ad astra!

Just two easy reasons:

Rand Paul wants to drastically scale back the depth and breadth of federal agencies that have been overstepping their Constitutional reach in this country for hundreds of years.

One thing he advocates is the money-saving idea of shutting down the free/reduced school lunch program. This Socialist program was enacted in 1947 by Democrat Harry Truman. This program represents a cost of $9 billion every year and provides 31 million children with lunch who otherwise couldn’t afford a meal at school. If these kids can’t afford to eat at school, shouldn’t they be bringing their lunch from home? This is an unfair burden to taxpayers- ordinary Americans know that they have to eat at home if they can’t afford to eat out. We should be teaching this sort of thrift to our children.

He would also like to sell the lands currently held in trust for the various Native American Nations. Native American Reservation lands represent 2.3% of the total area of the United States. The amount of money to be made off this is astounding, with some estimates as high as several trillion dollars. The Tribes would of course have the first opportunity to buy any of this land they might want, at average market prices plus modest fees to transfer the land into their hands. This is only fair as any other American who wants to own land must either purchase it from the Government or a private party, and it’s discriminatory to favor Native American groups over others. Even if they were here first.

These are just a few of the great ideas Rand Paul has to turn our Great Nation around, re-enforce the Constitution, and make America great again. Hopefully I can make this an ongoing series and highlight all the great reasons to vote Rand Paul for Kentucky Senate this November.

Don’t just ask yourself what you want. You’ve got to go beyond your longing and desires and ensure that the way you’re trying to get them isn’t also harming your well-being. You may want something that’s completely reasonable but perhaps you’re working too hard and taking for granted what you already have. The way in which you reach a destination, how you achieve something, how you gain whatever it is you want is just as important as thing thing itself, if not more.

When you first think to yourself, “I want such and such a thing!” it’s important in that moment to remember what it is that you already have. Will you forsake one thing to gain another? Are there other things that need to take priority over an object or a trip or something else you might want?

The easiest way to relate to this is terms of contemporary life is to look at the objects we surround ourselves with. Can you be happy with all of the things you already have? Do you truly need more stuff? If you do, and you’re unhappy with your lack of stuff, then perhaps you might need more stuff. Someone without a bed to sleep in or food to eat can easily be consumed by thoughts of the next meal or the next restful sleep. But if you’re reading this, you probably have all that and more. Instead of a meal we crave a new car, instead of a warm bed we long for the next episode of a television program. When we take our desire for stuff and then focus our diligence on getting more stuff we can forget not only the people around us but the joy and beauty and miracles that we can find in everyday life. First remember those things, and then ask yourself if you need more.

Who knew the unemployment office was so cruisy?

click to embiggen

Set some records tonight. One for longest shift: 14 hours. One for latest time worked: 3:45 AM.

Longest shift ....... 14 hours ..... previous record 12.5 hours
Latest time worked .......... 03:45 ..... previous record 01:30

I get overtime + shift premium. Back tomorrow at 10am. Sleep now…

This is so dirty that, according to the New York Times Magazine, “Auden publicly denied authorship, which is why we can reprint this without permission and with impunity.” So here it is!

The Platonic Blow
W. H. Auden

It was a spring day, a day for a lay, when the air
Smelled like a locker-room, a day to blow or get blown;
Returning from lunch I turned my corner and there
On a near-by stoop I saw him standing alone.

I glanced as I advanced. The clean white T-shirt outlined
A forceful torso, the light-blue denims divulged
Much. I observed the snug curves where they hugged the behind,
I watched the crotch where the cloth intriguingly bulged.

Our eyes met. I felt sick. My knees turned weak.
I couldn’t move. I didn’t know what to say.
In a blur I heard words, myself like a stranger speak
“Will you come to my room?” Then a husky voice, “O.K.”

I produced some beer and we talked. Like a little boy
He told me his story. Present address: next door.
Half Polish, half Irish. The youngest. From Illinois.
Profession: mechanic. Name: Bud. Age: twenty-four.

He put down his glass and stretched his bare arms along
The back of my sofa. The afternoon sunlight struck
The blond hairs on the wrist near my head. His chin was strong.
His mouth sucky. I could hardly believe my luck.

And here he was sitting beside me, legs apart.
I could bear it no longer. I touched the inside of his thigh.
His reply was to move closer. I trembled, my heart
Thumped and jumped as my fingers went to his fly.

I opened a gap in the flap. I went in there.
I sought for a slit in the gripper shorts that had charge
Of the basket I asked for. I came to warm flesh then to hair.
I went on. I found what I hoped. I groped. It was large.

