It has been said that modern civilization could not have been built upon any such foundation as the words of Jesus. That may be true. Quite imaginably it is also true that what could be built upon his words would be a better thing than modern civilization is. —W. R. Bowie (1928)

“… The power of an idea lies, not in its certainty but in its vividness and in the number of people who believe in it …” —Sumner and Keller, quoting Lippert (1927)

After the Revolution, Americans looked at the maple tree in a new light. To the eminent Philadelphia patriot and physician Benjamin Rush, maple sugar seemed perfectly tailored to the new republic. Here was a commodity that could compete in a global market, bolstering the independence of yeoman farmers, and demonstrating the superiority of free labor. It tapped an abundant resource, required only a small amount of labor, and used supplies most farmers already owned. Best of all, it would destroy the market for Caribbean sugar cane, produced by slaves laboring in horrifying conditions. Rush set down his reflections in the form of a letter to his friend Thomas Jefferson, which he presented publicly in 1791, concluding:
I cannot help contemplating a sugar maple tree with a species of affection and even veneration, for I have persuaded myself, to behold in it the happy means of rendering the commerce and slavery of our African brethren, in the sugar islands as unnecessary, as it has always been inhuman and unjust.
Aevia — Consider the Source

You Have Two Cows

 
Capitalism
CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull -and build a herd of cows.
AMERICAN-STYLE ANARCHO-CAPITALISM: You don’t have any cows. The bank will not lend you money to buy cows, because you don’t have any cows to put up as collateral. The price of milk goes up, and when you can no longer afford milk, you steal a bottle so your children won’t starve. You are arrested, charged with theft, disorderly conduct, interfering with government sophistries, and reckless endangerment of children. You are tried, convicted and sentenced to Life Without Parole at the new Borden’s Federal Penitentiary.
HONG KONG CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell three of them to your publicly -listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother -in -law at the bank, then execute a debt / equity swap with associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax deduction for keeping five cows. The milk rights of six cows are transferred via a Panamanian intermediary to a Cayman Islands company secretly owned by the majority shareholder, who sells the rights to all seven cows’ milk back to the listed company. The annual report says that the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more. Meanwhile, you kill the two cows because the fung shiu is bad.
Communism
COMMUNISM: You have two cows. You share two cows with your neighbors. You and your neighbors bicker about who has the most “ability” and who has the most “need”. Meanwhile, no one works, no one gets any milk, and the cows die of starvation.
SOVIET REPUBLIC COMMUNISM: You have two cows. The government seizes both and promises to provide you with milk. You wait in line for hours to get it. By the time you can see the store, there is no milk left, which doesn’t matter much, because what was there cost three times your monthly social credit, and was sour.
RUSSIAN FEDERATION COMMUNISM: You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the government takes all the milk. You steal back as much milk as you can and sell it on the black market.
CAMBODIAN COMMUNISM: You have two cows. The government takes both and shoots you.
Corporationism
AMERICAN CORPORATIONISM: You have two cows. You sell one, lease it back to yourself and do an IPO on the 2nd one. You force the two cows to produce the milk of four cows using bioengineered hormones. You lobby an ignorant Congress so as to make sure that you do not have to label your milk products -even if they cross state lines. You are surprised when one cow drops dead, but you work out a deal so that you can sell it to a renderer -and feed it back to your herd. Some of the older second-cycle cows cannot be impregnated -while others deliver twins that have to be killed and sold for pittance as vealers… You spin an announcement to the analysts stating you have downsized and are reducing expenses. Your stock goes up.
ENRONIC CORPORATIONISM: You have two cows. You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with the associated general offer so you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows. The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island company secretly owned by the majority shareholder, who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company. The annual report states that the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more. Nobody notices until after the election, when it becomes obvious that someone has to go. You take the CFO (Cow Finance Officer) out, drug it with a prescription somnambulant, and shoot it in the head with a pistol loaded with Rat Shot, from two feet away. The COWroner, who took six weeks to decide murdered children were drowned, takes less than 24 hours to declare the CFO a suicide. You celebrate by choking on a pretzel because you don’t have any milk to wash it down.
FRENCH CORPORATIONISM: You have two cows. You go on strike because you want three cows. You go to lunch and drink wine instead of milk. Life is good.
JAPANESE CORPORATIONISM: You have two cows. You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk. They learn to travel on unbelievably crowded trains. Most are at the top of their class at cow school, and the suicide rate, although four times that of other countries, is low enough that the profits are still remarkable, even though you are embarrassed by the occasional public Hara-Cowri.
GERMAN CORPORATIONISM: You have two cows. You engineer them so they are all blond, drink lots of beer, give excellent quality milk, and run a hundred miles an hour. Unfortunately they also demand 13 weeks of vacation per year.
ITALIAN CORPORATIONISM: You have two cows but you don’t know where they are. While ambling around, you see a beautiful woman. You break for lunch. Life is good.
RUSSIAN CORPORATIONISM: You have two cows. You count them and find you have five cows. You have some more vodka. You count them again and find you now have 42 cows. You count them again and when there turn out to be twelve cows, you stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka. You produce your 10th 5-year plan in the last 3 months. The Mafia shows up and takes over however many cows you really have.
FLORIDA CORPORATIONISM: You have a black cow and a brown cow. Everyone votes for the best looking one. Some of the people who like the brown one best, vote for the black one. Some people vote for both. Some people vote for neither. Some people can’t figure out how to vote at all. Finally, a bunch of guys from out-of-state tell you which is the best-looking one.
NEW YORK CORPORATIONISM: You have fifteen million cows. You have to choose which one will be the leader of the herd, so you pick some fat cow from Arkansas.
Environmentalism
ENVIRONMENTALISM: You have two cows. The government bans you from milking or killing them.
Fascism
FASCISM: You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to take care of them, and sells you the milk.
Feudalism
FEUDALISM: You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk.
Socialism
SOCIALISM: You have two cows. The government takes one and gives it to your neighbor. You form a cooperative to tell him how to manage his cow.
PURE SOCIALISM: You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else’s cows. You have to take care of all the cows. The government gives you a glass of milk.
BUREAUCRATIC SOCIALISM: You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else’s cows. The cows are cared for by former chicken farmers. You are assigned to take care of the chickens the government took from the chicken farmers. The government says you will get as much milk and eggs the regulations say you should need, but the bureaucrats take it and sell it on the black
market. The government denies the black market exists.
Surrealism
SURREALISM: You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.
DEMOCRATIC SURREALISM: You have two cows. Your neighbor has none. You feel guilty for being successful. You vote people into office that put a tax on your cows, forcing you to sell one to raise money to pay the tax. The people you voted for then take the tax money, buy a cow and give it to your neighbor. You feel righteous. Barbara Streisand sings for you.
LIBERTARIAN SURREALISM: You have two cows. One has actually read the constitution, believes in it, and has some really good ideas about government. The cow runs for office, and while most people agree that the cow is the best candidate, nobody except the other cow votes for her because they think it would be “throwing their vote away.”
REPUBLICAN SURREALISM: You have two cows. Your neighbor has none. So?
Totalitarianism
TOTALITARIANISM: You have two cows. The government takes them and denies they ever existed. Milk is banned.
Aevia — Consider the Source

