The Little Thread Which Grew - the Apollo '73 to Everything But

[CarmeloOrchards]

A Simple Desultory Philippic

As an aside, is it noteworthy the " teaparty " that wants to cut gov't spending has become the zealots?

Are there still people left that do not realize the gov't only has money it takes from us - well except for the debt racked up as they spend more than they confiscate from citizens and businesses that actually produce something?

The liberals who want to ( and do ) increase spending are no longer the kooks but now " mainstream " and those who want to curb this insane spending are no longer "mainstream" but now are the above mentioned "zealots ".

Shit folks. No wonder so many were sucked up by the dream of scientology.

If people love the hope & change Obama has brought in 3 years so far they are going to really be over the moon with what he can do to this country in eight years. Vote for him again - LOL !

I would like to reply to the above from a different perspective.

but first, I think I need to show my credentials.

I'm 60. When I was 13 and 14, I walked precincts for Barry Goldwater (AuH2O in 64), while my parents were for Rockefeller. I was reading US News and World Report, and was a big fan of Bill Buckley. Through the years, I worked for and supported Ronnie Reagan for Governor and President. I also voted for Obama. My politics have not changed.

The Cheney Bush years destroyed my allegiance to the Republican party. They racked up debt (Cheney Bush and Congress) like it was going out of style. Graft, corruption, old buddy networks were the order of the day. The nincompoops they put on the Supreme Court was also a major turn off for me.

Something has to be done about the deficits, sooner rather than later. Otherwise, we'll be like Greece or Ireland. Allowing Wall Street to strip value out of the money is a Republican and a Democratic attribute. It isn't liberal or conservative. It is self serving politics of law enforcement for sale.

The military industrial government oligarchy that Dwight Eisenhower warned about is in full swing and joined at the hip with Wall St. It's all about money.

It galls me that Navy Seals risk their lives for each other and overall good, but politicians are too chicken shit to even risk an honest statement or vote.

Paul Ryan and Ron Paul (to name two) are legitimate honest politicians. Practically everyone else is a joke. All they see is the next election. the word "mensch" doesn't even exist, as a concept, to most of those clowns. Except for a small few, they are all in it for themselves, and no one like you and me. It isn't about liberal or conservative. It is about re election. Lies and damned lies is order of the day.

Back to Obama versus McCain. McCain sold his soul to the Christian right. He plain as day sold out. He didn't and doesn't use a computer. He is too out of date for me. I chose Obama for what looked like positive leadership ability.

Other than Ron Paul, currently running for president there are no leaders, just focus group junkies. Obama was not there for debt negotiations - even the NY Times hit him on his lack of leadership. Peggy Noonan (one of my favorites) called him a loser. BUT she said the same thing essentially about Romney, Newt, etc.

The country in general is hooked, like a drug junkie, on non production in exchange for money. The system has to change. It isn't going to be pleasant.

[video=youtube;QOvs3rCFI2A]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOvs3rCFI2A[/video]

 

[Student of Trinity]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

Relativity as a principle in physics dates back to Galileo: if you drive 80 to pass a car going 60 then your speed relative to the other car is 20. That's totally obvious, but also obviously important and fundamental. You're not going to be able to do much physics if you can't get that part straight first of all. That's relativity. It's a really basic principle about space and motion.

Einstein revised Galileo's version of relativity to make it compatible with the 19th century discoveries about electromagnetism. The Michelson-Morley experiment is just the soundbite version; Einstein's work was based far more broadly. In fact I don't believe Einstein's original papers even mention this experiment.

Some of the consequences of Einstein's theory had been anticipated by others, but he didn't steal anything: his contribution, which hadn't crossed the mind of anybody else, was to perceive that certain paradoxes and problems were so fundamental, they called for a revision of relativity itself. Other people were putzing around with notions of ether and stretching and shrinking; Einstein was the guy who realized that what we needed to change was our idea of time itself. It needed to get into the relativity act, along with space and motion. That's Einstein's relativity, though nowadays when physicists say 'relativity' or 'relativistic' we always mean Einstein's version by default.

Galileo figured out Relativity 1.0. Einstein did the 2.0 update. But it was a heck of an update, more like moving from DOS to Windows than from XP to Vista. It's not unfair that Einstein is even more famous than Galileo. Plus Albert Einstein did about five other comparable things in physics, putting him alone with Isaac Newton in a class of great scientists far above everybody else.

