Good news if you want science to progress beyond the theory stage. Its like playing with the God's building blocks - either that or the world is flushed away in one big reset button moment - I am believe we will learn a whole lot about how the natural universe works-- explore the cosmos or die pond scum - which do you choose? I choose exploration.

When did science become a dogma? When did it become dogmatic? When did our scientists become political prophets demanding repentance?
Science is about data. Give us the data. Then give us several different interpretations of that data and let us listen to the debate that ensues. That is what science is supposed to be !!!!

Disasters are not the hand of God striking down the sinful - neither is it Karma, Sharon Stone. People who think so are stupid, just plain stupid. So, Miss Stone, when Hollywood receives that 7.9 or 8.0 jolt that the scientists have been promising you for the last 20 years will that be God or karma?
Note : please watch embedded video is you do not understand why I am addressing Ms. Stone directly !

God, the Father,  who is pure love and kindness, is not a punishing God, He is merciful and kind. If you want to see God's tender love look to all the tragic pictures of parents carrying their child from the wreckage of their homes, dead. Look at the USA government just about begging Burma to allow us to help them, also... That is God's hand - weeping at the harm and death in Asia and here in America - world wide, in fact is God's way.

People who blame God or Mother Earth are Stupid, simply stupid. People like Stone deserve to go to the 8 th. level of hell saved for the chronically self-righteous, arrogant, smug fools that constantly see the sliver in their neighbor's eye but don't see the plank in their own.  If God or karma strikes down anyone in this planet for sin it should be Hollywood types like Ms. Stone and others of her kind who are smug buffoons of the most ridiculous kind. So why is your sinful town still prospering and rich - could it be that God is merciful and loving - a Father who does not punish? Could it be that the earth just lives by the natural laws of geology and has no will except for them, Ms. Stone?

Of all the things that drive me nuts, arrogant Hollywood types drive me the most over the edge. I just want to grab them by the lapels and tell them that they are merely brainless actors and that they should shut up and do their craft and leave serious things to serious people!

Earthquake, storms, volcanic disasters always strike at the humblest of people, first, and hardest - the humble can not get out of the way, the humble are just working, raising families, doing their duties. I despise the  Chinese communist government more than most. I despise communism as an aberration of real philosophy, but neither God nor karma (which is a natural law of the universe and not even God can really change!) misses the mark or strikes at the humble while leaving the great ones to say how-very-sorry- they are- that the earth quake struck... Both God's will and karma are not punishment as such, etc.
It does not surprise me that the Buddhists want to help. They know that hatred of your enemies is BAD KARMA - and, that their brothers and sisters, killed by the Chinese government are yet, living, yet, not here on Earth - that kind of goodness is something I can only dream about having in my soul - and, Hollywood types, Ms. Stone, included, actually can't even conceive of existing... that is why she was so confused.

Neither the Chinese earthquakes nor the Mt. St. Helens eruption, or Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD, nor the Katrina hurricane, or  the recent storms in the Mid-West nor the awful typhoon in Burma, etc, etc, etc are karma. NOW, what happens afterwards - our inability to really react properly to the hurricane might have been considered karmic because our reactions were directly tied to sowing and harvesting what we did in the past... but, even that, can be debated for a few centuries. Karma is infinitely complex and difficult to understand.

We human beings matter not to mother Earth. We are just her children - as much as the trees and the flowers - and, as such, she will dispose of us as she sees fit - she knows no cruelty - only necessity.  The laws of nature are such that we must sometimes die in natural disasters - if we live in an earthquake zone, as I do, I know that we could have mild ones (below 5.0)  for my entire lifetime - or a really big one could hit and I could die, struck down, lets say, by that bookcase to my right side, right this moment. No Chinese family, as humble as my own in many ways, (and, please note, they don't even get to have a say in the governing as we do, so they can't be blamed for what their government does!) are being punished with an earthquake. They are humble people - the salt of the earth, as Christ would say. They did not kill the monks of Tibet - the government of China, did.

