Black people act nuts about homosexuality. Read my blog about it.

Name or Nick Name : Elle
Country or City you are from: : USA
Your Age : 36
Your Gender : female
What did you come out as? : lesbian
What other words would you use to describe yourself? :
How old were you when you first realised your identity? : 21
How old were you when you first told someone? : 26
Did you plan it? If so, how? : I didn’t plan it. I was going through a bad break-up and I told my sister.
What made you choose that person to tell? :It would explain why I was a mess.
Can you remember exactly what you said? : You know how me and N are good friends. She has been my girlfriend all these years and a cheat.
How did you feel? : Relieved to tell someone
What was the person’s reaction? : My sister was pissed I kept it to myself and concerned.
What did they say? : She said she loved me and I never had to keep secrets.
What was your relationship with the person like afterwards? : very supportive.
What’s it like now? : Still very supportive.
If you’ve been outed unwillingly, who did it? : My ex best friend
What happened? : She told my cousin I was gay.
What were peoples’ reactions? : My cousin was upset she told me and he told me it was okay. He told me to be happy.
If you’ve experienced homophobia etc, please give an example. : I experience it every day but especially since trying to have a baby. Black people act nuts about homosexuality. Read my blog about it.
Since coming out how out are you at school? : only_friends
Since coming out, how “out” are you at work? : only_friends
Since coming out, how “out” are you with family? : partly_out
Since coming out, how “out” are you with your friends? : only_friends
What does being out mean to you? : For me, being out as “lesbian” is being out everywhere and having a lesbian or gay identity.
What differences, if any, did your cultural background make to your experience of coming out? : Black people are terribly homophobic and religious. It made my coming out difficult.
What does the concept of the closet mean to you? : Being in the closet means not being able to live openly gay.
What advice would you give someone wanting to come out? : Do what you feel. Recognize you may lose some friends so find a support system for yourself. And regardless what happens when you come out, because it will be difficult, it is freeing for you.
If you could do it all again, would you do it any differently? If so, how? : No, would not change a thing. It is what it is.
Anything you want to add? : Visit 5heartbeats.blogspot.com for my life as a Black Professional lesbian

Para mais informações (Em Inglês), »aqui«

Para um tutorial de instalação no Ubuntu utilizando pacotes DEB, recomendo o tutorial feito pelo Cláudio em seu excepcional Blog ubuntued , »aqui«

Fonte
ubuntued

Nesse artigo eu irei demonstrar as novidades dessa nova versão e como instala-la no Ubuntu Hardy.

Antes de mais nada gostaria de fazer uma pequena consideração.

O GIMP é a prova "viva" do poder comunitário. Assim como eu comentei anteriormente alguns dos famosos programas proprietário/pagos são máquinas de fazer dinheiro. O GIMP com sua forma livre de ser mostra que você não precisa seguir modinhas para ter produtividade e qualidade. Ele é completo e produtivo.

Instalando o GIMP 2.6 no Ubuntu Hardy:

O pessoal do GetDeb já disponibilizou os pacotes para o Ubuntu Hardy. É só ir lá e baixar. Como são vários pacotes eu baixei e fiz esse pacote compactado que você deve descompactar de preferência na sua Pasta Pessoal. Depois de descompacta-lo, abra o terminal e vá até a pasta onde você descompactou os arquivos. Ex: /home/~/GIMP-2.6. Abra o terminal e digite: sudo dpkg -i *.deb. Esse comando instalará todos os pacotes de uma vez. Se tudo ocorrer como o esperado você terá um atalho para o GIMP em Aplicações > Gráficos.

Obs: Possivelmente haverá problemas entre as versões antiga e a 2.6. Assim  tudo que você precisa fazer é remover o GIMP 2.4 do seu sistema e instalar a nova versão 2.6 com o comando acima.

Conhecendo a novidades:

Se você tinha o GIMP 2.4 E instalou a 2.6 talvez não perceba grande diferença. Mas calma aí! Observe:

1 - Agora por padrão a janela de imagem é a janela principal do GIMP. Fechando-a o GIMP será fechado. Os menus padrões do ToolBox foram movidos para dentro dessa janela e outros colocados em outros lugares.

2 - O ToolBox agora é uma "sub-janela". Ela não é mais a janela principal do GIMP. Mas fechando-a ele também será fechada. O que realmente muda é a praticidade.

Assim como você pode ver na imagem acima, agora você pode mudar a forma do ToolBox como você quiser.

3 - E as Opções de Ferramentas? Elas são uma área móvel também. Como você pode ver na imagem (a 1ª) , eu a movi para dentro da janela que ficam as camas, canais, etc. Mas eu também poderia deixa-la flutuando na área de trabalho. Isolada de qualquer outra janela assim como você pode ver na imagem abaixo.

Algumas outras mudanças:

Que tal trabalhar em volta da borda da imagem? Antes dessa versão ao pôr o mouse fora da imagem você perdia a opções de edição. Agora você pode utilizar pincéis, borrachas e outros fora da imagem (logicamente o efeito será na imagem).

A ferramenta de seleção livre, agora, também cria polígonos. Isso realmente era necessário! Trabalho com Ferramenta de vetores não é o ideal em muitos casos.

Os pincéis estão mais dinâmicos agora! Principalmente para quem usa uma mesa digitalizadora.

