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A former visitant of UC Santa Cruz, former union boilermaker, ex-Marine, Vietnam vet, anti-war activist, dilettante in science with an earth-shaking theory on the nature of light (which no one will consider), philosopher in the tradition of Schelling, Hegel, Merleau-Ponty, Marx, and Fromm (sigh, no one listens to me on that either), author of a book on wine clubs (ahem), and cast-off programmer of ancient computer languages. Several of my articles on physics and consciousness are online at ResearchGate.net, Philpapers.org, Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research, and YouTube. And of course there are articles here at Opednews.
I've also had two physics articles published in an obscure but earnest Central European journal (European Scientific Journal http://www.eujournal.org/index.php/esj).
(6 comments) SHARE Thursday, July 16, 2009 Thom Hartmann's book on the JFK Assassination
I have a lot of respect for Thom Hartmann. I'm a regular listener of his radio program. But I'm unable to reconcile his contribution to the book Ultimate Sacrifice, which lays exclusive blame for the JFK assassination on members of the Mafia.
(5 comments) SHARE Monday, May 31, 2010 Spartan Women: History's greatest conspiracy?
Almost everyone has heard about the men of ancient Sparta: fearsome warriors who devoted their lives to fighting, training for fighting, talking about fighting, and talking about training. What is rarely considered or discussed, but arguably much more interesting, is the contemporary sub-culture of the Spartan women.
(41 comments) SHARE Wednesday, August 13, 2014 Is theoretical physics dead-ending?
It is argued that theoretical physics has been reduced to a heavily defended branch of pure mathematics. A paper that can't be accepted or criticized in the current climate is offered for evaluation, involving an exploration of time as the dynamic aspect of the spacetime continuum, with numerous corollaries that enhance Special Relativity, including an explanation for why the speed of light is absolute and ultimate.
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, January 25, 2011 Immigration Policy: the Liberal/Progressive Dichotomy
Differences of opinion about how best to deal with unauthorized immigration serve to profile subtle differences between liberalism and progressivism that are well worth exploring.
(26 comments) SHARE Tuesday, May 4, 2010 Steven Hawking is wrong on Extraterrestrials
The renowned physicist Steven Hawking, a genius of number and equation, and drawing from his mastery of the virtual blackboard, has sounded the alarm to the people of earth: Fear the Extra-Terrestrials!
(6 comments) SHARE Sunday, April 24, 2011 Gravitation, force and energy
Gravitation is described as a uniquely geometric phenomenon, incompatible with the concepts of force, energy, and inertia, and only analogically comparable by means of mathematical formalizations. Two thought experiments are employed to demonstrate that the association of gravitation with force and inertia is irreconcilable with the geometric interpretation and without theoretical foundation or empirical support.
(43 comments) SHARE Tuesday, November 19, 2019 Relativity Visualized
A simple graphic explanation of Special Relativity
(15 comments) SHARE Friday, August 14, 2009 Light is at absolute rest, and science isn't interested
Light seems sometimes to act like a wave, sometimes like a particle. This seemingly nonsensical behavior has been accepted for so long, and entire careers devoted, so much that a hypothesis which would explain light's peculiarities, and resolve its apparent duality, is evidently unwelcome among physical scientists even in violation of their most fundamental principles.
(19 comments) SHARE Thursday, March 25, 2010 Consciousness, Values, Science, and Nature
Considerations about the nature of consciousness are not just academic exercises. Our beliefs about what we are, even if more-or-less implicit, can have a profound influence on our values, personal relations, and political perspectives.
(5 comments) SHARE Saturday, July 4, 2020 The Alcubierre Drive and a solution to the Fermi Paradox
The so-called Fermi Paradox addresses the enigma that although it seems there must be advanced civilizations elsewhere in the universe, we have been unable to detect their communications. A hypothetical technology that could overcome the limit of light-speed is shown to suggest a solution to the paradox.
(28 comments) SHARE Wednesday, November 21, 2018 Black holes, mathematics, and relativity physics
Several mathematical constructs of black-hole physics are described as misrepresentations, especially in terms of Relativity. The conditions of in-falling bodies reaching and crossing an event horizon are reexamined, and it is argued that matter cannot exist within a black hole. It is concluded that black holes consists entirely of un-visible "white" light-energy.
(5 comments) SHARE Thursday, December 23, 2010 Alternatives to a National Third Party
It's become clear to many of us that the Democratic Party and federal government have been captured by corporate interests and may be beyond meaningful reform for the foreseeable future. A third party in the U.S. has never been so desperately needed, and the obstacles to making it viable have never been so enormous. But there are fifty-plus potential long-term remedies, alternatives to a national third party.
(6 comments) SHARE Thursday, January 17, 2019 The Obscure and Unconscious Class
A discussion of a social class that has not been fully appreciated, and of the importance of its recognition.
(12 comments) SHARE Friday, February 24, 2023 The 51st State of Columbia
A proposal to form a special Federal District of Washington within the State of Columbia
(12 comments) SHARE Tuesday, August 3, 2010 We've Got to Organize!
