Despite calls from leaders worldwide, including the U.S.,  for Israel to halt its assault on Hamas in Gaza, Israel continues to conduct aerial attacks against the Palestinians in the Gaza region.
Israel is currently mobilizing its reserve forces with tanks and artillery along the border between Israel and Gaza in an all-out effort to step up the attack against Hamas with ground forces, if necessary.
What does everyone think about the attack of Israel against the Palestinians?  Do you think that Israel has a right to move against Hamas in the fashion that they have chosen?  Do you think a cease fire will be possible in the near term or will the U.S. have to get directly involved, either politically or militarily to halt this attack, which has already claimed 280 lives in two days?

Retailers this Christmas season are anticipating a dramatic drop in sales.  Already, retail giants like Wal-Mart and Macy's are experiencing a dramatic decline in retail sales pre-Christmas.

With the decline in the financial markets and the rise in layoffs nationwide, it's no wonder that people, in general, don't have the money to spend on Christmas gifts that they had last year at this time.

The nationwide jobless rate has exceeded 6.5% and some states, such as California, have reported jobless rates in excess of 9%.

The financial future is grim for the U.S.  Perhaps the U.S. should return to the original spirit of Christmas before it was commercialized. 

Although I don't have any handguns or rifles in my own home, the right of the individual to own such weapons has always been thought to be a right under the Constitution wherein it states that "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."  

On Thursday, the 26th of June, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of gun ownership by individuals who want such weapons for protection.  This decision marked the first time that the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the individual's right to own guns, not just the right of the states to maintain militias.

Justice Antonin Scalia, in his writing of the 5-4 decision, stated that the Constitution does not have the right of "Absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home."  Furthermore, Scalia stated that the nation's capital went too far in controlling the sale of handguns to the point that they made it almost impossible for an individual to possess a handgun for their own protection.

However, the Supreme court warned that the individual's right to possess a handgun for the "traditional lawful purpose" of protection in the home is not unlimited.  "It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose," Justice Scalia stated.

This landmark ruling of the Supreme Court overturned the District of Columbia's 1976 law, which made it practically impossible for an individual who resides within the District to own a handgun, and even spelled out how weapons that were legally owned should be stored.

What do you think of this recent ruling by the Supreme Court?  Do you think that American's have a right under the Second Amendment of the Constitution to own handguns, shotguns, and like weapons and store them in their homes for their own protection?  What about the criminal element?

---Posted by Dan Calloway

The NY Times is reporting today that George Carlin, standup comedian and actor who is known for his outlandish comedy and routines such as, "Seven Words That You Can't Say on TV," is dead at 71.

The cause of death is being reported as heart failure, following a long-time battle that Mr. Carlin had with heart disease. 

He was recently awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, but hadn't officially received it.  He was to be awarded the prize at the Kennedy Center in November of this year.

George Carlin was definitely the Modern Man.  If you want to see that George didn't slow down on iota toward the end of his life, check out this You Tube Video of one of George's last comedy spots.

Posted by:  Dan Calloway

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The Road to Reality: A complete guide to the laws of the Universe

I'm currently reading, "The Road to Reality...," by Roger Penrose.  This is a very fascinating national bestseller published by Vintage Books.  The ISBN is:  978-0-679-77631-4.

Roger Penrose is Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University.  He has received a number of prizes and awards, including the 1988 Wolf Prize in physics, which he shared with Stephan Hawking for their joint cotribution to our understanding of the universe.  His books include The Emporer's new Mind, Shadows of the Mind, and The Nature of Space and Time, which he wrote with Hawking.  He has lectured extensively throughout America.  He lives in Oxford, England.

"A truly remarkable book...Penrose does much to reveal the beauty and subtlety that connects nature and the human imagination, demonstrating that the quest to understand the reality of our physical world, and the extent and limits of our mental capacities, is an awesome, never-ending journey rather than a one-way cul-de-sac."  ---The Sunday Times (London)

Posted by Dan Calloway

The U.S. has been spoiled for many years by having the luxury of not paying as much as everyone else in the world for fuel, with the possible exception of the Saudi's. When I lived in Bermuda in the early 90's, unleaded 87 octane petrol fuel cost $1.25 per liter. This equates to approximately $5.00 per gallon, US. Today, Spain is paying an equivalent of $9.00 per gallon, US for their petrol fuel. It is only now that the U.S. is realizing that the low petrol fuel prices that we have enjoyed over the last several decades is fast-becoming a thing of the past. My prediction is that 87 octane petrol fuel prices will continue to rise in the U.S. to the $5.00-per-gallon level by the end of July, and to over $7.00 per gallon by the end of the Summer.

