(Part 2) Reddit mentions: The best leaders & notable people biographies

---

_____INTRODUCTION TO ISLAM__

• [Web] Islam Explained - brief 1-page explanation of Islam and other Islam-related topics.
  
  
• [Video] The DeenShow - a talk show that introduces many of the basic teachings of Islam and addresses common misconceptions. Their website here.
  
  
• [Book] The Complete Idiot's Guide to Islam - Yahiya Emerick, Ignore the title, it's a decent clear-English guide to explaining what Islam is about and it's practices.
  
  
• [Video] The Purpose of Life - Khalid Yasin, gives a comprehensive lecture on the fundamental question that every human being must ask: "What is the purpose of life?"
  
  
• [Video] Foundations of Islam -Hamza Yusuf, discusses Quran compilation & preservation, articles of faith, ihsan, and the signs of the Last Day.
  
  
• [Web] Al-Aqidah at-Tahawiyyah - Islamic Creed written by the popular, 10th century scholar: at-Ṭaḥāwī
  
  
  
• [Book] Islam and the Destiny of Man - Charles Le Gai Eaton, introduction to Islam aimed at the Westerner.
  
  
• [Web] What is Islam? - Jamaal Zarabozo, if you're looking for a more concise introduction to the fundamental beliefs and practices of the Islamic faith, then try this free ebook.
  
  
  
  
• [Video] Understanding Islam Video Series - Abdal Hakim Murad, discusses the Qur'anic view of Christianity & Jesus, historical Muslim tolerance of Jews, free will vs. determinism, the problem of evil, etc.
  
  ---
  ___QURAN____
  
  
• [Web] Quran - The Noble Quran in various translations.
  
  
• [Book] The Message of the Qur'an - Muhammad Asad, if you're looking for the Quran in book form, this has helpful commentary to provide a thorough understanding.
  
  
• [Book] Quran - Abdel Haleem, another Quran in book form, this one is written in extremely clear modern English that makes it easy and pleasurable to read.
  
  
  
• [Web] English Tafsir -Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, English commentary of each chapter of the Quran in clear English. Extra link
  
  
• [Audio] Bayyinah Quran Commentary Podcast -Nouman Ali Khan, highly recommended audio commentary of the last 37 chapters of the Quran. Entire Quran commentary with BayyinahTV purchase.
  
  
  ---
  ____LIFE OF PROPHET MUHAMMAD___
  
  
• [Book] Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources - Martin Lings, very detailed and thorough biography based on the earliest sources. Recommended by many, (but relies on a few unauthentic sources).
  
  
• [Book] Muhammad Man and Prophet - Adil Salahi, a Complete Study of the Life of the Prophet, from birth in the Arabian desert to the triumph of Islam and its gaining a permanent hold on Arabia.
  
  
  
• [Video] Biography of Muhammad (pbuh) Video Series - Yasir Qadhi, detailed, very lengthy biography video series. Condensed video series here, Mufti Menk
  
  
• [Book] In the Footsteps of the Prophet: Lessons from the Life of Muhammad - Tariq Ramadan, presents the main events of the Prophet's life in a way that highlights his spiritual and ethical teachings.
  
  
• [Audio] The Life of the Prophet Muhammad - Hamza Yusuf, brilliant narration that was originally presented in a twelve week course based on the above book by Martin Lings.
  
  
• [Book] Muhammad (Critical Lives) - Yahiya Emerick, a simple concise, informative biography.
  
  
  
  
• [Web] The Sealed Nectar - Saifur Rahman al-Mubarakpuri, Popular and accurate account of the life of Muhammad (pbuh). Alternative link.
  
  
  ---
  
  ____CHRISTIANITY, JUDAISM AND ISLAM___
  
  
• [Video] How the Bible Led Me to Islam - Joshua Evans, former Christian youth minister conveys his journey to Islam.
  
  
• [Book] The Cross & The Crescent - Jerald Dirks, former minister (deacon) of the United Methodist Church explains how coherent Islam is with the roots of Christianity, provided with verifiable proofs.
  
  
• [Video] Early Christianity From Jesus to Muhammad - Jerald Dirks, discusses the roots of Christianity and the transition to the emergence of Muslims.
  
  
• [Book] MisGod'ed: A Roadmap of Guidance and Misguidance in the Abrahamic Religions - Laurence Brown, examines Judaism, Christianity, and Islam for truth in revelation, and trace the chain of revelation to its logical conclusion.
  
  
  
  ---
  ____ATHEISM AND ISLAM____
  
  
• [Video] The Purpose of Life - Jeffrey Lang explains how he came to Islam after being an Atheist.
  
  
• [Book] The Divine Reality: God, Islam & The Mirage Of Atheism - Hamza Tzortzis, Islamic arguments for God's existence, oneness and worship, while thoroughly addressing popular and academic objections.
  
  
• [Book] Even Angels Ask: A Journey to Islam in America - Jeffery Lang, a former atheist takes the reader along the path by discussing conflicts between faith and reason.
  
  
• [Book] Struggling To Surrender : Some Impressions of an American Convert to Islam - Former atheist, Jeffery Lang, gives a personal account of his search for God when he found out that his inherited religious beliefs could no longer answer his questions.
  
  
• [Video] From Strong Atheist To Islam - Tim, a former atheist used to debate religious people and tried to convince them that there is no God, until he met a Muslim.
  
  ---
  ____LEARN TO PRAY (SALAH)____
  
  
  
• [Web] Prayer Booklet - Easy and concise guide that explain the prerequisites and actions of prayer. Goes well with prayer videos below.
  
  
• [Video] Step by Step Guide to Prayer - Video explains the necessary steps needed to pray.
  
  
• [Video] How to perform all 5 prayers - Demonstration of all 5 mandatory prayers.
  
  
• [Web] How Do I Pray? - Interactive tutorial of all 5 prayers. Includes English transliteration.
  
  
• [Web] Prayer Mat - Contains all the necessary Arabic sayings that are needed for prayer. Print it out and place in front of you for ease. Convenient!
  
  
• [Web] Prayer Times - Online tool for calculating prayer times based on your exact GPS location
  
  
• [Web] Mosque-Finder - helpful tool that lets you locate your closest mosque.
  
  ---
  ____HADITH/SUNNAH____
  
  
• [Video] An Introduction to Hadith - Jonathan Brown, 1 hour introduction to the narrations of Muhammad (pbuh). Some questions about hadith answered.
  
  
• [Web] Imam Nawawi's Forty Hadith - Learn and study 42 popular hadith compiled by the famous al-Nawawi with audio commentary. Notes on al-Nawawi and his compilations for more clarity.
  
  
• [Book] Riyad-us-Saliheen - Imam Al-Nawawi, A popular and useful compilation of authentic hadith, covering every aspect of Islamic belief and moral conduct. Read it online or listen to audio.
  
  Full list here
  
  

Of these projects, I most enjoyed The Wire. But it's worth evaluating each of these projects in terms of what they were trying to accomplish, since they all had different goals.

1. Homicide: Life on the Street
   
   This was adapted from Simon's book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets, but I don't know how much Simon worked on the show day-to-day.
   
   This show is much more of a crime procedural than any of the other works here. And with a few notable exceptions—e.g., Luther Mahoney or Brodie—the near-exclusive default point-of-view is that of the police.
   
   The show was groundbreaking for network TV at the time. For one thing, at least one of the main-cast characters was a cop who was an asshole and basically corrupt. This show also demonstrated that the bosses and their subordinates do not always see eye-to-eye, and not just in the "crusty-but-benign" way described in the movie Network, either. Most cop shows at the time didn't just show cops, but they identified with the cops' perspective. (This is still pretty common today.) This is legitimate, but showing that cops have human foibles which have on-the-job repercussions was taking a chance, especially for a network show at that time. And, like The Wire, it got critical acclaim but relatively small (but devoted!) audiences.
   
   The show's style was very different from that of, say, The Wire. For example, it had a non-diegetic score and camera moves that were more likely to draw attention to themselves. H:LotS also included collaborations with Baltimore native Barry Levinson and Tom Fontana. The latter went on to create HBO's Oz, and you can see plenty of influence there from Homicide.
   
   H:LotS was also able to attract high-level talent throughout its run. Not only was the regular and recurring cast very strong (as you'd likely expect, even without having seen a single episode), but it attracted a number of actors best known for their film work. As just one example, Robin Williams appeared in the second season premiere, playing the husband of a crime victim. Steve Buscemi played an odious racist. Arguably, though, the most memorable guest appearance was Moses Gunn as Risley Tucker, the sole suspect in the homicide of 11-year old Adena Watson. Gunn may not be a household name, but he's been in projects from the original Shaft to Roots to stage performances.
   
   Homicide was also remarkable, especially at the time, in that it shot on location in Baltimore. (For context, consider that Vancouver (almost) never plays itself; typically, a show at the time would be shot in New York or Los Angeles, even it it's set in another city.) It also helped establish some of the vocabulary familiar to those who've watched The Wire: "the box", "the board", etc.
   
   
2. The Corner
   
   This was a six-part miniseries for HBO based on David Simon's book about real-life addicts and dealers. If Homicide was primarily a show from the perspective of the cops, The Corner introduced what life was really like for those who lived in places like West Baltimore.
   
   For me, Homicide was always more stylized in its aesthetic, but more traditional in the types of stories it tried to tell. It was groundbreaking relative to other cop shows, but it still chose the cops' vantage points as the default. The Corner inverted this.
   
   A lot of the content from The Corner will be familiar to those who've already seen The Wire. (And, conversely, those who've seen The Corner would have some useful frame of reference for the events depicted in The Wire.) One attribute The Corner clearly focused on was authenticity. Homicide was a solid show, but The Corner felt real. Much of the cast of The Corner reappears in The Wire, too. And some of the real-life people whose lives Simon chronicled in his book played minor characters on The Wire. One of the most notable examples was the late DeAndre McCullough, who played Brother Mouzone's assistant Lamar.
   
   Again: a killer cast. A good story, well-told. And, for a change-of-pace: even some Emmy nominations and wins!
   
   
3. The Wire
   
   I trust you're all familiar with this, right? :)
   
   I think having laid some groundwork with the reporting which underlay Homicide and The Corner, The Wire had the basis to be incredibly ambitious. It told stories from the perspectives of cops and dealers and dope fiends and stevedores and City Hall and newspaper newsrooms. It also had a definite point-of-view, and it was unafraid to advocate for its argument, but by showing and not merely telling. Yes, it's about all the conflict between characters on all sides of the law. But it's also making some very important arguments: the drug war is unwinnable, and the consequences of that gratuitous futility are disastrous for countless people. Deindustrialization of big cities leaves the corner as the only employer in town. Actual reform that will have any kind of substantive effect will require something other than the standard bromides that have typically gotten politicians elected and re-elected. And so on.
   
   
4. Generation Kill
   
   This is a seven-part HBO miniseries based on the book Generation Kill: Devil Dogs, Ice Man, Captain America, and the New Face of American War by Evan Wright, documenting those American Marines who were the tip-of-the-spear in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. As with The Corner and The Wire, this goes out of its way to convey authenticity, especially in the context of the military jargon. Oh, and you get to see Baltimore native James Ransone, who played Ziggy, as a Marine, too.
   
   
5. Treme
   
   This is Simon's love letter to the city of New Orleans, set in the immediate aftermath of Hurrican Katrina. Again: a killer cast, including everyone from Clarke Peters (who played Lester) to Khandi Alexander (who played Fran Boyd on The Corner) to New Orleans native Wendell Pierce (Bunk Moreland) to John Goodman (in damn-near EVERY movie) to Stephen Colbert's bandleader Jon Batiste (as himself).
   
   For me, Treme was solid, but it was less compelling than The Wire. A lot of the goal of Treme was to show the importance and centrality of New Orleans to American culture, in everything from music to food. For me, that case seemed secondary to the lives of the characters themselves. Many of the themes from The Wire are familiar: indifferent institutions, crime and violence, etc. But it also has some ferociously good performances, amazing music performed live, and an important reminder that life for so many in New Orleans still wasn't really "after Katrina" yet, even years after the storm, because of just how much destruction was caused all around.
   
   Oh, and like The Wire (among others), Treme cast a lot of local New Orleans natives who lived through the storm, as well as musicians who hadn't grown up with training as actors.
   
   
6. Show Me a Hero
   
   The title comes from an F. Scott Fitzgerald quote: "show me a hero, and I'll write you a tragedy". Like The Corner, this is another six-part HBO miniseries adapted from a nonfiction book. It's about a huge fight that the city of Yonkers, NY had with federal courts by resisting efforts to remedy housing segregation.
   
   Some of the themes should be familiar: a stellar cast including Oscar Isaac, Winona Ryder (in a role I wouldn't have expected for her), Catherine Keener, Alfred Molina, and Clarke Peters (again). As you might have guessed from the quote, this story doesn't have a happy ending for everyone. The main theme is about how to do the right thing, especially as an elected official, in the face of violent opposition from much of the city, and what cost doing the right thing will entail.
   
   
7. The Deuce
   
   This is a forthcoming David Simon series about the world around Times Square in the 1970s: pornography, just as it was becoming legalized, HIV/AIDS, drug use, and the economic conditions of the city at the time. Even if the whole team totally dropped the ball here, I'm sure this will be better than HBO's 1970s music drama Vinyl, at a minimum.
   
