shoes off everyone

Now is our opportunity to embrace some of our muslim friend's Customs.

Throwing your shoes is gonna be big in 09.

The more shoes you have to throw,the bigger the insult and the disrespect !!So Mr Brown steer clear of the high St when Clarkes are going bankrupt and stay on the right side of Imelda Marcos.

Jacqui Smith is apparently drafting legislation as we speak to make removing one's shoes in public an act of terrorism.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=023_1229383665

This is funny

Love this open letter from an ADDICT to their family

An Open Letter To My Family

I am a drug abuser.

I need help.

Don't solve my problem for me.

This only makes me lose respect for you and for myself.

Don't lecture, moralise, scold, blame, or argue whether I'm stoned or sober.

It may make you feel better, but it makes the situation worse.

Don't accept my promises.

The nature of my illness prevents my keeping them, even though I mean them at the time. Promises are only my way of postponing pain.

And don't keep switching agreements; if an agreement is made, stick to it.

Don't lose your temper with me.

It will destroy you and any possibility of helping me.

Don't let your anxiety for me make you do what I should do for myself.

Don't believe everything I tell you.

Often I don't even know the truth - let alone tell it.Don't cover up or try to spare me the consequences of my using.

It may reduce the crisis, but it will make my illness worse.

Above all, don't run away from reality as I do.

Drug dependence, my illness, gets worse as my using continues.

Start now to learn, to understand, to plan for recovery.

Find Families Anonymous, a group which exists to help families in just your situation.

I need help - from a doctor, a psychologist, a counsellor, from some people in a self-help programme who've recovered from a drug problem themselves, and from a Power greater than myself.

Surprise surprise injecting more debt into a debt addled system didn't work. Time for plan B

The ineptitude at the top is why people think there is an illuminati.

profits are privatised, losses are socialised. That's the 21-century Free Market

Yeah lets stop talking about

"Bail em out" and start talking about

"Bail Amount"

Never, in the field of finance, was so much owed by so many to so few!!

G Broon is like the Captain of the Titanic - only - he didn't go down with his ship like he should have done..........Instead, he's been splashing about with one of the lifeboats - trying to be a hero - -- EVEN THOUGH HE DROVE THE SHIP ONTO THE ICEBERG - AND SUNK IT............

Governments the world over always try to solve their economic problems by printing money. The UK government has confirmed that this is their intention. After this bailout you will find another even larger bailout, then another one, and another one. The government will keep creating money (debt) until the entire system collapses as trade stops due to the devaluation of money.

Ultimately it will be worthless.

The problem that we face is our inability to recognise the self destructive nature of the current economic system we employ. Therefore it doesn't matter what anyone does, we really are re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Of course the world will still exist, even a world without banks, however, we can expect to see a lot of instability

So why wont it work?

Well i will tell you,

having watched hour after hour on the news and on doomberg eh sorry bloomberg, and having witnessed countless people from all sides of the argument from idiots like will hutton to more sensible people like Vince cable and ken Clarke. (sensible to be take with a pinch of salt). not a single one ever seems to mention that the problem is too much debt.

This entire crisis is because the banks have lent money to people who can not pay it back; or will ever be able to pay it back, being mortgages on over priced properties.

Therefore if you are a bank and lent money and it is not coming back you are bust. This is not rocket science.

I am getting increasingly frustrated that no one ever seems to get that this is the problem.

Mr Brown only this morning said that this rescue package would get to the heart of the problem. how can it.

I suggest you Start doing your own research and you will soon start to find out why none of them want to address the real issue which is to much debt/printing money out of thin air etc.

Zeitgeist addendum part 2 is a good place to start.

Also money masters on Google video or money as debt. You can also Google who owns the federal reserve which is actually a private bank owned by private individuals. Do your research and come to your own conclusions why the Gentlemen we call politicians don't want to talk about the real problem.

It seems a bit of a no no to point out that the problem is too much debt - personal debt, government debt, bank debt. All the analysis I've seen seems to think as soon as the banks start lending again then bingo, problem solved.

Nobody seems to have understood yet that the debt is the problem, creating more of it is not the answer. It's as if they can't imagine a world where people and businesses can operate at all without getting into loads of debt. I wonder why that is?

The govt cannot highlight the debt problem because they are in so much debt and Ponzi Brown might have a bit of trouble giving any sort of convincing answer about the debt without spouting his usual drivel about unrivalled growth, strong fundamentals and his latest "do what ever it takes" etc....You will notice that no where in any of the banking bailouts has anyone sort to shore up banking balance sheets by getting people to pay back the money borrowed.

Considering the problem is debt this is very strange.This is why the bailouts will fail. More debt will not solve the problem and the markets know this.

Simply put, the solution to this problem will hurt.Years of repayment means years of pain, and we don't like pain. Meanwhile, there's a minuscule, unrealistic chance that if we put it off for 5 years, something will come along to solve the whole mess.There's an elephant in the room, and nobody wants to talk about it.

Both In the US and now here, the focus is totally on getting the lending going again- note that this is always phrased as getting credit flowing again- it would be just as accurate to say it's about getting debt flowing again- but this lacks a certain positive gloss and would perhaps lead to a train of thought that nobody wants to get on board of.

So what we have is a triple whammy - 1- The government is borrowing half a trillion pounds on your behalf at interest, to give to banks so they can lend it out back to you, at interest.

2- Banks are now charging you to put money in their bank (IRs lower than inflation) even though they're thieves who keep losing peoples money.

3- All this extra money is causing inflation, which is stealing your wealth from you.

Basically we're all been robbed blind. No doubt I've missed some other thieving aspect of this too. So what can we do? Call the police? Cry?

Today the Tax Payer offered the banks the chance to put all their outgoings into one manageable monthly payment. That's funny because i don't remember being part of that discussion as to if I agreed, oh that's right, I'm a peasant i do what I'm told and pay my tax like a good little slave,

sorry forgot sir getting above my station there sir, shall i bend over again sir ?

So Whats actually happening?

A few friends have asked me to try and explain all the "financial stuff" so here goes, I add that this is my understanding of whats happening and may well be complete nonsense, but hey its my nonsense and its got to be better than the spin we are getting from Gordon and Darling.

Right,,, The fractional reserve system of banking means a bank can take a deposit of £1 and lend it out (effectively) more than once.

So, if everyone walked into a bank on the same day and tried to withdraw their deposits, the bank would not be able to pay them back.

They have to keep a certain level of cash available to meet the demands of savers for cash. (Capital Adequacy)

The more banks lend, the more money they make. When they had no more money to lend, they created packages of debt - like Mortgage Backed Securities and Collateralized Debt Obligations.

(So, if they had lent 100 million out via 1000 mortgages (of 100k each) that were paying 5.5% interest - they would package these mortgages together and provide them as security for a loan from another bank.)

They then lent that money out again - and they all packaged up debt and sold it to each other (or used it as collateral).

Within these packages of debt, risky loans (high Loan to Values and high salary multiples) were included with lower risk loans.

In this way the banks got around the capital adequacy rules that say 'you must always keep x% in cash to allow for savers demanding their money back'.The result, eventually when the housing market started falling, was that banks suddenly stopped trusting each other.

Bank A would say to itself 'what is the real value of the security that Bank B is offering ... they're offering a MBS with a face value of 100 million that pays 5.5% but, are the properties backing that MBS actually worth a 100 million, are the loans inside it all 'good' loans or is it full of high risk loans (like Northern Rock used to make).

So, Bank A stopped lending to Bank B ... and Bank C, D, E etc - in fact all banks - because the whole system of packaging up and re-selling debt had become so complicated that no-one knew what the real position of any other bank was.

Were they sitting on lots of bad debts or not? Were the assets enough to back the loans they were offering as security or not.

So, the banks stopped lending to each other. As they had long ago used up all the lending they could make based on the money you and I deposit in them .. they basically stopped lending.

They certainly stopped risky lending. Now you needed a big deposit and a lower salary multiple to get a mortgage.

And, of course, this made it worse because this causes house prices to fall further - reducing the value of all the MBSs and CDOs flying around the system - making the banks even more reluctant to lend to each other.

So, the banking system begins to freeze. And their share prices fall through the floor. And, when this happens, the rating of their debt is reduced by the people who decide whether a company's credit worthyness is AA, A, etc and, as this happens, other banks become even more reluctant to lend to them.So, the spiral down continues.
Until, and unless, the government can put enough money into the system for the banks to start lending to each other again. So that is what the 500 billion bailout or is it 750 billion bailout from Alistair today...... will it work? NO!
Why wont it work?
Ill have to do another log to explain why not, but it has not worked in America and we are a few months/weeks behind them in this crisis!

