Good Morning World

 

Facts of Life IRONIES

20% of the population will control the remaining 80% (Millionaires)

10% of the population will be very wealthy (Multi-millionaires & Billionaires)

1% of the population will super wealthy (Multi-billionaires)

There is nothing that you can do nor that government can do to change this FACT...  

and, for the most part, becoming wealthy has very little to do with education although education is believed to be the vehicle that gets you there quicker...   

education is the EXCEPTION not the RULE...

As far as the rest of us is concerned...

we must follow the lead of the wealthy...

the wealthy control the LAWS

the wealthy control the MEDIA

the wealthy control the POLITICS

the wealthy control the COMMERCE

the wealthy control the TECHNOLOGY

the wealthy control the HEALTHCARE

the wealthy control the EDUCATION

the wealthy control the MILITARY

What makes these people wealthy and what makes the wealthy wealthier are your buying habits....  
If you did not buy so many DELL computers, the owner of Dell would not be so wealthy....  
If you did not buy MICROSOFT operating systems, Bill Gates would not be so wealthy.

If you did not spend so much time on FACEBOOK, Zuckerburg would not be so wealthy...

If you did not buy so many ILLEGAL DRUGS then the Mexican Drug Cartels would not be so wealthy...

YOU made the wealthy wealthy and YOU made the wealthier even more wealthier...

Now, here's the ultimate irony...  

this type of shit has been going on long before Jesus Christ lived on this earth...  

and, the 80% are powerless to do anything about...  

and, most of the 80% don't even want to know that it is going on...  

they just want to be able to continue their lives, the best way that they can...   

and, when you try to blame WHITE AMERICANS for this problem because of SLAVERY, then all that tells me is the fact that you got your head way up your ass...

Twenty Twenty-two

They say that we live and learn...   first of all - who is they?  And secondly, I am not sure if we do actually learn or learn that much during our lives...  although, it is true that some are going to learn more than others mainly because they started from a foundation of not know much at all...  making book learning, in my opinion, rather superfluous.

Why would I make such a claim being an educator that I am or at least was at one point-in-time?

Life avoids its own realities and in so doing, its pasts never quite catch up to its futures...  in the sense of learning from one's mistakes, both individually and collectively, as we and society grows and evolves...  especially if we think or suspect that our DNA has been altered by some unknown entity sometime in our past.

How can a past catch up to its future if it evolves prematurely?

How can a future gain from its past if it evolves prematurely?

HALF A CENTURY AGO...  in the US of A...  the problems that we experienced in our country are basically the same as the ones that we are experiencing today, it is just that they are dressed in different clothes and spoken by different lips and ignored by different politicians...

Now why would they do this?

In the 1960's (specifically 1966), I paid $.20/gallon for gasoline, bought a pack of cigarettes for $.25, ate a McDonalds hamburger for $.15 and a serving of french fries for $.10, and paid $1.25 for a six-pack of beer...

I lived 5 miles south of Alexandria, VA which was 5 miles outside of Washington, DC...  I could not drink beer in VA but I could drink beer in Washington, DC...

Minimum wage was $1.00/hour

1960's --  We had the following problems:

• racial issues
• wage/salary issues
• equal rights issues
• female rights issues
• discrimination
• police brutality
• lying politicians
• increasing cost of healthcare
• strained relations with russia
• domestic terrorism (although it was not called that)
• a failing public education system
• Crime and violence in the big cities
• organized crimes
• double standards for wealthy and poor
• a socialist movement

2020's --  SAME PROBLEMS - just different names

• Black Lives Matter
• Critical Race Theory
• Cancel Culture (WOKE)
• A failing public education system
• High health care costs
• strained relations with Russia (but also China & North Korea)
• Double standards for wealthy & poor
• Police brutality
• Inflation
• Slow growing economy
• Wages/salaries

Today, 

I pay $3.00/gallon for gasoline

I pay $6.00 for a six-pack of beer

I pay $5.00 for a pack of cigarettes

I pay $2.50 for a Mcdonalds hamburger

Minimum wage is  $7.25/hour

WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS LACK OF GROWTH in the US of A?

is it the black man?

is it the white man?

is it a byproduct of slavery?

will CRT change it?

is Russia influencing?

is it socialism?

is it democracy?

is it our democratic republic form of government?

is it our capitalism?

