Doc Visit

Went to doc's office this am for ultrasound on my neck, carotid artery thingy. Last week I was in for ultrasound in which they check the heart, chest area. This was interesting. small female hands unbuttoning my shirt She was different, from such techs I've seen before; middle aged, graying hair, pixie haircut and personality. I wondered aloud why they didn't do this last week when I was in and she explains that Trevor only does the chest and she only does the neck and they are there on different days. Wow...specialization.

She tells me, "I need you to lay down on the stretcher...er, the table there." I search her face and eyes for signs of humor or malice or... Stretcher!? A little more almost hypnotic talking while she readies the equipment. Turns the lights down low and - this is the different part - turns on music. I kid you not, the set starts with Another One Bites The Dust, followed immediately by the rhythmic stains of Spirit In The Sky. I was almost there with that song... I imagined I felt a brief sting of pain and then my blood was draining away... going somewhere better, to do more important stuff than keeping such a sack as I alive.... my toes and fingers began to get really cold... I was relieved to finally be done with all this...

Then the announcer guy on Magic 98.1 averred maybe it wasn't a Spirit In The Sky, only the International Space Station, and I was being reprimanded by She of the Pixie Haircut (and personality) because the ultrasound machine picks up both laughing and snoring...seems all her patients do one or the other. Luckily she was through anyway and she was handing me paper towels for cleaning up (BANG! - flashes of other events in another life long ago), and getting redressed, the lights coming on, moods broken...one of the stories of my life. Damn announcer guy...

TRB

Conspiracies and stuff...

This is gonna be one of those WAY too damn long Temy blogs chock full of more links than you could shake Rasputin's penis at... take yer time and browse.

I like 'conspiracy theories' to a degree. At least I find them entertaining. Often I find amazing bits of verifiably correct information that I probably would never have seen anywhere else. There are even times when the 'conspiracy theorists' turn out to be correct and the pooh-poohers wrong. There really are such things as false flag operations. They have existed at least since ancient Rome and the US government has been involved in their share of them, as revealed by their own de-classified documents, tapes, etc. Are you more likely to believe such things are true if you see them in the 'lame stream media' rather than the 'wackjob web sites'? How about ABC News? Operation Northwoods was a PROPOSED false flag operation, according to the story, that wasn't actually implemented, but could have been. Involved the US military destroying some of their own equipment and claiming Cuba did it as a justification for war on Cuba. "We could blow up a U.S. ship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba," ... "casualty lists in U.S. newspapers would cause a helpful wave of national indignation." Source.

You see how 'conspiracy theorists' get the notion that 9/11 could have been the same kind of thing...a public justification for war in Iraq? Given the power of the US government, I still don't get why anyone in the government would give a rat's ass about having a "public justification" for war or anything else. They can simply do whatever they please regardless of what "the public" may think about it. Apparently, for some reason they still want to maintain the delusion for a while yet that the US has a "government of the people, by the people, for the people".

I find it odd that most of the time if you really examine the conspiracy sites, you find that they also have strong religious beliefs. Not quite sure why that connection should exist but it does. You DO have to 'consider the source', but it's also important to not shoot the messenger. Automatically dismissing something just because it comes from a conspiracy site, without checking yourself for any truth in it, is a mistake if you really want to be fairly informed about the world.

For Those Who Want To Know seems to be one of the better sites for this kind of info. They have some connection to 'inspirational' stuff, but that shouldn't necessarily matter to the truth or relevance of the info presented. Of course you can also play at the dualing conspiracy sites Prison Planet, Info Wars (Alex Jones competes against himself), Above Top Secret, Jeff Rense at Rense, and David Icke. Sure they have stuff about bigfoot, UFOs, crop circles and alien lizard people, but...what else is there that might not be so far out? They also have loads of stuff on contemporary news events, politics, wars, laws, etc. Think of these as like those picture puzzles where the goal is to spot the objects that don't belong...some may be easy, some not so much. Is your mind up to deciphering which is reasonable and which is not?

