You See? Infinity Isn't So Scarey

They're giving us a free pass today. Well they are calling today's airliner incident the "miracle on the Hudson". An "air bus" loaded with passengers flew into a flock of geese and clogged the engines forcing the experianced pilot to find an emergency place to land. This pilot whose been one forty years gets an A plus for execution of the landing and definitely has to be the ABC Person of the Week. All of the passengers survived in the near freezing waters. The plane was almost immediately surrounded by rescue crafts. Only the front hatch was opened so that icy waters would not flood the plane. They recently raised the maximum age for pilots from sixty to 65 and I think this was a good move in that this is the sort of wisdom you can't buy.

Today Adolph Hitler gave his final speech on election eve of November 8th. 1938 at the moment of being booted from office. OK that never happened, although people pray that it would have. Just remember that even the broadest of horizons are bounded by Infinity. If we view God as infinite and therefore "of infinity" then we know that at least in this country, at least so far, even the worst of despots can't stay on office forever. George Bush did not declare a military emergency in order to scuttle the Inoguration festivities and remain in power. Only once in the whole speech, I suspect, did he speak the truth. That is when he said "Since 9 - 11 I haven't seen things the same ever again". We know that he obsessed on 9 - 11 but we also know that he Dreamed about a 9 - 11 incident in his fondest fantasies before it even happened. We all know about that "political capital" he wasn't going to waste. We know that even with all that capital he could not privitize social security or overturn Roe verses Wade. He says with every decision he made he always had what was best for America uppermost in his mind. A lot of us would like to believe that but we just can't. Rush Limbaugh feared Clinton would not "go quietly into the sunset" after his terms were passed. We can hope that the day will come and soon that we can look on George W Bush and see just another insignificant, irrelivent person who is going nowhere. Let's hope.

The forces of the new are rising in the sky even as the old ones are setting. We'll soon have a new FCC chairman who will bring back the fairness doctrine and restore sanity to the communications media. This is not to say that with every three hours of Rush Limbaugh we should have three hours of Randi Rhodes. One can hope. But what it means is that a thing called Community Responsability will be returning. One can also hope that their will be greater diversity in who owns the media. Eric Holder today came out against torture such as water-boarding calling it illegal and wrong. There was a Justice Department lengthly report in excess of 450 pages that made quite a number of succinct recommendations as to what Congress could do in the future to insure that we again won't see an Imperial Presidency.

As you may know Computers work with Rational numbers rather than Irrational numbers. If you count things in nature you get a rational number but if you seek to use a human abstraction to quantify things in nature you inherently get an Irrational number. So it may interest you to know that as computer numbers go, Infinity is a quite quantifiable ammount. Infinity is a surprisingly precise number in fields such as calculus, optics, trigonometry grafts, as well as these time-distance-speed problems that give Jethro Bodeine such a hard time. In fact once I set up a problem where the answer was "beyond infinity" just to see how the computer would handle it and to my astounment, the computer had absolutely no problem with it. You see when you graph tangent coordenates, for instance, once a number goes extreme positive, then it goes extreme negative. There is only one exact "point" where the figure is infinity, so you see, infinity is actually quite finite and quantifiable. If you look at a painting of a landscape (assuming a flat earth for this illustration) than no matter how broad the horizon, the land is always bounded by infinity. Some may be disheartened by this fact but that is "just the way God ordered it".

Armet with this knowledge and "awareness" we can look at Einstein's theory of relativity a little differently. You know the one that says we can never measure anything going faster than the speed of light. This may come as a surprise but "It might not even matter". Because if each of us, (or all of us) is surrounded by a limiting "bubble" we'll call infinity expanding as the seemingly sloth-like speed of light- - the thing is we shouldn't lament that we can't go farther because as far as Einstein is concerned that space beyond does not even EXIST. Like the broad horison in our landscape painting- - it is bound by infinity and "that's all there is". Some may wonder about all the hocus pocus of Einstein. Just remember this train of causality. If time slows down mass HAS to increase accordingly. (Remember our "Smallville" analogy) This connection between mass and time progression is simply Newtonian logic. Also in Newtonian logic is that if the "speed limit line" of light is always "the last thing there is" then there is never really anything beyond it to begin with, is there as space shrinks down. OK it's the matter that shrinks down. But if you didn't know the matter was shrinking you wouldn't know the speed was shrinking, would you. Even is you're "making this stuff up" - - logic would dictate that if smaller "perceived" distance means reduced speed that you somehow "don't notice" then in order NOT to notice it you need dialated time- - which leads direcly to increased mass.

But some would say "Haven't they measured the weight of the soul and found that when a body dies it actually gets heavier?" If that's the case then the soul would have negative mass. We have prooved elsewhere that "anti matter" in our Universe can't really exist, except in ways that make it an irrelivent mathmatical abstraction, like negative numbers in a trig graph. Yeah the numbers are really negative but no, it doesn't portend anything metaphysical. Today I looked up Orpheus in Answers.com and learned I had to enter the name because they didn't have it in the list of Greek Gods. People from the Federation told me twenty years ago that Howard Richards was Orpheus. This is relivant now because Howard Richards has incarnated as a young child who in the year 2061 will break the speed of light barrier. Some have spoken of tachions - as hypothetical particles that can ONLY travel faster than the speed of light. We have said in previous postings that were our sould to be accelerated to the speed of light and try to go beyond all the math coordenates would "double back on themselves" and the only thing that would be different would be of exestential perception- - as highlighted by the Benjimin Button movie, and that is this "soul" or "metaphysical mass of tachions" or "soul" or whatever "thing" it is- - - would perceive the future and base the present and past on prior experiances in the future. But guess what. Einstein's theory is so binding it states that "even if something hypothetically COULD travel faster than light, it STILL can't because this theory says so. This speed limit is stated with the same metaphysical certitude - - - that Jesus is the Son of God. I would like to know how scientists have "inferred" that tachions can only travel faster than light. It's an interesting thing to muse on to think that the Individual who can unwind this cunundrum that has so baffled scientists- - might be alive on Planet Earth as this very moment. What was that line John Lennon said? "I can hardly wait for you to come of age". There are a lot of secrets in science and they are waiting to be discovered and ARE being discovered one by one, and what seems an impossibility now will soon not only be possible, but in time be part of the Mundane.

One Brick Shy of a Filibuster-proof Senate

This opening thought isn't related to anything but I need to say it. Just as this weather might be called "false spring" this April fools type warm balm we are experiancing in Southern California while the rest of the nation freezes their toosh off- - -it was on my birthday on December 31st. 1985, the day Ricky Nelson died- - that I wasn't exactly "Born Again" but I had a burst of awareness of where my life was headed. I saw everything in a different light and suddenly I viewed a lot of Christian activities as not only a big waste of time but downright annoying- - and various people were beginning to annoy me. Flag the first four or five months of 1986 as a period when I had what I would peg as a "last chance" to leave this planet before things got really awful and I couldn't even think straight and lost all sense of Ego. This was a period when it was at least worthwhile hanging around for a little while because of certain Events. There was the Challenger explosion, the death of Ron Hubbard, the death of you-know-who, whose funeral was March 18th. and that I attended. Blue Oyster Cult came out with "Club Ninja", which was a subtle hint. And there was Chernobyl- - that horrible nuclear melt-down in Russia. And there was Haley's comet, not that there were any really good views of it. That Christmas I was given a portable elctric keyboard and I "expressed myself" by doing impromptu abstractions- (I wouldn't call them compositions) in the Frank Zappa tradition. Of course the snail mailings to the media were never of more exciting, dynamic quality, and it would have been a shame to deprive recipients of theese. This paragraph is a teaser. More may or may not follow.

Well Rolland Burris has finally taken his place as Senator from Illinois. Yesterday I didn't think it would happen this quickly. All indicators were that senators 58 and 59 on the road to a fillibuster proof senate seemed mighty murky. It still looks as if Al Franken's installment as a senator will have to wait for yet more court challenges. As far as I'm concerned "challenges" mean you're just going to have to work your trigger finger faster. But you know- as bright as the future now looks for getting needed bills passed- - the ghosts of the past are closing in. There are still at times when you feel that the Media, which surrounds you, is in the clutch of the Powers of Darkness. It's these same forces which decreed that Reaganomics was the greatest thing since sliced bread and cutting taxes on the rich and deficets like we've never known were the best possible medicine for our economy. Now there are people on the radio, the ghosts of Larry Elder, who are saying that it's "the media's fault" the economy is doing so badly because if the media had just been more Optimistic in their reporting of economic developments a few years back, that we would never be in the mess we are now. To add to this Joe the Plumber has chimed in. Of course by now you pretty much get the idea he isn't much of a plumber, and I'm not even sure his name is Joe. But Joe the plumber says that it's a job of a "War Corospondent" to conceil news of whatever wars we are in because since "war is Hell" we comoners just don't "understand what we are seeing" and what a great thing it is- - all these wars we are condicting. It seems the only acceptable "coverage" of a war is these World War II news reels where you saw troops proudly marching in formation in some victory parade, or else a few guns firing and a few bombs explotding - - from a safe distance, like a vidio game. Someone else on the radio, and I don't remember who, stated that they wished Hillary Clinton had remained in the Senate because someone needs to take over the reins of Senate Majority leader, Harry Reed- - who never met a political intimidation from the right that he didn't go into a faint over. If there is one thing we know from Hillary, she is a "nag" would win the race, and fight for what she believes is right. As her own campaign adds stated last year she would be ready on Day One. Now we are wondering whether Obama is ready at all from his latest Fred Mc Murry type statement (Hopefully you've seen the Caine Mutiny) Because Obama appears to be getting a case of cold feet when it comes to dismanteling the centers of repression and oppression in this country such as Guantanamo Bay. Maybe he will and maybe he won't. I guess the question posed by obvious fear mongers is "But where would all those dangerous terrorists go?? Would be simply let them loose?" Obama has now said he wants to "turn a page on the past" but in order to "turn the page" it's helpful to first read what is on the page, preferably with extensive underlining and anotating. We have to bring the Criminals of the Bush Adminestration to Justice. There comes a time where is an Executive doesn't act in a timely manner, it forever puts a mark on his character that in the coming years he wishes he could erase. Obama isn't sure he wants to deal with "deeds of the past". But if they aren't dealt with then they don't yet qualify as "the past" any more than walking out of a Computer store with an I Phone. So we simply wish Obama would get off the dime on this issue and act. Hearings are what congress does best. Congress has over the decades held hearings on some pretty frivelous matters and these offences and deeds of the Bush Adminestration such as the systematic violations of civil rights and privacy and covering up previous wrongs- - are anything but frivelous. The ball is in your court.

