When the Exodus Occurred

I found a video on another theory of when the Exodus occurred that I like. The name of the pharaoh ruling when it probably happened turns out to be rather amusing. In Hebrew it meant 'brother of Moses'. Cabbages and kings require humility or resistance as democracy and the will of God require. Little other than God can be epistemologically certain I think. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8f9_k3c4pZQ

Israel in Egypt - Biblical Archaeology

Civil Magistracy; Separation of Church/State Westminster Standards 1788

Some wonder about the separation of church and state and what the Westminster Standards say about it in light of the post-American Revolution revision of 1788. One copy of the Westminster Standards 1788 revision has a commentary that addresses some of the points.

Concerning especially chapter 17-that on civil magistracy,

Lee Irons wrote that (www.upper-register.com Lee Irons); http://www.upper-register.com/papers/1788_revision.pdf

“ the proof texts were revised, thus suggesting a shift in understanding of paragraph 2 in light of the changes made to The 1788 American Revision of the Westminster Standards paragraph 3. Although the proof texts did not have binding constitutional authority, they illuminate the intent of both the Westminster divines and the Synod of Philadelphia and New York with respect to their doctrine of the civil magistrate.

As you read the 1788 Confession and its proof texts, in comparison with the original version and its proof texts, it ought to become apparent that the position held both by modern theonomists and by the original Westminster divines (viz., that the civil magistrate is obligated to enforce in the civil arena the Decalogue’s prohibition of false worship), was formally and intentionally repudiated by the American Presbyterian church. It follows that this theocratic conception of the civil magistrate continues to be repudiated, at least on paper, by those Presbyterian churches that have adopted the revised version.”

I would think that with the plurality of Protestant denominations that followed the reformation the desire of American prelates for religious tolerance and pro forma separation of church and state would have been self-evident. It would have been too simple for a civil magistrate otherwise to suppress various Christian sects as forms of false worship, much less non-Christian religions. Imagine if Pontius Pilate had been given authority and duty to repress all religion besides Caesar worship in Israel.

The Westminster Standards were written I think, just prior to the first regicide in Europe-Charles I. That brought on many changes. Keep in mind the attitude that philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes writing in his book 'Leviathan' had toward monarchy and absolutism.

With the American revolution, Witherspoon, a signatory of the Declaration, and others would have found it challenging to have a state authority-say President Obama, decide what the true religion in the United States is and suppress all others. I think he would decide that the First Church of Napoleonic Ice Cream is the true religion myself, and suppress any rival flavor working inevitably towards state monopoly.

My notes on chapter 17 of the Westminster Confession from the Gershner Lectures...

Lecture 17 The Civil Magistrate

Of the Civil Magistrate

the church was established in Britain then in the United States, then the U.S. revolted against Britain, and the separation of church and state developed, so this is an historically substantive topic

"1. God, the supreme Lord and King of all the world, hath ordained civil magistrates, to be, under him, over the people, for his own glory, and the public good: and, to this end, hath armed them with the power of the sword, for the defense and encouragement of them that are good, and for the punishment of evildoers. "

This is the fundamental Christian philosophy of the state the sword is for the encouragement of those that are good and the punishment of evil doers

John Witherspoon and other signers of the declaration reasoned that a government was for good and not evil, and that the British government wasn't doing that, and so it wasn't a true government and didn't have the right to exercise that power over the colonies

Until 1790 the clergy -the reformed clergy especially-was an advocate for social change and supported the rebellion

the British government was not appointed by God or had advocated that and was not a lawful government doing good to the people for the glory of God

"2. It is lawful for Christians to accept and execute the office of a magistrate, when called thereunto: in the managing whereof, as they ought especially to maintain piety, justice, and peace, according to the wholesome laws of each commonwealth; so, for that end, they may lawfully, now under the new testament, wage war, upon just and necessary occasion. "

A body politic may defend itself against corrupt government and criminals-yet only for just and necessary causes we do not assume a civil magistrate is incapable of error maybe one may use active disobedience to not comply with a corrupt government

