Math can prove you wrong... at 2:50 PM

A while ago, Dad and I were listening to the Michael Savage show on the way home from the gym. I didn't hear the whole thing, but I managed to pick up the subject.

Apparently, there was some group of activists who wanted the story of Wally "Famous" Amos to replace that of Albert Einstien and Thomas Edison in the history text books used by the public schools.

Now, I don't know if you have any clue who "Famous" Amos is, but I soon found out the reason this group wanted a cookie salesman to replace two of the greatest scientists in history. It's really quite simple...

..."Famous" Amos was black.

So a black cookie salesman is greater than Einstien and Edison!?!?! I'm sorry, black or white doesn't matter, you can't say a cookie salesman is greater than the man who completely reinvented physics and the man who invented the light bulb!!!!

Anyway...

...back to my story.

Soon a lady called into the show to state the apparent fact that "Famous" Amos really WAS greater than both Einstien and Edison. Of course, Savage chewed her out like crazy and made her look like the idiot she was (pardon my language) and sent her packing.

But afterwards, I got thinking about it and I realized... I could prove this idea false quite easily... using only Math.

So I did. Here's how.

First off, we know that the 'white man' is equal in intelligence etc., to the 'black man'. there is no "evolutionary" difference between the two. We all know this is true (or at lease claim it) and to deny it is the epitome of racism! You heard me! Saying a black man is greater than a white man is racist!!!

but I digress...

So if the equation white man = black man is true then the two can be substituted for each other in equations, right? Right! It's called the substitution property (or substitution property of inequality), and it works no matter what. So let's do that. Let's substitute 'black' for 'white' and 'white' for 'black' in the following inequality:

black cookie salesman > white scientist becomes white cookie salesman > black scientist


I don't know about you, but I doubt that activist group would support replacing George Washington Carver (black scientist) with F. Ross Johnson (former CEO of Nabisco and technically a cookie salesman) in the history books.

-Graydon L

The Evolutionists keep working... at 6:04 PM

Here's a couple of articles I found in the Creation Magazine that we get from Creation Ministries International. I thought they were pretty disturbing.

Computer Game Spore: deception as a means to an end

Spore, a computer game released in September 2008, allows players to replicate the evolution of a creature from a single-celled organism to a space traveling civilization. Depending on the goals of the player, the creature can be a carnivore, herbivore, peaceful social networker, or a conquering predator

Designer Will Wright, best known for creating the Sims series of games, claims that the game is a 'philosophical toy' intended  to change the way people think, and cites science fiction, SETI [Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence], and 'astrobiology' as a sourced of inspiration for the game, and admitted certain aspects of the game are 'very Darwinian'.

In a New York Times article, scientists praised the game for getting evolutionary ideas across,  but criticized the simplistic and in some cases misguided way that evolution is presented. For one thing, player can 'intelligently design' their creatures to some extent.

However, Dr. Thomas Near hope that the game will cause people to accept evolution: 'This may be totally off about how evolution works, but I'd much rather be dealing with a student who says, "OK, I have no problem with evolution; I think about it the same way I think about gravity." If it does that, it'll be great.' He is not the first to condone deceiving students as long as they end up accepting the evolutionary worldview. (see, www.creation.com/deceive)

Christian parents should be aware of the evolutionary indoctrination even extending to computer games, so become increasingly vigilant to make sure that the messages that their children absorb are consistent with the true (Biblical) worldview. For more information see www.creation.com/spore

The New York Times, www.nytimes.com/2008/09/02/science/02spore.html

_______________________________________________________

Atheists advertise on British buses

The British Humanist Association (BHA), with the support of prominent atheist Richard Dawkins, has launched a 'No God' advertising campaign on UK buses. They have raised more than 36,000 Pounds to pay for posters on both the inside and outside of London buses with the slogan: 'There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.'

The BHA is considering extending the campaign to other cities, including Birmingham, Manchester and Edinburgh.

According to Dawkins, this campaign 'will make people think--and thinking is anathema to religion.'

