DOBBS vs. ROE v. WADE

A quick word search for “Ninth Amendment” on the DOBBS case, which overturned ROE v. WADE, yielded no results among the dissenters. The 9th Amendment, part of the “supreme Law of the Land,” per Article VI in the Constitution itself (unconditionally ratified by ALL states), recites as follows:

“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

So the Ninth Amendment was NOT cited by the dissenters (Sotomayor, Kagan, Breyer) ANYWHERE! THAT is utter incompetence on their part, as far as I am concerned. Samuel Alito’s Opinion in DOBBS makes much of the fact that the US Supreme Court has, in years past, drawn a distinction between “rights” that are deemed “deeply rooted in our Nation’s history and tradition” and whether or not they are “fundamental to our 'scheme of ordered liberty,’" as opposed to those pesky “rights” that certain undesirables insist on asserting but which don’t, in fact, exist in Alito’s fevered brain. He is particularly critical of those who insist that the expansive “rights” of the Ninth Amendment are further reinforced by being incorporated by the post-Civil-War 14th Amendment, thus being applicable to the States.

For example, Alito says:

In interpreting what is meant by the Fourteenth Amendment’s reference to “liberty,” we [who?] must guard against the natural human tendency to confuse what that Amendment protects with our own ardent views about the liberty that Americans should enjoy. That is why the Court has long been “reluctant” to recognize rights that are not mentioned in the Constitution. Collins v. Harker Heights, 503 U.S. 115, 125 (1992). “Substantive due process has at times been a treacherous field for this Court,” Moore v. East Cleveland, 431 U.S. 494, 503 (1977) (plurality opinion), and it has sometimes led the Court to usurp authority that the Constitution entrusts to the people’s elected representatives. See Regents of Univ. of Mich. v. Ewing, 474 U.S. 214, 225–226 (1985).

This recitation seems to refute the plain language of the 9th Amendment! AND, it appears to presume our ready “confusion” desperately in need of Justice Alito’s generous clarifications! 

Practically speaking, the Supreme Court DOES have to go along with the actual language of the Constitution, but it’s a blatant violation of the justices' straightforward individual oaths to support the Constitution if they choose to ignore that plain language by using legislative approval (“the people’s elected representatives”) as a fabricated screen for enforcement of ALL our rights. The very existence of our RIGHTS should not EVER depend on our “elected representatives"! Who in the Hell do they think they are?

Ailto’s ludicrous Opinion draws on a lot of very ancient history, much of it written back when slavery was still legal, and on a lot of British theory, against whom we fought a Revolutionary War to escape their tyranny! Not only is Alito WRONG, he’s boring as Hell! Blahblahblah.

So, as far as I am concerned, the RIGHT to exclusively control our own bodies (male or female) and all parts thereof (including NON-viable fetuses—NOT merely “a woman’s right to choose") is STILL VALID, up until there is a fetal life that can exist on its own as a legal “person” separate from its mother (“viability”). Alito obviously takes great delight in disparaging the concept of fetal “viability” as a legal “fulcrum.” Sadly, but ONLY for the time being, our Supreme Court is not going to enforce those rights. But Alito and the rest of his thuggish “Gang of Six” cannot EVER take our rights away. And one day they will all be D-E-A-D! EVERY one of them!

Many may dismiss these opinions as those of a non-scholar of constitutional history. Howver, I can read plain English.

SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST

 Listen—and watch:

<BR-R-R-RT!! (br-r-r-rt.) BR-R-R-RT! (br-r-r-rt.) BR-R-R-RT! (br-r-r-rt.)>

A cacophony of procreative insistence.

(No point in creating resistance.)

Bullfrog’s strong and comely daughter

Lays her eggs in the water.

(Thank you, Ira Gershwin.)

Suitor’s milt soon to descend upon those eggs,

Lying among the dregs

On the bottom—Got ‘em!

Tadpoles will then soon emerge

To morph into new generations. 

Said new frogs will then surge

Upon the shore’s penetrations. 

All over again.

New fireflies, floating in the dark,

Blinking urgently;

Emergent. See?

Seeking mates, full of hope,

But some must bear a big fat “Nope.”

NATURE’S choices—randomly.

Wins and losses—and, you’ll see

How probably it works for each of us,

Regardless of a prayerful fuss.

Sadly, we embrace likely truths

That our legacies depend upon the tooths

We sink into rivals’ flesh,

While we seek mates with whom to mesh.

So it must be.

© 5/6/2024

All rights reserved.

DICK-TATER IN CHIEF

 

QUANTUM MECHANICS & RELIGION

One of the things most Christians have been taught since childhood is that “God works in mysterious ways,” so there’s no point in questioning the seeming lack of “logic” in whatever happens, like innocent babies born with AIDS or fetal alcohol syndrome or drug addiction. Or why little children get bombed and maimed.

Bad things DO happen to good (& innocent) people. One may blame the “Devil” or God or whatever, but the all-powerful creator-deity of choice seems just too busy to deal with it all.

Or, HE may have a “higher purpose” in mind.

OR, he’s just a demented prick who likes seeing HIS people suffer! Whatever.

The main point is that the creator-deity’s “mysterious ways” make no sense to our logical thinking. And, neither does “quantum mechanics,” the way in which sub-atomic particles (like protons, electrons, gluons, etc.) behave utterly contrary to our “common sense.” Where maybe even TIME runs backward when messing around with “positrons,” which are positively charged antimatter “electrons” whirling around a negatively charged atomic nucleus! Supposedly, that has all been calculated mathematically, illustrated by the so-called “Feynman Diagrams” showing the interaction of electrons (tiny particles of matter) colliding with photons (electromagnetic energy particles), as developed by the late Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman, who was a professor of physics at Cal-Tech in Pasadena.

