Not Your Average Libertarian

Open Let­ter to all poli­ti­cal par­ties as this 2012 elec­tion year approaches:

To whom it may concern,

As this next pre­si­den­tial elec­tion sea­son approaches, I am struck by the con­cept that it is so obvious what is wrong but nobody is inte­res­ted in fixing things.

As a life­long con­ser­va­tive I am con­cer­ned that free­dom and pri­vacy must take a back­seat to secu­rity. The Patriot act and corres­pon­ding terro­rism laws are taking us down the gar­den path to an unin­ten­ded world where we will have neither free­dom, nor pri­vacy, nor secu­rity. It is time to pro­tect pri­vate citi­zens’ per­so­nal pri­vacy rights from exploi­ta­tion by Inter­net, govern­ment, busi­ness, and medical/research.

Secondly, rec­rea­tio­nal drug prohi­bi­tion is crea­ting a narco-terrorist state out of Mexico, and though I applaud the GOP efforts to enforce our bor­ders and reduce crime,  efforts to do so will remain inef­fec­tual until we remove the enti­ce­ment to create black mar­kets and gang power. Spend that money on reha­bi­li­ta­tion and pre­ven­tion, rather than inter­dic­tion and pri­sons. Repea­ling prohi­bi­tion was correct at the turn of the last cen­tury and it it is still right. Make laws that equate alcohol misuse with rec­rea­tio­nal drug misuse and let society work it out.

Thirdly, though I believe that a fair and flat tax is an impro­ve­ment over the current sys­tem, a flat tax is inef­fec­tual unless it equally taxes big busi­ness, rec­rea­tio­nal drugs, finan­cial ins­ti­tu­tions, reli­gious orga­ni­za­tions, poli­ti­cal orga­ni­za­tions, and unions; in addi­tion to pri­vate citi­zens. It is time to tho­roughly level the pla­ying field.

Finally, Accoun­ta­bi­lity — Seve­rely limit the abi­lity of govern­ment agen­cies to keep non­mi­li­tary sec­rets from the public, and strengthen the Equal Pro­tec­tion clause of the 14th amend­ment to force Con­gress and all govern­ment agen­cies to LITERALLY abide by ALL the laws they pass; And to make them accoun­ta­ble for brea­king those laws, same as any pri­vate citi­zen. Again, level the pla­ying field and eli­mi­nate spe­cial rights of the elite.

The Human Race may never pro­gress past sub­jec­tion, igno­rance, and hate unless we reas­sert our god-given rights to free­dom in this time of acce­le­ra­ting change, and set the bar for the rest of the world. We owe it to our­sel­ves, our country, and to mankind.

–Jeff Sheets

Ramona, CA

Climate Change — Is it Us?

I feel that the asser­tion that we as humans have “bro­ken” the pla­net and the­re­fore must do something to fix it is erro­neous, no mat­ter what the popu­lar cul­ture and the popu­lar media want us to believe. Much bet­ter to call it “Cli­mate Change”  than “Glo­bal War­ming” That way it doesn’t raise so much touchi­ness. I do not care whether it is a con­ser­va­tive or libe­ral view.  It is bet­ter to spend our effort lear­ning to adapt because it’s more likely that we’ll make it worse trying to fix it.  If the “War­ming” bunch want to quit put­ting smoke in the air, I’m all for that. But I for one say we NEED the C02 to stave off the next ice age. The other false asser­tion in my mind is that somehow this situa­tion will make the pla­net unli­vea­ble and that we are all going to die if we don’t find a way to fix it. Yes, some of us will die if we do not adapt quickly enough or suf­fi­ciently It’s mostly just a mat­ter of moving to less hos­tile part of the pla­net in the next 100 years.
 
Con­ti­nue rea­ding: Cli­mate Change — Is it Us?

Gift of the Archons

CA. 3,200 B.C.E. A Mes­sage in a Bottle

God has no power over the past except to cover it with obli­vion
–Pliny the Elder (23–79 A.D)

I am Anu. When I was born, my father had a dream in which the ancient Archons ins­truc­ted him in the ways of the uni­verse. My father was shown an insect web that star­ted as one strand and expan­ded into billions. Then after a time, the billions con­trac­ted back into a sin­gle strand. Then my father loo­ked to see a child clin­ging to the end of the web. My father belie­ved that I was the child in his dream and that I was des­ti­ned to bear all the know­ledge of my peo­ple the Annu­naki to those who came after. He deci­ded that I should be named Anu, which means the know­ledge of Anuk, our home star sys­tem. My father had thus cho­sen my pur­pose as the kee­per of the collec­ted know­ledge of the Annu­naki. When I was young, My father repea­ted his story to me once every year on the day of the sum­mer sols­tice of your planet.