Existem dezenas de outras melhorias para você aproveitar! O pessoal da documentação do GIMP preparou um documento mostrando mais a fundo as novidades. Se eu fosse você iria agora mesmo no GetDeb e instalaria essa nova versão! =D

       The idol of the South to this day, Virginian Robert E. Lee had some difficulty in adjusting to the new form of warfare that unfolded with the Civil war, but this did not prevent him from keeping the Union armies in Virginia at bay for almost three years. The son of Revolutionary War hero "Light Horse" Harry Lee-who fell into disrepute in his later years attended West Point and graduated second in his class. During his four years at the military academy he did not earn a single demerit and served as the cadet corps' adjutant. Upon his 1829 graduation he was posted to the engineers. Before the Mexican War he served on engineering projects in Georgia, Virginia, and New York. During the war he served on the staffs of John Wool and Winfield Scott. Particularly distinguishing himself scouting for and guiding troops, he won three brevets and was slightly wounded at Chapultepec.
       Following a stint in Baltimore Harbor he became superintendent of the military academy in 1852. When the mounted arm was expanded in 1855, Lee accepted the lieutenant colonelcy of the 2nd Cavalry in order to escape from the painfully slow promotion in the engineers. Ordered to western Texas, he served with his regiment until the 1857 death of his father-in-law forced him to ask for a series of leaves to settle the estate.
       In 1859 he was called upon to lead a force of marines, to join with the militia on the scene, to put an end to John Brown's Harper's Ferry Raid. Thereafter he served again in Texas until summoned to Washington in 1861 by Winfield Scott who tried to retain Lee in the U. S. service. But the Virginian rejected the command of the Union's field forces on the day after Virginia seceded. He then accepted an invitation to visit Governor John Letcher in Virginia. His resignation as colonel, 1st Cavalry-to which he had recently been promoted-was accepted on April 25, 1861.
       His Southern assignments included: major general, Virginia's land and naval forces (April 23, 1861); commanding Virginia forces (April 23 July 1861); brigadier general, CSA (May 14, 186 1); general, CSA (from June 14, 186 1); commanding Department of Northwestern Virginia (late July-October 1861); commanding Department of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida (November 8, 186 1-March 3, 1862); and commanding Army of Northern Virginia June 1, 1862-April 9, 1865).
       In charge of Virginia's fledgling military might, he was mainly involved in organizational matters. As a Confederate brigadier general, and later full general, he was in charge of supervising all Southern forces in Virginia. In the first summer of the war he was given his first field command in western Virginia. His Cheat Mountain Campaign was a disappointing fizzle largely due to the failings of his superiors. His entire tenure in the region was unpleasant, dealing with the bickering of his subordinates-William W. Loring, John B. Floyd, and Henry A. Wise. After this he became known throughout the South as "Granny Lee. " His debut in field command had not been promising, but Jefferson Davis appointed him to command along the Southern Coast.
       Early in 1862 he was recalled to Richmond and made an advisor to the president. From this position he had some influence over military operations, especially those of Stonewall Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley. When Joseph E. Johnston launched his attack at Seven Pines, Davis and Lee were taken by surprise and rode out to the field. In the confusion of the fight Johnston was badly wounded, and that night Davis instructed Lee to take command of what he renamed the Army of Northern Virginia. He fought the second day of the battle but the initiative had already been lost the previous day. Later in the month, in a daring move, he left a small force in front of Richmond and crossed the Chickahominy to strike the one Union corps north of the river. In what was to be called the Seven Days Battles the individual fights-Beaver Dam Creek, Gaines' Mill, Savage Station, Glendale, White Oak Swamp, and Malvern Hill-were all tactical defeats for the Confederates. But Lee had achieved the strategic goal of removing McClellan's army from the very gates of Richmond.
       This created a new opinion of Lee in the South. He gradually became "Uncle Robert" and "Marse Robert." With McClellan neutralized, a new threat developed under John Pope in northern Virginia. At first Lee detached Jackson and then followed with Longstreet's command. Winning at 2nd Bull Run, he moved on into Maryland but suffered the misfortune of having a copy of his orders detailing the disposition of his divided forces fall into the hands of the enemy. McClellan moved with unusual speed and Lee was forced to fight a delaying action along South Mountain while waiting for Jackson to complete the capture of Harpers Ferry and rejoin him. He masterfully fought McClellan to a stand still at Antietam and two days later recrossed the Potomac.
       Near the end of the year he won an easy victory over Burnside at Fredericksburg and then trounced Hooker in his most creditable victory at Chancellorsville, where he had detached Jackson with most of the army on a lengthy flank march while he remained with only two divisions in the immediate front of the Union army. Launching his second invasion of the North, he lost at Gettysburg. On the third day of the battle he displayed one of his major faults when at Malvern Hill and on other fields-he ordered a massed infantry assault across a wide plain, not recognizing that the rifle, which had come into use since the Mexican War, put the charging troops under fire for too long a period. Another problem was his issuance of general orders to be executed by his subordinates.
       Returning to Virginia he commanded in the inconclusive Bristoe and Mine Run campaigns. From the Wilderness to Petersburg he fought a retiring campaign against Grant in which he made full use of entrenchments, becoming known as "Ace of Spades" Lee. Finally forced into a siege, he held on to Richmond and Petersburg for nearly 10 months before beginning his retreat to Appomattox, where he was forced to surrender. On January 23, 1865, he had been named as commander in chief of the Confederate armies but he found himself too burdened in Virginia to give more than general directives to the other theaters.
       Lee returned to Richmond as a paroled prisoner of war, and submitted with the utmost composure to an altered destiny. He devoted the rest of his life to setting an example of conduct for other thousands of ex-Confederates. He refused a number of offers which would have secured substantial means for his family. Instead, he assumed the presidency of Washington College (now Washington and Lee University) in Lexington, Virginia, and his reputation revitalized the school after the war. Lee's enormous wartime prestige, both in the North and South, and the devotion inspired by his unconscious symbolism of the "Lost Cause" made his a legendary figure even before his death. He died on October 12 1870, of heart disease which had plagued him since the spring of 1863, at Lexington, Va. and is buried there. Somehow, his application for restoration of citizenship was mislaid, and it was not until the 1970's that it was found and granted.
Source: "Who Was Who In The Civil War" by Stewart Sifakis

Stein then seems to have gone insane.

