This article does a good job of describing what fractional reserve banking is, and why, in the event of a panic, it could collapse the entire economy. I'm also adding it to my links on Federal Reserve research.

Now Tim has posted his thoughts and discoveries on Landmark Education. He's done some good research on it, comparing and contrasting Landmark with Sceintology. Their biggest common trait seems to be the unique adaptation of language, so that certain words and phrases gain peculiar definitions that can only be clearly understood by people who have spent time within each respective organization.

I went ahead and posted a comment describing some of the advantages I see in such usage, despite the barrier it creates between members and non-members. I also briefly described what I believe to be the biggest downsides of Landmark's operation, and why I ultimately got out.

I have taken on a new personal pet project: to understand the true nature and workings of the Federal Reserve system. Herein, I shall document findings from that quest. Good luck to me.

After that last post, I did some more digging. Over the years, I have heard many seemingly contradictory tidbits about the Federal Reserve, and have yet to find a satisfactory answer as to the true nature of its workings. The official party line never quite added up, but neither did the ravings of its critics.

Well, this article comes as close to providing a complete explanation as anything I've seen so far. It's fairly lengthy, and a lot of the parts are somewhat cumbersome (though I think the author does as good a job as possible to explain it in layman's terms). I'm still not 100% satisfied, but this brings me a notch closer.

This actually comes from the comments section:

In 1913 Congress passed The Federal Reserve Act which gave the right to create currency to the private bankers. They selected the operating name The Federal Reserve Corporation. Despite all the name implies, it is a private organization benefiting from interest charged to the Nation by lending their privately created Reserve Notes to the country. As the debt spirals skyward the revenue to the banks soars as well.

In 1963 President Kennedy signed an executive order returning the banking operations to the country. $4 billion in "United States Notes" were printed to replace the private notes with a national currency. As article 1 of the Constitution states, Congress would regain the power to coin and regulate money and we would be a debt free nation.

President Kennedy's assasination followed and the new currency was destroyed. The banks remained in the hands of the members of the Russell Trust Corporation.

Speculation? Certainly. (A couple of other commenters who replied stated that they could verify the part about the executive order to issue U.S. notes, though I would need to do my own research before I believed it as a certainty.) But it would make plausible sense. If JFK was truly working to undermine the most closely guarded secret used by those who pull the strings (how currency/debt is generated, and by whom), then of course they would want to be rid of him! This also would be the same bunch tried and failed to mount a military coup against FDR (and would have succeeded had it not been for General Smedley Butler's sudden bout of conscience).

Monday night -- moments after cutting short my last entry, I ran into the bathroom and vomited in the toilet, finally purging my stomach of the gloppy matter that had been torturing it for hours. Almost immediately afterward, I started to feel much better.

This looks like a pretty nice resource/community site for divers.

For what must be the past six or so hours, my body has been attempting to create as much heat for itself as possible.

I know this is getting reported everywhere in the tech world, but I'm going to toss in my two cents as well...

Today, it's grokster. Tomorrow, it will be anyone who makes a device that can play standard mp3's. (Because the big studio-sactioned "legitimate" music stores only distribute online music in a "secure" format, so supporting mp3 and ogg can only mean you're enabling the "pirates.") With such precedent in place, the backbone of the Internet as we know it becomes the next battleground.

What doesn't the court apply this same idiotic logic to guns? Imagine Justice Souter's quote with the following substitutions: "One who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to [kill people]... is liable for the resulting acts of [murder] by third parties using the device, regardless of the device's lawful uses."

The court was unanimous in its ruling. These are dark times.

For me, reading this is a trip down memory lane. It was almost half a lifetime ago that I attended one of these events. I could fill up at least a whole Rambling reminiscing about it, especially with my memory being jogged by reading this lengthy and insightful summary. Suffice it to say that it was quite a "landmark" in my life. I still sometimes (internally) use several of the distinctions learned there when I contemplate things. Though I did later develop some serious qualms about the organization, overall, I'm still glad to have had the experience.

