Art helps to train the eyes to see. As you get older your eyes tend to get lazy as the mind becomes cleverer with age. The mind begins to tell the eyes what they see. A good treatment for this dilemma is the artistic discipline taught to us in school known as contour drawing. Contour drawing forces the mind to pay attention to the input from our eyes. As we get older there is a tendency of the mind to play Wheel of Fortune with reality. As the mind rushes to fill in the blanks of our sensory input we become blinded to what’s actually there. The resulting tunnel reality that we condemn ourselves to, refuses to acknowledge true reality. That is just a word to the wise that may be approaching the perils of middle age. The theme of this year’s drawing has been decided on since over 100 people died in riots earlier this year caused when the Muslim world collectively responded to cartoons printed in a Denmark publication. It’s hard as an American raised to respect freedom of speech to accept that anyone’s buttons should be so violently pressed by just cartoons. Noise is just fine according to the American perspective on this event. Peacefully protest, write editorials, boycott of Danish products are all acceptable responses to a slew of insensitive cartoons, but killing people and threatening the lives of commissioned cartoonists is just lowering Islam to the level of the satiric criticisms presented by these cartoons. The image of Muhammad on the drawing is from the Mohammad with the turban turning into a bomb cartoon. Artists show a mirror up to the world this way, and the visual metaphor cut’s to the chase beautifully. It’s not just artists who are capable of seeing a lot of violent bombings associated with followers of the Muslim faith. Screaming "shut up!" doesn’t change how people think. Issuing fatwas for the death of the messenger creating these cartoons is refuting the criticism with a horrible hypocrisy. As a proud loud-mouthed American artist, no religion was going to stop this artist from drawing an image of Muhammad this year. First Islam would be given a fair chance to discourage this artist by the reading this year of Mohammed’s book the Holy Koran. As an enthusiast of many religions, this artist has read the Holy Bible several times as well as Upanishads, the Damapada, the Toe Te King, I Ching, the Bagavad Gida, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, and countless various biblical apocrypha, and much more, but never was the Koran read. The time of this odyssey through different scriptures was therapy for years of sincere devotion to the bestselling scripture known the world round as just the Holy Bible. Consequently it was concluded from samples read of the Koran in an anthology called "the World Bible" that a reading of the entire Koran would be more of the same indoctrination that I was trying to get over from reading the Bible so much. Turns out this artist still don’t disagree with the earlier assessment, but years and distance have prepared a perspective that can appreciate these scriptures again although not with a child-like mind inclined to believe fairy tales. The Holy Koran is more of the same style as the Judeo/Christian Bible. In fact Muhammad states that this work is an affirmation of this previously written book (the Bible.) The Holy Bible is accepted by the Muslim faith as being written by the same G-d. Reading the Koran did contrast with the Bible since the Bible was written by G-d through several different authors giving a variety of styles not presented to us in the Koran, which was written solely by Muhammad himself. His style is most like the writer of the earliest Bible books, Moses, who Muhammad is regarded as akin to by his creating a religion for those who were not amongst people born Jewish or the followers of the quickly growing Christian faith. People not Jewish or Christian as a matter of fact would include the writer of this essay, which is refreshing. Islam, Judaism, and Christianity all worship the same G-d as if they all agree that G-d is one G-d, yet the combined efforts of three Religions have made the one G-d schizophrenic. Muhammad brought this invisible G-d to a world dividing between Christian, and Jews, which had an appeal to the rest of the population. The rest of the population was the majority who were not inclined to embrace the fantastic claims of the Christians, or who happen to be born of Jewish parents. Muhammad didn’t perform miracles although he acknowledges that to be the style of his predecessor Jesus. Muhammad was a preacher who would fit in well with a Bible thumping hell-threatening Southern Baptist crowd these days. Muhammad has, in a way, created a generic one G-d religion that is so simple one is inclined to think Muslims are trying too hard to be Muslims. Muhammad tells his readers that G-d only requires belief, although there are strong arguments in the Koran for fear of this great and terrible G-d who allows us our existence by "His" grace. Belief in the one G-d is the basic practice, which by Muhammad’s own writings would include Jews and Christians who truly embrace faith in G-d. This is a concession to other faiths that should have made Islam the most tolerant of religions, although it looks like Buddhism wins that race. This Islamic concept is so all encompassing that it begs the question of why these followers of the one G-d do not get along better as brethren of the same G-dly father.

