Discussion Forum

Greetings, everyone!

I posted a few comments hastily at work earlier, and upon returning home, I realized that maybe I should clarify just where I stand on a few things.

Funny stories are great. Everyone needs to laugh. I'm proud when I write a story funny enough that it manages to maintain a 5-star rating.

I want more, though. I want to make people think about things while they are laughing. I want to use humor to expose truth.

Many people say truth is subjective. Or that everyone's truth is different, and everyone is entitled to their own opinion concerning what is true or not.

I don't rely on faith or hearsay, but on what I know for certain, facts and reality. Even as a child, I had to know how everything worked, and why. I was never satisfied with people's explanations for the way things worked until I could prove them for myself with evidence.

I'm still the same way, and it has ultimately led me to the truth I am certain is the real truth. If you're interested in knowing more, please bear with me for the next 4-5 background paragraphs, because there is a point - it's not just random babbling, and contains zero equations.

Consider a spiral galaxy and a hurricane. Guess what? They are almost exactly the same (more details if anyone must know). The supermassive black hole in the middle of a spiral galaxy is essentially a low pressure system. The spiral arms of a galaxy process energy and stars in the same way storm fronts spiraling around a hurricane process energy and raindrops; in fact, just as cool, dry air meeting warm, moist air powers the storm fronts spiraling into a hurricanes eye, space full of energy and matter (bright bands in a galaxy) meeting space that's empty and devoid of energy (dark bands) power the "storm fronts" of brightly shining, newly formed stars spiraling around its galactic eye. These stars condense out of gas clouds in much the same way raindrops condense out of clouds, though the process takes far, far longer.

Consider the mechanism that drives this condensation process in both hurricanes and galaxies. Thermodynamics will suffice for both, and the rules are actually quite simple. (If you're interested, read James Gleick's book Chaos) I'll just use the hurricane example, as it is the most familiar.

Warm, moist air meets cool, dry air. Simple. Two sets of opposites. Warm and cool. Moist and dry. Everything in the universe seeks equilibrium - thus, diffusion. Weather is the result of the interaction of opposites dissipating energy, diffusing warmth acquired from the sun and moisture evaporated by the sun as the weather systems attempt to attain equilibrium.

The interaction of opposites pretty much sums up how the universe works in total. Yin and yang is the ultimate source of our existence. Without opposites like positive and negative, there would be no atoms (protons and electrons), and subsequently no chemistry, biology, physics, etc.

There are always opposites; you can't have one thing without the other. To speak of hot and cold makes no sense in a universe at a uniform temperature. There would be no stars or galaxies. There is no life without death; the two are intimately interwoven (consider log/tree example below under "ENTROPY example"). If there was no such thing as empty, would there be such a thing as full? Would there even be a container? Light, dark. Positive, negative. Inside, outside. Nothing exists without it's opposite, even Newton's actions with their equal and opposite reactions.

"So, what's the point?" you're probably asking right now, and with good cause - I do have a tendency to ramble when something's important to me.

Einstein was right. The universe prefers simplicity. E=mc2 (okay, 1 equation) describes many of the universe's most complex behaviors involving the interaction between matter and energy (another yin/yang relationship of opposites) in an equation so simple even an American 6-year old could write it.

American economic theory flies in the face of reality because it only focuses on growth. Economists insist that the economy must grow, that the production possibilities frontier curve must expand, that a shrinking economy is a bad thing. But the economy must shrink, and the growth rate at which we consume resources must be reduced, or we will surely mine our planet to its very core in 500 years, and have nowhere left to write spoofs. Everything must have an opposite. Simple rule. Einstein endorsed it.

Population, too - zero population growth means no new consumers - another "bad" thing. I guess shrinking the population would be entirely out of the question, no? Aw, screw it. Let's add another 6.7 billion over the next 50 years or so. Rambling. Sorry.

Point - The rules are simple. The universe repeats its forms at tremendously different scales (hurricanes, spiral galaxies, dust devils, even that spot in the corner outside where the leaves always seem to spin around in circles) for a reason - it prefers simplicity. So, here is reality, the basis of true truth.

