The Next Phase: The Privatization of the Iraq War
Image by jmtimages via Flickr
By Grant Lawrence
Troops are pulling out of Iraq and it is the end of combat operations. Or so this is the story you are supposed to believe.
In reality, there is no end to the combat. Rather the United States is merely shifting the war over to US private contractors.
….To protect the civilians in a country that is still home to insurgents with Al Qaeda and Iranian-backed militias, the State Department is planning to more than double its private security guards, up to as many as 7,000, according to administration officials who disclosed new details of the plan. Defending five fortified compounds across the country, the security contractors would operate radars to warn of enemy rocket attacks, search for roadside bombs, fly reconnaissance drones and even staff quick reaction forces to aid civilians in distress, the officials said…..(source: ny times…..link posted at clg)
….“They [private security contractors] are going to have to do everything that we expect soldiers to do without going out on patrols to engage the enemy,” says one former industry insider. “There are some pretty smart number crunchers in all the major contractors who are figuring out how much of this increasing pie we’re going to be able to get.”….(source: newsweek)
How many private contractors are in Iraq?
….There are now 150,000 contractors in Iraq, comprising about 39,000 Americans, 70,000 “third country nationals,” and 37,000 Iraqis. A little more than half provide support to the more than 50 American bases and installations in Iraq, and they are the ones Odierno wants to phase out. His directive asks for a 5 percent reduction in the use of contractors each quarter…..(source: cs monitor.com)
The war in Iraq is morphing into another phase. The privatization or corporatization phase. Just as the United States government is turning all public services over to corporations here in America, they are also turning war over to private corporate interests. Corporate contractors have always been a big part of the Iraq war, but soon they will be the ones left to continue military operations.
There will likely be a draw down of many of these contractors, if all goes well. But there will also be a big private military contingent running the war for many years to come.
So as America celebrates another “Mission Accomplished,” in reality it is just another scam on the American and Iraqi people. The United States will be in Iraq for years. It will essentially be occupied by a private army supporting a puppet government with some US military support. This is what freedom means for the Iraqi people.
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Pesticides Linked to ADHD
By Grant Lawrence
Over use of pesticides are not only poisoning the planet but they are also poisoning people.
Pesticide use has been linked to diseases and have been found to be dangerous to human health.
- increased risk of leukemia
- cancers (lung, brain, testicular, lymphoma)
- increase in spontaneous abortions
- greater genetic damage
- decreased fertility
- liver and pancreatic damage
- neuropathy
- disturbances to immune systems (asthma/ allergies)
- increases in stillbirths {1}
- decreased sperm counts (source: RATE)
It is also thought that the big die off of animal species worldwide can be linked to pesticides.
- Birds die after eating granular pesticides.
- Animals may develop:
- cancer
- abnormal thyroid function
- decreased fertility
- decreased hatching success
- demasculinization and feminization of males
- alteration of immune function {10} (source)
But if that wasn’t enough to worry about. A new study shows a possible link to ADHD and pesticides.
A growing body of evidence is suggesting that exposure to organophosphate pesticides is a prime cause of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, ADHD. The findings are considered plausible to many experts because the pesticides are designed to attack the nervous systems of insects. It is not surprising, then, that they should also impinge on the nervous systems of humans who are exposed to them…..
…..Eskenazi and her team tested for levels of pesticide metabolites in urine in the mothers twice during their pregnancies and several times in the children after birth. They then tested the children at ages 3 1/2 years and 5 years for attention disorders and ADHD, using the mothers’ reports, performance on standardized computer tests and behavior ratings from examiners. After correcting the data to account for lead exposure and other confounders, they found that each tenfold increase in pesticide levels in the mothers’ urine was associated with a fivefold increase in attention problems as measured by the assays. The effect was more pronounced in boys than in girls…..(source: la times)
It may be that people don’t care for their own health or the health of the planet. But it would seem that they should at least care for the health of their children.
Unless people to take an active stance against the poisoning of the planet, it may be that people will join the dinosaurs. But unlike the dinosaurs, people will have become extinct even though they could have made another choice for themselves and their children.
Bodhi Bit–Real Magic
By Grant Lawrence
I have always been gifted with paranormal experiences. I think it might have emerged from a near-death fall from a basement stairs in which I received a severe hit to the head when I was just 2 or 3 years old. My mother told me that a priest had given me the “last rites,” but after a long coma thankfully I fully recovered. The brain, to me, is just a type of a receiver and the fall may have effected my brain receiver in some way.