The New World Order always fascinates me. It can mean everything from a professional wrestling stable to what George Bush the First said in that video clip, to a book by H.G. Wells, written in 1940 (which you can read free here). The first mention of the NWO in the US seems to have been referring to the establishment of the League of Nations, after World War I. (That "novus ordo seclorum" on the dollar bill translates as "New Order of the Ages", not New World Order.)

I am amused that so many people seem terrified of the notion of a global or planetary government. Seems to me, assuming humanity keeps going pretty much as it has been, that this is as certain a thing as tomorrow's sunrise. There were family groups, then tribes, then villages, cities, city-states, nations, and the next logical step is planetary government. Again, it seems there's a very strong religious connection involved in this fear. There's even such a thing as the Sovereign Citizen Movement which claims that an individual is "sovereign" and not subject to any laws. This is kind of like anarchy (though they would probably shoot you if you said so), and a great idea in principle, but it ain't ever gonna happen. No man can truly be an island.

This "loss of sovereignty" of nations seems to be the biggest fear about the NWO. If that happens the United States will no longer be a sovereign nation! Yeah...so? Would you want UN troops on your town's streets!? No, but I don't want American troops there either. An awful lot of folks seem stuck a century or two ago in their political ideology. There will probably be a North American Union at some point. There will be a global government. Given enough time there will probably be a Federation of Worlds of inhabited bodies within this solar system (our moon, Mars, moons of Jupiter,etc.), then maybe of the galaxy and eventually, just maybe, Carl Sagan's "citizen of the Cosmos". What I find sadly amusing is that so many people have the delusion that they personally have some say in whether or how these things happen. The more population there is the less your 'say' matters. It's kind of like that continual (so far) demoting of humans from being THE reason for the universe, to being only the tiniest of specs on another tiny spec among billions of billions of specs.

I've even had some folk think I've gone off the deep end with believing in 'anti-government conspiracy theories' cuz I like the Zeitgeist Movement (ZM) and The Venus Project (TVP). I think that's mostly a misunderstanding though. Far as I can tell there is nothing 'anti-government' or 'conspiracy' about those, at least not in the sense of the Montana Freemen kind of way. There has recently been a tiff apparently between those groups, a split, though I don't think it rises to the level of Martin Luther and his Ninety-Five Theses...more like the Independent Baptists breaking off from the Southern Baptist Convention, lol.

Naturally there are some who claim that ZM and TVP are variously "cults", "scams", "utopias", etc., though I have yet to see any support for that. Everything in the world, including these, involves money to some degree, but they sure don't beg for donations like televangelists, nor, as far as I can see, advertise for people to come somewhere and live in a commune. I sure don't agree with everything either bunch says, and damn sure am not a "believer" or "follower" of them or anyone else.

Usually when anyone talks about something that really sounds good, it does turn out to be "too good to be true", though, with these outfits it's not because there's anything fundamentally wrong with most of their ideas, just that neither they nor anyone else has, or ever will have, the power to make any of the ideas reality on a huge scale. I love the Resource Based Economy ideas, and it would be mostly wonderful, but the powers that be, not to mention those addled by the same ideologies, will always be the powers that be, at least for the foreseeable future. I recently said something in a thread about there being no actual scarcity of most resources...that most of the "scarcities" are manufactured and manipulated by such things as planned obsolescence, mass advertising and marketing social manipulation, etc.

A guy told me that was the most ignorant thing he had ever heard in his entire life. Apparently he doesn't understand that it is entirely possible to build a car, for example, that could easily last 20 to 50 years or more, with periodic upgrades reflecting newly emerging technical improvements. The main reason no one does of course, is because of the monetary system...it would hardly be profitable to do such a thing. How many people would buy a new car every year if the one they already have is just fine and they could add various kinds of upgrades and improvements to it? It all comes down to the primary reason almost everyone does anything...to get money. If almost everyone did whatever they do primarily for their own satisfaction, edification, self expression, and simply to make society at large easier and better for everyone, seems obvious to me there would be, for the most part, plenty of everything for everyone. This kind of thinking just ain't in the human genome though, and ain't ever gonna be unless/until someone starts putting it there.

