Suppose the world had a meeting at Sun City (the elderly city) and created an accord defining how old a person needed to be before being allowed to fight in a military unit. Suppose that age was 50. If the world accepted that all soldiers had to be at least 50 years of age before allowing them to "bear arms" then I think wars would end. Somehow, the world is upside down and the elderly push the young into fights. There's a "game" called "Let's you and him fight" from a book called "The Games People Play" and it fits very will the strange way the world has become.

Further, no leader or politician should be allowed to decide on a war without being put in the front lines. If a Senator or Congressman votes for war, they will automatically be placed in a front line "hot" situation. Knowing that, there will be very few ready to vote "war" and many ready to vote "peace."

AUTHOR, GRANDMOTHER:

FRIENDS MAY COME AND FRIENDS MAY GO, AND FRIENDS MAY PETER OUT YOU KNOW,
BUT WE'LL BE FRIENDS THROUGH THICK OR THIN PETER OUT OR PETER IN:

i MEAN THIS IN THE NICEST AND CLEANEST WAY OF COURSE!

One would have thought the United States of America had learned the lesson of making any recreational drug illegal after the debacle over Prohibition. It was clear from that horrible episode that prohibiting alcohol simply expanded the criminal gang element and put money in the pockets of such as Al Capone. Organized Crime reaped a bonus of unimaginable income and power that has never gone away since. While many of these crime gangs have evolved into semi-legitimate business such as banking, these organized crime businesses are still making huge amounts of income from laws that make even a (formerly) common weed an illegal substance. Currently, drugs pour hundreds of billions or trillions of dollars into the economy of the underworld and a number of countries who are either not friendly or are being torn internally by the Drug Lords and their economic status which in some cases rivals the very economy of the government of their country.

So, now we know the moon was once part of the earth, blown off by some amazing cataclysmic collision. I wonder what things would be like if the moon had not gone space visiting. First off, we wouldn't have tides. We wouldn't have moonlit nights. We would have a greater gravity. The earth would spin at a different rate and might even have a different orbit. Perhaps a different land mass configuration. And, what about life? What would have happened to the evolution of life on the larger, heavier, different earth? Interesting. Then there would be the increase in cosmic collisions from asteroids the moon has swept up for us.

We are all victims of our own need for governing. No matter the style of government set up by humans, or, I suppose by aliens if it comes to that, we will ultimately become little more than food to the very government we have devised to keep from becoming food to some other governed group. Historically, this seems to take about 400 years on the average. We might call that the life span of a government. All governments pass through the usual stages of life, youth, maturity, and old age.

The youthful government serves it's people with vigor and elan. The mature government serves itself with vigor and elan but also delivers comfort and safety to it's people. A government in old age begins to consume it's people with law and enforcement.

A sad day for all Shiites. The mosque of the Golden Dome has been virtually destroyed. We in the west really don't have much of a building to compare to the importance of this Mosque. Most of our "Holy Land" temples, chapels, or meeting places were long ago destroyed, mostly by the Islamic armies and these "western" holy places in (now) Islamic hands were torn down, built over by placing Mosques or other Islamic-oriented buildings on top of them or simply re-designed and re-designated as mosques. We now have only our more recent western holy sites. While I certainly have little love or respect for Islam as a religion or as a behavior, bombing of a site regarded as holy as the Mosque of the Golden Dome is truly an abomination.

Watched the Daytona 500 today, February 19, 2006. My first comment needs to be about the antics of Tony Stewart. If I were the NASCAR boss, Tony Stewart would be suspended for at least one race. Not the owner's vehicle, the owner and crew didn't behave badly, nor did the vehicle. Tony needs to be suspended and the owner can find another driver for next week. After the egregious and deliberate dangerous actions taken by and acknowledged by Mr. Stewart, there can be no other action or penalty considered.

The deliberate wrecking of Matt Kenseth endangered at least a dozen vehicles and drivers with no regard for life, limb, or expense. When Tony Stewart deliberately (as he admitted) wrecked Mr. Kenseth, the outcome should have been "the big one" with at least a dozen wrecked race cars, possible injuries or even a death. When a so-called professional driver deliberately causes such a hazard, there must be an equal penalty. Mr. Stewart also appeared to have made other attempts to "punish" other drivers for being in his way or for offending him in some way. Kyle Busch was such a recipient and whether Mr. Busch or Mr. Kenseth "deserved" such actions, the rest of the drivers did not deserve to be set at such hazard. The fact that only Matt Kenseth wrecked because of Tony Stewart's actions was a miracle. Same goes for Tony's pounding on Kyle Busch and then blaming both of these racers for his retaliation of supposed offenses. Park him before he kills someone.

Long term historical weather events and cycles.

The graph shown below is instructive. Our planet over the last 40,000 years and more has been a planet of glaciers and the threat of glaciers. About 10,000 years ago, the amount of solar radiation increased by a few tenths of a percent, bringing a cumulative effect to the earth that caused a significant change in sea level and nearly everything else on earth. If you think weather is changing today, think about a nearly 200 foot rise in sea level in two thousand years. Look closely at the chart below and notice the earth changes. Imagine the cities on the Continental Shelf all inundated one after the other, the farm land under water. Think about the ocean being 1 (one) feet higher every 10 years. Add to that the change in weather from full glacial to suddenly warm, with new farm land, new forests, new deserts, everything changed.

Climate effects

What will we see in our climate as an effect of the global warming?

Fit the First
(by Lewis Carroll)

THE LANDING

"Just the place for a Snark!" the Bellman cried,

As he landed his crew with care;

Supporting each man on the top of the tide

By a finger entwined in his hair.

"Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice:

That alone should encourage the crew.

Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice:

What i tell you three times is true."

The crew was complete: it included a Boots--

A maker of Bonnets and Hoods--

A Barrister, brought to arrange their disputes--

I have said for a long time: "The worst thing we do to our children is send them to public school." That is more true now than when I said it years ago. Public school education is governed by the government (pun intended) and at the whim of the various directing bodies which tell the teachers what they are allowed to teach and what books they are allowed to present to the student. The learning process has joined the 1984-style governing actions of the American Police State.

We are pretty much aware that there is an abundance of knowledge available to teach children and even adults. After all, it is mostly adults attending University classes. There is far too much knowledge available to begin to teach all of it even in the "normal" 16 years we are expected to attend formal schooling. By the time we have finished schooling we are each expected to be an "expert" in some segment of the knowledge pool.

The thinking process is a curious one. This morning, a noisy, thundery, rainy morning, thinking about guns and the Middle East and then about profits and balances. Odd thoughts. For example: Who has the most weapons in Iraq? The Americans? The (so called) Alliance? Probably not any of those. I bet it is the citizens of Iraq. The ordinary or collective group of humans that call themselves citizens of Iraq. Every "demonstration" is filled with armed men firing away into the air (brings to mind the furor over New Year's firing of guns in the US and how many people are injured by mis-aimed guns). Where did these guns come from? Did Iraq have a large factory or factories building weapons? From what I can tell, all (that's ALL) the weapons came from outside Iraq. Russian, Czech, American, British, French, German, and more. The arms factories got lots of business feeding the Middle East with weapons. A kind of reciprocal oil agreement: You sell us oil and we'll give you money then you give us the money back and we'll sell you guns. I wonder where the "new" Iraq "security forces" are getting weapons from now? Who is making the profit from weapons today? Odd the things that "news" doesn't cover.

Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.

I was listening to the BBC, and many other news sources, even reading, and it seems there is a great furor over an image. A cartoon purporting to be the Islamic Prophet wearing a fuse-lit bomb as a turban. The Islamic world is threatening many killings over this and has already boycotted goods from a number of western (mostly non-Islamic) countries.

That got me thinking. I wondered if the Islamic rank and file should be more upset over this cartoon or over the images of fellow Islamics brutally cutting the heads off Christians and Western citizens. I suppose beheading infidels is OK according to the outcry and a cartoon of anything Islamic is an excuse for even more beheadings and killings. Hmmmm.