I consider it a gift that I have had countless paranormal experiences. I have seen and heard ghosts, witnessed a thunderbird, witnessed UFOs, experienced a doppelganger and various time slips including Deja Vu, experienced past lives, precognition, and have had some profound mystical experiences. I believe that I have experienced many of these “gifts” because I also had unintentionally done certain things to enhance my paranormal abilities.
As some of you may know, I have meditated now for most of my adult life. I have been meditating now for over a quarter century and, for me, there can be no doubt that mediation has enhanced my psychic and intuitive abilities. The research shows that meditation can physically rewire our brains in even a short time. I am certain that meditation has done this for me. It has allowed me to experience glimpses into other realities and to communicate with other beings outside of our normal awareness. It has also transformed my view on life and the meaning of it. It has opened my heart and mind in a helpful way.
I have found the world to be a fantastic magic show.
We generally only experience a very small part of the available energies that exist. What we experience has a lot to do with how much of the magic show we are open to experiencing. I have found as a counselor that children and teens are more open to experiencing the paranormal since they have not been nearly as conditioned as adults into believing and experiencing only certain things. Also, I have found that certain cultures, like Native cultures, have a profound respect for and understanding of what we call the paranormal. They are not as limited in their view of reality. They often see skin walkers, spirits, UFOs, little people, and other manifestations of the “other world”.
The paranormal is not really outside of science. I think that through a better understanding of quantum physics, science is beginning to acknowledge what might be called the paranormal. For decades, psychic abilities have been proven through numerous scientific experiments. But it is also true that nearly always scientists choose to ignore the evidence (not very scientific). But now with a greater understanding of quantum physics, what has commonly been thought of as paranormal has been transformed into another aspect of what is normal.
See Also
Parapsychology and the Paranormal: The Conspiracy To Deny The Real
UFOs and the Paranormal Explained: The Trickster at Work
In the future, if humanity can survive through this dangerous period, an understanding of reality will indeed reveal the world to be a magic show that is fully dependent on consciousness to manifest. What we see as things are merely mind emanations taken from infinite waves of information probabilities. The world we experience is an agreed upon reality emerging from a type of group mind. In reality, though, it is so much more. We will always only be able to experience a small fraction of the infinite information existing in probability states.
The world is indeed a fantastic magic show.
But how the world manifests tells us about our own magic. If we limit our ability to experience the magic then it will manifest in a limited existence in which the magic unfolds as horror and suffering. However, if we are more open to the magic, such as the paranormal, then the world can transform into one of beauty and wholeness.
The magic we experience is dependent on the power of our own magic. Or our power to cultivate the infinite within us. When we expand our being in love and understanding we have indeed tapped into the power of real magic. We have cultivated the power of transformative magic which expands our consciousness and raises our being.
The transformative power of real magic awaits those that are open to it.
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Manufacturing Threats: From Bin Laden to ET

- Image via Wikipedia
Image via Wikipedia
By Grant Lawrence
Cuban Leader Fidel Castro says that terrorist Bin Laden is in the pay of the CIA.
“…Bush never lacked for Bin Laden’s support. He was a subordinate,” Castro said, according to the Communist party daily, Granma. “Any time Bush would stir up fear and make a big speech, Bin Laden would appear, threatening people with a story about what he was going to do.”He said that thousands of pages of American classified documents made public by WikiLeaks pointed to who the al-Qaida leader is really working for.
“Who showed that he [Bin Laden] is indeed a CIA agent was WikiLeaks. It proved it with documents,” he said, but did not explain exactly how….(guardian.co.uk)
We have to give Castro credit for knowing something about the CIA.
After all, he survived numerous assassination attempts by the CIA. Bin Laden, if he is still alive, is probably doing what he has done for most of his life. He has always been a paid CIA asset going back to the glory days of his role in supporting the ‘freedom fighters’ in Afghanistan against the Soviets.
But it is likely that Bin Laden has been dead for many years. It was well known that he was in advanced stages of kidney failure at about the time of the attacks on September 11th. The fake Bin Laden videos and recordings that have appeared over the years have likely been put together by the CIA.