 People who say  that natural disaster are punishment for sin are living in the dark ages of superstition whether they are Christian Popes, Muslim clerics - or, profoundly stupid actors and actresses living lives of sublime luxury in the richest city of North America. They should all be ashamed of themselves - it's a shame hell does not exist, people for you truly would be massively improved by going there for a few centuries !!!!!!

In a way I find their decision wise, but I am not convinced that the planet is going towards the horror they see. Is this 400 AD with barbarians at the gate or is 1400 with 1450 and Renaissance on the horizon?

This is how California ends, this is how California ends, not with a bang, but with a big, big, BIG bang. Usual doom's day scenario. I'm surprised they didn't blame it on global warming!

So what kind of barbarians are we raising, this kind.. the more the Left talks about diversity, getting along together & being politically correct the more our children turn into a bunch of misfits and monsters. Discipline, not political correctness is what makes humans into civilized citizens. Bombs, beatings, shootings - our society is devolving.

I think we will sooner or later find out that many of our legends & myths are actual memories. I Sodom & Gomorrah may or may not been destroyed because of their sin(I doubt God to be so wrath-filled ) but nature knows no favoritism!

Rich guys with too much power want us to return to the dark ages, have fun, join the new age. Go ahead, folks, I am keeping my lights on.

Super interesting - asteroid/meteor hit, mammoths, and iron evidence in tusks and skulls. Our ancestors must have seen some pretty spectacular fireworks !!!! It sounds like it was rather large, too - the asteroid, I mean.

Not exactly a cozy, friendly universe - good news, we really are a boring planet orbiting a small, main sequence star !!

I read this morning that a biologist down south has died of the Plague.

It's the biggest real, honest to goodness monster that still lies in wait for mankind -I think only ebola is anywhere near as scary or as destructive to human populations but it stays cooped up in Africa near the equator, thank God!  Others would disagree with me - there is still small pox, bird flu and typhoid fever, and, of course, tuberculosis, the disease that killed the great poet   Shelly and writers such as the Brontes back in the bad old days... Yes, people worry about AIDS but AIDS is no where near as dangerous because of the way it spreads and the time it takes to kill its victims. The list is smaller than it used to be and I am missing most of the worse ones... do the research and your hair will literally stand on end, my friends!

The Plague, which manifests itself in two forms, can be spread in one form as a cough. In the other form, as a flea bite.  This disease is no Godzilla or King Kong in size but it all but decimated Europe's population in the 1300's. In 1347-48 epidemic at least 1/3 of the population of Europe died, in some towns and cities the toll seems much higher - as many as 1/2 of some populations, died. Some medieval towns perished and never rebuilt. It ended the Middle Ages, the Feudal system, lowering the population of Europe until the 1850's.   It all but ended the respect for the Church's hierarchy because of the number of priests and nuns who fled the plague, well, like the plague  - and so much more of what had been a golden age for Europe.
The High Middle Ages had been a time of good climate, very high population numbers, Kings and Queens, and much that we now consider Western culture ( my beloved troubadours sang their way into history in the very late 1100's, for example.) Romantic love, one of our culture's main motifs was born in Southern France at the same exact time. The Romances of Arthur & the nights of the Round Table & the Holy Grail, all born in the high Middle Ages, when the weather was good, the population high and there was enough to eat for everyone. . The good weather lasted from 900 AD - 1300 AD.

But the weather changed around 1300 - by the early teens of that century it was cold and rainy, wet summers destroyed crops. European crops were extremely limited, still. (Remember, that many foods we now take for granted such as all kinds of potatoes & corn were not available until they were discovered in the Americas.)  Various disease followed the bad weather and massive epidemics took out the weak and old, the very young, first. And then in 1347, the Black Plague, the Black Death - came - and nothing was ever the same, again. This period is what is called the Little Ice Age - the weather of Europe was cold & wetter. Winters were horrific, some years and there was ice skating on the Thames, many years. Our culture turned darker.. the persecutions,the dark side of mankind and western culture have always existed but it was the Black Death that brought them to the forefront of our culture.  Our culture felt mortal and our mortality was right in front of us each morning as we opened our doors - if we were lucky enough to survive -  and death and dead bodies were as common as mmodern bill boards are today in modern cities. Very few families surrived without some loss and many families were entirely wiped out, think about what that did the psychology of those men and women, all our ancestors, and shudder for them, just a little.