Maka then goes and shows Chrona around the school.

They write a poem to boost Chrona's confidence...

They then visit Czechoslovkia as it seems the older Golem there has gone mad.

However, everyone there seems to be hiding it apart from one person, Giriko, an enchanter, who offers to take them to the golem.

Meanwhile, it seems Stein has gone mad but Marie's calmness flows into him and calms him down without realising it.

Stein then describes how it sure is weird for a golem, which is programmed to defend and has no soul, to become mad as it would surely be the last thing on earth to go mad. He then leaves the room to go to the library.

They finally find the golem, however Maka feels a soul wavelength from it. It then seems that the guy opposes Shinigami's organization, the  Shibusen students. It also seems he lived for 800 years by genetically implanting his memories into his own children or something. He then turns into a chainsaw to fight Maka as he's supposedly a demon weapon.

Chrona then helps Maka as she is losing after Ragnarok secures a deal of originally 3 sweets to 15.

El famoso clon de Photoshop llamado GIMP acaba de lanzar su versión 2.6 la cual es una versión importante. De entre las novedades y mejoras se encuentra el framework llamado GEGL el cual permite previsualizar el efecto en la imágen al momento, como por ejemplo el Gaussian Blur.

Para instalarlo en Ubuntu, podemos dirigirnos a Getdeb que ya tiene disponibles los archivos .deb para facilitarnos la instalación.

Descarga Gimp 2.6 : Getdeb

Luego tienes dos formas de instalarlo. Una forma es tratando de instalar uno a uno descifrando cual es la dependecia del otro y buscando dependecias ó la forma más fácil el cual es entrar a la carpeta donde están los archivos descargados usando el terminal (cd) y luego escribiendo en el terminal:

sudo dpkg -i *.deb

Listo. Ahora tienes la última versión de Gimp. Si todavía piensas que es difícil instalarlo, mejor espera que aparezca en los repositorios de Ubuntu.

Para más detalles visita http://gimp.org/release-notes/gimp-2.6.html.

Release notes

We live in a holographic universe created by resistance 

In Question #25 we explored the idea of the holographic principle which states that objects around us may not be the familiar, three-dimensional, freestanding objects they appear to be, but instead may be generated on a distant holographic bound; a thin membrane (known as branes in physics) on which our everyday 3D objects are encoded as 2D information.

The world around us feels solid and real enough, yet, according to the holographic principle, we exist inside a holographically projected reality projected from a bubbly membrane that surrounds us out in space somewhere.

Think of the holographic membrane as like a flat-two dimensional rear-projection television screen surrounding all of spacetime. Our entire 3D reality in spacetime is encoded on this thin, membranous 2D "screen"—called a holographic bound—and projected into spacetime (see Question #25, Fig. 25.2).

Our bodies, which we think are real, are simply 3D projections being generated by that flat, 2D brane out there in spacetime (see Question #25, Fig. 25.2)

Matrix fans unite: but watch out for Matrix blindness

Could this holographic projection be some kind of "code," like computer code? Interestingly, atheist author Richard Dawkins says he has no answer to those who ask him, "How do you know we might not all be existing inside some kind of massive, computer program?" (This was the premise of the Wachosski brothers' Matrix movie trilogy.)

If we live inside some kind of pre-programmed illusion running scripts—originating way out on the edge of spacetime—behind the Big Bang even—then we must be careful about becoming fixated on any one shred of that programming in our own world—like Charles Darwin's evolution, or Richard Dawkins' memes or Stephen Wolfram's cellular automata. 

If the source of suffering and death is way upstream; investigating the details of that death way downstream is only going to get us so far. We have to challenge all the way back to the first causal link we have to the suffering we experience in this  world—which means the Big Bang.

I call this process of becoming fascinated with one small aspect of nature's programming and elevating it to a god-like level, then using it to try and disprove the existence of God, Code Jockeying. The proponents of these so-called "God-killing" ideas will ride them with evangelical zeal. They're going to ride that horse until it, or God, drops dead. (see the Zinger from Hell and the feelings it creates, below). 

It's all part of the same observable phenomena; the ego tries to kill anything that can't be observed in spacetime. Code Jockeying is a variation on Ernest Mach's Horse (for those interested scientists, see Walter Isaacson's Einstein, page 334.)

We can also recognize Code Jockeying as a form of Matrix Blindness. A small shred of the massive programming of spacetime—physical or biological—is discovered, and it seems revolutionary and exciting. So much so that the discoverer is convinced that fully understanding the idea renders faith in God meaningless.

They become so enamored with this shred of coding that they lose sight of the totality and brutality of nature; mamely that this deadly matrix kills everything inside its borders. (The matrix is a very real concept in modern physics; it's called the non-commutative matrix and it is said to exist outside of the effects of space and time. Google it and check it out.)

In order for scientific observers to become saviors, they must abandon their Code Jockeying, zoom out their perspective to the entire universe and realize that our multi-dimensional universe my be only one universe of many, called a multiverse. And that each of those universes, physics tells us, can have unique physical laws that would determine how life would evolve. And that there may be countless such universes out there.

Countless.

So to find a single shred of programming in one of those universes, and to trumpet it as absolute evidence that God doesn't exist, is like a man discovering one line of code in a video game and loudly proclaiming, "I have uncovered the total secrets of the cosmos! Having this totality of evidence in hand, I am absolutely certain God doesn't exist!"