I have never heard of any modern reproductions of the Michelson-Morley experiment that have failed to duplicate the original results. There have been very, very many duplications. It's not a trivial experiment; amateurs can easily screw it up and see all kinds of stuff. Maybe somebody did that and got all excited and published or posted something about it. But careful and competent professionals all over the world have been reproducing the result consistently ever since it was first published, and they continue to do so. It's a basic exercise in interferometry.

It's also a null result — if you do the experiment right, you do two different measurements, and get no difference between them. So it's not that the effect is tricky to see, and if your technique isn't up to scratch you see nothing; it's that you have to carefully eliminate all sources of error that might introduce spurious differences, otherwise you'll see a difference that is really just due to a misalignment of your mirror or something. Mistakes like that are easy to make if you don't quite know what you're doing.

Furthermore, if the null result predicted by Einstein's theory were really wrong, then Michelson-Morley experiments should not just all show differences between their two measurements: they should all show the same difference, because it would indicate the speed of the Earth relative to the ether. (Okay, there should be corrections for latitude and longitude, and maybe time of year; but these are simple.) But the handful of attempted Michelson-Morley repetitions that have occasionally found non-null results have not agreed with each other. This is another indication that they are just screw-ups.

And by now there have been many, many other experimental tests of Einstein's relativity. Suggesting that it is going to be thrown out now is like reporting a recent discovery that the Himalayas are actually a lake, and not mountains after all. Um, nope.

 

[RogerB]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

Student of T,

Yes, yours is the conventional view of it all. And as you are an academic in the field of physics, I can well understand the going along with the conventional view and "as given doctrine."

I also must say I appreciate the courtesy of your discourse.

Just that I'm a bit of a contrarian and when I studied/study the history of the development of the body of science known as physics, I see enormous gaps in logic at various points along the way.

You note:

I have never heard of any modern reproductions of the Michelson-Morley experiment that have failed to duplicate the original results.

Well the tape I was responding to cites the US Air Force scientists did do such an experiment and reported their findings in the scientific journal "Nature" in August, 1986; Vol 322.

I am also aware of another experiment carried out jointly by the US Navy and US Geologic Survey that disproved Einstein's assertion that the speed of light is constant, etc., etc.

Also there is a Russian experiment carried out in 1970 that KO's much of Einstein's stuff.

However, on the point I was making, yes Einstein did not refer to or mention M&M in his material on Relativity.

It is also true that he claimed to not even being aware of it! This claim of course is preposterous, and biographers note that glaring "anomaly".

Einstein was mentored by Lorenz . . . and as such, it is impossible that he was not aware of Fitzgerald's and Lorentz's work and its derivation. This too has been noted by his biographers.

In 1904 Lorentz published a paper that addressed the issue of "relativity" . . . but he referred to "corresponding states" while maintaining the notion of the existence of the Luminiferous Ether . . . which in due course in the progress of science it began to be considered not to exist. Einstein had to be aware of this paper by Lorentz.

Einstein was given credit for the photon/particulate structure of light etc . . . but that was first published as an observation by Newton . . . something that too many folks (including Einstein) ignore.

Anyway, physics is not a subject I spend a lot of time on . . . I just see some of its mind-numbing-twisting stuff that is a bit too preposterous to settle on.

PS: I searched for the article in Nature. It turns out it is correspondence referring to various other articles (I printed it out). But chasing down references I came to a site that really is something to spend time on (for those interested)
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physi...ts.html#8. Experiments Not consistent with SR

Its opener says:

What is the experimental basis of Special Relativity?

There has been a renaissance in tests of Special Relativity (SR), in part because considerations of quantum gravity imply that SR may well be violated at appropriate scales (very small distance, very high energy). It has been seven years since the last update of this page, and there are over 60 new experiments, many of which are recent, ingenious, and improve bounds on violations of local Lorentz invariance by several or many orders of magnitude. To assist the reader in finding the updates, major changes to this page are in dark blue

It appears to be up to date as of November 2007.

Rog

 

[RogerB]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

Roger, what is your first book?

It is an unfinished work, currently in chapter 24 (or thereabouts) . . . that is the true story of what I've been really up to this lifetime . . . and it's about time I finished it as the answers I've been working to obtain are about in hand.