The issue of transportation is a pressing one. With our air ports all clogged up with people inspecting Prell shampoo bottles and shoes, airport waits get longer and longer as service continues to go down hill and fees march inexerably higher despite how much fuel prices have come down lately. Many people today make use of computer software for their "Virtual experiance" in the absence of the real thing. So today you can ski in eighty degree weather in the safety or a surround screen, and you can play a round of virtual golf without having to walk the four miles or whatever. While these "short cuts to life" may be advisable for people getting on in years, such as my parents, whose last extended vacation away from home was the summer of 1989, the year before they moved- - still younger people should not cacoon themselves in an electronic environment but get out and enjoy life. My biggest fear is that small kids will no longer so simple things like putter around in the dirt or climb trees or play outdoor games. Small children need physical objects, not pictures of objects, to develop their tactile skills. But the question is if we're going to examine how to solve the energy crisis- - Air Traffic would be a prime place to look. I imagine vapor trails put a lot of exhaust into the air and may affect "global dimming" or something. Or do we want that now? My solution is that we go underground. If we had pnumatic tubes like on the Jetsons you could zip around at two or three hundred miles an hour from city to city. These tubes need not even follow the curviture of the earth but make a bee line shortest rout say Under the earth. It's a thought. I don't know how fast the latest Bullet trains so now but I know it's in excess of 200 miles per hour. If we could up this figure a little to half the speed of air travel many may well decide that air traffic is a thing of the past, what with the long wait and having to get to the airport two hours early. You would no longer have flight cancellations or planes stacked up circling a city waiting to land. People want to move and we need to find an efficient way to move lots more people than we are moving now, because as more nations develope into first world countries, more people will want to travel.

Obama Picks New CIA Chief

President Obama has picked Leon Penetta to be the next CIA chief. Formerly he was President Clinton's chief of staff, so he has executive experiance in managing people. To me this is a good, sound choice. I think it's high time that we had a man heading the CIA that "didn't come up from the ranks". We need someone to do a thorough house cleaning and re-organization of priorities. As is pointed out by liberal talk shows, we are "supposed to" have non military people heading up the military. There is a charished principle of civilian control of the military in this country. But I'm not especcially down on the CIA. If Obama had gone the other way it would have been fine with me. The CIA wasn't the inherent problem, but rather how George Bush tried to politicise the CIA with his own ideas and cherry picking information. In the broader scope of things people like Thom Hartman tell us all to get involved with politics and that we each have three congresss people we can contact, our two US senators and our House member. He says not to E mail these people since E mails are so easy to generate but rather to call them or write them a letter and wait several weeks while it's screened for Anthrax. Letters make more of an impression. Also we should "get in their face" and go down to their offices and annoy people and make our views known. If enough people do this- - things will change and needed bills will be brought to the floor. In the overall scheme of things it's the American public who should have been saluted by Time magazine for getting personally politically involved and doing the things that needed to be done. We as a people should not get weary with well doing.

The Unemployment rate has now climbed to 7.2% They tell us this is the highest it's been in fifteen years. I disagree with that only to the extent that 17 or 18 years is a bit more in the ball park. Larry Elder in no way can say we don't have an unemployment rate problem any more. If they used honist figuring, the figure would easily be in double digits by now. We have lost 540,000 jobs in the month of December when they used to do Christmas hiring. Most of the massive job losses in the year 2008 have come in the last four months of the year. The stock market was "restrained" in its decline yesterday. I continue to say to think about getting back in to the market and deciding which stocks you want to buy. My inclination at this point would be some kind of energy research stocks. We might see one more plunge. I'm not saying it will definitely happen but don't be shocked if it does. There might be some piece of bad news out there that we aren't aware of yet that could send the market into one final tail spin. But to me buying into America is the best way to be patriotic as well as help get us out of this recession, and by the way, profit monitarily while doing so.

There is some substance out there called getropa or something. It's some weed that produces black seeds or something that produce really efficient bio-oil fuel. They have used it on jet planes already and the planes have fantastic take off inclines never before seen. Apparently they are just now adopting the weed to grow in US climates. Some have held that America's future is in "clean coal" but the environmentalists tell us there IS no such thing as clean coal. Even the cleanest coal contains all sorts of carsonigian substances that would make a pack of cigarettes appear safe in comparrison. This while "running your car on vegetable oil" bit seems to be the thing of the future. It seems strange and inefficient to me, but you can't fight progress.

I guess one class of people who Annoy me are people who are totally lacking in curiosity. These are the "been there - don't that" croud who apparently know everything about everything. Many of these people are Born Again Christians. When I was a young Christian I was filled with wonderment. I wanted to find out more about ghosts and spirits and life after death. I was thinhking they would discover new metaphysical properties of matter. When people said that Jesus was coming I was thinking in terms of how having Jesus run the world would improve society and bring about universal peace, and unleash previous unknown scientific principles and technological progress. I was NOT thinking of people suffering from radiation poisoning after the Bomb was dropped and having their eyeballs melt in their sockets and run down their cheeks. And I wasn't prepared for the "I don't care" attitude you seem to routinely get from Christian whenever the subject of moral equity is raised. If there is one StarTrek race that gets me more morally insensed and angry it has to be the Packlid people. These are a race with an outward look of mental retardation. Like the Christians- - they lack the capacity to actually invent anything since Christians are inherently afraid of anything new. But they are more than willing to use things like computer web sites to propigate their Faith once they are invented. These are the original "Make it work" people. They hire outsiders to "Fix" their malfunctioning electronic equipment they don't understand- - so that they can resume their favorite pasttime of threatening and killing people with it. Of course as an enlightened individual I see logical fallocies where other people wouldn't. There is a Chuck Swindoll video of his talking about the ministry of Jesus. And he makes the statement that the key thing Christians need to do is to surrender your own wills of action in favor of what "God" wants them to do. And of course we know who's playing the part of God today. he has white hair. But in reality its absurd under Calvinistic theology to suppose that God would do ANYTHING that was contrary to his own will and divine providence- - and to suggest that Jesus "really didn't want to come to earth and save mankind" is to raise the question "what would Jesus prefered to have been doing?" You know in the song "Crown of Creation" by the Jefferson Airplane there is the line "In loyalty to their kind- - they cannot tollerate our Minds. In loyalty to our kind, we cannot tollerate their Obstruction". I guess what annoys me most about Christianity is it's kind of like used to be said of George Bush. He was born on third base and he thinks he just hit a tripple. The whole thing about "becomming as a little child" is of value to this extent. Little children think that they can do anything. Their creativity is not bound by preconceived notions. In like manner famous inventors and inovaters like Albert Einstein were not bound by preconceived notion. We need to bring about a change in society that once again values ingenuity and inovation. (Selah)

Wondering Aloud - - Again

The other day another beloved relative of mine passed away. People would say that they have gone on to Eternity. When you think about it, Eternity and Death are pretty much the same thing. As that null space StarTrek character said, "How curious. You exist- - and then you don't exist. Tell me, what is that like?" Of course none of us can really imagine what it's like for ourselves not to exist. To quote from Dylan's "Talking World War III Blues" it goes "Time has been passing and it seems more and more people have been having them dreams. Each person sees themselves walking around with nobody else. Some people can be right some of the time, but all of the people can't be right all of the time". As we said in our last posting- - we live in this time realm. There are are events that Start and then Stop. We live in this ccause and efrect world where everything presupposes the existance of Time. It's impossible for us to conceive of any mode of existance that does not involve Time as we know it. Indeed, such a "realm" may not even exist.