Long ago, when the Annu­naki race was young, parents would choose the des­tiny of their chil­dren. This was the old tra­di­tion. Then over the years, we dis­co­ve­red that many choi­ces were badly made out of pride or greed; pre­ven­ting their chil­dren from rea­li­zing the full poten­tial of joy that would come from making their own choice. This is why the caste sys­tem was inven­ted to allow the young to choose their des­tiny within a fra­me­work of Annu­naki tra­di­tion. All know­ledge was taught during the first mille­nium of life. When the time came to choose, it became a ques­tion for the youth rather than the parents.
 
Con­ti­nue rea­ding: Gift of the Archons

Architect of Babylon — Part 1

CA. 9,500 B.C.E. The Tower of Babel

“Behold, they are one peo­ple, and they have all one lan­guage; and this is only the begin­ning of what they will do; and nothing that they pro­pose to do will now be impos­si­ble for them“
–Jah­veh (Yah­weh) as quo­ted in Genesis.

The dust soa­red upward as the ship sett­led on the valley floor. The occu­pants wai­ted, kno­wing that to leave too quickly would sub­ject them to quick­sil­ver fumes and the mad­ness that results for those who breathe them. Mar­duk hated having to use this ric­kety old ship, but was also gra­te­ful to have it. The Sar­gon was one of the few sur­vi­ving craft left after the deluge cau­sed by the des­truc­tion of Aleph. This old Seraphim freigh­ter had been one of the first cargo ves­sels desig­ned to shuttle gold ore bet­ween the pla­nets. Now with tech­no­logy scarce and no infras­truc­ture left to build new ships, he would have to be con­tent to fly in this old deca­ying Vimana. He loo­ked over at his crew, an exaus­ted group of Igigi and dis­con­ten­ted young Nephi­lim who had come from sur­vi­val shel­ters all over the pla­net. The rest had cho­sen to remain mired in tech­no­lo­gi­cal poverty, scat­te­red across the con­ti­nents, rather than to dare oppose Lord Enlil, who was now in poses­sion of the Raft of Hea­ven and most deci­dedly to blame for this current state of affairs. After all, had he not been a sup­por­ter of the Sons of Dark­ness?
 
Con­ti­nue rea­ding: Archi­tect of Baby­lon — Part 1

Lessons of the Tyrolean Iceman

Turns out we can learn a lot from Fro­zen Fritz. Also called Oetzi, the ice­man reco­ve­red from the Aus­trian alps in 1991 and has been car­bon dated to 3300 b.c.e. Turns out he lived at the time of the Cop­per age in Europe. It is enti­rely pos­si­ble that he is a repre­sen­ta­tive of the Ozieri cul­ture that later deve­lo­ped huge mega­lithic walls for defense against the very agres­sive Nura­gic cul­ture that began to take over the area in about 1600 b.c.e. His body was found 92.56 meters inside Ita­lian terri­tory (46°46’44?N 10°50’23?E? / ?46.77889, 10.83972).

The Ozieri car­ved under­ground struc­tu­res out of the solid rock called in their legends “domus de janas” or Hou­ses of the Fai­ries. These are con­si­de­red gra­ves but have long ago been loo­ted, so there is no real evi­dence left of them being used other­wise. They lived as far­mers and arti­sans, pro­du­cing fine pot­tery, metal imple­ments, obsi­dian, huge dol­men and mega­lithic circ­les such as that found in Sto­nehenge and Ave­bury. They had trade with areas all over the Medi­te­rra­nean region.

They had a sim­ple reli­gion based on gods I recog­nize from other cul­tu­res all around the world: the Hor­ned Bull and the Mother Godess.

What do we learn from him?
 
Con­ti­nue rea­ding: Les­sons of the Tyro­lean Iceman

Finance Bailout is a Sham

Con­gress is going to bail out the ras­cals at taxpayer’s expense. The amount may change, but the intent is obvious. After years of using our savings to leve­rage their pro­fits, the gravy train has gone off the rails and they want us all to pay for the resul­ting dead horse. Why not dec­lare amnesty on ALL debt? Turns out the result would be no worse if they did. Of course, it would turn out much bet­ter if they didn’t. The mar­ket must be free to fail or it is des­ti­ned to be unsup­por­ta­ble. I found a really eye-opening paper on this very sub­ject and would like to share it with you at the jump.

