“Judgment Day” is May 21, 2011

Well I want to pass on, and I have it on good authority, that the world is going to start to end on Saturday, May 21st, according to Family Radio Worldwide and a number of religious believers. This ubiquitous prophecy that is posted on more than 5,000 billboards, posters, fliers and digital bus displays across the country. “Family Radio,” based in Oakland, Calif., is a nonprofit evangelical Christian group that has declared May 21, 2011, as the day of Armageddon. It has been funding the campaign to spread the word through an outreach program it calls "Project Caravan." Tom Evans, a spokesman for Family Radio, said the doomsday date is based on a complicated reading of the Bible and calculations that stem from the "7,000 year anniversary of the flood."

Family Radio also predicts massive earthquakes will strike all over the world on May 21, 2011 to herald the second coming of Jesus Christ. How do these Ultra Right Conservative Christians come to this date…..Because the Bible is written in CODE and Harold Camping has broken this CODE.

The thousands of billboards and fliers are Family Radio's way of blowing the trumpet. The radio network, which has 66 stations in the United States, is headed by Harold Camping.

A former civil engineer turned radio host, Camping, 89, is the president of Family Radio and is touring the country to spread his message of impending doom. It has been funding the campaign to spread the word through an outreach program it calls "Project Caravan."

Members of his fundamentalist flock show up to his presentations sporting yellow T-shirts, cheerfully disseminating word that the “Rapture” is almost here. The signs on their RVs proclaim, "Have you heard the awesome news? The End of the World is almost here."

Tom Evans said, “Camping and his followers believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible. It is a manifestation of God's word." (OK….?)

While Family Radio says it has faith in the Bible, it has no use for organized religion and believes Catholics and Protestants, among others, have corrupted the word of God.
"If you're a Christian, you know that God does not elevate any man above any other man," Evans said.

Now one LITTLE draw back in the group's campaign is that Camping has predicted the end of the world before: in 1994, but Evans said, “Camping was thrown off a correct calculation because of some verses in Matthew 24." So when 1994 came and went, Camping headed back to the drawing board and came up with May 21.

So to all of my readers, I’m sure he got it right this time. (Yea Right)

So remember “Judgment Day” is May 21, 2011 and be sure to keep this day open for any plans.

These Ultra Right Conservative Christians also pass on the Bible passage:
“And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented FIVE MONTHS: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man.” Revelation 9:5

This of course makes “The End of the World” October 21, 2011.

But before you start selling off your belongings, you might want to check your math. The real earth ending won’t arrive for another five billion years from now, when the sun runs out of hydrogen, evolutionary biologist and author, Richard Dawkins, claims.

I don’t know about you but I’m going with Science and Dawkins.

What Was The Point Of Pride From President Bush's Administration?

In a recent interview on his book tour promotion, former President G.W. Bush was asked what he thought was the high point and what he was most proud of from his Presidency.

As an example former President Jimmy Carter stated the Israeli and Egyptian Peace Accord was the high point of pride from his Presidency. Former President Bill Clinton stated his was the piece keeping force in Bosnia that stopped the genocide as his personal point of pride from his Presidency.

So what was G.W. Bush’s reply of his high point and personal pride from his Presidency? “When he caught a 7 /12 lb perch fish from his personal pond on his ranch.”

Now to be very fair to President G.W. Bush, I too feel that he was very accurately correct with that statement. I truly have to agree that his catching that 7 1/2 lb fish in his personally stock pond WAS the high point of his Presidency.


But I did think that he did go a little too far when he had the USS Abraham Lincoln with the “Mission Accomplished” banner still hanging on it air lifted to that personal pond on his ranch to celebrate the catching of that all important “Perch Fish.”

Of course Dick Cheney instantly put the country on “Red Alert” as the imminent terrorist threat to the country and stamped on more of U.S. citizens civil rights under the “Patriot Act.”

Laura Schlessinger Says Is Leaving Radio

As the conservative radio talk show host Dr. Lara Schlessinger, a family values advocating no sex until marriage but who had premarital sex herself, touted marriage fidelity by admonishing others but faced allegations of adultery herself, and railed about the decline of morality but saw nude pictures of herself published on the Internet; has, like many self-styled advice experts, a well-documented history of hypocrisy.

Schlessinger leapt past the bounds of typical talk radio phoniness into uncharted levels of self-delusion and hubris by her decision to hurl the N-word at a black caller nearly a dozen times on her show last week.

She even went on to justify her egregious act by stating that she wanted “to regain her First Amendment rights!" Yes it is her right and should not be admonished for hurling the “N” word on her talk show.

The conservative talk show hosts needs to realize “The First Amendment” doesn't guarantee speech without consequence, just speech without undue government intervention. Indeed, protesters' work persuading advertisers to abandon shows with questionable content may be the height of democracy; using the free market to register public protest in ways conservatives has practiced for decades.

Now, after so many years advising callers to take responsibility for their lives, it is curious to hear Schlessinger accept none for herself. The "Advice Guru" said she would be ending her three decade radio and not renew her contract and this isn't the first time she's ducked criticism by ducking out.

