Changing Our Minds

by Rootsie

As I was driving to work the other morning, I saw this bumper sticker on the car in front of me:

The problems we face will not be solved by the minds that created them.

There are a lot of ways to think about this, and as I have been contemplating with some bitterness the coming global war which we apparently can do nothing to prevent, I thought about how this supposedly great Western supposed civilization has the cojones to fancy itself the global leader in the search to solve humanity’s persistent problems, while it itself has either generated or exacerbated all of them. I thought about the moral bankruptcy I’m so fond of pointing out, inspired by Ayinde’s very simple (on the face of it anyway) contention that only from among the worst historical victims will come the conscious people to lead us out of this mess.

The white West is very fond of announcing what this year’s, decade’s, century’s and millenium’s problem is and how they will solve it for everybody. One of the big issues du jour is the sorry state of Africa, to be addressed through Western aid initiatives and ‘rooting out corruption’ and so forth, which is such astonishing hypocrisy to anybody who reads the news with a little historical context. First you rob Africa blind and continue to, and then she is supposed to be falling over backward thanking you for your charity. Charity makes the generous benefactor feel really good, which privileged people figure is their god-given right to be feeling all the time. The proper gesture, which is reparations, on the other hand suggests “Hey we broke it. We stole it. It’s just that we not only apologize for our folly but seek to repair some fraction of the damage.” That doesn’t feel nearly as good.

Moral bankruptcy means that even if you want to do something ‘good’ you can’t. You can NOT. That is tough for the arrogant to swallow. Including me. The same arrogant mindset that has visited such planetary misery can’t rush forth to save the planet now.

By and large, nobody’s mind has changed a whole lot in the West over the last 1,000 years: remember, the ideas of the ‘Enlightenment’ didn’t deviate much from the view of a static universe held by most of the Greeks. The last century of physics, though, holds out some hope. Ironically, the revelations rising from the exploration of the quantum world are nothing new. They just lend mathematical fire power to the oldest indigenous human ideas, ideas that were forgotten or disregarded or distorted.

The bumper sticker suggests something along these lines, something on the quantum level: we can, after all, literally change our minds, every human can, even white folks. But that requires a lot of click/delete, a lot of entering of new data into the human biocomputer. It can be done, but thinking you’re doing it and actually doing it are very different things. One of my teachers speaks of ‘ruthless self-examination,’ and that is what really changing our minds involves. To get the neurons to fire along new pathways, we have to shut down the old ones, and this means we have to be able to minutely observe our assumptions and our actions, and discard the faulty ones, which it turns out are most.

It also turns out that this whole privilege thing we’re riding so high on is what will get us in the end if we don’t think our way beyond it. Our relative comfort and material plenty. Our relative safety. Privilege sets up a negative feedback loop that tells us we are the masters and mistresses of the universe, and all we have to do is think it and it will be done. Well in a way this is so, but look at the crap we’ve been thinking. All the good stuff we think we’re doing backfires because the crappiness of our thinking begets mayhem and pestilence and abomination, which we conveniently blame on ‘them,’ whoever ‘they’ may be this week. ‘They’ tend not to be white, not Western (or Northern). ‘They’ need our urgent help or require our naked aggression. Once we have ‘them’ in hand it’s gonna be all right. We are the ones who make things right. This junk plays out in the nastiest of ways in the individual psyche.

It’s interesting, the interplay of collective and individual thought. Maybe there is really no such thing as individual thought, only collective thought distilled. I am no scientist of consciousness, but on the other hand any scientist of consciousness who does not take the historical situation which colors their ideas into account is going to be off the mark. One feature of the crappiness of Western thought is the compartmentalization of it: you’ve got string theorists zinging around in a megaverse of infinite dimensions, while the presidents and CEO’s of the places they live are busy trashing up this tiny corner of it.

In a little New York town across the lake from me, a city councilor
tried to pass a resolution calling for the impeachment of Bush based on the lies of WMD that precipitated the war in Iraq. His critics told him that Plattsburgh New York is not the place to debate these things, and that he should be concentrating on how to make local tax dollars stretch to pay for the things the town needs.
Only a string theorist could figure out how to do that, frankly, and the idea that what’s going on ‘over there’ has nothing to do with ‘us’ is preposterous. Anyone trying to make things better on a local level without deeply and publicly critiquing Western assumptions of superiority, and the actions which naturally follow from them, is a co-conspirator, ensuring the perpetuation of the problems he thinks he’s trying to solve.

