Relative Time and Space - Fact and Fantasy

The Theory of Special Relativity was introduced by Albert Einstein in 1905, and deals with events which take place at great distances from one another with respect to the speed of light: 186,240 miles per second. The whole idea is that a radio signal, sent from earth to a spaceship moving away from us at a high rate of speed, will take a progressively longer time to reach the ship as its distance from earth increases; when it is 186,240 miles out the signal will take one second to cover the distance; when the ship is 670 million miles away the signal will take almost an hour to reach the ship. If it is a time signal ( "it is twelve noon" ) the clock on the ship will show nearly one o'clock when the signal arrives. The crew might then, ignoring the time differential, set the ship's clock back to match the earth-time signal. As the ship moves farther away the time difference becomes ever greater. This model, poorly understood by academics who missed their true calling as stevedores, was cobbled into the preposterous notion that time actually slowed down on the departing spaceship. It's called Time Dilation and it is pure and utter nonsense. According to this "theory" a person travelling on a spaceship departing the earth. depending upon how far he went and at what velocity, would return only to find that, while he had spent a only couple of decades out there, several decades would have passed on the earth. All his contemporaries would be much older than himself, those that were still alive, that is.The fact is that if the delay in signal time which causes the clock on the spaceship to be continually turned back would be reversed on the ship's return journey. As the lag time shortens, the ship's clock would now have to be continually set ahead until, when back on earth the two clocks would record the exact same time. And this would occur without recourse to the speed of light.Time is an immutable scalar, an invention used to measure change, and only goes forward, never backward. Time is not a naturally occurring phenomenon; there are no clocks hanging from trees in the forest, racoons don't wear wristwatches, and never has a pigeon been known to stop a pedestrian on a downtown sidewalk and ask for the correct time. Time travel, another fantasy that occupies otherwise productive intellects, is impossible as all the changes that time records would have to be un-changed. Imagine un-eating every meal you've consumed between the present time and your target date of the past; you would have to un-sleep all the sleep you've gotten, and reverse every action taken in the interval. Time, though an invention of mankind, still exists, and in the matters at hand is an important consideration as respects our view of the universe. We may consider thepossibility that the distant, or not so distant stars that we see in the night sky, may in fact be in more than one place at one time. Now to explain.Many of our astronomical theories accept the speed of light as a constant, when it celarly is not. The speed co light, c, is vaiable depending upon the medium through which it passes. Any spear fisherman knows that the fish he is after is not hwre it appears to be but somewhat closer; this because light travels more slowly through water, a denser medium. Light cannot penetrate a thick fog, and cannot even pass completely through clear glass.Light is the ultimate energy transfer medium. Physicists have puzzled for years over its true nature; is it a wave or is it a particle? The ansswer is: It's both. A clue comes from the field of electrical engineering, specifically alternating current. Alternating current is generated by dynamos that spin a conductor ( a coil of wires ) through a magnetic field, thus producing the current ( flow of electrons ). A picture of this process may be seen on the screen of an oscilloscope, a device specially deisgned to show variations in voltage and current. The figure that apopears on the screen is a sine wave, but this is a two-dimensional representation of a three-dimensional figure. Rotate it 90° with respect to the horizontal and you will see a circle; rotate it 45° and you will see a spiral, an exact representation of the action of the generator. Light must be like that: traveling in a spiral path, thus giving it both the properties of a wave and of a particle. It would also explain how light " gets around " things.Light has certain components that are a function of wavelength and fequency. At the high end of the scale ae x-rays, very energetic energy bundles with very short wavelengths and ultra-high frequencies. X-rays are capable of penetrating hardened steel because their wavelengths are so small that they can pass between the atoms of a material, their frequencies so high that they encounter virtually no interference from matter at he atomic level. At the low end are infra-red emissions with much greater wavelengths and much lower frequencies.