Dawkins may well be right in relation to false religion, but he's wrong when it comes to Christianity. The one true Creator of the Universe has instructed that we are to 'Love the Lord your God with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength' [emphasis added] (Mark 12:30). And He has instructed Christian believers to 'be prepared to have an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have' [emphasis added] )1 Peter 3:15, q.v. Isaiah 1:18) that other people might become believers while there's still time. 

Now that's something worth thinking about.

BBC News, news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/7681914.stm  21 October 2008

______________________________________________________

-Graydon L

Obama Spending Cuts Visualization at 9:23 AM

I just saw this video on Facebook, It definitely puts thing in perspective.

 

 

Pretty crazy huh?

Global Warming, My Foot! at 10:17 AM

This is a video I found on Yahoo today about some… interesting… recent news:

Thank you, Al Gore, you’ve successfully reversed global warming and now an ice age is on the way… smooth one pal. Did this reversal have anything to do with your gas-guzzling jet and your 20 room mansion?

 

Here’s another one that I searched on YouTube, the sound is a little off, but it’s still pretty good.

 

Cool, isn’t it? (no pun intended)

 

You can read the post, A Tale of Two Houses, that I made in July of last year here.

The Ponzi Scheme at 6:38 PM

This is a report I wrote yesterday for school about Charles Ponzi and his famous 1918 pyramid scheme and I thought y’all might like it. Enjoy!

 

The Idea

Named after Charles Ponzi's 1918 plan to sell International Reply Coupons on debt, Ponzi Schemes are basically a form of pyramid scheme, with the first investors being paid by the investment money from later investors. The so called Ponzi Scheme has been slightly altered or copied by many swindlers after the inventor's death in 1949. The most well known use of Ponzi's idea is that of the Social Security program put in place by the Franklin D Roosevelt administration in the 1930s. This system was supposed to help US citizens who did not have the means to support themselves; namely the elderly, the poor, widows, and fatherless children. This seemed like a good idea at the time because it was supposed to encourage the elderly to retire, creating openings for younger workers and then lowering unemployment as a whole. However, this did not work over a long period of time as soon the entire population had social security numbers and there were no longer any more “investors” to support the retirees.

 

The Original Ponzi

The idea for Charles Ponzi's first large scale scheme came to him when he received a letter from a company in Spain asking him about an advertising business that had failed just a few weeks before. Inside the envelope was an International Reply Coupon, which is basically to allow someone in one country to send a letter with an IRC to a correspondent in another country, who could use it to pay the postage of a reply. IRCs were priced at the cost of postage in the country of purchase, but could be exchanged for stamps to cover the cost of postage in the country where redeemed; if these values were different, there was a potential profit. In post-WWI Italy, the inflation was astronomical and IRCs could be purchased extremely cheaply then sold in America for a much higher price. This was merely a form of arbitrage; buying low an selling high, which is not illegal. Ponzi soon realized the potential of this idea, so he took out a loan and sent the money to relatives in Italy to purchase some of the coupons and send them back to him. However, when he went to sell the coupons, he ran into a mass of red tape. So to bypass this, he convinced investors in Boston to make an investment of $1,250 for a return of their money and an extra $750 within 90 days. He delivered as promised, and started the “Securities Exchange Company”. Huge profits rewarded him, and by January 1920, he brought in $5000 (approx. $54,000 in 2008 dollars). By march, that total was up to $30,000 ($328,000), then in June his numbers reached $420,000 ($4.59 million today), but the peak came in July when his total take was millions of dollars. People were mortgaging their homes to invest in this up and coming new company. By now, Ponzi was through with the stamps and just started taking in investments and giving out returns. This only worked because of the frenzy he had created; most people didn't take their profits, they just reinvested it... then told their friends to do so also.

 

First Suspicions

Naturally, his sudden wealth was not unscrutinized. A Boston financial writer did a little digging and wrote an article about Ponzi's scheme and how it could not possibly pay out full returns in such a short period of time. Ponzi sued for libel and won $500,000. It seemed at the time like Ponzi's golden empire would never crumble. But several popular papers sent investigative reporters to look into the Securities Exchange Company and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts was also threatening to investigate the company's books. Ponzi was able to slightly divert their suspicion temporarily and he started to look for a way out of the scheme. But time ran out, and Ponzi's publicity agent, William McMasters went to the Boston Post with several incriminating documents saying Ponzi was $2 million in debt, almost 4.5 with interest factored in.

