How Much Don't I Know?

Every now and then I get to thinking (always dangerous), and what sometimes gets me going is a reference to some scientific or historical fact of which I know little or nothing. Like, say, the Great Siege of Malta in the 1500s.

The what?

I came across a reference to it and, not having heard of it and feeling, for the umpteenth time, that my education had been sorely lacking, I had to go look it up. Of course, one looks up things on the web at one's own risk, but that's a different post... Anyway, there is so much that I don't know, that I sometimes feel like the donkey who starved to death between two bales of hay. Unable to choose, he wasted away, poor jackass. Then I look at all of the time I have wasted in nonproductive ways and if I'm not careful, things go downhill fast. But sometimes I get to work and learn something, and that's a good thing. At least for me it is. I like to learn things, and my aged brain can still stretch enough to keep new facts in place. Some things come easy, some hard. But I do need to make the time.

Six Days

No, not the Six Day War, the six days in Genesis. There's a creationism museum somewhere that some guy dredged up enough money to open, and people are flocking to it. I guess if otherwise intelligent people want to believe in a God who literally created the universe in six days and then, having tired himself out, sat out the seventh, it's none of my business. But it does kind of give me the willies. And it begins to annoy me when those same people want their belief taught co-equally in science class. I'm not anti-religion in schools, but if you want to discuss creationism (or its spiffed-up but equally retarded half-brother "intelligent design") in a classroom, do it in a "religion around the world" setting. Don't pawn it off as science. Because if that's done, science becomes opinion becomes junk. And there's enough junk science out there as it is.

Cheap, Free Power

While we dump umpty-gazillion dollars into the war in Iraq, we continue to have a, what can charitably be called, "fractured" energy policy. The Greens are beside themselves, as even they are forced to admit that all the wind/water/whatever systems in the world won't amount to anything compared to the current U.S. power consumption, which leaves nuclear as the only reasonable short-term (the next 50 to 100 years) power alternative, and some (but, to their credit not all) of them would rather go back to the Stone Age than use power generated by a *gasp* nuclear reactor. The government, in the way that only massive, self-concerned bureacracies can do, says to use hybrids - no, wait, not too many - or to use bio-fuel - yeah, THAT'S the ticket - no, wait, bio-fuel actually causes more "greenhouse gases" than it prevents... um, well... then use wind! solar! heck, we don't have a clue! (that last one is mine).

Here's the recipe, if anyone is asking: build a crapload of nuclear power plants in the U.S. This drives a collapse in the foreign oil market and, gee, what a nice extra, a collapse in the funding for those nuts out there who want to kill Americans. Develop solar power satellites. Big, feathery panels that capture the free solar power and beam it down to God-forsaken locations (Oh yes, IF global warming is man-made, they can deflect the energy coming into the atmosphere. But I sure don't want to be the one figuring out how much solar energy must be reflected to reduce the mean temperature of the earth. Today's meteorologists can't even predict Tuesday's weather with any degree of accuracy). Some day (don't hold your breath) develop fusion power. When I was a kid (mumblety-mumble years ago), fusion power was "20 years in the future." It still is. It may be when my grandchildren are my age. Doesn't mean we shouldn't try.

The Love of Money...

Money is the root of all evil, right? Well, you can believe that, but if you say it, don't think you are accurately quoting the original phrase. It varies depending on the Bible translation, of course (what? the Bible isn't just one version???) but it pretty much goes like this: "for the love of money is the root of all evil." (1 Timothy 6:10 if you don't believe me). Kind of different. In a great, big, way. Money isn't good or evil. Heck money doesn't even exist. Don't believe me? How much is a dollar bill worth? One dollar? Sez who? You? Your neighbor? The gummint? What if tomorrow they all say something different? Fact is, a dollar is worth a dollar because - and ONLY because - everybody agrees that it's worth a dollar. Money doesn't exist, at least not physically. It isn't a "thing." It surely isn't little pieces of metal or crinkly pieces of paper or electronic notations you see on your computer screen when you check your bank account. Money is all in your mind. It's all in eveyone's minds. But I digress...

The love of money, however, can be a real problem, as Tim pointed out 2000 years ago. If you scramble and dig and scrape for the old do-re-mi, and you get lots of it just because you wanted it, odds are the only thing you'll want to do is get more. Blah, who needs that? Not that having enough money to pay the bills is a bad thing, it most emphatically is not! There's nothing noble about being poor, just as there's nothing ignoble about being wealthy (right, John Edwards? Al Gore? Hillary? Teddy?). "I've been rich and I've been poor, and believe me, rich is better." Quick, who said that - Sophie Tucker, Mae West or Gertrude Stein? Well, according to various quote sources, all of them...

Simple statements sometimes contain complex truths, as I think this quote, properly rendered, does. Simple statements can also be stupid and pointless. You pays your many and you takes your chance.