Via Astrologyzone.com:

Any retrograde planet is a planet that’s sleeping. All living things need rest, and planets do too, so you’ll find that all planets go retrograde. The Sun and moon don’t, but those heavenly bodies aren’t planets, of course. A retrograde planet will not emit its best energy, so while it is out of phase, we are left to our own devices and do the best we can without that planet’s help.

Mercury rules communication, commerce, thinking, perception, negotiation, and contracts, as well as electronics and all moving parts. The world spins on the very areas in life that Mercury rules. We need Mercury to be in top shape because if it is not, human interaction with the performance of computers and machines tend to go haywire, as counter-intuitive as that statement may sound.

My buddy Joe and I have known each other for about two years and love to get into socio-political-religious conversations. We finally decided that maybe we ought to start recording them into a podcast. Here’s the inaugural episode, which I’ve dubbed Getting to Know You.

I hope everyone out there is getting the message. These are dark times we live in my friends. As fellow caravaners, I hope you are spreading the message that freedom requires vigilance. Evil is a cruel trickster. It uses power only for manipulation and self-interest. It perverts reason and argumentation to bend to its vile biases. It is an evil we all are at battle with. I have just awoken to it’s foul breath and am sickened by the smell.

I write to find the answer to one question: Is anybody out there? Do you smell it too?

But unlike the snake, I believe in love and understanding. I am writing now, often and with the passion I feel is necessary to restore reason and sanity. Once the veil has lifted, and you see the traps that others have fallen into, the compulsion to help them can be overwhelming. I am allowing it to manifest by putting myself out in the world as openly and vibrantly as possible. I have invited others to understand my fears and in turn ask them to share their own. The desire to proclaim the joys of freedom is somewhat insatiable. But it is a far more rewarding insatiability than that of money or fame.

I write for the sheer joy of connecting with another person, no matter who, and no matter the reason. Some I disagree with, some I quibble with, some simply cannot be bothered, but I love them all. The discussions that do occur veer towards a common understanding of the many obstacles that face our generation. I see no way around them other than to open our mouths and let our pains and our fears be heard as loudly and as publicly as possible. Open yourself up to your friends, your neighbors. Tell them what sort of evils you imagine are still possible, it will scare you. From that fear will pour endless love, love of family, love of friends, love of total strangers, and most of all love of freedom.

God bless. Keep the conversation going.

In times of the king
It is important that we sing

We mask our words
Are unsure of our tactics

Sleeping in our beds
Forever in our heads

Never trusting our dreams
Awakened only by our fears

Well, probably not. At least not until Bush is out of office by democratic means. In any case, I refuse to let the mainstream press or the Democratic leadership say what we can and cannot do. They have a pretty bad track record on standing up when it counts Cough-Iraq-Cough!.

I just want to remind everyone that this is about specific results committed by specific people, who need to be specifically held accountable. It’s not about ideology. It’s not about your fuckin’ team. It’s not even about some lofty notions about how it might effect the election. It’s not even about whether you follow politics or not. If you think this administration should at least face the music and dance, it’s your right to demand it so that Congress can hire a dj. Everyone keeps thinking that war crimes will come about after he’s out of office. That sounds embarrassing to me, like asking the rest of the world to take out our laundry.

Most important of all, it just needs to get done.

It’s about a bunch of guys who are either:

a.) Grossly Incompetent
b.) Massively unlucky
c.) Willful, priggish bosses who only hired guys who kissed their ass and honestly don’t have a clue how badly they have fucked things up.

It’s up to us to show them. That’s the game, guys. Holding our leaders accountable. It’s all we’ve got. They’re not gonna do it. Nevermind all the patriotic platitudes. You don’t need flag pin or a Harvard education to know that our constitution was all about saying “no more kings”–not in this country. HIGH CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS is a legal term that ONLY exists for leaders, because it involves crimes so massive that they are impossible to codify, we can only catalog them.

At least gimme a HEARING! He can have a fair trial, unlike the prisoners of Guantannamo Bay and other black sites. Unlike George W. Bush with his secret military tribunals, I believe that if the whole bloody mess were laid out before the world in the open, that the evidence against him will be more than enough to convict him and his enablers even on a jury of his nearest and dearest peers. So we can finally all have one collective gasp! and step away from the abyss.

That’s impeachment, and it its necessary.

Find your rep and call now.

This was initally a very private and personal introduction I wrote to an email I was forwarding Bill O’Reilly. I sent it to some friends and family and even an old high school teacher with whom I recently connected. I started to get a little choked up towards the end when the magnitude of the fight against these mother fuckers really hit me. Please share and recommend to your loved ones, because I am terrified of these thugs, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to sit back and let them call ME INSANE.

