Three Heroes

Following are updates from three of our soldier heroes: my grandson Johnny Walton (raising money for college) beginning his second tour of duty in Iraq; our new friend “E” in Guantanamo, Cuba; and PV’s own Brian Weiss back from Djibouti. I saw Brian at the Farmer’s Market and he looked just great. Now his mom needs to fatten him up a bit.

Gramps,
Sorry, I haven't been connected here for the last two days or so but I got the package Thursday. Thank you. The suck though is that my commander was killed Wednesday. Captain Mattingly was shot down while flying a Kiowa. I'll send you some pictures to show you what we did for him here and who he was. He was actually one of my best, top two. Now were back on mission, not forgetting, but doing the mission with him pushing our thoughts, doing what he would want us to do and keeping on fighting the fight. It's finally cooling down; I think it was only 110 degrees today. I’ll let you know when there is more to tell.

Love ya,
Johnny


Hi Bill,
I forgot if I properly thanked you for the package that came in more than two weeks ago. If not, I apologize for the late gratitude. Things are moving along here in Gitmo. I have 8 more weeks or so and then I rotate back to the States.

Things I have learned down here:

1. The media will undoubtedly portray the troops in the worst possible light. We absolutely bend over backwards for the detainees down here. In fact, they are happier than our guys. They know they are manipulating us. All they lack is their freedom to leave their cell. But we jump through hoops for all else.

2. Senior leadership stand by their people. When I was enlisted, I was too far removed from the senior officers to view their leadership. Admiral Harris is a great representative of GTMO. He is a forceful and straight-forward leader. Coming from the pilot community, people were curious as to what he would bring. I got here right after him, and from what I see, he has brought the quality of life up.

3. The hardest job is being a guard here, hands down. God bless those guys. If you are a prayer (as in one who prays) pray for them. They are professional in a very challenging environment. But of course, all onehears about is Abu Gareeb, the immature and dishonorable actions of handful of individuals. We have American heroes (in my book) working hard at GTMO every day for our country with little acknowledgment.

I am sharing the care packages with the above said heroes. The books will undoubtedly be appreciated by them. The beef jerky is all but gone. My guys came by my office and snacked on it. The CDs are great. I gave the golf mags to a guy who is an awesome golfer. He loves them.

Thanks again,Your support is always appreciated,
E

For those of you who haven’t heard, I am back. Please excuse me for not emailing all of you sooner but my email has been down since I got home. After 6 calls to tech support I think I have finally resolved the issue (cross your fingers). I am a little behind on emails but I will try to catch up asap. I have another week or so of active duty left, after that I should be on leave with the Marine Corps for almost a month. Thank you very much for all of the support during my deployment!

Talk to you soon.
Brian

Dori said: “So, when’s the party?”

Look What They Done to my Song

Back in the 1960s graduate physics was about quantum mechanics, the Dirac equation, quantum field theory and Feynman diagrams. (General Relativity was over to the side since gravity was different.) I still have Feynman’s book Quantum Electrodynamics (second printing with corrections by Peter Cziffra, University of Rochester, 1962. I was in the physics department at Rochester from 1964 - 1971.) Every page is filled with Feynman’s squiggles showing photon propagation in processes such as two-photon pair annihilation or electron-positron scattering. We learned that positrons could be viewed as electrons moving backward in time and many other wonders of nature.

I kept a copy of a take home exam from Physics 503 (Melissinos) requiring:

The calculation in complete detail of the cross section for production of electron-positron pairs by photons incident on an infinitely heavy nucleus. Plot the yield of events as a function of angle and compare your results to Asbury et al, Phys Rev 161, 1344 (1967). Discuss the possibility that your results could be interpreted as a breakdown of QED (or not) at high energies. Work by yourself!

The calculations involved the Feynman slash notation, two Feynman diagrams in this first order approximation and conservation of 4-momentum. The scattering matrix elements were determined by inspection from the Feynman diagrams (plus a ton of matrix algebra). My calculated cross section was inversely dependent on the cube of the photon energy. It was a strong function of the angle between the outgoing electron and positron, going to zero at zero angle, then increasing to a peak at a small angle and going back to zero at 180 degrees.

My results agreed with Asbury et al who also measured the experimental cross section at high energy and showed that it agreed with QED to within 5%. This fancy theory we were learning was real. I got a B+ on the exam.

Those were the early days when the theory and the experiments were not yet as refined as they would become. But QED has been tested and tested over the years and is now known to be the most accurate theory in all of science. For example, the magnetic moment of the electron has been calculated to eighth order using over 900 Feynman diagrams (and years of computer time) to be 2.0023193044 with an uncertainty of 2 in the last digit (one part in a trillion). The experimental value agrees exactly with the theoretical value, with even less uncertainty.

QED was already 20 years old by 1969 when I took the PhD qualifying exam (and my son was born). Despite its remarkable successes we knew that QED was not a complete quantum theory since it did not account for protons and other strongly interacting particles. And the field of nuclear particles was a veritable zoo.

We learned that Hideki Yukawa had predicted that protons and neutrons interact via exchange of pi-minus mesons (pions) much like electrons and positrons interact by exchange of photons. Thus the nuclear force was said to be carried by pion exchange. Also by analogy to electrons and positrons, the neutron and proton were thought to have a spin parameter, called isospin, with a plus sign for protons and a minus sign for neutrons.

In addition to the nucleons and the pions, experimenters found several other strongly interacting particles such as the plus and minus K mesons and their antiparticles, the sigmas, deltas, lambdas, omegas, etc. A bright fellow named Murray Gell-Mann invented a property called strangeness that he used to explain the strange behavior of some new particles that had unusually long lifetimes and were always produced in pairs.

When Gell-Mann plotted the particles of a known family on a graph of isospin versus strangeness he found they formed a perfect hexagon with two particles at the center, for a sum of eight particles. He called his scheme the “Eightfold Way.” As I was moving into quantum optics, my friends doing particle physics were learning about the Lie group SU(3) that explained the symmetry of the Eightfold Way and even related the masses of the particles.

I did not know what they were talking about until a Scientific American article appeared in the 1970s. It turned out that Gell-Mann also noticed that the simplest multiplet of three particles predicted by the SU(3) theory was missing. He was convinced that they had to exist, he called them quarks, and named them Up, Down and Strange. He believed that they were right there under our noses but hidden inside the other “fundamental” particles. To make it work Gell-Mann predicted that Up, Down and Strange had to have partial electric charges (+2/3, -1/3, -1/3) and isospins (+1/2, -1/2, 0), respectively.

(Independently of Gell-Mann, George Zweig came up with the same idea, although he called his new particles aces rather than quarks.)

The quark model not only explained the observed properties of the strongly interacting particles in the zoo but it also provided a picture of their interactions via particle exchange. Evidence that quarks were real began showing up in experiments at the Stanford Linear Accelerator in the late 1960s. Today we know there are six types of quarks: Up, Down, Strange and Charm, Top and Bottom. Furthermore the quarks inside the protons and other strongly interacting particles interact through a new set of massless particles called gluons. Gell-Mann dubbed the whole theory of quarks and gluons and their interactions quantum chromo-dynamics or QCD.

Later on Feynman’s QED was unified with the theory of the weak interactions in the Electroweak theory which together with Gell-Mann’s QCD comprise the Standard Model of Particle Physics. Although I could not do a single calculation in the Standard Model, I can understand it, appreciate its beauty and marvel at its predictions and experimental accuracy. It’s truly “the theory of almost everything” (See the book by Robert Oerter, 2006) since all it lacks is a theory of quantum gravity.

Oerter calls the Standard Model of Particle Physics the “pinnacle of human intellectual achievement. It surpasses in precision, in universality and in its range of applicability, every scientific theory that has ever existed.” Yet it doesn’t get any respect -- It is the Rodney Dangerfield of scientific theories. Every new experiment validating another aspect of the Standard Model to unheard of precision is greeted with a ho-hum.