The Koran emphasizes that "adding god to G-d" is among the worse of sins, which is basically the act of idolatry, but it includes anything lowering the all-encompassing infinite G-d to a finite definition. As the world becomes friendlier to the idea of holy war, and the clash of demiurges becomes more believable, which was predicted in earlier Christmas writings, we should all remember that the same G-d is defending both sides of our wars and terrorist acts, insurgencies, and occupations. Muhammad would probably consider the pitting of Jehovah against Allah as a horrible form of adding gods to G-d, which is literally yielding flesh grinding results today. Muhammad would probably demand that this sin stop lest the true G-d fashion a terrible hell for those who would divide G-d into two clashing deities. Fear the one G-d. At the time of Muhammad, idolatry was the main aspect of the competing faiths. The Greeks had a popular pantheon of gods to choose from, and ever since the Patriarch Abraham led his split with the Sumerian’s polytheistic faiths, the Hebrew G-d has been championing the concept of Monotheism. The Monotheistic G-d is invisible, omnipotent, and omnipresent by nature. This is a powerful differentiation from the traditions that in a primitive world were inclined to regard statues, stars, emperors, and extraterrestrial alien visitors as gods. Faith in the one invisible G-d would actually offer genuine salvation to these misguided peoples misled by every charlatan myth or statue that comes along. The way to find such a G-d would be to seek within as opposed to hours of peering into the night’s sky or bowing to a statue of the Emperor. After reading the Koran, this artist doesn’t feel discouraged by the book from honoring Muhammad on this year’s drawing. The image of Muhammad on the drawing is from the unpopular Danish cartoons, one of which depicts Muhammad running out of Heaven’s gate waving his arms to a line of Islamic suicide bombers who are arriving at Heaven still black and charred from the act of faith that delivered them to this gate. Muhammad is saying to the suicide bombers, "Stop! Stop! We are all out of virgins." The writer of the Holy Koran, Muhammad was born at Mecca in 470 A.D.. Some speculate that he suffered from epileptic seizers as a child. His mother and father had died, which left him with his uncle since the age of 12 who he accompanied on trips to Damascus and other cities. Muhammad later tended sheep and goats in the Mecca Valley and eventually married a wealthy widow merchant named Khadija. He had 2 sons and 4 daughters, but the sons died when they were still youths. According to tradition, he meditated in caves at the age of 40 to find the true religion. Some have said Muhammad was illiterate, but that’s probably not true. A personal impression of reading the Koran reveals the pen of a well read writer who used Old Testament stories that probably were folk tales during his time, told all across the Middle East for millennia. In the Holy Koran, Old Testament stories such as Joseph in Egypt, Moses and the Red Sea, Noah, and Lot of Sodom and Gomorrah are retold by Muhammad. Muhammad was sent from his meditations to reclaim the lost people of the land. The Koran seems to have been written during conquests of the people of Mecca. The Koran was received over a period of time, one chapter at a time in revelations called "Suras." After the death of his first wife he married 15 wives, some of which were the result of conquest and plunder. There should be no denying that Islam is a religion founded on conquest, but in the religion’s defense it isn’t much different from Judaism or even Christianity. The 15 wives is an exception to the rule in the Koran that is requiring no more then 4 wives. The Koran was written over a period of time and the exception for Muhammad’s 15 wives is written in a later Sura. The idea of Islamic jihad does have its roots in the early conquests and successful holy wars of Muhammad. As was said earlier, Islam as presented by the Holy Koran is a generic religion calling on us to believe in the one G-d, and not to add gods to G-d. Followers of the Muslim faith like to take this simple admonishment and practice it with exaggerated devotion, probably just to be on the safe side. A few verses instructing followers to worship in the morning and at night, become 5 rigorous prayer sessions a day. One of the Sura’s admonishes women to conceal their "ornaments," which to this reader obviously seems to refer to boobs. Somehow that evidently translates into a woman having to conceal her whole face, allowing only a limited area of exposure for the eyes in order to see. It’s almost as if a beautifully simple faith has fallen into the hands of fanatics. Did G-d, through Muhammad, make this too simple for believers? Has he not spelled enough out for his followers so that they take everything to several extra miles in order to not anger G-d? This artist doesn’t remember any verses in the Koran requiring him to grow a beard either, but men have been beaten to death in Muslim lands for lack of a beard. Muhammad was known to have a thick beard of curly black hair and a hooked nose. There does seem to be a profound ironic contrast between this very human, flawed man commissioned by G-d to write, and the Holy Koran that results from these spiritual revelations.