Party like its 1929

All UK highstreet lenders are to be part-nationalised (government to buy preference shares) overnight. No details yet, but likely to around £50bn outlay.

So the taxpayer is going to give the banks billions of pounds so that they can lend it back to us at a high rate of interest because we don't earn enough to live on and to carry on buying houses we can't afford.

Oh dear!

doom mongering? realist? you decide!

I made the "prediction" a while ago (it wasn't that dramatic really, but nevermind) that once people actually started seeing their house prices falling, people would panic and all hell would break loose, on the basis that people have just got far too used to the good times.

So far, however, we seem to have seen pretty sensible behaviour on the part of your average consumer. The domestic economy (by which I mean retail and consumer spending, I suppose) seems to be doing OK, no mass lay offs as yet, and a grudging acceptance of drops in the market.

Sure, the "banks" with their "financial system" (whatever that means!) might be in complete meltdown, but what does that matter when your average punter might not know how many noughts there are in a billion?

There's more important things to consider for the moment like the state of rangers/celtic what hapening in CSI, coronation street or whatever.
However more and more the economic realities of our current situation are going to hit, with job cuts, and recession on the cards. So my question is this more orderly decline in the housing market and the UK economy in general? Or more obvious panic, as I had previously speculated?

And if panic, what wouldl that involve? Your thoughts, ladies and gentlemen, or Im thinking

"please" In order for there to be a panic, something actually has to happen. So far, the actual impact of the current troubles to people, myself included, has been very, very mild.

People who work in construction and banking would have felt the impact. People with massive CC debt or mortgages they can't afford the SVR for would have felt it, those close to retirement who didn't switch their pensions to something safer than stock will be worried.

Having said the vast majority have not had any changes to their situation. Until real unemployment kicks off, inflation in areas other than energy kicks off etc, why is there any need to change behaviour?

I also think that the medias love of scare stories that never come to pass has had an effect. Since the early 80s, I've lived through all these events described by the media as world-ending (in no particular order)
:- Acid Rain melting everything and destroying crops.- Radioactive sheep eating grass polluted by Chenobyl fallout which will give me cancer.- Being nuked by the Soviets- Being blown up by Saddam and his imaginary WMDs- Mad Cow Disease- Vast armies of pedophiles hiding in bushes on every street corner.- Hooded yoofs queuing up to stab you for your wallet and mobile.- Global warming (now down-graded to 'climate change' since we seem to be getting colder here)- Ozone layer vanishing with the result of turning everyone blind and giving them skin cancer.- Jet stream stopping turning the UK into the Arctic- Yellowstone National Park blowing up, sending us into a 10,000 year period of dusty darkness- GM Crops taking over the world- Diesel fumes giving me Asthma- Bird Flu pandemic- Normal Flu pandemic- Oil running out ,,,,,, etc etc Compared to all that, a few bank failures on the telly looks quite minor
LOL!

Yes to the average person, recent events are meaningless. It's all just boring financial stuff, or 'politics' and let's face it, 'politics' is for boring old posh men in suits, isn't it? A good example was a neighbour, who on the same day he told me his holiday had been cancelled due to the XL bust, said 'this credit crunch, what a load of rubbish. I mean who's actually been affected by it?

'The sheeple have their bread and circuses. As Orwell wrote, they are sleeping 'the deep, deep sleep of England, from which we will never awake until we are shaken from it by the roar of bombs'.

Hopefully it won't come to bombs, but once the bread and circuses begin to be affected (no more tick on the credit card, unemployment, shops closing, etc) the people might just start to take these things a bit more seriously.

So what would it take for a revolution

Would invading somewhere like Holland do it ?

Would making us all wear an identity tags or badges do it ?

Would further HPI doubling todays house prices do it ?

Would petrol at a fiver a litre do it ?

Would the abolishment of elections do it ?

What if the whole country marched on Downing St and demanded an immediate election,would that work or would we all be tear gassed ? Or would the police be on our side given their pay dispute ?

What about Cutting off all government disability/unemployment benifits

Send their children to die for profit in a far off land

Make them serve multiple tours of duty in said conflict

Foreclose on millions of houses (Throw them on the street)

Drain their wallets at the petrol pump and in the supermarkets

Eliminate their jobs and cut them off from all government re-education grants and assistance,

Control their media outlets and pump out continuous propaganda to the masses

Manipulate government statistics to hide the real data

Use government tax dollars/pounds to enrich the wealthy

Drain their wallets to pay for a dysfunctional, piecemeal healthcare system that only benefits a few.

Fail to provide any kind of central leadership for the country

Basically you would have to tax them to death, not represent their interests and starve them out.

Thank god we live in a country where none of that bad stuff has happened yet.

or perhape educate and teach them economics properly haha.

Are you sleeping?

What we are witnessing today is how empires end. The Last Superpower is unable to defend its borders, protect its currency, win its wars or balance its budget.

Medicare and Social Security are headed for the cliff with unfunded liabilities in the tens of trillions of dollars. What we are witnessing today is nothing less than a failure of government, of our political class. Whats going on? Hank Paulson of Goldman Sachs and Ben Bernanke of the Fed chose to bail out Bear Sterns but let Lehman go under. They decided to nationalize Fannie and Freddie at a cost to taxpayers of hundreds of billions, putting the U.S. government behind $5 trillion in mortgages. They decided to buy AIG with $85 billion rather than see the insurance giant sink beneath the waves.

An unelected financial elite is now entrusted with the assignment of getting us out of a disaster into which an unelected financial elite plunged the nation. And yes this means us Brits too.

We the serfs are just spectators.

local to global

Eh well Katy didn't reply as yet, funnily enough,

wow anyway from local to national,

it all happening now with bush about to hold a press conference to the American people to tell them how much shit they are in, and its only a matter of time before Brown follows suit, most of us are well aware of the difficulty of the current financial situation and we agree with the need for bold action to ensure that the financial system continues to function but I see three main fatal pitfalls in the currently proposed plans to keep bailing out banks with tax payers money

1) Its fairness. But when have we the peasants ever been played fair with anyway, The plan is a subsidy to investors at taxpayers’ expense. Investors who took risks to earn profits must also bear the losses surely. Is it to much to ask that our government can ensure a well-functioning financial industry, able to make new loans to creditworthy borrowers, without bailing out particular investors and institutions whose choices proved unwise.

2) Its ambiguity. If taxpayers are to buy illiquid and opaque assets from troubled sellers, the terms, occasions, and methods of such purchases must be crystal clear ahead of time and carefully monitored afterwards. Again if we the taxpayer are buying this black hole of debt the bankers have created, surely we should be told how much and how many generations will pay for it! (yep its that big a hole).

3) Its long-term effects. What bush and brown are up to is fundamentally weakening markets in order to calm short-run disruptions, this is I'm afraid desperately short-sighted.

Interesting times, if you have anything invested in a pension on the stock market GET IT OUT NOW!
Bush and Brown are just trying to slow down the collapse.

I'm predicting hyperinflation,,,, you may laugh, I'm not!

