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Year is ending, War is beginning. 16 y
Is anyone saying "Give Peace a Chance"?
So, another year is ending, and a new war has begun.
Two things: one is that the escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian war has less to do with rockets being fired into Israel from Gaza, and more to do with the upcoming Israeli election where the leaders who are most pacifist will NOT get the votes; and two, that Barack Obama will show total support for the Israeli side and their violent actions without regard for the Palestinian’s concerns.
Mr. Obama, who, I am sorry to say, will become known as ”The Great Disappointment”, will be siding with Israel - ”American allways does” is how ... read more Prophets and End Times - not credible. 16 y
Prophets make a living by forecasting doom, but they really don't know anything.
Just another ”seasonal note” here... because the New Year is upon us and that is the time when we are thinking forwards.
Prophets get busy making predictions, and invariably there will be ”End Times” and doom and gloom, which are the most sensational and get a lot more attention than they deserve.
Let me explain why I think that they do not deserve much attention at all:
For one thing, the track record - there have been several ”millenial” predictions that did not happen, and several big events that were not predicted.
For another, I was reading, because it IS interesting, about ... read more Christmas Time - Renewal? 16 y
Christmas and Renewal ; Our world in trouble.
It is Christmas Day 2008. Because of the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, and the pending New Year, these couple of weeks seems to be when many of us have a thought about renewal.
It might just be personal renewal, in the form of a ”resolution”, a declaration of a bad habit to break. Once again, I am going to quit smoking [what an awful habit it is!].
It might be something much bigger though, especially this year. It seems that many of the ”sins” we have committed are coming back at us.
We are seeing the biggest financial crisis since the great depression [or so we are to ... read more Chronic Pain Credibility 16 y
It may not be fair, but people with chronic pain have credibility problems to deal with on top of their pain
”A Fibro’s Credibility”
Its bad enough to be dealing with the pain of Fibromyalgia, but there is also the social side of it, where our credibility is questioned by people we interact with. When others do not believe our pains are real, then they also do not believe us when we have to excuse ourselves from activities or social gatherings. They must assume we don’t like them, or that we are anti-social. They might feel offended, and of course there is little hope of ever explaining to them that that isn’t the case, we are simply in too much pain to go galavanting around for social reaso ... read more Solar Street Lights - first steps to renewable energy. 16 y
We replaced our lightbulbs, now it is the city's turn!!
post scriipt note: I wrote this with paragraphs and spacing, but like other posts recently, the displayed version just is not formatting like I wrote it... sorry about the ”one large paragraph” !!
-----------Solar Street Lights:
I think that our political leaders need to start showing a little bit more interest in reducing emissions that are contributing to global warming, and polluting our air with toxins. We need to see some changes, and I have an idea for one that everybody will see:
Convert every street light in every city and town in North America to solar power.
... read more War Criminals and Terrorists Allowed to Be Free 16 y
War Criminals and Terrorists are not being rounded up, despite knowing where they are hiding out.
We live in a strange and mystifying world of political intrigue; ugly loyalties allow war criminals to roam around - the CIA is letting them go!
We heard Pres. elect Obama say in his campaign speach, just once as far as I know, that if he was President, Osama bin Laden would be wrested from his cave and taken prisoner by American forces. That was in referance to the Tora Bora incident where the Bush-led American military had bin Laden cornered in a cave, but declined the opportunity to go grab him.
We won’t likely hear Pres. Barack Obama speak of Tora Bora, or about ”getting Osama” ... read more Let GM Fail - over E.V.1 16 y
Electric Cars should be on the roads, and it is GM's fault they are not, so let GM fail.
I don’t want GM to be bailed out. Those factories will still exist, and the GM workers can work in those same factories when another company starts making different cars, or something else, there. The economy will be better off without GM and it’s hugely expensive production lines and over-burdened pension plan and yes, I will risk saying it, without workers that get paid $70 and hour ; how about twice as many people working for $35 an hour? - that would be better for almost everyone.
Besides, we HATE GM. They are the quintessential big ugly corporation. They are big enough that they ... read more UNIFICATIONing - a progress goal 16 y
Instead of branches of science and the trades and medicine, we are moving towards unification of each disipline.
Okay, here is a simple suggestion - UNIFICATION.
Its a good thing. One of the goals. We are moving towards it... and not just in the theory of relativity, but in all areas of human endeavor.
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But why are we fractured in the first place?
An example from history are the stone masons who carved the stone, along with the mortar makers, or the woodworkers, or the scaffolders, even the architects - each of the types of workers who built the grand cathedrals in Europe in the middle ages. They would keep the knowledge of their trades a strict secret, only passed on ... read more Human Immune System and Global Warming 16 y
Changing conditions cause trouble for human immunity
There are new reports every month now about how insects, plants, animals large and small are leaving their traditional territory due to changes in habitat and climate brought on by global warming, and finding new places to live that are more to their liking.
Therefore, various pathogens that live on or in those critters, who are their hosts, are changing territory.
