The mixing is done on our new single called “The Miracle Field”. We’re very excited about the new tune, I think we’ve raised the bar on this song.  A 45 second clip of the song will be posted on the website soon. The song is currently being mastered by Steve Turnidge (co-founder of Weedshare).  We will […]

Portland is currently in the lead for demands to have us put on a concert in their town. If you would like us to play in your town demand it here. Here is a current list of cities that have demanded the Reverse Engineers.

Mercury in Retrograde was entered in a contest on www.OurStage.com in the Rock Category and within a few short weeks it has skyrocketed to #7 (out of 568 entries). The grand prize winner out of all music channels will win a grand prize of $5,000.  The top 20 in each channel during the last 7 […]

The band has been steadily at work writing new songs for what we are calling a mini-album. We plan on releasing a mini-album of 3 songs by June. This mini-album will be part 1 of 4. We will be releasing each mini-album as digital downloads and then release a cd upon completion of all 4 […]

Is it a coincidence that the same day Tom Hayden writes about The 'Long War' quagmire, Obama pops up in Afghanistan on an "unannounced trip?"

Probably--but the implications of Hayden's op-ed piece are dire: in the absence of an ongoing "Cold War" to stoke the fires of unbridled defense expenses, the neocons will need to promote 80 years of undeclared war against "insurgent groups from Europe to South Asia."

Of course, along with defense contractors keeping in business--big business--there is the untold correlating hardship of casualties of Americans in the field.

So is Obama in Afghanistan today to reassure troops on their mission, to discuss options for the long haul with his generals? Or is he developing a way to sell the taxpayers on why they need to pay for 100,000 ground forces in a country who's biggest export is based on the opium poppy seed?

Simon Wiesenthal spoke at a huge temple in Los Angeles in 1978. I paid the fee and bought one of his books in order to see him speak in person. He was said to be in poor health at the time--he was 70 years old--and I wanted to see the man who I thought was the figurehead of the mantra of the Holocaust--of the Jews murdered by the Nazis in WWII--to "never forget," and thus never repeat, such atrocities.

Mr. Wiesenthal signed my copy of Sails of Hope, his book that concludes that Christopher Columbus was Jewish, which Mr. Wiesenthal wrote, among many others, in order to raise funds for his Jewish Historical Documentation Center in Austria. I wonder if I had known that he was to live another 26 years, if I would have gone to see him speak that day.

I remember what he said to this day, 32 years later. I was stunned by his ferocity, and his profound and unfamiliar ideas!

Wiesenthal was known as a Nazi criminal hunter. That was the simplistic explanation for his documentation of thousands of Nazis who escaped Germany after the war and whom Wiesenthal methodically tried to bring to justice, in order to keep the memory of the crimes alive.

I even remember a period in my youth when people, including Jews,said "enough is enough--let's put all this behind us and move on." Wiesenthal never heard that. He only knew that the memory of the holocaust would prevent it from happening again.

But I could not have imagined that he would have an idea I hadn't already heard, in his speech the day I saw him. And to this day, what he said has not been heard enough.

I can remember the basic premise, not the actual words--Mr. Wiesenthal said that the Jews of the world, the world Jewish community, lost so many friends after the war, because the common cry, the universal appeal for humanity, was that 6 million Jews--civilians, not soldiers--were systematically killed by the Nazis in WWII. Mr. Wiesenthal said that the world Jewish community, trying to gain support for their cause as a misplaced people, and as a beaten-down people, lost empathy from other non-Jewish groups by repeating this number: 6 million murdered--because in Europe, under Hitler's Nazis, there were also 5 million non-Jewish civilians murdered--11 million total non-combative innocent men, women and children--murdered by the Nazis in Europe.

I have heard the number of 6 million Jews killed in the holocaust all my life--but I always correct that if I can to say that an additional 5 million were killed by the Nazis in Europe--political dissidents, Gypsies, homosexuals, clerics, handicapped--11 million total.

The other point Mr. Wiesenthal made, which should have been obvious but was not, was that most of the Nazi war criminals he had in his files were not old men--they were younger than I am today which is 60. Why was this an important and shocking statement? Because my generation considered World War II to be ancient history, and it wasn't. It had happened as recently back then, as the Vietnam War seems to us today--35 years. So, people of my generation, children of the 50's--Clinton's fellow baby-boomers--should be able to relate to events such as Wiesenthal describes with an equally objective point of view.

Guess again!

Mr. Wiesenthal left out of the calculation of 11 million killed, additionally the Russians who were non-combative personnel. Who can tally the tens of millions of Russian people killed by Hitler's army, as well as by the dictator himself, Stalin?

It's no secret that today the American quasi Jewish community harbors such difference of opinion and outlook that an article which describes this appeared in the New York Review Of Books under the title The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment. There are young liberal Jews, Jewish Zionists who support Israel, liberal secular Israeli Jews--on and on.

There are Jews around the world who are poor--hundreds of thousands in New York City alone--to counter the "rich Jew" stereotype. There is also a highly persuasive, mega-rich, powerful Jewish lobby which has openly been able to steer US pro-Israel policy since that country's inception 62 years ago. While many people have voiced concerns about a skewed US friendship with Israel due to disproportionate influence from the affluent American Jewish community, who can blame Jews for concerns about protection and betrayal?