I began writing it in 1990.

R

 

[Ted]

Re: A Simple Desultory Philippic

I would like to reply to the above from a different perspective.

but first, I think I need to show my credentials.

I'm 60. When I was 13 and 14, I walked precincts for Barry Goldwater (AuH2O in 64), while my parents were for Rockefeller. I was reading US News and World Report, and was a big fan of Bill Buckley. Through the years, I worked for and supported Ronnie Reagan for Governor and President. I also voted for Obama. My politics have not changed.

[1] The Cheney Bush years destroyed my allegiance to the Republican party. They racked up debt (Cheney Bush and Congress) like it was going out of style. Graft, corruption, old buddy networks were the order of the day. The nincompoops they put on the Supreme Court was also a major turn off for me.

[2] Something has to be done about the deficits, sooner rather than later. Otherwise, we'll be like Greece or Ireland. Allowing Wall Street to strip value out of the money is a Republican and a Democratic attribute. It isn't liberal or conservative. It is self serving politics of law enforcement for sale.

The military industrial government oligarchy that Dwight Eisenhower warned about is in full swing and joined at the hip with Wall St. It's all about money.

[3] It galls me that Navy Seals risk their lives for each other and overall good, but politicians are too chicken shit to even risk an honest statement or vote.


[4] Paul Ryan and Ron Paul (to name two) are legitimate honest politicians. Practically everyone else is a joke. All they see is the next election. the word "mensch" doesn't even exist, as a concept, to most of those clowns. Except for a small few, they are all in it for themselves, and no one like you and me. It isn't about liberal or conservative. It is about re election. Lies and damned lies is order of the day.

[5] Back to Obama versus McCain. McCain sold his soul to the Christian right. He plain as day sold out. He didn't and doesn't use a computer. He is too out of date for me. I chose Obama for what looked like positive leadership ability.

Other than Ron Paul, currently running for president there are no leaders, just focus group junkies. Obama was not there for debt negotiations - even the NY Times hit him on his lack of leadership. Peggy Noonan (one of my favorites) called him a loser. BUT she said the same thing essentially about Romney, Newt, etc.

[6] The country in general is hooked, like a drug junkie, on non production in exchange for money. The system has to change. It isn't going to be pleasant.

1) When I was in grammar school we learned American History--if only scratching the surface--and I was taught to believe that anyone had a chance of becoming president. In my youthful naiveté I thought a person could do it alone. The fact is, it takes a network or support to make it to the top. Call it a good-ol'-boy network or whatever, it just isn't going to happen on one's own. Obama has a network. It is a network of radicals and crooks attempting to operate in secret duplicity . The Bush-Cheney network was a bit more up-front. When people complain about the networks they are really making themselves heard because they are not part of it. People who had good auditing do not complain. People who are benefiting from a network are not complaining.

2) Fully agree.

3) Agree. Here Hubbard's Science of Survival is useful in evaluating the situation. Politicians often speak in glowing generalities. "Hope and Change" is but the near complete distillation of politico speak. Such generalities allow an ignorant or stupid populace to create in their own minds what exactly the phrase stands for. Following that, few people will ever be satisfied.

I want to blow up the TV every time I see a politician explaining or justifying his position when I know he is just lying. Lying is not good. When I see lying intended to create false impressions it just infuriates me. If a person will lie to my face I have to ask, "What are they doing behind my back?"

What really galls me about politics and the military is the same thing that has galled me since LBJ wanted to send me to Vietnam to patrol the jungles and rice fields: I detest the manner in which politicians spend the lives of young men, and now young women. The political class is overrun with cowards. The recent downing of the helicopter with 30+ personnel, most of them Special Forces, infuriates me. I say that because our rules of engagement SUCK. ... Wait! I can't go on... This pisses me off too much.

Back on response...

4) Agreed. Most have never run a business, don't know what it is to pay the bills, make a payroll, hire, fire, produce a needed/wanted product or service, ...

Video: Small Business Owner Rips Obama

... yet they dictate how things should be run through regulations and mandates.

5) I voted for McCain because I could not vote for a hidden WHO. As a Senator he (Obama) introduced no legislation and his voting record was primarily "Present" casting neither a Yes nor a No thus exposing his position. Obama remains hidden. Recent efforts have opened his Columbia records where he attended college on a foreign scholarship/financial assistance. Obama has paid millions in legal fees to keep his records closed. Who but a dishonest person would do that?

