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All posts for the month September, 2010

The following is the actual part of a speech given by general Chi Hao chin of the Central Commission of the Chinese Communist Party
Therefore, solving the ‘issue of America’ is the key to solving all other issues. First, this makes it possible for us to have many people migrate there and even establish another Chinaunder the same leadership of the CCP. America was originally discovered by the ancestors of the yellow race, but Columbus gave credit to the White race. We the descendants of the Chinese nation are ENTITLED to the possession of the land! It is historical destiny that China and United States will come into unavoidable confrontation on a narrow path and fight. In the long run, the relationship of China and the United States is one of a life-and-death struggle. Of course, right now it is not the time to openly break up with them yet. Our reform and opening to the outside world still rely on their capital and technology. We still need America. Therefore, we must do everything we can to promote our relationship with America, learn from America in all aspects and use America as an example to reconstruct our country. Only by using special means to ‘clean up’ America will we be able to lead the Chinese people there. Only by using non-destructive weapons that can kill many people will we be able to reserve America for ourselves.

There has been rapid development of modern biological technology, and new bio weapons have been invented one after another. Of course we have not been idle; in the past years we have seized the opportunity to master weapons of this kind. We are capable of achieving our purpose of ‘cleaning up’ America all of a sudden. When Comrade Xiaoping was still with us, the Party Central Committee had the perspicacity to make the right decision not to develop aircraft carrier groups and focused instead on developing lethal weapons that can eliminate mass populations of the enemy country. Biological weapons are unprecedented in their ruthlessness, but if the Americans do not die then the Chinese have to die. If the Chinese people are strapped to the present land, a total societal collapse is bound to take place. According to the computations of the author of Yellow Peril, more than half of the Chinese will die, and that figure would be more than 800 million people! Just after the liberation, our yellow land supported nearly 500 million people, while today the official figure of the population is more than 1.3 billion. This yellow land has reached the limit of its capacity. One day, who know how soon it will come, the great collapse will occur any time and more than half of the population will have to go.

It is indeed brutal to kill one or two hundred million Americans. But that is the only path that will secure a Chinese century, a century in which the CCP leads the world. We, as revolutionary humanitarians, do not want deaths, But if history confronts us with a choice between deaths of Chinese and those of Americans, we’d have to pick the latter, as, for us, it is more important to safeguard the lives of the Chinese people and the life of our Party. The last problem I want to talk about is of firmly seizing the preparations for military battle. The central committee believes, as long as we resolve the United States problem at one blow, our domestic problems will all be readily solved. Therefore, our military battle preparation appears to aim at Taiwan, but in fact is aimed at the United States, and the preparation is far beyond the scope of attacking aircraft carriers or satellites. Marxism pointed out that violence is the midwife for the birth of the new society. Therefore war is the midwife for the birth of China’s century.”

http://www.rense.com/general85/China%27sPlanToConquer.htm

According to legends, Laozi leaves China on hi...

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Lao Tse

Born 604 BC

Tao Te Ching

#1

The Tao that can be trodden is not the enduring and
unchanging Tao. The name that can be named is not the enduring and
unchanging name.

(Conceived of as) having no name, it is the Originator of heaven
and earth; (conceived of as) having a name, it is the Mother of all
things.

Always without desire we must be found,
If its deep mystery we would sound;
But if desire always within us be,
Its outer fringe is all that we shall see.

Under these two aspects, it is really the same; but as development
takes place, it receives the different names. Together we call them
the Mystery. Where the Mystery is the deepest is the gate of all that
is subtle and wonderful.


Lao-Tse is considered the first philosopher of the Taoist school. The Te-Tao Ching, attributed to Lao-Tse, is one of the most sacred texts of Taoism. His writings teach the philosophy of the Tao, or the Way, which is reality that naturally exists prior to and gives rise to all other things such as the physical universe and all things in it. Te, which means virtue, is the life energy in things and a sense of morality which constitutes the Way. The Tao can be found by experiencing the oneness in all things – fulfilling life as one with nature and as one with the inner self. The speaking of Lao-Tse’s wisdom is what attracts people to follow him and make him the teacher of Taoism.