"3. Civil magistrates may not assume to themselves the administration of the Word and sacraments; or the power of the keys of the kingdom of heaven; or, in the least, interfere in matters of faith. Yet, as nursing fathers, it is the duty of civil magistrates to protect the church of our common Lord, without giving the preference to any denomination of Christians above the rest, in such a manner that all ecclesiastical persons whatever shall enjoy the full, free, and unquestioned liberty of discharging every part of their sacred functions, without violence or danger. And, as Jesus Christ hath appointed a regular government and discipline in his church, no law of any commonwealth should interfere with, let, or hinder, the due exercise thereof, among the voluntary members of any denomination of Christians, according to their own profession and belief. It is the duty of civil magistrates to protect the person and good name of all their people, in such an effectual manner as that no person be suffered, either upon pretense of religion or of infidelity, to offer any indignity, violence, abuse, or injury to any other person whatsoever: and to take order, that all religious and ecclesiastical assemblies be held without molestation or disturbance. "

The relation of church and state

freedom of religion

the state should protect the church-all denominations of Christians (that isn't what the U.S.A. does today)

A.A. Hodge- wrote a commentary on the Westminster confession

It is the duty of people to pray for the magistrates, to honor their persons, to pay them tribute and other dues, and to obey their lawful commands, and to obey them for conscience's sake-not because they bear the sword

"4. It is the duty of people to pray for magistrates, to honor their persons, to pay them tribute or other dues, m to obey their lawful commands, and to be subject to their authority, for conscience’ sake. Infidelity, or difference in religion, doth not make void the magistrates’ just and legal authority, nor free the people from their due obedience to them: from which ecclesiastical persons are not exempted, much less hath the pope any power and jurisdiction over them in their dominions, or over any of their people; and, least of all, to deprive them of their dominions, or lives, if he shall judge them to be heretics, or upon any other pretense whatsoever. "

clergy and ecclesiastical power are not exempt from the law-catholics took opposite view...

two swords theory

sword over the church

sword over the state (indirectly)

bull unam sanctum states papal infallibility

1302 papal deliverance from the throne

when the pope speaks from the throne on faith and morals he is infallible

there is no ex cathiter list of which deliverances are infallible

Denzinger's 'Encoridion' (spelling) includes the 1302 bull unam sanctum on faith and mo

Potential of Growing New Brain Tissue

Brain damage from injury and illness significantly decreases the quality of life while increasing medical costs. Obviously growing new brain tissue to replace that lost to bring recovery and full normal brain health is a good idea. I wondered how much work is being done in that area of research.

Football players, schizophrenics, the Alzheimer's afflicted, casualties of war, accident survivors and victims of crime may show brain quantity loss/reduction in size that could be repaired with new brain tissue growth. Aging too presents some brain size reduction, though a brain may function well qualitatively even so in that case.

Schizophrenia patients examined with magnetic resonance imaging show substantive brain area loss. The brain may short circuit and communicate with itself independently and inappropriately of the personality of the individual who may experience the phenomena with substantial discomfort. Drugs to counteract the effect may cost $3000 monthly, and that sort of cost can be afforded just by the rich and government printing out deficit dollars at the Federal Reserve. Thus it would be cheaper over time to regrow damaged brain tissue in such individuals than to dope them.

I wonder if the public generally wouldn't have better health if magnetic resonance brain scans were available one every five years or so to all Americans at no charge in order to help people determine the state of their own brain health. I think that breast scans are available free to most women (they should be if not); the brain is perhaps of more importance even than boobs, that obviously are of great value too.

Alzheimer's patients care is very costly. The families are challenged to keep a good face on long term decrease of health. Stopping Alzheimers from increasing is a valuable goal, yet so too would be restoring brain tissue lost to the disease.

