Your Color Vibe for 08/04

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Sunday, August 4:    Red

This is a watery kind of day, when there will be tides coming in and out and tides turning.  Be aware of the little things today, the stuff that seems to be merely an ornament, something in the background.  The little things today are actually mirroring what is going on on the larger scale.  So, if a bee buzzes you when you walk outside, a stranger asks an odd question, a book falls from a shelf, take heed.  There are messages in all of these things.  You are changing, and you need the little things to startle you into realizing and accepting that you are changing.  It is time to focus on yourself within the whole, and to see how it all ways together.  Today is a day for things moving and churning, but there is a rhythm in all of this, and at the end of the day, you will find a shift has occurred.

Your Color Vibe for 8/03

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Saturday, August 3:  Rose Purple

It is all about you today, but you need to determine what that means. You have been working on many levels and trying to define what it is that makes you feel most like what you are.  Well, perhaps that is the issue.  It is time to work with WHO you are, to know what that means, to go for all the changes and directions and decisions that are part of that.  This is a day for looking at yourself directly and honestly in the mirror.  This is a day for truly accepting, honoring and, yes, LOVING you.  You have made it this far, some of it by being comfortable with your who, and some of it by rejecting the potential that was there because of what others have said.  But today none of that matters.  This day is a frst step in breaking out of the mold that others put you in and moving forward into your true potential.

Latest Hathor Message through To Kenyon

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Orchidium

A Hathor Planetary Message through Tom Kenyon

Earth’s passage through the summer Solstice of 2013 was an energetic marker for the beginning of a new Chaotic Node.

As your planet undergoes increased climate change, you will see further increases in meteorological novelty and unusual interactions between storm fronts. What used to be called 100-year storms will happen more frequently. These types of storms are outer manifestations of Chaotic Nodes and the escalation of chaos arising from seemingly unrelated levels of existence.

While you have already experienced several Chaotic Nodes since 2011, you are at the beginning of another major crescendo in chaotic events. While this particular Chaotic Node will accelerate climatic and geological changes, as well as social unrest, it is your personal psychological and emotional level that may well be the most affected.

You can expect to see a pronounced increase in emotional instability and psychological imbalances among your fellow humans (perhaps including yourself). The collective social challenges of this will be profound.

For an Initiate, meaning one on the journey to higher states of consciousness, this particular Chaotic Node is, and will continue to be, both extremely challenging and full of possibilities. The challenge has to do with the nature of this unique Chaotic Node, which drives to the surface of your conscious awareness deep-seated emotional toxicity.

One of the challenges that spiritually inclined persons are experiencing, and will continue to experience for some time, is the deep recognition that they have unresolved issues and deep-seated hostilities that may not fit very well with their self-image. Indeed this is a time when self-images will be shattered.

You are seeing this unfold at the international level with governments, and you will see it unfold through all levels of society. But for many it will be the shattering of personal self-image that will be the most difficult to contend with.

What we wish to convey is that your negativity, your toxicity, your despair and your hopelessness—if they are indeed present—need not be a negation of you. Rather they can be portals into the deep unconscious, to the very bedrock of human subconscious intent.

In the process of self-liberation, you must deal with this negativity in yourself regardless of the methods you may use to free yourself.

The Orchidium

We now wish to impart a method for infusing yourself with light and life-enhancing energy. We introduce the method at this time because it will take great fortitude and personal energy to work through this particular Chaotic Node as well as the ones coming to you in the future.  We call this the Orchidium.

It is a very simple method that involves a biological metaphor and image. The greatest obstacle and the greatest difficulty with the Orchidium is its simplicity. Human beings tend to make things more complex than they need to be when it comes to this type of work.

In its essence the Orchidium is a means for you to draw into your KA (your energy body), as well as your physical body, high levels of spiritual light and life-enhancing energy—what the Yogis call prana and what the Daoists/Taoists call chi.

In this method you imagine that there is an orchid-like flower in your navel. The central root of this imaginary flower is hollow and is anchored or rooted at a point in front of your backbone, directly opposite your navel. This area is known to Daoists/Taoists as the Ming-Ma (or Seat of Life).

It is from the Seat of Life that subtle energy is distributed to your subtle energy body and also to the organs of your physical body. This type of subtle energy has a very deeply nourishing and rejuvenating effect.

When you hold an image of the Orchidium, you imagine that the stamen is extended out in front of you from the center of your navel. (Note: Stamens are the pollen producing reproductive organs of a flower. They consist of a stalk called a filament and an anther that produces the pollen.) When you create the Orchidium via your imagination, the stamen protrudes from the center of the blossom. For reference purposes, a photograph of a flower with its stamen appears elsewhere in this message.

By its nature the Orchidium draws into itself and then back into the Ming-Ma, spiritual-light and subtle energy from the cosmos.

To engage the Orchidium, all you need do is to imagine this flower in whatever ways makes sense to you so that its blossom is open, and the central root is hollow extending from the navel back into the Ming-Ma. It is crucial for you to understand that the Orchidum draws these celestial energies to you by itself, by its own nature and without you having to do anything.

There is no relationship between the flow of subtle energy into the Orchidium and your breath. Once you activate the flow of celestial energies to the Orchidium, they will flow automatically and unobstructed until you stop them.

Sensitive individuals will soon discover that they can sense the flow of cosmic energies into the stamen of the Orchidium itself, but success does not depend on this level of sensitivity. This type of awareness is simply a refinement. What is important is to feel and sense the flow of spiritual-light and energy down the central root, the hollow tube, from the Orchidum (in your navel) to your Ming-Ma and then to enjoy the flow of life-force throughout your subtle and physical bodies as you wish.

