Future Positive — Gary Lackman writes: On the night of April 6, 1744, one of the most remarkable thinkers of the eighteenth century underwent an astonishing spiritual crisis. That night, Emanuel Swedenborg, a fifty-six-year-old Swedish scientist and statesman, experienced a visitation by Christ. …

After a “psychic storm” erupted with great claps of thunder and a hurricane-like wind threw him from his bed—his own account suggests he had an out-of-the-body experience—Swedenborg found himself “face to face” with Christ. For a deeply religious man like Swedenborg, it was a powerful and disturbing encounter.Looking at Christ’s smile, which Swedenborg thought was as it must have been “when he lived on Earth,” Swedenborg was surprised to hear the Lord ask if he had a “clean bill of health,” a reference to a time when Swedenborg was almost hung for breaking quarantine during the plague. Humbled, Swedenborg replied that he, Christ, knew the answer to this better than he did himself. Christ agreed and replied, “Then do.” Swedenborg took this to mean “Then do.” Swedenborg took this to mean he was to fulfill his promise to abandon his scientific work and to concentrate instead on investigating the spiritual worlds within.

Whether Christ meant this or not, Swedenborg took the injunction to heart. For the rest of his life, he mapped out the strange geography of the interior realms, covering a terrain that included not only other planets but also heaven, hell, and an intermediary sphere Swedenborg called the spirit world.

Although in his day he was fêted by nobility and he later inspired individuals as diverse as, to name just a few, the poets William Blake and Charles Baudelaire, the playwright August Strindberg, the composer Arnold Schoenberg, and the Zen master D.T. Suzuki (who called him the Buddha of the North), outside the realms of parapsychology and the history of dissident Christian sects, Emanuel Swedenborg is little known today. This is unfortunate; his work, both as a scientist and as a religious thinker, deserves wider recognition. (02/08/10)

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CommUnity of Minds — Ellen Brown writes: We are witnessing an epic battle between two banking giants, JPMorgan Chase (Paul Volcker) and Goldman Sachs (Rubin/Geithner). The bodies strewn on the battleground could include your pension fund and 401K.

The late Libertarian economist Murray Rothbard wrote that U.S. politics since 1900, when William Jennings Bryan narrowly lost the presidency, has been a struggle between two competing banking giants, the Morgans and the Rockefellers. The parties would sometimes change hands, but the puppeteers pulling the strings were always one of these two big-money players. No popular third party candidate had a real chance at winning, because the bankers had the exclusive power to create the national money supply and therefore held the winning cards.

In 2000, the Rockefellers and the Morgans joined forces, when JPMorgan and Chase Manhattan merged to become JPMorgan Chase Co. Today the battling banking titans are JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, an investment bank that gained notoriety for its speculative practices in the 1920s. In 1928, it launched the Goldman Sachs Trading Corp., a closed-end fund similar to a Ponzi scheme. The fund failed in the stock market crash of 1929, marring the firm’s reputation for years afterwards. Former Treasury Secretaries Henry Paulson and Robert Rubin, came from Goldman, and current Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner rose through the ranks of government as a Rubin protégé. One commentator called the U.S. Treasury “Goldman Sachs South.”

Goldman’s superpower status comes from something more than just access to the money spigots of the banking system. It actually has the ability to manipulate markets. Formerly just an investment bank, in 2008 Goldman magically transformed into a bank holding company. That gave it access to the Federal Reserve’s lending window; but at the same time it remained an investment bank, aggressively speculating in the markets. The upshot was that it can now borrow massive amounts of money at virtually 0% interest, and it can use this money not only to speculate for its own account but to bend markets to its will.

But Goldman Sachs has been caught in this blatant market manipulation so often that the JPMorgan faction of the banking empire has finally had enough. The voters too have evidently had enough, as demonstrated in the recent upset in Massachusetts that threw the late Senator Ted Kennedy’s Democratic seat to a Republican. That pivotal loss gave Paul Volcker, chairman of President Obama’s newly formed Economic Recovery Advisory Board, an opportunity to step up to the plate with some proposals for serious banking reform. Unlike the string of Treasury Secretaries who came to the position through the revolving door of Goldman Sachs, former Federal Reserve Chairman Volcker came up through Chase Manhattan Bank, where he was vice president before joining the Treasury. On January 27, market commentator Bob Chapman wrote in his weekly investment newsletter The International Forecaster:

“A split has occurred between the paper forces of Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase. Mr. Volcker represents Morgan interests. Both sides are Illuminists, but the Morgan side is tired of Goldman’s greed and arrogance. . . . Not that JP Morgan Chase was blameless, they did their looting and damage to the system as well, but not in the high handed arrogant way the others did. The recall of Volcker is an attempt to reverse the damage as much as possible. That means the influence of Geithner, Summers, Rubin, et al will be put on the back shelf at least for now, as will be the Goldman influence. It will be slowly and subtly phased out. . . . Washington needs a new face on Wall Street, not that of a criminal syndicate.”

Goldman’s crimes, says Chapman, were that it “got caught stealing. First in naked shorts, then front-running the market, both of which they are still doing, as the SEC looks the other way, and then selling MBS-CDOs to their best clients and simultaneously shorting them.”

Volcker’s proposal would rein in these abuses, either by ending the risky “proprietary trading” (trading for their own accounts) engaged in by the too-big-to-fail banks, or by forcing them to downsize by selling off those portions of their businesses engaging in it. Until recently, President Obama has declined to support Volcker’s plan, but on January 21 he finally endorsed it. (02/05/10)

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BBC History of Technology — Towards the end of the war, Alan Turing - the father of the computing age - had hid himself away in a hut at Hanslope Park in rural Buckinghamshire where, he told his assistant, he was “building a brain”. At the end of fighting, Turing took his plans with him to his new post at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in Teddington.

In March 1946 he handed over a report (which went unpublished during his lifetime) which contained detailed plans, including circuit diagrams, for the Automatic Computing Engine (Ace). But when the engineers and scientists at NPL saw the plans they blanched at its complicated design.

Instead of building the whole thing, they decided to put together a smaller pilot machine. By this time, Turing had left NPL for a sabbatical at Cambridge and it fell to Jim Wilkinson, Harry Huskey and, later on, Donald Davies to get on with the construction. The machine ran for the first time on 10 May 1950. By modern standards it was sluggish but in its day was the fastest in the world. …

Another NPL pioneer, Donald Davies, also cut his teeth on the Ace. He joined NPL at the same time as Jim Wilkinson and was, for a while, Turing’s assistant. Much later, when he was head of the computer section at NPL, he did ground-breaking work on the best way to organise computer networks.

At the time making a phone call meant literally creating an electrical circuit between the two people in the conversation. That tied up the entire line for the length of that chat, even though for most of the time the connection will go unused because of the silences and gaps that punctuate conversation.

Rather than mimic this and tie up computer links for a long time as data was sent back and forth, Mr Davies realised that the spaces could be used. By splitting data into packets and threading them on the same line, the carrying capacity of that link could be boosted and the whole network made more powerful.

Roger Scantlebury, who worked with Dr Davies, presented the ideas about “packet switching” to a conference in the US, where they were picked up by the creators of the nascent Arpanet, the fledgling internet.

Does that mean Britain invented the internet?

“Yes and no,” said Mr Scantlebury. “Certainly the underlying technology of the internet, which is packet switching, we did invent.”(02/05/10)

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BBC Bird Science — Birds may use their feathers for touch, using them to feel their surroundings just as cats use their whiskers. The revelation that feathers have this hitherto unknown function comes from research on auklets, birds that sport prominent plumes on their heads.

Auklets with bigger crests, that stick out further, bump into things less.

A wider analysis suggests that numerous birds, from parrots, penguins, pheasants and hummingbirds, also use their feathers to feel their way. Details of the discovery are published in the journal Animal Behaviour.

Many species of bird sport elegant long feathers, either crests, beards or whiskers that adorn the head and face, or striking tail feathers. Many of these feathers are thought to have a sexual function, being used to advertise a bird’s virility to potential mates. But Dr Sampath Seneviratne of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada and Professor Ian Jones of Memorial University in St John’s, Canada suspect they may also have a tactile function.

They explored why a group of birds called auklets have evolved such elaborate head feathers. Within the genus Aethia, a number of species have different shaped feathers, but both males and females tend to look the same. The birds usually breed in dark, rocky crevices.