When I googled the quote on the bumper sticker, I found that Albert Einstein said it. No surprise there. Einstein didn’t like quantum physics, though. “God doesn’t play dice,” he said, referring to the wild randomness that seems to exist in the subatomic world. But the quantum view of the universe now emerging is, I suspect, something he would like very much. You can now go into a number of labs in the world and actually see a single particle in two places at once. String theorists have an explanation for why the gravity we experience is so much weaker than the other universal forces: it turns out that graviton particles probably leap from dimension to dimension. Lucky for us, because otherwise the universe would be a single black hole: zero mass, infinite density. Our very existence here and now, in this place, is an incomprehensible miracle. At any one of numerous junctures in the last 15 billion or so years, a slightly different chemical reaction would have sent matter flying apart or crashing together or mixing around in ways that would have made us impossible. We are the product of the narrowest window of possibilities: I wonder why that isn’t mystery enough for us, God enough for us.

One way to change our minds is to contemplate the universe, the stunning enormity of which we are an infinitesimal part, a smear of biosphere on a rock orbiting a third-rate star in a forgotten corner of the cosmos…somehow our earliest ancestors knew that whatever goes on down here is just the palest reflection of what’s happening up there. They discerned that there are basic laws with which humans must align themselves. Humility, empathy, unity—these are the values born of a universal perspective. We would be merciful to ourselves and to each other if we grasped our amazing fragility and the miracle of our existence. We would look at the human productions of time that dazzle us so much as just a tiny spark in the vast furnace of creation that tumbles and swirls around us. It is not all about us, and we are not all that, but the subatomic particles that make us what we are exhibit properties that point to capabilities we are just beginning to be able to imagine.

Lurking under this war and that war and the attacks on the planet’s natural processes is the neural rut we’ve dug these past few thousand years. It is typified by the Christian idea of the ‘fallenness’ of human nature and of the earth, and backed up by any number of ‘scientific studies.’ People are bad and violent and only the most strenuous interventions by the better ones among us in the form of military aggression and the establishment of elitist authoritarian regimes can keep humans’ natural impulses at bay. A bunch of people are waiting for Jesus to come pull their asses out of the fire, while the power-mongers exploit that passivity to pretty much do anything they want.

What a radically different view emerges from the oldest/newest ideas: we can have any reality we are willing to cultivate, and these changes can be effected from inside out. Before we can change our minds, we have to understand that it is possible, and then we have to be willing to make the effort. Our privilege works against us, telling us we shouldn’t have to work too hard to do anything. But changing our minds feels like death, and it’s what’s meant by the idea that “you must be born again,” not to Jesus, but to some closer semblance of our true quantum universal selves.

As it stands, and as I have said so many times before, the West has nothing to say to the rest of the world. As long as the same minds are rutted in the same grooves, there is no possible way for them to improve anything anywhere.

For starters, history has to be engaged. All of it, from mega to micro. Even the ‘best’ Western science was born off the back of centuries of denial, suppression, and exploitation, and it is ok to know it and say it and still affiliate ourselves with the best of what humanity can produce, allowing our actions to reflect that understanding.

We can change our minds, but will we? I don’t know, but I do know that the universe will continue in its infinite generosity bringing new things forth out of nothing, whatever little old we decide.
rootsie on 02.04.06 @ 03:37 PM CST [link]

Iran to immediately curb UN atom checks after vote

VIENNA (Reuters) - Iran will immediately curb UN inspections of its nuclear plants and pursue full-scale uranium enrichment after a UN nuclear watchdog agency vote reporting it to the Security Council, a senior Iranian official said on Saturday.

"After this decision, Iran has to immediately bring into force its parliamentary law to suspend voluntary implementation of (the watchdog agency's) Additional Protocol (on snap inspections) and (pursue) commercial-scale enrichment which until today was under full suspension," Javad Vaeedi, deputy Iranian nuclear negotiator, told reporters after the vote.
reuters.com


nice to see the Germans back on 'our' side:

Merkel likens Iran threat to Nazi era
MUNICH, Germany (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel likened Iran's nuclear plans on Saturday to the threat posed by the Nazis in their early days, as top U.S. officials urged a tough line to stop Tehran from making an atomic bomb.