   The cast includes James Franco (playing twins), Maggie Gyllenhaal, Anwan Glover (Slim Charles), Lawrence Gilliard, Jr. (D'Angelo Barksdale), Chris Bauer (Frank Sobotka), and Gbenga Akinnagbe (Chris Partlow). Oh, and the pilot is being directed by Michelle MacLaren, whose directing credits include Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, and Westworld, among others.

Your protocol is quite different than what I've seen in the past. Normally I've seen that the MDMA session is supported by therapy for a while beforehand to allow the person's issues to be front and center, and then a handful of sessions to work through the issues, normally three or four in the matter of a month or so. The therapy is there to get the ball rolling for the patient on their way to healing and to remind them how much in control they are over their own actions, beliefs, perceptions, and reactions, and so on.

The sessions are done for one person at a time, blindfolded, where the therapist is more of a sitter than a guide. The idea here is to let the MDMA do most of the work, not to treat it as a therapy session. The patient (one patient at a time) takes the MDMA puts on blindfolds, and sits in silence until they are ready to talk. The patient will inevitably bring up issues of their own, and often go through a psychedelic style internal journey as they work through their issues. The sitter is there to reassure the patient that they are safe and loved and to keep the patient on track if they get off course. The sitter also is responsible for the music because the music helps set the tempo, feel and can guide the patient deeper as needed. Music tends to be music without lyrics so as to let the patient go where they need to go on their own, without the external influence of ideas and notions. Music also tends to not be very popular or recognizable so the patient doesn't have preconceived notions and attachments. This is all to eliminate any outside stimulus and really be able to go into themselves smoothly.

The MDMA environment/setting is far more forgiving than other psychedelics. A comfortable place that feels safe, is clean and free of negativity in whatever form might upset the patient. Most of the sessions I've seen have been on a that curvy psychiatrist's chair or a couch.

After the sessions, the therapy is resumed to work through what came up during the session. The work needs to continue. The MDMA is not a magic bullet that will cure you. It's a tool to get you places so you can heal more directly.

It's not to say your protocol wont work, but I've just never seen it before. There is merit to taking it with that person and just talking. If you're not in a party setting you'll likely have a very good heart to heart. Through this method I was able to identify a deep loneliness I was experiencing and began a path to healing it. It's definitely healing, but a different beast than the prior described method, and far more gentle, but perhaps not as effective for really getting in there and pulling things up. The healing process of that particular wound took at least a year afterward and involved several sessions of different substances without a particular protocol. Here is the gist of my story specifically from the drug angle.

You can get really good examples of therapy sessions in TIKHAL chapter 14 - "The Intensive" where Ann Shulgin goes over her protocols for MDMA therapy, and in Acid Test which is a history of psychedelic therapy in the US and the story of MAPS. In the later chapters, I think around chapter 43, there is a really good narrative of a session, but I recommend the whole book since it all supports how the patient and therapist got to actually running the session and the reasoning behind it. You can read all of Tikhal/Pikhal, but there are only a few chapters that deal with therapy directly.

Also consider a psilocybin session, it can work very similarly. If nothing else research their protocols, which are again very similar, to understand what they are doing.

Some authors/notables to look up are Roland Griffiths and Stanislav Grof. Griffiths is currently conducting research at John Hopkins in MD with psilocybin, and Grof is a transpersonal psychologist who's done a lot of work in non-ordinary states and their healing potential.

Honest question. Not intended to offend you.

Do you have a learning impairment of some kind?
Or are you just lazy?

If you have some kind of an issue that makes it difficult for you to grasp and embrace somewhat advanced academic topics, but you really want a college degree to help you go somewhere in life, then we can help you.

But I keep reading your responses in the thread and you come across as unmotivated, disinterested and, well, lazy.

I ain't yer daddy. I'm not here to fuss at you. Actually, I'm willing to help find you an answer to your question if I can.

But my approach to trying to help will depend on your response to my question.

Before you respond though, I have a second question.

You don't seem to have the slightest idea what you want to do with your life, but you seem fairly interested in doing it with some assistance from the military.

Please permit me to offer you a suggestion that might help you stall for time before you have to answer these questions.

-----

The ROTC program has strict standards and some fairly lofty requirements. The military cannot tolerate junior leaders that do not have their act together.

Junior leaders are in fantastic positions with excellent opportunities to get a lot of people killed or injured in seconds.

For a good example of good v/s not-good leadership I emphatically encourage you to consume this entire mini-series Generation Kill. It's on HBO and I think Netflix. Or just get the book from the library Generation Kill or something.

Lieutenant Fick (the real person) attended Dartmouth and later wrote the book One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer. This is what a good officer looks like.
Captain America is what a bad officer looks like. He isn't completely bad. He didn't get any of his men killed directly, but it came close from time to time.

I AM NOT suggesting you might be a bad officer. I am trying to explain why ROTC and Officer Candidate School is as tough as it is.
They are working very hard to weed out and otherwise discover good v/s bad officers.

There is another path. A path with fewer risks, that might enable you to observe personal growth and self-discovery at a different pace.

The enlisted path.

Take the SAT. Take the ACT. Keep those scores in your permanent CollegeBoard profile. But take the ASVAB and enlist in the service of your choosing. Pick a job that helps provide you some useful skills. Go see the world. Go meet some new people. Then let your GI Bill pay for college after you've had 4 years of active duty service to figure out what you want to do for a living.

The Army, Navy and Air Force will all guarantee you a specific job of your choosing in a written contract.
The Marines will guarantee only that you WILL be personally challenged by your experiences. They will assign you whatever job they want you to have.

I joined the Marines back in 1989, when I was 17 years old. My parents had to co-sign my enlistment papers since I wasn't 18 yet.
I learned a lot about myself, and I had a completely new and vastly more focused view of the world when I got out.

The GI Bill will pay for 36 months of university (which covers 4 full educational years) including room & board in most cases.
The GI Bill grants you in-state consideration for all public universities in the nation. So you can attend any school anywhere you want to go to, assuming you have the academic record to be accepted.


...Just an alternate approach to your situation for you to think about.

I don't really like the other book recommendations in here (no comment on Livia Kohn's book, never seen it). None have very clear instructions or progressions.

Opening The Dragon Gate is an entertaining introduction into the practices - it's a biography of one of the practitioners. That lineage has a book out with specific practices and it has a comically long name.

While I think the lineage sucks, John Chang - Magus of Java - is very interesting. They don't accept students, so don't fall in love with this one. I found out about this lineage form this video. Take it with some grains of salt.

I think those are pretty solid representations of the practices. Mantak Chia is kind of new age, senior citizen practices.

----

You asked about specific practices though and I just gave you a list of books. So I'll try to address your actual question.

The main practice is meditation. Different schools have different meditations. Some of them are steeped in ritual, some are pretty bare bones.

Exercises refer to qigong and martial arts. Qigong is best understood as holding stances, focusing on breathing, and energy.

As for diets, Taoists traditionally abstain from grains. I know the esoteric justification for this, but it's hard to explain without defining a lot of terminology. I pass it off as a bit of dogma - even though I eat gluten free for other reasons. The gist of it though, not eating grains makes your mind more clear and makes you more balanced mentally and emotionally.

Sexual exercises are something popularized by Mantak Chia through a few books. I don't think it is inline with real Taoism. Most the hard core Taoists go celibate for some time to benefit their practice.

----

The theory behind all the practice is that they wish to change physical energy (jing), to energy (chi), and energy to spirit (shen) - through energetic practices, mainly meditation. They believe strengthening their spirit will allow them to attain consciousness after death and continue their practices, refining their spirit and reaching higher planes. They believe that without these practices you are continually shuffled through a cycle of reincarnation.

Basically, they go for a promotion in the spirit world.

Hope this helps.

> healthcare used to only be economically viable through an employer

And employers offered healthcare, costs were lower. Now that everyone has insurance, true costs are hidden and thus have been allowed to skyrocket.

Personally, I think we should:

• eliminate incentives for businesses to offer healthcare, and encourage salary as the primary means of competing for employees (WW2 wage controls caused high health care prices; here's the history of health insurance benefits)
  
• disallow group plans and force insurance to be bought by each individual/family to level the playing field
  
• reform the patent system to reduce prices of drugs
  
• limit awards to medical malpractice suits
  
  To make healthcare cheaper, we need to make it more transparent and competitive. If patients don't see the true cost of insurance (e.g. costs are hidden behind insurance premiums), they won't look for a cheaper solution, so they'll take whatever the doctor recommends. Insurance should only cover real emergencies (e.g. you don't insure your car for oil changes), which means that they'll pay cash for routine procedures, which will allow smaller clinics to specialize and drive down prices.
  
  Ron Paul has a good section on this in The Revolution: A Manifesto (here is his stance on his website). A quote from Gary Johnson:
  
  > “We want Stitches-R-Us,” he said. “We would have Gallbladders-R-Us. We would have advertised pricing with advertised outcomes.”
  
  Now, after we've opened up competition in health care and made everything more transparent, we can talk about what to do with the poor. I think that having something like Basic Income would work out because it doesn't play favorites in the market and it allows people to choose how to allocate their money (e.g. how much health care they want vs other things in their lives).
  
  > what the ideal healthcare situation would look like in the US
  
  The ideal situation is inexpensive, world class healthcare without government interference. The less than ideal situation is to help the poor afford inexpensive healthcare.

I'm going to throw out something that is not typical for this sub. Check out the book Turn the Ship Around by L. David Marquet.

Basically it's a book anybody in here who is in a leadership role could benefit from. I've been using the principles in my marriage and raising kids. Basic tenet is the best captain (Marquet was a nuclear sub captain) is the one who is able to lead their team to think and act knowing they have the captain's support.

Being in charge doesn't mean being controlling and demanding. My wife would tell yo that my leadership empowers her, and she appreciates my support. That's because she trusts and respects me, so when I show her she can be trusted with making decisions, she doesn't have to worry about my support.

Think of it this way: how do you treat her when she does go out on her own limb? They need our encouragement and guidance, not fear of failure and directives (except when necessary).

Thoreau: Walden, although non-fiction, may be the closest.

Ram Dass: How Can I Help, also non-fiction, has stories that are perhaps what you are looking for.

Ken Wilber One Taste. Wilber's meditative "journal" for a year. It's one of my 5 top books ever.

Ken Wilber: Grace and Grit. "Here is a deeply moving account of a couple's struggle with cancer and their journey to spiritual healing."

In another area are Carlos Castenedas books, which came out as non-fiction but there have been arguments they are fiction, and I don't know or mind either way. They are based on shamanistic drug use, but I believe it all is possible without drugs.

The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge

I have not read (Lila) Kate Wheeler's works, but I have heard of them. I've not read them mostly because if I can't get them at the library, I am too cheap to buy them.

Not Where I Started From

Nixon Under the Bodhi Tree is a collection of works and the authors there might lead you to more of their works.

I did read Bangkok Tatoo which has some Buddhist meditation themes in it, but it wasn't really to my liking.

The Four Agreements is said to be like Carlos Casteneda's books, but I have not read it.

Bottom line, I've read a lot, and I can't find any matches in my memory for Herman Hesse's Siddhartha. If I think of any I'll add it as an edit.

If you find anything interesting, please pm me, no matter how far in the future it is!

---

Edit: as per the reply below, I've added here if anyone has "saved" this post:

I thought of two more, these actually should be higher on my earlier list:

The Life of Milarepa : "The Life of Milarepa is the most beloved story of the Tibetan people amd one of the greatest source books for the contemplative life in all world literature. This biography, a true folk tale from a culture now in crisis, can be read on several levels.... "

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance which was the start of all books titled, "Zen and the Art of ____." "One of the most important and influential books written in the past half-century, Robert M. Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is a powerful, moving, and penetrating examination of how we live . . . and a breathtaking meditation on how to live better."

Hitler's party was named the "National Socialists." Their policies had little to do with socialism. The main feature of the Nazis was an authoritarian dictatorship. Like the "socialists" in the "United Soviet Socialist Republic" (USSR), or the Kim family's "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" the name has virtually nothing to do with how the country is/was run or its economic system.

When they first came to power, the Nazis did some quasi-socialist policies of helping the working class. This solidified their political power and mandate. This was however not real socialism, because it was not built on helping all people, just "the right" people. It was a classic divide and conquer combined with demagoguery against Jews, Roma, Homosexuals, etc. Power was concentrated at the top, particularly in a single leader, (der Führer - literally "the leader"), which is diametrically opposed to what socialism is. The Nazis could only extract more and more wealth by continually doing more dividing internally, and eventually only by attacking and overthrowing other countries and extracting their wealth, both materially and by enslaving the captured civilian populations.

The few big German (not to mention internationally, including US) companies who sided with the Nazis early on made a lot of money, as well as the leaders of the party becoming enormously wealthy, by killing, enslaving and stealing. That is also not socialism. It is fascism.

It should also be noted that soon after coming to power, all higher Nazi party members who were interested in socialism were purged from the party (some arrested and imprisoned) and socialist groups in Germany were targeted and eliminated. I'm not an expert on the USSR, but I believe this is similar to what happened there once the Bolsheviks consolidated power.

