Are they true or false?

1. Apples, not caffeine, are more efficient at waking you up in the morning.

2. Alfred Hitchcock did not have a belly button.

3. A pack-a-day smoker will lose approximately 2 teeth every 10 years.

4. People do not get sick from cold weather; it's from being indoors a lot more.

5. When you sneeze, all bodily functions stop, even your heart!

6. Only 7% of the population are lefties.

7. 40-people are sent to the hospital for dog bites every minute.

8. Babies are born without kneecaps. They don't appear until they are 2-6 years old.

9. The average person over 50 will have spent 5 years waiting in lines.

10. The toothbrush was invented in 1498.

11. The average housefly lives for one month.

12. 40,000 Americans are injured by toilets each year.

13. A coat hanger is 44 inches long when straightened.

14. The average computer user blinks 7-times a minute.

15. Your feet are bigger in the afternoon than any other time of day.

16. Most of us have eaten a spider in our sleep.

17. The REAL reason ostriches stick their head in the sand is to search for water.

18. The only two animals that can see behind themselves without turning their heads are the rabbit and the parrot.

19. John Travolta turned down the starring roles in 'An Officer and a Gentleman' and 'Tootsie.'

20. Michael Jackson owned the rights to the South Carolina State Anthem.

21. In most television commercials advertising milk, a mixture of white paint and a little thinner is used in place of the milk.

22. Prince Charles and Prince William NEVER travel on the same airplane, just in case there is a crash.

23. The first Harley Davidson motorcycle built in 1903 used a tomato can for a carburetor.

24. Most hospitals make money by selling the umbilical cords cut from women who give birth. They are used in vein transplant surgery.

25. Humphrey Bogart was related to Princess Diana. They were 7th cousins.

26. If coloring weren't added to Coca-Cola, it would be green.Now, scroll down for the answers...

They are all TRUE

Now go back and think about #16 !

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A murmuration of starlings

Murmuration:  No one knows why they do it.

Yet each fall, thousands of starlings dance in the twilight above England and Scotland. 

The birds gather in shape-shifting flocks called murmurations, having migrated in the millions from Russia and Scandinavia to escape winters frigid bite.   

Scientists aren’t sure how they do it, either. 

The starlings' murmurations are manifestations of swarm intelligence, which in different contexts is practised by schools of fish, swarms of bees and colonies of ants.  

As far as we are aware, even complex algorithmic models haven’t yet explained the starlings’ aerobatics, which rely on the tiny birds' quicksilver reaction time of under 100 milliseconds to avoid aerial collisions—and predators—in the giant flock.    

Despite their tour de force in the dusky sky, starlings have declined significantly in the UK in recent years, perhaps because of a decline in suitable nesting sites. 

The birds still roost in several of Britain’s rural pastures, however, settling down to sleep (and chatter) after their evening ballet.  

Starlings are part of the British scene and like many others are often taken for granted

We do this at our peril

Without attention many aspects of British life have already disappeared

Many areas of nature have simply gone.

Now we are confronted by a disease that is attacking our ash trees

Ash trees are to be found throughout the British isles.

Millions of them.

It is said we may lose up to eighty percent of them

This disease has already devastated Denmark and now it has arrived on these shores.

Like our starlings we take so many things for granted

Time to pay more attention to the beauty around us

To appreciate it every day

Too late when they have gone

Slow down and appreciate what is truly an amazing world

Find the beauty every day around you.

Appreciate it.

Unlike so much of modern life nature gives us truly amazing sights.

Like a murmuration of starlings for example.

Have you ever seen a murmuration or were you too busy in the Mall?