Recession depression addiction right enough!

letter to my local MP

Dear Katy Clarkk, Please can you explain to me why the leader of your party believes that it is in any way desirable that the over-inflated UK housing market is sustained at current levels, creating a 'have and have not' culture. Only today he was quoted by the BBC as saying "I'm getting on with the job and I think it's important that in difficult economic circumstances we take the right decisions for the future to get fuel prices down, to get food prices down, to make sure we get the housing market moving...".
Analysing GB's quote in more depth "I'm getting on with the job and I think it's important that in difficult economic circumstances we take the right decisions for the future to get fuel prices down, to get food prices down, to make sure we get the housing market moving..."Taking the quote a point at a time:"to get fuel prices down" is GB saying that fuel is becoming prohibitively expensive for the average Joe and he wants to find ways to bring the price back down to affordable levels."to get food prices down" is GB saying, likewise, that food is becoming prohibitively expensive for the average Joe and he wants to find ways to bring the prices back down to affordable levels."to make sure we get the housing market moving..." is GB saying that he couldn't give 2 hoots that houses are more unaffordable than they have ever been for the average Joe and he wants to find ways to ensure that things stay that way.Now, of the 3 subjects he tackles, can anyone spot the odd one out?The 3 basic necessities of human life are food, heat and shelter and yet, while GB seemingly wants to ensure the food and heat remain something that we all have ready access to, his approach to shelter is not to ensure that it remains affordable for all, rather it is to use the warped trading of it to prop up the economy for as long as it can be sustained.
I'm sure I don't need to point out to you that house prices today are orders of magnitude more expensive than they were a decade ago and yet nothing has been done to the housing stock of this country to add inherent value to it during that time (unless you class a bit of magnolia paint and some Ikea laminate flooring as somehow adding value).The perceived wealth that this country has experienced during the last 10 years is largely the result of poorly regulated credit expansion but that expansion had to run out eventually and now the banks are cashing in their chips. Frankly, I find it utterly irresponsible for your leader to seek to perpetuate this unsustainable expansion of credit and, in doing so, prop up the unjustifiably high house prices that we now see.For your average family to buy a humble 3-bed semi fin three towns today, they would have to have a deposit of £10k plus other associated costs taking me close to £15k. They would then need to saddle themselves with a loan equal to 5 times the average wage for the area. Most simply couldn't afford the repayments on such a mortgage and that is at today's interest rates, let alone what they will be in a year's time when Mervyn & Co increase them to try to check the rapidly climbing inflation.The bottom line here is that our economy is, sooner or later, going to have to take a very big hit in order to get the basic necessities back to the levels where young hard-working people can afford them once more. For your leader to seek to postpone that is only to prolong the inevitable agony that those who have over-borrowed (owing to an irresponsible lack of regulation on behalf of the Government) are inevitably going to experience. None of my peer group have a realistic prospect of owning their own home in the near future and yet "In supporting high house prices, the government continues to encourage the older generation to withdraw equity from their houses to spend on unnecessary luxuries, most of which are sourced abroad. Surely, this leads to a loss of capital to the country?"

The single specific question that I would like you to answer in the context of the above is this: When talking about our economy, why does your leader take it as read that a buoyant housing market is an inherently desirable thing for the people of this country? I put it to you that the absolute reverse is true and a return to long-term levels where average property prices are roughly equivalent to 3-4 times average salary is much more desirable for the people and long term future of this country.
Yours sincerely,

Annemarie Ward

Fines for Fuxx Sake!

My partner got fined £30 today for having a smoke in his works van after his breakfast by a council employed facist who judging by the unemployment figures round here is probably just desperate for a job, and I add he is employed by a private firm. I cant blame the poor individual but now its our rubbish also, those who put too much rubbish in their bins face tougher punishments than shoplifters and drunken louts.

Environment Secretary Hilary Benn has backed on-the-spot fines of up to £110 for those who overfill their bins, leave them out too early, or put out extra sacks of rubbish alongside them.The price of defying rubbish regulations is £30 higher than the £80 fixed penalty fine given to shoplifters or those involved in drunken disorder in city centres.

The confirmation that Labour has been putting pressure on town halls and their bin police comes after three years of rapid growth in the number of fines handed out to residents for 'littering' - the offence committed by those who infringe strict wheelie bin rules.Around 20,000 tickets for breach of rubbish collection rules are thought to have been issued in 2006, the latest year for which figures have been released.

Tickets usually demand fines of £100 or £110.Legislation covering on-the-spot fines for bin offences says they should be at least £75, but lays down no upper limit.The Government has always insisted that the upper levels of bin fines were a matter for local councils to decide, but yesterday the Environment Department confirmed that ' enforcement' guidance laid down for councils from Whitehall has set the £110 level.A spokesman for Defra said: 'The guidance is not new. It sets fines at between £75 and £110.'

GOD HELP US!

Gene Linked to Alcohol Addiction

Results of a study published in Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research have concluded that a specific gene, previously unidentified may also be responsible for alcohol addiction and other addictive behavior. Author of the study, Danielle Dick, has stated that the gene named ankyrin repeat and kinase domain containing 1 (ANKK1) is one of the genes responsible for making people vulnerable to addiction.
Previous research has centered around the neighboring gene, DRD2. The research on the DRD2 gene has had serious limitations, however, and the new research on the ANKK1 gene sheds light on these limitations. By implicating another gene is the same region, researchers now believe that several genes in the same phenotype are involved.

UK Study Concludes Alcohol, Tobacco Addictions as Dangerous as Illicit Substances

A recent UK study has concluded that addictions to alcohol or tobacco are just as dangerous to a personal health as addictions to illegal substances including heroine, cocaine, marijuana and ecstasy. The study does not advocate for any kinds of legal or illegal drugs, but rather puts alcohol and tobacco on par with other drugs in regards to adverse health effects.
The study has caused some controversy in the United Kingdom by placing ecstasy at the bottom of the list for adverse health effects. The reason for this placement, however, is that only 10 people in the UK die each year from using ecstasy, whereas over 300 people die each year from alcohol abuse.

Chinese Find 396 Addiction Genes

Researchers at China’s Peking University have discovered 396 genes linked to addiction. These so-called “addiction genes” are linked to pathways for substance abuse problems involving alcohol, cocaine, opium and nicotine.
According to the director Wei Liping, “The research provides a more complete picture of drug addiction, as genetic factors contribute to about 60 percent of the vulnerability to drug addiction.” By identifying genes and pathways to addiction, researchers are able to more accurate development treatment methods.

Impulsive behaviour?

http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2008/606/2
Researchers at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom who are studying laboratory rats have linked impulsive behavior to cocaine addiction. In the addiction field, it has been unclear to many scientists which came first, the impulsive behavior or the cocaine addiction leading to impulsivity.
Now, the researchers believe the behavior comes first. The researchers separated out two groups. The first was the impulsive group and the second was the thrill seeking group. The thrill seeking group sampled the cocaine first, but quickly lost interest thereafter. The impulsive group was slower to sample cocaine, but also was the group that became addicted.

A report was published by the Independent Working Group, an advisory panel of experts from the police and the legal and health sectors back in 2006. I cant rememmber the nam of it sorry but it suggests that Britain should consider a proposal already in action in eight other countries. This involves the creation of drug consumption rooms — “shooting galleries”, as they are nicknamed — to which addicts can come for free needles, for medical support and even for companionship.
There is no evidence that it decreases crime, but it might at least help to prevent the spread of hepatitis and Aids. And it brings one of the most marginalised groups into touch with social services, often for the first time.

The idea has the support of senior police officers, including Andy Hayman, the chair of the Association of Chief Police Officers Drugs Committee. David Cameron, the Conservative leader, had declared back in 2006 that his party would not rule it out.

With any addiction it simple, You are trapped in a cycle of fast diminishing returns untill there are none left at all. You chase that first feeling like you chase the first sweet memories of childhood peace if you ever had any. But you can never, NEVER recapture it.

You can go only onwards and downwards into sad isolation.

Soon you need your first shot just to make you brush your teeth in the morning.

Drugs including booze promise freedom, but they imprison you in compulsion.
Thats COMPULSION!

You set out open-armed to experience. You end with your whole life narrowed down to one repetitive experience.

The entire world is focused on to a needle point. You feed like a vampire on your own veins. But every time you shoot up, you are shooting up your own sadness and self hatred.

You only crave for release.

No one can give up until they reach this point.
NO ONE!


It is no use clapping some offender into prison at vast tax payers expense.

But to supply the addict with drugs is to force the end game. You can’t maunder on for decades with heroin or crack or cocaine. You go down fast. Their are no old junkies.

You either die of an overdose. or you are brought to your knees. And it is only from your knees that you can beg for help.

This is when the State should step in, offering withdrawal programmes and counselling, paid for with the money that it has saved from policing the drugs industry.

And there is also Narcotics Anonymous, a true model of democracy, with a network extending throughout Britain. It asks for no fees, no leadership, no dues. No one forces you to join. You can walk out if you like. But people go because they want to go. They go for support.

That is why, in my opinion if you have compassion for the drug addict, you should give him a bit more crack.

GREAT YOUR FINALLY CLEAN

When an alcoholic stops drinking, OR AN ADDICT OF ANY DESCRIPTION STOPPS USING it’s cause for rejoicing.
Unfortunately, sobriety OR YOUR NEW CLEAN LIFE is not guaranteed to last. It takes hard work and commitment and a keen eye for dangers.
One danger to the non-using addict a set of habits and attitudes that take the joy out of life for the addict and those around him or her. Those habits often precede a relapse into using , even if the addict has been sober or clean for years.
Here are some signs that will help you recognize the dangers of using , and some suggestions on how to cope with it.

