A recent visit by two very nice Jehovah's Witnesses

Yesterday I stood with bare feet on the front porch and felt my toes becoming numb as I listned to biblical quotations and arguments against evolution presented by two nicely dressed visitors. They left me a book entitled Life - How did it get here? By Evolution or by creation?. I scanned the book and found it to be mainly propaganda supported by misrepresented contextual snippets from reputable publications. Since my visitors took it upon themselves to supply me with propaganda and presented it as objective discussion material to further a healthy discussion, I have decided to prepare a bit of a material of secular humanist and atheist nature and supply it to them when they return to my door in a few days. Any other suggestions?

Here is the list of items I have quickly uncovered on the net:

A reviews of the JW book they provided me with: Evolution and Creationism: Probabilities

Another review of the book: Life-How did it get here? by a former Witness

A sample chapter from The Ghost in the Universe: by Taner Edis.

Nice little snippet from the end of an article.

From the AP found on Boulder's Daily Camera newspaper.

"Bush reiterated that he doesn't read newspapers and prefers getting the news — without opinion, he said — from White House chief of staff Andrew Card and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice. First Lady Laura Bush, who appeared briefly during the interview, said she does read the papers and often discusses them with her husband."

The "most powerful" person on Earth (of course he has no personal power, it was millions of Americans working hard and trillions of taxpayer dollars as well as prior presidents that created a powerful military, but I digress) Again, the "most powerful" person on Earth gets his news input from two or three people?

More on the Ashcroft flying thing...

CBS News July 26th 2001

Fishing rod in hand, Attorney General John Ashcroft left on a weekend trip to Missouri Thursday afternoon aboard a chartered government jet, reports CBS News Correspondent Jim Stewart.

In response to inquiries from CBS News over why Ashcroft was traveling exclusively by leased jet aircraft instead of commercial airlines, the Justice Department cited what it called a "threat assessment" by the FBI, and said Ashcroft has been advised to travel only by private jet for the remainder of his term.

"There was a threat assessment and there are guidelines. He is acting under the guidelines," an FBI spokesman said. Neither the FBI nor the Justice Department, however, would identify what the threat was, when it was detected or who made it.

A senior official at the CIA said he was unaware of specific threats against any Cabinet member, and Ashcroft himself, in a speech in California, seemed unsure of the nature of the threat.

"I don't do threat assessments myself and I rely on those whose responsibility it is in the law enforcement community, particularly the FBI. And I try to stay within the guidelines that they've suggested I should stay within for those purposes," Ashcroft said.

MORE

www.therightchristians.org
The rightchristians answer to the christian right. Take a peek: it is inspirational.

port vs. sherry

Classified together as liqueur wines, Port and Sherry are polar opposites in terms of style. Both are fortified with grape spirit - Sherry after fermentation which means the wine is dry, Port during fermentation which means the wine retains sugar and sweetness.

Sherry has risen like a phoenix from the ashes. With the current trend for drier styles of wine, the popularity of Sherries such as Fino and Manzanilla has never been higher.

Port also is unique but, like Sherry, produces a range of styles. From Ruby with its fiery character, to soft and mellow aged Tawny, Port is an ideal drink with which to chill out at the end of the day. At the top of the pile stands vintage Port -incomparable and unsurpassable. Produced only in the finest years, vintage Port is the flagship for the port houses, but is not for the faint-hearted. A monster of a wine with HUGE intensity, power and concentration, it should ideally mature for 15 to 20 years before opening.

WHITE HOUSE ADMITS PRE-9/11 WARNINGS; BUSH STILL DENIES IT

At his press conference yesterday, President Bush was asked about charges that he had received warnings prior to the September 11th attacks that a terrorist incident was imminent. He answered that even asking such a question was "an absurd insinuation." It was the same sentiment expressed by Bush's National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, who said in May of 2002 that "[no one predicted] that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane."