In Germany, all of this was lead by a bitter, failed painter and WWI corporal from Austria named Adolf. He learned in the early 1900s in Vienna how well anti-semitism can be used to rile people up and turn their economic frustration on minorities, rather than the powerful who control things. Hitler took the lessons of Vienna Mayor Luegner and expanded on them. Trump uses the same playbook, but fortunately, the more modern world still has a few checks on his power.

I wouldn't say Hitler was an unprecedented evil only because the validity of our written history gets very sketchy before the 1900s (and it is pretty sketchy in parts since then as well!), but he was a very, very bad person. Socialism just means society controls the means and distribution of production. There are no pure socialist countries, but almost every country has socialist policies (like the fire department, schools, roads, etc.). The happiest (according to their populations) countries have social democracies, which just means that the public has the most say in how their taxes are spent - and they choose to spread the wealth around to the vast majority of the public. This is different than in the US, where the vast majority of tax money is spent on a few lucky winners.

If you want the really best understanding of Hitler, I recommend the two-volume biography from Ian Kershaw:

Volume I

Volume II

Very long, but super informative. I think that clarifies quite well.

[edit] typo

Crowley first carried out the Abramelin Operation at Boleskine after he left/was expelled from the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. It's a medieval ritual first (as far as we know) written down in the form of a letter by Rabbi Abraham Von Worms to his son, Lamed ben Abraham. The film is accurate in many ways, especially in that the ritual is intended to attain 'the knowledge & conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel' (but not 'ask a favour', that part was fictitious) Whilst one (often inaccurate) translation of The Sacred Magick... was rendered by Golden Dawn founder-member SL MacGregor Mathers , completion of the ritual was never a pre-requisite to initiation into the Order. To become a member people merely had to be proposed, seconded and take part in the Neophyte Ritual of that order. Confusingly enough, one of the subsections in the initiatory grades of Crowley's own (later) magical order, ostensibly named the Argentium Astrum,or A:.A:., was also called the Golden Dawn (or G:.D:.).

All artistic license and supplementary info aside, I agree it's a fucking great film, I love it. It often makes me think what an amazing film could be made about Crowley's shenanigans at Boleskine House, or indeed any aspect of his colourful adventures. He was certainly a larger than life character- flawed, incredibly intelligent & well educated, sometimes morally questionable (to put it mildly) but not the baby murdering, satanic, black magick Svengali that the popular media of the day (& since!) had him down as. If anyone's interested enough I can thoroughly recommend the George Dehn translation of Abramelin and also Dr Richard Kaczynski's excellent biography of Crowley, Perdurabo.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Book-Abramelin-Hb-New-Translation/dp/0892542144/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Abramelin&qid=1565523394&s=gateway&sr=8-1

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Perdurabo-Aleister-Crowley-Richard-Kaczynski/dp/1556438990/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Perdurabo&qid=1565523469&s=gateway&sr=8-1

Hadith book collections such as Al-Buhkari are basically a collection of hadiths organized topically. It doesn't provide much in the department of context and what rulings can be derived from each hadith. some hadiths were valid for a set period of time for specific circumstances and then the rule changed later. Scholars call this "Al-Nasikh wa al-Mansukh" and it is found in the hadith as well as the Quran.

My point is that books like Al-Buhkari are meant as raw data for scholars who study the context and the reasons and the conclusions of rulings in the hadith. Not for the layman to causally read through.

If you want to read hadiths that are organized for the layman here are a few suggestions from the sidebar:


---
____LIFE OF PROPHET MUHAMMAD____

• [Video] Biography of Muhammad (pbuh) Video Series - Yasir Qadhi, detailed, very lengthy biography video series. A condensed video series here.
  
  
• [Book] Muhammad Man and Prophet: A Complete Study of the Life of the Prophet of Islam - Adil Salahi, from birth in the Arabian desert to the triumph of Islam and its gaining a permanent hold on Arabia.
  
  
• [Book] Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources - Martin Lings, very detailed and thorough biography based on the earliest sources. Recommended by many, (but relies on a few unauthentic sources).
  
  
• [Audio] The Life of the Prophet Muhammad - Hamza Yusuf, brilliant narration that was originally presented in a twelve week course based on the above book by Martin Lings.
  
  
• [Book] Muhammad (Critical Lives) - Yahiya Emerick, a simple concise, informative biography.
  
  
• [Book] In the Footsteps of the Prophet: Lessons from the Life of Muhammad - Tariq Ramadan, presents the main events of the Prophet's life in a way that highlights his spiritual and ethical teachings.
  
  
• [Web] The Sealed Nectar - Saifur Rahman al-Mubarakpuri, Popular and accurate account of the life of Muhammad (pbuh). Alternative link.
  
  
  ---
  
  ---
  ____HADITH/SUNNAH____
  
  
• [Video] An Introduction to Hadith - Jonathan Brown, 1 hour introduction to the narrations of Muhammad (pbuh). Some questions about hadith answered.
  
  
• [Web] Imam Nawawi's Forty Hadith - Learn and study 42 popular hadith compiled by the famous al-Nawawi with audio commentary. Notes on al-Nawawi and his compilations for more clarity.
  
  
• [Book] Riyad-us-Saliheen - Imam Al-Nawawi, A popular and useful compilation of authentic hadith, covering every aspect of Islamic belief and moral conduct. Read it online or listen to audio.
  
  
• [Web] Sunnah - Hadith books. Note: some of these hadith compilations are specialized books and not for the layman to causally read through. This link is for reference.
  
  
• [Book] Hadith: Muhammad's Legacy in the Medieval and Modern World - Jonathan Brown, provides a detailed exploration of the collection and criticism of hadith and examines the controversy surrounding its role in modern Islam.
  
  ---
  
  
  ^^credit ^^for ^^preparing ^^the ^^list ^^goes ^^to ^^/u/LIGHTNlNG
  ^

> What I don't hear about much though is what will happen once the Federal Reserve Bank is acually abolished.

If this topic interests you, I highly suggest you read Ron Paul's End the Fed, used copies go for as little as a penny on Amazon. The last chapter he talks about how the entire system is built on the Fed and we can't just dismantle it cold turkey, so he gives some suggestions on how to phase it out over time.

> What will my paycheck look like?

The fed is the master of inflation. Inflation is one of the cruelest of taxes. It helps the rich get richer while it destroys the savings of the middle and lower class. Without the Fed, currencies would only inflate at a rate of how fast gold and silver could be mined, which is a very low rate. Most likely savings in increased productivity would outpace inflation meaning your paycheck would have more purchasing power. This is what happened from most of the post-civil war era till the end of the 19th century.

> What will my investments look like?

There would be less booms and busts in the market place making investing more lucrative.

> What will minimum wage be?

Ending the Fed wouldn't change the minimum wage, only congress can set that rate, however as mentioned above, productivity would outweigh inflation making the purchasing power of the dollar worth more.

> Will there be competong currencies, and if so won't that complicate evem the simplest financial transaction?

If congress allows competing currencies with in the US then sure, but more than likely the government will want to keep their monopoly on "coining" (more like printing) money. In this case they will convict people who try to use competing currencies, which they already have. BitCoin is out of government's jurisdiction so it will be interesting to see how that pans out. As mentioned in another comment, credit card companies can easily perform currency transactions with east at little or no cost to the consumer- CapitalOne already does on an international scale for free.

> but a century or so of economically leading the planet is a pretty tough trend to beat. How will ending the fed improve that trend?

The booms and busts of the 20th century are bigger and greater than ever. I wouldn't consider this an improvement over the 19th century business cycle. Pretty much you need to choose your damage. Enormous booms and busts that occur every 7-12 years and devastates an entire economy (as the US has shown since 1913 when the Fed was created), or smaller more frequent (3-5 years) booms & busts that are more industry specific and don't detriment the entire economy. I don't know about you but I'd rather end the fed and deal with smaller industry specific booms that occur more often than the big ones fueled by the Fed that cripple the economy.

I haven't cracked them yet, but there are a few multi-volume biographies that get high marks (and since you say "the bigger the better..." :))

• Edmund Morris's trilogy on Teddy Roosevelt
  
• Manchester's The Last Lion series on Churchill
  
• Caro's The Years of Lyndon Johnson
  
  I also just had a friend send me Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton which seems like an interesting read.
  
  None of these are explicitly reformed, so I apologize if that's what you're looking for. But these are all acclaimed reads about men with a remarkable impact on history, which is worth attention anyway in my opinion :)

Huangbo said, “I didn’t say there is no Zen, just that there are no teachers. None of you see that although Zen master Mazu had eighty-four Dharma heirs, only two or three of them actually gained Mazu’s Dharma eye. One of them is Zen master Guizong of Mt. Lu. Home leavers must know what has happened in former times before they can start to understand. Otherwise you will be like the Fourth Ancestor’s student Niutou, speaking high and low but never understanding the critical point. If you possess the Dharma eye, then you can distinguish between true and heretical teachings and you’ll deal with the world’s affairs with ease. But if you don’t understand, and only study some words and phrases or recite sutras, and then put them in your bag and set off on pilgrimage saying ‘I understand Zen,’ then will they be of any benefit even for your own life and death? If you’re unmindful of the worthy ancients you’ll shoot straight into hell like an arrow. I know about you as soon as I see you come through the temple gate. How will you gain an understanding? You have to make an effort. It isn’t an easy matter. If you just wear a sheet of clothing and eat meals, then you’ll spend your whole life in vain. Clear-eyed people will laugh at you. Eventually the common people will just get rid of you. If you go seeking far and wide, how will this resolve the great matter? If you understand, then you understand. If you don’t, then get out of here! Take care!”

~

From: Zen's Chinese Heritage by Andy Ferguson

Book's Source: "Wudeng Huiyuan" (Compendium of Five Lamps)

Theory of Continuous Groups by Loewner. This book is based on lecture notes which Loewner was planning to turn into a larger book. Unfortunately he passed away before getting much done so some of his colleagues edited and compiled the notes into this book. I'm only quarter of the way in but so far it's given me a really unique perspective into group actions. I'm loving it but it doesn't hold my attention for long spans of time.

Geometry of Polynomials by Marden. Marden is my idol, and I plan to devote my life to studying the zeros of functions. That said, this book is the hardest goddamn book I have ever read. Hell, some of the exercises he gives were actual topics of published research 60 years ago. That seems a little mean to me. Anyway I still love this shit.

Mr. Tompkins in Paperback by Gamow. Alternates between stories about a character transplanted into hypothetical worlds where particular laws of physics are exaggerated and semi-rigorous lectures about the physics itself. The section on gravity as curvature of space was especially enlightening. The author uses the idea of a merry-go-round spinning at relativistic speed, so that straight lines on the surface (i.e. geodesics) are in fact curved to outside observers. You can then imagine that the merry-go-round is walled off from the outside, so that on the inside the centrifugal force can be thought of as gravity toward the edge. This is the concept of acceleration of reference frame being equivalent to gravity. For a non-physicist this kind of explanation is AWESOME.

Stranger in a Strange Land by Heinlein. My first Heinlein, just started it but I'm enjoying it so far. I honestly confused him with Haldeman... I loved The Forever War and I wanted to get another book by the author. Oh well.

Yeah so what I'm a nerd.

You strike me as reasonably intelligent person, who just so happened to get caught up by the neo-con/RINO propaganda. I started out as a toe the party line republican myself so I know where you're coming from.
I think a good economics refresher is what's called for first here.
I highly recommend "Basic Economics" by Thomas Sowell and if you're up for it check out r/austrianeconomics.
If you really think Paul's ideas on the Fed are oddball, I encourage to at least skim over his book "End the Fed".For some economic brilliance you can absorb right now, check out Milton Friedman, a nobel prize winner and genius thinker.

The short answer is yes, it could really help. However the long answer is: it's complicated--especially for someone in your situation.

To get the best effect you shouldn't be on certain medications. Many meds will dull a psychedelic experience. Some mix badly and can make you feel very sick. It's tough to know how you will respond.

The tricky part is that off your meds, you are more susceptible to mania/depression anxiety, etc., which itself might complicate your trip.

In an alternate reality someone like you should be evaluated by a doctor who can determine what meds you are taking may interfere, or should be removed due to improvements from the LSD, and work with you to step down. You should have counseling before you trip, a trained professional present to guide you, and counseling sessions in between. You should have several trips at building intensity over the course of several weeks or months.

Psychedelics are a tool, a catalyst, a teacher. But you have to do the inner work. The learning and the healing. That's why sick people need a program of healing, therapy, diet/exercise, carefully controlled meds, etc to get the most out of psychedelic medicines.

This is the safe way to do psychedelic therapy with people with pre existing mental illness and a history of medication.

I treated my bipolar with psychedelics and it helped a lot, but I wish I had more guidance and structure. Doing it on your own might really help you, but it also might not.

My advice is if you are interested, go to Amazon and look up some books. Do research. You have to be your own shaman and psychiatrist with this stuff, so learn as much as you can.

