One Picture........

Is worth a thousand words!!

Kind of reminds me of David Byrne standing by the side of the road in the middle of the desert with his swimming gear in the "Road To Nowhere" video by the Talking Heads.


The dark night is over and a new day is about to break.

On to 2008!!

Count Me Among Them....

"The power of righteous vexation is what keeps so many old Democrats hanging on in nursing homes long past the time they should have kicked off. Ancient crones from FDR's time are still walking the halls, kept alive by anger at what has been done to our country. Old conservationists, feminists, grizzled veterans of the civil rights era fight off melanoma, emphysema, Montezuma, thanks to the miracle drug of anger. Slackers and cynics abound, not to mention nihilists in golf pants and utter idiots. Time to clean some clocks. As Frost might have written, "The woods are lovely, dark and thick. But I have many butts to kick and some to poke and just one stick."
Garrison Keillor

Why Voters Like Values

"...values sell because they’re an antidote to the endemic mental health problem of our time: depression.

Humans demand that there be a clear right and wrong. You’ve got to believe that the track you’ve taken is the right track. You get depressed if you’re not certain as to what it is you’re supposed to be doing or what’s right and wrong in the world.

People need to divide the world into good and evil, us and them. To do otherwise – to entertain the possibility that life is not black and white, but variously shaded in gray – is perhaps more honest, rational and decent. But it’s also, psychically, a recipe for disaster, as are the psychic pressures of life in our multicultural, tolerant, globalist, egalitarian, post-1960’s era. It all leads to great uncertainty as to what is right and what is wrong. That is very conducive to depression.

The Republican Party wins elections because the Democrats – with their perceived agenda of tolerance, multiculturalism and equality – are inherently depressing." Jerome Kagan via a column by Judith Warner

When The Deal Goes Down

Dylan at his very best.

In the still of the night, in the world's ancient light
Where wisdom grows up in strife
My bewildering brain, toils in vain
Through the darkness on the pathways of life
Each invisible prayer is like a cloud in the air
Tomorrow keeps turning around
We live and we die, we know not why
But I'll be with you when the deal goes down

We eat and we drink, we feel and we think
Far down the street we stray
I laugh and I cry and I'm haunted by
Things I never meant nor wished to say
The midnight rain follows the train
We all wear the same thorny crown
Soul to soul, our shadows roll
And I'll be with you when the deal goes down

Well, the moon gives light and it shines by night
When I scarcely feel the glow
We learn to live and then we forgive
O'r the road we're bound to go
More frailer than the flowers, these precious hours
That keep us so tightly bound
You come to my eyes like a vision from the skies
And I'll be with you when the deal goes down

Well, I picked up a rose and it poked through my clothes
I followed the winding stream
I heard the deafening noise, I felt transient joys
I know they're not what they seem
In this earthly domain, full of disappointment and pain
You'll never see me frown
I owe my heart to you, and that's sayin' it true
And I'll be with you when the deal goes down

Time to feed the babies!

Gail and Natalie

Cuter than a.....

speckled bellied puppy on a red wagon!


Leah Nita visits Grandma and Poppa

Natalie and Tommy come to visit

Doing what we do best!

Great-Grandma Marie feeds Natalie

Great-Grandma Marie and Grandma Gail lend a hand

July 8, 2006

Tommy and Natalie

Eric's 4th Birthday

Eric, Sophie and Leah

View Slideshow HERE

Natalie and Thomas come home!

Click on the link below to see a slideshow.

Natalie has the dark hair and Thomas is fairer.

Please excuse the lousy pictures, my autofocus is apparently not working.

Watch slideshow HERE

First Pictures

Congratulations to Carrie and Tom!

Natalie (5 lbs 11 oz.) and Thomas (4 lbs 14 oz.) were born June 27

Everyone is doing just fine.

Natalie Marie



Thomas Arthur II



Father and Son



Mother and Daughter



Natalie Marie



Aunt Jen, Grandma Gail, Daddy Tom and Grandma Maria

Winds of the Old Days

When I was a young boy, about 6 years old, my mother and father took my brother and I down to Flatbush Avenue in downtown Brooklyn to the Vim store. They bought a large upright radio that was bigger than I was and even had a record player. When the radio arrived and was plugged in, I stationed myself in front of the speakers. We didn't have a television at all, and the old radio had been broken for so long that I can't ever remember listening to it.