But of course for those of us who continue to live on in this present world there are scientific breakthroughs to behold. For Leo le Port to say he's no longer interested in going to Science Conventions- - I say he must be burnt out on wonder and curiosity. To me there would be nothing more fulfilling to be at one of these electronics conventions personally. There are of course ultra thin TV screens. We live in a world now where as one MSNBC "Today" link said, where were seeing the end of the era of moving parts. We are moving away from the era of having a magnetic hard drive that actually spins to retrieve information. We are able to store more and more information in an increasingly compact, durable format. Of course two items have spiked my wonderment and curiosity. One is the whole notion of having computers that can not only moniter your brain waves, but even read your thoughts scanning for images as to where you have been and the experiances you have and haven't had. They actually train computers to recognize all the compartments of your brain where the concept of "screwdriver" are stored, for instance. Of course they have these "Pike" machines now where computers will play video games with you where you control the screen with nothing but your thoughts, because scientists tell us that before you actually move muscles, your electro-activity in your brain signals your intent to do so. Not only this but computers are becoming able to read the intents of people such as suspects and terrorists, of what they intend to do if certain things do or don't happen. This could be a major break-through for police science. But of course we are becoming more StarTrek like in other ways. There is some mystery force that exists in metals that causes what they call "striction", which is different from ordenary friction. On a micro-world scale it causes many moving parts to wear out more quickly than they otherwise would. The answer is to "reverse the polarity" of this mystero "force". I forget the name of this force. If I knew it I would Google it myself. But in a molicule by molicule level- - if this force is reversed in polarity, it will actually set up a repelling force to cause machines with moving parts to last a whole lot longer than they otherwise would. Of course they are improving batteries so you can store them longer now and they won't lose their power nearly as much.

Of course in this brave new world we are going to have cloning, including the resurrection of beings that are dead. Of course you've heard recently in the news how they nabbed a suspect from his DNA discovered in the belly of a misquito who had "just eaten" that was found in the vehicle where the suspect had been, and from looking at the DNA in the misquito they were able to get a conviction of the suspect. Of course in the Klingon realm there was this Messiah personage who live thousands of years ago, and they were able to resurrect him from his DNA and just maybe if they ever found Jesus' DNA they could resurrect him, too. Of course were they to generally start resurrecting dead relatives some would say it was a fulfillment of scripture that "The resurrection will happen on the Last Day". There would be a division in the ranks of the Faithful along lines that have always existed- - Relavency people and the Purists. Some such as Jesus on KFI would say that the only true theology was in the Fourth Century when the "snap shot" of history was taken and everything was lined up perfectly. Such people believe that anything or any thought occurring before then or after then is in error. These same people are the ultimate ritualists reciting the same prayers and creeds as their forebearere by rote because if you vary from them in the slightest to try and make them "relavent" you fall into error. Having science simulate God- - maybe having a 3 D Holographic simulation of Jesus and his Angels returning in the air- - some would say this is a sell-out to the world. Many people in fact bristle at the assirtion that "It's Good- - if it Works- - if it has some physical manifestation in this present world". Others would say "To ask whether an idea "Works" is the ultimate insult to God. These people, and you know then- - Jesus of KFI, the Asshole from El Paso, and I darkly suspect Chuck Swendoll" are people who "get off" a whole lot more in theological precepts that exist in their own minds, rather than in contact with human beings in the real world. In fact I darkly suspect that a lot of these so called Christians- - basically don't like People at all. So the idea of science being employed to help mankind is of no consolation to them.

In terms of all the news with Obama and his stimulus plan, I have already spoken on what is wrong with his stimulus plan. I urge you to listen to Thom Hartman and his "teachings". But I will say this as an olive branch to my conservative friends. We can both agree that the government continuing to go into debt is bad. We both agree that we need to re-establish the worth ethic in this country- - and we need to bring back domestic industry. As Thom Hartman puts it- - having a service economy isn't generating wealth. But if you're able to take iron oar and turn it into an automobile, then you've accomplished something. If you're able to take the fleece of a sheep and turn it into a wool suit, you have created wealth. This is a basic Truth we need to rediscover in this nation. In terms of "greening up our infrastructure" I have no disagreement with Obama's sentaments. Of course all this is "Gona take a whole lot of precious time" as George Harrison says. I would prefer rather than double alternative energy production that quintuppling it might be more desirable to really get the ball rolling. We can do that.

Hartmann Economics 101

Everybody should be educated by a teacher like Thom Hartmann, who spells out the issues so clearly. Hartmann declares "Raising taxes is in the overall scheme of things - good for the Economy". Back in the Eisenhower years we in America believed in something called Infrastructure. We believed in building things like water projects and roads and bridges and institutions of higher learning and space ships. Even Governor Swartzenegger back in 2006 right after he lost on his pet issues in that election deboccle the previous fall- - talked in his State of the State address of building infrastructure for the future. According to Hartmann, lower taxes for either the poor and the rich carry a double whammy. For the poor and middle class, employers, who believe in "market forces" will soon learn what they can "get away with" paying their workers and will pay them the lowest ammount possible, such as the markets will bear. If people get tax cuts there is the "take up the slack routine" the Pastor of Calvary Anaheim talks about. The employer will lower wages to "take up the slack" and lower the wage base to the pervailing market forces. For the rich, lower taxes have several consequences. Corporations see no restraining force in paying their CEO's astronomical salaries. Also these CEO's have no incentive but to squerrel away their money in Swiss Bank Accounts or some high paying investment program only the rich can participate in. This corporation with low taxes has no incentive to plow back money into the corporation with capital investment. Back in the Eisenhower days, corporations grew at a fantastic rate. From about 1948 to about 1973 we experianced unprecidented growth in American industry. Corporate bosses would think twice about actually taking all the corporate profits as salary but instead look for some investment shelter or write off. And these shelters were not all bad things. There was a carrot and the stick approach in opperation here where the CEO's would reason to themselves, "I can use this money for capital investment and take tax depreciation of new equipment as it's used". So Obama better "think twice - at least once more" as the Rutttles would say. The answer to increasing the engine of this economy is the power of the rank and file workers to spend money to propell this economy by others buying their goods. We need to bring back the Labor Unions. They gave the necessary counter ballance and insured the bargaining power of the workers. You've often heard that it was Allan Greenspan's avowed goal to create a fear in the average worker for his job, so that he won't be tempted to ask for more money. The results of anything spring from natural consequences of certain acts and planning. There is nothing mysterious or mystic about what is happening now. It isn't "God judging America". But Obama had better listen to the wise people among us who tell the truth and not be as Rehoboam, who listened to the wrong people and oppressed them, such that the people rebelled and he lost his Kingdom.

Obama seems to be breaking with precident in not waiting till January 20th. to move to Washington DC. He says it's because Shasha and Melique start school today. Back in my day they started the semester at the end of January but I guess everything is different now what with Christmas vacation morphing into "Winter Recess". But it would seem to be a bit gosh for Obama to ask to live at the Blair House when that place is no doubt booked up till January 20th. with friends of the current President. Obama's best bet now is just not to say anything and this way he won't be offending half of the people before he even takes office.

It is my oppinion that for too long we have winked at drunk driving. Now they want to file murder charges against people who kill others while driving drunk. On Sixty Minutes they had a case where a seven year old girl was killed by a guy in a truck with three times the legal limit of alcohol. People seem to want to be sympathetic because "we all take a drink now and then". People get down on smokers but nobody smokes a cigarette and then gets in his car and goes out and kills someone. Famous people, people in Congress, have had drunken driving incidents, and some of them have even involved traffic deaths. It seems to me that a 25 to 30 year sentense is more than fair. That way they cen get out of jail when they're in their fifties and go around to schools and tell young people not to go down the path they did but to stay away from drinking and driving. We advertize alcohol and glamorize it in our soap operas with people taking a swig any time the conversational vibes get a little tense. We're showing a terrible example to our children. Of course you know my position on Fraternities and haising. Some want to lower the alcohol drinking age to eighteen. I favored this myself once- - like when I was eighteen. But the adolecent brain is not yet fully developed in the judgement centers at that age.