The fact that those displacements are causing trouble for humans, in that we are more susceptible to various diseases now, says something about how the human immunity system works. We did have a nicely developed immu ... read more Stalling in Canada and the USA 16 y
Canada and American governments are paralysed - that is the way the Right wants it.
Added Later - I see that this has not formatted with paragraphs, and I cannot seem to change it... sorry about that my dear readers!! Next time will be better - here is this one: ....
...’Things have ground to a halt in the political corridors of Washington and in Ottawa Canada. How strange that both places would have ended up being in a position of ”LAME DUCK” at the same time!!
In Canada, Prime Minister Harper has deliberately stirred up a kettle of trouble there with the result of paralyzing the Canadian Parliament. The opposition parties did not really have an ... read more The Curious Question of Alberta's Oil Wealth 16 y
Low Royalty Rates as compared to other places is a gift from Albertans to the Oil Companies ; Why don't Albertans elect a government that will fight for them?
The Curious Question of Alberta.
”if Alberta’s royalty rates were even close to most other developed nation’s oil royalty rates, the Alberta government would indeed be swimming in money”
Countries around the world and other Canadian Provinces that have driven hard deals with oil companies ended up by getting good returns for the people there:
- Norway took control of their ”Statoil” and is now the world’s 2nd wealthiest economy, with a public pension plan worth about $500Billion ;
- Newfoundland and Labrador stood steady against the boycotts of big oil and eventually got a gre ... read more New Economic Model? 16 y
Credit Crisis is an opportunity for change to a new economic model
New Economic model?
Could this economic downturn be the agent of change for a new, better way of ”economics”? It seems that some day, in some future world, that we could do away with having to keep track of what we do and what we get for doing it. As it is now it is far from ”fair” or even tolerable because lots of people work hard and get very little, and others have extreme wealth despite doing nothing valuable for the world. Some people end up doing a great harm to the world in terms of pollution or starting wars and profit a lot from their actions; some greedy-but-smart people start ... read more Compassion for the Incompassionate 16 y
Mental Illness might be your neighbor; be glad if it is not you.
An episode of a hammer attack, and mental illness:
It has become a major personal challenge for me to accept this situation I find myself in. These things come our way from time to time, and they help us grow and mature, I guess.... I hope.
but wow, arrrggg, and tear my hair out over this one. Oh ya, and add ”get whacked by a hammer” to that list of frustrations for this particular growth opportunity!!
There was to be a small construction project going on beside me, one that would take any ’reasonable carpenter’ just a few days, perhaps a week of short days. The noise includes ham ... read more Affordable Cars, Houses, Energy - Bailouts getting in the way? 16 y
Free Markets and Bailouts - Cars, Houses, Energy.
Novermber 16th, 2008 - ”Automaker Bailouts”
We are in a time when the economy is under a microscope, due to the problems of the ”upper layers” of the banking and financial services industry.
Also, the money that the government has can be used to influence how the economy works. Besides helping the banks by topping up the money used to make loans, government money might be used to prop up other industries such as the automakers.
Proponents of the idea to loan General Motors some money - perhaps $25Billion now and more later - are pointing out that ”if G.M. goes down, their employe ... read more Ritual is Attractive - A Fable example 16 y
Religion is often about Ritual, and although rituals have some value, they can also make life meaningless and empty.
Ritual is an attractive thing for humans, we crave the way it brings our mind peace and a sense of purpose and unity. They createe a sense of community. Rituals have value, as long as they do not take the place of reality when reality is needed.
An example of how rituals can make some things meaningless was raised in a movie I was watching recently -
--------------Here is the FABLE:
A young Muslim couple was getting married... they were EXPECTED to go through the usual routine, the rituals, of their culture’s marriage ceremony.
The groom asked if it would not be better to DECIDE ... read more America's race issue - some still clinging to their fears. 16 y
Government is good when it helps Wealthy White Folk
I was thinking about if Obama got elected in Canada... it would have been very different than what we saw in the U.S.A. last week!!
What would have happened here is that nobody would have mentioned that his skin was colored, because that would have been wrong to even bring it up. So what if he is black, that makes no difference, so don’t talk about it. It would have been impolite on the same level as our former P.M. Chretien, who had a ”facial doformity”, where we just never mentioned it. That would have been impolite.
Of course, that is because Canada does not have so many blatant r ... read more Bisphenol A and Phthalates: Male Fertility drops by HALF 16 y
Bisphenol A and Phthalates harmfull effects on sperm; industry spokesman caught lying his shorts off.
In a news conferance about Bisphenol A and Phthalates, the chemicals industry spokesman said that ”there are NO studies showing any harm whatsoever from Bisphenol A or Phthalates”. He was dead serious, and spoke with authority. So, maybe after all, there really was nothing to it, we were just hearing rumours again.
Then a reporter asked him to produce some of those studies. He showed them three, all of which in fact said there was no harm, no threat to the health of humans or animals, from Bisphenol A or Phthalates. Clearly, plainly.
The reporter then brought out several boxes with ... read more |