darthjedi

Christmas pictures…

Ok, so I’ve listened to Amanda for years complain about the fact that as a photographer, she gets really good pictures of everyone else’s family; but we never have good pictures, because I won’t pay for a photographer to take our pictures (because Amanda is a photographer), and she can’t do a good job at all trying to run back and forth from the camera, or even using the remote to push the button – because she can’t see how everyone is lined up and posed.

In my brilliance (?); I suggested that Amanda call another local photographer that she knows to see if he would like to swap photo-sessions at the studio. Sure enough, he and his wife were just discussing the same dilemma, and they thought it was a great idea.

I think it worked out really well – although I didn’t get a chance to see their family photos – Amanda is a really good portrait photographer, so I’m confident that they were able to get some good pictures (as long as her backdrop was able to fit the whole family in to her Christmas backdrop which wasn’t intended for more then 4-5 people at most). And I’m pleased with our pictures – except camera’s rarely are able to capture my good looking side (I could use the ontological argument to prove that it does actually exist outside of my mind.. but what’s the point)…

Anyway, here are the pictures…

Gas prices – are they here to stay?

If you are anything like me – you have been at least happy that gas prices have gone down – however; I think there is something a bit more sinister that is going on behind the scenes.

When gas prices go up, there is usually some big announcement in the news as to why the gas prices have gone up (some war in some country, some bad weather in some state, some grandmother sneezed in some grocery store, who knows..)… however, it’s interesting how silent the media has been on the gas prices falling – why?

I think it’s because they don’t want to draw to much attention to the fact that gas prices are falling… because, people will think about it, and they’ll realize there is something fishy going on… in fact, I don’t think the price drop is going to last very long.

You see, the fat cats that own the major gas cartel’s realize that their billions of dollars in revenue is also based on the strength of the economy, and they know that the economy is driven by rampant consumerism… When people have to spend so much on “necessities” like gas – they don’t spend money on other areas in the market – the things we want but don’t need – which are really the underpinnings of the financial kingdom.

And so – the cartel has realized that if they continue to squeeze the pockets of consumers over the holiday season, it’s going to mean even worse things for the economy; however, if they lighten the shackles of oil for the holiday shopping season; people will quickly forget how overbearing their gas & heating bills were just a few weeks before, and they will flock to the stores and buy more and spend more (I know I have).

And so, after the holiday season; the cartel is going to find some new reason to bring the oil and gas prices right back up (someone’s kid spilled a glass of milk in a restaurant in Bangor, Maine?)! The question is; how many people will curtail their shopping enough to be able to rebound with the gas and oil prices when they do go back up?

I’m watching them, I know their game, but who else is, who else does…

The Sun will burn out in the next 4.5 billion years – then what?

Frank Tipler in his book The Physics of Christianity has a lot to say about this topic. Tipler is writing this book from a standpoint of Science answering all questions, even questions of religion. Tipler believes that within the next couple hundred years humanity is going to discover new forms of energy through baryon annihilation, and that technology governed by Moore’s law and the Bekenstein Bound principle will allow mankind to reproduce (resurrect) life in a digital format, and travel through the stars looking for a new place to live. Through this baryon annihilation Tipler believes that the universe will begin to collapse once again, bringing the universe to its final state of what he refers to as the “Omega Point” (similar to the singularity point that begun the universe). Tipler makes these arguments both from science (unitarity) and philosophy (teleology) and religion (Judeo-Christian).

I, myself, am not so convinced of this scientific explanation, as I hold to a little more literal interpretation of the biblical accounts of the end of days. However, that being said, I can’t begin to even speculate what is going to happen within the next 4-5 billion years of human existence during the timeframe that the sun is expected to expand and then burn-out.

According to our Astronomy textbook, within the next 3-4 billion years the earth is going to suffer from an extreme greenhouse effect as the sun expands and slowly burns the last of its’ hydrogen fuel. The earth will be left scorched and unable to sustain anymore life.

