God, Math, and Science

They tell me that God is not real.
He is made up and quite imaginary.
You must use thought, reason to deal
With all these things discretionary.

How could you believe so faithfully
In things like Grace and eternal life?
Where’s the proof quantitatively,
When God offers up such pain and strife?

You cannot believe in what is not there,
You imagine a Father who lives in you.
I know only reason and logic are fair,
Not granting prayers to the chosen few.

The real answers are in science and math;
I have no use for imaginary things.
Formulas work, observations break path
To all things real that reality brings.

I am a scientist; I use theorems and tests.
Cosmos to quantum, I study the facts.
I don’t believe until all my proof rests
Then I watch to see how the math reacts.

Beakers, pipettes, calibrated flasks,
Event horizons, protons accelerated,
Are the tools that we men use to unmask
Nature's creation finally adjudicated.

No Ghost, no imagined, worshiped being
The mysteries of life will be revealed.
God is a myth as believing is seeing
We expose all things that are thus concealed.

------------------------------------------------------

After listening way too long to this rant,
“Ah,” said I.”You must be having fun.
Please explain yourself, I bet you can’t,
In your faith in the square root of minus one.

"To support the world of reason you see,

That you consider your god and hero
You plug in numbers only imagined to be

But at least my God can divide by zero."

12/22/2012

The wind blew hot across the trees,
The weather now belongs to God.
The bloody streets no longer freeze,
Plants rolled ‘cross the hardened sod.
The blood-red moon was staring down
At a world without a wrong or right
Everything’s shades of tan or brown,
Death has won its lifelong fight.

A stand of trees just out of town,
A leaf-paved path, spear-lined pits.
A stealth hiker, steps slowly down.
Money and leaves crumble into bits.
Just past a tree a thin slice of blue,
The sky was dust, the wind was dark.
Eternal salvation just out of view.
Around more curves and past his mark.

Torrential darkness the red moon hides.
Events have silenced Nature’s voice.
Vengeance moves earth on the side,
Misery cloaks a loss of choice.
She’s gotten past the hills of pain,
Walking slogs, the senses drawn.
Checks her blade, looks for rain.
A little sleep, an hour before dawn.

When the tongues of evil and the tongues of man
Become the same,
Faith refrigerates and turns to dust.
Heaven recreates balance and an invisible hand
Resets the game
All that’s ever built turns back to rust.
The ones left reveal glory and trust
Exalt the name.

Travel at the first spark of light
Under cover of fire-stripped trees.
The silent bells break the night.
She prays for hope upon her knees.
The promised land is two more miles
The earth shakes warnings under feet.
The woods crack open like a smile.
She nears the ones she's come to meet.

The clearing opens on a dead grass floor.
No gate, no guard, the wind dies down.
The grass cracks on the path to the door.
The dead dust-smell of old swirls around.
She crouches into silence of never before.
She bows to this final place she’s found.

Slowly she awakes to the lie, so profound:
There's no one left in promised town.

12/21/2012

Laughing, the ghosts in the gallows
See your streets with words of war.
As I headed down to old K Street,
To see what I was paying for,
I saw these hills full of darkness
Deceit, lies, corruption, and more.

My freedom’s locked in your hall
And I’m working for the state.
Barren streets and broken stones
A beggar works at the broken gate.
The paint upon your history’s wall
Herald stories, the lost nation’s fate.

If I could see one smiling face
Share a kiss that’s not so cold,
If I could see the seasons dawn
Or hear the river’s whisper scold,
Then I would remember God’s grace
When it was free and not yet sold.

Looking in your window’s glass
They read and store your secret mail.
They know where you’re going next
Thoughts land you in political jail.
Lurking shadows assign you a class
No one child can be allowed to fail.

The rotting stench of potential lost
Decays in every street side home.
A nation made of sacred dreams
Disintegrated, dead, parched of bone.
Its soul deleted, no matter what cost
Adrift in legacy, to aimlessly roam.

The sun peeks through in the east,
The morning air cools my brow.
Some possibilities challenge fate,
An old emotion reborn, somehow.
An ambition spark evades the Beast
Thoughts strong enough not to hate.