Appa­rently, the gods had a good grasp of finance. In old Assy­rian and Baby­lo­nian tra­di­tion, every fifty years all debts were for­gi­ven. This inc­lu­ded mone­tary as well as social debts such as ser­vi­tude and sla­very. Later, the Hebrews exten­ded this to every seven years, but limi­ted the kinds of debts that would be for­gi­ven. The prin­ci­ple was that the con­cept of usury was inhe­rently fla­wed and could not be eli­mi­na­ted without seriously crim­ping trade. The Jubi­lee was inten­ded to perio­di­cally reset the rela­tionship bet­ween the rich and poor so that the rich wouldn’t become so power­ful and the poor wouldn’t become so hope­less. The con­cept wor­ked well for thou­sands of years. Only within the last few cen­tu­ries has debt become an abso­lute.
 
Con­ti­nue rea­ding: Finance Bai­lout is a Sham

The Framing of Jesus of Nazareth

The things that Jesus taught were abso­lu­tely and unqua­li­fiably good things for the human race to learn. Howe­ver, since the time of Jesus, his mes­sage has been dis­tor­ted because in the eyes of history, he didn’t teach what he was “sup­po­sed” to teach.

Later, those in power or hoping to be in power (such as Saul-Paul) used his mes­sage for their own ends and this is how we now have dozens of “Chris­tian” reli­gions and one very corrup­ted Chris­tian reli­gion in power over Europe. Jesus pre­dic­ted that. Cons­tan­tine may not have con­ver­ted to Chris­tia­nity on his death­bed, but he sure used it for his poli­ti­cal ends. The popes ever since have been figu­reheads of the Roman Empire that never fell completely; the empire just “got” reli­gion.
 
Con­ti­nue rea­ding: The Fra­ming of Jesus of Nazareth

Blame it on Indiana Jones!

After seeing the new Indiana Jones movie The Crys­tal Skull, I am more exci­ted than ever about the accep­tance of the Ancient Astro­naut theory. Peo­ple are coming out of the wood­work to find out what I believe. The Vati­can obser­va­tory has announ­ced that ETs could be out there and it’s OK to believe in them. Old friends are calling me to tell me that they saw the movie and thought of me and my weird theo­ries. Well, they aren’t mine, but I can tell you whose they are:

 
Con­ti­nue rea­ding: Blame it on Indiana Jones!

Is This Progress?

At a recent Meetup I attended, it impressed me how open minded and respectful the group was. We had a fairly intelligient and orderly discussion that included nearly a third of the folks present; which in my experience, is quite a feat of restraint, especially considering the strong wills and strident beliefs that most AAT supporters are bound to have. What was the most impressive was the kindness and respect shown by the careful wording of counter theories and objections, as the points were discussed without rancor.

However, I was also amazed to hear so many folks lamenting that "things are so bad now" as if somehow, all of mankind's great advances in technology, social rights, and information circulation have made things worse, rather than better for the average human being.
 
Con­ti­nue rea­ding: Is This Progress?

Petroglyphs — Valley of Fire

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The Valley of Fire deri­ves its name from red sands­tone for­ma­tions, which were for­med from sand dunes during the Juras­sic period. Prehis­to­ric users of the Valley of Fire were the Ana­sazi who were far­mers from the nearby fer­tile Moapa Valley. The times­pan of appro­xi­mate occu­pa­tion has been dated from 300 B.C. to 1150 A.D. Their visits pro­bably invol­ved hun­ting, food gathe­ring, and reli­gious cere­mo­nies, although scar­city of water would have limi­ted the length of their stay. Fine exam­ples of rock art left by these ancient peo­ples can be found at seve­ral sites within the park. The most nume­rous being along Petroglyph Trail, lea­ding to Mouse Tank.

 
Con­ti­nue rea­ding: Petroglyphs — Valley of Fire

Electricity in the Ancient World?

The Tem­ple of Hathor at Den­dera, on the Nile north of Luxor, is one of the latest Egyp­tian tem­ples. Dedi­ca­ted to the wife of the god Horus, it was built in Roman times and depic­tions show Roman empe­rors along­side Egyp­tian gods. Along with Aby­dos, which is further north, Den­dera is a day trip from Luxor. The village of Den­dera is situa­ted 60km north of Luxor on the west bank of the Nile, oppo­site the pro­vin­cial town of Qena, where the Nile Valley road branches off to the Red Sea town of Hurghada. It’s ancient name was Lunet and it was also known as Tenty­ris during clas­si­cal times.
 This tem­ple may depict the usage of elec­tri­city, mag­ne­tism, and the prin­ci­ples of the modern light bulb.
 
Con­ti­nue rea­ding: Elec­tri­city in the Ancient World?

Of Gods and Mortals

Is it pos­si­ble that our defi­ni­tion of God has chan­ged over the last 10,000 years?