Saying nice things

Many, many times we think of saying something nice.
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But then somehow we don't do so.
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Sometimes we even think we have done so when in reality we only thought to do so.
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Then again other times we were too busy.
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Other things came up in the conversation instead.
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As important as the spoken word is, the unspoken word can become even more important.
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How often have you regretted not telling someone how much you loved or admired him or her?
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How often have you regretted not thanking someone for a kindness? 
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How often have you regretted not picking up the telephone to congratulate someone or to express sympathy?
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If you were to add up all the times you could or should have said something nice it might be a rather large number.
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Life is made up of thousands of encounters. 
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Some are lasting and some are quick, but all of them are important. 
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No matter how brief the encounter, it leaves an impression. 
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A touch no matter how light is still a touch.
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Imagine if we all said nice  things to at least five people a day
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And if they all did the same.
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Exponentially we would soon have a happier planet
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So why don't we?
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Are we frightened to say nice things, like they are too dangerous?
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Living in a big city as many of us do smiling is something weirdos do.
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Time we started work on consciously changing this
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Make your start today.
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There is never a wrong time to do the right thing.
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A word of encouragement is always welcomed.
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If we really want the world to be a friendlier place, it starts with us. 
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We can change the world. 
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It is an opportunity open to all of us rich and poor the wealthiest among us or the poorest. 
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Don't miss the opportunity to brighten someone's day. 
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The return on your investment is really really quick. 
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You will feel better!

Thinking about your problems

Is something modern humans spend a lot of time on
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Our ancestors probably did as well however I cannot vouch for that here.
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What can be said though is that beyond a certain point it is a very debilitating exercise.
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Going round and round does not solve the problems.
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Constantly coming back to them does not help much either.
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What does help is the ability to let them be
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Letting them be once you have determined what if anything can be done about them.
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Letting them be can only occur once you know how to turn off your mind.
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To control it to the point where it will obey you.
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And that as we have said many times is not easy.
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Diversion is the next best thing to controlling your mind.
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And this modern man does very well.
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All that TV, those dvd's, internet, games, hours and hours per day for most.
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Drugs, sex, gambling, sport, shopping you name it.
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Myriads of avoidance mechanisms.
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Be aware of what you are doing.
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Decide to take back some time for yourself.
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Keeping your mind busy all day long every waking moment is tough on your system.

There needs to be some downtime.
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Some time without machines.
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Some time without thinking about your problems.
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Some time without endless diversions.
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Time where you are with yourself
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Time where you just are.
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To achieve this requires that you accept yourself.
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That you let go.
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Letting go of thoughts, problems the whole lot.
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Walk in nature and focus on what is around you.
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Turn off your thoughts push them away.
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Just be in the moment.
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Your problems are still there but they do not dominate as they did before.
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The act of giving time to yourself must be a conscious one.
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With the same intent as you give to washing your car or doing your nails.
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The act of respecting your system, yourself is more important than you might realize.
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When we are young we can and do abuse ourselves.


Around middle age nature stops us one way or another.
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Get ahead of the game, be nicer to yourself.
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Problems are a part of life, get used to it.
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How we handle them though is up to us.
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Get smart please.

