Facts Schmacks. Stop confusing me!

By Joseph Walther

I swear! Am I missing something, or are huge numbers of people overly captivated by the intellectualization of simplicity? Of course, you are probably more familiar with its technical term: mental masturbation.

Just tune into any of the nationally broadcast cable TV talking heads on CNN, MSNBC, Fox, etc. It’s all they seem to do. Radio talk shows, both nationally syndicated and the local fare do their part, too. And, apparently, we’re tuning in to listen in droves.

Conversely, we also have a flair for oversimplifying complexity. Perpetual, mind-numbing detail is a hallmark of the intellectualization of simplicity. The more of it we get, the more we resent it.

The more the “intellectualizers” drone on with gratuitous detail, the greater the need for the “oversimplifiers” to eliminate it, pertinence notwithstanding. The more some people can replace complexity with simplicity (real or imagined), the easier it becomes to make decisions, stupid or otherwise.

And, in no other endeavors are these activities more prevalent than in our political and community-oriented arenas. Generally, we can invent, and accept as fact, more speculation per factual tidbit than any other society on Earth.

Here are two examples. Both are germane to my home state of Delaware. And, granted, neither of these threaten the foundations of civilization as we know them, but I’ll bet anything you’d like that the same type of nonsense is taking place all over this country.

The first involves a long sitting, United States Senator. The second involves an ongoing war of words over which of two cities, within 30-miles of each other, is more dangerous to live in: Wilmington, DE or Philadelphia, PA.

First, let me explain Delaware’s location on the map because about 90% of the country has no clue. Throughout my extensive travels about the United States, people have proven this by asking if it’s in Pennsylvania or New Jersey.

It’s located in neither of these other states. Delaware is that tiny, dangling strip of land hanging down beneath South Eastern Pennsylvania, just west of the Delaware River.

Even though, traditionally, most people have had no idea where Delaware is, now that Senator Joe Biden—our long sitting U. S. Senator—is Barack Obama’s VP candidate, things have changed radically.

Oh, most still have no idea where Delaware is, but EVERYONE now knows Joe Biden. Or, at least they think they do and this applies to the locals in particular.

Right here in good old New Castle County, Delaware, a participant on a popular local forum had typed the words; “Biden’s a draft dodger.” He based this on a small newspaper’s report that Joe Biden had “gone to college” and had “not served in the military.”

This individual took two facts, that Joe Biden went to college and that he had not served in the military, and placed them in tandem, arriving at a highly self-serving conclusion: Joe Biden’s a draft dodger.

He didn’t write; “It seems that Joe Biden’s a draft dodger,” or “Joe Biden may have been a draft dodger.” No! He concluded and wrote that Joe Biden IS, absolutely, a draft dodger.

I’ve known Joe Biden for 54-years. He’s exactly 4-months and 28-days younger than I am. While I disagree with many—most, actually—of his political positions, I’ve always liked him and respected him.

Regardless, the law at the time required all males to register with Selective Service upon reaching the age of 18-years. I complied in June of 1960 and I know, factually, that Joe complied in late November of the same year.

I eventually ended up in Vietnam. However, our draft board—we were under the jurisdiction of the same one—immediately rejected Joe on medical grounds. He was a serious asthmatic, a little factual tidbit that the press had also reported.

But, our intrepid forum participant dismissed this because Joe Biden went on to play sports at Archmere Academy, Joe’s high school alma mater.

Perhaps it was because of his admitted dislike for Liberals or because he’s simply stupid, he inferred that Joe lied about his condition just to avoid the draft and going to Vietnam.

I suspect that this individual’s understanding of how the “draft” worked was non-existent, most probably because he had not yet been born at the time Joe and I registered.

First, it never occurred to him that before a draft board legitimately rejected anyone for medical reasons, at least two independent board-certified physicians had to verify the conditions.

Second, he seems not to have any understanding of the difference between various medical conditions that would disqualify an individual from military service and the ones that would disqualify an individual from participating in high school sports.

Chronic asthma is a serious condition. But with adequate precautions in place, sufferers CAN play high school sports. However, it would be virtually impossible to put those same precautions in place under military conditions.

I tell you this as a combat veteran of numerous night patrols throughout that jungle hellhole. The last thing I would have needed was an asthmatic going into a loud, convulsive, oxygen-deprived wheeze.

We’d have had a better chance of survival had we simply fired a flare into the night sky and yelled, “Yoo-hoo! Here we are… over here behind this tree.”

The bottom line is that Joe’s condition was legitimate and severe enough to rule out military service. He was not the only one rejected and he was not a draft dodger.

Jack Kemp received a medical deferment because of a “bad” knee. If you’ll recall, this did not prevent the former nine-term Republican Congressman and Vice Presidential nominee from playing professional football in the NFL for 8-years.