Bottom line, no matter how much she points fingers elsewhere, it should be clear: Schlessinger's biggest victimizer stares back at her from the mirror, every day.

Writer Anne Rice: “Today I Quit Being A Christian”

Bestselling author, Anne Rice, officially decided she had had enough. "For those who care, and I understand if you don't: Today I quit being a Christian. I'm out. It's simply impossible for me to "belong" to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten years, I've tried. I've failed. I'm an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else." "And frankly," she continues, "after doing it, I felt sane for the first time in a very long while."

Rice says although there were "last straws," there was no one event that caused her to reject organized religion. "This is something that had been going on really almost from the beginning. There were signs that the public face of Catholicism and the public face of Christianity were things that I found very, very difficult to accept."

Rice says she tried her best to ignore the facets of Christianity she didn't support and concentrate on the ones she did. As time wore on, though, and as Rice continued to live and study as a Christian, "more and more social issues began to impinge on me."

Rice says the priest child molestation scandals and cover-up, the Pope going to Africa denouncing the use of condoms, but the final straw was when she realized the lengths that the church would go to prevent same-sex marriage. "I didn't anticipate at the beginning that the U.S. bishops were going to come out against same-sex marriage," she says. "That they were actually going to donate money to defeat the civil rights of homosexuals in the secular society."

"I felt an intense pressure. I am a person who grew up with the saying that all that is needed for evil to prevail is for good people to do nothing, and I believe that statement."

Bristol Palin calls it quits with fiancé Johnston

As I had predicted that we had not heard the last of the Trailer Trash Palin Family saga, Bristol Palin has now re-announced calling off their second engagement to Levi Johnston after he told her he may have fathered a baby with another woman.

Palin declined to identify the woman, but a pregnant ex-girlfriend of Johnston has publicly denied he is the father.

Palin, the 19-year-old daughter of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, said Johnston told her about the baby on July 14, the day the couple announced their re-engagement. Bristol Palin and the 20-year-old Johnston have a toddler son together, Tripp.

Palin had said she didn't have her mother's full support over reconnecting with Johnston. She said both her mother and father worried she would get hurt again.

Palin said the "final straw" was when Johnston told her he was going to Hollywood to see a hunting show, but actually went there to star in a music video mocking her family. In the video being shot this month in Los Angeles, Johnston will play a lover whose romance is thwarted by his girlfriend's disapproving mother. The project is based on the song "After Love" by singer-songwriter Brittani Senser.

"He's just obsessed with the limelight, and I got played," said Bristol Palin. Well it seams like Bristol grew up with this scenario and does not know the difference because how does that differ from her own Mother?

Independence Day Reflection of Thomas Jefferson

On this day that we celebrate our Declaration of Independence from England, we should take time to reflect on the current events of this year, 2010, thus far.

Until this year, Thomas Jefferson was revered in American history textbooks as the Founding Father who wrote the Declaration of Independence. His document is the reason we celebrate the fourth of July as this country's Independence Day. This is a holiday to remind Americans about the history and significance of that document.

But earlier this year, religious conservative members of the "Texas Board of Education" decided to push for a revision of this history by downplaying Jefferson's influence in the founding of our nation because the notion of the "Separation of Church and State" has been traced to him. These religious rightists believe this country was founded as a Christian Nation and decided to make their point by revising American history in their public school text books. The effect of this kind of revision of American history would be to celebrate the founding of this country as a religious event rather than the secular event it is.

One does not have to be an American History Scholar to understand that the American Revolution was not fought as a religious war against anti-Christian forces or an Antichrist. It occurred as a reluctant solution to a struggle by colonists against an imperial British government. The leaders of the Revolution considered this rebellion a secular matter. Their goal was to establish the colonies as free and independent states concerned with matters of this world and the new land in which they existed, rather than establish a Christian nation.

As a matter of historical fact, America entered into the Treaty of Tripoli in 1797 which included in part the following statement: "the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion." I wonder if the "“Revisionist Asses within the Texas Board of Education” would consider inserting this item in their textbooks? Of course not because they don't want to deal in facts!

The drafting of this treaty began during George Washington's presidency. The final draft was read in full in the Senate where it was approved unanimously and then signed by Washington's successor, President John Adams.

Jefferson made history with the help of John Adams and Ben Franklin in writing the Declaration of Independence to abolish British colonial rule. This political theory is at the heart of the document we celebrate today, namely, that individuals "are created equal" with rights to "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness" to be secured by a government empowered by the consent of the governed. I might also add from my Masonic background which many of our Founding Fathers were members also is, "Freedom From Ignorance."

Jefferson later explained that his purpose with this document was to firmly and plainly state self-evident, common sense principles with which sensible people would agree and which would justify the colonist's independence.

These rights expressed by Jefferson became an important part of the Constitution through the first 10 amendments (the Bill of Rights) and the 14th Amendment. His memorable words have become immortal and the SHAME is on the "Texas Board of Education" and those who agree with them for trying to downplay Thomas Jefferson and his document as important parts of American history.

