TOP 40 CELL PHONES QUOTES

From ABCs OF CELL PHONES And Other Hazards Of The Wireless Age – an ebook by William Thomas:

1. “The greatest polluting element in the earth’s environment is the proliferation of electromagnetic fields. I consider that to be a far greater threat on a global scale than warming, or the increase of chemical elements in the environment.” – Dr. Robert Becker, two-time Nobel nominee, author and EMRadiation research founder on ABC (Australia) Radio
2. “We never expected to see this continuing activity in the brain.” -Dr. Michael Klieeisen after the Spanish Neuro Diagnostic Research Institute in Marbella found that a call lasting just two minutes can alter the natural electrical activity of a child’s brain for up to an hour afterwards.
3. “At the molecular level, radio waves can disrupt growth patterns and the functioning of cells – particularly brain cells and nervous system tissue.” -Dr. A. S. Michrick
4. “40% percent of cells taken from mobile phone users show DNA damage.” –Indian Journal of Human Genetics
5. “The question is, do you want to play Russian roulette with your brain?” -Devra Lee Davis, Director Environmental Oncology, in in interview on her cell phone
6. “There are more than 15,000 scientific studies reporting the cell phone health hazards.”  –Earthpulse
7. “Physical testing to verify compliance is relatively rare.” –FCC Radio Frequency Safety
8. “In the committee [that sets the standards], one co-chair is from Motorola and the other is from the Navy, the military-industrial establishment.”  -Dr. Om Gandhi
9. “The generalization that the guidelines protect human beings from harm by any or all mechanisms is not justified.” – Norbert Hankin, EPA Radiation Protection Division
10. “Studies show there has been a 40% across-the-board increase in the number of brain tumors in the past 20 years.” -Australia Senator Lyn Allison, after brain tumors became the leading cause of death in children under 15
11. “Perhaps putting a mobile phone repeatedly to your head is something that might not be good in the long term.” –Prof. Leif Salford, longtime cell phone researcher into impacts on brain through the blood-brain barrier
12. “Three objects were considered essential across all participants, cultures and genders: keys, money and mobile phone.” -Nokia trend-spotter Jan Chipchase
13. “Cell phone dependency is now called compulsive communicating. Chain dialers call continually to get another fix.” –Spokesman Review
14. “More and more people can feel their cell phones vibrating – even when their mobiles are not around. This ‘fauxcellarm” phenomenon is also called ‘ringxiety’”. -AP
15. “1 in 10 [survey respondents] said they’d rather lose their mother-in-law than their cell phone.” -Leger Marketing
16. “2006 was the turning point when the industry started focusing not just on teenagers and adults but also on tweens – children between middle childhood and adolescence, usually 8 to 12 years old – and even children as young as 5.” –New York Times
17. “A Eurobarometer survey of almost 1,000 children in 29 countries found most had telephones after age 9. –New York Times
18. “Children may be more vulnerable because of their developing nervous system, the greater absorption of energy in the tissues of the head and a longer lifetime of exposure.” -British biochemist Sir William Stewart after completing UK government report, “Mobile Phones and Health”
19. “Children and teenagers are five times more likely to get brain cancer if they use mobile phones.” –Independent
20. “The mother’s pelvic structure promotes deep RF (Radio Frequency) radiation penetration and that radiation can be absorbed within the developing embryo or fetus.” -CSIRO
21. [All fetuses] “showed growth retardation” from wireless exposure.” -CSIRO
22. “Spanish doctors now fear that disturbed brain activity in children will lead to impaired learning ability, as well as psychiatric and behavioral problems.” -Mirror
23. “Electromagnetic fields are also linked with asthma and other respiratory diseases.” -Fetal and Neonatal Edition, Archives of Disease in Childhood
24. “Cell phone radiation changes the shape of brain proteins, causing them to clump together and form pathological protein fibrils like those found in Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease patients.” –Microwave News
25. “A whole generation of teenagers faces premature senility in the prime of their lives due to the use of mobile phones and new wireless technology.”  –Daily Express
26. “At current licensed limits for cell phone radiation, the blood-brain barrier gets switched off, allowing blood poisons to attack brain cells.” –Guardian
27. “Very low levels of microwave radiation from cell phones, portable phones and cell phone towers can cause changes in the blood-brain barrier lasting for up to five hours after a single exposure. Such leakage occurs after only two minutes of exposure at density levels of only 1/10,000 of a watt – thousands of times less than often exceeded ‘safety’ standards.”                       –Environmental Health Perspectives
28. “The industry had come out and said that there were thousands of studies that proved that wireless phones are safe, and the fact was that there were no studies that were directly relevant.” -renowned cell phone researcher, Dr. George Carlo
29. “At the molecular level, radio waves can disrupt growth patterns and the functioning of cells – particularly brain cells and nervous system tissue.”      -Dr. A. S. Michrick
30. “The effects can be terrifying.” -neurosurgeon Dr. Leif Salford after exposing rats with brains at the same stage of development as teenagers to two hours of radiation equivalent to emissions from mobile phones.
31. “DNA is DNA, whether in mice or people. And mouse DNA is about the same size as human DNA. But humans are much taller antennas. When you hold a cell phone against your head, you are absorbing four to ten times more energy than those now-forgetful mice.” -electronics columnist Stewart Fist
32. “As of Feb 2005, all five epidemiological studies of people who live near such installations show ill health effects from the masts. These include studies in Spain, Netherlands, Israel and Germany.” -expert testimony submitted by Dr. Magda Havas at North Carolina Public Hearing
33. “Hold the phone. Long-term use of a cell phone may cause inner ear damage and can lead to high frequency hearing loss.” –medicalnewstoday
34. “If you put a 20-year-old driver behind the wheel with a cell phone, his reaction times are the same as a 70-year-old driver.” -David Strayer, University of Utah psychology professor and principal author of the Transport Research study.
35. [People exposed to cell tower signals] “experienced dizziness, nervousness, chest pain, shortness of breath, numbness and tingling, weakness, and difficulty concentrating.” -Dutch Government report
36. “Humans who live within 4 km of a broadcast antenna experience behavioral disorders, cognitive dysfunction, and adverse health effects including leukemia, diabetes, psychoses.” -expert testimony by Dr. Magda Havas
37. “We have had many instances where you have an antenna that is allowed by law to transmit at 100 watts and we have seen up to 900 to 1,000 watts.” -Dr. George Carlo
38. “You do see a large increase in new cases each year of for instance cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, asthma and allergy that is really Exploding. And I read also in various scientific journals that you have equal path in the United States, that a number of such diseases are now increasing very rapidly in the population. And in Sweden the kind of breaking point is 1997 and that coincides with the introduction of, you know, second generation, GSM-based (pulsed digital) mobile telephony… ” -Dr. Johansson on KPFA radio
39. “The extrapolated trend indicates that 50% of the population can be expected to become electro-sensitive by the year 2017.” –neuroscientist Dr. Olle Johannson
40. “All life pulsates in time to the Earth and our artificial fields cause abnormal reactions in all organisms… Increasing electropollution could set in motion irreversible changes leading to our extinction.” -Dr. Robert Becker

Sources:

For complete attributions of the above quotes, please see THE ABCs OF CELL PHONES And Other Hazards Of The Wireless Age by William Thomas

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YOU CAN HELP STOP MONSANTO BILL 875

Is your garden going to be against the law in the United States?

Are farmers markets going to be regulated out of existence in the former “Land Of The Free?”

What is Obama doing???

Under the guise of “making food safer,” pending Bill HR 875 seeks to criminalize small farmers and backyard gardeners in order to hand control of America’s (and I do mean all of the Americas) to a few giant corporations like Cargill, Tyson – and most notoriously, Monsanto.