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld accused the Islamic republic of being the world's leading sponsor of terrorism, a charge his Iranian counterpart rejected as "ridiculous" and "outrageous".

Addressing the annual Munich security conference, Merkel said countries around the world had underestimated the Nazi threat as Adolf Hitler rose to power.

"Looking back to German history in the early 1930s when National Socialism (Nazism) was on the rise, there were many outside Germany who said 'It's only rhetoric -- don't get excited'," she told the assembled world defense policy makers.

"There were times when people could have reacted differently and, in my view, Germany is obliged to do something at the early stages ... We want to, we must prevent Iran from developing its nuclear program."



Iran launched 'secret' rocket test
IRAN secretly tested a new surface-to-surface missile (SSM) on January 17, seeking to establish the measurements needed for long-range missiles, the German daily Die Welt reported in its issue to appear today.

The test, conducted by members of the Revolutionary Guard led by Yahya Rahim Safavi, was successful, according to Western diplomats cited by the newspaper, which did not indicate the location where the test took place.

On January 28, Safavi said that Iran would use its ballistic missiles if it was attacked.

"Iran has a ballistic missile with a range of 2,000 kilometres," he said on Iranian public television.

"We do not intend to attack any country, but if we are attacked, we are capable of effectively responding. Our position is defensive."


Embassies torched as cartoon furor grows
DAMASCUS (Reuters) - Furious Syrians set fire to the Danish and Norwegian embassies on Saturday as protests over cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad showed no signs of abating despite calls for calm.

Oil giant Iran, already embroiled in a dispute with the West over its nuclear programme, said it was reviewing trade ties with countries that have published such caricatures.

Something is about to blow...
rootsie on 02.04.06 @ 03:16 PM CST [link]

Maxine Waters urges the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to investigate the Coup d'État in Haiti

Washington, D.C. - Today, Rep. Maxine Waters (CA-35) expressed her support for a petition that is being filed before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. The petition seeks to establish that the Bush Administration participated in a coup d'etat to overthrow President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the democratically-elected President of Haiti, in February of 2004, and, in so doing, violated the democratic rights of the people of Haiti.

The Congresswoman's statement follows:
Two years ago, our government was a party to a coup d'etat in Haiti. President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the democratically-elected President of Haiti, was forced to leave Haiti in a regime change supported by the United States. President Aristide left the country on February 29, 2004, aboard a U.S. airplane when U.S. Marines and Embassy officials came to his home in the wee hours of the morning and told him to leave immediately or he and thousands of other Haitians would be killed. The U.S. plane took him to the Central African Republic and left him there.

This coup d'etat was carried out after groups of heavily-armed thugs had taken over several Haitian towns, occupied police stations, terrorized the local population, and entered Haiti's capitol. Many of these thugs were former soldiers from the brutal Haitian army, and many of them continue to roam Haiti today with impunity.

After the coup d'etat, I led a delegation of President Aristide's friends and supporters to escort President Aristide out of the Central African Republic and accompany him to Jamaica, where he was reunited with his family. President Aristide and his family are now living in exile in South Africa.

Two years later, the tragic results of regime change in Haiti are clear. Haiti is in total chaos. The unelected interim government, which was put in power by the United States and has received unprecedented support from our government, is both oppressive and incompetent. Violence is widespread, and security is non-existent. The Haitian police have been implicated in extrajudicial executions, and the interim government has imprisoned hundreds of political prisoners without trial. Haitian elections, which are now scheduled for next Tuesday, have been postponed several times, are fraught with technical problems, and are unlikely to be free and fair.

I urge the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to investigate the coup d'etat that occurred on February 29, 2004, and determine the role of the Bush Administration in this travesty of justice, which denied the democratic rights of the people of Haiti.
haitiaction.net
rootsie on 02.04.06 @ 10:40 AM CST [link]

Rumsfeld and Negroponte Amp Up Attacks on Chavez

During an appearance today at the National Press Club in Washington, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld compared Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez to Hitler, declaring, "We've got Chavez in Venezuela with a lot of oil money. He's a person who was elected legally, just as Adolf Hitler was elected legally, and then consolidated power, and now is of course working closely with [Cuban leader] Fidel Castro and Mr. Morales [Bolivian President Evo Morales] and others. It concerns me."