WHEW! WAY over my pay grade! Feynman, a non-drinker, liked to ride around Pasadena at night in his Dodge van, decorated with his Diagrams, and hang out in bars, playing his bongo drums with the local bands. Can I get a witness?

  One just has to ASSUME that theoretical physicists (like Feynman) know what they are talking about, so just have “faith” that the sub-atomic world exists in that way. That seems almost like a “religious” experience to me. One must just have “faith” that things work those ways in the sub-atomic world. On top of all that, in the quantum world, the behavior of sub-atomic particles is said to be determinable by “probability,” in that the determination of particle motion and particle position are mutually exclusive (the “Uncertainty Principle” developed by German physicist Werner Heisenberg), by “guesswork,” such that the more one determines or measures the particle position, the less certain the particle motion, and vice-versa. Strange ways, indeed!

“Science” has been defined as anything that can be DIS-proven. Religious matters defy “proof” of any sort, but “science” is ALWAYS subject to further revelation or revision, as more is learned. Even the “theory” of gravity is open to question, but not likely in the way alleged “creationists” might be inclined to so do. Sub-atomic particles do, indeed, behave in strange ways, and one must be open to accepting those weird ways and not try to shoehorn them through the venturi of “common sense.” That is, of course, my pathetic oversimplification of the phenomenon but as the gal said, when asked about the “future” on “I Think We’re All Bozos On This Bus” by the Firesign Theatre comedy group, “I say, ‘Live it, or live with it!’”

For years physicists have been trying to mathematically unify the four fundamental forces in the Universe: (1) Electromagnetism, (2) the Strong Nuclear Force (keeping the atomic nucleus bound together), (3) the Weak Nuclear Force (controlling atomic decay—atom-splitting), and (4) Gravity. Sub-atomic particles seem to define the first three, but I understand that only gravity remains a mystery. Albert Einstein’s “General Theory of Relativity” addresses some of that, and he spent his lifetime wrestling (mostly unsuccessfully) with understanding the mechanics of gravity. It defies definition and “connection” to this day. All matter (mass) seems to exhibit gravity, but nobody really knows how it works. It WILL bend light waves (pure energy), which have no mass at all! Einstein called gravity a “warp in space-time,” much like a bowling ball being held in a big blanket, sucking everything else in the space-time “blanket” down to it. I have no clue how that really works.

Einstein mostly rejected those “probabilities” of quantum mechanics, given his famous quote about how “God does not play dice with the Universe.” For years physicists have tried to integrate gravity with quantum mechanics, but now some physicists are suggesting that gravity operates as “classical physics” and may not belong to the quantum “club” at all. It continues to defy definition.

The sub-atomic world is illustrated by the phenomenon known as the “Standard Model,” which seeks to show sort of a balance among all the various particles. I found the following chart on Wikipedia:

    I don’t know if the “balance” has been truly satisfied, since it appears from the chart that three more particles need to be included in the “Scalar Bosons” column along with the “Higgs Boson,” sometimes referred to as the “God Particle.” It is named after Peter Higgs, the Nobel Laureate who discovered it at the CERN particle accelerator in 2012, and the late Leon Lederman was the Nobel Laureate who had given it the nickname in the 1990’s. He wrote a delightful, funny book by the same name. And there may be even more particles yet to be discovered, so the chart may never get truly completed, as some physicists believe.

[As an aside, in his novel Mason and Dixon, about the 18th-century British surveyors who ran the eponymous southern boundary of Pennsylvania and the western boundary of Delaware, as they adjoin Maryland, the author Thomas Pynchon opens with Mason sailing on a ship to the South Pacific to observe a total eclipse of the sun. I love the fact that the “boatswain” (pronounced “bosun”) crew member on board is named “Higgs”! Coincidence?]

It was hoped that the Higgs boson would illustrate some sort of mathematical “connection” of gravity to the other three fundamental forces, but I don’t think that’s been shown (yet). We must all just wait and see.

______________________________ 

THE (futile) PURSUIT OF HAPPY-NESS

  What is “happiness”? 

Whatever that means.

I have no clue! I have a prodigious, “sticky” memory, going back almost to infancy, but I simply cannot remember when I ever felt what might be declared as “happy.” I have variously personally felt or experienced hatred, anger, fear, dread, jealousy, envy, indifference, meanness, bigotry, stupidity, depression, offense, umbrage, embarrassment, perhaps other negative emotions; even guilt. But I cannot describe a time when I felt generally “happy.” It is obviously subjective, but I suspect that all those negative emotions have punctuated other moments of good feelings for most others.

I have also experienced much pleasure, gratification, satisfaction, love, gratitude, respect, admiration, fun, mirth, amusement, triumph and pride, among other such emotions. I am truly grateful for all those experiences, but that’s the best I can do. It hasn’t been all bad.

Our culture seems to INSIST on our being “happy”; seemingly insisting on some sort of personal duty to be “happy.” Or else. We are so hammered with that notion that “guilt” is the likely (intended?) result, for failing to somehow measure up. That stuff is simply not possible for me. I certainly don’t speak for anyone else. There may be others who truly feel and declare their “happy-ness,” but I suspect they are just witless idiots who CHOOSE to ignore the serious things happening in our culture, especially to others. Yet those who do ignore those unpleasantries happening to others may well feel truly happy! What—me worry? I can’t do that.