This aggressive promoter of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) “foods” has long demonstrated its concern over human and animal welfare by bringing the horrors of dioxin-laced Agent Orange to human families and wildlife throughout Vietnam, as well as to the families of incapacitated American veterans. The second most mutagenic toxin after plutonium, Monsanto-made dioxin destroys the blueprint for life. The third most toxic substances on this planet are polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). Monsanto invented PCBs, too…

SEE FULL STORY HERE

WHAT YOU CAN DO

Contact your Congressional members at 202-224-3121 Ask them to oppose HR 875 and S 425.

Sign the ‘Natural Solutions Foundations petition to Amend the Food Safety Modernization Act H.R. 875 [and Substitutes], by adding a “Natural and Family Food and Farming Exclusion Amendment”

Find out who sits on your states agriculture and farming committee and contact them with your concerns.

Contact your local elected officials and let them know your position on legislation and why.

Attend a local Weston A. Price Foundation meeting – a good start to learning about what is going on in farming, as well as getting involved with local and state initiatives.

Start your own local “Crop Circle” meeting. Ask everyone to bring a homegrown dish for potluck.

Plant your own backyard, back deck or window box “Victory Garden”. It’s easy, fun… and it’s planting time right now!

Support Farmers To Consumers Legal Defense Fund

WATCH THESE SHORT VIDEOS

The End Of Small farms – What You Should Know

Free Speech TV Story On HR 875

Small Farmers And Backyard Gardeners React

SEE FULL STORY HERE

FEELING THE PULL?

Hold on! The suction from this fiscal Black Hole is becoming implacable as we’re yanked toward its terminal Event Horizon…

In the dimly remembered historical mists of last year, the global size of the expanding derivatives bubble was calculated at $190,000 per POP (Person-On-Planet). Now going supernova, this expanding cloud of hot currency gases has – oops! – jumped to $206,000 per POP.

This is because all those pesky derivatives settlements are still coming due like a clockwork nightmare of compounding debt – along with no-one-knows how many “off-balance-sheet” banking swindles that are fast outpacing taxpayer ransoms, nose-diving tax revenues, and a striking lack of interest by foreign investors in buying more U.S. and British debt at zero rates of return.

(The Fed hopes you can come up with that 206 grand right away. Please put your next contribution in the bankers’ collection basket as it comes around again.)

Meanwhile, the next three generations of U.S. taxpayers (many as yet unborn) are being extorted to continue bailing out failed corporate states like All In Greed (AIG). So far, hostage salary slaves have forked over $150 billion to cover AIG management’s Credit Default Swaps and other claims on that rotting corpse’s derivative “exposure” currently being demanded by the largest and equally desperate Banks-On-Planet (BOP).

And that’s just one. Attempting to bail out all rapidly submerging BOPs is like bailing the Titanic with a kiddy beach bucket. Can’t be done. Will never be done. Why? Because, captain, the HOLE IS TOO DAMN BIG!

How big?

Latest damage reports indicate we are heavily listing from so-far-admitted Credit Derivatives still to come due at $542,000,000,000 ($542 trillion). This is more cash than is available in the entire known galaxy, at least as far out as Sigma Centuri. Nor are there enough trees left on this clear-cut planet to print that much cash.

Add to this gargantuan gambling debt another $863,000,000,000 ($863 trillion) for Over-The-Counter derivatives, which must also be paid to all the computers programmed with this Byzantine Ponzi scheme, and “who” are now firmly in control of our governments, banks and collective destiny.

By the way, the longer you, your spouse and infant daughter delay in paying the $618,000 you owe on this digital debt, the faster the remaining derivatives are compounding. Since you last blinked, they’re UP 44% to more than ONE QUADRILLION DOLLARS. The water’s rising fast!

These largish openings in our financial hull include:

1. Interest Rate Derivatives around $458+ trillion (UP 16%)
2. Credit Default Swaps around $57+ trillion (DOWN 1%)
3. Foreign Exchange Derivatives around $62+ trillion (UP 10%)
4. Commodity Derivatives around $13+ trillion (UP 44%)
5. Equity Linked Derivatives around $10+ trillion (UP 17%)
6. Unallocated Derivatives around $81+ trillion (UP 4%).

The subprime mortgage default freak-out garnering so much media obsession is a measly $1.5 trillion shortfall within a $5 trillion mortgage-assets pile-up. Which in turn is just uno small component of an “overwhelming” global crisis coming on “with unprecedented scale, speed, severity” and self-reinforcing synchronicity.

So observes Nathan Martin from his economic edge blogspot. Since last year, Martin mentions, the banking elite’s perfidy “has wiped a staggering $50 trillion” off the value of currency, equity and bond markets worldwide.”

That’s a lot.

(And we haven’t even mentioned the fast-intersecting vectors of crop-killing Climate Shift and Peak Oil.)

So far, no arrests of the crooks responsible have been made. Instead, they’ve been awarded with multi-million dollar bonuses! (Of course, if you’re going hungry and steal a third pizza in LA, you face doing serious hard time as indentured prison labor making blue jeans to compete with the Chinese – whose billion plus pissed off boomers are Out Of Work, Out Of Water and Out Of Luck.)

Bloomberg and Martin report that Washington has so far “spent, lent or committed” $13 trillion to dealing with the collateral damage from this busted Quadrillion Dollar Play. Ongoing commitments to endless wars, trade deficits, bailouts and other corporate welfare subsidies make the resulting U.S. vigorish nonsensical. Forget ailing Asia, bankrupt Britain and eviscerated Eastern Europe. There’s just not enough juice left in the system to avoid a Quite Big Shakeout. (Can you say, “One World Currency”?)

In other words, we are so broke.

Meanwhile, U.S. judges are throwing out foreclosures sought by lenders who no longer hold “illegally securitized loans.” Angry, savvy homeowners are also using predatory lending statutes to defend themselves against foreclosure, or apply for redress if they’ve already lost their homes.

“Substantial damages can be won if the homeowner can prove that the loan was made purely for the lender’s sole benefit,” Bloomberg advises. [bloomberg.com Mar 31/09]

So look for class actions charging fraudulent misrepresentation and predatory practices in neighborhoods near you. Even borrowing off-planet and converting Reguluian rubles into greenbacks, there is not enough cash in 10 solar systems to save lenders from millions of homeowners suing en masse to regain the titles to their homes.

Those “lenders” of course, are… the banks.

POLITICIANS

Politics is the most powerful narcotic active in the world. Idealists who have a close whiff often hallucinate that they can change a system that thrives on favors, back room deals and expediency. They are soon disillusioned or corrupted. Others will do anything for another fix. Their only principles are the people who whisper in their ears. Betrayal is their middle name. They will shake your hand, pat your baby on the ass and kiss your wife on the mouth. They will tell you they are champions of the people. They will describe the downtrodden – what their political opponents have done to them and what they will do for them – until tears fill your eyes and outrage shakes your fist and makes you scream. It is a well-known scientific fact that whenever lips part and words pour forth, all listening – to reason, spirit and others – ceases.

FINALLY, PROOF THAT HELL DOES NOT EXIST

A chemistry student at the University of Washington has ended a centuries-long reign of terror by major religions that have been threatening believers with perpetual agony in eternal hellfire if they question “God’s word” – as stipulated by ministers, priests, popes and scholars poring over passages not “written by God” (who did not even leave any notes) but penned by other men with similarly controlling agendas.

Of course, the impossibility of a disembodied soul (or spirit) feeling corporeal sensations such as cold, rain, heat or fire has made the concept of “roasting in hell” like a chicken basted on a rotisserie a nonstarter from the beginning.

Despite this insurmountable contradiction, the notion of an eteral fiery pit filled with pitchfork-loads of freaked out souls was imposed by exasperated church leaders who finally resorted to saying “to hell with everyone” tempted toward the strong human propensity to enjoy sex and other pleasures of the flesh.

Now, thanks to a student’s answer to a bonus question on a recent mid-term university exam, threatening anyone with hell is now just a laughing matter.