TWO SOURCES for it

• POLLITICIANS
• WEALTHY (millionaires and billionaires)

Happy

 

Hadrian's Wall

Hadrian’s Wall once marked the extent of the Roman empire in Britannia. Now it’s a pitstop on the way to Scotland’s capital, Edinburgh, or the country’s largest city, Glasgow. Things have changed over the past two thousand years.

But the 73-mile-long chain of walls, ditches, towers, and forts—which stretches across Great Britain, linking the North Sea and the Irish Sea—continues to fascinate. This year, 1,900 years after construction began, soldiers clad in Roman armor will once again patrol its length and the sounds of ancient instruments will float over its ramparts.


Writer Joe Sills and archaeologist Raven Todd DaSilva traverse a tricky section of the wall, just east of Sewingshields Crags. To the right lies Northumberland National Park—home of England’s cleanest rivers and darkest skies.PHOTOGRAPH BY DAVID GUEST


These celebrations make now a great time to visit, and an even better time to hike its length. The wall’s most popular attraction, the sprawling hillside complex of Housesteads Roman Fort, sees some 100,000 visitors per year. But only 7,000 people hike the full length of the wall annually.


The reign of Roman emperor Hadrian (A.D. 117-138) coincided with the pinnacle of Roman power. An expansive emperor—Roman territory reached its widest extent when his reign began—he was known as a builder of monuments, from his opulent villa at Tivoli, near Rome, to the defensive fortifications marking the frontiers of his empire; both are UNESCO World Heritage sites.

Built under Hadrian starting in A.D. 122, the wall stretches through the counties of Northumbria, Cumbria and Tyne, and Wear. For hikers, this landmark near the Scottish border makes the perfect trail for those looking for a straightforward route that barely necessitates a map. Guided by stonework and hedgerows, its path blazes by sidewalks, meadows, woodlands, and crags in a line that has been beaten since ancient times.  READ MORE...

Home Sweet Home

 

CHINA's Artificial Sun Fusion Reactor

China's "artificial sun" has set a new world record after superheating a loop of plasma to temperatures five times hotter than the sun for more than 17 minutes, state media reported.

The EAST (Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak) nuclear fusion reactor maintained a temperature of 158 million degrees Fahrenheit (70 million degrees Celsius) for 1,056 seconds, according to the Xinhua News Agency. The achievement brings scientists a small yet significant step closer to the creation of a source of near-unlimited clean energy.

The Chinese experimental nuclear fusion reactor smashed the previous record, set by France's Tore Supra tokamak in 2003, where plasma in a coiling loop remained at similar temperatures for 390 seconds. EAST had previously set another record in May 2021 by running for 101 seconds at an unprecedented 216 million F (120 million C). The core of the actual sun, by contrast, reaches temperatures of around 27 million F (15 million C).

"The recent operation lays a solid scientific and experimental foundation towards the running of a fusion reactor," experiment leader Gong Xianzu, a researcher at the Institute of Plasma Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said in a statement.

Scientists have been trying to harness the power of nuclear fusion — the process by which stars burn — for more than 70 years. By fusing hydrogen atoms to make helium under extremely high pressures and temperatures, so-called main-sequence stars are able to convert matter into light and heat, generating enormous amounts of energy without producing greenhouse gases or long-lasting radioactive waste.  READ MORE...

Legs

 

Becoming More Likable

What determines whether you click with a new friend, or have chemistry with a potential romantic partner? You might think that these processes of interaction attraction are mysterious, or determined by a person’s unique personal attributes—a quick wit, for example. However, research in social psychology suggests that liking and loving are often triggered by simple, mundane factors—like how often you cross paths with someone.