One erroneous belief that has flavored astronomical theory is that the speed of light through space is constant. If light can be slowed by passing through a dense medium, hlted by clouds, and bent by gravity on earth and within our sphere of perception, you cn bet that the same thing happpens " out there ". It's just not easily apparent. Oh, fifty or sixty years ago, when outer space was thught to be a hygenically devoid of any matter at all, then light would have had the freedom to streak across space at incredible speeds! But that's not at all how it is out there.The universe is full of matter; solid and gaseous, and gravitational fields in complex patterns and various levels of intensity, some ibcredibly strong, that affect starlight as it traverses the lightyears that separate them from ourselves.And light just ignores all these influences, doesn't slow, doesn't bend a little here and there? Just like Black Holes: the " theory " is all that matters; let's just ignore density and friction as all this matter implodes on itself.Nikolai Lobachevski, the famous Russian mathemetician, proposed the idea that space is curved. This idea was based on Michelson and Morley's measurement of the speed of light and Michael Faraday's concept of magnetic fields. Of course the cosmos isn't truly curved; this is merely the illusion created  by the time-delay of the light reaching us from far distant celestial objects. This remarks not the actual curvature of space, but out experience with it using light as the standard. But suppose we could use light as a standard in a different and more useful way?Try shining a light on an object through glass. You will see the object illuminated alright, but you will also note a disk of light on the surface of the glass. These are the wavelengths and frequencies of light that were unable to pass through the glass. In other words they were filtered. Now try the same test with a sheet of waxed paper; noticeably less light gets through but some still does. A sheet if light tracing paper will admit stuill less light but, again, some gets through. A thin sheet of card stock will block the light entirely; but does none of it get through? Discrete, largely undetectable light quanta; x-ray, miscrowave, and UV tays must certainly penetrate the opaque obstacle, as they are also components of white light. White light is, after all, a combonation of all wavelengths and frequencies of light; when white light is passed though a ruby crystal and its frequencies are synchronized into one the result is Laserlight. Ever wonder why laser light is always red? Now you know.We also know that light can be selectively filtered out of an optical event; an object can thus be made to disappear. One of my homes had red drapes in the livingroom. The early morning sun would shine on the livingroom windows and be filtered through the drapes. I had a pair of slippers that were the same shade of red and at these times in the morning, if the slippers were on the floor a few feet away - I couldn't see them. At the time I smoked cigarettes that came in a package about the same shade of red as the drapes and the slippers, and I could barely make it out from a few feet away.Now let us turn our attention to uter space with all its bodies, gases, and debris. Telscope photos of galaxies, nebulae, and gas clouds, show a profusion of color and an infinite variety of densities. We therefore have the two influences we have been noting above: filtering and opacity. May we guess what happens to light over the course of tens-, hundreds-, thousand- or millions of light years? Suppose that the more energetic x-ray and microwave transmissions were able to pull ahead of the slower moving ultraviolet light; and if these UV emissions were in turn able to outrun the visible light components, and these could outrun the still-slower moving, less energetic infra-red and radio waves. What would we get if noy bundles of light fronm the same source reaching us at different times? We would detect x-ray stars, UV stars, infra-red stars, and radio stars, in addition to thos visible to the eye. And what do we actualy detect? X-ray, UV, infra-red, and radio stars!Isn't that a co-incidence? Here we have both elements of deductive logic and practical reasoning; antecedents that frame an argumnent and evidence of a definite conclusion to which these facts would directly lead. If light indeed separates into bundles on jourenys of even a few light years, what does that possibly tell us?Astronomers occasionally make comments about the various objects they observe that suggest a slight deviation from the facts. It's when they remark on the location of a particular star, galaxy, nebula, or some other sighting by telling us where it IS. Of course we don't know where it is, only where it was however many years ago. Where are they now? Better yet; where will they be in a few years, decades, centuries? If light truly "unbundles" as suggested here, then we just might be able to answer these questions.

Think about this; a timeline of light emmissions from the most recent to the most historic: the x-rays get here first, then the UVs, then the visible star light, then the infra-red, and finally the radio. If we could connect these perceptions into sets, relating them to one another on the basis of this timeline, we would be able to launch a space vehicle on an intercepting path, to ariive at a point in space when the object also arrives, it would save a lot of time and energy.

The Big Bang Theory - Creationism in Disguise

Of all the pseudo-scientific nonsense with which reasoning men have had to contend, none can equal the Big Bang Theory. Only a theory, many astronomers discuss Big Bang as if it truly happened, but in all their bizarre explanations there is one question that none has dared even mention.

Where was the epicenter of this great event?

It would have to have been right here in our own system, since the galaxies that are racing outward at the speed of light are all the same distance from us in every direction. Oh, yeah; the universe is expanding, according to this ill-conceived fantasy. Of course it isn't, but one thing it is: It's a whole lot bigger that anyone can imagine. It's one thing to suggest that the universe got off to such an exciting start when the earth was thought to be at the center of everything, with only six planets, the sun, the moon, and a jewel-studded canopy covering out flat earth like the top of a cake dish. But now, with billions and billions of galaxies, each containing billions and billions of stars, a point-mass origin with no identifiable cause is pure nonsense.

And the earth is no longer the center of the universe; in fact our solar system lies in a spiral arm ( one of twelve ) at the outermost reaches of our rather ordinary galaxy, the Milky Way. That Big Bang is not science may be shown from a simple standpoint: Compelling Cause.

Compelling Cause is the starting point of all true scientific investigation. It's the initial awareness a condition, an event, or any other personal experience that demands greater understanding, either for personal or tribal reasons, or just for the sake of curiosity. Compelling Cause is present when;

Something is seen for the first time - the discovery of fire.
Something changes - the rusting of iron, the movement of the tides, phases of the moon.
Something that was there disappears and is replaced by something else - the caterpillar morphs into a butterfly or a moth.
Something that was there vanishes - a pond dries up, a mirage.

All these causes would, by their very nature, trigger the mind to further examination of these phenomena. Take the discovery of fire; it's warm and bright and certainly drove the chill out of the caves our remote ancestors called home. But it didn't stop there. Further investigation was undertaken to detrmine what burns and what doesn't, and how to make in happen when it's wanted, how to make it go away when it's no longer needed. Fire science is still a leading discipline.

True scientific investigation begins with effect and then determines cause; why does iron rust? Why do the tides rise and fall? How do we make fire? How do we put fire out? Pseudo-science is just the reverse; beginning with an a piori conclusion it then tries to gather evidence in support of that conclusion. It is the way of the Ideaologue, one whose knowledge is conditioned by his beliefs; present him with arguments that do not agree with his pre-conceived notions and he refuses to listen. True science holds to beliefs that are conditioned by knowledge. Gather the evidence and form conclusions consistent with that evidence.

It's a simple idea.

So we must ask; where is the Compelling Cause that requires us to believe in Big Bang? Has anyone ever experienced No Universe? Except for the universe getting bigger than anyone ever thought, has it changed much? Is it really possible to have an effect ( the Big Bang ) without an identifiable cause? Why was it necessary for Stephen Hawking to invent a particle that he decided was necessary for the expansion to continue past the first millionth of a second of Big Bang: he did. He called it the Instanton, and it existed for only as long as it was needed, upon which it vanished never to be seen again! Delusional? Hmmmm. But is that the first instance of bogus justification for a patently false notion?

