what actually happened on Sept. 11.
See, it is very likely that you already know that Sept. 11 will go down in the conspiracy history books as a far more sinister affair than, say, the murky swirl of the Kennedy assassination. You probably already know that much of what exactly happened on Sept. 11 remains deeply unsettling and largely unsolved -- or to put another way, if you don't know all of this and if you fully and blithely accept the official Sept. 11 story, well, you haven't been paying close enough attention.
"A Must Read about still unanswered questions about 9/11" perma-link
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May 15, 2006 02:27 PM, by Syd Gris
Syd Blog: Embracing Paradox
| Some thoughts on common ground between the right and the left.
by Syd Gris |
The country is full of division and that's not news to you. The electoral map as we all know well by know is by and large red in the middle, blue on the coasts. Of course, we know that the 2000 election results were a total sham. Al Gore won the popular vote nation wide and in Florida but the Republicans make better bullies and the Democrats laid down like dogs to the ruin of so many things. New evidence has just come to light of wide spread mistakes in the Florida electronic balloting again in 2004, but we're not here to get into that. I mention it to remind us a true vote of the people might have Florida and Ohio as blue states by a thin margin. Regardless, it serves to illustrate the division to which this brief downloading of thought is about.
"Syd Blog: Embracing Paradox" perma-link
, or continue reading...
March 29, 2006 04:42 PM, by Syd Gris
Thoughts on Love Re-visted
| Some thoughts on Love and Relationship.
by Syd Gris |
So when I was posting some columns on the website of the Late Night Coalition, two of them were on love. (Love on the Dance Floor parts 1 & 2). I consolidated them into one here to share, but if you happened to have already read those then this is just redundant for you. Thinking out loud on why relationships are so damn hard but we can't help ourselves anyway.
Some thoughts on love on the dance floor.
Hooking up love in a club is no easy feat. Despite the plethora of options and frequent use of varying kinds of substance induced attraction goggles, for how many times you go out it’s pretty rare you meet someone you like. Even if you do, they have to like you back, you have to be able to hear each other having a conversation, like the way they dance, and not scare them off for all the reasons people get scared off. Once you actually work up enough momentum to actually see each other outside the party environment, then the real work begins. And you thought being witty while yelling over the DJ was hard?? Think again! The dynamics of relationship is a tangled affair and I know I don’t have to tell you that. Let me first say before going on that I speak as a hetero male speaking in general terms about male and female dynamics, so don’t get all upset I don’t include every combination of people out there that form relationships. In this town especially, the sky is pretty much the limit. I’m taking broad strokes and great liberties, if you want better differentiated dynamics there’s lots of great books out there, read some Deida.
The problem with men is that they’re stupid. I’m sorry but it’s true. Men in general are not close enough to their emotions to think ahead about how their actions may effect someone else, especially a woman who cares about them. They use their mind to attempt to engineer their emotions in ways that won’t hurt as bad if they are the hurt-er or the hurt-ee, so to speak. Much of it is simply mental deception, fermenting in consciousness until we act out through self-medicating actions such as drugs, meaningless sex, etc. Many men do not have an appreciation of how shared experiences get emotionally translated differently between men and women. Sex is the most obvious example. I dare say in general men have more frequently done it without emotions involved than women, and this has led to a lot of hurt. You can blame it on our fuck-everyone- in-the-clan mentality we’ve inherited, coupled with socialization and having trophies and notches and all that shit. In a way it doesn’t really matter to me. It exists, it’s caused a lot of pain, and understanding needs to happen in both directions. Men and women are wired differently, testosterone makes us more aggressive, sexual and stupid. Ask any woman whose had to under go testosterone treatment; they get horny, angry, and want to fall asleep after cuming instead of cuddling.
"Thoughts on Love Re-visted" perma-link
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February 14, 2006 01:06 PM, by Syd Gris
'06 Food for Thought
| The Mission of Opel revisited for '06.
by Syd Gris |
The new year hearkens one to take stock and look around, to evaluate what's behind and what's ahead, to assess and ponder. So it is. I started throwing parties as a passion and a purpose. There I was dancing the night away at many a Nikita and thinking about how to harness the incredible energy around me to do some good, to be of service, to mean more than just a great night out. That in and of itself was not enough, not for me. Never has been, still isn't. The first idea was to throw a party that would benefit the group home I worked for, a home for severely emotionally disturbed (i.e. damaged) San Francisco pissed off teenagers...
