~In all the hostile noise directed at me and Le-Le about 'cultism' and Sex Panic and the very Idea of The Temple what gets lost are the real world projects and goals that are the True Purpose of The Temple as clearly outlined in its Mission Statement and in its Long Term Goals.

The quote below is from a Sister who I hope to one day recruit to teach Majick and Ritual in The Sisterhood Trainings. At the very least, I will present her as a 'role model' – which I suspect will both amuse and horrify her – to those who will teach said subjects.

Let her words give you some general idea of the 'tone' of The Sisterhood that I envision.

“The entry of Sol into Leo was palpable. I could hear my heartbeat, and was full of energy.

I think that my objection to intellectualism is pretty simple, though not universally applicable: it is probable that the person will turn out like Woody Allen, so emotionally stunted they find their sexual peers amongst the kiddies. It is probable they will become lost in a maze of self-created bullshit, be morally bankrupt, conceited to the point of waddling about in a Crowley-like fashion despising all inferiors, and psychologically abusive as a sport. But, uncultivated people are no fun either. It is a relief that god does *not* like you better if you're smart. This is probably why they (egoistic heartless mental types) are such a pack of atheists, and *worship their clergy and artists* rather than the invisible flying spaghetti monster of spiritual regeneration: it is rather like sucking the dick that is pointing at the moon, because you can't suck the moon.

My point is that the ego dislikes what it can't control. Your mincing forays into orgies and chemicals aren't fooling anyone you know. You don't do anything you're not trying to 'master'. But guess what! You're still gonna die! All is vanity.

I'm going to be annoyed if you people kill me and then worship an idol of me made of all these insults. Probably you'll publish them as a book of aphorisms and meditate upon an insult once a day. She was a goddess! So we killed her, because she wouldn't sit on the altar otherwise. Spiritual necrophilia ruined christianity - christians would have hated the crap out of that man while he was alive. I guess dead is better; corpses neither reject nor mock; you can pretend whatever you want, that they love the little children, approve of your vicious doings, whatever.

My misanthropy is getting rather finalized and irreversible. I thought spirituality would be, I dunno, more full of wonderment at all the inner beauty. Maybe I'm also too full of cynical snorting for Jesus.”

~Below is the Factiod List from The American Human Development Project.

Health

* The U.S. will spend $230 million on health care in the next hour.

* One in six Americans goes without health insurance (around 47 million people).

* According to the National Academy of Sciences, lack of health insurance results in lost economic value equal to $178 million to $356 million every day, due to the poorer health and earlier deaths of the uninsured.

* The U.S. ranks #24 among the 30 most affluent countries in life expectancy – yet spends more on health care than any other nation.

* The U.S. infant mortality rate is on par with that of Croatia, Cuba, Estonia, and Poland; if the U.S. infant mortality rate were the same as that of top-ranked Sweden, 21,000 more American babies would live to celebrate their first birthdays every year.

* A baby born in Washington, D.C. is almost two-and-a-half times more likely to die before age one than a baby born in Vermont. African American babies are more than twice as likely to die before age one than either white or Latino babies.

* Changes in behavior and the physical and social environment can help avoid about 70 percent of premature deaths.

* Insured adults under sixty-five are 50 percent more likely to have had cancer screenings than the uninsured; early detection saves lives and dramatically lowers treatment costs.

* Premature death by homicide is more than five times higher in the U.S. than the OECD average; 68 percent of U.S. homicides in 2006 were committed with a firearm.

* Nearly a third of all female murder victims were killed by intimate partners (husbands and boyfriends). [my emphasis]

* More than one million Americans are living with HIV.

* One American dies every 90 seconds from obesity-related health problems.

* According to the U.S. Census Bureau, children living in central cities are less likely to play outside than other children; in central cities, 48 percent of Latino children and 39 percent of African American children were kept inside because of parental perceptions of neighborhood danger. Inactivity is considered a major factor in obesity among 66 million young people.

* African American children are two-and-a-half times more likely to be hospitalized for asthma than white children – and five times more likely to die of asthma.