Maybe DARPA is funding research on how to regrow brain tissue lost to combat casualties that could be given over to the regular medical research community if successful. Football players that have suffered brain damage; perhaps O.J. Simpson is an example, may act with less than full rational thought or take their own life because of the negativity of the state of being they exist in.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/06/150611144438.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_healing

http://www.mayo.edu/research/centers-programs/center-regenerative-medicine/focus-areas/neuroregeneration

http://www.eurostemcell.org/factsheet/regeneration-what-does-it-mean-and-how-does-it-work

http://www.schizophrenia.com/disease.htm

http://www.brightfocus.org/alzheimers/infographic/progression-alzheimers-disease

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/new-87-deceased-nfl-players-test-positive-for-brain-disease/

Harry Read Puts mark of the Bureaucrat on Hillary

Senator Reed officially endorsed Hillary Clinton's Presidential bid placing the mark of the bureaucrat upon her forehead. Though all of the non-Trump top candidates of each party are career politicians substituting party bureaucracy for free enterprise for-themselves, just Hillary Clinton has received the official mark of the bureaucrat looking to globalist billionaires for positive reinforcement favored by career Democrat government insiders.

http://www.newsweek.com/hillary-clinton-scores-endorsement-harry-reid-430006

Under-utilized Mexican Solar Power

Without hydroelectric power Mexico was slow to energize. Burning fossil fuels left long ago, the age of the sun was a distant glimmer on the future horizon. Solar voltaic panels covering roofs and walls, electric cars slipping silently through the city avienda's clean air.

Every single solar cell was a poem thrown into good time warped like the creatures of the dust

on a living planet full of life amidst a darkness lit only with the light of trillions of trillions of stars

If 700 trillion Earth like worlds were incinerated by the expansion of the past burning time

and gravity waves lapped on the world's shore

one would consider rare atmosphere near

like natural gas no longer flared

and fossil fuel no more attcking the Earth's cool 

Mexican government gets 37% of its revenues from oil and gas. Mexico flares much natural gas into the atmosphere while the sun's energy is little used.

Solar and wind power is increasing in Mexico however. Just not fast enough. Homes or ordinary people should be covered with solar panels specifically designed for local construction styles.

Somehow a narco-oil state is too much a part of the way things are in a nation underutilizing its potential clean energy leadership.

http://solarindustrymag.com/online/issues/SI1403/FEAT_01_Mexico-%20North-Americas-New-Frontier-For-Solar-Power.html

https://www.eia.gov/beta/international/analysis.cfm?iso=MEX Mexican Energy sources

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/articles/2014/05/mexicos-newly-opened-energy-market-attracts-renewables.html

http://www.irena.org/DocumentDownloads/Publications/IRENA_REmap_Mexico_report_2015.pdf

Trump is Sole Top-Tier Candidate With Business Experience

It is remarkable that the sum total of business experience of Hillary, Bernie, Marco and Ted is zero. All of the gang of four are career politicians. As first generation Marco and Ted didn't give business a thought but following in V.I. Lenin's footsteps took a law degree. So did Hillary and Bernie of course, yet Bernie was at least a track star.

From my point of view business experience is important for a politician running a free enterprise based economy. Lenin took a law degree and it was useful later in designing the new Soviet state. He was more of a Menshevik than Stalin allowing limited free enterprise in his NEP five year plans though Stalin of course probably liquidated him with poison and implemented autonomous state control.

The bureaucrat approach to economics requires substitute handlers that serve up their ideas from which the inexperienced lawyer must select and apply through legislative programs and committees to the workplace. The gang of four is experienced at that. Trump isn't. 

Trump actually started in business while an undergraduate and was worth $200,000 before leaving college. He worked at revitalizing real estate. Trump worked at his father's real estate firm for a time, and prospered. His father Fred Trump lived until 1999. The Donald has quite a lengthy business history.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump

Sanders Led First Civil Rights Sit-in Chicago History (1962)

Fact checking shows that Bernie Sanders was the real deal on being a leader of student protests against segregated black student housing at the University of Chicago. While Hillary was still in diapers Bernie Sanders was taking the risks associated with early 1960s civil rights activism; why didn't he say so when the Congressional black caucus threw in the towel to Hillary?

image credit: By Source (WP:NFCC#4), Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=49492133

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_segregation_in_the_United_States  quote follows...