Muhammad was a man who did live by the sword, to borrow a phrase from the founder of another major one G-d religion, regardless how uncomfortable that may make secular Muslims in this day and age. It can be said however, that Muhammad didn’t die by the sword like the rest of those New Testament words predict. Muhammad died at the age of 69 in 632 A.D., although in fairness to Jesus it was probably from complications of a poisoning three years before. According to the account, Muhammad did battle with Jews in Khaibar where his army slew over 2000. A Jewish woman named Zainab who was Muhammad’s adopted son’s ex-wife, became Muhammad’s fifth wife who was taken in battle after she had lost her husband, father, and brother in the battle at Khaibar. She sought revenge by poisoning Muhammad’s dinner to test him. Muhammad did spit the food out in time, but evidently wasn’t the same afterwards. Complications from the poisoning combined with pneumonia probably eventually brought about his death three years later at what was a very old age at the time. He died before seeing his religion split into rival sects. In the Koran he mocks the different Christian sects that were already cropping up during his time. Muhammad would probably have harsh words for this Sunni/Shiite rivalry that is slaughtering thousands every month in the conflict as Iraq splinters into civil war. Christians who voted in support of this mass murdering President probably do also really have their good and evil all mixed up. We all need to realize that we the people are being played by terrorist myths and games right into an orchestrated world war III in the Middle East. In an America that hypocritically protects terrorists that blow up Cuban airlines like Luis Posada, it’s not hard to accuse those in charge of this "war against terrorism" of really waging a war against Islam. In fact this war can actually be labeled a war for a war against terrorism. We’re being convinced that Lebanon was justifiably bombed into smithereens for a month because Hezbolla "terrorists" crossed into Israel and kidnapped two IDF soldiers. We are being convinced through Israeli controlled media and propaganda games that it was Hezbollah who fired the first rocket at Israel therefore 100 civilians in Lebanon must die for every 2 or 3 dying in Northern Israel from Hezbolla’s defensive strategy. At the risk of violating recently passed anti-terrorist legislation in the US, this writer must admit to rooting for Hezbollah during this new Middle East war crime because frankly Nazi is as Nazi does even if it’s a nation of holocaust survivors. Now watch Lebanon be rebuilt by Hezbollah in months to put our failed project of rebuilding Iraq to shame. We need to lend some understanding to followers of the Muslim faith in this war torn age if they are being on the defensive over their way of life and their countries. Instead we proclaim a "clash of civilizations," and recently Pope Benedict on September 12^th gave a speech to stoke the anger of Muslims around the world. The Pope was criticizing violence in Islam with a quote by a 14^th Century Byzantine Emperor named Manual II Paleologos who said, "show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." In predictable response from the Muslim community, millions are screaming for the Pope’s blood and the Pope is probably beefing up security in his travels abroad. In defense to Muhammad’s contribution to religion, we already mentioned his introduction of the religiously revolutionary idea that even people of other faiths are Muslims if they truly believe in the one G-d. Maybe there is no nice way to point out a religion’s tendency to violence, and in all fairness there is plenty of accusations of violence to go around.

This writer is sick of America’s fascination with the word "preemption" as a cure for the problems of the world, which we keep being told, (repeatedly until it becomes true,) is completely different now because of 9/11. Preemption is just an excuse to act extreme for no reason. It forces us into the role of bad guys who draw first blood for what turns out to be bogus lies. We all need to live to see the day when "preemption" is called what it really is, which is wrong, and purely evil policy lending itself to the abuse of power. Today this cake-walk-war has degenerated into 2000 executions a month in Iraq by masked gunmen in police uniforms. Does this really look like "handing Iraq over to the Iraqis?" These killings have been traced to the US installed Interior Ministry. Today they are reluctantly admitting the inevitability of civil war in Iraq when the plan has probably been to split Iraq into 3 countries from the start. That is at least if Israel has anything to say about the future of Iraq. Israel drew up plans in the late 80’s for fractioning Iraq into 3 countries. I’m sure America is doing a heck-of-a job keeping Israel out of the debate on Iraq’s future. Not. Things are getting so bad in Iraq these last 4 or 5 months that you can even hear the American media admitting it could be lost. Recently James Baker who helped the troubled election of George W. Bush in 2000 has been commissioned to go to Iraq and assess the state of the Iraq war. He has come back to announce that winning is not an option in Iraq, and although the details of the study won’t be released till after the coming 2006 elections, it looks like the future for our troops will be some kind of face-saving pull out. Perhaps this is just in time since one can see a strengthening of insurgent forces and attacks that could have our throat in its sites by sometime next year. It’s hard to win a war you don’t deserve to win, especially when it started by bullshitting the American people and Congress with reasons for war that in a more enlightened age would be seen as the war crimes that they are. Iraq was always woefully wrong, and now the American people are beginning to view it like the pig with lipstick it is. Last November in 2005 there was a mass murder by Marines in Haditha where 24 people were killed including women and children. An investigation of the Haditha event, which just wouldn’t stay covered up has begun in June 2006. Its been revealed that the Marines were reacting to a roadside bombing nearby. American soldiers are falling right into the hands of the insurgency if they keep killing innocent civilians nearby in response to roadside bomb attacks. A crafty insurgency is sure to orchestrate these roadside events to turn out that way with crossfire victims in the vicinity. Let’s face it. We have done a fucked up shitty job of taking over a country. The Iraq war also needs to be regarded as a case study for the folly of privatizing military services. The military used to do a superb job of feeding itself with our tax dollars, but now we’ve paid Halliburton’s KBR 12 billion dollars to