6) The system is geared to pay for non-production. Walk into your local city planning for a permit. Here we see people doing their nails, personal phone calls, taking extended breaks while customers wait in line. These customers are business people who have to make good use of every minute in the day. Locally, clerks are allowed so many minutes per customer. If one customer is serviced in lesser time people in line can be made to wait until the allotted time has elapsed when the next customer will be serviced. During the wait the clerk is allowed to do whatever, check the ball scores, hang by the water cooler... That's the rule.

Now my running refrain: There will be no recovery until we have a cheap source of power. Right now it is fossil fuel. No drilling = no power = no recovery. And, we have to pay for and reward productivity.

And that helicopter thing, if it is discovered that all those Special Forces were on one copter-not the usual practice--due to some money-saving thing, I will go ballistic.

 

[Ted]

The old days - Adams Ave., San Diego and Tucson

Yesterday I had the pleasure of helping set up my #1 daughter's baby shower. The little girl is due in 2-3 weeks. Daughter's #2 and #3 put the event together. Grandpop (me) supplied beer and wine, moved chairs, whatever. Aside from a couple of young lads, I was the only guy there.

There must have been 60+ ladies there. Most stayed 5 to 6 hours. Drank, joked, gabbed, played games, socialized, watched as gifts were opened, all in all, a good time was had by everyone.

At the end, daughter #1 drove away in her full-size pickup, back and cab loaded. The good friend who hosted the shower loaded her full-size SUV, front seat, back seat, and rear end, full up with stuff.

Way back when, my wife and I had 4 babies--not all at once. The first received a few gifts and each thereafter received fewer until the boy received almost none. It was not because we had no friends, but maybe because we had few true friends, and they were living elsewhere. I believe the lack of support was a reflection of bad company; it was a reflection of with whom and how we were connected.

Scientology makes people insecure in their person. "You need your Bridge," "Get your stats up, or else..." etc. The individual is always under attack if on staff, and sometimes with public. Scientology extracts all of a person's resources, money being a primary one, time being another. This doesn't leave much to give even if a person want to.

So you might imagine my joy to see so much support for my once-baby-girl-soon-to-be-a-mom--again. She has quite a network of friends and associates, some of whom she had not seen in a year.

I think she is turning out pretty okay. The granddaughters are in very good hands. Oh, yes. Their daddy is a good man, too. And, this had NOTHING to do with Scientology.

 

[FoTi]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

It is an unfinished work, currently in chapter 24 (or thereabouts) . . . that is the true story of what I've been really up to this lifetime . . . and it's about time I finished it as the answers I've been working to obtain are about in hand.

I began writing it in 1990.

R

I look forward to it!

 

[FoTi]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

Vad just put this on chat.....thought you all might like to see it. Awesome sand artist!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOMgDbcA84A&feature=player_embedded

 

[FoTi]

Re: The old days - Adams Ave., San Diego and Tucson

Yesterday I had the pleasure of helping set up my #1 daughter's baby shower. The little girl is due in 2-3 weeks. Daughter's #2 and #3 put the event together. Grandpop (me) supplied beer and wine, moved chairs, whatever. Aside from a couple of young lads, I was the only guy there.

There must have been 60+ ladies there. Most stayed 5 to 6 hours. Drank, joked, gabbed, played games, socialized, watched as gifts were opened, all in all, a good time was had by everyone.

At the end, daughter #1 drove away in her full-size pickup, back and cab loaded. The good friend who hosted the shower loaded her full-size SUV, front seat, back seat, and rear end, full up with stuff.

Way back when, my wife and I had 4 babies--not all at once. The first received a few gifts and each thereafter received fewer until the boy received almost none. It was not because we had no friends, but maybe because we had few true friends, and they were living elsewhere. I believe the lack of support was a reflection of bad company; it was a reflection of with whom and how we were connected.

Scientology makes people insecure in their person. "You need your Bridge," "Get your stats up, or else..." etc. The individual is always under attack if on staff, and sometimes with public. Scientology extracts all of a person's resources, money being a primary one, time being another. This doesn't leave much to give even if a person want to.

So you might imagine my joy to see so much support for my once-baby-girl-soon-to-be-a-mom--again. She has quite a network of friends and associates, some of whom she had not seen in a year.

