Apocalypticon: November 2006

We Come Bearing Radioactive Crosses

Image courtesy of IRTC.org...not affiliated with this site.

Whenever I make a genuinely brilliant prediction, it becomes apparent that the mere publishing of the prediction often alters the nature of the prediction's outcome. There is a conundrum in Quantum Physics that closely parallels this phenomenon, such that great experimental scientists and theoretical analysts frequently find themselves at odds with each other. I call the conundrum "Suffocating Shroedinger's Cat on a Quantum Hairball". The name is derived from Erwin Shroedinger's famous thought-experiment, wherein a cat is locked in a box with a flask that (if broken by a hammer dropped at the actuation of a very delicate trigger) will release cyanide gas into the box to kill the cat. For those unfamiliar with the weirdness of the universe at the most fundamental level, suffice it to say that there are reasons to believe that before someone looks in the box, the cat is both alive and dead, simultaneusly. No...this isn't the result of poor reasoning or bad LSD. It turns out that the universe appears to operate according to the rules of some cosmic electoral college, a sort of collectively mandated reality where the result doesn't always equal the will of the voters (you, me, and every form of sentient life in the universe).

Hidden among the 1100+ news stories about ex-KGB agent, Alexander Livinenko, who was recently poisoned to death under extremely unusual circumstances (toxic exposure to a rare and highly-radioactive substance of disputed origin), was this crazy story about British Airways BANNING necklaces with crosses from the list of items exempted from their security screening of passengers passing through UK airports.

Now, call me crazy, but when a passenger with a high-profile background in the Black Arts can board a jet while contaminated with radioactivity, and an innocent traveller is hassled about wearing an insignificant (albeit personally meaningful) piece of jewelry...

Doesn't this strike anyone as the Cat Calling the Minkey Black? ;)

Plan For War

To be honest, I have no clear idea why sudden drops in the price of crude oil almost certainly signal earthshaking events, but it has happened so often now that it's like a reflex response -- OIL PRICE DROP >> REGIONAL CONFLICT.

What will the "surprise" be this time?

It's YOUR Problem, Not OURS

I'm really getting tired of multimillion-dollar software companies earning ungodly amounts of money, and then telling users of their products that they are not responsible for incidental changes to the operating system.

I am a disabled computer-professional with Multiple Sclerosis. I don't have the energy to explain to every ^%$#@! idiot in the software industry why FORCING CHANGE for PROFIT necessarily implies LIABILITY.

Don't these people know that no amount of legalese is going to pacify an angry mob with torches?

Weaving Tall Tales

I realized a strange thing once: that people in vastly different points in time and space can be metaphorically connected simply because they perform tasks that require the same sequences of neural impulses. So a prolific quilter in 2006 can literally empathize a bit with a blanket-weaver in 200 BCE. Maybe they even talk the same way.

While You Were Out

There is an amusement-park ride at Disneyland, U.S.A. that reminds visitors that "It's A Small World"

Yet, although I myself am very much an American, I find extremely unnerving the apparent lack-of-empathy many Americans seem to have for events occurring less than half-a-world away.

The grand shift in control of the U.S. Congress, and the sudden resignation of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld are obvious attention-getters today, so Americans are understandably distracted by domestic affairs.

But I think the eruption of new conflicts today in the Gaza Strip demands far more media coverage than it is getting in the U.S.

The shifting tides of national policies are mere wrinkles in the fabric of civilization. But when political-religious rivalries evolve into mass killing of innocent populations, that's news worth at least a moment's reflection, IMHO.