It figures the Germans would come up with the word for what I suspect is a common emotion: schadenfreude—literally translated as “sadness-joy.” Taking pleasure in the misfortunes of others. I have surely felt that emotion, too, from time to time. Is that a component of “happiness”?

In the Declaration of Independence, it is written that we colonists in rebellion are entitled to the “pursuit of Happiness.” But there is no guarantee we’ll ever catch it! We are not guaranteed “happiness”; only the right to chase after it. I’m tired of running after it. I’m 77 years old now, and I just can’t run anymore. I have had a very INTERESTING life, for which I am most grateful. It was punctuated by all sorts of emotions—some good, some bad. I tried to learn from most of it. But it was not what I would call “happy.” It just was.

And I suspect (regardless of what others may think) that most of us are in the same boat. We choose what to remember and what to forget. Fortunately or unfortunately, I’m not able to forget much. I feel cursed with that “sticky” memory, even though I have a “sieve” for a brain when it comes to remembering names! I even addressed my second wife by my first wife’s name, more than once! Duh. Thankfully, she just laughed. I thought I felt some degree of “happiness” with each of my wives. They were beautiful, honest, intelligent people, and I foolishly alienated both of them and, sadly, the marriages ended, to my everlasting shame. But I cannot be anything other than what I am. After 13 years, they each tired of the emotional “rollercoaster ride” and left. I have never blamed either of them. I just don’t deserve to be “married.” I can live with that. Thankfully, I remain mildly friendly with both of them.

So, there is a lot out there that might “get” to us, one way or the other. I think we should take pleasure, etc. wherever and whenever we can find it. And savor it, and HOPE that things will eventually get better, while we pathetically wallow in our miseries.

SEPARATE, BUT EQUAL?

 

If "separate but equal" is unacceptable for the US, then it should likewise be unacceptable in Israel!

The separate "two-state solution" for resolving conflicts between Jews and Arabs was embraced by the US years ago and recently buttressed by Pres. Biden. It purports to "give" Arabs an "equal" voice in Middle East affairs, but it is based on the utterly specious ethnic distinctions between Jews and Arabs.

What OUGHT to happen is that Israel immediately transition from a theocratic monolith to a single SECULAR state made up of BOTH Jews and Arabs as equal, full citizens, with MINORITY protections from the tyranny of the majority. But, I ain't holding my breath. Given the history of the iron-clad establishment of Israel in Palestine as a JEWISH state, I doubt it will ever change.

And that renders Israel as a recipient of US aid and diplomacy "invalid," in my book. I have no use AT ALL for theocracies of any sort, including the absurd US diplomatic relationship with the Vatican, which is NOT a country! It's a CHURCH, for Christ's sake! I firmly believe that the establishment of diplomatic relations with any such is UNCONSTITUTIONAL, as the First Amendment SPECIFICALLY prohibits Congress (including the Senate) from making any law "respecting the establishment of religion." 

The fact that Pope Pius XI  got together with with Italian Dictator Mussolini in 1929 to declare that the Vatican is a separate "country"  ought to be dismissed OUT OF HAND as pathetically STUPID! It is just amazing that those in the American government feel they must honor such nonsense!

US taxpayers have no business being burdened with the costs of same. The US Supreme Court ought to have the guts to put a stop to such crap, but it won't.

But, I guess I'll get outvoted, AGAIN, in Happy Witless Duh-mock-racyland!

Goddammit!

WHEN RIGHTS COLLIDE?

  Not long ago I was listening to Keyris Manzanares on VPM News “Focal Point,” presenting a special program reviewing when disagreeing people’s “rights” conflict with each other. I realize that there is plenty of disagreement of expression in the world today, but I would respectfully suggest it is a collision of OPINIONS, not of “rights.”

I do not believe that people’s rights collide within the United States. That notion implies that “rights” are conditional or limited and in possible need of curtailment, lest their exercise produce unacceptable conflict. That notion is further due to a widespread misunderstanding of what, exactly, “rights” are. Rights belong to individuals, not groups. Individuals surely have a “right” to act in groups with like-minded other persons, but the “rights” still belong to each individual, only.

No government or court or judge or army can take our rights away from us. Every official in the United States, federal, state or local, including all military officers, lawyers and judges, are SWORN to support the United States Constitution and its implicit guarantees of our rights. But, our “rights” are not dependent upon nor even granted by that document. The ONLY thing that any government official can do, including EVERY judge, is simply to ignore our rights, in blatant violation of the solemn oath to support them. Sadly, that happens on occasion.

Most often, this is seen where two (or more) individuals express differing opinions, in conflict with each other. But the EXPRESSION of opinion is not what is in conflict. It is the opinions themselves that are in conflict, and no one has a “right” to cut off or censor the other’s expression, even if they don’t like it or agree with it. Each of us must endure hearing those opinions, whether we agree or not. Ugh.

As someone else said, the answer to offensive speech is MORE SPEECH! Not censorship. This does not mean, however, that people have a “right” to attend and disrupt a public meeting. The chairs of such meetings are obliged to enforce rules to allow the orderly conduct of business, including an orderly expression of opinions, but that does not include a power of censorship. I see no conflict of rights there if the “rules” are strictly observed.

It is also well to observe here that our “rights” are only with respect to government activity and with respect to those who are acting “under color” of government authority. There is no guarantee of “rights” enforcement against individuals OR businesses regarding private, one-on-one relationships. But neither individuals nor private institutions can conspire to have “government” deprive others of their rights.