I never considered Jack Kemp a draft dodger, anymore than I considered the many that applied for and received legitimate college deferments as draft dodgers.

OK, now let’s turn our attention to another local matter, a discussion over which city is more dangerous to live in: Philadelphia, PA or little “ole” Wilmington, DE.

The conversation was between two Wilmingtonians, both avid haters of Philadelphia and its politics. Both insisted that living in Philadelphia was more dangerous than living in Wilmington.

As evidence of this, both tossed out accurate statistics involving the number of murders in both cities for the years 2006, 2007, and to date in 2008. However, I’m going to use only one year to make MY point. The reason will become obvious.

In 2006, there were 406 homicides in Philadelphia but only 23 homicides in Wilmington. If you use only absolute numbers, you’ll run—not walk—away from Philadelphia as fast as you can.

The problem is that absolute numbers do not accurately depict comparative safety because they do not account for varying population sizes. In order to achieve this, we need a common means of comparing. The most common is occurrences per 100,000 inhabitants.

To make sense of it, we need to know the relative population sizes of the cities we want to study. In 2006, Philadelphia, PA was home to about 1,500,000 people. In the same year, Wilmington, DE was home to about 70,000 people.

What, therefore, was the murder rate per 100,000 people in Philadelphia in the year 2006 as compared to that of Wilmington, DE for the same period? Here’s the arithmetic involved.

First, divide the population size by 100,000. Then divide this result into the number of murders for the reporting period.

For Philadelphia, the numbers are 1,500,000 divided by 100,000. You’ll get the number 15. Divide the 406 murders by 15. You’ll arrive at a murder rate of around 27/100,000 (that’s 27 murders for each 100,000-city inhabitants).

Do the same calculations for Wilmington, DE. Divide the city population of 70,000 by 100,000. The answer is 0.70. Then, divide the number of murders (23) by 0.70. You’ll arrive at an answer of about 33.

Wilmington’s murder rate for each 100,000 inhabitants for the year 2006 was 33 (33/100,000). You can now see that Wilmington was approximately 18% more dangerous than Philadelphia was.

This method of calculation is a more realistic comparison in terms of danger; it’s also a better indicator of a city’s propensity for murder.

For example, if Philadelphia had experienced Wilmington’s rate per 100,000 inhabitants in 2006, that city would have had 495 murders instead of 406.

From another, equally valid angle, if Wilmington, DE had experienced the city of Philadelphia’s rate for the same period, Wilmington would have had 16 murders instead of 23.

And, it’s looking worse for Wilmington for the year 2008. Projecting based on murders reported through July, Philadelphia’s rate will end up at around 21/100,000 while Wilmington’s will end up around 33/100,000.

So based strictly on murder rates, it seems prudent to stay the hell out of Wilmington, Delaware. Whatever the reasons, the inhabitants there appear to be a crankier lot than those in Philadelphia!

Joe Walther is a freelance writer and publisher of The True Facts. You may comment on his column by clicking here.

Humor's supposed to be funny, but sometimes it's only stupid!

By Joseph Walther

I’ve participated in—for over a year, now—a political activist forum called NationalConstitutionalConvention06@yahoogroups.com. It’s a worthwhile group moderated by Eric Reinhardt.

Mr. Reinhardt is an intelligent, sincere American patriot who believes we need another Constitutional Convention to return the country to its proper focus.

I agree with him even though I don’t think it’s going to happen in my lifetime or his.

He works hard at his moderator duties. He’s patient, fair, and empathetic. And, while most of the participants are sincere, intellectually curious people with some great ideas, an occasional moronic gem slips through.

As infrequent as they are, they nevertheless tend to mock, if not seriously undermine, the intended tenor of the group’s purpose.

A piece titled “True American Humor” posted through the group on behalf of Mr. Eric Martin. In fairness to Mr. Martin, I’m not sure if he wrote the piece or simply posted it to be facetious.

Regardless, I present it here in its entire unedited, moronic splendor. But, instead of using quotes to enclose the piece’s words, I’ve put them in 10-point bold italics. My comments follow in regular 12-point Verdana font.

True American Humor

It is time to change from REDNECK humor to TRUE AMERICAN Humor!

Only it isn't seen as HUMOR, but the correct way to LIVE YOUR LIFE! If you feel the same, pass this on to your True American Friends. Y'all know who they are...

It’s presumptuous, not to mention arrogance personified, for you to declare the “correct” way for people to live their lives. What are your qualifications?

I’ve been an American for a very long time. I suspect that my wristwatch is older than you are. I have many friends in this country, all of which are TRUE AMERICANS.

But, I’ll not be passing this on to any of them because, in addition to thinking I’ve lost my mind, they’d ALL be grossly offended by this kind of thoughtless tripe.