The problem for the president and the administration is that the White House has previously admitted that the president had personally received such specific warnings. As ABC News reported in May of 2002, "White House officials acknowledge that U.S. intelligence officials informed President Bush weeks before the September 11th attacks that Osama bin Laden's terrorist network might try to hijack American planes." As Condoleezza Rice said at a hastily called press conference to spin these revelations, the President specifically received an "analytic report" on August 6th, 2001 at his Crawford mansion that "talked about Osama bin Laden's methods of operation" and "mentioned hijacking." According to Reuters, that report was congruent with "intelligence since 1998 that said followers of bin Laden were planning to strike U.S. targets, hijack U.S. planes.".

While the administration claims that the president's pre-9/11 warning was actually "not a warning," the threat was specific enough for Attorney General John Ashcroft to stop flying commercial airlines. While no warning was issued for the general public after Bush's personal intelligence warning, Ashcroft was flying exclusively by leased jet instead of commercial airlines because of an official "threat assessment by the FBI."

Read the Mis-Lead --> http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=1675067&l=12260

Check out Jerry's Blog: pollitics as usual

Robert Rubin, in an interview on the News Hour, suggested that the Clinton recovery was NOT good luck, that is WAS the result of good stewardship: attacking and actually defeating the deficit, that was presented for over a decade as a looming catastrophe. That action renewed the peoples faith in democratic financial institutions and gave them the confidence to build and invest. Besides that, interest rates were reasonable, goverment was actually effectively doing things. And the boom followed.
That really could have "changed everything." In an Uncertain World , by Robert Rubin

Matt: Is this an OK entry?
Humanity? Maybe It's in the Wiring By SANDRA BLAKESLEE
Published: December 9, 2003
...There are specialized neurons at work, as well — large, cigar-shaped cells called spindle cells...

...Spindle cells are not present at birth. They appear around age 4 months and gradually increase during the second and third year of life, the same time that guilt and embarrassment appear.

...The only other animals known to have such cells are the great apes. These neurons are exceptionally rich in filaments. And they appear to broadcast socially relevant signals all over the brain.

Free Antivirus
Courtesy of J.B

J.B. mentioned a recent email he received in which a note mentioned the the email had been checked for
viruses by AVG software from www.grisoft.com. The software is free for home users for Linux and Wintel.
That's worth spreading around!

http://www.grisoft.com

pass it on :-)

Dragster Facts
Courtesy of J.B. & J.G.

One Top Fuel dragster 500 cubic inch Hemi engine makes more horsepower
than the first 4 rows at the Daytona 500.

* Under full throttle, a dragster engine consumes 1-1/2 gallons of
nitromethane per second; a fully loaded 747 consumes jet fuel at the
same rate with 25% less energy being produced.

* A stock Dodge Hemi V8 engine cannot produce enough power to drive the
dragster supercharger.

* With 3000 CFM of air being rammed in by the supercharger on
overdrive, the fuel mixture is compressed into a near-solid form before ignition.
Cylinders run on the verge of hydraulic lock at full throttle.

* At the stoichiometric (stoichiometry: methodology and technology by
which quantities of reactants and products in chemical reactions are
determined) 1.7:1 air/fuel mixture for nitromethane the flame front temperature
measures 7050 degrees F.

* Nitromethane burns yellow. The spectacular white flame seen above the
stacks at night is raw burning hydrogen, dissociated from atmospheric
water vapor by the searing exhaust gases.

* Dual magnetos supply 44 amps to each spark plug. This is the output
of an arc welder in each cylinder.

* Spark plug electrodes are totally consumed during a pass. After ½
way, the engine is dieseling from compression plus the glow of exhaust
valves at 1400 degrees F. The engine can only be shut down by cutting the fuel
flow.

* If spark momentarily fails early in the run, unburned nitro builds up
in the affected cylinders and then explodes with sufficient force to blow
cylinder heads off the block in pieces or split the block in half.