After 2000 years of anti-Jewish hatred in the western world culminating with the systematic killing of half of the Jews in the entire world in WWII, any remarks made in a public forum which reinforce old negative stereotypes, or make up new ones, raise a tremendous response from many Jews and their friends.

Oliver Stone's recent remarks about Jews in a newspaper interview are an example of how crackpot statements can cause trouble, and also how over-reaction to someone who happens to be in the public eye can add flame to a fire that should be put out, not fanned on.

Stone is an award-winning filmmaker who is very good at his craft. His forays into politics, both in his films like the conspiracy in JFK, and his friendships with unsavory Latin American despots, show him to have an open mind, but not necessarily more than a superficial one.

Some of what Stone said were,

"...that Hitler caused more damage to the Russian people than to Jewish people, but that the American focus on the Holocaust stems from the "Jewish domination of the media."

"Hitler was a Frankenstein but there was also a Dr. Frankenstein...German industrialists, the Americans and the British. He had a lot of support...

"Hitler did far more damage to the Russians than [to] the Jewish
people, 25 or 30 [million killed]."

The reason few people know this, according to Stone?

"The Jewish domination of the media," he said. "There's a major lobby in the United States. They are hard workers. They stay on top of every comment, the most powerful lobby in Washington. Israel has f***** up United States foreign policy for years."

Stone immediately apologized for these remarks, lest he insult the "Jews who dominate Hollywood" and lose funding for a future project. The most stunning and fascinating thing is that Stone was basically right about what he was saying, except his facts and presentation were wrong if not goofy. He still got pilloried by, among others, the Anti-Defamation League ("This is the most absurd kind of analysis and shows the extent to which Oliver Stone is willing to propound his anti-Semitic and conspiratorial views.") and The American Jewish Committee ("By invoking this grotesque, toxic stereotype, Oliver Stone has outed himself as an anti-Semite," David Harris, the group's executive director, said in a statement. "For all of Stone's progressive pretensions, his remark is no different from one of the drunken, Jew-hating rants of his fellow Hollywood celebrity, Mel Gibson.")

And his connection of the Jewish lobby in Washington to the lack of facts getting out about numbers of Russians killed in WWII and Hitler's involvement--serves to aggravate anti-Semitic sentiment rather than to instigate intelligent discussion.

Since Stone is half-Jewish, it's hard to label him anti-Semitic. Rather, the term for a label could be "misinformed," or "loudmouth?" Also, it would be nice, if not unbelievable, if Foxman and Harris were equally incensed and vocal when someone with a public platform made ridiculous rants against Muslims, simply because a handful out of millions who follow Islam are renegade terrorist monsters, or otherwise foment hatred. Seems like we Americans like labels more than we relish understanding and tolerance.

Wouldn't it be a better outcome, instead of finger-pointing and name calling, if Stone's half-cocked, unstudied remarks started a new, objective, real analysis among Americans about our government's policy towards Israel, and Israel's policy toward an imminent peaceful settlement of issues in the Middle East?

With nuclear weapons involved, we all--Jews and non-Jews--have a stake in this ongoing process, and our best hope is that cool heads prevail.

Want to learn something about which you thought you already know? Watch Jimmy Carter's interview on Tavis Smiley from October 25, 2010:

Issues covered included the Supreme Court decision earlier this year that paved the way for unlimited corporate contributions. Carter succinctly details the results of huge secret contributions to candidates that the law allows to be hidden; US dealings with China as the world economy shrinks--Carter's been there and has a better understanding than anything you'll hear in the mainstream media.

He reminisces about working with congress on a bipartisan level that is gone in our times. If the republicans win back the House, it might be OK after all because then blame can't fall on the democrats for everything wrong in our society.

Once again Roger Schank cuts to the chase better than lesser experts in his field of how people learn:

When you think about education, think about this. We have made people so stupid through our absurd system of memorizing nonsense and repeating it back on a multiple choice tests that we have set the stage for FOX News to simply say what it wants to say, and having millions of people believe it, because no one ever taught them how to construct or refute an argument...

...the problem is that school is boring and irrelevant and all the kids know it. They know they will never need algebra, or trigonometry. They know they will never need to balance chemical equations and they know they won't need random historical myths promoted by the school system. When all this stuff was mandated in 1892 it was for a different time and a different kind of student.

My daughter is a top student in a class of 650. She is taking advanced algebra in order to not have to take it at some future time in high school or college when there will be other, more important subjects she wants to put her mind to. She drives herself down that road to her goal regardless of the burdens and problems in the way.

I'm not so lucky--I hate automatic authoritarian rules that require school children to have to master any subject which not only may not be necessary for them at any point in their lives, but for anyone's life. But I am lucky that my daughter will get through this morass and prevail--I only hope it happens without her losing her divine right to question.