I recall in one of his last recordings, Bin Laden had suddenly morphed into a progressive environmentalist. Thus, the power structure was able to link Bin Laden with progressive humanitarian causes. These humanitarian causes supported by the world’s number one terrorist was a slick ploy to connect progressive ideals with terrorism.
Today the world is in the midst of eco-collapse, global climate disasters, and environmental destruction on a global scale. But these are not threats. The real threat is Bin Laden and some other 200 al Qaeda in Pakistan.
It is likely Bin Laden will be the bogeyman for a few years to come. At some point they will have to put him to rest. Then it will be on to a new threat to humanity. If the plan goes as follows, I think they are going to roll out the ET threat to humanity. Or at least that is what has been reported.
According to Dr. Carol Rosin, Werner von Braun’s assistant and spokesperson, the father of American rocket science had repeatedly warned that UFO Aliens would be used as the final threat so that the Military Industrial Complex could further its aims.
See Also
Wernher Von Braun Predicts Future: False Terrorism to Alien Threat
…Just before he died, he gave an interview to Carol Rosin, in which he basically said that in order to sustain the military-industrial complex that first a false threat of terrorists would be created and used on the public and then asteroids and finally a false alien threat. Well we have all seen the terrorist threat and it’s quickly becoming tiresome for many. So perhaps a different enemy is what is needed? Considering his stature he’s making quite a prediction in this interview. You can hear Carol Rosin talk about it below….
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The Science Behind My Doppelganger Experience
By Grant Lawrence
Once when I was in my teens, a friend came over to visit my brother. They were talking in the drive way outside of the friend’s car. I was in the yard, and I noticed that my brother had gotten in the car and drove away with the friend. I saw the car drive down the street and my brother sitting on the passenger side.
Then a couple of minutes later, I saw my brother come out of the house.
I was stunned.
I asked him how he got back so quick. He didn’t know what I was talking about. I said that I saw him get in his friend’s car and drive away. My brother insisted he never went with his friend. Instead he had gone back into the house.
This was my experience with what has sometimes been called a doppelganger.
…In the vernacular, the word doppelgänger has come to refer (as in German) to any double or look-alike of a person. The word is also used to describe the sensation of having glimpsed oneself in peripheral vision, in a position where there is no chance that it could have been a reflection. Doppelgängers are often perceived as a sinister form of bilocation and generally regarded as harbingers of bad luck. In some traditions, a doppelgänger seen by a person’s friends or relatives portends illness or danger, while seeing one’s own doppelgänger is an omen of death….(source: wikipedia)
Now I don’t recall having any bad luck because of seeing my brother’s doppelganger. But that incident has always made me wonder just what might have happened.
…At issue is the possibility that there could be a multiplicity of copies of any particular experiment floating about the universe, just as there could be a multiplicity of yous. There could even be an infinite number of them if, as is thought, the early universe underwent a period of exponential growth, called inflation. Although this period ended very soon after the big bang in our observable region of space, inflation may have continued elsewhere, giving rise to a “multiverse”, an infinite space containing infinite copies of our Earth. “In an infinite universe, every possible thing would happen, and it would happen an infinite number of times,” says cosmologist Alex Vilenkin of Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts….(source: new scientist)
In the quantum world, scientists tell us that there are only probabilities until the wave function collapses and then there is the observed event.
…In the uncertain, fuzzy world of quantum mechanics, particles do not have fixed properties until they are observed. Instead, objects that obey quantum rules exist in a “superposition” of all their possible states simultaneously. Schrödinger’s famous cat, for example, is both alive and dead until we take a peek inside the booby-trapped box in which it has been placed….(source)
So perhaps my brain caught a glimpse of a slightly different ‘other reality’ in which just one of an infinite number of possibilities was made manifest. My consciousness had somehow slipped into another realm of being in which another possibility had collapsed into reality. The ‘other universe’ was virtually like this one except there had been a split in which it emerged into another time line. Or so it seems after years of thinking about it.
I don’t like the idea of infinite number of Grant Lawrence’s doing an infinite number of things. But from experience, there may be some truth to the quantum doppelganger.
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Bodhi Bit–The Buddha

- Image via Wikipedia
By Grant Lawrence
“The Buddha was an ordinary human being,” says Pema Chodron on Bill Moyer’s PBS series on Faith and Reason.
The Buddha is not God, but a role model. He offers humanity a guide to finding their own bodhi nature. That supreme understanding and enlightenment that arises from the ground of being.
