SOL saves

From Booman Tribune today.

But nothing got people as riled as when he brought up Genesis 1:16, which reads: "God made two great lights -- the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars."

The lesser light, he pointed out, is not a light at all, but only a reflector.

At this point, several people in the audience stormed out in fury. One woman yelled "We believe in God!" and left with three children, thus ensuring that people across America would read about the incident and conclude that Waco is as nutty as they'd always suspected.

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There is a new source for Clip Art, prices are reasonable.

http://www.clipartforholidays.com/ClipArt/Illustrations.aspx. Not everyone needs Clip Art, but if you do this is a good place to find it. Mother's day is almost here; do you need to make a card?

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Lots of food for thought in the latest post from John Michael Greer, The Onset of Catabolic Collapse.

Empires are expensive:

That America is a prime candidate for catabolic collapse seems tolerably clear at this point, though I’m sure plenty of people can find reasons to argue with that assessment. It’s considered impolite to talk about America’s empire nowadays, but the US troops currently garrisoned in 140 countries around the world are not there for their health, after all, and it requires a breathtaking suspension of disbelief to insist that this global military presence has nothing to do with the fact that the 5% of our species that live in this country use around a quarter of the world’s total energy production and around a third of its raw materials and industrial products. The United States has an empire, then, and it’s become an extraordinarily expensive empire to maintain; the fact that the US spends as much money on its military annually as all the other nations on Earth put together is only one measure of the maintenance cost involved.

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We had thanksgiving this year with friends in Fremont, CA. It was a beautiful day, the sun was shining, but it was cold, probably the temp was in the low 60s.

Several of the folks at this gathering, including the hostess, are from Russia. Several more, specifically my family, are from Ecuador. A few of us are from the Midwest: Minnesota, Nebraska, and Wisconsin.

The table was beautiful.

The star of the show was Dasha’s new little friend:

Another interesting thing was the ghostly image on Dasha’s car. I wonder how that happened?

Here are a few of the people at the party.

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Information is Beautiful puts some things in perspective. Sea rise due to Global Warming, for instance.

Two meters higher wipes out Los Angeles, Amsterdam, Hamburg, and St. Petersburg. Large parts of San Francisco and Manhatton are also submerged.

That is a lot of nice Real Estate that will be going to waste.

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Information is Beautiful puts some things in perspective.

The big block in the upper right is the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The small rose bar in the bottom row is US Foreign aid payments.

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George Mobus  writing in Question Everything - When what is happening in your world doesn't make sense, when it doesn't conform to your beliefs about how things should work, it's time to ask hard questions.

Work, Exergy, the Economy, Money, and Wealth -- A Sort-Of Tutorial

This is something of a tutorial on the relationship between energy and the economy. I have been dismayed by how often people express their lack of knowledge about that relationship. Such expressions come in the form of beliefs that money is what drives the economy. Or the belief that human desire to accumulate monetary wealth is the motive force for economic growth. Indeed I doubt that most people ever think of physics when they think of the economy. But the reality is that the economy is very much a physical process that requires energy to continue operating. All of the money in the world will not suffice to maintain the motivation of the wheels of industry unless it can be used to exchange for energy flow. Here is a guide to how the real wealth of nations is created and a more concise look at the nature of energy flow needed to do so.

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A few days ago someone sent the following email with the subject: EMPLOYMENT MAP.....Shocking!!!

Incredible!
Wow!!!  Very sobering and enlightening.
Somebody spent a lot of time breaking this down by every county in the country.

Review this Unemployment map of the United States .
This is hard to believe! I had to review this map a couple of times to grasp the enormity of it.

Displayed this way sure brings the perspective up close and personal.
This is scary. If you have a job, be thankful!

Be certain to click the PLAY button in the middle of the map
and take note of the dates above the US map as it advances month by month! ! !

http://cohort11.americanobserver.net/latoyaegwuekwe/multimediafinal.html

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In response to a wingnut rant email, mostly about how terrible it would be to let the Bush tax cuts expire, I responded with a comment that any discussion of taxes should include what the tax money is being spent on.

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We have internet access, but for how long?

According to news reports, Google is about to cut a deal with Verizon that
would end the Internet as we know it by allowing giant corporations to
control what websites load quickly and easily on the Internet and dump
everyone else onto an Internet slow lane.

I signed a petition urging Google to kill the deal with Verizon. Can you
join me at the link below?

http://pol.moveon.org/google/?r_by=22338-420032-5s_XeZx&rc=mailto

Image courtesy of aberenyi at www.featurepics.com.

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