Dear Mr. Swanson

Dear Mr. Swanson, if you can't figure out how to make it so a brownie cooks the same time as the rest of a frozen dinner, don't put the brownie in the dessert slot. No self respecting man is going to microwave for four minutes, gently take the brownie out of the tray, and then cook the rest for another 2 minutes.

For one thing, where am I supposed to put the dang brownie.  I'm not going to eat it first.  No self respecting man eats dessert first.

Surely in today's day and age you can think of a dessert that needs six minutes to cook.  I don't care what it is.  Let it be apple sauce for all I care.  Nobody buys a frozen dinner because of the dessert.  They buy them for convenience sake.  And it isn't convenient to carve out a brownie and dirty up a clean plate when you have a perfectly good disposable tray to eat the entire dinner from.

Isn't it humiliating enough for me to buy and eat a frozen dinner to begin with.  Are you purposely trying to strip me of the last shred of dignity I have left?

The only thing I can conclude is that someone in your company is making royalties for every brownie sold.  Maybe someone who has photographs of you in bed with someone other than Mrs. Swanson, perhaps?

The Goldilocks Zone

I love the term Goldilocks (Habitable) Zone. It refers to the zone in a solar system that isn't too cold and isn't too hot, but just right when it comes to having a planet that could have life on it.

The current Kepler mission is out to find planets in such zones in different solar systems.

To me, as a layman, it only makes sense that in many solar systems that a such a zone would exist. The closer a planet is to its sun, the hotter it would be, so there has to be a point that is just right for life.

Of course, radiation may make certain solar systems uninhabitable (at least according to my understanding of how these things work), plus if a planet is gaseous it most likely can't handle life. And there are many stars that have no planets, or any planets that fall into the Goldilocks Zone.

Pretty much they are looking for rocky planets that can have water or have water.

Another thing that is fairly intuitive is that as suns get cooler, the Goldilocks Zone shifts to planets closer to their Sun. Makes sense that Mars might have been in that zone at one time, and it might still be, as scientists are now finding that some microbes can live at minus 80 degrees.

With billions of stars in the universe and billions of solar systems as well, there could be millions or billions of habitable planets out there.

This gets me thinking. Since those of us with a clue know how evolution works, you have to wonder how many of these planets have evolved humans that are very similar to us. Are there species out there that put our intellect to shame, how about the way our bodies function. Can something with a ginormous brain live on just energy from their sun; a really smart plant that walks around and has their own version of the internet.

But when you look and see the similarities of animals on this planet including man, there only seems a few ways to go. Mammals, the smartest animal here, either have two or four legs, a heart and a brain. We know how all these body parts came about.
Are worm like beings capable of being the dominant creature on a planet? With huge brains?

It also brings about some interesting speculation regarding religion. I'm pretty convinced that has man evolved, superstition was a necessary evil. It made life passable believing that lightning and other things that couldn't be explained had to be pawned off to a supernatural being or as a supernatural event. With self awareness came awareness of death, and without a supernatural belief attached to it, I could see it driving our ancestors crazy. So the invention of Gods probably paved the way for man to evolve to the point where we are now.

Was it really necessary? I think so. And if I'm right, it is probably necessary on every planet that has life forms that have equal or better brain power and self awareness that we have.

As Christianity dominates Earth right now as the number one religion, I wonder what kind of religions dominate other planets.

Another thought: How do Religious Fundamentalist Earthlings deal with the news of life on other planets.

Like most things, they probably don't really think about it. Many might think there are no other "humans" out there so God doesn't really care about life on the billions or other planets.

Some might think that Jesus has been busy visiting all kinds of planets and dying for their sins. Lots of Second Comings have to happen too. I wonder where Earth ranks on his list:)

Putting Hamas In Its Place

This is funny, but full of truths:

I wonder what Israel's borders would look like if they had someone to negotiate with.

Helen Thomas and Whoopi Goldberg: Hypocrisy and Ignorance

I'm not into beating up on 89 year old women, but Helen Thomas' comments have no age barrier, they are shared by a vast amount of hypocritical people (many of whom are Muslims).

In case you live under a rock and only visit atheist blog sites, here is what Helen Thomas said:

I find it mind numbing when Muslims or Arabs in the West state that Jews should go home.

Here is the hypocrisy in a nutshell: There are over 8 million people of Lebanese descent living in Brazil alone today. Why is it OK for Arabs to migrate to the West, but prior to 1948, it was wrong for Jews to migrate to a non sovereign land that was 75% swamp and/or desert, to add to an already Jewish presence there and to escape anti-semitism?

Whether it is Brazil or Dearborn, Michigan, when Arabs show up in droves, the life on the indigenous people are affected, the culture changes. But this escapes many Muslims and Arabs, because to them, it is OK for Muslims to go to Western lands and take over pocket by pocket, but it is a crime for anyone, especially Jews, to live and govern on "Muslim" land.

Demographics change everywhere, Dearborn, Brazil, Israel, etc. It seems it is OK as long as it doesn't involve Jews.

One more point. Over 65% of Jews in Israel today were born in Israel. No matter how you slice it, whether you are completely against immigrants or not, these Jews are home, they aren't from Poland or Germany.