The researchers placed individual auklets into a dark experimental maze, designed to resemble a natural crevice, and recorded how often they bumped into things. Both crested and whiskered auklets bumped their heads 2.5 times more often if their feathers on their heads had been artificially flattened. Also, “without the aid of the crest, naturally long-crested individuals had more head bumps than short-crested individuals,” Dr Seneviratne told the BBC.

The two ornithologists then conducted a wider comparative analysis: checking which bird species sport long ornamental feathers against their lifestyles and where such birds live. What emerged was a striking pattern. “Birds that live in complex, cluttered habitats and are active at night tend to have a greater probability to express such facial feathers,” says Dr Seneviratne. “We found a highly significant correlation for the observed trend.” (02/05/10)

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BBC Environmental Science — There has been an increase in the number of British people who are sceptical about climate change, a poll commissioned by BBC News has suggested. It showed that 25% of those questioned did not think global warming was happening, an increase of 10% since a similar poll was conducted in November. The percentage of respondents who said climate change was a reality had fallen from 83% in November to 75%.

The poll, based on a sample group of 1,001 adults, was conducted by Populus. The findings, based on interviews carried out on 3-4 February, show that only 26% of people think “climate change is happening and is now established as largely man-made”, only 1% more than those who think there is no global warming.

In November 2009, a similar poll by Populus - commissioned by the Times newspaper - showed that 41% agreed that climate change was happening and it was largely the result of human activities. “It is very unusual indeed to see such a dramatic shift in opinion in such a short period,” Populus managing director Michael Simmonds told BBC News. “The British public are sceptical about man’s contribution to climate change - and becoming more so. More people are now doubters than firm believers.”

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’ (Defra) chief scientific adviser, Professor Bob Watson, called the findings “very disappointing”. “The fact that there has been a very significant drop in the number of people that believe that we humans are changing the Earth’s climate is serious,” he told BBC News. “Action is urgently needed,” Professor Watson warned, “We need the public to understand that climate change is serious so they will change their habits and help us move towards a low carbon economy.” (02/05/10)

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BBC Life Science — Migrating insects use highways in the sky to speed their journey, according to a study published in Science magazine. Researchers say moths and butterflies use sophisticated methods to find winds that will take them in certain directions for thousands of kilometres. The little creatures travel on winds of up to 100km (60 miles) per hour. They use internal compasses to find these fast moving winds to carry them to their journey’s end.

It may seem a little difficult, in the depths of winter, to imagine sitting outside on a balmy summer’s evening gazing up at the velvety night. But, if you can, cast your mind’s eye back because above you was a windy highway used by thousands of these delicate migrating creatures. And the same journeys are sometimes carried on over several generations of insect.

The scientists say that each insect uses the same complex methods to whisk them to their wintering water-holes in the Mediterranean and back to more northerly climes in the summer.

“We were surprised by the scale of the movements, although we wouldn’t have started the research without some idea of what was happening,” says Dr Jason Chapman of the Rothamsted Research Institute in Hertfordshire, UK, who is the lead author of the report. “What is also surprising is that very few of the insects end up going the wrong way”.

But most moths and butterflies look like they can hardly make it across the garden. So how to they avoid getting ripped to shreds in these fast moving winds? “When you are flying within the windstream you don’t feel it” says Dr Chapman. “Having said that, we think the way they choose the winds that are fastest is through some sort of turbulence mechanism. As the data has built up over the years we have been amazed by the subtlety and sophistication of the system.”

It is still not known exactly how this mechanism works - that will be for further study. (02/05/10)

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Awakening the Evolutionary Impulse — Timothy Wilken, MD writes: I wish to recommend a free 18 week Enlightenment teleconference. It continues  over the next 15 weeks. I have listened to the first three programs which were excellent. When you register for free you can download those earlier programs as well. The live programs can be listened on the web or by telephone. This week there will be two programs, one Tuesday, February 2nd, with Duane Elgin, and one on Thursday, February 4th with Andrew Cohen. If the times don’t work for you, you can download the recorded audios for listening at a later time. The audience for last Thursday’s program was ~40,000. Yes! Forty thousand humans from all over the world.

From the website: Join 18 of today’s most inspired visionary teachers as they explore what it means to consciously participate in the evolution of ourselves, our culture, and our world. … The moderator Craig Hamilton engages the guests in individual a one hour conversations followed by a half hour Q&A session with the listening audience.

The first three programs in the series, the Introduction, the Michael Dowd conversation, and the Brian Swimme conversation have already aired. With your free registration, you can still download recordings those three audio programs.