(While the article that I am linking to directly is quite balanced and objective in its portrayal, readers who are curious enough to click around and/or visit the root index page of the domain on which the article is hosted will find quite a wealth of material which connotes the darker aspects of the program. (I do need to write an article or three of my own about this!) Right now, suffice it to say that there is a very fine line between organizations or structures which use something akin to "shock therapy" to bring about genuinely positive personal transformation, and those which exist to enslave and control the weak-minded. (i.e. Scientology) Sometimes, they might even do both. Tricky.)

This morning, I woke up at 10:00 and decided I did not want to while away the time between now and my shift indoors. So, without showering, I threw on a pair of shorts, took my backpack, donned my "eM etaH" cap (mirrored) to suit my mood, and took off on Serenity into the overcast morning.

At this moment, I'm munching bit by bit on sunflower seeds (pre-shelled, roasted, salted). Why am I doing this? Is it out of genuine hunger, or something else?

Best Batman movie yet? Quite possibly.

Today, in what is fast becoming a regular ritual, I biked to downtown Lincoln.

Less than 24 hours from the moment I began reading it, I have finished all 264 pages of Daniel Quinn's Ishmael.

The last several days in snippets.

You are going to receive a rather innocent looking letter from the Selective Service, addressed to you. I'll bet you had never given one thought to the fact that our government knows where you live. After you open this innocent-looking letter, there will be a greetings something like this: "Greetings. You are hereby ordered to report to Armed Forces Entrance and Examination Station." There will be an address for where this AFEES is located, and what date and time you will report. It used to be at 07:00 hours, but times may have changed though I doubt it. I guarantee, you'll get used to military time.

Now, this is an important part of our little discussion and my retelling of experiences from a very long time ago. You will report as ordered. If you are like any of a number of Americans having serious issues with authority, this is going to grate on your nature just a mite, but you will report as ordered. If you don't, the United States Military Police will, and I need to emphasize will come and gather your young and naïve ass directly off of whatever sidewalk or skateboard park you may be hanging in. This is true, this is oh-so-very true. When the Selective Service issues an order to report for induction (induction is the proper name for the draft), that order will and must be obeyed. You will have no options open or available to you. I am dead serious about this, and so's the Selective Service.

From the very moment that the Selective Service System issues an induction letter to you, you are the property of the United States government. This is true, and I would suggest that you do a modicum of research on rights and obligations inherent in being property of the U.S. government. This insignificant designation will be in the very tiny print at the bottom of our aforementioned "induction letter." This is also what gives the military police the right to snatch your young ass up should you ignore being inducted.

The question each of us needs to ponder: What will we do when this happens? Practice non-compliance, risking imprisonment and/or torture? Flee? (Where?) Go along with the government's killing machine, and just hope it ends soon? It's time to start thinking about it.

My day of bumming around Lincoln is documented in both text and graphical forms.

Today, I've been updating my creditors, would-be creditors, bank, auto insurance, and other such entities with my new address. Also, after thinking it through for several days, I went ahead and called Cingular to have my cell phone account canceled.

As I crossed 56th Street, I reached down for my water bottle, only to discover that it wasn't there. I must have forgotten to take it out after filling it. Oh well. I'll manage.

By 7am, I felt much better. "Better" in the sense that the sickness, headache, and aching was completely gone. But I also felt super tired, like one does after a night with almost no sleep.

Hell with this. It's 4am, and I can't sleep. Been laying awake for the last two hours. The war within my body rages, but I think the forces of good might be starting to win.

At 19:00, my 6-hour shift ended. But it hadn't felt like six hours. More like 8 or 10. When I reached my room, I allowed exhaustion to overtake me, and I collapsed on the floor. I didn't feel like doing anything.

This morning, I woke up at 10:00, took a shower, and decided I had ample time for a little errand.

I'm sneezing up a shitstorm tonight, and I feel like shit. Current theory: The last several days of gas station food are starting to take their toll.

