Divided We Stand

Once upon a time we were the United States of America but that no longer seems to be the case. Why? What made the change? By act of Congress in 1782, the motto “E Pluribus Unum” (latin for “Out of Many, One”) was adopted but never put into law. It was, however, considered to be the de facto motto of the United States. The statue of liberty standing proud in New York harbor said it all:

“Give me your tired, your poor,Your huddled masses yearning to breath free,The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:I lift my lamp beside the golden door.” – Emma Lazarus

We have also been called “a melting pot”.

America: A Melting Pot of Cultures. The United States is a country of immigrants. It is a place where people from all over the world come to build a better life. Some immigrants bring their families.

My, how times have changed. In 1954 Congress added “under God” to the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States making it . . . “one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all”.  Then in 1956 Congress passed an act making “In God We Trust” the official motto of the United States. This was done during Cold War when the“godless” Soviet Union was our enemy. These changes were made, apparently, to prove that not only was God on our side but that He hated the Soviet Union.

Of course, this flies in the face of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution adopted in 1791 which is as follows:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

But we did it anyway so the question then becomes, whose God, the Christian God, the Muslim God, the Hindu God (or Gods), the Native American God (or Gods), the Wiccan God (or Gods). What about Atheists or Agnostics, how do they fit into this? The evangelicals and the religious right now say that America is a Christian nation and that the founding fathers were all Christians. This is simply not true. Many if not most of the founding fathers were not Christians but Deists and Unitarians among several other beliefs or lack thereof. The Treaty of Tripoli, signed by President John Adams in 1797, even states that this country is not a Christian country. Article 11 reads:

Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen (Muslims); and as the said States never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan (Mohammedan) nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

We now have a republican presidential candidate who wants to ban all Muslims from entering the country, wants to deport 11 million Mexicans and wants to build a wall along the entire Mexican border. And, to make matters worse there is a significant percentage of our population that agrees with him. When did “We the People” quit being “United”? There were always intolerant people here but now our new motto “In God We Trust”, meaning the Christian God, gave them the power to be intolerant bigots because, obviously, their God is the only God and the God on which this nation is based. This is absolutely not true and this intolerant, bigoted, racist attitude must be eliminated.

I suggest that the first step we should take to reverse this current trend in intolerance is to remove “under God” from the pledge of allegiance and make “E Pluribus Unum” our official motto again.

Dilbit Is Not a Cartoon – The XL Pipeline

The purpose of TransCanada’s proposed Keystone XL 1,700 mile long pipeline is to carry diluted bitumen or dilbit from the tar sands of northern Alberta to refineries in Oklahoma and on the Gulf Coast in Texas. The pipeline, if built, would carry as much as 830,000 barrels of dilbit a day to the US refineries. It would cross six states including some environmentally sensitive areas where spills would be a disaster. Millions of dollars are being spent on a disinformation campaign by the Canadian company TransCanada and by the US oil companies that stand to make billions if the pipeline is built. One minor example of this is that the name Tar Sands has quietly been changed to Oil Sands, a much less nasty sounding name. Also, most news articles don’t call the tar sands product dilbit or diluted bitumen but refer to it as crude oil, synthetic crude oil or at worst heavy crude oil which gives the impression it’s just like the same crude oil we have always received from other sources.

In the short video below, Robert Redford who is known both for his work in films and his his environmental activities, explains why he thinks the XL Pipeline should not be built.

What in the World is Dilbit Anyway?

Dilbit is diluted bitumen and bitumen is a tar-like substance that is a naturally occurring type of petroleum found in the Canadian tar sands. Tar sand is considered to be an unconventional source of petroleum meaning that it doesn’t come from oil wells. Instead the tar sand deposits are mined, usually using strip mining or open pit techniques. Petroleum can also be extracted using underground heating. The recent combination of high oil prices and new technology has made mining the Canadian tar sands extremely profitable.

Bitumen is extremely viscous and flows to slowly to be pumped though a pipeline. In order to get it to flow the oil companies dilute it with other hydrocarbons. The amount and composition of these diluents is considered proprietary and is kept secret from the public. Even the US Environmental Protection Agency doesn’t know the exact composition of the of these diluents. The worry is that we don’t know, among other things, what damage these proprietary chemicals will cause when there is a spill or what their influence will be on the corrosion rate of the pipeline. Current pipelines carrying dilbit seem to corrode and burst more frequently than regular oil pipelines.

The many ruptures in the current dilbit pipelines have a lot of people concerned about its safety. One of the worst spills was the July 2010 Enbridge Energy pipeline leak that dumped 843,000 gallons of dilbit into the Kalamazoo River. The cleanup operation so far, has  involved more than 2,000 personnel, 150,000 feet of boom, 175 heavy spill response trucks, 43 boats and 48 oil skimmers with a cost that is expected to exceed $700 million.

Will the XL Pipeline Reduce Our Dependence on Foreign Oil?

The quick answer is NO. The Keystone XL is an export pipeline. According to the information given to investors, Gulf Coast refiners plan to refine the dilbit into diesel and other products for export to Europe and Latin America. It should also be highlighted that the proceeds from these exports will be tax-free. Much of the pipeline’s refined fuel will never reach our car’s gas tanks.

