The Sweet Spot of Earth in Solar System, Galaxy and Universe

The Earth and the solar system rest in a special location of a remote spiral arm of the galaxy far away from the giant black hole at the center of the galaxy where thousands of stars are drawn to their destruction. The special locations that can let biological life form on planetary surfaces must be far from the lethal x-rays and chaos of turbulent gravitational force in regions with densely packed clumps of stars and interstellar gas. The Earth’s location is a special place called a galactic habitation zone, and the Earth’s size and distance from the sun and its intense heat let’s life have time to be and become.

The visible Universe may be about 46 billion light years in size, yet the size of the Universe itself is unknown. It is believed that the Universe inflated faster than light for a split second like a balloon in the first moments of its existence or that it grew quickly in some other way letting all of its locations have equal claim to be the center of the Universe since they were all locations equally distant from the space-time origin. When one looks out into the night sky through the lens of the Hubble Space Telescope and other deep field observational devices capturing light images going back to more than 13 billion light years of time the special, equally important locations of everyplace though a kind of nowhere-Utopia- were all essential for the subsequent history of the Universe that is our human heritage.

The philosopher Leibniz inferred that the foundational structure for atoms and matter is the monad; one and two-dimensional spiritual segments that allow formation of larger structures that seem to be matter and energy in larger phases. That concept is not much different from the philosophical paradigm for membrane and string theory. At the heart of matter and of its equivalent energy the unknown and uncertain reposes within a monistic mystery of One that gives rise to the appearance of a pluralism of quantum components and forms.

That mysterious philosophical paradigm of The One and the many is not inconsistent with belief in God and the Son Jesus Christ as creator of space-time and life on Earth through a phenomenal process. Consistent with evolution or a progressive history of the cosmos are transcending ideas for time and interpolation by the Lord of intelligent beings within any location in space-time of the Universe. God transcends the matter-energy emergent evolution with its General Relativity and Special Relativity characteristics that make time for-oneself the center of experience. Time may be dated from the inflation or membrane expansion of the Universe at time=0 in which the beginning of the Universe is regarded as its center, yet the center of that time equally developed to every place in the Universe existing today, for space and time are united and indivisible phenomena.

God as progenitor of energy-matter and/or space-time is not subject to his project and its space-time that floats downstream like a boat on a river that is part of the river itself. God is the intelligent designer of the Universe with every place in space-time meaningful at adapted to its physical circumstance. 

Human Transformation of the Planet's Ecosphere & Social-Ecospheric Environmental Interface

Scientific American posted an entry on a Nature article on human transformation of the planet's environment. At least 43% of the ecosphere has been remade (into less ecospheriecally productive) for human purposes.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=are-we-pushing-the-planet-to-the-br-12-06-10

This reminds me of Diamond's book on how societies can bring about their own end through environmental collapse... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse:_How_Societies_Choose_to_Fail_or_Succeed

This sort of thing is a variation of the Dodo bird syndrome/aka fossil fueled vehicles going around in circles as a kind of economic-intellectual autism; the economic methods degrade or consume environmental resources until social economics aren't sustainable. Perhaps one of these economic collapses will emerge like a newly isolated tropical island with a cut off population imbalanced environmentally and consuming everything existing in panic like locusts.

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-dodo.htm

The paradox is that in that future planet of the apes with the statue of liberty cut down to size on the beach the apes will turn out to have been humanity itself- especially the political leaders and broadcasters. Free at last with no survivors it might be a peaceful empty world and the federal debt will disappear too.

http://cdn.intechopen.com/pdfs/31968/InTech-Human_altered_mesoherbivore_densities_and_cascading_effects_on_plant_and_animal_communities_in_fragmented_tropical_forests.pdf

California Army Reserve Spills 8,000 to 15,000 gallons of Diesel Fuel on Puffin Island Alaska

An Army Reserve landing craft from California ran aground on Puffin Island (near Kodiak) rupturing a diesel tank in the event.

The Monterrey was taking supplies for Marines to Bethel Alaska.

http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/09/12145335-174-foot-army-landing-craft-runs-aground-spills-fuel-into-alaskan-bay?lite

Estimates are that 8,00 to 15,000 gallons leaked near Chiniak Bay. Too bad they haven't got electric boats. One comprehends the harm to clams, seaweed and a plethora of good sea foods and hope the government learns from the disaster.

http://juneauempire.com/state/2012-06-10/ship-aground-puffin-island-near-kodiak

ttp://www.adn.com/2012/06/09/2498169/army-vessel-runs-agrond-off-kodiak.html

image credit U.S. Coast Guard

Sense or Sensibility in Foreign Intervention in Syria?

I am rather skeptical that a philosophical mandate exists for war. War seems to be a practical human activity such as rival colonies of ants do rather than an intelligent, philosophical practice.

Arguably U.S. intervention in the First World War led to global destabilization and a century of needless U.S. conflicts abroad. The Second World war and the Stalinist phenomenon would not have occurred except the German Imperial Government was deposed at the end of the war to enable an Armistice. Syrian intervention is another dubious issue perhaps flamed into being by the U.S. administration and the U.N. in order to accomplish a regime change.