 

The Scheme's Downfall

After McMaster's article was published, a massive crowd raided Ponzi's office and he had to pay out $15 million. He had taken in over $20 million, but he had lost over $2 million gambling, and the rest wasn't there just from the nature of the scheme and from Ponzi's luxurious living.

Charles Ponzi was arrested by federal agents on August 12, 1920. That same day, auditors stated that he was over $3 million in debt. His investors were devastated, receiving less than 30 cents on the dollar.

Charged with 86 counts of mail fraud, Ponzi was sentenced for 5 years in a federal prison, but was released after 3 and a half years. He then had to face 22 Massachusetts state charges of larceny and was sentenced to 9 years in a state prison as a common and notorious thief.

 

 

Resources, images, quotes, as well as a further reading list about the Ponzi Scheme and also the rest of Charles Ponzi's life available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi

Peter Schiff Was Right at 3:28 PM

Just got this video off a Vodie Baucham Ministries blog post , you can read the original post here.

 

Anyway, on to the video. Watch Peter Schiff (who, by the way, was Ron Paul’s economic adviser) predict not only the recession, but the true cause, the timing, and the magnitude, way back in 2006 as so-called economic experts literally laughed at him.

 

Vodie Baucham puts it well, “I [can] barely keep my chin off the floor”. To be frank, I’m having trouble hanging on to my jaw as well ;-)

 

 

Whoa, whoa, whoa… wait a sec here… Back in ‘07 they said to buy Washington Mutual? Didn’t WAMU go down the tubes in late ‘08? Didn’t Peter Schiff say to stay away from finance companies? Didn’t Schiff say to buy gold shares? So where is the gold price now? I’ll tell you where the gold price is, it’s at almost $1000 per ounce!!!!

 

Go Peter Schiff! GO RON PAUL!!!!!

 

-Graydon

Them's Fightin' Words! at 7:59 AM

"I prefer fifty thousand rifles to fifty thousand votes."

  

-Benito Mussolini

"Next to a battle lost, the greatest misery is a battle gained."

-the Duke of Wellington

"It is easier to find men who will volunteer to die than to find those who are willing to endure pain with patience."

-Julius Ceasar

"I want you to remember that no  *bleep*  ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb  *bleep*  die for his country."

-Gen. George S. Patton

"Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun"

-Mao Zedong

"In war, you win or lose, live or die - and the difference is an eyelash."

-Gen. Douglas MacArthur

"Do not forget your big guns, the most respected arguments of the right of kings."

-Frederick the Great

"Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."

-Herman Goering

"They are in front of us, behind us, and we are flanked on both sides by an enemy that outnumbers us 29 to 1. They can't get away from us now!"

-Gen. Chesty Puller

Karl Marx and The Communist Manifesto at 11:24 AM

I know I should probably talk about what I'm thankful for, but I just finished reading Karl Marx's The Communist Manifesto, and I just had to say what I'm NOT thankful for. Judging by the title of this post, I think you know what I mean.

I know I don't need to tell you that Communism (on a mass scale that is) is a bad thing and that it doesn't work, but part of my school work is to write about what I read, and I decided I'd put my writing in a post.

First off I'd like to explain my comment in parentheses above. Communism on a national, state, county, or any group of more than say... 20 people, for that matter, will not survive. There must be a common bond between every individual in a Communist society. If there isn't, someone will get lazy. In a family setting Communism is used every day (not in the strictest sense of the term, but bear with me). A family has a common bond: that of love and care for one another. 

For example, a father goes to work every day and supplies his family with income. His young children are not able to go to work every day so they are dependents. In a nation ruled by Communism, this would not last long. However, this father is bound to care for and feed his children. He is giving according his ability (out of love and commitment), his children are taking according to their need. Eventually, this father will retire, or will become too sick to provide. At that point, hopefully his children will be able to provide for him in his old age. Now the children are giving according to their ability ( out of love and commitment) and the father is taking according to his need.

The common bond is Love, Care, and Commitment.

Naturally, this isn't exactly the same as the purest form of Communism as suggested by Marx, but you get the point.