But the stony sky returns to gray
The clouds, extinguish any fire.
The fruits of the new idea glow,
Become apparent, a burning tire.
Potential packed and put away
Doused by state-imposed desire.

Time and age leave a heavy mark.
They build up and become a cage.
But youth chains itself to the ground,
Denying Nature, defiled by rage.
Nothing to lose, the future’s dark.
They redact the facts, burn the page.

A dusty graveyard of broken dreams
Broken lives, families out of touch.
The hollow train mourns down the track.
Stars, planets age, I’ve seen too much.
We can’t walk alone again, it seems.
You see they own the public crutch.

The cloak of empathy hides the feast.
The lies are truth believed in hope.
Gifts and tongues of deception stares
Straight through the ashes of your soul
Of emptiness, barren, just as the Beast
Smiles as you accept his coil of rope.

My Fiscal Cliff Solution - Tax Edition

Let the Payroll Tax Cut expire.

Delete the Alternative Minimum Tax.

Make the tax cuts from the 2009 Stimulus permanent.

Make the 100% expensing of business purchases permanent.

Increase the R&D Tax Credit to 25% of 100% of the last three year's average.


Bush Tax Cuts - If they Expire and the Alternative

The child tax credit will be reduced from $1000 to $500.  Increase it to $1500.

The 10% income tax rate will expire.  Keep it and add a 1%, a 2.5%, and a 5% bracket.

Dividend tax rate will increase.  Remove all taxes on dividends and interest.

Marriage penalty reduction will expire.  Make it permanent.

Employer-provided child care credit will be reduced.  Maintain as is.

Adoption tax credit will be reduced.  Maintain as is.

Dependent care tax credit will be reduced.  Maintain as is.

Tax on bonds for school construction will be increased.  Maintain lower rate.

Tax on scholarships will be reinstated.  Wipe this from the history books.

Student loan interest deduction will decrease.  Maintain this.

Employer provided education assistance will decrease.  Maintain this.

Highest rate going from 35% to 42%.  For $1 million and above.

The 25% bracket will increase to 28%.  Reduce to 20%.

The 33% bracket will increase to 36%.  Keep it at 33%.


Proposed New Taxes

Capping itemized deductions.   No cap needed.

Capital gains tax from 15% to 20%.  Reduce it to 0.0%.

Millionaire tax.   See the Bush Tax Cuts above.

Spectrum Tax - a tax on mobile phone and other devices users.  Time to start this one.

Capital gains earned by managers of investing partnerships increased to their ordinary income rate.  This is punitive and stupid.

Airplane Tax Hike - depreciable life of aircraft to be extended from 7 to 12 years.  Decrease it to 5 years.

Ten additional tax increases on selected energy companies.  Remove all subsidies, loan guarantees, and credits. Tax the energy industry in all its facets the same as any other industry.

The History of Thanksgiving

The very first "thanksgiving" was celebrated in 1619, one year before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth by another group of English settlers. The event was held on the banks of the James River at what is now Berkeley Plantation, the birthplace of Benjamin Harrison, signer of the Declaration of Independence and father of the ninth President of the United States, William Henry.

Most Americans, however, remember that the Thanksgiving Day tradition was modeled after the 1621 event in Plymouth, Massachusetts where fifty Pilgrims and ninety Wampanoag Indians feasted for three days. The Pilgrims were indeed thankful for friendship and a bountiful harvest. In the previous year, half of the Pilgrims had starved to death. A Patuxet Indian named Squanto came to their rescue helping them to survive in the New World.

Throughout our history, Americans were called hundreds of times by their leaders to days of fasting and prayer and subsequent days of thanksgiving often by local officials and governors.

The first Thanksgiving Proclamation was issued by the Governing council of Charlestown, Massachusetts on June 20, 1676. The council wanted to offer thanks for a series of victories in the ongoing "War with the Heathen Natives" setting apart the 29th of June as a "day of Solemn Thanksgiving and praise to God for such his Goodness and Favor."

But it was President George Washington at the request of the Congress, who on October 3, 1789 issued the first national Thanksgiving Day Proclamation from New York City. Setting aside November 26, the proclamation stated that "our duty as a people, with devout reverence and affectionate gratitude, to acknowledge our many and great obligations to Almighty God and to implore Him to continue and confirm the blessings we experience."

Washington issued his second Thanksgiving Day Proclamation in 1795. Presidents Adams, Jefferson and Madison all issued proclamation calling for a day of Thanksgiving.

But few Americans gathering this week with family and friends for the feast know about the woman most credited with making Thanksgiving Day a national holiday.

Born Sarah J. Buell on October 24, 1788, in Newport, New Hampshire, it was Sarah Josepha Hale's persistent petitions that brought about the holiday. She sent hundreds of letters to politicians including five presidents imploring them to institute a national day of thanksgiving.

Buell became one of the most influential women in the United States as the editor of the most widely circulated women's magazine called Godey's Lady's Book. She also penned "Mary Had a Little Lamb," the most-well-known poem in American history.

The very first "thanksgiving" was celebrated in 1619, one year before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth by another group of English settlers. The event was held on the banks of the James River at what is now Berkeley Plantation, the But it was not until 1863, when Abraham Lincoln received her letter in the midst of the Civil War that the New England tradition would become a national one. "If every state would join in Thanksgiving," she wrote, "would it not be a renewed pledge of love and loyalty to the Constitution?" Lincoln agreed.

He set apart the last Thursday of November as a day of "Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens." He called upon Americans "that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union."

Lincoln would issue three more Thanksgiving Proclamations from the White House. Subsequent presidents issued similar proclamations but the states chose different days for the thanksgiving observance. It was not until 1934 that Franklin Delano Roosevelt said that to “set aside in the autumn of each year a day on which to give thanks to Almighty God for the blessings of life is a wise and reverent custom, long cherished by our people." In 1941, the Congress made the third Thursday of November an official national holiday.

Again and again even in our best days, our leaders have called upon us to give thanks to our Creator for our many blessings. This year was a great year for so many Americans who are now taking advantage of a finally excellent economy. 

From Human Events

Obsessed with Floor Mats

It snows here and the snow and mud cling to our boots and shoes when we get into our cars making a mess on the car floors.

The floors in cars started out to be made of wood.  The moisture from the snow and mud not only caused a mess, but accelerated the rotting of the wood. The first floor mats were developed to cover the holes in the floors that were made for the levers and pedals.  These mats actually were meant to prevent rocks and debris from flying up through the holes hitting the driver and the passenger, and making a mess.

After that, metal was used to seal the floors, and in 1955 rubber molded floor mats were developed, which were quickly followed by the universal plastic floor mat.

Then came the carpeted floor, which we were quick to cover with the universal plastic floor mat, which in time, inevitably got a carpet layer on it. So now we have a fabric carpet layer protecting a carpet. And you guessed it ---


We just got molded plastic floor mats that are specifically shaped for our car to cover the carpet we may never see again.  Oh yeah, you can buy a special cleaner from the manufacturer that will keep your plastic floor mats clean.

I expect to soon buy some carpeted floor mats to cover the new plastic floor mats which are now covering the carpet.

Benghazi Town

Benghazi Town, Benghazi Town
Ev’rybody’s got their heads bowed down
The sun don’t shine above the ground
Ain’t a-goin’ down to Benghazi Town

They went down to Benghazi Town
RPGs followed them down
Because they’re all America bound
Better get away from Benghazi Town

Benghazi Town around the bend
They cried for help, but it didn’t get in
All because we want to be friends
What do you think about that, my friend?

The diplomat and Mama’s sons
All got met with a Molotov bomb
I don’t even know why they come
Goin’ back where they come from

Benghazi Town in the afternoon
Ev’rybody singin’ a sorrowful tune
Four men died ’neath the wasteland moon
Somebody better investigate soon

Benghazi Town, Benghazi Town
Ev’rybody’s got their heads bowed down
The sun don’t shine above the ground
Ain’t a-goin’ down to Benghazi Town