It's just Matrix blindness caused by Code Jockeying. Stop riding that horse, Ernest.

Happens to the best of us. Forgive it. Bless it. And move on.

It's all about mental resistance to wholeness

Scientific American says "Our innate perception that the world is three-dimensional could be an extraordinary illusion." We're right back to the Hindu idea of maya—that the physical world is actually an illuion; a veil pulled over our true reality.

The structure of that veil is mental resistance to wholeness; what we have also identified in this blog as the Spam Filter from Hell. (Check out that term in the search box in the upper right.) It's the perceptual filtering that takes place inside a relative universe, versus absolute knowledge that occurs in an absolute universe, which is not relativistic.

The Kabbalah is correct about resistance and its place in the origin of the cosmos (see Yehuda Berg's The Power of Kabbalah. The theoretical holographic boundary on which our entire universe is written, I offer is simply mental resistance to wholeness.

If you are a child of God and absolute, indivisible reality is your true and actual existence, and you want to separate yourself from that which cannot be divided, you use a simple device—mental resistance to wholeness. You simply push back and say "No thanks, but I'm making my own subset of that which cannot be divided." That's right, it's a a crazy idea, but here we are (see the Crazy Step.)

Which is what a computer Spam filter, virus protection, or firewall does; it makes a subset of the network to which you belong, tailor-made to your preferences by selectively allowing only certain types of information to reach your awareness.

Once a master gets that mental resistance to wholeness underlies a great many structures in space and time, many secrets of the universe jump out.

We explored in Question #24 that the universe of ours is built on a fear of reaching infinity and of reaching intimacy—a fear of going too far or getting too close. 

We said physicist Richard Feynman wanted to leave one piece of wisdom for future generations, and that is when objects get too far apart, they attract, and when they get too close, they repel. We can summarize this idea in light of our psychological understanding as avoiding the infinite via restraining attraction, and avoiding the intimate via separating repulsion.

But these two phsycho-physical phenomena (which I combine freely using the Pauli-Jung Merger Assumption—see question #20), are simply indicative of the primal mechanism of separation from God: mental resistance to wholeness.

Deep down in our minds we know that this wholeness we share with God is both infinitely freeing and wonderfully, intimately connected. So in spacetime, which is a symbolic projection of a mind trying to avoid Heaven, we find symbolic recreations of structures intended to avoid both infnitely freeing extension, and perfectly intimate togetherness.

It's an old ego trick: take a unified reality in which concepts are actually blended seamlessly as one (akin to the wave-particle complementarity), then separate them out and make them appear perceptually as paired opposites in spacetime, then have perception oscillate endlessly between the newly paired opposites—hence the sine wave; a primal, archetypal mechanism in the construction of spacetime (and a symbol that arose in one of Pauli's dreams he analyzed with Jung.)

Spatial manifestations of the infinite-intimate perceptual flip

Oscillations between maximums and minimums are one such symbolic manifestation. A two-sphere hyperspherical universe is another; where the observer can perceptually oscillate between space appearing as extending infinitely, yet when the observer extends too far mentally, a perceptual flip takes him right back to their center point of observation—literally into themselves.

Just imagine an ant lying on his back on the surface of an expanding balloon. On the surface of that balloon there is a thin layer that contains all of the visible universe we can see—stars, planets, the earth, humans, everything. (This balloon/ant idea comes from astronomers Charles Lineweaver and Tamara Davis in Scientific American.)

So as this ant kicks back and rides on this expanding balloon, everything seems large and connected and unified in a continuous fabric of spacetime (like relativity sees the universe). He sees that the surface of the balloon is connecting everything together. But if he freaks out and thinks he's getting too big and expanded, i.e. too infinite, he just flips over on his belly and looks into that balloon and back towards the single point where it is expanding from—i.e., in our metaphor, the neck of the balloon where the air is blown in—(although he is free to perceive this expanding point anywhere, as Lineweaver and Davis point out.) He can then mentally imagine himself rushing to that expansion point to be safe from the ever-expanding universe—as if our ant could drop through the surface of the balloon without popping it, and drop down into the neck of the balloon beyond the point where it is expanding. We're all familiar with the fact that the neck-part you blow into on the balloon doesn't expand like the rest of the balloon does.

This perception-built, two-step universe, where one can flip between big, expanding, riding-the-balloon mode, or retreat towards a single-point mode, is what we call the Riemann hypersphere, or the poet Dante's visible universe and Empyrean, both described as essentially synonymous by geometer Robert Osserman in The Poetry of the Universe. (See Dante's inferno for a description of a journey through a Riemann  hypersphere. Interestingly Dante says the Empyrean is located outside of space and time, but projected into it.)

We also can consider the Einstein-Eddington universe as described by Arthur Young in his book The Reflexive Universe. It is an expansive torus with an infinitely small singularity at its center—like a really fat, overstuffed bagel with a tiny hole in the middle. This torus would give an observer living inside that overstuffed bagel of a universe the option to flip their perception between, large, expansive "whole bagel" mode, or rush back to that center point singularity at the middle of the torus and just "be myself"—a singularity. 

Thus we see the overall mind-trick; instead of integrating and accepting whole and part as one, the transtemporal mind separates them out spatially and conceptually, then spends it times osciallating back and forth between the two perceptual choices. It take wholeness and splits it perceptually to create dualistic structures it can them oscillate between at will. Which is what the yin yang symbol is all about. As one perceptual choice diminishes, the other increases; like a light switch dimmer switching your perception of the light very gradually between on to off. 

