Hello moon

Thank you thisisnthappiness.

Toyrun was awesome!

Four days of Benoni North Sports Grounds, walking and pulling and pushing and hanging and throwing and running and talking and listening and sun and flowers and water and bikes. Yeah bikes. Bright shiny painted chromed noisy motorbikes, in the thousands.

The Toyrun party was a good one this year, and all there had a great time. Sadly it wasn't as well attended as we'd hoped, but i think that's true more often than not. No idea on toy counts yet, but as usual the mountain of toys and variety beggars belief. I need to get to some of the handouts, just to complete the year. I hate xmas time but playing santa's little helper really is where i must be. Did you hear about the dyslexic who sold his soul to santa? The bikers were the usual sorts, apparently one guy spent R2000 on tickets for a kids cancer charity. Most were very well behaved, although the temptation of showing off on grass was too much for most, which led to only one off, but many fast beating hearts. I have to mention too, the variety of bikes on display was supreme. Nowhere else in the world could you find such a varied collection of well loved machines.

It was an honour to work with the team. Men and women of all shapes and sizes and dispositions, all pulling together to make it work. The two head marshalls, Andre and Devon deserve special mentions, each having excelled in keeping masses of bikers as safe as possible, under difficult conditions. EMPD made a surprising mass appearance which for safety was perfect. It also looks really good when the ride is preceeded by official police escourt. The other organisers were all outstanding examples of selflessness and charity, and the entire event was powered by hard work by many, many people. But this year was good, it had the right festive atmosphere that infected all who were involved, even the hired workers were a jovial and enthusiastic bunch.

The grass. My most vivid impressions are of the grass fields stretching as far as the legs could carry. Each foot of it teeming with life, bees, flies, miggies, flowers red and yellow and purple, small unidentified other plants sitting quietly amongst the grasses. The constant flow of people all through the day coming to enjoy the space in peace. I felt a strong sense of being a custodian for the fields, of being responsible to them. Each tree was a shelter from the sun, the grass a welcoming seat, the bees amiable company, the constant breeze bringing clouds of all shapes and sizes. The skies a constantly changing panorama of blues and whites and greys and birds of all hues.

My body needs rest, but my mind is at peace.

EDIT:
http://www.iol.co.za/motoring/bikes-quads-karts/toy-run-bikers-party-all-the-way-1.1187910

Toyrun

If you want any info:

send a blank email to: info@toyrun.org.za.
or phone me :)

Guys, anyone who reads this, pass it on please, and bring toys, as many as you can. More is better, i'd rather have 10 small gifts than 1 large one. Teddy bears look great, but kids over 10 aren't really into them? They'd rather have stationary, so they can work their way out of the hole they're in, or toiletries, so they can have some dignity.

peace and love

PS, apologies for the colour, it was created by a biker, ok?

Black Tuesday

http://www.zapiro.com/cartoon/589725-111122tt

Sensible Police Tactics Against Occupiers

www.Moonofalabama.org

"Lt. John Pike of UC Davis defends himself against an ongoing attack by radical left wing students camouflaged with hoods."

We teach life, sir.

*silence*

Kommetjie

My favourite place in the whole world! Thanks to Deevi for sending it for me.

Outlaw

"Now remember, when things look bad and it looks like you're not gonna make it, then you gotta get mean. I mean plumb, mad-dog mean. 'Cause if you lose your head and you give up then you neither live nor win. That's just the way it is."

- Clint Eastwood, "The Outlaw Josey Wales"

Old books

Golden Ratio

11 11 11 11 11 11

Just sayin' ...

Full moon, seems like everyone has gone moggy again, 2 bikers taken out by the blue light assholes, another shot in a semi road rage incident.

As Aquila Ka Hekate pointed out, already the xmas madness has started.

And all i want is for it to rain.

Pseudoscience and Heretics

PDF: http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/ridley_rsa_millar_speech_scientific_heresy.pdf

Matt Ridley's speech at the Angus Millar lecture - http://www.thersa.org/events/audio-and-past-events/2011/angus-millar-lecture-2011-scientific-heresy

FROM: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/01/thank-you-matt-ridley/#more-50468

So I learnt lesson number 1: the stunning gullibility of the media. Put an “ology” after your pseudoscience and you can get journalists to be your propagandists.