He responded to my fondling in a charming, disarming way:
Without a word he unbuckled his belt while I felt.
And lolled back, stretching his legs. His pants fell away.
Carefully drawing it out, I beheld what I held.

The circumcised head was a work of mastercraft
With perfectly beveled rim of unusual weight
And the friendliest red. Even relaxed, the shaft
Was of noble dimensions with the wrinkles that indicate

Singular powers of extension. For a second or two,
It lay there inert, then suddenly stirred in my hand,
Then paused as if frightened or doubtful of what to do.
And then with a violent jerk began to expand.

By soundless bounds it extended and distended, by quick
Great leaps it rose, it flushed, it rushed to its full size.
Nearly nine inches long and three inches thick,
A royal column, ineffably solemn and wise.

I tested its length and strength with a manual squeeze.
I bunched my fingers and twirled them about the knob.
I stroked it from top to bottom. I got on my knees.
I lowered my head. I opened my mouth for the job.

But he pushed me gently away. He bent down. He unlaced
His shoes. He removed his socks. Stood up. Shed
His pants altogether. Muscles in arms and waist
Rippled as he whipped his T-shirt over his head.

I scanned his tan, enjoyed the contrast of brown
Trunk against white shorts taut around small
Hips. With a dig and a wriggle he peeled them down.
I tore off my clothes. He faced me, smiling. I saw all.

The gorgeous organ stood stiffly and straightly out
With a slight flare upwards. At each beat of his heart it threw
An odd little nod my way. From the slot of the spout
Exuded a drop of transparent viscous goo.

The lair of hair was fair, the grove of a young man,
A tangle of curls and whorls, luxuriant but couth.
Except for a spur of golden hairs that fan
To the neat navel, the rest of the belly was smooth.

Well hung, slung from the fork of the muscular legs,
The firm vase of his sperm, like a bulging pear,
Cradling its handsome glands, two herculean eggs,
Swung as he came towards me, shameless, bare.

We aligned mouths. We entwined. All act was clutch,
All fact contact, the attack and the interlock
Of tongues, the charms of arms. I shook at the touch
Of his fresh flesh, I rocked at the shock of his cock.

Straddling my legs a little I inserted his divine
Person between and closed on it tight as I could.
The upright warmth of his belly lay all along mine.
Nude, glued together for a minute, we stood.

I stroked the lobes of his ears, the back of his head
And the broad shoulders. I took bold hold of the compact
Globes of his bottom. We tottered. He fell on the bed.
Lips parted, eyes closed, he lay there, ripe for the act.

Mad to be had, to be felt and smelled. My lips
Explored the adorable masculine tits. My eyes
Assessed the chest. I caressed the athletic hips
And the slim limbs. I approved the grooves of the thighs.

I hugged, I snuggled into an armpit. I sniffed
The subtle whiff of its tuft. I lapped up the taste
Of its hot hollow. My fingers began to drift
On a trek of inspection, a leisurely tour of the waist.

Downward in narrowing circles they playfully strayed.
Encroached on his privates like poachers, approached the prick,
But teasingly swerved, retreated from meeting. It betrayed
Its pleading need by a pretty imploring kick.

“Shall I rim you?” I whispered. He shifted his limbs in assent.
Turned on his side and opened his legs, let me pass
To the dark parts behind. I kissed as I went
The great thick cord that ran back from his balls to his arse.

Prying the buttocks aside, I nosed my way in
Down the shaggy slopes. I came to the puckered goal.
It was quick to my licking. He pressed his crotch to my chin.
His thighs squirmed as my tongue wormed in his hole.

His sensations yearned for consummation. He untucked
His legs and lay panting, hot as a teen-age boy.
Naked, enlarged, charged, aching to get sucked,
Clawing the sheet, all his pores open to joy.

I inspected his erection. I surveyed his parts with a stare
From scrotum level. Sighting along the underside
Of his cock, I looked through the forest of pubic hair
To the range of the chest beyond rising lofty and wide.

I admired the texture, the delicate wrinkles and the neat
Sutures of the capacious bag. I adored the grace
Of the male genitalia. I raised the delicious meat
Up to my mouth, brought the face of its hard-on to my face.

Slipping my lips round the Byzantine dome of the head,
With the tip of my tongue I caressed the sensitive groove.
He thrilled to the trill. “That’s lovely!” he hoarsely said.
“Go on! Go on!” Very slowly I started to move.

Gently, intently, I slid to the massive base
Of his tower of power, paused there a moment down
In the warm moist thicket, then began to retrace
Inch by inch the smooth way to the throbbing crown.

Indwelling excitements swelled at delights to come
As I descended and ascended those thick distended walls.
I grasped his root between left forefinger and thumb
And with my right hand tickled his heavy voluminous balls.