"In January 1962, Sanders led a rally at the University of Chicago administration building to protest university president George Wells Beadle's segregated campus housing policy. "We feel it is an intolerable situation when Negro and white students of the university cannot live together in university-owned apartments," Sanders said at the protest. Sanders and 32 other students then entered the building and camped outside the president's office, performing the first civil rights sit-in in Chicago history"


















By Source (WP:NFCC#4), Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=49492133

Can Anything Stop Earth’s Arctic Pattern Balding?

Like male pattern balding the Earth is losing its top cover over time. With the age of industrial revolution getting up there the balding effects of thinning ice, receding ice line winter and summer and a pattern of ice loss seem to make total loss of ice inevitable. No simple comb over or toupee remedies are feasible. There isn’t enough ice-making capability to cover the ice loss. One wonders if some Rogaine-like chemical patch to stop or even reverse loss of ice cover and reinvigorate the planet’s high albedo index is possible.

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/multiyear.ice.quikscat.mov

Perhaps building a berm-bridge-wall across the Bering Strait that would halt the flow of water between the Arctic Ocean and the North Pacific would help keep warmer waters out of the Arctic and reduce ice-cover loss. Certainly the Arctic Ocean and lands within 300 miles should be fossil fuel and industrial pollution free allowing just fuel cell and electric powered vehicles. High Arctic direct exhaust emission is one of the greatest accelerators of global warming. The air is already thinner up top.

When team Toyota won the Daytona 500 stock car race this year it exemplified how old American auto culture is; a very over-mature technology that everyone else is good at too. Since the U.S.A. has used that fossil fuel-auto-truck paradigm more than a century now without any sort of change to something new it is comparable to using Victrolas for music rather than the Internet. If the U.S.A. wants to lead world environmental recovery it will need to invent new, cleaner personal and mass transport infrastructure-not just make incremental improvements on the old.

When the Earth is humiliated with ice loss and resembles a bozo with fringe ice around the edges of the Arctic Ocean basin it will mean more than lack of prestige with Venus. Venus has already gone over the top with runaway greenhouse gassing and is around 700 degree f at the surface. She needs detoxification and rehabilitation from her sulfurous dioxide life style of the past to be a potential partner for the Earth.

Yet the Earth is quickly balding its Arctic ice cover and will absorb more warmth seasonally cooking somewhat like shrimp in a plastic water filled baggie left in the sun. maybe the Earth can’t have a fuller, thicker ice cover than it did before the industrial revolution, yet science ought to try.

 

Vatican City is Walled- Will Those Walls Come Tumbling Down?

The pope set off a firestorm with his comment to the effect that those that build bridges are Christian and those that build walls are not. The Vatican City is a famous walled city and the pope hasn't ordered destruction of those walls nor dismissal of his guards yet. Defenders of the attack on Trump say that the Vatican isn't a walled city and confreres say that Hillary and Bill isn't a two-head monster running against Sanders; whatever.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline_of_Vatican_City

Essays - GaryCGibson Feb 2016 (video)

Where Nothing Disappeared (poem)

Where Nothing Disappeared

Anything that ever was

the building, the cabin, the slave quarters

groaning beneath development the burial ground

mourned its death

suffering the indignity of erasure

as silent ashes cast into the wind

Rising with the horizon

time is an anecdote

for green fields and barbed wire fences

where the clock rest with sparrows on lines

watching cars drive past

trying to make the themselves herd

Plugged in the power concentrates

like shockwaveform islands of concentric time

gravity waves surfing spacetime at light spreed

wearing concrete piers away with water of thousands of years

surging before tempests

forgotten like every dawn of history

Where nothing disappeared

each idea ever formed

still existed in the mind of God

every soul and thought of lifetimes

traveling through structures

of being and becoming passing on.

Can Wal-mart Really be Christian? Bridge Builders and Painter Can

The Pope recently said that builders of walls including possibly framers of walls can't be Christian, but only bridge builders can. Caesar built a stone bridge just below the surface of the Thames when conquering England, so I don't know if hidden bridges count or not. Caesar wasn't Christian though each stone might have brought him closer unto God in some kind of weird theology.