Warning Signs

During their drinking / using years, alcoholics/addicts develop many abnormal attitudes and behaviors, which come with them into sobriety.

Acting self-important, either by “having all the answers,” or playing “poor me.”

making harsh judgments of oneself and others.

being impatient or pursuing whims.

blaming others for shortcomings one suspects in oneself.

being dishonest, usually beginning with little things.

impulsive behavior which ignores what’s best for oneself and others.

inability to make decisions.

mood swings, trouble with expressing emotions, feeling unsatisfied.

detachment, self-absorption, boredom, distraction or disorganization.

nostalgia for the drinking/using life.

fantasizing, daydreaming and wishful thinking or euphoria.

.
Cure

Talk to your sponsor, key worker, or someone you love and more importanly trust to be honest with you, go to meetings, or your place of support where others are recovering also, meditation, and relaxation can help, just the simple act of doing something that is good to your self can go a long way, for those who are spiritual tune in to your higher Power and whatever you do don’t USE as this too shall pass.

Is the credit crunch a new kind of breakfast cereal?

Legendary investor Sir John Templeton said that the four most dangerous words are “it’s different this time”.

Sadly, history shows that each time these words are uttered, it turns out that what seemed to be an economic miracle was yet again a bubble fed by a seemingly insatiable appetite for debt. The international Monetary Fund recently said that the UK housing bubble looks even more overvalued than the US one, and that the world risks a “severe global downturn” as a result of the credit crunch.

When credit bubbles burst, the primary asset, this time housing, tends to fall in value by between 50% and 90%.

Japan began its own descent into the bust in 1989, and despite interest rates at zero, low unemployment, little room to build and a population of inveterate savers, it has fallen well into that range of price drops in both shares and housing.

The technology stock bubble that bust in 2000 saw falls of around 80%. The Wall Street Crash in the 1930s saw stocks fall by 89%.

The South Seas and Mississippi bubbles, the Canal Stocks and Railroad bubbles, and the Tulip Bubble itself all savaged their investors with falls of such magnitude.

It appears that every third generation must relearn the lesson that debt makes a treacherous friend.

When Satyajit Das, an expert of 30 years who designed many modern derivatives, was asked whether the credit crunch was now in its third inning, he laughed and said:

“We’re actually still in the middle of the national anthem in a game destined to go into extra innings.”

oh deaR

DEPRESSION

Now the banks are forcing everyone to remortgage at a higher rate and demanding large deposits.Im thinking this is going to be far, far worse than the housing recession of 1990-92. Fuelled by irresponsible bank lending, UK house prices nearly tripled in the decade to 2007 - a more lunatic rise even than in America. British prices have been running at nearly eight times average earnings against a historic average of 3.5. This was never going to be sustainable.

But right at the moment the bubble burst, in August 2007, a combination of related events conspired to turn this boom into an epic bust that is likely to consume the British economy and lead to a depression. You may think the credit crisis is over, but the real crisis is just beginning.

What can the government do? Well, Gordon Brown thought he could revive the market by in effect handing £50bn of public money to the banks through the Special Liquidity Scheme and by leaning on the Bank of England to cut interest rates. Not so. The banks took the £50bn in Treasury swaps in April and promptly put mortgage rates up even further.

Then in May, Mervyn King, the governor of the Bank of England, announced that there were likely to be no more cuts in interest rates this year because of rising inflation.

Tommorow we will see? but Im not optimistic.

This caused apoplexy in No 10. Brown wanted King to emulate Ben Bernanke of the US Federal Reserve, who slashed rates from more than 5.25 to just 2 per cent in eight months. But King stood his ground, and is right to do so. As anyone who goes to the shops knows only too well, the cost of living is rising faster than at any time in the past two decades. Cutting interest rates now could start 1970s-style hyperinflation.

There has been much debate about the causes of the recent global inflation in commodities, but in the end, in the circular world of economics, it all comes back to housing. It was the attempt by the Federal Reserve to revive the US housing market that ignited the current commodities boom. Its that simple.

It hoped that slashing interest rates below inflation would encourage people to put their money back into houses. It didn't.

Instead, the big investment houses, the pension funds and thousands of in dividuals ploughed their cash into oil, food - anything that looked as if it might become scarce. Roughly 60 per cent of the recent increase in the cost of oil is down to speculation. Yes speculation! Oil Futures etc !

In the US, cutting interest rates has actually made house prices fall faster. Pyramid of credit
The recent house-price boom in Britain has also been fuelled by immigration, much of it from Poland. With the British economy weakening and the pound falling in value, however, many eastern European migrants are returning home. There is still a shortage of houses in Britain, but we are about to find that the shortage is not as great as we thought.
Are falling house prices a bad thing? All things being equal, a return to sanity in the housing market is good for everyone, even estate agents. But we are facing a serious economic dis location here, not just a correction.

It was brought about by the astonishing short-sightedness of central bankers and politicians in Britain and the US who kept interest rates artificially low for more than a decade. A huge inverted pyramid of credit was built on top of the expectation of yields from British and US mortgages. Believing that house prices would rise for ever, and that even if they faltered the Bank of England would cut interest rates to reinflate the bubble, the banks began to lose any sense of financial risk, and started to relax credit standards and lend irresponsibly.

Private-equity firms were allowed to borrow huge multiples of their real assets. Banks started to hide their lending in off-balance-sheet devices such as structured investment vehicles.

In Britain, homeowners are seeing the value of their properties fall at about £2,000 a month at the same time as the cost of living is rising and their wages and salaries are stagnant. Deluded by house prices, British consumers borrowed and spent like there was no tomorrow.

Unfortunately, tomorrow has arrived and consumers are sitting on £1.4trn of debt, the highest for any country in the world. People can no longer defer their loans by remortgaging their properties, and the banks are demanding cash upfront.

In the past two months, many consumers have taken out huge one-off credit-card loans, which explains the paradox of recent unsecured lending going up as spending goes down.

Shelter has reported that at least a million people are putting mortgage payments on their credit cards - the height of economic madness.

The government is already overdrawn apparently and unable to spend its way out of impending recession.

The party is OVER and OUT!

Nothing sedates rationality like large doses of effortless money. After a heady experience of that kind, normally sensible behaviour drift into behaviour akin to that of Cinderella at the ball. They know that overstaying the festivities...will eventually bring on pumpkins and mice. But they nevertheless hate to miss a single minute of what is a helluva party. Therefore, the giddy participants all plan to leave just seconds before midnight. There's a problem, though: They are dancing in a room in which the clocks have no hands."...plus, there is only one door, and if everybody tries to leave at once, then they are going to bring the whole room down on the lot of them.

Double Agentry

The fact that today’s addiction treatment institutions often serve more than one master has created the ethical dilemma of “double agentry,” where in treatment staff profess allegiance to the interests of the individual client, while those very interests may be compromised by the interests of other parties to whom the institution has pledged its loyalty.’

DISCUSS!

Come the recession I want to see less of

Misleading use of the english language

If you work in a call centre, it is a job... not a career!
Ditto to coffee shops or the fact it is considered normal to spend a fiver a day on coffee
Expensive sandwich shops (paying huge rents)
Crap service and poor food in restaurants, only the fittest will survive
An end to all those stupid property porn programmes ( do you remember they used to have the same type of programmes back in the 80's?)
People being people and not acting like they are all millionaires
Reality (not the tv programmes)
An affordable home so I can save for when I am an old bat!

Overpriced shit drinks in crappy pretentious bars
Overpriced shit food in crappy pretentious restaurants
Chavs sat on their fat asses all day smoking and drinking while I am at work
Permatanned, bleached blonde bimbos
Ridiculous overpriced "designer" tat
Krusty/Phil/bald cockney criminal Dom/location location etc
The Nanny State / P CNon jobs in the public sector
Spin
Stupid gossip magazines and the sad obsession with so called celebs
property investment seminars
the need for everything to be 'designer'
4x4's
political correctness

the daily mail reality
end of far to easy exams for kids
inflated salaries for football players
not having an industry of any sort
the food you can by in the supermarket thats already washed chopped and cut.
Pubs closing down for so called redevelopment (flats)
Garages dito
Nail bars
People paying money for ringtones (the ultimate in gross stupidity)
The word 'Executive' applied to every micro flat for sale.
17 year olds with credit cards (make em save up)
£5 Alchopops being drunk by tosspots.