There are no such things as “special rights,” a phrase one hears from those who are offended by someone they dislike demanding enforcement of his or her rights. Everyone’s rights are the same rights we all have, including “rights” of protection and enforcement. And, it is important to remember that really despicable people have those same “rights,” and we are obliged to respect that fact, even if we vehemently dislike the individual claiming or exercising such rights. Admittedly, that it really difficult to honor, sometimes, but it is necessary. Also, no one has a right to “feel good” about something. Feelings are internal, subjective and constantly subject to injury or offense. Just get over it!

States have constitutions, too. They are nothing more than governments that have transitioned from being mere colonies in rebellion (at the time of the Revolutionary War) to states, endowed with powers by the people living therein. States can’t just “do” whatever a majority wants. They don’t have a “blank check” of unlimited powers, nor should they. They must be constrained by their own constitutions, and if that document does not grant a specific power, then in my opinion that power does not exist. Of course, finding a judge or politician with the spine to enforce that may be problematic!

States don’t have “rights,” either, notwithstanding a persistent belief to the contrary, especially in the South. As governments, they have only “powers” or the lack thereof. Only the “people” can have rights, subject to their forfeiture by operation of constitutional law or by a constitutional grant of contrary or limiting “power” to such government via the respective constitution.

Powers and rights are two different things. It is important for everyone to understand that difference and be clear about which is being invoked. We, the people, have a right to have our rights enforced and respected by ALL government officials, but our only means of true enforcement is at the ballot box. It is well to keep that in mind at all times.

_____________________________ 

"ASSAULT" WEAPONS

 

Much is understandably made of the preference many jerks have for using "assault-style" guns when conducting their terrors.

But, I must ask if the murderous incidents would NOT have happened BUT FOR the availability of those weapons? Are they the sine qua non of mass killings? I doubt it. And, I don't believe an "assault-style" definition can be written to withstand the strict "due process" requirements of criminal prohibitions. We may all know what it "is," but it can't be easily defined WITH NECESSARY PRECISION. A semi-automatic "assault-style" rifle is still a single-shot-per-trigger-pull action. Fully automatic rifles ("machine guns") are ALREADY tightly regulated by federal law. I have read those laws.

No law is self-enforcing. Criminal laws MUST be logical and unambiguous. A lawsuit against a gun manufacturer may help grieving families "feel better," but if the sale is lawful, how might that generate any liability?

Many journalists Seem to rhetorically demand to know WHY "police" didn't just "stop" the gunmen when "warned" about them. What, exactly, do those people EXPECT the "police" to do? Arrest somebody BEFORE they commit a crime?  Lock them up in jail for their own good, until they can "prove" their sanity? And who, exactly, are the officials "tasked" with checking up on "suspicious" people, and what POWERS do they have to intervene? Who does the "tasking"? By what authority?

I savor the irony of those insisting on exercising their First Amendment rights (quite properly so) demanding that certain "undesirables" have their Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights summarily revoked, or suspended, until they pass somebody's "smell test"! Forget "due process"! Just ask those who've been stopped by cops for DWB--"driving while black"!

There are just too many assumptions that the "police" can actually PREVENT a horrible crime from happening, and by my experience, that is almost impossible! Summary authority to intervene and stop people from going about their business is NOT allowable in the US! Real freedom involves assumption of risk that something bad might happen! Sadly, crime "prevention" is mostly a fantasy that exists in the mind.

I certainly believe that larger magazine/clip capacities make such assailants harder to bring down, but those are available for most ANY gun, regardless of "aesthetics." Sadly, I do not believe there is much, if any advance screening of people that could be mandated by law to PREVENT the mass murderers from acting. I think a key may be to only limit their "duration" with mandated smaller clips.

None of that seems to have been proposed, yet, and a "clip" prohibition should be accompanied by a VERY GENEROUS "bounty" offer, to buy up as many of the large-capacity clips ALREADY in circulation as possible! Otherwise, a black market would be immediately established with such a mere prohibition. A "clip" law should also provide severe criminal penalties for people engaging in a "black market" scenario.

The other day on NPR an anti-smoking "advocate" was talking about how RJR Tobacco used the cartoonish "Joe Camel" to promote cigarette consumption by children. I believe a jury so found and awarded big bucks against RJR. How has it been "proven" that children have been influenced to smoke by "Joe Camel," then gotten "government" to censor the silly ads?

I am a lot more concerned about intrusive government than I am about children smoking or possible lunatics with guns.

___________________________ 

DOGGEREL--OFF THE LEASH

 

I'm no longer a "pup."

My blood sugar's up.

My knees don't work.

I've lost my ol' perk.

I use a C-PAP.

Utterly CRAP!

Overwhelmed with pains,

Dragging balls and chains.

All whined out and blustered,

I can't "cut the mustard."

Misspent youth—now afar,

But I can still lick the jar!

10/30/23

I TRUST

Each red waif

Wafts to ground,

Fluttering, helplessly, soon

Rotting to death as soil,

Deserting naked fingers

Stretched outward, upward

Toward blue above.

Piles, fluffs, slick films,

Blanketing surfaces.

Darkening, or yellowing, with

Fleeting late October.

Reds fading now, following 

Already-dead bacterial chloroplasts,

Leaving only yellows, browns and grays.

No more greens except for

Ubiquitous cedars, growing anywhere.

Quieter now.

No robins; no swallows; only

Imperious jays, multilingual mockingbirds, and

Woodpeckers hammering,

Sometimes faintly,

On corded gnarl, twisting up

Toward the fingers,

Black against the blue above.