do a shitty job of feeding the troops using immigrant cooks from India and Nepal who are paid 50 cents an hour. Halliburton has only a shitty job of rebuilding to boast of for our overspent tax dollars. Over 3 years since "Mission Accomplished," and Iraq remains in shambles with oil production still nowhere near the days of Soddam. At least Soddam can boast of getting Iraq rebuilt after American bombings in about 6 months. With election-timed saber rattling for war with Iran, it’s starting to look like the "turning-point" in Iraq will be the spreading of this war to the rest of the world. A best kept secret of this war may have always been to splinter Iraq into three states in conspicuous compliance with plans drawn up by Israeli intelligence on how to deal with Babylon. At any rate, the wrong war for the wrong reasons is in the process of turning on us, and our over-taxed military will not be best served by spreading American bomb atrocities to the nation of Iran. We are failing to see these American imperialist ambitions for the bigoted, deluded pipe dreams that they are. The corporate media still cowers to Bush for some reason probably related to the rich American class who has had a wind-fall thanks to Bush policies. Why would Halliburton have a problem with how this war is going? A Halliburton mindset is obviously what goes on between Dick Cheney’s ears. The Vice President won’t hesitate to tell you that this war is going great. Bush has been planting his propaganda in our media such as the Armstrong Williams incident in 2003. Now this activity has come under investigation and we may yet see Americans told that they are pissed off about this. The FBI recently had dirt on Representative William J. Jefferson, Democrat of Louisiana, and Congress was up in arms over the confiscation of records from his office. There may eventually be an interesting can of worms opening here, or we’ll never hear about it again. Last I heard about it, the Bush Administration was holding the records sealed until the "separation of powers" issue is resolved. The Army Corp of Engineers has released a report taking responsibility for the levees during Hurricane Katrina. That puts the matter at rest and we may never find out who blew them up. Not all of Bush’s media manipulations however, have succeeded. Recently records were released of minutes to a meeting with Bush and British officials about the Iraq war. Bush’s people had proposed an aircraft painted in UN colors that would be flown in Iraq airspace to provoke an attack and thus a provocation for the war they so desperately wanted. It’s also come to light that before this Iraq war, in November of 2002, Valarie Plame and the CIA Counter Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction Division stopped a shipment of Binary VX Nerve gas from making it through Turkey to Iraq. This was through the Brewster, Jennings & Associates CIA front company that is now shut down thanks to White House efforts to out Valiarie Plame by leaking her top-secret identity. Perhaps this failure to plant WMD’s in Iraq before the war had more to do with the Plame outing then the petty intent of intimidating her husband who was a war critic. Did Valarie Plame single-handedly thwart the WMD’s from being found after the war in Iraq? This administration has certainly been busy overhauling the CIA, which can’t possibly be for anything good. Now-a-days thousands of Iraqi’s are being shot in the back of the head every month, and just about nobody was failing to foresee this back when John Negroponte of Sandinista death squad infamy was briefly put in charge of the US Embassy in Iraq. History is being re-written right before our eyes regarding Flight 93, which went down in Pennsylvania on 9/11/2001. A movie about Flight 93 has come out to reinforce the view that passengers caused the plane to crash when they fought to overcome the 9/11 hijackers. We are now being told the wreckage for Flight 93 was all in a crater on the ground located in one place since it crashed into the ground. I have a pile of Internet downloads from the time of the event reporting again and again that the Flight 93 wreckage was spread about a 2 square mile area like a plane taken out in mid air.

Now Bush has used his mysterious political invincibility to pass a Military Commissions Act that makes the USA Patriot Act look legitimate. Last summer the Supreme Court ruled in a case by a Guantanamo detainee vs. Donald Rumsfield that these immune-to-Geneva Conventions enemy combatants really do have human rights after all, and unless Congress changes the Constitution then torture will remain illegal in America. Then after years of denial, Bush admitted to having secret prisons around the world and that they have been using "aggressive interrogation techniques" on these prisoners for years. Bush has had a few of these detainees moved to Guantanomo, and announced that there are no longer any secret prisoners out there. All of a sudden right before a predicted election demise, in record breaking law passing time, this Congress and Senate have passed the 2006 Military Commissions Act for continuing Bush’s disgraceful war crimes. Bush just signed it the other day, and torture as well as secret prisons are now legal in America with very little national soul searching about it. Here we now have again another law to legalize crimes in order to promote policies that demonstratively don’t work, which are only sure to be abused by the very people who authored the legalized abuse of power. The new law is evidently retroactive too because they’ve been doing this stuff since before the Abu Ghraib torture scandal of 2004. Maybe some of those found guilty at Abu Ghraib can now appeal their cases. Why is committing suicide as an enlightened free country the solution to a terrorist problem? Seems too much like letting them succeed in destroying the US, not unlike the direction the Iraq war is also taking US. It was just before the first Iraq war, in the late 80’s right after the Cold War, when one of the many bad ideas was being implemented of scaling back the number of troops in our military. Throughout the 90’s bases were shut down across the country, which was throwing wrenches into local economies where these bases were being closed. We did it; we pulled it off, and freed up all that overhead wage pay for troops in order to spend it on more extravagant defense projects. This is similar to the Ford Motor Company closing down American Company’s in order to make more money off cheaper labor overseas. Just deserts for Ford would be to still watch them go bankrupt for their crappy autos after un-employing tens of thousands of American workers. The bad news is that now we are stuck in two wars that are both catching a second wind against US and suddenly all those troops we got rid of back then would