Aw, say it ain't so...& regarding latest "birther" news.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1379844/Science-world-buzzing-rumours-elusive-God-particle-found.html

If the foregoing turns out to be true and they have indeed found the Higgs
bosun, I may have to give up my deepest cosmological beliefs and concede that
the Standard Model is correct & endure the taunts and jeers of my children, as
well as that of my sane, orthodox-cosmology-believing friends and peers. Oh,
well. I am optimistic that rationalization can find a way.

In other news, Obama has caused the release of his long-form birth certificate
in an apparent attempt to placate the birthers. (Orly Whatserface has already
said the certificate is not valid because it says "African" instead of "Negro.")

Daily Kos is rejoicing because over there they believe that by releasing his
birth certificate, knowing that the diehard birthers still won't believe him,
Obama has shrewdly kept the issue alive to the detriment of the Republican
Party. I believe (and hope) Daily Kos is right.

That said, I also rather wish he had not done it. But since he has, my Inner
Stalinist (and also my Inner Blood Feudin' Texan) rather hopes that just this
once, Obama would show a mean, vindictive streak. Perhaps in his second term,
he could make the dreams of *those people* come true. Declare martial law and
ship 'em off to FEMA camps.

(In the spirit of Jon Kyl's famous remark, the preceding paragraph contains
assertions that are not intended to be factual.)

R.

http://gg9-tto.blogspot.com/

Could It Have Worked?

A few weeks ago on Facebook I pronounced a "geas" on the Republican
Congressional leadership to the effect that they would be unable to lie.
("Geas" is Irish for "curse," "hex," "spell," "supernatural obligation," etc.)

Then Paul Ryan announced the Republican plan for the budget--thereby revealing
the True Essence of Republican politics and putting them in the...soup.

So. My geas worked. Didn't it?

(Perhaps I should add another that Republican presidential contenders would
forever be unable to tell the full truth about Obama's birthplace and religious
committments--but at this point that would be like King Canute telling the
breakers to recede at just the right moment...)

Any way, my Inner Polyanna (whom I have nicknamed Zoe w/the two dots over the
"e") has got the better of Ebenezer (my gloomy Inner Puritan). Perhaps because
Nate Silver, cold-eyed statistician of 535.com,, has indicated there's a good
chance the Democrats could recapture the House in 2012.

R.

P.S. I should add that the name "Zoe" has nothing to do with Zooey Deschanel or
the Zooey of *Franny and Zooey*--although both the singer and the book are among
my favorites.

P.P.S. Considering the efficacy of my geas it would be wise to avoid messing
with *moi.*

P.P.P.S. I know it's too early to be thinking about 2016, but I believe I will
be ambulatory and reasonably sound of body (all things considered), and as sane
as I've always been--therefore, I will continue to think about Alan Grayson.
The man is an Ivy Leaguer with a working-class background who made his own
millions. He has something of a specialty with gerontological issues. He has
five children. I have no doubt he will have to trim his sails some, but he has
spoken truth to power. He is Jewish. In 2016, after Obama, I feel that it is
possible that is a fact that will actually work for him politically--which is to
say that most or all of his enemies on that basis will be the the *right*
enemies.

And if there be bimbos in the woodwork, let them come forth now and be explained
or otherwise be brushed aside as "old news." But please. Not while his wife is
sick with some dire illness.

http://gg9-tto.blogspot.com/

Homeopathy? Conscious Universe? Marfa lights?

(N.B. Claire--Prof. Zizzi likes horses).

I don't know whether I want to add it to my list of recreational beliefs or
not--it seems there could be dire consequences if there is nothing to it and
people take it seriously. I would hate to contribute to a public health hazard.

(The truth or falsity of the Big Bang theory doesn't affect anybody's daily
life--except mine. It's merely a random obsession I have blundered into).

But the article below *is* fascinating. Nobel Prize winner Luc Montagnier, the

man who discovered the HIV virus, has published experiments that seem to support

the ideas of homeopathy.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dana-ullman/luc-montagnier-homeopathy-taken-seriously_b_814619.html

Moreover some of his work suggests that DNA leaves a "quantum imprint" in the
water in which it has been suspended.

I believe the author of the article is a practicing homeopathic healer, and
moreover appears in the Huffington Post. Huffington Post is a good source of
political opinion and an excellent source of fascinating gossip, but I fear they

are a tad lacking in discrimination with respect to some New Age and alternative

medicine views.