(Read on below)
"'06 Food for Thought" perma-link
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January 31, 2006 06:57 PM, by Syd Gris
Ex-EPA Chiefs Blame Bush in Global Warming
WASHINGTON - Six former heads of the Environmental Protection Agency — five Republicans and one Democrat — accused the Bush administration Wednesday of neglecting global warming and other environmental problems.
"I don't think there's a commitment in this administration," said Bill Ruckelshaus, who was EPA's first administrator when the agency opened its doors in 1970 under President Nixon and headed it again under President Reagan in the 1980s.
Russell Train, who succeeded Ruckelshaus in the Nixon and Ford administrations, said slowing the growth of "greenhouse" gases isn't enough.
(Read below)
"Ex-EPA Chiefs Blame Bush in Global Warming " perma-link
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January 30, 2006 06:23 PM, by Syd Gris
GAO Report on 2004 Election fraud
|
GAO report upholds Ohio vote fraud claims |
From: http://www.rockrivertimes.com
By Joe Baker, Senior Editor
As if the indictment of Lewis “Scooter” Libby wasn’t enough to give the White House some heavy concerns, a report from the Government Accounting Office takes a big bite out of the Bush clique’s pretense of legitimacy.
This powerful and probing report takes a hard look at the election of 2004 and supports the contention that the election was stolen. The report has received almost no coverage in the national media.
The GAO is the government’s lead investigative agency, and is known for rock-solid integrity and its penetrating and thorough analysis. The agency’s agreement with what have been brushed aside as “conspiracy theories” adds even more weight to the conclusion that the Bush regime has no business in the White House whatever.
Almost a year ago, Rep. John Conyers, senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, asked the GAO to investigate the use of electronic voting machines in the Nov. 2, 2004, presidential election. That request was made as a flood of protests from Ohio and elsewhere deluged Washington with claims that shocking irregularities were common in that vote and were linked to the machines.
CNN said the Judiciary Committee got more than 57,000 complaints after Bush’s claimed re-election. Many were made under oath in a series of statements and affidavits in public hearings and investigations carried out in Ohio by the Free Press and other groups seeking to maintain transparent elections.
"GAO Report on 2004 Election fraud" perma-link
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November 9, 2005 02:52 PM, by Syd Gris
This is True
| Let me remind you who you really are: You're an immortal freedom fighter in service to divine love. |
"Welcome Home", from Rob Brezsny's book
"Pronoia is the Antidote for Paranoia"
You have temporarily taken on the
form of a human being, suffering amnesia about your true origins, in
order to liberate all sentient creatures from suffering and help them
claim the ecstatic awareness that is their birthright. You will accept
nothing less than the miracle of bringing heaven all the way down to
earth.
Your task may look impossible. Ignorance and inertia, partially
camouflaged as time-honored morality, seem to surround you. Pessimism
is enshrined as a hallmark of worldliness. Compulsive skepticism
masquerades as perceptiveness. Mean-spirited irony is chic. Stories
about treachery and degradation provoke a visceral thrill in millions
of people who think of themselves as reasonable and smart. Beautiful
truths are suspect and ugly truths are readily believed.
(READ ON!)
"This is True" perma-link
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November 1, 2005 01:46 PM, by Syd Gris
More potential calamity to contemplate
|
The Other Hurricane: Has the Age of Chaos Begun? |
From: http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1007-20.htm
Published on Friday, October 7, 2005 by TomDispatch.com
The Other Hurricane: Has the Age of Chaos Begun?
by Mike Davis
The genesis of two category-five hurricanes (Katrina and Rita) in a row over the Gulf of Mexico is an unprecedented and troubling occurrence. But for most tropical meteorologists the truly astonishing "storm of the decade" took place in March 2004. Hurricane Catarina -- so named because it made landfall in the southern Brazilian state of Santa Catarina -- was the first recorded south Atlantic hurricane in history.
Textbook orthodoxy had long excluded the possibility of such an event; sea temperatures, experts claimed, were too low and wind shear too powerful to allow tropical depress ions to evolve into cyclones south of the Atlantic Equator. Indeed, forecasters rubbed their eyes in disbelief as weather satellites down-linked the first images of a classical whirling disc with a well-formed eye in these forbidden latitudes.
In a series of recent meetings and publications, researchers have debated the origin and significance of Catarina. A crucial question is this: Was Catarina simply a rare event at the outlying edge of the normal bell curve of South Atlantic weather -- just as, for example, Joe DiMaggio's incredible 56-game hitting streak in 1941 represented an extreme probability in baseball (an analogy made famous by Stephen Jay Gould) -- or was Catarina a "threshold" event, signaling some fundamental and abrupt change of state in the planet's climate system?
