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say it, don't spray it. [16 Sep 2007|03:36am] it's 3:36AM. i find myself sitting here in front of the lcd glow of my computer monitor wondering about knowledge. it's a cliche intro, but frankly, i'm out of practice. Looking back over the past three months, I find myself staring at a series of car wrecks laced together with daisy chains. it's like the most fucked up children's arts and crafts project you can imagine. the worst part is that i feel like i'm sitting in the middle of all of these things not taking action. rewinding for a moment, i should take the time to discuss what has actually taken place in the corporeal time line of this past summer.  late june: holly and i break up after a year plus of being back together. this is a cluttered and private affair and i only type it all out here because i need to straighten a few things out, uncramped by the confines of my rotting skull. holly and i are two very different people. she is a girl that's rooted in ideas of financial success and the comfort of routine. at first glance, that might sound like a very negative review. i really don't think so, though. holly constans davis is a beautiful person from the chocolate colored tip of her head's highest hair down to the last microscopic increment of the feet that she loved to hate. she is a girl that constantly strove to better herself, though i would often think for the wrong reasons. i loved holly incredibly. i still do, though i cannot tell you a recent inspiration for this love as she won't return my attempts to contact her. now, i know holly and myself will never be together again as lovers, but i still miss the girl that used to be my best friend. i suppose i digress, though. the point i was making is that holly is a person who holds her head high whenever she can find the strength, the kind of girl that you can see the breadth of her will to get her goals before your eyes can even focus on her. she is a girl that i found prefers to let her problems be rather than explore them, explain them and otherwise dismantle their power. i, on the other hand, am the foolish kind of man that delves into his darkest caverns a bit too often. i sway from one extreme to the other in a slow and awkward waltz that any fish on land would be proud of. i do far too little to expand myself. i allow my talents to waste away while simultaneously extrapolating them into a creativity filled future that becomes blurrier with every lost opportunity. holly and i don't work. i hesitate to say that we could never work. i refuse to say that there was not a time when we did work. however, when you bring together a girl that demands so much of herself and all of the world around her and a little boy that tries to play cynical intellectual without the brains, the experience, or the drive to even get his impersonation right, you find yourself left with a really disgusting concoction. seriously, let's think a colonic cleansing-tini with potters vodka. now, the reason i use such a harsh word as disgusting isn't because the combination was volatile or overtly dissatisfying. on the contrary, my life with holly felt like a dream come true for a big portion of it. however, one day my backbone crumbled and holly's disappointment for me grew until one day i was more a shadow of my former self than when she found me (and managing a fall from grace like that at age 18, i dare say i put emperor nero to shame in the scale of my decline) and she realized that she no longer loved me. or rather that i was no longer the person that she loved. i often think that same thing of her. i helped turn her into another person through that year. i affected her in ways that i can never know, and i wouldn't dare guess for fear of giving myself too much or too little credit for any of those changes. i fear i made my holly bitter. i fear i made her lose faith in those that she loves. i fear that i may have crippled her ability to trust. and now i sit here, in front of that over-glowing pane of kiddie porn and two-bit opinion pieces, thinking that it's probably best that i never see my holly again. without the hindrance of my dead weight and broken promises, she can hopefully succeed, or at least not suffer the horrible pain i gave her. i'm sure whoever reads this must know the pain of hurting one of the only things you want to protect, like turning a gorgeous idol to dust with the force of a kiss on the lips. and oh, what of those lips. honestly, they haunt my dreams. i find myself waking with a start as holly holds me tight to her chest. i sigh with disappointment when i realize i had not been fucking her moments before my eyes pulled open, but was probably writhing alone in my sheets. however, my first love isn't mine to love any longer and i don't think there is a single person i can rightfully blame for that. we tried to stay friends, holly and i. we attempted to hang out, make time for one another, see movies, grab lunch. i couldn't do it, though. the weight of her influence was still too much for my weak shoulders. i was too weak to love as a friend the girl i claim to have once loved like great authors write of loving. and so begins the parade of 'woe is me.' frankly, i don't feel sorry for myself. i brought all of this upon myself by ignoring myself. by fabricating visions of a reality that wasn't there, instead of facing the problems truly right in front of me. and i've got to say, i see the humor in my world of fantasy being just as fucked up as reality. so, holly has locked herself in the room we shared in my life and she's vowed to never let me have the key. for now, i try to move on. there is a recurring problem in my life where i refuse to live in the present. that's the reason i can never be a true cynic. i'm far too romantic for that. and far too insecure for that matter. i dream and dread of possibility, expounding on about the different ways i could alter my life by taking one option or another. leap frog-ing my way from old heartbreak to future love stories, ignoring the reality in between. i actually have the audacity to ignore the most pungently and intoxicatingly beautiful part of life that is the present. and following that pattern of resurrecting my dead past, i pursued my samantha once again. like the arsonist that doesn't care enough to leave himself a path out of the brush fire, i let myself drown in old obsessions over a past love. i tried to do with sam what i had failed to do with holly. i really tried to bring the dead back to life. i've learned my lesson there. i cannot love samantha thompson. she can never love me. sometimes i doubt if she knows what love means yet. i'm beginning to think i'm in that boat with her. i'm doing the breast stroke through thick words like lust, obsession, adoration, admiration, jealousy, possession. I'm pulling apart the loves of a father for his daughter, a son for his mother, a brother for his sister, and throwing them into tiny little filing cabinets that can't possibly exist. right now i find myself doubting if the love of equals that i find myself striving for can even exist for me. if all of this world is crafted from games of control and submission, willful or otherwise, i can't help but wonder if there's no way to view someone as a contemporary. i sometimes have to stop myself from too quickly saying "she is like me because she's anxious" or "he reminds me of myself in his cocky demeanor." it's like i find myself constantly searching for an equal. but it's hard when you're 18 years old and your practical and emotional education ranges from the understanding of an old and experienced man to that of an infant depending on the subject matter. i doubt seriously that there is a set protocol for development as a human being, but i can't stop thinking that i've somehow gotten the order so awe-strikingly bad that my last sentence is written before my prologue. i'm dripping with cliches tonight. veering sharply back to the root of this tangent, i'll just say that removing samantha from my life at this point is probably for the best. in the background of all of this, i found myself playing jewish mystic, trying to bring back holly in the gollum of girl similar to her in minute ways. i'm not sure how many of these similarities i saw at first glance and how much of my talking to her hinged on a preknowledge of those attributes, but the longer i looked, the more i saw my holly's image forming where this girl's face should have been. i've cut things off with this girl, mainly, and i doubt there will be anything other than a lost possibility checked in her life for me. again, it's probably for the best. now i'm sitting on the cusp of possibility for the first time in a while. i have the chance to do anything with my life and i have to make some choices. there is this girl, morgan. she's cute, bright, young, precocious, affectionate, naive, astute in that way that only the abused and emotionally deprived can be. the funny thing is, i don't think she's broken by it yet. i have no place dipping my sullied hands into her life. i have no right to bring her down with me. furthermore, i'm asking whether i have the chance to avoid sinking deeper by staying away from her. i've started smoking and drinking again. they're unnecessary crutches and i'm sure there's self destruction, fear, and insecurity at the base of their recurrent cameos in my life story. i find myself wondering if morgan is a positive influence on my life. if she has what i need to tear what's inside my flesh out to share it with the fresh air. i shouldn't be looking for that motivation in another person, though. all i really know is that she's too young, she makes me happy, her confusion frustrates me but is reflective of her love interest, and that she is something else entirely from what i've been around. most of all, she's not my past. but do i really want to risk making her my past? i can't say yet for sure, i'm trying to resist my urge to jump into the deep end. i'm testing my abilities to not bow to the strength of my loneliness. i will know this girl before i allow myself to proclaim that i love her. for now, i'm tired. so, i'll leave this entry with just one wish. i truly, deeply, and sincerely hope that this time around my kisses won't turn anything to dust. i've never been all that talented with sweeping up. post comment

[08 Jul 2007|06:45pm] i know i have a tendency to post movies, articles, and documentaries that you just don't want to see. i know that there is plenty of shit out there that you just don't care about. certainly there are some of you that find my views offensive, degrading to your lifestyle, or even villanous or evil. but here i have a video, and i don't expect many of you to agree with all of the things in this documentary. i certainly don't accept them blindly. i held off on posting this bulletin while i looked around the internet to collaborate at least the main talking points of this movie. this is a comprehensive run-down of the way in which the world we live in now has come to be shaped by centralized banking, media, and religion. it is arrogant and abbrasive as it should be given the information that is found in its content. the ills of this world, the debt of this nation, the continuation of world-wide warfare and the destruction of the beauty of the humanity and the planet we live on are shown as the results of a calculated set of steps by a corporate plutocracy to centralize power and wealth for only the purpose of power and wealth. without furth adeiu, i give you <a href=http://www.tv-links.co.uk/show.do/9/4795>ZeitGeist: The Movie<a> post comment