The public has been enticed by the vision of a crippled magician in a wheelchair talking about new concepts of time and by speculations of multiple universes. The string theories have captured the public imagination. But despite its mathematical obtuseness, its mind blowing concepts and its lack of verification at any level, string theory has been the hot thing in physics for two decades.

Now what is an old retired physicist to do if he wants to understand the new physics? Mahndisa sent me links to two papers that she said would "provide you with a balance in perspective and both are rigourous but well written:)" She’s such a dear. Here they are.

1.Thiemann. T. The LQG -- String: Loop Quantum Gravity Quantization of String Theory I. Flat Target Space. 23 Jan 2004.

2.Helling, Robert C. Policastro, Guiseppe. String quantization: Fock vs. LQG Representations. 17 Sept 2004.

Thieman describes his 58 page paper as “a (relatively) non-technical summary of the status of the quantum dynamics in Loop Quantum Gravity (LQG).” One had hope. He explains that LQG is gaining in popularity relative to string theory because LQG has “put its cards on the table.” Encouraging.

Then the trouble starts, as this snippet from a random page in the paper will illustrate:

“If one wants to have a well posed initial value formulation (OK so far) then the metric fields g that live on M are such that (M, g) is globally hyperbolic which implies that M is diffeomorphic to the direct product R x S where S is an n-dimensional smooth manifold. Since the action is invariant under Diff(M), the diffeomorphisms Y: R x S --> M; (t, x) --> Y are a symmetry of the action. For each Y we obtain a foliation of M into a one parameter family of spacelike hypersurfaces.” …. and so on.

I’m sorry, but that doesn’t look like physics to me. In fact I had to go back to page 39 before finding mention of a physical thing. In the section called Physical Applications, I found the problem in an innocent little statement: “We have so far hardly mentioned matter.” Indeed. What follows is more unintelligible math and more new terms (complexifiers??).

Finally on page 42, I found a microscopic explanation of the Bekenstein Hawking black hole entropy: ln(N) = Ar/4L, as long as a factor that was cancelled out does not depend on “the hair of the black hole.” I give up!

Look what they done to my song, ma
Look what they done to my song,
The only thing I could do half right and now it's turning out all wrong,
Look what they done to my song

Stand By Your Man

I'm certain that if my husband (SOB) and his (not our) national security team had been shown a classified report entitled "Bin Laden Determined To Attack Inside the United States" he would have taken it more seriously than history suggests it was taken by our current president and his national security team.

And our main man Richard Clarke (terror warrior) told the 9/11 Commission that he delivered that critical report to Ms Rice in August 2001, a full month before the 9/11 attack. And Clarke emphasized that it was essentially the same report he gave my husband (SOB) in 1998, … WAIT, strike that, Clarke must have gone over to the dark side. I’ll bet he’s working for Fox News, that right wing hit factory, just like Chris Wallace, that “monkey posing as a newscaster” just ask Keith Olbermann. Now there’s a real man.

Speaking of real men, my husband (SOB) knows how to take care of a woman. In fact, I totally reject that hit piece in Newsweek that claims conservatives tend to believe in one perfect soulmate (69% to 44% for liberals) and that sex is a gift from God (56% to 42%). My husband (SOB) is a well known liberal and he’s as enthusiastic about sexual spirituality as any conservative.

Why we used the Kama Sutra and, boom, there was Chelsea. And we were planning to do it again, really, only his dating … oops, his political schedule kept interfering with our spirituality. But it’s OK because my NOW and NARAL girlfriends weren’t too happy about our birthing Chelsoy. Notice the different spelling? I really wanted to name her after my favorite food. Did I ever tell you about the time I made a tofu turkey mold for Thanksgiving? I called it a toferkey.

So I intend to stand by my man, even though I told CBS' 60 Minutes during an interview in 1992 that I "wasn't some little woman 'standing by my man' like Tammy Wynette." Wait, did I say that?? My head hurts, do you have any coca tea?

You know, it’s hard to be a woman. So, stand by your man, and show the world you love him, … after all, he’s just a man. Oh, sheet!

Whiner in Chief

It was embarrassing. There was a former Unites States president acting like a petulant child on national TV. I know it wasn’t the first time for this former president, but his sad performance was so over the top that one couldn’t see it without being embarrassed for the office of the presidency. He's turning into Jimmy Carter, for heaven's sake.

It was so unseemly that I was going to let it go. Just forget it. But then one of my good friends and readers, Rose, wrote: “Bill, where are you? I have been dying to hear your take on Slick Willie’s melt down. He is lying again!!!!!!”

So duty calls. I decided to take a look at what the commentators were saying.
Noel Sheppard of RealClearPolitics described the event this way:

“Last week, former president Bill Clinton took some time out of his busy dating schedule to have a not so friendly chat with Chris Wallace of Fox News Sunday. Given his rabidity, Mr. Clinton might consider taking a few milligrams of Valium the next time he allows himself to face "fair and balanced" questions.

The fireworks started as soon as Wallace brought up historically factual statements made in a new book, The Looming Tower. In it, author Lawrence Wright addressed how Osama Bin Laden had indicated that when American troops pulled out of Somalia in 1993, he and his al Qaeda buddies saw this as an indication of American weakness.”

Upset by this well known account, Mr. Clinton “lashed out in a fury akin to a president that had just been accused of having sexual relations with an intern.”

I think it's very interesting that all the conservative Republicans who now say that I didn't do enough, claimed that I was obsessed with Bin Laden. All of President Bush's neocons claimed that I was too obsessed with finding Bin Laden when they didn't have a single meeting about Bin Laden for the nine months after I left office. All the right wingers who now say that I didn't do enough said that I did too much.

It appears that Mr. Clinton’s mind has once again failed him, since memory and LexusNexus reveal that virtually every high ranking Republican in and out of Washington was highly supportive of Clinton's efforts, feeble though they were.

Recall that in August 1998 bin Laden operatives bombed the U.S. embassy in Africa. Clinton was knee-deep in the Monica Lewinsky scandal, and it was the New York Times that accused him of “Wagging the Dog” by making attacks on Afghanistan in an effort to take the public attention off his extra-marital affairs.

On the other hand, Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich said the following:

“Well, I think the United States did exactly the right thing. We cannot allow a terrorist group to attack American embassies and do nothing.”

In the Senate, Republican majority leader Trent Lott said:

"Despite the current controversy, this Congress will vigorously support the president in full defense of America's interests throughout the world."

And Republican "neocon" Richard Perle wrote in the Sunday Times:

“For the first time since taking office in 1993, the Clinton administration has responded with some measure of seriousness to an act of terror against the United States. This has undoubtedly come as a surprise to Osama Bin Laden.”

Another Clinton lie was the absurd claim: “I worked hard to try and kill him (Bin Laden). I tried. I tried and failed.”

Eleven times he referenced former White House counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke and his book Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror. “All you have to do is read Richard Clarke’s findings,” Clinton said over and over.

But Clarke’s book says, in fact, that Clinton tried to convince U.S. military and intelligence agencies to kill bin Laden, and when those agencies refused to act, Clinton gave up. Quite the commander-in-chief!

Clarke describes a meeting of the National Security Council just after al Qaeda’s attack on the USS Cole in late 2000. Neither the FBI nor the CIA would say that al Qaeda was behind the bombing. Clarke quotes the State Department’s Mike Sheehan saying in frustration, “What’s it going to take, Dick? Who the shit do they think attacked the Cole, fuckin’ Martians? The Pentagon brass won’t let Delta go get bin Laden. Hell they won’t even let the Air Force carpet bomb the place. Does al Qaeda have to attack the Pentagon to get their attention?”

Recall that the Defense Department was under the control of Colin Powell and Madeline Albright ran the State Department. National Review’s Byron York sums it up this way:

“The bottom line is that Bill Clinton, the commander-in-chief, could not find the will to order the military into action against al Qaeda, and Bill Clinton, the head of the executive branch, could not find the will to order the CIA and FBI to act. No matter what the former president says on Fox, or anywhere else, that is his legacy in the war on terror.”

