 | "There's Justice In The Universe" |
| Posted 12/20/2009 5:01 AM CST      culture: values shared by a social group(s) / society culture shock: the disorienting experience of realizing that the perspectives, behaviors and experiences of an individual, group or society are not shared by another individual, group or society. A society's viability is a reflection of the degree to which spiritual laws are manifest in cultural values. Note: Religious laws often conflict with Spiritual Laws e.g., Christ broke religious laws. Read- Legal systems of the world: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_systems_of_the_world#Religious_law |
| Posted 12/17/2009 11:31 AM CST Merry Yuletide Christ Mass Even though Jesus wasn't born during the winter months, December 25th is certainly a very appropriate and worthy date to celebrate the birth of the Son (sun) of God (universe). Imagine how our ancient ancestors living in the northern latitudes must've felt as the darkness and cold grew ever more pressing as the sun retreated further and further south. Imagine marking the 'fall' by noting where the sun rose and set against the notches in a distant mountain range. Week after week the days became shorter as you felt nature's warmth decline. Then almost imperceptibility the sun stopped its declination --- just as a pendulum swing stops at the end of a stroke marking time. Then after waiting several days for a consensus to build, there is cause for celebration as everyone knows that the "promise of renewed life" is once again reaffirmed. For these ancients, celestial bodies in the heavens were gods they held in awe and fear. And as the birth / rebirth of the sun brought hope for them, the coming of Christ, the Son, brings hope and faith for modern mankind. |
| Posted 12/12/2009 5:26 PM CST "In Copenhagen, consumers in the developed world are to be offered a radical method of offsetting their carbon emissions in an ambitious attempt to tackle climate change - by paying for contraception measures in poorer countries to curb the rapidly growing global population... family planning is the most effective way to reduce the likelihood of catastrophic global warming. Optimum Population Trust (Opt) stresses that birth control will be provided only to those who have no access to it, and only unwanted births would be avoided. 'Opt' estimates that 80 million pregnancies each year are unwanted. The cost-benefit analysis commissioned by the trust claims that family planning is the cheapest way to reduce carbon emissions. Every $8 spent on "contraception", it says, saves one ton of CO2 being added to global warming, but a similar reduction in emissions would require an $16 investment in tree planting, $45 in wind power, $93 in solar energy and $168 in hybrid vehicle technology. The world's population, presently 6.8 billion, is increasing by nearly 84 million a year. The growth is equivalent to a new country the size of Germany each year. It is expected by the UN to peak at about 9 billion people in 2050. By this time, UN scientists say global carbon emissions must have reduced by at least 80% to avoid dangerous rises in temperature, meaning the carbon footprint of each citizen in 2050 will have to be very low. Global population growth geometrically increases the effect of increased consumption and competition for nonrenewable resources." http://www.optimumpopulation.org/ |
| Posted 11/22/2009 2:41 PM CST Sometimes we find ourselves swept up on a 'current of events' that defines part of our outlook on life. Such was the case for me in October of 1962. It was Columbus Day in Eugene, Oregon. As I looked out across the street from my student desk anxiously awaiting to go home towards the end of the school day, I observed that the smoke from a chimney suddenly started to flow down the side of the chimney and curl on the ground. Before I could ponder on this too long, an announcement over the school PA system telling us to all go home early without delay. Typhoon Freda, despite the previous assurances of the national weather services, had continued up the coast and was soon to be upon us. I lived only a mile away, and even though I hadn't 'dilly dallied' at all, I was being hammered by steady winds that forced me to walk leaning into the wind in order to not be bowled over before I was even a third the way home. I pitied those who had to walk further than I did. Soon after I got home, my father arrived and the winds had increased to the point that gusts had buffeted his truck such that he'd experienced sideways slippage on the wet roads. During the night, the storm did its worst. In the morning, with the sun shining, we climbed out through the front window of our apartment because the neighboring buildings' shingles were all stacked up in front of our door. Trees everywhere were either mangled or laying on the ground. The roof had been blown off of my school -- with 2x4s from it shot like arrows into the building across from the school like arrows. A wall in an old folks home down the street had blown inwards and killed several unfortunates. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbus_Day_Storm_of_1962 I had a couple of weeks of staying home while the school was being repaired -- but it wasn't as enjoyable as it could have been. The Cuban missile crisis was peaking before the school could be reopened. And having just experienced what a typhoon could do, I was all too aware of what a nuclear war could hold in store for all of us. [Two years prior, we'd been living in rural Idaho close to an air base and I'd spent one summer digging a deep hole in the ground to build a nuclear fallout shelter in.] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis Moral: The Eugene school district officials were idiots to have delayed releasing us for so long. Fortunately, the Kennedy administration had better sense in dealing with their crisis. |