Now for those whom believe in Divine Providence, isn’t it ironic that “The State of Texas” did not have the funds to purchase these "Bastardized History Books" assembled by those who blatantly disregarded "Historical Fact" to push their fabricated viewpoints onto others.

Maybe there truly is Justice For All!!!

Stephen Hawking on Religion: “Science Will Win”

Stephen Hawking held the post of Lucas Ian professor of mathematics at Cambridge University. This was the same position that was held by Sir Isaac Newton, the "father of physics" himself. Hawking, who was honored last week at the World Science Festival in New York, is famous for probing the deepest questions of the cosmos.

When asked about some who perpetuate the controversy of God verses Science, Hawking replied, “One could define God as the embodiment of the laws of nature. However, this is not what most people would think of as God. They made a human-like being with whom one can have a personal relationship. When you look at the vast size of the universe and how insignificant an accidental human life is in it, that seems most impossible."
When asked if there was a way to reconcile religion and science, Hawking said, "There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, and science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works."

Well with this statement of Steven Hawkins, just as Isaac Newton got in trouble with noted statements dealing with gravity and the religious segment groups of his time that came with the threat of death, I am just waiting for the Extreme Religious Fundamentalist today start the callings of how Hawkins is going to hell, speaking the Devils message, and all other sorts of similar attacks calling for his death.

A Brief History Of The Textbook Wars

Napoleon is quoted as saying, “History is written by the victors.

This was never truer than on March 12, 2010, when the Texas Board of Education voted 10 to 5 in favor of curriculum standards that would promote the conservative's take on controversial issues in the pages of the state’s textbooks. The changes were expected to win final approval in May, include an increased emphasis on and sympathetic treatment of such Republican touchstones as the National Rifle Association and the Moral Majority. They also tout the superiority of capitalism and the role of Christianity in the nation’s founding. Even Thomas Jefferson’s profile will be diminished; some board members were less than found of his ideas about the separation of church and state.

This is not Texans’ first such skirmish. Since the 1970’s, the state has tried to drop books that were seen as too liberal or anti-Christian, to omit passages on gay rights movement and to tone down global warming arguments.

But the nation’s battle over textbooks stretches back almost half a century earlier. Other states in the past have done much the same thing:

In 1924, North Carolina bans two textbooks that discuss Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.

In 1925, Tennessee’s Butler Act, (which was repealed in 1967,) made it illegal to teach “Any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as told in the Bible.” The Scopes “Monkey Trial” famously followed.

In 1947 The University of Wyoming investigates some textbooks thoughts to contain communist messages.

In 1974, a clash erupted in Kanawha County, West Virginia, over the controversial writings of such authors as George Orwell, Arthur Miller and Allen Ginsberg. Opposition was so heated that some schools were firebombed with dynamite and Molotov cocktails.

Of course one of my favorites was in 1983 when concerned parents in Tennessee sued the Hawkins County school system for shelving the “Satan Oriented” stories such as, “The Three Little Pigs” and “Goldilocks And The Three Bears.” Yes thoughs two books were Devil Worshiping!!!

Even as recently in 2007 where Naperville, Ill., school district approves a controversial science textbook with inaccurate material on contraception.

This past weekend I was listening to a talk radio show that was interviewing one of these Texas Board of Education members. Below are a few of his statements made on the show:

“At the forming of our nation, our founding fathers wanted to invade and take over Texas by sea and add it as the 14th original colony and locate the nation’s capital in Texas.”

“The Texas Constitution is much better than the United States Constitution because when it was written; the founders of Texas had the benefit of hindsight.”

“Texas should return back to “Hanging to Death”, or the “Firing Squad” instead of the “Lethal Injection” method for carrying out a death sentence because the other two would be a better deterrent for such crimes that would receive the death sentence.”

“Sam Houston was a much better leader than George Washington because he was up against much bigger odds.”

This Texas Board of Education member went on and on with statements like the examples above and the radio interviewing host was stunned in amazement that this person, officially representing the Texas School Board, was making these so inaccurate statements as if they were undisputed facts on a national radio show.

As one of the America’s largest textbook buyers, the Longhorn State has a good deal of sway over what is peddled to other schools nationwide. There is hope that as the rest of the more sane States that make up the rest of our Union will review and find the blinding inaccurate faults in what the Texas Board of Education has promoted for their state. Maybe then their only accomplishments will be exposing the stupidity and ignorance that is within the members of the Texas Board of Education.

Anti Homosexual Preaching Christian Leader Dr. George Rekers, Caught With Male Escort

Dr. George Alan Rekers, the Family Research Council co-founder who has spent his professional career publishing pseudo-scholarly books on how to "cure" gay teenagers and make sure your children grow up straight.

Rekers, who is also a professor emeritus of neuropsychiatry at the University of South Carolina and a Baptist minister, recently testified against gay adoption in Florida, where he resides. Dr. George Rekers claimed that children adopted by gay couples are more likely to commit suicide.