LSD Psychotherapy https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0979862205/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1506105089&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=lsd+psychotherapy&dpPl=1&dpID=512SI51Jk3L&ref=plSrch

Psychedelic Healing https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1594772509/ref=pd_aw_sim_14_of_15?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=VZ888GJ11QSTBM8B9MTA

Acid Test https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0147516374/ref=pd_aw_sim_14_of_22?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=ABDPQHSAZR5QJA1A02Q0

A Really Good Day is about microdosing https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0451494091/ref=pd_aw_sim_14_of_3?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=H660FJWZ0YXV9CXPRYRW

Hope this helps.

you can make something or talk about it !

making something of the genuine laniakea thread is just really quite different . . !

as you say a well done commentary doesn't preclude some-one from being creative but the mumonkan commentary is an abortion !

there is a sort of master document that they took the cases from ! ?

in fact I think there are distinct authorship issues with the mumomkan, it may in fact be the work of a committee of monks based on their filtered recording and understanding !

recent scholarship and better availability of original records in recent years is exploding the view of a monolithic and simple scriptural ch'an tableau !

"The Wudeng Huiyuan (Compendium of Five Lamps) is the primary source for the translated passages in this book. That text, compiled by the monk Puji at Lingyin Monastery in Hangzhou during the early thirteenth century, is the distillation of five previous "lamp records," which provide traditional accounts of the lives of famous Zen teachers and their teachings (note that the "five lamps" is not a reference to the five traditional Zen schools). [...] First and foremost among the five lamp records compiled within the Compendium of the Five Lamps is a text entitled The Record of the Transmission of the Lamp of the Jingde Era, commonly called the Transmission of the Lamp. I have translated some passages in this book directly from that text. Often, passages from the Compendium of Five Lamps and the Transmission of the Lamp are the same or quite similar. However, since each text contains material that is omitted from the other, I sometimes cite the Transmission of the Lamp separately"

look at this poem of Sylvia plath's Lorelai, one of the greatest ever written to understand what "the real juice" is !

Running around telling people they need a math course is the surest sign you're missing the bigger picture. I'll pass on returning your ignorant insults and instead try to help.

Here, educate yourself. And I'd be happy to entertain any info you have that supports the view the Federal Reserve is acts in best interest or the American people rather than in their owners best interest (hint: it's not owned by us or the USA)

Warren Buffet's "Squanderville"

Republican Congressman Ron Paul's book. "End The Fed" tell him he needs a math course.

And a litany of documentaries on the the history, unconstitutionality, and shady dealings of the Federal Reserve. Just go to Google video and type in "Federal Reserve"

Most of these are very early cyberpunk, the progenitors of the genre if you will. As such I'm not sure if they can be described as necessarily obscure but I don't see many of them mentioned that often (admittedly I'm somewhat new to /r/cyberpunk so you guys might talk about them all the time, in which case please disregard). As a final note not all of these are available on the Kindle market. Nevertheless here's a few that leap to mind -

1. When Gravity Fails by George Alec Effinger which has two sequels if you enjoy it, the third being better than the second imo.
   
   
2. The Ware Tetrology by Rudy Rucker
   
   
3. Islands in the Net by Bruce Sterling. He also edited the early cyberpunk anthology Mirrorshades which is worth checking out along with a several of his other works.
   
   
4. Mindplayers by Pat Cadigan who also wrote a few others worth looking at.
   
   
5. Frontera by Lewis Shiner.
   
   
6. I hesitate to mention this one as it's hardly obscure but if all you have seen is the film which is based off it, it is definitely worth getting Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K Dick.
   
   
7. Vurt by Jeff Noon.
   
   
8. Farewell Horizontal by K W Jeter along with his other novels Glass Hammer and Dr. Adder.
   
   
9. Someone else mentioned Walter Jon Williams novels which I would also highly recommend.
   
   
   
   
   
   

I love imposter stories.

Ever read the book by the kid from Brown University who faked being a born-again Christian so he could attend Liberty University (one of the most fanatically religious and conservative schools) for a semester? It was a very entertaining read, and he painted the students at Liberty in a good light (mostly reasonable, ordinary kids).

I assume you were not allowed to live on campus?

This seems like the perfect time to promote this great book i just finished reading:

Caught in the Pulpit: Leaving Belief Behind https://www.amazon.com/dp/1634310209/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_OFZpDbR7MY9GG

Great book and I’m sure anyone in this sub would enjoy it

I'm a 19-year-old boy from Ottawa, Canada (you may have heard of our little country :P ). While I was not homeschooled per se during my public school years (I went to regular English schools), I definitely learned more quickly, more thoroughly and more widely due to my parents' constant efforts to teach me things that went way above and beyond what I was "learning" at my high school.

My parents are both high school teachers, and have each spent roughly 30 years teaching their respective subjects.

My dad actually just retired last year, but he taught most of the Social Studies curriculum during the course of his career (History, Philosophy, Psychology, World Religions, etc.). He is a bilingual Francophone from Ottawa, so he taught at one of the French Catholic high schools in our area. He also happens to be somewhat skeptical of religion (not an atheist, but damned close). Odd combination, yes, but it has resulted in him introducing me to
military history, everything from the Roman legions to the Knights Templar to the Taliban.

My mother was born in Ottawa, to Greek parents who had left Greece after the Second World War; my grandparents are from a village about 20 minutes away from the modern city of Sparti (Sparta). During the war, the village was at some point occupied by Axis forces (I'm not sure when or to what extent, because my grandparents' English is not great and only my mother speaks Greek).

I decided to include a list (below) of works that I've found particularly interesting (I've never actually written down a list of my favs before, so this may be somewhat... sprawling and will be in no particular order :P ). Depending on the ages of your kids, some of this stuff might be inappropriate for them right now, but they can always check it out when they're older. It's mostly military/wartime history that interests me (it's what I plan on studying in university), but I've learned so many little tidbits about other things as well from having access to these works. Since your kids are all boys, I hope they'll find at least some of this stuff to be interesting :) .


Books

• http://www.amazon.com/Apache-Inside-Cockpit-Fighting-Machine/dp/0802144780/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1375711529&sr=1-4&keywords=apache
  
  
• http://www.amazon.com/American-Gun-History-U-S-Firearms/dp/0062242717/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1375712862&sr=1-1&keywords=american+gun
  
  
• http://www.amazon.com/Gun-C-J-Chivers/dp/0743271734/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1375712990&sr=1-1&keywords=the+gun+cj+chivers
  
  
• http://www.amazon.com/Generation-Kill-Evan-Wright/dp/0425224740
  
  
• http://www.amazon.com/One-Bullet-Away-Making-Officer/dp/0618773436/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_y
  
  
• http://www.amazon.com/Heart-Fist-Education-Humanitarian-Making/dp/B0098RLDT8/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1375713827&sr=1-1&keywords=the+making+of+a+humanitarian
  
  
• http://www.amazon.com/Shake-Hands-Devil-Failure-Humanity/dp/0786715103/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1375713894&sr=1-1&keywords=shake+hands+with+the+devil
  
  
  Movies and TV
  
  
• http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/lovehatepropaganda/
  
  
• http://www.amazon.com/Military-Combat-Megaset-Dogfights-Seasons/dp/B002D1XJUW/ref=sr_1_6?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1375714091&sr=1-6&keywords=dogfights
  
  
• http://www.amazon.com/Greatest-Tank-Battles-N/dp/B0055HK6V6/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1375714235&sr=1-1&keywords=greatest+tank+battles
  
  
• http://www.amazon.com/Deadliest-Warrior-Season-Geoffrey-Desmoulin/dp/B0037TPIAI/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top
  
  
  This is all non-fiction. If you like this list, let me know, and I can expand on it further, and also include my favourite works from other genres, as well as my favourite fiction books as well :) . I left out tons of stuff that I'm too much of a lazy teenager to type in here, lol.
  
  
  
  
  

It's alright. That's why you need to educate yourself and be able to stand up for him. If you choose to defend him on facts rather than emotion you will convince people.

A general comment, read his books revolution, end the fed, and liberty defined. You can even buy them in a bundle.


another great book from a great thinker, andrew napolitano

You don't have to agree with everything these people say to support them. If you understand the core principles and believe in the constitution and free, unalienable rights, then we can at least have educated discussions about these ideas and how to deploy them. And I am writing in generalities... I'm using "you" in a very broad, non-descriptive sense.

You're nervous. Good. That means that you care about getting this right.

Management can be intimidating in the beginning. My greatest fear was to become Dilbert's Point-haired boss -- disconnected from reality and being laughed at for just-not-getting-it.

You've had a taste of it, so I assume that you've started to figure out your weak spots. Since you "work your ass off", maybe one of them is to conflate getting things done (by delegation) and doing them yourself? Or lack of trust? In my experience, your ideal is far from being stressed out as a manager. Instead, you hope to have sufficient slack to notice when things go awry and to have time to (spontaneously) come up with better ways of doing things, rather than spending every free brain cycle on gritty details.

As a manager, you have two functions. First, you multiply your directs. If you hold them back, your factor will be less than one, if you're a good manager it will be more. Your job is to make them better, in particular by making their lives easier. I've found that the best things happen when smart, driven men and women who know what we're hoping to achieve and enjoy doing what they do best, are being allowed to follow their instincts. Eyes on the outcome, not on the output. (This applies in particular to the Cynefin context "Complex problems", but I would guess it applies also to "Complicated" ones).

Your second function is that you set the cap. Your employees will never be better than you allow them. As a manager, your job is not to be the best at what they do. Your job is to make the most of their skills, within the context of your company's strategy and goals. Listen more than you talk. Them being frustrated means that something (you?) is in their way of getting the job done. Figure out what that thing is and work to remove it; they're obviously unable to do so themselves -- otherwise they would instead of being angry.

I'd listen to The Manager Tools Basic podcast, and in particular adopt the One-on-ones for at least five or ten sessions with your new directs. Here's a list of questions (from the book Turn the Ship Around) you can lean on to get the first few awkward meetings going. Take notes.

Don't take this as me advocating the use of drugs, but you and your cousin should look into the MDMA therapy to treat PTSD. I'm not a doctor, nor can I speak for them, but the past trials have had success.

Look into the book ["Acid Test"] (https://www.amazon.com/Acid-Test-Ecstasy-Power-Heal/dp/0147516374) for more info on that. There's a story (one of many) about an Iraqi veteran affected by PTSD, although was not 100% cures, was better able to live life with reduced symptoms.

If enough veterans confirm that MDMA is helping them cope better, compared to already available drugs, the Department of Defence and the Veterans Affairs might consider funding. A solution would be much cheaper than what they're dealing with now.

What do you think would be the best way to shut it down? I know that Ron Paul wrote a book called End the Fed. https://www.amazon.com/End-Fed-Ron-Paul/dp/0446549193

Alan Grayson had some pretty excellent grilling of the Fed Reserve Chariman at the time Ben Bernanke: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0NYBTkE1yQ

Other than these two (admittedly fringe guys) I don't know of anyone with political influence trying to shut down the fed. If anyone knows anyone else working to shut down the fed please let me know so I can follow and support them.

How are you marketing your business currently?

Here's some good books to read although they're geared more towards managing and motivating a workforce. Others may have better recommendations for books on growing as a startup or small business. Ultimately, you need to focus on marketing your company and targeting your ideal customer.

Turn the Ship Around by David Marquet
https://www.amazon.com/Turn-Ship-Around-Turning-Followers/dp/1591846404

How to Become a Great Boss by Jeffrey Fox
https://www.amazon.com/How-Become-Great-Boss-Employees/dp/0786868236/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1484506909&sr=1-2&keywords=how+to+a+great+boss

How to Be a Great Boss by Gino Wickman
https://www.amazon.com/How-Great-Boss-Gino-Wickman/dp/1942952848/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1484506909&sr=1-1&keywords=how+to+a+great+boss

Good to Great by Jim Collins (I just started this)
https://www.amazon.com/Good-Great-Some-Companies-Others/dp/0066620996/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1484507074&sr=1-1&keywords=good+to+great

EDIT: Here's another one.

Traction. Get a Grip on Your Business by Gino Wickman. I haven't read this but the CEO did and we use the structure and methods from this book to run our company. https://www.amazon.com/Traction-Get-Grip-Your-Business/dp/1936661837/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

> Or perhaps the atheist isn't probing to the bottom of the glass.

So you think members of the royal academy do not probe science to the bottom of the glass? Numbers for America were very similar to this recent British study

> Or perhaps their pride moves them away from God.

That is not impossible but unrelated to the claim.

The claim was very simple in that it says:

• a bit of science => atheism
  
• more science => theism
  
  It didn't address any reasons for this supposed outcome. This claim is easily verifiable by just measuring the religiosity of people (self declared label plus concrete practice) and looking if it goes up when the science background is stronger (professors compared to students, quality of the publishing within the professoral group etc.)
  
  > make science their god
  
  If you define god as "that which occupies the most important place in our live", then you could say such things. Otherwise this sentence just doesn't make sense, does it?
  
  That's one more example of strategic ambiguity typical of theologians and priests who do not actually believe but have to maintain a Christian image outwardly. Almost all the atheist preachers interviewed for this book use that tactic.

I can think of a few off the top of my head but in the interest of keeping this short:

Generation Kill by Evan Wright. If you're even remotely interested in military-type things, this is a really great read.

First of all, can I just say how much I love giving and receiving book recommendations? I was a religious studies major in college (and was even a T.A. in the World Religions class) so, this is right up my alley. So, I'm just going to take a seat in front of my book cases...