Also, there are other common bonds. There are some hippie communes in the backwoods of Missouri where everybody gardens, has long hair and plays drums around the campfire. The common bond here is a particular belief. that belief may be a religion, a view of the environment, it my even be belief in Communism itself! But as I said before, these groups are rarely over 20 people and if they are, they usually don't last long.

If you disagree, please comment, I'd love to hear from you.

And now onto the atrocious statements made by Marx in his book.

when talking about how the current (The Manifesto was written in several editions over the mid 1800s, so keep in mind what "current" means here) general system of economics and government in Europe, Marx states:

"there are, besides, eternal truths, such as Freedom, Justice, etc., that are common to all states of society. But Communism abolishes eternal truths, it abolishes all religion, and all morality..."

He then goes on to say that in order to establish Communism as a form of government, you must first use Socialism.

"Of course, in the beginning, this [That is, Communism] cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and o the conditions of bourgeois [that is, the land-owners and upper class] production; by means of measures therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionizing the mode of production. 

These measures will of course be different in different countries.

Nevertheless, in the most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable:

1.  Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public 

purposes.

2.  A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.

3.  Abolition of all right of inheritance.

4.  Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.

5.  Centralization of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a nationally 

bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.

6.  Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands 

of the State.

7.  Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; 

the bringing into cultivation of wastelands, and the improvement of the 

soil generally in accordance with a common plan.

8.  Equal liability of all to labour. Establishment of industrial armies, 

especially for agriculture.

9.  Combination of agriculture with the manufacturing industries; gradual 

abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more 

equable distribution of the population over the country.

10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's 

factory labor in it's present form. Combination of education with 

industrial production &c., &c."

Heavy graduated income tax? Free education in public schools? Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels? Equal liability of all to labour? I don't know about you, but it seems like we're living in a very socialistic society! Now keep in mind it took 150 years for these few of the ten points to become part of American society, and it may take some time to have all ten of these points to become reality, but still! 

A 150 year old recommendation coming true is FRIGHTENING!!

And just to prove that Marx never read a bible ( and was a nut):

"Nothing is easier than to give Christian asceticism a Socialist tinge. Has not Christianity declaimed against private property, against marriage, against the State? Has it not preached in the place of these, charity and poverty, celibacy and mortification of the flesh, monastic life and Mother Church?"

Oh, and one last thing; the last 6 words in the infamous "The Communist Manifesto":

"WORKING MEN OF ALL COUNTRIES,

UNITE!"

-Graydon L

Einstein's Formula Proven! at 8:22 AM

PARIS (AFP) – It's taken more than a century, but Einstein's celebrated formula e=mc2 has finally been corroborated, thanks to a heroic computational effort by French, German and Hungarian physicists.

A brainpower consortium led by Laurent Lellouch of France's Centre for Theoretical Physics, using some of the world's mightiest supercomputers, have set down the calculations for estimating the mass of protons and neutrons, the particles at the nucleus of atoms.

According to the conventional model of particle physics, protons and neutrons comprise smaller particles known as quarks, which in turn are bound by gluons.

The odd thing is this: the mass of gluons is zero and the mass of quarks is only five percent. Where, therefore, is the missing 95 percent?

The answer, according to the study published in the US journal Science on Thursday, comes from the energy from the movements and interactions of quarks and gluons.

In other words, energy and mass are equivalent, as Einstein proposed in his Special Theory of Relativity in 1905.

The e=mc2 formula shows that mass can be converted into energy, and energy can be converted into mass.

By showing how much energy would be released if a certain amount of mass were to be converted into energy, the equation has been used many times, most famously as the inspirational basis for building atomic weapons.

But resolving e=mc2 at the scale of sub-atomic particles -- in equations called quantum chromodynamics -- has been fiendishly difficult.

"Until now, this has been a hypothesis," France's National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) said proudly in a press release.

"It has now been corroborated for the first time."

For those keen to know more: the computations involve "envisioning space and time as part of a four-dimensional crystal lattice, with discrete points spaced along columns and rows."

***      ***      ***

This article was found on the Yahoo News website.

-Graydon L

A Brief History of Income Tax at 5:31 PM

Here's an article I found in a miscellaneous story/fact/humor book that I have, called the Ultimate Bathroom Reader by the Bathroom Readers Institute. You can visit their website here. The article is also followed by two humorous quotes to do with Taxes.