Concurrently, in testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence of the U.S. Congress, John Negroponte, Director of National Intelligence, which oversees the 15 intelligence bodies of the U.S. Government, claimed, "In Venezuela, President Chavez, if he wins reelection later this year, appears ready to use his control of the legislature and other institutions to continue to stifle the opposition, reduce press freedom, and entrench himself through measures that are technically legal, but which nonetheless constrict democracy. We expect Chavez to deepen his relationship with Castro (Venezuela provides roughly two-thirds of that island's oil needs on preferential credit terms). He also is seeking closer economic, military, and diplomatic ties with Iran and North Korea. Chavez has scaled back counter-narcotics cooperation with the US. Increased oil revenues have allowed Chavez to embark on an activist foreign policy in Latin America that includes providing oil at favorable repayment rates to gain allies, using newly created media outlets to generate support for his Bolivarian goals, and meddling in the internal affairs of his neighbors by backing particular candidates for elective office."
counterpunch.org
rootsie on 02.04.06 @ 10:36 AM CST [link]

Rumsfeld Offers Strategies for Current War

The United States is engaged in what could be a generational conflict akin to the Cold War, the kind of struggle that might last decades as allies work to root out terrorists across the globe and battle extremists who want to rule the world, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said yesterday.

Rumsfeld, who laid out broad strategies for what the military and the Bush administration are now calling the "long war," likened al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden to Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin while urging Americans not to give in on the battle of wills that could stretch for years. He said there is a tendency to underestimate the threats that terrorists pose to global security, and said liberty is at stake.

"Compelled by a militant ideology that celebrates murder and suicide with no territory to defend, with little to lose, they will either succeed in changing our way of life, or we will succeed in changing theirs," Rumsfeld said in a speech at the National Press Club.
washingtonpost.com


Rumsfeld: Terror Threat High
"The enemy — while weakened and under pressure — is still capable of global reach, and still possesses the determination to kill more Americans — and to do so with the world's most dangerous weapons," Rumsfeld said in remarks prepared for delivery at the National Press Club.


Bush's Budget to Call for Nuclear Partnership With Russia
WASHINGTON, Feb. 3 — The Bush administration will propose in its budget on Monday the creation of an atomic energy partnership with Russia, offering countries a supply of fuel for their reactors under restrictions intended to prevent them from developing nuclear weapons, according to administration officials.

Under the proposal, the United States and Russia would provide reactor fuel to other countries and take back the spent fuel afterward to prevent its use in weaponry. President Bush called for a similar plan two years ago, and the International Atomic Energy Agency has recommended an international fuel system in which it would control custody of nuclear fuel.
rootsie on 02.04.06 @ 10:32 AM CST [link]

Here we go...

World Nuclear Panel to Refer Iran to U.N. Security Council

Published: February 4, 2006
VIENNA, Feb. 3 - In a move that could change the course of international diplomacy towards Iran, the 35-nation board of the International Atomic Energy Agency approved a resolution on Saturday to report the country’s nuclear case to the United Nations Security Council.

The resolution, which passed 27-3 with five abstentions, opens the door for the first time to possible punitive action against Iran in the New York body over fears that it is developing a nuclear weapon.

Cuba, Syria and Venezuela voted against the resolution. Algeria, Belarus, Indonesia, Libya and South Africa abstained.

The vote is the climax of a two-and-a-half year campaign by the Bush administration to convince the world that suspicions about Iran’s nuclear program are so serious that the issue must come before the Security Council for judgment.


Russian MP: US-Israeli anti-Iranian moves, premeditated assassination of Iranian nation
Russian Duma representative Alexi Mitrafanov Friday called the harmonized plot hatched by some EU members, United States, and Israel against Iran's nuclear program "premeditated assassination" of the Iranian nation."