Maybe it’s the medication or something but now I don’t remember. Do we usually do this rainbow sherbet pattern with the Raspberry in the middle and the Line on the edges, or do we do it the other way around. One big mistake philosophers make is extrapolation. We extrapolate from the small to the large and from the simple to the complex. This is not always a wise thing. Anthropologists tell us that all languages in the world are of equal complexity despite the technical state of advance of the society. If your response to our last Blog is to say “I can’t get inside the head of a Black man to see how a person could think so irrationally” then try and get inside the head of someone from Bangle Desh or New Guinea. It’s impossible for us “Westerners” to fully know what goes on in the heads of other undeveloped peoples. In fact, for a long time I didn’t know that Scientologists believed in reincarnation. I figured such a “wise” organization was too cagy to come out and state their opinion of the Afterlife, but rather come up with a giant “I don’t know”. Thus it could be said that he who thinks himself wise in metaphysics is an Ignoramus, which means “We don’t know”. Some people like Jesus of KFI try to get you to draw on previous experience to imagine what things would be like in the Afterlife. This is a risky thing. Perhaps you’ve heard the story about the hillbilly who received a jock strap as a gift and “Drawing on previous experience” put it on with the label in the back, and presumably went around looking like a jackass. In math one is tempted to “draw on previous experience” when talking about hyperbolic trigometric functions. We did our “Fish” analogy several postings back, but there were shall we say, certain intellectual liberties we took with that paragraph, even though in its way our “Fish” analogy was ingenious. First of all we must first think about “Regular” or circular Trig. In this case you always have the triangle with its point that determines the degree reading at the lower left. For some reason, math teachers like to always draw them backwards. If we were to try in “imagine” what sort of geometric figure would be involved in hyperbolic trig we can deduce certain things. The cosine or the number of the three that starts off Big - - - always remains positive. Thus we can deduce that two of the three triangle lines always remain positive while the third, the other right angle line, is positive sometimes and negative at others. We also know that the Right Angle lines, or the tangent angles- - -are roughly the same size, most of the time. Thus we can infer that it’s the “so called” long line or hypotenuse that is the shortest of the three lines. You may ask “how can you have two right angles connected by a diagonal that is the shortest of the three lines?” I don’t know but them’s the facts. Now let’s look at God and Creation and we come across some similar “problems” in trying to make sense of the incoherent babble of most theologians. We are to believe that there is God, who in his world temporality or “time” does not naturally exist. He as it were has to create islands of it, like ponds, and in these ponds of time, the fish can grow and flourish, but the fish cannot survive outside the ponds much as temporal matter would seem not to be able to survive outside of “temporality” or Time. Theologians will admit there is nothing about being “Outside of Time” in the Bible, so we aren’t even talking Bible now. We are beyond the pale into the exclusive domain of the theologians. These theologians would have you believe not only do temporal beings come to exist outside of temporality, like that Sherlock Holms Star Trek character- - but they will further state that there was a moment in temporality that determines their Eternal Destiny. The Westerner in his language declares “Cogito Ergo Sum”. The Buddhist declares “You think. Therefore you are experiencing Illusion”. That is, there is a Cause and Effect which still rules them- - as if bound by Time- - even though now they are clearly outside of Time. These theologians will further state that because of this temporality which God created on a whim (or whatever motive) that there is for all Eternity some “moment” when you “became” Alive. Even though “Became” is another of those temporal words. Sheer Logic would dictate that at least if you are going to have us live in this Timeless Realm called Eternity- - - that things like start and end points would be thrown out the window. Supposedly you will forever be conscious of one of two things. Either the moment you Accepted Christ, or the moment you rejected him. You would not judge yourself too harshly for decisions you made as a six year old. But the difference between you now and you as a six year old are infinetessible compared to you right NOW and you in Eternity where your perception of yourself will be as an insect frozen in amber. You cannot help being ruled by Time and Circumstance any more than a fish can consciously decide not to be Wet. Then we have the question I’ve never heard any theologian answer is “Just what is it we DO in eternity” after “We’ve been there ten thousand years”?

Legal Is Good Enough For Me

Rolland Burris deserves to be Illinois's next Senator. He was legally appoint and when it comes to legal verses illegal, I'll take legal any day of the week. It's an interesting fact that laws are not only meant to forbid certain things, but are also meant to legally impower others. The economy is a good example. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs would not be as rich as they are today were it not for our patent laws. These laws made those men what they are today. We even have the right to expect protection while we go about our legal activities. Abortion clinics are a good case in point on this one. They are not only not forbidden to perform abortions, they are legally empowered TO perform abortions by the law, whose protection they are entitled to. Rolland Burris is a Black man. I'm not color blind. To me this is a case where if you ignore race you are living in a fool's paradise. Asz a Black man living in Illinois, assuming I am, I would have certain political perceptions I would hope my representatives would be sensitive to. Now if there were say, ten Black senators in the US Senate, then this whole thing would not be an issue with me. But when I hear that Obama was the only Black US Senator and now he's gone, then my antenna goes up. There is ample legal precident as to while Rolland Burris's appointment should be honored. The main reason is because it's legal. As a legal action there are certain suppositions that other legal realities will follow. As I see it the US Senate under Harry Reid doesn't have the right to say "We will not seat Burris" any more than a resturant owner in the South after the Civil Rights bill was passed in 1964. Comentator after comentator in the news today and politicians alike all agree on one thing: that the Courts have consistantly ruled that such appointments are legal and must be enforced. Adam Clayton Powell is a clear example of such a ruling back around 1969. But take a look at President Bush. No one disputes his power to pardon people, even Dick Chaney and Karl Rove, if he wants to, and nobody has the right to presume the highest motives of the President despite the fact we all know he's guilty as sin. Now ten years ago people like Gloria Alred and even myself were saying that Bill Clinton should resign his Presidency for the sexual offences he has committed. We were wrong. Every man is entitled to his day in court, and that includes Rod Blagoiavitch. But consider one more example from the archives. In a college government book in the early 1970's it said that Supreme Court Justice Thurgrid Marshall was put on the Court as part of a political deal between Lyndon Johnson and Senator Eastland of Mississippi, who referred to Marshal as a "Nigger". Johnson agreed to give Eastland some Water project or something, if he voted for Marshall. But nobody would contest Thurgrid Marshall's right to serve on the Supreme Court.

Israel is now commencing its ground invasion of Gaza. Some sources say that Gaza has not been terroritorially been cut in half. It seems to me Israel's response is not only disproportionate, but aimed at the wrong people. Hammas doesn't represent the Palistinians. Fattah (or Fatwah or whatever) comes closser to doing that. Hammas doesn't represent anybody, but it makes a convienient whipping boy for Israel to oppress the territory of Gaza. We don't need any more killing and destruction. This will only harden the population against peace. Let me call on another memo from the EIB archives. I think it was in Robert Kennedy's book that Kennedy was arguing against the bombing in Viet Nam and said "We thought bombing in Germany would soften the resolve of the German people but instead it only hardened it". Those are his words and not mine. Bombs are a bad perswader of populations. The Arabs might not care about the Palistinians now but if things get bad enough there- - they'll begin to notice, and start using the Palistinians as postor boys for why Israel should not be allowed to exist as a nation. Obama is bending over backwards not to show the slightest sympathy for the Palistinians. In my frank oppinion he's done "too good of a job at this". Arabs who looked to him for hope may decide their rosey judgements on his Presidency were, shall we say, premature.

I've heard a lot of Al Franken bashing lately- - from people who call themselves liberals. But Franken is increasing his 53 or whatever vote lead in Minnisota, and it looks right now that he's going to be our new US Senator from Minnisota. I think his tenure in office will be a refreshing one. Minisotans have always been noted for their independant spirit.

In my oppinion of which was the stupidest political "gaff" of the year it would have to be Obama's statement about how "I could no more disown Rev. Wright than I would disown my own White grandmother" and then a few days later he "throws Rev. Wright under the bus". This is my Mc Laughlin pick. I don't think any honorable individual disowns his pastor, particularly one he's known and worked with for twenty years, merely because it's politically expediant. If there is one thing Christianity preaches against it's "political expediancy". Indeed the crusifiction of Jesus Christ was done, was it not, because it was "political expediant". I think this propensity of Obama to want to air-brush his own past is reaching Nancy Reagenesque proportions. I guess we can take satisfaction that he must be giving the World Net Daily crowd Whiplash, but this is small consolation if in the end one isn't able to find a dime's worth of difference between the foreign policies of George Bush and our new President Elect. One thing I was always told about John Kennedy is that he was a principled man who fought for what he believes in. People believed in taking risks for a noble purpose. Such values as courage and fortitude were routinely taught when I was young, but I guess they aren't any more.

Stop the Killing!

Both sides in the conflict over Gaza have got to put down their arms and negotiate. Israel has overreacted grossly to a problem of a few off the mark rockets landing in Israeli space. They responded to wasting vast portions of densly inhabited Gaza including the bombing of a University and the deaths of over 360 Palistinians. I've heard the arguments from the right that Palistinians are nothing more than rogue Arabs who are "squatters" on Israeli soil. Of course the Palistinians have lived in the land for two thousand years and the Israelis have been there a little over sixty. To me that's a big "no contest". The argument has been raised if Israel didn't exist there would be a lot more youth unrest in Arab countries because the poor in Arab nations who got the shaft and aren't among the rich- - always have the Israeli to blame for everything. Some say that bombing of Gaza (and now they are massing tanks for a ground invasion) is actually a recruiting tool for Arabs to use in cultivating extremism. But the reality is that I don't believe the vast majority of the citizens of Gaza are members of Hammas. They just want to be left alone in peace. President elect Obama risks being pegged as just another tool of the Israeli lobby if he doesn't get off the dime and show a little compassion for the Palistinians. Jimmy Carter seems to be the only ex president who really understands what it's like to be a Palistinian in the mideast. The whole area including the west bank and Gaza is like a gigantic inturnment camp where the people have few rights, and need permission to pass from one region to another and where essentials like heat and water can be cut off at will. It's been noted that Isrial newspapers have shown more dissenting views than our own newspapers such as the New York Times, when it comes to opposing our own governments foray into a "War of choice". No newspaper or network outlet was the least inclined to attack Bush for the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. As Chris Matthews put it, "We are all hawks now". Basically the Arab nations don't care about the Palistinians because most of them such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia are in our back pocket anyhow. It sadens me to think that here is another area where President Obama is going to disappoint the Progressives, who are responsable for his winning the Election.

We have that guy dressed in a Santa Clause suit who came to a family gathering of his estranged wive's relatives and wasted the whole party, killing nine and leaving many grandchildren as orphans. You all know the story. He had cash with him and explosives in the car and was intending to escape to Canada except something went wrong and when he burned the house down he suffered burns himself so instead decided to comit suicide. He was 45 and a church goer who had a girlfriend in 2002 who said she left him because he refused to support his own disabeled son. Nobody who attended church with him suspected him of being a potential mass killer. If there is a Hell, then this man surely made a swift descent thence after his death.