The Buddha is a symbol of compassion and understanding. But he is also fully human. That is the joy of the Buddha’s life and message. That human beings are given a great gift in this life. They have the good karma of becoming human and thus they have the ability to reach their full potential as spiritual beings.
The Buddha offered a way or a path to the truth of existence and the end of suffering. It is not a path for the timid. It requires a great strength of heart and mind to accept the truth as it unfolds. But the path unfolds into the greatest blessing for the person that travels it. The realization of one’s Buddha Nature is also a great blessing for all of those that come in contact with that person that has united with the great mother, the bodhi-heart mind.
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Note: Jim Courant was mistakenly identified as an Astronaut. He is a pilot that has flown over 30,000 flight hours and says UFOs are real.
Courant references Apollo Astronaut Edgar Mitchell in a statement about the government and others knowing of ETs and being in contact with them.
Grant
6th Man to Walk on the Moon Says UFO ETs are in Contact with US Government and Others

- Image via Wikipedia
By Grant Lawrence
Bodhi Thunder
The news is that another astronaut has admitted that ETs are real and that the US government has been in contact with them.
“A national hero and the sixth man to walk on the moon said that your government and others have been in contact with ET’s for over 67 years. That’s an incredible statement. It was buried on page seven the next day in the NY Post…” Commercial Airline Pilot, Jim Courant….(source: ufo digest)
But Courant is just one in a long list of Astronauts that have been open about UFO Alien visitations. Those that have not admitted to it in public have sometimes been recorded discussing their UFO experiences with NASA’s Mission Control.
Neil Armstrong & Edwin Aldrin
….According to the NASA Astronaut Neil Armstrong, the Aliens have a base on the Moon and told us in no uncertain terms to get off and stay off the Moon. According to un-confirmed reports, both Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin saw UFOs shortly after that historic landing on the Moon in Apollo 11 on 21 July 1969. I remember hearing one of the astronauts refer to a “light” in or on a crater during the television transmission, followed by a request from mission control for further information. Nothing more was heard. According to a former NASA employee Otto Binder, unnamed radio hams with their own VHF receiving facilities that bypassed NASA’s broadcasting outlets picked up the following exchange:
NASA: Whats there?
Mission Control calling Apollo 11…Apollo11: These “Babies” are huge, Sir! Enormous!
OH MY GOD! You wouldn’t believe it!
I’m telling you there are other spacecraft out there,
Lined up on the far side of the crater edge!
They’re on the Moon watching us!
(source: syti.net)
NASA Astronaut Scott Carpenter
“At no time, when the astronauts were in space were they alone: there was a constant surveillance by UFOs.”
Storey Musgrove
NASA Astronaut
“Statistically it’s a certainty there are hugely advanced civilizations, intelligence, life forms out there. I believe they’re so advanced they’re even doing interstellar travel. I believe it’s possible they even came here.”
Colonel Gordon Cooper
Mercury Nine, Gemini Five Astronaut“I know other astronauts share my feelings…. And we know the government is sitting on hard evidence of UFOs.”
Colonel Gordon Cooper
Mercury Nine, Gemini Five AstronautJames Lovell
Gemini 7 AstronautIn December 1965, Gemini astronauts James Lovell and Frank Borman saw a UFO during their second orbit of their record-breaking 14 day flight. Borman reported that he saw an unidentified spacecraft some distance from their capsule. Gemini Control, at Cape Kennedy told him that he was seeing the final stage of their own Titan booster rocket.
Borman confirmed that he could see the booster rocket all right, but that he could also see something completely different.
Lovell: BOGEY AT 10 O’CLOCK HIGH.
Capcom: This is Houston. Say again 7.
Lovell: SAID WE HAVE A BOGEY AT 10 O’CLOCK HIGH.
Capcom: Gemini 7, is that the booster or is that an actual sighting?
Lovell: WE HAVE SEVERAL…ACTUAL SIGHTING.
Capcom: …Estimated distance or size?