We suggest you experiment with this in five-minute intervals so that you become familiar with how the Orchidium works for you and also to avoid over-stimulation.

It is possible to bring too much celestial energy into your system, which is why we suggest five minutes at a time. Five minutes once a day is all that is required to familiarize yourself with the Orchidum and its potentials.

Once you understand how the Orchidium works for you and how much celestial energy you can comfortably bring into yourself, you can experiment with longer sessions if you wish.

After each Orchidium session we strongly suggest you imagine the Orchidium closing so that the blossom is not open. This is for the purpose of self-protection when you enter into the world. Until you have learned how to separate life-positive energies from the life-negative energies that surround you, we suggest you engage this strategy of protection.

Adding the Aethos

While you can engage the Orchidium without any sound or music, in the beginning stages you may find the Aethos Sound Meditation very helpful. This is because the pulsations within this sound piece facilitate the movement of celestial energies within the Orchidium root, which connects into your Ming-Ma.

As you listen to the Aethos Sound Meditation, when engaging the Orchidium, pay special attention to the hollow channel, the root, which runs from the Orchidim into your Ming-Ma. The sonic pulsations within the Aethos will amplify the flow of celestial energies into this channel.

Philosophical and Religious Obstructions

While the method of engaging the Orchidium is simple, the consequences in terms of your life-force and your capacity to hold spiritual light are quite complex.

There is another complexity here but it has to do with your belief systems. If you do not rise above these limited beliefs, you will constrain the flow of celestial energies.

You live in a cosmos of exquisite unimaginable beauty, spiritual-light, consciousness and energy. You are an heir to all of these treasures, and each of them imparts to you powers of consciousness—yet you are cut off from your birthright by many of your philosophies and religions.

Any religion that teaches that you have been separated from the celestial light-filled realms because you have a physical body is an obstruction to the truth of your being—as we view it. Any religion that says that you are separated from the heavenly worlds and their treasures through the sin of your birth is also, in our view, an obstruction.

Those philosophies that propose that you are merely a physical being with no dimensions of consciousness transcendent to time and space are, in our view,  obstructions as well.

For the sake of experimenting with the Orchidium we suggest you temporarily suspend these beliefs. See for yourself how well the Orchidium works when you actually suspend these limiting thought-forms. After working with the Orchidium in this manner (sans limiting beliefs) you might even choose to leave those beliefs and thought-forms permanently behind you altogether.

When working with the Orchidium we suggest the following thought-forms:

1) Imagine that you are a part of, and heir to, all the treasures of the cosmos—the highest realms of light and the most-subtle life-enhancing energies.

2) Imagine that the Orchidium effortlessly draws into you these treasures whenever you choose to open the blossom.

3) Through the Orchidium, you can experience the transformation of your subtle energy body and the vital organs of your physical body.

Use this enhanced energy and life-force (as well as the light-force) to sustain you as you move through this potent Chaotic Node and the ones to follow.

The Hathors
June 27, 2013

from:    http://tomkenyon.com/orchidium?utm_source=Hathors+Messages+through+Tom+Kenyon&utm_campaign=8bb24571da-Hathor_Message_06_27_2013&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_67e995677c-8bb24571da-188321081

On Gifting, Dinner, etc. Club Scams

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Local Pyramid Club Schemes and Cash Gifting Club Scams

You will likely first get involved in a local pyramid club when a friend, neighbor, or coworker invites you to attend an “opportunity meeting” to learn how to earn lots of money. At the meeting, you sit through a well-rehearsed presentation that downplays the traditional methods of acquiring money and will offer instead an exciting shortcut to wealth, fame and adventure.

To join, you must pay some type of initial investment to the scheme’s promoter, which gives you the right to recruit others into the privileged club or process.

It is typical of locally-based pyramid schemes to target closely knit groups, like churches or civic groups, and to encourage participants to recruit friends, family members, neighbors, business associates, workmates and relatives via word-of-mouth.

The mechanics and pitfalls of pyramid schemes is covered in greater detail in the Pyramid Schemes section. This section was separated to show you the distinct method of contact and the role that friends and associates have in causing you to lose money, however unintentionally.

Join the Gifting Club

To create an aura of respectability or benevolence they may be called “investment clubs” or “gifting clubs” and have attractive names such as “The Friendship Investment Club”, “Freedom Club”, “A Gift Network”, “Season of Sharing” , “The Spirit of Giving”, “Northwest Family Reunion” or “Creating a New Paradigm”.

When soliciting people to join “Co-Opportunities International”, promoters of the scheme commonly described it as a “social” or “gift” club where participants could exchange their talents and ideas with each other.

To become one of the eight members, a new recruit was required to make a “gift” of $2000, in cash, to the “resource chair”. Once the resource chair received the $16,000 in gifts, he was to leave that position and the pyramid was divided into two separate pyramids, with each participant moving up into the next level.

One popular pyramid theme is the “airplane game” in which new recruits buy in as passengers for $100 and are then told that if they bring in new investors they will be able to move up to flight crew, co-pilot and finally pilot. At that point they will receive $1,000 or more.

Or they may up the ante and have you pay $1,500 to be a “passenger”. Others are to pay also, and once the plane is full, each passenger can become a “pilot” and start recruiting others, with the promise of making $12,000.