Karma

Some people claim that karma is a doctrine of fatalism.
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Karma does not mean that everything is predetermined and that we should therefore just sit back and accept everything and make no effort to improve our lives or those of others. 
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If we find ourselves in a situation where we can help others and reduce some of the suffering and injustice in the world, that too is karma, and an opportunity to be taken advantage of. 
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Some people don’t like the idea of karma because it means that we can no longer regard ourselves as innocent victims and blame others for our misfortunes. 
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But it’s actually a very liberating and comforting idea, because it means that we mould our own future and that ultimately justice does prevail.
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If reincarnation and karma are facts, that would obviously have implications for the way we ought to live our lives.
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That’s why all the great spiritual teachers throughout the ages have advised us to rise above our feelings of separateness and to love one another and help one another. 
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The more we can control our restless brain-minds and still our fitful thoughts and desires, the more receptive we shall become to the inspiration and guidance of our higher, intuitive self.
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Is the human kingdom unique, or do you think that all entities reembody – including subatomic particles, animals, gods, suns, and galaxies?
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The ageless wisdom teaches that mankind is a microcosm of the macrocosm and does not occupy any special place in the universe, and that every divine monad or consciousness-centre has to gain direct experience in allthe kingdoms of nature, from submineral to superhuman, through repeated embodiments in many different forms.
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You’re saying that death is only relative – there’s always something that survives.
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Yes. 
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Our physical body dies when the inner forces that hold it together as an organic unit are exhausted or withdrawn. 
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It then disintegrates into its component elements, as do our astral model-body and lower animal-human mind or soul. 
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Our human-spiritual soul or reincarnating soul, on the other hand, is said to enter a dreamlike state of consciousness in which it rests and digests the lessons of the previous life. 
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When the time comes for it to reincarnate, its lower astral and physical vehicles are reformed from many of the same atoms used in the previous life, so that we get the body and personality we deserve.
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Every organic system, whatever its relative size, is an evolving entity, animated by inner energy-fields or souls, and subject to the same basic process of birth, growth, death, and rebirth. 
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Nothing comes from nothing, and nothing can be annihilated into nothing; energy-substance can only be transformed. 
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Every entity, every relatively self-contained individuality or monad, has existed before – in some form and on some plane. 
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And it will always continue to exist in some form, for every entity is the centre of an unbreakable chain of causation stretching from eternity to eternity.
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D Pratt

Higher beings not Gods

Modern humans confronted by higher beings would most likely call them Gods simply because they are so far advanced compared to ordinary man.
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Their knowledge on all subjects is light years in front of ours.
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To be in their presence is an amazing experience because all doubts, fears and questions disappear and are replaced by a feeling of total safety and peace.
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Love you might say.
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Once this has been experienced one has no doubts about what they say or teach any longer.
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And what they all say and teach is the perennial wisdom.
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So in this instance one of these masters is talking about 'The reality or otherwise of God or Gods'. 


The master KH says:
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To regard God as an intelligent spirit, and accept at the same time his absolute immateriality is to conceive of a nonentity, a blank void.
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The idea ... either of a finite or infinite nothing is a contradiction in terms.
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We deny God both as philosophers and as Buddhists,’ says KH. 
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He adds: ‘We know there are planetary and other spiritual lives.
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Often called planetary spirits or dhyani-chohans (a term that usually refers to beings who have evolved beyond the human kingdom). 
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But they are certainly not ‘extra-cosmic’ or ‘supernatural’ spirits devoid of any substantial nature. 
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Intelligence as found in our dhyan chohans,’ he says, ‘is a faculty that can appertain but to organized or animated being.


However imponderable or rather invisible the materials of their organizations.
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The organisms of the highest planetary spirits or dhyani-chohans are composed of matter in its seventh state. 
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Even the lowest planetary spirits are made of matter ‘so impalpable ... that science calls it energy and force.
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KH
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And yes these beings exist on and around our planet today.
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And no they are not in the public eye nor are most of them known to modern man.
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What they say is the truth and their teachings are all around us if we did but have the interest to look.
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This search is individual and has ever been thus.
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Are you looking for the truth of things?

Substance

You’ve said that concrete things or systems are by definition substantial or material, but what exactly is substance?

Substance is that which can be perceived and touched – though not necessarily by ourselves.

Matter basically means the same thing, though it’s often used to refer to only physical grades of substance.

Concrete things are therefore something rather than nothing, whereas abstractions are in themselves nothing, though they may be represented in a concrete form, e.g. as words on paper, electrical patterns in our brains, or as ethereal thought-forms, which are visible to some clairvoyants.

But what is substance in and of itself?

What’s it made of?

We could say that matter particles of one grade are temporary, relatively stable condensations of an underlying medium, composed of finer particles which are condensations of a deeper substantial medium, and so on, ad infinitum.

Ultimately everything can be resolved into motion or vibration, but motion is just an empty abstraction unless it is motion of something, and something by definition is substance.

Every grade of substance is generated by motion of a more ethereal grade of substance, and consists of particlelike discontinuities, though it may seem relatively homogeneous and undifferentiated to beings on other planes.