When Gaius Ptolemaecus developed his earth-contered universe, describe above, cake dish and all, it was hailed as a factual account of what was seen in the heavens above. Until Mars started moving backwards at times. Of course we know why this retrograde movement occurs: it's when earth passes Mars on its way around the sun. It's like when you are driving your car and pass a slower moving vehicle on the highway; while you are passing it, the other vehicle seems to be moving backward, and only when the pass is completed does it appear to be travelling forward. But Mr. Ptolemy's followers, anxious to preserve their idea of the cosmos, decided that the planets did follow circular orbits around the earth, but not exactly. In addition, they theorized that the planets actually rotated around an invisible point along the imagined orbit, and they called these Epicycles. The fallacy here is that these Epicycles only appeared whent hey were needed to explain the retrograde movement of Mars; the rest of the time the Red Planet moved in a nice smooth path, no jiggling back and forth - which would have been the case with steady-state Epicycles. And puhleeease don't ask why the 13-billion year-old univers has stars in it that are at least 17-billion years old. It's a fact, but ideaologues aren't interested in facts, only evidence that supports their preconceived ideas: Weapons of Mass Destruction anyone? And if there's no evidence available, why - invent it!

The sad fact is that the Big Bang Theory actually retards good scientific investigation. Will we ever venture out into space? One day, I'm sure, if we can survive. Then we will have to trash this toxic theory in favor of one that makes sense, and that can help us achieve our dream of going into space. Not only will we have to scrap this nonsense but we will also have to accept an idea that is presently unacceptable.

The idea? That a body can be in more than one place at one time. But that's in the next installment.

Quantum Theory - Relativity Takes a Vacation

Ever had this happen? You drove into a car wash bay and it started up. Then the machine moved back and forth, completely enveloping the car. Didn't it feel as though the car were moving? If you've had this experience, or one like it, then you know something about Relativity. You know how your senses can be fooled by the lack of a fixed reference. In simple terms, Relativity relates one thing, or a group of things, to something else. But that's only part of the story.

Everything in our mechanical universe is in motion. Everything moves but we perceive movement at different rates dependng upon perspective and the presence of a fixed standard. There are two criteria involved in this observation; the Event Scale and the Visual Scale.

The Event Scale is the scope of the activity; the Visual Scale is the range of our ability to observe the event. As in the car wash example, the Visual Scale is overwhelmed by the event: the machine completely envelops the car and there is no fixed reference. The same would be true for an observer standing ten feet away from railroad tracks with an express train passing at high speed. Stand a mile away from the racing train and the progress can be measured, at least in terms of the relative movement of the train with respect to distance. The farther away it is, the slower it appears to be moving. This is because the Event Scale is much smaller than our Visual Scale: the train takes longer to traverse our range of visibility. Moreover, as the train is seen from farther away it appears to move even more slowly until it reaches what artists know as the "vanishing point" where two parallel lines seem to come together. If the train were still visible at this distance it would seem not to be moving at all because the distance between the starting point and the end point would approach zero. That's why the stars in the night sky seem fixed in position: they are large enough to be seen from lightyears distant but the Event Scale is so small that movement may only be detected over a span of time. If we could grow to such size as the Millky Way apperaed to be the size of a dinner plate we would clearly see a great deal of movement.

Quantum Theory grew out of the reverse perception: an Event Scale that is infintiely smaller than out Visual Scale. As in the preceeding discussion, the scale of events at the atomic level approach zero with respect to our Visual Scale so that the events seem to occur instantaneously. It's the same as our dinner-plate Milky Way: what appears to be fixed and motionless at the Ultra-macro scale, accelerates at the Ultra-micro, giga-, pico-, or tera-scale.

Suppose now that we could shrink ourselves down to the point that an electron were the size of the earth. Relativity tells us that we would perceive no movement at all, just as we experience ourselves on this planet. The vast distances between the nucleus of the atom and its satellites would be such that we would bserve them in the very same way that we observe the night sky: no perceptible movement.

The Special Theory of Relativity was introduced at about the same time as Max Planck concluded Quantum Theory. Without this vital tool Planck and his cohorts believed that, at the atomic level events were occurring at higher rates than at our own level of perception: things seemed to be moving at incredible speeds. They were, but solely on the basis of our range of perception being so much greater, not because they are actually moving at these rates in situ. Even today, a treatise on Quantum Theory makes for bizarre reading; muons, mu-mesons, gluons, weak forces, and let's not forget "strange" forces! Whatever useful information derived from Quantum Theory, from the Relativistic point of view its basic premise is false.

That this is mmore than a mere academic exercise will become clear in the next article on the Big Bang.

The Spirit of the Universe - the Only God

Everything is perfect, simple, and easy to understand - if you are willing. In the last installment we looked briefly at the Fundamentalist view of God and found it to be meager fare. Its mysteries, contradictions, and generally arbitrary nature make it distasteful to any reasoning person. This was only a cursory treatment of the topic, extracted from the parent website on which a fuller, more detailed critique may be found. Not content to simply point out the flaws in conventional religious belief, I feel it important to describe a rational, coherent, and more intelectually pleasing view of Creation; one that will lead mankind to freedom, common cause, and greater unity. The "old time religion" has had its day and the legacy it has left us is a world of poverty, want, war, and misery.

There is a better way. And this being the Millennium, we'd better get straight with it or the silly, but deadly prognostications of the ignorant will come to realization as self-fulfilling prophesy. To any who may still have lingerring doubts that the Millennium is truly here, a reminder and a question. The reminder: a millennium is a thousand years, and we are barely halfway through the eighth year; can we keep playing the dangerous games we play with food, resources, great and catasrophic weapons systems, and all the rest, and hope to survive another nine-hundred and ninety years? What hope is there when the still wealthiest nation the world has ever seen continues to elect the meanest lowlifes to the highest offices in the land? We who started with men like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Adams, Benjamin Franklin, have now denegrated ourselves to such a point that we are governed by the likes of George W. Bush, a flaming idiot, a delsuional nut case who told us that God told him to invade Iraq; Dick Cheney, a sneering fascist; Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Condoleeza Rice, and the rest of the delsuional traitors that still try to tell us that white is black, that black is white, and that they know what's best for us. Just look at the record: they've been wrong about everything they've said.

