A hologram?

In his final years with us, Philip K. Dick wrote that the universe is a hologram. He wrote of two universes which broke apart. He wrote of many other things in his 8000 page Exegesis, which he worked on from 1974 until his death in 1982.

As I just said, Philip K. Dick died in 1982, and these things he wrote about mostly in the late 70s.

In 1982, considerable evidence surfaced that the universe might be a hologram. A link for you.

In the 1990s, Michio Kaku (and others) published texts stating that, at the beginning of time, the universe split from a 10-dimensional space into one 4- and one 6- dimensional space. This comes from string theory.

There's more, of course, but why spoil it? If this seems at all interesting, grab a copy of VALIS, The Divine Invasion, and the Exegesis (which afaik you can only get in bits and pieces from various books.) Get a few books on quantum physics and string theory and read up on it. That's what I'm doing, but you probably shouldn't take my word on it all.

The thing which interests me, though - over the next few decades, how many more of PKD's ideas will start to gain some basis as scientific theory?

Anyway, at this point, I'm beginning to convince myself that the world is in fact a hologram and our world is simply a projection of light through it. Due to quantum uncertainty in the position of the particles which make up the hologram, we may see things incorrectly. Or maybe there's some sort of multi-read correction system? Possibly through the noosphere? But if the universe is a hologram and it changes in time due to the fundamental uncertainty of particles, does that give the I Ching credibility? I mean, maybe the I Ching is capable of determining the Moment by deciphering how the particular diviner is seeing things through the hologram? It would make sense, if the universe is a hologram, for the I Ching to work.

It seems I'll need to do more research into the Eastern religions to answer many of these questions. Blah.

It's been so long...

It's been a fantastically long time, I know. I've been both busy and mentally scattered. The stress of school, the election, and my intense paranoia all interfered constructively and destructed my personality.

Wow I make no sense.

During this time, I came up with wonderful theories like...

God is an information wave created and sustained by the propogation of information in the noosphere, but His existence also sustains and propogates the noosphere itself, therefore we form a necessary coupling to all existence.

I'm recovering, however.

I'm looking into books on string theory. It's something that interests me, and I'm hoping to fix some of the problems I've been having relating quantum mechanics to religion with string theory. I'm still pretty sure that advanced physics may hold the true key to discovering God. As a backup plan, though, I'm getting myself a copy of the I Ching. So much fun.

Hopefully my long break with the phenominal world has ended for good and I will be able to post more often. Also, I'm on the facebook now.

World events at the speed of a snail!!!

Things are happening so quickly it's hard to keep track of. Where did I leave off... ?

Oh yes. Kerry concedes, Bush recognizes the "mandate" given to him by 51% of the country which listened to their churches or were genuinely frightened to vote for Kerry. Keep in mind that terror attacks could come at any place at any time, so everybody in small town rural America better damn vote for Bush. It worked. Jesus, is Karl Rove a happy man lately.

Arafat is dead, and suddenly Bush is interested in peace in the Middle East. Wait, peace? I thought we were setting up democracies? I'm so confused... I mean, if peace was the goal, why would we knock down the region's most stable regime? Sure, Saddam was awful, but 1) he never attacked America and doubtless never would have and 2) why are we not playing soldier in countries with far worse human rights violations, like Saudi Arabia, Sudan, or China? So now Bush gets to play peacemaker, and given the circumstances it might even work, and our warmonger president may end up being known throughout history as a peacemaker. WHAT IRONY IS THIS?

Ashcroft resigns, Bush taps Alberto Gonzales. Is it pandering to the Hispanic vote? Pandering to the minority vote in general? Bush simply picking an old buddy of his (who probably got his first job with Bush 10 years ago in an effort to pander?) Is it attempting to replace Ashcroft with a Hispanic Ashcroft, one more immune to outside attacks to stay within the realm of political correction? If you watch the news, and I sure hope you do (and not Fox News, that doesn't count!,) then you doubtless have heard the comments Gonzales has made about the Geneva Conventions. The words used, if you haven't heard, were "obsolete" and "quaint." Okaaaayyy...

Could it be possible to have an Attorney General worse than Ashcroft? Doubful. I think Gonzales will be far better for the civil liberties folks of this country. That doesn't entirely comfort me, though...

In other news, the Fed bumped up interest rates. They are still below the neutral rate, ie the rate at which it makes no difference. What does this mean? Saving your money with interest doesn't even keep you above inflation. How much sense does that make? Absolutely none. It's still a great time to invest your money in silver, although there may be a considerable downward movement in silver in the near future. If it hits $6.50 again, then buy buy buy. It may still drop more short term, but long term you'll see significant gains, especially if the Fed continues printing money and toying with inflation as recklessly as they have lately.