Could it be that the ori­gi­nal mea­ning of the word God was “a mas­ter more powerful/intelligient than anyone else we have encoun­te­red”? or even “the strong guy that wields light­ning and orders us around a lot”? and that through cen­tu­ries of encoun­ters with god and story­te­lling about these expe­rien­ces we have embe­llished to the point of dei­fi­ca­tion? It would explain a lot…
 
Con­ti­nue rea­ding: Of Gods and Mortals

The Piri Reis Map

In 1929, scho­lars wor­king in the archi­ves of the Otto­man Empire in Turkey’s Top­kapi Palace Museum made an exci­ting dis­co­very: a sec­tion of an early 16th-century Otto­man map based in part, appa­rently, on the ori­gi­nal chart drawn or used by Chris­topher Colum­bus and sho­wing his his­to­ric dis­co­ve­ries in the New World. The map, sig­ned by an Otto­man cap­tain named Piri Reis, was dated 1513, just 21 years after Colum­bus dis­co­ve­red America.

A Tur­kish friend of mine was kind enough to locate and obtain an offi­cial Tur­kish Navy copy of the Piri Reis map as it is dis­pla­yed in the museum in Istanbul…with one key dif­fe­rence. The Ara­bic com­ments in the mar­gins have been repla­ced by English trans­la­ted com­ments.
 
Con­ti­nue rea­ding: The Piri Reis Map

Landfall

CA. 166,230 B.C.E. Arri­val of the Gods

“To con­si­der Earth the only popu­la­ted world in infi­nite space is as absurd as to assert that in an entire field sown with seed, only one grain will grow“
–the Greek scho­lar Meto­do­rus in the 4th Cen­tury BCE.

Enki awoke in the middle of a dream. The details slip­ped away as he star­ted to rea­lize that the early war­ning had been soun­ded, which meant that the Archon was nea­ring the bra­king point in it’s tra­jec­tory. “The long jour­ney is nearly over” thought Enki, clea­ring sleep from his head. “Soon, I will stand on the soil of our new home”.
 
Con­ti­nue rea­ding: Landfall

Human Nature

CA. 70,000 B.C.E. The Gene­tic Bottleneck

“Any suf­fi­ciently advan­ced tech­no­logy is indis­tin­guisha­ble from magic“
– Arthur C. Clarke

“The gods are up there I tell you, living on the mountaintop.”

“Some are cruel. They use men as sla­ves and throw them away, some­ti­mes bro­ken and lame, when the task is finished. Others are sad and asha­med that we are crea­ted by them in their own image. They try to heal their sad­ness by teaching us use­less things and then hold us up with pride when we learn, as if they had remade us. Then they send us back to our village where we are left to feed and shel­ter our­sel­ves again without their help.”
 
Con­ti­nue rea­ding: Human Nature

Dream of Anubis

CA. 50,000 B.C.E. The inven­tion of Quan­tum Entan­gled Travel

“Poli­tics is more dif­fi­cult than phy­sics“
–Albert Einstein

“Too many defects.” Anu­bis exc­lai­med with a wave of his hand that sent the faulty cir­cuit crys­tal flying off into a nearby junk­pile of simi­lar fai­lu­res. “Without qua­lity parts, I will be for­tu­nate to send a feather to the other gate.” he said in a mum­bling, exhaus­ted whisper.

“Many apo­lo­gies mas­ter, I will ins­truct the igigi to cali­brate the mag­ne­tic fields before we repeat the process.”

Anu­bis waved his appren­tice Neti off, and again loo­ked over his cal­cu­la­tions. The locu­lus trans­mit­ter requi­red an extre­mely low mar­gin of fre­quency error to suc­cess­fully open a quan­tum tether bet­ween gates. Without this tether, ins­tan­ta­neous com­mu­ni­ca­tion was impos­si­ble and further, without com­mu­ni­ca­tion, the mole­cule entan­gle­ment would also fail.
 
Con­ti­nue rea­ding: Dream of Anubis

Is DNA really a recent discovery?

Now that they claim that the human genome pro­ject is com­ple­ted, it may take a while for the “smoke to clear”, or as some cons­pi­racy theo­rists may sug­gest, “for the evi­dence to be hidden”.

It seems that there are some few genes in our code that don’t appear in anything else on the pla­net. Some are pre­sent in bac­te­ria. One report says 223, the other says 40. Either way, if those genes did not evolve on earth, how did they get in us? The impli­ca­tions are that evo­lu­tion is only partly res­pon­si­ble for our appa­rent inte­lli­gience and domi­na­tion of this little rock. One of the solu­tions pre­sen­ted are that we may have been chan­ged by bac­te­rial infec­tion. Another is that this proof that has been anti­ci­pa­ted by Inte­lli­gient Desig­ners that “God” crea­ted us by modif­ying our genes.
 
Con­ti­nue rea­ding: Is DNA really a recent discovery?