What’s The Matter?

How Much Does it Matter?

It’s a rather tiny amount of ‘ordinary matter”‘ that actually consists of everything we’d normally associate with being “everything” there is in the universe. Point zero three percent to be exact.  We know absolutely nothing about the ninety six percent of “something else” which dominates our universe yet leaves no trace.

Michio Kaku readily concedes that we don’t even have a full picture of the diminutive .03% speck of matter we can detect and examine.  The knowledge we glean in the atomic world comes at a huge price and destroys the very type of matter we need to survive, the abundance of which is admitted to be in exceedingly short supply by the very people who want to go on annihilating as much of it as they can!!

Rant of the Day

I feel compelled into offering a long form analysis of the current state of affairs in the US. Bear with me as you will usually see my comments fit well within 140 characters. Nature of the beast….LOL. To wit:

The situation is more dire than most people realize. The public is forced to focus on distractions served up by the corporate controlled media (no offense to the memory of Trayvon, but in the overall scale of issues that need to be addressed, the coverage given is nothing less than a carnival show).

It’s endemic. There’s statistically much less crime (Steven Pinker has the stats) these days but significantly more coverage of crime in the media. Not that these diversionary media clown shows are restricted to crime “journalism”. No indeed. Pick a subject that can easily be broken down using scientific evidence. The media will find a way to give “equal time” to some plastic haired lunatic flat-earth leaning nut job with the appropriate fake smile and rhetorical flair.

In the meantime, the transfer of wealth from the many to the few continues to accelerate even after the US banks “collapsed” as a result of their overzealous self regulation and return to the banking practices circa 1890, (a point at which we are still mired, no offense to Elizabeth Warren. Heaven knows she’s trying). Banks are giving something like 2% “return” on your money while simultaneously charging 30% interest on credit. Sounds fair.

Healthcare costs were already off the charts when I bailed out of the US several years ago. It isn’t gonna matter how much you pay for insurance or who is paying it so long as we allow immoral profiteering off our sick, elderly and dying. And let’s be blunt here. It’s outright highway robbery on a scale unseen in human history. The suffering and misery imposed by the US healthcare system is shameful to me as an American and as a human, but that’s just because even though I’m a devout and militant atheist, I stand firm in my Christian values. It’s what my momma raised me in.

Something’s gotta give sooner than later in the US. If it doesn’t then America will be like any other South American country where the rich are forced to live behind walls. That’ll work for plenty of the idiots I left America to get away from but not for me. The stink of the ghetto and the desperation of the deprived always manage to breach the walls which is not the way I wanna live my life. If I thought there would or could be a peaceful, political way to diffuse the powder keg that will ultimately explode, I would not be so pessimistic. We’re still spending money we don’t have on military expeditions we should never have started while simultaneously making it harder for poor people to either abort or feed their babies. I quote the immortal words from a popular song:

Who is to blame in what country? Never can get to the One.
Dealing in multiplication but they still can’t feed everyone.

Enjoy.

In No Rush to Pack

Hop, Skip and a Jump versus Science Reality:

The most distant space probe, Voyager 1, was about 17 light-hours away from the Earth as of December 2012. It will take about 17,500 years to reach one light-year (1.0 ×100 ly) at its current speed of about 17 km/s (38000 mph) relative to the Sun.

Do the math. 17,500 years to get ONE light year away from Earth means twelve times that many years to get to this suspected habitable zone.

Roughly a couple hundred thousand years in your spaceship to get there.

We are in the only habitable zone that humanity will likely ever know at this very moment. Perhaps we ought to take a minute and look around to see if we are doing everything we can think of to try and protect it? Makes more sense than dreaming of an irrational escape from the living hell we seem determined to inflict upon ourselves in one form or fashion, be it in the form of global warming or the more upbeat happiness of a warm gun.

Enjoy.

GOP Irrelevancy

Good morning all,

First off. housekeeping. Woke up 55 years old this morning. Happy birthday to me.