I know it's been forever since the last update and I'm going to try to keep posting more often. I'm just considerably angry about the status of things.

How could this happen?

At this point, I'm going to assume that Bush is going to win. I could be wrong, but I'm going with that assumption.

So how could this happen? How could a guy with Bush's record - which is absolutely awful - get reelected? His approval is below 50%. Most people disagree with him on a large number of issues. This election should have been a CAKEWALK for the Democrats...

...but they've basically lost the House. They've lost the Senate. They've lost the Presidency. (Note: this blog contains forward looking statements. hehehe...) How?!?

The Democrats gave up on what they are good at. They gave up on gays, minorities, the environment. They gave up on Howard Dean. They gave up on the interesting, motivating, and controversial elements in their party. They went into an election where a majority of Americans thought that we should have a new president with a candidate they chose solely because they felt he could beat Bush one on one... and lost.

What's the answer? Is it what I eluded to above? Have the Democrats abandoned their former base?

At this point, I'm too tired to come up with a real answer. I'm too tired to come up with a theory. I'm just pissed - but not surprised - that all of these states are banning gay marriage. I'm pissed that nobody has even mentioned Michael Badnarik, despite the fact that his numbers are right in line with Ralph Nader's (trailing 325k vs 292k at this point) and he's on more state ballots.

Anyway, the Republicans are back in control in a big way. God help us. More later.

A thought about this year's presidential election

Say what you will about how this election will turn out, but it appears to me at this point that George W. Bush will be re-elected. A lot of this depends on turnout; the higher the turnout, the better Kerry's chances.

Here's an interesting question, though: could Bush's second term be significantly different than his first?

The reason I ask this is because I have this hunch that Bush wants the second term his dad never had. In fact, a lot of the things he's doing seem like his father's unfinished business. His dad was a very successful person, but George W. was always a bit of a failure. Look into his oil company, Arbuto was the name, I think. So it is my basic opinion that a lot of his policy has been run with the sole goal of ensuring his reelection.

If this is true, this could mean big changes for the Bush presidency part 2. Without having to worry about the politics of being the chief exec anymore, Bush can do all of the things he wants. Whether this is good or bad remains to be seen. It is, at the very least, a cause for concern.

Spending under the Bush administration has gone up by over 7 points per year. That's *a lot* of extra spending. His second term could bring even more monolithic amounts of pork.

With Rep. John Linder (R-GA) guaranteed re-election [he is running unopposed, in my district, actually] and looking like a prime candidate as chair of the House Rules committee, we could be seeing some changes to the tax code. Rep. Linder is a staunch proponent of the so-called fair tax, so it is possible that the fair tax will get pushed to the floor of the House. I haven't read the fair tax proposal, so I won't bother to comment on it here. I'm probably going to schedule an appointment with Rep. Linder after the election if possible, as I'd like to discuss a few issues with him in person. If he's on the Rules committee and the Republicans maintain control of the House, there is absolutely no reason why they can't fix the tax system. Oh, wait... they only talk about tax code changes to pander to their base... That's right. They could have fixed it, but they didn't. Bastards.

I'll kick Linder's ass around, though. Purely for personal pleasure.

Georgia Tech and the surreal world

As I was walking around Tech today, I couldn't help but feel that I had been sucked into some surrealist world, that I was no longer in Kansas, but instead in a strange world of witches and wizards, angels and demons, priests and heretics...

The past few days there have been a lot of bake sales for a lot of different campus groups. From afar, I saw a sign of which I could only read two words: "for peace." Well, I thought, I will very certainly buy from this bake sale, as peace is something I truly do believe in. As I got closer, though, I realized that 1) it wasn't a bake sale, and 2) the tables belonged to the "GT Students for Israel." They had with them copies of the book The Case For Israel, but I didn't want one of those. I fail to see how a nation who's military fires indiscriminantly into crowds with riot gear, guns, and even helicopters. [I should note here that in this particular case, with the helicopter, there was a fair target being shot at. However, many innocents were injured. It would seem obvious to me that you can't fire two missiles into a crowd of people, at least not if you want to call yourself peaceful. I should also state, for the record, that I do not support Palestinian militants, or militants of any kind, except when in direct response to violence. I'm going to avoid getting into a long conversation about Israel at this point, though...] An organization devoted to peace in the Middle East shouldn't be so one-sided. But I digress...