Ironically, even deliciously, an act of lovemaking clinched the argument against hell.

With “eternal damnation” now proven false, daily demonstations of direct casue-and-effect… reaping what we sow… treating others as we wish to be treated… sending out vibes and actions that come back around – for good or ill – with interest… and plain ol’ karmic rebalancing provide all the incentive anyone should require to “do the right thing.”

Who needs hell, when paying for our own perversity and screw-ups right here on Earth – and receiving the benefits of our good deeds – is so inescapably inevitable? Even if we dodge the law, there’s no fooling our sickened bodies, stricken conscience, or our souls. And who needs that?

To hell with hell.

HELL EXPLAINED BY CHEMISTRY STUDENT

Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)?

Most of the students wrote proofs using Boyle’s Law, which states that gas cools when it expands, and heats when it is compressed. One student, however, wrote the following:

First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls are entering Hell, let’s look at the different religions that exist in the world today.

Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle’s Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added.

This gives two possibilities:

1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.

2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.

So which is it?

If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, “It will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you,” and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number two must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over. The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct……leaving only Heaven, thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting “Oh my God.”

THIS STUDENT RECEIVED AN A+

THIS CULL’S FOR YOU

Don’t worry. Cell phones aren’t dangerous. Unless, that is, you happen to be a sperm cell, fertilized ovum, unborn fetus, pregnant woman, bumblebee, newly born infant, child, adolescent, teenager or adult regularly exposed to cell phones, portable phones, wireless computers, home routers, relay towers and other breathlessly ballyhooed components of the Wireless Age. If so, more than 15,000 scientific and medical studies show that your mental, emotional and physical health are being drastically compromised.

Meanwhile, the lucrative rush to mine the precious mineral  coltan used in every wireless device is prompting mass rape and murder in the Congo, along with indentured child labor and widespread habitat destruction resulting in the decimation and endangerment of the last rainforests and mountain gorillas.

Is this any way to treat our relatives?

The same PR firms that once blew smoke over Big Tobacco still insist that cell phones and other wireless gadgets blanketing homes, huts and cities with invisible electrosmog are “perfectly safe”. But over the past eight years, industry leaders Nokia, Motorola and Ericsson have quietly filed at least 25 patents for “limiting” radiation. None of these widgets are being produced or advertised – for obvious reasons: Nokia’s nervous 1998 filing with the US Patent & Trademark Office in Washington shakily (and ungrammatically) admitted: “radio frequency irradiation…could lead to the development of malignant tumour.”

A greatly increased risk of contracting malignant brain tumors is just one inconvenient truth clinically linked to the ongoing wireless craze that is seeing globe-smothering radio-frequency and microwave exposures at ever higher power densities.

In addition to extensively documented brain cancers, clinical trials and studies are repeatedly showing that those who habitually hold these miniature microwave ovens to their skulls (or even worse, use power-spiking headsets) – or balance wireless portable computers on their laps or pregnant bellies, or carry activated cell phones in bras and bikini bottoms, shirt and trouser pockets – are prone to endorphin-zapping electromagnetic addiction, cervical and breast cancer, hearing loss, vision loss, early onset senility, headaches, migraines, constant ringing in their ears, inner agitation, constant exhaustion, inability to concentrate, forgotten errands and appointments, lack of coordination, pain in hands or arms, birth defects and brain damaged offspring, nausea, kidney disease, obesity, mood swings, eye ticks, greatly diminished sex drive, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, autism, Multiple Sclerosis, heart damage, heart attacks and sleep disorders. The list goes on… [Freiburger Appeal UGUMED Oct/02; Bioeffects Initiative 07]

Children are especially at risk.

So are non-users daily involuntarily exposed to all this second-hand wireless smog.

Where is this leading?

Straight off a planet-wide cliff.

Besides further bankrupting already bankrupt nations with compounding medical and disability costs, the drastic dumbing down of our political leaders, business executives, military personnel, technicians, emergency responders, other essential servants and neXt generation teens is gathering exponential speed – just when we need our sharpest minds to deal with the converging crisis of Climate Shift, Peak Oil and Monetary Meltdown.

Whatever you do, when it comes to wireless – don’t stay tuned. Join the worldwide revolt against this species-limiting technology. – William Thomas

READ MY CELL PHONE ARTICLE  “CELL  PHONE ANTIPHONY”

WHY ARE WE PUTTING UP WITH THIS?

Suppose we juxtapose the fissures currently splitting apart the polar icecaps with the tectonic fractures spreading through a world banking system that in recent years has become a no-risk-barred casino? In my just-posted feature story, FISSURES – linked through the sidebar at right – I do just that.

So what’s the point of posting two mirroring, steeply trending downward graphs of Arctic ice loss and the value of the American dollar?

Calamity, if we don’t pay attention.

The Good News is: Tracking these widening fault lines in the planet’s intertwined ecological and economical viability, we can see them opening even bigger fissures in dangerously outmoded attitudes, unquestioned assumptions and personal priorities.

Lucky for us, we’re at the crunch point. Because we don’t have a whole lot of time to “get the lessons” we’ve so cleverly arranged for our spiritual and global growth. Happily, if not comfortably for procrastinators like me, there is not another nanosecond to lose before we change our minds and our most unconscious habits. And stop sleepwalking right off the planet in a distracted daze.

It’s fun, uplifting and connecting to offer a silent blessing of gratitude for the smile tugging at that person’s face, the green shoots of garlic coming up in the garden, the spring songs those robins are singing

And it is downright instructional to start looking closely at our own conditioned choices and actions – especially at the manipulations being run on us by the most murderous, smooth-talking, ignorant, whacko, lying, greedheads ever assembled under a chemtrailed sky. To put it nicely. With all due respect.

You know who I mean.

THE BIGGEST SCAM OF ALL
It’s been going on for so long, we think the world has always worked this way. Two mistakes right there. Because it hasn’t. And it isn’t. Working, that is.

The world’s being run, bubba. If the essence of evil is not treating all sentient beings with dignity and respect, what’s going on when you and me are called “units” and “bubble wrap” by the banking gangsters pulling the debt-and-interest levers at the hub of the wheel to which all spokes lead?

As we roll merrily off several dozen cliffs not factored in computer bottom-lines, let’s count up all the elite families in the oligarchy running this planet ragged. Include all the bankers and corporate heads profiting from death, disaster and destruction. All these faceless dudes and dudesses would not fill more than a dozen big hotels.

Now all together, shout in a loud, strong voice: “SIX-BILLION SIX-HUNDRED THOUSAND PEOPLE!”

Then ask: “Why are we putting up with being ripped off, seeing our children and their children and other families’ children being hurt and ripped off, watching our direct kin – the myriad wild lives of this planet – wiped out, and this unique gem of blue planet turned into a smoking wasteland by computerized robot-people endlessly churning out imaginary digital bottom lines that even now are vanishing like dust in the winds of change?”

Does

Not

Compute.

I mean holy jeepers, Batgirl! Does the world really need an $81 billion dollar submarine to fight al-Qaeda’s nonexistent “navy”? (Thank you, Joe Lieberman.)

Do we really need another triple-cost-overrun, obsolete-before-it-flies, mega-billion dollar robot fighter plane “whose” only targets are the education and health budgets, atmosphere and ozone layer it shreds? Or three-hundred-billion dollar robotic stealth warships to sneak up on some guys clutching boxcutters and blow the wrong village away?

Unless, of course, our next-best weapons are handed to our many and growing opponents to “justify” the “need” for such insanely wasteful expenditures. While the real “terrorists” – lack of respect and education for women, hunger, waterborne diseases, water scarcity, dying oceans and hair-trigger climate shift – go unaddressed.