Back to “Early China” Chronology

Eighty percent of Lao-Tse’s teachings are devoted to man’s function and his role in society by means of virtue. He finds courage, generosity, and leadership to be three virtues involved in all ethical systems. However, he wants the truly virtuous man to spontaneously do good out of what he genuinely feels without being aware and concerned of other people’s approval. He believes people should “act without acting” by spontaneously saying and doing what is genuinely felt rather than putting on a show for others. This is to avoid hypocrisy, the result of people acting in ways they think others will approve of and value.

From the Taoist point of view, Confucian virtues of humanity, righteousness, knowledge, and wisdom are seen as bridges to hypocrisy. This is because these virtues make distinctions between right and wrong, a concept which is absent and unnecessary in Taoism. In further comparison with the teachings of Confucius, Lao-Tse emphasizes peace of mind and tranquility of the spirit, whereas Confucius emphasizes moral perfection and social adjustment. In addition, Lao-Tse nourishes a person’s nature, while Confucius fully develops it. Therefore, Confucius hopes for his followers to become one with heaven, and Lao-Tse opens himself to become one with the nature of the universe. However, both teachers share a common interest to avoid extremes and to live by the Golden Rule.

Moreover, Lao-Tse stresses how important it is to be one with nature because it provides positive character. He regards genuineness, sincerity, and spontaneity to be “natural” characteristics which people are born with and possess. Yet, he claims these qualities are destroyed through education and cultural influences. In addition, he explains how a person is able to dismiss all authority except for the authority of self and a personal God. In this case, God is understood to be everything in nature. Thus, people who know and respect the authority of their inner nature know where they belong.

Consequently, Lao-Tse longs for life to take place in a small, united community where deceit, selfishness, and evil are non-existent in order to pursue a life of single and simple community. He glorifies simplicity by encouraging people to live without desires, knowledge, competition, and things of the senses. Therefore, he also teaches how to live the simple life, the one which is free from cunning and cleverness and not devoted to the pursuit of profit. As a result, Lao-Tse opens himself up to the universe and demonstrates how to live a life full of the beauty of nature, which allows people to follow in his path and take his teachings to heart.

http://www.thenagain.info/webchron/china/LaoTse.html

Sources:

Allen, George, Tao Te Ching (London, England; Ruskin House, 1959)

Chan, Wing-Tsit, The Way of Lao Tzu (New York; The Bobbs Merrill Company, 1963)

Day, John, The Way of Life (New York; The John Day Company, 1944)

Lao-Tse, Te-Tao Ching (New York; Random House, Inc., 1989)

Murray, John, The Sayings of Lao-Tzu , (London, England; Hazell Watson and Viney Ltd., 1905)

Alien

Image by Rickydavid via Flickr

“Personally, given the ubiquity and propensity of life to flourish wherever it can, I would say, my own personal feeling is that the chances of life on this planet are 100 percent,” he said during a press briefing. “I have almost no doubt about it.”

Gliese 581g was discovered orbiting a nearby star at a distance that places it squarely in the “habitable zone” where liquid could exist on its surface. Of around 500 planets that astronomers have found outside Earth‘s solar system, this is the first to be considered habitable.

The planet is a similar size to Earth and its mass indicates that it is probably rocky with a definite surface and has enough gravity to hold an atmosphere, according to Prof Steven Vogt, who led the team that discovered it.

It is as yet unknown whether water does exist on the planet or what kind of atmosphere it has. But because conditions are ideal for liquid, which is always a precursor for life on Earth, Prof Vogt believes that life will undoubtedly have begun there.

“Personally, given the ubiquity and propensity of life to flourish wherever it can, I would say, my own personal feeling is that the chances of life on this planet are 100 percent,” he said during a press briefing. “I have almost no doubt about it.”

The findings are based on 11 years of observations by ground-based telescopes at the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii.

The close proximity of Gliese 581g and the fact that it was found relatively early in the astronomers’ search suggests that there may be billions of other habitable planets like Earth in the universe.

Prof Vogt estimates that as many as one in five to 10 stars in the universe have planets that are Earth-sized and in the habitable zone.

With an estimated 200 billion stars in the galaxy, that means that around 40 billion planets could have the potential for life, he said.

The new findings by Prof Vogt and Paul Butler, of the Carnegie Institution in Washington, will be published in the Astrophysical Journal.