General:

1. A History of God by Karen Armstrong
   
   
2. The Great Transformation by Karen Armstrong
   
   
3. Myths: gods, heroes, and saviors by Leonard Biallas (highly recommended)
   
   
4. Natural History of Religion by David Hume
   
   
5. Beyond Tolerance by Gustav Niebuhr
   
   
6. Acts of Faith by Eboo Patel (very highly recommended, completely shaped my view on pluralism and interfaith dialogue)
   
   
7. The Evolution of God by Robert Wright
   
   Christianity:
   
   
8. Tales of the End by David L. Barr
   
   
9. The Historical Jesus by John Dominic Crossan
   
   
10. Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography by John Dominic Crossan
    
    
11. The Birth of Christianity by John Dominic Crossan
    
    
12. Who Wrote the New Testament? by Burton Mack
    
    
13. Jesus in America by Richard Wightman Fox
    
    
14. The Five Gospels by Robert Funk, Roy W. Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar (highly recommended)
    
    
15. Remedial Christianity by Paul Alan Laughlin
    
    Judaism:
    
    
16. The Jewish Mystical Tradition by Ben Zion Bokser
    
    
17. Who Wrote the Bible? by Richard Elliot Friedman
    
    Islam:
    
    
18. Muhammad by Karen Armstrong
    
    
19. No God but God by Reza Aslan
    
    
20. Approaching the Qur'an: The Early Revelations by Michael Sells
    
    Buddhism:
    
    
21. Buddha by Karen Armstrong
    
    
22. Entering the Stream ed. Samuel Bercholz & Sherab Chodzin Kohn
    
    
23. The Life of Milarepa translated by Lobsang P. Lhalungpa
    
    
24. Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism by John Powers
    
    
25. Zen Flesh, Zen Bones compiled by Paul Reps (a classic in Western approached to Buddhism)
    
    
26. Buddhist Thought by Paul Williams (if you're at all interested in Buddhist doctrine and philosophy, you would be doing yourself a disservice by not reading this book)
    
    Taoism:
    
    
27. The Essential Chuang Tzu trans. by Sam Hamill & J.P. Seaton
    
    Atheism:
    
    
28. Atheism by Julian Baggini
    
    
29. The Future of an Illusion by Sigmund Freud
    
    
30. Doubt: A History by Jennifer Michael Hecht
    
    
31. When Atheism Becomes Religion by Chris Hedges
    
    
32. Atheism: The Case Against God by George H. Smith

>I'm not entirely sure if this is a general comment or directed at me. If directed at me, I'm not sure how you can garner regressive political leanings as I've never made my political orientation clear anywhere. I'm also not sure what is meant by regressive.

I was joking, mostly.

>I think this probably at the core of our discussion. I'm a trained natural scientist, which bleeds into other areas of life. Gravity is the same no matter what you believe for example. You jump off a bridge, you're not going to fly even if you believe so, you're going to go splat. So I struggle with the idea of moral relativism because I believe there are some things that universally apply and are universal truths so to say no matter what your values or what you choose to believe. It isn't necessarily politically or religiously motivated(for some people it is) It is just how I observe the world.

And didn't you ever read Mr. Tompkins in paper back?

I could swear there was something in the natural sciences relating to gravity and things being relative to the perspective of the observer... what was that again... the Heisenberg uncertainty principal... no no that's not it... planck's constant.... the second law of thermodynamic... never mind... I'm sure it will come to me...

>Is there an objective standard when it comes to the human condition? I do think there is, but it may be far more complicated than either of us can understand. I'm guessing that you would say there isn't an objective standard beyond what you've outlined due to your stance as a moral relativist.

Well the moral relativism was the product of a logical inquiry in to various differences in the ethical systems I observed in the world around me.

People have thought about all of these things before, Rousseau, Voltaire, Adam Smith, David Hume, John Locke, Plato. These are not new thoughts.

Basically the best we've come up with for a personal ethical standard is to not harm other unless they consent to be harmed. But not everyone is aware of that standard so it's difficult to impose it upon others.

To my knowledge, http://clergyproject.org is not associated with Richard Dawkins. It's history mainly involves Daniel C. Dennett and Dan Barker. Not only is it anonymous, but to join the community, you must directly contact the people who run it. They confidentially work with the applicant to prove they are indeed a member of clergy to prevent infiltrators who would join just to seek the identities of those involved.

EDIT: I also highly recommend Caught in the Pulpit. This is a book produced by Daniel C Dennett and Linda LaScola. They took the stories of pastors who are stuck just like your pastor friend. If nothing else he will find himself in the pages of that book and realize he isn't alone.

The problem is there is no way of knowing what is high enough or too high when it comes to the inflation of the money supply (thru the FED interest rate).

The only interest rate which is always right in a meaningful sense and is self-correcting is the natural interest rate, that which the market determines by individuals exchanging IOUs for future money in exchange for current money (ie. borrowing and lending).

Different people have different time preferences, some are more thrifty and "savers", whereas some would rather borrow to achieve their plans. The mix of savers and borrowers keeps changing, and the result of this supply and demand is the natural rate.

The problem is that with central banks controlling the money supply and the interest rate they provide to other banks, there is no way to know the actual natural interest rate anymore. In a way, the FED by its very existence makes its own task impossible.

The only solution is to end the FED ...

Muhammed: How he can make you extraordinary

The Productive Muslim - Where Faith Meets Productivity

Dua, Weapon of the Believers

Revive Your Heart: Putting Life in Perspective

The Art of War

Khadija: The First Muslim and Wife of the Prophet Muhammed

Muhammed: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources

Dua's for success in this world and the next, over 100 Duas

Fortress of a Muslim

Reclaim your heart

These are some of the books I have at the moment and I highly recommend them after reading them. I am waiting on a few more books but a lot are non Islamic but still really useful [:

Edit: Like this

I would recommend this one:
http://www.amazon.com/Mystery-Aleph-Mathematics-Kabbalah-Infinity/dp/0743422996/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1255474257&sr=1-4

Pythagoras and Turing are also great people to read biographies on :)

Pythagoras:
http://www.amazon.com/Pythagoras-Pythagoreans-Charles-H-Kahn/dp/0872205754/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1255474335&sr=1-4

don't know a good book only on turing, but this documentary that covers turing, cantor, godel, and others is really good:
http://bestdocumentaries.blogspot.com/2007/09/dangerous-knowledge-full-documentary.html

Enjoy!

There are good reasons for those viewpoints, but the people repeating them as talking points aren't doing the cause any favors imo.

>End the fed

I would really like to read this book: End the Fed. I feel like it would really help me understand the viewpoint better, but as I understand it, the Federal Reserve is not helping the average citizen. They have near total control of our money supply. With total control of the money supply, you don't need to even care about who's making the laws.

In addition, they are not a government entity. This is not generally commonly known. They don't really represent the government regulating the banks. They represent the banks, who pretend to regulate themselves, but instead just give themselves advantageous loans at near zero interest rates, which are then loaned out to people at increased interest rates. Money loaned in this way is created without being backed by anything, it's just loaned into existence of thin air, which is somewhat terrifying. Money paid back to the Federal Reserve is then destroyed.

> Get rid of taxes

This, I don't particularly agree with. But I also know that Ron Paul's plan isn't to whisk it away overnight. He'd implement this plan by cutting government programs, and then downsizing taxes to fit the new budget (or so he's stated). I don't really know enough about the pre-income tax federal budget, but it worked somehow, so I should do some more reading there. I do know that income tax is one of the only progressive tax structures that currently exist, so I'm not entirely comfortable with removing it entirely.

Then again, I highly doubt that Ron Paul will be able to keep enough control that he can fully implement this plan. As long as he doesn't cut taxes for the rich and raise it on the poor, he'll be better than any other candidate (including Obama).

Probably the most important factor in this is that Paul believes an empire building strategy through endless war will bankrupt us, regardless of the taxation situation, so the first thing to stop will be the wars (which were never declared by Congress, so as far as I understand, the president has full control over).

> Screw Obama, vote Ron Paul

To be honest, I feel deceived by Obama. Maybe I was stupid, but I thought he would be good for our civil liberties. As is evidenced by the endless wars, NDAA HR 1540 and SOPA HR 3621, he is clearly not.

> I'm not entirely convinced on Ron Paul (and neither are you)

You are right. Paul is not my ideal candidate, but he is my favorite candidate of the currently viable bunch. I don't necessarily agree with all of his conclusions, but I can follow them from the assumptions.

Nice! was hoping to get something recomended that i hadn't read but i have and they are all great!

If you want good short stories go for the collection, Mirrorshades, some sick af stories in there. Also if you are into post-cyberpunk go for rewired. :)

The Life Of Milarepa

An Introduction To Zen Buddhism by D.T. Suzuki

The Way Of Zen by Alan Watts

Be Here Now by Ram Dass

These are just some of the better ones ive read so far, all really great starting off points into Buddhism. Zen in particular. Good luck!

Shavera made a nice answer, but I'll try too.

Einsteinian relativity doesn't break the notions of "past" and "future", it formalizes the notion of the "present" and breaks the idea of a universal simultaneous present. Under special relativity, your world is divided into events that can causally affect you (the locus that is inside your past light-cone), called your "past"; events that you can causally affect (the locus that is inside your future light-cone), called your "future"; and events that can have no causal relationship to you (the locus that is between the two light-cones), which could be called your "present".

The example you gave about the human and the alien is a nice demonstration of how events in the present aren't simultaneous in the sense that we're used to (different observers see them as happening in different temporal orders, depending on how the observers are moving relative to the events). But lack of simultaneity is OK, since it only happens in the non-causal part of the Universe. In your example, there's no way that the alien could affect anything that happened at Earth in either 2011, 1811, or 2211, since he's so far away that it would require a faster-than-light signal, which is impossible. So all the shenangans with the date on Earth versus his home world is all just bookkeeping games -- it doesn't change anything real.

If you'd like to explore these ideas on an intuitive level, a very nice book is Mr. Tompkins in Paperback, which explores modern physics by a series of short stories in which a stodgy British banker falls into alternate worlds where the various constants have a more human scale than our own. In the first chapter, he finds himself in a place where the speed of light is about 30 mph.

I'm currently reading Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman and your pictures immediately made me think of Pat Tillman.

Good luck man.

What role does the Federal Reserve play? This is the level of "investigation" you need? LOL!

Here, pick up a book:
http://www.amazon.com/End-Fed-Ron-Paul/dp/0446549193

I'm not about to waste my time trying to explain everything from interest rate price fixing to inflation for you, and the impact all this has on making the rich richer and the poor poorer.

I really enjoy the book ‘Buddha’ by Karen Armstrong.

It’s less a history about Buddhism, but more a micro-history about the founder of Buddhism.

I’m not sure if it’s what you’re looking for though, because Armstrong freely acknowledges that the biography doesn’t match up to modern standards of historical biography. There’s just not enough to go on, and the myths can’t be untangled from what history remains. Still, it’s probably one of the best sources you can get on this particular topic from a neutral POV.

As other comments here have made clear, the math that describes speeds of objects is different than what you would intuitively think it would be from your everyday life. Here is a nice illustration from Wikipedia as to how space transforms when you speed up.

Also, Mr. Tompkins in Wonderland is a great book about what the world would be like if the speed of light was much slower (5 km/hr) and how we would perceive it.

Yeah it's pretty good.

Here's the Rolling Stone article by Evan Wright that started it all.

Here's the book Wright wrote.

FYI, the guy that plays Rudy, is the actual Rudy in real life. Other core members of the story also worked as consultants on the TV series. There was also some controversy later as several other people involved wrote of their own experiences and points of view.

Cardinality meaning the size of, or number of elements in, a set. Cantor did ground breaking work showing that in some sense there are different sizes of infinity - the start of which was that the real numbers can't be enumerated, or counted, using the integers; meaning there are more real numbers than there are integers, which is very weird.

His diagonal argument is relatively easy to follow.

I highly recommend this layman's book if you're at all interested: The Mystery of the Aleph: Mathematics, the Kabbalah, and the Search for Infinity. It's a great human-interest story in addition to the mathematics.

Ok. You are certainly entitled to your opinion. If you are really interested, he does have a new book out End The Fed and goes way deeper into how our government operates and how it was ment to operate than this small article presents. Anyhow, I am a fan of his and believe that he brings up important issues and sometimes his ideas catch on bigger platforms.

There are many stories like that in Buddhism - the biographies of great Indian and Tibetan mahasiddhas that had to overcome some absolutely mind-boggling obstacles in order to reach enlightenment.

I will suggest the most beloved and popular one - The Life of Milarepa.

93 - You will do best to look in Kaczynski's Perdurabo ... Churton's book might also be good. In his Confessions, he mentions being in New York in chapter 23, and chapter 77 through chapter 80 (adn probably a few more).

I personally have no memory of AC staying in Albany. Frankly, the best way to figure it out is to see if the envelopes are actually real (that is, they exist and aren't forged).

>there is no attempt to appeal to the common man.

Yeah, most people don't get turned onto Austrian economics (or its pop-vulgar variety, what Phokus is no doubt referring to) via Rothbard or Mises. They read some absurd article or naive Aesop and start thinking, "Hey, not paying taxes means I'd have more money, which is clearly better than paying taxes!" Or they pick up one of Ron Paul's books (go ahead and tell me The Revolution: A Manifesto isn't aimed at the common man).
>It makes strong but respectful argument against Austrian economics.

He certainly states it in a respectful manner, but when he says Rothbard "simply does not understand the position he is attacking," he's not being generous is he?