Enjoy!

The History of Income Tax

Abraham Lincoln isn't remembered as the "Father of the income tax"... but he could be. In 1862, in order to raise money to pay for the Civil War, he signed the country's first income tax into law.

However, under this law, only people with an income over $800 a year had to pay any tax. And only 1% of the American people made that much money in 1862... so the government wound up having to look elsewhere for a source of money to finance the war (they borrowed it)

Tax Controversy

From the start, the income tax was very controversial. No one was sure if was legal. The Constitution had authorized the federal government to collect takes "to pay the debts and provide for the common welfare of the United States"-but it didn't explicitly state that the government had the right to levy taxes on income. And as this was hotly debated, public opposition grew. The first income tax was repealed in 1872.

But is wasn't dead. By the 1890s, an overwhelming majority of Americans supported re-establishing an income tax - as long as it applied only to the super-rich. Farm, labor, and small-business interests promoted it as a means of taking money away from millionaires and robber barons and redistributing it for the "common good".

In 1894 they succeeded in passing a 2% tax on all personal and corporate net income over $4000. Few Americans were in that income bracket... but those who were had the incentive and resources to oppose the tax. They battled it all the way to the Supreme Court, and in 1895 the Court declared that an income tax was unconstitutional.

Theodore Roosevelt

Opinion was divided along party lines - Democrats and Populists supported the income tax; Republicans opposed it. But in 1908, outgoing Republican president Theodore Roosevelt broke with his party and called for both an income tax and an inheritance tax. He wasn't able to enact either before his term ran out, but he momentum had shifted.

In the election of 1908, America sent a pro-tax Congress and an anti-tax president - Republican William Howard Taft -  to Washington. Taft tried to derail the issue by proposing a Constitutional amendment permitting the personal income tax. He figured the hurdles for such an amendment were so great that the amendment would fail and the income tax issue would go away.

But he was wrong. By February 1913, less than four years after it was introduced, 36 states had ratified the 16th amendment to the Constitution. For the first time in U.S. history, income taxes were indisputably constitutional. On October 3, 1913, President Woodrow Wilson signed the first modern income tax into law.

Popular Tax?

The 1913 tax was simple - the entire tax code was only 16 pages long (compared to 9,100 pages today) . The rate was 1% on income over $3000 for a single person and $4000 for a married person, with "super taxes" as high as 6% applied to income over $500,000. In general, the tax was popular with just about everyone... because it applied to almost no one.

The few Americans who were required to pay income taxes in 1913 paid an average of $97.88 apiece.

Weapon of War

But America's entry into World War I in 1917 changed everything. The federal budget shot up from $1 billion in 1916 to $19 billion in 1919. Faced with enormous, unprecedented expenses, the Wilson administration was forced to raise the tax rate... and to broaden the tax base to include millions of Americans who had never before paid taxes.

To ensure that the new taxes were paid promptly and in full, Wilson expanded the IRS. The agency's total number of employees mushroomed from 4,000 workers in 1913 to 21,000 in 1920.

Compared to earlier income taxes Wilson's were pretty severe. The top tax rate, applied to income over $1 million, was 77%. These taxes revolutionized the finances of the federal government; it's total tax revenue went from $334 million to $5.4 billion... and the percentage of government revenues collected from income taxes went from 10% to 73%.

In the 1920s, income taxes were cut five different times, but they never would again be as low as they were before the war.

World War II

The 1930s too were a period of relatively low taxes. The Great Depression had wiped out the earnings of most Americans. In1939 for example, the average blue-collar employee paid no taxes, the average doctor or lawyer paid about $25 a year, and a successful business person earning $16,000 paid about $1,000. But taxes changed once more when America began gearing up for World War II.

Like the previous "Great War", World War II was a budget buster. Government expenses rose from $9.6 billion in 1940 to $95 billion in 1945 - prompting the government to raise the tax rate again (the highest bracket rose to 94%).