One women’s “wisdom circle” uses lofty terminology and positions involving the sun, moon, sky and stars.

Investigators said recent scams, called “Pit Stop”, “NASCAR”, “Men’s Club” or “Money Exchange,” attracted 4,000 participants and targeted men by using auto-racing jargon. Participants were asked to put up a $2,000 contribution to become members of a “pit crew.” They were promised $16,000 as a “lead driver” after recruiting new participants who contribute money.

Officials received reports that those who participated could earn $50,000 to $75,000 and also heard that one top-level participant made $300,000 in three weeks. Some found the money to join Pit Stop by taking out a second home mortgage, and one woman who contacted a local radio station said she had been prepared to hock her wedding ring. Like most pyramid schemes, few people advanced to the payoff. Most just got taken for a a ride!

Working their way through different parts of the local community, Pit Stop recruited participants involved in construction, such as contractors, subcontractors and paint and hardware store employees. One version with agricultural terminology was geared to farmers while Dinner Party attracted middle-class to wealthy women involved in the real-estate industry, such as sales agents and mortgage brokers.

For Ladies Only Gifting Clubs

Modeled on the success of home party sales, a series of “ladies only” pyramid schemes, which are known by the names “Circle of Friends,” “Women Helping Women”, the “Gifting Club”, “Heart to Heart”, “Gifts for Charity”, “Renewal Celebration”, “Women Empowering Women,” “Women’s Empowerment Network”, “Women for Women,” and the “Dinner Party,” are represented as a gathering of women helping one another by “gifting” money through a tiered structure.

Recruiting material for some of the groups talks about a goddess and sisterhood and offer an interstate conference-call system to keep members in touch.

The system appears to be active in several circles and professions ranging from realtors, hairdressers, professors at universities to employees of school boards, courthouses and numerous businesses.

A lot of professionals as well as middle-and upper-class people are involved, people one would assume to be smarter than that. Even several male and female police officers in Auburn, Maine, were suspended or forced to resign after spending $2,000 to join the local “Changing Lives” pyramid scheme.

Dinner Clubs Pyramid Schemes

Dinner clubs use such euphemisms as “appetizer” and “entree” for levels of participation.

The pyramids which are misnamed as circles operate like this: The organizers portray the program as a progressive dinner party or birthday party. Eight people begin on the bottom rung as “appetizers” who contribute $5,000 each at a birthday party for the top person, or the dessert.

Between those levels are four soup-and-salad people and two entree people. Once the dessert person birthdays, or gets their $40,000, everyone moves up a notch: the entrees become desserts and split into two other tables, and eight more appetizers are needed for both tables.

Statistics show that only 10 percent of people who put up the money ever get a return. Once the pyramid reaches a certain stage, there are always too many people to be paid off, and the pyramid collapses. The key to the downfall of such schemes is that it eventually and inevitably requires about eight times more participants who put money in than actually receive it.

As if having a history provided respectability, they state that the plan originated 11 years ago in Toronto, Canada by a group of women to create money for charity. The concept was apparently so successful that the women realized they could use it to help each other. From Canada, the plan moved to Washington, then to Texas and beyond. It is now spreading across Great Britain faster than hoof in mouth disease.

Federal, state and local government officials say that not only are the various gifting circles illegal pyramid schemes, but as many as 90 percent of the overall members won’t ever get “dessert”, the top level in which participants can receive thousands of dollars beyond their initial investment.

Successful participants adamantly disagree.

Dismissing the possibility of personal gain on a large scale, participants insist that they give their $5,000 as gifts to offer psychological, spiritual and financial support and empowerment to other women. The schemes also purport to help charitable causes and women who are trying to escape an abusive husband or who have children with medical needs.

They say they have no expectation of one day being at the top, where they might be fortunate enough to have a “birthday” and receive their $40,000 dessert.

This is the reason the gifting circle is not a pyramid, they say. The group is about love and growth, the $40,000 payoff is incidental.

So whenever police issue an advisory stating the criminal aspect of the clubs and the potential of financial loss they are inundated with calls from residents insisting, often abusively, that they are participating in gifting clubs and not pyramid schemes, which are illegal.

“I believe in it and I am not going to stop doing it,” one lady said. “So there, arrest me.”

They’re very convincing that this is just women helping women and it’s nobody’s business but theirs. They make it a very wholesome, good thing when in fact they’re simply taking other people’s money.

continue QuickTour

Silencing Detractors of Gifting Clubs

Once participants have a vested non-returnable monetary interest in the program they are quite unreceptive to negative suggestions which might jeopardize their capital.

Early winners insist that detractors are simply jealous. Never having seen anyone lose money (prior to the scheme’s collapse) is their self-assurance that no one ever will.

Placing emphasis on their rights to give away money, after recouping eight times the initial payment, they minimize the collection aspect through continuous recruitment.

“In the beginning, it feels like it’s the money,” said one promoter. “It’s exciting to feel like you have a chance. But down the road, the real gift is the networking women have with one another and the things they learn along the journey. There’s nothing wrong with women supporting each other this way.”

One individual who said she lost $5,000 in the scheme is angry that the group is using the public’s distrust of government and the media to continue, while another, still clinging to the party line, said that she gave $1,800 to help other people and that she does not care if she gets anything in return.

“It’s a cyclical thing. Women understand cycles. It must be a natural process, as in life,” she said.

She said she believes the plan is not illegal because women cycle off the top and are done once they receive their payoff. She also believes that in an illegal scheme, a person remains at the top and continues to receive money from everyone who joins.