A master grasping this is well on his way to walking on water. For all of spacetime is built on continuous oscillations between whole and part, maximum and minimum, peak and trough, on and off, ones and zeros. All based on the perceptual flip; a relativistic perceptual framework to a quantum mechanical perceptual framework. Constellation or individual star. Your call. Can't do math to unify a free will choice; you'll just get more probability curves.

Learn to not fear whole nor part, nor to wildly oscillate between, and you can literally reconstruct those sine waves any way you wish. And that is the theory behind building a mind-controlled, anti-gravity car. See Edgar Cayce's detailing of a "conscious space ship" type idea appearing in the Biblical book of Ezekiel, I believe.)

It's all about losing that confining, prison-like sense of "I", that's afraid of infinite freedom and absolute intimacy. Again, see the Einstein-Harris Assumption in Question #20 about how to come closer to the universe and its secrets.

The two primary perceptual orientations in the universe

A master understands that a split-mind observer has two primary perceptual orientations in the universe. In the first, you view yourself as free and expansive. So you view the universe as ever-expanding before your eyes; all interconnected and large and "we." United. This is how Einstein's relativity views spacetime; as interconnected, unified sheets of spacetime—the "we-mode" of spacetime, so to speak.

But, as you mentally zip through that expanded, interconnected, seemingly infinite universe of "we-ness," you subconsciously fear accidentally running into the infinite God, so you want a fallback position; you want to be able to contract in a hurry; to withdraw into yourself. To head towards a single point you identify as your "observer position," which can be anywhere in spacetime. So you drop your interconnected, unified, expansive, one-sheet of-existence, relativistic "we" percepction and become a quantum mechanical, individual point, lone-star "me" in a hurry.

You want the option to head towards a single point of awareness as quickly as possible. Similarly, when you head towards that single point of awareness, you want the option to get the heck out of there too, if you feel yourself getting too close—to contained. You want your space. So you give yourself the option to again flip your perception out to the big, expanded, "spatial" view. (You may wish to explore how a single particle of light, called a photon, will literally go beserk if it is increasingly cornered in a box whose sides are gradually squeezed in. The smaller the box gets containing the photon, the more chaotic and random its motion gets.)

Examples of this phenomena in everyday life

Go stargazing. This we-me flip is obvious as you flip your perception from individual stars to constellations. Either an expansive, connected whole joined geometrically by lines (vectors) stretching out into space uniting groups of stars in constellations. Or, you can shrink your expansive, vector-connected, "we the constellation" perception, and switch to isolated, point-like star mode.

Another example? Ever play the game musical chairs as a kid? The music starts and all the kids march around the chairs in an interconnected line—a "we" formation. Everybody is happy and friendly and having a good time. But when the music stops, watch out. That "we" becomes a "me" in a hurry and the kids all rush towards a single point—an open chair—pushing and shoving if they have to to claim it.

Another example? How about Jung's ideas of extroverts and introverts? An extrovert is all about the connection to the whole. A "we" orientation; big, expansive, gregarious, outgoing. An introvert is the opposite, withdrawing into the single point that is themselves. Quiet. Contemplative.

The Zinger from Hell

The next time you're at a party with friends and deep into a conversation where friendly jabs are being thrown around, notice you're still deeply connected to the "we": you love being with your friends. The personal ribbing just bounces off you. Who cares.

But occasionally a friend will say something that cuts too close to the emotional bone and "bam! that "we" connection is lost and you find yourself sucking into yourself, literally entering into the "me" mode in a hurry. Suddenly you're all self-conscious; flustered, a racing heart, defensive all of the sudden. You get angry. You want to atack. Your friends notice your calm, joking veneer is suddenly gone.

That angry, flustering, self-conscious moment is a recreation of the moment immediately after your perceived separation from God, a choice you made but errantly projected onto God. We'll call it the Zinger from Hell. 

That's exactly how you felt after you really believed you dropped out of Heaven and were actually all alone (which you never were, btw). The first and most primal instance of self-consciousness, with a small "s." Your true Self doesn't have consciousness; it has total union with all that is. Consciousness goes up and down, we can lose it, we can raise it. Spirit doesn't exist in levels. Can't be raised or lowered or lost. So I recommend using the term "Spirit" or "Oneness" or perfect togetherness. (Because it is used incorrectly so often, I don't use the term consciousness.)

Deeply focus on your feelings in your next "zinger" moment and understand that this combination of fear, loss, anger, betrayal, hurt pride, defensiveness, vulnerability, being exposed, wanting to attack, guilt for wanting to attack one you love, mental resistance to being one with them again—are all feelings you experienced immediately after separating mentally from God.

You could have Laughed about it and let it go, just like that. But you didn't. You hung onto those feeling and let them grow; using them as justification to build a universe of separation.

You believe God did this to you, but in reality it was your choice to create the experience of mental resistance to wholeness. And from that primal fear (imagine Zinger from Hell times a billion), the ego arose to protect you from experiencing those feelings ever again. To keep you safe from those feelings now hidden in your subconscious mind.

But those same feelings towards God—fear, loss, anger, betrayal, hurt pride, defensiveness, vulnerability, being exposed, wanting to attack, guilt for wanting to attack one you love, mental resistance to being one again—still exist in our collective unconscious, as Jung called it, which means you carry them yourself (see the Whole-Part Assumption in Question #20)—and will need to heal them before you return to Heaven.

Heaven is a voluntary choice of self-identification as we have explored several times in this blog. Just  as you would patch it up with your friend who zinged you—make it cool between you—and voluntarily self-identify the two of you as "friends" again. Your friend can't make you be friends again; just as God can't make you come home and self-identify with Him again (as Jesus did, saying, "the Father and I are one.") 