Are the inner worlds or planes extra dimensions?

No.

In its broadest sense, a dimension is any measurable property or quantity, such as length, mass, temperature, time, etc.

Strictly speaking, infinite space has no dimensions because it can’t be measured.

Only finite units of space, or concrete objects and entities are measurable.

It seems reasonable to suppose that on every plane of reality, size can be measured in only three directions, corresponding to length, width, and height.

Which are often referred to loosely as ‘spatial’ dimensions.

But the inner worlds themselves should not really be called dimensions.
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David Pratt

Red dot

1. View the whole image and stare at the red dot on the girl's nose for 30 seconds. 

2. Turn your eyes to a plain surface - your ceiling or a blank wall.

3. Blink repeatedly and quickly .... and voila! 

Lake Vostok - Antarctica

After 20 years of drilling, a team of Russian researchers is close to breaching the prehistoric 
Lake Vostok, which has been trapped deep beneath Antarctica for the last 14 million years.
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The lakes are rich in oxygen (making them oligotropic), with levels of the element some 50 times higher than what would be found in your typical freshwater lake. 
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The high gas concentration is thought to be because of the enormous weight and pressure of the continental ice cap.Vostok is the largest in a sub-glacial web of more than 200 lakes that are hidden 4km beneath the ice. 
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Some of the lakes formed when the continent was much warmer and (possibly) still connected to Australia.

If life exists in Vostok, it will have to be an extremophile — a life form that has adapted to survive in extreme environments. The organism would have to withstand high pressure, constant cold, low nutrient input, high oxygen concentration and an absence of sunlight.

The conditions in Lake Vostok are thought to be similar to the conditions on Jupiter’s moon Europa and Saturn’s tiny moon Enceladus. In June, NASA probe Cassini found the best evidence yet for a massive saltwater reservoir beneath the icy surface of Enceladus. 
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This all means that finding life in the inhospitable depths of Vostok would strengthen the case for life in the outer solar system.
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Back on planet Earth, the team at Vostok are running short on time. Antarctica’s summer will soon end and the researchers need to leave their remote base while they still can. 
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Temperatures will drop as low as -80C, grounding planes and trapping the team.
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They missed their chance last year. 
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Time is short, however. 
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It’s probable that the drillers won’t be able to reach the water before the end of the Antarctic summer.
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Then they’ll need to wait another year before the process can continue. 
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The drill halted in February.

Meanwhile, Russian engineers are planning to venture into the lake itself, with swimming robots. 
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In the Antarctic summer of 2012 to 2013, they plan to send a robot into the lake to collect water samples and sediments from the bottom. 
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An environmental assessment of the plan will be submitted at the Antarctic Treaty’s consultative meeting in May 2012.

Mark Brown

KH on religion

Often today man chooses to place an undue reliance on ceremonial, orders, Churches, creeds and their equivalent.
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Not thinking for a moment what they have become.
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Thereby sacrificing the virility of individual effort and freedom of thought.
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The Master K. H. writes in very clear terms on this subject, and it may be well to quote his own words. 
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And now after making due allowance for evils that are natural and cannot be avoided . . . I will point out the greatest, the chief cause of nearly two-thirds of the evils that pursue humanity ever since that cause became a power. 
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It is religion under whatever form and in whatsoever nation. 
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It is the sacerdotal caste, the priesthood and the Churches.
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It is in those illusions that man looks upon as sacred.
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That he has to search out the source of that multitude of evils which is the great curse of humanity, and that almost overwhelms mankind. 
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Ignorance created Gods, and cunning took advantage of the opportunity.
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And again "Far from our thoughts may it ever be to erect a new hierarchy for the future oppression of a priest ridden world."  
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The inference and the message of these words in our own times is sufficiently clear.
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Have you ever thought about the damage done in the name of religion?
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What is literally an evil with hundreds, no thousands of religions globally touting their messages.
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All claiming to be the one truth.
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If you have seen this what have you done?
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Supporting evil is not cool.