I think she is turning out pretty okay. The granddaughters are in very good hands. Oh, yes. Their daddy is a good man, too. And, this had NOTHING to do with Scientology.

I like your family stories, Ted.

 

[Ted]

Re: The old days - Adams Ave., San Diego and Tucson

I like your family stories, Ted.

Okay, and thank you.

I am about to write the story of Adams Ave, from my perspective, of course. It will involve personal stuff. I would like to just tell the story without Q&A from critics or anyone else. My hope is that someone will benefit by reading it. By benefit I mean extricate themselves from the scio trap while retaining whatever good they gained.

Question: Should I post it here? Create its own thread? Or blog it sans responses? Or create a blog with a separate thread for comments?

 

[RogerB]

Re: The old days - Adams Ave., San Diego and Tucson

Yesterday I had the pleasure of helping set up my #1 daughter's baby shower. The little girl is due in 2-3 weeks. Daughter's #2 and #3 put the event together. Grandpop (me) supplied beer and wine, moved chairs, whatever. Aside from a couple of young lads, I was the only guy there.

There must have been 60+ ladies there. Most stayed 5 to 6 hours. Drank, joked, gabbed, played games, socialized, watched as gifts were opened, all in all, a good time was had by everyone.

At the end, daughter #1 drove away in her full-size pickup, back and cab loaded. The good friend who hosted the shower loaded her full-size SUV, front seat, back seat, and rear end, full up with stuff.

Way back when, my wife and I had 4 babies--not all at once. The first received a few gifts and each thereafter received fewer until the boy received almost none. It was not because we had no friends, but maybe because we had few true friends, and they were living elsewhere. I believe the lack of support was a reflection of bad company; it was a reflection of with whom and how we were connected.

Scientology makes people insecure in their person. "You need your Bridge," "Get your stats up, or else..." etc. The individual is always under attack if on staff, and sometimes with public. Scientology extracts all of a person's resources, money being a primary one, time being another. This doesn't leave much to give even if a person want to.

So you might imagine my joy to see so much support for my once-baby-girl-soon-to-be-a-mom--again. She has quite a network of friends and associates, some of whom she had not seen in a year.

I think she is turning out pretty okay. The granddaughters are in very good hands. Oh, yes. Their daddy is a good man, too. And, this had NOTHING to do with Scientology.

Nice, Ted . . .

What a wonderfully co-empowering scenario it must have been . . . you're right, the time to bestow love and support for one's friends was something the $cn doctrine KO'ed

What a dunce's scene that turned out to be!

Rog

 

[Mark A. Baker]

Re: The old days - Adams Ave., San Diego and Tucson

Okay, and thank you.

I am about to write the story of Adams Ave, from my perspective, of course. It will involve personal stuff. I would like to just tell the story without Q&A from critics or anyone else. My hope is that someone will benefit by reading it. By benefit I mean extricate themselves from the scio trap while retaining whatever good they gained.

Question: Should I post it here? Create its own thread? Or blog it sans responses? Or create a blog with a separate thread for comments?

Blog with a separate thread for comments makes the most sense if you wish to avoid then normal Q & A of a thread.


Mark A. Baker

 

[lkwdblds]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

Relativity as a principle in physics dates back to Galileo: if you drive 80 to pass a car going 60 then your speed relative to the other car is 20. That's totally obvious, but also obviously important and fundamental. You're not going to be able to do much physics if you can't get that part straight first of all. That's relativity. It's a really basic principle about space and motion.

This notion of things being relative is derived from common sense. Einstein's definition has more to do with two observers in motion with respect to one another and determining which one is stationary and which one is moving.

Einstein revised Galileo's version of relativity to make it compatible with the 19th century discoveries about electromagnetism. The Michelson-Morley experiment is just the soundbite version; Einstein's work was based far more broadly. In fact I don't believe Einstein's original papers even mention this experiment.

Einstein was fully aware of the Michelson-Morley experiment. It was because their experiment did not produce the expected result that scientist had to develop a theory of why and how this could be. The equation developed by Michelson and Morley was part of the backbone of Einstein's relativity theory.