Good blogging buddy Fetching Jen gets the last word:

“Where are the Clinton Lied, people died bumper stickers?”

To String Along or Knot

I have long been an advocate of underdogs and unpopular positions in politics, science and life. But in graduate school I was attracted to the hot new field of quantum optics, partly by the excitement over the laser, also the development at Rochester of a laser fusion lab and the renown of two physics professors in the quantum optics group. Emil Wolf (of Born and Wolf fame) and Leonard Mandel came to Rochester in the early 60s as part of the brain drain from Britain. Both men were outstanding teachers and theorists, and Mandel was one of the unique scientists equally at home in both theory and experiment.

So I jumped into this very popular pool, failed as an experimenter, and finally finished a theoretical thesis on an extension of the superradiance theory originated by Robert Dicke at Princeton. I was so happy to be done that I barely noticed whether my work made the slightest ripple on the vast turbulent ocean of theoretical physics. It didn’t. Much later I looked for references to the four published papers that went into my thesis, hoping at least for a quantum perturbation in the physics literature or a fluctuation in the vacuum background, or … whatever. Apparently the uncertainty principle bit me since I found the appropriate papers but mention of my work couldn’t be localized.

Right after college I had a stroke of personal and scientific luck. I was introduced to industrial research at Xerox by an iconoclastic fellow named Chuck Gallo, who 30 years later talked me into the quasar work I wrote about in the last post. Chuck’s advice was to avoid the popular fields and try to do something important in a field with less competition. He pointed to the hordes of solid state physics PHDs at Xerox who were working on aspects of xerographic photoconductor physics using the theories they learned about crystalline solids while the xerographic materials were decidedly amorphous. What a waste of time that was. Anyway, I followed Chuck’s advice and am quite glad I did.

Which brings me back to the subject of the last post and the question: Whether it is better to string along with the popular string theorists or to look elsewhere? Having little detailed knowledge of the contenders, no ax to grind, and an iconoclast’s disposition, I think I am ideally qualified to assess the contest. Plus, it’s my blog.

One of the benefits of Mahndisa’s Thoughts is the many collaborators who link to her blog. Lubos Motl of The Reference Frame blog is one of the stringy advocates. I liked his credo: “The most important events in our and your superstringy universe as seen from a reactionary physicist’s viewpoint.” Lubos sounds like a guy I‘d enjoy having a beer with.

On Sept. 19 Motl posted “Requisites for writing about cutting-edge physics” that takes apart an article by pizza delivery boy, now science writer, Dan Vergano.

Vergano was bold enough to write a piece called “String theory: Hanging on by a thread?” in USA TODAY (9/19/06). His lead paragraph continued the attack: “String theory is on the ropes. After decades of prominence as the key to physics' elusive theory of everything, challengers say the hypothesis is unraveling.”

Lubos objected, numerically: “1503 people will notice that it is nonsensical to say that a theory can be unraveling because it has not yet been proven.” I agree, hyperbole is breaking out all over in popular accounts of global warming, bird flu, murderous black holes, … plague, pestilence …

Vergano is a little loose with the facts when he states that the standard model of particle physics links “electromagnetic and atomic forces by showing they all result from the interactions of fundamental sub-atomic particles. These point-like objects with whimsical names like quarks, leptons and bosons are the building blocks of atoms, according to the standard model.”

More precisely the standard model accounts for three of the basic forces of nature (electromagnetism, the strong nuclear force and the weak nuclear force, but not gravity) and the two classes of elementary particles, quarks (6 kinds) and leptons (6 kinds). Where are the fact checkers when you need them?

Vergano continues with the observation that the force of gravity described by general relativity, “remains distinctly divorced from the standard model, a quandary that has long troubled physicists because the two theories differ greatly in their visions of how the universe functions and fits together. This suggests that both fundamental theories are fundamentally flawed, say (Lee) Smolin and others.”

Motl replies with another numerical argument: “1105 readers will know that the incompatibility of two principles doesn't mean that both of them must be wrong.”

True enough, but they are at best approximations. For example, general relativity runs into trouble inside a black hole where the strength of gravity becomes infinite, widely believed to be an artifact of the neglect of quantum effects in the theory.

Lee Smolin has criticized string theory as a mathematical effort like quantum electrodynamics to solve a problem that belongs in the realm of basic theory, such as general relativity. He sees a historical warning in Lord Kelvin's ancient idea of "knot theory," that atoms are essentially knots in the mysterious aether. Kelvin's concept was popular for decades until Einstein demolished the aether itself.

I think the reference to knots is a bit far fetched but it is fair to say that the unification of quantum theory and general relativity needs more basic understanding and somewhat less fancy math. We need a Newton, Einstein or Heisenberg rather than a Feynman, Gellman or Motl. (with all due respect, Lubos)

Mahndisa’s Thoughts

My last post “Science is Messy” generated some interesting responses. The most informative was a full blog post at Mahndisa’s Thoughts by my new blogger friend Mahndisa Rigmaiden. I have decided to continue this “dueling blogs” process and hope other interested bloggers might join in.

Although I only wanted to make a point about the unfair accusation by critics of Intelligent Design that ID is not really science due to its apparent lack of testability (ie the falsifiability criterion) -- I think the subject is much broader. It is related to such issues as the sociology of scientific research, the growing problem of fraud in science, the issue of scientific orthodoxy squelching alternative theories, the desirability of exposing school kids to the whole truth or not, and so on.

Mahndisa makes the valid point that “the falsification process involves increasing the accuracy of an existing theory via experiment.” She wrote a very interesting post about the new Italian experiments with atoms trapped in a region of space by laser light that undergo Bloch oscillations due to the combined forces of gravity and the laser fields. The experiment probes the strength of gravity at very small dimensions to an accuracy of one part in ten million. Any observed deviation from Newton’s gravity value could tell us something about string theory and the dimensionality of space.

I think this is great news and anxiously await the results.

Mahndisa also links to the very intense debate between Lenny Suskind (String Theory) and Lee Smolin (Loop Quantum Gravity) about the falsifiability criterion that my anonymous commenter discounts. It is a big deal in science.

Mahndisa also recognizes the “cult-like following” that string theory has in the academic world and that it “doesn't make sense considering that nothing has verified the theory yet.” Smolen complains that working on anything else in theoretical particle physics is dangerous to the (career) health of a young PhD. Orthodoxy in science is a bad thing since it can impede real progress as Smolen argues in The Trouble with Physics.

That reminds me of an experience I had soon after retiring in 2001. A friend asked me to look at a model of quasars that might account for some part of the observed redshift in light coming from them. He explained that after a number of years and intense lobbying by a few dissidents, the American Physical Society was finally allowing a session on alternative redshift theories to be held at their annual conference in Philadelphia. After all, these alternatives conflicted with the orthodox view of the expanding universe accounting for all the redshifts. I did the work, we presented the paper and it was published in the IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science. Note that the paper “Optical Redshifts Due to Correlations in Quasar Plasmas” was not published by a physics journal.

Another friend who is a tenured astronomer said that he would risk his telescope time if it was known that he was looking at anomalous redshifts.

Mahndisa states that “One cannot possibly prove that God exists or not and therefore ID is not falsifiable.” However, since ID is the scientific search for evidence of design in nature, then the falsifiability test deals with the evidence itself. If it is compelling (as I think it is for cells and many micro-melecular machines) then design is likely. If the evidence of design is not compelling (for example with finch beaks) then evolution is more likely. The process is valid science.

Mahndisa believes that genome mapping can provide evidence for evolution but she takes issue with the biological clock hypothesis. It is interesting that the master of the human genome, Francis Collins, came to believe in God through his work. (See his fine book The Language of God.)

I enthusiastically agree with Mahndisa’s conclusions:

“I STRONGLY believe in a Creator because the way I see it, all creations have a Creator.

When we get into cosmology and the Big Bang there are questions that science can never quite answer, such as the WHY of our existence.”