And invade we did, even though thoughtful people warned us of the consequences - but too many people were lazy and stupid enough to go along. Then, when things started going badly there, the people said they thought it was a mistake. No! It wasn't a mistake: it was a war crime worthy of Nazi Germany, with whom Prescott Bush, the American Caligula's grandfather traded while we were at war with them. The scum of the earth infects the center of government and they must be flushed out, as will happen in due course, but so much more needs to be done.

America needs a new attitude!

Consider two things. First, there is the pleasure and the power of knowing what works and what doesn't. Science in large part draws the curtain aside from what were once mysteries, forbidden knowledge, the devil's work as some of these things were seen. What would even the most enlightened Renaisance man have done if confronted by a modern commercial jet airplane, a cigarette lighter, a modern automobile? Would the totality of the wonders of the world today unhinge an otherwise stable mind? And all these dicoveries and inventions were the product of deductive logic; investigating natural phenomena and devising ways to harness these in constructive ways that serve mankind. The mind of man is designed to process logical thought.

Now look up into the night sky. See all the stars and galaxies light-years off, in some cases millions of light-years distant, and regard the logic that drives the universe through eternity. Is there any room for ignorance and superstition, of lies and fairy tales about imaginary, and ugly beings that low intellects have given us as gods? These abominations thrive on fear and confusion, their minions caring only about their own aggrandizement, the power and influence they hold over those too weak or too stupid to think for themselves. This cancerous influence must be smashed along with all its creatures; political secrecy and corruption, hare-brained science with its delusional aspects and deadly potential, and the shameful examples these set: public figures who lie to their people, oligarchies that victimize those who lack the power or the wit to provide for themselves adequately, being deprived of these capabilities by the self same power brokers; thieves who steal the wealth of a nation while professing to advance the culture they are looting; all conspirators who, like cockroaches, scheme in the shadows of priviledged position to enslave those they claim to be liberating.

It's time to turn the lights on! And that is exactly what this series is all about. Here we will expose the falsity of; Quantum Theory, the Big Bang, Black Holes, the Second Coming, the Number of the Beast (666), the Mark of the Beast, and whatever other nonsense we may encounter along the way.

Stay tuned.

Does God Exist?

Who's this? Kinda looks like Jesus, don't you think? Or could it be the Big Fella himself: God? Actually it's neither. This is an artist's rendition of the Greed god Zeus, whom the Roman Church hijacked and used as a model for the crazy old man in the sky with the serious personality flaws, that so-called " Christians " look up to. Zeus, if you remember is the guy up on Olympus who interferes in the lives of mortals, throws lightning bolts at those who irritate him, and cheats on his wife. The Christian[God] is not married as far as anyone knows, therefore if Jesus is truly the "Son of God" then he was born out of wedlock, and therefore must be considered a bastard. God wasn't married to Mary, and she was married to Joseph the carpenter, and was pregnant when they tied the knot. But, see, we're not supposed to talk about these things: They're mysteries!

No. The only mystery is how supposedly intelligent people can swallow this crap whole and without blinking. Jesus, rather a decent fellow from all accounts, said of the pharisees, commenting on their many daily duties and observances, they " tug at a gnat yet swallow a camel whole. " That about says it all.

This Christian [God] is one that we really have to look up to. That's because [He] lives way out there someplace, called Heaven, where we are all going to go when we die if we have eagerly gobbled dowm all the swill that [His] minions pump out from every pulpit. Starting with the indoctrination of young children, these preacher types seek to control the minds and wills of any they can cajole, coerce, or by any means " convert " to their way of thinking. Their [God] is the classic iron fist in the velvet glove; [God] loves you but if you step out of line, well look out because something will happen that will put the Fear of God into you. Screw up badly enough and you might even get to burn in Hell for all Eternity! It seems there are some things that [God] cannot forgive. A [God] who holds grudges?

A while back I had the opportunity to debate relgious matters with a Pentacostal pastor. It was an eductaion. When I told him of my belief that God is the Spirit of the Univers, All Thigs Everywhere and in all things, he said I was wrong. "God," he told me, " is only where [He] chooses to be. " When I asked by what criteria [God] chooses to be somewhere or to do something, the answer was, "God only knows."

This [God] apparently chooses to be on one side or another, or both, in the many wars that mankind wreaks on itself. This is also an imitation of the Olympians, Zeus' children took sides in the Trojan wars and even went down to help their side, Greek or Trojan. Zeus, to his credit, didn't interfere very much, and at one point took a trip to Ethiopia and returned in twelve days. Some feat: travelling from Greece to Ethiopia, round trip, in twelve days? Pretty good for the eleventh century of the Old Era! Not a mystery, really; Zeus was a Lord of the World, one of our distant ancestors.

A New Series - Overview

This series will consist of articles and elaborations on points made on the parent website, Timeoftheend-faithandreason.net. The object of this sit has been, and continues to be the search for Truth in this wold of ignorance, superstition, lies, and deceptions, as are evident in the three major world infuences: Religion, Science, and Politics. In coming features I will expose the falsity that tries to pass for truth; in the field of science, The Big Bang Theory, Black Holes; religion, the nature of God, the Christ Message, and the false notion of hierarchy; and in politics, propaganda, Capitalism, democracy, and conspiracy theories.