Past them on the walk was a table for the College Democrats. Hooray for John Kerry, they say. Well, the table was being staffed by the guy who said to be, "John Kerry is a douchebag." Hmm... He sure was giving away a lot of those Kerry stickers. Come on, everybody, John Kerry has a plan! He's going to make health care even worse for the low cost of only hundreds of billions of dollars! He'll also make sure we help spread democracy to the world and saddle our children with the trillions of dollars of debt. We can help pay that off by freezing the assets of the dramatically increasing numbers of terrorists attacking us, so the plan all works out economically. It's good to know that John Kerry has a plan. Oh, wait, he wants to tax the rich, which somehow got the definition of anybody making more than $200,000 per year. That number is conveniently above the pay for Senators, which is what... about $150,000, right? That's right, folks, John Kerry isn't rich, he's an ordinary, everyday fellow. Please ignore the fact that he married into wealth. Twice. Let's also ignore that his wife was previously married to another prominent government figure. Hell, let's just totally ignore the fact that there are so many family ties within our government nowadays that it's beginning to look like a monarchy. It's not a problem, don't worry about it!

I'm just so fucking frustrated right now. I can't put a thought together, I can't make an argument, I just want to start screaming at people. It is so apparent to me, so ridiculous, and I find it all rather transparent. The people of the United States are no longer in control of their government, the government is in control of us. Do you not see it? Is it not clear to you?

...and now, according to a time poll, 56% of Americans want to abolish the electoral college, effectively moving politics only to large cities. Nobody seems to realize that democracy is bad and we have a representative system to protect us from the tyranny of the majority. No, no, no, let's get rid of the electoral college. That will most certainly help destroy any relevance third parties could have. Then the only thing left to do is start arresting people who speak out against the government and we'll be nice and safe.

Thoughts running together too quickly. I give up. This mess is nearly impossible to fix, so I'm just going to assume that it's unfixable. From now on, I'll just be angry, as my persuasiveness seems to be minimal.

Fuck.

The best possible outcome of this election

Obviously, if you've ever read any of my opinions on politics, you know that what I consider to be the "best" outcome is not a "possible" outcome.

So what's the best possible outcome?

Step one: Turn the two houses of Congress against each other. It looks pretty likely that the GOP will maintain control of the Senate, so a huge victory for the Democrats in the House would be good. If the two houses are turned against each other, less damage will be done.

Step two: Elect the President illegitimately. This seems pretty likely. My guess is, and if this turns out to be the case it will be sufficient, that the winner of the election will change at some point. My guess is that Bush will win the election prior to the counting of provisional ballots (which are required by the, what is it called, Help America Vote Act?), but once those ballots are counted, Kerry will win. Odds are a lawsuit will be involved, and we'll have a huge mess again.

Step three: Make sure the people don't accept whoever wins the election. Polls show that most people won't accept the results if their candidate loses, so this is pretty certain.

I think a Bush victory would be more divisive and therefore better. Many conservatives and just about every liberal disagree with Bush, which works towards the ultimate goal of the government not doing anything to harm us more.

Of course, I'm kind of rooting for a Kerry win, simply because I will then be able to prove to people, four years from now, that Kerry is one fucking awful douchebag.

I'm still voting for Badnarik, in case you wanted to know.

Bush endorsements

On the Charles Goyette show, the host (Charles Goyette) mentioned two endorsements for President Bush that were relatively humorous. At the time, I laughed, but upon further consideration, I'm actually quite concerned. Maybe you'll agree when I tell you where the endorsements came from.

The first, Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The second...

...

Iran.

Now, let's start with Putin, since it's slightly less paranoia-inducing. Correct me if I'm wrong, but hasn't Russia been at odds with our foreign policy these past few years? We had major differences on the issue of Iraq, and I see no logic behind a Putin-Bush endorsement. (Putin-Bush... hehehehehehe...) Possibly Putin believes that Bush will win the election and he's attempting to win favor for the Russians. I'm not entirely certain.

While I find the Russian endorsement odd, the Iranian endorsement is disconcerting at best, outrageous at worst. I mean... isn't Iran part of the axis of evil? Perhaps I'm mistaken. The point stands that Bush hasn't been particularly friendly towards Iran and Iran seems a state not far out of our sights. So what is this endorsement? Is it an attempt at garnering U.S. favor to avert military actions there? We already have plenty of U.S. troops in the region, so a quick hop to Iran isn't out of order. Perhaps it's sleight-of-hand aimed at confusing the American populace. "Look, we support you and your President, why would you attack us?" Perhaps. One way or the other, I'm pretty sure we'll hear plenty about Iran in the next four years.

I'm just surprised that we never hear about places like Sudan, where there is genocide going on. Why is it that we have to occupy Iraq to free the people, but we totally ignore Sudan. Even more important, why have we done nothing with Saudi Arabia, the country from which 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers are from? Saudi Arabia is a nasty, awful place, but I will spare you the rant and suggest that you simply google up some info about the status of women and prisoners in Saudi Arabia. It should prove enlightening.