Such misconceptions and rebellious rhetoric are planted as seeds of self-justification at the informational meetings.

Mathematical logic dictates that these pyramids always collapse because their growth is not sustainable. You run out of people to ask in. There are a few people at the top making vast fortunes out of those at the bottom. If you are at the bottom, you will lose your money. If you cannot afford to lose both the money and the friends you recruit, don’t take part.

Promoters suggest that while mathematics shows that it cannot last long, these calculations do not allow for women buying back into the system (most of whom do). They feel that WEW is a cyclic process, like extended families who support newlyweds or struggling mothers and that if a program fails, those with the duty of care will, in most cases, reimburse those who have fallen short. Beneficiaries though are generally unwilling to be interviewed or photographed.

Women Empowering Women Gifting Clubs

Women Empowering Women claims to be “basically a support group for women whose main goal is the empowerment of women by providing for them the financial and emotional abilities to support themselves, their loved ones and their community.”

Realistically, the same motto could apply to a streetwalkers’ union. And support for your community could simply mean you are going to pay higher taxes or make a $10 donation to the local food bank.

“By creating a positive network, we facilitate a safe place to help eradicate the poverty and isolation that many women suffer. This provides a place for companionship that helps women to overcome shyness and fears that they do not have the ability to generate money.”

As the principle means of group contact is by phoning from your home we have to conclude that that is fairly safe, but with a $5000 entry fee you have to wonder about the poverty aspect. Most participants to-date have been outgoing and sociable individuals, able to influence the participation of friends or acquaintances to participate.

A noble cause indeed until you examine the means by which this is done. Once the meaningless platitudes are evaluated under the strong light of reason one comes to the inevitable conclusion that this process is nothing more than a dressed-up pyramid scheme.

For what is empowerment here but the ability to make money from others who you convince to join your money-making scheme.

And make no mistake about the basic underlying concept. Eight people each pay out $5000 to one person in order to join. Then the group splits in half and eight new people pay one person to join one breakaway group and eight others do the same for the other top dog. Supposedly forever.

Although the number crunching somehow instantly gets confusing, you must remember that for the process to continue the number of new recruits must DOUBLE each time the people at the top get paid. Mathematics aside, let’s get back to some of their pronouncements.

According to the literature provided by the organizers “it is the belief that there is plenty for everyone.” Stressing togetherness, the only pronouns used in their literature are “us” and “we”.

“We are not only able to enjoy the rewards for our own personal benefit, but for the entire group and those who we will be inviting to join us and share in the Gifting Circle.”

When you first come into the group you join the top line of eight heart shaped spaces wherein you place your name and phone number. When the eight hearts are filled you each pay the Receiver $5000. As the process will not be newly formed you will have four people above you and two above them, even though the triangular chart is inverted and called a circle to mask the obvious.

Then the structure breaks in half and becomes two groups whereby the top individual gets money from eight new participants. Then the upside-down pyramid splits again with you progressing one step higher after each payout split.

As new “Gifters” you can “experience trust balanced with action.” “By giving an unconditional gift, you become open to receive unconditionally.” Sort of like God’s love.

“Trust the system and remember this “feminine process” works best through sharing with others this opportunity.”

Without an endless stream of participants it doesn’t work at all.

“Men cannot be involved.”

Seeking to create an exclusively female operation that can quickly dismiss male detractors as lacking the global wisdom and understanding of such things female, they neglect to acknowledge the numerous male-oriented schemes like Pit Stop and the Airplane Crew which are identical in form, but lack the fantasy.

Instead of just saying they get together and enthusiastically talk about how much money they are making from the process, in a bid to lure in others, they mask it as “creating new ways of providing emotional support and financial gain in all of our lives”.

“We support the circle by sharing the experiences of the gift of support, the gift of sharing, of feeling valued and appreciated and celebrating with each other as each of our group receives their gifts.”

When you join up you go to meetings three times a week and everyone is handing over cash. It turns your head seeing all that money and they make sure all the new recruits see it being counted at the end of the night.

Participants recruit only family, friends and colleagues, and keep in contact through weekly meetings or conference phone calls to see if you have got your new recruits yet, creating a club-like feel. Soon they are acting like cult members and the more cautious cannot reason with them.

I know I would certainly appreciate your giving me your money as a gift and I am sure it must be quite a party atmosphere when a woman wallows in her $40,000 windfall.

The second level tier is the Supporter Position where you “assist in the continual expansion of the circle with a combination of trust and gratitude, balanced with a willingness to encourage each other.”

Talk it up and get out promoting it to new entrants or you won’t make it to the top.

“We are literally creating a new economic experience. The old belief of having to work hard for anything worthwhile in life is now changing and shifting with this process.”

Nothing much new about getting ripped-off but as I never liked the concept of working hard for something worthwhile, they’ve got my vote there.

Once in the third tier Apprentice Position you learn that “while our culture has taught us that it is more blessed to give than to receive; without people to receive the giving is not complete.”

I knew I should have paid more attention in bible study class. Keep promoting girls, you can’t move up a tier until eight new people join at the bottom, crack a cheque, and a new “circle” is formed.

“This is a circular process; no one holds any position that will reap more rewards than anyone else above or below her.”

This somewhat conflicting statement is belied by the fact that the never-ending circle of plenty has only one top level Receiver Position, which out of fifteen players is cryptically called the end and the beginning of the circle. “Now that “we” have received, “we” are once again in a position to give and the cycle continues.”