The word 'Consumer'I am NOT a f'n 'consumer' I am a human being and the reason for my existence is not to'consume' the tons of tawdry tat pumped out by bizznezz!!!

The next twat who calls me a consumer is getting a swift boot in the nads.
last but not least Estate Agents!!!

that'll do for now, I need to go and calm down, please add you own.

While you were sleeping

The “path of prudence” of Gordon Brown (aka Gordon the Grim)
• Pension “theft” - £5 billion annually, and total todate with compound interest now exceeds £100 billion;
• But MP’s, civil service and public sector pensions are guaranteed (by the rest of us, at a current estimated cost to the taxpayer of over £1,000 billion) – the rest (i.e. ours), are not;
• Tax credit fraud - £2 billion annually;
• NHS Private Finance, a key Brown initiative - £53 billion committed over 30 years for £8 billion in hospital assets;
• Cost of red tape increases from £10 billion annual to £66 billion annual in only 7 years;
• VAT fraud amounting to £8 billion; • Over 100 tax increases;
• Increase in personal taxation from 33% to 40% of average income, not including stealth taxes; • £3 ½ billion lost on sale of the country’s gold reserves;
• National Debt increased from 30% to over 40%, and rising;
• 60% more taxpayers now falling into 40% higher rate tax band by deliberate fiscal drag policy; • Home-owners paying higher 3% Stamp Duty increases from 73,000 to 280,000 in 5 years; Stamp Duty now £7 ½ billion a year and total over past 10 years - £32 ½ billion;
• Public sector employees now make up nearly a quarter of the working population; • Brown operates at least 530 unaccountable Quangos, and has another 9 or 10 in the pipeline;
• Business crippled by red tape – Brown has introduced 30,000, yes, 30,000 new regulations;
• Budget deficit now of the order of £40 billion annually and rising;
• Darling the Weak continues stealth tax approach - Autumn 2007 budget extracts additional £4½ billion from medium and higher income taxpayers by “small print ” change in National Insurance Contribution thresholds;
• Disastrous merger of Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise into one giant “efficiency asphyxiating” department;
• 270,000 work permits granted to non-EU nationals, yet 900,000 NI numbers wrongly issued; • 450,000 “immigrant” files, both men and women, "lost" by the Home Office;
• 6,600 immigrants with no right to work in UK, used valid Home Office issued NI numbers to gain sensitive jobs in the security industry;
• Olympics 2012 budget fiasco – started at £2.5 billion and now nearly £10 billion and rising;
• And there’s currently already enough been said about Northern Rock dithering, the non-doms tax debacle, and the 10p tax catastrophe to bother to add to it!
• Yet Brown still thinks he knows better than we do how to dispose of our own money!
Where has all that money gone!

Compiled by : Roger Earl, 4 Cumberland Road, Kew Gardens, Surrey, TW9 3HQ – telephone number 0208 948

1714.http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtm...6/06/do0601.xml

Brilliant summary - I wanted to share it.

Shell boys 14%

Thats it then 14%. The shell boys get 14%.Don't earn any foerign currency for UK. Welcome to the Idiocracy of GB.
Inflation was already here long before now. It was caused by deliberately loose economic policies, inflating the money supply.
What we are seeing now is that some lucky workers may be in a position where they are able to negotiate pay rises to compensate for the inflation that's already in the system.
What we have here folks is the threat of a good example. If you want pay rises you are going to have to do what these guys did. Organise and go on strike. Otherwise you will get flooke all and for most less than you were earning last year. You may even get a pay cut.
How many workers are prepared to do this, not many is my guess. Workers thought they had entered a newparadigm where enlightened employers would just raise wages along with inflation After years of slagging the unions off and saying there was no more need for them in the modern age, most workers in this country think it would be beneath them to stand on a picket line. Good lord that would be like admitting that they are working class or something.
Only 28% of UK employees are Union members, and collective agreements cover less than 20% of private sector workplaces. If you're not in one of those firms, good luck getting an above-inflation settlement during a recession.
You also have to be in the fortunate position of being in a critical (as in economically and/or politically) job like those drivers are. They had Shell by the short and curlies (and potentially the goverment too if it spread beyond shell drivers - although watch this space on that one). I don't think the average office worker will have quite as much clout in their negotiations. Maybe if they work for the inland revenue ..?
A slow hand clap for the stupid, stupid nurses' unions, who have locked their members into a 3-year, 8% deal. OH DEAR!
Pay rises, along with price rises of goods and services are both consequences of inflation of the money supply. Or, alternatively, they are both consequences of deflation of supply of goods and services. Either way, to put prices up and/or demand higher wages is a perfectly rational response.

This is really worrying because that can lock you into an infaltionary spiral as we saw in the 70's. Of course easier to sack and hire people and to outsource. Plus of course if firms start to get strike hassle will simply move production else where were people are more willing to take a cut in living standards.
mmmmm Worry worry worry!

PINK FLOYD

The lyrics are astounding! I have always been a fan and was introduced to them many moons ago by some using friends although I find now in recovery they mean so much more to me than when i was supposedly expanding my mind with drugs. Even today their early albums are so accurate, so pertaining to the scheming of the new world order. I always find that occasional
poets and musicians hit the right emotional targets - capture the mood - of nations falling apart, and the evil ones - the governments - behind it all. lol radical eh! whats you favourite song or lyrics and why. At the moment mine is "wish you were here! but i reserve the right to change favorite because they are all brilliant.

So, so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell,blue skies from pain.Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail?A smile from a veil?Do you think you can tell?And did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts? Hot ashes for trees?Hot air for a cool breeze?Cold comfort for change?And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?How I wish, how I wish you were here.We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year,Running over the same old ground. What have you found? The same old fears.Wish you were here


did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?

Over the course of my professional career i have been offered a few lead roles in cages but so far haven't took the invitations seriously what about you?

If I had a Recovery worker what would she do?

I'm with Bill White when he describes what a worker in the field could be to help facilitate recovery.

1.Lay and professional helpers should not do anything for the individual or family members over time that they are capable of doing for themselves.

2. Professional agencies and roles should not provide services to the community in response to needs that can be met within the client’s natural support system.

3. Professional helpers should avoid creating barriers to client contact with local communities of recovery, e.g., scheduling service activities at times that conflict with community recovery meetings, restrictive visitation policies that prevent contact while individuals are in
residential treatment modalities.

4. Persons occupying all roles should accurately represent their education, training and experience as well as the basis upon which their recommendations are being made.

5. Conflicts between those filling these roles are best resolved within a framework of mutual respect.

6. All recovery support roles share a commitment to help those they serve and to not exploit this relationship for personal or institutional gain. All parties have a responsibility to immediately confront such exploitation if it occurs.

The question is not, “Which of these roles is THE most important in the recovery process?” Each contributes different ingredients to the recovery process at different stages of individual and family recovery. The question is, “How can such resources be bundled and sequenced in ways that widen the doorway of entry into recovery and enhance the quality of recovery?” Achieving that vision requires the availability of multiple support roles that are accessible at key points within one’s addiction and recovery careers as well as the careful delineation of the boundaries of these roles.

One of the sources of role ambiguity and conflict between sponsors and recovery coaches is the commonalities that are shared by these roles. Persons filling both roles:

• are credentialed by experience rather than formal education and training (My one amendment here would be that they have to have had some experience of recovery not necessarily from substance misuse and that training is essential especially in motivational interviewing if this is not a natural skill they possess.
establish non-hierarchical (or minimal-hierarchy) relationships based on a mutuality of shared experience,
• rely on self-disclosure and advice, • focus on removing obstacles of recovery and building recovery capital • model core recovery competencies and • maintain continuity of contact over time with those needing recovery guidance and support.

solution?

Unless policymakers understand the disruptive real effects of overly expansionary monetary policy, the energy and food crisis may worsen beyond manageable limits and put at risk millions of more lives.

Addressing inflationary expectations is not costless.

World energy and food markets can be stabilized, but only when the Fed and BOE renounces interest rates control and reins in monetary and credit expansion to a stable range.

This is exactly what Paul Volcker did successfully during his tenure as Fed chairman.

Economists and the US Congress must convince the Fed and the BOE to concentrate on managing liquidity, which is under its total control, and give up managing the entire economy, which is not under its control.