The paper reports the discovery of two new planets around the nearby red dwarf star Gliese 581.

The most interesting of the two new planets is Gliese 581g, which has a mass three to four times that of Earth and an orbital period of just under 37 days.

Gliese 581g is located 20 light years away from Earth in the constellation Libra.

The planet is tidally locked to the star, meaning that one side is always facing the star and basking in perpetual daylight, while the side facing away from the star is in perpetual darkness.

The researchers estimate that the average surface temperature of the planet is between -24 and 10 degrees Fahrenheit (-31 to -12 degrees Celsius).

Actual temperatures would range from blazing hot on the side facing the star to freezing cold on the dark side.

The surface gravity would be about the same or slightly higher than Earth’s, so that a person could easily walk upright on the planet, Prof Vogt said.

via Alien life certain to exist on Earth-like planet, scientists say – Telegraph.

How many more secret accounts exist all over the world ? Singapore, Cayman Islands, Hong Kong ?

The Canada Revenue Agency has received details on nearly 1,800 Swiss bank accounts registered to Canadians that were uncovered by French prosecutors during a probe into the clients of Europe’s largest bank.

For more than a year, investigators in the French Riviera city of Nice have been poring over a trove of banking records from the Geneva offices of HSBC. The documents, which were stolen by a former employee of HSBC and handed over to investigators, have sparked a diplomatic spat between France and Switzerland and waves of anxiety for HSBC clients who may have turned to the Alpine state to conceal their wealth.

French investigators decided to examine the documents in case they revealed any criminal activity by French clients of the bank. To narrow down their search, they organized the accounts by nationality. The analysis revealed that Canadians held more accounts than citizens of some countries with much larger populations and economies, the chief prosecutor told The Globe and Mail and CBC in a joint interview. In comparison, Americans represented about 1,600 accounts.

“The government’s been working with the French government on this issue and we’ve received a list of names of individuals who may be exploiting offshore accounts,” said Erin Filliter, a spokeswoman for Keith Ashfield, the Minister of National Revenue. She declined to provide details of the data that had been received.

The HSBC case is another blow to an embattled Swiss banking industry and its strict culture of secrecy, and supplies another boost to governments that have declared war on tax havens in a bid to stave off rising deficits. Nine months ago on a trip to France, then Minister of Revenue Jean-Pierre Blackburn told reporters he was close to receiving the records, but the CRA had been tight-lipped ever since.

Although it is not illegal to have a Swiss bank account, Canadian residents are required to declare all of their world-wide income to the CRA. Switzerland does not recognize tax evasion as a criminal offence, which historically has made it difficult for governments to obtain information about suspected tax cheats stowing away money there. In 2009, the United States cracked the veil of Swiss banking secrecy when it fined Swiss banking giant UBS $780-million and forced it to hand over the names of 4,450 clients after the UBS officials admitted they had encouraged wealthy Americans to evade tax.

French probe reveals 1,800 Swiss accounts held by Canadians – The Globe and Mail.

Muslims take over the streets of Paris.

They are flexing their political muscle.

It’s almost sinister how the Muslims in Paris are taking over the streets in order to practice their faith. It’s a in-your-face type of attitude that is irking Westerners.

Click on link:   cbnplayer.swf (application/x-shockwave-flash Object).

Beggars Banquet

Image by Donald Macleod via Flickr

The good news is that commuting to work is easier, as fewer people have jobs to go to…

The rich are still getting richer, and the poor are falling further behind them.The income gap between the richest and poorest Americans grew last year to its largest margin ever, a stark divide as Democrats and Republicans spar over whether to extend Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy.The top-earning 20 percent of Americans – those making more than $100,000 each year – received 49.4 percent of all income generated in the U.S., compared with the 3.4 percent made by the bottom 20 percent of earners, those who fell below the poverty line, according to the new figures. That ratio of 14.5-to-1 was an increase from 13.6 in 2008 and nearly double a low of 7.69 in 1968.At the top, the wealthiest 5 percent of Americans, who earn more than $180,000, added slightly to their annual incomes last year, the data show. Families at the $50,000 median level slipped lower.

via DesMoinesRegister.com | News From The Associated Press.

Orbits of Gliese 581, made with Celestia and GIMP.