The retired professor has remained far less high-profile than his Family Research Council co-founder James Dobson, but he is an extremely prolific author of books like, “Who Am I?,” “Lord and Growing Up Straight,” and “What Families Should Know About Homosexuality.” He has also been called on to advised the conservative right wing members of Congress, the Bush White House, and the Department of Health and Human Services on how homosexuals can be cured.

Now as it has so often been said, “The thing you are the most outspoken about….is really the thing you are yourself.” Yes our fine outstanding Dr. George Alan Rekers, appears to be nothing more than a self loathing homosexual himself!!

It has recently come to light that Dr. Rekers went on a lovely vacation with a young man, Lucien, who he hired from Rentboy.com. First, Rekers claimed he only learned that his travel companion was a prostitute some time after their vacation started. Rekers also claimed he hired him from Rentboy.com, a website that exists solely to aid gay men in finding sex partners for gay sex, to help him "lift luggage."

Rekers is now responding to inquiries from reporters with a new fabricated tail; he found his "recent travel assistant" by "interviewing acquaintances."

Rekers pointed out that Jesus spent a lot of time with prostitutes. And Rekers says he did not just pay his young male prostitute friend to lift luggage:
If you talk with my travel assistant you will find I spent a great deal of time sharing scientific information with Lucien on the desirability of abandoning homosexual intercourse, and I shared the Gospel of Jesus Christ with him in great detail.

The male escort hired by anti-gay activist Dr. George Alan Rekers, told Miami New Times, the Baptist minister is a homosexual who paid him to provide body rubs once a day in the nude, during their ten-day vacation in Europe.

The male escort said that Reker’s favorite maneuver was the "long stroke,” a complicated caress across his penis, thigh to his anus over the butt cheeks. As the escort puts it, "Rekers liked to be rubbed down there."

In the past 24 hours, Rekers, a board member at the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) and cofounder of the Family Research Council, has claimed he took Lucien to Europe to inspire him to accept Jesus into his heart and renounce his homosexuality.

United States as a Christian Nation?

How did the Ultra Religious think that they can rewrite our country’s history with regards to our founding fathers establishing the United States as a Christian Nation?

THE ENLIGHTENMENT (the Age of Reason) was fostered by developments of the 17th century. Isaac Newton, Rene Descartes, Pierre Bayle, Benedict de Spinoza, Francis Bacon and John Locke, and our founding Fathers were of an age influenced by belief in natural law, universal order and a confidence in human reason. A rational and scientific approach to religious, social, political, and economic issues promoted a secular view of the world and a general sense of progress and perfectibility.

Any person knowing U.S. history realizes that anyone saying that this country was established as a Christian Nation, to be exactly the inverse as being true and below are quotes from our founding fathers statements to support that fact.

“Lighthouses are more useful than churches.” Benjamin Franklin

“This would be the best of all possible worlds if there were no religion in it!” John Adams


“Christianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on man.” “I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition (Christianity) one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology.” Thomas Jefferson

“I beg you be persuaded that no one would be more zealous than myself to establish “EFFECTUAL BARRIERS” against the “HORRORS” of “SPIRITUAL TYRANNY,” and every species of religious persecution.” George Washington, to United Baptists Churches of Virginia, May, 1789 from The Washington papers.

Why is the Religious Right propagating this incorrect statement as fact, when it is just a blatant lie? The only reason I can think of is that it furthers their political cause. I guess their thought process is that by constantly repeating this incorrect fact is that if you don’t believe and support their political views, THEN YOU ARE AGAINST GOD!!

Why do these people want to change this country from a “Secular Republic” to a “Theocracy?” Those who would renegotiate the boundaries between church and state must therefore answer a difficult question: why would we trade a system that has served us so well for one that has served others so poorly?

The word "God" does not appear within the text of the Constitution of the United States. After spending three and a half months debating and negotiating about what should go into the document that would govern the land, the framers drafted a constitution that is secular. The U.S. Constitution is often confused with the Declaration of Independence, and it's important to understand the difference.

What the Religious Right doesn't tell people, and what, tragically, many Americans apparently don't know, is that when it comes to determining what the laws of the United States mean, the only document that matters is the Constitution. The Constitution, a completely secular document, contains no references to God, Jesus or Christianity. It says absolutely nothing about the United States being officially Christian. The Religious Right's constant appeals to documents like the Declaration of Independence, which contains a deistic reference to "the Creator," cloud the issue and make some people believe their rights spring from these other documents.

The preamble of the Constitution invokes the people of the United States. It does not invoke any sort of God. The Constitution forbids any religious test to hold office. A godless person is just as eligible as a godly one! (Article 6, Paragraph 3) At the Constitutional Convention of 1787, Benjamin Franklin strongly suggested on June 28 that the convention have prayers said there. Evangelists take this as proof that the convention then went on with prayers. But, in fact, the convention did not accept the suggestion, and the convention went on without prayers.

Another Teabagger Sympathizer Thinking They Can Circumvent Our Republic With Death Threats

Another Teabagger sympathizer has been arrested by the FBI for threatening U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Gregory Lee Giusti was detained yesterday and will appear in federal court there today.