these are what my aim conversations are like [20 Feb 2007|05:16pm] blamboomexplode: you know, i just flatly don't believe in monogamy. i know i've told you that before, but fuck the idea of it makes me sick sometimes. it's just such a blatant denial of human nature. then again, i think the fucking backwater hypocritical have your cake and eat it too mentality that makes people want to have multiple partners and still have all their partners to him or herself is so fucking pervasive that the denial might just be the easier solution for the majority of humanity these days. female friend: I completely believe in monogamy, I just can't seem to follow it. blamboomexplode: because it's against human nature. i adamently believe that people are capable of having intimacy while simultaneously having open sexuality. people claim like those open and honest relationships always decay into hatred and end badly, but hell, that's exactly what happens in monogamous relationships, it's just that the cards aren't out in the open. the same messy bullshit plus a side helping of deceit. female friend: Hah I believe that being intimate with only one person allows your true self to come out more. Knowing that you're the only one for eachother like that makes it easier to trust them and be comfortable around them. Which may simply have to do with jealousy issues, but so be it. blamboomexplode: i think that, of course you're going to tend toward having the most and closest intimacy with one person. that's why little kids get best friends in the first place. but i also think, and i believe you've voiced the same idea, that by following a strictly monogamous track, people cut themselves off, emotionally and physically, from the outside world. if you are able to have an intimate relationship with someone and truly identify with them that you care for them more than for any other, without cutting yourself off, isn't that healthier? it may require greater trust, but finding that greater trust would only strengthen the relationship as a whole in my opinion. further more, it would not eliminate, but at least lessen the weight of desire, guilt, etc. from the equation. female friend: Without cutting yourself off from the world, yes. Without cutting yourself off from sex with other people, no. blamboomexplode: what's your rationale? female friend: I feel that sex is meant to be shared with the one person that's known as your significant other. The rest of it you need to get from everyone around you, which is why being around someone all the time isn't good. blamboomexplode: i just feel that limiting sexuality off as some ultimate gift makes it the central object of the relationship, which i just don't agree with. also, i think that dictating it as something meant to be given to only one and left at that has an almost "my town is the best town in the world, therefore i will never leave my town," feel to it. a bit of a sloppy comparison, but i guess i just mean to say, again, that it's simply blocking off a type of interpersonal connection with the outside world. throughout biology, the more complex the social structure and intelligent the animals within it, the more that either war or sex is needed to solve problems and bond groups. female friend: I just think of it as something that you share with people that you have a future with. To sleep with people that you don't have a relationship beyond friendship with seems wrong to me and from personal experience, it's very unfulfilling and empty. blamboomexplode: well, i find sex with acquaintances to be pretty unappealing. but i think we might have different ideas of the intimacy required for a friendship. the people that i truly consider friends, i have a distinct and powerful loyalty and feeling of respect and responsibility for. and i feel that if there's a sexual attraction accompanied with that friendship, it may make it a different and more intimate and somehow less categorical as a friendship, it still holds a deep meaning. i would not consider myself friends with anyone that i could not see myself having a future with. not simply in a romatic sense. female friend: But sex will, no matter what your intentions are, complicate things. Casual sex is unhealthy and nine times out of ten leads to someone getting hurt. blamboomexplode: complicate, deepen, intensify. i don't find complicating a relationship to be a bad thing necessarily. it will make it change though, certainly. how do you mean "unhealthy?" female friend: Mentally unhealthy. It fucks with your head because your feelings will be different than the other persons and you feel like you're being used I think. blamboomexplode: sex, in all forms, depending on your outlook, can be viewed as use. female friend: I suppose. blamboomexplode: or, in the same light, it can be seen as sharing an experience, or even providing for the other person and filling a need of theirs. female friend: But when you're in a loving committed relationship it will mean more and be an extension of that. blamboomexplode: and i believe that it can be an expression and extension of the feeling and commitment you have for more than a single person. like i said, the ability to view sex in different lights and to give it different meanings is pretty inherent. like you seeing casual sex as being used. but rather than it being a negative thing that sex can have different levels of value and meaning, i feel that it should be, if not embraced, then at least not shunned. sex is so many different things in the first place. female friend: It is. But nevertheless every time I have had casual sex I have regretted it because I know that that person wasn't there because they had feelings for me, because if they did that's not the way they would have gone about it. Not that I had feelings for them, so it's hypocritical but just the way I feel. I walk out of it feeling dirty. It makes me think I don't value myself enough. blamboomexplode: i can certainly respect your feelings on that matter, but do you have a good solid talk about it before hand with the person? do you go right into it? do you express those feelings of loss of value with the person afterward? and i'm not trying to criticize at all, i'm just curious. female friend: Nope, it's all pretty much just happened. With one person we've talked many times about wether we're doing the right thing and how we feel, and in return I feel safe with him and have a lot of fun hanging around him. being around him* blamboomexplode: well, then, i might say that the problem isn't in the act itself, but in the fact that you've given someone a gesture of extreme trust, admiration, attraction, lust, intimacy (whatever mix and match of those happens to be motivating you) to a person, and have not been given the mental and emotional intimacy that should accompany it. if nothing more than a simple understanding, the sharing of your body should accompany a sharing of your mind. female friend: That makes it better, but going in a full circle, I still believe in monogamy! :-) blamboomexplode: haha, and you're totally entitled to that opinion, i wouldn't dare try to strip it away from you. i just hope you have a certain level more of respect for my hatred of your opinion. haha. if i believed in using smiley faces, you'd see one at this point. haha. female friend: Haha I understand where you're coming from, it would just never work for me. post comment

[23 Oct 2006|06:32pm] When Jesus was on the cross..... You were on his mind! Repost this with the title "Myspace 2" or you are denying him In the bible it says "if you deny me before man, I will deny you before my father Is that so? Last time I checked, denying a chain letter wasn't a fucking denial of God. Secondly, God isn't real. Get over it. If you believe in some false god, good for you. But keep it the fuck out of my life. I don't need to listen to your asinine garbage because you're too weak-minded to face the idea of not being led by a deital leesh every fucking day. Honestly, and I know this won't have an effect on any of your christ sheep but I'm going to say it just because of that bulletin, God does not exist. Most Christians use the justification of "how do you explain the universe around us if there is no God?" That defense is total bullshit. There have been gods since the dawn of time to explain what cannot be explained. Mayans, Greco-Romans, Egyptians, Aztecs, Wiccans, Celtics, Hindus; they all have one thing in common. Their cultures were once abundant with gods and goddesses that explained the mundane events in time that most Judeo-Christians take for granted. They had rain gods, harvest gods, sun gods. Over time, those gods ceased to exist. The followings of those religions were abolished in two different ways. Either they were destroyed by a Judeo-Christian society or were abandoned because of scientific awakenings. There are no sun gods and no rain gods because we understand the scientific mechanics of the sun and the water cycle. Now what are there? There are only gods of creation remaining. Why? Because it's the one unanswered question. Here's a word of advice: look at the world around you and try not to be so fucking afraid. So what if there's no purpose? So what if you're here just because of a fluke in in a universe that we cannot even begin to truly explain. Have the bravery to spit in God's face, why don't you? At least then you can say you took one immense risk in your life. And if one day I find myself burning in the pits of hell, then so be it. At least I will be suffering at the hands of my convinction rather than servicing something because of my mortal fears and pathetic tendency to follow. Yours truly, - A fed up human being. 5 comments|post comment