* Suicide is the eleventh-leading cause of death in the U.S. overall, and the third-leading cause of death among children and adolescents. More than 90 percent of those who die by suicide have had mental or substance-abuse disorders.

* One in seventeen Americans (about 6 percent of the population) suffers from severe mental illness.

* More than half of all personal bankruptcies in the U.S. are related to an inability to pay for illness or injury.

Access to Knowledge

* College graduates can expect, on average, double the lifetime earnings of high school graduates.

* Fourteen percent of the population – some 30 million Americans – lacks the literacy skills to perform simple, everyday tasks like understanding newspaper articles and instruction manuals.

* Twelve percent of Americans lack the literacy skills to fill in a job application or payroll form, read a map or bus schedule, or understand labels on food and drugs.

* More than one in five Americans – 22 percent of the population – have “below basic” quantitative skills, making it impossible to balance a checkbook, calculate a tip, or figure out from an advertisement the amount of interest on a loan.

* In 2006, 4.5 million young people ages eighteen to twenty-four were not in school, not working, and had not graduated high school.

* Nearly one in six American children lives in a family whose head didn’t graduate high school.

* School quality is a decisive factor in choosing where to live for many families with school-aged children; in 2003, parents of about one-quarter of all students reported that they had moved to their current neighborhood to enable their children to attend a better school.White children ages one to five are about four times more likely to have been read to in the past week than Hispanic children, and about 50 percent more likely to have been read to than African American children.

* By age three, the children of affluent mothers have vocabularies twice as large as those of the children of low-income mothers.

* Among four-year-olds, 40 percent of children from disadvantaged backgrounds were proficient in number and shape recognition, compared to 87 percent of children from privileged families.

* High quality preschool for disadvantaged children has positive long-term impacts; children who participated in the High/Scope Perry Preschool Project had a 44 percent higher high school graduation rate, had 50 percent fewer teen pregnancies, were 46 percent less likely to have served jail time, and had a 42 percent higher median monthly income than the control group.

* Educational expenditures vary significantly by state; New Jersey and New York spend around $14,000 per pupil, Utah spends less than $6,000 per pupil.

* Schools with high proportions of minority students, poor students, and English-language learners were more likely to hire novice teachers than schools with low proportions of these students. Minority and low-income children are more likely to be taught English, science, and math by an “out-of-field” teacher than are high-income and/or white students.

* African American students are three times more likely than whites to be placed in special education programs, and only half as likely to be placed in gifted programs.

* In 2003, 45 percent of children whose parents had advanced degrees were in gifted classes, compared with 10 percent of children whose parents did not graduate high school. Children whose parents were married and better-off also were more likely to be in gifted classes than children of the never-married or poor.

* Only three-fourths of American public high students graduated on time (within four years) with a regular diploma in 2003-2004.

* College-going rates among high-achieving high school graduates from poor families are about the same as the college-going rates for the lowest-achieving high graduates from affluent families.

* Children whose parents have at least a college degree enter college at more than twice the rate of children whose parents did not graduate high school; disparities in degree attainment are greater still.

Standard of Living

* The richest 20 percent of all U.S. households earned more than half of the nation’s total income in 2006.

* The top 1 percent of U.S. households possesses a full third of America’s wealth.

* Households in the top 10 percent of the income distribution hold more than 71 percent of the country’s wealth, while those in the lowest 60 percent possess just 4 percent.

* Nearly one in five American children lives in poverty, with more than one in thirteen living in extreme poverty.

* The poverty line for a family of four (two adults and two children) is an income of $21,027 before taxes; in 2006, more than 36 million Americans were classified poor by this definition.

* In every racial/ethnic group, men earn more than their female counterparts. [my emphasis]

* In 1980, the average executive earned forty-two times as much as the average factory worker; today, executives earn some four hundred times what factory workers in their industries earn.

* In 2004, median net worth was $140,800 for whites, and $24,900 for nonwhites.

* The real value of the minimum wage has decreased by 40 percent in the past forty years.

Other Domestic Issues

Homelessness

* Over the course of a year, at least 1.35 million children are at some point homeless.

* More families with children are homeless today than at any time since the Great Depression.