Still to come are conversations with: Duane Elgin, Andrew Cohen, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Michael Beckwith,  Jean Houston, Ken Wilber, Elisabet Sahtouris, Terry Patten, Elizabeth Debold, Claire Zammit, Tom Atlee, Connie Barlow, Marc Gafni and John Stewart. This program is remarkable, timely, and available now at no cost. (02/01/10)

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Cluster F%#k Nation — James Howard Kunstler writes: What started out as a case of The Emperor’s New Clothes now has America looking like the world’s biggest nudist colony, with everyone in the long chain of power and authority admiring each other’s splendid new (imagined) pimp suits. …

A nice example popped up last week with the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) index for the fourth quarter of 2009. The equation affects to measure the growth in economic activity and this particular release imputed that the US economy had expanded at an annualized rate of 5.7 percent. Wow, impressive! We must be digging a new Panama Canal or something.

It turned out to be based largely on some jive about inventory “investments” — meaning, I guess, that the Ronco Corporation has laid in 1.7 million Dial-O-Matic food slicers and Showtime Rotisseries in the expectation that American stock market investors will enter 2010 creaming off their mutual fund profits to spend wildly on every infomercial prompt beamed at them over the graveyard shift at Fox News.

Memo to nation: we’re not really growing, we’re shrinking. Is this necessarily a bad thing? I dunno.  Unlike, say, the stockholders of Toll Brothers I’m not so sure that “housing starts” represents my idea of a healthy economy — since it really means we’re destroying every cornfield and cow pasture left outside our cities, which will play havoc with our national life when the reality of our Wile E. Coyote agribusiness fiasco starts to hit home and we discover what cornfields and cow pastures were really all about in the first place. …

… our economy is not really expanding, it’s contracting — and pretty swiftly. The question is how will we manage this contraction and what kind of nation do we become as this occurs.     For the moment, we are a nation committed to sustaining the unsustainable, and because this is the case we invite grievous political mischief as it becomes ever more obvious that the populace is being swindled — and the populace becomes ever more ticked off about it. Thus, you get the Tea Bagger movement, and things like it, where the disenfranchised meld legitimate complaints with fantasies and conspiracy theories, and produce an incoherent agenda based on ideas like “keeping the government out of Medicare!” One can easily see a movement like this ramping up into full-bore corn-pone Naziism. …

More probably, we’ll be dragged kicking and screaming into an epochal contraction of economy, something the industrial world hasn’t really seen before, something more severe even than the Great Depression we never stop chattering about (as though it was like The Hundred Years War). Instead of preparing for it intelligently by doing things like promoting small scale local farming, local networks of commerce, and rebuilt railroads (things, incidentally, which are within the powers of government to promote) we’ll squander our dwindling capital and political resources fighting over the table scraps of the twentieth century. Life is tragic, history is merciless, and societies don’t always make good collective choices. (02/01/10)

BBC Medical Science — German scientists, writing in the Journal of Natural Products, said they had found 10 written reports of seizures linked to ginkgo biloba.  …They said they were convinced the herb could have a “detrimental effect.” …

Ginkgo biloba remedies - made from the leaves of the tree of the same name - is used by many thousands of people in the UK as a remedy for health problems ranging from depression and memory loss, to headaches and dizziness.

The team from the University of Bonn focused on a particular chemical compound in the herb called ginkgotoxin.

They said that evidence suggested that it might alter a chemical-signalling pathway in the body linked to epileptic seizures, and potentially interfere with the effectiveness of anti-seizure medications .…

Even though there was no definitive proof that the herb had been the cause of the increase in seizures in the reported cases, patients should be warned about the possibility, and manufacturers asked to test their ginkgo products for levels of the toxin. …

Professor John Duncan, from the National Society for Epilepsy, said that the current evidence did not necessarily warrant restrictions on the use of the remedy: “We believe that some herbs, for example St John’s wort, are linked to a higher risk of seizures, but there is still not a great deal of evidence about problems related to ginkgo. We would say that if someone who has epilepsy wants to take this remedy, they should simply be aware of the possibility.”(02/01/10)

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BBC Nature — Photo Images from the BirdGuides Photo of the Year 2009 competition. 

Words are completely unnecessary. Enjoy! (02/01/10)

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