Yes! I like trilogies myself, so I'd recommend Edmund's trilogy on Theodore Roosevelt, Cornelia's Inkheart, my personal favourite fictional book trilogy, and This 12 book set, just try your best and push for more reps next time

Tom Shroder Wrote about a book about healing power of LSD.
http://www.amazon.com/Acid-Test-Ecstasy-Power-Heal/dp/0147516374/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1452616841&sr=1-1&keywords=acid+test

edit: that sounded fruity here:
Acid Test: LSD, Ecstasy, and the Power to Heal
Despite their illegality, many Americans are already familiar with the effects of psychedelic drugs. Yet while LSD and MDMA (better known as Ecstasy) have proven extraordinarily effective in treating anxiety disorders such as PTSD, they remain off-limits to the millions who might benefit from them. Through the stories of three very different men, awardwinning journalist Tom Shroder covers the drugs’ roller-coaster history from their initial reception in the 1950s to the negative stereotypes that persist today. At a moment when popular opinion is rethinking the potential benefits of some illegal drugs, Acid Test is a fascinating and informative must-read.

Really? I downvoted it for the following reasons:

>On the federal level, he sounds great -- he's against the federal government doing pretty much anything.

I'm glad that you agree that this is a great thing. This happens to be why I most like RP.

>But instead he wants to give the individual states vastly more power than the current federal and state governments combined.

False. He wants to take away power from the Federal government (for example, education), and give it back to the states. He's not advocating the creation of new powers, but if States wanted to create them, then that would be for them to decide.

>I sure as hell wouldn't want to live in the south under a Ron Paul presidency.

So don't, then; no one is asking you to. Do you live in the South now? If not, why the hell do you care whether it is a livable place (in your mind)? I personally think the South is a great place to live. If you don't, that's fine by you.

> [From a later post in the thread]Right now the Bill of Rights removes a lot of state rights and grants a lot of individual rights. Paul wants to remove most of those individual rights and let the states decide on which of them they should implement on a piecemeal basis.

This just couldn't be more wrong. The Bill of Rights cannot be taken away. They are part of the US Constitution, the Supreme Law of the Land. All other powers not explicitly mentioned in it are granted to the States, or to the People. This means no criminalizing marijuana, no criminalizing abortion, no DOMA, no Federal Assault Weapons Ban, and on and on for a whole host of other issues over which there is a split consensus. Most importantly, it means no using tax dollars to subsidize businesses. If the whole population of the US decides that something is worth enacting on a national level, the Constitution can be amended. It's my understanding that this is how the Constitution was intended.

Seriously, please read Ron Paul's book, The Revolution, to find out where he is really coming from. The paperback version is 10 bucks at Amazon.

I would pick up the seminal Mirrorshades anthology of cyberpunk, and follow up on the authors you like in there.

Then I would try to find a copy of The Fortunate Fall, which is considered by more than a few critics to be the absolute, bar-none, best cyberpunk novel. (disclaimer: I haven't read it, yet - though I've decided to nominate it for next month's r/SF_Book_Club)

Kevin Roose also wrote a book when he was in college where he spent a semester at Liberty University called "The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University". It was really good and an interesting perspective.

This is the most critically acclaimed biography of his, entitled Perdurabo. I read it. It is quite good. Very objective. Doesn't apologize for his, at times eccentric behavior, yet routinely shows that the sources of some of the more outlandish claims were untrustworthy at best. And in most cases were attempts of deliberate slander.

I would have to think about it, since a lot of those incidents don't come readily to my mind (no surprise, I've tried to forget about most of it). It's less about individual events I remember and more about the overall experience that what the extreme Christians say among themselves is much different than what they say in public.

This is the reason that documentaries like Jesus Camp are so shocking to people on the "outside", I think. It's a look behind the curtain at what these people are like when they think they're among their own.

This article is more about the neo-conservative movement than Christianity, but the two are very connected, and this article demonstrates the amount of crazy they throw around in private.

A book called The Unlikely Disciple is also a really good look at the crazy that goes on behind the scenes. I would highly recommend it if you want to understand what the evangelical movement is like from the inside. It's a fairly accurate depiction of the world that my family used to live in.

Hakuin's autobiography would be a great place to start.

Heinrich Dumoulin's 2-volume "Zen Buddhism: A History" (Vol 1, Vol 2) is a classic, albeit somewhat dated. It has extended descriptions of the lives of some of the more notable teachers.

Andy Ferguson's "Zen's Chinese Heritage" is a very readable translation of the Lamp Records, providing some useful historical flavor. Although, the Lamp Records are where many of the major koan collections are drawn from, so if you're not into koans, ymmv.

I'll see if I can think of any others.

• David Herbert Donald's Lincoln is great but one of the more exhaustive & dense reads.
  
• I've heard James McPherson's book is a fantastic & more concise primer on Lincoln's life.
  
• If you're looking for an entertaining read that's not exactly a Lincoln bio, I also recommend Sarah Vowell's Assassination Vacation.
  

George Gamow's Mr. Tompkins books, I particularly recommend the Mr. Tompkins in Paperback collection, which puts together "Mr. Tompkins in Wonderland" and "Mr. Tompkins Explores the Atom." It's my absolute favorite popular exposition of concepts in relativity and quantum theory.

Have you ever read anything about Pat Tillman?

It might change your perspective about what being a hero means. That man was a hero.

Why would we return to a gold standard? Why not a standard based on a basket of precious metals? Gold, silver, platinum, etc..

Read this book and you'll get a good answer to your question.

Absolutely!

For TR, I highly recommended Edmund Morris’ Three Volume bio . The first volume, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, won a Pulitzer and is one of my all-time favorite books.

For a general social and political history of the times, check out “The Bully Pulpit by Doris Kearns Goodwin.

There have been a couple of bios on Alice, but the two best that I have read were Alice by Stacey A. Cordery and Hissing Cousins
which chronicles and parallels her life and rivalry with her First Cousin, Eleanor.

For FDR, my favorite single volume bio is Traitor To His Class by HW Brands. It’s been criticized in certain Right Wing circles as “too biased”, but screw those assholes.

For a generalized overview of the Roosevelt family, check out Ken Burns’ doc, The Roosevelts: An Intimate History. It’s on Netflix.

That’s just scratching the surface, but I have found that to be the most accessible and readable stuff.

Band of Brothers and Generation Kill were both good books that made for great mini series, I'd check them out.

Check out Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology for an awesome collection of short stories related to AI, VR, and grungy future worlds dominated by mega corporations. If this kind of stuff is up your alley I would also highly recommend Burning Chrome by William Gibson.

As an aside, the one on the left is great. I highly recommend it.

Glad we're on the same page. Have you read Edmund Morris' trilogy on him? I really don't think I would have considered him an ass. He was a strong personality but he was an honest man who expected as much of himself as those around him.

Weeeell, it's quite hard to explain it all in a post on reddit. First of all, Buddhist does not consider Buddha to become or transform into a god.

My advice is to read some book about it. For instance Buddha by Karen Armstrong. It's about the person Buddha rather than his teachings. http://www.amazon.com/Buddha-Penguin-Lives-Biographies-Armstrong/dp/0143034367

Good luck!

Would you be interested in American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson, Under the Banner of Heaven, or Where Men Win Glory?

End the Fed - Ron Paul :) It was a fascinating read.

It's a miniseries by HBO IMDb here it based on a real story about a Rolling Stone Magazine reporter who goes with the First Reconnaissance Battalion of the US Marines while they invade Iraq.

And it is one of my favourite TV series. I hope you have fun watching it.

Most of the Pali Canon is in the form of the Buddha responding to one question or challenge or another, so you can sort of infer a personality from much of that.

I enjoyed Karen Armstrong's book Buddha which tries to paint a picture of what the actual Buddha may have been like by placing him in his correct historical and sociological context as an ascetic wanderer, philosopher and teacher on the Gangetic Plain of 2,500 years ago.

The Curve of Binding Energy: A Journey into the Awesome and Alarming World of Theodore B. Taylor
by John McPHee

Assassination Vacation
by Sarah Vowell

Public Therapy Buses, Information Specialty Bums, Solar Cook-A-Mats and Other Visions of the 21st Century
by Steven M. Johnson

Accidental Empires: How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions, Battle Foreign Competition, and Still Can't Get a Date
by Robert X. Cringley

Tog on Interface
by Bruce Tognazzini

A bit dramatic, but considering the association geometry is masonry, the use of numbers implies we can numerically prove that something transcends masonry/geometry. Thus the first step, i.e. Initiation, is unlearning what you have learned, and numbers/geometry is proof that reality itself implies a super-reality (which then gets into the need for a supreme being/morality, etc... and etc...)

EDIT: which brings us to the Mystery of the Aleph.

I really liked this one: Buddha by Karen Armstrong. She gets some of the key inflections in the story right. It is not a good book for learning the Dharma, but some of the things she said in her account are things that I recall when I'm thinking about how to practice, and that's saying a lot.

The movie Little Buddha also had a very nice rendition of the Buddha's life story, although it wasn't the main focus of the movie, and I wouldn't consider it complete.

This one is excellent for beginners and highlights modern libertarian ideology

Mises literature often strays into an-cap areas, and can scare away people who are new to the idea of pure liberty.

A couple of the people involved with The Clergy Project's founding, Daniel C. Dennett and Linda LaScola, published a book called Caught in the Pulpit: Leaving Belief Behind (revised/expanded edition 2015), which might be helpful. It's a synthesis and qualitative analysis of more than 30 current and former pastors (including some seminary students/professors) on their life, struggles and nonbelief. Might be an encouraging read as well.

Both are EXCELLENT

• Edmund Morris's trilogy on Teddy Roosevelt
  
• Manchester's The Last Lion series on Churchill

Great! I'd start with this one:

https://www.amazon.com/Revolution-Manifesto-Ron-Paul/dp/0446537527/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1480350675&sr=8-1&keywords=ron+paul+the+revolution

and then follow up with this one:

https://www.amazon.com/Liberty-Defined-Essential-Issues-Freedom/dp/1455501441/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1480350707&sr=8-1&keywords=ron+paul+liberty+defined

it was called the ron paul revolution. I made a stencil for t-shirts and made 200. went to busch gardens and everyone in that park was like fuck yeah ron paul, so I'd toss them a shirt.

everybody I knew voted for Paul. shit was mega rigged as soon as it hit Iowa though.

the big thing I remember though was the MILITARY LOVED PAUL. aka most of his donations came from active and retired military because he ran on the principle we shouldn't be nation building and having 1000s of foreign military bases. he wanted to fix marijuana off schedule 1.

he wrote a good book during this time.

https://www.amazon.com/Revolution-Manifesto-Ron-Paul/dp/0446537527/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1503187706&sr=8-1&keywords=ron+paul

I have not read many but Ian Kershaw's Hitler is amazing. If you're interesting in Philip K. Dick, read Divine Invasions.

Ian Kershaw is one of the world's leading experts on Adolf Hitler and his two-part biography on Adolf Hitler is great. Hitler 1889-1936 is presumably what you're looking for.

The Unlikely Disciple

boom. Great book.

Buddha by Karen Armstrong. A good short guide to what's known about his life, and what he actually taught (as opposed to what all the successive generations of Buddhist sects have been teaching).

https://www.amazon.com/Perdurabo-Revised-Expanded-Aleister-Crowley/dp/1556438990

This really contains the best, most authoratative research on all aspects of Crowley. It's also available as an ebook. A lot of info on the internet involving Crowley and Abramelin is sensationalized and not very trustworthy (hooray for the internet!). This is an actual scholarly work.

Under Buddhism, yes, this is generally the belief followed. However, I believe that OP was specifically asking about historical substance relating to the buddha called Siddartha Gotama.

Personally, I would reccomend Karen Armstrong's book on his life, as it provides very well-consolidated insights into the world that we presume Siddartha came from. Unfortunately, I don't remember any of the texts I've read well enough to provide much more insight than that.

EDIT: Apparently Karen Armstrong is less popular than I had anticipated. I wasn't aware of this.

Into the Fire is a good book, I recommend Generation Kill as well if you haven't read it, I liked it more than the HBO miniseries.

I wrote something on Cantor in the past - he is a fascinating character...http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Mystery-Aleph-Mathematics-Kabbalah/dp/0743422996

I'll give you one quick example of why I support Ron Paul, and particularly, his move to End the Fed.

I was recently reading about the release of Ronnie Biggs, who was involved in "the great train robbery". When I saw this line, in the article...

> The (1963) robbery netted 2.6 million pounds – worth more than $50 million today.

In 1963, it took approx. $3 to buy 1 British Pound (pdf). So they stole $7.8 million 1963 dollars, and due to inflation (from our friends at the fed), that's $50 million in today's dollars.

With a bit of math, that means that today's dollar, is worth 15.6 cents of 1963 money.

So... the Brits are going crazy over a guy who stole less than $8 million dollars, but in my lifetime (born in 1964), the Fed has stolen 85 cents worth of every dollar in the country.

Lovely, ain't it? It's all a matter of perspective.

ps: Yes, I did read Atlas Shrugged, and started reading Lew Rockwell's blog not long after - both of which happened before the conversion was complete.

I still hate Reagan, and both Bush's (I despise Jr.), but I've begun to at least believe in some of the things that Reagan stood for - if only he had actually practiced them.