There's been a lot of discussion about how our democracy can overcome the power of corporations and the pro-corporate, top-down political parties. I believe a key solution to overcoming the systematic dominance of the powerful few is being overlooked.
SHARE Sunday, July 22, 2007 Individuals, societies, and the classification of organisms
Modern taxonomy consists in the classification of organisms primarily according to their genetic proximity. With this emphasis there is insufficient attention to levels of organization whereby interdependent but merely composite associations of cells would be distinguished from actual multicellular individuals.
(6 comments) SHARE Friday, November 11, 2016 Now is the time, 2018 is the prize
A hundred million citizens are going to be horrified in the days ahead, appalled by Republican policy makers and dismayed by Democratic sell-outs and losers. In each state, in each district, we need to be recruiting real progressive candidates for office in 2018, whatever their affiliation.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, January 16, 2014 The Principle of International Humanitarian Intervention
A consideration of political principles can seem dry and abstract, but a more explicit awareness of one’s principles can foster more effective political influence. After a discussion of political principles in general, this article maintains that it is sometimes right for the international community to intervene in a nation, militarily if necessary, to prevent genocide or massive injustice toward some part of its population.
(5 comments) SHARE Wednesday, September 15, 2010 A strategy for the November elections: Punt!
In football, when it's clear you don't have much chance to move the ball to the goal, you kick it away - you punt - and hope to get the ball back in a better scoring position.
What would a political punt be like in the present circumstances? Is it relevant, and would it be the most effective strategy?
(8 comments) SHARE Tuesday, February 9, 2016 Do Physicists Love Their Paradoxes Too Much?
The "Twin Paradox" in Relativity theory has involved an abiding difficulty with clarifying how arbitrary periods of uniform motion between accelerations, when each twin will observe the other's clock to move relatively slowly, can be resolved at their reunion. But there is a non-paradoxical explanation for the effect that has not been previously proposed.
(27 comments) SHARE Tuesday, February 10, 2015 Suggestions for more friendly numbers about space and time
The ways things are identified and described are often arbitrary conventions handed down from early influential persons or groups. We have conventions involving numbers that aren't the best way of communicating their quantities or ranges, and there's no good reason they shouldn't be improved upon.
(16 comments) SHARE Sunday, July 8, 2007 The Difference Between Liberals and Progressives
No one seems to talk much about the difference between liberals and progressives, in fact the two are usually treated as being pretty much synonymous. But there are differences, and I believe they're significant.
(8 comments) SHARE Wednesday, April 9, 2014 We need to organize -- NOW!
There are various political strategies being advocated and tried to counter our steady descent into an imperial, oligarchic police state of environmental devastation.
Top-down and bottom-up have been tried.
Let's try building a personal (or "inter-personal") organization, a structured bottom-up, top-down democracy based on tiers of small groups, each of which elects a representative to the next tier.
(6 comments) SHARE Wednesday, June 23, 2010 Soccer is succor fer succers
Soccer (aka un-American "football") is a great sport, but it's a terrible spectacle. Unless you're a veteran player, or you love a player, or you love the team that represents your country or locality, watching a soccer match is like watching glass glow. The only thing that saves it as a popular spectator sport is its standing as THE currency for proving local and national superiority.
SHARE Thursday, June 7, 2007 The Concept of Loyalty and George W. Bush
A consideration of the concept of loyalty shows that Bush's protection of his subordinates isn't loyalty, nor is it a pardonable fault.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, August 16, 2007 Science, technique and philosophy
Science has grown authoritarian, overreaching, conservative and cold in its own estimation as an institution of truth, rather than a branch of philosophy. A more progressive perspective identifies science as a philosophy, or rather, a series of philosophies, subject to challenge even from outside its temples.
(4 comments) SHARE Friday, June 15, 2007 The Essence of Faggotry
The etymology of the word "fag" has everything to do with virtue, little to do with sexual orientation.
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, June 18, 2007 Gravitation and its misappropriation by quantum theory
It is argued that the attempt to assimilate gravitation in quantum theory is inconsistent with the principles of science. Two thought experiments are employed to demonstrate that the quantum concept of gravitation is incompatible with the general theory of relativity, and without either theoretical foundation or empirical support.
(6 comments) SHARE Tuesday, March 11, 2008 Freedom, Libertarians, and Football
The concepts of freedom and liberty deserve better discrimination, especially in view of the recent popularization of libertarianism by Ron Paul. Americans, especially, have tended to treat the two concepts as synonymous, but freedom and liberty actually express important differences.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, June 20, 2008 Democratic Circles
What we call Democratic Circles is a plan to build a national political/cultural organization of direct democracies - to rebuild a thriving and effective "We the People."
SHARE Sunday, June 29, 2008 Conflicts of interests
The Democrats are pursuing a people-based strategy of fund-raising by refusing donations from lobbyists and PACs while pursuing a corporate-based strategy of Congressional voting and Presidential campaign jockeying. It's boundless: The chronic stupidity of a party leadership conflicted by soft, liberal intentions and hard, conservative (wealth and power) interests.