This might be interesting. There are several "independent city-states" within other nations. I suppose the most famous is Vatican City. Although it is geographically with the city of Rome, which in turn is geographically within the nation of Italy, legally speaking Vatican City is a sovereign nation, not under the laws of Rome or Italy or anywhere else. As far as I know this is the only truly sovereign nation in such a condition, but there are several other places which are not really nations or states, but not really part of the place they are in either. One is Washington DC. It's not a state and it's not a part of any of the 50 American States. It's wedged between Maryland and Virginia. It has a mayor but not a governor and it's citizens have no representation in Congress except for one 'delegate' who is also not allowed to vote on anything. "Unlike residents of U.S. Territories such as Puerto Rico or Guam, which also have non-voting delegates, citizens of the District of Columbia are subject to all U.S. federal taxes". Ironic, huh, being thought of as the seat of Democracy and all that rot.

Another is the City of London, which seems to be both a corporation and a political entity, completely different from the huge city of Greater London. Some conspiracy folk say these three little places comprise the religious or spiritual (Vatican), political and military (Washington DC), and financial (City of London) rulership of the world. Do they have a point? Sure, Vatican city is a tiny place, but you know how much wealth it controls in the whole world, not to mention influence over people? Sure, Washington DC is a tiny place, but it has currently dispatched troops on the ground and bases in most of the nations in the world. Sure, the City of London is only about a mile square, but within that space are the headquarters of most of the financial institutions of the world.

You don't like the Patriot Act? You ever read it, know what's in it? You don't know the half of it, according to Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR). He says, "We're getting to a gap between what the public thinks the law says and what the American government secretly thinks the law says." Source. President Obama just signed an extension of it...even though he's in Europe. Signed it 'electronically'.

Did you ever actually read The 9/11 Commission Report? No, I didn't either. I would like to read at least parts if I get around to it. Do I know "what really happened" at 9/11? Of course not, and neither do you. I do know I find it extremely hard to believe that Building 7 pancaked down simply due to fires (It wasn't hit by any airplane). If that is really what happened, seems like some amazingly piss poor construction to me. Here's a site that talks about that and "debunks" the conspiracy theorists...see what you think.

ATTENTION! The following is a test of your intuitive cognitive abilities. One of these is factual, the other is fictional. Which is which? No cheating.

Air Force Space Command. OR United Nations Space Command. Surprised?

Is there really a secret group or society of Illuminati? Definition of "illuminati": "persons possessing, or claiming to possess, superior enlightenment." If the person or group is only claiming to be enlightened, they're probably just silly. If they really are enlightened, they are smart folk...either way, why be afraid of that? Yes, there was that Bavarian Illuminati secret bunch that was formed in 1776, but is there such a group now? If there is, they are so secret, I have no knowledge of them. If there are does it bother you? Maybe they are now called the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). That sounds kinda like some governmental outfit, you know, like the Federal Reserve. But just like the Federal Reserve is neither federal nor has any reserves, the CFR is not really a government outfit, though many government types are in it. Under the "resources" tab on the web site there are links for Business, Congress, Diplomats, Educators, Religious Community, etc. Are you surprised that NBC anchor Brian Williams and Angelina Jolie are CFR members? I'm pretty sure they don't let folks who live in trailers be members though.

Alright, alright, I'll stop here and start a different bog. No, it ain't a typo.

TRB

Just Stuff

Ordinarily, when I get calls from what I suspect are some kind of bill collectors, I simply hit the off button. If one makes it through, I just ignore. But yesterday....well that was the seventh day in which we had no cigarettes here. For people who have decided to quit, this would be a great thing. For people who have no alternative short of criminal, it ain't. Melinda managed to get through 3 or 4 of the days with some old nicotine patches she found somewhere in the house.

Yesterday a very nice and perky-sounding female calls and wished to set up payment plans for me to pay the $900 + I owe the hospital. In a sense this is a little like a personal war. I will always go to great extremes to avoid any kind of physical conflict, even verbal usually, will run if I can, brush off being called coward, etc. But if that line is crossed, the fight or flight one, the one between whether I avoid or engage, then there is no giving up, no giving in, no quarter asked or given...it is to the death (so far this has always been figurative), there can be only one...and I honestly don't care which one. A calm detachment settles over me...there is no anger, no yelling or cursing. I engaged Miss Perky.