Moses had the Red Sea parted for him and didn't have the opportunity to build a bridge, yet if he had he would certainly have opted to be a Christian.

Everyone wants to be plugged in to the system though. No candidates on either side have any new ideas. Trump is friendlier to Christians than Obama, the two-headed Clinton candidacy or Sanders. Maybe the Donald can invent a way to build cities with bridges and no walls.

At combat engineer school long ago we practiced with not only Bailey Bridges such as were used all over Italy in the Second World War, we also used a float pontoon bridge that extended from a truck. It was a brilliant instant bridging device captured by the Israelis in the 6 day war that was invented by the Russians. Bridges brought Israel over the narrow waterway separating the Sinai from Egypt and enabled the tourist phrase 'come to Israel and Sea the pyramids' see some use briefly before Began gave them back.

Bridges have always been a sign of peace through victory. Crossing the Rhine required a lot of bridge building, whereas walls tended to be used for defensive purpose by those that resist invasions and imperial powers. If one is a real diplomat soothing mass politics building bridges is probably more desirable that building walls.

I am not certain of the Biblical implications of building bridges or walls regarding be Christian. there may be a percentage of Christian conduct per bridges built versus a ratio of walls built. One need bridges for automobiles yet walls for sleeping behind. Driving is more fun than sleeping. I suppose that's why the Pope prefers bridges and anathematizes walls.

I incidentally had the idea of using hovercraft adaptations to electric cars to eliminate the need for bridges. It may sound silly yet it actually would be possible to avoid even trillions of dollars of new U.S. infrastructure highway bridge building in many places with new forms of transportation that follow power lines and have auto-pilot artificial driving guidance. Just a thought.

Universal Widget; Close Encounter (video)

Why Political Boundary Walls are O.K. for Christian Politicians

In the world today there are two major political camps; one comprises those for some form of imperialism or statism and the other is democracy. It is surprising how large the number for imperialism or statism are including the Pope, subjects, the Queen, Brits, corporatists, the Bushes, the Clintons, fascists, socialists, plutocrats, oligarchs etc. That being said to the topic; national boundary and security walls are not anti-Christian.

Everyone wants to be plugged in to the system though. No candidates on either side have any new ideas. Trump is friendlier to Christians than Obama, the two-headed Clinton candidacy or Sanders. Maybe the Donald can invent a way to build cities with bridges and no walls.

Jerusalem was a walled city and wasn't condemned for that. Though the Romans heated it with fire until it cracked and the people inside were slaughtered it wasn't for having a city-wall. When Adam and Eve were kicked out of Eden God built a security barrier guarded by four cherubim to keep the wayward couple out. I think the cherubim refer to four dimensions of spacetime and the flow of history myself rather than visible to invisible barriers. Eden dried up and became a desert; it lies in the past (God is eternal and temporal ekstasis are transparent to him).

The Pope borrowed a quote from Jesus and said; 14 And he said unto him, Man, who made me a judge or a divider over you? When asked about homosexuality. Yet the Pope is happy to judge those advocating opinions for border security walls, moats etc to be not Christian in the effort. I have written in support of a border control zone far more structured and better than a wall on the Mexican border for years and am Christian, so I found a need to differ with the papal misinformation here on my blog.

Christian politicians are to be good stewards of their environment physically and politically. They are to be good shepherds of their political flocks as God's instruments. Especially in the U.S.A. that means paying attention to the democratic will of the people and securing the nation's borders from criminals entering illegally. Trump needs to be like the good steward in the Gospel according to Luke who watches politically over his master's household chapter 4 “42 And the Lord said, Who then is that faithful and wise steward, whom his lord shall make ruler over his household, to give them their portion of meat in due season?”

Paul in Titus chapter 1 explains that “5 For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every city, as I had appointed thee: 6 If any be blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children not accused of riot or unruly. 7 For a bishop must be blameless, as the steward of God; not selfwilled,“.

If Trump is not doing anything wrong advocating for U.S. border security; why chastise him?