have been really handy right now. We gave Halliburton billions of our tax dollars who then sub contracted out to its clone company KBR who then sub-contracted out our military services to over 200 other over-priced sub-contractors. These 200+ sub-contractors then solicited for third world labor from all across Asia to pay them 50 cents an hour for things like feeding our troops. The military has recently discontinued this scam after several scandals from filthy eating conditions all the way to murdered workers from Nepal began to be reported. The point is our own military used to feed themselves with our tax dollars, and do it first rate for a fraction of the price, contrary to the flat out lies being told by republican politicians who are just greedy for privatization policies. They don’t want government doing anything with our tax dollars except blow up other countries. That is only one of many examples of how this conservative right-wing lie about the virtues of privatization with its no bid contract war crimes is losing this war in Iraq. Don’t even get me started about ex-Governor Mark Roscoe, and my energy bill in Montana, where we used to have more electricity then we could use as a state before the utilities were privatized and sold to out of state corporations. Bush has been warning Americans that if we pull out of Iraq then an AlQaeda type government would surely take over. Last June 2006 the leader of AlQaeda in Iraq, Al Zarqawi died at the hands of American troops. As someone who takes the whole CIA spawned idea of AlQaeda with a grain of salt, (has read George Orwell, and remembers this guy reported dead in March 2004,) the idea of AlQaeda in Iraq was hard to take at face value in the first place. There has been a letter retrieved however, of correspondence between Zarqawi and a senior bin Laden lieutenant named "Atiyah" who told Zarqawi that it was in their interest to have American troops stay in Iraq. So contrary to Bush’s twisted as usual gut-logic, it isn’t removing our unpopular troops that will help AlQaeda, but it’s our troops remaining that are assisting the cause of AlQaeda in Iraq who are also unpopular with the local Iraqis. I’ve suspected that Bush and AlQaeda were in cahoots from the beginning, because that’s how historically this terrorist game has always been played out. Now we’ve been tricked into Constitutional suicide as a nation thanks to the same old terrorist tricks. This adds to the evidence that Bush is not trying to win any war against terrorism. Instead, Bush is trying to start a war on terrorism and it’s quickly showing ambitions approaching WWIII. The trial of John Allen Muhammad has revealed details of this mysterious criminal. You might remember John Muhammad as the Washington DC sniper with his accomplice Lee Malvo soon after the 9/11 attacks back when anthrax was being mailed to democrats, and the vote on the USA Patriot Act happened to be coming up. They had a 2^nd phase of attacks planned before police caught up with them. It turns out John Muhammad was arrested March of 2001 in Antigua for providing false ID’s to illegal immigrants, but then he was just let go. Then he was detained, and let go in Florida with false credentials. He and accomplice Lee Malvo were later arrested for shoplifting. When a warrant was issued for his failure to appear in court it was never entered in the FBI database. There may be more to his good fortune then just luck. Documentation has also been ran across linking the gun shop in Tacoma who provided weapons for the Washington DC sniper to involvement in gun laundering for the CIA. The growing skepticism in the face of this 9/11 game is organizing as the 9/11 Truth Movement. Too many people know controlled demolition when they see it, and the fact that all the government did with the crime scene evidence was destroy it. Then there is the Professor from Brigham Young University who analyzed some of the melted metal of the twin towers that remained in molten puddles for 2 months after 9/11/2001, only to discover that it was inundated with Thermite, which is used in controlled demolitions. Condoleezza Rice just keeps having her lies catch up to her as she tries to remember the meeting with Tenet about AlQaeda that summer of 2001. It’s all just such a blur. Another Summer 2001 trivia fact is that in July of 2001 Donald Rumsfield changed the rules for shooting down threatening aircraft. Only after July 2001 was an order from the President required to shoot down a hijacked plane. An Islamic group at the time was trying to see the President on the morning of 9/11/2001. They were reporters for the Sudanese Peoples Liberation Army; a Christian fundamentalist neo-conservative backed rebel group. This could have been an assassination attempt to explain why Bush flew around the country to hiding places all that day. There is just a mountain of documented 9/11 trivia unreported by a close minded corporate American media. Breakthroughs in remote controlled aircraft and non-nuclear thermal hydrogen bombs also occurred in the 1990’s, and could have been used to orchestrate the 9/11 event. In Oct. 2000, the Pentagon did drills simulating an aircraft crashing into the building. The operation was called MASCAL. Charles Burlingamean was an ex F-4 Navy pilot who participated in operation MASCAL. Soon after that, he took a job at American Airlines where he became the pilot of the 757 that crashed into the building less than a year after operation MASCAL. Does that gun smoke or what? There is a lot of skepticism going on about whether a plane crashed into the Pentagon at all, and the 9/11 Truth Movement is not without its far-out conclusions. The main problem with the Pentagon attack is that the size of the hole made by the crash was so small, and the fact that cameras in the vicinity had been confiscated and remain unreleased to this day. There defiantly are however, holes in the official story you could fly a plane through. I think I already wrote that last line in a previous essay. Anyone as obsessively secretive as Bush and his Administration obviously have secrets to hide. Now the scandals, convictions, resignations, and the rankest corporate butt-licking legislation ever passed have piled up against the Republicans in Congress to give the Democrats the better poll numbers likely to deliver both Congress and the Senate to the Democrats. I guess we’ll soon see. A congressman from Florida, John Foley resigned the other day over his obsession with under age boys. Let’s hope that Diebold or another 9/11 don’t come along to save these sleaze-balls from a perfect political storm that is sure to sweep Republicans out of Washington. Make the world a better place. This holy war thing is mainly to dismantle America itself, and it’s hard to believe the agenda can be stopped by just voting the ‘R’ party out.