I've been through this particular war before...I basically run on autopilot through the first round of verifying names, addresses, dates, etc. She cheerily announces that she would be happy to set up a payment plan of only $75 per month and I could have it all paid in a year. "But I don't have $75 a month," I say, and we're off and running.

Do I have a credit card I could use to pay the $900? No, and if I did, why would I do that? That wouldn't help me at all. But it would pay your bill. Yeah, like I said, that might help you but wouldn't help me at all. How much is your income? About $800 a month. How much is your rent and utilities? I dunno right off... Do you have cable and Internet service? Yeah...so? You could use that to pay this bill. Why would I do that? Because you owe this bill. I need my TV and Internet far more than I need to pay that bill. Those are not necessities. Says you, they are necessary to my well being, far more so than paying an old bill. But you owe this bill. So what? Are you refusing to pay? No, I'm unable to pay. I would be happy to pay the entire bill immediately if only someone would fork over $900. Did you know that the former head of the IMF is charged with rape and he is being "held" in a sumptuous NYC apartment? [crickets] I think you should ask someone like that will far more money than conscience. I will note that you refuse to pay your bill...click.

I had apmnt today with heart doc...all seems well so far. Had an EKG and an ultrasound scan. Have to go back on Tuesday to get me carotid artery sound scanned to look fer clots or other aliens. Docs office called and said I should bring payment. I said I don't have any money. They say I owe over $500 from a few years back before Medicare kicked in (separate from the aforementioned $900). They say I have to make SOME payment on that or it will go to 'collections' and if it does that, my ability to see the doc in the future will be 'restricted'. If a guy is doing an ultrasound on you and rests his bare arm on your bare belly for convenience...doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose of wearing gloves? Have to go see my other or 'primary' doc a couple times in the next couple weeks.

Met up with my friend Jordan who gave money for a carton of cigs and a bit fer gas. Will pay him back when I get mine on the third. I wasn't jonesing for a cigarette...I was jonesing for the choice to smoke one if I wanted. Tastes nasty. But choice feels good. Now I gots a nicotine OD headache...ya can't win.

Tucker and I are getting a little paranoid...over both our towns in Cityville, there has been a blue helicopter hovering over the river for about a week. has a little guy in a tuxedo hanging under it from a rope with a pair of giant binoculars bigger than his head. Is he Big Brother?

I will SO vote for Sarah Palin if she runs for Prez (a majority in this WSJ poll says she will), especially if she picks Michelle Bachmann as her running mate. Think about it...two Michelles in a row in the White House... that's important, right? Ordinarily I would never vote for a Republican for much of anything but the entertainment value of such a thing is just too much. Of course I know if she did run she has zero chance of being elected, but if she were...now THAT would be interesting. You think there would be a 'pink room'? But then maybe she could be elected...do we REALLY buy that thing about American voters choosing their President?

I got more percolatin' but to avoid the dreaded "TL;DR", I'll do another one.

TRB

Can't think of a good title.

Why do so many people hate and fear the very idea of knowledge? It's been that way at least since whoever wrote what became the second chapter of Genesis got on that "tree of the knowledge of good and evil" kick. You might remember that this tree is the forbidden one, as apart from the Tree of Life. What kind of life does a person have if they really have no knowledge of good and evil? Is that like saying "I'm dumb as a board and damn proud of it"?

Who actually uses the phrase "Atheism not enough?" in their advertising? That would be the World Pantheism web site. I'm not disagreeing with stuff they have on the site, I just don't get the attraction of slapping the moniker of "God" upon all of nature; or how this is somehow MORE than atheism. Yeah, sure the strict definition of "atheist" is one without belief in any gods, but there's no such thing as a living person who is as one-dimensional as that.

Ever heard of a feller named Sean Sinjin and his book Meme and his web site Better Human. Well, now you have. I haven't read the book, but if I can really read the whole thing free I plan to read it. Interesting. We could all stand to be just a little better humans couldn't we? Sean identifies God as G.O.D. or the Governing Overseer Device inside your head. A query (I start to talk funny like that when I'm dealing with somebody in MENSA): Is Sean's G.O.D. the same as the Christian's "God-shaped hole in your heart"?