Today, I trained on doing the closing shift, which actually ended up being slightly more than 8 hours. Now I'm bumming around, not feeling quite like going to bed just yet. I'm catsitting this weekend, since Yanthor and Anya are on vacation until Sunday. (Though the word "weekend" might be somewhat of a misnomer, since I'll be working both tomorrow and Sunday.)

I setup my audio system / tv / dvd this afternoon. After getting everything plugged in and satisfactorily arranged, of course I had to take it for a little spin, so I watched The Wall, followed by Madonna's 2001 Drowned World Tour. I hadn't watched either of them in a long while, so it was like a fresh experience again. Musical yumminess.

Anyone still want to argue that our government is a benevolent protector?

This time, when Axel said, "Not interested," the sarge turned surly, snapping, "You're making a big (bleeping) mistake!"

Next thing Axel knew, the same sergeant and another recruiter showed up at the LaConner Brewing Co., the restaurant where Axel works. And before Axel, an older cousin and other co-workers knew or understood what was happening, Axel was whisked away in a car.

"They said we were going somewhere but I didn't know we were going all the way to Seattle," Axel said.

...

At about 3:30 in the morning, Alex was awakened in the motel and fed a little something. Twelve hours later, without further sleep or food, he had taken a battery of tests and signed a lot of papers he hadn't gotten a chance to read. "Just formalities," he was told. "Sign here. And here. Nothing to worry about."

The real news about what's going on in this country seems more and more like a dystopian novel every day.

One advantage of working the morning shift: Breakfast pizza. When I was told I could have free pizza, I didn't even realize what the slice I had picked up contained. Beneath the cheese, it contained layers of scrambled egg, sausage, and bacon. Yum. Not the healthiest thing around, but it tasted awesome.

The pattern repeats. I sign off for the night, and come back a few minutes later with some off-the-wall wacky shit to write about. Maybe I really should split this up into 2 blogs: One for those who care to read about the mundane day-to-day events of my life, and another to talk about real-world sorcery, the Crash of Civilization, and the latest child molestation cabal theory on Rigorous Intuition. For tonight, I'll pick number 2: The Crash. Specifically, I want to discuss when it was that I realized, at a level that goes beyond reading fringe websites and monitoring oil prices, that it is all coming down.

Today's 4-hour gas station shift actually went faster than yesterday's. I met two of the other employees, and hung out with them for a while. Tomorrow, I'll be starting at 08:00, but it's only a 4 to 5 hour shift. The only trick is getting myself to wake up earlier than I have been. Meanwhile, I'm getting more settled in, here in the basement of Yanthor and Anya.

Whoops. Laid in bed for 5 minutes, then had a little idea that seemed sufficiently worthy to post. (Yes, it's good to have my computer not only in the same house, but also the same room where I'm sleeping again. Cause under my previous circumstances, if an idea like this occurred just between waking and sleep, chances are it would have never seen the light of day, and fizzled.) So here goes.

My first half-day of work at the gas station today. Herein, I shall attempt to document a few thoughts and observations.

This morning, I called the gas station manager back. Last night, I had been pondering what to tell him. When I discussed it with Yanthor, he suggested doing the same thing I had been thinking would be the best option. That sealed it. I knew what I was going to do.

In light of the previous post, I've decided to transcribe a brief section from a book I started reading recently. Since I just read this chapter last night, it was fresh in my mind, and I thought of it while I was reading the New World Border entry. Like all the best fiction, it uses allegary to illucidate aspects of reality that may not otherwise be readily apparent, plus it's just really fun to read. So, without further ado, a few paragraphs from Chapter 3 of Kelley Armstrong's Dime Store Magic.

This latest post from New World Border very succinctly sums up how magic spells work through the use of sigils. It's not the hocus pocus as you might think, and it happens with all of us every day.

Anybody who participates on even the fringe of any culture is both recipient and participant to this sorcery. A good introduction to what may be a shocking idea is the concept of sigils. As Grant Morrison puts it in his excellent essay Pop Magic: The sigil takes a magical desire or intent … and folds it down, creating a highly-charged symbol. The desire is then forgotten. Only the symbol remains and can then be charged to full potency when the magician chooses.