Hunger

* The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported that on a typical day in November 2005, members of well over half a million households had their normal eating patterns disrupted due to lack of money or other resources.

Criminal Justice

* The U.S. has 5 percent of the world’s people – but 24 percent of the world’s prisoners.
* In absolute numbers and as a percentage of the population, the U.S. has more prisoners than any other country, including China and Russia.

* From the 1920’s until the 1970’s, the U.S. prison population was stable at about 110 per 100,000, about the same as our peer nations today. But now more than 700 people out of every 100,000 are behind bars.

* African Americans are imprisoned at six to eight times the rate of whites; the rate is much higher for African Americans who do not graduate high school; by age thirty-five, 60 percent of African American high school dropouts will have spent time in prison.

* State and federal prison inmates average just eleven years of schooling.

* About 1,900 people with criminal records are released every day and, according to the Department of Justice, two-thirds of them will eventually end up back in prison.

International Comparisons

* A poor child born in Germany, France, Canada, or one of the Nordic countries has a better chance to join the middle class in adulthood than an American child born into similar circumstances.

* The U.S. ranks second among 177 countries in per-capita income but 12th on human development, according to the global Human Development Index, published annually by the United Nations Development Programme. Each of the 11 countries ahead of the U.S. has a lower per-capita income than the U.S., but all perform better on the health and knowledge dimensions.

* The U.S. infant mortality rate is on par with that of Croatia, Cuba, Estonia, and Poland.

* If the U.S. infant mortality rate were equal to that of first-ranked Sweden, twenty-one thousand more American babies would have lived to celebrate their first birthdays in 2005.

* In 98 countries, new mothers have 14 or more weeks of paid maternity leave. The U.S. has no federally mandated paid maternity leave.

* The United States ranks second in the world in per-capita income (behind Luxembourg), but thirty-fourth in survival of infants to age one.

* The U.S. ranks forty-second in global life expectancy and first among the world’s twenty-five richest countries in the percentage of children living in poverty.

* In the 2006 OECD international assessment of fifteen-year-olds, in math, the U.S. came in twenty-fourth, and in science, the U.S. came in seventeenth.

* The U.S. incarceration rate is five-to-nine times greater than that of our peer nations.

...and pointing these facts out in public debate makes you a godless commie trying to provoke 'class warfare'.

Please vote how you feel about our current representation and how you feel your representative should interact with the community.

"I am a snarky buttplug!"

~This is some of what I study in order to write about what I write about. I suspect this falls into the tl;dr category for many of those on my Flist. But give it a quick scan anyway. It shows, among other things, that WW2 was never a 'guaranteed win' for the United States and that modern warfare is a very complex undertaking.


From U.S. Army Center Of Military History
by Maurice Matloff

( Of all the calculated risks taken by General George C. Marshall in World War II none was bolder than the decision in mid-war to maintain the U.S. Army's ground combat strength at ninety divisions. )

A federal appeals court struck down yet again a law that would have required websites to verify all visitors' ages if any of its content wasn't suitable for minors. Tuesday's ruling from the 3rd U.S. Court of Appeals adds to a decade of losses for the government's attempt to regulate speech on the internet.

The Sun returns to its home sign today, roaring its way into heart-centered Leo at 6:54 am EDT. The midsummer Sun exhibits the true power of intent, relentlessly showing up high in the sky day after day. In a way, we can all be like flowers in full bloom now, boldly demonstrating our beauty. Mercury's easy trine to electric Uranus enables us to flash our intelligence, yet the dreamy Pisces Moon reminds us that what's hidden is also important.

Virgo
It's hard to figure out the energy today because you are less likely to be noticed, yet you are more likely to make a brilliant breakthrough. You have an uncanny ability to know exactly what to say now, as if you can hear the thoughts of others. Your mind is running at high efficiency and you are so good at jumping to conclusions that it looks like you know more than you truly do.