And speaking of holes in hearts and heads and psychopaths...what? somebody somewhere must be! I stumbled acrost this here are tickle titled How To Spot A Psychopath and hot damn! I nearly sprained me clickin' finger trying to get over there cuz somebody mightta done "outed" me doncha know. Well, they don't mentioned me by name but...still innerstin...if yer a psychotic type. When he said, "They were mostly overweight, wearing loose, comfortable T-shirts and elasticated sweatpants. There probably wasn't much to do in Broadmoor but eat" I had to look around real quick... overweight, loose clothes, yep. Heck I was even elasticated once, I'm sure of it. But I'd bet Broadmoor has more food than I do.
Sorta reminds me of whoever said "I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!"
One more thing...

"But surely stock-market psychopaths can't be as bad as serial-killer psychopaths," I said.
"Serial killers ruin families," shrugged Hare. "Corporate and political and religious psychopaths ruin economies. They ruin societies."

Y'all been here lately?

TRB

Blogophilia?

This is my first attempt, or at least the first attempt I remember, to blog something according to someone else's rules. Perhaps someone would be good enough to tell me if I even got into the ball park in that regard. The following was snatched from a Myspace (they STILL have that!) page apparently called blogophilia. My guess about the rules is that one must include the phrase between my heart and the moon, and one gets bonus points, presumably only for mentioning, not necessarily for possessing, a caftan, broken promise, Moonshine and Hawaiian pizza.

"Between My Heart and the Moon"

Bonus Points:

(Hard, 2pts): include a caftan and a broken promise

(Easy, 1pt): mention Moonshine and a Hawaiian pizza

Final date to post: May 24th, 2011 GMT midnight

Final date to post ALL GUESSES: May 21st, 2011 GMT midnight

Not really sure to say about my heart and the moon other than there is approximately 240 thousand miles of distance between my heart and the moon. As for caftans, I actually made mention of this on one of my own blogs (like this isn't my own!?) about how I would love to be able to buy some because they seem rather comfortable...a kind of mumu for men. In fact this will probably turn out to be one more broken promise to myself, because it ain't likely I have will have that kind of money to spend. I also really can't afford any Moonshine of the liquid variety, so I will have to make do with the rays from heaven sort. I never was that big a fan of pizza in general, but to make a thing called Hawaiian pizza seems too un-American even for me. I'm more of a ham hock and collard greens feller.

With luck I will post this before the 24th deadline. As to posting guesses, I haven't the foggiest clue what the subject of the guessing might be. My guess is the world will still be here relatively unchanged next month though; unfortunately that will likely include as many Christians as before. *sigh*.

TRB

Missed Opportunities

It just turned May 20th here in Georgia. It was the final cigarette. No more money. I plan and hope to sleep at least through the 21st. Maybe there will be loads of cigarettes free for the taking after the Christians are ruptured. If not then aside from sleep, my life will consist mostly of this until there is more money.

Dang! Missed that booger again!

TRB

Blacklisted!

Here's what's going on with us, especially Melinda, as regards employment. The back story is, in 2003 she was working at a Waffle House as a waitress. Another woman, a fellow waitress, called Melinda a bitch "on the floor" meaning, right out in the customer area. I dunno what the argument was about, not really relevant for this. Melinda went into the back room to cool off cuz she REALLY has a problem with that word. Other woman follows her back there. Melinda goes out back door, trying to get away from her and regain her composure. The manager orders Melinda back inside, other woman still persists...Melinda smacks her a good'un. Melinda is fired.

Fast forward seven years. Melinda has been out of work seven months after being fired from the Wild Animal Park. She thinks about going back to Waffle House. She was told, back then, that she had been put on "discretionary hire", which is essentially a black list...do not hire this person. She's told a couple weeks back that Waffle House no longer has that policy. She applies. Turns out Waffle House does indeed still have that policy and Melinda is STILL on the "no hire" list. The good news was that she was scheduled to come off this list next month, and so there should be no problem with her being hired again. She's encouraged to call a district manager to inquire about maybe being taken off that list a little early, since she's supposed to come off next month anyway.