Besides the Superbowl hoopdedo and Ground hog's day, not to mention the impending meltdown of the thugs who run Arab countries in the Mideast...there is the non-story of dead President Ronald Reagan's 100th birthday.

I have 63 year old 16mm Kodacolor movie my dad shot of Ronald Reagan judging a local beauty contest at the pool of the Beverly Wilshire Hotel.Reagan was a 2nd-rate washed up actor in 1948, and if it weren't for his lead-ins to the TV show "GE Theater" in the 1950's, most of us wouldn't know about him today.

It was that presence, plus an ability to read other people's words and sound real sincere, and a measure of political ambition fueled and flourished by wife Nancy, that is the reason so many jaw-droppingly ignorant republicans still love his legacy.


Did I miss something amongst the commentaries about his 2-term slosh as the "Great Communicator," in that he was party to, and possibly even initiator of, crimes against the State as well as utterly abrogating his presidential oath of office to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution?" This morass became known as the "Iran-Contra Affair," of which few citizens understand or care about.

The history of US Presidents abounds in scandals too numerous to mention. Some were political for the sake of power, like Nixon's Watergate.Others were awash in historical events that no one cares about anymore--Harding may even have been poisoned in office. Grant's appointees were so blithely money grubbers that he stood aside and let the chips fall where they may--which is why even his hands-off not knowing what's going on get him listed often as one of the worst presidents in history.

After Watergate, there was a feeling in the land that subsequent laws enacted to provide more vigilance of our elected leaders--politicians after all, the least noble of professions--would prevent another scandal, at least, or attempt to take over the government at most, from happening again.

While the conspiracy-mongers among us, or at least the wink-wink cynical know-it-alls, understand that politics by definition breeds duplicity and deceit--in order to provide the uppity-word version of that, which is "compromise," on a day-to-day basis most of us non-paranoiacs don't see the government as trying to subvert the law on every level in every minute.


So, 10 years after Watergate, when the winds of "The Iran-Contra Affair" started blowing across the country, it was a little bit harder to believe that the Great Communicator Ronald Reagan was involved in anything corrupt or dirty--like selling arms to Iran, which was against the law, in order to provide funds for the Nicaraguan rebels--Contras--whom again by law the US government could not openly support or of course, give them any money.

Big scandal. People should have gone to jail:

"In the end, fourteen administration officials were indicted, including then-Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger. Eleven convictions resulted,
some of which were vacated on appeal. The rest of those indicted or convicted were all pardoned in the final days of the George H. W. Bush
presidency; Bush had been vice-president at the time of the affair. Some of those involved in the Iran–Contra affair who were convicted of felonies
and subsequently pardoned, later became members of the administration of George W. Bush."

Every time I see that sound bite "Mr. Gobachev, tear down that wall," I imagine the Soviet Premier with trowel and pick in hand yelling back at Reagan, "I've been working on this for awhile but no one seems to care anymore."

Reagan wasn't just a bad President--he was a non President.

Still, it was fun to take the kids to see his library and trudge through the actual Boeing 707 that he used in office. Boy can you cover up a lot of manure if you have enough money!

Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, on the fall of the US Food and Drug Administration from the old days of real oversight to modern times of rubber-stamping:

"Is the motto of the Food and Drug Administration "safety last" when it comes to the Lap-Band?" --
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/money_co/2011/02/michael-hiltzik-the-fda-and-the-lap-band.html

Ever wonder how to react to a stupid remark made by a bigot right in front of you? Do your friends tell you too many criminals are crossing the borders and wrecking our country? Are you uptight about the legalization of same-sex marriage? I have some answers for you: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IDCQYBG

NBMonitor tracks your Internet bandwidth (upload and downloads) usage, monitors all your Internet, it shows all the active connections you have to the Internet at any given moment and also the volume of traffic flowing through them. NBMonitor displays real-time details about your network connections and network adapter's bandwidth usage. Unlike others, it shows process names initiated network connections and allows you to set filters to capture only the traffic you are interested in.

The physical and mental benefits of Yoga.

A running article about how to train for a marathon by a runner.

How you should eat and what you should eat while training for your next marathon to maximize your performance.

Certain positions in Yoga can promote weight loss, strength and more toned muscles so here are a few of the best positions to focus on those difficult areas.

A look at different types of muscle training

Using the muscle confusion training technique and P90X.

Some of the many reasons to run.

How to get at great workout in your condo gym plus exercises video.

What every runner should know to get the most out of each running session.

Prevention is the cure for heart disease.

Fitness and health benefits of kayaking.

About strong lifting, high intensity interval training and intermittent fasting program.

5-Factor Fitness book review and fitness system by celebrity personal trainer Harley Pasternak.

How nutrition can enable you to boost your cardiovascular workouts.

Nutrition secrets free ebook on how to get 6 pack abs and a toned, lean body.

Pilates side rollover exercise on the exercise ball with HD exercise video.

How to do the bent knee pike pilates exercise on exercise ball with video demonstration.

The advantages of consulting a personal trainer for beginners and for people looking to get over workout plateaus.

A full-body and core Pilates exercise that stretches and strengthens the legs, glutes, back and arms. Also requires balance, control and coordination.