Johnny Wendell doesn't mind that the Obama girls, Shasha amd Melique are now objects of the paperatzi. Apparently there are photos of the girls wearing bekinis in Hawaiiai. We never saw Chelsea in a bekini. She was well protected. I believe children should be protected from the paperatzi even if they are children of public figures. President Obama seems to be cultivating some of this photographic voyerism himself. Photographers would not be able to get that close to get shots of him unless he allowed it. As I have often said- - I hope that the Obama presidency will be noted something besides Berock Obama having rock star status. I would hope it would be known for reestablishing our historic progressive march forward in this country.

Apparently people who take the virginity pledge are no more likely to stay virgins than the general population. I have known many Christian couples that apparently were virgins on their wedding night, so I know (or at least "think") that it's possible. The whole idea of putting virginity on a pedistal is so "two centuries ago". This was back in the era when women were regarded as property and a woman losing her virginity meant her price went down. Dr. Laura may want to foster some idea of sexual purety. But many of Laura's ideas put women back into the dreaded role of being "sexual objects" and there for the sheer pleasure of a man and somehow not a real person. I'll tell you right now in the case of relational problem or divorce cases I have a natural bias to side in favor of the woman, because they are usually right. Let's face it- - men are jerks. We still have trouble seeing women as "people" - - you know- - like we value ourselves. Many of Dr. Laura's ideas perpetuate the idea of one dimensional view of women as nothing more than glorified whores, and house cleaners, and human incubators and nannies. Men actually deprive themselves by not fully appreciating their wives.

Delany of Delany and Bonnie, died the other day. His guardian angel visited me- - and this has happened several times where I was visited by a guardian angel after someone famous died. Delany is a pure Romulan and a citizen of Revelus V by right. John Lennon was apparently happy to see another musition from "that era" there on Sirius A. Apparently the reason why we don't get better "messages out" from John Lennon is that he suffers from depression. Some people even when they are in the same room it's hard to tell what is going on inside the recesses of their mind. The title "Stop the Killing" was my own idea although the phrase is used in the song "Freda People". John Lennon has not expressed an oppinion (that I know of) on the current mideast situation. The guardian angel of Delany told me quite a bit of other stuff and he suggested I make everything public because "If you found it interesting then your readers will probably find it interesting, too". I've known that Delany was a Romulan and destined to be among them when he died as far back as 1971 or so. Of course I'll be up front with you. I still have my doubts as to whether anyone of any stripe susvives death at all.

Vice President Chaney says, "I Did It"

Vice President Dick Chaney or "Cheeney" as he says he really pronounces it, has admitted to all the stuff he's responsible for including the idea of commencing torture of suspects and the outing of CIA opperative Valerie Wilson. These are treasonous acts. There is no getting around it. Both Dick Chaney and Karl Rove should be impeached as soon as the next congress conveins, which to my understanding is January 2nd. rather than the 20th. There has to be a way in which justice is upheld. After all, it's one of the Seven Virtues. A nation can't long exist if the guilty are allowed to go unpunished. We can start with these two and maybe deal with President Bush later. I know of no other time when such flagurant crimes as we have seen the past eight years would be winked at. To me and anybody else who is sensible it does no good to talk about "Letting the past go" any more than it would be to let some civil rights case such as a racial murder to unpunished merely because of the passage of time. We round up terrorists who were active thirty years ago but who have gone underground and are living normal lives now. We can certainly in the case of Dick Chaney and Karl Rove call a spade a spade and judge it accordingly. It is Christians themselves who say that any human being can "forgive a wrong" but God Almighty cannot due this because his sense of justice would be violated. Of course a logical outcome of this reasoning calling injustice a "thing" like money that can be traded rather than as a sin of the soul is the selling of indulgences during the middle ages. In my way of thinking Chaney and Rove cannot "buy an indulgence" after the fact by consessing their sins. How a nation deals with wrong in my way of thinking- - determines what sort of justice a nation values. I await the response of the audience on this.

Jerry Brown, Attorney General of California, has filed a brief in court to have the anti gay marriage proposition in California overturned. The reason is that fundamental rights cannot be voted out of existance. As I've noted before Proposition 14 forty years ago dealt with this same question and the courts decided then that voters would not vote rights away by a simple majority. I don't see anything but a favorible outcome for Jerry Brown. It's also a legal fact that things once legal are not automatically rendered illegal. There is a case in "The Bretherin" involging segragation that irked me but I'll tell you about it. There was a case about a guy leaving a Park to the city or someone with the stipulation that it would only be used by white people. Well of course the law changed, but according to the Supreme Court this was a violatioln of the man's express Will when he died, so remedial action had to be taken. Also in the case of building codes there are lots of instances of buildings not coming up to earthquake standards or handicapped standards or whatever or building too close to the property line. But settled law is these buildings are OK, unless new building is done. Using identical logic, I don't see how gay marriages in this state can be made null and void as much as some would like them to be, because such voiding would be against all legal precident.

I lay in bed this morning "thinking of things you're not supposed to think about". I thought of how both of the wives of my brother had brothers who committed suicide. People don't talk about so-called "loved ones who commit suicide". It's as if somehow the incident as well as the person themselves just never existed. I thought of Homer Simpson and a question I'd like to ask him. "How do you feel about the fact that due to your direct parental influence, all three of your children will grow up with an IQ 15 to 20 points lower than they otherwise would. I thought of how today's young kids are nurtured and "built up" both mentally and emotionally in a way we never were. I thought what it would be like on Christmas day to come out with the statement at a family gathering "Well, I guess Christianity is pretty much D O A this year". I've only received one Christmas card this year and that wasn't sent through the mail but given to me by a friend here. These "hard times" are in the process of killing Christmas. Perhaps this is part of a trend if this recession continues, where Christmas itself will just "wither away on the vine".

I'l like to call this paragraph, "The perals of false hope". People have high hopes for the Rev. Rick Warren that by being invited to preach at the Inogural of Obama that somehow his position on gays will soften. They should be made aware, so I've heard, that Rick Warren does not allow gays to join his church, and I would assume that means confessing Jesus at the alter. Also Rick Warren believes if you haven't "accepted Jesus" you will go to everlasting hell. Furthermore Rev. Warren believes in only two causes for divorce, either desertion or adultry. Abuse, either mental or physical- no matter how bad it gets- - is not sufficient grounds. I have heard many a preacher talk about praying for a backslidden (?) wife or husband for God to change his or her behavior. But you can't do that if you're dead. You may also want to know that these new Bush regulations will enable pharmicists to not fill a prescription for birth control pills or the morning after pill or as Thom Hartman says- - even get anti-biotics if you're a Christian Scientist or whatever. I don't see how in the bi-polar world of fundamentalism that anti-biotics could be a bad thing. It would seem to me they'd be agents of Christ fighting the devil. You know when they do a murder trial that's a capital case, they screen the jourors to make sure they were willing to impose the death penalty. As such if OJ Simpson had had such a jury his chances of conviction would have been much improved. You don't send passifists to the front line. And there are certain areas of medical science where Bush's new rules should not be allowed to interfere. Some would liken getting saved to coming into a dark room and eventually finding the light switch and switching it on. You may not understand how electricity works, but you don't have to, all you need to do is find the switch. Gene Scott likens salvation for some to trying on your grand dad's old glasses and wearing those, while others need to go down to where the lanzes were ground and watch how it's done. But the bottom line this presupposes that either set of glasses help you. But if you're a Jehovah's Witness and need a blood transfusion but are denied one because hospital policy forbids it- - this is patently wrong. Some people in looking at the Rev. Rick Warren make what I call the "slop-over" falocy. It's like a black hole. What you do with a black hole is say everything inside the circle is one thing, like Salvation, and everything outside is the state of perdition. Some would have it that if you "merely near the circle- - well this is OK because you're somehow in its influence". That isn't how black holes work. The edge of space occurrs in the black hole when light cannot escape. This is literally "the end of space" meaning there ain't no more. To paraphraise Gene Scott, "It's as hard to get out of this universe once you're in it as it is to get into it in the first place. There is no "slop-over effect" with Black Holes. The other side of the circled line around a black hole is "beyond infinity" as far as sheer distances are concerned. In other words "You can't get there from here" going either direction. In like manner once you are a Christian you can't be NOT one merely being "exposed to another message". You've heard the saying "Christianity is caught, not taught". You can't catch a disease by talking about getting it. Also there is another dirty little secret they'll admit. Christians are bold in large numbers but cowards as individuals. The whole idea of a Cult is to emerse the subject in religion so in his eyes "everybody is doing it. What's wrong with me?" As such no Christian places very much hope at all in somehow "witnessing their faith" like at a Presidential Inoguration. "You can't get there from here". The only thing this event proves of Warren appearing at the Inoguration is that Obama will do anything to win the approval of the Right Wing, which of course they will never give him, so it's a lost cause on Obama's part.