She calls the guy a week ago last Thursday. He says he will look into it and get back to her tomorrow. He doesn't call. She calls him again and gets his voice mail. Weekend passes and it's into Monday with no call, so she calls him again. Voice mail. This continues most of the week. Finally Melinda calls the woman who originally told her she should call this guy. Woman says he has been on vacation the last week and she should call him again and leave a message and he would get back to her. We've been on this loop before. Melinda calls the guy again... voice mail, no response.

Now Melinda calls corporate headquarters trying to find someone who knows what's up. The person she talked to never heard of the manager guy she's been calling. This person will "look into it" and get back to her. We are both getting rather exasperated...you'd think she was applying at the freakin' Pentagon, and not a Waffle House! I told Melinda I had a dream in which they told her that not only was she permanently on a no hire list for the rest of her life, but they were banning her from being on any Waffle House property at all, even as a customer. We await some response tomorrow. *sigh*

TRB

UPDATE: Turns out my dream was at least half right. Melinda is banned forever from working at Waffle House. Have not yet tried being customer again...will have to wait for money to arrive. Today (Friday) was spent applying at the Dollar General in Pine Mountain, and at Callaway Gardens. Got home on fumes. Will pour the lawn mower gas into car. Now must go back to my regular occupation (see next blog).

TRB

Brain Symphony

We all have our favorites in music and other kinds of art. Most people tend to think of science and scientists as rather dry and boring. Someone is working on trying to change that perception by adding elements of emotional appeal like music to scientific subjects like the brain. There's a terrific web site called Symphony Of Science. This is the latest of their remixed videos called Ode to the Brain!

Some brains can do truly astounding things. Imagine...an artist, a painter. He was born blind, has never seen so much as a photon of light. Yet he paints, and very well. How can he possibly have any understanding whatever of the use of light and shadow and depth perspective and color in a painting, having never seen anything at all? Yet he does. Meet Esref.

Do you think maybe hearing and seeing and feeling the rhythm and melodies and poetries of how science is a vital thread interwoven in the fabric of reality might make some folk a little more ready to join... A Wave of Reason?

If you can't play the videos, here are the links to them on Youtube:

Ode to the Brain!

Esref Armagan, the artist with no eyes.

A Wave of Reason.

What can YOUR brain do? Do you know? Have you really examined it?

TRB

Personality Test

Consider this a quick personality test...no need to reveal answers. According to this story, a homeless man was found living on the roof of a Waffle House in Augusta. The question is whether your response is more likely to be similar to the smart-ass tone of the article's author (she suggests Waffle House get slanted roofs)...or what I would suggest: When you see such stories, let the "I need your love" line from Unchained Melody play in your head, and imagine you were the object of the story.

TRB

In My World...

Apologies, guys, for being lax in responding to comments. My depression has returned. This always coincides with available money here dropping below a certain point. This has happened throughout my life. Although there are some other things that might bring on depression, that money buys happiness has always been a no brainer for me. Yes, I know, if you have 10 billion, another billion may not make you much happier. So they say...I would like to try the experiment for myself.

The US spends $600 million a DAY just on interest payments on the national debt. But we can't afford medical care and housing for all our citizens.

The US Navy can build ships that house thousands of sailors, weigh a hundred thousand tons, can run about the world's oceans for 25 years without a single refueling, but we are expected to be impressed that a small car can get 35 miles per gallon.

The US Constitution guarantees Freedom of Speech for all citizens, but I cannot post an x-rated video here without risk of being booted off the place. So much for government guarantees. Or freedoms. I will post the link though. This is an instructional video that should be mandatory viewing in sex ed class. Nina Hartley explains and demonstrates the correct way to perform cunnilingus.

The US spends more money per student on public education than any nation other than Switzerland. Source. Yet our test scores are WAY down on the lists. Conclusion: Money spent does not equal education. We rank 29th in 8th grade math scores compared to other countries. Therefore, even for a non-economist, it should be obvious that the point of spending this money is not educating students but lining pockets. The political left should stop screaming about spending more money and look at absurd notions like tenure, (who has 'tenure' besides 'educators'?), the total abuse of otherwise good things like unions, etc.