I plunged with a rhythmical lunge steady and slow,
And at every stroke made a corkscrew roll with my tongue.
His soul reeled in the feeling. He whimpered “Oh!”
As I tongued and squeezed and rolled and tickled and swung.

Then I pressed on the spot where the groin is joined to the cock,
Slipped a finger into his arse and massaged him from inside.
The secret sluices of his juices began to unlock.
He melted into what he felt. “O Jesus!” he cried.

Waves of immeasurable pleasures mounted his member in quick
Spasms. I lay still in the notch of his crotch inhaling his sweat.
His ring convulsed round my finger. Into me, rich and thick,
His hot spunk spouted in gouts, spurted in jet after jet.

from the New York Times Magazine

What follows is a magazine-article length essay. It’s good reading! And educational!

“The desire to be connected with the cosmos reflects a profound reality.
We are connected—not in the trivial ways that the pseudoscience of astrology promises, but in the deepest ways.”

Today’s lesson is about astrology. Not that a gemini has certain characteristics or a libra likes this or that; or that it’s a lucky day to buy a house or meet a new friend. It’s about how fundamentally wrong, untrue, inaccurate, impossible, and dangerous astrology is.

The first thing I have to say towards this is that I’m a Gemini, and also a twin. That means that my brother was born in precisely the same place, just a few minutes before I was. Nine minutes to be exact. But the same planet was rising in the same constellation and that supposedly dictates the destiny of our lives. You’d think then, given that we have essentially the identical astrological chart, that our lives should then be roughly the same! I guess we should live together here in Louisville or back in Grand Rapids, having probably gone to the same college and pursuing essentially the same career. We should act nearly the same way, react the same way, pursue friendships and relationships in basically the same way. After all, it’s written in the stars! But a quick study of my personality and that of my brother would reveal that this is not true. He works on computers for a living, I work in health care. He went rather far away for school, I stayed closer to home. He enjoys computer games—I can take them or leave them and would really rather be reading a book. As children he was always outside gallivanting around; I was content to be in my room building space ships out of LEGO. If the fundamental principles of astrology hold true this should not be the case. But it is.

I know plenty of people who “believe in” astrology, who think it’s an insight into someone’s personality or compatibility in love or business. There are also a few who just think it’s fun, or who even think there’s insight to be found in it in tiny ways.

Truth be told, there is an insight to be found in astrology. It’s that as people we share a lot of common characteristics, and that broad generalizations are easily applied to all of us in our daily lives. Sure, today might be a good day for everyone who was born between May 21 and June 21 to “test yourself today — it’s the perfect time to bring out hidden qualities that you may have only suspected.” And it might be true that those born in late February have a “love life that could use a little spice today, so compose the perfect love note and send it to the right person. It may cause quite a stir, but that is just what you’re seeking. Things should get hotter soon!”

I think it’s generally a good idea for people to test themselves—regardless of the month of their birth. But someone without much of a love life who’s a pisces might not find that particular horoscope useful. What then, do we say when our daily horoscopes don’t apply to us? “Oh, that one’s wrong today. Tomorrow’s will be better.” Keep in mind that the idea behind astrology isn’t that it’s supposed to predict the weather (which is difficult enough for actual scientists to do) but to determine the course of your life, the direction of your days, based on the supposed influence of the stars and planets. If you reread those horoscopes you’ll notice that they’re not really a prediction, just general advice that anyone could carry out that day. And not anything very new or unexpected, either.

But let’s examine what happens when we turn our lives (or even just a single day) over to the charts and graphs of the astrologer. Even if it’s “just for fun” and supposedly harmless you’re giving up quite a bit. You’re saying that basically your life isn’t for you to determine—it’s already been decided by the rising and setting of the stars and planets, millions and millions of miles away at the hour of your birth. To say that your astrological chart determines your personality, your lifestyle, even your chances for success in life precludes the possibility of free will. It tells us that we’re not able to change our personalities, our situations, or even maybe our thoughts from moment to moment. If something doesn’t work out it wasn’t “in the stars.” If a relationship fails it’s because “their signs weren’t compatible.”

I suppose that sort of thinking excuses us from taking responsibility for our days and our lives as well; anything that goes right or wrong is the fault (or credit) of the heavens.

Hopefully by now all this sounds a little Bronze-age to you. If not, read on.

It seems to me that what people would really want is the idea that they’re in control of their fate; that the choices they make every day shape the outcome of their lives—not the predestination determined by the placement of a distant planet relative to the position of some faraway stars. An examination of an average person’s life story will easily show nothing to do with the desire to be in control of one’s destiny or not, it’s a simple concrete fact. The choices you make shape the life you live, the personality you have, the people you surround yourself with. It doesn’t matter if Jupiter is in Scorpio, if you choose to do or say something it’s those words or actions that have the effect.