Gregory Lee Giusti made dozens of calls to Pelosi's homes in California and Washington, D.C., as well as to her husband's business office. They said he recited her home address and said if she wanted to see it again, she would not support the health care overhaul bill that since has been enacted.

The Teabagger Giusti has a long history and has been in trouble previously for making threats. In 2004, he pleaded no contest in San Mateo County, just south of San Francisco, to a felony charge of making criminal threats and was sentenced to a year in jail and three years of supervised probation.

It is becoming quite clear for the FBI to develop the profiling and a common thread of what Teabaggers are really about. Mentally sick and weak minded people who are easily led to violence by the propaganda of Conservative Talk Radio and hate programs perpetuated by Fox Programming.

Sen. Patty Murray Receives Death Threat And Washington State Man Finally Arrested

The FBI has finally arrested someone making death threats to elected officials, and it WAS ABOUT TIME that this country’s law enforcement takes these nut jobs seriously. We as a Nation need to take control and bring these Fanatical Christian Militias, Radical Teabaggers who think it is acceptable to destroy personal property and make threats to others who do not agree with their political beliefs. It is also time to start investigating what charges can be brought on those making speeches with statements like, “Don’t Retreat…Reload!”

Charles Alan Wilson, a Washington State man has been charged with threatening to kill Democratic Sen. Patty Murray over her support for health care reform, leaving voicemail messages at her office saying she had a target on her back and "it only takes one piece of lead."

Federal agents arrested Charles Alan Wilson, 63, without incident in Yakima, Wash., on Tuesday.

Murray's office in Seattle reported the threats amid a rash of ugliness aimed at lawmakers who supported the sweeping federal health care legislation. Some lawmakers have been spit on and several have reported receiving threatening calls.

FBI spokesman Bill Carter said Wilson is believed to be the first person in the country arrested for such threats.

The messages to Murray were left on voicemail from a blocked telephone number, FBI Special Agent Carolyn W. Woodbury wrote in a probable cause statement. Agents said they traced the calls to Wilson's home in Selah, near Yakima.

Wilson has a .38-caliber revolver registered to him and has concealed weapons permit.
To confirm Wilson was the caller, one agent telephoned him and posed as a member of a group working to repeal the health care legislation, the statement said.

According to an excerpt of the conversation, Wilson confirmed he repeatedly called Murray as well as Washington's other Democratic senator, Maria Cantwell. He then stated: "I do pack, and I will not blink when I'm confronted. ... It's not a threat, it's a guarantee."

Murray's office told the FBI it had been receiving harassing messages from the caller for months, but they became more threatening as Congress was voting on the health care legislation.

Charles Alan Wilson was recorded saying on March 22, "There's a target on your back now. It only takes one piece of lead. Kill the fucking senator! ... Now that you've passed your health-care bill, let the violence begin."

In other messages over the next several days, Charles Alan Wilson said, "I hope somebody puts a fucking bullet between your fucking eyes," and "I do believe that every one of you fucking socialist democratic progressive fuckers need to be taken out. I want to fucking kill you."

I am guessing that some of my fellow Republicans are proud of Charles Alan Wilson, but for me, I see nothing but STUPIDITY AND IGNORANCE!!!! Rush, Sarah, Glen, Shawn, and Bill be damned!!

Guardians of the Free Republics

Well here we go again with another Christian professing group demaning Governers of 30 States who do not agree with their viewpoints, to resign in 3 days!!

At least 30 Governors across the country have received letters from a quasi-religious, anti-government group ordering them to step down from office in three days, in what the group's website said was the first step to disband parts of the U.S. government.

This quasi-religious, anti-government group calls themselves, “The Guardians of the Free Republics” describes its attempt to “Restore the true Republic,” what ever in the hell that is supposed to mean.

Many states whose Governors received the letters, are now having to spend more of our tax dollars to beef up security. The attitude is that it is appropriate to err on the side of caution to protect these Governors. Federal law enforcement officials would not comment on any ongoing investigations.

The Guardians of the Free Republics appears to work in the anti-government and anti-tax movement, much like the Teabaggers. The group's philosophy, rifee with its interpretation of arcane federal law, and mingles with the anti-Federal Reserve mantra espoused by followers of U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas as well as with anti-tax advocates.

The letters arrived as law enforcement officials appear to be closely monitoring anti-government extremists like the Christian militia that was arrested this past week in Michigan and other states. Prosecutors have described the Hutaree militia as a violent anti-government organization planning to kill police officers.

”The Guardians of the Free Republics” group believes that an act of Congress passed in the late 1800s in effect transformed the United States into a corporation, Hall said. Since then, the American people have been serving corporate masters.

All Right Wing Religious Conservative Zealots should be proud today once again.

Hubble Maps Matter Of Universe And Finds Further Evidence Of Dark Energy

Today’s posting we will go from science here on earth to science in space. Using the widest galactic survey ever conducted by Hubble, researchers think they've independently verified the existence of dark energy tugging at the cosmos, as well as reinforced tenets of general relativity theory.