Imperious crows--hollering insistently

In the distance.

Yellow sunlight slants shadows across

The late-year ground. One last gasp of

Warmth as cold rot begins, with

Tiny buds newly

Forming

On bony fingers.

Soon, I trust.

10/29/23

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE?

 

(or, much ado about nothing much)

It is clear that “AI” is now a big deal. Lots of gum-flapping going on, yet it’s obvious that WAY too many people who’ve seen the movie 2001 have “Hal” (the computer) on the brain. The paw-wringing angst is almost suffocating, as such people well remember how “Hal” killed off those who wanted to turn him off! Hal took over the movie mission to Jupiter, and its gravity eventually sucked the spaceship into its deadly embrace, while the human embryo floating in the heavens just looked on passively, and the strains of the “Blue Danube” waltz rose majestically on the soundtrack. Ah. I was sucked in, too!

Yet, about 55 years ago in the early 1970’s, I became an AI skeptic after smoking a lot of “dope” one evening while howling in laughter at the antics of the “Firesign Theatre’s” record album, “I Think We’re All Bozos On This Bus.” VERY loosely structured, it is a comedy skit about sending a bus-load of “Bozo” clowns to the Future, where/when “The President” is, by then, a computer granting audiences to The People, answering all sorts of questions it insists be asked by the pilgrims in attendance. One of the Bozo clowns, a fellow named “Clem,” is urged to ask “any question” and The President (with a voice sounding familiarly like Richard Nixon) will surely answer it. OF COURSE we were already weeping with laughter! For those who don’t know, “dope” encourages much silly laughter. Why do you think they call it “dope”?

So Clem asks: “Why does the porridge bird lay its egg in the air?”  a totally ridiculous (and also very funny) question. And the computer has a total meltdown and is ruined, utterly unable to answer Clem’s simple question! Somebody in the background on the record is yelling, “You broke The President, man! You broke The President!” More laughter, still. I could hardly breathe.

My friend and classmate, who’s now been dead for a couple of years, asked me if I knew why the computer had a meltdown, and of course I did not know, and he said “BECAUSE computers cannot answer ‘why’ questions!” I have given that observation a lot of thought since, and I think I know what it’s all about, Alfie.

Computers are very good and fast at answering substantive, factual, data-driven questions and even making data-driven decisions, but machines will likely NEVER be able to make decisions on mere whim, such as starting out to bake cookies and suddenly changing its mind, for the Hell of it, and deciding to shuck and cook corn instead! I seriously doubt that computers will EVER be able to exercise whimsy, to decide “because,” where changes of intent occur on the fly and without any additional human input. Where a computer suddenly decides to ignore human controller instructions and, on its own, decides to kill those humans instead. I don’t believe that a computer will ever be programmable to make such sudden decisions on its own.

IT MAY WELL BE that some “evil” programmers will be able to program computers to turn off all life-support devices if/when they detect certain actions that might lead to their shutdown, but that is not the same thing as the computer deciding ON ITS OWN to do so. (Why would those idiots put all such devices on the same circuit, anyway? Why not just unplug the thing?) It seems to me that a spaceship tasked with going to, say, Jupiter would have redundancy built into the guidance and operational systems, so the idea of just ONE computer controlling all manner of activities is unlikely. Or certainly should be.

No less a credentialed figure as Sir Roger Penrose, an emeritus  professor of mathematics and physics at Oxford (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Penrose) who shared the Nobel Prize in physics in 2020, is also an AI skeptic, and he published a very complex book about human consciousness back in the early 1990’s, The Emperor’s New Mind. I went to hear him speak at the Smithsonian back then and bought an autographed copy. (It is the only “Nobel” autograph I have.) I tried to read the book and got about 50 pages into it, but it was just too “heavy”—way over my head—so I put it on my bookshelf where it sat for about 30 years. It is loaded with theoretical math and physics; lots of stuff about quantum mechanics and subatomic particles and calculus, and I just could not handle it.

After Penrose was awarded the Nobel Prize, I could not stand looking at that book on my shelf anymore, so I took it down and decided to try again to read it; this time I managed to finish it, but it was still substantially over my head. I learned, however, to just skip over the parts that were confusing, like reading a “cock novel,” and get to the “meat” of it further on. It was profoundly influential in my thinking and validated some notions I’d been nurturing. OF COURSE the technology has evolved since, and I may now be wrong in my thinking, but I am still wedded to the notions established by smoking dope and listening to the Firesign Theatre years ago, that computers will never be able to answer “why” questions!

SPIRITUAL UNIFICATION

Summer is coming, and so is air conditioning, so when the heat gets here (likely mid-June), I've decided to get an early start on my contribution to the inevitability of "global warming," since our biblical "God" (Yahweh) very cleverly sent a rainbow to "promise" to never flood out the entire planet again!

BUT--

He don' say nuttin' 'bout no HEAT STROKE! So, I figure we ARE plunging toward the Sun, being sucked in by the huge gravity wave enveloping us.  And, it's gonna get MUCH hotter!  So hot that, when we're sucked into the Sun, the heat and the crushing gravity will squeeze everything down to sub-atomic particles, and that gravity-driven fusion will then squeeze protons together to form the nucleus of HELIUM! Then the electrons zooming around all over the place will spy those "nekkid" protons, and a pair will quickly lock into the first electron shell and form the atom helium (Atomic Number "2"), which is inert and won't chemically combine with anything else! FOREVER! Permanent "pussy" for those electrons!