Lesson number 2: debunking is like water off a duck’s back to pseudoscience.

Lesson number 3. We can all be both. Newton was an alchemist.

That’s lesson number 4: the heretic is sometimes right.

Lesson number 5: keep a sharp eye out for confirmation bias in yourself and others.

Lesson 6. Never rely on the consensus of experts about the future. Experts are worth listening to about the past, but not the future. Futurology is pseudoscience.

In conclusion, I’ve spent a lot of time on climate, but it could have been dietary fat, or nature and nurture. My argument is that like religion, science as an institution is and always has been plagued by the temptations of confirmation bias. With alarming ease it morphs into pseudoscience even – perhaps especially – in the hands of elite experts and especially when predicting the future and when there’s lavish funding at stake. It needs heretics.

Revolution

Thank you LeContainer.

Fog Harvesting

Tshiavha - When plumes of fog gather above the rocky mountains encircling a remote South African village, children look at them with excitement, knowing they will have clean drinking water at school.
Erected in 2007 with the help of a local university, the fog trapped in the nets provides up to 2,500 litres of waters on a good day.

“The water is clean and safe with no chemicals added to it,” said Lutanyani Malumedzha the principal of Tshiavha primary school.

According to Malumedzha, access to clean water had significantly improved school children's health and reduced the outbreak of waterborne diseases.

“Children used to bring their own bottles of water to school during the hot and dry months. The water was collected from muddy wells and not suitable for human consumption,” said Malumedzha.

In some areas, communities share drinking water with cattle.

Although South Africa's water quality is rated among the best in world, rural communities lag behind when it comes to having running water.

“We have learnt to appreciate water and treat it as if it was a precious commodity,” said Malumedza.

“Not a single drop is wasted. Some of it goes there,” said Malumedza pointing to a vegetable garden which provides food for the school feeding scheme.

The four-metre high mesh net which stands outside the school's playground resembles a volleyball net, except for a gutter at the hem where water droplets fall, leading to a water tank a few metres away.

There are no electronics involved and the system requires little maintenance, Malumedza said.

Killers

This is a warning to all bikers out there: the pigs, in this case the provincial piggies, in unmarked cars, are prepared to kill you, either by riding into you, or shooting you.

IOL: http://www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/he-was-going-to-kill-me-1.1169654

“I didn’t know what was happening. I couldn’t turn around to look who it was because there were potholes all over the road. I couldn’t see any blue flashing lights and there were no sirens. I was panicking. I thought that those inside wanted to hijack me,” he said

It was as Van Zyl turned on to the R514 that the traffic officers collided with him, apparently on purpose, striking his handlebars and front wheel, forcing him to crash.

Van Zyl was thrown across the VW Golf and into a pavement and traffic light, smashing his rib cage and tearing ligaments.

He claimed one of the traffic officers from the car walked up to him and began pistol-whipping him before shoving his gun into his helmet and threatening to execute him.

“I couldn’t move. This traffic officer was screaming that he was going to kill me.

“It was only after another motorist stopped to help me that the officer walked off,” he said.

Changes

Things change, and i'm going through one of those times. I've already slowed on my posting, and probably will further. I'm not abandoning it yet, the thought occurred to me, but honestly i feel too deeply for this blog and the people i share ideas with to walk away, just changing slightly.

peace and love

One demand

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article29436.htm

Occupy Wall Street: My One Demand

By Jinger Dixon

October 18, 2011 "Information Clearing House" -- I was recently asked what I thought the “one demand” should be for the OWS protest. That’s a tough question. I’ve seen many lists of the things people are suggesting. Most seem well intended. However, no one demand alone even begins to scratch the surface of what‘s wrong here. In fact, in a way, it points out how far we really are, from seeing where we really are. To sum it all up in one demand seemed impossible, so I decided to try. After much thought, I constructed the following analogy to describe my take on this whole One Demand issue.