Jesus had said, and I suppose this applies to politicians in their tasks as ministers of the Lord-even to those not Christian who are yet instruments of God, in Matthew 16; “8 And the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely: for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light. 9 And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations. 10 He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much. 11 If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches? 12 And if ye have not been faithful in that which is another man's, who shall give you that which is your own? 13 ¶ No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”

First Peter chapter four relates; “9 Use hospitality one to another without grudging. 10 As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. 11 If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God; if any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth: that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ,”. Hospitality does not mean let political anarchy and chaos reign and subvert democracy with rule by non-democratic foreign political force. Incidentally. a priesthood of believers structure is supported in chapter ten.

Some foreigners resent the prosperity of the U.S.A and search for ways to redistribute opportunity and prosperity from the rich to the poor overlooking the fact that in the U.S.A. 10% of the people have 90% of the income as it is. Their point of view lacks all subtlety in comprehension. Subverting the effective power of democracy to have fair taxes on the rich adequate to prevent over-concentration of the wealth is accelerated with much cheap foreign laborers illegally migrated here. Mexican should instead labor in their own fields to upgrade the status of Mexico and ask for U.S. assistance in the work now and then.

The Lord allowed laborers different pay rates in effect in Matthew chapter 20. It appears that the work is more important than the compensation, for all good laborers shall enter the kingdom of God eventually, and making the world a better place with saved souls and a healthy ecosystem and standard of living all over isn't an exclusive process-yet it requires deliberation. Chapter 20; “1 For the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which went out early in the morning to hire labourers into his vineyard. 2 And when he had agreed with the labourers for a penny a day, he sent them into his vineyard. 3 And he went out about the third hour, and saw others standing idle in the marketplace, 4 And said unto them; Go ye also into the vineyard, and whatsoever is right I will give you. And they went their way. 5 Again he went out about the sixth and ninth hour, and did likewise. 6 And about the eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing idle, and saith unto them, Why stand ye here all the day idle? 7 They say unto him, Because no man hath hired us. He saith unto them, Go ye also into the vineyard; and whatsoever is right, that shall ye receive. 8 So when even was come, the lord of the vineyard saith unto his steward, Call the labourers, and give them their hire, beginning from the last unto the first. 9 And when they came that were hired about the eleventh hour, they received every man a penny. 10 But when the first came, they supposed that they should have received more; and they likewise received every man a penny. 11 And when they had received it, they murmured against the goodman of the house, 12 Saying, These last have wrought but one hour, and thou hast made them equal unto us, which have borne the burden and heat of the day. 13 But he answered one of them, and said, Friend, I do thee no wrong: didst not thou agree with me for a penny? 14 Take that thine is, and go thy way: I will give unto this last, even as unto thee. 15 Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil, because I am good? 16 So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen.”

Mexico's internal criminal turmoil is partly a result of the existence of a porous border with the more-prosperous for the present nation to the north-the United States. The vast criminal underworld that flourishes on both sides of the border is fueled by drugs and human smuggling in turn fueling political corruption, civil disorder and the failure of security for Mexicans and Americans alike. The need to close the Mexican border to any unauthorized immigration is plain; only in a secure environment can democracy be on an equal footing with organized crime and the killers causing more fatalities than America experienced in the Vietnam war. If on an equal footing, democracy, law and order retake the city on a hill that is Mexico's capital and cities closer to the U.S. border back from the drug traffickers and corrupt politicians flipping justice, equal protection of the law and opportunities for a stable home investment environment.

Human intelligence requires fluid adaptivity to civil challenges that subvert social order and progress. The Republican Party having retaken the legislative branch of government have a clear and present obligation to seal the Mexican border with a physical boundary impassable to casual or determined law breakers. There are numerous ways that would create jobs and a better economy including elements of traditional boundaries such as the Romans and Welsh built to keep the barbarians at bay-in this case the barbarians are the savage drug traffickers and human smugglers as well as those taking jobs from Americans and subverting labor wage relations with management regarding labor supply and the value of labor.

