If this Summer, the hottest on record, has not convinced the most hardened disbeliever, I don’t know what will. I have seen a graph of the carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and the temperature anomaly.  There appears to be direct correlation.  While this is not absolute proof, it is compelling enough to force us to act.  We cannot take the risk that fossil fuel driven carbon dioxide levels are not causing the temperature anomaly.  It can kill us.

Another reason for suppressing fossil fuel use is the socio-economic chaos that will come as we run out of oil and coal.  It would be much better to turn to renewable energy now before we are forced to do so.  I can only hope Americans are not so short sighted they fail to embrace the Green Revolution.  To do so will be our undoing climatologically and economically.

It is not the loss of the person,

For they live on in our memory,

In fact, we at times forget they are dead,

Grief is the realization that one more set of memories of us is gone,

And in some small way we have died.

I defended you once, but not this time.  You struck a woman.  That is one of those things in my panoply of unforgivables from which there is no return.

What is worse is you are a hypocrite.  You made a movie about Jesus and his suffering.  The truth is you are the guy with the flogger beating Christ.  You are the Sadist with no hope of redemption or salvation.

I do not believe in Hell, but you do.  So think long and hard about where you are going to spend eternity.  Think long and hard while you are listening to those tapes.

If it is the alcohol or a head thing, get some help.  Otherwise I am done with you and want to hear no more from you.

I was recently in a disagreement with a writer to the local newspaper over whether one should call creationism a valid subset of science.  He put forth the rather novel and difficult to support idea the Earth is only 6000 years old.  Being educated in the Earth sciences and holding a Bachelor of Science degree in Geophysics, I found this to be a ludicrous proposition and told him so.  While in church today I realized my mistake in arguing the facts with the gentleman.  Since my local newspaper has seen fit to go to pay access, I am unable to reply directly to him.  This blog entry is my reply.

I have realized that arguing the facts of science will never convince anyone of his error of interpretation.  I make the statement that science is an unsuitable vehicle for creationism because science deals with the trivial human questions while creationism tries and fails to use the facts of science to build a scientific framework to support answers that faith alone can supply.  Trying to use science to answer these questions is like using a diamond cutter to plow a field.  Philosophy and Theology are the real tools that apply to the questions posed by creationism.  God and evolution can co-exist.  Though I am a secular humanist, I think I could make the transition to theist with little modification of my scientific beliefs.  I also believe that modern religions need to be more dynamic.  It is a stain on the Christian religion that the largest denomination is governed by a monarchy with a noble class while most of its adherents believe a democracy is a superior form of government.  I also believe the main problem is the stubborn literal interpretations of the various sacred books of the various religions.  Creationism is put forth as a validation of the Old Testament of the Bible.  The people who believe in it are desperate for reassurance in their sacred text and are willing to believe the most unsupportable hypotheses in spite of a blizzard of data to the contrary. They are unwilling to accept the doubt which Kierkegaard said was a part of faith.  It is faith overcoming doubt to yield belief that makes you a Christian, not sifting through scientific minutia in search of proof of the truth of the Old Testament of the Bible.

Bill Clinton seems to think there are parallels between the present time and 1995.  I agree there are some similarities, but the difference is great also.  In 1995, the Internet was a babbling infant commercially only two years old.   Now the Internet is a raging beast of enormous import and size.

George Orwell predicted a police state where our every thought and action was observed by an oppressive government.  That has more or less come to pass without force.  We have marched into the pages of Facebook and MySpace and confessed our sins as easily as nuns at a convent.   All an agent of law enforcement or oppressor, depending on your point of view, need do is have a good algorithm and scan the databases of life in the world found on the social media websites.

I will not judge whether this is a good thing or not.  It certainly makes for a safer world as terrorists plot online and are habitually caught before they can act.  The other side of that coin is the potential for suppression of legitimate dissent.

I like to think Marshall McLuhan would be gratified to know his prediction of the Global Village is coming to pass for better or worse.

I live about 300 miles from Juarez, Mexico.  There was a time when I traveled to that city as a tourist. Since the gutters of the streets of that city now run deep with human blood, I would not go there for any reason.  The Drug Cartel has made that place unlivable.

I have also come to the conclusion that the return on the War on Drugs is not worth the expenditure of lives it costs to fight.  I have concluded that we have lost the War on Drugs.  To continue this effort is to waste lives and money.

We must legalize simple possession of recreational drugs.  We must also recognize that the human problem is basically a medical problem, not a legal one.  Farmers should be allowed to produce strictly regulated amounts of controlled substances which would be dispensed under the control of medical doctors whose primary mission would be to help addicts free themselves of their addictions.

I realize this would not stop the black market in recreational drugs, but I believe over time this system combined with draconian laws for illegal production and sale of recreational drugs would make that choice of careers unattractive indeed.  Ask yourself this, since the advent of state lotteries how many bookies can you name off the top of your head?

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Silly, it’s a rabbit.

When I was young, I delighted in drawing crude sketches of sleek rocket ships on their way into space.  The above panting arose out of that memory.  It was done with Corel Painter 11 and for all it’s crudity, I am proud of it.  I hope to achieve eventually the holy grail of painters, painting the human form realistically.

But the tears will never wash away the pain of loss or deep loneliness,
Staggering from side to side, almost blind of his path to the distant,
Unknown, uncaring, and bleak future he embraces in ignorance
For in his arms he carries the body of his lifeless infant.