Therefore, I take ID as an axiom to my daily living and try to work out the HOW on a daily basis via studying physics.”

Thanks, Mahndisa.

Science is Messy

The “polished myths” of the science we learn from books “submerge the false steps and halting uncertainties under a surface of orderly intellectual progress.” (James Gliek, Genius) Science research is not really nice and neat since it is done by human beings relying on human reason and afflicted by human failings. Although most teachers portray science as the most orderly process, it does not actually proceed according to a set of rules dictated by philosophers.

When scientists get to arguing about their favorite theories, the debate frequently devolves to the lowest common denominator. Does one or the other theory pass the test of falsifiability? If it cannot be proven false then it cannot be a scientific theory, so said Karl Popper. Through the ages falsifiability has been the bar: Lamark may have challenged Darwin about the real possibility of falsifying the evolution of species from the evidence of a few crumbly fossils. More recently, the early proponents of the Standard Model of Particle Physics were challenged by the seeming impossibility of isolating its fundamental component, the quark. How ever could such a theory be falsified? -- They were asked.

Today, the common objection to Intelligent Design is that it is not even science.

“There’s a deep flaw in the theory: No part of it has been tested and no one knows how to test it. No experiment will ever be able to prove it false. As a scientific theory, it fails.” QED. (I will return to this salient quote.)

Darwin’s theory of evolution claims that all living beings evolved through the process of natural selection upon random mutations. This claim has been applied to the first living cell, to micro-molecular machines, to the simplest animals and to human beings. It’s applied to body form and to mind. Evolution is a neat theory, partially validated, but it is the responsibility of its proponents to prove the validity of its major as well as minor points. Those who examine and criticize the evolution data are doing good service to science. Sadly, in critical areas this duty has been largely ignored by the biology community and left to the Intelligent Design (ID) community.

The converse view is that evolution is generally wrong, but perhaps right in limited cases. In this respect evolution might be compared to Newton’s gravity law which is a good approximation in many cases but not generally true, as Einstein showed. This converse point of view is equally scientific and the burden of proof is on the evolutionary proponents.

The essence of Intelligent Design is that there are elements of nature that exhibit features of design and could not have been created by survival of the fittest random mutations. As a statement of observable fact, design is obvious and unobjectionable. And just because it does not fit into a neat scientific structure does not mean it is untrue.

Furthermore, when applied to organisms such as elementary cells and micro-molecular machines and new species, the predictions of ID can indeed be tested by observation and scientific study. Biochemist Michael Behe is using the probe of irreducible complexity. Mathematician Bill Dembski uses specified complexity (Leslie Orgel) using his explanatory filter decision process. Origin-of-life scientist Steven Meyer studies evolution from the perspective of information theory. There are many other scientists and scientific approaches pursuing the truth about life and speciation.

But what about the falsifiability objection: “No experiment will ever be able to prove it false. As a scientific theory, it fails.” So it must be that a theory is wrong by definition if it cannot be falsified. Never mind if it's true.

Well those who are familiar with the theory of strings, the most fundamental theory in physics, might be surprised to know that the statement in quotes above was actually written by physicist Lee Smolin, and that he was criticizing string theory not ID. In The Trouble with Physics, Smolin describes how an orthodox devotion to string theory has hamstrung physics for over 25 years. He points out that string theory makes no new predictions that can be tested by current or reasonably conceivable experiments. What’s more, it comes in a nearly infinite number of versions so that no matter what the experiments show, string theory could never be disproved.

Yet, … popular books are written about string theory (see, eg, Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe’s Hidden Dimension by Lisa Randall, Harvard particle physicist), web sites are dedicated to helping schools teach the concepts of String Theory to kids (Superstringtheory or the teacher’s guide on Elegant Universe) So the same kids who are not told about the problems of evolution and who continue to learn Darwinian myths like Haekel’s embryos, are being taught that space has 9 or 17 or who knows how many dimensions and that our universe is only one of zillions. Like it’s true!

And this theory has such a stranglehold on university physics departments that it is “practically career suicide for young theoretical physicists not to join the field” (as Lee Smolin did before realizing that the emperor had no clothes).

Anyway, it is not my point to criticize string theory or loop quantum gravity (Smolin’s favorite) or any other scientific theory. Just do the work and let the chips fall where they may, whether it’s physics or evolutionary biology.

Trouble in River City

For months now the big media has touted the upcoming upheaval in the US Congress when the Republicans are supposed to get their long overdue comeuppance. Dem’s claim they will capture both houses of congress and that impeachment hearings will be among their first priorities next year. Bush must go; Chaney too. But while the media crow and the Dem’s beat their chests, there are hints of unease.

A recent book Building Red America: The New Conservative Coalition and the Drive for Permanent Power, by Thomas B. Edsall, explains why Republicans can maintain "a thin but durable margin of victory" largely due to their "symbolic manipulation of controversial socio-cultural issues touching upon national security, patriotism, race, sex, and religion."

It appears that the Republicans are winning the national security, patriotism, race, sex, and religion issues. Too bad, Dem’s.

In response to the GOP opposition to socialized government, Edsall admits that: "The monopoly nature of government guarantees that the public services will often lag in quality behind those delivered in the competitive private sector." This failure has led to "the declining credibility of non-market solutions to economic problems" and the demoralization of "backers of a redistributive agenda." This guy must be a closet Republican.

But when he addresses the little problem of 70 percent of African-American children born to unmarried mothers, he establishes his liberal bona-fides with this astonishing passage:

"To social conservatives," he writes, "these developments have signaled an irretrievable and tragic loss. Their reaction has fueled, on the right, a powerful traditionalist movement and a groundswell of support for the Republican Party. To modernists, these developments constitute, at worst, the unfortunate costs of progress, and, at best -- and this is very much the view on the political left as well as of Democratic Party loyalists -- they constitute a triumph over unconscionable obstacles to the liberation and self-realization of much of the human race."

Remember, here he is talking about what he calls the "freedom from the need to maintain the marital or procreative bond" (70 percent bastard rate) clearly responsible for most social pathologies, from black men in jail at hugely disproportionate rates to fifty percent high school dropout rates.

God protect us from liberals and Democrats.

Fortunately the country is awakening from their summer slumber and starting to pay attention to the November congressional races.

Consequently the president’s approval rating has risen to 44% in a new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll, up from 39 percent just a month ago. And even more important for the November election, the poll also showed likely voters evenly divided (48%-48%) between Democratic and Republican candidates for Congress.

The new poll found likely voters prone to vote for candidates who support Bush on terrorism, 45%-28%. For the first time since December 2005, a majority of people did not say the war there was a mistake; the split was 49%-49%.

These are voting trends that will continue as the Republican candidates get their messages out and as the electorate begin to understand the Demo positions on all the important issues of our time. Frightening!

I’ll predict right now that the GOP will lose neither chamber of congress and may even gain a seat or two. And Democrats will be pulling their eyebrows out. Trouble!!

Addio Oriana

Daniel Pipes has written a salute to Oriana Fallaci, the Italian author and war correspondent who died September 15 at the age of 77. Fallaci was best known for the seven years she spent in Vietnam during the war and for being thrown out of the South. She had an affinity for Latin American revolutions, reporting on the insurrections in Brazil, Peru, Argentina and Bolivia. In Mexico she was one of just two survivors at the Tlatelolco Massacre in Mexico City.

Ms Fallaci is the only person to have interviewed the Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran. “At one point, she memorably ripped off her chador in indignation and heaved it at his eminence.” Khomeini stalked off.

Oriana Fallaci began writing at the precocious age of nine and described the writing experience this way:

“I sat at the typewriter for the first time and fell in love with the words that emerged like drops, one by one, and remained on the white sheet of paper ... every drop became something that if spoken would have flown away, but on the sheets as words, became solidified, whether they were good or bad.”