Some of the consequences of Einstein's theory had been anticipated by others, but he didn't steal anything: his contribution, which hadn't crossed the mind of anybody else, was to perceive that certain paradoxes and problems were so fundamental, they called for a revision of relativity itself. Other people were putzing around with notions of ether and stretching and shrinking; Einstein was the guy who realized that what we needed to change was our idea of time itself. It needed to get into the relativity act, along with space and motion. That's Einstein's relativity, though nowadays when physicists say 'relativity' or 'relativistic' we always mean Einstein's version by default.

The above is "spot on."

Galileo figured out Relativity 1.0. Einstein did the 2.0 update. But it was a heck of an update, more like moving from DOS to Windows than from XP to Vista. It's not unfair that Einstein is even more famous than Galileo. Plus Albert Einstein did about five other comparable things in physics, putting him alone with Isaac Newton in a class of great scientists far above everybody else.

Nice analogy!

I have never heard of any modern reproductions of the Michelson-Morley experiment that have failed to duplicate the original results. There have been very, very many duplications. It's not a trivial experiment; amateurs can easily screw it up and see all kinds of stuff. Maybe somebody did that and got all excited and published or posted something about it. But careful and competent professionals all over the world have been reproducing the result consistently ever since it was first published, and they continue to do so. It's a basic exercise in interferometry.

Yep!

It's also a null result — if you do the experiment right, you do two different measurements, and get no difference between them. So it's not that the effect is tricky to see, and if your technique isn't up to scratch you see nothing; it's that you have to carefully eliminate all sources of error that might introduce spurious differences, otherwise you'll see a difference that is really just due to a misalignment of your mirror or something. Mistakes like that are easy to make if you don't quite know what you're doing.

Furthermore, if the null result predicted by Einstein's theory were really wrong, then Michelson-Morley experiments should not just all show differences between their two measurements: they should all show the same difference, because it would indicate the speed of the Earth relative to the ether. (Okay, there should be corrections for latitude and longitude, and maybe time of year; but these are simple.) But the handful of attempted Michelson-Morley repetitions that have occasionally found non-null results have not agreed with each other. This is another indication that they are just screw-ups.

And by now there have been many, many other experimental tests of Einstein's relativity. Suggesting that it is going to be thrown out now is like reporting a recent discovery that the Himalayas are actually a lake, and not mountains after all. Um, nope.

Nice summation about Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity.

I am showing a short article which summarizes it in language most people can understand:

Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity Made Relatively Simple! by Christopher P Benton, PhD

Young Einstein

Albert Einstein was born in 1879 and died in 1955. He didn't start talking until he was three, and at age nine he still didn't talk very well. Everyone thought he was retarded. However, he got smarter.

The Ether

In 1820, Thomas Young performed an experiment that indicated that light is composed of waves. However, common sense told the physicists of that day that every wave needs some sort of medium to wave through. For example, ocean waves wave through water, and sound waves wave through air (as well as water and other materials). Thus, physicists believed that light waves also needed some medium to wave through. They called this medium the ether.

In 1831 two American scientists, Michelson and Morley, set up an experiment to detect the ether. The idea behind their experiment was that as the earth moves through space it would at times be moving with the ether and at other times against the ether. Suppose the earth were moving against the ether. Then the situation would be analogous to moving upstream in a boat. In that case, anything you threw downstream would move away from you faster than something that you threw upstream. Thus, physicists reasoned that as the earth moved through the ether, the speed at which light moved in one direction would be different from the speed in another direction. The experiment of Michelson and Morley was designed to detect this difference in speed, and thus, confirm the existence of the ether.

However, when performed, the Michelson-Morley experiment detected no variation in the speed of light. As a result, scientists gradually discarded the idea of the ether (since it couldn't be detected), and they began to accept the idea that the speed of light is the same in all directions.

Thus, Einstein began his theory of special relativity with two assumptions:

1. The Principle of Relativity: One cannot tell by any experiment whether one is at rest or moving uniformly (that is, moving in a straight line with constant velocity). In other words, there is no such thing as absolute rest. All motion or rest is only in relation to other observed objects (i.e. I can consider myself not to be moving with respect to the earth while at the same time I am moving very rapidly with respect to the sun).

2. The Constancy of the Velocity of Light: The speed of light in a vacuum has the same value c with respect to any observer either at rest or moving uniformly (c = 186,282.397 miles per second).

What Einstein then discovered was that in order for all observers to measure the same velocity for a beam of light, time would have to "flow" differently for different observers, and space would sometimes have to contract.