Now for Whoopi. Yesterday on The View, she was sort of defending Helen Thomas' comments. But the stupidest thing she said was, "For many years, there were not Jews in Israel."

It was disappointing to me to see that Joy Behar actually nodded when she made that ignorant point, because I know Behar gets it most of the time.

However, it does illustrate how misinformed many people are about the history of Israel. Jews have always been present, though at times, the numbers were tiny (but so was the total population there).

When people believe that, I can see how they can lean to the Palestinian side in many cases. It would be the same argument as the white man coming to America and taking over the land from the Native Indians (who took the land over from the European Clovis, but that is another story).

But reality is that in 1880 there were approximately 450,000 people living in the region, 20,000 were Jewish. Less than half a million people living in a land that now has 5 million Jews and 4 million Arabs (including the West Bank and Gaza).

In other words, it is equal to a small city turning into a big city, where the people who migrated there were majority Jewish (but not by much, as many Arabs also migrated there once Jews established a good job market). The land was not sovereign until 1948. And to put things into total perspective, the people who were mostly affected by the original conflict in 1948 today are either dead or in their 80's.

Lastly, I received an excellent comment on my last blog piece. It is worth putting in print, because it is from someone from the Far Left who gets it:

the_last_name_left · 16 hours ago

I feel like the only leftie who sees this "humanitarian activism" as the provocation it so obviously is. Everyone is being played - and they've fallen for it.

It's quite astonishing to me see the extent of (left) anti-semitism - I have never been so aware of its scope, depth and threat before. It's really disturbing.

Every time it's "Israel attacked the boat"......and the ferocious beatings with metal bars of the soldiers was "self-defense". Yet intercepting shipping - to ensure it isn't rearming Hamas - is not legitimate self-defense. Nor is retaliation against Hamas provocation of firing rockets at Israeli civilians - war crimes according to the Goldstone report (which people only know accuses Israel of war crimes).

Under such circumstances Israel has no right of self-defense -- and anything Hamas does is always self-defense and justifiable by some historic slight, real or imagined. There is no balance - there's a massive Israeli/jewish exceptionalism - prejudice.

The (only) problem boat of the flotilla had passengers including children and elderly folk - and they took it upon themselves to disregard many warnings from the IDF whom had promised to deliver the aid, so long as it passed inspection at Ashdod. But the flotilla's priority was not attempting to deliver the aid - because the flotilla decided to ignore IDF entreaty to submit, and attempt to break the blockade - despite repeated warnings from the IDF that the ship would be placing itself - including the children and the elderly - at risk. This is the responsibility of the ship's crew - whatever the legal technicalities or the history or whatever. You listen to people with guns - especially when you have children on board - and especially when you are "peaceful humanitarians". It's utter bullshit to claim they weren't obliged to stop, on some technical argument about legality or otherwise of the blockade etc. especially when Israel had promised to deliver the aid - which amounted to one day's worth of the aid which Israel already expedites to Gaza.

A very similar event happened during the Sri Lankan/Tamil war in 2009 - except a french aid ship was boarded and prevented reaching port to deliver aid to Tamils. The Sri Lankans were far more obstructive over aid for the Tamils than the Israelis have been over this flotilla - and yet where was the worldwide condemnation? There was absolute silence - who is even aware it happened? Where were the cries that Sri Lankans were Nazis? NOWHERE.

Similarly we have the hypocrisy of Erdogan supported by the useful idiots everywhere, apparently completely ignorant of Turkey's attacks on the Kurds.....in very similar circumstances to Israel/Palestine conflict. But again - met with near absolute SILENCE.

hundred of thousands of Tamils were held in detention camps - surrounded by barbed wire - a real prison. But silence.

On the plight of Gaza and its poverty - we need be careful to distinguish the extent of poverty and suffering which is directly attributable to Israel. One way to assess that is to compare Gaza with other states whom Israel has no effect upon - for example, Yemen.

According to UN/NGO statistics, “More than 10 percent of children in Gaza are chronically malnourished,” said WHO officer Mahmoud Daher in Gaza, reporting a slight increase over 2008." Dreadful, right? But what about Yemen? "A 2006 report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said Yemen had very high levels of food insecurity and that more than ****one third of its population was chronically undernourished****."

Why is every failure of Gaza and Hamas Israel's fault? Anyone can accept a degree of Israeli responsibility, surely - but the simple blind acceptance of complete Israeli responsibility at every turn - whilst the Nazi-sympathizing Protocols of Zion-publishing Hamas get a free pass, every turn. It's myopic, outrageous and dangerous. I'm appalled - especially by the supposed left. I expect it from the lunatics, but from almost the entire gamut of the left? Wow. Shocking.

Humanitarians For Gaza: What A Con Job

If feel sorry for all those gullible lefties (the ones who sincerely don't hate Jews) who buy into the charade. In the meantime, everyone can enjoy this:


For the truth about the Flotilla, and the hypocrisy of different nations, including of course Islamic nations, check out The Elder of Ziyon's blog.

They actually named a boat The Rachel Corrie? I guess it will bring the Gazans some pancake mix. If you believe the con artists, the Gazans haven't had a real breakfast since the Jews were ethnically cleansed from that region.