* In order to exceed 300 mph in 4.5 seconds dragsters must accelerate an
average of over 4G's. In order to reach 200 mph well before half-track,
the launch acceleration approaches 8G's.

* Dragsters reach over 300 miles per hour before you have completed
reading this sentence.

* Top Fuel Engines turn approximately 540 revolutions from light to
light!

* Including the burnout the engine must only survive 900 revolutions
under load.

* The redline is actually quite high at 9500rpm.

* The Bottom Line; Assuming all the equipment is paid off, the crew
worked for free, and for once NOTHING BLOWS UP, each run costs an estimated
$1,000.00 per second.

The current Top Fuel dragster elapsed time record is 4.441 seconds for
the quarter mile (10/05/03, Tony Schumacher). The top speed record is 333.00
mph. (533 km/h) as measured over the last 66' of the run (09/28/03 Doug
Kalitta).

Putting all of this into perspective:

You are driving the average $140,000 Lingenfelter "twin-turbo" powered
Corvette Z06. Over a mile up the road, a Top Fuel dragster is staged and
ready to launch down a quarter mile strip as you pass. You have the
advantage of a flying start. You run the 'Vette hard up through the
gears and blast across the starting line and past the dragster at an honest
200 mph. The 'tree' goes green for both of you at that moment.

The dragster launches and starts after you. You keep your foot down
hard, but you hear an incredibly brutal whine that sears your eardrums and
within 3 seconds the dragster catches and passes you. He beats you to the
finish line, a quarter mile away from where you just passed him. Think about
it, from a standing start, the dragster had spotted you 200 mph and not only
caught, but nearly blasted you off the road when he passed you within a
mere 1320 foot long race course.

That folks, is acceleration.

Hey this is fun. Check out the War Era poster on this page. Hilarious! Where can I get one?

"George W. Bush is a miserable failure," a project of Old Fashioned Patriot.

Do a google search on "miserable failure" See if you agree with the results

What you've always wanted to know

from here.


Gregorian Calendar


How do we keep track of time? When do we plant our crops, how do we know when to observe religious holidays? Societies need some way to keep track of time, and complex calendars (the word comes from the Roman term for the beginning of the
month) were developed early in human history. In agricultural societies the seasonal cycle of the Sun is crucial, but for shorter periods the lunar cycle suggests itself as well. Historically the problem was that the year does not contain a whole number of days or months. The mean interval between successive vernal equinoxes (365.2424 days), is about 11 minutes less than 365 1/4 days; the synodic period of the Moon (the time between successive full moons or new
moons) is about 29 1/2 days, and thus 12 months add up to about 354 days. Constructing a calendar that incorporates both the movements of the Sun and Moon is therefore not a simple business. Various solutions have been tried.

The Egyptian calendar was perhaps the simplest solution. The year was made up of twelve months of thirty days each, and five days were added at the end. Since this meant an error of about 1/4 day per year, the starting date of the year slowly drifted forward with respect to the seasons until after 1460 years it had returned to where it started. The rising of the Nile, the crucial event in the Egyptian agricultural cycle, was predicted by the heliacal rising of Sirius,[1] the brightest star in the heavens. No attention was paid to the Moon.

Most cultures in the ancient Near East relied on a calendar in which months had alternating lengths of 29 and 30 days and added a month about every third year. Thus, in ancient Israel the elders added an extra month of 29 days every third year after the sixth month (Adar). But these 29 days would not make up entirely for the entire deficit of 3 x 11 1/4 days, and therefore in some years two extra months had to be added. In the Greek city states months were added haphazardly as needed and no consistent system of intercalation was ever developed.