Apollonius of Tyanna

I guess there has been a lot of talk in some quarters lately about Circles of Delusion. We have the Mormon Circle of Delusion, the Moslem Circle of Delusion, and the Christian Circle of Delusion. Though the Christians are quick to judge the other two, they seem blind to their own. Of those ten questions this one writer wants every Christian to ask I would like to hammer on three of them. One is the notion that Moses never existed and there is no archiological evidence Jews were ever either in Egypt or migrated in the millions around Mt. Sinai. If the Jews never wandered in the Sinai for forty years I guess the next question is "Where did they come from?" As you know I used to own a book called The Secret Passage of the Lion, which says there is a break in the Chronology of first Kings just before Omri and after King Asa. You will note curtessy Gene Scott among other people that there is evidence for a Bet Kumri, which is Assyrian for House of Omri. It's interesting that the Bible speaks of Jeroboam and not Omri so much. But if you're an archiologist Omri assumes much more important. This book says Solomon was actually a much more ancient King reigning around 1500 BC. I say all of this because Abraham is portrayed as going to the King of Salem, even though Jews today believe Jerusalem was conquered by King David 1700 years later in a heroic battle led by Joab. So who are you going to believe? The archologists or what? My second question is the Meracles of Jesus. There seems to be no historic evidence of them outside the Bible. Perhaps this isn't news but I find it interesting. The third is on marriage and divorce. If these Christians are as Calvinistic as they say they are then every time a pastor says "What God hath joined together let no man put assunder" he is taking the Lord's name in vain, because the Lord wasn't in it, because it didn't happen. They got divorced. And the author claims that divorce rates among Christians are no lower than among the heathen. Don't ask me; I'm just reporting it. As to the other assertions on this My Space - slash - You Tube presentation - - of course Christians look like idiots when they try to answer even elementry questions about their God. They will simply claim "By looking like an idiot I am glorifying God". How can you argue with that?

Frankly, typing this posting was the last thing I expected to be doing this Saturday night. I thought I was done blogging for a while, at least till Tuesday when gay pride takes over. But I saw that My Space entry and I just had to investigate. I have absolutely no doubt that those postings are reaching a lot more people than my blogs are, in the same way that I believe a lot more mathematical calculations are being done on computers rather than on slide rules.

Who is Appolonius of Tyanna and why is he important. Back when I was in philosophy class (back when they wrote on stone tablets) we learned that "Apolonian" things were of the intellect and Dianecian things were of the emotion. But also anything Apollonian was related to the Sun and Sun worship, as opposed to the Moon. There are still feminists out there who say that the Apollo project was the organized rape of the Moon. So the name "has a history". Also we know that just prior to Christianity taking over the world there was the Sol Invictus religion, which translates to Invincible Sun, or Unconquered Sun. So now that you know that let's get on to why Apollonius of Tyanna is important. Get your "Glass Onion" L P's out because "Here's another clue for you all". What is the one "Missing Link" in my whole theory about the origen of Christianity? It's been the Apostle Paul. Who was he? Well, here's another PAUL for you all. Appolonius of Tyanna was apparently born in 40 AD and died in 120 AD and as such could be the "Old Man" that Justin the martyr met. Both birth and death dates are highly flexible since this man's life is poorly documented and seems to be one of those men to whom myth makers are attracted. He is mentioned as a possible "antitype" of Jesus Christ. He is said to have ascended into heaven when he died, and performed meracles. Eusubius (if you believe him) claims that Apollonius performed his great meracles with the power of demons. Strangely enough, like Jesus, it's claimed this man visited India. His father died at age twelve and there is a blank in the years of his life, just like Jesus. This man unlike Jesus did not believe you could petetion the Lord with Prayer. (shall I keep repeating it like Jim Morrison?) But like Jesus this man was against animal sacrifices. Sometimes it's interesting to see the things that were NOT changed when the gospels were written down. But more important is where this man lived. He lived right in Asia Minor or western Turkey right where the Apostle Paul did all his minestry. He was born in Capidocia. He was said to be a Pythagarean, whom I know little about, with the exception of the Gnostic notion of "The One". (Yeah, Borgs, too!) It's interesting to note that between his death in AD 120 and the inilation of Palestine, (which was a word invented by the Romans to torment the Jews and should never be used by a Jewish person again) - - between these two events there was a lot of "emotion" where people had feelings they "didn't know what to do with". Psychologically, this is a prime time for mental abberations to occur. (as Ron Hubbard might say) You enter that bubble of delusion where your thoughts run in incurable circular arguments. So you can add this guy's name as an admixture in the Jesus Brew, along with "That Egyption" and "Yeshua" and Philo of Alexandria. And of course there is Mithraism, which goes back to Pursian myths- - notably elements of the Christmas Story.

If you judged The Jesus Story by the same criteria that you judged the story of Santa Clause or Jack and the Bean Stalk, its meaning would be obvious. Sure such stories fill a need in our lives, but they aren't science, archiology,. or history. I promised myself I wouldn't say anything else against Jesus or Christians a while back and I haven't kept my word. OK, give me twenty lashes with a wet noodle! Some have spoken of the Necessity of Now, or the Burden of Now. In like matter I think the Overriding Nature of Reality trumps any promise I made to nobody in particular. I have always said of others "If you break your word because what you promissed was so assenine to begin with people will thank you for breaking your word". That entry said that while it's true that Smart People believe in Christianity- - - the act itself of Believing was not smart, it was very unwise. Sometimes intelligent people will come up with ingenious and inovative ways to preserve their own flawed egos. There were smart people who were loyal members of the Nazi Party, and some of them were brilliant and Hitler counted on that. But believing in an error is not only bad for You; it's bad for the Planet. It's bad for the Species. It celebrates death when we should be celebrating life, and darkness and obscurity when we should be celebrating enlightment and education for all. All of this you should think about. I will.

Intersteller Chatter

And now we turn to letters from our listeners. Mrs. Oglethorp from Appleton, Wisconsin writes that she highly resents the way we have portrayed John Mc Cain and that he did not dump his first wife after returning to America in March of 1073. He did not divorce her till years later in April of 1980 and that there is an anti-nuptual agreement so that he didn't marry her for her money. Also she wants to say that Mc Cain is one of the finest patriotic Americans this land has ever produced and that it's time older Americans were again given a voice in government.

She further goes on to write that Jesus Christ is one of the most historically attested and documented figures in the history of the world, and that the resurrection of Our Lord is one of the most historically documented facts in the world. In fact you don't even have to go to the Bible to show he's divine because there is not one source about Jesus that doesn't also add in that he was divine with the power to perform meracles at will.

Also Mrs. Oglethorp says we just have some genialogical facts wrong. The Detroit Romulans are not half Andromeda but one fourth Andromeda and 3/4 classic Romulan. In fact there is a group that are half Andromedan and they are called "half breeds" but they take it as a term of distinction that they are double the Andromeda mix that the rest of the Detroit Romulans are. She wants to remind me that racial mixes are not always 50 - 50. And that the Atlanta Romulans are part Cassiopian and not pure-breads, and that it's the Cassiopian part that makes White Andromedan's as white as they are. Also the Scorseans are known as the Cortessians and that someone not that long ago began calling them by the wrong name. And the CMK Romulans of Southern California are queer birds to fraternize with the Cortessians because they are part bred with the Reemus race, their mortal enemies.

Mrs. Oglethorp hopes that if this letter is read on the air it is done so in a dignified matter and there are is nothing about the way the letter is presented that would be embarrassing.

P. S. By the way if there really is a Mrs. Oglethorp out there from Appleton, Wistonsin, my profoundest apologies for this posting, that is unless of course you happen to agree with it.

Tim Russart Dies

Some sort of fitting tribute here is called for. As you know Tim Russart, host of Meet the Press since December of 1991 apparently, died today of a sudden heart attack. He was taping promos at NBC studios for next week's program. He went to work just like it was a normal day. He wrote a book called "Me and Russ" or something, about his own father, dedicated to his son, Luke, and as a consequence to this book and the letters from young people he got he wrote a sequel called "The Wisdom of Fathers". Tim was from Buffalo as we all well know. (The Romulans are famous for not liking Buffalo but we'll save that one) He was a "blue collar man". That's the phrase I've heard. Apparently he worked for Daniel Moynahan and Mario Cuomo in the eighties. People say that he "saved" Meet the Press, which was lagging in the ratings. Of course what he was best known for was his tough follow up questioning and playing back statements the politician said. He wouldn't let them get away. At the risk of making some contraversial statement here, if "some liberal" was destined to die around this day by some Cosmic Forces, I'm glad it was Russart and not Obama. In a queer coincidence I learned about Russart's death the same way I learned about Robert Kennedy's. My Mom told me before I even heard it on the media. I imagine there is some astrological link there. Of course there is a small crack in my psyche that wonders whether Russart wasn't poisoned or something by a detracter. Yesterday on Montel they had this wife who murdered two lovers using the same method of slowly feeding them anti-freeze in foods like lime Jell-O, where it wouldn't even be detected because it was sweet. But of course you get violently ill for two whole days like you're gona die from some intestinal ailment- - and finally you have a heart attack and die for real. Of course Russart was a Catholic. I say "of course" but I didn't know that till a few moments ago. Even his opponets like John Mc Cain and his Siamese twin, Lieberman, stated that he was always Fair in his questioning. Of course now perhaps we'd better do a death watch on Dan Rather because I have a funny feeling he'll be next. It's too bad people like Russart can't clone themselves. Meet the Press is just never going to be the same again.