Rule 1 - Everything has an opposite. The two opposites are inextricably linked to one another, and what happens to one must somehow have consequences in what happens to the other. This applies to rich people and poor people as well. Let rich people get richer, and it always comes at the expense of creating greater poverty, somewhere, somehow. Sub-example - rich people keep moving to San Francisco, which drives property values up, which means a 700-square-foot basement living space goes for about $350,000. Hmm... could that be related to San Francisco's homeless problem?

Rule 2 - Things strive for equilibrium. Pour a spoonful of dye in a tub of water. You will see fluid dynamics in action (following the same rules as air currents in our atmosphere, interactions between Jupiter's bands, nebulae in space, etc), and eventually, you will have a tub of uniformly colored water. Rich people are like red dye, and the masses are like water. Though many laws have been passed in America that keep the dye concentrated, we all know history has a tendency to repeat itself. Equilibrium, equality of opportunity - its all the same thing, really. People just get fed up sometimes.

Rule 3 - It's okay for economies to shrink. It's a necessary and inevitable part of the natural cycle of things. If we don't find a way to do it ourselves, we will surely crash, and all the things people made fun of Ted Turner for saying may come to pass, and we may very well eat each other. Just like he said.

Rule 4 - THE ENTROPY LAW. Learn it. Live it. That's my advice. It's the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Here's the first: Matter and energy can neither be created nor destroyed, but can only be changed from one form to the other, with no net loss, with the equation that describes this being Einstein's E=mc2. The Second Law is: When you change matter or energy from one form to the other, there is a dissipation. The reaction is one-way.

Example: Burn a log. The smoke particles, the gases, the ashes, and the heat equal the log. They've merely dissipated, but the amount of energy required to collect all these things and put them back together is ridiculously high. In effect, this means that, even though everything is technically "still there," the ability of the dissipated energy and matter to do work has been lost. Only things like a tree's slow, steady growth can start to extract those elements from the environment once again, concentrating their energy and matter back into a log.

Right now, there are 6.7 billion people converting matter and energy from one form to the other, dissipating it at a furious pace. Corporations want it to continue because they make money from it. Economists believe it must continue because economics is a half-discipline, based only on expansion while completely denying the possibility of contraction. Democrats and Republicans want it to continue because, in a capitalist representative democracy, they ultimately represent consumers - talk of environmentalism is usually merely lip service on the part of both parties. People want more stuff, not less, so what the hell are we supposed to do? Apparently, I'm going to write lengthy non-spoof articles about it in the discussion forum.

One last thing: Socialism. A single bee can't function without the hive. I believe a bee barely qualifies as an organism because of this. A bee HIVE - now THERE'S an organism. Remember how things repeat at different scales throughout the universe? Well, speaking of beehives...

I think that, if we could get everybody on a roughly equal footing, with everybody on the planet getting enough to eat so they don't have to be jealous of the rich people and start wars, and everyone has a decent level of education that includes teaching some of the rules I've laid out above, and everybody starts getting more and more inter-connected, e-mailing and twittering and communicating with one another...

Well, let's just say, I wouldn't want a Nazi flag next to my picture for suggesting that if we could achieve what I just stated in the last paragraph, if the human organism could finally work together as a single entity, there's no telling what we could achieve. We could maybe just prove that we do indeed have a higher purpose.

That purpose is to prove that our intelligence is sufficient to allow us, using information we have already collected, to halt our inevitable self-destruction and learn to live in peace and harmony with our finite environment for many thousands of years, to prove that we are better than those bacteria in the Petri dish that exponentially reproduce until their population crashes as they devour one another like Ted Turner would have predicted.

And Christian conservatives could take a lesson from my approach, too - I'm no "Godless liberal." I say, if we can't prove ourselves worthy of or able to take care of ourselves and this little hunk of rock orbiting the sun He supposedly gave us, why the Hell would He want us up there?

Phew!! That took a while. If you read this entire rant, thanks.

'Nuf said.

SFO

SFO

That's great.

Sun, nucleus, protons, electrons, planets, orbits.

Fascinating.

Regards

Skoob.

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Quote: Skoob1999

SFO

That's great.

Sun, nucleus, protons, electrons, planets, orbits.

Fascinating.

Regards

Skoob.

---

Skoob,

What fascinates you?

SFO

I think he's fascinated by the results of too much coffee and lots of nicotine! Ahhh...The Word dictorial diatribe comes to mind!

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Quote: BuckwheatsButt

dictorial diatribe

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translation - "an authoritative, scathing criticism"


Buck,

I'm just trying to explain where I'm coming from. I know these are just spoofs, but there are real issues being obscured while people compare Obama to Hitler, and it sort of rubs me the wrong way when I see stuff like that.

I back up my beliefs with facts, and my points of view are carefully thought through, without any special interests (except that of the whole of humanity), lobbyists, or pundits influencing my decisions.

My "dictorial diatribe" is merely an effort to connect with anyone who chooses to read it.


SFO


P.S. Quit stereotyping Americans. I drink tea, not coffee. It's got antioxidants!

San Francisco Onion, you should join the Cult of Jesus Budda. He's into all this shit like a crazy fool. And he has a time machine. I joined and I've never felt better - well, I actually feel worse, but I have convinced myself that I feel better. -Ally

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Quote: Chamone

San Francisco Onion, you should join the Cult of Jesus Budda. He's into all this shit like a crazy fool. And he has a time machine. I joined and I've never felt better - well, I actually feel worse, but I have convinced myself that I feel better. -Ally

---

I saw Rod Stewart and the Faces at Blackpool Opera House on my 15th birthday. In 1927.(1972 really)

They were brilliant.

Supported by somebody called Vigrasse and Osbourne, who were a right bunch of miserable bastards.

Ah the memories...

One day I'll break out of the 70's

But I'm in no hurry.

Regards

Skoob.

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Quote: Skoob1999

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Quote: Chamone

San Francisco Onion, you should join the Cult of Jesus Budda. He's into all this shit like a crazy fool. And he has a time machine. I joined and I've never felt better - well, I actually feel worse, but I have convinced myself that I feel better. -Ally

---

I saw Rod Stewart and the Faces at Blackpool Opera House on my 15th birthday. In 1927.(1972 really)

They were brilliant.

Supported by somebody called Vigrasse and Osbourne, who were a right bunch of miserable bastards.

Ah the memories...

One day I'll break out of the 70's

But I'm in no hurry.

Regards

Skoob.

---

Isn't it ironic that the Small Faces actually all had very large faces? And big noses? -Ally

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Quote: Chamone

San Francisco Onion, you should join the Cult of Jesus Budda. He's into all this shit like a crazy fool. And he has a time machine. I joined and I've never felt better - well, I actually feel worse, but I have convinced myself that I feel better. -Ally

---

Ally,


I don't know... I'm not much of a joiner.

Nevertheless, let me gaze dreamily at your avatar a bit longer while I mull it over.


SFO

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Quote: The San Francisco Onion

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Quote: Skoob1999

SFO

That's great.

Sun, nucleus, protons, electrons, planets, orbits.

Fascinating.

Regards

Skoob.

---

Skoob,

What fascinates you?

SFO

---

SFO

All manner of things fascinate me.

The solar system for example operates in an identical manner to an atom.

I am a Christian and I do believe in God. Whatever God may be. Something superior anyway. I've had some pretty profound life experiences, some of which can't be easily explained away by pure science.

I like to consider myself as a reasonably intelligent individual. I'm an alpha male, and I usually get what I want. But I don't crush other people to do so. I'd never do that. I think reason is a better tool than violence. The pen is mightier than the sword will ever be.

I once beat a pro boxer in a street fight, but I take no satisfaction from that. It feels much better when you cause somebody to think.

I just wrote a Spoof about a gentleman named Harry Patch. The last known survivor from World War One, who passed away today.

It's not meant to be funny.

It's a tribute.

My uncle and my father-in-law fought with Montgomerey in the 8th army in WWII North Africa, and then up through Italy, including Monte Cassino.

We owe those guys. If they hadn't made sacrifices the way they did, we couldn't enjoy the freedom we now have.

So in short, I'm fascinated by many things.

I must admit though that I did love the clip of Buzz Aldrin punching that Moon-Landing conspiracy theorist in the face when he called Buzz a 'liar and a coward'

Way to go Buzz.

I saw that on www.theSun.co.uk

Sorry for twatting on.

Regards

Skoob.

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Quote: Chamone

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Quote: Skoob1999

---

Quote: Chamone

San Francisco Onion, you should join the Cult of Jesus Budda. He's into all this shit like a crazy fool. And he has a time machine. I joined and I've never felt better - well, I actually feel worse, but I have convinced myself that I feel better. -Ally

---

I saw Rod Stewart and the Faces at Blackpool Opera House on my 15th birthday. In 1927.(1972 really)

They were brilliant.

Supported by somebody called Vigrasse and Osbourne, who were a right bunch of miserable bastards.

Ah the memories...

One day I'll break out of the 70's

But I'm in no hurry.

Regards

Skoob.

---

Isn't it ironic that the Small Faces actually all had very large faces? And big noses? -Ally

---

Chamone/JB/Duncan/Whoever

Mrs Skoob used to be a singer. She worked with the Small Faces. And she knew Stevie Winwood and Roy Wood. She also knew Dave Mason and Jimmy Capaldi, who worked with Jimi Hendrix.

That's probably why she beats me with a stick.

I must be such a let-down after that lot.

But I don't really give a fuck.

I'm just me.

Regards

Skoob.

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Quote: Skoob1999

Chamone/JB/Duncan/Whoever

Mrs Skoob used to be a singer. She worked with the Small Faces. And she knew Stevie Winwood and Roy Wood. She also knew Dave Mason and Jimmy Capaldi, who worked with Jimi Hendrix.

That's probably why she beats me with a stick.

I must be such a let-down after that lot.

But I don't really give a fuck.

I'm just me.

Regards

Skoob.

---

But you are still alive and possibly have a small nose. She made the right choice...or maybe she was desperate -Ally

I love my nose.

It's quite nice.

Actually, apart from a couple of scars and some missing front teeth from a fight I didn't win, I'm quite a handsome bastard.

Though I say it myself.

I'm getting to be an old git these days, but the ladies still clock me.

I just put it down to style and charisma.

Tongue firmly in cheek

Skoob.

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Quote: Skoob1999

All manner of things fascinate me.

The solar system for example operates in an identical manner to an atom.

I am a Christian and I do believe in God. Whatever God may be. Something superior anyway. I've had some pretty profound life experiences, some of which can't be easily explained away by pure science.

---

I think God is the universe. Just like the Bible says, the universe is omnipresent, and because it contains intelligent life made up of matter that came from the universe, apparently it is working on becoming omniscient as well.

I don't discount the idea of a higher power. I also don't claim to know what a bacteria is thinking as it looks out at the wall of my intestine wondering, "Is this all there is?" all the time completely unaware of my liver, gall bladder, spleen, you name it.

Can bacteria think? Who knows. We used to think animals were guided by pure instinct and reflexes, and had no feelings or emotions. But many mammals exhibit intelligent behavior - even a bird, the African Gray parrot, possesses roughly the intelligence of a 3-year old human.

Perhaps we are like bacteria in someone else's colon.

I'm going to do a spoof in the magazine section one of these days about an advanced alien civilization that has been watching us ever since we invented agriculture, making our activity visible from space.

Advancing beyond the colonizing to the climactic phase of their civilization, they learned to live in peace and harmony with their planet, becoming very advanced.

Well, they spotted us, and when we built pyramids and a great wall, also visible from space, they noticed we were starting to come up with ideas like slavery and war, and they thought maybe we should eat less animals, too, so they laid down some guidelines for us.

Eventually, they put some of their DNA in the Virgin Mary so they would have a go-between to teach us the rules we would have to eventually know to become part of the Inter-Galactic Advanced Civilization Club (IGACC). We killed him.

He vouched for us, but they said if we don't get it right eventually, they'd be back, and there'd be Hell to pay.

Are we getting it right?

And actually, the solar system works more like a hurricane or galaxy: The further out the planet, the slower it revolves, so if you look at the planets' motions from above sped up, it describes a "whirpool" effect. This is a remnant left over from motion when the solar system "condensed" from a gas "cloud," much like a hurricane, with the sun as the low pressure system sucking everything in.

What the solar system has most in common with the atom is that in an atom, the positive and negative charges are electromagnetically balanced, yielding an "orbital" for the electron, and in a planet, the rate at which it "falls" is gravitationally balanced, yielding a stable orbit.

Holy crap. I've really got to get to bed.

Regards,


SFO

Thank fuck for that.

I like you SFO

Maybe one day we'll exchange views over a shandy.

Best Regards

Skoob.

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Quote: The San Francisco Onion

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Quote: BuckwheatsButt

dictorial diatribe

---

translation - "an authoritative, scathing criticism"


Buck,

I'm just trying to explain where I'm coming from. I know these are just spoofs, but there are real issues being obscured while people compare Obama to Hitler, and it sort of rubs me the wrong way when I see stuff like that.

I back up my beliefs with facts, and my points of view are carefully thought through, without any special interests (except that of the whole of humanity), lobbyists, or pundits influencing my decisions.

My "dictorial diatribe" is merely an effort to connect with anyone who chooses to read it.


SFO


P.S. Quit stereotyping Americans. I drink tea, not coffee. It's got antioxidants!

---

SFO

Better if you avoid the word I

Tongue in cheek: preferably the facial variety.

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Quote: The San Francisco Onion

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Quote: Chamone

San Francisco Onion, you should join the Cult of Jesus Budda. He's into all this shit like a crazy fool. And he has a time machine. I joined and I've never felt better - well, I actually feel worse, but I have convinced myself that I feel better. -Ally

---

Ally,


I don't know... I'm not much of a joiner.

Nevertheless, let me gaze dreamily at your avatar a bit longer while I mull it over.


SFO

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SFO: I don't think of myself as a cruel person actually, but,
I don't think too many people would ask you to join anything, so you're probablyl better off as a non-joiner/loner......living in bankrupt SF.

I don't want to get too personal, but I would be interested in knowing where you went to school, if you don't mind the question....


Respectfully,

Morse

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Quote: Morse

I don't want to get too personal, but I would be interested in knowing where you went to school, if you don't mind the question....


Respectfully,

Morse

---

Morse,

University of North Texas, Denton.
Major Art, painting and drawing, Minor English Composition, cum laude.
Solid science background.
Solicited by economics department (true).

Click on that huge thing on my profile page - it links to my neglected Art Bistro site.

Got to go to work.

Laters,

SFO

Ok, Thanks.

Probaby left handed, too.

Go In Peace.

Morse

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Quote: The San Francisco Onion

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Quote: Morse

I don't want to get too personal, but I would be interested in knowing where you went to school, if you don't mind the question....


Respectfully,

Morse

---

Morse,

University of North Texas, Denton.
Major Art, painting and drawing, Minor English Composition, cum laude.

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Oooh, behave! -Ally

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Quote: Morse

I don't think too many people would ask you to join anything, so you're probablyl better off as a non-joiner/loner......living in bankrupt SF.

---

Excuse me, but the whole country is bankrupt.


http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/


This is due largely to deficit spending, which is less likely to occur when you put people to work, collect taxes, and don't finance lengthy wars forcing democracy down people's throats halfway around the world.


Respectfully,

SFO