In other words, hey, I just got eight times what I put in, so sure, why not start again. After all, I am way ahead of the game and the momentum is still strong for new recruits clamoring to get in.

One participant acknowledged that many women do use some of their profits to start again at the bottom level but declined to say how many times she has gone through the system.

Charity and Goodwill in Gifting Clubs

“When a woman is financially gifted, she then completes the circle by gifting back other women who are in need, or by aiding a charity of her choice.”

That just about covers the altruistic bases. Do what you think best with the money you took unconditionally from the others. How wonderful that because you can make a donation with a portion of your booty, participants can portray it is a charitable organization.

Of course what you do with your winnings are your business now, but to truly fulfill the imagined mandate of the operation “we should share these gifts with our families, our communities, other women we may well know and those we may never actually meet in person.”

to read more, find out more, and learn more, go to:    http://www.crimes-of-persuasion.com/Crimes/InPerson/MajorPerson/pyramid_clubs.htm

Benefits of Writing

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Writing: Better than a Band-Aid?

3293117576_05f43d8305_n.jpg

For those of us who write, we often feel a psychological or emotional release after writing, especially if we’ve tackled a difficult subject. It turns out this emotional release may work on an even deeper level. According to a new study from New Zealand, expressive writing helps wounds heal more quickly in older adults, a group prone to injuries.

The study, led by the University of Auckland’s Elizabeth Broadbent, worked with 49 healthy adults ages 64 to 97. All the participants were asked to write for 20 minutes a day for three consecutive days. Half were asked to “write about the most traumatic/upsetting experience in their life, delving into their deepest thoughts, feelings, and emotions about the event, ideally not previously shared with others.” The others were asked to “write about their daily activities for tomorrow, without mentioning emotions, opinions or beliefs.”

Then, all participants received a standard skin biopsy, and the resultant wounds were photographed and monitored over the next 11 days. On the 11th day after the biopsy, the wounds were completely healed on 76.2 percent of those who had done the expressive writing. That was true of only 42.1 percent of those who had written about everyday activities.

Interestingly, the participants who wrote expressively did not report lower levels of stress or a feeling of better emotional well-being. It seems that even though they were not consciously aware of feeling more relaxed, the expressive writing had triggered something in their bodies which significantly sped up their healing time.

Though it cannot always be scientifically explained, there is a strong connection between mental and physical well-being. By healing, or at least dealing with, an emotional wound through writing, these study participants were able to prompt their body’s physical healing response, proving, if nothing else, the incredible capabilities of the human mind and body for healing.

Image by jjpacres, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

from:    http://www.realitysandwich.com/writing_better_bandaid

TS Dorian Making a Comeback?

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After a long trek over the Atlantic Ocean from the coast of Africa, the remains of Tropical Storm Dorian (now called Invest 91L) have finally arrived at the shores of North America. Ex-Dorian is nearly stationary, and is situated over the Northwestern Bahama Islands, just off the coast of Southeast Florida. Satellite loops and Melbourne, Florida radar images show that ex-Dorian has only a limited amount of heavy thunderstorms, which are not well-organized. There does appear to be a surface circulation center trying to form just north of the storm’s heaviest thunderstorms, about 70 miles east of Vero Beach, Florida. However, dry air to the northwest, as seen on water vapor satellite loops, is inhibiting development. WInd shear is moderate, 10 – 20 knots, but is expected to rise to the high range, 20 – 30 knots, by Saturday morning. Ex-Dorian is expected to move slowly northwards and then north-northeastwards on Saturday. This motion will get ex-Dorian tangled up with a cold front that extends from Northern Florida northeastwards, just offshore from the Southeast U.S. coast. Before it merges with the front, ex-Dorian has some potential for regeneration into a tropical depression, and in their 8 am Friday Tropical Weather Outlook, NHC gave ex-Dorian a 30% chance of becoming a tropical cyclone by Sunday. Ex-Dorian will likely bring heavy rains to the Northwest Bahamas on Friday, and these heavy rains may also clip the coast of Southeast Florida. However, the bulk of ex-Dorian’s rains should stay offshore.


Figure 1. Morning radar image of ex-Dorian from the Miami radar.

from:    http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/show.html

Your Color Vibe for 08/02

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Friday, August 2:    Copper

Today is all about connections.  It is a time for looking at who/what/where is around you, what you have connected with.  Then it is time to look at the things that are bit by bit entering your aura-field.  There is much here at this time that is changing, and you are acting as a kind of polarity-entity attracting like charged individuals and ideas.  So there is a double meaning to what is going on today.  Things will come to you on many levels, and you are being given the opportunity to see them in a new light, to feel whether or not there is a true connection there, and if you feel it is right, then you will find that whatever/whoever those things/people/places/ events are, they will be attracted into your life starting from today and culminating in the month of November.

USA Concern over Surveillance Trumps Terrorism

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  • Major opinion shifts, in the US and Congress, on NSA surveillance and privacy

    Pew finds that, for the first time since 9/11, Americans are now more worried about civil liberties abuses than terrorism

NSA headquarters

The NSA headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland. Photograph: EPA

Numerous polls taken since our reporting on previously secret NSA activities first began have strongly suggested major public opinion shifts in how NSA surveillance and privacy are viewed. But a new comprehensive poll released over the weekend weekend by Pew Research provides the most compelling evidence yet of how stark the shift is.