I can't believe this isn't the top comment, but if you are interested in this and the other presidential assasinations then please read Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell

It's actually from the title of the book the series is based on, which is surprisingly as nonpolitical as possible. It's a rather good read, if you've got the time. It's simply a first hand account of the author when he was embedded with one of the first Marine units to enter Iraq. The only social/political commentary in it is from the Marines themselves. In fact the primary focus of the book is the Marines themselves, examining them as real people. Not so much on the war really.

While The Bully Pulpit was already mentioned for Teddy Roosevelt, I found that one a rather repetitive bore. It is not a bad book, and I still think some folks might enjoy it, but the way the information is delivered feels tedious.

For Teddy, try instead Edmund Morris's trilogy. While still dense with material, you can pick and choose what part of his life you want to look into. I actually started with the "last" book, or the one about his days after his presidency, Colonel Roosevelt and that is ultimately what got me interested in what kind of president he was.

There's a whole chapter on the attempt to find the exact spot in the fantastic Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell. Vowell also explores how the Garfield Memorial is kinda super gay. http://www.amazon.com/Assassination-Vacation-Sarah-Vowell/dp/074326004X

I'm not using ad hominem to deflect. I've explained my position quite clearly, and your responses have demonstrated either that you can't, or more likely refuse to understand them.

If you would like to continue this conversation, I suggest you go back an reread my contributions. You don't have to agree with them, but have another go at understanding their internal logic. You might also want to consider learning a little bit more about 1930s Germany. I highly recommend Ian Kershaw's biography of Hitler.

> my argument was that he's nothing like Hitler because he isn't attempting genocide.

You won't find a single mention of genocide in all the hundreds of pages of that first volume of Kershaw. You may find that surprising, since you seem to believe that the only thing Hitler ever did was kill Jews.

> the University I'm attending, which happens I be one of the top 30 in the world...

Hilarious. I myself attended one of the top 5 Universities. Does that make my arguments six times better than yours?

Buddha by Karen Armstrong is quite good. Non-fiction though, don't know if that's what you were looking for, as vanishingstar said.

Sarah Vowell's book "Assassination Vacation" discusses this:

"Robert Todd Lincoln, a.k.a. Jinxy McDeath, was present, or nearly so, at three assassinations–his father's, Garfield's, and McKinley's."

In the audiobook version, Robert Todd Lincoln's voice is provided by our favorite tall, red-headed talk show host.

This book will help you! It has all of the zen masters for Chan Buddhism (Chinese) and all of their stories.

Zen's Chinese Heritage: The Masters and Their Teachings https://www.amazon.com/dp/0861716175/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_EnaEDbGNS4ZKE

Book recommendation: I highly recommend the biographic trilogy of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris. Trust me once you start you will not want to do anything but read until all three books are done.

First book is called The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt

I learned it from Sarah Vowell's Assassination Vacation. McKinley, before he was shot, visited Honeymoon Bridge over the Niagara but made sure to only cross halfway so as to not go into canada.

If you want to learn more about his practice, I suggest you read a few books written about him by his students.

The Magus of Java

http://www.amazon.com/Magus-Java-Teachings-Authentic-Immortal/dp/0892818131/

Nei Kung


http://www.amazon.com/Nei-Kung-Secret-Teachings-Warrior/dp/0892819073/

There are more video's of Chang on youtube and his top western student Jim McMillan

Video of Jim passing his level 3 test.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKuXuDCPfds

This is an interview with his top western student Jim.

http://www.martialdevelopment.com/blog/five-questions-with-mo-pai-nei-kung-expert/

If you like history, buy this and this

If you liked the series read the related books:

https://www.amazon.com/Generation-Kill-Captain-America-American/dp/0425224740

https://www.amazon.com/One-Bullet-Away-Making-Officer/dp/0618773436/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_t_0?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=9REQB2ZFA33Y0R7C9F58

Generation Kill. Its an HBO mini-series based on the book by Evan Wright.

I highly recommend it.

Read Jon Krakauer's book. Apparently the movie "The Tillman Story" is good as well, but I havn't seen it.

This changed the way we think about leadership in the sub force. I recommend it to everyone.

A slight correction to your post is that Pat Tillman was an Army Ranger, not a Marine (Krakauer, 2009; Wikipedia, 2011). But indeed, he was certainly atheistic.

Theodore Roosevelt trilogy by Edmund Morris. Teddy was a fuckin badass.

Or too much Sarah Vowell. :-)

No problem at all. It's a two part biography, this is the first part, and the second part is called "Nemesis". https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0140133631/ref=dp_ob_neva_mobile

Hope you enjoy it.

Jon Krakaur wrote a book, as well:

http://www.amazon.com/Where-Men-Win-Glory-Odyssey/dp/0385522266

> I've never even heard of Mopai. What is it, what do people claim about it,etc.

Check out this book.

Then go to youtube and search for "John Chang".

So supposedly mopai is the name of a Daoist lineage from China, although John Chang himself doesn't live in China according to the stories. If this is even a real lineage, it's got to be very obscure, because I've never heard of it before the whole John Chang hoopla.

Look at the traditional list of the Daoist sects:

http://www.shangrala.org/father/RELIGIONS/8Taoism/Sects.html

Here's another article:

http://www.chinaculture.org/library/2008-02/04/content_24899.htm

Mopai isn't mentioned. That doesn't mean mopai is certainly not real, btw. China is famous for its secretive clans who may hold secret lineages that are unknown outside the family. But... there is plenty of room to doubt that mopai is even real because it doesn't appear to be a well-known Daoist sect, if it is anything.

The reason everyone went crazy for John Chang and mopai is because of how seemingly real his super-powers are. Lots of people believe that the video footage is 100% genuine and they believe that all the things you see in the video are real.

Of course there are other amazing videos, like the guy who presses a rotating drill to his head on Stan Lee's superhumans (or say Vim Hof's videos), but for whatever reason I think people really took to John Chang's videos because they are the most flashy videos in terms of supernormal powers.

So ever since the book came out and the videos, some people just can't remain calm anymore. They're so excited about it that they've gone berserk.

Ron Paul means what he says on this issue. I guess writing a book isn't enough. I guess if you can't sum up this position in a paragraph or a 30 second sound clip or whatever then you're not being clear enough.

What will it take for you to consider this as a serious and reasonable position if you don't understand the first thing about it? You're not an economic expert and neither am I, but I can read enough on the subject to get an understanding of why this isn't an "insane" idea. Educate yourself about the topic.

> going back to the gold standard and abolishing the Fed seem unworkable.

"Seems"... sure. If you understand how and why we might abolish the Fed then we can have a discussion about the details involved. Until then, you can keep your ad hominem attacks to yourself if you please.

Yep. I just finished reading the whole Koran, for the second time, this time in chronological order while simultaneously reading Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources (this is great way to understand the context of each revelation).

Anyone who thinks that ISIS is not straight out of Islamic Scripture, just has not read it. Muhammad beheaded enemies in captivity -- not because people were not willing to pay him ransom for them -- but simply because he figured they might be trouble later. Minus the camels, ISIS looks just like Mo's life: slaves, beheading, the whole nine yards.

You want evidence that TPTB are lying?

https://www.amazon.com/End-Fed-Ron-Paul/dp/0446549193

Have fun.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0147516374/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1468016026&sr=8-1&pi=SY200_QL40&keywords=acid+test&dpPl=1&dpID=51vcCaXJ16L&ref=plSrch


Give this one a try.

The book in the first photo.

Requisite, The book is amazing.

Mirror Shades Anthology

Mirrorshades are absolutely cyberpunk.

Mirrorshades

It's a short story anthology, edited by Bruce Sterling. William Gibson is also a contributing author. I consider this book to be genre-defining, in part because Bruce Sterling has a long preface where he talks a lot about what the cyberpunk movement is and how it came to be.

https://www.amazon.com/Way-Forward-Renewing-American-Idea/dp/1455557560
https://www.amazon.com/Ted-Cruz/e/B00NPNPM34
https://www.amazon.com/Revolution-Manifesto-Ron-Paul/dp/0446537527
https://www.amazon.com/John-McCain/e/B001IGNQI8

You should read End the Fed.

https://www.amazon.com/End-Fed-Ron-Paul/dp/0446549193

End the Fed

https://www.amazon.com/End-Fed-Ron-Paul/dp/0446549193

I think I found it.

Mr. Thompkins in Paperback
this is the only reason I understand anything about physics.

I actually learned this today too, in a completely unrelated manner. I just started reading Assassination Vacation

He also joined a sex commune but nobody would have sex with him and was nicknamed "Charles GetOut".
Assassination Vacation

TIL, it is a trilogy
"colonel Roosevelt" is the 3rd part
http://www.amazon.com/Edmund-Morriss-Theodore-Roosevelt-Trilogy/dp/0812958632/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1292697539&sr=8-4

Sure.. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Muhammad-Life-Based-Earliest-Sources/dp/0946621330/ref=pd_sim_sbs_b_1 for a detailed biography.

https://www.amazon.com/Life-Work-Muhammad-Critical-Lives/dp/0028643712 -> This is a kind of summarized version of history.

This one but it's a bit melodramatic for my tastes.

It's considered the definitive modern biography of Aleister Crowley.
http://www.amazon.com/Perdurabo-Revised-Expanded-Edition-Aleister/dp/1556438990

This book would seem to match your interests...

https://www.amazon.com/Caught-Pulpit-Leaving-Belief-Behind/dp/1634310209

Where Men Win Glory is a great but heartbreaking book about Pat's life.

The footage in this video was stitched together from a travel documentary made over 7 years.

The man has taught and practiced healing for decades, with multiple westerners finding him, training under him, and writing about their time.

https://www.amazon.com/Magus-Java-Teachings-Authentic-Immortal/dp/0892818131

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14409262-seeking-the-master-of-mo-pai

All you're doing is pointing to something that isn't in the video and saying "look that makes this fake" without even attempting to explain how he does all this fakery with two documentarians and 3 scientists (two and a medic) trying to find a fraud.

Feel free to look up the scientists, very real and highly unlikely to have been "in on it".

I have two end the fed tshirts.

There is a reason we have lost 95% of our purchasing power since 1913. Guess what was created that year? Guess who caused and admitted to the Great Depression?

The inflation has hurt the purchasing power of every American who has ever saved money.


You do your homework.

I suggest you pre-order his book "End the Fed"

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0446549193?ie=UTF8&tag=ronpaufor05-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0446549193

The Magus of Java by Kosta Danaos

Its a book about very esoteric Taoist energy manipulation disguised as a memoir. It is a gateway.

He's a smart enough man to know that he can't just end the Fed overnight. You probably haven't read it, but his book on the topic does quite well to give a history of the organization.


Dr. Paul has been a student of economics for 30 years, so it really chides me when people try to write off his opinions at a whiff. It's just that people (both his supporters and his critics) have simply not had enough education on the subject. The Federal Reserve is a terribly corrupt and unfair group.

To continue with this, read the book End the Fed by Ron Paul. He's the only politician that routinely criticizes our monetary policy. He's the only guy that gets it.

> Let's say I offer a man a thousand dollars to shoot an innocent person, and then he does.

The problem is the man with the gun, not the briber. Take away the gun, and no one will care how much people give in bribes.

Take away the power of government to print trillions of dollars and bailout firms, and the malfeasance goes away with infringing on our liberties.

In other words: this

Assassination Vacations
https://www.amazon.com/Assassination-Vacation-Sarah-Vowell/dp/074326004X

I have a few books collecting dust if you're interested...

Hunting the Jackal
http://www.amazon.com/Hunting-Jackal-Soldiers-Frontlines-Terrorism/dp/0060564105/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1293764592&sr=8-1

Brotherhood of Warriors
http://www.amazon.com/Brotherhood-Warriors-Behind-Commando-Counterterrorism/dp/0061236160/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1293764614&sr=1-1

Generation Kill
http://www.amazon.com/Generation-Kill-Evan-Wright/dp/0425224740/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1293764637&sr=1-1

Legion of the Lost
http://www.amazon.com/Legion-Lost-Experience-American-Foreign/dp/0425210154/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1293764668&sr=1-1

I'll mail em to you if you want em... I didn't participate in the secret santa so think of it as a late gift. Let me know if you want any of em.

Well if you like Armstrong, she wrote Buddha but this was part of the Penguin short biographies series and that rather restricted her scope. For that and other reasons I didn't much like it (mine is on top if you look at the negative reviews).

Huston Smith's The World's Religions includes Hinduism and Buddhism. It's regarded as a classic. Search Amazon on "history religion" to see many others.

Push to/Battle of Badhdad: Generation Kill (The book), written by a reporter assigned to Marine Recon: https://www.amazon.com/Generation-Kill-Captain-America-American/dp/0425224740

Well, I think Zen Koans are different than Buddha stories. Here are a few Koans - then are usually short stories and illustrations that force you to consider truth and meaning and reality and face your doubt.

A Buddha story is usually a longer account of an event that illustrates a deeper meaning, like this:

>The Buddha was sitting under a tree talking to his disciples when a man came and spit on his face. He wiped it off, and he asked the man, “What next? What do you want to say next?” The man was a little puzzled because he himself never expected that when you spit on somebody’s face, he will ask, “What next?” He had no such experience in his past. He had insulted people and they had become angry and they had reacted. Or if they were cowards and weaklings, they had smiled, trying to bribe the man. But Buddha was like neither, he was not angry nor in any way offended, nor in any way cowardly. But just matter-of-factly he said, “What next?” There was no reaction on his part.