The tax base broadened too. In 1939, before the war, there were 6.5 million Americans on the tax rolls; they paid about $1 billion a year. By the end of the war in 1945, 48 million Americans paid $19 billion annually. To handle this, the IRS nearly double in size, governing from 27,000 employees in 1941 to 50,000 in 1945.

For the first time, even people with ordinary incomes had to pay taxes. As the Chicago Times put it, World War II transformed America's income tax "from a class tax to a mass tax"

Withholding Begins

Another development that came about as a result of World War II was income tax withholding, which enabled the government to collect estimated taxes every pay period, not just once a year. The federal government's cash needs were so great during the war that it couldn't wait until the end of the year, and it began withholding estimated taxes from every paycheck. Similar "pay-as-you-go" plans had been used during the Civil War and World War I, but they were abandoned. This time the change was permanent.

There was a second reason for withholding: Taxes were collected from so many new taxpayer that the IRS could no longer handle the flood of tax payment that came in on tax day. It had no choice but to spread the payments out over the entire year.

Income Taxes Today

By the end of World War II the pattern for taxation had been set: wars and other crises pushed the taxes up, peace and prosperity sen the back down, although rarely to where they had been before. Today's taxes seem higher than ever, but believe it or not, when you correct for inflation they're about the same as they were in the 1960s.

On the other hand; the IRS's job is bigger than ever - it is now the worlds largest law-enforcement agency, with more than 115,000 employees. In fiscal year 1993 it processed more than 207 million, collecting more than $586 billion in personal income taxes and 1.2 trillion in other taxes. It also paid out more that $84 billion in personal refunds, and cost taxpayer more than $7.1 billion to operate. That comes to about $0.60 for every $100 collected.

"The hardest thing to understand is income taxes."

                                                       -Albert Einstein, 1952

"In this world, nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes."

                                                                                     -Benjamin Franklin, 1789

This article published in "Uncle John's Ultimate Bathroom Reader" by the Bathroom Readers' Institute. www.bathroomreader.com

Hallowed be HIS Name? at 12:29 PM

I just found this video last night on the David Boze Show blog. It's quite disturbing.

If you can barely stomach watching this entire thing, you're not alone.

"Obama be thy name, thy change shall come, thy will be done..."

Disgusting.

-Graydon L

Time, Perception and Fish at 5:24 PM

The other day, we went to the Seattle Aquarium with the Allens, and I don't know if you've ever been there, but they have a gigantic tank in the entrance of the building that makes up the first exhibit. 

Well as it turns out, just after we paid to get in, there was a fish feeding show starting at this tank. Apparently, the Aquarium has a lot of extra money to burn because when they feed the fish, two divers in dry-suits with full face masks that even had microphones in them get in the tank to feed the various species of fish.

Basically, the divers get in the tank, and feed the fish while talking to the public about them. It was during this show when one of the divers said something interesting. 

She stated that the salmon at the top of the tank swim very quickly, eat very quickly, have very fast metabolisms, and have a life span of about only 3 years. 

She also said the the rockfish at the bottom of the tank swim very slowly, barely go anywhere, eat very slowly, have very slow metabolisms, and have a life span of over a hundred years.

These statements got me thinking, what if time affects these two species of fish differently? 

Let's say that time moves very quickly for the salmon. In his own perception, he is moving at a perfectly normal rate. But as the rockfish looks upward to the top of the tank in his own little world of time-perception, he just sees a blur of all the salmon zipping back and forth! To him, watching salmon is like watching a movie on fast-forward, while to the salmon, watching him is like watching a movie in slowmo.

Here, let's try an example: In our example a human has a time-perception (we'll call it TP from now on) of 1, and the salmon has a TP of 3 (meaning he sees time as 3 times the speed of that of a human) and the rockfish has a TP of .5 (meaning he sees time as one half the speed of a human). 

That would mean that salmon move quickly, humans move at a perfectly normal rate, and rockfish go really slowly, right?

Wrong... sort of. There is a problem with this example, it's from a human's perspective, I said that humans are 1, right? well the salmon doesn't say that, he thinks he has a TP of 1, the human has a TP of 1/3rd and the rockfish has a TP of 1/6th. But there's a flaw with that too, the rockfish doesn't see it that way, to him, he has a TP of 1, a human has a TP of 2, and the salmon has a TP of 6.

confused yet?