Among other things, Pew finds that “a majority of Americans – 56% – say that federal courts fail to provide adequate limits on the telephone and internet data the government is collecting as part of its anti-terrorism efforts.” And “an even larger percentage (70%) believes that the government uses this data for purposes other than investigating terrorism.” Moreover, “63% think the government is also gathering information about the content of communications.” That demonstrates a decisive rejection of the US government’s three primary defenses of its secret programs: there is adequate oversight; we’re not listening to the content of communication; and the spying is only used to Keep You Safe™.

But the most striking finding is this one:

“Overall, 47% say their greater concern about government anti-terrorism policies is that they have gone too far in restricting the average person’s civil liberties, while 35% say they are more concerned that policies have not gone far enough to protect the country. This is the first time in Pew Research polling that more have expressed concern over civil liberties than protection from terrorism since the question was first asked in 2004.“

For anyone who spent the post-9/11 years defending core liberties against assaults relentlessly perpetrated in the name of terrorism, polling data like that is nothing short of shocking. This Pew visual underscores what a radical shift has occurred from these recent NSA disclosures:

pew NSA

Perhaps more amazingly still, this shift has infected the US Congress. Following up on last week’s momentous House vote – in which 55% of Democrats and 45% of Republicans defied the White House and their own leadership to vote for the Amash/Conyers amendment to ban the NSA’s bulk phone records collection program – the New York Times has an article this morning which it summarizes on its front page this way:

nyt nsa

The article describes how opposition to the NSA, which the paper says was recently confined to the Congressional “fringes”, has now “built a momentum that even critics say may be unstoppable, drawing support from Republican and Democratic leaders, attracting moderates in both parties and pulling in some of the most respected voices on national security in the House.”

It describes how GOP Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner – a prime author of the Patriot Act back in 2001 and a long-time defender of even the most extremist War on Terror policies – has now become a leading critic of NSA overreach. He will have “a bill ready when Congress returned from its August recess that would restrict phone surveillance to only those named as targets of a federal terrorism investigation, make significant changes to the secret court that oversees such programs and give businesses like Microsoft and Google permission to reveal their dealings before that court.”

Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren is quoted this way: “There is a growing sense that things have really gone a-kilter here”. Yesterday on This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Democratic Sen Dick Durbin, one of Obama’s closest Senate allies, said that the recently revealed NSA bulk record collection program “goes way too far”.

The strategy for the NSA and its Washington defenders for managing these changes is now clear: advocate their own largely meaningless reform to placate this growing sentiment while doing nothing to actually rein in the NSA’s power. “Backers of sweeping surveillance powers now say they recognize that changes are likely, and they are taking steps to make sure they maintain control over the extent of any revisions,” says the NYT.

The primary problem enabling out-of-control NSA spying has long been the Intelligence Committees in both houses of Congress. That’s an ironic twist given that those were the committees created in the wake of the mid-1970s Church Committee to provide rigorous oversight, as a response to the recognition that Executive Branch’s surveillance powers were being radically abused – and would inevitably be abused in the future – without robust transparency and accountability.

But with a few rare and noble exceptions, the Intelligence Committees in both houses of Congress are filled with precisely those members who are most slavishly beholden to, completely captured by, the intelligence community over which they supposedly serve as watchdogs. Many receive large sums of money from the defense and intelligence industries.

There is a clear and powerful correlation between NSA support and amounts of money received by these members from those industries, as Wired’s Dave Kravets adeptly documented about last week’s NSA vote and has been documented before with similar NSA-protecting actions from the Intelligence Committee. In particular, the two chairs of those committees – Democrat Dianne Feinstein in the Senate and Republican Mike Rogers in the House – are such absolute loyalists to the NSA and the National Security State generally that it is usually impossible to distinguish their behavior, mindset and comments from those of NSA officials.

In sum, the Senate and House Intelligence Committees are the pure embodiment of the worst of Washington: the corrupting influence of money from the very industries they are designed to oversee and the complete capture by the agencies they are supposed to adversarially check. Anything that comes out of the leadership of those two Committees that is labeled “NSA reform” is almost certain to be designed to achieve the opposite effect: to stave off real changes in lieu of illusory tinkering whose real purpose will be to placate rising anger.

But that trick seems unlikely to work here. What has made these disclosures different from past NSA scandals – including ones showing serious abuse of their surveillance powers – are the large numbers of the NSA’s own documents that are now and will continue to be available for the public to see, as well the sustained, multi-step nature of these disclosures, which makes this far more difficult for NSA defenders to predict, manage and dismiss away. At least as much as they are shining long-overdue light on these specific NSA domestic programs, the NSA disclosures are changing how Americans (and people around the world) think about the mammoth National Security State and whether it can and should be trusted with unchecked powers exercised in the dark. Those public opinion shifts aren’t going to disappear as the result of some blatantly empty gestures from Dianne Feinstein and Mike Rogers masquerading as “reform”.

Despite the substantial public opinion shifts, Pew found that Americans are largely split on whether the NSA data-collection program should continue. The reason for this is remarkable and repugnant though, at this point, utterly unsurprising:

Nationwide, there is more support for the government’s data-collection program among Democrats (57% approve) than among Republicans (44%), but both parties face significant internal divisions: 36% of Democrats disapprove of the program as do 50% of Republicans.