Results from the largest and most ambitious survey of the cosmos ever undertaken by the Hubble Space Telescope are in, and the findings are suggesting dark energy is indeed real, and the general theory of relativity holds up even under larger intergalactic scrutiny.

The survey covered more than 446,000 galaxies and captured by 575 slightly overlapping images of the same corner of the universe taken by Hubble over nearly 1,000 hours. The researchers also tapped into redshift data from ground-based observation instruments to measure the distances of the galaxies surveyed.

The data, when pulled together an analyzed, allowed researchers to paint a detailed picture of matter distribution in space over great distances by looking at the distorted shapes of distant galaxies, a phenomenon known as weak gravitational lensing. The resulting data gave researchers unprecedented views of the shapes of distant galaxies that in turn lend further clues to how the universe is expanding.

The study suggests that indeed the universe's expansion is accelerated by a mysterious component known as dark energy, adding credence to a handful of other independent studies that suggest the same.

The weak lensing method of measuring the galaxies also further proved out Einstein's general relativity theory, as the theory predicts accurately how the lensing signal depends on redshift to get accurate readings of distant bodies.

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) Atom Smasher Achieves 'Big Bang' Collisions

This posting is a follow up to the earlier posting on the Large Hadron Collider. Scientists at the world's biggest atom smasher called the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN said today, March 30, 2010, that they had conducted the first experiments at conditions nearing those immediately after the creation of the universe by colliding protons at record power, mimicking conditions close to the Big Bang that created the universe.

This is physics in the making and the beginning of a new era with relationship to the energy levels achieved as the detectors recorded the collisions of beams of sub-atomic particles at close to the speed of light.

It is also worth noting that today’s experiments did not destroy the world as some in the uneducated religious community said it would. Go Figure?!?

Hey Sarah Palin and Teabaggers....This One Is For You

Sarah Palin who has demonstrated often on many different occasions, that on her own, cannot put together any tangible, coherent, thought pattern; is now the front person telling Tea Party activists assembled in the dusty Nevada desert Saturday that Sen. Harry Reid will have to explain his votes when he comes back to his hometown of Searchlight to campaign.

Carpet Bagger Palin told a small group of Teabaggers who travel with her from place to place, that the big-government, big-debt spending spree of the Senate majority leader, Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is over. Her best political debating comment was, "You're fired!" As opposed to her own deciding she needed to quit being Governor of Alaska when she was about to be brought to trial for corruption, and abusing her power as Governor? Oh yea Sarah…You have the high ground here, “Don’t Ya?”

Harry Reid, who is a native of Searchlight, responded with sarcasm to the crowd gathered in the hardscrabble town of about 1,000 he grew up in. "I'm happy so many people came to see my hometown of Searchlight and spend their out of state money, especially in these tough economic times," Reid said. "This election will be decided by Nevadans, not people from other states who parachuted in for one day to have a tea party."

These Teabaggers who love to mindlessly fawn over Sarah Palin are the ones being whipped up with inaccurate statements and then proudly participating with threats and vandalism aimed at Democratic Washington lawmakers who supported the new Health Care Reform Law. As many of us know by now that the day before the vote there were hundreds of furious Teabagger activists, who spit and heard racial epithets at black Congressmen during a demonstration held on the Capital's steps.

The conservative columnist, Andrew Breitbart, tried to re-write the facts of these outrageous actions by the Teabaggers on Capital Hill by disputing any suggestion that Tea Party activists in Washington were involved. Of course Andrew Breitbart did not provide any evidence to support his lying bullshit statements.

The Teabaggers who came to Searchlight even started a fistfight with citizens of the town who spoke out against what the Teabaggers and Sarah Palin were saying. The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department needed to send out officers to patrol the crowd to subdue the Teabaggers before anymore violence escalated. So once again the Teabaggers started violence but I am sure the Conservative Talk Political Programs will not bring this fact to light, will they?

This reoccurrence of perpetuated violence by the Teabaggers is just fueled by Sarah Palin who is at this moment facing criticism of posting a map on her Facebook page that had circles and cross hairs over 20 Democratic districts. She also sent a tweet saying, "Don't Retreat, Instead - RELOAD!"

Many Extreme Conservative Personalities try to make excuses and justifications against what is obvious to the rest of us that Sarah is inciting violence. These apologists will just say that she is just trying to inspire people to get involved.

If that is the case, Sarah has a poor choice of words. Now I ask you, terms like Democratic Targets, Cross Hairs, Reload, Political Call-To-Arms; please put these into a sentence that does not mean inciting violence. Yea, I didn’t think you could.

Luis Salvador, a 55 year old unemployed fire sprinkler fitter, drove down from Las Vegas to support Reid. Luis said that Harry Reid has done a lot for the state and doesn't deserve the protest brought to his hometown. "You don't come to a man's house and start creating a ruckus," said Salvador, a registered independent. He and several others taped signs saying "Nevada Needs Harry Reid" to the side of a truck near the highway that runs through town.