You might be a TRUE AMERICAN if: It never occurred to you to be

offended by the phrase, 'One nation, under God.'

This has never offended me, but I’ve never put much stock in it, either. The first time I recited the Pledge of Allegiance was in April of 1946. The words, “under God” were not part of it.

While there were many attempts to include them, beginning about 1952, the words, “under God,” were not included until President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a bill into law on June 14, 1954.

The details will give you a headache, but the rationale behind the movement had more to do with the Joe McCarthy’s “godless commie scare,” than it did with anything involving common sense.

Many, at the time, believed that atheism and communism were synonymous terms. While it was certainly true that most world communists were atheists, it was not so in North America.

Most North American atheists are NOT communists, but why confuse idiots with facts when they’ve already made up their minds.

You might be a TRUE AMERICAN if: You've never protested about seeing the 10 Commandments posted in public places.

I’d not waste a single second of my life protesting such a thing. It does not bother me one bit if people place the Ten Commandments in public places: courthouses, post offices, or anywhere else for that matter.

But, there’s a catch. Even though not all Americans believe in God, most claim to do so. Of those who do, approximately 75% identify with Christianity.

The remaining 25% identify with various non-Christian religions—all of which are official IRS 990 exempt-qualified. As such, they have the same rights as Christians have relative to displaying their religious tenets in public places.

It seems, however, that Christians who demand the right to share their religious views with the rest of us via public places, have absolutely no interests in reciprocity!

You might be a TRUE AMERICAN if: You still say 'Christmas' instead of 'Winter Festival.'

I’m mid-way through the winter of my life. I’ve been around the world at least 9-times. I’ve been to every state in this glorious country, many of them several times. And, YET, I’ve NEVER had anyone wish me a “Happy Winter Festival.”

Mostly people have said, “Merry Christmas.” Not as frequently, but often, I’ve heard, “Happy Holidays.” But I’ve NEVER heard anyone say, “Happy Winter Festival.”

However, since I believe in respecting others’ beliefs, I find the greeting, “Have a great holiday!” to be quite convenient. But, for the record, I’ve NEVER wished anyone a “Happy Winter Festival.”

You might be a TRUE AMERICAN if: You bow your head when someone prays.

This all depends on the location. During a religious ceremony to which someone has invited me, I respectfully observe all protocols. However, I do not feel compelled to bow my head because someone next to me in the library begins to pray.

You might be a TRUE AMERICAN if: You stand and place your hand over your heart when they play the National Anthem.

I’ve always done this. I do it even while surrounded by TRUE AMERICAN REDNECKS who can’t remember to remove their stupid baseball caps. I also know ALL the words, in three languages, even though I can’t sing worth a hoot.

You might be a TRUE AMERICAN if: You treat Viet Nam vets with great respect, and always have.

I AM a Viet Nam veteran who served two combat tours in that hellhole. I have extremity scars from the first wound and a nasty chest scar from the second one.

And, while I’m at it, I want whoever wrote “True American Humor” to understand this. Neither my fellow combatants nor I fought in Viet Nam to protect America’s way of life. North Viet Nam was NEVER a threat to America.

America had treaty obligations and my generation was drafted to honor them. This, in itself, was legal justification for our involvement in Viet Nam.

The American people would have understood this and supported it. Instead, our government lied through its collective teeth about our reasons for sending troops there.

I was not proud of my government relative to Viet Nam. I thought lying about the reasons for our involvement was stupid and condescending, not to mention the fact that it caused several future generations to develop a legitimate DISTRUST for government.

And, worse still, our government has never stopped lying about such things, which is why people question motives even under seemingly legitimate circumstances.

Recall, if you will, that even after all of the “wolf-crying,” communism did not overtake the West after we left with our tails between our legs. I think Nixon referred to it as “peace with honor.”

Speaking for myself, I call Richard Nixon’s “peace with honor” pure, second-rate fertilizer and my HONORABLE discharge grants me the right to say so.

You might be a TRUE AMERICAN if: You've never burned an American flag.

I’ve burned a few flags. Burning is the proper way to dispose of a tattered and worn American flag. And, while I’ve never burned one in effigy, I have no problems with people who use the action as a means of legitimate political expression.

Again, my father and millions of other fathers, brothers, sisters, uncles, and aunts fought WWII, to the death for many of them, to make sure we all retained our freedoms of expression, whether we agree with the forms or not.

Even idiots who write stuff like “True American Humor,” continue enjoying the right to do so because of the World War II combatants, along with all who currently stand at the ready to defend such rights—even dying in the effort, if necessary.

You might be a TRUE AMERICAN if: You know what you believe and you aren't afraid to say so, no matter who is listening.

To this one I say, GROW UP. Compassion has a place even in legitimate criticism. Our believing something does not make it a fact.

You might be a TRUE AMERICAN if: You respect your elders and expect your kids to do the same.