Take a map and draw a circle, then say, everyone outside the circle is to have their labor and resources exploited for the benefit of those inside the circle. If you live outside the circle you say, “this system is completely fucked up.” If you live inside the circle you say, “this is capitalism and it’s the best system on earth you should try it it’s awesome. Sure, people outside are suffering, but who gives a fuck about them?” Now as the circle shrinks, as it is designed to do, concentrating accumulated wealth, people begin finding themselves suddenly outside of the circle. They jump up and down and cry foul, but the ones still in the circle say, “tough shit, you were too slow, shoulda run faster to stay inside the circle“. But then, they soon realize that they too are too slow to keep up with the rapidly shrinking circle, and quickly they find themselves left out, so they cry foul. “The system is broken!!!” they decry! But is it? Isn’t this the way the system has always functioned? Why is it now broken just because they, we, no longer reside within the bounds of its benefits? We stand outside the ever shrinking circle, yelling fixes, throwing band-aids, making demands that the ever shrinking circle expand! at least big enough to include us so that we can go back to not giving a fuck about the people outside, but alas, it will not. The circle does not expand, it does not know how. It only knows how to contract, concentrate, condense, like a dark star collapsing in on itself. There is no “demand” that will drag the borders of the circle back around us. And even if you could, would you? Would you go back to fucking the rest of the world to have your cable TV and your steel belted radials? I hope not. I hope the world is ready to say no more. No more. Therefore, since it is my sincere belief that the circle is/was and always will be fucked up, I say, surround them and demand that they collapse in on themselves and disappear into their own black hole.

That is my One Demand.

And from the comments, most excellent:

They drew a circle that shut me out —
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took them in.

Paraphrased from "Outwitted" by Edwin Markham

For whatever it's worth in the emotional state many find themselves in at this time.

Wild blue

Thanks Le Container

The Heavens Proclaim

Mortal soul 4 -- The heavens proclaim

Four centuries ago, Francis Bacon said that what a person would like to be true, he preferentially believes. Is there a way to truth that escapes the constraints of personal preference? Can we know the world as it is and not as we wish it to be? Perhaps not. Certainly there is no such thing as Truth with a capital T, final and absolute. But Bacon was instrumental in inventing a way to reliable truth with a lower case t -- tentative, partial, evolving truth. It is called the scientific way of knowing, and it follows simple rules:

1. Rely on reproducible quantitative observations that can be shared by believer and skeptic alike.

2. Do not assume more when less will do.

3. Do not invoke the supernatural when a natural explanation will suffice.

4. Be willing to say "I don't know."

5. And, especially, be ready to admit "I was wrong."

I can't offer an ironclad proof that the scientific way of knowing is more reliable than tradition, prophets, or holy books. I can only refer you the modern world -- technology, medicine, voyages to other worlds. The proof of the pudding...

The 13.7-billion-year story of creation as we currently understand it leaves me more breathless with awe than any of the anthropomorophic fairy tales I learned as a child. It is the God of this grander creation -- who is not a person, who is not this and is not that, whose name we cannot speak and whose nature we do not know -- that we glimpse in the poetic language of the mystics, such as these words of Teilhard de Chardin: "Radiant Word, blazing Power, you who mold the manifold so as to breath your life into it; I pray you, lay on us your hands -- powerful, considerate, omnipresent, those hands which do not (like our human hands) touch now here, now there, but which plunge into the depths and the totality, present and past, of things so as to reach us simultaneously through all that is most immense and most inward within us and around us." Who will deny the depth and richness of a universe that is most immense and most inward within us and around us?

What do the heavens proclaim? We are an accidental and perhaps commonplace part of a universe that is vast beyond our comprehension, certainly now and perhaps forever. The ancients had it backwards: Our story is part of the universe's story, rather than the other way around. It is a measure of our coming of age as a species that we are able to accept this natural revelation, and gaze courageously into the cosmos of the myriad galaxies rather than remaining fixated on our own navels. Finding ourselves in a universe without a center, we are challenged to make our own center, by loving the place we are in and every creature in it.

Hat tip to Runnin 'Cause I Can't Fly.

Apache blessing

Thanks, i needed that.