As Dana Hedgpeth points out in the Washington Post: “The high-tech planes and ships commissioned for trillions of dollars to defeat an enemy with no navy, air force or army, and using $3 knives as its weapons arsenal, were gifts to the military-industrial complex that will go on giving for decades to come. The Iraq war may end someday, but rest assured that major weapons systems, once commissioned, have a life-support system unmatched in any other sector of public spending. Rarely does the plug get pulled on even the most irrelevant and expensive war toy. Not while both Democratic and Republican politicians feed at the same trough… ” [Truthdig.com Apr 1/07]

Amen, sister.

C-130 pilots, for example, can talk easily to any command post on the planet at any time while wafting through the air dropping Dyno-Gel chemicals into hurricanes, or gigantic bombs onto indigent and indignant Afghanis. So why the frick does Boeing need another $3 billion for more radios when we have millions of American children going hungry, school programs shutting down, the elderly’s hard-earned lives and wisdom being discarded? And come to think of it: Why are those C-130s dropping giant, radioactive waste-filled bombs down their tail ramps on the poorest families on Earth – instead of food, medicine, winter clothing, tents and blankets?

I mean, Jesus (referring to his example) – if we really want to eliminate 99% of would-be terrorists overnight, all we have to do (I learned first-hand) is listen to their grievances. (We don’t have to agree, just listen.) Then… wait for it… feed them.

Offer everyone everywhere the same dignity, respect and prospects that we desire – and presto! – no more despairing, desperate or outraged “terrorists”. Except for a few short-circuited individuals who can be handled by their own tribes, or special forces and cops. It’s a heck-of-alot cheaper, saner and karmically advantageous than trying to kill one of out every three people onboard this sun-orbiting space colony.

And then we can do other stuff.

PULLING THEIR PLUGS
So when are you going to turn off the brainwashing fear-mongers? It’s as easy as unplugging your TVs. While you’re at, why not cut the cord to your molecular-messing microwave? And disconnect every brain-scrambling wireless phone and router in your place is another good start.

Feel better?

Now we can start firing all “corporate servants” and start replacing them with clued-in, new paradigm people itching to do real good. There are tons of them around. Though not that many in politics. So that chuck-and-jive shell game of interchangeable suits will have to go, too – as we get back to our founding Iroquois model of bioregionally-based representation among councils of elders, councils of youths, councils that give voice to furred, feathered, finned and leafy critters.

It’s already happening.

Our choice right now, this instant, is to first envision and then start creating what we most desire in our own lives, our relationships, our neighborhoods. Whirr-peddle up that big hill on your electric-assist bike and see how many people start asking where they can buy or build one, too. Plant some veggies in boxes on your flat roof or back deck and watch other gardens sprout around you. Leave your carbon-burner parked in your driveway for a few weeks and watch the whole block become a used car lot. (Or at least see their drivers start pressing auto insurers to charge only when a vehicle is in use.)

As for the unelected crazies and craziness we cannot seem to address, our choice is to stop buying their products and their lies, turn our backs and walk away from the briar patch, whistling, “zippetty-do-da, zippety day” – right into the streets leading to Washington. A few million outraged Americans hauling non-responsive politicians out of their offices by the scruff of their necks and either handing them pink slips, or charging them for their criminal acts, ought to do that trick.

Walking away does not mean ignoring what’s coming down, or how grossly we’re being conned. It means ending our complicity in a stupidly stressful suicidal death wish masked by drugs, denial and distracting simulations – and rejoining the marvels of raw, real, exuberant life instead.

Once more, all together on the chorus:

WHY ARE WE PUTTING UP WITH THIS?
WE’RE NOT!

PORTAL POWER
Please don’t misunderestimate my remarks.

I am not talking about electing Obama next year, after Bush/Cheney have blown up Iran and ignited Armageddon, cancelled the elections after another facilitated 9/11, or perpetrated some other dire mischief. Chances are, the Democrats are going to continue self-destructing and we (the non-voting world) are going to end up with” Bush The Sequel” on steroids. Because that’s how the system is rigged to perpetuate its profits and control.

I am not talking about waiting for blessed Obama, Jesus or some other Superhero to come bail us out. In real life, saviors and space brothers – imaginary or otherwise – seem to insist that we start helping ourselves before we can qualify for their intervention. And if Obama does makes it into the White House, he is going to need all the support we can give to pull off the vision he is so inspiringly articulating.

Nor am I talking revolution. While walking the Highway to Hell between Kuwait City and Basra, I’ve seen where weapons and violence lead. Even when the revolution is primarily peaceful – as in the former Soviet Union – “People Power” is inevitably replaced by “Mafia Power” as greed and control coalesce. Replacing one power-over system for another has never worked. Except for those at the top of the power pyramid.

I’m talking about… (may we have the envelope please…)

TRANSFORMATION!

Yes, sports fans! The Super Good News is that we are being rapidly driven out of all remaining wriggle room and right Up Against The Bulkhead of our tantrum-throwing, eyes-squeezed shut resistance.

And guess what?

THERE IS A DOOR IN THE WALL.

IT LEADS TO A MUCH BETTER PLACE.

AND IT IS UNLOCKED.

Is that handy, or what?

That door in our heart/mind is located right smack dang in the middle of 99% of the obstacles we think we face – and re-create every time we pump those mental goblins with more negative, fearful energy.

The handle is marked:

TO OPEN: TURN TOWARD LIGHT, LIFE AND POSITIVE AFFIRMATIONS..

So turn it, already.

Creeeeeeaaaaak….

Step on through.

Ahhhhhhh!

Are you alive, not dying of hunger, relatively pain free, and not facing imminent extinction in this moment?

Congratulations! This is the only moment you’ve got!

EVERYBODY CHILL!
So take a breath. And another. And another… Envision enhancing your life by unshackling yourself from Oil and Credit Card Enslavement, parking your vehicle, dropping nonessential purchases, swapping and bartering and buying locally second-hand for what you need. Or maybe picking those items up and leaving others off at a “free store” like the one we have here on Hornby. Plant that veggie garden. (Check out, One Straw Revolution.) Reconnect with each other and the Earth. Organize a community garden. Or start a school garden and let it teach your children lessons of real value.

Because all children are our children.

Instead of buying still more stuff to throw into the black hole of your thirsty spirit, try refilling it naturally through quiet contemplation. Step back. Chill out. Cultivate time and space for quiet reflection. Or simply sit still looking out your eyes.

Doesn’t that feel better than another two hours of disastrous “nooz” or shoot-em-up videos and teevee?

Ten minutes’ time out twice a day will change your life in ways you never dreamed.

Stopping right where we are also helps us rediscover and recover our sense of Place. How does its Feng Shui vibe feel to you? Don’t like it so much? Change it! There is gigantic joy in taking the time to be in each moment. And major serenity in not being owned by things stored in boxes and still unpaid for.

FEED THE CHILDREN, LAY DOWN YOUR ARMS, AND COME HOME
Now we can start to see the biggest chuck and jive scam being run on us is that every “other” is an “enemy” to be feared and suppressed in ways that really oppress us!

If you are a brother wearing colors, and living every minute in fear and hatred of other brothers wearing other colors – you have fallen for a con being run on you by your real oppressors. Call a truce. Unite, instead.

Remember how the Black Panthers became real revolutionaries? While attending their strategy sessions and marching with them in Milwaukee, I watched the Panthers seriously freak out the Man when they started school lunch programs in the ghetto. Because the brothers understood that their oppressors understood that malnourished kids become listless and mentally impaired. And they knew that when it came to finally ending the slavery that has been going on ever since the last slaver sailed into Charleston and Tampa, the power of nutrition is stronger than the power of the gun.

Speaking of firearms…

If you happen to be a black or Hispanic soldier touring hell, and you have come to desperately decide that your only chance of getting home alive is to do unto others before they do it to you – hold that thought, and ask yourself why you’re fucking up other brothers and sisters of color who have never threatened you or done you wrong? Do you really believe in your heart that calling someone a “sand nigger” and blowing them away does not make you a “nigger” for doing Bush and Cheney’s dirty work? Is your green card worth your dignity and soul?