There is no excuse for diesel fuel to cost as much or more than petrol fuel, however. Oil refineries don't have to expend as much effort to extract diesel fuel from crude oil as they do to produce petrol fuel or aviation fuel, for instance. Diesel is manufactured much farther down the "cracking tower" than petrol fuel. Therefore, diesel fuel should logically cost less to manufacture and less to purchase by the trucking and farm industry. Then, why does diesel cost more than petrol fuel? The reason is quite simple: big oil companies have artificially reduced the supply of diesel, which has artificially increased the price (supply & demand) in the market place so they can produce higher-than-normal profits for the company. These rising costs of diesel are being passed on to consumers in the higher prices we pay for heating, cooling, food, and other consumer goods that are traditionally trucked across the U.S. from point of embarkation to warehouse and then to retail outlets. This will not change in the foreseeable future. What then can be done to help alleviate the burden on Americans?

I think it is high time that the U.S. reconsider its ban on building nuclear reactor sites for the purposes of generating electrical energy. The last time the U.S. built a nuclear power plant was following the near-nuclear-disaster of "Three-Mile Island" in 1979. Albeit a tragedy, the mistake that occurred there is preventable today where it wasn't as preventable then. Building more nuclear power plants in the U.S. would mean that the crude oil that is currently converted into industrial uses for heating, cooling, and the like, could be used to make more petrol and diesel fuels instead, thus increasing the supply of these fuels and reducing the overall costs. The nuclear power plants would be able to produce much more electrical energy than conventional crude oil-producing power plants, and much cleaner. The U.S. public should demand that Congress investigate the crude oil industry and hold them accountable to the people and make them justify the unbelievable profits that are being reported.

While more crude oil is being diverted to producing greater quantities of petrol and diesel fuel, the U.S. should then step up its research & development efforts in developing synthetic fuels or moving away from combustible fuels altogether and developing alternative means of transportation, harnessing electrical power or hydrogen. The days of the combustion engine are numbered. It is time that the U.S. decides to become less dependent on foreign oil and more dependent on alternative non-crude-oil means of industrial manufacturer and transportation. --Posted by Dan Calloway

In the Gospel of St. John, Jesus miraculously helps his disciples land a large catch of fish.  This supernatural feat was also performed by Pythagoras in a legend recorded by Porphyry.  Pythagoras miraculously predicted the exact number of fish that would be caught, but the story does not record what this number was.  In the gospel account Jesus makes no such prediction, but we are told that the catch numbers exactly 153 fish.  This seems on the face of it to be an irrelevant fact that the gospel writer included just for dramatic effect.  But theological scholars have concluded that it is mentioned deliberately and is highly significant.

It is likely that the number of fish that Pythagoras predicted would be caught was precisely 153.  The Pythagoreans were renowned for their knowledge of mathematics and regarded 153 as a sacred number.  It is used in a mathematical ratio that Archimedes called "the measure of the fish" to produce a mystical symbol of the vesica piscis or "sign of the fish"—the intersection of two circles which yields a fish-like shape.  This was an ancient Pythagorean symbol that was used by early Christians to represent their faith.  The fact that this mystical fish symbol can be produced from the number of fish that were caught in the account of Jesus' miracle strongly suggests it has been adapted from the original miracle of Pythagoras and that this miracle story encoded sacred geometrical formulae.

The sign of the fish is widely used today as a symbol of Christianity, but originated in Pagan sacred geometry.  Two circles, symbolic of spirit and matter, are brought together in a sacred marriage.  When the circumference of one circle touches the center of the other they combine to produce the fish shape known as the vesica piscis.  The ratio of height to length of this shape is 153:265, a formula known to Archimedes in the third century BCE as the "measure of the fish."  It is a powerful mathematical tool, being the nearest whole number approximation of the square root of three and the controlling ratio of the equilateral triangle.

For more information on this interesting fact, please visit:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vesica_piscis.

--
Dan Calloway
USA
Ubuntu 6.06, "Linux for Human Beings"
MSIT Student, Capella University

The path to a full debate was cleared this morning, when the Senate voted, 89 to 9, not to block it. But the vote, set up on Tuesday when Republicans announced that they would not exercise their rights to stall consideration of the measure, is by no means indicative of support for the actual resolution.