The Obama Doctrine of regime changes in the Arab Spring... seems to be a function of British use of the U.S. military as their stooges for free military adventurism in furtherance of global imperialism for Britain economically speaking through a variety of financial means. The horror of terrorism upon civilian populations is repugnant to right reason of course, yet the perfidy of intervention by foreign powers can arise through a number of means.

The Alawi people of Syria are a tough, fighting tribe historically. The balances of power developed in the Middle East since 25,000 B.C. are sometimes a little beyond the depth of competence in the U.S. State Department and administration I think. I am fairly sure that I don't regard an indirect treacherous policy for 'diplomacy in the Middle East as forthright. If we must get rid of some government because people in Des Moines hate them, then we might attack them directly and put out of work Chicagoans to work in Damascus with an Obama stimulus package for government workers (Joking of course).

Like the Bush administration in Iraq there seems to be no post-regime change planning for Syria. Another conflict with lots of bodies splattered about en route to some glorious news coverage of the Condor Legion II blasting the fugitives into the stone age with precision weapons may be a way to help create another Sunni state in an ad hoc New Caliphate. Why?

Hamas was originally the Muslim Brotherhood too, and the new Egyptian President will probably be a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, as would a post Alawite Syrian leaders. Is that kind of situation supposed to intimidate Iran into giving up any loose nukes it may have panhandled from the Pakistanis' North Koreans or Russian, Chinese or whomever? On the contrary Iran might feel more in need of nukes to defend against a Sunni Middle East including Pakistan and an Afghanistan also possibly to be dominated by a restored new age Taliban.

I wonder about the competence of the administration on Syria since they have declared the wish for a regime change without providing plans for a post Assad government--will it have McDonald's or whatever so tourists can afford it?

It would be good if the United States could develop a record of intelligent, peaceful world leadership rather than a history of just bombing someplace for convenience and humanitarianism every five years or so. Old weapons inventories may need to be used, yet the Defense Department budget is funded with borrowing as much as taxes-and that too is a direct threat to the standard of living of the poor in the U.S.A. Is it the middle class that consistently desires foreign military interventionism?

Fish Traps in S.E. Alaska-The Way to Conserve Fish Stocks?

In Alaska history the local Tlingit Indians in effect fish farmed the Alexander Archipelago with a pervasive infrastructure of fish traps into which salmon would swim. It would be possible to eliminate commercial fishing in S.E. Alaska readily with a new infrastructure of fish traps thereby eliminating bi-catch, over-fishing through false counts and so forth. The use of fuel and global warming might also be substantially reduce.

An article in the 'Alaska Journal of Anthropology' Volume 9, Number 1-2011 by Jane L. Smith surveys the history of Tlingit fish traps in S.E. of which 369 have been researched.

Because salmon just swim into fish traps the state might contract out fish traps to bidders on the fish taken with quotas each year determined by state fishery biologists. 

The fisheries in Alaska are in predictable long-term decline with puny king salmon taking salmon derby's a fraction of the size of winners from years of yore. A maximum  sustainable fishing yield requires that 3/4s of fish escape each year with the carcasses allowed to feed bear, eagles, crab and other wildlife in a self-reinforcing ecosystem.; Obviously shoreline waterfront development needs to halt in order to protect the water and shoreline habitat.

Halibut and other deeper water fisheries should also be brought into scientific management with more modern high-tech methods of taking fish at far lower rates. It is important for all species that only sports and subsistence fishing be permitted from boats.

Most Warm Spring in U.S. History; Will the Arctic Ice-pack Set a Record for Melt This Year?

U.S.A. Today reported that the spring weather for the United States ran a little more than five degrees above normal. Interesting.

http://www.usatoday.com/weather/climate/story/2012-06-07/record-warm-spring-usa/55442584/1?csp=34news

That brings the anticipation that this may be a record year for Arctic Sea ice melt, yet it is not necessarily so. While the 48 states were warm, Alaska is cooler than usual-thats just the way the cookie crumbles.

It is possible to see3 open water near Parry Strait I think (the eastern entrance to the high Northwest Passage and also near the Canada-Alaska border region in the photo below from 'The Crysophere Today of the Icepack June 6, 2012

image credit; N.O.A.A., National Snow and Ice Data Center et al.

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/

Screen and Track NFL Player Careers for Brain Damage?

Autopsies on select NFL veterans have shown brain damage 50% as substantial as autopsies of Alzheimers victims. Because the NFL is as real as the progression of early Alzheimers to terminal Alzheimers and the time frame is roughly the same it might be yak good idea to medically chart a brain damage historical record of each NFL player with Magnetic Resonance imaging before they get their first head butt or body slam onto the astroturf over concrete until their last concussion in order to record the wreckage of the human brain.

Some of those NFL vets run for political office and become elected with brains perhaps a little damaged over much relying upon impulse power instead of I.Q. in political policy. Wimps would want to move away from fossil fuel vehicles and move into syntegrated high-tech low-entropy modes of transportation layered within rational national ecospheric economic reform.

Perhaps brain damaged NFL vets are smarter than the Congress these decades, and maybe Congresspersons too should be screened to determine if the 5000th three martini lunch as dampened their determination to technologically advance the nation's infrastructure within a human-healthy criterion.