What About All Those Jobs the Pipeline Will Create?

TransCanada, the US oil companies and the Republican members of congress can’t seem to keep their numbers straight when it comes to how many jobs the XL Pipeline will create. The 2008 TransCanada permit application for the Keystone XL indicated a peak workforce of about 3,500 to 4,200 construction jobs to build the pipeline. Other estimates from TransCanada and others have ranged from several hundred jobs (Robert Jones, TransCanada’s Vice President for Keystone Pipelines, CNN, November 11, 2011) to 20,000 pipeline and 118,000 spin-off jobs to 250,000 jobs to over half a million jobs. The Republican Party claims over 100,000 jobs. Then there’s the researchers at Cornell University, people with no financial stake in the pipeline, who project as few as 2,500 short term jobs lasting about two years, and the State Department who puts the number as high as 6,000. Of course the number will be increased if you include all those  jobs that will be required to clean up the pipeline’s many spills that are almost certain to occur.

Intelligent Design: How to End the Quest for Knowledge

When God is used to explain a scientific fact further scientific investigation stops. When your hypothesis fails to explain a given phenomena it’s very convenient to just say that God must have intervened, it’s the lazy man’s way out.

For example Newton’s law of gravity lets you calculate the force of attraction between any two objects. If you add a third object then each one attracts the other two. Add another object then another etc until you get all the planets in the solar system and the calculations get very complex. Newton’s equations calculated that either all of the planets would already have crashed into the sun or flown off into space and disappeared. Newton’s answer to this was that God intervened and made things right.

For more than 100 years all work on this model stopped until French mathematician Simon de Laplace rejected the God hypothesis and took up the problem as a scientific challenge. Laplace developed a new branch of mathematics called perturbation theory, which allowed him to look at the combined effect of all of the many forces. He demonstrated that the solar system was stable over long periods of time. When Napoleon Bonaparte asked Laplace what role God played in the regulation of the heavens Laplace replied, “I have no need of that hypothesis”.

The promoters of Intelligent Design only try to disprove evolution and replace it with the idea that God intervened to make things right. If they have their way scientific progress will stop just like it did for Newton.

Believe One Thing, Do Another

The Pew Research Forum on Religion & Public Life recently conducted a survey that tested people’s knowledge about religion. The test was taken by 3,412 randomly sampled adults and included people of various religious traditions, people who attend worship services and those who don’t, men and women, and college graduates as well as those who did not attend college. The results were surprising and seemingly counter intuitive. Atheists were one of the highest scoring groups and Evangelicals and born again Christians were one of the lowest. Why was this?

Stranger yet is the fact, revealed by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, that white Evangelicals and born again Christians are the least likely to support politicians or policies that follow the actual teachings of Jesus. These people, who profess a personal relationship with Jesus, who believe that the Bible is the inerrant word of God, who regularly go to church, pray daily, listen to Christian music and place Jesus at the center of their lives, are the very people most likely to reject His teachings.

• Jesus preached mercy and forgiveness where as Evangelicals and born again Christians support the death penalty, draconian sentencing, punishment over rehabilitation and the federal government’s use of torture.

• Jesus encouraged people to be loving, peaceful, and non-violent, yet Evangelicals and born again Christians want no regulation of handgun and semi-automatic gun ownership, support the right to carry concealed weapons and support the violent military invasion of various countries around the world.

• Jesus decried the pursuit of wealth, said the rich could not get into the Kingdom of Heaven and that they should give all their money to the poor. Jesus preached that people should help those in need, yet Evangelicals and born again Christians are the most supportive of corporate greed and capitalistic excess. They oppose institutional help for the nation’s poor, especially children. They also hate food stamp programs and all subsidies for schools, hospitals, job training and anything else that would help out those in need.

If Evangelicals and born again Christians are the true believers and place God and Jesus at the center of their lives how can they possibly promote these inhumane values? The reason is not what Jesus taught but it’s about what He can do for them. They believe that because Jesus died on the cross for their sins He will save them from eternal torment in hell. Not only that but they believe that they are guaranteed a special spot in heaven when they die. This is the reason Evangelicals and born again Christians are true believers.  Since they believe their sins will always be forgiven, they can be as greedy and selfish as they want.

Frogs and Snails – Sugar and Spice

Remember the nursery rhyme:

What are little boys made of?
Frogs and snails
And puppy-dogs’ tails,
That’s what little boys are made of.

What are little girls made of?
Sugar and spice
And everything nice,
That’s what little girls are made of.

In reality we and everything else including frogs, snails, sugar and spice are made, in the words of Carl Sagan, of “Star Stuff”. Our sun is a star that generates heat by a process called fusion, converting about 3.6×1038 protons (hydrogen nuclei) into helium nuclei every second. Some further fusion then takes place to form the elements heaver than helium. But for a star the size of our sun the heaviest atom that can be formed is iron (Fe) with an atomic number of 26. The periodic table has elements all the up to 118. Our bodies contain elements heaver than iron. Where did they all come from?

