What am I?

Doesn't seem possible that I will die. I have been with me so long and I feel real, permanent, enduring. It doesn't seem right that I will disappear forever – I exist right now, I feel so real – just as real as the universe.

How can I feel so real and yet be disappearing, dying? Maybe that's because I AM REAL! Maybe I am the only real thing because I AM NOT A PHYSICAL THING.

Speaking of the physical world Heisenberg said: “There's nothing there.” Whatever I am, I am not physical. I am not matter – I'm pretty sure at this time, that, whatever I am, I am not the stuff my body is made of.*

* I must give Steve Grand credit for my thinking on this concept. I ran across his blog when I was in New Zealand last fall and have followed him ever since.

Is Order a Conserved Quantity?

The Second Law of Thermodynamics implies that the universe moves from an ordered state to disorder: sometimes referred to as the “heat death of the universe" A nuclear physicist (I can't recall his name) once gave a talk about his findings on disordered nuclear states actually being a new form of order and suggested that ordered systems may not deteriorate into disorder but rather change into a different form of order. Could the second law be all wrong and "Order"actually be one of the conserved quantities in nature? That could have implications for the human spirit which seems to me to be a Chaotic "Strange Attractor" and not only an Ordered System but an ultimate "Orderer". Perhaps death is changing ones state of order.

Second Amendment Solutions

The woman who tried to leave Sharon Angle's GOP/Tea Party rally was punched in the face by an angry, male, Angle supporter. This is a preview of what our society will be like if that crowd is given political power. Sharon Angle's call for “Second Amendment Solutions” to our country's problems means armed coercion. These folks who call for freedom from government will be the most repressive leaders once they control government. Those who claim that “government is the problem” quickly prove their point once they become the government.

Christian Right and Al-Qaeda

The far right in the US bears a strong resemblance to Al Qaeda. “Islamo-Fascism” is no worse than Christo-Conservatism. Contrast the Islamic Imam telling young followers that death, in the destruction of America, is holy to that of Beck, Cheney, Limbaugh, Palin, FOX, Coulter etc instilling homicidal hatred of Obama into their followers. Both groups of disciples are often uneducated, both are fed a litany of lies and neither tend to listen to any other sources of information.

The Christian right in the GOP the “Birthers”, and the “Tea Baggers” are encouraging assassination of our president, along with anyone else who doesn’t buy their sick philosophy, as sure as Al-Qaeda is counseling destruction of America. The only differences are that American Christo-Cons carefully conceal their admonitions, so that they won’t be blamed for any carnage, and most don’t have the commitment to do suicidal missions. However both are just as dangerous to America.

Pro Life??

One of the most telling parts of the christian pro life philosophy is their push for restrictions on birth control. This exposes them for what they are attempting to do: punish women. They are really saying to women: “if you are going to have sex, then you must pay through the inconveniences and dangers of pregnancy”. Of course they don’t want the kid once it’s born; they just want to punish sexually active women.

The root of their despise of women is the same as the root for radical Islam’s severe restrictions on women: the idea that a woman was the weakness that brought about the fall of man as expressed in the temptation of Eve in the Hebrew scriptures. Both Christians and Muslims put great emphasis and belief in these ancient texts which they consider to be the “word of god”. In this context a woman bears the greatest blame for humans being denied paradise.

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.