Lakey

 

[lkwdblds]

Re: A Simple Desultory Philippic

I would like to reply to the above from a different perspective.

but first, I think I need to show my credentials.

I'm 60. When I was 13 and 14, I walked precincts for Barry Goldwater (AuH2O in 64), while my parents were for Rockefeller. I was reading US News and World Report, and was a big fan of Bill Buckley. Through the years, I worked for and supported Ronnie Reagan for Governor and President. I also voted for Obama. My politics have not changed.

The Cheney Bush years destroyed my allegiance to the Republican party. They racked up debt (Cheney Bush and Congress) like it was going out of style. Graft, corruption, old buddy networks were the order of the day. The nincompoops they put on the Supreme Court was also a major turn off for me.

Something has to be done about the deficits, sooner rather than later. Otherwise, we'll be like Greece or Ireland. Allowing Wall Street to strip value out of the money is a Republican and a Democratic attribute. It isn't liberal or conservative. It is self serving politics of law enforcement for sale.

The military industrial government oligarchy that Dwight Eisenhower warned about is in full swing and joined at the hip with Wall St. It's all about money.

It galls me that Navy Seals risk their lives for each other and overall good, but politicians are too chicken shit to even risk an honest statement or vote.

Paul Ryan and Ron Paul (to name two) are legitimate honest politicians. Practically everyone else is a joke. All they see is the next election. the word "mensch" doesn't even exist, as a concept, to most of those clowns. Except for a small few, they are all in it for themselves, and no one like you and me. It isn't about liberal or conservative. It is about re election. Lies and damned lies is order of the day.

Back to Obama versus McCain. McCain sold his soul to the Christian right. He plain as day sold out. He didn't and doesn't use a computer. He is too out of date for me. I chose Obama for what looked like positive leadership ability.

Other than Ron Paul, currently running for president there are no leaders, just focus group junkies. Obama was not there for debt negotiations - even the NY Times hit him on his lack of leadership. Peggy Noonan (one of my favorites) called him a loser. BUT she said the same thing essentially about Romney, Newt, etc.

The country in general is hooked, like a drug junkie, on non production in exchange for money. The system has to change. It isn't going to be pleasant.

[video=youtube;QOvs3rCFI2A]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOvs3rCFI2A[/video]

Well stated Carmelo! Bush Cheney did do a lot of damage to the Republican Party, that is for sure. What needs to happen iis for another Reagan to emerge; you could even say another Goldwater. Goldwater did not resonate with where the country was at in 1964 but in today's world he might have been just what the doctor ordered.

Obama is not the answer as far as I see it. Still, though he has lost some of his traction with moderate Democrats and the like, many of them still think that he is an effective leader. To me, the fact that he has never been the chief executive of anything, a small business, a mayor of a City or in charge of runing anything is extremely important. It was apparent from the day that he declared for being a presidential candidate that he lacked experience and was not qualified.

His actions to date have supported the fact that he is not qualified to lead the nation.

In his mind, it seems to be perfectly okay to run an enormous deficit and keep borrowing and printing unbacked paper money. The strange thing is that many, if not most, democrats now beleive that deficit spending in the trillions (about 4 billion dollars a day) is perfectly normal and acceptable and that anyone who wants to lower the deficit or balance the budget is a right wing "kook".

I do agree that Obama inherited a terrible state of affairs from the Bush administratioin. Still, after nearly three years the moves he has made have not reaped any benefits. He can't blame Bush forever. He should at least be showing some sort of significant improvement after 3 years but instead his "stats" are down. He is not digging us out from the Bush Adminstration but his policies are just making things worse. I don't have the answers other than that we need another Reagan to enter the scene at this point.
Lakey

 

[lkwdblds]

Re: Maureen Dowd in the NY Times today

Everyone knows this, but it's nice to put in to perspective


Federal Budget 101
The U.S. Congress sets a federal budget every year in the trillions of dollars. Few people know how much money that is so we created a breakdown of federal spending in simple terms. Let's put the 2011 federal budget into perspective:
U.S. income: $2,170,000,000,000
Federal budget: $3,820,000,000,000
New debt: $ 1,650,000,000,000
National debt: $14,271,000,000,000
Recent budget cut: $ 38,500,000,000 (about 1 percent of the budget)

It helps to think about these numbers in terms that we can relate to. Let's remove eight zeros from these numbers and pretend this is the household budget for the fictitious Jones family.