The most sophisticated system of keeping the motions of both the Sun and Moon harnessed in a single calendar was developed in Mesopotamia. By the Persian period, ca. 500, the system incorporated the so-called Metonic cycle (we name it after the Greek Meton, ca. 425 BCE) in which the following relationship is
used: 19 solar years contain 6939 3/4 days; 110 months of 29 days plus 125 months of 30 days add up to 6940 days. 19 years, then, contained 235 months, and starting in (on our calendar) 499 BC, the calendar in that part of the world was regulated on a cycle of intercalating 7 extra months in 19 years, as shown in the following scheme (in which a dash indicates a year of 12 months and a VI or XII indicated a year in which a month was added after the sixth or twelfth month):

- - XII - - XII - XII - - XII - - XII - - VI - XII

After a few irregularities, starting in 384 BCE, this scheme was rigorously adhered to, through the Greek and Roman conquests, until 75 CE, when cuneiform texts ceased.


For convenience, the month was usually subdivided into smaller time periods. The Greeks divided the month into three periods of ten days, but a division of seven days was older and more common in the Near East. We find the seven-day week already in Genesis. The names that we assign to the days have their origin in the division of the day into 24 hours, which originated in Egypt. In the Hellenistic period (300 BCE - 100 BCE) it became common to assign a ruling planet (including the Sun and Moon) to each hour of the day. The common order of the wandering heavenly bodies was Saturn-Jupiter-Mars-Sun-Venus-Mercury-Moon. The first hour of the first day was assigned to the Sun, the second to Venus, the third to Mercury, etc., repeating the cycle in the order given above. The 24th hour was thus assigned to Mercury and the first hour of the second day to the Moon. Naming the days after the planets that rule their first hours, we thus arrive at the sequence Sun's day-Moon's day-Mars's day-Mercury's day-Jupiter's day-Venus's day-Saturn's day.[2] The modern English variations on these names are due to substituting Nordic or Saxon gods for some of the Roman names: Tiw for Mars, Wotan for Mercury, Thor for Jupiter, Frigg for Venus.


Our civil method for reckoning time, then has a mixed origin. Our division of the hour into minutes and seconds is derived from the sexagesimal system of the Mesopotamians; the division of the day into 24 hours originated with the Egyptians; the seven-day week originated in the ancient Near East, while the names are derived from a Greek convention developed during the Hellenistic period. Our calendar is based on the motion of the Sun alone, but our various religious calendars are based on a combination of the motions of the Sun and Moon. Our civil calendar derives from the Romans with some alterations. Its origin is described nicely in the "Calendar" article in the 11th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica (1910), which reads in part:



The civil calendar of all European [and American] countries has been borrowed from that of the Romans. Romulus[3] is said to have divided the year into ten months only, including in all 304 days, and it is not very well known how the remaining days were disposed of. The ancient Roman year commenced with March, as is indicated by the names September, October, November, December, which the last four months still retain. July and August, likewise, were anciently denominated Quintillis and Sextillis, their present appellations having been bestowed in compliment to Julius Caesar and Augustus. In the reign of Numa[4] two months were added to the year, January at the beginning and February at the end; and this arrangement continued till the year 452 BC., when the Decemvirs[5] changed the order of the months, and placed February after January. The months now consisted of twenty-nine and thirty days alternately, to correspond with the synodic revolution of the moon [full moon to full moon], so that the year contained 354 days; but a day was added to make the number odd, which was considered more fortunate, and the year therefore consisted of 355 days. This differed from the solar year by ten whole days and a fraction; but to restore the coincidence, Numa ordered an additional or intercalary month to be inserted every second year between the 23d and 24th of February, consisting of twenty-two and twenty-three days alternately, so that four years constituted 1465 days, and the mean length of the year was consequently 366 1/4 days. The additional month was called Mercedinus or Mercedonius, from merces, wages, probably because the wages of workmen and domestics were usually paid at this season of the year. According to the above arrangement, the year was too long by one day, which rendered another correction necessary. As the error amounted to twenty-four days in as many years, it was ordered that every third period of eight years, instead of containing four intercalary months, amounting in all to ninety days, should contain only three of those months, consisting of twenty-two days each. The mean length of the year was thus reduced to 365 1/4 days; but it is not certain at what time the octennial periods, borrowed from the Greeks, were introduced into the Roman calendar, or whether they were at any time strictly followed. It does not even appear that the length of the intercalary month was regulated by any certain principle, for a discretionary power was left with the pontiffs,[6] to whom the care of the calendar was committed, to intercalate more or fewer days according as the year was found to differ more or less from the celestial motions. This power was quickly abused to serve political objects, and the calendar consequently thrown into confusion. By giving a greater of less number of days to the intercalary month, the pontiffs were enabled to prolong the term of a magistracy or hasten the annual elections; and so little care had been taken to regulate the year, that, at the time of Julius Caesar, the civil equinox differed from the astronomical by three months, so that the winter months were carried back into autumn and the autumnal into summer.
In order to put an end to the disorders arising from the negligence or ignorance of the pontiffs, [Julius] Caesar abolished the use of the lunar year and the intercalary month, and regulated the civil year entirely by the sun. With the advice and assistance of Sosigenes,[7] he fixed the mean length of the year at 365 1/4 days, and decreed that every fourth year should have 366 days, the other years having each 365. In order to restore the vernal equinox to the 25th of March, the place it occupied in the time of Numa, he ordered two extraordinary months to be inserted between November and December in the current year, the first to consist of thirty three, and the second of thirty-four days. The intercalary month of twenty-three days fell into the year of course, so that the ancient year of 355 days received an augmentation of ninety days; and the year on that occasion contained in all 445 days. This was called the last year of confusion. The first Julian year commenced with the 1st of January of the 46th before the birth of Christ, and the 708th from the foundation of the city.

In the distribution of the days through the several months, Caesar adopted a simpler and more commodious arrangement than that which has since prevailed. He had ordered that the first, third, fifth, seventh, ninth, and eleventh months, that is January, March, May, July, September and November, should have each thirty-one days, and the other months thirty, excepting February, which in common years should have only twenty-nine day, but every fourth year thirty days. This order was interrupted to gratify the vanity of Augustus, by giving the month bearing his name as many days as July, which was named after the first Caesar. A day was accordingly taken from February and given to August; and in order that three months of thirty-one days might not come together, September and November were reduced to thirty days, and thirty-one given to October and December. For so frivolous a reason was the regulation of Caesar abandoned, and a capricious arrangement introduced, which it requires some attention to remember. [8]

The additional day which occurred every fourth year was given to February, as being the shortest month, and was inserted in the calendar between the 24th and 25th day. February having then twenty-nine days, the 25th was the 6th of the calends of March, sexto calendas; the preceding, which was the additional or intercalary day, was called bis-sexto calendas,--hence the term bissextile, which is still employed to distinguish the year of 366 days. The English denomination of leap year would have been more appropriate if that year had differed from common years in defect, and contained only 364 days. In the modern calendar the intercalary day is still added to February, not, however, between the 24th and 25th, but as the 29th.

. . .

Although the Julian method of intercalation is perhaps the most convenient that could be adopted, yet, as it supposes the year too long by 11 minutes 14 seconds, it could not without correction very long answer the purpose for which it was devised, namely, that of preserving always the same interval of time between the commencement of the year and the equinox. Sosigenes could scarcely fail to know that this year was too long; for it had been shown long before, by the observations of Hipparchus [ca. 125 BCE], that the excess of 3651/4 days above a true solar year would amount to a day in 300 years. The real error is indeed more than double of this, and amounts to a day in 128 years; but in the time of Caesar the length of the year was an astronomical element not very well determined. In the course of a few centuries, however, the equinox sensibly retrograded towards the beginning of the year. When the Julian calendar was introduced, the equinox fell on the 25th of March. At the time of the Council of Nicea, which was held in 325, it fell on the 21st . . . .


The Julian Calendar was naturally adopted by the successor of the Roman Empire, Christian Europe with the Papacy at its head. By about 700 CE it had become customary to count years from the starting point of the birth of Christ (later corrected by Johannes Kepler to 4 BCE). But the equinox kept slipping backwards on the calendar one full day every 130 years. By 1500 the vernal equinox fell on the 10th or 11th of March and the autumnal equinox on the 13th or 14th of September, and the situation was increasingly seen as a scandal. The most important feast day on the Christian calendar is Easter, when the suffering, death, and resurrection of Christ are celebrated. In the New Testament we find that Christ's crucifixion occurred in the week of Passover. On the Jewish calendar, Passover was celebrated at the full moon of the first month (Nissan) of spring. In developing their own calendar (4th century CE), Christians put Easter on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox. If the equinox was wrong, then Easter was celebrated on the wrong day. Most other Christian observances (e.g., the beginning of Lent, Pentecost) are reckoned backward or forward from the date of Easter. An error in the equinox thus introduced numerous errors in the entire religious calendar. Something had to be done. After the unification of the Papacy in Rome, in the fifteenth century, Popes began to consider calendar reform. After several false starts, a commission under the leadership of the Jesuit mathematician and astronomer Christoph Clavius (1537-1612) succeeded. Several technical changes were instituted having to do with the calculation of Easter, but the main change was simple. In 1582 Pope Gregory XIII (hence the name Gregorian Calendar) ordered ten days to be dropped from October, thus restoring the vernalequinox at least to an average of the 20th of March, close to what it had been at the time of the Council of Nicea. In order to correct for the loss of one day every 130 years, the new calendar dropped three leap years every 400 years. Henceforth century years were leap years only if divisible by 400. 1600 and 2000 are leap years; 1700, 1800 and 1900 are not.

The new calendar, although controversial among technical astronomers, was promulgated from Rome and adopted immediately in Catholic countries. Protestant countries followed suit more slowly. Protestant regions in Germany, and the northern Netherlands adopted the calendar within decades. The English, always suspicious of Rome during this period, retained the Julian Calendar. Further, while others now began the new year uniformly on 1 January, the English began it on 25 March (an older custom). Now, for example, the date 11 February 1672 in England was 21 February 1673 on the Continent. After 1700 in which the Julian Calendar had a leap year but the Gregorian did not, the difference was eleven days. The English and their American colonies finally adopted the Gregorian Calendar in the middle of the eighteenth century. George Washington was born on 11 February on the Julian Calendar; we celebrate his birthday on 22 February.

Note, finally, that the Gregorian Calendar is useless for astronomy because it has a ten-day hiatus in it. For the purpose of calculating positions backward in time, astronomers use the Julian Date.

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THE DAILY MIS-LEAD http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=1675067&l=10731
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AS WHITE HOUSE CHANGES STORY, BRITISH AIRWAYS REFUTES BUSH STORY OF PILOT SIGHTING

In his trip to Baghdad, President Bush said he would have immediately turned around had his cover been blown. In trying to play up the secrecy and dangerous nature of the trip, Bush's aides said that a British Airways pilot spotted the president's plane, radioing, "Did I just see Air Force One?" The White House said Air Force One responded: "Gulfstream 5" - a code word to disguise the plane - and the British Airways pilot "seemed to sense he was in on a secret and replied 'Oh.'"

But now it appears the story was a complete fabrication, designed only to hype the story. According to Reuters, "British Airways said yesterday that none of its pilots made contact with President Bush's plane during its secret flight to Baghdad on Thanksgiving, contradicting White House reports of a midair exchange that nearly prompted Bush to call off his trip."

Making things worse, the White House revised its story after revelations of the distortion. The White House now says "it had left the wrong impression" and that actually the conversation took place between Air Force One and the airport tower in London. But again, British Airways refuted this tale, with a spokesman for the company telling media "that none of its pilots has come forward to acknowledge either making or overhearing the purported conversation."