Another Reid supporter, Judy Hill, 62, said she doesn't understand the hatred of Harry Reid. The longtime Democrat from Searchlight said she thinks people just don't know the man she calls a friend. "They listen to the rhetoric. I think he's very misunderstood and under-appreciated," she said.

From Engineer of Knowledge, I say to the Luis Salvadors and Judy Hills of this country, “Well Stated and I thank you for your courage to confront this Violent Teabagger Crowd!!”

The Republican Shame of Teabaggers Actions

The blame of the latest terrorist attacks perpetrated by the Teabaggers on Democratic Congressman lie squarely on the Republicans for inciting threats and vandalism against Democrats. I am very ashamed, outraged, and I criticize the Republican leaders for not speaking out more forcefully enough to denounce the Teabagger’s threats.

I implore all to denounce Republican House members who cheered hecklers who were removed from the gallery during Sunday's health care debate. The Congressional House of Representatives deserves respect and it is inappropriate for Republican members of Congress to cheer when disrespectful sentiments are shouted out from the gallery.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said: "We've got to all be cognizant of the fact when we use very hot rhetoric, it can be seen as incitement to people whose judgment is not peaceful … and who either verbally or physically threaten people with whom they disagree."

Of the reported acts of vandalism and threats against House Democrats, it is irresponsible for all Republicans to clearly state that it is inappropriate, that racially / bigoted insulting words being used that are so beneath the dignity of this debate and the people they were used against.

Meanwhile dozens of leaders of the Tea Party and other conservative groups instead decided to make half hearted apologies but along with interjected justificational reasons to the violence, threats and the use of "disparaging terms" to refer to politicians.

All should be demanding investigations and prosecutions of anyone accused of violence, or inciting and promoting violence.

In the mean time, I have present some Nazi Propaganda poster throughout this posting and I suggest that the Teabagger should chose a couple for their uses. Nazi / Teabaggers….One In The Same!!

A Pivotal Moment In Human History

We are today now living in a pivotal moment in human history. New technologies and theories are allowing us to see our world and universe like no one before could have ever imagined. Over recent years we have viewed and realized for ourselves a sense of the world and universe that is much richer than any one could have conceived in the past.

Those who have not kept up educating themselves with science facts are still living in an imagined universe where space is simply emptiness, stars are scattered randomly, and God views us all from this vantage point. Even the most liberal of this group can just picture the universe as shooting stars, spiral galaxies, maybe an ember red moon rising over an unknown planet. This of course does not represent the universe as a whole any better than a single atom would represent your own face. Yet every pre-scientific culture had their own idea of the world and cosmos in which they had a central and significant place.

Pre-scientific people had developed what they thought were believable answers to big questions but have become impossible to support with answers once someone started to demand scientific accuracy.

Many people today in this country hardly even ask such fundamental questions anymore or appreciate how the answers affect not only how we live but what we believe is possible. Ours is probably the first major culture in human history with no shared picture of reality. Many of humanity’s most dangerous problems arise from our fifteenth century way of looking at our world and the universe, which is at odds with the principles of science that we use in countless technologies today. The main threat to sane thinking is a result from the almost total disjunction between the power of our technologies and the wisdom required to use them over the long period and to what effect it has on us all during a lifetime.

The last time Western culture shared a coherent understanding of the universe as a comforting cosmic dwelling place was in the Middle Ages. For a thousand years, Christians, Jews and Muslims believed that the earth was the flat, immovable center of the universe, and all the planets and stars revolved on crystal spheres around it. The idea that God had chosen a place for every person, animal, plant and thing in the Great “Master Plan” Chain of Being made sense of the rigid medieval social hierarchy of the time. The Church, Kings, Lords, Peasants, Slaves, etc. But then came early scientists like Copernicus and Galileo who discovered that the earth was not the center of the universe after all and the cosmic hierarchy lost its credibility as the organizing principle of the universe.

Then came Newton who developed the picture on physics that explained accurately the motions of a single star’s planetary entourage. Newton became a targeted threat from the Church because he had developed mathematical formulas explaining gravity’s effect on an object.

Pre-scientific people always saw themselves at the center of the world and universe no matter what their world was at the time. The human instinct is to experience themselves as the central object being reflections based on their own independent viewpoints relative to everything else around them. Yes man is naturally a very narcissistic animal as a whole.

The true difficult task for many religious people is to free themselves from the limits of man’s own five senses, which evolved to work in our earthly environment. An example being of the concept of Dark Matter where one cannot see it from their back yard but it makes up the largest part of our universe. This is a threatening and insecuring thought for many of these type of people. I personally have known deeply religious people who are even afraid that this Dark Matter, when spoken about, is the Devil's influence within our world.

Just as Albert Einstein is supposed to have said, “Problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them.”

Intelligent life is neither incidental nor insignificant but has a place in our world and universe so special it could not have even been imagined before the invention of modern science, their discoveries therein, and cosmological concepts throughout. By understanding the world and universe in which we live, we begin to understand ourselves.