Mitrafanov made the comment in an exclusive interview with IRNA, adding, "The reason behind US-Israeli antagonist policies pursued against Iran is your country's independent and nationalist policies, that can be a model for other countries in the region."

On Iran's nuclear dossier, he said, "The united States, backed by the EU, the IAEA, and the UN Security Council lever, intends to impose sanctions against Iran, but such sanctions would initially inflict losses against the Americans and the Europeans."

The Duma representative added, "In that case the oil prices would rise up to $100 per barrel and the West would suffer other losses, as well."

He said, "Having the full cycle of producing nuclear fuel for peaceful purposes, too, is Iran's natural right, and it is neither logical, nor possible to deprive your country of that legal right resorting to unreasonable pretexts."


China's UN Envoy: Won't Support Sanctions Against Iran
UNITED NATIONS (AP)--China would never support sanctions against Iran as a " matter of principle," the Chinese ambassador to the U.N. said Friday, adding that his nation still prefers a low-key approach in confronting Tehran's nuclear ambitions.

Ambassador Wang Guangya told reporters that he did not want the Security Council to put pressure on Iran, but instead to support the International Atomic Energy Agency as it tries to defuse the standoff over Iran's suspect nuclear program.


Iran has no bomb but it will hit back, US told
IRAN'S clerical regime is supremely confident, has a firm grip on power and is ready to retaliate against attacks by the US or Israel with missiles or by activating terrorist allies, the latest American intelligence assessment says.

The National Intelligence Director, John Negroponte, delivered an implied rebuke to those in Washington hoping the West can engineer regime change in Tehran. In Tuesday's State of the Union address, President George Bush issued a veiled call for the Iranian people to rise up against the mullahs.

But on Thursday, as the International Atomic Energy Agency's governing body prepared to vote on a resolution to report Iran to the UN Security Council, Mr Negroponte suggested there was no imminent threat of Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon.

Tehran "probably" did not have an atomic bomb or the fissile material to make one, he said. But the risk Iran could make or buy a nuclear device and mount it on its missiles was "reason for immediate concern".

Mr Negroponte told the Senate intelligence committee: "Iran already has the largest inventory of ballistic missiles in the Middle East. And Tehran views its ballistic missiles as an integral part of its strategy to deter and, if necessary, retaliate against forces in the region, including United States forces."

Mr Negroponte also noted that the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group in Lebanon "has a worldwide support network and is capable of attacks against US interests if it feels its Iranian patron is threatened".
rootsie on 02.04.06 @ 10:22 AM CST [link]

Taliban Battle Afghan Forces in Drug Region

KABUL, Afghanistan, Feb. 3 — Heavy fighting in southern Afghanistan between the Taliban and Afghan police forces left three policemen and at least six Taliban militants dead, Afghan officials said Friday.

United States-led coalition forces and the Afghan Army were also drawn into the fighting, providing air support and ground troops in the battle that began Thursday night and lasted into Friday afternoon, an American Army spokesman said.

No American casualties were reported, he said.

The clash was one of the most serious in months, and it could be a sign that Taliban forces were regrouping in large numbers in advance of the spring. It also came as NATO prepared to take over military command of southern Afghanistan.

The clash began when the local police investigated a report of militants in an area south of Sangin, in Helmand Province, a big poppy-growing area where antigovernment militants have allied themselves with drug traffickers. The police came under fire and found themselves battling a large group of armed men, and temporarily surrounded.
nytimes.com


AFP: Fierce Fighting in Kandahar: 23 Killed
02/03/06 "AFP" --- --- Kandahar -- US-led coalition planes bombed Friday an area of southern Afghanistan where a fierce battle had erupted between Taliban-linked militants and police, leaving about 23 dead, officials said.

"Coalition ground and air forces are on the ground... they are bombing the Taliban," interior ministry spokesman Yousuf Stanizai told AFP.

"Coalition forces provided close-air support to Afghan security forces during an engagement," coalition spokesman Lieutenant Mike Cody confirmed.

The fighting broke out near southern Helmand province's Sangin district when police began a security sweep in response to several recent attacks on security posts, deputy provincial governor Amir Mohammad Akhundzada told AFP.

Reports from the battlefield said 20 rebels and three policemen had been killed, Akhundzada said.