~When I awoke yesterday morning, I had a thought that was both scary and exciting. “See Luanda and Die” was whispering in my ear, “I'm not a short story; I'm a novella.” And I realized that combined with “The Empress of Krakatau”, I might actually have the makings of a whole book. I could toss in “Tea Time in Panjin” up front as a sort of 'prologue' and the already extensive time line as an 'epilogue'.

I will admit it scared me more than excited me at first. The concept of My First Book feels a bit overwhelming. Some days I really believe in my work. Other days...it all seems like just a bunch of fucking hack work.

But right now I believe and I'm a bit excited. I'm even thinking about the cover art work, something that evokes the old James Bond paperback covers, but with the appropriate 'steampunk' style and themes.

You might say I'm getting ahead of myself, but that's how I roll, baby.

Besides, I just had another one of those, “But I Already Thought Of That!” moments a few days ago when I saw that JJ Abrams was centering the new Star Trek movie around Spock. The ST screenplay I have worked upon on and off for the last ten years did just that. Not saying he stole it. No way he could know about it. But I have this...thing that often taps into the Zeitgeist and I think it's time to 'get the finger out'.

BTW I created a new LJ memories category for all this stuff; Anglo-American Imperium. “Snapperland” is still there, but I'm just letting it sit.

Metro Editor Fired For "Obama Is My Slave" Publicity Stunt Story

Susie Bright on The History of "Black" and "Inter-racial" Porn Videos

The three-judge panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Federal Communications Commission "acted arbitrarily and capriciously" in issuing the fine for the fleeting image of nudity.

"Wells envisioned a huge, hundred-foot-long vehicle propelled by eight pairs of pedrails, wheels ringed with flexible feet to give traction. He also gave his vehicles innovative weapons: remotely controlled rifles with an advanced sighting system that gave tremendous accuracy even while moving."

Click on Pic for some more genuine and original Old School Steampunk goodness

From McClatchy
By Matthew Haggman, Rob Barry and Jack Dolan | Miami Herald
Monday, July 21, 2008

Gary Kafka, former body builder with a long rap sheet and violent past, wrote millions of dollars in mortgages in South Florida without ever applying for a state license.

Fresh out of prison after serving time for bank fraud, he never went through a criminal background check before selling loans. He never took a competency exam.

He never had to.

More than half the mortgage professionals registered in Florida -- 120,563 -- entered the industry this decade without being licensed by the state, The Miami Herald found.

Known as loan originators, they perform the same job as mortgage brokers but aren't bound by the same rules.

Read the complete story and the series at miamiherald.com

From The NYT Magazine
By DAVID CARR
July 20, 2008

( Where does a junkie’s time go? )

~The trucklette is unloaded!

It was quite lovely around dawn today; breezy and overcast. So after Le-Le went to bed, I pulled the trucklette in front and just hauled out the rest of the stuff. There wasn't too much left and it was over quickly.

Then I took another nap, a solid two hours. Bit by bit, I'm getting back up to speed.

I also got a cheque for the balance of my security deposit in the mail yesterday. It was only 60% of the original amount, but I can't quibble. The place did need some serious cleaning just from being allowed to sit empty for all that time.

But that ends the present fiscal crisis...at least in this one American household. We'll see what next month brings when next month gets here.

As a Sign of The Times, that lovely PayPal gift will give us the gas money that will allow us to go and deposit the cheque. The trucklette's gas gage was right on empty and the lil 'low fuel' red light went on and off a few times on Friday's shopping trip.

Late tonight we'll put some gas in the tank, take a ride down Sierra Highway, maybe with the windows open, and pop the cheque in the nearest WaMu ATM...which is about seven miles away. But it will be good to get out of the house.

A Note on the recent trolling in Le-Le's LJ: [go look cause I ain't linkin'] What I just said to MacCrimmon sums it up as far as I'm concerned, ”They are the purposeless semi-feral 'children of America', who see no future for themselves and therefor have no care for the present or for those outside of their 'pack'.”

And that's all she wrote...

From The Nation
by William Greider
07/14/2008

Phil Gramm, the senator-banker who until recently advised John McCain's campaign, did get it right about a "nation of whiners," but he misidentified the faint-hearted. It's not the people or even the politicians. It is Wall Street--the financial titans and big-money bankers, the most important investors and worldwide creditors who are scared witless by events. These folks are in full-flight panic and screaming for mercy from Washington, Their cries were answered by the massive federal bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac, the endangered mortgage companies.

