The CALIPH Rides again!

At the death of Muhammad in 632 two branches of his family claimed to be his heir
and sole legitimate disciples. Leadership alternated among a small group and the leader that emerged was given the title of Caliph and centered in Damascus. Over the
balance of the seventh and eighth centuries the Islamic culture flourished. Great advances were made in Medicine, mathematics, science--particularly architecture,
literature and art. As a result their influence grew in many quarters of the ancient world. From the eighth to the tenth century the caliph used military power to expand
his empire to many parts of No. Africa, the Iberian peninsula, Persia, the Hindus valley, and Asia. But their rule was benign. They did not try to execute control from
Damascus but allowed the local chieftains to continue day to day rule. They allowed
freedom of worship and freedom of local customs, including for the Jews. Their
occupation left many architectural jewels throughout the lands they controlled,
particularly Iberia.
The Caliphate gradually succumbed to a series of external invasions, by the Mongols,
Ottomans and even Russians and was forced to shrink back to its state as of the eighth century. In the following centuries they began a decline and became a backwater of culture, confined to the middle East.
The hostility of Europe, manifested by the Crusades, turned Islam to isolation, the rejection of all Western culture, and beliefs, and transformed Islam into a militant,
proselyting, enemy of all things modern and Western.

Now the militant Muslims are embarked on a campaign, to restore the Caliphate, not by force of arms, but by the power of numbers, and using the liberal democratic
foundations of Western society to subvert and undermine the indigenous populations
in the lands they are "invading".
Today there are an estimated 54 million Muslims in Western Europe and Scandinavia.
In each city where they settle they establish a ghetto in which it becomes hostile for non-Muslims to live, or even visit.
Their rate of propagation is so high they will
in one or two decades outnumber the population native to that country. Such a large
disciplined bloc of voters is tempting to politicians who court them by allowing them
privileges and political rights not available to the native citizens These include
the right to be governed by Sharia law instead of the constitutional Civil code; the right to attend private religious schools and pay no taxes for public schools; the
right to receive free public health care because paying for insurance is gambling and
forbidden by the Koran. They change the skylines by constructing imposing mosques
not in keeping with neighboring architecture and in all ways resist assimilating into
the country that welcomed them. Most of the funds to support their migration, their schools, madrases and mosques come from Saudi Arabia, that most regressive, misogynist medieval kingdom. Their purpose is conversion and/or control.
Their conquest of Europe is now certain. We in the U. S. are the final prize and we
can see the beginnings of an Islamic invasion in places like So. Florida and the middle West. We need to start thinking of a vaccine for the disease to come.

Amusing musings about TIME

Many philosophers hold that time is an illusion. I hold that time is real--the unit
of measure for intervals between sequential events. We live in an ever flowing river of time, ever existing in three of its dimensions--present, future, and past. For example driving in your auto, the space you are passing is the present;
looking through the windshield you see the future approaching: glancing into your rear view mirror you see the past receding.
There are many versions of time, of more common variety than Relativity.

There is the perception of time--"Time flies when you are having fun, and drags when
you are having trauma". Or the time it takes to drive to a previously untraveled
destination seems longer than the return.

Time controls our lives. We live in a rhythm of schedules. It influences how we interact with our fellows. For example, if someone wishes to communicate with Marty
they click on his name in their cell phone and in seconds a long string of digits
separates Marty from all the other Martys, locates and rings him. Compare that to the Pony Express.

Time also dictates our success in life. One person says I don't have the time to
acquire new skills to enhance my performance. Another says I devote most of my free time to learning new skills required for me to increase my earning power. It even
influences our health and lifespan if we spend it in healthy pursuits.

Time can be a master, friend and ally, or foe. Use it wisely---you only get a
limited ration of it.

Alchemy: Paper to Money

Printing is believed to have begun in China around the year 200, in the form
of Woodblock images. The Chinese progressed to movable type, individual characters
on mini woodblocks around 1040. In 1969 laser printing was developed, creating a
revolution in printing which could be called ALCHEMY. With such printing plain
paper of little value could be converted into currency, of any value desired. That
changed the value system of entire societies. No longer were the stores of real value and wealth--labor, land, and natural resources. Wealth could now be in the form of paper assets. A huge variety of such paper assets were created and marketed. And the governments discovered that printed money could supplement tax receipts for
paying the costs of running the country, funding programs, bribing or doing favors for special interest groups such as the military-industrial complex, etc. Even wars
could be financed by paper as long as someone would buy it. There's the rub! When
the amount of debt, in relation to the nation's ability to generate wealth in the
form of GDP, was manageable there were buyers and holders of our debt instruments.
With the 2008 crash because of phony derivatives, the stimulus spending needed to get employment up must be financed by printing money, inflating the deficit and
deflating the dollar. Because Europe is in even worse shape the dollar deflation is
not as great as it might be.
So, until the populace accepts the reality that more taxes are required, and our
participation in useless wars must be ended, printed money is greasing our skids to third world status.

Hold you nose, Rep. Joe Barton is here

If ever we needed corroboration that Congress has corrupted our constitutional
governing process, the current BP hearings are visual and auditory proof.
By some amazing coincidence the ranking Republican congressman on the Energy committee, Rep. Joe Barton, Tex. received an unusually generous campaign contribution
from BP. Good ol' Joe would be the committee chairman if the Repubs take over the house next election.
In questioning the BP CEO Joe expressed deep chagrin that Pres. Obama had treated him so harshly, suggested that Obama apologize to him, and stated that the $20B
compensation fund was in effect presidential blackmail. According to good ol' Joe,
BP is the victim of excessive governmental zeal. To follow his logic, the U.S.
should establish a compensation fund for BP to ease the losses BP's shareholders
are suffering.
Pardon me, i'm going to the bathroom to retch.

Atilla the Hun is alive and well in America

Dear readers, I have been absent from the internet due to a lengthy hospital stay
caused by pneumonia during which I was kept at a distance from a computer. Except
for an occasional glimpse at CNN I was cut off from much of the daily happenings. Now that I am home and caught up I feel as Rip Van Winkle, awakening to a world that
has continued its descent into chaos.
The calamitous oil spill that has damaged the ecology for generations is still
spewing its poison into the Gulf. The damage to earth, air and sea continues unabated
and human lives and livelihoods have been devastated. Wildlife by the multitudes have been lost, and the entire food chain has been broken.
But what astounds me the most is the failure of the general public to grasp the
lessons of it all. They worry that they will not be able to work on the very drilling rigs that destroy our planet. They worry that we will face a shortage of the petroleum that is draining our wealth into the coffers of countries and tyrants who wish us ill while it fouls the air we breathe. All that while they should be worrying that we continue to depend on a diminishing resource in control of opponents, and which damages our health, our wealth and our home planet.
This would be the moment for all Americans to do what they must to assure a decent
future for their young children and grandchildren. Is there any more wise and patriotic national service than to devote our hearts and resources to developing clean, renewable fuels?