“Elder” is not tantamount to “interesting.” People are either interesting or they’re not; age is irrelevant. Regardless of age, people must earn respect; we can’t compel it.

While neither my children nor I would treat elderly people unkindly, we’re not going to hand out respect based on impending transience.

You might be a TRUE AMERICAN if: You'd give your last dollar to a friend.

This one is senseless. People who are, themselves, broke, can’t help members of the “down on their luck” crowd. The idea is preposterously stupid!

If you got this email from me, it is because I believe that you, like

me, have just enough TRUE AMERICAN in you to have the same beliefs as those talked about in this email.

The sender of this email notwithstanding, I have nothing in common with whoever wrote “True American Humor.” People, who take the piece as a way in which Americans should live their lives, are the antipathy to what “true Americans” are all about.

God Bless the USA ! Amen.

AND PLEASE DO NOT FORGET TO SING THE NATIONAL ANTHEM IN ENGLISH.

See my comments above under “National Anthem.” I’ll sing it in whichever language I want.

English, while difficult for people to learn, is the most convenient and expressive one on Earth, especially in written form. It contains close to a million words while most others have less than 300-thousand words.

Prudent business people know this. They also know the sales effectiveness in the ability to speak multiple languages.

I have no qualms over voting English as the “official” language of this nation, but I don’t go into a catatonic state when people have difficulty speaking it with the same ease that I do.

Git'er done!!!!!!!! !!!!

This one puts the entire piece into proper perspective. The problem is that the actual catch phrase is, “Git-R-Done.” While a “True American” may know this, rednecks mostly do not.

Dan Whitney (Larry the cable guy) is a genuinely well-adjusted comedian who found a niche speaking and acting like a redneck. He’s made millions thanks to the fact that people like the author of “True American Humor” believe this stuff with the seriousness of a social documentary.

Joe Walther is a freelance writer and publisher of The True Facts. You may comment on his column by clicking here.

Poor guy! Barely kept his family fed...

By Joseph Walther

There is no doubt about it. Whenever someone mentions the name George W. Bush, people respond with either disgust or unquestioned admiration. There does not appear to be a middle ground, especially over the past 24-months.

I witnessed a discussion between proponents of these opposing views just three days ago. One man expressed his dislike for Mr. Bush by accusing him of “screwing us in order to pad his banking account.”

His opponent vehemently disagreed by calling the accuser a vulgar name and declaring him full of fecal matter for having “no proof.”

Of course, neither of these gentlemen came close to offering any validation that reasonable people might confuse with those things we call facts.

I am a pragmatist, which is code for skeptic, which is code, at least in the minds of some, for “opinionated old fart.” Whatever! I wear the title proudly.

If one exists, “In God we trust” makes perfect sense to me. But, in ALL other cases, audits would be the order of the day, especially whenever politicians and political pundits are involved.

Political longevity begets prominence. Political prominence begets power. And, political power is precisely what astute politicians learn to use as leverage into the world of immense personal wealth, most often through the subtle, but strategic, misuse of public assets.

George W. Bush didn’t invent this. He’s not been the first to use it, nor will he be the last. He’s merely the most gullible. Look for yourselves.

First, let me get a big point of contention—the Iraqi War—out of the way. It has nothing to do with his personal wealth, but it’s important.

Whether people generally agree or not that the war was a mistake is immaterial. So are all of the disagreements over what motivated it.

There is ample consensus, however, that the execution of the war, until recently, has been a nightmarish disaster for all concerned.

Most people lay blame for this directly at the feet of Mr. Bush—and rightly so, in my opinion. Undeniably, though, things have improved greatly over the past year.

It is only fitting that we also lay the credit for this at the same set of feet: those of Mr. Bush.

I’m not saying that he’s finally come to a cultural understanding of the region, but he deserves the credit for finally surrounding himself with competent people who do understand it and letting them run things.

OK, let’s move on to Mr. Bush’s personal wealth in terms of where it now stands (estimated to be between $8-million and $15-million) and how it got there.

I base what follows on more than mere speculation, including a number of public court records.

George W. Bush was a failed oilman, who, in relative terms, barely kept his family fed. Then, one day, without “shootin’ at some food,” stock options bubbled up through the ground instead of “crude.”

Texas Tea it wasn’t, but his Harken stock options were just as valuable. They were available because Mr. Bush worked for Harken Energy back in the early 1990s.

They accrued so much value because, according to investigators, he had “insider” help.

Investigative journalists from the Wall Street Journal and other prominent newspapers besieged him with questions regarding several legal questions. As usual, though, his replies raised more questions than answers.

In short, he earned about $900,000 on a sale made under the same type of circumstances that would, many years later, send Martha Stewart to prison.

The main difference was that Martha’s conviction resulted from far more questionable evidence. The bottom line… George got away with it.