This research offers some practical suggestions for becoming more likeable, which will help you meet your fundamental need for authentic social connection. Here are 7 of them.

1. Be seen.

The more we are exposed to something, the more we tend to like it. This phenomenon, called the mere exposure effect, helps explain why we tend to prefer familiar music to new tunes, elect political candidates with the most media exposure, and grow fonder of acquaintances the more often we interact with them.


So make an effort to be seen—repeatedly. Turn your camera on during Zoom meetings. Comment on your friends' social media posts. Go to the gym at the same time every day to increase the odds of bumping into the same people.

In short, make yourself visible. Just don’t be creepy about it. And don't overdo it. Too much exposure can backfire – evidenced by the fact that you can get sick of hearing your favorite song when it’s overplayed.


2. Remember names.

Remembering someone’s name is important because it signals that they are important to you. On the other hand, failing to remember someone’s name—or other important details about them—undermines the closeness of the relationship.

One of the keys to connecting with others, then, is to remember names. The trouble is that remembering a name can be difficult. One effective, research-based strategy for remembering names is called retrieval practice—repeatedly pulling information out of your head. Shortly after being introduced to someone, retrieve their name from memory. Ask yourself: “What was their name?” Or, use their name during the conversation. The more often you retrieve a name from memory, the more likely you are to remember it.


3. Ask questions.

Be genuinely curious about other people and ask them questions. Research shows that people who ask more questions during conversations are perceived as more responsive and ar e better liked by conversation partners. When you ask questions, particularly follow-up questions (“What was that experience like?”), you show that you’re actively listening and interested in what the person has to say.  TO FIND OUT ABOUT THE OTHER FOUR, CLICK HERE...

Her's

 

Pink

Not From Viking Civilization

The two Viksø helmets were found in pieces a bog in eastern Denmark in 1942. Archaeologists think they were deliberately deposited there as religious offerings. (Image credit: National Museum of Denmark)

Two spectacular bronze helmets decorated with bull-like, curved horns may have inspired the idea that more than 1,500 years later, Vikings wore bulls' horns on their helmets, although there is no evidence they ever did.

Rather, the two helmets were likely emblems of the growing power of leaders in Bronze Age Scandinavia.

In 1942, a worker cutting peat for fuel discovered the helmets — which sport "eyes" and "beaks" — in a bog near the town of Viksø (also spelled Veksø) in eastern Denmark, a few miles northwest of Copenhagen. The helmets' design suggested to some archaeologists that the artifacts originated in the Nordic Bronze Age (roughly from 1750 B.C. to 500 B.C.), but until now no firm date had been determined. The researchers of the new study used radiocarbon methods to date a plug of birch tar on one of the horn

"For many years in popular culture, people associate the Viksø helmets with the Vikings," said Helle Vandkilde, an archaeologist at Aarhus University in Denmark. "But actually, it's nonsense. The horned theme is from the Bronze Age and is traceable back to the ancient Near East."

The new research by Vandkilde and her colleagues confirms that the helmets were deposited in the bog in about 900 B.C. — almost 3,000 years ago and many centuries before the Vikings or Norse dominated the region.

That dates the helmets to the late Nordic Bronze Age, a time when archaeologists think the regular trade of metals and other items had become common throughout Europe and foreign ideas were influencing Indigenous cultures, the researchers wrote in the journal Praehistorische Zeitschrift.                  TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS, CLICK HERE...

He Who Hesitates

 

Quantum Tornados

Scientists have observed a stunning demonstration of classic physics giving way to quantum behavior, manipulating a fluid of ultra-cold sodium atoms into a distinct tornado-like formation.

Particles behave differently on the quantum level, in part because at this point their interactions with each other hold more power over them than the energy from their movement.

Then, of course, there's the mind-boggling fact that quantum particles don't exactly have a certain fixed location like you or I, which influences how they interact.

By cooling particles down to as close to absolute zero as possible and eliminating other interference, physicists can observe what happens when these strange interactions take hold, as a team from MIT has just done.