[16 Oct 2006|06:51pm] ( Read more... ) The September 2006 summit in Paris between Russia’s Vladimir Putin, French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, underscored the re-emerging of Russia as a major global power. The new Russia is gaining in influence through a series of strategic moves revolving around its geopolitical assets in energy—most notably its oil and natural gas. Tool Box Receive COA News headlines by e-mail It’s doing so by shrewdly taking advantage of the strategic follies and major political blunders of Washington. The new Russia also realizes that if it does not act decisively, it soon will be encircled and trumped by a military rival, USA, for which it has little defenses left. The battle, largely unspoken, is the highest stakes battle in world politics today. Iran and Syria are seen by Washington strategists as mere steps to this great Russian End Game. The formal Paris summit agenda included French investment in Russia and the issue of Iran’s (Russian-built) nuclear program. Notably, however, it also included the question of future Russian energy supplies to the European Union, notably, Germany. It was an indication of the new strength of Putin’s Russia. Putin told the German Chancellor that Russia would ‘possibly’ redirect some of the future natural gas from its giant Shtokman field in the Barents Sea. The $20 billion project is due to come online 2010 and had been slated to provide liquified natural gas to United States terminals. Since the devastating setbacks two years ago from the US-sponsored ‘color revolutions’ in Georgia, and then Ukraine, Russia has begun to play its strategic energy cards extremely carefully, from nuclear reactors in Iran to military sales to Venezuela and other Latin American states, to strategic market cooperation deals in natural gas with Algeria. At the same time, the Bush Administration has dug itself deeper into a geopolitical morass, through a foreign policy agenda which has reckless disregard for its allies as well as its foes. That reckless policy has been associated with former Halliburton CEO, Dick Cheney, more than any other figure in Washington. The ‘Cheney Presidency,’ which is what historians will no doubt dub the George W. Bush years, has been based on a clear strategy. It has often been misunderstood by critics who had overly focussed on its most visible component, namely, Iraq, the Middle East and the strident war-hawks around the Vice President and his old crony, Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld. The ‘Cheney strategy’ has been a US foreign policy based on securing direct global energy control, control by the Big Four US or US-tied private oil giants-- ChevronTexaco or ExxonMobil, BP or Royal Dutch Shell. Above all, it has aimed at control of all the world’s major oil regions, along with the major natural gas fields. That control has moved in tandem with a growing bid by the United States for total military primacy over the one potential threat to its global ambitions—Russia. Cheney is perhaps the ideal person to weave the US military and energy policies together into a coherent strategy of dominance. During the early 1990’s under father Bush, Cheney was also Secretary of Defense. The Cheney-Bush administration has been dominated by a coalition of interests between Big Oil and the top industries of the American military-industrial complex. These private corporate interests exercise their power through control of the government policy of the United States. An aggressive militaristic agenda has been essential to it. It is epitomized by Cheney’s former company, Halliburton Inc., at one and the same time the world’s largest energy and geophysical services company, and the world’s largest constructor of military bases. To comprehend the policy it’s important to look at how Cheney, as Halliburton CEO, viewed the problem of future oil supply on the eve of his becoming Vice President. ‘Where the Prize Ultimately Lies’: Cheney’s 1999 London speech Back in September 1999, a full year before the US elections which made him the most powerful Vice President in history, Cheney gave a revealing speech before his oil industry peers at the London Institute of Petroleum.. In a global review of the outlook for Big Oil, Cheney made the following comment: "By some estimates there will be an average of two per cent annual growth in global oil demand over the years ahead along with conservatively a three per cent natural decline in production from existing reserves. That means by 2010 we will need on the order of an additional fifty million barrels a day. So where is the oil going to come from? Governments and the national oil companies are obviously controlling about ninety per cent of the assets. Oil remains fundamentally a government business. While many regions of the world offer great oil opportunities, the Middle East with two thirds of the world‘s oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies. Even though companies are anxious for greater access there, progress continues to be slow. It is true that technology, privatisation and the opening up of a number of countries have created many new opportunities in areas around the world for various oil companies, but looking back to the early 1990‘s, expectations were that significant amounts of the world‘s new resources would come from such areas as the former Soviet Union and from China. Of course that didn‘t turn out quite as expected. Instead it turned out to be deep water successes that yielded the bonanza of the 1990‘s." The Cheney remarks are worth a careful reading. He posits a conservative rise in global demand for oil by the end of the present decade, i.e. in about 4 years. He estimates the world will need to find an added 50 million barrels of daily output. Total daily oil production at present hovers around the level of some 83 million barrels oil equivalent. This means that to avert catastrophic shortages and the resultant devastating impact on global economic growth, by Cheney’s 1999 estimate, the world must find new oil production equal to more than 50% of the 1999 daily global output, and that, by about 2010. That is the equivalent of five new oil regions equal to today’s Saudi Arabian size. That is a whopping amount of new oil. Given that it can take up to seven years or more to bring a new major oilfield into full production, that’s also not much time if a horrendous energy crunch and sky-high oil and gas prices are to be averted. Cheney’s estimate was also based on an overly conservative estimate of future oil import demand in China and India, today the two fastest growing oil consumers on the planet. A second notable point of Cheney’s 1999 London comments was his remark that, ‘the Middle East with two thirds of the world‘s oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies.’ However, as he revealingly remarked, the oil ‘prize’ of the Middle East was in national or government hands, not open to exploitation by the private market, and thus, hard for Cheney’s Halliburton and his friends in ExxonMobil or Chevron or Shell or BP to get their hands on. At that time, Iraq, with the second largest oil reserves after Saudi Arabia in the Middle East, was under the rule of Saddam Hussein. Iran, which has the world’s second largest reserves of natural gas, in addition to its huge oil reserves, was ruled by a nationalist theocracy which was not open to US private company oil tenders. The Caspian Sea oil reserves were a subject of bitter geopolitical battle between Washington and Russia. Cheney’s remark that ‘Oil remains fundamentally a government business,’ and not private, takes on a new significance when we do a fast forward to September 2000, in the heat of the 2000 Bush-Cheney election campaign. That month Cheney, along with Don Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and many others who went on to join the new Bush Administration, issued a policy report titled, ‘Re-building America’s Defenses.’ The paper was issued by an entity named Project for the New American Century (PNAC). Cheney’s PNAC group called on the new US President-to-be to find a suitable pretext to declare war on Iraq, in order to occupy it and take direct control over the second largest oil reserves in the Middle East. Their report stated bluntly, ‘While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification (sic), the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein ...’ Cheney signed on to a policy document in September 2000 which declared that the key issue was ‘American force presence in the Gulf,’ and regime change in Iraq, regardless whether Saddam Hussein was good, bad or ugly. It was the first step in moving the US military to ‘where the prize ultimately lies.’ No coincidence that Cheney immediately got the task of heading a Presidential Energy Task Force review in early 2001, where he worked closely with his friends in Big Oil, including the late Ken Lay of Enron, with whom Cheney earlier had been involved in an Afghan gas pipeline project, as well as with James Baker III. Buried in the debate leading to the US bombing and occupation of Iraq in March 2003 was a lawsuit under the US Freedom of Information Act brought by Sierra Club and Judicial Watch., initially to find data on Cheney’s role in the California energy crisis. The suit demanded that Vice President Cheney make public all documents and records of meetings related to his 2001 Energy Task Force project. The US Commerce Department in summer 2003 ultimately released part of the documents, over ferocious Cheney and White House opposition. Amid the files of the domestic US energy review was, curiously enough, a detailed map of Iraqi oilfields, pipelines, refineries and terminals, as well as two charts detailing Iraqi oil and gas projects, and ‘Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts.’ The ‘foreign suitors’ included Russia, China and France, three UN Security Council members who openly opposed granting the US UN approval for invading Iraq. The first act of post-war occupation by Washington was to declare null and void any contracts between the Iraqi government and Russia, China and France. Iraqi oil was to be an American affair, handled by American companies or their close cronies in Britain, the first victory in the high-stakes quest, ‘where the prize ultimately lies.’ This was precisely what Cheney had alluded to in his 1999 London speech. Get the Middle East oil resources out of independent national hands and into US-controlled hands. The military occupation of Iraq was the first major step in this US strategy. Control of Russian energy reserves, however, was Washington’s ultimate ‘prize.’ De-construction of Russia: The ‘ultimate prize’ For obvious military and political reasons, Washington could not admit openly that its strategic focus, since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, had been the dismemberment or de-construction of Russia, and gaining effective control of its huge oil and gas resources, the ‘ultimate prize.’ The Russian Bear still had formidable military means, however dilapidated, and she still had nuclear teeth. In the mid-1990’s Washington began a deliberate process of bringing one after the other former satellite Soviet state into not just the European Union, but into the Washington-dominated NATO. By 2004 Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia all had been admitted into NATO, and the Republic of Georgia was being groomed to join. This surprising spread of NATO, to the alarm of some in western Europe, as well as to Russia, had been part of the strategy advocated by Cheney’s friends at the Project for the New American Century, in their ‘Rebuilding America’s Defenses’ report and even before. Already in 1996, PNAC member and Cheney crony, Bruce Jackson, then a top executive with US defense giant, LockheedMartin, was head of the US Committee to Expand NATO, later renamed the US Committee on Nato, a very powerful Washington lobby group. The US Committee to Expand NATO also included PNAC members Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Stephen Hadley and Robert Kagan. Kagan’s wife is Victoria Nuland, now the US Ambassador to NATO. From 2000 - 2003, she was a foreign policy advisor to Cheney. Hadley, a hardline hawk close to Vice President Cheney, was named by President Bush to replace Condoleezza Rice as his National Security Adviser. The warhawk Cheney network moved from the PNAC into key posts within the Bush Administration to run NATO and Pentagon policy. Bruce Jackson and others, after successfully lobbying Congress to expand NATO to Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary in 1999, moved to organize the so-called Vilnius Group that lobbied to bring ten more former Warsaw Pact countries on Russia’s periphery into NATO. Jackson called this the ‘Big Bang.’ President Bush repeatedly used the term ‘New Europe’ in statements about NATO enlargement. In a July 5, 2002 speech hailing the leaders of the Vilnius group, Bush declared, ‘Our nations share a common vision of a new Europe, where free European states are united with each other, and with the United States through cooperation, partnership, and alliance.’ Lockheed Martin’s former executive, Bruce Jackson, took credit for bringing the Baltic and other members of the Vilnius Group into NATO. Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on April 1, 2003, Jackson claimed he originated the ‘Big Bang’ concept of NATO enlargement, later adopted by the Vilnius Group of Baltic and Eastern European nations. As Jackson noted, his ‘Big Bang’ briefing ‘proposed the inclusion of these seven countries in NATO and claimed for this enlargement strategic advantages for NATO and moral (sic) benefits for the democratic community of nations.’ On May 19, 2000 in Vilnius, Lithuania, these propositions were adopted by nine of Europe's new democracies as their own. It became the objectives of the Vilnius Group.’ Jackson could also have noted the benefits to US military defense industry, including his old cronies at Lockheed Martin, with the creation of a vast new NATO arms market on the borders to Russia. Once that NATO goal was reached, Bruce Jackson and other members of the NATO eastern expansion lobby, closed the US Committee on Nato in 2003, and, seamlessly, in the very same office, re-opened as a new lobby organization, the Project on Transitional Democracies, which according to their own statement was ‘organized to exploit the opportunities to accelerate democratic reform and integration which we believe will exist in the broader Euro-Atlantic region over the next decade.’ In other words, to foster the series of Color Revolutions and regime change across Russian Eurasia. All three principals of the Project on Transitional Democracies worked for the Republican Party, and Jackson and Scheunemann have close ties with major military contractors, notably Lockheed Martin and Boeing. Jackson and other PNAC and U.S. Committee on NATO members also created a powerful lobby organization, the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq (CLI). CLI's advisory panel included hardline Democrats such as Rep. Stephen Solarz and Sen. Robert Kerrey. It was dominated by neo-conservatives and Republican Party stalwarts like Jeane Kirkpatrick, Robert Kagan, Richard Perle, William Kristol, and former CIA Director, James Woolsey. Serving as honorary co-chairs were Senators Joe Lieberman (D-CT) and John McCain (R-AZ). Jackson related that friends in the White House had asked him to create the CRI in 2002 to replicate the success he had had pushing for NATO expansion through his US. Committee on NATO by establishing an outfit aimed at supporting the administration's campaign to convince Congress and the public to support a war. “‘People in the White House said, ‘We need you to do for Iraq what you did for NATO',” Jackson told American Prospect magazine in a January 1, 2003 interview. In brief, NATO encirclement of Russia, Color Revolutions across Eurasia, and the war in Iraq, were all one and the same American geopolitical strategy, part of a grand strategy to ultimately de-construct Russia once and for all as a potential rival to a sole US Superpower hegemony. Russia-- not Iraq and not Iran-- was the primary target of that strategy. During a White House welcoming ceremony to greet the ten new NATO members in 2004, President Bush noted that NATO’s mission now extended far beyond the perimeter of the alliance. ‘NATO members are reaching out to the nations of the Middle East, to strengthen our ability to fight terror, and to provide for our common security,’ he said. But NATO’s mission now would extend beyond even global security. Bush added, ‘We’re discussing how we can support and increase the momentum of freedom in the greater Middle East.’ Freedom, that is, to come into the orbit of a Washington-controlled NATO alliance. The end of the Yeltsin era put a slight crimp in the US plans. Putin began slowly and cautiously to emerge as a dynamic national force, committed to rebuilding Russia, following the IMF-guided looting of the country by a combination of Western banks and corrupt Russian oligarchs. Russian oil output had risen since the collapse of the Soviet Union to the point that, by the time of the 2003 US war on Iraq, Russia was the world’s second largest oil producer behind Saudi Arabia. The real significance of the Yukos Affair The defining event in the new Russian energy geopolitics under Vladimir Putin took place in 2003. It was just as Washington was making it brutally clear it was going to militarize Iraq and the Middle East, regardless of world protest or UN niceties. A brief review of the spectacular October 2003 arrest of Russia’s billionaire ‘oligarch’ Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and state seizure of his giant Yukos oil group, is essential to understand Russian energy geopolitics. Khodorkovsky was arrested at Novosibirsk airport on October 25, 2003, by the Russian Prosecutor General's office on charges of tax evasion. The Putin government froze shares of Yukos Oil because of tax charges. They then took further actions against Yukos, leading to a collapse in the share price. What was little mentioned in Western media accounts, which typically portrayed the Putin government actions as a reversion to Soviet-era methods, was what had triggered Putin’s dramatic action in the first place. Khodorkovsky had been arrested just four weeks before a decisive Russian Duma or lower house election, in which Khodorkovsky had managed to buy the votes of a majority in the Duma using his vast wealth. Control of the Duma was to be the first step by Khodorkovsky in a plan to run against Putin the next year as President. The Duma victory would have allowed him to change election laws in his favor, as well as to alter a controversial law being drafted in the Duma, ‘The Law on Underground Resources.’ That law would prevent Yukos and other private companies from gaining control of raw materials in the ground, or from developing private pipeline routes independent of the Russian state pipelines. Khodorkovsky had violated the pledge of the Oligarchs made to Putin, that they be allowed to keep their assets--de facto stolen from the state in the rigged auctions under Yeltsin--if they stayed out of Russian politics and repatriated a share of their stolen money. Khodorkovsky, the most powerful oligarch at the time, was serving as the vehicle for what was becoming an obvious Washington-backed putsch against Putin. The Khodorkovsky arrest followed an unpublicized meeting earlier that year on July 14, 2003 between Khodorkovsky and Vice President Dick Cheney. Following the Cheney meeting, Khodorkovsky began talks with ExxonMobil and ChevronTexaco, Condi Rice’s old firm, about taking a major state in Yukos, said to have been between 25% and 40%. That was intended to give Khodorkovsky de facto immunity from possible Putin government interference by tying Yukos to the big US oil giants and, hence, to Washington. It would also have given Washington, via the US oil giants, a de facto veto power over future Russian oil and gas pipelines and oil deals. Days before his October 2003 arrest on tax fraud charges, Khodorkovsky had entertained George H.W. Bush, the representative of the powerful and secretive Washington Carlyle Group in Moscow. They were discussing the final details of the US oil company share buy-in of Yukos. Yukos had also just made a bid to acquire rival Sibneft from Boris Berezovsky, another Yeltsin-era Oligarch. YukosSibneft, with 19.5 billion barrels of oil and gas, would then own the second-largest oil and gas reserves in the world after ExxonMobil. YukosSibneft would be the fourth largest in the world in terms of production, pumping 2.3 million barrels of crude oil a day. The Exxon or Chevron buy-up of YukosSibneft would have been a literal energy coup d’etat. Cheney knew it; Bush knew it; Khodorkovsky knew it. Above all, Vladimir Putin knew it and moved decisively to block it. Khodokorvsky had cultivated very impressive ties to the Anglo-American power establishment. He created a philanthropic foundation, the Open Russia Foundation, modelled on the Open Society foundation of his close friend George Soros. On the select board of Open Russia Foundation sat Henry Kissinger and Kissinger’s friend, Jacob Lord Rothschild, London scion of the banking family. Arthur Hartman, a former US Ambassador to Moscow, also sat on the foundation’s board. Following Khodorkovsky's arrest, the Washington Post reported that the imprisoned Russian billionaire had retained the services of Stuart Eizenstat - former deputy Treasury Secretary, Undersecretary of State, Undersecretary of Commerce during the Clinton Administration - to lobby in Washington for his freedom. Khodorkovsky was in deep with the Anglo-American establishment. Subsequent western media and official protest about Russia’s return to communist methods and raw power politics, conveniently ignored the fact that Khodorkovsky was hardly Snow White himself. Earlier, Khodorkovsky had unilaterally ripped up his contract with British Petroleum. BP had been a partner with Yukos, and had spent $300 million in drilling the highly promising Priobskoye oil field in Siberia. Once the BP drilling had been done, Khodorkovsky forced BP out, using gangster methods that would be unlawful in most of the developed world. By 2003 Priobskoye oil production reached 129 million barrels, equivalent to a value on the market of some $8 billions. Earlier, in 1998, after the IMF had given billions to Russia to prevent a collapse of the Ruble, Khodokorvosky’s Bank Menatep diverted an eye-popping $4.8 billion in IMF funds to his hand-picked bank cronies, some US banks among them. The howls of protest from Washington at the October 2003 arrest of Khodorkovsky were disingenuous, if not outright hypocritical. As seen from the Kremlin, Washington had been caught with its fat hand in the Russian cookie jar. The Putin-Khodorkovsky showdown signalled a decisive turn by the Putin government towards rebuilding Russia and erecting strategic defenses from the foreign onslaught led by Cheney and friend Tony Blair in Britain. It took place in the context of a brazen US grab for Iraq in 2003 and of a unilateral Bush Administration announcement that the USA was abrogating its solemn treaty obligations with Russia under their earlier Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, in order to go ahead with development of US missile defenses, an act which could only be viewed in Moscow as a hostile act aimed at her security. By 2003, indeed, it took little strategic military prowess to realize that the Pentagon hawks and their allies in the military industry and Big Oil had a vision of a United States unfettered by international agreements and acting unilaterally in its own best interests, as defined, of course, by the hawks. Their recommendations were published by one of the many Washington hawk conservative Think-Tanks. In January 2001 The National Institute for Public Policy (NIPP) issued Rationale and Requirements for U.S. Nuclear Forces and Arms Control, just as the Bush-Cheney Administration began. The report, demanding a unilateral US end to nuclear force reduction, was signed by 27 senior officials from past and current administrations. The list included the man who today is Bush’s National Security Adviser, Stephen Hadley; it included the special assistant to the Secretary of Defense, Stephen Cambone, and it included Admiral James Woolsey, the former head of CIA and chairman of the Washington NGO, Freedom House. Freedom House played a central role in Ukraine’s US-sponsored ‘Orange Revolution’ and all other ‘Color Revolutions’ across the former Soviet Union. These events were soon followed by the Washington-financed series of covert destabilizations of a number of governments in Russia’s periphery which had been close to Moscow. It included the November 2003 ‘Rose Revolution’ in Georgia which ousted Edouard Shevardnadze in favour of a young, US-educated and pro-NATO President, Mikheil Saakashvili. The 37-year-old Saakashvili had conveniently agreed to back the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline that would avoid Moscow pipeline control of Azerbaijan’s Caspian oil. The United States has maintained close ties with Georgia since President Mikheil Saakashvili has come to power. American military trainers instruct Georgian troops and Washington has poured millions of dollars into preparing Georgia to become part of NATO. Following its Rose Revolution in Georgia, Woolsey’s Freedom House, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), Soros Foundation and other Washington-backed NGOs organized the brazenly provocative November 2004 Ukraine ‘Orange Revolution.’ The aim of the Orange Revolution was to install a pro-NATO regime there under the contested Presidency of Viktor Yushchenko, in a land strategically able to cut the major pipeline flows from Russian oil and gas to Western Europe. Washington-backed ‘democratic opposition’ movements in neighboring Belarus also began receiving millions of dollars of Bush Administration largesse, along with Kyrgystan, Uzbekistan and more remote former Soviet states which also happen to form a barrier between potential energy pipelines linking China with Russia and the former Soviet states like Kazkhstan.. Again, energy and oil and gas pipeline control lay at the heart of the US moves. Little wonder, perhaps, that some people inside the Kremlin, notably Vladimir Putin, began to wonder if Putin’s new born-again Texan partner-in-prayer, George W. Bush, was in fact speaking to Putin with forked tongue, as the Indians would say. By the end of 2004 it was clear in Moscow that a new Cold War, this one over strategic energy control and unilateral nuclear primacy, was fully underway. It was also clear from the unmistakeable pattern of Washington actions since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, that End Game for USA policy vis-à-vis Eurasia was not China, not Iraq, and not Iran. The geopolitical ‘End Game’ for Washington was the complete de-construction of Russia, the one state in Eurasia capable of organizing an effective combination of alliances using its vast oil and gas resources. That, of course, could never be openly declared. After 2003 Putin and Russian foreign policy, especially energy policy, reverted to their basic response to the ‘Heartland’ geopolitics of Sir Halford Mackinder, politics which had been the basis of Soviet Cold War strategy since 1946. Putin began to make a series of defensive moves to restore some tenable form of equilibrium in face of the increasingly obvious Washington policy of encircling and weakening Russia. Subsequent US strategic blunders have made the job a bit easier for Russia. Now, with the stakes rising on both sides—NATO and Russia—Putin’s Russia has moved beyond simple defense to a new dynamic offensive, to secure a more viable geopolitical position, using its energy as the lever. Mackinder’s Heartland and Brzezinski’s Chess Game It’s essential to understand the historic background to the term geopolitics. In 1904, an academic British geographer named Halford Mackinder made an address before the Royal Geographic Society in London which was to change history. In his speech, titled, ‘The Geographical Pivot of History,’ Mackinder sought to define the relation between a nation’s or region’s geography—its topography, relation to the sea or land, its climate—with its politics and position in the world. He posited two classes of powers: sea powers including Britain and the United States as well as Japan; and he posited the large land powers of Eurasia, which, with development of the railroad, were able to unite large land masses free from dependency on the seas. For Mackinder, an ardent Empire advocate, the implicit lesson for continued hegemony of the British Empire following the 1914-1917 World War, was to prevent at all costs a convergence of interests between the nations of East Europe—Poland, Czechoslovakia , Austria-Hungary--and the Russia-centered Eurasia ‘Heartland’ or ‘pivot’ land,as he termed it. After the Versailles peace talks, Mackinder summed up his ideas in the following famous dictum: Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland; Who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island; Who rules the World-Island commands the world. Mackinder's Heartland was the core area of Eurasia, and the World-Island was all of Eurasia, including Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Great Britain, never a part of Continental Europe, he saw as a separate naval or sea-power. The Mackinder geopolitical perspective shaped Britain’s entry into the 1914 Great War, it shaped her entry into World War Two. It shaped Churchill’s calculated provocations of an increasingly paranoid Stalin, beginning 1943, to entice Russia into what became the Cold War. From a US perspective, the 1946-1991 Cold War era was all about who shall control Mackinder’s World-Island, and, concretely, how to prevent the Eurasian Heartland, centered on Russia, from doing just that. A look at a polar projection map of US military alliances during the Cold War makes the point: The Soviet Union had been geopolitically contained and prevented from any significant linkup with Western Europe or the Middle East or Asia. The Cold War was about Russian efforts to circumvent that NATO-centered Iron Curtain. Former US National Security Adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, writing in the post-Soviet era in 1997, drew on Mackinder’s geopolitics by name, in describing the principal strategic aim of the United States to keep Eurasia from unifying as a coherent economic and military bloc or counterweight to the sole superpower status of the United States. To understand US foreign policy since the onset of the Bush-Cheney Presidency in 2001, therefore, it’s useful to cite a revealing New York Council on Foreign Relations Foreign Affairs article by Brzezinski from September/October 1997: "Eurasia is home to most of the world's politically assertive and dynamic states. All the historical pretenders to global power originated in Eurasia. The world's most populous aspirants to regional hegemony, China and India, are in Eurasia, as are all the potential political or economic challengers to American primacy. After the United States, the next six largest economies and military spenders are there, as are all but one of the world's overt nuclear powers, and all but one of the covert ones. Eurasia accounts for 75 percent of the world's population, 60 percent of its GNP, and 75 percent of its energy resources. Collectively, Eurasia's potential power overshadows even America's. Eurasia is the world's axial supercontinent. A power that dominated Eurasia would exercise decisive influence over two of the world's three most economically productive regions, Western Europe and East Asia. A glance at the map also suggests that a country dominant in Eurasia would almost automatically control the Middle East and Africa. With Eurasia now serving as the decisive geopolitical chessboard, it no longer suffices to fashion one policy for Europe and another for Asia. What happens with the distribution of power on the Eurasian landmass will be of decisive importance to America's global primacy...’(emphasis added-w.e.) If we take the words of Washington strategist Brzezinski and understand the axioms of Halford Mackinder as the driving motive for Anglo, and later, American foreign policy for more than an entire century, it begins to become clear why a reorganized Russian state under the Presidency of Vladimir Putin has gone into motion to resist the overtures and overt attempts at deconstruction being promoted by Washington in the name of democracy. How has Putin acted to shore up Russian defenses? In a word: energy. Russian energy geopolitics In terms of the overall standard of living, mortality and economic prosperity, Russia today is not a world class power. In terms of energy, it is a colossus. In terms of landmass it is still the single largest nation in land area in the world, spanning from the Pacific to the door of Europe. It has vast territory, vast natural resources, and it has the world’s largest reserves of natural gas, the energy source currently the focus of major global power plays. In addition, it is the only power on the face of the earth with the military capabilities able to match that of the United States despite the collapse of the USSR and deterioration in the military since. Russia has more than 130,000 oil wells and some 2000 oil and gas deposits explored of which at least 900 are not in use. Oil reserves have been estimated at 150 billion barrels, similar perhaps to Iraq. They could be far larger but have not yet been exploited owing to difficulty of drilling in some remote arctic regions. Oil prices above $60 a barrel begin to make it economical to explore in those remote regions. Currently Russian oil products can be exported to foreign markets in three routes: Western Europe via the Baltic Sea and Black Sea; Northern route; Far East to China or Japan and East Asian markets. Russia has oil terminals on the Baltic at St. Petersburg for oil and a newly expanded oil terminal at Primorsk. There are added oil terminals under construction at Vysotsk, Batareynaya Bay and Ust-Luga. Russia’s state-owned natural gas pipeline network, its so-called ‘unified gas transportation system’ includes a vast network of pipelines and compressor stations extending more than 150,000 kilometers across Russia. By law only the state-owned Gazprom is allowed to use the pipeline. The network is perhaps the most valued Russian state asset outside the oil and gas itself. Here is the heart of Putin’s new natural gas geopolitics and the focus of conflict with western oil and gas companies as well as the European Union, whose Energy Commissioner, Andras Piebalgs, is from new NATO member Latvia, formerly part of the USSR. In 2001, as it became clear in Moscow that Washington would find a way to bring the Baltic republics into NATO, Putin backed the development of a major new oil port on the Russian coast of the Baltic Sea in Primorsk at a cost of $2.2 billion. This project, known as the Baltic Pipeline System (BPS), greatly lessens export dependency on Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. The Baltic is Russia’s main oil export route, carrying crude oil from Russia's West Siberian and Timan-Pechora oil provinces westward to the port of Primorsk in the Russian Gulf of Finland. The BPS was completed in March 2006 with capacity to carry more than1.3 million barrels/day of Russian oil to western markets in Europe and beyond. The same month, March 2006, former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder was named chairman of a Russian-German consortium building a natural gas pipeline going some 1,200 km under the Baltic Sea. Majority shareholder in this North European Gas Pipeline (NEGP) project, with 51%, is the Russian state-controlled Gazprom, the world’s largest natural gas company. The German companies BASF and E.On each hold 24.5%. The project, estimated to cost €4.7 billion, was started late 2005 and will connect the gas terminal at the Russian port city of Vyborg on the Baltic near St. Petersburg with the Baltic city of Greifswald in eastern Germany. The Yuzhno-Russkoye gas field in West Siberia will be developed in a joint venture between Gazprom and BASF to feed the pipeline. It was Gerhard Schroeder’s last major act as Chancellor, and provoked howls of protest from the pro-Washington Polish government, as well as Ukraine, who both stood to lose control over pipeline flows from Russia. Despite her close ties to the Bush Administration, Chancellor Angela Merkel has been forced to swallow hard and accept the project. Germany’s industry is simply dependent on the Russian energy import. Russia is by far the largest supplier of natural gas to Germany. The giant Shtokman gas deposit in the Russian sector of the Barents Sea, north of the Murmansk harbor, will ultimately also be a part of the gas supply of the NEGP. When completed in two parallel pipelines, NEGP will supply Germany up to 55 billion cubic meters more a year of Russian gas. In April 2006 the Putin government announced the first stage of construction of the East Siberia-Pacific Ocean Pipeline (ESPO), a vast oil pipeline from Taishet in the Irkutsk Region near Lake Baikal in East Siberia, to Perevoznaya Bay on Russia’s Pacific Ocean coast, to be built at a cost of more than $11.5 billion. Transneft, the Russian state-owned pipeline company will build it. When finished, it will pump up to 1.6 million barrels/day from Siberia to the Russian Far East and from there on to the energy-hungry Asia-Pacific, mainly to China. The first stage is due to be completed by end of 2008. In addition, Putin has announced plans to construct an oil refinery on the Amur River near the China border in Russia’s Far East to allow sale of refined product to China and Asian markets. Presently the Siberian oil can only be delivered to the Pacific via rail. For Russia, the Taishet to Perevoznaya route will maximize its national strategic benefits while taking oil exports to China and Japan into account at the same time. In the future, the country will be able to export oil to Japan directly from the Nakhodka Port. Oil-import-dependent Japan is frantic to find new secure oil sources outside the unstable Middle East. The ESPO can also supply oil to the Republic of Korea and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea through building from Vladivostok branch lines leading to the two countries and to China via a branch pipe between Blagoveshchensk and Daqing. The Taishet route provides a clear roadmap for energy cooperation between Russia and China, Japan and other Asia-Pacific countries. Sakhalin: Russia reins in Big Oil In late September 2006 a seemingly minor dispute exploded and resulted in the revocation of the environmental permit for Royal Dutch Shell’s Sakhalin II Liquified Natural Gas project, which had been due to deliver LNG to Japan, South Korea and other customers by 2008. Shell is lead energy partner in an Anglo-Japanese oil and gas development project on Russia’s Far East island of Sakhalin, a vast island north of Hokkaido Japan. At the same time, the Putin government announced environmental requirements had also not been met by ExxonMobil for their De Kastri oil terminal built on Sakhalin as part of its Sakhalin I oil and gas development project. Sakhalin I contains an estimated 8 billion barrels of oil and vast volumes of gas, making the field a rare Super-Giant oil find, in geologists’ terminology. In the early 1990’s the Yeltsin government made a desperation bid to attract needed investment capital and technology into exploiting Russian oil and gas regions at a time the government was broke and oil prices very low. In a bold departure, Yeltsin granted US and other western oil majors generous exploration rights to two large oil projects, Sakhalin I and Sakhalin II. Under a so-called PSA or Production Sharing Agreement, ExxonMobil, lead partner of the Sakhalin I oil project, got tax-free Russian concessions. Under the terms of the PSA’s, typical between major Anglo-American oil majors and weak Third World countries, Russia’s government would instead get paid for the oil and gas rights in a share of eventual oil or gas produced. But the first drops of oil to Russia would flow only after all project production costs had first been covered. PSA’s were originally developed by Washington and Big Oil to facilitate favorable control by the oil companies of large oil projects in third countries. The major US oil giants, working with the James Baker’s James Baker Institute, which drafted Dick Cheney’s 2001 Energy Task Force Review, used the PSA form to regain control over Iraq’s oil production, hidden behind the façade of an Iraqi state-owned oil company. Shortly before the Russian government told ExxonMobil it had problems with its terminal on Sakhalin, ExxonMobil had announced yet another cost increase in the project. ExxonMobil, whose attorney is James Baker III, and which is a close partner to the Cheney-Bush White House, announced a 30% cost increase, something that would put even further off any Russian oil flow share from the PSA. The news came on the eve of ExxonMobil plans to open an oil terminal at De Kastri on Sakhalin. The Russian Environment Ministry and the Agency for Subsoil Use suddenly announced the terminal did ‘not meet environmental requirements’ and is reportedly considering halting production by ExxonMobil as well. Britain’s Royal Dutch Shell under another PSA holds rights to develop the oil and gas resources in Sakhalin II region, and build Russia’s first Liquified Natural Gas project. The $20 billion project, employing over 17,000 people, is 80% complete. It’s the world’s largest integrated oil and gas project, and includes Russia’s first offshore oil production, as well as Russia’s first offshore integrated gas platform. The clear Russian government moves against ExxonMobil and Shell have been interpreted in the industry as an atttempt by the Putin government to regain control of Russian oil and gas resources it gave away during the Yeltsin era. It would cohere with Putin’s emerging energy strategy. Russia-Turkey Blue Stream gas project In November 2005 Russia’s Gazprom completed the final stage of its 1,213 kilometer $3.2 billion Blue Stream gas pipeline. The project brings gas from its gas fields in Krasnodar, then by underwater pipelines across the Black Sea to the Durusu Terminal near Samsun inon the Turkish Black Sea coast. From there the pipeline supplies Russian gas to Ankara. When it reaches full capacity in 2010 it will carry an estimated 16 billion cubic meters gas a year. Gazprom is now discussing transit of Russian gas to the countries of South Europe and East Mediterranean, including based on new contracts and new volumes of gas. Greece, South Italy and Israel all are in some form of negotiation with Gazprom to tap gas from the Blue Stream pipeline across the territory of Turkey. A new route for the gas supply is being developed now - the one via the countries of East and Central Europe. The interim title of the project is the South-European Gas Pipeline. The main issue here is to establish a new gas transmission system, both from Russian origin and from the third countries In sum, not including the emerging potentials of Gazprom’s entry into the fast-developing Liquified Natural Gas markets globally, energy, oil and gas and nuclear, is firmly at the heart of Russian attempts to build new economic alliance partners across Eurasia in the coming showdown with the United States. US plans for ‘Nuclear Primacy’ The key to the ability of Putin’s Russia to succeed is its ability to defend its Eurasian energy strategy with a credible military deterrent, to counter now-obvious Washington military plans for what the Pentagon terms Full Spectrum Dominance. In a revealing article titled ‘The Rise of US Nuclear Primacy,’ in the March/April 2006 Foreign Affairs, the magazine of the New York Council on Foreign Relations, authors Kier Lieber and Daryl Press made the following claim, ‘Today, for the first time in almost 50 years, the United States stands on the verge of attaining nuclear primacy. It will probably soon be possible for the United States to destroy the long-range nuclear arsenals of Russia or China with a first strike. This dramatic shift in the nuclear balance of power stems from a series of improvements in the United States' nuclear systems, the precipitous decline of Russia's arsenal, and the glacial pace of modernization of China's nuclear forces. Unless Washington's policies change or Moscow and Beijing take steps to increase the size and readiness of their forces, Russia and China — and the rest of the world — will live in the shadow of U.S. nuclear primacy for many years to come.’ The US authors claim, accurately, that since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia’s strategic nuclear arsenal has ‘sharply deteriorated.’ They also conclude that the United States is and has been for some time, intentionally pursuing global nuclear primacy. The September 2002 Bush Administration National Security Strategy explicitly stated that it was official US policy to establish global military primacy, an unsettling thought for many nations today given the recent actions of Washington since the events of September, 2001. One of Defense Secretary Rumsfeld’s priority projects has been the multi-billion dollar construction of a US missile defense. It has been sold to American voters as a defense against possible terror attacks. In reality, as has been openly recognized in Moscow and Beijing, it is aimed at the only two real nuclear powers, Russia and China. As the Foreign Affairs article points out, ‘the sort of missile defenses that the United States might plausibly deploy would be valuable primarily in an offensive context, not a defensive one — as an adjunct to a U.S. first-strike capability, not as a stand-alone shield. If the United States launched a nuclear attack against Russia (or China), the targeted country would be left with a tiny surviving arsenal — if any at all. At that point, even a relatively modest or inefficient missile-defense system might well be enough to protect against any retaliatory strikes, because the devastated enemy would have so few warheads and decoys left.’ In the context of a United States which has actively moved the troops of its NATO partners into Afghanistan, now Lebanon, and which is clearly backing the former USSR member Georgia, today a critical factor in the Caspian Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Turkey oil pipeline, in Georgia’s move to join NATO and push Russian troops away, it is little surprise that Moscow might be just a bit uncomfortable with the American President’s promises of spreading democracy through a US-defined Greater Middle East. The invented term, Greater Middle East is the creation of various Washington think-tanks close to Cheney including his Project for the New American Century, to refer to the non-Arabic countries of Turkey, Iran, Israel, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Central Asian (former USSR) countries, and Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia. At the G-8 Summit in Summer 2004 President Bush first officially used the term to refer to the region included in Washington’s project to spread ‘democracy’ in the region. On October 3, the Russian Foreign Ministry warned that Russia would ‘take appropriate measures’ should Poland deploy elements of the new US missile defense system. Poland is now a NATO member. Its Defense Minister, Radek Sikorski was a former Resident in Washington at Richard Perle’s hawkish AEI think-tank. He was also Executive Director of the New Atlantic Initiative, a project designed to bring the former Warsaw Pact countries of eastern Europe into NATO under the guise of spreading democracy. The United States is also building, via NATO, a European Missile Defense System. The only conceivable target of such a system would be Russia in the sense of enabling a US first strike success. Completion of the European missile defense system, the militarization of the entire Middle East, the encirclement of Russia and of China from a connected web of new US military bases, many put up in the name of the War on Terror, all now appear to the Kremlin as part of a deliberate US strategy of Full Spectrum Dominance. The Pentagon refers to it also as ‘Escalation Dominance,’ the ability to win a war at any level of violence, including a nuclear war. Moscow’s military status Moscow has not been entirely passive in the face of this growing reality. In his May 2003 State of the Nation Address, Vladimir Putin spoke of strengthening and modernizing Russia’s nuclear deterrent by creating new types of weapons, including for Russia’s strategic forces, which will ‘ensure the defense capability of Russia and its allies in the long term.’ Russia stopped withdrawing and destroying its SS-18 MIRVed missiles once the Bush Administration unilaterally declared an end to the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, and its de facto annulling of the Start II Treaty. Russia never stopped being a powerful entity that produced state-of-the-art military technologies — a trend that continued from its inception as a modern state. While its army, navy and air force are in derelict conditions, the elements for Russia's resurgence as a military powerhouse are still in place. Russia has been consistently fielding top-notch military technology at various international trade shows, and has been effective in the demonstration of its capabilities. In spite of financial and economic difficulties, Russia still produces state-of-the-art military technologies, according to a 2004 analysis by the Washington-based think tank, Power and Interest News Report (PINR). One of its best achievements after the dissolution of the Soviet Union has been its armored fighting vehicle BMP-3, which has been chosen over Western vehicles in contracts for the United Arab Emirates and Oman. Russia's surface-to-air missile systems, the S-300, and its more powerful successor, the S-400, are reported to be more potent than American-made Patriot systems. The once-anticipated military exercise between the Patriot and the S-300 never materialized, leaving the Russian complex with an undisputed, yet unproven, claim of superiority over the American system. Continuing this list is the Kamov-50 family of military helicopters that incorporate the latest cutting-edge technologies and tactics, making them an equal force to the best Washington has. European helicopter industry sources confirm this. In recent joint Indo-American air force exercises, where the Indian Air Force was equipped with modern Russian-made Su-30 fighters, the Indian Air Force out-maneuvered American-made F-15 planes in a majority of their engagements, prompting US Air Force General Hal Homburg to admit that Russian technology in Indian hands has given the US Air Force a ‘wake-up call.’ The Russian military establishment is continuing to design other helicopters, tanks and armored vehicles that are on par with the best that the West has to offer. Weapons export, in addition to oil and gas, has been one of the best ways for Russia to earn much-needed hard currency. Already, Russia is the second-largest worldwide exporter of military technology after the United States. As reported in various magazines, journals and periodicals, at present, Russia's modern military technology is more likely to be exported than supplied to its own armies due to the existing financial constraints and limitations of Russia's armed forces. This has implications for America's future combat operations since practically all insurgent, guerrilla, breakaway or terrorist armed formations across the globe — the very formations that the United States will most likely face in its future wars — are fielded with Russian weapons or its derivatives. Russian nuclear arsenal has played an important political role since the end of the Soviet Union, providing fundamental security for the Russian state. After a bitter intra-services fight within the Russian General Staff which lasted from 1998 to 2003, the General Staff realized along with the Defense Ministry that a further policy of neglect of nuclear forces in favor of funding rebuilding conventional forces in the face of tight budget constraints, was not tolerable. In 2003 Russia had to buy from Ukraine strategic bombers and ICBMs warehoused there. Since then strategic nuclear forces have been a priority. Today, the finances of the Russian state, thanks largely to high prices of oil and gas exports, are on a strong footing. The Russian Central Bank has become one of the five largest dollar reserve holders with reserves of more than $270 billions. The material foundation of the Russian military is its defense industry. After 1991 the Russian Federation inherited the bulk of the Soviet defense industrial complex. Today, with little fanfare, the US is building up its influence and military presence in the Middle East despite a general draw-down in its military commitments and expenditure. Why? Oil is certainly a large part of the answer. But in geopolitical terms, it is also to the Eurasian land power, Russia from access to the seas - just as Mackinder argued had to be done. The push for a US ‘nuclear primacy’ over Russia is the factor in world politics today which has the most potential for bringing the world into a nuclear conflagration by miscalculation. The basic argument of the Mackinder’s geopolitics is still relevant: ‘The great geographical realities remain: land power versus sea power, heartland versus rimland, centre versus periphery...’ This Russia understands every bit as Washington. post comment