This is not how America works, this is how Empires fail. The neat thing about America used to be that it wasn’t a third world fascist dictatorship. Protect the American people my ass! Bush may have already cursed the US for generations to come with bankrupting debt, and endless war, but then he didn’t ever want to win this war, he wanted to start it. Of course this must be stopped. The problems tipping the last couple elections don’t contribute much hope for November 7^th being much help either. Maybe chaos has caught up to the Republican’s greedy power grab, and we can hopefully rest assured that at least there is no definite outcome for chaos. This stupid Commander in Chief continues his stupid decisions. The war rages on, but war has always been used for distraction from domestic mischief. The real attack will be here at home probably from the war he stirs up relentlessly overseas. It may be a terrorist attack, but the real crime will be the ensuing suicide this country will commit because a President’s tongue is so far up the ass of corporate back-pocketeers that he will sell out America to pay them off. Then there are the attacks on the legislature who stood up to Bush on the torture issue. Justice Sandra Day O’Conner mentioned this as she left her seat on the Supreme Court, and recently appointed Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg has also warned of our approach toward dictatorship as well as warning us of attacks on the Justice Department by the right-wing lunatic fringe. If this isn’t a fascist coup it sure looks like one. This right-wing hostility to the Judicial Branch takes the form of attacks under the catch phrase of "legislating from the bench." Another interesting thing about the death of Zarqowi in Iraq is a story about a deal made with AlQaeda who evidently delivered Zarqowi to the Americans because they were losing control of him in Iraq. In exchange for the Iraq war victory, America was to slow down pursuit of bin Laden. It might indeed just be the fabricated staff of Internet rumor, but it is however, a fact that in July after the demise of Zarqowi, the CIA disbanded the group in charge of looking for bin Laden. All these bad ideas are unraveling everywhere we look, and Bush has run his Presidency like a thug. With his new fascist legislation he can now lower himself legally below the level of his enemies. It makes me wonder if there exist captured American soldiers in this conflict. If there are American POW’s in Iraq, they have successfully not reported it, which jives with their track record of controlling what is reported. Lowering ourselves below the bad guys however, makes us the bad guys. It’s a shame we have to live through that mistake of a similar Vietnam War again. In order to be tough on terrorism we’ve relinquished our rights against surveillance, search and seizure, standards of decency in war, habeas corpus, and sanity itself for a shallow promise of a freedom and democracy to be returned to us when this crazy terrorist problem is resolved probably 100 years from now. Why are we putting faith in the idea of endless war as a solution in the first place? Even if it could be shown to work and it sure as hell isn’t showing us that, what a terrible horrid way of achieving "freedom and democracy"; via gross abuse of power; with no finesse, no class, no competence, and argued for by those who profit from war who are the only winners in Iraq so far. It’s like we don’t have the guts to be Americans anymore, but I like to think they shove things like this down the throat of Americans, and the correcting democratic retribution is often slow in coming about. We may see a day of reckoning on November 8^th after mid-term elections, or else a lot of jaws are going to drop, and a lot of chaos is going to be added to the problem. The recent election in Mexico was riddled with fraud, and the protest is still slowly abating. What has been happening here, and documented in the last 3 elections of our great democracy has now nearly split Mexico into two governments after occurring there.

This year’s drawing is not making the same statement of Muhammad as the Danish cartoons that inspired it. On our image of Muhammad, his turban doesn’t turn into a bomb, but instead is exploding into a Mandelbrot fractal image as a symbol of the divine inspiration used by Muhammad to found one of the world’s major religions. A mathematician of the same name discovered the Mandelbrot fractal. The fractal was so capable of self-replication that it could be theoretically zoomed in on for infinity. This becomes an expansion of a theme from back on the 2001 drawing regarding infinite numbers as fingerprints of the divine on the foundations of our existence. Infinite numbers, like pi, and phi simply exist as mathematical phenomenon having profound implications on the physics of our reality. Like infinite numbers, the Mandelbrot fractal is also infinite, and just is. The Mandelbrot fractal is an infinite mathematical phenomenon. This is very much like the nature of G-d who Muslims believe is also infinite, and just is. Many phenomenon discovered in our universe began as mathematical variables that had to exist in order for an equation on a blackboard to be correct. This is how black holes were first discovered. Subatomic physicists have developed a statistical approach to the un-observably small size of their subject, which is called Quantum mechanics meaning ‘quanta’ for the packets of energy that Einstein’s theories turned everything into. The equations making up the bottom margin of the drawing are extensions of the Klein-Gordon equation to explain time and space with solutions representing subatomic particles that have zero spin. These equations helped to explain the existence of subatomic particles, and their angular momentums, but relativistic quantum mechanics had unexplained "instabilities" in the equations, which turned out to be representations of the creation and annihilations of virtual particles from essentially empty space. This led to Quantum Field theory represented by the Feynman diagrams on the right bottom margin that show electrons emitting and interchanging photons. Photons, or light wave/particles have a constant speed of 186,000 miles a second everywhere in our universe. This constant in the Universe represents the visual perception of what is the fourth dimension known as time according to Einstein’s revelations. In other words we see time as light. Field theory basically implied that actual existence was in the form of fields and the subatomic activity was caused by the interaction of these invisible fields causing existence to form, or in other words a wave momentum reaches a speed that takes on mass. Dual models of the field theory developed into what is now called String theory represented by loop equations on the left margin, and