Starting with the matter of hierarchies among men, people who occupy positions of power and influence, and those on the lower rungs of the social order, have arranged themselves into an unnatural system of "betters" and "inferiors"; all because the Roman Church took one of the most brilliant observations ever put into words and subverted it to their mean, worldly agenda. Notwithstanding that the Declaration of the Thirteen States of America states that "All men are created equal," we still have a malicious ruling class that affects the lives of millions.

The statement in question was uttered by Aristotle. He said, "Everything in nature assumes its proper position."It's easy to see how the intensely focused mind of the self-seeker might find in this brilliant observation a justification for elevating low persons to high positions. But isn't that what the quote means? To the pedestrian mind: Yes. But to an intelligent, thoughtful person, conversant with the ways of nature it completely accounts for everything we observe on the material plane. And it is a dynamic plane, therefore a static evaluation of Aristotle's famous quote is false and misleading. I once showed a student a photograph showing a stack of three books on a tabletop. Resting against the books was a short piece of wood, a plank, with a ball at the center of the inclined plane. I asked the young man what was ahppening in the picture.
"The ball is rolling down the piece of wood," he correctly replied. But of course the photo was static, unmoving. "How do you know that?" I asked."It has to be!" my auditor replied excitedly. Of course, because a sphere cannot rest on an inclined plane: it's not a proper position.In physics we learn that when a body is at rest all the forces working on it are equal: the sum of the forces is zero. This is what Aristotle meant by "proper position": Rest. An "improper" position would be when the forces affecting a body are out of balance; raising, pushing, pulling, or driving the body. It is also a fact that no material substance is capable of storing energy beyond that which maintains its integrity; form, density, texture, etc.. Any additional energy must be quickly eliminated, and the most common way is to convert this excess energy into motion.

At the atomio level, high school students learn that when energy, heat or electrical, is applied to a material, it expands. The electrons, already travelling at nearly the speed of light, cannot move any faster in their incumbent "shells", they move outward to higher energy levels: bigger orbits, in other words. The reason is simple. The formula for Velocity is;V = s/t, where V is velocity, s is the distance travelled, and t is time. The rate at which the electron orbits the nucleus of the atom is called its angular velocity; we commonly know this motion as revolutions per minute (RPM). Since the electron is already revolving around the nucleus at or near the speed of light, it cannot increase its speed on its incumbent track. Time is a constant and in this case so is the angular momentum, therefore the velocty can only be increased by sending the electron over a longer distance: it "jumps" out to the next higher energy level. When the energy is removed or dissipated, the atom returns to its ambient state.

The proper position for any material sunstance is rest: when the sum of the forces is zero. So we can see that Aristotle's simple statement encompasses every event, in every instant, throughout this material plane and throughout the Universe of universes and beyond. The Roman Church and all its mindless spin-offs have corrupted the minds of men, their sole objective being to control the masses of humanity who look to them for guidance in spiritual matters. But history has a different story to tell; Popes sold indulgences for money; the practice of Simony was the sale of Red Hats ( creating cardinals ) for a price, to whomever had the money; today the prelates of the Church reign from on high, living in luxury while the rest of the world goes to hell. Do they care? Not as long as the money keeps rolling in! Know of any Evangelical, Pentacostal, or other Fundamentalist preachers who live in one-bedroom apartments? Billy Grahame, a complete fraud, has enjoyed a lifestyle fit for a king for six decades, and enjoyed the favor of presidents dating back to Richard Nixon. It was Grahame who urged Nixon to bomb Cambodia using nuclear weapons. Oral Roberts went on television once to plead with his followers to help him raise eight-million dollars, otherwise [God] would kill him. Wonder what his problem was; after all, why didn't he want to join [God], Jesus, and tehe rest of the gang in heaven?It's all about money. Take the profits away and religion as we know it will collapse like a house of cards.

The object of this series is to refute the teachings of fundamentalist religion based on ignorance and superstition, and to expose the fraudulent "science" that has been generated to further mislead mankind. In this series we will explain the true nature of man and shatter such pseudo-scienctific nonsense as Creation, the Big Bang, Black Holes, and Quantum Physics.

Keep coming back. 

War With Iran - A Very Stupid Move

The Bush regime seems ever more intent on attacking Iran, using the same program of lies, deceptions, misinformation, propagandizing by major media, and recklessness that led up to the present disasters in Iraq and Afghanistan. We are losing these two wars badly, for the same reason and by the same means that undid our efforts in Viet Nam - another war based on lies. Iraq and Afghanistan are what Viet Nam was: guerilla warfare which the United States military establishment has proven powerless against. War with Iran will be no different and very different at the same time. The US is now fighting a war on two fronts, a fool's mission in anybody's book. If we attack Iran we will be facing a military disaster of unparalleled severity, but not for the reasons given in the largely clueless press. And not according to the scenarion of Global War that these idiots are trying to sell us.

No. It will be far different and, in the end, will probably return an outcome that the Neocons and their Nazi-like Zionist colleagues would never have envisioned. But some explanation is in order.

For one thing, a geurilla war is not over until the guerillas win. It may take years as it did in Nam and as it is in Iraq, but the outcome is ceratin: just look at the history. For another, we know that wars cannot be won with airpower alone; there have to be boots on the ground. But where will they come from? Doesn't it stand to reason that if the United States army faces Iranian forces over the extensive border with Iraq, that the Iraqi freedom fighters won't double and redouble their efforts to eject this occupying force from their land? Prime Minister el Maliki, the head of our own puppet government in Iraq wants us to leave. The people want us to leave; the vast majority of American people want us to leave. And everyone is tired of the double talk: "we're winning, so we have to stay; we're not winning, so we have to stay." It's an insane tautology that reasoning people will not buy.