"It's a breakthrough to be able to see these quantum effects directly," says MIT physicist Martin Zwierlein.

The team trapped and spun a cloud of around 1 million sodium atoms using lasers and electromagnets. In previous research physicists demonstrated this would spin the cloud into a long needle-like structure, a Bose-Einstein condensate, where the gas starts to behave like a single entity with shared properties.

"In a classical fluid, like cigarette smoke, it would just keep getting thinner," says Zwierlein. "But in the quantum world, a fluid reaches a limit to how thin it can get."

In the new study, MIT physicist Biswaroop Mukherjee and colleagues pushed beyond this stage, capturing a series of absorption images that reveal what happens after atoms' have switched from being predominantly governed by classical to quantum physics.  READ MORE...

Eulogy

 

Revenge is Coming

The leader of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps has warned that revenge for Lt. Gen. Qassem Soleimani’s death will come for the United States from "within" the country itself.

Soleimani, head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Forces, was killed in a Jan. 3, 2020, U.S. strike in Baghdad, days after Iranian-backed militia supporters stormed the U.S. Embassy in Iraq.

Brig. Gen. Esmail Ghaani, head of Iran’s elite Quds force, gives a speech during a ceremony to mark the one-year anniversary of the killing of senior Iranian military commander Gen. Qassem Soleimani in a U.S. attack, in Tehran, Jan. 1, 2021. (Reuters)

Brig. Gen. Esmail Ghaani, who replaced Soleimani, spoke during the second anniversary of Soleimani’s death, which Iran has labeled as "martyrdom." Ghaani underscored the republic’s dedication to avenging the general’s death, saying that the "ground for the hard revenge" will come from "within" the homes of Americans.

"We do not need to be present as supervisors everywhere, wherever is necessary we take revenge against Americans by the help of people on their side and within their own homes without our presence," Ghaani said, according to Tasnim News.

Iran's Lt. Gen. Qassem Soleimani was killed in a U.S. attack in Baghdad in January 2020.

He urged the United States to "deal" with those involved in Soleimani’s "assassination" itself before the "children of the Resistance Front" need to take matters into their own hands.

"This revenge has begun," Ghaani added. "Americans will be uprooted from the region."

The Tasnim News Agency is a private agency owned by the Islamic Ideology Dissemination Organization, which claims to defend "the Islamic Revolution against negative media propaganda campaign and providing … readers with realities on the ground about Iran and Islam."

Firewatch

 

More Water

 

Math Is A Fundamental Part of Nature

Nature is an unstoppable force, and a beautiful one at that. Everywhere you look, the natural world is laced with stunning patterns that can be described with mathematics. From bees to blood vessels, ferns to fangs, math can explain how such beauty emerges.

Math is often described this way, as a language or a tool that humans created to describe the world around them, with precision.

But there's another school of thought which suggests math is actually what the world is made of; that nature follows the same simple rules, time and time again, because mathematics underpins the fundamental laws of the physical world.

This would mean math existed in nature long before humans invented it, according to philosopher Sam Baron of the Australian Catholic University.

"If mathematics explains so many things we see around us, then it is unlikely that mathematics is something we've created," Baron writes.

Instead, if we think of math as an essential component of nature that gives structure to the physical world, as Baron and others suggest, it might prompt us to reconsider our place in it rather than reveling in our own creativity.

(Westend61/Getty Images)

A world made of math
This thinking dates back to Greek philosopher Pythagoras (around 575-475 BCE), who was the first to identify mathematics as one of two languages that can explain the architecture of nature; the other being music. He thought all things were made of numbers; that the Universe was 'made' of mathematics, as Baron puts it.

More than two millennia later, scientists are still going to great lengths to uncover where and how mathematical patterns emerge in nature, to answer some big questions – like why cauliflowers look oddly perfect.

TO READ MORE ABOUT THE FUNDAMENTAL PART OF NATURE, CLICK HERE...

Classic Sunday Morning Newspaper Cartoons