The first song I ever heard was "Goodnight, Irene" by the Weavers and for days after that I would plead with my mother to turn the radio on and I would wait, sometimes for hours, to hear that song another time.

I was never the same again. Music, especially folk music became my life and remains so to this day. I can't imagine life without music. It would be easier for me to stop breathing than to give it up.

Pete Seeger will be 87 years old this coming May 3rd. Pete was one of "those Weavers" who spun their magic into my impressionable ears. I'm going to send Pete a note and I hope all of you who love his music do so also. Just send it to Pete Seeger, Beacon N.Y. 12508. I'm sure everyone in Beacon knows where Pete lives.

Life is like a chain, and we're all links from the past to the future. There was Woody and then Pete and then Dylan then Springsteen. And so it all comes around in a new album just released today by Bruce: "We Shall Overcome: the Seeger Sessions"

And so the Great Mandala rolls on as it has since time began.

Crackpot?

On the subject of "crackpot" that's a term that I prefer not to use,and in my opinion, has no place in science. Some ideas have more support than others. In science, as you well know, we never prove or disprove anything, we simply say what is more or less likely. We can safely say that astrology is "highly unlikely" to be valid, based upon a complete absence of supporting evidence. On the other hand, we can safely say that QED is "highly likely" to be valid, based upon a massive amount of evidence. Some other ideas, like QM, relativity, abiogenesis, panspermia, etc. have various amounts of supporting evidence. It is up to each individual to study the evidence and consider the liklihood of each theory being correct. Sometimes a consensus emerges in the scientific community, but often times even this consensus can be wrong. The cases of Lynn Margulis and Barbara McClintock comes to mind. In each of these cases, there was a strong aversion to these theories, which later proved to be correct. As for darwinism, I have studied the evidence and I have come to the conclusion that it is not strong enough to defend the idea. Others may reach different conclusions, but where the problem lies is with those who want to elevate an unproven theory to the status of "carved in stone" truth.
My belief is that many people support darwinism because they have been taught it for so long, or devoted their life's work to it, or are too scared of being labelled "crackpot" to oppose it.
I have asked evolutionists repeatedly to present the evidence for evolution.
What they do instead, is present evidence that different species are related. The fact that we're all closely related does not say anything about the mechanism of evolution.
Prof. Gould has provided 3 main evidences, small scale mutation and selection,
the fossil record, and the historical study of related species. All of these evidences are flawed and can be shown to be unsupportive.
As for the status of "why" questions in the field of science, I agree that they more properly belong to the field of philosophy. But who decides what is philosophy and what is science? Is there a definitive boundary? At one time some people believed that mind and body were separate entities. Now, most agree that they are one.
Most of the questions we're concerned with here can be properly framed without using the word "why?". For example, we can ask "by what mechanism did life come to appear on the earth and by what series of steps did it give rise to the diversity we observe today. Same with the universe. By what mechanism did the universe come to be in it's present state and what series of steps causes it to change over time?


"Here begins Homo ignoramus. He does not know what life is or how it came to be and whether it originated from inorganic matter. He does not know whether other planets of this sun or of other suns have life on them, and if they have, whether the forms of life there are like those around us, ourselves included. He does not know how this solar system came into being, although he has built up a few hypotheses about it. He knows only that the solar system was constructed billions of years ago. He does not know what this mysterious force of gravitation is that holds him and his fellow man on the other side of the planet with their feet on the ground, although he regards the phenomenon itself as "the law of laws." He does not know what the earth looks like five miles under his feet. He does not know how mountains came into existence or what caused the emergence of the continents, although he builds hypotheses about these, nor does he know from where oil came- again hypotheses. He does not know why, only a short time ago, a thick glacial sheet pressed upon most of Europe and North America, as he believes it did; nor how palms could grow above the polar circle, nor how it came about that the same fauna fill the inner lakes of the Old and the New World. He does not know where the salt in the sea came from. Although man knows that he has lived on this planet for millions of years, he finds a recorded history of only a few thousand years. And even these few thousand years
are not sufficiently well known." -Velikovsky

I read those words when I was 15 years old. And they changed the course of my life. Not for the particular examples cited, but because of our immense arrogance. Lord Kelvin said a hundred years ago that all of the problems in physics had been solved. All that was left was to dot the I's and cross the T's.
Evolutionists and cosmologists of today display the same arrogance. They know
nothing of how the universe came to be and how the life on earth came to be. And they have the arrogance to even suggest that darwinian evolution and big bang cosmology have answered most of the questions.