Read the Mis-Lead --> http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=1675067&l=10732

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Courtesy of Ken Macclune:

Here is this week’s weekly comment from John P. Hussman the head of Hussman Funds, an investment fund. It is overall quite interesting except the “other comments” section which is exceptional.

Hussman Funds - Weekly Market Comment: November 24, 2003

Other comments
John P. Hussman, Ph.D.

The notion that we are the sum of our actions is as true for nations as it is for individuals. It is difficult to achieve peace without having peace within ourselves; without taking actions that embody peace; without understanding whether our actions have planted seeds of suffering or seeds of reconciliation. If our actions, or those of our enemies, regularly contain violence, our lives will be dominated by violence. If our actions regularly contain peace, our lives will be grounded in peace.

Justice and enforcement are essential when they center on those responsible for criminal actions. Force can be effective in overcoming a specific enemy, or as a method of bringing an intransigent enemy to the negotiating table. But when there is no centralized authority to persuade, the ability to achieve peace through violence and retaliation is very limited. Force, directed broadly, does nothing but to encourage each side to spill its own fresh suffering onto the other side. Under these conditions, peace can only result from leadership, moderation, understanding, and diplomacy.

There is no shortage of advisors surrounding the Administration, particularly from the American Enterprise Institute, who have long supported regime change in Iraq, and advocate a theory of democratizing the Middle East through force. It is doubtful that the American public would have willingly bought into the idea of placing the lives of our troops at risk for the sake of these theories, regardless of the appeal of freeing Iraqis from a brutal dictator. Iraq was interminably frustrating, but the risks to America were containable. The proper and humanitarian opportunity to remove Hussein was when he was gassing the Kurds – which could have been a multinational effort with much less risk to U.S. troops. In any event, the path to war was undoubtedly paved with a blurred line of distinction between those actually responsible for our suffering on 9/11, and Iraq.

Our obligation now is to see the situation clearly; to look for truth without filtering reality through wishful thinking. There have been enough positive outcomes from the Iraq war to begin bringing our troops home with gratitude and pride, and their safety cannot be separated from perceptions of the U.S. as an occupying force. In the occupation of the Philippines in the early 1900's, the U.S. was forced to maintain over 50,000 troops and a presence for over a decade. Attacks on these troops were relentless despite successful strikes on rebel leaders and magnanimous efforts in building schools, hospitals and public infrastructure. As historian Martin Gilbert wrote, “it was the tactics of guerrilla fighting that proved impossible for even the most disciplined army to master. The guerrilla forces could melt away… as soon as they made their strike, and then regroup whenever they decided to strike again.”

The situation in Iraq will not be changed simply by running elections of candidates appointed solely by the U.S. Administration, which would probably risk widespread boycotts. It certainly will not be changed by plans to “privatize” the Iraqi oil industry. The best way to achieve peace is through actions that contain peace – limit the use of broad retaliatory strikes, shift enforcement to a NATO coalition, abandon plans to privatize Iraqi resources, and delegate civil matters to the United Nations. It is essential for this process to end in a stable and agreeable government in Iraq, but this does not require exclusive U.S. control. Our true enemies are elsewhere, and our security requires as much cooperation and peaceful action toward the broader world as it requires enforcement against those actually responsible for terrorism. The roots of terrorism lie in ignorance, hate, suffering, misperception, fear, and resentment of foreign influence. It is still possible to address these in a way that increases our security.

All of this has been said before, of course, both here and elsewhere. But each day that an American soldier's family has to bear the sorrow of a foreign policy that has ceased to advance the security of America and its troops, it becomes obvious that it hasn't been said enough.

The Entertainment Economy
Can the United States economy possibly continue to grow based on nonsensical consumer spending? How many game consoles, CPUs, big screens, automobiles, timepieces, and multi-function cellphones can our population of WalMartians possibly consume? Our economy has become overly dependent on this conspicuous consumption of luxury items. What if everyone woke up and realized that $4 is way too much to spend for a cup of coffee?