Lovell: WE ALSO HAVE THE BOOSTER IN SIGHT…
(source: squidoo.com)
- Astronaut Gordon Cooper Witnessed a UFO Land at Edwards Air Force Base (grantlawrence.blogspot.com)
- Airline Pilot: UFOs are Real (grantlawrence.blogspot.com)
- Famed Physicist Michio Kaku Says Close to a “Smoking Gun” on UFOs (grantlawrence.blogspot.com)
- The Night John Lennon Saw a UFO (grantlawrence.blogspot.com)
- Head of China’s Famed Astronomical Observatory Says UFOs Real (grantlawrence.blogspot.com)
- We’re Not Alone (disquietreservations.blogspot.com)
- Former Astronaut Edgar Mitchell and ‘NASA UFOs’ (grantlawrence.blogspot.com)
Losing an Unwinnable Drug War
By Grant Lawrence
Awhile back a General was put in charge of the drug war in Mexico. He soon ended up dead.
A Mexican official in charge of investigating the killings of 72 victims from Central and South America in Northeastern Mexico has now been found dead.
...The body of an official investigating the massacre of 72 Central and South American migrants killed in a ranch in the northeastern Mexican state of Tamaulipas was found today dumped beside a nearby road alongside another unidentified victim, according to local media….(source: telegraph.co.uk)
If a Mexican official is honest and not on the take from the Cartels, he will be killed. The system in Mexico is awash in illegal drug money and the officials know that it is healthy to stay crooked.
Recently former Mexican President Vincente Fox called for the legalization of drugs.
“What has to be made legal are the production, sale and distribution [of illegal drugs],” said the former Presidient.
Fox knows that the drug war is not winnable.
In the United States, most people in prison are there for trafficking or using illegal drugs. The United States has the largest prison population in the world. The solution to the drug problem is through education, social services, and a just society where there is real opportunity for all people. The war on drugs is being lost on both sides of the border.
- Mexican Mayor Murdered with the Help of His Own Police (grantlawrence.blogspot.com)
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Take an Awareness Bath
An old, uneducated woman approached the Buddha, wanting to meditate, saying that she was coming to it so late in life; she might not really be able to learn how.
He gently advised her, as she drew water from the well each day, to remain mindful and aware of every single movement of her hands, knowing that if she did so she would soon find herself in that state of alert and spacious calm that is meditation…..(source: Times of India)
We try to keep our bodies clean by washing and taking baths.
But what about our mind?
Unless we meditate or perform another spiritual exercise, we are not really cleaning ourselves.
Being aware is not easy but a worthy practice. It is a way to clear the mind to reconnect with all of life. We are conditioned to experience and believe certain things. Our conditioning means that we generally are not able to free our minds from our programming. But when we meditate or take time to be aware, or mindful, then we are breaking through the programming and the conditioning.
To become more fully human we need to experience, beyond societal filters, life and our relationship to it.
The practice of awareness calms the mind and clears it. Over time, being aware will completely transform our view of life and our part in it.
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Another Look at Talker Glen Beck: A Silly Man Crying for an America that Never Was
This post originated from October 16th 2009. Unfortunately the video has been removed. But in it, Beck started to cry over TV ads. At any rate, the observations made in the post still stand.
Beck is a paid clown for the corporate class that runs the US. His listeners are duped into corporate created and sponsored Tea Parties and wasting time on wedge issues that confuse their already confused thinking.
Sadly his confused views and observations are what pass for wisdom here in America.
Grant
Watch one of the silliest videos from a supposed adult news commentator ever made.
By Grant Lawrence
Glen Beck, a right wing wack job neocon Radio and TV talker, remembers the glory of America’s simpler times through television advertising.
This confused man believes that the television ads he saw growing up were the reality of America. He gets so choked up over this reality that never was that he starts to cry. Now Glen Beck has used Vicks rub on his eyes in the past to create tears for America, so we don’t really know if this is an act job from a wack job or if it is a seriously disturbed, almost incoherent man.
But assuming these are real tears over his time spent in front of the television while growing up. Glen Beck’s disturbed behavior points to the problem in conservative thinking.
Conservatives remember an America that was created from TV fiction. They don’t remember the reality of growing up in America but only the TV portrayal of America.
Essentially, conservatives deny what is because of something that never was. For instance, they deny fact that 100 million Americans are without health care or adequate insurance coverage (maybe even themselves) because of a memory planted on television that corporations care for them. Conservatives will look the other way at the recent bankster heist of 23 trillion while they have tea bag parties to deny people health coverage.
Glen Beck is a disturbed person. This is evident. But Beck’s disturbed thinking points to the present problem. Americans remember a reality of America that never was and attempt to recreate it.
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