Where is the outrage?

from "Boston Legal" 3/14/2006 "Stick it"

Alan Shore's closing argument

Alan Shore: When the weapons of mass destruction thing turned out to be not true, I expected the American people to rise up. Ha! They didn't.

Then, when the Abu Ghraib torture thing surfaced and it was revealed that our government participated in rendition, a practice where we kidnap people and turn them over to regimes who specialize in torture, I was sure then the American people would be heard from. We stood mute.

Then came the news that we jailed thousands of so-called terrorists suspects, locked them up without the right to a trial or even the right to confront their accusers. Certainly, we would never stand for that. We did.

And now, it's been discovered the executive branch has been conducting massive, illegal, domestic surveillance on its own citizens. You and me. And I at least consoled myself that finally, finally the American people will have had enough. Evidentially, we haven't.

In fact, if the people of this country have spoken, the message is we're okay with it all. Torture, warrantless search and seizure, illegal wiretappings, prison without a fair trial - or any trial, war on false pretenses. We, as a citizenry, are apparently not offended.

There are no demonstrations on college campuses. In fact, there's no clear indication that young people seem to notice.

Well, Melissa Hughes noticed. Now, you might think, instead of withholding her taxes, she could have protested the old fashioned way. Made a placard and demonstrated at a Presidential or Vice-Presidential appearance, but we've lost the right to that as well. The Secret Service can now declare free speech zones to contain, control and, in effect, criminalize protest.

Stop for a second and try to fathom that.

At a presidential rally, parade or appearance, if you have on a supportive t-shirt, you can be there. If you are wearing or carrying something in protest, you can be removed.

This, in the United States of America. This in the United States of America. Is Melissa Hughes the only one embarrassed?

*Alan sits down abruptly in the witness chair next to the judge*

Judge Robert Sanders: Mr. Shore. That's a chair for witnesses only.

Really long speeches make me so tired sometimes.

Judge Sanders: Please get out of the chair.

Alan: Actually, I'm sick and tired.

Judge Sanders: Get out of the chair!

Alan: And what I'm most sick and tired of is how every time somebody disagrees with how the government is running things, he or she is labeled unAmerican.

U.S. Attorney Jonathan Shapiro: Evidentally, it's speech time.

Alan: And speech in this country is free, you hack! Free for me, free for you. Free for Melissa Hughes to stand up to her government and say "Stick it"!

U.S. Attorney Jonathan Shapiro: Objection!

Alan: I object to government abusing its power to squash the constitutional freedoms of its citizenry. And, God forbid, anybody challenge it. They're smeared as being a heretic. Melissa Hughes is an American. Melissa Hughes is an American. Melissa Hughes is an American!

Judge Sanders: Mr. Shore. Unless you have anything new and fresh to say, please sit down. You've breached the decorum of my courtroom with all this hooting.

Alan: Last night, I went to bed with a book. Not as much fun as a 29 year old, but the book contained a speech by Adlai Stevenson. The year was 1952. He said, "The tragedy of our day is the climate of fear in which we live and fear breeds repression. Too often, sinister threats to the Bill of Rights, to freedom of the mind are concealed under the patriotic cloak of anti-Communism."

Today, it's the cloak of anti-terrorism. Stevenson also remarked, "It's far easier to fight for principles than to live up to them."

I know we are all afraid, but the Bill of Rights - we have to live up to that. We simply must. That's all Melissa Hughes was trying to say. She was speaking for you. I would ask you now to go back to that room and speak for her.

The verdict? Watch it and see...

Evolution and Development

Just as development is the unfolding of an algorithm that is already present in the zygote at the time of fertilization, so evolution is the unfolding of an algorithm that was already present at a time before evolution began.
In addition, just as a mature adult represents the culmination of this developmental algorithm, so the present state of life on earth represents the culmination of the evolutionary algorithm and no further evolution can be expected.
We know the immediate origin of the developmental algorithm, it was inherited from the previous generation. But the question of where this information originally came from remains unanswered. In evolution, one would be wise to suspect that this algorithm has a long history, and probably did not originate on the earth, but came to earth from elsewhere, fully front-loaded to unfold in a compatible environment into the biosphere we see today.