In my world it is possible for a man to get sentenced to life in prison for possession with intent to distribute marijuana Source...but you might get 5 years for killing someone Source.

In my world, we (my wife and I) honestly put down that we had $10 in our checking account at the last review for Food Stamp eligibility. We still get them but the amount was reduced..not by $10 but by $40...for three months until the next review. Acknowledging we had $10 cost us $120. Meanwhile, "Exxon Mobil made $19 billion in profits in 2009. Exxon not only paid no federal income taxes, it actually received a $156 million rebate from the IRS, according to its SEC filings." Source.

An entire nation (Uganda) proposes making it legal in that nation to kill gay people...for being gay. Luckily for them, our country can only forbid them to get married....so far. But if Newt and Sister Sarah were elected...

There are many ironies in my world. One is that both Jews and Muslims are forbidden to eat pork by their religious dietary laws. For both, it is claimed that the pig's nature (lazy, dirty, very sexual) is a big reason. The irony is that some Muslims believe that all pigs are actually human inside...specifically Jews. This Muslim doctor explains that Allah made Jews pigs and monkeys, so we are not allowed to eat them (though killing them is fine.) The same restrictions are in the Bible (Old Testament) so they apply to Christians as well, though most Christians have told God to fuck off when it comes to their pork chops and ham & eggs.

I speculate (and I'm going kinda outside my world here) that "life" is probably abundant in the universe, though I suspect that what we might recognize as "intelligent life" is very rare. I'm in the company of Stephen Hawking on this one.There are just too many variables that have to be 'just so' for that to happen, and we probably don't even know all the variables yet.

Okay, I will provide porn...observe....

TRB

Sunday Sermon

Perhaps my masculinity is more in question than I thought...I have been invited out to a Mother's Day Dinner. I am being treated. I will not refuse good free food even if getting it requires wearing a bra (this doesn't). Thus, I have cheated a bit with the Sunday Sermon by including videos. The first is from TED about filter bubbles. Only nine minutes, and it's important.

I agree with Eli that there is potential danger here. This might be considered one of the down sides to the Interwebz. It's great if you really seek as large a variety of Internet cuisine as you can handle. Not so great if the bubble of things and perspectives you know about becomes ever smaller...often without you realizing that it is changing. The Internet itself with its various search engines and content providers is, on one level, a form of Artificial Intelligence (AI). I think it helpful to think of this as one of the first "skirmishes" between AI and human (your) intellect. You should remember that the smaller your bubble becomes, the dumber you become about things in general. You should also remember that, although there is some degree of AI involved here, it is all still driven by the various commercial, political and social agendas of humans. Enjoy...and take note.

This second video is called Miracles For Sale and deals with "faith healers". This is who Derren Brown is. You should note, as Derren does in the video, that this is NOT intended as an attack on religion or on faith, that the guy chosen to be the faith healer is himself a Christian, and that they receive a good amount of help from other Christians. The point is, to expose the scammers. I admire the intent, though I personally think it will do little good since, as even this video points out, the "scammed ones" come right back for more even after they are aware the "healer" in question is a fake and a fraud and has served prison time for it. Two examples spring to mind; the infamous Peter Popoff (be sure to get your miracle spring water!) who Randi exposed long ago, is at it again, and everyone has at least heard of "Jim and Tammy".

Tammy died, Jim Bakker got out of prison, got himself a new wife, a new church (and more importantly, a new TV show) and is busily building his scamming empire all over gain, with help from many of the same people who gave more money than they could afford the first time around with Heritage USA. One of those people was yours truly. When I was a Christian I gave money to the PTL Club, Pat Robertson's 700 Club, Jerry Falwell's Liberty University. I believed in God and I trusted these people. I thought they had gifts of the spirit and were doing God's work. I have no money to give anymore and even if I did, I would never give a dime to any religious charity. Alas, not so with most people. Consider this comment from a recent photo site about Heritage:

"I always loved the Bakkers, and just wonder how Heritage USA, might have turned out if the jealous people that wanted to take Jim and Tammy down would not have got their way. I am sure that a lot of money was wasted, but I see that a lot was spent, just think what this kind of building would do for our economy today. I send in a lot of my dollars and didn't care what was done with them [emphasis added], because I did get a blessing from the programs."Source. Guess which of the scammers I mentioned is no longer scamming...Jerry Falwell. Why? He's dead, his last televised sermon being four Mother's Days ago. How sad that a nice looking man with a wonderful speaking voice had such delusions in his mind.