We have to spend our money on something though, right? We don't have the kinds of fundamental need problems our grandparents and great-grandparents had. What should a society do when its priveleged class passes through all extents of the traditional needs pyramid? It seems that we are defining a new needs pyramid that is distinctly pear-shaped. Our obese, novelty obsessed masses are hopelessly plugged in to the marketing and propoganda busily creating the next generation of workaholic consumption crazed amusement junkies.

Forbes.com: Happiness Is An Overpriced Latte

Comment Capability Added:
Comments now available courtesy of blogspeak. Blogger doesn't have its own comments capabilities. One has to add comment capability by "hosting" the comments with a 3rd party service. I use a free one called blogspeak. This means that the comments are actually stored on a 3rd party server.

Switching cell phone companies and keeping your phone number:

Update 11/20/03: I finally decided to take advantage of the seemingly good deals that abound on the web lately for free or heavily discounted phones with new service agreements. I opted for ATT GSM service and a 2 year contract after considering TMobile and Verizon. I found that the ATT rate plans for "national family" plans were much more competitive than the TMobile plans. TMobile's low end shared minute plan was $60, where with ATT I got a good plan with plenty of anytime and mobile to mobile minutes for $49.99 month. I purchased two nokia 6200 phones which were the best phones I could find with good reviews, not too many features like cameras and video recorders, cheap. The TMobile 6610 phone is similar to the 6200. I ordered directly from the attwireless web site and got a good shared plan with 550 anytime shared, 1000 anytime mobile 2 mobile, national plan, free long distance, free car charger, no activation fee, $100 rebate, and a few other things. The plan allows us to have 2 phones and one bill.

More information on transferring your existing number: HERE

I plan to do this from Sprint to Verizon. Should be an interesting experience. I would try to exploit Sprint to get a better deal, but I'm so tired of their substandard signal quality that I don't care what deal they might cut at this point.
Yahoo! News - How to Exploit the New Cell-Phone Rules

Dear Mr. Science,
OK, so this is slightly off the economic and political topic, and it is slightly gross, but I think we've all wondered about this before. An associate of mine has made the claim that the odors associated with flatulence are in fact due to "aerisolized fecal matter" which I find hard to substantiate. The following article incidates that Hydrogen sulfide is responsible for the smell, but there must also be a reason why there are such a wide variety of odors available. I submit to our resident expert on methane gas a request for a reasonable explanation in this matter. If you're about to ask, here is the definition of aerosolized. Thank You.

Howstuffworks "What causes flatulence?"

A response to the "KING Report" for November 13th, 2003:

"A repeat of Great Depression-type deflation is crap. I don't see how
it can happen now without a gold standard (and even the first time
around Roosevelt revalued the USD down about 40% in terms of gold) and
the policy wonks we have in place. Unneeded items will fall in price,
but the essentials will rise. An adjustment is needed to purge the
system, but it won't happen voluntarily. I do, however, see a chance
of a 'rhyme'.

Asia went through our current situation in the 90s. It started with
massive injections of "liquidity", followed by a spike in
rates/inflation, then an equally massive currency devaluation. And
they had current account surpluses to help dig them out!

I'm now convinced (but check back in 2 days, I'll probably have changed
my mind!) that this is the late 70s/early 80s all over again (price and
rate inflation) with a couple of major differences: debt levels (on
every level) and cross-dependency in derivatives (with financial sector
by far the biggest player in practically every market).

USD will fall (more), gold will rise (more), and if a shock doesn't
bring the debt house of cards down first, last will be debt liquidation
(and therefore the housing market). At that point, political problems
will dwarf the slowdown in commerce.

If the Fed pulls off, by virtue of confidence in Greenspan only, the
best-case scenario (Japan-style languishing until we hit retirement
age) it will be a miracle. Otherwise, it will pretty much suck.

Cheery, huh?"