In the last few years she wrote a trilogy of books about the threat of Islam. “Known in recent years for writing angrily against Islam,” is the way the NY Times describes her work. Daniel Pipes sees it through a different lens:

In 2001 she published The Rage and the Pride, a response to the challenge of radical Islam. In 2004, she wrote The Force of Reason, where she argued that the fall of the West has commenced due to radical Islam. Western-style democracy, with its liberty, human rights, freedom of thought and religion, cannot coexist with radical Islam. One of them has to perish. She puts her money on the West failing.

The third book of her Islamic trilogy, Fallaci Interviews Herself and The Apocalypse, also came out in 2004, in Italian (and not yet in English). Here is what Bat Ye'or had to say of it: "In this brief masterpiece Oriana Fallaci moves us to tears, shakes us with laughter, enlightens us and transmits her love and despair for a Europe she served with such great devotion and now watches in despair as it goes adrift."

In an interview in 2002, she was asked about George W. Bush.

"I have the impression that Bush has a certain vigor and also a dignity which had been forgotten in the United States for eight years." But she objects to Bush’s reference to Islam as a "religion of peace."

"Do you know what I do each time he says it on TV? I'm there alone, and I watch it and say, Shut up! Shut up, Bush! But he doesn't listen to me."

"My life," Ms Fallaci wrote recently, "is seriously in danger."

Pipes notes that she was among the first persons invited by Pope Benedict XVI for a chat, an encounter all the more significant for her being publicly declared an atheist. Before their meeting, this is what Ms Fallaci had to say about the new pope:

“I feel less alone when I read the books of Ratzinger. I am an atheist, and if an atheist and a pope think the same things, there must be something true. It's that simple! There must be some human truth here that is beyond religion.”

The simple truth is what Pope Benedict said about the intolerant streak in Islam when he quoted the 12th century Byzantine emperor Paleologus: "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

Muslims around the world were enraged. Yesterday the Vatican released a statement saying Pope Benedict XVI "sincerely regrets" offending Muslims with his reference to an obscure medieval text that characterizes some of the teachings of Islam's founder as "evil and inhuman."

But the statement stopped short of the apology demanded by Islamic leaders. In response, members of the “religion of peace” attacked five churches in the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza and threatened the Vatican with a suicide attack. "We swear to God to send you people who adore death as much as you adore life," said the message posted in the name of the Mujahedeen Army on the Web.

In an article published in London, Hussein Shabakshy wrote of the pope's speech: “It is clear that such remarks only contribute to the fueling of the fire raging between Islam and the West. There is no difference between Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri speaking from their caves in Tora Bora and the stage of an important Christian saint. Both parties contribute to the world verbal weapons for mass destruction.”

And in Somalia today, Muslim gunmen killed an Italian nun at a children's hospital in Mogadishu in an attack linked to Muslim anger over the Pope's recent remarks. Sheikh Nur Barud, a senior Somali cleric said: "The Pope's sentiments are part of the wrong misinterpretation against Islam by America, Israel Britain and Russia," "They insult the Muslim world, kill Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine, their leader is Bush and the Pope is part of it."

I think it is about time for the world to follow the pope’s lead in saying the truth about Islam. When Muslims murder non-Muslims the Imams and other Muslim leaders say it is so sad and remind us of the plight of the Palestinians. When Arab Muslims murder black Muslims, as in Darfur, Islamic leaders call for patience.

The West’s reliance on Arab oil and our fear of war has allowed the Islamic jihad, dormant since the 1529 battle of Vienna stopped the Muslim advance into Europe, to be reinvigorated. We had better wake up, and calling a spade a spade is a good first step.

Masters of the Universe

“Los Angeles Clean Freaks Rejoice – Equinox is Here.” The headline of the newspaper story was pasted on the windows near the entry. After a week at Equinox Sports Club on a pass from my friends at Edler Realty, I was hooked on the cleanliness. No way could I go back to 24 Hour Fitness (though I will miss seeing many friends -- Rose, Mel, Haya, Adriana, Ken, Beebe, Winston, Sue, Glen, Denise, Bob, Ali, Sally, Bobbie, …).

I was conflicted over the monthly cost (6 times what I was paying at 24 Hour) and was unable to find anything to give up in order to pay for it. When Merna suggested giving up alternate days at Starbucks, well, that was just too much. Man does not live by coffee alone, but he does need intelligent conversation. I made a commitment to not take up golf or smoking. Then Carolynne called and said “Go for it dad” and Lee said “What do you care about the cost” that was enough for me. I joined a week ago. Kylie McCollough treated me very well, and gave me several day passes if anyone wants to try it out.

The first class I took was Power Sculpt from a dictator named Christine. She was a lot like Vince Lombardi – cruel, but fair. I was the only male in a room full of social x-rays, to borrow Tom Wolfe’s phrase. I noticed that the current generation of social x-rays is evolved; they have shoulders out to here, triceps and lats, and lots of other muscles.

After 40 minutes of non-stop weights and bends and stretches, Christine told us to take our long stretch bands and pair off. I was disheartened to find nobody else with my black band (the weakest). Then a little gal named Miumi approached with two of the dreaded purple bands (the strongest) and offered to pair up with me. What was I to do?

I was winded and thought about excusing myself to go to the bathroom, but then Miumi would have no partner and I would be even more humiliated. So I meekly agreed and we held one end of each band in each hand. Then we bent over and backed up until the bands were stretched tight between us. On a signal from Christine I was to raise the bands above my head while Miumi pulled her ends down to the floor. At that moment, I lost balance, stumbled forward and the two of us nearly commenced a relationship.

Anyway, I survived the class and made a few friends. All the x-rays know my name.

After class I was talking with Karen who said her husband was downtown trading bonds. That brought back memories of Tom Wolfe’s novel (Bonfire of the Vanities) and of the Masters of the Universe who were out on the hunt while their social x-ray wives sweated at the fitness clubs.

I remember when the book came out, all the males -- investment bankers, college prof’s or R&D managers -- thought of themselves as Masters of the Universe. Of course each of us was “He-Man” while the competition was “Skeletor.” Finally, after countless campaigns spanning the decades of our youth, the Masters of the Universe get to retire -- and wind up at the fitness club getting our butts beat by the social x-rays. What goes around comes around.

Meanwhile, another Master of the Universe, son John, writes from Peru:

Hello from Puno, Peru on the shore of Lake Titicaca, the highest elevation navigable lake in the world at over 11,000 feet. Kate and I are going to stay with a local family on the lake tomorrow, and visit a group of people who live on islands made of reeds. Should be interesting.

The hike along the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu was amazing. There were two other Americans from Colorado, a couple from Ireland, three nice people from Austria, and three cute girls from Quebec. Everyone spoke some English, but there was a lot of French, German, and Spanish going around.

We hiked over 45km, camping three nights, all up and down mountains including "Dead Woman’s Pass" at over 14,000 feet! It was spectacular.

Then we spent a couple of days at a jungle lodge in the Amazon. We had a fun interaction with a bunch of monkeys. The alpha male (Master of the Universe, he looked a bit like Al Franken) kept baring his teeth at us so we knew he was in charge. Meanwhile the rest of the monkeys came up to us looking for food. One of them had actually learned to lift up velcro flaps and unzip pockets! It was a little spooky how smart they were.

I’ll send pictures soon.

John

"Faith, Reason and the University"

Pope Benedict gave a remarkable speech at the University of Regensburg yesterday about the relationship between faith and reason that touches on violence and Islam. “As we've come to expect from his homilies, speeches and messages, this speech vividly illustrates how powerfully the professor resides in this Pope.”
Here are a few excerpts:

Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a moving experience for me to stand and give a lecture at this university podium once again. I think back to those years when, after a pleasant period at the Freisinger Hochschule, I began teaching at the University of Bonn.

Once a semester there was a "dies academicus," when professors from every faculty appeared before the students of the entire university. Despite our specializations which at times make it difficult to communicate with each other, we made up a whole, sharing responsibility for the right use of reason -- this reality became a lived experience.

