Everyone else, listen up.

I hate GMOs (genetically modified organisms) and their insidious sidekick, chemical farming, with the same passion I reserve for pedophiles, politicians, abortionists and big bankers.

Click here to read on, my friend.

Just this month Forbes called Monsanto heroes.

(hack, cough, cough) Balderdash. I try not to use stronger words, but they would certainly apply.

I should probably post this link on my long-neglected organic gardening blog and, after I post it here, I might just do that.

But this blog gets somewhat more traffic and I think that this video, about the effects of chemical farming in India is instructive. I know that your time is valuable. I’m asking for 30 minutes of it with the promise that I will not waste that 30 minutes. Start by viewing the film for the first 26 minutes.

Click here to read on, my friend.

Just a few weeks ago NASA smacked the moon with an old space ship they no longer wanted and declared that they saw water, 25 whole gallons of it, in the resulting plume of ejected material. Now

A website based in India has reported researchers with the Chandrayaan-1 mission may have found “signs of life in some form or the other on the Moon.” http://bit.ly/6veERB

I’ve just got to wonder how many times we can smack the moon with projectiles before they start shooting back?

(NB for the humor impaired: This is actually a gentle dig at the “we are not alone crowd”. Of course, we’re not alone you sillies … there’s over 7 billion of us happily reproducing on this increasingly crowded planet. Of these, it would appear that roughly every10th one is armed to the teeth and willing to shoot in whatever direction some politician tells them to. Oh, and there are a few million homosexuals who, thankfully, don’t reproduce; although some of them can shoot.

Not to mention God and his faithful created spirit creatures who are shortly going to put an end to all of this gunfire nonsense. Not that you believe that God exists … but that’s okay, it’s not a requirement.)

I believe that life came from a mind … that it is the result of conscious and deliberate cogitation followed by precise manipulation of available material; material that was, itself, the result of deliberate and conscious cogitation. It is thought that leads me to this faith and it is thought, not rhetoric, that could lead me away from it.

Yet, I’ve encountered no compelling arguments against it. Some earnest attempts, yes. Even a few which have moved me to recast my thoughts of creation. When I encounter new information, I reconsider the old. This is not apostasy, this is sanity. But I’ve never found anything sufficiently compelling so as to render the arguments in favor of creation empty.

At present, the online version of Scientific American is featuring an article about species differentiation in a variety of bird that seems to have recently occurred. I’m willing to agree that it likely has … and I’m just as willing to agree that a previously un-noticed species, closely related – but distinct, has just been discovered. The latter happens fairly frequently but, given the number of known species and thus the enormously large number of opportunities for such differentiation to occur, the former happens so seldom as to be statistically insignificant.

Just ONE gene separates the two species … but the birds themselves seem willing to acknowledge the difference.

The more complex the life, the greater the mind that created it. That seems to remain a constant.

http://www.wimp.com/coolsculpture/

Do a little research on this guy, Theo Jansen … this is not the only such “being” he’s created. What I find most fascinating about his work is the insight it gives us into the human ability to visualize and conceive; to realize the things which are not yet, but could be — with a little prodding.

And yet, this guy, for all his creative genius, did nothing more than reorganize previously existing materials. He has added to creation without actually creating anything at all. He does not make the plastic tubes that he uses. He did not create the chemicals and the processes used to make those tubes. The energy that he harnesses, the wind, is not of his own design and he could not protect a single one of his creatures from a rogue wave or an unfortunate gust of wind. A tsunami would drag both him and his creations to a watery demise, leaving behind only beach.

Nonetheless, he’s brilliant by our standards and I admire what he has accomplished, particularly in the realm of getting others to pay him to do what he so obviously loves to do and would / did do at his own expense in the absence of other funding. Like Thomas Edison, he may be one of the fortunate few who, nearing the grave, can say “I’ve never worked a day in my life.

I wish him many more years of such brilliance. I wish him many more years of life.

And I wish he were able to actually create something.

In a world increasingly ruled by science and technology, the benefits of having a scientifically literate voting population and workforce should be obvious. Furthermore, more important than teaching the current findings of science–what scientists currently think is true–is teaching how science works. Intelligent Design should not be taught as science in the public schools because it is not science. For example, ID cannot state its hypotheses in a way that can be tested by observation and proven false. (Italics added)

                                                  http://www.weirdsciencecolumn.com/site_weirdsciencecolumn/weirdscience-ID102804.htm

I was wandering around (unescorted) on the internet a few minutes ago and bumped into this gem. Moreover, I’m not so certain that this world is in any way, shape or form ruled by science and technology. It looks to me like it is ruled by men whose egos make them readily amenable to the suggestions of Satan.

But that is not what this post is about.

Click here to read on, my friend.

Let your voice be heard, whether or not it is to the taste of every
jack-in-office who may be obstructing the traffic. By all means, render unto
Caesar that which is Caesar's -- but this does not necessarily include
everything that he says is his.
      -- Denis Johnston, _The Brazen Horn_

At what point does submission to God and to the “superior authorities” part company?