Someone else who will never be the same is the Pope, because Benedict XVI is no John Paul II. He doesn't have that liberal passion to crusade for issues like ending the Iraq War or abolition of the death penalty, etcetra. President Bush met with Pope Benedict today in his "secret garden" where the Pope goes to pray. I imagine divulging what they talked about would be a no - no, but somehow I get the feeling it wasn't the fact that Bush has the most morally depraved Adminestration in American History. I think the President is a man who could stand to "Get Religion" if you catch my drift, but I also have that certain feeling that will never happen.

Apparently John Mc Cain divorced his first wife and married his current wife within a month of being released from Internment Camp. His first wife was a swim suit model (?) but was “disfigured” in an accident and wound up paralyzed. I would imagine the right doesn’t like the way this looks. Mc Cain is against any birth control education. Even though Liberals don't hit below the belt, sometimes they don't hit above the belt either, while they're busy being pummled. If he can call his current wife a "cunt" in public, who knows what he says to her in private? I believe we need a man in the White House who respects women. Hillary Clinton needs to launch a woman's campaign with other big names like Caroline Kennedy and Michelle Obama- - and go out and get the women's vote. Interestingly we haven't heard anything out of Hillary this week. I suppose that concession speech where she talked about herself- - just took too much out of her.

There is still stuff in the news about Michelle Obama using the term “Whitey”, when what she said was “Why did he- - ?” I personally used to use the term "Whitey" all the time in my snail mail writings. I don't see the problem with it. The only thing is if you use that word now it makes you sound rather dated. As my Mom pointed out however, Tim Russart and I are just about the same age. Rush Liambaugh claimed he was going to play a tape of this the next day but of course he couldn’t produce it.

Gasoline in Los Angeles now average $4.54 a gallon and there is one place selling premium right now at $5.09. People remember other gas hikes and even after the crude oil price comes down, gasoline will stay high for weeks or even longer. It's quick to go up and slow to come down, and not to beat a metaphore to death but further increases are "already in the pipeline.

It seems in real estate mortgage loan contracts they are required to use small capitalization in two paragraphs that state the horrible things that can happen to you if you default on this loan. You know, Sylvia Browne was just a year or so ahead of her time last year saying weather stories would be dominating the media news. Cedar Rappids is having a "hundred year flood" but of course they just had that other "hundred year flood" fifteen years ago. This is of course a record tornado season. Of course insurance companies won't even insure you if you're a high risk. After all they aren't in business th give away money. They're in business to get YOUR money. Some people want further food regulations on our food like this tomato scare now. It's a truth that liberals have to face that "The world is a dangerous place". "Stuff" happens, as the saying goes.

COSMIC PSYCHEDELIC MADNESS

There is some Federation news from the past few days. Mal Evans let me know I wasn’t just breathing Moe Sizlack’s exhaust fumes in the summer of 1999 when I learned Brian Jones was still alive on Sirius A and that he got into an argument with Greg. ( Greg is a Denelus IV Romulan) This was after Greg had met the “fake” Brian Jones and gotten into an even worse argument with him. Back in the summer of 1999 I didn't trust myself because my my alcohol consumption. So is Brian Jones the enlightened psychedelic guy portrayed by Mal Evans, or the slothful, washed-up bad attitude has-been portrayed by everyone else. Mal Evans himself has been arguing with other Federation officials about "Too much earth music enphasis and the Andromeda connection". I asked Mal Evans who Greg was for in the NBA finals, and a friend of Greg’s who was present said “Boston, of course”. At the time the Lakers were up twenty and I thought "What a loser!" Mal said Brian was for the Lakers. But Mal assured me “Neither Greg nor Brian has that kind of power [needed] to influence the outcome of the game”. There was also some sort of “news” from the “Skyway group”. I know who they are, associated with Boeing aircraft in Seattle. Apparently they are half “East Romulan” and half “The Houston Group”, which is what we call them although their population in Houston is a small percentage. In case you are wondering, yes these are familiar spirits of Howard Hughes. The Detroit Romulans are half Romulan (Regelus V) and apparently half Andromeda E, where the hippy contingent is either D or F. Also there are tensions between the Aries “Mu” “We are a sovereign state” group, and the “Phil Collins” Cassiopeans over some political alliance. “Mu” is the 13^th. letter in the Sirius A alphabet. The best known groups are Iron Maiden, Scorpions, Genisis, Triumph, and April Wine. There are a lot of minor ones I don’t know. Mal Evans also played me a tape done with vocal and acoustic guitar of “That Was Me”, the Mc Cartney song done all the way back in May of 1988. Also he said the words were scripted by Mark Campbell, assuring me that at least then, Mark was in “the next world”. The singer sound like the guy who made “Pocadot Undies” kind of an imitation Dylan. Yes they "do" abductions, occasionally.

A Clear Choice for Voters in November

I've been reading up on the horrors of this "Enron loophole" bill that President Clinton signed in the year 2000 and let me just say that on the surface I don't see the problem, exactly. Comodities have always traded in future contracts as far as I know, and not present circumstances. They say the price of oil is now 40% too high, and how the price of oil has quintuppled in the eight years of the Bush Adminestration. There has to be more to it than that. What Enron did to us in California seems to have only tangental connection to this Clinton "loophole". That was just bad planning and poor business sense by Gray Davis. It would seem to me that the easiest thing to do to end this round of speculation is for the government tomorrow (or today) to say they are going to pick up where Jimmy Carter left off in 1979 and exaustively explore all alternative forms of energy. And if supplies are as high as people like Thom Hartman say they are then the price should collapse with nothing to sustain it and the ones most punished will be those who speculated the most heavily, just like in the real estate market. According th Hartman, apparently what the government has been doing is granting all sorts of lease or whatever contracts to oil companies to gain controle of the product, but then they refuse to pump the oil from the ground and prefer to sit on it. I would certainly to the extent possible bring anti trust actions against OPEC, and were I the government I would revoke these permits, if possible, and give them to smaller oil companies who will guarentee to pump the oil and sell it at a lower price. Certainly tax laws could be brought to bear or new ones written so that it just no longer paid for oil companies to sit on oil they own rather than to drill it. How about an oil assets tax or something that's really steep? Clearly the problem is not lack of refineries has had been alledged. Apparently the oil companies don't WANT to build new refineries; things are just peachy the way they are, as far as they're concerned. I'm sure there are lots of other laws being violated, though, and perhaps a new laws that need to be written that are both cleaverly and aptly worded and get the job done by sticking it to the oil companies. Of course Democrats have charged that taking business overseas is encouraged by our tax laws. Also John Mc Cain apparently supported Air Bus, some French company, against Boeing Aircraft, a comestic company. What we need is economic policy that puts America first and that includes the awarding of government contracts. Conservatives love to call liberals "Un-American" but from here it seems as if the shoe is clearly on the other foot.

What Obama needs to do in his speeches is spell out all the economic realities to Americans and make them realize that these Neo Cons do not have America's best interests at heart. Of course you realize that is gasoline really reflected the price of oil today it'd be selling above five dollars a gallon. But Obama doesn't need to tell the people that. But for instance the unemployment rate is a lot higher than 5.5%. They said it was 13% for able bodied males between 20 and 55. This is up from 11% in 1998 and 1988 and up from 9% in 1979 and from six percent in 1968. The economy was pretty darned healthy in 1968. All of the people who are under-employed or those discouraged workers no longer even looking for a job should be counted. Of course this bloated labor market keeps wages down because people are afraid they'll be next to be on the unemployment line, so it's kind of economic control of the workers by fear.

In terms of progress on the Impeachment bill, it has been suggested that Nancy Palosi and other congress people don't want to bring the 35 Articles up because of that "People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones" argument. The reasoning goes that congress is corrupt therefore they don't feel "morally right" about exposing the corruptness of others. The argument is completely idiotic. I don't care if Nancy Palosi is a mass murderer- - I still want her to bring up this impeachment bill before congress. If she has committed any "sins" in the past, then this action will go tword her redemption. More to the point it would seem that we need another spring house cleaning in November. The 2006 purge of congress apparently wasn't thorough enough and we need to get more overtly reformist people in congress next time, to work with our new president, Berock Obama. Mc Cain says he claims to care about people's economic problems. If he's serious about that then he should be humble and say "I don't know anything; please inform me and tell me what I need to do" to his economic advisers. Somehow I get the feeling John Mc Cain is not quite the ignoramus he claims to be with all of those lobbiests hanging around. My fear about this Presidential campaign is that it won't be pursued with enough vigor.

Let me just say a little about the I Phone II, or whatever it's being called 3 G or whatever. It would still seem that businessmen prefer the Blackberry. As far as I've been able to glean, other phones are still cheaper and get the job done better, with more flexability than the I phone. All the new I Phone does is let us know that Apple is not completely stupid. Just to change the subject slightly- - - are IQ tests for our kids really going up now? Have all these electronic gismos they carry with them made them smarter- - or could Sir Isac Newton with a slide rule still blow any of them out of the water? Back in the day, "Logic" and "Rhetoric" used to be taught in our institutions of higher learning. Are people still taking these? You know a lot of these skills are highly applicapable to math and science. I sometimes get the idea that the youth are today are more Drugged out than stimulated by the technology of today. Am I right?