Let’s take another example, just to be thorough. astrology.com for June 10th 2010 (those two other horoscopes above were also from astrology.com) says that an Aquarius should “Reconnect with old friends or family members — you’ve got stories to tell each other, but more importantly, you need to reinforce each others’ memories of past events. They don’t stay fresh forever!” and while that’s certainly a good, cheerful, saccharine piece of advice to follow it would be letting a paragraph on a website choose for you what to do that day. Should you spend your evening on Facebook hunting down old college friends? Sure, if that’s what you want to do. I won’t argue that reminiscing is sometimes a good thing to do, but shouldn’t someone born on, say, January 28th decide for themselves how to spend their day? Granted I can come up with a few less desirable things one could spend their Thursday doing and I suppose atrology.com is as good a site as any to get any idea of what to do if you can’t come up with anything on your own.

But what are the mechanics of astrology? Our friend with the January birthday is said ruled to be by the motion of the planet Mars. I’ll take that to mean that Mars somehow dictates what that person does, says, how she acts or goes about her day. Let’s look at the real influence of Mars, 48 million miles away: The light from Mars is nothing but a dim reddish (if you’re lucky to catch it on a good day) pinprick in the sky that’s already 15 minutes old by the time it reaches Earth. And then it barely has enough energy to excite the red cones in our eyes. The gravitational influence of Mars upon things on Earth is essentially nonexistent—the motion of Mars couldn’t tip over a penny.

You’ve a choice here. You’ve either got to accept that you’ve got no control over your life, and that it was determined at your birth by the order of the heavenly spheres or that you can in fact determine the outcome of your life or your day. It’s all or nothing for either side, and to give astrology any credence at all is to throw out free will in exchange for incomplete thinking and unsubstantiated claims.

If you’re going to be a mature, rigorous thinker you’ve got to dismiss astrology out of hand.

(If you don’t want to be a mature, rigorous thinker you’ve got more problems than even an astrologer can solve. You’re beyond help and you’d might as well go have your tarot read or your palm or something.)

My second contention is that astrology can be a barrier to self discovery and understanding. I said above that astrology is dangerous, and this is how. If you’re going to base your thinking about yourself on your “chart” then you concede the ability for self discovery and self improvement to the astrologer. You’re basically giving up on the idea that you can change, improve, grow. Everything about you was set when you were born. It’s your fate. It’s in the stars.

And that’s simply a fallacy anyone who’s gone from a child to an adult can easily set aside. Hopefully you don’t have the same temper-tantrums you once did when you were three years old. Hopefully your ideas and opinions about things have changed over time. Hopefully you won’t let a bunch of broad generalizations dictate how you think about yourself and how you relate to other people. Granted, most of the descriptions of people based on their astrological signs are encouraging and upbeat and might help you feel better about yourself. After all, no one wants to go looking for their sun sign and find out that they’re a deadbeat who can’t get ahead in life. We’d all rather be told that we’re curious, fearless, enthusiastic, and get along well with others.

It’s kind of disappointing to accept that most people in our culture have just about the same kind of experiences and just about the same kind of traits. We are all different in our own ways, but we’re also only human. If you get broad and general enough, you can come up with descriptions that easily fit anyone regardless of the month of their birth. The danger lies in accepting these broad generalizations of ourselves as molds for us to fit in or predetermined sets that we should play on. Who you are as a person is more than a blurb in a newspaper or a couple paragraphs on a website—our personalities are constantly changing with each new thought, each new day, and each new experience.

My last, and (hopefully) short point to make is that I have to put astrology in perspective for myself, from a Buddhist perspective.

I’ll briefly digress and offer a Christian perspective as well, since a lot of people I know are Christians of various flavors. Aside from those Calvinists who believe that life is predestined from Creation, most Christians believe in free will-the idea that God lets them determine the shape of their lives. Most would also (somewhat contradictory) agree that God has the final say in all things, not the daily horoscope or a chart based on someone’s birthday. In this way astrology also contradicts most Christian thought and theology and might be some kind of a sin being that it stems from ancient pagan beliefs. You’ll have to ask your minister, priest or pastor about it.

The Buddha teaches us that all conditioned things (basically everything around us) have three characteristics. Two of them apply to astrology specifically: Anicca (which, not entirely coincidentally I have tattooed on myself) means “inconstancy” or “impermanence” and teaches that everything is in a constant state of flux. Everything’s changing all the time. The second principle is Anatta, which means “non-Self” and says, in part, that people are characterized by an ever-evolving consciousness and thus are never permanent or static entities. My “self” today will be different from my “self” tomorrow—even if it’s in a small way. The air in my lungs will be different, the food in my stomach will be different, the thoughts in my head will be different. I’ll change.