Image via Wikipedia

Astronomers have found the first alien world that could support life on its surface. It is both at the right distance from its star to potentially harbour liquid water and probably has a rocky composition like Earth.

“That’s the most exciting exoplanet I’ve seen yet,” says James Kasting of Pennsylvania State University in University Park, who was not involved in the discovery.

The planet orbits a dim red dwarf star 20 light years from Earth called Gliese 581. Four planets were already known around the star, with two lying near the inner and outer edges of the habitable zone, where liquid water – and therefore potentially life – could exist on its surface.

One of those, which travels on a 13-day orbit, seems too hot for liquid water. The other, on a 67-day orbit, may be just warm enoughMovie Camera for liquid water, but its status is not completely settled, says Kasting. Opinions “may continue to swing back and forth because it is hovering right near the outer edge”, he says.

The newly found “Goldilocks” planet, called Gliese 581 g, lies in between the hot and cold ones. “You’re smack dab in the middle of the habitable zone, so that’s perfect,” says Kasting, who has studied the two planets on the zone’s edges.

via Found: first rocky exoplanet that could host life – space – 29 September 2010 – New Scientist.

Fountain of Wealth, Suntec City – Singapore

Image by williamcho via Flickr

“We used to have a class hierarchy and most people wanted to be middle class,” she said. “Being labeled rich or poor carried a stigma. Now it appears we are either rich or poor. His blog opened up a debate about where he stands.”

I hate quoting Fox News but the story comes from them. This Professor is whining about making only $250,000 per year.


A prominent college law professor’s posting of his family’s finances on the Web to make the case that they’re struggling to make ends meet — despite their more-than-$250,000 income — has lit the fuse of an online debate that he claims has made him the target of an “online lynch mob.”

Todd Henderson, a corporate law professor at the University of Chicago — and a neighbor of President Obama — says that since he posted his finances online he’s been barraged with comments such as “die yuppie scum,” forcing him to shut down his blog out of fear for his family.

“The consequences are devastating for me personally,” Henderson wrote, “but my family has to come first, and my blogging has caused them incalculable damage.” Contacted by FoxNews.com, he said he no longer wants to comment on his post.

Henderson usually kept his blog posts to matters of corporate law and the markets. But last week he made it personal. He posted a portrait of his family finances to make his case that those who make more than $250,000 a year are struggling, like everyone else, to make ends meet — and people in that income bracket will see their taxes go up if Obama succeeds in his plan to extend the Bush tax cuts only for low- and middle-income Americans.

“A quick look at our family budget, which I will gladly share with the White House, will show him that, like many Americans, we are just getting by despite seeming to be rich. We aren’t,” Henderson wrote.

He said he and his wife, a doctor, paid $100,000 in federal and state taxes last year and $15,000 in property taxes. He wrote that they have a mortgage on a house they own a short distance from President Obama’s home, and they are paying off $250,000 in student loans. With an annual income of more than $250,000, he wrote, he and his wife are  far from super-rich.

But almost as soon as he hit the send button, a firestorm erupted.. Henderson says he was inundated with e-mails that divided along the lines of  “die yuppie scum” and “thank you for saying what we couldn’t say.” He says the vehement tone of the responses — he called it “an electronic lynch mob” — and fears for his family forced him to delete the post and quit blogging altogether. A business website estimated his income at more than $400,000, a figure Henderson disputes.

But though his blog was short-lived, it opened up a fiery online debate over the continuation of the Bush tax cuts and Obama’s plan to raise taxes on the “super-rich,” said Robert Bluey of the Heritage Foundation. Among the questions being asked: Just what is rich? Do the rich feel rich? Does America have a class system?

“Often these debates are conducted by the same faces. [Henderson] brought a new perspective to it,” Bluey said.

“Any time you want to take away a sizable chunk of people’s money, it has a big impact. You just have to look at Bell, Calif., to see how sensitive people are to wages,” he said, referring to the outrage there when it was revealed that  public officials in the city had voted to give themselves salaries that reached as high as $800,000.

Bluey said Henderson’s post showed not only that there are different perspectives on wealth, “but that the additional taxes will impact everyone.”

But others disagree — and none more bitingly than Prof. Bradford DeLong of the University of California at Berkeley, who dismissed Henderson’s posting as whining.