No one’s ever characterized George W as intellectually endowed. Most of his opportunities resulted from family connections and a desire on the part of very wealthy Texas business people to exploit the Bush name.

A man, William (Bill) DeWitt, had earlier bailed George out by buying his failed oil company. He later sold that company to Harken.

Bill then offered George W, along with other Texas investors, most notably Richard Rainwater, a chance to join in a bid to buy the Texas Rangers. The conglomeration bought the team in 1989.

While George W. Bush fell embarrassingly short relative to finances sufficient to play at this level on the big business playground, he was precisely what the group needed in what psychologists call the “affective domain.”

He borrowed $500-thousand from a bank, on whose board he once sat, to purchase a two percent share of the baseball team. He repaid the loan out of the proceeds from cashing in his Harkens stock options.

His official title was “managing partner,” but some thought that it was just a cover for his real title: “political aphrodisiac.” On the surface, all he had to do was attend all home games so the TV cameras could pan in on him.

Below the surface, however, his job was to lure the citizens of Arlington, Texas into a lustfully amorous mindset conducive to having them eagerly submit to the other group partners’ financial gang-bang.

He may not have thought of his actions as active participation in the carnage, though. Perhaps, in his mind’s eye, those folks really wanted it. All he did was provide the intimate dinner, some nice wine, a “place”, and some mental lubricant.

George W. Bush had absolutely no say in the day-to-day operation of the baseball franchise. Edward Rose, another wealthy Texas investor and associate of Richard Rainwater, was in charge of this aspect of the ownership.

However, like most owner-groups, this one wanted a brand new stadium for their baseball team. They did not want to pay for it, though. It was George’s job to get it done.

So, by threat of moving the team, and leaving it to George Bush to convince the city of Arlington to foot the bill, they received a free one.

The city complied by tendering $135-million of the required $190-million. They obtained the rest by applying a ticket surcharge aimed at the “building” fund.

Regardless, taxpayers and baseball fans (71% and 29% respectively) paid for the new stadium.

Even better, the deal permitted the owners to buy back the new stadium for $60-million by having the city of Arlington deduct it from ticket sales at a rate of no more than $5-million a year.

Essentially, billionaire-level private investors substantially increased the value of their holdings by having the tax-paying public pay increased local taxes. In all, they received a $200-million stadium without spending a dime of THEIR own money.

And, George W. Bush carried out his function well. He singlehandedly sold the project to the voters, sans any mention of screwing them, of course.

But, the late Ann Richards (then Democratic Governor of Texas) made the deal even sweeter by signing into law the Arlington Sports Facilities Development Authority (ASFDA).

This gem of legislation made it legal for government to seize privately owned land as long as they deemed it necessary for stadium construction. Land resale values quadrupled for those members of the “inner” circle.

Whenever the group wanted a particular land parcel, it would make a below market offering to the owner. If the owner refused to sell, in came the ASFGA.

Court records show that the Texas Rangers paid out millions in settlements as the result of such shenanigans.

George Bush announced his intent to run for governor in November 1993 (before the stadium even opened). He became governor in 1994. He placed his assets in a blind trust… well, except for his ownership in the Texas Rangers.

He kept his interests until a man, Tom Hicks, bought the team in 1998. But it seems that a miracle had happened by then. George’s share of the team had risen well beyond the original two percent. No one knows how or why.

However it happened, it resulted in his initial $600-thousand investment blossoming into a $15-million personal fortune, all of it through the misuse of public assets by the politically powerful.

Finally, I’d have to use an additional thousand words to describe the rest of Bush’s dealings in this and several other same theme deals.

I could write an entire chapter on Bush’s relationships with Tom Hicks, the Carlyle investment group, and UTIMCO—the University of Texas Investment Management Company. Ann Richards figured prominently with respect to this last one, too.

As well, the names of other political luminaries like Frank Carlucci, former secretary of defense under Reagan, and James Baker III, former secretary of state under George H. W. Bush come up quite often relative to many of these deals.

This is what our politicians do! They’ve always done it, only they now do it so blatantly. Of course, they’re subtle enough to keep ahead of the laws.

And, we let them get away with it by gullibly and repeatedly sending the same cagy foxes to guard the henhouse.

We’re the ones who have to change. Until we do, the beltway “johns” will continue shoving it up our collective butts without so much as cursory preparatory kiss!

Joe Walther is a freelance writer and publisher of The True Facts. You may comment on his column by clicking here.

Of spaceships and little green dudes and dudettes!

By Joseph Walther

I quote directly and unedited. “There’s definitely ‘exterterrestials’ out there. A friend of mine, who’s a science major, saw em last week as he was comin’ home from a night class at Community College in Catonsville.”