A Warning Shot accross the Bough

This is the 29th. posting of "Karmic Suicide" and I think hexigram no. 29 has to do with boats and "The Abysmal Water". Let me check that out. Well, this is kind of an ordenary day so what am I going to talk about on this Tuesday Afternoon? (It still is in California, but not for long) As you know Paul Mc Cartney may have been razzing the Moody Blues in his line "Tuesday Afternoon is never ending". If you want some free stuff from The World Beyond before we get started with the 35 Articles of Impeachment of George Bush, the Federation now says that all those people who died when Aldeberan IX was blown up by Alcyonne in June of 1967 actually survived in consciousness. I was formerly under the impression that they had been inilated- - like they just "Ceased to Exist". The Federation taggs them as the Birmingham group, and I'm not sure if all the following groups are from Birmingham but here we go- - Traffic, Pink Floyd, Procol Herem, Black Sabbath, and the Moody Blues. It's the Federation that links these groups together- not me.

OK if you listened to Randi Rhodes today you know that last night she listened in rapt attention to CSPN, a station I don't even get, to several hours of Dennis Kasinitch's reading of the 35 Articles of Impeachment of George Bush that he had drafted, and it reportedly took several hours. I downloaded the whole thing onto Adobe Reader, but it took a little time to find because Google seemed reluctant to give me anything in Kassinitch Impeachment or 35 Articles. Perhaps it's because I can't spell. Randy describes herself as being in some altered, hypnotized state, and she says "Normal people just don't watch CSPN. She says sometimes it weird to get information that only You have and can't share with anybody. That's how I feel now with Mark Campbell and Bill Gunderson out of my current reality. You know- - sometimes a Revolution can be a noble thing even if it fails. Take that Bar Kopha guy or whoever that led the rebellion of Judah in 135 AD. You know that revolution failed, but in the words of Jack Nicholson, "Well, I tried- god-damn-it! At least I did that". In point of fact the Jews were able to obtain an independant state for a couple of years or so and even minted their own coins. I point this out because most of what you hear about this Second Jewish Revolt is negative. The leader is spoken of as a "false messiah". But if you look at what he did he was a great organizer, and his followers did everything in their human power such at the revolution should succeed, including the timing of the attack at the most oppertune moment. If you're wondering how this relates to Dennis Kassitinich let me just say that he has the heart of a true revolutionary. And the thing is I'm not sure whether anybody on the left at this point isn't dealing with a stacked deck and a rigged craps table. There are still roomers floating around that George Bush might not even allow the election of 2008 to take place. Many of these 35 articles, perhaps too many, have to do with the Iraq War and the fraud leading up to it. Of course that Poker Deck thing has 54 things that Bush is guilty of and I'd have to cross-reference to see which ones mesh with the other. But the point Randy was trying to make is that the news isn't going to report such a momentus event. The media in a perverse sense really "defines" what is "True" and "Worthy News" and "Relevant" in our society today. It's not just that they slant the news- - -they produce the news like a Broadway Play is produced. It's coriographed with actors and scenery and the whole shabang. It could be said that he who controls our vocabulary controls our thinking, and Thom Hartmann has talked a lot about this in "Cracking the Code". In fact if you go to his web site or to your local book store if you can still find one, you should buy all his books.

One thing I’d like to mention right now is a report from the Iraqi government that says they fear a permanent U S force occupation, and the nation is telling us to get out. Also it is feared by Iran that we plan to use Iraq as a staging area for an invasion. John Mc Cain and George Bush are such idiots they don’t care what the Meliki government thinks. We’ll leave there when we’re good and ready and not one minute before. If some kind of conflict engagement breaks out, hell it isn’t our fault. There is a Star Trek saying "You have manipulated the situation with the skill of a Romulan". This is another way of saying that "incidents" can be fabricated so that the American People almost beg their leaders to lead them into war. As grammar school kids they were shown that film on the Simpsons that makes going to war look like just another very realistic 3D video game. And it only last briefly but then you come home to all the acolades and praise. According to C S Lews, as I have often disparagingly quoted, you go into battle and get blown up by a shell and die instantly and presumably painlessly, and are instantly transported to heaven where you shed your old body, "which is as refreshing as a shower" According to the gospel of Bush, no military presence can be said to "provoke" conflict, if it's Us, because We're Perfect! Why, our forces wouldn't harm a fly! You know, instead of arguing against World War II, Pat Buchannon should be working NOW to put all that propaganda tallent of his into ending THIS war, before it spreads. I thought of opening this posting with something like 'Today here in California- - it's a normal day. You should charish this time in American history- - savor it. Because it may be the last time in a long time you can remember that we are NOT at war with Iran, which will be like jumping from the frying pan into the fire". Hell, at the defence department they're resourseful with propaganda. They can get the American Public to hate just about anybody! One way vocabulary and language creep into our thinking is when a conservative says "Obama wants to surrender the whole Mideast to Al Qaida. The idea of US withdrawal is a congruent cognate to the word "Surrender it all". No matter how good they say our side is doing, it seems the minute we get out the whole area will go to put instantly and Al Qaida and the Shiites will conspire together to take over the whole world or something. I had momentarily forgotten about that all important “17.4” astrological indicator. But I had several months if not a year ago predicted June of 2008 would be a foreign flash point for the Bush Administration and this would cause the republican nominee a lot of trouble in his campaign. It would be easy to just say “Well, it looks like a slam dunk for Obama now”. But of course we are all like Pavlov dogs and the minute we hear the L word, "Liberal" we all salivate on command. Who was that guy Hartman had on today, was it Negroponte? Anyhow he said that an attack of Iran is definitely still on the table. He says it's a logical next move. Even if launching a war during an election year seems like Political Suicide, we know Bush is "not your father's President" so to speak. We know he had the Iraq war rubber stamped in 2002 just before an election. Bush is good at reading the public will. You know “Libre” is the Spanish word for “Free”. Liberalism has as its core the concept of “Liberty” and Freedom and also “Liberate” means “To Free”. I say this because I’ve heard these terms like “Fascism of the left” but such notions aren’t “Liberal”. I noted in entries that they like to include “Free thinkers” with Atheists. “Free Thinking” is still legal, isn’t it?

This last part is typed after dinner (on Sunday). In the hour before dinner I was looking at things like the Gospel of Mark and ‘Papius”, who supposedly came up with the Mark as disciple of Peter theory. This Papius is an obscure man who died in AD 155 at the same time as Polycarp. Irenius refers to him as a “man of old” even though he is only thirty or so years in the past. Eusubius ever the historian, flauts Papius for his belief in the second coming of Christ. I didn’t know that the Bar Koppla war was more costly to the Romans than was the revolt of AD 70. Some parallels to the gospels are noteworthy. There is the phrase “Twelve legions”, which Hadrian sent to battle at Jerusalem. There is the idea of the Jews minting coins with their own inscription, usually melted down from other foreign coins. There is the whole “Star of Jacob” thing or “Son of a Star”. But most noteworthy is the idea of the Abomination of Desolation being set up on the temple site and the idea even now that “The Antichrist” would start off offering to rebuild Jerusalem. Hadrian at first felt sorry for Israel but when the Jews learned he planned to put two idols up, one of himself and one of Jupiter, they revolted. It was a better organized revolt which was coordinated with all the troops. In the AD 70 war, three army factions fought each other for control of the temple mount. It was stated it was only at this time there was a division between traditional Jews and Christian Jews, the latter saying the messiah had already come in Jesus. Also there are many historians who say that Matthew’s gospel really was written before Mark’s. Some have said that Mark’s gospel “contains more distinctly Roman phrasing than Matthew or Luke”.

If I think of anything more to say on this subject I will. You know, Belmont Park could be called a “Champion Breaker”. Here is a jinx that is 31 years and counting. But almost as impressive are the US presidential elections that are “Liberal Breakers”. Only Jimmy Carter could by any stretch of the imagination be called a pure liberal. And it’s popular belief that most Americans despise him. When an insurance company is compiling actuarial tables it assigns the lowest rates to things that virtually never happen. The odds of Obama being “dealt with” by the Powers that Be are high, simply because an election of such a man as President is something that has never happened. “The best indication of future behavior is past behavior”, to quote Doctor Phil.

Jesus Christ seemed to be saying “Can’t we all get along?” today. He said that girl Susie should make allowances for human imperfection in picking a church. My answer to that is if you flush the book of Acts down the toilet you can get rid of all these ideas about divine sovereignty and the leading of the spirit, and the rest. Because nowhere in acts does it mention “How to search for a church”. The very idea is not even admissible. You know of course that St. Paul saw himself as infallible. The people whom Jesus views infallible, and the only ones, are that group of Cardinals at the council of Nicia in the fourth century. Later on he talked about "apologizing for apologetics." He said, “A lot of people burn Christian tracts as fast as they get them”. My response to this is “Just how did the idea of God loving you and having a Wonderful Plan for your Life- - become a notion of Ill-repute?” Jesus also mumbled something about not “pushing back” at the idea of “growth” and how “growth takes time, but we are too impatient”. I'll define "growth" for you. If someone hits you or whips you- - "growth" is the LOSS of the ability or inclination to strike back out of sheer exaustion. Such horses loose races! (Selah)