The Pope and select global Plutocracrats including Gates, Buffet and Adelson trio have pressurized the U.S. Congress to pass a quick dirty cheap labor amnesty bill in order that global plutocracy may better develop an imperial empire including the U.S.A. Instead of investing in construction of a border-control water-desalination evaporation zone on the Mexican border creating thousands of shovel-ready jobs the ultra-rich and their puppet President Obama want amnesty for millions of illegal aliens and/or a few billion to process illegal aliens and hire more lawyers to represent them while their aren't enough public defenders for Americans as it is. 

They ought instead to consider the actual facts of labor supply and real wage compensation in relation to demand for labor and seal the border against illegal immigration entirely. If jobs that can't be outsourced are must be filled by legal workers the value of labor will increase and wages will naturally rise. It would be a simple matter to create hundreds of thousands of new temporary jobs building a vast Mexican border boundary control zone that is ecologically advanced with canals for desalinating seawater to make fresh water for irrigation and drinking along the desert. Maybe escaped evaporation will help cool global heating effects in the American Southwest and increase rainfall.

The U.S. economy should reform capitalism to decrease concentrations of wealth and power. Corporate ownership by individuals should be downsized and limited to investments in just three. Taxes ought to be raised to at least 60% on the top bracket. A vast Mexican border security zone using salt water canals for desalinization to produce fresh water should be constructed for a park and farm irrigation water generating way to stop all illegal migration. The built-in feedback mechanism of increased illegal immigrant heap labor when minimum wages are raised is as cyclical as when the unemployment rate is below 4% and wages rise naturally. Real politic would halt the illegal immigration through physical boundary security in the effort to create full employment from the bottom up-the portion of the unemployed most harmed by the Obama administration policy.

Without the b and-aid of a border canal evaporation and berm control zone corruption is the default policy. The Pope and the plutocracy with various sorts of supporters that prefer imperialism prefer a corrupt society that concentrates wealth. The Congress should create a Mexico Training Corps of volunteers in some respects like the Peace Corps that sends volunteers to Mexico to help where Mexicans need it most to improve the environment, security and the standard of living of the poor. Mexico already has NAFTA and free trade. What they need is legal prosperity that doesn't subvert that of the U.S.A.

The United States should help Mexico rid itself of drug traffickers sending Rangers and the Delta Force to hunt down drug gang leaders. It should provide trained police investigators and F.B.I. specialists to uncover and prosecute police corruption. The U.S.A. could lead in making vast solar projects infrastructure useful to real poor people, and help make low-cost microwave toilets that don't require water.

Air quality in Mexico City used to be bad. I don't now how it is today, however ending air and water pollution in Mexico and regreening such areas as are possible is necessary if the people are to take bad their nation as a good place to live. Until wages equalize north and south of the border free enterprisers will build new factories for production in Mexico creating jobs. The longer the cross border illegal entry continues and corruption flourishes the more time it will take for the disease to heal. It is exploiters of the poor besides terrorists that most want illegal immigration and porous borders between the United States and Mexico.

People Continue to 'Bust their Butts'

People in some parts of the U.S.A. public avow they 'bust their butts' as a kind of self-attestation they have worked with vigor, unsurpassably, until exhaustion, etc. I have never liked the phrase because it's inaccurate. Got it done is a more humble approach. Worked diligently or even worked hard are preferable phrases. We broke a sweat has at least some literal correspondence. 

So I considered the etymology a little. Obviously one does not claim to have 'busted our fingers' or 'busted my toes' for those kinds of industrial accidents actually happen. One might say if a coal miner that we 'busted our lungs' or if a secretarial aspirant to make graduate school a female union say that we 'busted our wrists' (with carpal tunnel). Bust sutures, bust ankles, bust rotator cuff tendons, bust lower ab with hernia, bust skull, bust teeth, we got blisters,  we broke a sweat, etc.

The slang dictionary has redefined the term to mean that if one says 'we bust our asses' or 'we bust our butts' that one sat all day.