The next thing to think about is how the sides will stack up. The US/Israeli coalition of evil, with some interest allegedly shown by Great Britain, France, and Italy, on one side; Iran, Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and al Sadr's insurgents in Iraq, on the other, it will be a Chinese fire drill of monumental proportions - and we can't win against that kind of opposition. We have already wasted too many lives and treasure in the region for the American people to stand for any more. That is in addition to the strategic and tactical problems we would face.

It is a foregone conclusion that Israel would be hard hit in any retaliatory effort on the part of Iran, especially if Israel initiates an attack against them. A very risky matter for Israel, as neither the CIA or Mossad actually knows where the Iranian missile bases and military installations actually are. There seems little doubt that Israel is counting on American support in the proposed military adventure and, for reasons already given, that is not a given.

Another question; What will Russia do in the case of an attack upon Iran? They have economic ties and significant interests in Teheran; will they just sit back and allow Israel and the United States to attack? Ladies and gentlemen, place your bets. Aren't the idiots who are allegedly planning this insane adventure taking the Russian question into consideration? They have been wrong about everything they've said about Iraq; why should anyone think they have suddenly become proficient in the strategic arts, both diplomatic and military? There is much that they seem oblivious to that it is frightening. Or it should be.

One thing, concerning Iraq and the desire of the Iraqis for American troops to leave, that nobody so far has given any thought to: There is one man in Iraq who, by just saying the word, could bring the entire population of Iraq into the insurgent camp in a major effort to oust the occupying forces: The Ayatollah el Sistani. He is the spiritual leader of the Iraqi people and if he tells them to rise up and throw the invader out, the Iraqis will risa as one and our already overtaxed military will face near anihilation.

Then there is the question of where such an ill-advised military adventure will lead. Some feel that it will be the start of World War III and that the United States will be attacked. Not a very happy outcome in either case, but I believe the possibility of escalation to these levels is rather remote.
For one thing, neither the United States or Israel would be able to go it alone; the 2006 war with Hezbollah in Lebanon was a defeat for the Israelis, and Iraq has been the same for the United States for over six years. Each military establishment took on single nations and fared badly; both taking on the combined forces of Iran, Syria, Lebanon, and the Palestinians, would lead to disastrous consequences for them. And lest we forget, Israel and the Unuited States have had control of the skies in the Middle East all along, but the bloodshed continues. The most likely outcome of all this would be greatly protracted guerilla warfare against greater odds than either the United States or Israel have ever faced, or even thought of facing. We might also consider what Egypt would do.
An attack on the United States? By whom? Iran would have no interest in doing that; in fact, an attack on the US would be counter-productive from their standpoint. We have a loud, vocal, and ever-expanding anti-war movement in this country. Should our leaders step over the line and go ahead with an attack on Iran they would risk a whole bucketful of "unintended consequences" right here in their own backyard. The people will stand for just-so-much and the needle is rapidly approaching red line.
Europe is much closer to the action and a war spreading to that continent is far more likely than any threat to the United States. But the Europeans still have vivid memories of World War II and would have no interest in inviting more of the same by entering into a coalition with Israel and the United States. France, Italy, Germany, and Great Britain, may ally themselves with us in voting sanctions against Iran in the United Nations, but we have already seen how willing they are to commit troops: not very. The Brits, who actually sent forces to Iraq, have brought most of their military personnel out and have no plans for returning anytime soon, perhaps when elephants fly.

For these and other reasons too numerous to go into here, an attack on Iran would be stupid in the extreme. Our leadership ( if that's what you call it )is playing Checkers, and not very well, while the other team is playing Chess; two very different games though the board is the same. And if you accept the Checkers/Chess analogy, then remember this: THEY INVENTED CHESS!

Where Are We Going?

The American economy appears to be in a shambles, but it is not. What we are seeing is a transformmation. The combination of the weaker dollar and outsourcing of jobs can only lead to a resurgence in domestic production. It's the bitter pill that we as a people must swallow in the short run, much as a sot must seek hangover relief the monring after. But we will come back stronger than ever if enough people wake up and see the potential.

The days of high paying jobs are over. For too long have we piled salary increases and benefit packages on the corporations that we presently hold in such contempt, that outsourcing jobs to cheaper wage environments was a no-brainer. Of course they were going to relocate to countries where labor is cheaper. Wouldn't you? It's easy to lay blame on the most visible targets, the corporation, but it doesn't solve the basic problem: Americans' attitude about work.

We the people have brought the current calamity on ourselves. The five-day work week is bracketed by "Blue Monday" at the front end and "Thank God it's Friday!" on the other. Low paying, menial jobs are anathema; let somebody else do them, and there are people less fortunate than we who are more than glad to fill these positions. At the same time we are bringing foreign professionals, technicians, teachers, and engineers to this country because we can pay them less. A triple whammie: unskilled, semi-skilled, and highly educated workers are out in the street.Adam Smith had it right. Laisses-faire economics still works though the appearances may make it seem otherwise. The overall economy will always tend toward full employment, it just takes longer nowadays. In Smith's day economies were largely agrarian, the labor mostly unskilled. The technology was primitive by present standards, so workers could be easily trained to oil machines, operate looms, and work on farms. The labor force was adaptable and mobile. Without safety nets such as unemployment, welfare, and the like, when a worker making fifty-cents a day was laid off he had to go right out and find another job, willing to take less, say thirty cents a day. No choice in the matter. Those who kept working survived and enjoyed a marked advantage over time; unskilled though they might have been, they had more and a greater variety of experience. This is not to extoll the conditions that prevailed in those days: they were hard times, but in essence the mechanics are the same.

The Age of Technology skewed the process. Whereas in Smith's day labor was unskilled and mobile, today it is highly specialized and immobile. People are educated and trained in such closely defined occupational parameters that if their jobs go away they cannot easily secure employment in other fields where their experience might be close enough that they could be adapted to the new job. But that isn't to say that it never happens. My own experience proves that it can.