We know from a scientific, philosophical and religious perspective, they all agree in one thing: that life and the universe had a beginning. It seems just as likely, scientifically, that life, at least, will have an end on this earth. As to what the end will be; I take personal comfort in seeing the great levels of intelligence and design that has been put into the universe that speaks to me of a purpose (teleology) of the creation as it exists today – so while I’m going to be dead billions of years before the sun actually burns out and destroys earth – I rest at night, comfortable in the fact that we’re in good hands!

Our new President

The new president elect of this country looks a bit sinister after he was elected – was there something lurking in the recesses of the shadows – or was he just caught at a bad time. One thing for sure is that things are going to change in this country – I can’t imagine they could get any worse – so perhaps our first African American President will have the opportunity to leave a great legacy! It’s too bad he had to be a democrat though! 😉

Before Election:

After election:

The sun over the mountains from my backyard…

This picture represents a lot of back-breaking hard labor as I’ve been working most of the summer to clear out just this single path. I will widen it in the following years, provided I’m still alive.

It provides spectacular views both in the morning and the evening!

Who did you vote for?

I think it’s a bit naive if one was to believe that the man sitting in the seat of President of the United States has such a big impact on what our country does from a law and policy prospective. The majority of the power is and remains in the hands of the upper and lower House; and those individuals are there as a result of the way the people in this country think and vote.

I personally think it’s foolish how much time and money our country spends on campaigning for presidency – if the citizens in our country could even spend the smallest fraction of effort focusing on some of the things that plague this country, rather than fighting and bickering about which talking head would be better for the country, if we could spend even a fraction of the campaign money on trying to turn this country around – that would be a long stride in where we need to be.

I was registered as an Independent until Clinton and his little affair (I use the term univocally) – and now I’m registered as a Republican. I am not voting for McCain, not because I want Obama as a president, but because I would like to see a chance to allow change, change that I don’t see happening the way things are currently going and have been going over the last 12 years.

But, whether you’re a liberal or conservative, republican or democrat, whatever change you’re looking for, no change is going to come about until the people themselves have changed.

The president doesn’t determine the state of this country – the people do. And we’ve made a huge mess of things.

Ideologically, Obama and I just don’t meet eye-to-eye (or anywhere in the vicinity of the face); but I couldn’t vote for another Republican either! I voted for Nader! 🙂

I find it very likely that Obama will win the presidency – quello che sarà! Our country has to rebound; it will rebound, with whoever is at the helm.

The good thing for democrats is that they can claim it was a Democrat president who did it – the good thing for everyone else, is it will happen either way!

[This is where I start to discuss Orwellian prophecy; but for the sake of brevity]

Does man destroy the earth?

Some would argue that man and animal alike have the same impact on the earth; that man has caused no more destruction to the earth than animal.

How many lions do you know kill to put an animal as a trophy on their wall, how many monkeys do you know will strip out entire forests for their desire to use paper; how many elephants take so much more than they need from the earth that they have to start digging landfills and throwing out all of their unused and wasted products, how many ants do you know pour poisons into the air, how many giraffes have created atomic weapons?

I think the difference that most species do what they can do to survive; there is a balance there, they take what they need from the earth, they give back to the earth (take for example the bird that eats the grape and the flies over and defecates the grape seed on some other portion of the ground), or the lion that kills when it is hungry, and the jackals and vultures that clean up the scraps.

Humans strip and mine and rape the earth of all its natural beauties; I am a human, I am guilty. It’s a harsh view of some of the impacts of our existence, I don’t think it was always intended to be this way, I don’t think it will always be this way, but I think it’s the present reality.

I just read Ernest Hemmingway’s The Old Man and the Sea yesterday. Like the other Hemmingway books I’ve read, I loved his ability to disclose topics that are so close to the center of human existence. His main character has such a strong symbiotic relationship to the sea, to the wildlife, the nature, he kills because he has to, to survive, he does it reluctantly, he does it humbly.