[11 Jul 2006|05:34pm] (Click here to post your own answers for this meme.) ✓ I miss somebody right now.  (I miss my entire life) ✓ I don't watch much TV these days.  (At least, I try not to.) ✓ I own lots of books. × I wear glasses or contact lenses.  (But my eye sight, much like my hearing, is slowly disappearing.) × I love to play video games.  (I don't play them at all.) ✓ I've tried marijuana.  (I've lived it, too.) ✓ I've watched porn movies.  (I'd watch a Passion of the Christ based porn if I could.) × I have been the psycho-ex in a past relationship.  (I've been perceived that way by a girl that stalked me. Irony is nice.) ✓ I believe honesty is usually the best policy.  (Mantra of life.) ✓ I curse sometimes.  (Sometimes should not be the operative of that sentence. Please insert constantly.) ✓ I have changed a lot mentally over the last year.  (Character is liquescent) × I carry my knife/razor everywhere with me.  (Hollywood undead sucked.) ( it goes on... ) 2 comments|post comment

faggots [15 Jun 2006|04:23pm] Alright, one and all, I would like to take this time to make a formal statement on my views as to the subject of the proposed legality of marriage between homosexuals. This will probably be far too long and incredibly boring, none the less, I feel that after reading a certain chain letter bulletin via Kaliko Castille, that I really need to write this. There are many out there in the world that would take on same sex marriage from the standpoint of a faithful Christian or other Judeo-Christian based religious follower, and to these men and women, the main defense is the "word of God" as found in the Old Testament. Now, there are really only two places in all of the Old Testament where homosexuality is considered an act worthy of damnation or really any punishment whatsoever, and these would be in The Book of Leviticus and the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in The Book of Genesis (18 and 19). Some speculate that the sin-bound nature of homosexuality is also highlighted in the Book of Judges, 19, which talks of the destruction of the town of Gibeah. However, it is my personal opinion and the opninion of many religious scholars that the town of Gibeah is actually a reiteration of the story of Gomorrah that was not eliminated with the rest of the "double-ups" during the First Council of Nicaea, which eliminated such horrific abominations as the Gnostic texts which stressed that man seek knowledge and understanding of the world around itself, as well as The Book of Thomas, a book of morals which stressed that the differences between men be celebrated and that, of all things, homosexuality is a natural attribute of human and animal. But hey, I digress. Let's focus back on the Book of Leviticus, or as I would like to call it, "The book of really fucking ridiculous rules." "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind. It is an abomination.", "For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections, for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature.", "likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another, men with men working that which is unseemly, and recieving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet." Alright, yep. We get it, my dear Christ lovers. God obviously hates fags. But do any of you Christians know that the Book of Leviticus also claims that it's a crime against God to lay in a bed where a girl has slept during her menstrual flow, that if a man makes love to an animal, the animal should be put to death, and (here is one of my personal favorites) if a child curses against his or her parents, he or she shall burn in hell. How many of you God fearing, Christ praying Christians have n e v e r said a negative word against your parents? Well, take your time answering, I think we'll have plenty of time to discuss it when we're roasting ever so joyously in Hell. Alright, next let's take a gander at Sodom and Gomorrah.The modern view of this tale in most contemporary Christian communities is that the two cities were destroyed by the hand of God due to sexual depravity; specifically homosexuality. Often these days, the tale is interwoven into diatribes against homosexuals and same-sex marriage with all the over-glorified vindication of the "Holy" Cruisaders. But one might like to know that classical Jewish texts do not specifically indicate that God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah because the inhabitants were homosexual at all. Rather, they were destroyed because the inhabitants were generally depraved and uncompromisingly greedy. Rabbinic writings affirm that the primary crimes of the Sodomites were terrible and repeated economic crimes, both against each other and outsiders. The people of these cities were destroyed not because their men crowded around the house of Lot and demanded to fuck the shit out of some Angels, this was just a demonstration of the greed and lack of identification with the rights and personal freedoms of others. Sounds a hell of a lot like someone infringing on the rights of a certain person or peoples to live their lives in communal happiness. Kind of like people denying the rights of gays to marry and live their lives in domestic bliss. Furthermore, the main argument of Sodom and Gomorrah is that the men Sodom surrounded Lot's house to have sex with the Angels. But the word used in the text was enoshe, meaning "people" and not esh or eshal which mean "man" and "woman," respectively. So, take a moment to breathe that in. The two sources of religious approval for anti-homosexual outlooks are 1.) A book of laws and restrictions that are so detached and goddamn (pun indented) obtuse to the world around us that cussing out your parents is considered on par with same sex relations (Anti cussing constitutional amendment anyone??!) and 2.) A story with no actual disapproval, let alone direct mention, of homosexuality. But hey, there's always the argument that homosexuality is unnatural and that if animals don't do it, we shouldn't, right? OH FUCK, I completely forgot the fact that over 60% of identified bird varieties practice homosexuality... And strangely the numbers aren't too dissimilar in insects and mammals, either. Hell, there are even many male penguins, a species that mates for life, that have been observed in homosexual pairs and refuse to pair with females when given the chance. Hell even the bonobo, which has a matriarchal society (unusual amongst apes), is a fully bisexual species. Both males and females engage in sexual behaviour with the same and the opposite sex, with females being particularly noted for engaging in sexual behaviour with each other. So, not only is non-heterosexual tendency found in other species, there's a veritable pandemic of bisexuality in a group of primates that share 99% of our DNA structure. Those monkeys are gonna fucking burn. Now, there are still some out there holding onto your fiery backing for anti-homosexuality. There are those of you with the shining justification of HOLY MATRIMONY. One might think that marriage is the domain of the Church; that homosexuals have no right to impede the act of marriage because it is a holy act between a man and a woman. But, I hate to break it to you that marriage has existed within the Church and outside of it while including polygamy as well as same-sex marriage (most famously noted in ancient accounts of the Babylonian King Gilggamesh, who married three young men and a wife) since long, long before the Westernized ideals of monogomy were put into place. In fact, there is no recorded law stating that marriage exists between a man and a women exclusively until the rise of monogomy as a Germanic custom and was, in fact, not a part of Christian ideals until nearly 500 years after the death of Christ. Hell, the Western world is largely believed to only be a monogomous culture due to the spread of the the Justinian Code of Law during the reign of the Roman Empire. So, all in all, the cultures that act as the roots of the Western Church, from which the Leviticus and Genesis accounts of anti-homosexual beliefs stem, actually did not practice any form of strict monogomy and did not punish homosexuality. Also, there is in modern culture a very different meaning between legal marriage and religious matrimony. I will not dip into this particular argument too deeply just because of one simple fact which pervades any other argument on this subject in the United States of America. That, of course, being the separation of Church and State. No religious decree is meant to supercede or infringe upon the rights of any other faith or persons in this country. If we're talking about upholding tradition and the rules of our established world, then nothing can be said that legally allocates the illegalization of same sex marriage. Can't you biggots just accept that this is the next step in the progression of human rights and that you are fighting a losing battle? The religious fundamentalists were unable to stop the temperance movement, the integration movement, the abortion movement, and now it is time for the gay marriage movement. There is no truly Judeo-Christian script backing for the arguments against homosexuality. There is no precedent of this proposed monogomous order in the sinless creatures of planet Earth. There is no religious right to preserve marriage as the Christian community sees it because marriage is not a creation of the Church, nor is it exclusively the domain of the Church. There is nothing but a fabrication, a patchwork of close-minded views buttressing one another without a single true fact to stand with in order to validate your claims and your ideals. So please, either prove me wrong or shut the fuck up. Yours with love, - Timothy 3 comments|post comment