The sentence, a desire or goal [is] condensed into a graphic symbol. [...] There is not a wrong way to do this. Next comes the important part. It is important to internalize this symbol in order to make the "sigil" cast the "spell" and thus cause the desired effect. The purpose of this is to create a link to the symbol that operates on a subconscious level. Morrison states that there are a number of ways to take a symbol and "charge" it to this effect. All involve ritual, which have the stated effect of creating a "no-mind state." Recommended foremost for the beginner is masturbation, assumedly due to convenience and universality. There are any number of other techniques: [T]he human body has various mechanisms for inducing brief ‘no-mind’ states. Fasting, spinning, intense exhaustion, fear, sex, the fight-or-flight response will all do the trick. I have charged sigils while bungee-jumping, lying dying in a hospital bed, experiencing a total solar eclipse and dancing to Techno.

He then goes on to give several examples familiar to anyone in our culture, including corporate logos. This reminds me of a speech I listened to a while back by Hakim Bey, in which he suggested that the path to discovering how modern corporate mind control affects all of us would be to dig back into the workings of sorcery and runes of ancient times. It's really the same techniques, and by learning how these things originated, we might better understand the patterns so we can be more effective at fighting it.

It occurs to me that since I went to the trouble of making the access control feature for this site, I may as well use it. So here's a little more of the scoop on what the nanonation job would involve, should they decide to offer me the position.

Saturday afternoon, I returned to Colorado, where I made ready to pack as many possessions as I could fit into my car to bring back to Lincoln on Sunday. Luckily, after another round of thinning down, everything except the larger furniture made it.

Well, it looks like I'll be interviewing. On Monday. Now, to figure out the rest of the logistics.

An html concoction befitting my mood and the moment.

No one ever forgets stench. Whether it is a long-forgotten encounter with a ripe skunk, or a ripe egg, or a ripe decomposing body, once one of those odors has been brain-documented, then even the slightest tinge of such an aroma pops back up immediately, along with the circumstances under which it first offended the nostrils.

And, that's what's happening now. I smell the long-forgotten skunk, the long-forgotten rot of fascism. What is happening all around can no longer be denied. What I ran away from so desperately in 1938 is coming back full circle. Only the jack-boots have not yet arrived.

[...]

After all, the Patriot Act is modeled directly after Gestapo methods: Those 3:00 AM home intrusions – without warrant or reason for arrest – will get our undesirable "domestic terrorists" straight to the nearest version of Guantanamo with no need for trial. The USA is currently building thirty seven "detention centers" nationwide, and they’ll soon be filled with persons who protest too much, or are simply of the wrong nationality. After all, it worked very well in Germany, successfully eliminating Jews, Gypsies, and anyone willing to stand up, and refuse to "Hail Hitler."

Thirty seven detention centers? This is the first I've heard of it. I wish the article had cited a source for that, but even though it didn't, the overall pattern is still evident. America is in deep trouble, and most people in this country, with the exception of a few who have been paying attention, don't have a clue.

It's not just peak oil. If that were the only big thing, and we dealt with it honestly, it would not be an insurmountable obstacle. It's not just George Bush. This country has survived bad presidents in the past. The prevalence of the religious right? Again, by itself, not encouraging, but not devastating either. Torture of prisoners? Well, I suspect the CIA has been doing that in secret for decades, but people's indifference to the exposed abuses is even more troubling.

So here's the question: Given the culmination of all the factors, can America survive the next two decades as a complete entity? Should it survive, or would we all just be better off if the National-ID-mandating, torture-endorsing, corporate-crony-war-state crumbled as quickly as possible? In either case, how can we, as individuals and as a community, best deal with it?

Today, the CEO of a local Lincoln company sent word back to Yanthor's boss, which went through Yanthor, and back to me, that he might be interested in hiring someone with my skills for a short term project, with the potential to turn into a full time job.

During my time here in Lincoln, I feel that updates have been woefully lacking. I'll try to amend that now.