>Buddha’s disciples became angry, they reacted. His closest disciple, Ananda, said, “This is too much, and we cannot tolerate it. He has to be punished for it. Otherwise everybody will start doing things like this.”

>Buddha said, “You keep silent. He has not offended me, but you are offending me. He is new, a stranger. He must have heard from people something about me, that this man is an atheist, a dangerous man who is throwing people off their track, a revolutionary, a corrupter. And he may have formed some idea, a notion of me. He has not spit on me, he has spit on his notion. He has spit on his idea of me because he does not know me at all, so how can he spit on me?

>“If you think on it deeply,” Buddha said, “he has spit on his own mind. I am not part of it, and I can see that this poor man must have something else to say because this is a way of saying something. Spitting is a way of saying something. There are moments when you feel that language is impotent: in deep love, in intense anger, in hate, in prayer. There are intense moments when language is impotent. Then you have to do something. When you are angry, intensely angry, you hit the person, you spit on him, you are saying something. I can understand him. He must have something more to say, that’s why I’m asking, “What next?”

>The man was even more puzzled! And Buddha said to his disciples, “I am more offended by you because you know me, and you have lived for years with me, and still you react.”

>Puzzled, confused, the man returned home. He could not sleep the whole night. When you see a Buddha, it is difficult, impossible to sleep again the way you used to sleep before. Again and again he was haunted by the experience. He could not explain it to himself, what had happened. He was trembling all over and perspiring. He had never come across such a man; he shattered his whole mind and his whole pattern, his whole past.

>The next morning he was back there. He threw himself at Buddha’s feet. Buddha asked him again, “What next? This, too, is a way of saying something that cannot be said in language. When you come and touch my feet, you are saying something that cannot be said ordinarily, for which all words are a little narrow; it cannot be contained in them.” Buddha said, “Look, Ananda, this man is again here, he is saying something. This man is a man of deep emotions.”

>The man looked at Buddha and said, “Forgive me for what I did yesterday.”

>Buddha said, “Forgive? But I am not the same man to whom you did it. The Ganges goes on flowing, it is never the same Ganges again. Every man is a river. The man you spit upon is no longer here. I look just like him, but I am not the same, much has happened in these twenty-four hours! The river has flowed so much. So I cannot forgive you because I have no grudge against you.”

>“And you also are new. I can see you are not the same man who came yesterday because that man was angry and he spit, whereas you are bowing at my feet, touching my feet. How can you be the same man? You are not the same man, so let us forget about it. Those two people, the man who spit and the man on whom he spit, both are no more. Come closer. Let us talk of something else.”

I don't really have a source for these stories, I just try to collect them when I see them. I usually just get books on Buddhism and read them, and buy the ones I like. You can usually order most any book from your local library for free. Each person has different needs and grows in a different way, so what is meaningful to me may be different from what is meaningful to you.

I gravitate mostly to Zen, and the idea of Direct Pointing. So I like to read books like D.T. Suzuki's Zen Buddhism. I am also currently reading The Life of the Buddha: According to the Pali Canon for a more complete understanding of the Buddha and his teachings - and so far, it is fantastic. A more basic book on the Buddha, and a good place to start in my opinion, is Buddha by Karen Armstrong. However, it is somewhat her interpretation of the Pali Canon's account... and many Buddhists would rather go directly to the source... but I think it's a good beginning.

I also bought this version of the Tao Te Ching. I think it's fantastic, even though it's technically Tao instead of Buddhism... but I find it practically indistinguishable from Koans in its value and wisdom. And the text can be found online for free, but there are many translations.

As mentioned before, I would always first recommend The Way Of Zen as it had the most profound effect on my life and mind of all the books I've read.

Also, make sure to engage in meditation. The direct realization of non-duality is of utmost importance. Book learning and words are the shadows of meaning - direct realization is entering in the gates.

Definitely Generation Kill, to look into the dynamics of modern war. It's a seriously good, impartial, truthful and entertaining account of the first stages of the second Iraq war seen from the eyes of a battalion of first recon marines. Very well written, too.

War Nerd. Gary Brecher is a tongue-in-cheek military amateur analyst. His views on modern and past warfare are very lucid, albeit controversial and leftfield. His writing style is pretty original, kinda like the Hunter Thompson of war pundits. A backlog of his articles is also available online.

Making A Killing. It's the first person account of a British private security contractor in Iraq. I was expecting the worst when I read it, but it's actually very well written, informative and entertaining. Some of the lingo and drills described in the book actually helped me understand a lot of these videos.

Das Boot is my favourite war book, and it's an embedded reporter's account of a year in a german U-boat during the second world war.

I'd strongly recommend this book. It's pretty objective and balanced and sort of gave me closure to a lot of things.
http://www.amazon.com/Unlikely-Disciple-Semester-Americas-University/dp/044617842X

Also, in reference to the sexual misconduct (not sure what you were referring to)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,286153,00.html


When reading up on most sexual abuse cases, its necessary to put things into perspective. Most abuses in Protestant churches happen from non-clergy or adjunct clergy (unlike other denominations, it's more like a job interview and any major qualification will go, so people might unbeknowingly hire a paedophile, or they might stalk churches posing as parishoners to get close to children. Many large churches are being proactive about it). Further, most Catholic abuses happened in the 1970s, and the rush of news about it came with people in their 30s and 40s coming forward after living with guilt. The rest essentially occur at the same frequency as sexual abuse in schools and in civil administration (e.g. Policemen and Firefighters).

It's a fallacy to assume that one's religious actions, such as celibacy or abstinence, increase or decrease the amount of sexual abuse in a congregation or denomination.

I have read all three of Edmund Morris's biographies on TR, totaling over 2000 pages of Teddy Roosevelt's life. I also teach history. I doubt you can say the same. Here, do some reading before you embarrass yourself anymore.


https://www.amazon.com/Edmund-Morriss-Theodore-Roosevelt-Trilogy/dp/0812958632/ref=pd_sbs_14_t_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=RQ7AY9KEE1QXMDC17X0R

If you think TR is one of the worst presidents in US history, you have a lot to learn, and quite frankly, are delusional.

What you're talking about is a real system error. The solution you're suggesting however, goes against some deep player made code (which would require a very damaging reboot to change and that might just make it worse). Most people think that re-distributing gold will work if we get high-level (aka. "Gov.") players to do it. However, this is actually what those same high-level players want us to believe so that they still have the power to control the gold.

I could go into allot more detail, but I think this The_Real_Ron_Paul guy says it better. He wrote a player guide book that essentially explained why the two major factions in the server are both abusing or misunderstanding the original code and that either methodology just kind of fucks things up.

You really need to look past the fact that he associates with certain clans, factions, and admin followings because, if you listen to him, he's kind of above it.

>100% of the fault is with the corporations.

ಠ_ಠ He really should read this. Man he is a retard and so disingenuous. People on the left don't even like this guy, because he lies so much.

And here we have the problem: A complete misunderstanding of the issue. You can't solve the ongoing crisis with more band-aids, it's a completely different philosophical approach that needs taken.

To suggest that Ron Paul "got any amount of what he wanted" in any way means that you don't understand.

Ron Paul's book: "End The Fed"

Read it. http://www.amazon.com/End-Fed-Ron-Paul/dp/0446549193

1. CIA drone strikes: 4000 killed over 10 years.
   
   Civilian casualties Iraq over 10 years: No less than 200 000
   
   Civilian casualties Afghanistan over 10 years: No less than 60 000
   
   
2. I'm assuming those military officers are stupid based on the number of people they shot. Here's >0 evidence.
   
   
3. Having served in Iraq you should know the National Guard is not controlled by the President. Nor is local police departments; and contrary to what you desire to believe the FBI and DHS are micromanaged by the President.
   
   
4. Having taken accounting in school, I can tell you being an armchair economist just makes you look stupid.
   
   Regardless of what merit Obama may have or may lack, you do not speak the truth.
   
   Judging by your unsupportable opinions I'm going to say whatever Confederate state you hail from is a greater threat to your liberty than the federal government.

Even Wright, an embedded combat reporter during Operation Iraqi Freedom and author of Generation Kill brandished a rifle while on patrol at the request of the marines he was riding with.

It is mentioned in a Huffington Post interview:

>Did you feel useless because you couldn't fire a gun?

EW: On a human level it would have been really exciting to shoot a gun over there. I can hit a target with a rifle generally but that very different from what they do.
There's one moment that's not in the show where they handed me a weapon in the vehicle. We were rolling through a sketchy town. Everyone was like, "You're occupying a seat; you're useless, take a gun." The enormity of the responsibility you have -- it sounds corny here back home -- but if you're really out there with these Marines and you're holding a weapon ... I was like, what if I hear an engine backfire and I pull the trigger? It wasn't [so much the fear] that I'd kill an innocent Iraqi -- that was a problem -- but if I fuck up, I'll get kicked out of the embed. That was my practical reason. When Geraldo was in Afghanistan and he was like, "I'm packing a .45," I was like, "C'mon dude."

I read his book and if I remember correctly it was a short lived occurrence as the author did not maintain proper gun discipline. He unintentionally swept the barrel of the rifle at the marines which is a big no no. The author never fired a weapon while embedded, but I don't recall if the gun was loaded or not. I don't think that it was.

Also es gibt durchaus Ärzte, die Cannabis bei PTBS verschreiben.
Gerade bei Kriegsveteranen in den USA scheint das wohl nicht mal so ungewöhnlich zu sein, auch wenn manche argumentieren es lindert nur die Symptome und hilft nicht, die Ursache des Problems zu beseitigen.

(Ich kenne selbst eine PTBS Patientin in meinem Bekanntenkreis die deswegen auch Cannabis verschrieben bekommt. Von dem was ich höre hat es ihr sehr geholfen.)

sigh It's copy/paste time again. Ka-blaam!:


>and abolish the Federal Reserve

You say, as if this is a secret part of his platform and as if he didn't write a book about it. Give me a few reasons to keep the Federal Reserve Bank, and maybe I'll consider that a negative on his platform.

>put America back on the gold standard.

Technically false. He does believe in the gold standard, but his position is really to legalize competing currencies to the Federal Reserve note, like gold and silver (which is the Constitutional position). He wants to overturn Nixon's executive order, which would legalize gold as a currency for those who wanted to use it, but would not "put us back on the gold standard" overnight.

>he's against gay marriage

No, he isn't. He has his own views on what marriage means, but he has no will or intent to impose those views on any others.

>is STILL making racist remarks

You say, citing an article from 2006 with no racist quotes, comments, or remarks in it. Show me a current or even old video of Ron Paul saying something racist and derogatory. Show me something that refutes this and I'll believe you.

>believes in New World Order conspiracy theories

You say, as if it isn't becoming increasingly obvious as the days pass that the world is succumbing to the economic control of a few. It doesn't take conspiracy theory to pay attention to the situation with the collapsing Euro after the warnings of those who condemned the European ruling class for attempting to create a European state, or to pay attention to the Trilateral Commission, or the CFR, or to the fact that the President just signed a bill allowing indefinite detention of US citizens, the Occupy movements being met with excessive force for going up against the entanglement of the banksters and the bureaucrats. In fact, anyone who doesn't believe to an extent that there is a blatant conspiracy to concentrate power and wealth out of the hands of the many and into the hands of the few has their head buried in the sand and is in no way prepared for the coming crises that we as a nation and a world face in the coming years.

--------

Did I win?

>build a fence along the US-Mexico border

False.

>and abolish the Federal Reserve

You say, as if this is a secret part of his platform and as if he didn't write a book about it. Give me a few reasons to keep the Federal Reserve Bank, and maybe I'll consider that a negative on his platform.

>put America back on the gold standard.

Technically false. He does believe in the gold standard, but his position is really to legalize competing currencies to the Federal Reserve note, like gold and silver (which is the Constitutional position). He wants to overturn Nixon's executive order, which would legalize gold as a currency for those who wanted to use it, but would not "put us back on the gold standard" overnight.

>he's against gay marriage

No, he isn't. He has his own views on what marriage means, but he has no will or intent to impose those views on any others.

>is STILL making racist remarks

You say, citing an article from 2006 with no racist quotes, comments, or remarks in it. Show me a current or even old video of Ron Paul saying something racist and derogatory. Show me something that refutes this and I'll believe you.

>believes in New World Order conspiracy theories

You say, as if it isn't becoming increasingly obvious as the days pass that the world is succumbing to the economic control of a few. It doesn't take conspiracy theory to pay attention to the situation with the collapsing Euro after the warnings of those who condemned the European ruling class for attempting to create a European state, or to pay attention to the Trilateral Commission, or the CFR, or to the fact that the President just signed a bill allowing indefinite detention of US citizens, the Occupy movements being met with excessive force for going up against the entanglement of the banksters and the bureaucrats. In fact, anyone who doesn't believe to an extent that there is a blatant conspiracy to concentrate power and wealth out of the hands of the many and into the hands of the few has their head buried in the sand and is in no way prepared for the coming crises that we as a nation and a world face in the coming years.