It's like this, each of the three types of entities (humans, salmon and rockfish) have their own standard of measuring the events in their lives and the lives of the other two entities, but each of his measurements is affected by how he perceives time!

This theory that I have brought up is supported by the fact that, in theory, forward time travel is possible and that time is relative to the speed of the object perceiving it.

But what do you think? I know most of you probably don't even like studying fish, or quantum physics, but even if you don't like either of those things, or you just think I spend way too much time sitting around thinking about random stuff, (like fish watching movies in fast-forward) give me a comment!

Keep in mind, I'm not saying that this time perception theory is true, but it's definitely very interesting to think about it.

-Graydon L

Is it REALLY a Dollar? at 3:07 PM

Take a look at this $1 bill and see if there's anything weird about it.

In case you didn't notice, this isn't a dollar. A dollar is the old term for one ounce of silver. The reason we call this a dollar is because of the old silver standard that the US dollar used to be based on. Nowadays, one ounce of silver is worth about $15 (varying with the market, of course). 

That goes to show you how inflation is affecting prices. The value of silver didn't go up, the value of your US "dollar" bill went down.

This is one of the many factors that is putting the US economy in such a tight spot right now. Our "dollar" has no solid, precious metal value, just imaginary made up value.

This is a picture of the way things used to, and ought to be now.

At first glance, it looks like the same bill as the one above, but you will notice that it doesn't say "Federal Reserve Note. One Dollar", It says "Silver Certificate. This certifies that there has been deposited in the treasury of The United States of America, one silver dollar, payable to the bearer on demand." 

Back in 1928, when this bill was issued, you could walk up to the Federal Reserve Bank, give them this bill and they would give you one ounce of pure silver.

If you take a modern "dollar" bill to the Federal Reserve Bank, they will give you nothing more than a smile.

That's why you never see the old "Five and Dime stores" anymore.

-Graydon L

Lipstick in Politics at 8:48 PM

Recently we've been hearing a lot about lipstick on the political scene, and I thought it would be fun to put up all the videos I could find of politicians referring to lipstick in they're speeches. Here's what I found:

listed in chronological order

Recently, because of this statement by Sen. Obama, A lot of people think (given the fact that Sarah Palin does wear lipstick) he was calling her a pig.

Personally, I think that's ridiculous. It's a common phrase, it's funny, and it illustrates the point Obama is trying to get across.

What do you think?

-Graydon L

A Tale of Two Houses at 8:46 PM

LOOK OVER THE DESCRIPTIONS OF THE FOLLOWING TWO HOUSES AND SEE IF YOU CAN TELL WHICH BELONGS TO AN ENVIRONMENTALIST.

HOUSE # 1:
A 20-room mansion (not including 8 bathrooms) heated by natural gas. Add on a pool (and a pool house) and a separate guest house all heated by gas. In ONE MONTH ALONE this mansion consumes more energy than the average American household in an ENTIRE YEAR. The average bill for electricity and natural gas runs over $2,400.00 per month. In natural gas alone (which last time we checked was a fossil fuel), this property consumes more than 20 times the national average for an American home. This house is not in a northern or Midwestern "snow belt," either. It's in the South.

HOUSE # 2:
Designed by an architecture professor at a leading national university, this house incorporates every "green" feature current home construction can provide. The house contains only 4,000 square feet (4 bedrooms) and is nestled on arid high prairie in the American southwest. A central closet in the house holds geothermal heat pumps drawing ground water through pipes sunk 300 feet into the ground. The water (usually 67 degrees F.) heats the house in winter and cools it in summer. The system uses no fossil fuels such as oil or natural gas, and it consumes 25% of the electricity required for a conventional heating/cooling system. Rainwater from the roof is collected and funneled into a 25,000 gallon underground cistern. Wastewater from showers, sinks and toilets goes into underground purifying tanks and then into the cistern. The collected water then irrigates the land surrounding the house. Flowers and shrubs native to the area blend the property into the surrounding rural landscape.

HOUSE # 1 (20 room energy guzzling mansion) is outside of Nashville, Tennessee. It is the abode of that renowned environmentalist (and filmmaker) Al Gore.