In 1892, the U.S. government placed a help-wanted ad in The New York Times. The person sought was “a computer.” To be considered, the successful candidate would be required to pass an algebra, geometry, trigonometry, and astronomy exam.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 18.6 million manufacturing jobs in January 1981 when the Conservative Messiah first took office. During the last full year of the George W. Bush administration, that number had declined to 13.4 million manufacturing jobs. Now, the current administration is blamed, by those with the attention span of a gnat, for an economic morass that was clearly decades in the making. It’s as if they believe those jobs could be re-created in a flash.
In 2011, when those who would subject President Obama’s every thought, word, and deed to the most negative possible interpretation, are obsessed with blaming everything on him, it’s time for such hate mongers to put down the crack pipe and start contributing to a real economy. The fact is, many of their so-called job creators would have us believe popping a few pimples over the past couple of hours somehow constitutes a productive day.
A cuts only approach to economic prosperity would likely produce a lean and mean country that has absolutely nothing to offer in the global market. Without an educated workforce and a forward looking manufacturing base, we are left only with politicians, wholly owned and operated by the same financial services suits that, more than anyone else, placed our entire economy on a plane of unreality thus leading to a fully justified crisis of confidence.
The United States needs to purge itself of those integrity challenged leaders that have betrayed the national security doctrine of maintaining the industrial base. We need a reality centered approach to rebuilding both the manufacturing capability and the industrious tenacity that once made this country great.

— Robert H. Kalk

Bored with Vermont and Colorado? Enceladus [en-SELL-ah-dus] has snow with grain finer than talcum powder, only a frac­tion of a mil­li­me­ter in size, it is perfect for skiing. Because Enceladus reflects almost 100 percent of the sunlight, it is one of the brightest objects in our solar system and, the surface temperature is extremely cold, about -330° F.
Soooo, such a bright spot in our solar system should be easy to find. Space suits won’t remain bulky forever. There are lots of space plane designs in the works, and distances can always be overcome once we get past our cuts-only approach to fiscal prudence. From the looks of the surface you won’t be the first, but you may be the first in your neighborhood to ski Saturn’s moons. Seriously, are you a committed skier or not?  — Bob Kalk

Click around on the picture . . .

Light field cameras will unleash capabilities that were never before possible with conventional 2D digital cameras. Focusing a picture after it’s taken, re-orienting the scene by shifting the perspective view, and even switching between 2D and 3D views are all made possible through light field technology.
Aevia — Consider the Source

A social entrepreneur of the Philippines has come up with an ingenious solution for lighting problems in the low income areas. He uses plastic bottles to lighten up the dark homes of poor. The solution is green and cheap.