PCNs 
December, 2007

From today's Religion and Ethics NewsWeekly...

"LAWTON: ... Modern scientific discoveries and high-speed computers allow people today to calculate what the skies looked like at any given point in history. Many astronomers believe the Star of Bethlehem could have referred to a series of planetary or celestial events as opposed to a single object. One such series of events occurred beginning in 6 B.C.

Prof. KAITCHUCK: Three of the major planets appeared fairly close together in the same part of the sky. That'd be Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars. And then, just a year later, we know from Chinese records there was a nova -- an exploding star.

...

LAWTON: In College Station, Texas, law professor Rick Larson believes he may have identified the real Star of Bethlehem. Larson is making presentations about his theory at venues around the world, and he's just released a new DVD about it.

...

LAWTON: Larson also considered the particular meanings that constellations and planets had in those days. Jupiter, for example, was the King planet and Venus, the Mother planet. In June of 2 B.C., Jupiter and Venus came together in an extremely rare conjunction.

Dr. LARSON (in presentation): So we have the King planet and the Mother planet now coming into extremely close approach. Well, how close were they?

LAWTON: Close enough, Larson says, to really get the Magi's attention. "

Full article: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week1116/feature.html

Merry Christmas!

Happy Hannukah!

Happy New Year,

- Mark & Violet! et al

Here is the link, if you can decipher it, to our dog
maze pictures page! Your spam filter might strip
emails with links to my web pages, so it's here in
secret code (with spaces in between)...
w w w . g e o c i t i e s . c o m / m a r k g m e y e
r s / d o g m a z e . h t m l

With two feet of snow, and since they needed a path to
do their duty on anyhow, came the idea of some paths
for the two poodles!

Merry X-Mas,

Mark & Violet

The double standard in the U.S. seems to be its traditional, fundamentalist ethic in parallel with its universalist hedonism (see ‘ethics’). This is probably theism and atheism going at each other again. The Europeans don’t appear to have a problem with their “Eurotrash”, or Europeans having fun. There appears to be a gap here between the hedonism and the fundamentalism. Fundamentalism, like crime, makes Americans more colorful to watch and talk about, and possibly even take pictures of, but they shouldn’t be put in positions of power when they can’t find a universalist hedonism. That’s a measure of pleasure over all time, and inclusive of all persons affected. It is a wise hedonism, and it is our society’s central ethic. It also seems to me that with self-actualization of the universalist hedonist goal, the way a person feels will take priority over the way that they think; that a person’s feelings will become their guide. Occidentals (western civilization) are by their roots prone to discounting their senses and their feelings and their internal messages as epistemologically lacking. That is to say, feelings and such tend to be regarded as lacking in validity, whereas logical argument and empiricism tend to be held up as the more righteous vantages.

So often with occidentals, there will be a system of thought acting as a guide. When the guide becomes the guide, and the heart is no longer the guide, then the mind of man is where the highest truth is believed to be found. This is to say that the mind is where the guide is. This is heartless Occidentalism, and it pours forth equally from Greeks, Gnostics and grandkids, from ancient times to the present day, for all of us. We miss on getting spiritual. We easily forget to show regard for how we feel, and you’ll be hard-pressed to find a college class anywhere on the great Greek Comedians! They did well in their own right, but it also seems to me like they didn’t do it all. Neither did their counterparts, it seems, as the theists and the atheists of the world continue to go at it (by correcting each other’s ways of thinking). Perhaps theists and atheists are too self-important and need vacations. I never found a universalist hedonist bliss when pissing the other guy off, because I didn’t like the way that it made me feel.

Theist or atheist, I believe that the occidental dilemma is in losing the significance of one’s feelings, and their potential as guiding forces, perhaps in time, when one learns to harness them. One of the things I have enjoyed each year is Christmas, because I have always enjoyed the way that it made me feel. Jesus seems to me to be a very reliable source of good birthdays!

Merry Christmas!!! Or as Carlin once quoted, “have a happy!”

- Mark

Very funny pics!  Merry xmas!

- Mark

It looks like Ron Paul is at about 8% in NH and 10% in Iowa, and we may be talking about a double-digit Ron Paul showing in the first state.

The Iowa vote is January 3rd.
The New Hampshire vote is January 8th.

One fellow, very passionate, bought an $85,000 full page Ron Paul ad in the USA Today.  The next buy is a full page in the NY Times covered with print.  Anyone who wants to read it all can, and he's got a lot to say.

From an ABC blog from Dec. 14th...
"Dreams v. Reality: The Ron Paul Blimp Story"
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2007/12/dreams-v-realit.html

If you haven't seen the Ron Paul blimp, it's a corporation, and it's got its own web site, offering
advertising space...
http://www.ronpaulblimp.com/

An interesting notion is what happens if Iowa, for example, turns out with significant votes for Ron Paul?  The campaign has shown it can pick up $4mil in a day.

Amazing straw Poll results from republicans...
http://www.ronpaul2008.com/straw-poll-results/

I think it's possible for the Ron Paul campaign to break away.  Do you feel lucky?  This appears to be, as they say at the tracks, a "long shot".  Iowa is on Jan. 3rd!

Cheers -

Mark

I am an asshole, as such is the nature of I, I am full
of shit, as such is all that I am comprised of, and I am
fucked, because I am an asshole and I am full of
shit!

Happy New Year!

- Mark