Miracles for Sale

If a person has been thrown into a river and is drowning and you rescue them...only to have them fling themselves back into the river at the first opportunity, how long would you keep rescuing them? Is it not apparent that such a person has some kind of mental problems? Would you punish the one who threw them in to start with? Do such drowning people have a "right to believe whatever they want" as long as it hurts no one? Does scamming hurt anyone? Would you support concerted efforts to educate such people and treat them for their mental problems? Even involuntarily?

Our biblical text for the day is Matthew 7:15-20.

15Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.


16Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?



17Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.



18A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.



19Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.



20Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

How much truth is here? What of the people who think that thorns and thistles DO have grapes and figs?

TRB

Where Our Country Is Headed

This is where our country is heading. The news says that 47% of Detroiters are functionally illiterate, meaning they can't read well enough to fill out simple forms like job applications; can't read their prescription bottles well enough to know how much to take and when. It says the city has already closed 18 branches of its library. I was amazed Detroit could possibly have had 18 branch libraries. The response? Here is the response from Chrysler and Eminem.

That's a fine looking car. Costs a lot too. Where you gonna get the money to buy one of those unless you're a rich rapper? Just as well, can't read road signs anyway. But you can sure take pride in your hard work (assuming you can get any), making fine shiny cars fer the rich folk. Yassah, this is what we do...we gots sum o the best slaves arownd.

TRB

Just Stuff

You will note that I waited to post about Mayday...have to maintain me contrarian rep, yanno. Here's one it took me a long time to 'get'. When I was six I remember our teacher took the class outside by the school. There was a pole and it had many brightly colored paper streamers attached at the top of it. People were saying it was a "Maypole". All the kids were told to take the hanging end of one paper streamer and we were shown how to interweave them by walking in front of and then behind the kid next to us. My paw got really mad about it. I had no idea what the fuss was about. Much later I learned it had something to with (gasp!) Communists! But I'm sure my paw was madder, since we were Jehovah's Witnesses, that it could be connected to Beltane. No doubt he thought we were worshiping some pagan god. I wasn't worshiping anything, had no idea what a phallus or a phallic symbol (Maypole) was...I just thought it was pretty and fun. I wish I could tell my paw now I am an atheist, anarchist, communist, but he's been dead for 35 years...I doubt he'd care now.

Did you know...the total amount of gold that has been mined since humans have mined gold would fill about three Olympic size swimming pools? Or... if you could somehow gather every scrap of gold ever mined you could only build about one third of the Washington Monument. Not much to show for a hundred million or more human lives.

Is it or is it not possible to photograph a single atom...of anything, by any means? This purports to be images of an electron cloud surrounding a carbon atom. Is there any violation of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle in the notion of a picture of an atom?

Do you have an idea of how small planck time and planck length are? Do I get it? Ummm... working on it.

Are ya skeered to admit it...?

You can make your own at the FFRF site.

When you take politics just TOO damn seriously...

Stuff I saw recently and liked:

Day Break. On the surface this is a mystery/cop show. On another level it's an interesting look at how decisions you make can have huge consequences, whether the decisions are trivial (go get coffee or not), forced by external circumstance, etc. Think "Groundhog Day" but good drama, not comedy. Taye Diggs and Moon Bloodgood (is that a name to remember or what - not to mention a fine bod, lol) give terrific performances as the main characters.

Luther. This is a BBC "cop show" but it has some differences from a show like Law & Order, even the BBC version. I suppose "normal" people would probably not agree, but I think it's much more realistic, or at least more interesting. I'm not very familiar with British actors, but Idris Elba is terrific in this role. John Luther is a very layered character, far more than merely a "rogue cop".

Thank you and good night, Gracie.

TRB