Exponential Growth

Driving through central California recently I was dismayed at the vast orchards left to die from lack of water and the sprawling subdivisions (complete with swimming pools)built on prime farm land. Have we gone entirely crazy??

Somehow Americans have lost touch with the struggle for survival. From our president to the common working family we have lost any sense our ancestors might have had that there are limits. We are not all powerful.

When I taught high school I would occasionally assign an activity demonstrating exponential growth. Small groups of students were given a lot of beans and two glass jars. One bean was added to the first jar and every 30 seconds the addition was doubled: One bean, then 2 then 4 then 8 etc. Soon the jar was full. One more doubling filled the second jar.

The questions I asked were as follows: 1) If the beans could think, would they have felt crowded when the first jar was half full? (Probably they would have felt like they had a lot of room left but they had only 30 seconds before doom struck.) 2) Is finding another planet a solution when we run out of space? (Just one more doubling would void that planet as well.)

Right now we are probably at the half way point for our container. There are still lots of wide open spaces. I hope we are smart enough to control ourselves before it is too late.

A great crusader for population control once said: “Population will be controlled! We have only two ways to promote it: birth control and abortion. Otherwise nature will do the job through famine, disease, war and natural disaster.”

The ProLife movement does not consider, or even understand, the consequences of its drive to limit birth control and abortion. They think god will step in and fix everything if we only subscribe to their doctrine.

Bin Laden: "Stay the Course you Stupid Americans"

The comment “the troop surge is working” will sound like “mission accomplished” in a year or two.

In November 2004 the Arabic-language network Al-Jazeera released a full transcript of a videotape from Osama bin Laden in which the head of al Qaeda said his group's goal is to force America into bankruptcy.

In March of 2008 Al-Jazeera broadcast an audiotape on which a voice identified as Osama bin Laden declares "Iraq is the perfect base to set up the jihad to liberate Palestine."

Presumptive GOP presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) responded to bin Laden’s comment by telling supporters at a town hall meeting that he, top US commander in Iraq Gen. David Petraeus, and terror mastermind Osama bin Laden all agree about the Iraq war. McCain added: “the central battleground in the battle against al-Qaeda is in Iraq today!”

How can the al-Qaeda leaders be so smart and our leaders be so stupid. Don’t these guys realize that the best way to achieve bin Laden’s goal of bankrupting the US is to keep us in Iraq.