Total annual income for the Jones family: $21,700
Amount of money the Jones family spent: $38,200
Amount of new debt added to the credit card: $16,500
Outstanding balance on the credit card: $142,710
Amount cut from the budget: $385

So in effect last month Congress, or in this example the Jones family, sat down at the kitchen table and agreed to cut $385 from its annual budget. What family would cut $385 of spending in order to solve $16,500 in deficit spending?

It is a start, although hardly a solution.

Now after years of this, the Jones family has $142,710 of debt on its credit card (which is the equivalent of the national debt).

You would think the Jones family would recognize and address this situation, but it does not. Neither does Congress.

The root of the debt problem is that the voters typically do not send people to Congress to save money. They are sent there to bring home the bacon to their own home state.

To effect budget change, we need to change the job description and give Congress new marching orders. [Emphasis mine.]

It is awfully hard (but not impossible) to reverse course and tell the government to stop borrowing money from our children and spending it now.

In effect, what we have is a reverse mortgage on the country. The problem is that the voters have become addicted to the money. Moreover, the American voters are still in the denial stage, and do not want to face the possibility of going into rehab.

By: DAVID THOMAS
Chief Executive Officer
Equitas Capital Advisors LLC

Beautiful exposition reducing these trillions into terms a normal person, dealing in the thousands can understand. This is really very enlightening stuff.
Lakey

 

[Hatshepsut]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

Benny Goodman via JapanIf you are old enough you will smile, if you are young you will love it.
This is music! ! ! Amazing how young they are.
Whether or not you like swing music turn up your speaker and take a trip
back in time.

These Japanese kids would make Benny Goodman proud!

Sing, Sing, Sing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7N6slVrQeY&feature=player_popout

 

[FoTi]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

Benny Goodman via JapanIf you are old enough you will smile, if you are young you will love it.
This is music! ! ! Amazing how young they are.
Whether or not you like swing music turn up your speaker and take a trip
back in time.

These Japanese kids would make Benny Goodman proud!

Sing, Sing, Sing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7N6slVrQeY&feature=player_popout

That was cool, Hat!!!! They're good.

 

[lkwdblds]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

Benny Goodman via JapanIf you are old enough you will smile, if you are young you will love it.
This is music! ! ! Amazing how young they are.
Whether or not you like swing music turn up your speaker and take a trip
back in time.

These Japanese kids would make Benny Goodman proud!

Sing, Sing, Sing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7N6slVrQeY&feature=player_popout

Outstanding Hats, I mean really top notch, both the music and the band! Its amazing that teen age kids from Japan can have such a feel for a genre of music which was popular around 70 years ago. They feel the rhythms and the beat just as if they grew up hearing this music regularly. Maybe the did.

BTW, this does not play from your link, one has to go to youtube to watch and hear the video.

Swing and Boogey Woogey have got to be perhaps the best genre of popular music ever conceived. It just sounds better and better as the years roll by.

 

[FoTi]

Re: The old days - Adams Ave., San Diego and Tucson

Okay, and thank you.

I am about to write the story of Adams Ave, from my perspective, of course. It will involve personal stuff. I would like to just tell the story without Q&A from critics or anyone else. My hope is that someone will benefit by reading it. By benefit I mean extricate themselves from the scio trap while retaining whatever good they gained.

Question: Should I post it here? Create its own thread? Or blog it sans responses? Or create a blog with a separate thread for comments?

If you want to write the story without Q&A from anyone else interfering with your writing, then make it your own separate blog. Then create an Adams Ave thread under the My Story section with a link to the blog, in the opening post. That way people can click on the link to the blog and read it and then come back to the Adams Ave thread and comment, if they wish. Anyway.....I think that's the way I'd do it.

 

[FoTi]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

Outstanding Hats, I mean really top notch, both the music and the band! Its amazing that teen age kids from Japan can have such a feel for a genre of music which was popular around 70 years ago. They feel the rhythms and the beat just as if they grew up hearing this music regularly. Maybe the did.

BTW, this does not play from your link, one has to go to youtube to watch and hear the video.

Swing and Boogey Woogey have got to be perhaps the best genre of popular music ever conceived. It just sounds better and better as the years roll by.

It played for me from the link. :confused2: