
A tribute to George Carlin:
You taught me a lot and made me laugh; those are two of the very best things that can be said about someone.
Thank you.
Logic is an enemy and Truth is a menace. I am nothing more than a reminder to you that you cannot destroy Truth by burnin...

In 2005 the United Nations Relief and Works Agency estimated 4.25 million Palestinians and their descendants were refugees from their homeland. [PDF ] ...
"The big powers are going down," Ahmadinejad told foreign ministers of the Nonaligned Movement meeting in Tehran. "They have come to the end of their power, and the world is on the verge of entering a new, promising era."He accused the great powers of "fomenting discord .... to intensify the military and arms race" so they can feed their arms industries. AIDS, he said, also was the result of world conditions "imposed by big powers."
"If the United Nations and the Security Council ... were supposed to deal with the problems of the world ... we would not have a problem called Palestine," he declared, in indirect criticism of the creation of the Jewish state 60 years ago."Fidel has spoken about the crisis of common sense in the world, especially in some powerful countries," he said, according to Russia's Interfax news agency. "Russia has fortunately retained this common sense." The visit played out against a backdrop of global tension over high oil prices, inflation and a weakened dollar. But some analysts dismissed the backslapping and dealing between the rulers as a largely empty display. "We and Hugo Chávez show America the finger. It's an opportunity for a lot of anti-American rhetoric," independent Russian defense analyst Pavel Felgengauer said. "It's a win-win situation." Still, both countries are riding high on record-busting oil prices. And yesterday, the two presidents pledged to form a strategic energy alliance. "Our relations have reached a totally new level," Medvedev said after he and Chávez watched Russia's oil and gas companies sign a host of deals with their Venezuelan counterparts. The deals clear the way for Russian companies to develop Venezuelan fields, beginning with Russian giant Gazprom drilling in western Venezuela while Lukoil drills in the Orinoco valley. Wider exploration as well as joint railroad, infrastructure and banking projects will follow, the presidents said. Chávez echoed Russian calls to make the ruble a major reserve currency in opposition to a weakened dollar. "The ruble must become a world currency," he said. "The dollar must not become a world currency."Hugo Chavez nails the Judeo-plutocracy: here.

"We are struggling against the same adversary -- U.S. imperialism, against countries which serve as lackeys of that imperialism," Chavez said after receiving the "Friendship of Nations" award from the Belarussian leader.
"We are winning, but a long battle still lies ahead. The hegemonist aims have collapsed. American imperialism will continue to fall."
Lukashenko was more reserved during the ceremony in a square named after Latin American revolutionary hero Simon Bolivar, praising Belarus's alliance with Venezuela and calling for the creation of a "multi-polar" world.
But one sensor is not nearly enough to get the job done. They need to build 10,000, and then mount them on a big telescope in space - a goal that won't be met for years. By capturing early starlight, they hope to fill in the story of how the early universe expanded into the cosmic spectacle it is today.
Mr. Obama said the ties between the US and Israel were unbreakable.
Think for a moment about the ramifications of McCain's claim:
Rummel said that the discovery of many varieties of extremophiles on Earth, coupled with a better understanding of some potentially habitable environments on other planets or moons, leads him to believe that life beyond Earth will be found, with ramifications comparable to Copernicus's 15th-century discovery that Earth is not the center of the universe. "The Copernican revolution continues," Rummel said.In addition, the Hubble Space Telescope and other instruments have given researchers new data about the evolution and structure of the universe -- information that makes it increasingly appear to be "fine-tuned" for life.
Lord Martin Rees, England's Astronomer Royal made that argument as the keynote speaker at NASA's spring astrobiology conference -- saying that life could not exist on Earth or anywhere else if the basic physical dynamics of the universe were not almost precisely what they are. Slight changes in the strength of the electrical force that holds atoms together, of the pull of gravity, or of the total mass of the universe would have made it difficult for stars to form and create the heavy elements essential for life, and impossible for them to remain active long enough to support the process of evolution.
Many religious thinkers see this fine-tuning as an argument for the existence of a creator, but Rees and other cosmologists offer a different explanation: that our universe is but one in a world of multiple (or infinite) universes. However it came into being, Rees argued, our universe is inherently life-supporting, and there is no reason to believe that that potential has been realized only on Earth.
Bonus link: NASA telescopes spot star "factory."



Scientists confirm that parts of earliest genetic material may have come from the stars:Scientists have confirmed for the first time that an important component of early genetic material which has been found in meteorite fragments is extraterrestrial in origin, in a paper published on 15 June 2008.
The finding suggests that parts of the raw materials to make the first molecules of DNA and RNA may have come from the stars.
The scientists, from Europe and the USA, say that their research, published in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters, provides evidence that life's raw materials came from sources beyond the Earth.
The materials they have found include the molecules uracil and xanthine, which are precursors to the molecules that make up DNA and RNA, and are known as nucleobases.
The team discovered the molecules in rock fragments of the Murchison meteorite, which crashed in Australia in 1969.
They tested the meteorite material to determine whether the molecules came from the solar system or were a result of contamination when the meteorite landed on Earth.
The analysis shows that the nucleobases contain a heavy form of carbon which could only have been formed in space. Materials formed on Earth consist of a lighter variety of carbon.
Lead author Dr Zita Martins, of the Department of Earth Science and Engineering at Imperial College London, says that the research may provide another piece of evidence explaining the evolution of early life. She says:
"We believe early life may have adopted nucleobases from meteoritic fragments for use in genetic coding which enabled them to pass on their successful features to subsequent generations."
Between 3.8 to 4.5 billion years ago large numbers of rocks similar to the Murchison meteorite rained down on Earth at the time when primitive life was forming. The heavy bombardment would have dropped large amounts of meteorite material to the surface on planets like Earth and Mars.
Co-author Professor Mark Sephton, also of Imperial's Department of Earth Science and Engineering, believes this research is an important step in understanding how early life might have evolved. He added:
"Because meteorites represent left over materials from the formation of the solar system, the key components for life -- including nucleobases -- could be widespread in the cosmos. As more and more of life's raw materials are discovered in objects from space, the possibility of life springing forth wherever the right chemistry is present becomes more likely."


Whether or not ID is religious is irrelevant, argued Shermer (*gasp!* — yes, he essentially said this). The bottom line is that ID isn't testable or falsifiable, claimed Shermer, and ID proponents haven't done enough research and science to develop ID into a testable scientific theory.
... Analyzing today’s secular culture, Pope Benedict said, “There is also something sinister which stems from the fact that freedom and tolerance are so often separated from truth. This is fueled by the notion, widely held today, that there are no absolute truths to guide our lives.” The consequence of believing in relativism, the Holy Father observed, is that “practically everything” is indiscriminately given value, which makes "experience" all-important. “Yet, experiences, detached from any consideration of what is good or true, can lead, not to genuine freedom, but to moral or intellectual confusion, to a lowering of standards, to a loss of self-respect, and even to despair,” the Pontiff told the youth. ... “Life is not just a succession of events or experiences, helpful though many of them are. It is a search for the true, the good and the beautiful. It is to this end that we make our choices; it is for this that we exercise our freedom; it is in this – in truth, in goodness, and in beauty – that we find happiness and joy.”
Pope Benedict also tackled the dangers of materialism, exhorting the youth, “Do not be fooled by those who see you as just another consumer in a market of undifferentiated possibilities, where choice itself becomes the good, novelty usurps beauty, and subjective experience displaces truth.” ...
... Although this worldview “presents itself as neutral, impartial and inclusive of everyone,” Pope Benedict explained that, “in reality, like every ideology, secularism imposes a world-view.”
The consequences of this type of living without God are that, “society will be shaped in a godless image, and debate and policy concerning the public good will be driven more by consequences than by principles grounded in truth,” Benedict warned.
He closed his address by noting that the “world has grown weary of greed, exploitation and division, of the tedium of false idols and piecemeal responses, and the pain of false promises.” ...
Though I am not a Christian, I deeply sympathize with Pope Benedict on these points.
Update - Pope Calls for a ‘New Age’ in Final Australia Mass:
“In so many of our societies, side by side with material prosperity, a spiritual desert is spreading: an interior emptiness, an unnamed fear, a quiet sense of despair,” he warned.





Thomas Jefferson:
I hold (without appeal to revelation) that when we take a view of the Universe, in its parts general or particular, it is impossible for the human mind not to perceive and feel a conviction of design, consummate skill, and indefinite power in every atom of its composition.
Sir Arthur Eddington:READ THE DECLARATION OF WHITE INDEPENDENCE:
The law that entropy always increases-the second law of thermodynamics-holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell's equations-then so much the worse for Maxwell's equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation-well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.
"The teleology of Hegelian and Leninist Marxisms is rejected. There is neither a predetermined destination, nor any necessary stages through which we have to pass. Directional demands seek to bring about a deterritorialisation, an opening up onto a ‘plane of immanence’. As the name implies, they suggest a direction; nothing more, nothing less."