The article also brings in support from a couple of other Nobel Prize winners,
namely Jacques Benveniste and Brian Josephson. I believe James Randi's
"exposure" of Jacques Benveniste was a set-up. Josephson has a well-protected
academic position but he is also subjected to quite a bit of professional
ostracism.

Of course, Nobel Science laureates are not the last word in truth. William
Shockley, the transistor guy was a notorious racist--but he was speaking out of
his field. There is another Nobel science laureate, whose name I don't know,
who is a vehement climate change denier.

Turning to Paola Zizzi and her "Big Wow" theory. She is a theoretical physicist

who thinks that at some point during the "inflation" of the Universe, the
Universe became conscious and, if I understand her correctly (which I may not),
"decided" to stop inflating so fast. She bases this on some calculations
involving the number of certain particles that were in play as compared to the
number of certain fluctuations that are possible in the human brain. Or
something like that.

http://quantum.ibiocat.eu/eng/index.php?pagina=42

I like Zizzi's theory insofar as it seems compatible with Alfred North
Whitehead's "panpsychism" or "panexperientialism"--but she seems to assume the
truth of the Big Bang theory. (If I understand correctly, she arrived at her
position in pursuit of a theory of "quantum loop gravity." So there.

Lastly, recently I rather vehemently denied that all of the Marfa lights could
be explained as refractions of headlights on a distant highway. I didn't recall
why I was so sure so I checked--contrary to what Wikipedia says, astronomers
from MacDonald observatory some years ago did a study, with videos & controls
and everything and found that indeed, they cannot be explained completely as car
headlights.

In July 1989, scientists from McDonald Observatory on Mount Locke outside Fort
Davis, and from Sul Ross University, decided to conduct another investigation
into the lights. Included in the group were a professor of chemistry, Dr.
Avinash Rangra, and an astronomer, Dr. Edwin Barker. Doctor Rangra confirmed
that something of natural origin was occurring over Mitchell Flats outside
Marfa, but he did not know what. All he could say for certain was that it was
not man-made.

Also, the Wiki article, if I remember correctly stated that there had been no
sightings during world war II when there was an active air base nearby.
"Unsolved Mysteries" ran a segment a few days ago that contradicted the Wiki
article.

http://gg9-tto.blogspot.com/

Recreational Belief System (RBS) and Obama's budget speech

Lots of support for my recreational belief system (stuff I believe for the fun
of it) on the Cosmic Ancestry website below:

http://www.panspermia.org/whatsnew64.htm

Includes a rebuttal (April 7th entry) by Dr. Richard B. Hoover to those who
doubt that the forms found on the meteorite are microfossils of extraterrestrial
bacteria.

Howard Fineman said on the news that Obama seems genuinely angry at Paul Ryan's
proposal to destroy Medicare. I thought so too. Normally, Fineman is
extremely careful not to say anything he can't back out of pretty easily.

Obama has found presidential campaign gold in taking on the Ryan Plan to Destroy
the Social Safety Net. The Democrats in the House could spin some gold of their
own with it. As always, though, there's the question: will the Democrats find
a way to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory?

Reality check: It seems to me that now even more than before that any real or
threatened shutdown of the government by the Republicans would be a total
disaster for them politically-and for everybody if they actually do shut down
the country for more than a couple of days.

Whatchall think?

R.

http://gg9-tto.blogspot.com/

Re: [a-train] Overcoming Obama disappointment...

Interesting. I don't know if I'll end up voting for him or not.  Count me among those who believe that (by any fair, dispassionate calibration of the political spectrum) he has has moved substantially right of center.  I'll spare you the list of issues (eg, he's to the right of the most Repubilcans on Afghanistan and the Pentagon budget), because they're all over the web.

  But I know in the primaries I'll be looking for a more progressive alternative.  If we don't do that. seems to me, we're tacitly conceding that Obama defines  the left edge of viable politics, and he spends another 4 years saying "yeah, they piss and moan over on the left, but never do anything about it-- the folks who'll hurt me if I don't compromise with them are on the right."

  We have to stop giving so much away in electoral politics.