God will never force that self-assertion of perfect togetherness on you. To do so would annihilate both of your existences immediately—because you are both love and love never forces.

Really, deeply mediate on the feelings you experience after someone really zings you a good one. It's a great way to study the instant of perceived separation from God and all the complex feelings it has created within you and still reside deep in your unconscious mind. Never underestimate the power of repressed guilt over wanting to kill God in that primal moment of terror. It runs deep and needs to be healed by the God's Grace manifest as the Holy Spirit.

That's how hell began, my sacred brothers and sisters in Christ. And you believe, deep down, you are currently a resident. (No need to change your address, though, because you actually never left Heaven, you just think you did.)

Mental resistance to wholeness creates bubbles of reality

Mental resistance to wholeness is a force of mind that separates our world into bubbles of reality as physicists call them (see Question #25), or spheres of consciousness, as American mystic Edgar Cayce called them.

Let's see how this force manifests in our world.

Borders, borders everywhere—dividing wholeness into partiality

The United States has 50 states; a whole divided into 50 parts. So what separates say, Minnesota (my home state) from Iowa? A border, right? Well, drive down good old Highway 35, the main north-south artery between Minneapolis and Des Moines and you'll pass right through that border.

Is there a river forming that border? No. A mountain range? No. Any natural division at all? Nope. Just a sign that says, "Welcome to Iowa" and information about the tourist information center. The border is pure mental fabrication on the part of whoever decided it should go "right here."

Watch the weather on television some day, or pull up a satellite weather map of the U.S., and you'll see imaginary white lines delineating the various states. These lines are obviously not actual, naturally occuring borders, but are randomly established by humans over the actual terrain.

The lines are made-up borders. Mental projections laid right on top of the actual reality. Just like constellations in the night sky are a mental projection laid on top of white dots in the sky—one of the oldest inventions on earth, Bradley Schaefer tells us in Scientific American. 

It's all about mental resistance to wholeness; Minnesota refusing to be one with Iowa

Those lines are none other than mental resistance to wholeness. Someone, somewhere, got it into their head that the land should be mentally divided that way. And so arbitrary lines were drawn as each new state was added to the union. "Our state ends here and yours begins here."

Now zoom out to the United States as a whole. We have borders that are nothing but mental resistance to our neighbors to the north and south. These borders say, "We want to be separate from you. We want to have our own laws and those laws go into effect right here, at this border. Those laws define our reality and separate it from yours. We don't want to be one with you, we want to be two."

That's the phenomena physicists discovered with these thin branes in the physical world. They contain rules and laws for the physical expression of nature inside the border of the brane. Border laws form projected realities governed by these border laws even if the interior falls quite a distance from that border, just like the U.S. borders contain rules and laws that affect the state of Kansas in the heart of the interior of the country. Those rules are projected across the entire country.

Even gravity has to obey border laws

So we can see that these thin borders contains laws encoded on them that begin at a certain point, and are projected at a distance, affecting behavior within those borders. In physics, we call this type of border a holographic bound, and it contains physical laws encoded on it that determine what the physical universe can and can't do within that bound.  

For example, the bound might have rules about how hard gravity tugs—a rule a master who wants to walk on water may be interested in. That holographic bound may have rules for the ratio between gravity, which pulls everything together, and dark matter, a mysterious force of the cosmos that seems to push everything apart. This ratio determines how fast that universe expands, and whether or not it can support life of any kind.

So physicists believe these holographic bounds exist out there. And although one hasn't been discovered that governs our entire universe, in theory, it could be there. (The holographic principle only continues to grow in prominence, physicist and PBS host Brian Greene tells us in Scientific American.) And on these holographic bounds all kinds of physical rules and laws are written to describe our physical universe.

Many descriptions of the same phenomena

In world law we call them international borders. In physics we call them holographic bounds. In weather maps we call them a topographic projection. In a Course of Miracles we call them "frames that determine the pictures within."

For example, the "frame" that is the U.S. border has laws written on it that determine the "picture" within it we call "life in America." It determines what we can and cannot do from day-to-day. Can't print our own money. Can't form our own country called The United States of (your name here). Can't yell "fire" in a movie theatre. Can't take away the Constitutional rights of our neighbors. On and on and on this holographic border determines our lives.

This frame doesn't have to be there; it is obviously mental resistance to wholeness. The European Union decided that their borders were getting in the way of their growth and prosperity, so they dropped a lot of their mental resistance to each other and came together as one Union.

You day is one holographically bounded experience after another

Whether it's a political border, or a brane in spacetime with physical laws separating one universe from another, forming massive bubbles of reality, it's all about mental resistance to wholeness.

Throughout your day, you go through one after another of these borders without thinking twice about it, each border containing more rules and regulations that affect your behavior in ways both conscious and unconscious.

Take a tally of all the bubbles of reality you're living in right now

Right where you're sitting now,try to count all the different sets of laws, rules and regulations governing your behavior. These laws nest within each other; the bubbles of reality they form nesting within each other, each with their own level of authority.

Right now, where I sit I'm governed by laws including U.S. federal law. Minnesota state law, Hennepin county law, City of Crystal law, family law, the writer's law we call grammar and syntax, Internet laws, biological laws governing my body, physical laws of nature like gravity holding me to my chair, the laws of earth governed by the thin brane we call the atmosphere and its screening capabilities which determine what kind of life can arise on earth.

Branes, borders, laws, restricted activity. Becoming aware of all of this regulation—and how much of it is simply voluntarily obeying resistance to wholeness—is an important step in learning how to walk on water. Obviously Jesus was able to break some of the laws of nature, written on a distant holographic boundary, including the law of gravity.