Nearly 20 insurgents and 10 policemen were also wounded, he said. "The fighting is ongoing," he said. "The Taliban have hidden in villages; we're worried for the security of civilians." Akhundzada said he believed the police were up against a force of more than 200 men armed with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades.
rootsie on 02.04.06 @ 10:10 AM CST [link]

Faheem Hussain:Democracy and Violence

Don’t get me wrong. I am not advocating violence as such. But when I heard on the news and read in the newspapers about Jack Straw, Condoleeza Rice, Kofi Annan and others lecturing Hamas on the incompatibility of democracy and violence it nearly made me choke over my breakfast. The hypocrisy of it all. And some of our own leader writers joined in the general chorus. It takes two to tango. I did not see, in any of these calls to Hamas, reciprocal calls on Israel to stop its continuing daily violence against Palestinians.

As if democracy and violence have never existed together. As if democracy and violence do not go simply and always hand in hand. Which present day democratic state does not employ violence and terror? The US which claims to be a democratic country has used violent and terroristic means to impose its will over smaller countries. It has overthrown governments, which it does not like, by force throughout its history and has illegally invaded and terrorised many countries. The list is very long. Remember the Philippines, Cuba, Iran in the 50s, Indonesia, Chile, Guatemala, Iraq just to name a few important examples and has plans to continue to do so in the future. And what about Abu Ghraib, Baghram and Guantanamo? Are these not the living symbols of US “democracy” and violence? Stokely Carmichael, remember him of 60s fame, once said that violence is as American as apple pie. And to paraphrase Mark Antony “It is a democratic country”.

The champion of democracy in the Middle East, Israel, has occupied Palestine and practices terror on a large scale against Palestinians. Only a couple of years ago it flattened Jenin and continues to carry out what it calls “targeted killings” which are simply acts of murder. The great European democracies, England and France, maintained their colonies through violence and terror; so I wonder what Jack Straw was talking about. India, the world’s largest democracy, practices terror and violence in Kashmir.
zmag.org
rootsie on 02.04.06 @ 09:59 AM CST [link]

Scientist: Bird flu not biological weapon

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia, Feb. 3 (UPI) -- The avian influenza virus originated naturally and is not a biological weapon, a senior Russian scientist has said.

Oleg Kiselyov, director of the Russian Influenza Research Institute, said Thursday, "We have not advanced enough to create such a genetic machine," the RIA Novosti news agency reported.

If the bird flu virus had been created artificially in order to be used as a biological weapon, scientists would have discovered this, he said.
upi.com
rootsie on 02.04.06 @ 09:54 AM CST [link]

Hundreds of Mentally Ill to Be Executed in America: Amnesty

02/02/06 "OneWorld" -- -- Amnesty International is asking that hundreds of mentally ill people facing the death penalty in American prisons have their sentences commuted.

Ten percent of the first 1,000 people executed in the United States since 1977 suffered from illnesses ranging from schizophrenia to post-traumatic stress disorder and brain damage, the leading rights watchdog and opponent of capital punishment said in a report released Tuesday.

Another 3,400 people remain on death row and 5-10 percent of them have mental illnesses, Amnesty said, citing estimates by the National Institute of Mental Health.

The revelations coincided with hearings Wednesday in which U.S. senators heard about the death penalty from relatives of crime victims.
informationclearinghouse.info
rootsie on 02.04.06 @ 09:50 AM CST [link]

Pentagon Database Leaves No Child Alone

02/03/06 "ICH" -- -- All over the country, organized citizens are fighting to restrict the military’s presence in schools. But having recruiters troll high schools cafeterias is just one way the Pentagon inundates our youngsters with messages to “Go Army!”

Since 2002, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has spent a half-million dollars a year creating a database it claims is “arguably the largest repository of 16-25 year-old youth data in the country, containing roughly 30 million records.” In Pentagonese the database is part of the Joint Advertising, Marketing Research and Studies (JAMRS) project. Its purpose, along with additional millions spent on polling and marketing research, is to give the Pentagon’s $4 billion annual recruiting budget maximum impact. And it has lit a fire under civil libertarians, privacy advocates and counter-recruiting activists across the nation.
informationclearinghouse.info
rootsie on 02.04.06 @ 09:45 AM CST [link]