This profound sense of coherence within the universe of reason was not troubled, even when a colleague said there was something odd about our university: It had two faculties devoted to something that did not exist: God.

That even in the face of such radical skepticism it is still necessary and reasonable to raise the question of God through the use of reason, and to do so in the context of the tradition of the Christian faith: This, within the university as a whole, was accepted without question.

I was reminded of all this recently, when I read the edition by professor Theodore Khoury (Muenster) of part of the dialogue carried on by the erudite Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus and an educated Persian on the subject of Christianity and Islam, and the truth of both. It was probably the emperor himself who set down this dialogue, during the siege of Constantinople between 1394 and 1402.

The dialogue ranges widely over the structures of faith contained in the Bible and in the Koran, and deals especially with the image of God and of man, while necessarily returning repeatedly to the relationship of the "three Laws": the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Koran.

In the seventh conversation edited by professor Khoury, the emperor touches on the theme of the jihad (holy war). The emperor must have known that sura 2:256 reads: "There is no compulsion in religion." It is one of the suras of the early period, when Mohammed was still powerless. But naturally the emperor also knew the instructions, developed later and recorded in the Koran, concerning holy war.

The emperor turns to his interlocutor somewhat brusquely with the central question on the relationship between religion and violence in general, in these words: "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

The emperor goes on to explain why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable.

"God is not pleased by blood, and not acting reasonably is contrary to God's nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats.... To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death...."

The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: Not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God's nature.

Read the rest of this remarkable speech at RomanCatholicBlog. Then go read what this hysterical New York Times article by one Ian Fisher has to say.

The Top One Percent

This photo was taken by a soldier in Afghanistan of a helo rescue mission. The pilot is a PA Guard guy who flies EMS choppers in civilian life. Now how many people on the planet do you reckon could set the butt end of a chopper down on the roof top of a shack on a steep mountain cliff and hold it there while soldiers load wounded men in the rear??? If this does not impress you ... nothing ever will. Gives me the chills and a serious case of vertigo ... I can't even imagine having the nerve ... much less the talent and ability ... God Bless our military!!!!!

Thanks to dear friend Rose for this.

Every day we need to remember that our sons and daughters, husbands and wives in the military are putting themselves in danger to protect us at home. They are the best, the top 1 percent of Americans. They are joined in that elite group by the fire fighters and police whose heroic deeds we remembered yesterday. God bless them and America.

I took off blogging the last few days to prepare my Omnilore talk Thursday on "Criticism of the Evolutionary Origins of Religion." It is based on the so-called science of evolutionary psychology. I've come to the conclusion that evo-psycho is just another Darwinist assult on God camouflaged as real science. More on that later.

But I'm happy to report today that rumors that God is dead in America are premature, to say the least.

Americans remain a people of great faith: 95 percent believe in God and 89 percent belong to a religion, according to a survey released yesterday by Baylor University. Seven out of ten Americans approved of prayer in schools.

The survey found 33.6 percent of Americans, or roughly 100 million people, are evangelical Protestants by affiliation. Evangelical Protestants are consistently supportive of conservative political issues such as military spending, allowing school prayer and government promotion of values. Conservative Catholics share those beliefs.

Some of the most interesting answers in the poll regard how people actually view the personality of God. Researchers came up with four categories:

An authoritarian God who metes out punishment -- 31 percent answered

A benevolent God who is less willing to condemn people -- 23 percent

A critical God who does not interact with the world but deals out punishment in the afterlife -- 16 percent

A distant God who sets the laws of nature in motion but is no longer involved in events of this world -- 25 percent

The type of God someone believes in is "highly predictive of a whole range of behavior, from politics to key moral issues of the day," said Byron Johnson, an author of the survey.

"If you believe in a highly authoritative God, you're more likely to go to church.

If you believe in a distant God, you're more likely to vote Democratic."

Only 4 percent of Americans believe that God picks sides in partisan politics. Hmmm...

The Path to 9/11

The Democrats are showing their true feelings about free speech in their blatant attempt to coerce ABC and Disney into pulling the docudrama The Path to 9/11 that is set to air Sunday 9/10 and Monday 9/11. But wait, do I hear the ACLU shouting about Constitutional rights? Hellooooo… is anybody out there? Check out The Path to 9/11 website and call ABC. Encourage them to stand up for their First Amendment rights.

The most priceless statements over the weekend came from Bill Clinton who wanted ABC to “just tell the truth.” The NY Post reported that Clinton has written to ABC’s brass: “The content of this drama is factually and incontrovertibly inaccurate and ABC has the duty to fully correct all errors or pull the drama entirely.”

Former secretary of state Madeleine Albright described one scene as “false and defamatory” and former national-security adviser Sandy Berger — last seen trying to sneak classified documents out of the National Archives — said the show “flagrantly misrepresents my personal actions.”

Burgler is the closest thing in the film to a villain who isn’t an actual terrorist. In one scene, a group of military operatives surrounds bin Laden in his remote Afghan compound. “Do we have clearance to load the package?” asks an American who is leading them. Berger refuses to give it — he simply flicks off his video-conferencing camera — and a remarkable opportunity to snatch or kill bin Laden slips away. (John J. Miller, “Blacklisting ABC” 9/8/06)

The Clintonistas are in an uproar over this series which will uncover their witless complicity in allowing 9/11 to happen. They hate the fact that it directs most of the blame for the disaster on someone other than President Bush. Yet they saw no problem with Michael Moore’s scandalous screed F --- 911 giving the fat boy the seat of honor at the 2004 Democratic Convention.

Well the agenda is out for the upcoming Demo convention. Take a look.

Upcoming Democratic Convention

6:00 p.m. - Opening flag burning ceremony.

6:05 p.m. - Opening secular prayers by Rev. Jesse Jackson and Rev. Al Sharpton

6:30 p.m. - Anti-war concert by Barbra Streisand.

6:40 p.m. - Ted Kennedy proposes a toast.

7:00 p.m. - Tribute theme to France.

7:10 p.m. - Collect offerings for al-Zawahri defense fund.

7:25 p .m. - Tribute theme to Germany.

7:45 p.m. - Anti-war rally (Moderated by Michael Moore)

8:25 p.m. - Ted Kennedy proposes a toast.

8:30 p.m. - Terrorist appeasement workshop.

9:00 p.m. - Gay marriage ceremony (both male and female couples)

9:30.p.m. - * Intermission *

10:00.p.m. - Posting the Iraqi Colors by Sean Penn and Tim Robbins

10:10 p.m. - Re-enactment of Kerry's fake medal toss.

10:20.p.m. - Cameo by Howard Dean 'Yeeearrrrrrrg!'

10:30 p.m. - Abortion demonstration by N.A.R.A.L.

10:40 p.m. - Ted Kennedy proposes a toast.

10:50 p.m. - Pledge of allegiance to the UN.

11:00 p.m. - Multiple gay marriage ceremony (threesomes, trangendered).

11:15 p.m. - Maximizing Welfare workshop.

11:30 p.m. "Free Saddam," pep Rally.

11:50 p.m. - Ted Kennedy proposes a toast

12:00 p.m. - Nomination of Democratic candidate

Any chance we could get Ted Kennedy to drive Hilary home from the Convention?

(Thanks to Millie, aka angel-lips)

Brian's Coming Home!!

Djibouti World Cup Team circa 2020


We have less than two weeks until we head home, it is just a matter of spinning up our relief and then the semantics of the flight schedule. At the latest we should be home by the end of the month.

Soccer update: I have attached two pictures from our trip to hand out the soccer balls. The first place we went to was one of the schools that we had worked on in the last few weeks. We painted the classrooms, fixed the desks and provided every student with ample school supplies to get them through their college years. The students were very nice and the nuns who run the school accepted some of the soccer equipment for the students to use while they are at school.

We also went to the small shanty town I had been a few times on patrols. The kids always mob us and it’s kind of a stressful situation as they almost fight over the things we bring for them. The soccer balls went over really well.