Engineer of Knowledge Quote:
“The Liberal thinking mind is the evolution of man’s breaking the restrictions of the Conservative status quo viewpoint mindset.”

Anti-Gay Republican California State Senator, Roy Ashburn, Gets DUI After Leaving Gay Nightclub

Well once again we have another story of a self-loathing gay person who was a professed “Conservative Republican” California State Senator who was very out spoken on the Proposition 8, California Marriage Protection Act, that read, “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.”

Yes the Republican California State Senator, Roy Ashburn, who has “a long history throughout his political career speaking out on opposing and bashing gay rights,” was arrested in Sacramento early Wednesday morning for driving under the influence after a California Highway Patrol officer spotted his SUV weaving in and out of traffic.

According to CBS, Ashburn, a divorced father with four daughters, was with an unidentified male passenger. It's also being reported that he had just left a gay club in the Sacramento called, “Faces.”

Ashburn issued the typical Republican boilerplate apology when they are caught:
"I am deeply sorry for my actions and offer no excuse for my poor judgment. I accept complete responsibility for my conduct and am prepared to accept the consequences for what I did. I am also truly sorry for the impact this incident will have on those who support and trust me, my family, my constituents, my friends, and my colleagues in the Senate."

Well all I would have to say to Senator Roy Ashburn, “To Thy Own Self Be True.”

Texas’s Education Board Voted To Reflect Their Far Right Influences With Engineer Of Knowledge’s Interpretations Notes:

The Far Right Factions of the Texas State Board of Education succeeded Friday in injecting conservative ideals into social studies, history and economics lessons that will be taught to millions of students for the next decade.

Teachers in Texas will be required to cover the Judeo-Christian influences of the nation's Founding Fathers, (Even though it has been shown that this is not accurate many times) but not highlight the philosophical rationale for the separation of church and state (As if this was not a major part of our Constitution.) Curriculum standards also will describe the U.S. government as a "Constitutional Republic," rather than "Democratic," (The South when succession from the North was a Constitutional Republic, our Founding Fathers set up a Democracy in our Constitution) and students will be required to study the decline in value of the U.S. dollar, including the abandonment of the gold standard. (The Republican President Richard Nixon took us off the gold standard in the early 1970’s)

"We have been about Conservatism versus Liberalism," said Democrat Mavis Knight of Dallas, explaining her vote against the standards. "We have manipulated strands to insert what we want it to be in the document, regardless as to whether or not it's appropriate."

Following three days of impassioned and acrimonious debate, the board gave preliminary approval to the new standards with a 10-5 party line vote. A final vote is expected in May, after a public comment period that could produce additional amendments and arguments.

Decisions by the board can affect textbook content nationwide because Texas is one of publishers' biggest clients.

The Ultra-Conservatives wielded their power over school classroom subjects this week, introducing and rejecting amendments on everything from the civil rights movement to global politics. Hostilities flared and prompted a walkout Thursday by one of the board's most prominent Democrats, Mary Helen Berlanga of Corpus Christi, who accused her colleagues of "Whitewashing" curriculum standards.

By late Thursday night, three other Democrats seemed to sense their futility and left, leaving Republicans to easily push through amendments heralding "American Exceptionalism" (What ever that in the Hell This Is Suppose To Mean) and the U.S. free enterprise system, suggesting it thrives best absent excessive government intervention.

"Some board members themselves acknowledged this morning that the process for revising curriculum standards in Texas is seriously broken, with politics and personal agendas dominating just about every decision," said Kathy Miller, president of the Texas Freedom Network, which advocates for religious freedom.

Republican Terri Leo, a member of the powerful Christian Conservative voting block, called the standards "World Class" and "Exceptional." (To me it sounds like there needs to be a new elections to purge the INSANE from the Education School Board)

Board members argued about the classification of historic periods using the older B.C. and A.D., rather than B.C.E. and C.E. like the rest of the world does now; and whether students should be required to explain the origins of the Israeli / Palestinian conflict and its impact on global politics (They Will); and whether former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir should be required learning (She Will).

In addition to learning the Bill of Rights, (With Modified Interpretations from their perspective) the board specified a reference to the Second Amendment right to bear arms in a section about citizenship in a U.S. government class. (Everybody Must Own Guns, sung to the tune of Bob Dylan’s, “Everybody Must Get Stoned”)

Numerous attempts to add the names or references to important Hispanics throughout history also were denied, inducing one amendment that would specify that Tejanos (“Mexicans? Mexicans? We don’t need no stinking Mexicans in our history lessons,” spoken like Poncho Via) died at the Alamo alongside Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie. Another amendment deleted a requirement that sociology students "explain how institutional racism is evident in American society." (“As always, it those darn Darkies fault causing all this trouble”)

Democrats did score a victory by deleting a portion of an amendment by Republican Don McLeroy suggesting that the civil rights movement led to "unrealistic expectations for equal outcomes." (Everyone know that all those Black Folks just can’t keep up mentally with all of us White Folks who are so much superior….What were they thinking in the 60’s?)