SO, that satisfies the Hindu theory of reincarnation!  We will all be "reincarnated" as helium atoms! Then another race of sentient beings on the planet "Zorg" will gather us up and pump us into airships, where we call all violently bump around into each other like shoppers at Macy's on "Black Friday," and we can float around inside their airships for Eternity!

("Goddammit!  I grabbed that sweater first!”)

I've been trying to name this new religion, but Rev. Sun Myung-Moon has already created the "Unification" Church, so that idea is gone, UNLESS I can take it over and make it my own! Hm-m-m!

Howzzat? I think it makes MUCH more sense than the Bible! The Hindus were on the right track, but they just didn't know anything about quantum mechanics back then!

SERVITUDE

13th Amendment, US Constitution:

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. [My emphasis.]

Section 2. Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

No law is self-enforcing.  No one can simply snap his/her fingers and suddenly STOP “abortions” from happening.  Such “prohibition” laws MUST be accompanied by a threat of CRIMINAL prosecution, conviction and punishment for those who intend to proceed with an abortion.  In other words, any new “laws” must suddenly criminalize otherwise law-abiding persons.

Most states provide very little financial assistance to poor women who must raise their children in poverty.  Such benefits are scorned by many well-off people as “welfare.”  So, as I understand the coming scenario, the state will prohibit women from having early-term abortions, and those women will thereby be FORCED to carry their fetuses to term, be FORCED to give possibly painful birth, then be FORCED to spend the next 18-25 years raising those government-mandated children with very little financial assistance, including medical assistance and food.  I just don't understand how that squares with a notion of LIMITED government.

I  know some who are reading this piece are weary of my blatherings about the US Supreme Court’s revocation of ROE v. WADE. I AGREE with those who (like Justice Samuel Alito, the primary author of the recent DOBBS Opinion that seemingly revoked ROE) say that there is no “right” to an abortion openly declared in the US Constitution.  My belief has been, though, that neither the states nor the federal government have the POWER to criminalize any thing done with or to a woman’s body by herself UNLESS another “person's" interests are adversely affected thereby, and that is basically what Justice Harry Blackmun was saying in ROE v. WADE with his famous “trimester” analysis.  That Opinion left the abortion decision to the pregnant woman and her attending physician(s) without government interference UNTIL the seventh month of pregnancy, whereupon the fetus is likely “viable” and might be able to live outside the mother’s womb.  So those fetuses are surely deserving of state protection, just as babies already born are thus protected. 

Yet there is nothing seemingly written into the law that gives a pregnant woman a “veto” power over a political majority in a state legislature.  I have been struggling to “square that circle” by finding a CONSTITUTIONAL argument that voids the presumed power of a state to step in and “protect” all fetuses, irrespective of development, as some are wont to do. That DOBBS decision is BAD law and should be immediately reversed. I hope I have here succeeded in showing the way.

I have finally realized that there is NO SUCH THING as a “constitutional right”!  Constitutions cannot possibly recite all of our rights, and the Framers of the US Constitution did not attempt to do so.  That much is made clear by the 9th Amendment, which Justice Blackmun cited in ROE, and which Alito airily dismissed in DOBBS.  Constitutions are, instead, recitations about government POWERS only—what is required of government and what is prohibited.  POWER flows from the People to government; rights do NOT flow from government to us, the People! We are dependent ONLY on having governments (unlike other countries) that will completely ENFORCE our rights!  The DOBBS majority on the US Supreme Court has, sadly, violated their solemn oaths to support the US Constitution and all the manifestations that flow from it.  They have dishonestly turned their backs on protecting the People, and they should each be impeached and removed.

All governments inside the US cannot possibly have any power that ignores scientific reality, and the “reality” is that a fetus cannot possibly be a legal “person” who merits his/her own protection, unless/until it reaches a state of “viability,” as discussed above, whereby it then becomes its own “person” able to survive, separate and apart from the mother’s body.  The issue of “viability” is a medical issue, NOT a legal issue, so it cannot be autocratically changed by a state legislature mostly full of men. Until such time, the fetus is an integral part of the mother’s body, and its fate is FULLY controllable by her alone.

ANYTHING to the contrary amounts to enforced “servitude” whereby a pregnant woman may be REQUIRED by a state government to carry that fetus to term, give birth, and raise the child at her own expense for many years, all regardless of her own wishes.  She may not be in chains nor out in a field picking cotton, but the state is, nevertheless, attempting to regulate and compel the treatment of her own body against her wishes.  THAT is, in my opinion, INVOLUNTARY SERVITUDE and a blatant violation of the 13th Amendment.  And, contrary to my earlier conclusions, it is specifically addressable by Congress per Section 2!

Article VI of the US Constitution, which EVERY state has ratified, declares that the US Constitution is the “… supreme Law of the Land.”  Therefore, EVERY state’s “sovereignty” is subordinate to that ratified declaration.  And Article VI also REQUIRES that ALL officials, both federal AND state officials and including legislators and judges, “to support this Constitution, …” and every one of them has sworn an oath to do so.

So it is.  Let it be.

WHOMPED!

Books!  Books!  Books!

I keep gettin' those dirty looks

Because I haven't "downsized"!

And the car needs to be "Simonized"!

And I'd better not get those fries "Super-sized"!

Oh, Hell, I just realized

The game's on TV

Gotta go see

Them 'Devils get stomped!  Oh, dear!

(It’s a "building" year—)

That much is clear.

They'll fire the coach; he be "whomped."

No matter.  Jes' get fatter.  Listen to some

Clyde McPhatter.