Scientific discussions of environmental change and global warming have long been haunted by the specter of nonlinearity. Climate models, like econometric models, are easiest to build and understand when they are simple linear extrapolations of well-quantified past behavior; when causes maintain a consistent proportionality to their effects.
(Read on below...)
"More potential calamity to contemplate" perma-link
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October 31, 2005 09:48 PM, by Syd Gris
A Letter to All Who Voted for George W. Bush from Michael Moore
 | To All My Fellow Americans Who Voted for George W. Bush:
On this, the fourth anniversary of 9/11, I'm just curious, how does it feel? |
How does it feel to know that the man you elected to lead us after we were attacked went ahead and put a guy in charge of FEMA whose main qualification was that he ran horse shows?
That's right. Horse shows.
I really want to know -- and I ask you this in all sincerity and with all due respect -- how do you feel about the utter contempt Mr. Bush has shown for your safety? C'mon, give me just a moment of honesty. Don't start ranting on about how this disaster in New Orleans was the fault of one of the poorest cities in America. Put aside your hatred of Democrats and liberals and anyone with the last name of Clinton. Just look me in the eye and tell me our President did the right thing after 9/11 by naming a horse show runner as the top man to protect us in case of an emergency or catastrophe.
I want you to put aside your self-affixed label of Republican/ conservative/ born-again/ capitalist/ ditto-head/ right-winger and just talk to me as an American, on the common ground we both call America.
Are we safer now than before 9/11? When you learn that behind the horse show runner, the #2 and #3 men in charge of emergency preparedness have zero experience in emergency preparedness, do you think we are safer?
(Read On below...)
"A Letter to All Who Voted for George W. Bush from Michael Moore" perma-link
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September 28, 2005 12:33 PM, by Syd Gris
Please Learn More about Next Aid
 | For our next special event, one of our biggest parties of the year, we are donating a portion of the proceeds to Next Aid. They are a great organization helping children in Africa who've been orphaned by the AIDS epidemic. |
We wanted you to know about their Mission, read below and check their website.
www.nextaid.org
MISSION
NextAid is a Los Angeles based non-profit organization dedicated to creating sustainable solutions for African children orphaned as a result of AIDS. NextAid actively links artists, musicians and the global community with some of the most impoverished and vulnerable children on the planet. By partnering with various organizations in the production of music events and other awareness raising activities, NextAid channels emergency and long-term aid to African children in need.
NextAid is committed to represent the international dance community in its effective and practical response to the AIDS pandemic.
NextAid aims to inspire people into tangible action, taking responsibility and making a difference. We believe it is each generation's responsibility to create a better future for the next.
THE NEED
Within a single generation AIDS has reached pandemic proportions globally. There are now over 40 million people living with AIDS. Of the 13.2 million children who have been left behind in the wake of AIDS, 95% are in Africa alone, and every 14 seconds another child is faced with losing his or her parent and taking on adult responsibilities because of AIDS.
We are dealing with the greatest health crisis in history. The effect of AIDS is felt in every thread of society and the array of social problems are numerous and complex. Far and away, the most tragic loss is the transfer of knowledge from one generation to the next. With adults dying prematurely, children are forced into early adulthood without the guidance they need to survive. The playful and carefree innocence of youth is lost as increased demands for their labor is compounded by reduced opportunities for education, loss of inheritance, homelessness, discrimination, physical abuse, sexual abuse and widespread prostitution (which in turn exposes them to HIV).
"Please Learn More about Next Aid" perma-link
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September 27, 2005 05:55 PM, by Syd Gris
This Pretty Much Sums it Up.
 | DHARMA AND POLITICS
by Jack Kornfield |
Many Buddhist practitioners have questioned what to do in these turbulent times. More than anything, I believe the world is in need of a spiritual perspective. The Dharma, the teachings of generosity, virtue, loving-kindness and wisdom are non-partisan. The benefits of dharma teachings can be used by Republicans and Democrats, by Green party and Libertarians, by Iraqis and Israelis. The Dharma welcomes everyone and encourages all to awaken together.
But how, as dharma practitioners, do we find our own place in a complex political world, and find a way towards peace? Our first task is to make our own heart a zone of peace. Instead of becoming entangled in an embattled bitterness, or cynicism that exists externally, we need to begin to heal those qualities within ourselves. We have to face our own suffering, our own fear, and transform them into compassion. Only then can we become ready to offer genuine help to the outside world. Albert Camus writes, “We all carry within us our places of exile, our crimes, our ravages. Our task is not to unleash them on the world; it is to transform them in ourselves.”
