Really deep thought for they day...

"If the water table is 100 feet below the surface, it matters not how many 90 foot wells you dig."

The conspiratorial mindset...

Over the weekend past, my brother sent me an email with a link to a youtube video. In his defense he did clarify that he wasn't sure whether he should believe the claims the video, and by extension its author, makes. That video, is embedded within this blog posting. The video is short, about 5 minutes or so and it is important that you watch it in order for the rest of this post is to make ANY sense whatever. It has nothing to do with atheism or religion. If you are anything like me you'll want to take a hot shower and rinse your eyes thoroughly after watching it. Go ahead watch it...I'll wait...



Are you in pain now? Do you have an overwhelming urge to regurgitate your breakfast?

This is the type of non-critical supposition that passes for critical-thinking in our modern age. Putting aside the juvenile spelling errors and the obvious ridiculous claims, this video is case-study cognitive dissonance coupled with confirmation bias. Yet if you follow the video to its source at youtube's site and look at the comments, most show complete agreement with the outlandish and completely air-headed conclusions the author of this video makes. The author has the temerity...nay, audacity to make claims that can be rebuffed with about 90 seconds of research using a search engine.

My point is this: If we don't yell 'BULLSHIT' when we see it or hear it, this stuff has an unholy habit of crowing like a fungus and infecting everything.

Here is the PROPER explanation for the 'reversed flag'. It should be readily apparent to anyone, especially a boy or former boy who has built model airplanes!

I have built countless model airplanes in my life....

Whenever a US flag decal is used, the union, (that’s the blue field of stars) must be pointed in the direction of the travel of the aircraft, such that the flag appears to be advancing in the direction of motion. A little spacial reasoning will demonstrate that on the RIGHT side of the aircraft the flag would need to be reversed to appear advancing. On the LEFT side of the aircraft the flag would appear as we normally see it. Here's two pictures of Air Force One that clearly show this effect:

Right or starboard side, reversed-flag.

Left or port side, standard flag.

It logically follows that the human body is a something that moves. So in practice the SAME rule should apply were the flag to be displayed to the right shoulder as it does to the right side of an aircraft.

Now, the video goes a long way to show that soldiers in the past wore flags on their right shoulder that were NOT reversed. It then offers up a ridiculous explanation for the change. The author clearly has not done any homework. Before 2004 there was no all encompassing Army regulation outlining and mandating the proper wearing of a US flag on the uniform. Generally this was done of the soldiers own volition or under the direction of that soldiers unit. It should follow that there were no 'reversed flag' patches available even if the soldiers KNEW about the arcane rule outlining the proper placement of the 'union' with respect to motion. See this page for a proper treatment of this particular rule.

Further, "Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker approved the uniform item Feb. 11, and all Soldiers have until Oct. 1, 2005 to get the insignia sewn on their uniforms." (Taken from this webpage) Once the Army had a requirement and a policy naturally it was decided that it had better display the flag properly.

So rather than then endeavoring to find the reasons for the reversed flag, the author made a leap of stunning proportions to support what was clearly a deeply held conviction in lunatic conspiracy theories. This is part and parcel for these type of people.....and sadly with the 'dumbing down' of America and the absolute dearth of teaching critical-thinking skills their numbers are growing...

Who is the 'celery' really...?

R.

This makes me cringe....

All I see this doing is riling up the reactionaries and making non-theist types look like 'kill-joys'.

Not sure what to do here...

R.

Addendum: There is one good thing that has resulted from this campaign. Making Bill Donohue spout off! *grin* That's always entertaining.

and on the lighter side...

I'd rather have a cat Mr. Obama, but thanks!!!

This man just looks cool! So refreshing to see someone other than an old white man as president!

R.

Question 8....

November 4th, 2008 will no doubt go down in history as pivotal in American history. We elected a person of African descent to the highest office in the land. A man at least as capable as all the others who've held the office. The color barrier has been shattered! I wept with pride as Mr. Obama spoke from Chicago on election night with eloquence I haven't heard from a modern president.

That pride was tempered when I learned that on this same historic night the people of California decided to write discrimination into their state constitution. On a night where one wall came tumbling down, organized religion worked to build another one.

In an ostensibly secular country what possible secular reason could be given to allow for a majority to revoke a civil right from a minority?

I've heard many...

Marriage is a God-given blessing bestowed upon a man and a woman.

No. Marriage in the eyes of a state is a civil contract. It is simply called marriage by tradition. It could just as easily be called a civil union. If that would make the religious 'wing-nuts' happy i would gladly convert my 'marriage' to a civil union. It doesn't matter a damned to me what they call it so long as it is recognized by the state.

For thousands of years marriage has been accepted as the union of a man and a woman who are we to change that.

So what? For hundreds years it was acceptable to hold people in bondage or indentured servitude with no recourse. Now it is unthinkable for most people. For thousands of years women were considered property of the their fathers or husbands. When Elizabeth Cady-Stanton agitated for women's suffrage many quoted the holy bible and shamed her for going against God's plan. Time and human morality marched on. In the end Christianity was dragged into the 20th century kicking and screaming.

Allowing same-sex marriages will destroy American culture and lead to societal breakdown!

Oh please! We here in 'librul' Massachusetts have allowed gays to marry since 2004. Guess what? The sun still rises. Crops still grow. Tides still come in and recede. Interstingly God has not decided to 'smote' us for our rebellious ways. No hurricanes, famine nor pestilence*. Life goes on.

To the those in California who are disgusted and infuriated by the passage of that disgraceful piece of legislative discrimination: Protest!!! Fight!!! Scream and shout!!! Surround those churches night and day and voice your displeasure. Never stop, never give in. Demand action. Be a thorn in the side of legislators such that they have no choice but to give you the rights you deserve.

I think it's time to TAX the good churches of California for their partisan polticking!

R.

*foot note from wifey: I forgot to include locusts. Just because it sounds funny!

A curse broken.....

...more than 200 years after the first man of color was brought to this land in chains....

This is a victory for us all and leads closer to the ideal that is America!

Today I am, for the first time in more than eight years, proud to be American!

R.

Some perspective....on numbers...

The dollar bill.....it looks small enough...

Sized to be easily carried in a bill fold...

According to the National Debt Clock, the outstanding public debt of the United States is:

$10.5 trillion

That's 10.5 trillion 'Washingtons'

What is a trillion?

A trillion is a 1 followed by TWELVE zeros:

1,000,000,000,000

That is a million times a million!

1 Trillion = 1,000,000 x 1,000,000

A trillion is a stupefyingly large number.

If you lived to be a hundred years old, you only would have lived for just over:

3.1 billion seconds or 3,100,000,000 seconds

That's it. you come NO WHERE near a trillion seconds.

The total number of human beings who have EVER lived is estimated liberally at:

110 billion or 110,000,000,000

or

.11 trillion

No where close to a trillion.

How much paper would it take to print 10.5 trillion dollar bills? A little math here....

Step one. Compute the Area of a dollar bill. Easily done. Multiply the length by the width:

length = X = 6.15"

width = Y = 2.6"

Area of Dollar = X * Y = 15.99 square inches of paper are required for a dollar bill

Step two. Multiply the area of a dollar bill by 10.5 trillion:

15.99 sq. inches * 10,500,000,000,000 = 167,900,000,000,000 sq. inches of paper

167.9 Trillion squares inches of paper! That's not at all easy to relate to anything in everyday life. So let's convert square inches to square miles. you'll have to trust me when I tell you that:

1 square mile = 4.014 billion square inches

so we divide:

167,900,000,000,000 sq. inches / 4,014,000,000 sq. inches = 41,820 sq. miles.

You would need 41,820 square miles of paper to print enough dollar bills to pay off our national debt!

That still may not be easy enough for most people to relate to anything. So, I'll offer up this last comparison. The land area of my home state of Massachusetts is 10,555 square miles....

The amount of paper needed to print 10.5 trillion one dollar bills could cover my home state....nearly four times!

41,820 sq. miles / 10,555 sq. miles = 3.96

I say we cut down what's left of the Amazon rain forest and make paper from that.

Sleep well!

Robert.

R.