HOUSE # 2 (model eco-friendly house) is on a ranch near Crawford, Texas. Also known as "the Texas White House," it is the private residence of the President of the United States, George W. Bush.

So whose house is gentler on the environment? Yet another story you WON'T hear on CNN, CBS, ABC, NBC, MSNBC or read about in the New York Times or the Washington Post. Indeed, for Mr. Gore, it's truly "an inconvenient truth."
This article found on Snopes.com

-Graydon L

Oil, Gas Prices, and Nuclear Energy at 5:45 PM

I just read an article on Yahoo about a possibility that gas prices might come down a little bit in a little while. Of course the article says that because of a lower rate of consumption, more supply down the road and China's raising prices on gasoline and diesel, a move that might lower demand in the long run. My question is, what about alternative sources of energy? I don't know much about this stuff, but It seems to me that if we invested in nuclear energy we would be no where near the problems we are now having. Of course, everybody says that nuclear power plants can be bad for the environment, but what about France? France gets 80% of it's energy from nuclear power... without a single accident. And what about the US Navy? All of those nuclear subs and aircraft carriers are run on a football sized lump of uranium and they don't need to refuel for 15-20 years. Just what could nuclear power do for an energy-parched America?

Of course, our current system isn't set up for an entirely Nuclear operated energy system, and perhaps we'll rely on oil for another decade or two, but in the long run, I believe that nuclear is the way to go.

you can read the article about the lower gas prices here.

you can read about general nuclear aircraft carrier operations here.

As I said, I don't know much about this stuff, so If I have made an error in my statements or assumptions, please, leave a comment and let me know! Thanks! :-)

-Graydon L

HIghlight #133 at 5:22 PM

Hey y'all, I'm confused; Aparantly, Barack Obama just clinched the Democratic nomination, and yet Hillary Clinton is "staying in the race"? I looked around a bit but I can't get a strait answer, is Obama just saying "I've got so many delagates I've practically won already" or is he saying "I have won the nomination"? Clinton's speach on Tuesday saying "I won't be making any decisions tonight" doesn't exactly clear things up either.

If you have any insight into this matter of extreme unclarity, please reveal your additional knowledge to me, I would greatly apreciate any further info :-)

-Graydon L

Highlight #123 at 9:24 PM

Hey y'all, Today Jonny and I went to the woods near our house and attempted at playing airsoft. I say attempted because it's really hard to play airsoft when there's mud and water ankle deep everywhere and blackberry bushes sticking up wherever the water isn't, and there's only two people playing, and there are slugs wherever there's green foliage, and everywhere else for that matter :-(

After dinner, we watched a documentary called "From Freedom to Fascism". it's basically about the economic decline in America since the 1913 enactment of the Federal Reserve Act, and how this sets us up for a possible future police state. It's pretty good for the first half, then it kinda takes on a conspiracy theory/they're always watching you kinda' feeling. It starts out trying to find the law that forces people to pay income tax, and ends with the idea that the current government is controlled by bankers that want a single world government. Also, the Director (his name escapes me now) really doesn't give the other side of the story or a lot of hard facts and statistics. Maybe what he says is right, maybe it isn't, but I'd really rather have all the facts before I come to a decision about the current government.

Anyway, I had a great day, and I'm looking forward to tomorrow (garage sale season!!!) and the deals it entails. See Ya'!

-Graydon L

Highlight #115 at 8:49 AM

Hey y'all, Check out this video I just watched about the US foreign policy of interventionism. by the way, I've done a lot of research in this very subject and although Cong. Ron Paul Doesn't state any hard statistics, all his statements are entirely true and can be backed by statistics.



If you still want some more info click here or read on...

This is a graph showing the Rank ( eg. #1 would be the country with the highest military budget), Name, and Military budgets around the world. As you can see, the US budget is more than China's, Russia's, France's, the UK's, Japan's, Germany's, Italy's, South Korea's, and India's Military budgets PUT TOGETHER! And the US budget still exceeds that number by 100 Billion dollars!!!!!





This is not only going to propel the US Government into a mindset of eternal war, but it's going to bankrupt us to boot! Ron Paul Says it well: "We'll either wake up, or go broke"


Think about that...

-Graydon L