A dharma practitioner who wants to act in the sphere of politics must quiet their mind and open their heart. Meditate, turn off the news, turn on Mozart, walk through the trees or the mountains and begin to make yourself peaceful. Make yourself a zone of peace, and allow the sensitivity and compassion that grows from our interconnection to extend to all beings. If we’re not peaceful how can we create harmony in the world? If our own minds are not peaceful, how can we expect peace to come through the actions that we take?
(Continue reading below)
"This Pretty Much Sums it Up." perma-link
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June 30, 2005 04:38 PM, by Syd Gris
More Good Cheer!
| Earth To Humankind: Back Off
Say good-bye to your car, computer, everything. We are burning up the planet too fast to hang on
- By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist |
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
The Earth is going down. Way, way down. To the mat, hard and painful and with a sad moaning broken-boned crunch.
We are chewing her up, spitting her out, stomping and gobbling and burning and gouging and drilling and sucking her dry and we are carelessly replicating ourselves so goddamn fast we can't even stop much less even try to slow the hell down, and all we want is more and faster and with less consequence and pretty soon the Earth is gonna go, well, there you are, I'm finished, sorry, and boom zing groan, done.
Don't take my world for it. Just read the headlines, the latest major, soul-stabbing report.
It's one of those stories that sort of punches you in the karmic gut, about how they just completed this unprecedented, four-year, $24 million, U.N.-backed study involving 1,360 scientists from 95 nations who all pored over thousands of satellite images and countless scientific reports and reams of stats, and they all distilled their findings down to one deadly, heartbreaking summary.
(Read on below)
"More Good Cheer!" perma-link
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April 27, 2005 10:03 AM, by Syd Gris
Some Excellent Perspective on What's Going On
One of the biggest changes in politics in my lifetime is that the delusional is no longer marginal. It has come in from the fringe, to sit in the seat of power in the Oval Office and in Congress. For the first time in our history, ideology and theology hold a monopoly of power in Washington.
Theology asserts propositions that cannot be proven true; ideologues hold stoutly to a worldview despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality. When ideology and theology couple, their offspring are not always bad but they are always blind. And there is the danger: voters and politicians alike, oblivious to the facts.
Remember James Watt, President Ronald Reagan's first secretary of the interior? My favorite online environmental journal, the ever-engaging Grist, reminded us recently of how James Watt told the U.S. Congress that protecting natural resources was unimportant in light of the imminent return of Jesus Christ. In public testimony he said, "after the last tree is felled, Christ will come back."
Beltway elites snickered. The press corps didn't know what he was talking about. But James Watt was serious. So were his compatriots out across the country. They are the people who believe the Bible is literally true -- one-third of the American electorate, if a recent Gallup poll is accurate. In this past election several million good and decent citizens went to the polls believing in
the rapture index.
That's right -- the rapture index. Google it and you will find that the best-selling books in America today are the 12 volumes of the "Left Behind" series written by the Christian fundamentalist and religious-right warrior Timothy LaHaye. These true believers subscribe to a fantastical theology concocted in the 19th
century by a couple of immigrant preachers who took disparate passages from
the Bible and wove them into a narrative that has captivated the imagination of millions of Americans.
Its outline is rather simple, if bizarre (the British writer George Monbiot recently did a brilliant dissection of it and I am indebted to him for adding to my own understanding): Once Israel has occupied the rest of its "biblical lands," legions of the antichrist will attack it, triggering a final showdown in the valley of
Armageddon.
As the Jews who have not been converted are burned, the messiah will return for the rapture. True believers will be lifted out of their clothes and transported to Heaven, where, seated next to the right hand of God, they will watch their political and religious opponents suffer plagues of boils, sores, locusts and frogs
during the several years of tribulation that follow.
I'm not making this up. Like Monbiot, I've read the literature. I've reported on these people, following some of them from Texas to the West Bank. They are sincere, serious and polite as they tell you they feel called to help bring the rapture on as fulfillment of biblical prophecy. That's why they have declared solidarity with Israel and the Jewish settlements and backed up their support with money and volunteers. It's why the invasion of Iraq for them was a warm-up act, predicted in the Book of Revelations where four angels "which are bound in the great river Euphrates will be released to slay the third part of man." A war with Islam in the Middle East is not something to be feared but welcomed -- an essential conflagration on the road to redemption. The last time I Googled it, the rapture index stood at 144 -- just one point below the critical threshold when the whole thing will blow, the son of God will return, the righteous
will enter Heaven and sinners will be condemned to eternal hellfire.