After seven years of inflationary monetary policy, there is now more pressing need than ever for stabilization policies to address inflation and energy and food crises.

House Prices mmmmmhhh

Basic money theory says that prices cannot sustain a general increase without an accommodative money and credit expansion.

Therefore, the rise of oil from $20 to $126 could not have occurred under restrained and stable monetary policy. The same goes for corn, rice, milk, etc,,,,, a twofold or threefold price increase cannot take place without an unduly expansionary monetary policy.

What is absurd is that the BOE does not react to abnormally high energy and food prices, that is, what is referred to as Keynes' wage goods.

It reacts only to core inflation.

In other words, when prices of basic food commodities, including bread and butter so necessary for our children, triple or quadruple, this causes no concern to the BOE, because they are not part of core inflation.

However, when toys prices go up by 10%, they may become of some concern because its signaling that core inflation is rising! But with us the workers struggling to put food on table, we are less concerned with buying toys.

Hence, toy prices may never increase, core inflation may not rise, and the BOE may never respond to racing energy and food prices.

Alarming signs of deteriorating global food shortages and an impending world stagflation, stemming from the Fed's policy, are now pervasive.

World energy and food markets have become critically fragile in the face of mounting speculation and inflationary expectations. The falling Pound, Dollar and accelerating inflation will certainly depress both the global demand and supply of commodities.

As money depreciates, suppliers of commodities, already straddled with piling international reserves, will supply less as their expectations of higher prices and revenues are fully met. The evolving food crisis seems to have no precedent in modern history.

While severe food shortages are developing in many vulnerable countries, media-interviewed shoppers in the US have sadly responded that they have been forced to dramatically curtail their food consumption and it will be the same here soon.

I forsee rampant energy and food prices will threaten social stability and will certainly undermine the BOEs objective of re-inflating home prices. Unless mortgage loans are showered without down payments and pay checks, as was the practice during the recent housing boom, prospective home buyers will be preoccupied by simple survival and will be less willing to take on more debt.

Energy and food price inflation will depress further highly overvalued home prices.

Addiction studies oh there are many

Studies on addiction treatment ...... oh there are many but tonight i want to highlight one in particular, known as the National Longitudinal Alcohol Epidemiologic Survey,it indicates shock horror that first that treatment is not a cure-all, and second woe and behold that it is not necessary.
The vast majority of Americans who were alcohol dependent, about three-quarters, never underwent treatment. And fewer of them were abusing alcohol than were those who were treated.

Now im not saying that treatment can't be useful and neither did the study. But what it made clear was the most successful treatments are nonconfrontational approaches that allow self-propelled change.

Psychs at the University of New Mexico led by William Miller tabulated every controlled study of alcoholism treatment they could find.

They concluded that the leading therapy was barely a therapy at all but a quick encounter between patient and health-care worker in an ordinary medical setting. We at work currently use the FAST screening tool. Many patients then decide to cut back—and do!

As brief interventions have evolved, they have become more structured. A physician may simply review the amount the patient drinks, or use a checklist to evaluate the extent of a drinking problem. The doctor then typically recommends and seeks agreement from the patient on a goal (usually reduced drinking rather than complete abstinence).

In America more severe alcoholics would typically be referred out for specialized treatment. A range of options is discussed (such as attending AA, engaging in activities incompatible with drinking or using a self-help manual). A spouse or family member might be involved in the planning. The patient is then scheduled for a future visit, where progress can be checked. A case monitor might call every few weeks to see whether the person has any questions or problems.

The second most effective approach which mt workplace also currently provides is motivational enhancement, also called motivational interviewing. This technique throws the decision to quit or reduce drinking and to find the best methods for doing so back on the individual.

In this case, the therapist asks targeted questions that prompt the individual to reflect on his drinking in terms of his own values and goals. When patients resist, the therapist does not argue with the individual but explores the person's ambivalence about change so as to allow him or her to draw his own conclusions:

ie "You say that you like to be in control of your behavior, yet you feel when you drink you are often not in charge. Could you just clarify that for me?" I always feel a bit sneaky using this but thats just me and it dose prove worthy therfore justifies me feeling uncomfortable.

Miller's team found that the list of most effective treatments for alcoholism included a few more surprises.

Self-help manuals were highly successful.

So was the community-reinforcement approach, again a resource we currently provide which addresses the person's capacity to deal with life, notably marital relationships, work issues (such as simply getting a job), leisure planning and social-group formation (a buddy might be provided, as in AA, as a resource to encourage sobriety). The focus is on developing life skills, such as resisting pressures to drink, coping with stress (at work and in relationships) and building communication skills.

These findings square with what we know about change in other areas of life:

People change when they want it badly enough and when they feel strong enough to face the challenge, not when they're humiliated or coerced.

An approach that empowers and offers positive reinforcement is preferable to one that strips the individual of agency.

These techniques are most likely to elicit real changes, however short of perfect and hard-won they may be.

The nasty decade?

For the time being at least, the nice decade is behind us,” said Bank of England governor Mervyn King this week, as he announced some of the gloomiest UK inflation forecasts in recent years. The “nice” decade – for non-inflationary continuous expansion – may be behind us, but the question is whether a nasty economic decade lies ahead.

So what can we do well rather they ........The government can do a lot. Rather than boast about its economic record, strong fundamentals 10 years stability blah blah blah they should make life easier for business, and reform the public sector to improve productivity, re balance away from financial services for a start.

Then some (Keynesian) suggestions. Start to address the energy shortfall of the next decade immediately. This will require a huge program of new nuclear power station construction and massive roll out of alternatives, such as wind and solar. This would require the training of a new generation of scientists and engineers and keep the civil engineering/construction industry alive. It would also revitalise the UK dare I say Scotland as a high-tech, precision engineering economy.

Every home in the UK be made as energy efficient as possible with additional microgeneration capabilities, e.g. PV and passive solar, loft insulation and boiler lagging, triple glazing etc. Benefits: will keep the construction industry alive along with all the builders, plumbers, electricians etc as well as help address point obviously this will also encourage small business.

and my final suggestion

Stop pissing about.

Arrogant abusive ????

The Bank of England indicated that there is not likely to be another cut in interest rates for two years, as it forecast that inflation will reach 4 per cent this autumn. The Bank admitted for the first time yesterday that recession was a real risk for the economy and that inflation would stay above the Government's official 2 per cent target until 2011.

The Governor of the Bank, Mervyn King, said price rises would lead to "a squeeze on real take-home pay, which will slow consumer spending and output growth, perhaps sharply". Contrasting with that pessimism, the Treasury and Alistair Darling say the economy will bounce back to growth of between 2.25 and 2.75 per cent next year.
ha ha ha ha ha are these shirksters for real????

Take off the rose tinted specs off Mervy baby, your money printing policies have been delivering that to the majority of the population already, for years.
So much for the NICE decade he either a lying puppet or too thick to see the consequences already of the NICE decade,
record debt,
falling productivity,
falling savings,
malinvestment,
speculation,
the erosion of purchasing power,
the destruction of the productive capacity and the production of a bloated, service orientated paper hat wearing nomark economy.

"growth" my booty the past GROWTH he speaks of is a reflection of how much of the printed and borrowed money was able to recirculate round the inflationary flea-pit.

The squeeze started when it was pretty damn obvious that the majority of the economy had problems saving any bloody money at all short term or god forbid even a pension.

The official inflation stats are crooked as the day is long, anybody using those as a measure is either a fool or a liar too . I wonder how angry and abusive the public are going to get over inflation eating every last penny they have at the end of each month, every month.

If you think I am being arrogant and abusive well,,,,,

I find it rather abusive to collectively ruin the economy of an entire nation and encourage housing prices to go beyond the pockets of a huge number of hard working people.

Merv bashing here pales into insignificance by comparison. And let us not forget that when he was in a corner over Northern Rock, his answer was to attempt hoodwink NR customers and shareholders, and indeed the entire nation by outrageously requesting that any negotiations involving TAX PAYERS' cash injections should be kept secret on the flimsy excuse that not doing so would precipate panic. How arrogant is that?

If I was suffering from addiction and you were my WORKER in the fleld.

If I was suffering from addiction and you were my key worker what would I ask from you?

A SCRIPT FOR SOME VALLIE OR DIFFS? MAYBE SOME ANTIBUSE PERHAPS, help sorting out my benefits , possibly, a referral to a rehab or detox mmmmmh.