I have not been to the orphanage yet as my schedule has been pretty busy. The only reason I was able to get out on the other trip was because it was considered to be duty by the command. I will get some more pictures from the orphanage asap.

On the weather front, we actually had some decent weather lately; we are told it is because the official summer is ending. One night after 16 hours of pouring rain it was even 79 degrees, with 75% humidity. The days have still been hot but nice, mostly just over 120.

We are ready to get home; our job here is almost finished. We are all looking forward to seeing our families, friends, dogs. The tour here has been tough, but looking back on all the good things we have accomplished while we were here changes my perspective on the whole deployment.

I’m sure that the Marines of the 4th Provisional Security Company made a positive impression on the people and especially on the kids of Djibouti. Many of my Djiboutian friends on base and in town have asked me to come back some day, not sure that will happen but who knows. I told them if they can get California weather I would consider it!

Thanks for all of the support, prayers and well wishes. I hope all is well with all of you!

Brian

Equinox to Machu Picchu

Thanks to the generosity of Edler Realty (Thank you Kitty and Rick) I am enjoying a week at the new super fitness club in Palos Verdes. Equinox has it all, and it’s clean, not to mention plush. But it is pricy.

At six times what I pay for 24 Hour Fitness, I wonder if Equinox is worth it. But I know the answer from Evo-Psycho: Of course not, you fool! What does it have over 24 Hour, aside from the salt water pool (which I don’t use)? Well, it is CLEAN and everyone is soooo friendly.

I’m conflicted, so I asked a friend. Angel-Sue said “Go for it, you only revolve once you know.” Turning to my Zoner friends, I checked with TexasJudy (angel-toes) and she was for it too. So I thought I’d do a quickie poll, with a twist. Millie (angel-lips) suggested that all the PalosVerdesBlog readers should have angel names, so if you reply give yourself an angel name. Judy thought up angel-smile, anger-nose, angel-derriere, .. you get the idea.

If any guys reply, which I doubt, you are Archangels, like Michael. Hey gals, don’t blame me. It’s just a rule in the Creation Game.

Should I go for it? Thought I could give up golf to pay for it, before realizing I don’t play golf. Give up skiing? Don’t ski. Tennis? Nope. Photography? Nah, digital. Zone Bridge? It’s free. You see my problem.

Meanwhile, #1 son John and his friend Kate are hiking up to Machu Picchu. "Why?" you ask.Thomas Kostigen in MarketWatch: “How do the very wealthy spend their money? You may not want to know.”

Jet setters spend an average of $98,000 per year on "experiential travel," which includes guided tours, such as photographic safaris, or hikes to Machu Picchu, or eco-tours to the Brazilian rainforest, or kayaking in Baja California during the gray whale migration.

John writes:

Once in Lima we had a 6 hour layover before our flight to Cusco, 11,000 feet high in the Andes. We were dead tired, so after McDonalds and Dunkin Donuts, Kate and I found a place to sleep on pews in a little airport chapel. We awoke to a bunch of locals who work at the airport sitting all around us saying the rosary in Spanish. That was surreal, especially with our lack of sleep!

Now we are in Cusco which is a very old Inca city, apparently the capital of the Inca civilization for a period. This is our home base for visits to Machu Picchu and Lake Titicaca. All I have seen so far is the hotel since I napped a few hours after arrival. Hotel Marquesas is very cute.

Here is some info on Machu Picchu; http://www.sacredsites.com/americas/peru/machu_picchu.html

And our trek along the Inca trail to Machu Picchu; http://www.sastravelperu.com/english/inkatrail.html

We are doing the full four day Inca Trail hike. Should be fun.Well, I am going to get some more coca tea and meet Kate to walk around Cusco. Catch you later.
John

Titicaca, I like that word. Think I may join Equinox.

The Creation Game

So it came to pass that the Lord in Heaven gave the angels a treat. Lacking omniscience, the angels dearly love a game of chance (especially Michael, John Travolta’s guardian angel). The Lord described His gift as the “creation game.”

The game would begin with God’s creation of a universe, something new that would then evolve over the eons governed only by the laws of physics and random chance. Michael immediately began taking book on what would occur. (Yes, gambling is OK in Heaven.)

In order to facilitate ordered predictions, and more fun, God created time and started the clock moving at the instant of creation. He created the simplest interesting universe with just three dimensions and Euclidian geometry. Objects would move in straight lines at constant speed except when influenced by the few forces the Lord allowed. Objects could have mass, or not, and massless objects (say light) would move at constant speed (even when measured by moving coordinates) also in straight lines except when influenced by massive objects.

That’s about it. The angels were giddy with anticipation.

Then the Lord started the game with a spectacular fireworks show, as the new universe burst on the scene at an infinitesimal point filled with stupendous energy. Gabriel called it the Big Bang. For a few instants the blast of light energy expanded superluminally. (God allowed light to move faster than its normal speed for a while -- it made for a spectacular sight.)

Then elementary particles (Thomas called them “quarks”) began to form. Strange things these were and the angels were delighted. By one second on the clock, quarks had come together to form protons and neutrons and those had begun to fuse together to form the nuclei of helium, deuterium and lithium. This hot process continued for about three minutes when the temperature fell to one billion degrees and nuclear reactions shut down. Not an angel predicted any of these events, still they were well pleased.

Michael speculated that the nuclei might become more interesting and indeed they did after about 10,000 years when they accumulated little electrons and became atoms. The angels wondered how big the atoms would get. Then they all took naps.

When they awoke the clock said three million years and a new fireworks show began. Here and there in the expanding universe stars blinked on and the angels were enthralled. The angel Judy won her bet with angel Millie (also known as Snuggles). The angel Maggie predicted that some stars would get close enough to become sort of bound together and she won a big prize when galaxies began to form.

But then the game got boring. For billions of years nothing much different happened. Oh, most of the stars became surrounded by big chunks of matter (someone called them planets). While their motions were pretty ellipses, not much else was happening. The angels asked the Lord if the game was over, and begged Him to make the universe do something else. So the Lord took one of the planets and said “Watch this.”

The planet He called Earth was formed at about 10 billion years on the clock. It was very hot, but after half a billion years had cooled enough to support what the Lord called life. He asked the angels if they thought life would arise by the random interactions of the Earthly particles. Would it happen spontaneously? Most of the angels said “Yeah, sure it will… NOT!” But angel Burt was ambitious and he bet angel Bill that it would happen, so the Lord said to wait and see. And they waited and napped and waited and… … nothing. Bill won.

So God created these amazingly complex single-celled living organisms. Contrary to what the angel Charles (aka Darwin) assumed, the cells were not “simple lumps of protoplasm.” They were neat information processing machines comprising some 50,000 proteins in fabulously intricate algorithms of communication and synthesis, or so said Heaven’s librarian, the angel Mary Jo. The Lord said it was nap time.

When the angels awakened nearly three and a half billion years had elapsed. Sleepy heads all. They looked at the Earth and what they saw was surprising. Nothing had changed at all, still only single celled life, lots of it, but no more complex than before they napped. The angel Ginger asked God if there would ever be creatures on Earth that looked like angels (cute ones like Ginger). Again God asked the angels if they thought it could happen by chance, and something He called natural selection.

Angels Dori and Merna argued that it would take an explosion of complexity and information to go from single cell-ers to creatures with bodies and feet and ears and stuff. Angel Doc said “No way, Jose.” He was right. So it came to pass that the Lord created the Cambrian Explosion, when nearly all the animals were born. The angels noticed there were even hairy creatures that were shaped like them, though somewhat short of forehead. The Dinosaurs were neat, especially the Velociraptors.

But the animals did not develop angelic traits. No poets, no paintings, not even duplicate bridge. They were boring and went on their hunting-gathering ways for 500 million years. Angel Dave insisted that the apes were getting smarter and would some day become Britney Spears, but angel Skip did not see the point. Angel Melanie begged the Lord to breathe some humanity into one of the best looking lineages.

The Lord said He would do that one better by giving them souls, so they would be in His likeness, and like the angels.