So if everything’s changing all the time and there is no separate “self” to my being then there’s nothing that could possibly be “written in the stars.” The truth is (as the Buddha teaches) that aside from the few things I have little control over my life is basically mine to determine, regardless of the position of Venus in relation to Capricorn.

And finally, earnestly, we take today’s reading from the Book Of Sagan:

Astronomy and astrology were not always so distinct. For most of human history the one encompassed the other. But there came a time when Astronomy escaped from the confines of astrology. The two traditions began to diverge in the life and mind of Johannes Kepler. It was he who demystified the heavens by discovering that a physical force lay behind the motions of the planets. He was the first astrophysicist, and the last scientific astrologer.

The intellectual foundations of astrology were swept away three hundred years ago and yet astrology is still taken seriously by a great many people. Have you ever noticed how easy it is to find a magazine on astrology? Virtually every newspaper in America has a daily column on astrology; almost none have even a weekly column on Astronomy.

People wear astrological pendants, check their horoscopes before leaving the house—even our language preserves an astrological consciousness. For example take the word disaster: it comes from the Greek for “bad star.” The Italians once believed that disease was caused by the influence of the stars: it’s the origin of our word “influenza.”
…
What is all this astrology business? Fundamentally it’s the contention that which constellations the planets are in at the moment of your birth profoundly influences your future. A few thousand years ago the idea developed that the motions of the planets determined the fates of kings, dynasties, empires. Astrologers studied the motions of the planets and asked themselves what happened last time that, say, Venus was rising in the constellation of the goat? Maybe something similar would happen this time as well. It was a subtle and risky business.

Astrologers became employed only by the state. In many countries it became a capital offense for anyone but the “official astrologer” to read the portents in the skies. Why? Because a good way to overthrow a regime was to predict its downfall. Chinese court astrologers who made inaccurate predictions were executed. Others simply doctored the records so that afterwards they were in perfect conformity with events. Astrology developed into a strange discipline—a mixture of careful observation, mathematics and record-keeping, with fuzzy thinking and pious fraud.

Nevertheless astrology survived and flourished. Why? Because it seems to lend a cosmic significance to the routine of our daily lives. It pretends to satisfy our longing to feel personally connected with the Universe.

Astrology suggests a dangerous fatalism: if our lives are controlled by a set of traffic signals in the sky, why try to change anything?

[Take] two different newspapers published in the same city on the same day. Let’s see what they do about astrology. Suppose you were a Libra that is born between September 23rd and October 22nd. According to the astrologer for the New York Post, “compromise will help ease tension.”

Well, maybe. It’s sort of vague.

According to the New York Daily News’s astrologer: “Demand more of yourself.”

Also vague but also pretty different. It’s interesting that these predictions are not predictions, they tell you what to do but they don’t tell you what’s going to happen. They’re consciously designed to be so vague that it could apply to anybody—and they disagree with each other.

Astrology can be tested by the lives of twins. There are many real cases like this… one twin is killed in childhood, in say a riding accident or is struck by lightning but the other lives to a prosperous old age. Suppose that happened to me. My twin and I would be born at precisely the same place and within minutes of each other. Exactly the same planet would be rising at our births. If astrology were valid, how could we have such profoundly different fates?

It turns out that astrologers can’t even agree among themselves what a given horoscope means. In careful tests they’re unable to predict the character and future of people they know nothing else about except the time and place of their birth.

Also, how could it possibly work? How could the rising of Mars at the moment of my birth affect me, then or now? I was born in a closed room; light from Mars couldn’t get in. The only influence of Mars which could affect me was its gravity. But the gravitational influence of the obstetrician was much larger than the gravitational influence of Mars. Mars is a lot more massive, but the obstetrician was a lot closer.

Cosmos episode 3 “The Harmony of the Worlds”

Update! I made this into a flashy magazine article looking thing. Download the PDF

Let’s make this Arizona law national!

Let’s question every single person in the streets and in the stores, in the grocery and in the hospital, in the public park or the private home, everywhere they are—let’s ask everyone, you and me and everyone else—if they have the legal right to stand upon this soil.

And if they do not, let’s round them up! Wall them into ghettos! Concentrate them into camps! Deport them back to where they belong! And if that proves to be such a cumbersome procedure, I’m sure we can trust our elected officials to come up with a Final Solution to the problem!

Here’s a video I made of the Saturn V rocket at the Davidson Center for Space Exploration in Huntsville, Alabama.