I am not making this stuff up. I overheard this as I left a McDonalds. Two men, one in his mid-twenties, the other in his forties… at the youngest, were having this conversation as they sat at an outside table in front of the restaurant.

My ears are especially attuned to this sort of statement. They seem to be able to detect such conversations from miles away. It is virtually impossible for me to ignore them and just walk away!

Before going on, I’m making this disclaimer for the record. First, the community college these two mentioned is part of the Community College of Baltimore County’s multi-campus institution, one of which is located in Catonsville, Maryland.

This is an academically solid, fully accredited college with an outstanding faculty, many members of which hold Doctorates in their respective fields.

Sincerity notwithstanding, whatever the science major may have seen OR said to his friend about this matter had nothing to do with any aspect of the College.

Second, the two men having the conversation I’m referring to were just as sincere. Neither one was boisterous or obnoxious. Other than a tiny hint that both may have, shall we say… partook of a wee bit of the grape prior to stopping at McDonald's, they BOTH seemed quite lucid and gregarious.

As well, both of them were very persistent in their accusations that these sightings “happen every damn (not the word they used) day,” and that the United States Air Force “covers this stuff (not their word) up.”

So, I felt both safe AND comfortable as I sat down next to the older one and asked the younger one to describe what his friend actually saw and whether anyone else had witnessed it.

I also gave them one of my business cards and explained that even though I have nothing to do with the federal government; I like to check these things out.

Well, guess what! You probably already have, I’ll bet. Like Moses’ alleged reciprocal conversation with a burning bush on that mountain top many centuries ago, there were no witnesses.

Besides, you folks would not believe what they told me, anyway. So, I’m not even going into it.

But, since NASA’s report of the Phoenix Explorer sending back evidence of water on Mars, I’ve heard many comments concerning the “likelihood” of life in “outer” space.

While most of them have raised legitimate and intriguing points, others have been so farfetched as to be simultaneously sad and hilarious.

So, I present this in order to posit another perspective, one that accounts for the effects of the sheer, infinite-like scale of the known universe. And, also, to clarify some misused terms: possibility, probability, and likelihood.

That we exist at all is an amazing fact in itself. But, even more amazing is how complex we humans have become, even though we’re made of the same stuff as the stars and the rest of the inanimate universe.

Evolution, a highly distasteful theory for some of the “God” people, nevertheless remains a highly robust theory because it’s been scientifically testable, AND it consistently explains much more than it doesn’t.

Thanks to this and our species’ ability to adapt, we’ve evolved with two unique abilities: self-awareness and proactive thinking as opposed to instinctive reaction.

Indeed, we’re proof that consciousness arose on this pinhead-size rock, third in a line of several other-planets orbiting an average, but not remarkable, star located in the outer tail of a huge galaxy that is only ONE among billions.

We call it the Milky Way Galaxy. And it’s BIG, too, incomprehensively HUGE! Here’s an idea of how big it is. I’ve purposely expressed light years and their MILE equivalencies in order to emphasize just HOW big.

Milky Way’s disk has a diameter of about 120,000 light years. At about 5.8-trillion miles per light year, this comes to 704,346,347,520,000,000—that’s 704-quadrillion, 346-trillion, 347-billion, 520-million miles!

It has an enormous vertical thickness, too: about 1,000-light years. If you’re planning a trip from top to bottom, take a good-sized lunch because you’ll be traveling about 5,869,552,896,000,000 miles.

The distance from planet Earth to Milky Way’s galactic nucleus is about 30,000 light years or around 176-quadrillion, 086-trillion, 586-billion, 880-million miles (176,086,586,880,000,000).

Our indistinguishable, dot-size solar system—the Sun, all its orbiting planets, planetary satellites, and asteroids—circles the Galaxy about once every 225-million years (225,000,000).

And, thanks to our upgraded Hubble Space Telescope, evidence suggests that our star (Sun) is only one of an estimated 300- to 400-billion others within just this galaxy.

So if it(our Sun) flickered and went out RIGHT NOW, the remainder of the Milk Way, let alone the rest of the universe, would neither notice it or miss us.

Cosmological/Astrophysical Science, among others, is backed up by many centuries of scientific observation, testing, more testing, and, still more testing.

This has granted scientists the ability to make sophisticated and testable predictions about the universe. While much of it remains theoretical, many of our theories have become highly robust.

Of course, it’s still all based on an assumption that what WE can see is only a fraction of everything that’s out there. And, things can change, as they have many times in our past. But, so far, so good.

Still, there are more questions than answers. Science doesn’t know it all and may never answer some of the questions. But, so far, we think we know enough answers to place some range of limits on our freedom to believe just any old thing we desire.

Like it or not, science can tell us only what’s there. Sometimes we don’t like it. At others, it’s not thrilling enough for us. So fantasy and gullibility step in and fill the scientific voids to make things more interesting and intriguing.