And here we are.

Video Day

I must be a throwback. Back East in Rochester, NY, I was a TV sports junkie, even following my beloved Brownies to Baltimore and never missing a Sacramento Kings game since they were born the RaChaCha Royals. I even watched Masterpiece Theater and other Public TV programs (”free TV” -- before I realized our taxes were paying for it) and never missed Seinfeld. I resonated with the Lemonheads song: “Video Killed the Radio Store” – “in my mind and in my car”… “pictures came and broke your heart...”

People said California would be a different environment where the outdoors would win over TV. They were right about that. But, like God, the radio store is not dead. Outdoors I love my talk radio and at night it is the internet with songs in the background. Video killed the radio store…

But there is a video genre that I like a lot. They are the little clips that friends send me on email.

General Ted sent this one entitled “Guarding Military Funerals.”

http://archives.umc.org/interior.asp?ptid=1&mid=11302

SCRIPT:

The Patriot Guard Riders began in Kansas in 2005 as a response to protestors attending military funerals. Rev. Ken Van was one of the original members. The group now has an estimated 40,000 members nationwide.

The small town of Girard, Kansas prepares to say goodbye to a fallen soldier.

Resident: “Corporal Bennett’s a hero.”

A helicopter crash in Iraq took the life of Corporal Richard Bennett, just 25 years old. As family and friends gather to grieve, a small group gathers to protest his funeral.

Protestor: “They should have left his carcass right on the ground.”

The words and the signs are meant to shock. This radical group claims soldiers die because God is punishing America for tolerating homosexuality. But the family of Corporal Bennett won’t see or hear them.

Motorcycles arriving

…because the Patriot Guard has arrived. Bikers by the hundreds, many of them veterans, converge on military funerals as invited guests.

The Rev. Kenton Van of Cheney, United Methodist Church, Topeka, Kansas:
“Because my faith says we can’t operate in a vacuum and that faith has to take action.”

As a veteran and a pastor, Ken Van attends these funerals as often as he can.

“We’re all going to line up there.”

With their bikes and their bodies, they form a shield between protestors and grieving families. Their engines and patriotic music drown out the chanting.

“No family should have to face this type of hatred on the day that they’re putting their loved one to rest.”

Van says even if protestors stop showing up, he and fellow Patriot Guard members will continue to come; to stand together as a show of support.

“Not only from a patriotic standpoint, but also for the people to know that those in the church care about them, love them and God is standing there with them.”

For more information about the Patriot Guard, log onto their website at http://www.patriotguard.org.


Now for something completely different: The next two clips were sent by Lynn in Montreal, Canada (“widereceiver” on Zone Bridge is a good player).

The first is from the Bud Light Institute, a subsidiary of the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Thinking. It is called “Men Invented Everything.”

http://www.thatvideosite.com/view/1102.html

Or at least everything useful…

The next one shows another side of men. They never ask for directions because they know where everything is. It is called “Lost Wedding Ring.”

http://www.coopsjokes.com/videos4/wedring.htm

Thanks, Lynn, I’m ROFLMAO.

Bulls Eye

The Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (INCOMING ICBM) sped toward the US over the Pacific Ocean. A Star Wars interceptor missile was launched from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

"Although not a primary objective for the date collection flight test, an intercept of the target warhead was achieved," said the missile agency of the Defense Department.

The test results "will help to further improve and refine the performance of numerous ground-based midcourse defense elements that will be used to provide a defense against the type of long-range ballistic missile that could be used to attack an American city with a weapon of mass destruction," the agency said.

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld also said in a statement that such successful tests "increase confidence in the approach to developing an initial defense capability."

Referring to North Korea, Rummy said “Bring on the Taepodongs, pajama man.”

North Korea has actually fired seven missiles, including a long range Taepodong-2, which is believed to have a capacity of reaching Alaska and the West Coast areas. But the United States did not actually have to use the Star Wars system to intercept the North Korea missile, which failed soon after its launch and tumbled into the Sea of Japan.

The elements of the US missile defense system include an air-transportable X-band radar recently deployed in Japan's Aomori Prefecture. The advanced radar is part of an early warning system for missile launches.

I am Charlotte, a Millenial Mutant

The shy college girl from the hill country in North Carolina walked with trepidation into the professor’s inner sanctum. Dr. Starling was chairman of the Neuroscience Department, ruler of this entire 21st century Xanadu of Science. And he wanted to see her.

“I want to ask you something,” he began. “Did you by any chance think the assignment was to disprove the theory of evolution in fifteen to twenty pages?”

The irony cut her to the quick.

“The assignment,” he continued, “was to assess the theory with regard to the conventional requirements of the scientific method. Perhaps you remember our discussing the fact that, in science, no theory merits consideration unless you can provide a set of contraindications, which, if true, would prove it wrong.”

“Yes, sir.”

“From this standpoint,” continued Prof. Starling, “evolution has to be considered a special case. You may remember our talking about that.”

“Yes, sir.”

“But you chose to leave that minor-league ballpark and go to work dismantling the entire theory.”

“No, no sir.”

Shot through the heart, she was! An abject failure, unable to comprehend the clear-cut guidelines for a major assignment. With an F on this paper she could at best hope for a D in the course. D! – and I am Charlotte Simmons!

Charlotte, the tragic heroine of Tom Wolfe’s book, was distraught.

“Let me summarize your argument very briefly. Right off the bat you say that Darwin shared a common frailty of the human beast – Zola’s La Bete Humanine. He could not conceive of the world not having had a beginning. You say that Darwin’s belief that it all started with a single cell in a warm pool somewhere is the ‘original fallacy’ and that he makes the ‘progression fallacy’ when he claims that life grows ever larger and more complex.”

“Yes,.. no, sir.”

“You must remember, Charlotte, that Darwin did something quite fundamental for the, then unknown, field of neuroscience (my field!). He obliterated the cardinal distinction between man and the beasts of the wild. And, if man is an animal, to what extent does his genetic code control his life? Enormously, according to Edward Wilson, a man some speak of as the second Darwin. But there is a big difference between enormously and entirely. ‘Enormously’ leaves some wiggle room for your free will to steer your genetically coded instincts in any direction you want.”

Tom Wolfe had quite a bit to say about Sociobiology and its descendent Evo-Psycho (Evolutionary Psychology) in his best-selling I am Charlotte Simmons.

PalosVerdesBlog readers had a bit to say themselves in response to my recent quickie poll (“Pop Psychology” 8/28/06).

1. What more determines behavior (of humans) genes (0.0) or culture (1.0)?

The average score was 0.57, leaning slightly in the direction of the Standard Social Science Model (SSSM).

2. Is the brain at birth a collection of pre-programmed modules (0.0) or a blank slate (1.0)?

Here the average score was 0.47 leaning slightly toward Evo-Psycho.

3. Are our brains optimized for the stone age environment (0.0) or for the modern environment (1.0)?

Again the score of 0.44 leans toward Evo-Psycho.

4. Are humans purely physical beings (0.0) or do we have both bodies and souls (1.0) ?

Here is the first lopsided result. The score of 0.82 indicates a strong belief in the reality of a spiritual life, not in keeping with Darwinism or Evo-Psycho.

5. Are we genetically predisposed to believe in God? (Yes, it’s in our genes = 1.0)

This one was right down the middle, 0.50. Interesting.

6. Is it more important that society be free (0.0) or equal (1.0)?

This one reveals the conservatism of my readers with a score of 0.15. It is also more aligned with the philosophy of Evo-Psycho which recognizes that equality is an impossible dream.

7. Is blood thicker than water? (Yes, definitely = 0.0)

Evo-Psychos would agree with our 0.13 score. It’s our genes after all.

Well, I want to thank my friends for their responses to the poll, and I recommend Wolfe’s book - to find out about the Millenial Mutant. Although it’s not in the same league as his The Right Stuff or The Bonfire of the Vanities, still I am Charlotte Simmons taught me some useful things about Evo-Psycho.