The Saturn V rocket is the most complex and powerful machine ever built by human beings, with the sole purpose of carrying us to another world. The reason why it’s so big is because it’s essentially 3 great big fuel tanks. 

as Neil deGrasse Tyson describes it:

“Leaving earth takes fuel, and you can’t refuel in space— so any fuel you’re going to burn you have to bring with you, which means the weight of the fuel you haven’t burned yet requires fuel to bring that weight into space for you. in other words, this entire rocket is nothing but fuel…

…I submit to you that this is the crowning achievement of human ingenuity and the fulfillment of dreams in the history of what it is to be human.”

Saturn V Facts:
Height …… 363.0 feet (110.6 m)
Diameter … 33.0 feet (10.1 m)
Mass …… 6,699,000 pounds (3,039,000 kg)

The Saturn V has 3 stages:

S-IC
Height …… 42 m (138 ft)
Diameter … 10 m (33 ft)
Mass …… 2,280,000 kg (5,030,000 lb)
Engines …… five F-1 engines fueled by kerosene and liquid oxygen
Thrust …… 33,400 kN

S-II
Height …… 24.9 m (82 ft)
Diameter … 10 m (33 ft)
Mass …… 480,900 kg (1,060,000 lb)
Engines …… five J-2 engines fueled by liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen
Thrust …… 5,115 kN

S-IVB
Height …… 17.8 m (58.4 ft)
Diameter … 6.6 m (21.7 ft)
Mass …… 119,900 kg (253,000 lb)
Engines …… one J-2 engine fueled by liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen
Thrust …… 1,001 kN

Astronatix – Saturn V (a detailed and technical page covering the Saturn V)

Wikipedia- Saturn V

This is how smart people explain the dangers of abstract, magical religious thinking. It’s kind of roundabout, but if you read it and think about it with your brain that took billions of years to evolve out of nothing, you might get it. If not… just go back to your incense and funny hats and leave me alone…

President [George W.] Bush… in an attempt to distinguish “we” from “they” (the terrorists who flew these planes into the buildings)… he loosely quotes a phrase out of the Bible by saying “our G-d, is the G-d who named the stars.”

Now… the fact is of all the stars that have names, two-thirds of them have Arabic names. So this was not, I don’t think, his intent with that message. While the constellations are Greek and Roman, the [stars'] names are Arabic…

How does this happen? How do you get stars named with Arabic names? It happens because… there was this particularly fertile period… this 300 year period [when] the intellectual center of the world was Baghdad… was completely open to all visitors… all travelers—they were all there exchanging ideas… and it was that period where we had… advances in engineering, and biology, and medicine, and mathematics! Our numerals are called Arabic numerals! [They] create[d] a whole field called Algebra—an Arabic word—all of this is traceable to this 300 year period. And then, something happened…

The 12th century brought the influence of [the] scholar al-Ghazali. And out of his work you get the philosophy that mathematics is the work of the Devil, and nothing good can come of that philosophy. That, combined with other sort-of philosophical codifications of what Islam was and would become, the entire intellectual foundation of that enterprise collapsed and it has not recovered since.

I’m trying to explain to you… the dangers here… and so then you fast forward to 21st century America and you ask, “What influences are we feeling now?” Because that period, that [above] naming period in Islam, stopped and never recovered. That way of thinking about the natural world— revelation replaced investigation. So I fast forward to 21st century America and what do I find? You get things like this—

This is in America! Alright, so now, what I find interesting is the level of passion that it requires to actually do this, you know like paying for this [billboard], and it means a lot of people are pissed off at the Big Bang… and so Intelligent Design is basically a God of the Gaps…

What Neil is saying is that you have this clinging to doctrine—this belief that the 2,000 year old myths and ruminations and daydreams of a tribe lost in the desert have just got to be true could ruin our search for what is really true about life on Earth and the nature the Universe. I oppose “Intelligent Design” (and other non-scientific stories for the origin of life on Earth and the Universe) not just because it’s obviously false, but because it provides an opportunity for our society to turn away from the search for truth and re-immerse itself in dark-age philosophies that attempted to explain the unknowable by clinging to a singular, magical explanation of everything that simply isn’t true. it is, in fact, inherently dangerous.

See the entire presentation here.

If, like me, you truly oppose socialism you should write your congress person today. You must encourage him or her to fight for the repeal of social security, medicare, the state childrens’ health insurance program, food stamps, school lunches, public schools, state universities, national parks, public libraries, fire departments, 911 service, the post office, air traffic control, local police departments, municipal water treatment, unemployment insurance, flood insurance, and several other services that keep us safe, warm, housed, and fed. They should also vote to shut down local sports arenas, stadiums, street lights, and public transit.