But WHAT IF I asked you to reconnect with why you got into the job and to tap into that passion for helping others and being of service to people you wanted to help.

WHAT IF I asked the organisation you work for to re-center itself both clinically and ethically.

WHAT IF I asked you to change your service in response to new knowledge and the changing characteristics of clients, families, and communities.

WHAT IF I asked the whole addiction field to address the problems of leadership, development and succession.

WOULD YOU CONSIDER MY REQUESTS?

Gordon Brown

Gordos new financial miracle, draft queens speech!

According to the BBC its £200m fund to buy unsold new homes and rent them to social tenants or make them available on a shared ownership.

An additional £100m would be made available to shared equity schemes to help more first-time buyers to purchase newly-built homes on the open market .... now that would be a work of genius.

Ok Gordon great strategy, wait for the market to be utterly saturated with a load of virtually unsellable flats held by developers with serious cash flow issues, then put out a policy announcement well ahead of the fact that scares off any lingering potential buyers and drives the prices down even further then snap them up at barely more than construction cost thus replenishing social housing at the expense of construction firms and their shareholders.

Think about his gamble with gold in reverse. £40bn here, £50bn there, £200m for good luck elsewhere.

How many more rolls of the dice is this "prudent strong fundamentals uninterrupted growth " Parrot, going to make with OUR money?

I speculate that they'll give the money to housing associations for the most part with some kind of stipulation that it has to be spent on pre-existing houses.

I can't see the government actually doing anything themselves since housing is one of the few areas that they haven't taken direct control of over the last 30 years.

FTB are intelligent enough to realise that by waiting while house prices fall they will be able to buy a complete house all 100% later rather than a 50% or 75% share now for the same price.

Or am I expecting too much?

SHAME !

If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin.

Charles Darwin

Sotlands new drug stategy

As we wait to see the the final document I am pondering the quote,

"It would be nice if the poor were to get even half of the money that is spent in studying them. "Bill Vaughan.

Mmmm makes you think Huh.

Agree disagree?

"i do i run with scissors and throw away my reciepts."
MENTAL EH! but someones gotta live on the edge, dont you agree!

hope is as hollow as fear

Success is as dangerous as failure
Hope is as hollow as fear
What does it mean that success is as dangerous as failure? Whether you go up the ladder or down it,your position is shaky.
When you stand with your two feet on the ground, you will always keep your balance.
What does it mean that hope is as hollow as fear?
Hope and fear are both phantomsthat arise from thinking of the self.
When we dont see the self,what do we have to fear?
See the world as your self.
Have faith in the way things are. Love the world as your self: then you can care for all things.

Attitude "Where there is an open mind, there will always be a frontier." (Charles Kettering)

"An optimist expects his dreams to come true; a pessimist expects his nightmares to." (Lawrence J. Peter.)

"Our life is what our thoughts make it." (Marcus Aurelius)

"As ye think, so shall ye be." (Jesus Christ)

"What we think, we become." (Buddha)

"We can destroy ourselves by cynicism and delusion, just as effectively as bombs." (Kenneth Clark)

"Change your thoughts and you change your world." (Norman Vincent Peale)

"Your life is what your thoughts make of it." (Marcus Aurelius Antoninus)

"Life is a mirror and will reflect back to the thinker what he thinks into it." (Ernest Holmes)

"Think in terms of poverty and you will live in poverty." (Napoleon Hill)

"Things are only worth what you make them worth." (Moliere)

"The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind." (William James)

"Either I will find a way, or I will make one." (Philip Sidney)

"Everyone constructs their own bed of nails." (D. Sutten)

"Life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we react to it." (Dennis P. Kimbro)

Right here right now!

Monday, July 10, 2006

Here now What you need for this moment, you already have. Everything else is a delightful bonus.
There is nothing for which you must strive. For you are here, and alive, and aware and able.

There is no reason for worry or anxiety. There are so very many ways that you can choose to make a difference.
There are no pressures, no demands, no regrets and no struggles. There is only now and the opportunity to fully live it.

In this moment, let go of the illusion of need and you are truly wealthy beyond all measure.

Realize that lack and limitation exist only in your mind, and you'll see that you can instantly be free of them.

The whole universe is yours in this moment, to live, to experience, to transform into value and fulfillment. All the best that you could ever imagine is here for you now to bring to life.
-

No Regret?

You are, this moment, where you need to be. Take the opportunity to live it with passion and purpose.

There is no reason to keep pushing the best of life out of your reach, saving it for another time, another place, or another set of circumstances. Now is the time, this is the place to fill with goodness and richness, with beauty and love.

There is no need to wait or to hope for things to get better. For you can be your very best no matter what else may be happening around you.

There is nothing to be gained by wishing that the past had been different. Instead, put your energy into living and fulfilling the best of the countless possibilities that are now in front of you.

The value, the goodness, the love and effort you give to this moment will come back to you many times over.

Now is the time to invest yourself in positive, productive thoughts and actions.

Stop making excuses and start being the best you can imagine. Stop waiting and start to truly and fully live.

My personal statment

I am an abstract artist, a concrete analyst, and a ruthless bookie. Critics worldwide swoon over my original line of corduroy evening wear. I don't perspire. I am a private citizen, yet I receive fan mail. I have been caller number nine and have won the weekend passes and Rischard and Judys 10 grand twice.

Last summer, I toured England with a traveling centrifugal-force demonstration. I bat .400. My deft floral arrangements have earned me fame in international botany circles. Children trust me.
I can hurl tennis rackets at small moving objects with deadly accuracy. I once read Paradise Lost, Moby Dick, and David Copperfield in one day and still had time to refurbish an entire dining room that evening.

I know the exact location of every food item in the supermarket. I have performed several covert operations for the CIA. I sleep once a week; when I do sleep, I sleep in a chair. While on holiday in Canada, I successfully negotiated with a group of terrorists who had seized a small bakery.
The laws of physics do not apply to me.

I balance, I weave, I dodge, I frolic, and my bills are all paid. On weekends, to let off steam, I participate in full-contact origami. Years ago, I discovered the meaning of life but forgot to write it down.
I have made extraordinary four course meals using only a mouli and a toaster oven. I breed prizewinning clams. I have won bullfights in San Juan, cliff-diving competitions in Sri Lanka, and spelling bees at the Kremlin. I have played Hamlet, I have performed open-heart surgery, and I have spoken with Elvis.
lol if that didnt make you smile you are in need of prozac my friend.

A piece from Douglas Adams' Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy:

When the Deep Thought computer was about to compute the Answer to Life,
the Universe and Everything (later found to be "42"), representatives of
the National Union of Philosophers, Luminaries and other Thinking Persons"
demanded that it stop... or else there would be a national philosophers'
strike.

Deep Thought responded: "And whom would that inconvenience?"
Brilliant

What do you do? What do you dream of?

Entry for 12 July 2006

"To be, or not to be" wrote William Shakespeare in Hamlet in Act III, scene 1, "that is the question: Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them."
To die; or to be suspended; and by ending death "to say we end the heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to."
‘Tis nobler to defy the claims of death on our mortal minds and to take arms against its eternal hold, and by opposing death end it.

Hamlet’s question "to be or not to be" is probably the most widely known phrase in the English language contemplating life and death. For me, as an activist in preserving and extending life, it is the definitive question. How serious we are about answering it, reveals what we are doing about it.

The modern question: "What do you do" has become the ancillary, although the most socially repeated question in the English language. "What do we do for a living" has become the sin quo non for our lives. So much so, that what we do for a living characterizes our life’s role. To be, we must do!!!!. Madness.

But, "What do you do for living?" With the "a" taken out of the sentence, it is a totally different concept and a less taxing question. What we do for living relates to mental and physical pursuits our curiosity, sense of adventure, our health and vitality, our pleasure and fun, and our mental well-being.

All three questions cause us to shed pretense, but to claim affiliation and purpose. To be—to live—is what we do.

It is our talent, our business and our pursuit of well-being which we must carry out. The refinement of this built-in talent currently separates us from other life forms. It is our native, intrinsic talent, calling for the creative challenge to do something—anything—as long as we are "doing." To be, we must do. If not, we are busy dying.

Some of my current friends, I've never met. Most of my communications with them are alphabetical letters arranged into words written in strings of algorithmic codes.
some of the time I don’t even know what my friends look like, or what they are feeling. Feelings are sometimes difficult to express in written words for fear we may come off weak or soft, vulnerable or naive.