Just as Democrats went from vehement critics of Bush’s due-process-free War on Terror policies to vocal cheerleaders of Obama’s drone kills and even Guantanamo imprisonments, the leading defenders of the NSA specifically and America’s Surveillance State generally are now found among self-identified Democrats. That was embodied by how one of the most vocal Democratic NSA critics during the Bush years – Nancy Pelosi – in almost single-handedly saved the NSA from last week’s House vote. If someone had said back in 2007 that the greatest support for NSA surveillance would be found among Democrats, many would find the very idea ludicrous. But such is life in the Age of Obama: one of his most enduring legacies is transforming his party from pretend-opponents of the permanent National Security State into its most enthusiastic supporters.

But despite that hackish partisan opportunism, the positive opinion changes toward NSA surveillance and civil liberties can be seen across virtually all partisan and ideological lines:

pew NSA

The largest changes toward demanding civil liberties protections have occurred among liberal Democrats, Tea Party Republicans, independents and liberal/moderate Republicans. Only self-identified “moderate/conservative Democrats” – the Obama base – remains steadfast and steady in defense of NSA surveillance. The least divided, most-pro-NSA caucus in the House for last week’s vote was the corporatist Blue Dog Democrat caucus, which overwhelmingly voted to protect the NSA’s bulk spying on Americans.

As I’ve repeatedly said, the only ones defending the NSA at this point are the party loyalists and institutional authoritarians in both parties. That’s enough for the moment to control Washington outcomes – as epitomized by the unholy trinity that saved the NSA in the House last week: Pelosi, John Bohener and the Obama White House – but it is clearly not enough to stem the rapidly changing tide of public opinion.

from:    http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/29/poll-nsa-surveillance-privacy-pew

Gulf Woes Persist – BP Denies

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Shirking Responsibility in the Gulf

By STEPHEN TEAGUE
Published: July 30, 2013

BILOXI, Miss. — IF you don’t live near the Gulf Coast, you may have the impression that the area has fully recovered from the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, the largest environmental disaster in American history. Sadly, that’s not the case for tens of thousands of gulf residents still trying to put their lives back together.

That is, however, what BP wants the public to believe — which is why it is now engaged in an aggressive legal and public-relations campaign to limit how much it pays individuals and businesses for the losses its reckless behavior caused. After having a hand in this huge disaster, the company wants to leave these communities to rebuild on their own, even as it takes in record profits.

The spill resulted in the release of more than 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico and the deaths of 11 people. In September 2011 a federal investigation found BP responsible for the leak, and in November 2012 the Department of Justice reached a court settlement with the company that included a $4.5 billion fine.

In 2010 the company set up a $20 billion fund to settle claims arising from the disaster, and since then it has made payments to hundreds of thousands of individuals and businesses affected by the spill. In 2012 a federal court took over supervision of the fund.

But tens of thousands of gulf residents still haven’t been fully compensated for their losses, and many are struggling to make ends meet. Many low-wage workers in the fishing and service industries, for example, have been seeking compensation for lost wages and jobs for three years. In many cases, their claims aren’t successful because they can’t afford the legal help required to navigate the complex claims process.

Their troubles stem in part from BP’s increasingly brazen attempts to stonewall payouts. Most recently, the company made a motion in court to freeze payments on tens of thousands of legitimate claims, arguing that a staff attorney from the Deepwater Horizon Court-Supervised Settlement Program, the program responsible for evaluating compensation claims, had improperly profited from claims filed by a New Orleans law firm. The attorney is said to have received portions of settlement claims for clients he referred to the firm.

But the alleged bad behavior of one attorney does not justify freezing the payment of all claims, as BP has demanded, especially when the firm handled a small fraction of the claims that have been submitted for compensation. In any case, the attorney has resigned, and Carl J. Barbier, the federal judge who is overseeing the settlement, ordered an investigation, which is continuing. So far the judge has refused to freeze payments while the investigation is under way, a ruling that the company is appealing.

Of course, this isn’t really about the possible extent of the damage done by the attorney. BP is using the case to cast doubt, both in public and in the courts, on the entire process. And it’s working: its talking points have been echoed in mainstream media coverage, which has so far featured few voices of actual oil-spill victims.

Such guilt by association ignores the robust measures built into the settlement program to ensure a fair compensation system. The fraud-detection mechanisms are so extensive that the processing of claims is slowed down to accommodate them.

Meanwhile, the company has fought aggressively to undermine individual claims. In some instances, BP has tried to deny payment of claims that its own settlement program had already deemed legitimate.

The company’s efforts know no bounds and have pushed the claimants and their legal representatives to the limit. My organization, the Mississippi Center for Justice, is one of several groups providing pro bono legal assistance. Since 2011, we have helped approximately 10,000 people navigate the difficult claims process and obtain money they are owed by BP.

We have seen firsthand the extent to which BP will go to avoid paying even patently legitimate claims. One claimant with whom we worked, whose employer closed its doors in the wake of the spill, finally received an offer for compensation after two years. Then BP appealed the award, seeking to have it revoked. After he received assistance in countering BP’s appeal, the company finally admitted that he was, in fact, owed money and withdrew its appeal of his claim.

But while we can carry on the battle through lawsuits and in the affected communities, we are outgunned in the court of public opinion. In countless high-priced TV spots and full-page newspaper ads, the company is selling the story that it is committed to helping victims of the oil spill and rebuilding the gulf.

We know different. The company has turned its back on the people whose lives it derailed. BP must end its stall tactics and keep its promises to the people of the gulf.