(Think about that next time some one screams doom about our higher temperatures. My response? we do better in warmer weather than cooler, so bring it on.  )

And the worse part of the Plague? It reoccurred over many centuries, even appearing, here, in San Francisco in the late 1800's. It hid away, still hides away.  It tormented Europe for centuries.

The plague appears every so often in the deserts of the south-west U.S.A. in the wild life populations that abound in that area of the country. It also appears in India and in Africa in the human populations. It is one of the diseases that has, though it is easily cured if caught in time,the potentiality of destroying civilized life. We would not be in a technological era without our high population numbers and well educated, long lived scientists and technicians who can build and improve our sciences and technologies over their lifetimes. The Black Plague, in our era, would be a nightmare. It doesn't play favorites - we would lose the great scientist and the welder at the GM plant with the same rapidity. The Plague - pandemics generally could destroy everything mankind has built since the Renaissance.
  This time, it seems to have originated in a dead cougar.  The man, a biologist, died of the pneumatic version. Poor guy probably thought he had a bad cold or the Flu, until he began to spit up blood. Its not a pretty death and it destroys a human being very quickly.

  It often appears in the rat-like vermin of the desert. Its primary carrier is a small flea but the flea's body clogs with the disease and when it bites a mammal it transmits the disease  usually, first, to rodents, the rodents ( so ubiquitous to human habitations before the age of technology.)  die off and the fleas jump off and look for new homes - these homes, back in the middle Ages were often human beings, dogs, cats and livestock - or other wild life: in short-  any creature who makes a good home for the fleas.
So - a bad old monster popped up again in the South West United States. It keeps us humble to think about such things. Our great cities, our achievements - all we have built are but veneer. The Plague -  easily killed by antibiotics, killed a man and probably the cat he was studying. Want a monster movie, a horror story to keep you awake at night? I find the real thing terrifying.  People, today, think that we are mighty, that we are in control of nature, that we are smart beyond any of our ancestors - but the truth is that civilization always walks a razor's edge. Our old monsters lurk, waiting for us in the fur of wild cat, in the stagnant water in our back yard, in the mosquito that lands on us in summer.. in the gut of a flea. We aren't half as smart or invincible as we think.