string diagrams on the top right margin. String theory explains existence as the interaction of invisible membranes between which are the stuff of worm holes and inter-dimensional travel. The diagrams along the top part of the right margin represent String models of the forms these string membranes can take, which physicists have discovered by mathematical equations. Like the Mandelbrot discovered in the 1970’s, String theory is mathematically eloquent, and physicists believe String theory explains the nature of our existence. They can prove it on a blackboard although they can’t prove it in the lab. The fact that math discovers phenomenon before science can develop the technology to prove it is fascinating. Our theories of infinite numbers have been confirmed by this Mandelbrot fractal formed by a simple equation applied through a loop with points represented by complex numbers. Something essential to the nature of our reality is being mirrored in this Mandelbrot math illusion. The basic equation is z=z(squared)+c. The Mandelbrot inspired its way on this year’s drawing after viewing a PBS program called "Colors of Infinity" narrated by Arthur C Clark. The show demonstrated how this simple equation, like a plant seed, unlocks a universe of infinitely self-replicating Mandelbrot sets. This news from PBS lead to the development of an Open GL program that allows the user to draw this amazing fractal and fly into it to see it for themselves. Such a Mandelbrot ship has been developed, and known to run on most modern computers. The section of code from our program representing the basic Mandelbrot equation in C code is what makes the top margin of this year’s drawing. This code must iterate a hundred times for each point in order to determine if it is to exist in the Mandelbrot set or not. If it exists it is colored black after the 100 iterations as an arbitrary color choice. Otherwise if the value of our point accelerates to infinity as it iterates through our equation then we determine the number of iterations before 100 that it took to become greater then 2, and color it according to that number of iterations. This basic program has been developed, which can travel into this fractal by zooming in up to ten trillion times. This ship, free to download here at http://www.fantazine.net/magellan/freeship.html can also travel around left, right, up, and down, as well as zoom back out once the needed skills are mastered. There are simpler java applets that you can google for on the Internet that work much slicker, and more bug-free, but the technology for traveling this galaxy of fractal imagery has just begun to be developed. This ship is currently limited to 10 trillion times because of the limits of the double float C variables used for its computations. Download a free ship and explore this divine discovery yourself. The Mandelbrot and Muhammad portrait seemed to go together nicely because of the resemblance of the fractal to Islamic architecture and art. We represent this on the drawing by the Islamic-like window. As one travels with this Mandelbrot ship, the imagery, which many say resembles everything, repeats itself again and again the further you zoom in or travel around it. This cascading, self-replicating nature of the fractal is like the plant leaves growing from a seed, and there is a very organic feel to Mandelbrot imagery. Fractals seem to help explain nature, and even our own existence began as a simple chromosome equation that somehow began to iterate, and a predetermined set of cascading molecular events brought all of us into existence. This Mandelbrot, although a clever illusion of mathematics does exist, and is infinite by nature similar to the infinite G-d believed in by Muslims who, like String Theorists, are also without physical proof of what they have faith in.

Through this window on our drawing we now come to the final theme for this year represented by the sun shining behind an Aztec pyramid. This is a completely different religion in time and space from our Muslim theme. The Aztecs had a successful society with an elite ruling class who stayed in power with the help of a powerful priest class who kept the working and lower classes under control. The working class maintained good social status by supporting the religion of the priests. The lower class contributed the most important thing for the success of Aztec society, human sacrifice. They provided the human sacrifice by the thousands for the butchering pleasure of the priests whose job was to appease the Sun god. Now in this day and age of neglected human sacrifice to appease the Sun god, and dangerously close to the end of the Mayan Sun Calendar in 2012, we find ourselves dangerously close to a fiery apocalypse by the Sun’s global warming. Al Gore presents the mathematical facts in his film "An Inconvenient Truth," demonstrating the exponential curve of our warming trend, and its connection to human caused carbon emissions. Al Gore really never was the one with the "fuzzy math," he was the one who could do math. The sacrifice of the Aztecs allowed them to decimate the growth of society for the sake of the fortunate. It evidently didn’t maintain their civilization forever however, probably because of the collective psychosis that set in from the constant glorification and practice of death. Another sign of upcoming solar judgement is a recent scientific consensus that the Earth’s magnetic field is rapidly weakening at the start of a historic process where the magnetic poles shift sides on the planet. The Earth’s magnetic field may be completely out in 100 years opening the whole planet wide and defenseless against solar radiation. This assures an astronomically escalating cancer rate, and some erosion of the atmosphere from solar winds. The Earth can’t survive forever without a magnetic field. Mars may have been full of potential atmosphere and life before its smaller size caused the molten core to cool, which caused the magnetic field of Mars to go out, leaving it today with barely an atmosphere because its been carried away by solar winds of charged particles not repelled by a magnetic field like Earth’s. Sun worship was very universal in early civilizations, and even the Christmas holiday arguably comes from the celebration of the Sun actually beginning to return from its journey south on Dec. 25^th, three days after it’s journey stops for a day and turns around. Ancients celebrated this since the Sun had once again decided not to abandon civilization to an icy demise. This would not be the first time Christians were caught believing in a pagan sacrament disguised as Christianity. Another neat thing about the Muslim religion is how it doesn’t require belief in fantastic myths and impossible miracles like a virgin birth, although you will read in the Koran that the virgin birth of Jesus did occur.