Using the Einstein-Harris Assumption (see Question#20), I assert that the secret to overcoming these nature branes and their law of gravity, is losing the sense of self we regard as "I"—tied to our human body, which is obviously tied to gravity.  

To overcome the affects of a bubble of reality, lose your self-identification with it

In order to lose the laws that govern my behavior as a citizen of Minnesota, I can move to Wisconsin. But I have to lose my self-identification as a Minnesotan to do so, which I may be unwilling to do. I could do the same thing with my U.S. citizenship—losing the effects on my behavior caused by the laws at the border— by becoming a citizen of Canada. I would have to lose my self-identification with the reality called "Life as a U.S. Citizen" by declaring "I am a Canadian."

I could stop writing and take up gambling for a living, and then the laws of grammar and syntax would not affect my behavior so greatly from day-to-day. I would have to lose my self-identification with the reality formed by the statement "I am a writer" and would have to adopt the rules and effects of a reality created by the statement of self-identification "I am a gambler."

Jesus simply took this realization one step further and saw absolutely no difference between a mentally created border and its rules—a political border for example—and a physical border, or holographic bound (aka a brane).

Great masters realize that everything they see around them is created in our minds. (The Buddha taught all of space was coming out of our minds, the Dalai Lama says in The Universe in a Single Atom.) It's all mental projection. That some of it feels more physical and real and solid, and some of it is feels made-up and random (like state borders) is of no concern. It's all the same concept. A master knows this.

Mental resistance to wholeness is mental resistance to wholeness. Dress it up a thousands ways and it's still the exact same thing (the scientific principle of Occam's Razor, or "unnecessary pluralities" applies to our discussion here).

This phenomena began from the very first moment of separation from God—resistance as the Kabbalah states—and now it immerses us in bubble after bubble of reality, impacting our behavior, our perceptions and our relationships with others from moment-to-moment.

Even our ability to walk on water.

The tank was first revealed in October 1999 during the national parade and entered service in small numbers for operational tests and evaluation before the finalisation of the design.

The production version, known initially as Type 98 and later as Type 98G, and then finally improve the performance and named it as Type 99, was revealed in 2001. It has an improved engine and additional Leopard 2A5-style sloped armour on the turret front and sides.

The official manufacturer's designation seems to be ZTZ-99. The tank is also known by its industrial index as the WZ-123 MBT. The unit price is greater than 16 million renminbi yuan (2006 price, ~2 million USD, ~1.6 million EUR).

In part due to its high cost, this tank will not be deployed in large numbers, like earlier models such as the Type 59. Due to its limited numbers, the Type 99 is currently only operated by PLA's elite divisions.

Design

The development of the new tank was initiated in the early 90s during the Gulf War. Western tanks had destroyed numerous Iraqi Soviet-made T-72s, which were comparable to the most advanced tank in the PLA arsenal at the time: the Type 90 tank. The PLA realised that their tanks were no match for the Western MBT designs such as the Challenger 2 and M1A1, and initiated a project to develop a new, modern main battle tank which eventually resulted in the Type 99. The design was heavily influenced by the Soviet T-80 and the German Leopard 2. Features include a sloped turret armor for increased protection, among others. The driver's compartment is in the front while the fighting compartment lies directly behind it and the engine is installed in the rear.

To accommodate more equipment and ammunition, the Type 99's turret is slightly larger than that of the Type 90, resulting in a gap between the turret and hull in the front. This could be a major disadvantage in battle as it acts as a shot trap and exposes the turret ring, increasing the likelihood of hits from the front jamming the turret.

This effect, however, is not to be confused with the World War II shot-trap effect, for modern long-rod kinetic energy penetrators (APFSDS) behave in a different manner to traditional solid shot armour-piercing rounds. The Leopard 2A5 and 2A6 also feature this wedge on the turret front, which Leopard engineers deliberately designed in such a way as to subject an incoming APFSDS round to yaw forces. This places the penetrator under enormous stress, so much so that it may shear, thus preventing its penetration of the turret. The projectile still imparts its kinetic energy to the turret, but not in a fashion that will penetrate the armour.

The tank is equipped with an active laser defense system. The laser warning receiver can determine the location of an attacking enemy tank, while the high-powered laser dazzler can damage or destroy the enemy's optics (eyes). It can also be used as a secure communications device.

The ZTZ99’s main armament includes a dual-axis fully-stabilised 125mm/50-calibre ZPT98 smoothbore gun with a carousel-style autoloader, a thermal sleeve, and a fume extractor. It is a further developement of the 120mm Chinese Design. The gun can be fired by either electronic or manual control. The gun barrel can be replaced within one hour. Loading is mechanical with 41 rounds carried inside the turret and vehicle hull. The gun can fire about 8 rounds per minute using autoloader and 1~2 rounds per minute with manual loading. Ammunition includes armour-piercing fin stabilized discarding sabot (APFSDS), high explosive anti-tank (HEAT), and high explosive fragmentation (HE-FRAG) projectiles. China has also reportedly manufactured Russian AT-11 laser-guided anti-tank missiles (ATGM) to be fired from the 125 mm gun for enemy tank with Explosive Reactive Armour, with an effective range of 4.5km. In addition, the Chinese have developed depleted uranium (DU) rounds for their tanks and these may be available for the Type 99. The primary kinetic energy armour-piercing ammunition for the 125mm tank gun is the APFSDS round with a 30:1 length/calibre heavy tungsten alloy penetrator and the round has a muzzle velocity of 1,780m/s and is capable of penetrating 850mm steel armour at a distance of 2,000m. A depleted uranium (DU) APFSDS round which can penetrate 960mm steel armour at a distance of 2,000m and the accuracy range would be approx 5km on non moving target with APFSDS depleted uranium.