So what does this mean for public policy and the environment? Go to Grist to read a remarkable work of reporting by the journalist Glenn Scherer -- "The Road to Environmental Apocalypse." Read it and you will see how millions of Christian fundamentalists may believe that environmental destruction is not only to be disregarded but actually welcomed -- even hastened -- as a sign of the coming apocalypse.
(Read on below)
"Some Excellent Perspective on What's Going On" perma-link
, or continue reading...
March 1, 2005 11:30 AM, by Syd Gris
Apocalypse Now?
| Independent News
Floods, storms and droughts. Melting Arctic ice, shrinking glaciers, oceans turning to acid. The world's top scientists warned last week that dangerous climate change is taking place today, not the day after tomorrow. You don't believe it? Then, says Geoffrey Lean, read this... |
06 February 2005
news.independent.co.uk/world/...ronment/story.jsp
Rainfall in the South could drop by half
Apocalypse now: how mankind is sleepwalking to the end of the Earth
Leading article: The world cannot wait
Future historians, looking back from a much hotter and less hospitable
world, are likely to play special attention to the first few weeks of 2005.
As they puzzle over how a whole generation could have sleepwalked into
disaster - destroying the climate that has allowed human civilisation to
flourish over the past 11,000 years - they may well identify the past weeks
as the time when the last alarms sounded.
Last week, 200 of the world's leading climate scientists - meeting at Tony
Blair's request at the Met Office's new headquarters at Exeter - issued the
most urgent warning to date that dangerous climate change is taking place,
and that time is running out.
Next week the Kyoto Protocol, the international treaty that tries to control
global warming, comes into force after a seven-year delay. But it is clear
that the protocol does not go nearly far enough.
The alarms have been going off since the beginning of one of the warmest
Januaries on record. First, Dr Rajendra Pachauri - chairman of the official
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - told a UN conference in
Mauritius that the pollution which causes global warming has reached
"dangerous" levels.
(Please continue reading below...)
"Apocalypse Now?" perma-link
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February 7, 2005 12:48 AM, by Syd Gris
Global Warming is Real and it's Happening- Thanks in Large Part to the USA
 | Heatwave Study May Fuel Global Warming Lawsuits
Thu Dec 2, 9:38 AM ET Science - Reuters
By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent |
OSLO (Reuters) - A study of a 2003 heatwave in Europe may give Pacific islanders and environmentalists new ammunition for legal cases blaming the United States for global warming, advocates said on Thursday.
Claims linked to climate change could dwarf billion-dollar awards against tobacco companies if U.N. forecasts to 2100 of rising temperatures, higher sea levels, catastrophic storms and droughts turn out to be true, they said.
"This is the kind of evidence that will help those seeking compensation," Peter Roderick, director of the Climate Justice Program which advises plaintiffs, said of a study of Europe's 2003 heatwave published on Wednesday in the journal Nature.
The British-based authors said human activity, especially emissions of heat-trapping gases from fossil fuels, had at least doubled the risks of heatwaves like last year's in which more than 20,000 people died.
"Global Warming is Real and it's Happening- Thanks in Large Part to the USA" perma-link
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November 22, 2004 03:21 PM, by Syd Gris
More Scary Truth to Consider
 | Peak Oil, Stolen Elections, Energy Wars
An Interview with Michael Ruppert
by Tod Foley and Ronnie Pontiac, Newtopia |
Apocalyptic fantasy is the heritage it seems of everyone growing up in
a monotheistic culture, and no one of us has avoided the stomach
turning terror of wondering if the next turn around the corner might
lead to disaster. We titillate our fears with movies like The Day
After Tomorrow. Hal Lindsay made a fortune preying on that fear.
History is full of ridiculous stories of whole communities standing
outside awaiting the end of the world on the word of some deranged
bookworm's interpretation of holy scripture.
But imagine for a moment if you were the child of Holocaust survivors.
Or imagine that you lived in Lebanon when your cosmopolitan street of
cafes was bombed into rubble. Imagine you were the child of one of the
people who died in the World Trade Center. The idea that some dreadful
page of history might be just ahead would not seem so far-fetched.
When you have a born again president in charge of Mideast policy
apocalyptic thinking must be the order of the day..... (read on below)
"More Scary Truth to Consider" perma-link
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November 21, 2004 03:34 PM, by Syd Gris
A Good Summary of why the voter fraud story in the 2004 election won't die
| Written by Donna Knipp, New York, N.Y. |
It has been five days since the election.
In that time, accounts of voter fraud and
malfunctioning voting machines have flooded into
local newspapers in Ohio, to public-interest groups,
universities and weblogs.