As fellow travelers who have had your eyes open regarding the conduct of this nation over the recent years, either recently or for quite some time, Bill O’Reilly believes you are nuts. What is the act of insanity that you committed? Well you, like me, probably think Fox News is run by a bunch of propagandist liars who lead the charge to invade Iraq, and twice heralded the coming of Bush (of whom they are now rooting for his third term). I know… we’re loons.

With that said, please read the following message I am forwarding regarding the recent FreePress.net event. It’s an organization that I highly recommend you pay close attention to with regard to honest criticism of the establishment media’s behavior. And be sure to keep your friends informed. I’m not going to let these assholes lie us into another disaster.

These are important times we live in, and I love you all very much. I am terrified of what my country has demonstrated itself to be capable of. That said, here’s the email from FreePress:

———
Last night, Rupert Murdoch launched a laughable attack against you, the media reform movement, and journalism itself.

His on-air bully Bill O’Reilly called us “crazy” and “fascist” — you, me, and the millions of others who want media reform. These people are “doing a lot of damage to America,” O’Reilly yelled. Our crime? Calling for journalism that’s more honest, just and accountable to the public.

When Bill O’Reilly goes after you, you must be doing something right. So we’ve decided to return the favor, and tell him two things: (1) Thanks so much for the compliment and (2) please stop pretending to be a journalist.
Visit the link below to sign the letter and thank Bill O’Reilly for proving once again that Fox News Channel has nothing to do with real journalism in America.

Take action at: https://secure.freepress.net/site/Advocacy?id=269

I’m hoping there are other weirdos like me who enjoy listening to lectures while they work. If you exist, here are a few that I’d like to recommend:

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Evaluating Horizons (Audio)
by David Brin

David Brin is the author of The Transparent Society. I’ve been pimping this guy’s stuff out to everyone I know ever since I listened to this lecture. I wrote a very long post over at Daily Kos, An Introduction to David Brin, with a lot more detail on that book. As for this specific lecture, it runs across a wide range of topics. From the pervasive theme of “question authority” in our popular movies to the value of criticism as the antidote to error. Here are a few exerpts:

Science and the Bible

I mentioned the passage from the bible, here’s an example: In Genesis what is the very first thing that is requested of us by the lord? It is something that was asked of us before we fell from a state of grace, so it can’t have anything to do with sin. It was even before asking not to eat from the tree of good and evil. No, it was to name the beasts.

Now look at that passage, it’s actually expressed as a favor, as an act of curiosity. All through the rest of the bible, it’s all about, “you guys are gonna have to hard scrabble and work your way out of sin”. It’s the one moment when god asks us a favor–and it is to name all the beasts.

Can you think of an allegory that better suits science?

Liberals’ Guilt Trip

Our very success makes us more self-critical, and the liberals have got to learn from this. See how the liberals brought last Tuesday about by always emphasizing guilt and never imagining using praise, for all the things we’ve done:

“You’ve bought our product for 50 years! It never worked! Buy more! You SUV driving, gun toting, racist sexist sons of bitches!”

As opposed to:

“You bought our product for 50 years! And look at the universities you’ve made! And these incredible bright kids! And the rising IQ scores! And the Earth that is half-saved from some ecological damage! And the karate-chopping Title 9 girls who we’ve got out there! And you fought the racisim in your heart until it’s about half gone. What amazing people you are! BUY MORE!”

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How Would a Patriot Act? (Fora.TV)
by Glenn Greenwald

The next video is by constitutional law expert, Glenn Greenwald. If I were for some reason restricted access to only one blog, it would be Glenn’s. I first became aware of his writing in December of 2005 when the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping story broke in the New York Times. I credit him with helping to push that issue to the forefront by his careful and precise explanations of how FISA was violated and destroying all the legal arguments that have been put forth to justify the behavior of an out of control executive. These days he’s been doing an exceptional job of pointing out how the media continually allows the Republican party to put forth ‘mythical warriors of unquestionable manly virtues’ while the Democrats are constantly held up to be ‘effete, elitist freaks’. Glenn is also the one who first introduced me to the book The Authoritarians, which I believe I’ve plugged elsewhere.

In this discussion at a small book store, Glenn elaborates on the dangers of the Neoconservative theory of the ‘unitary executive’, and the necessity and urgency that we fight back against these ideas. This was a discussion prompted by his book How Would a Patriot Act? Defending American Values from a President Run Amok.

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SCREWED: The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class and What We Can Do About It(Fora.TV)
by Thom Hartmann

Not since Howard Zinn has someone introduced me to so much history that I had not considered to seek out. Thom regularly has on staunch ideological conservatives to debate their ideas using logic, historical context and razor sharp common sense. In this book discussion he debunks various myths that are currently taken as fact such as the notion that a middle class is a natural state. He takes his audience through the history of the middle class’ rise and fall going back to the Renaissance up to FDR and then into present day.