Armour

Currently, the actual armour composition of the Type-99/ZTZ-99 remains unknown. There are public photos of experimental Chinese composite armours, specifically Al₂O₃ which has been tested. The armour didn't sustain any significant damage after being shot by a T-72C 125mm armament 7 times or a 105mm armament 9 times in a range of 1,800 meters The tank’s front armour protection is equivalent to 1,000~1,200mm of steel armour.^[4] Also, there are significant differences between the armour packages displayed on the current Type 99s and the ones first seen in 1999.

Another theory that has been suggested is that the armor additions are not ERA, but composite layers in block formThe reason is that the blocks are too large to be effectively used as ERA, since one detonation leads to a large unprotected area. Further support is given in the fact that Eastern Bloc armies had two armor packages after the introduction of ERA. Live ERA blocks for wartime and composite blocks for peacetime, as maintaining ERA blocks during operational conditions is both expensive and hazardous.

Fire accuracy is attained by the laser rangefinder, wind sensor, ballistic computer, and thermal barrel sleeve. Dual axis stabilization ensures effective firing on the move. The commander has six periscopes and a stabilized panoramic sight. Both the commander and gunner have roof-mounted stabilized sights fitted with day/thermal channels, a laser rangefinder and an auto tracker facility. The commander has a display showing the gunner's thermal sight, enabling the commander to fire the main gun. The Thermal Imaging System (TIS) with cooled detector using processing in the element (SPRITE) technology has magnification x11.4 narrow field of view and x5 wide field of view.

The Type 99 is also fitted with a computerized onboard information processing system, which can collect information from vehicle navigation (Inertia/GPS), observation systems and sensors, process it in the computer and display it on the commander's display, giving the ability of real-time command and beyond-vision-range target engaging.

The Pentagon's annual report on China released last week highlighted Beijing's efforts to modernise its air force and navy, aimed largely at military contingencies against Taiwan, but also further afield.

Communist China has claimed sovereignty over Taiwan since the end of the civil war in 1949 and vows to bring the self-governed democracy back under mainland rule, if necessary by force.

Beijing backs up its threats by aiming nearly 1,000 missiles at Taiwan, according to the Taiwan government's estimate.

Analysts say Taiwan still maintains a slight qualitative edge in terms of aircraft and pilot training, but add that the gap has narrowed sharply due to partisan bickering in Taipei that has put new jet acquisitions on ice for more than a decade.

A string of training accidents has highlighted the advanced age of many aircraft, leading some to question how long the island can maintain its aerial advantage over China. A fighter jet crashed during exercises earlier this month, killing two crew and five soldiers on the ground.

"The gap is closing quickly," said Randall G. Schriver, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. "Air superiority not only protects Taiwan from air strikes, it is also key to preventing naval incursions ... and prevents against amphibious landing."

The People's Liberation Army (PLA) now has more than 700 aircraft capable of conducting combat operations against Taiwan without refuelling, according to the Pentagon's 2007 report on China's military power.

FIFTIES TECHNOLOGY

Still, much of that is based on 1950s Soviet technology, including Mig-19 and Mig-21 jets, analysts say.

"The PLA air force right now has superiority in quantity, but their training is not as good as Taiwan pilots, who fly around 15 hours per month. The PLA only fly 5 hours per month," said Eric Shih, chief convener at Defence International magazine in Taipei.

The slip in Taiwan's air dominance comes after the island has already lost its edge on land. Taiwan's ground forces are now outnumbered by China's army by more than 10-to-1, the Pentagon report shows.

Taiwan's premier naval vessels include four U.S.-made Kidd class destroyers, but even they are outgunned 6-to-1 by the Chinese equivalent, the report says. Underwater, Taiwan's fleet of four ageing subs is outnumbered by almost 60 for China.

Even the Taiwan defence department has expressed concern at the narrowing gap, without directly mentioning air power.

Earlier this year, China unveiled its advanced Jian-10 multirole indigenous fighter jet, with plans to produce 1,200 of the aircraft, according to previous Pentagon estimates.

"Not only does the J-10 pose a risk to the Russian fighter export market, but it considerably boosts the Chinese air force's tactical offensive capabilities, especially vis-a-vis Taiwan," said GlobalSecurity.org on its Web site.

The site estimates that by 2005 China had 200 Russian-made Su-30s and 180 Su-27s. It also a co-production agreement with Russia to build its own version of the Su-27, known as the J-11.

Taiwan counters China's threat with around 150 U.S.-made F-16s, 56 French-supplied Mirage 2000s, 130 Indigenous Defence Fighters (IDFs) and 60 or so 1970s-era F-5s.

While the numbers are moving in China's direction, Taiwan is bolstered by the implicit assistance of the United States.

The United States switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979, recognising "one China", but is obliged by the Taiwan Relations Act to help the island defend itself and is its biggest arms supplier.

Taiwan's military wants to buy more advanced fighters for its air force, but has been stalled by partisan government bickering.

Washington has denied its request to buy 60 more F-16s to replace the IDFs and F-5s due to parliament's repeated failure to pass a budget for a U.S. weapons package first offered in 2001.

Opposition lawmakers said the original $18 billion budget was hugely inflated and some weapons offered were too provocative.

At the same time the defence ministry's budget has steadily declined as a real percentage of GDP, endangering existing weaponry by reducing funds available for maintenance.

"If more than 50 percent of the money goes to personnel, then how much is left for maintenance?" said Arthur Ding, a politics research fellow at National Chengchi University's Institute of International Relations.