Thomas Paine

You know what is great about Thomas Paine. Lots. His tracts are found in the Declaration of Independence; Jefferson glyphed them from him. After he helped keep our revolution going overthrowing the British chains, he went to France and helped them with their revolution for a Republic. Naturally, the rest of Europe, Prussia and Austria, declared war on France for wanting human progress. The British indicted him for treason for publishing such unreasonable pamphlets as "Common Sense", "The Rights of Man" and the "The Age of Reason". No wonder they were upset, the truth, (any truth) could hurt their influence over their populace, with being foresworn to lying, the truth of individual conceptions on events could be dangerous. Not at all unlike our indoctrinating society and opportunistic, self-serving politicians today.

His premise, I believe, and no one speaks for Thomas Paine, is that I have an opinion on the best possible way to live my life under the systems we have created. Common sense dictates that we are given the greatest gift from God in our "gift of reason." Nobody needs to divine my opinion, I have based it upon reasonable thought, with sound evidence that is retrievable, repeatable and, if true, immutable.(Theoretical quantum physicists have agreed that information cannot be destroyed, and there is indication that every jot and tittle of events is at all times present-that's God.) If we are said a democracy, I have a voice. If I do not have a voice, it is not a democracy. Nothing supersedes the individual; not Kings, not corporations, not armies. The scoundrels will not succeed in enslaving mankind.  Somewhere. somehow, an instance of the common man's revolution will always be around, with people ready to grab their freedom, if need be, from the shackles of falsehood. The bigger they are the harder they fall, just ask King George and King Louis. Thank you, Thomas Paine, citizen of the world, man of reason.

Thank you Jasper Schuringa

Diminishing winds of change

I see that they have given up some coastline at Copenhagen. Two degrees increase is what we are now looking at in increased temperature. To the lay person that means look ouside and add two degrees. Hardly a difference, unless it is really really hot or cold.  The scientists tell us that it will raise the coastline, but they are wise enough now, having been tripped up by inconsistent predictions, to know that the number of factors involved make us unsure of predicting of exactly what will happen. Climategate, boorfully and obviously pre-planned, is nothing more than an acknowledgement of this fact, made to assuage the throbbing minds of people who don't want to deal with any change in their lives. These people are called conservatives. Conserving the traditional ways of things, dancing with what brought us here in our lovely Eden, so to speak. Sinners will taste death when Jesus returns in the clouds. Which is a metaphor for saying the old ways of doing things will fall by the wayside and not be remembered by anyone living in the future. Or, literally, that Jesus will smote the toads that gave him a hard time, especially the hypocrites. (You see a lot of the hypocrites today on television, using their wolf-in-the-hen-house, feigned ignorance and mock philosophy so that they are able feed the beast of their dated 1984 philosophy [my apologies if you just spilled your victory gin].) Either way, we will have to adapt to the winds of change. One answer will come with chemistry, and the dissemblers know this. It is a classic insiders secret, with the new capital being the controlled dissemination of information, and, especially, knowledge. Chemistry will be the answer to many creative problems of our time, and a good deal of commerce will result from the interplay of this chemistry and invented products. There will be plenty of clean electricity from fusion, pretty soon anyway. And a lovely Eden, if you can afford it. Maybe even some shared ideas and fun.

I watched Al Gore on Charlie Rose talk about the planet. Brilliant guy, I read "Earth in the Balance" 16 years ago. He had it right on the nose then. He, himself, was dumbfounded that the community didn't act, and that he is still the leading spokeperson. I guess that we are almost out of the woods, if the tipping point, or the point where deniers of global warming are swimming for the coast, doesn't happen anyway. I believe that organized guilds have been waiting to get the Lion's share of profits from the needed engineering before we were allowed to proceed with solutions. No, I am not a cynic, though I consider carefully first and foremost what I think (I have good intuition), I just believe that the patriarchical society we live in always, always, gives the money to it's vested interests. Those vested interests have an outlier of meeting the needs of society, but are mainly beset with maintaining power, or, more generously, the stewardship, of the planet. That is fine with me, I know that I would help that caused in any way I could, but I have my own vested interests which have nothing to do with the stewardship of the planet, and rather stewardship of my life. Now, I would do what is needed of me to help the planet, but I would think that there might be some of the reaped benefits or rewards so that I can survive , too. The system has weak provision for letting anyone try to get the rewards through their own stewardship of the planet. Why not. I'm an earthling. It is my planet, too. A good example is the fact the US laws (the blindfolded lady herself) has not let renewable energy providers free access to the grid that supplies electricity. That would seem to be a simple, way to reward and spur innovation. Interestingly, I recently saw on the TED Channel on Youtube a lawyer (Daniel Pink- Science of motivation) who says, through experimental evidence, that humans do worse at solving problems when they are provided with monetary incentive as a motivation. In other words, the rigidity of working for someone elses gifts of praise make humans less intelligent and smart at solving a problem. We like to do it on our own, like Lao Tzu says, when the people say "we did it ourselves" then you have been the good leader. I think that is us constant lavishing the rewards onto the so-called stewards of the planet have caused its near demise of weather, and other problems like war and poverty, because we have let the rewarded get by with stupid, slow solutions. It is our fault. Which brings me to the point of my consternation, that persons with good ideas, with no vested interest other than good will, and pride in ownership of their idea, are never, ever let into the decision making process, in fact, it would go against the interests of the people making all the profits. Enough said, the greedy will subdue the intelligent. It has happened pretty consistently through history, primarily because, eventually, even the greedy make the right choices. It is just a matter of a time lag. The not so obvious fly in the ointment is that people are getting jaded, and have less good will, even if just on average. This will slow down motivation more, ad infinitum, until we cannot get by unless there is a carrot on the stick. Hmm, sounds like a devious, evil plan. There are, however, other flies in the ointment. That gives me hope.