But, “wishing to believe” does not create facts any more so than martyrdom verifies the veracity of a belief. It does address a martyr’s undaunted commitment TO a belief, but that’s all it does.

For some people—most of them are politicians—science consists of a litany of highly tedious, mind numbing, boring, and unfathomable tenets, all seemingly conspiring to cause us perpetual migraine headaches.

It is so much more alluring to imagine “space folks” on determined, targeted missions to seek us out, snatch us up into their “space buggies,” and whiz us away at warp-10 to conduct biological probes and, perhaps, engage in some kinky, intergalactic sex with us.

Is Earth the only place where life exists? I don’t know. I’ve asked other legitimate scientists about it, too. Each has said the same thing: “I don’t know.”

“Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence,” wrote Carl Sagan. Our science, so far, has NOT found any evidence of life out “there.” This does NOT mean that none exists, only that we’ve yet to find any.

By its sheer scale, though, the universe certainly makes multiple random occurrences possible. This same scale also makes it reasonable to assume probabilities for other life in the universe.

But, this is where communications break down. Possibilities exist by their nature; they’re not the same as probabilities, though. And, probabilities, in the scientific sense, NEVER mean “likely.”

A probability is stronger than a possibility. But, it can be as weak as the smallest fractional measure greater than zero, as strong as the largest fractional measure less than one, or any point in between.

Because of the universe’s infinite-like size, life in the rest of the universe is possible. We can even say, legitimately, that there is a probability of such existence. However, in the absence of scientific evidence to the contrary, we can’t say that it’s “likely.”

In the world of possibilities and probabilities, “likely” has to be supported by scientific, reliably predictive evidence. Empirical thinking, while alluring, doesn’t count much in natural law.

How many grains of sand would you estimate are on a ten-mile stretch of sandy beach? No matter the estimate, the number falls considerably short of the number of stars in the universe.

Yes, space dudes and dudettes might be looking for us. With the sheer size of the matter, it’s certainly a possibility. We could even assign a probability to the prospect.

But, I’d lay some serious money on the proposition that you’d “likely” find a specific, single grain of sand on that beach I described above long before those “space folks” found EARTH.

Besides, if it’s sex they’re seeking, I hear that the Andromeda Galaxy is a virtual hothouse of seething, unbelievably kinky stuff—THE literal Sodom and Gomorrah of the universe. So, they’d probably go there instead. See you next week.

Joe Walther is a freelance writer and publisher of The True Facts. You may comment on his column by clicking here.

NEW, BETTER, and SIMPLER are NOT always synonymous terms!

By Joseph Walther

I come from a working class family. In the early ‘40s, when I was born, every family had a father and a mother, unless either one or both had died, in which case the children lived with a family relative. Social Services had very little to do back in those days.

My mother could go to the corner grocery store—located a block away—and buy 2-loaves of bread, 2-gallons of milk, and 2-dozen eggs... all for a whopping $2.50.

Of course, my father netted about $40 a week in wages. The average annual gross wage was around $2,300. And, just as now, people complained about the rapidly increasing cost of living, too.

You could buy a house for an average of $7,500 and purchase an automobile for about $1,100. But, we couldn’t afford either one until 1948.

The house was a bargain at $6,500 because a residential development had been built for returning WWII veterans. Our automobile was “used,” weighed close to two tons, had “running” boards, and cost $250. It was a gas-guzzler but gas was only $0.199 a gallon.

The news media reported the news: who, what, when, where, and how. Investigative reporters held their subjects’ feet to the fire and demanded verifiable answers.

We trusted people like Edward R. Murrow, Ernie Pyle, Huntley/Brinkley, and a number of others. They didn’t report speculation as news. Why, at one point, we even trusted Walter Cronkite.

The news has changed today. Now we have the likes of Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Al Franken, and others, reporting speculation as news. Many voters—most of them incapable of original thought—buy into it because they NEED to be entertained.

They believe that if not Democrat or Republican, you’re a troublemaker. If not Conservative or Liberal, you lack all sense of conviction. If not an advocate for Christianity, you’re a Satan worshiper.

And, if you so much as imply that habeas corpus is a basic human right, you’re suddenly a terrorist sympathizer.

It has come to the point where it’s difficult to tell if truly intelligent people are running the world or whether it’s a case of genuine imbeciles spouting off about what they really mean.

On an educational front, the kids of yesteryear had to know how to read and write in complete sentences, as well as do fundamental arithmetic in order to get INTO a high school, let alone graduate from one.

This is NOT the case today. The public school system has become a standing joke. Lowering the hoop so everyone can slam-dunk is a bad policy. It seems that everyone but public school administrators seems to understand this

Even some of the teachers have difficulty with basic arithmetic, not to mention expressing coherent ideas in complete sentences. And, according to the authorities, WE can’t fire them… teachers’ unions, you know.