| Posted 11/21/2009 2:59 PM CST Late in the day, Draper and Nelly, a retired couple, tried pulling into a Yellowstone campground with their small trailer; but, it was fully occupied and so, frustrated, they had to double back and pull into a less desirable campground that they’d passed several miles back up the road. They bedded down and just before midnight their trailer began to pitch and shake. Nelly, panicked, was only partly reassured by Draper’s sleepy comment: “It’s just some old bull scratching his a** on the corner of the trailer. Go back to sleep.” The shaking soon stopped. When they awoke early in the morning, the rest of the campground was abuzz. An earthquake had caused the shaking in the middle of the night. And the campground that they’d not been able to stay at had been obliterated by a huge rock slide. Meanwhile, in Boise, Idaho, our household was stirring. Though I’d slept through the midnight tremors, my parents were commenting on how the closet doors had rattled and the baby’s crib squeaked as it shook during what had to have been an earthquake. It wasn’t until the next day that we learned how close my paternal grandparents had come to finding an early rocky grave. Most of the 28 campers’ bodies of the doomed campground would never be recovered. Nine years later, I was able to visit the site. I was astounded that the campground had been buried by a huge rock slide that had been almost 'thrown across the valley' from the opposite side. It wasn’t merely a slide of rocks that came down from above the campground. To this day, I’m haunted in remembering looking across the newly formed lake in the valley at the naked side of the mountain whose former slope was now under my feet as I stood over the buried campers. No pictures can impart the sense of devastating power in that scene. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=yellowstone+earthquake+1959&btnG=Search http://www.westyellowstonechamber.com/images/Calendar/Landslidelg.jpg It gives a potentially ominous meaning for us earthlings regarding the volcanic history of Yellowstone: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=yellowstone+supervolcano&btnG=Google+Search |
| Posted 11/19/2009 4:20 PM CST Radical Muslim cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki, condenses the alQaeda philosophy into 'easily' digestible bits and posts them in colloquial American-accented English. The militant Muslim group, al-Shabab, publicly praises al-Awlaki as "one of the few scholars who defend the honor of the 'Mujahideen'. The 2007 group of Muslims who plotted an attack on Ft. Dix publicly praised him / as did the group of Canadian Muslims who were planning to attack the parliament in 2006. And guess what, Awlaki is an American citizen living in Yemen. Hasan had seen Awlaki speak in 2001. Then last year, Hasan was monitored as he sought advice from Awlaki --- and our intelligence services knew it. Awlaki is now praising Hasan as a hero. Once again I'm left thinking that perhaps the term 'U.S. Intelligence' is an oxymoron. Another conceptual contradiction is the cry "Allahu akbar" (God is great) used when commiting murder / unless, of course, one realizes that it's being used in the context of a belief system that is congruent with Old Testament religion (such as practiced in the conquest of Canaan). http://www.reformation.org/conquest-of-canaan.html Read details relating to Hasan: www.tinyurl.com/ydjlqsx www.tinyurl.com/ydvkkup More on al-Awlaki: http://www.theweek.com/article/index/102685/Who_is_Anwar_alAwlaki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Du5n3FZSrk&feature=related Note: He sounds like a zealous fundamentalist to me. |
| Posted 11/18/2009 11:45 AM CST There are 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000+ visible stars in that portion of the Universe that is visible to us from Earth. We look out from the center of the sphere defined by our location in the Universe. Therefore, the number of stars in the Universe is infinitely greater than the number of grains of sand on Earth. Similarly, we know that in a galaxy the size of the Milky Way there are an average of 2 supernova each century. Yet our visible universe is so vast and galaxies so numerous that supernova are going off as if you were on a football field watching camera flashes at the Superbowl. To illustrate our 'assumed' position in the Universe in a 2-dimensional manner, use a draftsman's compass to draw a small circle on a large sheet of paper [Imagining us at the center of the circle, the drawn circumference represents the furthest distance we can see back in space & time to the beginning of the Universe / approximately 13+ billion light years distance]. Now place the spike of the compass anywhere on the drawn circumference and draw another circle of equal size. On the furthest outlying point of the new circle repeat the process. And then repeat this again and again as many times as you're able. Now suppose that (in a science fiction manner) you were able to zing yourself to the center of each new circle in the real 3-dimensional universe as many times as you'd like. You'd still never be able to reach the edge of it & would would be looking into a new section of the Universe each time. Infinity. Note: If everything has a spiritual essence, then perhaps we can imagine (in any infinitely small way) where God is. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universe |
| Posted 11/9/2009 4:08 PM CST A few cups of coffee daily does have beneficial effects (but not for pregnant women). Colon, rectal and liver cancers are more frequent in coffee abstainers. Type II diabetes is less frequent in heavy coffee drinkers / male coffee drinkers are less likely to be impacted by Parkinson's disease / even heart attack survivors benefit from the coffee's antioxidants that reduce inflammation and protect blood vessel walls. Premature death in coffee drinkers, especially in women, is reduced. Especially noteworthy is that people with liver diseases cut their risk of the diseases advancing by drinking three or more cups a day. Read more for specifics: http://www.statesman.com/life/content/life/stories/health/2009/11/09/1109coffee.html http://www.health.harvard.edu/press_releases/coffee_health_risk Note that Fair Trade coffee is going to have the greatest benefits. Coffee is only 2% caffeine. The beneficial components are a multitude of organic compounds that are greatest in 'naturally' grown coffee plants: www.tinyurl.com/yzdu778 |
| Posted 11/8/2009 2:39 PM CST *Fewer than one-third of young adult Americans can calculate simple interest... **In Britain, where women are entitled to 39 weeks of paid leave after giving birth, 74% of women in a survey said that female workers without children should be entitled to "maternity" leave... ***Less than one-third of men wash their hands after using the toilet as compared to 2/3rds of women... ****The corrupt pro-Kremlin United Russia party arrogantly and ineptly rigged an election such that the opposition Yabloko party received zero votes in the district where the Yabloko candidate and his relatives lived... And the story goes on and on... |
Posted 11/6/2009 1:19 PM CST
Even though there is no scientific doubt that our Earth is getting warmer, the percentage of Americans who profess the belief that greenhouse gases are a 'contributing factor' is declining as a result of our being confronted with the economic and political costs of dealing with it. Another reason is that the degree of warming has not been as great as alarmists had predicted during the past decade. Hence, only 35% of Republicans even believe that ANY climate change is occurring at all.
www.tinyurl.com/asiseeit
www.tinyurl.com/asiseeit