I think there are some people that still live in the harmony of existence, like Santiago, like indigenous tribes that haven’t been ‘civilized’; but I think as a whole, humanity is destroying the natural balance of the earth.

My new Address is on the Planet of Mars…

I think humans have to be very careful in their future endeavors. I love knowledge, don’t get me wrong; but sometimes I think that we’re going to destroy ourselves in our ever relentless pursuit of knowledge.

By examining the observations within our own world and our universe, we put together all these rules and theorems that seem to explain everything, and yet, we don’t really know. If science has shown us anything over the last couple centuries, it’s that even when we think we know things; most often we’re not entirely correct, and sometimes we are completely wrong.

What would happen if in the process of terraforming mars we change some dynamic about mars that causes it to become unstable, how might that impact earth? What would happen if while testing options for terraforming mars on the moon we cause the moon to become unstable, how would that impact earth?

Even science understands the vast improbability (in non-scientific terms ‘the miracle’) of the universe producing the earth so finely tuned for biological existence as we know it; I have to admit that I’m a bit concerned that in our desire for knowledge, we are going to cause a catastrophe that will be beyond our control and our technology to suppress.

On the other hand, the curiosity in me says that I think it’s interesting that we’re starting to examine moving outwards into the solar system; according to the Physicist Frank Tipler in his book The Physics of Christianity this is an inevitable goal of mankind, and necessary for survival.

In my mind, it is entirely possible to create manmade structures like a ‘bio dome’ to inhabit planets such as mars; however, I find it unlikely that we will ever change the atmosphere and temperature of mars in such a way that would allow humans to inhabit it as we do the earth today.

I do find it much more likely, as Tipler describes in his book previously referenced that through using principles defined in the Bekenstein Bound and the availability of future computer technologies based on Moore’s Law and the process of baryon-annihilation which he states will be developed in the future to provide an extremely efficient mass to energy conversion, humanity will become digital, and we shall find the ability to download ourselves into a digital framework and travel through interstellar space at the speed of light, at which point we can then live out our existence as a virtual process on a piece of hardware, not requiring any of the current biological necessities that the earth offers.

Sounds like the Wachowski brothers were closer than we imagine! J

Does the earth love us?

“Civilization… wrecks the planet from seafloor to stratosphere.”—Richard Bach, American novelist.

This quote reminds me of a great movie; The Matrix.

“I’d like to share a revelation that I’ve had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you’re not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to an area, and you multiply, and multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet, you are a plague, and we are the cure.” – Agent Smith

How true it is that human beings abuse and misuse the natural resources we have, we drive animals to distinction, and we cause global effects that change the planet in unforeseen ways through our ever relentless desire to consume.

Interestingly before I even read this quote, last night, I was sitting and thinking about all the ways that we, as humans are probably going to try and harness the energies the natural materials of the other planets in our solar systems.

We’re already talking about ways to move out to mars – somehow, based on our current track-record, I don’t think we’ll bring much positive benefits to Mars, despite its lack of biological support – somehow, we’ll probably ruin it in the process of inhabiting it.

To paraphrase the book of Romans 8: Even nature, subjected to futility as the result of mans transgression, cries out as if in birth pains, waiting for the day of its redemption.

The Proletarians and the Inner-Party

I’ve given up on the politics of this country – George Orwell was a visionary and a prophet.

With all the hatred and discord that is being sown between Republicans and Democrats the average Proletarian doesn’t even realize that the choice for president has very little to do with how this country is run. The President is really a talking head – sure, he or she is the ‘most powerful person in the world’, but those powers count for nothing when it’s not the President that makes decisions of policy or law – all the President can do is get in the way or speed up the results, and of course declare war.

And yet, we spend 2 out of every four years fighting and bickering and arguing about who will be the best president; and each side is just full of propaganda and half truths. I can’t believe a word any of them say – I’d vote for no one, but then who could I blame but myself?

Politics were invented to keep the Proles always stirred up in a state of national pride; war is the method that the Inner-Party uses to do that.

Will things ever change?