3/25/23

ANTI-TRANS BS

Recently I was discussing with a friend the possible adoption of a "gender identity" enforcement plan by our local public school board.  Some newer members are convinced that persons of the “male persuasion” (i.e., the “wrong” gender) are seeking to sneak a peek at girls’ genitals during bathroom usage.  As far as they are concerned, it simply must stop, whether it's actually happening or not!

I would never countenance such perversions, but it is difficult to distinguish motives here.  My friend is convinced that a middle-school male somewhere unremembered was fraudulently posing as a transgender person and had entered a girls’ bathroom there and raped a schoolgirl in the bathroom.  She was convinced it was "all over the news" a couple of years ago.

I try to keep up with the news, even though I no longer read a daily newspaper.  I sorely miss the ritual, but the newspapers have lost their appeal for me.  I simply had not heard of such a horrible event.  I think I would have likely heard of it had it occurred.  As far as I am concerned, it was NOT “all over the news.”

I told my friend that I was going to check it out, and I have examined what's available on Snopes.com, which I believe to be a reputable rumor verification site.  I could not find ANYTHING there except a cite about an event that involved the rape of a 10-year-old child IN HER OWN HOME by a transgender (former male) person.  Sadly, certain persons with perverted political agendas have projected this event to create the unfounded suspicion that ALL transgender and lesbian persons are potentially dangerous to schoolchildren.  So, my friend mistakenly fears there are “safety” concerns about ALL transgender persons, concerns that are unwarranted and which are being maliciously planted by people with nefarious political agendas.

See https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/miguel-martinez-transgender-bathroom-controversy/

It is sad and frightening that there are certain people so desperate for political power and control that they are willing to lie and misrepresent facts in order to cause trouble for persons struggling to cope with their various gender “misalignments.”  I believe the obsessions of such "Wrong-Wingers" about transexuals and gay people are sick and perverted in their own right.

Local school boards need to address the many problems they already have and quit trying to hassle those who are struggling with their personal gender assignments.  Understandably, local governments must protect their schoolchildren, but they do not have any legitimate power to presume some sort of blanket group criminality and forcibly screen the gender of those using school bathrooms.  In other words, everybody has the unmitigated RIGHT to use any bathroom they legitimately feel is right for them, without having to pass some sort of government gender “test” to do so.

Certain self-proclaimed “conservatives” may presume certain other peoples’ criminal intentions, but that is simply not legally allowed in the United States.

2/21/2023

UPDATE: 

I am now informed that there was a single incident in Northern Virginia about a middle-school troublemaker who was REJECTED by a female with whom he had had sexual relations, but he followed her into a girl's bathroom and allegedly molested her. It was widely reported in media with which I'd had no contact.

5/31/23

FOLSOM

I hear that train a’comin’!/It’s comin’ ‘round th’ bend!

But I ain’t seen the sunshine/Since I don’t know when!

—Folsom Prison Blues

From The Washington Post “Daily 202”:

“The British government on Friday ordered WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s extradition to the United States to face espionage and hacking charges. Assange has 14 days to appeal the decision.” 

“Assange has been held in a London prison since 2019, after seven years evading arrest by seeking political asylum in the Ecuadoran Embassy.

************************************** 

I believe the case of Julian Assange is the almost perfect illustration of why the Democratic Party’s posture is almost unacceptable now.  Many Democrats are angry that Assange published the texts of e-mails from Hillary Clinton allegedly stolen from their recipient(s), and they want to prosecute and imprison Assange, notwithstanding his First Amendment right to publish whatever truthful information he came by innocently.  Both Barack Obama and now Joe Biden have been trying to force Assange’s extradition for criminal prosecution in the US for daring to expose Hillary’s peccadillos!

Democrats don't ask how come their favored presidential candidate in 2016 was so incredibly STUPID to have crafted those e-mails and to have arrogantly used her personal server for official State Dept. business in CLEAR violation of government policy and the LAW!  They don’t seem to care about the SUBSTANCE of those absurd e-mails.  NO!  They are righteously indignant ONLY about the fact that somebody got ahold of those juicy tidbits and PUBLISHED them!  FAILED to help keep her dirty secrets hidden!  That Julian Assange did not sit on them and PROTECT their candidate from her own stupidity, as any good statist “liberal” should have!  They WANT to believe that Assange was in criminal cahoots with Donald Trump and his thugs, who may well have wrongfully obtained the actual e-mails and funneled them to Assange, and that he was part and parcel of Trump's anti-Hillary machine.  Democrats don’t bother to ask if, perhaps, Assange did most of us a favor by showing us Hillary Clinton’s UTTERLY UNACCEPTABLE nature as the presidential standard-bearer for the Party in 2016.

The nomination and promotion of obsessive “statists" like Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020 are graphic examples of what is wrong.  Our top priority should be the preservation of individual liberty, radically under attack by most Republicans and also many traditional “liberals” in the Dem Party who, like most Republicans, are also default “statists,” which is to say they both rely upon aggressive (mis-)use of government POWER (and the resultant loss of personal liberty) to “save” what they support.  Dems are presumably “kindergentler“ statists than the radical Republicans seeking to ram government power where the sun don’t shine!  But, the answer to such misuse of power is not more misuse of government power, just because it is for a more noble cause!