We’ve already seen an ongoing “General Strike” that has so far refused Bush/Cheney’s orders to bomb, bomb, bomb Iran. Now we need a “Grunt Strike” to back them up before the people of Iraq, the Green Machine, and the Corps are completely trashed.

Remember the Nam? That senseless slaughter finally ended when the grunts – mostly brothers – refused to go back out into the boonies. And started dropping wrenches into the reduction gears of carriers so they couldn’t’ leave port. And began fragging officers trying to pad their careers with more dead GIs.

I am not advocating more violence. I am proud to have served my country as a zoomie-in-training who went on strike instead of air strikes napalming kids in their hamlets. And I am saying that insanity ended the day the guys with the guns laid them down, lit some spliffs, and said, “Dude, we’s taking the day off. And the day after that. And the one after that. You dig?”

They did, all right. And everyone still alive came home. One way or another.

ENCOURAGING ENDORPHINS
It is choice time, amigas and amigos. Each one of us can start checking ourselves everyday, everywhere, every time: Why am I doing this? Are my thoughts, vibes and actions furthering or sabotaging my life, other lives, future lives – human and “wild”?

If you don’t like the answer, change your response. Then note, observe, bless and wonder how much happier, easier, better you feel. It is a scientific fact, when we do good and help others our heart, brain and body pump a surge of endorphins through our being. Stress deflates. And we feel gooooood about ourselves and others and where things are going.

Fear, negativity and anger have the opposite effects. And lead to an early grave.

True, the poles may be cracking up, the warmongers and torturers may be on some final fling, and the value of those pieces of paper and plastic in your pocket may be reverting to the actual worth of those materials. But – and there is always a but – we can make different choices, co-create a new story, stop giving energy to those mired in negative tapeloops, and transfer it instead to those who cherish and celebrate life in all its myriad, miraculous forms.

After all, we’re all in this together. WE ARE EACH AND EVERYONE EVERYWHERE A MANIFESTATION OF THE SAME ENERGY, THE SAME GREAT SPIRIT, THE SAME ANCIENT IMPULSE FOR COMPASSION AND COOPERATION CALLED LIFE.

So let’s get on with renovating our awareness. And letting our actions flow from that guidance. We do have that power. We do have that choice.

That’s what the melting icecaps are teaching us. That’s where the dissolution of digital dollars is returning us. If we dare to get their lessons, shift from “me” to “we”, let go of self-destructive stories that are not our own – and finally trust and surrender to the spirit of kindness and compassion that can unite us all.

ACCESS:
If you only purchase and read two more documents in your lifetime – contact the Institute of Noetic Sciences and order their 2007 and 2008 SHIFT REPORTS. (707-779-8212; noetic.org, shiftinaction.org) This information is more mind blowing than LSD! Nowhere else will you find our human predicament and potential so clearly, calmly, succinctly and compassionately laid out – along with signs and paths of transformation so astoundingly described, I guarantee you will find yourself floating on endorphins when you finish reading and rereading and exclaiming aloud. Become a member if you like. I am finding IONS audio presentations by some of the most articulate thinkers and activists of our time powerfully inspirational reminders of me how good and gracious and innovative people can be.

And if you understand how crucial daily nutrition is to your health and well being, click here.

“STOP THE KILLING, I’M RUNNING OUT OF VIRGINS!” -God

“God will see you now.”

The woman at the door regarded me behind her veil with eyes of smouldering kohl.

“Are you of the faith?” she asked as I stepped inside an ornate, gilded mansion that would have boggled Croesus.

“I’m willing to believe anything if I can keep company with you,” I ventured, craning my neck to scope out a place that seemed to combine home, cathedral and art museum on a gargantuan scale. But my flippant flirtation fell flat.

Brusquely gesturing for me to follow, my guide informed me over her shoulder: “It doesn’t work that way.”

Gliding ahead with a desert gait I’d admired during my service with the Gulf Environmental Emergency Response Team, she dropped one of her diaphanous veils every few meters. My breath quickened with each cast-off illusion. But the seventh and last veil stayed stubbornly in place. Obviously, I did not merit the final rewarded glimpse of… enlightenment.

More spry than I’d imagined, I found God in his office. The old codger was  seated in mid-air above a large desk covered with some 7 billion “waybills” representing every newly arriving, sojourning or departing soul on Earth. As I approached, an angel fluttered overhead, took aim like a seagull, and dropped another stack of birth certificates into an already overflowing “In” tray.

“I never imagined what a monster I was creating, inventing humans,” God sighed, waving me to a conventional chair. “Dealing with so many requests would be impossible if I hadn’t thought up the Internet and email to keep people distracted.”

I grinned. But there was little humor in his smile. God looked stressed dealing with just one paltry planet out of 17,000 parallel universes.

“How’s the birth rate doing?” I inquired.

“It’s finally dropping wherever the Internet takes hold,” God replied. “People who stay up every night staring at a monitor are too zoned to get it on.

“But it still doesn’t make my work much easier,” he went on. “The demands keep piling up from people who squander the two greatest gifts I can bestow – life itself, and free will – and still think I owe them personal round-the-clock attention. You would not believe the abuse I get from so-called religious people when I don’t drop everything to fulfill some unearned whim or desire!”

I could only mumble my sympathy. Wasn’t playing God supposed to be fun?

THE BIGGEST COMMANDMENT OF ALL
“How did you find me?” God asked, leaning back on empty air. “Most people think I live on a cloud in the sky. And the rest are convinced I don’t even exist.”

“I remembered something about you occupying a mansion with many rooms,” I replied. “And I figured being God, it must be pretty big. So I started knocking on doors. Still, I didn’t expect to find you in D.C.”

God laughed delightedly. “Even though I’m bedeviled by rip-off real estate hucksters, it lets me keep a closer eye on the biggest liars, thieves and terrorists. How do you like my digs?”

“Well, if you don’t mind me saying, it does seem somewhat ostentatious, what with so many people going hungry and the rest wanting new cars,” I replied. “Just the art on the walls must be worth gazillions.”

“Remember, I might have to stay here until some fanatic finally triggers Armageddon,” God said. “Especially after my son let on that I’m providing free accommodation to everyone who follows my most important commandment…”

“Which is?” I blurted, whipping out my notebook. “Sorry to interrupt.”

“’Be nice,’” God said.

“And since most people are nice – at least those who love all my children, and aren’t totally hypnotized watching teevee or being owned by a lot of stuff,” he continued, “I’ve got to accommodate a lot of souls. What’s the rush to get here, anyway? Haven’t people figured out that the pleasures of the flesh are exclusive to embodiment?”

I shrugged. “Guess not.”

THE 11th COMMANDMENT
A golden beam of light shot from the fingers he pointed at me.

“Write this down,” he commanded. “The creatures I created – the birds and flowers of the field, the dolphins and whales in the sea, the big cats in the jungle – immerse themselves in each moment, without worrying about how much cash they might be making by doing things that go against their nature.

“I never thought humans would take such a big bite out of the Big Apple. Or show such ingratitude for birdsong, sunshine, or the caress of a lover or warm breeze on their skin. But no. Ever since those devilish bankers invented interest on debt, people seem hell bent on ignoring the lessons I allow them to arrange for themselves…”

God shook his head.

“I’m expecting a big influx of arrivals once climate shift, global famine, war, disease and $50 a gallon gas really kick in,” he resumed. “And don’t think housing so many souls is easy. Most people indulge such bizarre belief systems, they end up here expecting something completely different. And they usually express their disappointment at maximum volume!”

God grimaced. “You’d better warn everyone that the bedlam of all their complaining is about to see me impose an 11th commandment.”

“Which is?” I prompted.

“Stop whining!”