This message is an overview of those reports.The
stories are summarized here, with links to the
original publications.
After seeing this evidence -- and there is more still
to be rounded up -- I am no longer convinced that
Bush won the election.
I hope you will read through these summaries, click on
the links to the original stories, and come to your
own conclusions. I've included all the accounts of
election tampering that I'm aware of, but have not
done a broad search. This is only what I've learned in
the past five days. My education was provided by a
group of concerned journalists who posted reports to
a chat list. This is a compilation of their research.
I believe there is enough evidence to suggest that the
electorate may have actually chosen Kerry on
Tuesday. We don't know for sure -- we can't know till
there is a recount. Or, if that's not possible because
of electronic voting machines, until the election is
held over in Ohio and Florida.
Bush has not yet been chosen by the Electoral College.
The Electors meet and vote on Dec. 13. We need to
raise questions about the results -- and raise them
loudly -- to get an investigation launched before that
date. So far, the mainstream media in not picking up
the story. They moved very slowly after the 2000
election. Here are the accounts of election tampering
from four states, plus reports on multi-state
problems. (Please note: some of the newspaper links
may expire soon. You may want to print out the
stories so that later on, you don't have to buy them
from the newspapers' archives.)
FLORIDA:
The most troubling news comes out of Florida....
"A Good Summary of why the voter fraud story in the 2004 election won't die" perma-link
, or continue reading...
November 12, 2004 01:22 PM, by Syd Gris
Just because you're paranoid, don't mean they're not after you
 | Evidence of a Second Bush Coup?
By Robert Parry
November 6, 2004 |
Theoretically at least, it is conceivable that sophisticated CIA-style computer hacking – known as “cyber-warfare” – could have let George W. Bush’s campaign transform a three-percentage-point defeat, as measured by exit polls, into an official victory of about the same margin.
Whether such a scheme is feasible, however, is another matter, since it would require penetration of hundreds of local computer systems across the country, presumably from a single remote location. The known CIA successes in cyber-war have come from targeting a specific bank account or from shutting down an adversary’s computer system, not from altering data simultaneously in a large number of computers.
To achieve that kind of result, cyber-war experts say, a preprogrammed “kernel of brain” would have to be inserted into election computers beforehand or teams of hackers would be needed to penetrate the lightly protected systems, targeting touch-screen systems without a paper backup for verifying the numbers. [More on “cyber-war” techniques below.]
Though there's still no proof of such a cyber-attack, suspicions are growing that the U.S. presidential election results were manipulated to some degree. Voting analyses of some precincts in Florida and Ohio have found surprisingly high percentages for Bush. Others have noted that the large turnout among young voters and the obvious enthusiasm of John Kerry’s voters would have suggested a better showing for the Democrat.
Exit Polls
But the most perplexing fact is that exit polls into the evening of Nov. 2 showed Kerry rolling to a clear victory nationally and carrying most of the battleground states, including Florida and Ohio, whose totals would have ensured Kerry’s victory in the Electoral College.
Significantly, polls also showed Republicans carrying the bulk of the tight Senate races. However, when the official results were tallied, the presidential exit polls proved wrong while the Senate polls proved right.
"Just because you're paranoid, don't mean they're not after you" perma-link
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November 9, 2004 12:38 PM, by Syd Gris
At What Point Will We Wake Up?
 | WWF Warns on Consumption of Resources
By JONATHAN FOWLER, Associated Press Writer |
GENEVA - Humanity's reliance on fossil fuels, the spread of cities, the destruction of natural habitats for farmland and over-exploitation of the oceans are destroying Earth's ability to sustain life, the environmental group WWF warned in a new report Thursday.
The biggest consumers of nonrenewable natural resources are the United Arab Emirates, the United States, Kuwait, Australia and Sweden, who leave the biggest "ecological footprint," the World Wildlife Fund said in its regular Living Planet Report.
Humans currently consume 20 percent more natural resources than the Earth can produce, the report said.
"We are spending nature's capital faster than it can regenerate," said WWF chief Claude Martin, releasing the 40-page study. "We are running up an ecological debt which we won't be able to pay off unless governments restore the balance between our consumption of natural resources and the Earth's ability to renew them."