When the monied interests whined, they made themselves heard by dumping the stocks of these two quasi-public private corporations, threatening to collapse the two financial firms like the investor "run" that wiped out Bear Stearns in March. The real distress of the banks and brokerages and major investors is that they cannot unload the rotten mortgage securities packaged by Fannie Mae and banks sold worldwide. Wall Street's preferred solution: dump the bad paper on the rest of us, the unwitting American taxpayers.

The Bush crowd, always so reluctant to support federal aid for mere people, stepped up to the challenge and did as it was told. Treasury Secretary Paulson (ex-Goldman Sachs) and his sidekick, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, announced their bailout plan on Sunday to prevent another disastrous selloff on Monday when markets opened. Like the first-stage rescue of Wall Street's largest investment firms in March, this bold stroke was said to benefit all of us. The whole kingdom of American high finance would tumble down if government failed to act or made the financial guys pay for their own reckless delusions. Instead, dump the losses on the people.

Democrats who imagine they may find some partisan advantage in these events are deeply mistaken. The Democratic party was co-author of the disaster we are experiencing and its leaders fell in line swiftly. House banking chair, Rep. Barney Frank, announced he could have the bailout bill on President Bush's desk next week. No need to confuse citizens by dwelling on the details. Save Wall Street first. Maybe lowbrow citizens won't notice it's their money.

We are witnessing a momentous event- -the great deflation of Wall Street- -and it is far from over. The crash of IndyMac is just the beginning. More banks will fail, so will many more debtors. The crisis has the potential to transform American politics because, first it destroys a generation of ideological bromides about free markets, and, second, because it makes visible the ugly power realities of our deformed democracy. Democrats and Republicans are bipartisan in this crisis because they have colluded all along over thirty years in creating the unregulated financial system and mammoth mega-banks that produced the phony valuations and deceitful assurances. The federal government protects the most powerful interests from the consequences of their plundering. It prescribes "market justice" for everyone else.

Of course, the federal government has to step up to the crisis, but the crucial question is how government can respond in the broad public interest. Bernanke knows the history of the last great deflation in the 1930s- -better known as the Great Depression- -and so he is determined to intervene swiftly, as the Federal Reserve failed to do in that earlier crisis. By pumping generous loans and liquidity into the system, the Fed chairman hopes to calm the market fears and reverse the panic. So far, he has failed. I think he will continue to fail because he has not gone far enough.

If Washington wants real results, it has to abandon the wishful posture that is simply helping the private firms get over their fright. The government must instead act decisively to take charge in more convincing ways. That means acknowledging to the general public the depth of the national crisis and the need for more dramatic interventions.

Instead of propping up Fannie Mae or others, the threatened firm should be formally nationalized as a nonprofit federal agency performing valuable services for the housing market. That is the real consequence anyway if the taxpayers have to buy up $300 billion in stock.

The private shareholders "are walking dead men, muerto," Institutional Risk Analytics, a private banking monitor, observed. Make them eat their losses, the sooner the better. The real national concern should be focused on the major creditors who lend to Fannie Mae and other US agencies as well as private financial firms. They include China, Japan and other foreign central banks. Foreign investors hold about 21 percent of the long-term debt paper issued by US government agencies- -$376 billion in China, $229 billion in Japan.

It is not in our national interest to burn these nations with heavy losses. On the contrary, we need to sustain their good regard because they can help us recover by bailing out the US economy with more lending. If these foreign creditors turn away and stop their lending now, the US economy is toast and won't soon recover.

Americans should forget about whining; it's too late for that. People need to get angry- -really, really angry- -and take it out on both parties. What the country needs right now is a few more politicians in Washington with the guts to stand up and tell us the hard truth about out situation. It will be painful to hear. They will be denounced as "whiners." But truth might be our only way out.

( Election season will be packed with horserace media distractions, but our economic situation is becoming a matter of life and death. )