The age of the universe is estimated as 13.7 + 0.13 billion years since the Big Bang. Our solar system was formed from the collapse of a giant molecular cloud only about 4.6 billion years ago. That cloud came from a supernova, an explosion great enough to create all the elements heaver than oxygen including those heaver than iron. These elements then enriched the molecular cloud which over time condensed to form our solar system which, of course, includes earth.

Life first formed on earth about 3.8 billion years ago and has progressed along the following approximate basic timeline (Source: Wikipedia).

• 3.8 billion years of simple cells (prokaryotes),
• 3 billion years of photosynthesis,
• 2 billion years of complex cells (eukaryotes),
• 1 billion years of multicellular life,
• 600 million years of simple animals,
• 570 million years of arthropods (ancestors of insects, arachnids and crustaceans),
• 550 million years of complex animals,
• 500 million years of fish and proto-amphibians,
• 475 million years of land plants,
• 400 million years of insects and seeds,
• 360 million years of amphibians,
• 300 million years of reptiles,
• 200 million years of mammals,
• 150 million years of birds,
• 130 million years of flowers,
• 65 million years since the non-avian dinosaurs died out,
• 2.5 million years since the appearance of the genus Homo,
• 200,000 years of anatomically modern humans,
• 25,000 years since the disappearance of Neanderthal traits from the fossil record.
• 13,000 years since the disappearance of Homo floresiensis from the fossil record.

All that was simply a build up to my recommending a book titled “The Disappearing Spoon” by Sam Kean. It’s basically a book about the history of the Periodic Table with one heck of a lot of additional information thrown in. It’s also funny. I’m not going to tell you where the title came from, you’ll have to read the book.

State Fair Food (on a stick)

It’s state fair time and that means it’s time for a fantastic eating experience. When I was a kid in Minnesota the best part of the state fair, other than Machinery Hill where I could climb on all the tractors, was getting to eat a Pronto Pup or several if I was lucky. Pronto Pups, not to be confused with Corn Dogs, are hot dogs, on a stick, dipped in pancake batter and deep fried. They have to be good because, as all kids know, anything on s stick is delicious. For example there’s the Popsicle, the Fudgesicle, the Creamsicle to name but a few. How can you go wrong if it’s on a stick.

Well time marches on and humans are nothing if not inventive. What is available on a stick at state fairs these days? Well, how about deep fried pickles on a stick, deep fried Snickers on a stick, deep fried Twinkies on a stick, deep fried brownies on a stick and of course deep fried butter on a stick. The Minnesota State Fair did serve camel meat on a stick this year but that’s almost normal comparatively speaking. I had a camel burger at the midtown Global Market in Minneapolis and it wasn’t bad.

For those of you who don’t like deep fried foods take heart, there’s always chocolate covered cheesecake on a stick, chocolate covered banana on a stick and for the more adventurous there’s chocolate covered bacon on a stick. For the really really adventurous there’s mealworm covered caramel apples on a stick available at the Arizona State Fair. What in the world were they thinking. There are many more delicious items of course, just Google “on a stick” for a list.

Alas, things, however, have gotten completely out of hand. State Fair food has entered a new realm by simply eliminating the need for the food item to be on a stick. Texas has deep fried beer (they look like ravioli with beer inside) and chicken fried bacon. For that south of the border flavor they had fried salsa (a spicy mixture of jalapenos, roasted garlic, onion, tomato, and pepper dipped in masa all covered in crunchy tortilla chips and served with creamy queso, yum).

But, I’ve saved the best for last. Chicken Charlie’s at the Orange County Fair in California serves two items that, at least in my opinion, top the list. The first is the Krispy Kreme Burger. Take a large greasy cheeseburger, and replace the bun with two glazed Krispy Kreme donuts. It’s been called the world’s unhealthiest snack but I don’t think it even comes close. Chicken Charlie’s isn’t the only place to sell these but they seem to be known as the king of fried foods so they get the credit. The second item and the one to beat, is the deep fried White Castle cheeseburger. Yup, it’s just what it sounds like. It’s a White Castle cheeseburger dipped in batter, bun and all, and deep fried. If you ask how many calories it has you’re not allowed to buy one. I think one of those, an order of deep fried frog legs and a Coke should be just about right. Better make that a diet Coke.

Size Matters

In the news recently was the fact that Apple Computer is now the largest corporation in the U.S. with a combined stock value of $358,310,000,000 which beats out ExxonMobil by $400,000,000.  As large as these companies are they don’t hold a candle to Saudi Aramco, the Saudi Arabian state-owned oil conglomerate.  Saudi Aramco has an estimated value of $2,940,000,000,000 which is over $500,000,000,000 larger than the total value of Apple, ExxonMobil, Petro China, IBM, Microsoft, Bank of China, China Mobile, Royal Dutch Shell, Nestle and Chevron combined.

In other words, Saudi Aramco’s value is one-half a trillion dollars more than the total value of the next ten largest corporations in the world combined. Do you think that fact may have something to do with how the federal government deals with Saudi Arabia?