Another modern day biggie is POVERTY. We like to blame it for everything. It’s become THE default socio-political scapegoat.

The problem is that we’ve always had poverty. We’re always going to HAVE poverty, too. There’s nothing we can do to eliminate ALL poverty. But, we’ll never diminish any amount of it as long as it remains a cash cow for those with vested interests in maintaining it.

Medically, compared to today, we lived in the medical science Dark Ages back then. People died from causes we don’t even talk about today because those causes no longer kill people.

Both kids and adults died regularly from things like polio, whooping cough, measles, chicken pox, pneumonia, and even diarrhea. Childhood leukemia was an automatic death sentence.

So was every other brand of cancer, especially breast cancer. If your coronary arteries clogged back then, you died—there was no such thing as “by-pass” surgery.

I contracted scarlet fever—now called strep throat—when I was 4-years-old.

The doctors put me in the hospital for 12-days where I received penicillin shots 4-times a day for seven of those days.

On top of this, the board of health quarantined our residence for 30-days—absolutely no one IN or OUT. And no one gave a hoot about how much it inconvenienced us or the fact that my father lost his job because he couldn’t go to work.

In all respects, today is way different from the thrilling days of yesteryear: economically, politically, medically, socially, and legally.

Today, economically speaking, you can’t buy a single loaf bread for $2.50, let alone the grocery list of items that my mother was able to buy. Every item that she was able to buy for pennies on the dollar now exceeds, by sizeable margins, what she paid for her entire list of items.

Politically, modern day White House Administrations have grown accustomed to doing whatever they feel like doing. Over the past twenty-years, they seem to have grown fond of shredding the Constitution whenever they deemed it convenient.

Over the past 16-years, particularly, politicians have elevated convenience to the status of an imperative while reducing truth to that as a mere option.

Both the Clinton and Bush Administrations lied to us, doggedly and egregiously. Only their lies were about different things.

Trust me on this, one day the real implications of the Patriot Act are going to smack us in our collective nose. Hopefully, it won’t be a fatal blow.

With the exception of periodic elections, the Congress has ceases paying attention to the voters. Why should they?

We permit it, they pander to us in order to get themselves re-elected time after time, by telling us what WE want to hear, but their true constituencies have become the inhabitants of K Street: the lobbyists.

For medicine, on the positive side, medical technology has conquered most of the death-sentence diseases of an era long past. Today, eighty-five percent of the kids diagnosed with childhood leukemia survive it to live productive normal lives.

Many other brands of cancer are no longer automatic death sentences, both, breast and prostate cancers, are prime examples. And, not only have we learned to replace clogged coronary arteries, we can transplant the heart itself. And lungs! And kidneys! And livers!

Even though new diseases pop up all of the time, medical science in the United States is the envy of the world. We reach out to the world, too. Our doctors do more pro bono work for the world’s sick than any nation on the planet.

However, at least on the home front, we still have a thing or two to learn relative to saving lives. Chiefly among them is learning the difference between the “science” of medicine and the “art” of medicine.

The former is clinical—cold and cruel at times. It consists of statistical inferences and group probabilities. They let us predict medical outcomes with amazing accuracy.

But, when symptoms do not abate, we must permit the latter—the “art” of medicine—to take over by ignoring the probabilities and letting, as humanely as possible, nature run its course without people going on moral and litigation feeding frenzies.

Today, at 66-years of age, I am healthier than my parents ever were. Technologically, I have more power in my tiny cell phone than the scientists of my father’s time had with their mainframe computer systems.

I am able to communicate with anyone in the world, anywhere in the world in an instant. All I have to do is use my personal computer to log onto the Internet. I can even use my cell phone to do this.

Yes, it costs me more to live today. I pay more than five times what my mother paid for a dozen eggs, thirteen times more for a stamp, thirty-one times more for a loaf of bread, and twenty times more for a gallon of gasoline.

However, at time I retired, I was earning sixty-four times more than my father did at the height of his earning potential. Even in retirement, I have twenty-nine times more annual income than he did working full-time.

While some things were much simpler then, they were NOT better. Some the things WERE better, but there weren’t enough of them to make me want to go back to the “good” old days.

As a nation, we have some serious problems, ninety-nine percent of which are political in nature. We need to learn that justice—if it means anything at all—cannot prevail until those who have not been injured by injustice become as persistently incensed as those who have been.

All we have to do is rediscover our collective backbone and begin holding our elected officials and the people they appoint accountable to US instead of to the folks on K Street in Washington, DC.

Oh yes, I think the reporting media could do with a good old-fashioned ass kicking, too. Let’s do it! I’ll see you next week.

Joe Walther is a freelance writer and publisher of The True Facts. You may comment on his column by clicking here.