Years ago I lived in Upstate New York, an economic disaster area. At one point the unemployment rate peaked at 14%; when a job was advertized three-hundred people showed up to apply. It wasn't fun. A company that manufactured air-driven tools had an opening, and I appled for it with my background in electronics. Not a good fit.The interviewer advised me that they didn't have any jobs in electronincs, to which I replied, "Do you think that's all I know?" He said he realized that I knew a lot more than how electrons surge through conductors, and also knew that I wanted a job and wouldn't be deterred easily. He leafed through his book of job listings and told me he couldn't see me doing any of them."Like what?" I asked."Foundry," he replied and I agreed. No foundry."Well, what CAN you see me doing?" He looked some more and finally said, "Handscrew".That took a little explaining but what he was talking about was operating a turret lathe, something I had never done before."Alright, how long do you think it would take me to learn?" Three weeks was his answer."I'm willing!" I said - and he hired me. And it only took one week for me to get up to speed, and from then on I exceeded my quotas every day. It can happen, just don't fold up at the first negative indicator. If you truly want a job, you can get one;it may not be in the corner office, you might not be making big bucks, but as long as you have an income you can make it.

Got preachy that time;didn't I. But I get so disturbed at the intertia demonstrated by so many people, those who think they can pick and choose jobs. The sucker lists of people who have gotten burned with the work-at-home scams testify to the fact that too many people are stll looking for more mone, less work. In that regard our preoccupation with celebrity exacerbates this condition. But let us not lose sight of the also-rans who strove for star status and fell by the wayside. There's a good chance that the waiter who takes your order in a restaurant is an aspiring actor, writer, singer, or artist. Who wants to be a waiter all his life. That brings up another deleterious aspect of Americans' attitude toward work.

This attitude has sucked for as long as I can remember. Aside from the drudgery so often associated with work and the disdain for menial occupations, there is one more way in which the American labor force has sabotaged the economy. Upon my release from the military I immediately went to work for a defense contractor. We built aircraft on a cost-plus basis: most government contracts, especially in the area of defense were contracts of this kind. In almost everyinstance I can recall the watchword among the rank and file was, "Don't kill the job." Work progressed at an easy, slow pace, preserving the job but running the costs into the stratosphere. The prevailing wisdom behind this idiocy was that once the contract was completed there would be no more work. Now tax payers complain of cost-overruns, but few realize how the practice got started.


The Fin de Siecle period at the close of the nineteenth century lamented the demise of the craftsman, the artisan who created fine wares by hand; a good pair of shoes, a Princess Anne chair, a Sterling Silver tea service, and a panoplea of other consumer goods. The Industrial Revolution was seen as the rapacious doomsday machine bearing down on European society, threatening to crush mankind under its wheels and relegating man to the status of slaves, ever tending the noisy, smelly, grimy machines that bore on, never tiring, always needing tending.
Mass production killed the love of honest work and the pride of accomplishment that went with it. People chose careers, not, as at one time, for the love of the craft, but because of the money that could be made. Technology froze a once mobile work force into stangant pools of specialization, categories identifying individuals qualified to work in a particular field, but largely shutting them out of any other occupation group.


Labor unions had their part to play in the economic downturn. A principal feature of practically every union contract negotiation has historically been the demand for higher wages. These gradual encroachments, 3% to 5% increases, over time add substatially to a company's costs, and drive prices higher. Of course it is well to raise wages wherever and whenever possible, when the balance sheet shows adequate profits to accommodate such demands, but often these demands have been made in instances where the companies involved were under pressure from market forces, foreign imports, legal actions, and other distadvanteged positions. The cumulative effect of all this was to drive wages in union shops much higher than in othere areas of the economy, and it was these higher paying jobs that were the first to be outsourced.

In conclusion we may safely predict that the domestic economy will experience a resurgence, but at a slower rate and with lower wages. That is not as bad as it sounds because prices will be lower as well: low overhead, lower prices. Small business will predominate in the is renewed economic drive, and the sorporations that have benefited from outsourcing will experience a new set of problems when the presently low paid labor force starts agitating for more money. Watch for strikes and walkouts in these offshore labor markets. A further downturn in corporate profits will result from consumers buying American made goods; foreign imports from foreign sources and from US corporations operating overseas will become too expensive. The times they are a-changing.

The Security Sham

I just recently resigned from a security position at a large convention center. I've been in the security field for five years in various posts, including position at a majot local airport. In this latest position I held the rank of lieutenant, and was charged with directing the actvities of security personnel, guarding this enormous venue and so, you might say, I've seen it from all sides. What I have seen is not good. In fact it stinks!

I left to pursue other business opportunities, so there was no bad feeling on anyone's part; in fact they were sorry I was leaving (and even threw a little going away party), but in looking back it was the right thing to do. No regrets. In fact it serves as a "moment of truth" as, contrary to what my state license represents, I wasn't really doing much security work. Quite honestly, I was "playing the game".Much of the security industry (funny what they call 'industries' nowadays) is not at all what the term implies. Funding is erratic, personnel are poorly trained, and the people running these shows display a wide variance in competence, dedication, and plain ol' common sense. Cronyism and corruption also play a part in many instances. Take this last assigment.

The convention center is a major attraction in this city and one would think that the local government would install security to protect taxpayer funded assets, and to ensure public safety on the premises. But that isn't why they have security; it's because they get a substantial reduction in their insurance if they have something called 'security' guarding the premises. They have, but it is the furthest thing from security imaginable.

The security company the city hired was chosen by a single criterion: it submitted the lowest bid. That's it! Little or no thought was given to the quality of the service this company would provide and, as an employee of the company in certain high-visibility, adminstrative security positions, I was effectively shielded from the down-and-dirty, ground level aspects of the job. The year and a half I spent at the convention center was revealing.