On Apr 5, 2011, at 5:38 PM, Roy Griffin wrote:

There are two reasons why I'm going to give Obama the benefit of the doubt in 
2012 and vote for him: 1) Nobody in this country can get elected unless they 
have already made substantial compromises with the status quo, overtly or 
otherwise, so perhaps the best we can hope for is that the candidate won't be 
absolutely hideous (which is certainly the alternative in 2012 and 2) a more 
complicated and more salient reason is that Obama, within the boundaries of the 
necessarily conventional framework he assumes, is trying to do what's best for 
the country--something in which the alternative candidates do not show the 
slightest interest--only right wing ideology and lip service. I base this 
partially on the fact that Obama does in fact often *ignore* the Left--even when 
the polls show that the public is *with* the Left. Richard Wolfe, the MSNBC 
journalist and author of an Obama campaign biography (his is *about* the 
campaign and not a product of it), emphasized Obama's amazing ability to tune 
out all the media and pundit hype, whether or the Right or the Left, and make 
decisions solely on whatever his internal criteria are for the good of the 
country. I think those internal criteria, whatever they are, have been 
mistaken sometimes, and Wolfe has been panned by many of my favorite lefty 
bloggers on Digby and Daily Kos as a conventional Washington "villager" and 
Beltway pundit, which I suppose he is, but I don't see him engaging in the kind 
of hyperbole and hasty generalization I see coming from the likes of Chris 
Matthews--or the overly cautious he said/she said style one gets from others...

Those of us who are in some sense on the Far Left, at least as per Michelle 
Bachmann or Sarah Palin, need to look somewhere other than to electoral politics 
to create more fundamental change. I believe that would be a movement based on 
building alternative institutions and working within other progressive 
movements, such as the unions, environmental groups, civil rights organizations, 
community organizing outfits, etc. 

Which is not to say that electoral politics should be neglected altogether. We 
should look to build alliances, wherever possible, with the least of whatever 
evils are available. 

R. 

http://gg9-tto.blogspot.com/

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Overcoming Obama disappointment...

There are two reasons why I'm going to give Obama the benefit of the doubt in
2012 and vote for him: 1) Nobody in this country can get elected unless they
have already made substantial compromises with the status quo, overtly or
otherwise, so perhaps the best we can hope for is that the candidate won't be
absolutely hideous (which is certainly the alternative in 2012 and 2) a more
complicated and more salient reason is that Obama, within the boundaries of the
necessarily conventional framework he assumes, is trying to do what's best for
the country--something in which the alternative candidates do not show the
slightest interest--only right wing ideology and lip service. I base this
partially on the fact that Obama does in fact often *ignore* the Left--even when
the polls show that the public is *with* the Left. Richard Wolfe, the MSNBC
journalist and author of an Obama campaign biography (his is *about* the
campaign and not a product of it), emphasized Obama's amazing ability to tune
out all the media and pundit hype, whether or the Right or the Left, and make
decisions solely on whatever his internal criteria are for the good of the
country. I think those internal criteria, whatever they are, have been
mistaken sometimes, and Wolfe has been panned by many of my favorite lefty
bloggers on Digby and Daily Kos as a conventional Washington "villager" and
Beltway pundit, which I suppose he is, but I don't see him engaging in the kind
of hyperbole and hasty generalization I see coming from the likes of Chris
Matthews--or the overly cautious he said/she said style one gets from others...

Those of us who are in some sense on the Far Left, at least as per Michelle
Bachmann or Sarah Palin, need to look somewhere other than to electoral politics
to create more fundamental change. I believe that would be a movement based on
building alternative institutions and working within other progressive
movements, such as the unions, environmental groups, civil rights organizations,
community organizing outfits, etc.

Which is not to say that electoral politics should be neglected altogether. We
should look to build alliances, wherever possible, with the least of whatever
evils are available.

R.

http://gg9-tto.blogspot.com/

Watched *Inception*

Wow.

Although I think I missed the details of the motivation for the protagonist's
wife for not wanting to return to real reality (but Teresa clued me in), I did
manage to follow the rest of the plot eventually. Just don't ask me what it is
*now.*

I have had several of those "dream within a dream" experiences four or five
years ago and I did wake up a tad nervous.

Watching it I thought of both *Adaptation* (recursive plot) and *What Dreams May
Come* (dreams as reality--post-mortem in that case).

Interesting since I've been rifling through books dealing with physics &
consciousness & the possible objective (though extradimensional) reality of
DMT, shamanic, alien abduction and near-death experiences--which posit a certain
independence of consciousness from neurological states.

The movie approaches one aspect of that issue: namely, the degree to which
consciousness requires an Other or an Outside in order to express itself. I'm
referring the central theme about how difficult it is for a consciousness to
make up something completely "whole cloth" on its own...

R.

http://gg9-tto.blogspot.com/