All of these programs take some amount of public funds (your hard earned money the government takes away as tax dollars) and turn it into things other people use every day, but you might not ever even see.

Why should I have to pay money so my neighbor’s kids can go to school? Or eat lunch there? If their house burns down, why do I have to pay to have someone come put out the fire? Why does a part of my paycheck have to go towards buying books that I’ll never read so other people can borrow then for free? What kind of country do we live in where my hard-earned American dollars are taken away from me to light up the streets on the other side of town, where I never drive?

Furthermore, wouldn’t it be better to give private enterprise the opportunity to compete in a free marketplace to provide for us? Private companies would obviously do a better job than the government has with providing some of these services— just like they’ve done with financial markets, mortgages, retirement plans, airlines, and health insurance.

I’ve got a bit of a new look here, as well as on the front page. I’ve started up a tumblelog to supplement this as well. I’ll probably reserve the big blog for long, official like posts and use tumblr as the middle space for things that are too long for twitter but short enough they don’t necessarily need an entire blog posting. My tumblr also has a unified look to go along with this blog. So check it out!

Oh yeah, I changed the name of the place, too.

ad astra!

For all my real friends, I still need you. Now more than ever.

Snow Patrol
You Give Me Strength
I choked back tears today
because I can’t begin to say
how much you’ve shaped this boy
these last ten years or more

My friends we’ve seen it all
triumphs to drunken falls
and our bones are broken still
but our hearts are joined until
time slips its tired hand into our tired hands
we’ve years ’til that day and so much more to say

You give the strength to me
a strength I never had
I was a mess you see
I’d lost the plot so bad
you dragged me up and out
out of the darkest place
there’s not a single doubt when I can see your faces

My friends we’ve seen it all
when it made no sense at all
you dare to light my path
and found the beauty in the aftermath

Let me hold you up
like you held me up
it’s too long to never say this
you must know I’ve always thought

You give the strength to me
a strength I never had
I was a mess you see
I’d lost the plot so bad
you dragged me up and out
out of the darkest place
there’s not a single doubt when I can see your faces

You give the strength to me
a strength I never had
I was a mess you see
I’d lost the plot so bad
you dragged me up and out
out of the darkest place
there’s not a single doubt when I can see your faces

This is one of my new favorite poems…

Boston
   —Aaron Smith

I’ve been meaning to tell
you how the sky is pink
here sometimes like the roof
of a mouth that’s about to chomp
down on the crooked steel teeth
of the city,

I remember the desperate
things we did
                and that I stumble
down sidewalks listening
to the buzz of street lamps
at dusk and the crush
of leaves on the pavement,

Without you here I’m viciously lonely

and I can’t remember
the last time I felt holy,
the last time I offered
myself as sanctuary

*

I watched two men
press hard into
each other, their bodies
caught in the club’s
bass drum swell,
and I couldn’t remember
when I knew I’d never
be beautiful, but it must
have been quick
and subtle, the way
the holy ghost can pass
in and out of a room.
I want so desperately
to be finished with desire,
the rushing wind, the still
small voice.

Dear Mr. Pellerito:

Thank you for contacting me about the Department of Defense (DOD) Homosexual Conduct Policy, informally known as “don’t ask, don’t tell.” I appreciate you sharing your views with me.

In my view, DOD’s current Homosexual Conduct Policy, which precludes openly gay, lesbian and bisexual individuals from serving in our armed forces, is a disservice to the brave men and women who comprise our all-volunteer force. I opposed this discriminatory “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy when it came into existence, and I support its repeal.

President Obama has pledged to work with Congress and the DOD to repeal the Homosexual Conduct Policy so that gay, lesbian and bisexual service members can serve openly. I believe any revision to this policy must be done in a thoughtful and careful manner and with a buy-in from the military. To that end, the Senate Armed Services Committee, which I chair, will hold hearings on this issue in early 2010. I will be sure to keep your views in mind as Congress continues to consider this matter.

Thank you again for writing.

Sincerely,
Carl Levin

Here’s the best way that I can think of to pose this argument… Healthy Americans add up to a healthy workforce, which will be more productive, and ensure a stong economy. A sick workforce bogged down by expensive health care is less productive and results in a poor economy. Sick people, or those who can’t afford to get better don’t work as well. People crushed by healthcare debt or spending exorbitant sums to get better consequently have less money to spend on other things. If, suddenly, getting sick and paying for it didn’t run us to ruin (just as we don’t have to worry about building roads… or having a strong military…) and furthermore didn’t remove those people from the economy and workforce, America would have better workers and do better work.