"At What Point Will We Wake Up?" perma-link
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October 30, 2004 05:03 PM, by Syd Gris
Read this
| The Case Against George W. Bush - by Ron Reagan
by Ron Reagan, Jr. / Esquire |
It may have been the guy in the hood teetering on the stool, electrodes clamped to his genitals. Or smirking Lynndie England and her leash. Maybe it was the smarmy memos tapped out by soft-fingered lawyers itching to justify such barbarism. The grudging, lunatic retreat of the neocons from their long-standing assertion that Saddam was in cahoots with Osama didn't hurt. Even the Enron audiotapes and their celebration of craven sociopathy likely played a part. As a result of all these displays and countless smaller ones, you could feel, a couple of months back, as summer spread across the country, the ground shifting beneath your feet. Not unlike that scene in The Day After Tomorrow, then in theaters, in which the giant ice shelf splits asunder, this was more a paradigm shift than anything strictly tectonic. No cataclysmic ice age, admittedly, yet something was in the air, and people were inhaling deeply. I began to get calls from friends whose parents had always voted Republican, "but not this time." There was the staid Zbigniew Brzezinski on the staid NewsHour with Jim Lehrer sneering at the "Orwellian language" flowing out of the Pentagon. Word spread through the usual channels that old hands from the days of Bush the Elder were quietly (but not too quietly) appalled by his son's misadventure in Iraq. Suddenly, everywhere you went, a surprising number of folks seemed to have had just about enough of what the Bush administration was dishing out. A fresh age appeared on the horizon, accompanied by the sound of scales falling from people's eyes. It felt something like a demonstration of that highest of American prerogatives and the most deeply cherished American freedom: dissent.
Oddly, even my father's funeral contributed. Throughout that long, stately, overtelevised week in early June, items would appear in the newspaper discussing the Republicans' eagerness to capitalize (subtly, tastefully) on the outpouring of affection for my father and turn it to Bush's advantage for the fall election. The familiar "Heir to Reagan" puffballs were reinflated and loosed over the proceedings like (subtle, tasteful) Mylar balloons. Predictably, this backfired. People were treated to a side-by-side comparison—Ronald W. Reagan versus George W. Bush—and it's no surprise who suffered for it. Misty-eyed with nostalgia, people set aside old political gripes for a few days and remembered what friend and foe always conceded to Ronald Reagan: He was damned impressive in the role of leader of the free world. A sign in the crowd, spotted during the slow roll to the Capitol rotunda, seemed to sum up the mood—a portrait of my father and the words NOW THERE WAS A PRESIDENT.
"Read this" perma-link
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August 18, 2004 10:38 PM, by Syd Gris
Climate Change is Real and it Happening
 | European Winters Could Disappear by 2080 - Report
By Anna Mudeva |
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (Reuters) - Europe is warming up more quickly than the rest of the world, and cold winters could disappear almost entirely by 2080 as a result of global warming, researchers predicted Wednesday.
Heat waves and floods are likely to become more frequent, threatening the elderly and infirm, and three quarters of the Swiss Alps' glaciers might melt down by 2050, the study prepared by the European Environment Agency (EEA) said.
"This report pulls together a wealth of evidence that climate change is already happening and having widespread impacts, many of them with substantial economic costs, on people and ecosystems in Europe," EEA executive director Jacqueline McGlade said in a statement.
"Climate Change is Real and it Happening" perma-link
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August 17, 2004 10:47 PM, by Syd Gris
Finally, some good news...
 | June 27th, 2004 11:06 pm
NYT: Fahrenheit 9/11 is Highest Grossing Documentary of All Time!
By SHARON WAXMAN / THE NEW YORK TIMES
June 28, 2004 |
LOS ANGELES -- Michael Moore's anti-Bush "Fahrenheit 9/11" became the highest-grossing documentary of all time on its first weekend in release, taking in $21.8 million as it packed theaters across the country this weekend.
The movie, mocking President Bush and criticizing his decision to go to war in Iraq, was No. 1 at the box office, beating out the popular comedies "White Chicks" and "DodgeBall," which were playing on almost triple the number of screens.
Theater owners in large cities and smaller towns reported sellout crowds over the weekend, with numerous theaters declaring house records.
The phenomenal opening represented a decisive victory for Mr. Moore and for the Miramax movie executives Harvey and Bob Weinstein, who released the film independently after it was rejected by Miramax's corporate parent, the Walt Disney Company, as too political.
"We sold out in Fayetteville, home of Fort Bragg," in North Carolina, Mr. Moore said on Sunday. "We sold out in Army-base towns. We set house records in some of these places. We set single-day records in a number of theaters. We got standing ovations in Greensboro, N.C.
"The biggest news to me this morning is this is a red-state movie," he said, referring to the state whose residents voted for George W. Bush in the 2000 election. "Republican states are embracing the movie, and it's sold out in Republican strongholds all over the country."