God was nearly shouting, “What do so many selfish souls have to complain about, after I gifted each one of them with the miracle of life itself?” he demanded.

“Lack of milk and honey,” I guessed. “And the 70 virgins supposedly assigned to each ‘successful’ suicide bomber. If that’s the right description.”

God leaned forward in mid-air. “You’ve got to tell them to stop all that killing,” he said, looking into my eyes. “I’m running out of virgins.”

STOP-LOSS VIRGINS
“That’s a big request,” I replied. “Suicide bombing’s gaining popularity among despairing and oppressed peoples everywhere, who simply don’t see any other way to stop an ignorant Hyperpower and its proxies from killing their families and destroying their homes. With the White House taken over by fundamentalists talking and acting exactly like the Taliban they once funded, a formerly democratic country armed with more weapons than all other nations combined is running amok and trashing the entire planet.”

God waved me into silence.

“I hate being beholden to mistranslators of my Word,” he admonished. “Now, they’re even discriminating against women suicide bombers, who don’t seem to merit 70 blond surfer hunks for their misguided murders. Still, for each so-called male ‘martyr’ I’m expected to pony up 70 houris. Otherwise, if I withhold, I’ll be accused of interfering in their destinies. Not to mention all the people who would still be alive if wannabe suicide bombers knew where they’re really going to end up if they push that plunger.”

“So how are you coping with all the killing?” I asked.

“I’m having to recycle all the available girls,” God admitted. “Just like all those American GIs forced by ‘stop loss’ to keep playing homemade-bomb roulette way past their contract expirations, most of my houris are on their fourth tour here.”

“But I thought they had to be virgins,” I interjected.

“They are,” God corrected me. “Islamic law stipulates that on arriving in Paradise on the wings of a green Phoenix, suicide’martyrs’ can look but not touch the 70 virgins initially assigned to feed them milk and honey, and show them around. So it isn’t long before young men deprived at home start feeling teased here. Judging by their angry frustration, I’d say most would-be terrorist’s aren’t reading the fine print before blowing themselves to a kingdom not to come.”

“I’ll try to get the word out,” I offered. “No nooky for suicide bombers in paradise.”

NO EXCUSES
“As if anyone with a beating heart and a lick of sanity can really believe they will merit any kind of heavenly reward for murdering the innocent!” God went on. “And that goes for American terror bombers, too. Usama and his followers can’t come close to the havoc raised by all the uranium-tipped missiles, bombs and cannon shells the Americans are firing into defenseless neighborhoods in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“Now American GIs, bomber and gunship pilots are showing up here after dying from return fire, Gulf War Illness The Sequel, or most often, suicide. Can you believe they all expect the red carpet treatment after murdering more than one million innocent kids, moms, dads and elders just to steal oil that was already being sold to them below OPEC prices? Not to mention defiling the paradisiacal planet I gave them by blowing their radioactive waste all over the globe. And all in my name! How twisted is that?”

“They can’t really help it,” I assayed, making an involuntary calming gesture. “All that violence on TV and in the movies… those endless messages of fear and propaganda running 24-7 on the big networks. Not to mention all those anti-depressants, aspartame, fluoride, microwaves, STDs and cellphones frying what’s left of their brain cells.”

“Do people really think I’ll accept their excuses for the mass murders carried out in places like early Native America, Auschwitz, Stalin’s Russia, Mao’s China, Ēl Salvador, Chile, Vietnam, Chechnya, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq?” God came right back. “Do they think I put them on Earth just to go to Wal-Mart and get fat eating junk food watching the tube while innocent men, women and children are being abducted and tortured in foreign gulags in their name?”

KILL NOT
Catching himself, God lowered his voice. “Have you every tried carving 10 Commandments in solid stone?” he went on. “What part of ‘Thou Shalt Not Kill’ don’t people understand?”

“Maybe it’s the ‘Thou Shalt’ that’s throwing them,” I suggested. “Most folks who sign up to kill total strangers not much different from their own spouses and children – who never threatened their country in any way – are even dumber than their leaders, who are at least smart enough to issue illegal orders while hiding far in the rear. Maybe we should change the branding. How about simply, ‘Kill Not’?”

I snapped my fingers. “Or even better: ‘Kill. Not!’”

“That’s kickin’!” God cried, clapping his hands. “You and your colleagues in the press and on the worldwide web have to get the word out that I don’t care what flag people wave. Indiscriminate slaughter does not open any gates here. Tell anyone who thinks killing in my name is okay is in for a big surprise when they show up looking for a vacancy in my mansion of not that many rooms.”

NEWBIE BRIEFING
“So what happens to them?” I asked, scribbling fast in my notebook.

“I usually let my son handle the new arrivals,” God said. “He always asks them, ‘What about my strict Word that children are never to be harmed?’

“And they always say, ‘Christ, I forgot.’”

I laughed. “But by then it’s too late,” I guessed.

“Right,” God agreed. “Way too late.”

“So what happens to the people who blow up civilians – the pilots and artillery officers, the tank crews and suicide bombers, the quick-on-trigger sentries – and all those who pay for this carnage without protest?” I asked again.

“To hell with them,” God said with a wink.

“Whoa,” I exclaimed. “Isn’t that a bit heavy, condemning manipulated adolescents to everlasting damnation just for carrying out the lessons you put them on Earth to learn?”

“Are you trying to guilt trip me?” God asked.

“Just curious,“ I replied.

MARY MARY QUITE CONTRARY
“Look,” God said with deliberate emphasis. “I don’t like being slandered as a heavy just because some priest or mullah or minister or rabbi tells his herd, I mean flock, I mean followers, that I’m a vengeful, unforgiving, bloodthirsty old SOB. If everyone found out how loving and compassionate I really am, the whole manipulation-through-fear scam run by the major religions would end. And people would start doing what my son instructed them to do in the only set of eyewitness instructions he actually dictated.”

“The Gnostic Gospels,” I guessed.

“Right,” God said again. “Especially that recovered fragment written by Mary.”

“Christ’s respect and affection for Magdalene incurred the jealousy of the apostles, until he told them that she alone among them actually understood his teaching,” I recounted.

“Which was… ” God prompted.

“To avoid priests and similar intermediaries, who are unnecessary and even an impediment to understanding and following his example.”

“Which was… “

“Which was not his torture and crucifixion celebrated by so many cross-eyed Christians and at least one perverted, anti-Semitic movie-maker,” I answered. “Nor even a cannibalistic re-enactment of a Last Supper deliberately misrepresented to have excluded women. Jesus’ real message was his Resurrection. He was instructing us to resurrect our own souls by taking personal responsibility for seeking our own salvation.”

“And how did he say to do that?” God quizzed.

“By being quiet and really listening to where you both speak directly to each one of us – from within our hearts. And then doing what we know is right.”

“Bravo,” God said. “That’s it exactly.”

SINNERS’ FATE REVEALED
“So if you’ll excuse the question,” I kept going. “Why not finally end the manipulation of the major religions peddling hellfire and blind obedience?”

“I can’t intervene,” God replied. “That would negate free choice, and interfere with people’s need to learn for themselves – to practice right thoughts, right speech and right action. Which are the only ways anyone ever gets in here.”

“In other words, ‘Do unto others… ” I started to quote.

“Which means,” God finished for me, “that when spreading love, clothing the naked and feeding the hungry – or maiming, terrorizing, traumatizing or blowing up any sacred being – remember: ‘Whatsoever you do unto one of my creatures, you do unto me.’”

“But why send everyone who falls for such long-practiced religious scams and patriotic cons straight to hell?” I still wanted to know.

“Oh that,” God chuckled. “I don’t send anyone to hell. I send the really bad sinners next door.”

“Next door?”

“To the Goddess!” God said, laughing uproariously.