Try to be specific in your comments. Give guidance, not shadow.

“Over the past few decades, however, a series of studies has called these stereotypes into question. Among the surprising conclusions: the waste produced by coal plants is actually more radioactive than that generated by their nuclear counterparts. In fact, fly ash — a by-product from burning coal for power — contains up to 100 times more radiation than nuclear waste.” — click here for more

The things that we don’t know are generally safer than the things that we think we know, but are wrong about. Click here to read on, my friend.

What books, people or events have changed your life? I’m especially interested in those things that left you better than before.

However it is that you define ‘better’.

Kelly over at http://www.kk.org/cooltools/archives/002879.php got my juices going on this tonight.

I think that “Atlas Shrugged” (Ayn Rand) has had a 40-year lasting impact on me. It led me to give deeper thought into the relationship between personal responsibility and material goods; to see that material goods can be a measure of ones value to society. It does not excuse unethical behavior but the ethical accumulation of wealth is not, in and of itself, a wrong thing.

So does the Bible … I find myself studying from it / about it pretty much every day. It is there, for instance, that we find that it is the love of money (above our love for God and his commands), not the ethical and balanced accumulation of it, that is the root of “all sorts of injurious” things.

One book that Kelly didn’t mention was “Future Shock” (Alvin Toffler), which pointed out that not only is life in a constant state of flux, but that the rate of change is accelerating dramatically. Just look at the electronic devices in your life and think back in five year chunks to the devices that occupied earlier times in your life.  I can recall, plainly, my first pocket calculator in its powder blue leatherette case and its glowing nixie display. It had all four functions and pi! I’ve got $1.98 calculators today that offer more functions and an immensely longer battery life. And I’ve got a $30 calculator that has more math functions than I have the education to use. I bought it for its sine function.

Another book that continues to shape my world-view was “Utopia or Oblivion” by R. Buckminster Fuller. That, and “Nine Chains to the Moon” showed me how technology is at the mercy of politics … just like the rest of us are. Many of the worlds’ intractable problems have actually, from a technical perspective, been solved. However, there is no chance of the answers ever being implemented because the implementation requires governments to deal honestly with each other. And those in power are, by definition, politicians at heart.

That was a rude awakening. I had thought that the problem lay in our ignorance. It does not, it lies in our arrogance and human nature shows no signs of changing on its own.

There is the day I drowned. I don’t know the name of the person who saved my life, but I was one limp little kid when I was lifted from the swimming pool.

I can still recall the hallucinations of dying. Knowing what the exit looks like takes a lot of fear away today. Yeah, ‘the tunnel’ exists. So does the wordless singing and the sense of being drawn along on a journey toward a welcoming presence. Oddly enough, just before reviving I had a sense of being in reverse … and not wanting to return because I sensed ‘loss’ at returning. The presence at the other end had awaited my coming and now it blessed my going. Before I could puzzle out why, I came to consciousness spitting water and, for the moment, angry at being back among the living. I had been cheated of death. That still puzzles me. Although in no particular hurry, I am perfectly willing to complete the journey. That makes me at all times formidable, because I’m not afraid to die for what I believe in. I am not afraid to die at all.

Recovery from alcoholism marked a turning point, too. So did the births of my sons, the divorce from their mother and the births of my first two grandchildren (so far).

What points in your life can you look to as turning points?

Cigarette smoking remains the leading preventable cause of death in the United States, accounting for approximately 1 of every 5 deaths (438,000 people) each year. (n.b. 2007 figures)

Tobacco was, is and always will be a potent narcotic. It accounts for 20% of the deaths in the United States — ALL OF THEM PREVENTABLE. About a year ago I lost a Bible student to emphysema. By the time he died, his family no longer had the money to bury him. So he went on tour for a year as a “Visible Body” science exhibit. I mention that just as a reminder that the cost of the cigarettes is only the beginning of the expenses. Those little green oxygen tanks you see people lugging around are not intended to to give them sex appeal … they are there to keep them alive (and priced accordingly).

But the addiction can be beat. I beat it and so have millions of others. That said, roughly 20% of all US adults smoke (hmmm 20% of the adults smoke  and smoking accounts for 20% of the deaths). However, it is important to note that the mortality figures tell only a small part of the story. Click on the video below and join in the sing-along.

Somehow, that’s not what I expected the “Cigarette Guy” to be doing for a living. But I guess he’s gotta cover his medical bills somehow. Click here to read on, my friend.

I’m off for a camping week alone. Well, more like Wednesday through Sunday. Except that my wife and possibly some guests will be here Friday night. My wife will be staying until Sunday morning. Or until the mosquitoes drive her away. The woman is mosquito bait.

Oh no, no, no, no, no … don’t get me wrong … I’m not complaining. When she’s not around, the mosquitoes target me. When she’s nearby, they don’t. Just another reason to love her, I guess. Click here to read on, my friend.