"Who Cares!" Sorry - two days in a row and I am venting - but I really, really need to hear some GOOD news. Butterflies, spring, birds singing, sun rising, I just lost 2 lbs... anything... We lost some of our investment in the market today, and we are not rich by any means. Oh, well, easy come easy go and every other cliche' you can think of that means generally the same thing.
Tonight, a radio show, Coast-to-Coast, is going to have on one of their favorite prophets of Doom - Red Elk, a Indian (OK, thought police, Native American!) He seems a rather odd but very nice man... a bit shrill from time to time, but he is an intense person who is very dedicated to God and his spiritual vision. As a person who has been accused of some small amount of intensity, myself, I tend to give intense people a lot of slack. But what is odd... is ---while prophets have always been doom and gloom sayers for the most part, just read Issiah, if you doubt me, prophecy has always attached to religion. "God says..." "the gods are angry <boom>..." "Zeus is really, really upset at you.." (cleaned that last one up a bit, I can tell you!) "Apollo says..."
It wasn't a secular art form. It was always a warning from God or the gods. Does that mean that science is the new god, the new church of secular philosophy or is it that people just expect science to warn us when we are all about to die? (God can be placated, but nature knows neither mercy or forgiveness.)
The Darker prophecies are spreading beyond the doors of churches in our era. There is Mr. Al Gore, of course, who says the world is doomed already and we are all going to drown. Do I "believe' in global warming? - yes,though I have my doubts of some of their claims. There is some warming, things seem to be melting, yes, but on Mars, also. * I suspect it is the activity of the sun in recent years more than anything we fleas, ah, humans, do. Please read about the ' Little Ice Age' and the sun's inactivity at the height of that period. I am more than willing to cut back on energy use and I don't even drive, so compared to most people I am almost a environmental saint. But I don't think the sky is going to fall even if it does warm up some. Some areas will be warmer, some will become desert,some will be wetter, but earth's climate has never been completely stable. It will be different but is different always a bad thing? In the age of the dinosaur ( Jurassic era) there was an inland sea where Kansas is now.. personally, I think an inland sea might Improve Kansas, but I was forced to spend several awful months in that state in my preteen years and have a small amount of animosity left because of the utter boredom I suffered during the 2 years - oh, sorry, 2 months of those summers.
But I don't want to debate global warming. What I want to point out is that we are being told by many, many people, organizations, communities that this is all there is... the end is coming.. God or Mother Nature, or the Arctic ice shelf is really very angry at us and we are all doomed. We have sinned and will now receive our punishment. Even the liberal secular community is sounding more and more like the Nuns and Priests of the Roman Catholic Church I went to when young. I sinned. I made carbon, now I suffer for my sins. No 'sorry god' either, because, according to them there is no God. Suffer the results of your actions and get it over, seems to be the message of the liberal press and scientists, doesn't it?
Here are some of the prophets who are predicting doom for our era :
Nostradamus (Renaissance prophet and medical doctor) predicted all kinds of disaster and there is a lot of internal evidence that he was talking about our era and what is really scary is that some of it seems to be coming true. Aids, animosity between Russia & the USA growing again, wars, famine, trouble with Islam. His prose/poetry is almost unbearably obtuse and impossible and I also admit that his predictions are often so arbitrary that it could be about any era of mankind but he predicts another anti-Christ who will attempt to plunge us into war, even a lord of terror and though he does not seem to mention two towers, well, he can still make me shake my head in wonder! When I don't want to sleep I read his quatrains and I suggest you do the same.
Some Christians are claiming this is the end times - I don't agree and as a Gnostic, Revelations is not my favorite book of the Bible. I believe it may be an allegory of what happens in a person who is attempting to dedicate their heart & life to Jesus Christ.
Major Edward Dames is another Coast-to-Coast favorite. He is a remote viewer (do your research on that term, think psychic with a scientific twist to his methods. ) Last time I listened to him he predicted that a group of killer shot solar flares will somehow get through our magnetosphere and burn the earth, killing perhaps, millions. I can only call him one of the most depressing men I have ever listened to.
The Hopi **elders seem to think we are doomed also. I read a book about them a very long time ago - it was published when I was in my 20's. Nuclear war, white civilization whipped out is most of their prediction. I suspect they haven't quite forgiven us yet for several things we did in the 1800's and this is wishful thinking.
John Titor*** was a phenomenon on the net that I totally missed until I heard about on, you guessed it ! Coast-to-Coast... He posted on some websites and newsgroups and claimed to be a time traveler from the very near future. He fascinates me for some reason I can not quite understand, myself. His simple posts seem to be a new kind of science fiction novel. Maybe its just I love time travel. He predicts a Civil war between the red and blue states. It disrupts our country and the world. The Middle East blows up in a Nuclear war while we are distracted, Europe is attacked and destroyed. Our enemies (Russia? China?) take advantage of the chaos and nuke all our major cities, ending the civil war by taking out the Blue states. The country is inherited by those who survive. There are 5 countries or areas left and though they cooperate with one another, they are not yet talking about reuniting into one country. People in the his future live in small groups or towns & struggle to survive and lack water and food are constant problems. He said he is in the Military and came back to our time to fetch some computer parts. He said another strange thing: scientists in our time are already working on the science that will create the time machine that brought him to our time.
The bulletin of Atomic Scientists keep a clock (is it a literal clock, I don't know.) and they moved it forward recently because of the chaos of the environment. The y put us at 11:55 - so according them the world could end in the next 5 minutes!
Osama Bin Laden says we are doomed - that is the WEST is doomed and he is the agent of our doom. We are lazy, pleasure loving, godless and we allow our women far too much freedom. We support Israel. We reject Islam. He wishes to set up a world wide caliphate. Those who do not convert to Islam, homosexuals and whores will be executed world wide after he takes control of the world.
Virology & Virologists are constantly warning us that we are do for a pandemic similar to the one that ended World War I in 1918. Most likely, It will be the flu - perhaps, Bird-Flu which has been flying about for quite awhile. It could be a man caused disease, a terror attack, perhaps Ebola. It could be something that comes out of nowhere, a mutation, and causes a massive die-off of mankind before we get it under control, or being a virus we don't get it under control and it has its way with our entire race.