Harvey Weinstein said: "It's beyond anybody's expectations. I'd have to say the sky's the limit on this movie. Who knows what territory we're in."
"Finally, some good news..." perma-link
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July 3, 2004 12:47 AM, by Syd Gris
Food for Thought returns
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For those that have been hanging out with us for a while, you may know I used to write a monthly column for the website of the San Francisco Late Night Coalition called 'Food for Thought'. It was my musings on the scene, the city, and the role of lived spirituality in the modern world. |
The last one was April of last year. Some of them are still worth a read in my humble opinion, check it if you have a moment: www.sflnc.com/index/readthis/news/food_for_thought
I wasn't supposed to have taken off a whole year! Damn, how the time goes. I originally stopped cause I was caught up in writing my dissertation. After months, years actually, struggling to get it done, I was finally in focused-action mode and could think of nothing else, so writing anything besides what I had to was not happening. I spent all spring and summer on the research and writing and then kind of just never went back to it. So it is a year later I return to share some thoughts of the moment, but this time here in Syd's Corner....
Read on if curious.
"Food for Thought returns" perma-link
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May 1, 2004 12:23 AM, by Syd Gris
Mission Rock saved !!
 | Kelly's Mission Rock has been under attack from two neighbors down the street for a few years now but things have escalated and gotten bad for Mission Rock's ability to continue to host late night events. |
Thanks to your letters, the Entertainment Commission, and others involved, it looks like we've helped save the day. Well done!! More updates coming as I know them...
"Mission Rock saved !!" perma-link
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March 27, 2004 09:36 PM, by Syd Gris
ABC News Special: Ecstasy Rising
 | On Thursday night, April 1st at 10:00, Primetime Thursdays, a Peter Jennings special on ABC News (channel 7), airs an hour long episode on the history of ecstasy use in America.
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The producers seemed to show a genuine concern for giving an honest account of it's uses and misuses over time, including the misinformation so prevalent about the drug's effect.
They interviewed dozens of people for the piece, including Alexander Shulgin, the first chemist to report it's effects, Frankie Bones, pioneer of the East Coast Rave scene, the Texas business man who sold it legally, the law enforcement agents involved in it's criminalization, psychiatrists, psychologists, and accounts from people who have tried it.
Syd was one of many interviewed whose snippets are in the special. Should be an interesting show. More below.
"ABC News Special: Ecstasy Rising" perma-link
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March 25, 2004 09:40 PM, by Syd Gris
Please read this important article
| We've all known for years world wide climate change as a result of human activity is for real. Not surprisingly, so did the government.
The implications are staggering. World wide destruction on a scale we can't imagine, and mostly for the good of commerce and the wealth of a few.
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Leaked Pentagon report warns climate change may bring famine, war: report
Sun Feb 22, 5:17 PM ET
LONDON (AFP) - A secret report prepared by the Pentagon warns that climate change may lead to global catastrophe costing millions of lives and is a far greater threat than terrorism.
"Please read this important article" perma-link
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February 29, 2004 03:14 AM, by Syd Gris
Another article about Global Warming
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Great Barrier Reef Faces Major Coral Destruction
Sat Feb 21,12:55 AM ET
Add Science - Reuters to My Yahoo! |
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australia's Great Barrier Reef will lose most of its coral cover by 2050 and, at worst, the world's largest coral system could collapse by 2100 because of global warming, a study released on Saturday said.
"Another article about Global Warming" perma-link
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February 23, 2004 09:39 PM, by Syd Gris
Reaction to leaked Pentagon Report
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SETH BORENSTEIN / KRT
Global warming has caused the Columbia Glacier to retreat 7 miles in the last 20 years, leaving calves of ice in Prince William Sound.
Dramatic climate change could become global security nightmare
By Seth Borenstein
Knight Ridder Newspapers |
WASHINGTON - A dramatic climate change could suddenly become a global security nightmare, warns a worst-case scenario assembled by professional futurists at the behest of the Pentagon.
"Reaction to leaked Pentagon Report" perma-link
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February 23, 2004 09:30 PM, by Syd Gris
Hmmm.. where to Start?
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Thanks for dropping in. This is a place for thinking, and feeling, out loud
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Some writings: www.sflnc.com/index/readthis/news/food_for_thought
More stuff coming soon
"Hmmm.. where to Start?" perma-link
January 22, 2004 10:03 PM, by Syd Gris
Track Listings
Here's track listings of some of my sets I have on line for download.
"Track Listings" perma-link
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November 13, 2002 01:23 AM, by Syd Gris
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