50+ Years Of This Harmful Addiction To Failure

The stupidity - it just never ends:

Bolivia will this month table a draft United Nations treaty giving "Mother Earth" the same rights as humans — having just passed a domestic law that does the same for bugs, trees and all other natural things in the South American country.

Can "Mother Earth" be sued like a human being then? Because if so, I think Japan's got a case,...and, if Japan wins, how will the Earth pay up?

I say we take it out of Bolivia.

When Cults Collide - Scientology Vs. Landmark:

Training to be a Scientologist involves a large amount of time spent seated at a desk, studying the works of L. Ron Hubbard. This method is, according to the official Scientology website, “unique in the field of learning” and ensures that students are “not only assimilating data, but actually learning how to apply it”. Full acceptance of what one has been taught is necessary to rise through the ranks and in this manner, Scientology is more of a hierarchical religion than an organisation solely focused on improving the lives of those involved.

In the 1960s, an American man named Werner Erhard entered Scientology and rose a short way through the ranks before leaving. He was especially interested in E-meters, devices that measure the skin’s conductivity and electrical resistance and supposedly reveal meaningful facts about an individual’s mental state and personality. Erhard studied many belief and self-help systems during this time until he set up his own in 1971, which taught participants to focus their minds on controlling their desires and urges to become more productive in their daily life.

Erhard’s techniques can be seen as having two levels of intensity: The Forum, or Landmark, is a global group now separate from Erhard that utilises his techniques for training mostly corporates; and Est Training, run by Erhard Seminars Training, which is almost nonexistent nowadays but was popular until the early ’90s. Est Training used more extreme teaching methods in which participants spent around 60 hours over four days in intense workshops (for example, you were not allowed to go to the bathroom, at the expense of wetting your pants). Erhard’s training concepts and jargon reflected Scientology in many ways, with training sessions initially involving use of the e-meter.

Some might say that Erhard did more than use Scientology for inspiration, but rather blatantly exploited Scientology’s concepts.

Gee, two cults have been influencing the American outlook for 50+ years, and continue to do so, though what we, as a country, have gotten in return is debatable. Think these cults have had any real effect on the way many people - especially our leaders - think? And do you think there might be any connection between that and the way nothing seems to be working out since these cults - cults! - came on the scene? Let's think about this some more,...


Personal trainers are so last season... Now, if you haven't got a mystic you're nobody:

A few years ago, no professional woman worth her salt was without a personal trainer and an online career coach. Now, post-recession, we’ve realised that abs you can bounce peas off and a crib-sheet of office jargon aren’t going to make us happy.

Perhaps that’s why increasing numbers of us are turning to personal gurus to work on our inner growth.

With organised religion apparently fading in favour of a pick-and-mix approach to spirituality, many women are choosing to put their faith in paid advisers.

Hmmmm, a "personal trainer and an online career coach" didn't work out either - because women (notice it's not just women but "professional" women) wanted to be stereotypically "happy" - but do these women change strategies when they don't find success? Nooooooo! They "move on" alright - but to another version of the same thing! Brilliant these girls are. Just fucking brilliant. Like they're constantly switching from heroin to crack.

Welcome to the reason we're broke, folks.