First let us consider the hiring practices of this now-defunct company. If you could find the convention center, had no missing body parts, and could correctly spell your name, you were in! The starting pay wasn't bad, well above minimum wage, but it was a 'blind alley' in that there were no raises. So the combination of hiring off the street and no incentive to excell resulted in a turnover rate of 85%, and we were almost always short handed. The full compliment there is twelve security officers to guard a four acre installation. Many nights there were only five of us, and replacements were slow in coming. This was ot due to an unavailability of appliacnts; when we were short handed the city was still billed for the full crew and the extra money found its way into the account manager's pocket. The payroll was short a lot of the times the result of someone tampering with the time reports; the payroll would be shorted, the agrieved parties would complain, and in time the corrections would be made, but not before the regional manager booked these shortages as 'cost reductions' and collected a bomus. Once the check was cut, then the records were straightened out - and nobody caught on to what was happening.On the city government's part, this gigantic facility was poorly kept up and nobody seemed to care. There were 36 CCTV cameras, of which fourteen actually worked. The displays in the 'nerve' center were poor owing to the 1970's technology that wasn't adequate to the task. The radios were damaged and held together by tape, the NiCad batteries had 'memory' problems that necessitated changing batteries every two hours; an electronic wand and button security control was dropped because the city didn't want to spend the money to download the data from the wands. The golf carts were in a miserable state of disrepair and once, quite recently, I checked the oil on one that I was using and found it to be 2½ quarts low: the thing only holds about three quarts. But equipment failure and poor maintenance are only part of the problem; there is alo the matter of authority.

Private security officers have little or no enforcement powers. Here we are not talking about Blackwater-like goon squads, just common, ordinary, civilian security. Their mission is to 'observe and report', make sure buildings are secured, and bar access to facilities to unauthorized persons. Security officers are no police and do not have anything like the powers granted to law enforcement. For one thing, most security personnel are unarmed, may not use physical force except under very specific conditions, and when confronted by hostile persons they must retreat. A couple of weeks before I left I foiled a felony-in-progress: a woman was being sexually assaulted on the property. When I intervened the perpetrator left the premises quickly; as he was off the property I was unable to apprehend, the police had to be called, and by the time they showed up (twenty minutes) the woman had already been taken by ambulance to the hospital. One of my officers watched from a distance and we both furnished consistent descriptions of the perpetrator, who was by this time long gone. Armed security officers have it even worse.

To qualify as an armed guard or officer requires classroom instruction and range time amounting to three days, in some instances an entire week. If the security company pays for it, you're fine, if not be preared to pay between $800 - $1,000 to complete the cycle. This includes all the gear; weapon, gun belt, safety holster, handcuffs, et al. The weapon itself counts for at least half the cost; and what do you get for all that?


You get to wear the weapon. Actually getting to shoot it can be a very dicey matter.
In fact, armed officers are in greater danger than their unarmed colleagues. It's all about the rules governing the use of a weapon by security personnel. They are very stringent: you practically have to wait to be shot before you can act. And it's great if you have witnesses who can testify that your life was in danger when you fired. Police can use deadly force; you can't. There has to be a clear and present, mortal danger to you or to another person before you can use your weapon; even then you can count on being arrested, booked, and relieved of duty until an investigation clears you. This is without pay in most instances. You are guilty until proven innocent.

As to the perils an armed security officer faces, these are very real. If you have a suspect covered and he reaches for his wallet, a cop can shoot if he feels that the party is going for a weapon; you can't. Make a mistake like that and you'll face manslaughter charges at least - the cop won't. Then there is the clear and present danger of confronting an armed perpetrator, say in a robbery. He wants to get away with his crime and won't abide any threat to his success. You. Unless you see him first and act quickly, you could end up dead. An unarmed security officer poses no threat to the perpetrator. He too may get shot but his chances of survival are much better than yours.

It's a dangerous game.

And it's played for the most part by amateurs. Private companies fund security staffs and appoint directors by the eenie-meenie-miney-moe method, a pet employee gets the job - or more often than not someone just gets stuck with it. That's when the fun starts. I have personally checked out an installation that was supposedly secured by a top company. I walked up to a keypad door, pulled on the handle - and it opened!
Nobody had noticed that the lock mechanism had hung up and the tongue wasn't seating in the receptacle on the jamb - and this was at an airport! This same venue had emergency exits from each classroom; they looked secure but when I pushed on them with some force - they flew open! Another door, this one in a kitchen had paper stuffed into the jamb plate to prevent the door from locking; the caterers wanted to keep from having to use a key each time they entered the building to prepare lunch for the staff and trainees. When I found this breech it was evening, well past lunch time, and the place was deserted. But that was nothing compared to the "bomb" a group of us were charged to find.

This was at another site, a nationally known insurance company. They played the security game" to the hilt, holding meetings every so-often to discuss strategies that were seldom implimnted and didn't work very well when they were. At one of these meetings, on a bright sunny morning in June, the director of security told us that she had secreted a 'bomb' somewhere in or around the building: we were to find it, all thrity-two of us. I knew we wouldn't succeed. There was one vital piece of equipment that no none had, and with which we would have found the 'bomb' in a matter of minutes: a flashlight.

Yes, a flashlight! It was a bright and sunny morning and folks don't usually need a flashlight on a glorious spring day. But when you're poking around bushes that surround the building on three sides, the sunlight causes deep shadows to form in the inner reaches of the bush - you can't see a thing! But a flashlight can easily penetrate the gloom, highlighting irregular shapes and reflecting light from metallic objects. As it was, thirty-two security officers searching for over an hour couldn't find the "bomb".

Security is not a game for amateurs.