“By any standard they are rich,” DeLong said. “But they don’t feel rich.”

He said the things Henderson takes for granted — retirement savings, private schools, new cars — are out of reach for most Americans, and he dismissed his complaint as a simple “cash flow problem.”

But Michelle Newton-Francis, a sociology professor at American University, said Henderson’s blog had an impact because it showed “the country is redefining what it means to be rich and powerful.”

“We used to have a class hierarchy and most people wanted to be middle class,” she said. “Being labeled rich or poor carried a stigma. Now it appears we are either rich or poor. His blog opened up a debate about where he stands.”

And, by implication, where everyone stands. “But the bottom line,” she said, “is that no one wants to pay more taxes.”

Correction: An earlier version of this report inaccurately stated that the Henderson family’s income exceeded $400,000. Henderson acknowledges that he and his wife make more than $250,000, but he disputes claims circulating on the Web that they earn more than $400,000.

FOXNews.com – University of Chicago Law Prof’s Blog About Struggling on $250G+ Draws Fire.

Copied from source: A SENIOR CITIZENS' MARCH T...

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The Panthers are dedicated to creating a humane society where the needs of people are put over profit.

As the tax-cut debate rages through the Senate, the House, and among the prospective candidates for public office, the Gray Panthers are firmly committed to their stance that tax cuts for the wealthy must end.

Bucking the Tea Party and Right Winger presidential wannabes Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, Tim Pawlenty, Mitt Romney, and other advocates for the super rich at the expense of all the rest of us, the Panthers have issued a proclamation outlining their proposals regarding tax cuts. Among their many resolutions is one demanding that the progressive taxation system practiced in many other developed democratic countries be adopted here.

Progressive taxation, as I’m sure my well-informed readers know, is a tax system in which those who earn higher incomes pay a higher percentage of their income than those with lower incomes. A graduated tax is one example. Seems very logical, doesn’t it? If such were the case, then the current system of granting tax cuts to those earning $250,000 or more annually would be obviated.

Susan Murany, Executive Director of the National Gray Panthers, wants to know, “We do have to ask ourselves — as Americans — is it fair that the rich continue to benefit from our financial policies while the people who are poor, the working poor and the middle class continue to suffer? Because as most of us continue to experience the recession, the number of millionaires continues to increase. The gap between the wealthiest Americans and middle- and working-class Americans has more than tripled in the past three decades, according to a June 25 report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.” Murany says, “It’s no surprise that over 60 percent of all income growth since 1979 has gone to the top 10 percent.”

According to this information, it would certainly seem that eliminating their tax cuts would hurt the pocketbooks of the rich a lot less than eliminating cuts for ordinary folks, doesn’t it?

In addition to recommending a progressive taxation policy, the Panthers offer a number of other suggestions to reform the tax system. Among them, they advise the elimination of tax loopholes which support consumption and accumulation of wealth by corporations and wealthy individuals at the expense of ordinary wage earners. They also call for laws and policies which hold corporations accountable for delivering social benefits (living wage jobs, pollution controls, environmental protection, workplace safety and more) to states and localities which compete for corporate investments in their jurisdictions.

The Panthers further state that they oppose war, and believe it would be less likely if it were not funded with debt but with current taxes, and therefore counsel Congress to enact a separate, dedicated and progressive tax sufficient to cover the costs of war in Afghanistan and each and every future war.

The Gray Panthers are tired of such statements as that of, for example, Newt Gingrich, “I think to raise taxes on people who create jobs in the middle of a 9.5 percent unemployment rate is, frankly, crazy.” Inasmuch as more and more corporations are transplanting jobs to low-wage workers in other countries, that comment seems a bit disingenuous. Our history has shown more than once that expanded wealth at the top does not trickle down into the pockets of the less fortunate. Such pronouncements are simply not true and it is sort of mind-boggling to imagine that ordinary people would swallow them.

The Gray Panthers have committed themselves to working for social and economic justice and as such, see the extension of tax cuts for the rich as a justice issue. The well-to-do have been getting richer for decades. They now have the responsibility like all of us to contribute their fair share for the benefit of all.

Gray Panthers Urge an End to Tax Cuts for the Rich | MichaelMoore.com.