I am sure I am leaving some, perhaps, a lot of people out of this list... but why do so many of us think this is IT> the end of everything?.. we have gone through hard times before. My mom and dad were both born before WWI, my mom lived through the world war in Italy and nearly starved to death, they were married during the depression, had their first daughter in the late 30's and then survived WWII, they survived the cold war and died before it ended of natural causes. Why, then, think suddenly that everything is over? Are we all depressed, are we all feeling guilty, do we all have a secret death wish? Are we all going through a race wide 'dark night of the soul'? What is going on in the hearts and minds of our fellow human beings... Why does Al Gore, a man of incredible success even with his defeat in 2004, now believe that mankind is doomed - that our civilization is doomed? He owns a house 22 times the size of mine, why does he live in such a large house if he believes this is truly the end of days? Is it solely pounds of carbon and the pure sciences of environment and climate or is it a desire to see the end of things with mankind suitably humbled? 20th century Americans have more than any group of human beings ever had before us. A queen of England in 1540 did not have the luxuries I have in this humble house. So what is going on in all our minds - this is what I don't understand.
I live by a different set of rules. I do conserve but because it is cheaper to do so. I use those neat little bulbs because it saves on electricity. I don't drive because I hate driving. I walk a lot because with my weight problem, I better move around a lot. I am grateful for my life, for my husband, cats, home, books and all. I don't want it to end and even though I know I am mortal I would gladly live like this for centuries! I don't want to see the end of days. I love mankind - all of us, even the stupid ones. I want mankind to go to the stars. I believe that mankind will figure out what needs to done and create technologies to keep our civilization going.
Technology, medicine, sanitation has made our lives better, longer and more interesting than any one in the past could have imagined ... so why, exactly are we obsessed with death and the end of the world?

All of this reminds me of a moment of humor in the first Star Trek when Mr. Spock listed all the ways a planet executed criminals, as he said "...the operative word is "DEATH" and it didn't much matter how death came ! (and, no, that isn't an exact quote.)
Now, here is the scary part of this whole essay. I saw something in 1983-84, in meditation. Meditation, when you do it every day, tends to open up depths of the soul and universe you never imagined existed but what I saw isn't the end of days, the end of the world or the end of the human race. It wasn't climate change. I saw a time of transition, massive changes for mankind and the USA. A time of transition that will be remembered for centuries. It is a little like the change of 'the Age' that J.R.R. Tolkien wrote about in his famous books. Many things will pass away and be forgot, but new things will be born and replace what is lost. Yes, the end comes, but birth follows on its heels. So, I say, to everyone who reads this : there is always hope. Trust God, the universe, trust yourself. Value those things and people you love.. Trust the human race. Yes, a lot of us are barely out of the cave but we will survive. Prepare for hard times, but please, don't lose hope!

This is long enough so I won't go into my vision any further, but, I believe, as I said, in tomorrow.
*http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mars_ice-age_031208.html
**http://www.welcomehome.org/rainbow/prophecy/prophecies.html
*** http://www.johntitor.com/
****http://science.howstuffworks.com/doomsday-clock.htm