I strongly believe no one will read this. [14 Jun 2006|12:04pm] if you comment on this post: 1. i’ll respond with something random about you 2. i’ll challenge you to try something 3. i’ll pick a color that i associate with you 4. i’ll tell you something i like about you 5. i’ll tell you my first/clearest memory of you 6. i’ll tell you what animal you remind me of 7. i’ll ask you something i’ve always wanted to ask you 8. if i do this for you, you must post this on yours 11 comments|post comment

I do it for the kids [03 Nov 2005|09:55pm] 12 comments|post comment

[02 Nov 2005|05:10pm] blamboom explode: forever. hooner marie: of course. 4 comments|post comment

[13 Oct 2005|01:51pm] http://www.pauzeassetmanagement.com/downloads/mp3/cellblocktango.mp3 post comment

hah, i, of all people, am a writing a love poem. [12 Oct 2005|01:51am] i dream of you in technicolor; panning, reeling scenes and tantalizing shades of crimson and white and flaxen thatch. tender things writhe; symbiotic passion. flesh, so flushed, feeding on flesh and lusts and loves converging and condensing into this. actions breeding singularity, probing dark expanses to kindle, to light halls and caverns of the mind. turning incompletion to what we are; one creature. with discordant notes, but still a symphony of cacophonous proportions. 3 comments|post comment

To Amanda Keele on her 18th birthday. [28 Sep 2005|02:07pm] Happy birthday to you, Amanda Keele, one of the most brilliant and funny girls I have ever met. You've added to my life in a way that no one understands. From the moment you approached me in math class and told me you were reading my journals, I figured there was something special about you. You, Lisa, and Ellen were so awesome to me the beginning of last year, and even when the four of us seemed to stop hanging out so much, you were always there for me on the level that we could go to each other and talk and share things and lean on one another. We've discussed worlds and philosophies and loves and hardships together and although I know that the friendship we have has not been as long lasting as that which you have with Lisa, or as deep as the one you share with Ian, I want you to know that I would ask for nothing else other than to continue to know you and care for you for the rest of my life. I remember the night we spent in the car outside of Cody's house, waiting for Lisa. The way we drew cartoons on your windshield, fogged by our breath. I remember the night at sharis and how only you, Lisa, Kyle, and I know what was said that night. I remember the pictures we took downtown that night, and how we asked strangers to pose for us. I remember how you'd never stop asking questions in math, and that's probably the only reason I learned half of that curriculum. I remember every one of these things and I cherish them all. Because of the you, I'm a happier person. Because of you, I am a better person. Let's face it, without you, I'd pretty much suck. I love you, Amanda. - Timmy 6 comments|post comment

[21 Aug 2005|03:33pm] This world that we live in truly is a beautiful place. No one understands the levels and depths to which that statement is true, myself included. Please, stop. Take a moment to imagine the intricate and chaotic and naturally gorgeous mosaic that is laid out before our eyes. Who are you? You have no idea. Identity is a liquescent characteristic. You are never the same person twice. No man or woman is set in stone. As we all develop and decay, we change. This journal, this record of my identity is full of hopes. There are aspirations in so many entries. Of course, there are also realities, but if you break everything down in my journal, I think you can see that I dream. Subtly, yes. Well, usually. But the fact of the matter is that what I project to the small and I am sure dwindling community that reads my journal is a series of aspirations marked down for all to read. When I first sat down to write this piece, I had no idea what I was going to say. Was I going to recount how I had lunch with Holly for the first time in a year today and she was gorgeous and witty and I missed her? Well, it may not have been my original intention or it may have been the entire purpose of opening this little used entry window. I don't know. I cannot articulate what it is that I am feeling. It's that subtlety of mine again. My emotions just aren't pronounced enough for me to interpret them. I suddenly had the feeling that I wasn't weighed down by the issues and problems I usually feel on my shoulders. But, the problem is that I have no idea what I want; with anything, really. Especially with girls, which, I guess, is one of the most important parts of life. I don't have burning feelings for anyone. I am afraid right now, that once my moment of celibacy and contemplation passes, I won't be nearly as clear headed as I am right now. To be both terse and honest, I recently masturbated. I sometimes am awash with feelings of clarity once I've ejaculated. I sometimes commit deeds due to lust. I sometimes speak in certain ways to impress girls. The truth is, I hate you, generic female companion. I love the intimacy you offer me. I crave intimacy. I don't like sex. I don't like kissing. The only times I can remember having a sexual experience and honestly enjoying it to a more than moderate extent, I have been experiencing all of the things that accompany genuine attraction of some intense sort. Have you ever been with a partner, not necessarily having sex (for sex is a thing that I don't find nearly as beautiful or enjoyable as most of my contemporaries), but just laying, kissing, or petting, and you hug that partner deeply, and you pull him or her into you so hard that you want to become one with that person? You plunge him or her hard into your chest. You feel something about that person in his or her touch at that moment, the moment you realize you're so fucking close that all you want to do, impossibly enough, is get even closer. This is the physical link that allows you to read and experience another person to the fullest corporeal extent. Have you ever had that moment where you drink in the other person pressed against you, and you see the beautiful mosaic flushing and spinning and whirring inside? Could you have experienced that every time with a person and gotten sick of it? Could you get so spoiled by that intimacy that you could actually throw it away and not realize your mistake the moment you’ve fucked things up? I really hope you said no. I really hope you did. Why? Because; that would make you a liar. The human is an interesting beast in that we’ve developed beyond contentment. We’ve engineered ourselves to a level where we will never be happy. Now, here’s the genius part. Along with this incompatibility with happiness, we’ve instilled a single and all-encompassing goal into our race: find happiness. Disgusting isn’t it? We all get bored with what we have, no matter how incredible it is. We can never truly appreciate what we have, even when we think we are. Kyla Bandasith is an amazing little model and Keith is a very lucky boy. I think I want to get into better shape. Good night. 4 comments|post comment

[06 Jul 2005|05:18am] I am Saint Timothy, patron saint of listening to hollywood undead and switchblade fights. 7 comments|post comment

I like smoothies [03 Jul 2005|07:06pm] Killing people is over rated. It is making people wish for death. That is where the money is at. Anybody can put a gun to someone's head. But to make someone get on their knees and plea for you to take their life from them. That's godlike. To just completely and utterly fuck someone's life up beyond recognition in the matter of a few hours to the point where they have nothing left. That is so much better than killing them. The best way to kill someone is to kill someone when they're already dead. I mean... I would imagine. After you spend years living your life you realize there are so many things more important than your own life. Such as your children, the love of your life, an empire you have built. So I figure by letting all of that be and simply taking the persons ability to breathe. That is letting them off easy. You're skipping all the good shit. Rape them of everything worth living for. Everything worth dying for. Then you can kill them. At that point killing them will be doing them a favor. And depending on the person and what they value, it all depends on the person how you would go about doing that. But that is my favorite way to kill someone. The words of Kyle Coleman Rasmussen Need I say more? 8 comments|post comment