Stephen Teague is a staff attorney at the Mississippi Center for Justice.

from:    http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/31/opinion/shirking-responsibility-in-the-gulf.html?_r=1&emc=0&

August Hurricane Potential

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A massive dust storm that formed over the Sahara Desert early this week has now pushed out over the tropical Atlantic, and will sharply reduce the odds of tropical storm formation during the first week of August. The dust is accompanied by a large amount of dry air, which is making the Saharan Air Layer (SAL) much drier than usual this week. June and July are the peak months for dust storms in the Southwest Sahara, and this week’s dust storm is a typical one for this time of year. Due in large part to all the dry and dusty air predicted to dominate the tropical Atlantic over the next seven days, none of the reliable computer models is predicting Atlantic tropical cyclone formation during the first week of August.


Figure 1. A massive dust storm moves off the coast of Africa in this MODIS image taken at 1:40 UTC July 30, 2013. Image credit: NASA.

Video 1. The predicted movement through August 3 of this week’s Africam dust storm, using the NOAA NGAC aerosol model. Image credit: NOAA Visualization Laboratory.

How dust affects hurricanes
Saharan dust can affect hurricane activity in several ways:

1) Dust acts as a shield which keeps sunlight from reaching the surface. Thus, large amounts of dust can keep the sea surface temperatures up to 1°C cooler than average in the hurricane Main Development Region (MDR) from the coast of Africa to the Caribbean, providing hurricanes with less energy to form and grow. Ocean temperatures in the MDR are currently 0.7°F above average, and this anomaly should cool this week as the dust blocks sunlight.

2) The Saharan Air Layer (SAL) is a layer of dry, dusty Saharan air that rides up over the low-level moist air over the tropical Atlantic. At the boundary between the SAL and low-level moist air where the trade winds blow is the trade wind inversion–a region of the atmosphere where the temperature increases with height. Since atmospheric temperature normally decreases with height, this “inversion” acts to but the brakes on any thunderstorms that try to punch through it. This happens because the air in a thunderstorm’s updraft suddenly encounters a region where the updraft air is cooler and less buoyant than the surrounding air, and thus will not be able to keep moving upward. The dust in the SAL absorbs solar radiation, which heats the air in the trade wind inversion. This makes the inversion stronger, which inhibits the thunderstorms that power a hurricane.

3) Dust may also act to produce more clouds, but this effect needs much more study. If the dust particles are of the right size to serve as “condensation nuclei”–centers around which raindrops can form and grow–the dust can act to make more clouds. Thus, dust could potentially aid in the formation and intensification of hurricanes. However, if the dust acts to make more low-level clouds over the tropical Atlantic, this will reduce the amount of sunlight reaching the ocean, cooling the sea surface temperatures and discouraging hurricane formation (Kaufman et al., 2005.)


Figure 2. Map of the mean summer dust optical thickness derived from satellite measurements between 1979 and 2000. Maximum dust amounts originate in the northern Sahel (15° to 18° N) and the Sahara (18° to 22° N). The Bodele depression in Chad is also an active dust source. Image credit: Evidence of the control of summer atmospheric transport of African dust over the Atlantic by Sahel sources from TOMS satellites (1979-2000), by C. Moulin and I. Chiapello, published in January 2004 in Geophysical Research Letters.

Dust in Africa’s Sahel region and Atlantic hurricane activity
The summertime dust that affects Atlantic tropical storms originates over the southwestern Sahara (18° – 22° N) and the northwestern Sahel (15° – 18° N) (Figure 3.) The dust from the Southwest Sahara stays relatively constant from year to year, but the dust from the Northwest Sahel varies significantly, so understanding this variation may be a key factor in improving our forecasts of seasonal hurricane activity in the Atlantic. The amount of dust that gets transported over the Atlantic depends on a mix of three main factors: the large scale and local scale weather patterns (windy weather transports more dust), how wet the current rainy season is (wet weather will wash out dust before it gets transported over the Atlantic), and how dry and drought-damaged the soil is. The level of drought experienced in the northwestern Sahel during the previous year is the key factor of the three in determining how much dust gets transported over the Atlantic during hurricane season, according to a January 2004 study published in Geophysical Research Letters published by C. Moulin and I. Chiapello. In 2012 (Figure 3), precipitation across the northwestern Sahel was much above average, which should result in less dust than usual over the Atlantic this fall, increasing the odds of a busy 2013 hurricane season.


Figure 3. Rainfall over the Northwest Sahel region of Africa was about 200% of average during the 2012 rainy season. The heavy rains promoted vigorous vegetation growth in 2013, resulting in less bare ground capable of generating dust. Image credit: NOAA/Climate Prediction Center.

Links
Saharan Air Layer Analysis from the University of Wisconsin

Atlantic dust forecast from the Tel-Aviv University Weather Research Center

Dr. Amato Evan published a study in Science magazine March 2009 showing that 69% of the increase in Atlantic sea surface temperatures over the past 26 years could be attributed to decreases in the amount of dust in the atmosphere.

Kaufman, Y. J., I. Koren, L. A. Remer, D. Rosenfeld, and Y. Rudich, 2005a: The effect of smoke, dust, and pollution aerosol on shallow cloud development over the Atlantic Ocean. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 102, 11 207–11 212.

Wang, Chunzai, Shenfu Dong, Amato T. Evan, Gregory R. Foltz, Sang-Ki Lee, 2012, Multidecadal Covariability of North Atlantic Sea Surface Temperature, African Dust, Sahel Rainfall, and Atlantic Hurricanes, J. Climate, 25, 5404–5415.
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-11-00413.1

from:    http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/show.html