“Why do you look so surprised?” he grinned, wiping mirth from his eyes. “Can’t you see that trying to run a universe solely as a male would be as unbalanced and unworkable as it’s proving on Earth? Look around you, dude. Do you think there might be a reason why most people on this planet are not male? Trying to accomplish anything without feminine perspective, passion and engagement is as stupid as heading off toward Jericho in a one-wheel cart.”

He was still laughing. “After all, yin-yang is a celestial symbol, you know. And while useful as a discipline, do you really think practicing eternal celibacy serves anyone but jealous priests?”

“So what does she do with all the soldiers and suicide bombers you send her?” I asked, ignoring the other obvious question.

“Why, she forgives them, of course. Just like I do,” God said. “Then she sends them back for one-thousand lifetimes of learning and community service.”

Leaning forward once again, God spoke in a voice so low I had to bend toward him like a co-conspirator. Which is what I guess reporters are.

“Given what’s coming down Earthside, I’d say that these next few lifetimes are going to be plenty busy. And not all that pleasant,” he confided. “So tell everyone you meet onboard what they’d better hurry up and figure out is an exceedingly rare, sun-orbiting spacecraft: It’s time to start hearing each other and get your ship together. Or you may find my earthly mansion in ruins. And me on an overdue holiday.”

FINALLY, HELL DISPROVEN

A chemistry student at the University of Washington has ended a centuries-long reign of terror by major religions that have been threatening believers with perpetual agony in eternal hellfire if they question “God’s word” – as stipulated by ministers, priests, popes and scholars poring over passages not “written by God” (who did not even leave any notes or taped interviews), but penned by misogynist men with similarly controlling agendas.

Of course, the impossibility of a disembodied soul (or spirit) feeling corporeal sensations such as cold, rain, heat or fire has made the concept of “roasting in hell” like a chicken basted on a rotisserie a nonstarter from the beginning.

Despite this insurmountable contradiction, the notion of an eternal fiery pit hosting pitchfork-loads of freaked out souls condemned by a vengeful god was imposed by exasperated church leaders who finally resorted to saying “to hell with everyone” tempted by the natural human propensity to enjoy sex, and other pleasures of embodiment.

Now, thanks to a student’s answer to a bonus question on a recent mid-term university exam, threatening anyone with hell is just a laughing matter.

Ironically, even deliciously, an act of lovemaking clinched the argument against hell.

With “eternal damnation” now proven false, daily demonstrations of direct cause-and-effect, reaping what we sow, treating others as we wish to be treated, attracting the energy that we put out (and that comes back around – for good or ill – with interest), and good ol’ karmic rebalancing provide all the incentive anyone should require to “do the right thing.”

To hell with hell. Who needs it, when paying for our own perversity and screw-ups right here on Earth – and receiving the benefits of our good deeds – is so inescapably inevitable? Even if our misdeeds dodge the law, there’s no fooling our sickened cells, stricken conscience, or squirming souls. And who needs that?

HELL EXPLAINED BY CHEMISTRY STUDENT

Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)?

Most of the students wrote proofs using Boyle’s Law, which states that gas cools when it expands, and heats when it is compressed. One student, however, wrote the following:

First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls are entering Hell, let’s look at the different religions that exist in the world today.

Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle’s Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added.

This gives two possibilities:

1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.

2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.

So which is it?

If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, “It will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you,” and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number two must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over. The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct……leaving only Heaven, thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting “Oh my God.”

THIS STUDENT RECEIVED AN A+

A BUMPY RIDE FOR STAR WARS

My Santa Cruz correspondent was nearly incoherent with rage, disbelief and fear. “Have you seen the news?” Rich Valles spluttered. “There’s this toxic satellite falling to Earth and the Navy’s supposed to shoot it down. But they can’t. The ocean’s too choppy!”

“Hold on,” I barked into the phone. “What are you saying? The Navy can’t use an expensive onboard weapons system because the sea is too bumpy? Didn’t the manufacturer gyro-stabilize the thing? I hope they get a refund.”

“Dude,” Rich came back, “I’m telling you. They can’t hit a bus 150 miles away!”

In Nelson’s day, seamen understood that ships sashayed in an ocean swell. Not wanting to fire at fish, gunners gauging the set and scend of the waves waited to fire their cannons on the upwards roll. In modern naval gunnery, computers can send a shell the size of a VW bug into someone’s parlor a dozen miles away. But it’s apparently too tough to fire a guided missile “on the roll” with crockery clattering in the galley, and the OOD up on the bridge waiting for the Old Man to stop cursing his spilled java and those pesky seas to flatten.

“Don’t worry,” I told Rich. “I’ve been to sea. I’ll call the Navy Department right away with a head’s-up: ‘Stand by, swabbies! You might not be ready for this. I hope you can handle the news: the ocean is bumpy. You might want to take that into consideration when designing your ships and multi-billion dollar weapons systems.”

Rich wasn’t laughing.

“Maybe they can get the Chinese to shoot it down for them,” I suggested. “They did a good job on that Japanese spy satellite a while back.” Before they whacked one of their own.

I was already tapping the keyboard like an Aegis missile defense operator.

HYDRAZINE HOAX – AND COVER-UP
Yup. Here’s AP reporting: “Having lost power shortly after it reached orbit in late 2006, the satellite is out of control, the satellite would be expected to hit Earth during the first week of March. About half of the 5,000-pound spacecraft would be expected to survive its blazing descent through the atmosphere and would scatter debris over several hundred miles.” [AP Feb 20/08]

And here was Deputy National Security Advisor James Jeffrey saying the spy satellite – designed to photograph naked Russian sunbathers with eye-popping resolution – carries 400 liters of hydrazine rocket propellant that could release “toxic gas” over a “populated area” causing a “risk to human life.”

That sounded like a terrorist attack to me. If not outright discrimination against nudists.

But here was Joint Chiefs of Staff Vice Wizard General James Cartwright pooh-poohing the threat. Cartwright reassured reporters that the resulting “mild chlorine gas poisoning” (similar to the mustard gas that maimed hundreds of thousands of young men in Flanders’ fields while their generals sipped cognac in more aromatic breezes), would only cause “burning in the lungs” and “elsewhere.” Assuming you and your family were not shredded by space shrapnel, the area affected by the hydrazine gas cloud would be “roughly the size of two football fields.”

Think of it as another Superbowl lottery.

One space expert calculated that this official “hazard area” would be “something like 1/10,000,000,000 of the area under the orbit… Which means the hydrazine rationale just doesn’t hold up, literally not within orders of magnitude.”

After all, he went on to point out, “several other hydrazine-filled object have come crashing down to Earth.” The space shuttle Columbia’s hydrazine tank survived violent re-entry without releasing a toxic gas cloud. And space researcher Ed Kyle counts 42 “major reentry objects” for 2007 alone – including 9 satellites. No hydrazine hassles there. But with incoming space junk arriving every nine days or so, you might want to duck.

And don’t forget to count eight to a dozen upper stage boosters, which also came down in 2007. At least one “probably contained several hundred [kilograms] of residual propellant.”

Forget anti-missiles. Why isn’t the EPA enforcing America’s anti-pollution laws? A U.S. Air Force study says that alumina particles and chlorine burned in rocket fuels during dozens of satellite and shuttle launches every year leaves a persistent ozone hole “tens of kilometers” wide – and hundreds of miles long. [“Stratospheric Ozone Reactive Chemicals Generated by Space Launches Worldwide” Space And Missile Systems Center Nov 1/94]

Another veteran space security specialist scoffs at what he terms, “simply a feel-good cover story tossed to the media. It is true that hydrazine is very toxic and could result injury or death, but the odds of this happening are minuscule. The average person in American is many thousands of times more likely to be killed in a car accident than by any falling debris. In fact, no one has ever been killed by space debris… Having the U.S. government spend millions of dollars to destroy a billion-dollar failure to save zero lives is comedic gold.”