I’m just old enough to remember when all the “lazy blacks” in Detroit were so busy making cars that that moniker didn’t work so well.   A lot of people I remember fondly from my youth had good union jobs and lived well. Then Reagan came along and garrotted the unions in 1980.  Many believe Reagan also killed Disco, but Disco never died. Reagan stuffed it in a duffel bag and sent it to Guantanamo.

In any event, the country has been on a Republican built road-to-Hell since then.  Republican greed totally destroyed any chance for those of my generation to implement the dreams and ideals we all grew up cherishing.  Our fathers had just landed on the moon and we were poised for Mars just about the time the crazy old man got hold of the wheel and steered us off into the direction of Star Wars instead.

There’s still a ray of hope for our children and grandchildren, if we don’t allow them to drown in the slime pit of oil dependency and warmongering the Republicans have built into our system.  We’ll see.

Big shout out to all the Walmart workers who stood against the corporate tyrants.  Walmart can’t compete in an environment where civility and fair play are honored above institutional profits.  They fizzled here in Germany after pissing a billion dollars away, and at the end of the day, they weren’t even able to offer lower prices than their competitors!!

How Can the Republicans Regain Relevance?

Having graduated from high school in Fort Dodge Iowa (1976 – State of Iowa Scholar), I can say with some authority that what the Republicans need to do to become relevant again. I expect my suggestions to be received by the GOP with all the enthusiasm and applause as pre-election Nate Silver polls, but it might help if somebody from the great plains, who isn’t a highly paid (bought off) beltway insider adds a main-street view. I am pretty sure I have mentioned these things before, but the Republicans weren’t listening to me then and they likely won’t listen to me now, but if ever there was a time when Googling “mainstream viewpoints” and “U.S. voters” might interest a Republican, this seems a likely moment in time for that occurrence.

Republicans need to drop their crazy ideas on reproductive freedoms. This last election cycle saw things spin so far into crazy town that there were candidates actually advancing the cause of rapist’s rights in having their unholy offspring borne by our mothers, wives and daughters. I have a memory of Mississippi trying to outlaw condoms, but that might have been spin from their “rights of the zygote” legislation that failed, even in the bastion of the Baptist holy land. At the end of the day, the Republican adoption of the Christian Bible as a handbook for political and scientific guidance is as ill-advised, un-American and disgusting. Relying on faith over facts is not a road to success into the future.

Modern Republicanism is now 20 percent politics and 80 percent fundamentalist Christian Reconstructionism. This is something they used to know enough to hide because they knew it was a losing minority position. I remember noting the TRUE percent of “lunatic fringe” Christians when Pat Robertson ran for president. IIRC, it was about five percent, and I doubt the actual numbers are higher today (40% of US now “non-religious”).

What the Relignicans lack in numbers they try to make up for in astroturf and echo chambers. Fox (Faux) News is HELPING elect Democrats now that everybody isn’t afraid to laugh at the Naked Emperor.

I have an iPad mini to unwrap.

Happy Birthday to Me.

Enjoy.

To the Top

Keep Movin’ up, don’t you ever stop! 

Whatever it is, take it to the top! You can do what you want to, In your heart it will come true! If you reach for the stars you can go that far! Stop hesitating and anticipating!

To the Top, that’s you mark. Get Ready. Set, Go!!

Can I get a big DAR-WIN! ?

Today’s prosperity gospel provided by a proud member of the American rationalist community (and jubilant Democrats all across the nation!) with, as the Beatles encouraged, a little help from my “friends“!  Links provided below for both Red and Blue state residents so they can all play that funky music.

Spotify link, for the discerning class of people who are successful (and socially responsible) enough to pony up ten bucks a month for the ultimate groove machine AND continue subsidizing those impoverished citizens still living in “the breakaway states” of the country, (aka, parts of USA where sex with goats carries less of a social stigma than homosexuality.)

Youtube link provided for the hoi polloi

Enjoy.