Disgust is an interesting topic. [18 Jun 2005|12:47pm] ~*~BeTTeR tO fOrGEt AnD bE hAppY tHEn To ReMeMbEr AnD bE SaD~*~ above is an exeprt from the aim profile of a female peer of mine. the fact of the matter is that the above statement makes me want to projectile vomit. there is nothing worse in this world than forgetting what you have been through and what you have experienced. i revisionist idea that you can delete the bad parts of your life and be complete, let alone happy, is absurd. Disregarding the sticky font lettering and improper use of the word "then," there is something deeply disturbing about this quote. if people think that trying to forget the bad is at all a good idea, it's no wonder that so many people take solace in alcohol every fucking night. this particularly upsets me because i hold steadfast to the philosophy that knowledge is power and that only through understanding yourself and those you care about can you find happiness. just looking at populace around me on a daily basis is a little unsettling, realizing that so many people are starved for attention, knowledge, understanding, security... i guess all i have to say is that ignorance may be bliss, but in the most Aldous Huxley-esque way, bliss is a far cry from happiness. 4 comments|post comment

Party Cancelled [14 Jun 2005|03:22pm] The Party Is Cancelled. Don't Come To My House. 2 comments|post comment

[12 May 2005|08:29pm] ( Kristin gave me a love letter in health. I love it for obvious reasons. ) 13 comments|post comment

A rose by any other name would cease to be a rose. [12 Apr 2005|02:59pm] In recent weeks I've experienced a paradigm shift. Since spring break I have had such a change in my ideals, my wants, my desires. I have a whole new understanding of what human interaction means. Unfortunately, this change has come at the same time as my depression taking a lot of control in my life. The only things that keep me happy these days are caffeine and talking. I triple brew my French roasted Italianate cafe and sprawl out into grandiose discussions with everyone I meet. If only everyday could be so beautiful. When I'm alone I get so bored so easily. Two days alone this past weekend, and I was on the brink of insanity. I don't drink coffee during the weekends; I just sleep. Friday nights are usually spent in quality time between my pillow, my blanket, and yours truly. I went to a party last night. I even drank. Ugh. Being drunk isn't cool. It isn't even that enjoyable. I am already an outgoing person, so it doesn't make me emerge like a butterfly, metamorphosing into something golden and beautiful "Stay golden Pony Boy," you know, that quote is originally from a Robert Frost poem. Anyway, I digress. I didn't get wasted, just drunken enough that I stumbled when I went down the stairs, and felt like I was moon walking when I went up the stairs. Universal? Probably not. The manifestation of man in Lord of the Flies is that every human is inherently evil. I believe a contrary and romanticized principle: man is inherently lonely and inherently flawed, yet also inherently good. As such, every human, old or young, rich or poor, man or woman takes on a quest to perfect him or herself. Along the way there are many misjudgments that take place and there is no way to avoid this. We will all try to cure our loneliness by getting a significant other; we will all try to self medicate our games of solitaire with sex. Everyone will try to be accepted and nothing can be done about that. The fact of the matter is that no one can give you the answers. If they do, and you take them, then they are meaningless. For the longest time Jeff Linman told me that life, in essence, is a game of ones; that you have to reach out and touch one person and make a difference in one person's life to have an impact. It sounds so simplistic, but in practice I never truly got it right until my "spring break revelation." Now, I'm sure this all sounds like philosophical garbage and that no one wants to hear it, but frankly I don't expect you to listen, so it's all fair in the end. In the past few weeks, I have learned that schooling means nothing to me, but learning means everything. Grades are not a scale of how intelligent you are, it's more like a measure of your tolerance for bullshit in my school. The only class that I fully enjoy these days is English. Lisa Lacy (my English teacher, the daughter of professors, and the manager of the yearbook and school newspaper) is a saint in my eyes. She has allowed me a venue for growth and intellectual development throughout this school year. Also, I thank Jay with all of my heart. Without him I wouldn't be the person I am today. He has allowed me to use him as a sounding board for my every thought and I frankly think that I could share everything in my life with him, even if I don't. I guess that means I also have to thank Dustin Erickson though; without him I never would have gotten as close with Jay as I have. I was going to say that I digress again... But I guess this entry doesn't have a topic anyway, so why try to salvage one now? New paragraph, that's better. I keep turning my music up louder. I keep trying to keep the intensity flowing in me so that I can continue this entry and produce something with all of the thoughts and sentence fragments floating in my mind. I must be doing a number on my eardrums. I do this when I'm running too. But it's more to keep the thoughts out of my head than to trap them inside. When I run, I wear my iPod. I blow out my headphones with music blasting wave after wave against my eardrum. The little harmonic bone in my ear, the smallest bone in my entire body, vibrating and shaking like your hands when adrenaline is pumping through your body and thoughts come pure, rather than fragmented by words. If you've ever gotten into a fight, or for that matter ever smoked enough pot, you know what I'm talking about. There's that moment you reach when thoughts just are. Usually you have an emotional reaction and then it is cycled through your brain, bouncing from synapse to synapse at the speed of electric impulse. Then, this reaction is categorized by your higher brain functions of recognition and speech. As such, a thought has two parts: 1.) The initial reaction 2.) The processing of that reaction into words When you get really, really high or have enough adrenaline in your brain that you enter the fight or flight mode, you can supersede this second part, and as such, have "true" thoughts. When you're high and someone tells a joke and you don't react, you probably realize it's funny. Even if you can't formulate the thought, "this is funny," you know it's funny. I'm rambling. By this time most of the people have stopped reading. Those that are still reading think I'm probably still drunk from last night, haha. But I just find this idea interesting. Let's switch topics. Everyone seems to have something to say. From your best friend to the girl you have never spoken to in math class, everyone has a story, a philosophy, an opinion. That's what talking to people offers you, an opportunity to peer into the worlds inside other people's minds. Every time you talk to someone you gain something and give something in return. Every time I talk about school with someone, they have an opinion, a goal, an idea of why they are there or why they are not there. They talk about wanting to go to college, or their futures or their dreams or their hopes. Everyone is a uniquely beautiful creature. No, we are not all pretty snowflakes with eternally different formations, we are all the same software, but we grow and experience on unique levels and frequencies. It's truly amazing to watch the experiences of another person when you have been there yourself. Case in point: Amanda Keele. From September I have watched her turn from a naive Christian girl with a twinge of curiosity and a ridiculous amount of self-doubt into a gorgeously thoughtful and incredibly driven girl. The other day we got into an argument about schooling. She was just being argumentative for the point of being argumentative. I got angry. She didn't go along with what I said. A second later my synapses fired off and I realized that she was so much more of a person now. A few month prior, with a confident statement, she would have bowed at the heels and agreed with what I said. Now, after all of her experiences and all of the choices that she has made, she is independent from my influences. It's beautiful to me; she is more beautiful than any creation of Vincent Van Gogh, of Leonardo Da Vinci, of any artist that has ever lived because she has been the artist and she has been the media. Her growth and experiences have turned her into a masterpiece, and it was all at her own hands. I love you Amanda Keele. Next, I would like to talk to you about Samantha Marie Thompson. I met Samantha over myspace. Mmmm. Enough said there. But she is such an amazing girl. She's young and precocious and beautiful and funny. Sometimes she appears to have confidence that could beat a lion into submission; other times, she acts so timid and unsure. She apologized to me once for the possibility of disappointing me. I've always been attracted to innocence, and I don't know why. Part of me believes that it’s so I can mold it, maybe even corrupting it. Another part of me thinks that it is so I can hold onto innocence that I no longer have. The latter is more romantic; but to be fair the former is more realistic. Everyone wants to have an impact on those around you. The small impact of telling a friend not to skip and them obeying that has a rush unto itself, but to truly affect the aspects of a person’s life is like tasting the power of god (intentional use of lowercase "g"). Don't peg me as evil or manipulative, I would not want to make someone into something bad. The idea is just that you can have an impact, preferably a good impact. Back to the main topic. Sam. She has been there for me during this change in my views on life. She has offered me a shoulder to rest my head on and I have gladly taken it. I will not say that she completes me. I will not say that I couldn't live without her. All that I saw is that I enjoy living with her as a part of my life. And her being there for me has made my life a little better than it was. I love you Samantha, and I wish only the best for you. If you read this, I hope you understand that I care for you immensely and that sometimes the very thought of not seeing you hurts like a shot to the jaw. I love you. I love you. I love you. Let's back track to an earlier statement of mine: I went to a party last night. I even drank. I drank because I went to Katie O'Keef's house and I felt that I was completely unwanted there. Until this week, I haven't had a sip of alcohol since Sam M.'s party last summer. The party that involved Taylor serving me drink after drink, me punching Matt in the face, me threatening Chris' life, me blacking out for hours and then writing a livejournal entry about how Kim Reede has ruined my life. How pathetic. Inebriation is the key to incompetence. I don't like it. Part of me even fears it. Many people say that alcohol is a truth serum. That it brings out what you truly want to say, or at least what you truly feel. I think that's an excuse. When I drink, I understand that I am dumb. I get that I am more animalistic and that I feel, as I stated earlier, "true feelings." But I also know what restraint is. I just refuse it. I have been truly drunk, smashed, crunked, and obliterated by alcohol. I still had the choice to control myself. Drugs are an excuse, a scapegoat for actions. I, like everyone else, know it is a convincing guise though. Turn the record. What is drama? Drama is a situation or succession of events in real life having the dramatic progression or emotional effect characteristic of a play. Do you know why plays go from start to finish? It's because the characters don't know what the audience sees. They do not know what was said in Act II because they are only cast in Acts I and III. Characters in a play lack communication and understanding. Communication is the only thing that creats peace. Understanding is the only thing that doesn't breed confrontation. A lot of people come to me with their problems. I offer almost all of them the same answer: communicate with those that you need to communicate with to end the drama. Communication. Community. Common. Communis. Look at that. The root word of communication and community: common. That is the only way to resolve a problem between people or groups of people: to find a common ground and compromise (prefix of com means mutual. com is a shortening of common). To communicate, to truly speak to one another, is to relate and interact upon common topics and interests. Everyone needs to speak. Everyone needs to listen. I'll end this now and probably not write another meaningful entry for quite some time. I bid you adieu. I'm outie. P.S. The Mathematics of it all could never bore me less 7 comments|post comment

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