The Koran speaks of the same resurrection at the end of time as Christianity, but to be a Muslim you are only required to believe in the one G-d. There may also be evidence that Jesus survived his crucifixion to eventually settle with the people of Kashmir in North West India where Pakistan still disputes for possession of the land in bloody conflicts today. It’s more probable that Jesus survived the 3 hours he spent being crucified after they let him down at midnight since the next day was Saturday the Sabbath, and crucifixion was forbidden. Most crucifixions went on for days back then. There exists a tomb in Kashmir that has the remains of the prophet called Isa who may have been the Jesus that survived the crucifixion. Evidence of this may exist in the New Testament brought to us even through the wringer of church scrutiny. Jesus caused a stir by referring to himself as the son of G-d. Belief in the Son of G-d status of Jesus is essential to being a Christian, although not required of Muslims. Responding to the blasphemy accusations, Jesus is quoted as saying from Psalms, "don’t you know ye are gods." So now he’s trying to tell us all that we are gods. In other words we all can call ourselves a child of G-d by the biblical argument of Jesus, and apparently are just as qualified. Evidently the people of his time still didn’t get it, and we read in other places where Jesus calls himself the "Son of Man", perhaps in response to the incorrect tendency of some with inclinations towards statues, Emperors, and aliens, to worship Jesus as G-d. Rome was busy at the time homogenizing the religions of Asia into one state religion that they could disguise all kinds of pagan traditions as. Jesus seems to have been used for this project, and probably was required to leave Israel after surviving the crucifixion. There is evidence he preached around the early church for some time, which the Resurrection tradition may have been used to explain away along with a plagiarizing St. Paul traveling around framing the story. Jesus mentions in the New Testament after his resurrection that he is off to preach to "the lost tribes of Israel". It might be that the lost tribes are Jewish settlements located in Kashmir unlike the Mormon tradition of using that verse to prove Jesus went to find these lost Israelis in South America after His Resurrection. The tradition of the prophet Isa in Kashmir, and the religion he started that survives to this day, goes back to at least 300 AD where records were written that date the coming of Isa to the period soon after the crucifixion. These historic records from Kashmir document the life of this crucified prophet who even was said to have reluctantly accepted a bride from a grateful ruler who didn’t like the idea of this divine messenger living alone. Another compelling piece of evidence that Jesus settled in Kashmir is a plaster imprint found in the tomb made from the feet of the prophet Isa. The plaster mold shows the feet of a man with crucifixion scars. Whatever really happened nearly 2000 years ago seems beside the point today while the world teeters between heaven and hell.

It’s actually here. The day we see America passing laws to justify its torture program throwing habeas corpus out the window. We are building a fence on the American/Mexico border to make Stalin proud. We gave Halliburton subsidy KBR over 385 million to build internment camps in the US, not to mention the NSA has been set loose on the US citizenry to spy on our phone calls. In early 2001 long before the 9/11 justification, Bush authorized the NSA to make a copy of AT&T’s entire live network so that since then our AT&T phone calls have existed on two networks, one for the phone company, and a clone network used for the NSA’s surveillance mischief. While Bush was signing his torture bill the other day he said, "this bill provides legal protections that ensure our military and intelligence personnel will not have to fear lawsuits filed by terrorists simply for doing their jobs." It’s ominous in that last statement that it has become that easy these days to be labeled a "terrorist" by the President, which now allows him to send even Americans to Guantanomo. Watch out lawyers. This bill gives Bush power to label anyone an enemy combatant worthy of Guantanomo treatment, and the first thing coming out of his mouth as he signs it into law is a subtle abuse of that power threatening the label of "terrorist" for any people filing human rights lawsuits against our war criminals. Already abusing his power that he gave himself with his rubberstamp Congress. What a thug. No wonder "orwellian" has now been introduced to the Oxford Dictionary as predicted in a previous essay. How much longer before this nonsense is kicking in our doors? How long will it now take this before it becomes the process of writing confessions down so they can beat the shit out of US in order to get US to sign the bogus confession? Are we immune to history’s repeating? We need to save this country from suicide, and realize that "drowning the government in a bathtub" is really the worse kind of treason. We have a real day of reckoning to recon with, as climate change reaches consensus just in time for us all to directly experience it. We all need to get along and work together or global warming threatens to appease the Sun god if not for real then metaphorically, which is just as bad. We also all should get along better because according to the Koran read this year, all of us who believe in G-d are Muslims.

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