There’s always a lot of talk about how innovation and entrepreneurship drive the American economy. I’d submit to you that people who are sick and can’t afford to get better (or even those who are forced to stay in a job they don’t like or won’t excel in because they need the health insurance) are not going to be innovators and entrepreneurs. How many Bill Gates and Steve Jobs can’t reach their potential because they’ve got to have jobs—working for other employers—that offer health insurance for themselves and their families? You can’t successfully strike out on your own if 1/3 to 3/4 of your income has to be spent on health care costs. There might be another Sarah Palin out there right now, but she’s stuck in an office job for the benefits and day care. How many Rush Limbaughs and Rupert Murdochs are being held back because they’re crushed by hospital bills from themselves or a family member? What if Glenn Beck was one sick child away from losing everything? Fortunately for Rush and Glenn and Rupert, they made their riches back when healthcare was cheaper, and now they can afford a year’s worth of the best rehab or a $600,000 hospital stay for a troublesome appendix.

I know if my appendix burst I’d have my life saved by the what’s probably the best health care in the modern world. But if it costs me everything I own and leaves me in financial ruins for the next ten years of my life, maybe I’d be better off dead. But either way, whether I was indebted to doctors and hospitals or dead and buried, I wouldn’t have much opportunity to start the next Chick-fil-A or Amway. I wouldn’t be able to get the small business loan, for starters.

A healthy workforce guarantees a stronger economy now and in the future. We make no money staying home sick nursing ourselves or loved ones. The less we spend on hospitals and pills the more we can spend on guns and bibles, pickup trucks and snowmobiles.

So why does everyone need affordable, reliable, efficient health care coverage? So we can stay healthy, or if we’re sick we can afford to get better. Because we all need to be at work in the morning.

Since suggestive search is pretty standard now, I though I’d try what the various search engines’ suggestions for “why…”

The results are quite interesting. (click for bigger)

The second lunar landing, of the LM Intrepid was 40 years ago today, manned by Pete Conrad and Alan Bean (with Gemini 11’s Richard Gordon orbiting in the CSM Yankee Clipper). The science and achievement was of course amazing, but the best part (I think) of the whole mission is that the backup crew managed to insert reduced sized pictures of Playboy centerfolds into the mission checklists attached to the wrists of Conrad’s and Bean’s spacesuits.

Porn. On the Moon. Way to go, guys.

Or as Pete Conrad put it: “Whoopie! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that’s a long one for me!”

More: NASA – Apollo 12
NASA’s Apollo 12 Lunar Surface Journal

Still my heart and hold my tongue
I feel my time, my time has come
Let me in, unlock the door
I never felt this way before

And the wheels just keep on turning
The drummer begins to drum
I don’t know which way I’m going
I don’t know which way I’ve come

Hold my head inside your hands
I need someone who understands
I need someone, someone who hears
For you I’ve waited all these years

For you I’d wait ’til kingdom come
Until my day my day is done
And say you’ll come and set me free
Just say you’ll wait you’ll wait for me

In your tears and in your blood
In your fire and in your flood
I hear you laugh I heard you sing
I wouldn’t change a single thing

The wheels just keep on turning
The drummers begin to drum
I don’t know which way I’m going
I don’t know what I’ve become

For you I’d wait ’til kingdom come
Until my days my days are done
Say you’ll come and set me free
Just say you’ll wait, you’ll wait for me

Just say you’ll wait, you’ll wait for me
Just say you’ll wait, you’ll wait for me

For Carl’s birthday, an image he didn’t live to see:

A recent photo from the Cassini spacecraft shows the mighty planet Saturn, and if you look very closely between its wing-like rings, a faint pinprick of light. That tiny dot is Earth bustling with life as we know it. The image is the second ever taken of our world from deep space. The first, captured by the Voyager spacecraft in 1990, stunned many people, including the famous astronomer Carl Sagan who called our seemingly miniscule planet a “pale blue dot” and “the only home we’ve ever known.”

His full quote:

“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home, That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every ‘superstar,’ every ‘supreme leader,’ every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam… There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.”

I’ve been scouring the internet for the longest time trying to find the source of the default iPhone wallpaper that depicts the globe of Earth from space, featuring North America:

Last night I finally gave up, and in doing so found it serendipitously tonight, here, courtesy of the TERRA satellite.

Much of the information contained in this image came from a single remote-sensing device-NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, or MODIS. Flying over 700 km above the Earth onboard the Terra satellite, MODIS provides an integrated tool for observing a variety of terrestrial, oceanic, and atmospheric features of the Earth. The land and coastal ocean portions of these images are based on surface observations collected from June through September 2001 and combined, or composited, every eight days to compensate for clouds that might block the sensor’s view of the surface on any single day.

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/BlueMarble/BlueMarble_2002.php