Samuel Alito’s revocation of ROE vs. WADE is a serious threat to the Rule of Law and our fundamental liberties, but the solution is NOT some federal government action in the opposite direction, as Joe Biden and many “chardonnay liberals” have suggested!  For one thing, there is no SPECIFIC recognition of the rights protected under ROE within the US Constitution, as Alito has asserted.  But Alito has chosen to dismiss the plain language of the 9th Amendment which makes clear that there may well be “rights” deserving of protection that are not enumerated in the Constitution!  In fact, there is really NO SUCH THING as any “constitutional right” at all!  Instead, the CORRECT question to be asked is, by what authority does any government, state or federal, assert POWERS allowed by the People through a constitution to CRIMINALIZE exercise of a fundamental right (reproductive choice) they have no legitimate POWER to mess with in the first place?  State legislatures DO NOT have unlimited powers to fabricate crimes out of whole cloth!  WHY don’t Democrats have the nerve to say so?

Contrary to what a lot of presumed but weaselly constitutional “experts” have said, our “rights” ARE absolute!  There is no “balancing act” needed to resolve conflicts that don’t really exist. What so many people FAIL to understand that if something is NOT "absolute,” then it’s probably NOT a “right” but instead is some sort of “privilege,” like drivers licenses.  But NONE of our true rights are “granted” by the Constitution, even though some are MENTIONED!  Nevertheless, our personal right to vote is clear and absolute!  Our right to due process is absolute!  Our rights to freedom of speech, press and religion are absolute!  But those rights are merely referenced in directives to Congress about what must or must NOT happen!  The “First” Amendment starts off by PLAINLY stating that "CONGRESS SHALL MAKE NO LAW respecting the establishment of religion, OR prohibiting the free exercise thereof….”  Those are instructions to CONGRESS, not a squeamish declaration of limited rights for the People!  We are not (SUPPOSED TO BE) dependent upon some action from “government” to enjoy our rights, except to stay the Hell out of the way!

We have an ABSOLUTE RIGHT, supposedly protected by the Constitution, to PEACEABLY express ourselves, even in vulgar fashion, about any topic we so choose AND to expose ANY wrongdoing by ANYONE we so choose!  No one is obliged to protect important peoples’ "dirty secrets,” not even Julian Assange!  I have often said that the First Amendment guarantees our "right” to be offended!  We certainly do NOT have some sort of “right” to holler “fire” in a crowded theater UNLESS the damned place is really on fire, so babbling about that as a limitation of our “right to free speech" is ludicrously misplaced. Falsely yelling about fire is simply NOT a “right” AT ALL! Neither are threats, lies or frauds, though they may be spoken. As the saying goes, my “right” to swing my fists ends at your nose!

So, the Constitution is ONLY a listing of permissible government POWERS and, to the extent that “the People” have allowed “government” to have any power at all (such being derived from us, the People), then that “permission” needs to be found within the four corners of the Constitution.  Our “rights” are just too numerous to be listed anywhere!  It was much easier for the Framers to simply set down what POWERS the government ought to have, so that’s what they did. Our rights, having arguably “existed" for “Eternity,” also precede in time the existence of ANY government created by white European descendants in this hemisphere!  “Government” must be dedicated to enforcing and protecting our rights.  Now, the Supremes (thanks to the “Savage Six”) seemingly plan to ignore that, and who’s to say they will stop with reproductive choice?  Is it REALLY any of the state government’s beeswax whom I may wish to marry, so long as it’s a consenting adult human?  Where is that “power” listed in ANY state's constitution?  Anyone seeking to mess with that is a damned idiot!  WHY can’t the Democratic Party say so, firmly and proudly?  It certainly won’t “stop” abortions (nor homosexual attractions) as ANYONE who was alive back in 1973 before ROE was decided should remember!  EVERY pregnant woman is a potential ABORTION!  So, it seems we’re gonna have to learn those ugly lessons all over again, because of the gibbering IDIOTS and ideologues in high places who fail to remember, and who FAIL to read the entire Constitution and bother to truly UNDERSTAND how it really works!  Or, like some Democrats and most Republicans, they just don’t care!

ANYWAY, the reason that Julian Assange is front and center is that many DEMOCRATS hate his guts for having published Hillary Clinton’s stupidly crafted e-mails!  Democrats are perfectly happy to let Joe Biden's GOVERNMENT rake him over the coals, lock him up, stuff him incommunicado in some “supermax" prison somewhere for most of his remaining life, and be exploited as an example of what is bound to happen to those who dare to take their First Amendment rights seriously at the Democrats’ expense! They seem determined to VIOLATE his ABSOLUTE RIGHT to publish unsavory material about THEIR STUPID, STUPID candidate!  SCREW the First Amendment!  And, EVEN IF Hillary is not as bad as all that, his ABSOLUTE RIGHT is to express whatever he wishes, if he believes it to be true. Yet, it seems that DEMOCRATS are perfectly happy to let Assange twist in the wind, and to Hell with his “rights”!  They seem to not care if Assange is railroaded; after all, in their view he hurt Hillary and possibly cost her the Election!  Dems seem to think it serves him right!  It seems that Joe Biden and his clueless minions will see to it, too!

I am a “strict constructionist”!  I think the Constitution’s PLAIN MEANING is remarkably clear and clearly protects people like Julian Assange, but I won’t hold my breath waiting for THIS Supreme Court to uphold the First Amendment and protect Assange. I won’t hold my breath waiting for the Democrats to find their spine and stand up for our liberties!  Should not at least ONE major party do so?  My undivided loyalty is to the US Constitution, as written until properly amended.

Democrats have been taking civil libertarians for granted for years.  NO self-respecting civil libertarian should support most Democrats anymore, UNLESS they radically change their attitudes, and their policies, and their expressions.

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