When I think of our culture, I see it as a body of electronically connected data filtering messages into its appendages. Out into the capillaries of culture, our technology has become far more exacting and more robust than our biological bodies.

Our biological bodies are far too inadequate to keep up with our ideas and the new landscapes we venture. From the telegraph to telecommunications, from the Net into Space, it is no longer just the written symbol—the word—being transported, we are the new transportees.

My own future body design, similar to that of linda carters (wonder woman) lol is engineered like a finely tuned machine and designed in the form of a human biological body, for aesthetics sake.

The outward appearance is merely an illusion, a type of logo for mental association and visual recognition. Soon we will have bodies that do not age, are easily upgradeable, have meta-sensory components, gender options, 24-hour remote Net relay, and upload into cultural hives.

We will have bodies that appear biological and bodies that have no form. I can remember many years ago envisioning various types of designs for mobility, as early as childhood, wondering how I could split myself in two parts that could simultaneously perform tasks of different natures. This came from trauma I was experiencing at the time and stems from a intrigue of oxymorons, a desire for contradictory interests, and enthusiasm for enormously flexible and transportable mechanisms and ofcourse Dr who.. Im a child of the 70s.

Mobility has catapulted our evolutionary desires by affording us opportunities for exploration. Mobility has catapulted our ability to arrange words in ways that intensify meaning providing emotional leverage. The human body is more than an appendage; it is a network of words and ideas pulsating across time.

Our words about living and doing are emanating throughout the digital landscape—from Hamlet to AI and A-Life—with distinctive cultural jargon and digital acronyms, riffing on techno jive.
Cultural slogans change and myths merge, but they never disappear. They, like us, mutate.

Get real, whit, What’s the craic? sound like throw away phrases—knockoffs from the earlier times of Lay it on me or Where you coming from?

They may seem flip, but not really. They function as a means, like an impulse which alerts us to pay attention, if only for a moment. These singsong slang-statements are impulses firing off from one mind to another in archetypal discovery of another person’s point of view. Views are like vistas. Both expressing landscapes, one internal the other external.

A poem perhaps, to dream perchance to sleep?

Within the internal vista where I come from, the broad attainable space for ideas and innovation is bright and full of possibility. Human creativity is the most fertile space I have ever laid eyes on.

But it’s out in the unknown that I really feel at home. All that space—the infinite space of discovery and the space for ideas, like the vast space between stars my we boy and I stare at with equal wonder.

But here in this landscape, we have the sun, so its intimate too. The way light touches our senses, turns colors rich and bright, kind of rubs a certain way, and we start feeling ideas as part of our own being— half buried in memory, like a dream we can’t quite remember. And as thoughts slip through our fingers, its like sifting all the neurons of our minds that we may ever leave behind.

Gets me to feeling nostalgic, for something I may never have envisioned, or something I thought of long ago, or something far away, or the future. Or something so unique, I don’t want to stop thinking about it.
I just want it to be, and then to become.

The odds against us ?

Entry for 14 July 2006 The odds are against us folks.

The odds that things will go wrong for human beings outweigh the odds that everything will go right, so we as individuals are playing against a cosmic house of death and destruction that plays its hand with better odds than we have. Right?

Las Vegas casinos consistently make money on games of chance because the odds are in favor of the house by the very nature of the game. The laws of chance are highly consistent over time and on a large scale. A few individuals get lucky for awhile, but over time even their good luck runs out. Despite his great wealth, even legendary singer/actor Frank Sinatra called himself a "loser" in his final years because he was subject to old age and ill health just like everyone else.
If a six mile wide asteroid suddenly hits the earth and destroys all human life, it would not mean that everyone in the world had developed "bad karma." It would only mean that our collective luck as life forms on planet earth had run out, just as it had run out for so many other species who existed here before us.

If you drink too many beers today and have a hangover tomorrow, it means your foolish behavior caused a negative reaction in your body which you pay for with a splitting headache. That is simple action and reaction, not supernatural karma.

If you eat and drink in moderation, get adequate exercise, and do good deeds for yourself and for others, the chances are you will have a healthier and happier life. Good behavior and positive actions usually do result in positive reactions. Unfortunately, even right action can be overpowered by bad luck.

BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO GOOD PEOPLE FACT.

Life is much more of a casino than most of us would like to admit, so the myth or concept of supernatural karma was developed to wallpaper over the unfair and often scary facts of life with a fictional philosophy of supreme justice.

Could it be that there is no all-seeing eye of karma that directs events in this life as well as events yet to come in a mythical future life. The idea of ultimate justice through karma and reincarnation is heartwarming, but life cannot live up to our lofty expectations for goodness and reason.

Is man a product of life on earth, not the creator and architect of life on earth. Could it be that we must play by cosmic rules of chance that are often as cold and cruel for us as they are for the animals we eat and the bugs we squash.

The ancients invented myths of immortal souls and a variety of heavens in order to lessen the fear of death, a fear which creates a continuous burden on the minds of intelligent animals who understand the inevitable time-death equation.

It would appear that plants have no past or future, no goals, no desires, and no attachment to life. They exist right here and right now. The worlds of trees, shrubs, and grass have no problems because plants are not aware of themselves as individuals. They are full of life energy, but they have no soul or do they.

In meditation, the human brain falls back into a simpler vegetative state where complex cerebral capabilities become inactive, and this has been demonstrated by functional magnetic resonance imaging scans (fMRI scans) of the brains of Buddhist monks and Hindu yogis.

There is no reasoning, planning, measuring, or owning in meditation. Because so many energy intensive portions of the brain are turned off during meditative practice, the brain stores up large amounts of unused neurotransmitter energy.

This saved energy is transformed into pure consciousness, and this is part of the reason that the practice of meditation takes so much time. Time is needed to store up sufficient excess energy, and time is also needed to gradually relax and let go of the thinking functions of the brain.
In meditation the brain deeply relaxes at the basic level of energetic neurons, which form a sea of consciousness without personal attachments. The mind-brain then feels like cosmic life essence without any individuality.

It is the individual that suffers, and plant consciousness reduces suffering, not by solving problems, but by diverting our attention away from life's inherent conflicts and the constant struggle to survive. This diversion of attention works beautifully, right up to the moment a tiger eats you, your family starves, or your country is invaded by a hostile foreign power

The vegetative meditative state feels good, but has little survival value unless you use your plant consciousness power of presence to become a guru selling religious myths to the masses. Meditation often sparks religion, and religion always becomes a business.

Human beings are biological creatures and part of the earth's carbon cycle, not part of any cycle of reincarnating ghosts that haunt the world for all eternity. There is nothing mystical about the carbon cycle, but it does unify all life on earth, from bacteria to man.

Scientists and mathematicians have calculated that the carbon atoms in the atmosphere become so mixed up over time that when we take a deep breath of air we are inhaling at least a few of the carbon atoms, in the form of carbon dioxide, that Siddhartha Gautama exhaled during his last dying breath.

Our bodys contain recycled carbon atoms that were once part of the bodies of Lao-tse, Genghis Khan, Jesus, and millions of other deceased humans, plants, animals, insects, and bacteria. The farther back in time an individual existed, the more likely the chance some of their carbon atoms are living again as part of our own body.

Our DNA code structure is carbon based as well, and we all share many common DNA code sequences with other animals, plants, insects, and bacteria.

Human suffering is inevitable and predictable because of the basic mathematical structure of the universe.
There are ways to reduce the suffering of life, but there is no way to escape suffering entirely as long as you are alive and have a pulse.

Even the "enlightened" continue to suffer on the physical level until the moment of death, and even the "enlightened" have at least some psychological suffering, disappointments, and regrets.

Famous gurus usually don't like to talk about their personal suffering because they have a public image to uphold. If you look into their eyes and analyze their life histories, you will find that they do suffer psychologically, but less so than the average human being.

Suffering is dramatically reduced by the enlightenment phenomena, but it is not eliminated completely. There is no state of 100% freedom possible for flesh and blood animals living on planet earth.

Meditation is a great cosmic convergence with many benefits for the individual and for society as a whole. Meditation can bring peace and psychological balance, and meditation can become a beloved refuge of serenity in the stormy seas of social conflict and politics.

It is important to remember that the practice of meditation should always be balanced with the need for social responsibility in order to ensure the survival of family, friends, nation, and the planet itself.

stick that in your pipe n smoke it!