If one was a pro wrestler busting one's butt could mean having a broken coccyx

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alZjxh8Z3Jk bust butt one style

http://www.accesshollywood.com/articles/khloe-kardashian-slams-lipo-rumors-i-bust-my-ass-at-the-gym-161838/ bust butt in exercise yet also meaning busting butt size down with exercise

The Tribulation was in the First Century & the Beast Emperor Nero

F.Y.I. the ' beast' was Nero and the inverted 666 a 1st century Jewish numerical spelling equivalent. The tribulation occurred in the first century when Jerusalem was destroyed Paul and Peter martyred.. Kenneth Gentry explained who the beast is in a book named 'The Beast of Revelation'- http://www.amazon.com/The-Beast-Revelation-Kenneth-Gentry/dp/0915815419 I have a free (for a while) book on more topics misunderstood by too many about science and faith at http://www.lulu.com/shop/garrison-clifford-gibson/god-cosmology-and-nothingness-theory-and-theology-in-a-scientific-era/ebook/product-22571216.html

Will Obama Seek Castro's Advice on Supreme Court Nominee?

President Obama has scheduled a visit to Cuba perhaps to get Castro's opinion on who would be the best politically leveraging choice for his Supreme Court nominee. The President should try to get something practical done during his time in Havana like twisting arms to get thousands of new low-cost sailboat slips constructed for future poor American sailors so they will have somewhere to go that is affordable instead of sleeping with the fire ants.

Pope Makes Partisan Racist Motivated Attack on Trump-Probably Pro-Bush

The Pope has denounced Donald Trump's stance of defending U.S. border and immigration policy as non-Christian. I was going to let the obvious Latino racist/la raza electioneering trip to Juarez go uncommented, yet the Pope has gone too far in attacking Trump in order to get support for the very weak catholic Bush III candidacy in the South Carolina primary Saturday he may have sympathy with.

The Pope sided with Al Qaeda, drug traffickers and human smugglers in seeking to keep the border security and immigration policy weak and out of control of the people of the United States. The Pope wants the U.S.A. to be a catholic nation and the fastest way is with millions of new illegal catholic immigrants.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-trump-pope-idUSMTZSAPEC2IR63ZHF

The Pope is dead wrong that Trump's immigration policy isn't Christian. It is Christian to have democracy instead of imperial rule with tyrant kings or Popes as gods on earth or specially appointed by God to rule as long as they live. The people of the United States preponderantly want control of their land and for entirely legal immigration policy with rational numbers of immigrants and no illegal crossings. Most Americans don't want slaves-a civil war was fought to end that the Pope might learn if pressed to. Neither do slaves seek out new opportunities across legal boundaries to get into slavery. The Pope is full of wrong ideas about immigration.

it is o.k. for Christians to have a nation of laws by and for the people with equal protection of the law rather than rule by anarchic corruption or despotism. If Mexico is broke, fix it; it is a catholic nation-and 's probably whats wrong with it historically speaking.

A Warm Northern WInter, Record Icepack Minimum for Jabuary

Warming winters with ice retreating makes one think about Mitchner's 'Alaska' and things of the past. When sabir tooth tigers and woolly mammoths ranged free and only one species of brown bear had migrated to S.E. Alaska. The loss of glacier coverage makes one yearn for better days perhaps on another world cold from a good climate rather than human character.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/arctic-sea-ice-hits-new-january-low/

Would Tlingits of the era before the village of Hoonah (north wind) existed have recognized the place the way the Tsongass forest is today, or even James Muir?

image credit: Cryosphere Today


image credit; Gary C. Gibson Mendenhall Glacier 2013

Another Low-Tech Water Desalinization Idea

Placing a transparent pipeline inside a large transparent pipeline with the inner pipeline filled with water, and the inner pipe actually only a 3/4 pipe open at the top, would allow evaporated water from the inner pipe to rise , condense and fill the larger pipe and it would be directly drained into a lower pipe connected and perhaps buried under insulating earth except for the raised connection.

A section of pipe near a seashore without fresh water might be filled from a hose or smaller pipeline to fill the primary evaporation pipe section with solar or human powered bicycle pumps etc. Maybe the pipe section would easily open when dry to allow easy collection of salt residue.

I think there are numerous ways such as using Fresnel lenses to accelerate the evaporation and flow-through.