Make that $60 million to modify the anti-sat missile. America’s three million homeless and 35 million hungry people might have some better spending suggestions. [Reuters Nov 14/07]

SPACE PIMPS AND STAR WHORES
“There has to be another reason behind this,” Michael Krepon agrees. “In the history of the space age, there has not been a single human being who has been harmed by man-made objects falling from space.”

So what’s up?

Krepon observes that the Missile Defense Agency “is always looking for ways to pimp their systems and provide further justification that they work. The upcoming change in Administration is almost guaranteed to result in missile defense losing the top-level advocacy that it has enjoyed for the last several years. Any additional missions and justifications that the missile defense community can provide would increase the likelihood of their systems (and budgetary power) surviving.”

Then there’s China. Was the Celestial Kingdom playing with more faulty chips?

“While this ‘shoot down’ is not a direct action against China, it would be a clear signal that the U.S. can possess an active ASAT capability at any time if it so desires,” he added. “The U.S. has been berating the Chinese on their ASAT test, but now demonstrate that it is okay as long as it occurs at a low enough altitude to prevent long-lasting debris and can “save lives”. This is close to an implied ‘ok’ for the U.S. and other nations to conduct more ASAT tests, which could open another arms race. I am also certain that Russian and China would also see this as a slap in the face as they are trying to revive the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space treaty discussion and ban on space weapons. It would further negatively affect the relations between them and the US. Which could lead to increased tensions, arms buildup, etc etc etc. Nothing good for anyone outside of arms manufacturers and politicians that need a bogeyman to scare people into voting for them.” [blog.wired.com Feb 15/08]

If it works.

A BETTER THAN ZERO CHANCE OF SUCCESS
China, Russia and sorely abused American taxpayers may receive another message entirely if the Navy shoots. And misses.

Happily, the cruiser USS Lake Erie steaming north of Hawaii can fire a second SM-3 missile if the first one spears a following sea. But don’t hold your breath without an aqualung. With the next launch window already slammed shut on embarassed fingers, a senior officer at the Pentagon explains that America’s super-expensive, super-exotic weapons can only protect against space attack when it’s nice out. “We don’t anticipate the weather being good enough today,” the officer said. Tell that to the alien space invaders! [AP Feb 20/08]

As the Associated Press went on to note: “The military has readied a three-stage Navy missile, designated the SM-3, which has chalked up a high rate of success in a series of missile defense tests since 2002. In each case it targeted a short- or medium-range ballistic missile, never a satellite. A hurry-up program to adapt the missile for this anti-satellite mission was completed in a matter of weeks.” [AP Feb 20/08]

But wait! Those tests, like all anti-missile “tests” – was rigged. As Wired’s Noah Shachtman points out, the 12 out of 14 “successful” intercepts of the SM-3 were made in frigid space at altitudes over 100 miles, where incoming short- and medium-range ballistic missiles provided “hot targets” for the SM-3’s heat-seeking guidance system. All trajectories were known in advanced and carefully arranged to ensure budget-building “success”.

“Those engagements are quite scripted,” insists the Pentagon’s former director of missile testing. “All the pieces are in the right places so the engagement can occur.” The former director explains that the SM-3 is so slow, the Navy’s three Aegis anti-missile ships “are always located within a range that makes it possible for their missiles to reach their target.”

But not to worry. As Gen. Obering explained in 2005, “We have a better-than-zero chance of successfully intercepting, I believe, an inbound warhead.” [blog.wired.com Oct 3/07]

TAKING THE SHOT
Raytheon, makers of the over-hyped Patriot missile, also makes the AM-3 interceptor. According to the company, about 30 seconds before intercept, the SM-3’s Kinetic Warhead separates from the rocket’s third stage and immediately looks for its target based on telemetry received from the ship that fired it. An Attitude Control System is supposed to precisely maneuver the solid, non-explosive interceptor warhead to hit the incoming warhead head-on – with the equivalent energy of a 10 ton truck hitting a bus at 600 miles per hour. (Actual combined collision impact is more than 2,300 mph.)

Problem is, the SM-3’s last-moment maneuvering system has been scrapped after its ceramics kept cracking like bad pots. And the sexy interceptor’s “long-wavelength imaging infrared seeker” is not intended to differentiate an incoming warm target against the surrounding warm atmosphere. And then there’s the speed factor. As David Wright of the Union of Concerned Scientists notes, “This interceptor is really intended for missiles traveling at 3 to 4 kilometers per second; the satellite they’re going to be shooting at has a speed of 7 to 8 kilometers per second.” [blog.wired.com Oct 3/07]

Oh dear.

Victoria Samson is a missile specialist at the Center for Defense Information. Even if the Pacific calms down enough for the Navy to launch it’s modified anti-satellite missile within the next three days, she comments: “If it doesn’t know what to look for, it is unlikely to make an intercept. And since the tests to date have all been highly scripted, the system has not had any practice of on the fly (if you’ll excuse the phrase) intercept attempts. [blog.wired.com Feb 15/08]

Either way, what about the resulting space trash? “I am very worried about the debris creation — particularly the debris that the light-weight interceptor will kick into higher orbits when it hits the massive (bus-sized) satellite,” writes space security expert, Jeffrey Lewis. “Cartwright said 50% would come down within two orbits, with the rest coming down in weeks and months… But those two orbits could be hairy. And some of the debris will remain in orbit.” [blog.wired.com Feb 14/08; ArmsControlWonk.com]

Talk about Astronaut Roulette! There are already more than 9,000 pieces of space junk orbiting the Earth. Measuring from 4-inches to more than 5,500 tons, the debris left by Russian, U.S., French, Chinese, Japanese, Indian and European rockets totals more than 2 million tons. American military radars, which were supposedly “incapable” of tracking huge airliners on the morning of 9/11, can spot baseball-sized objects up to 600 miles away. [AP Jan 20/06; space.com Oct 19/00]

OH OH, CANADA
Rich chuckled grimly.

“I heard it’s coming your way.”

“Now you’re making me nervous” I shot back. The last time the Americans crashed one of their satellites here, it scattered hot nuclear debris all over the Yukon. That plutonium – the deadliest, most persistent toxic substance known on Earth – was a bitch to clean up.

Sure enough. Wired is reporting: “Satellite Shoot-Down Set: Intercept Near Hawaii; Debris Cloud Over Canada.”

Say what?

A veteran satellite-watcher told the online mag, “To my considerable surprise, it’s on an ascending pass that will take the debris cloud across central Canada a few minutes later. Then across a bit of western Africa and eastern Australia.”

Hey, thanks guys! I guess Fallujah wasn’t enough for you.

A sat watcher named Zarya observed that the rogue spy satellite, designated USA-193 so that no one will forget where this mess came from, could be intercepted heading southbound over the Pacific at eight in the morning Eastern time on February 21st. Which doesn’t leave me much time to start digging. Assuming a “successful” intercept, at least for the first orbit “the debris cloud would appear to steer clear of densely-populated zones.”

And the subsequent orbits? (I almost typed “obits”.)

But that southbound shot isn’t going to happen.

“There are some disadvantages in the southbound option,” Zarya explained. “The interception would occur in the Earth’s shadow, so optical tracking close to the event would not be possible. And the next few orbital passes overfly significant population centres” – including (wait for it) Africa, the Middle East, other south Asian states, Europe, southern Russia (where Putin is already pissed at Bush), and the Peoples’ Republic of China (ditto). [wired.com Feb 19/08]

Note to the White House: Shooting satellites down over other people’s heads is considered an Unfriendly Act. Can you spell w-a-r?

Out of the blue, Rich announced that he was not feeling safe.

“I’m having second thoughts about going to the beach,” he told me, his voice rising. “They aren’t going to shoot it down! What if this thing was an asteroid?”

I was thinking the same thing.

What could I tell him? No matter which way the pieces fly, this looks like yet another Lose-Lose scenario from those Masters of Mishap.

And American voters want to wait another year?