A Mind is a Terrible Thing

Orb FAQ — ASSAP

Judging by the number of web sites dedicated to orbs, they fascinate many people. And yet, if you ask any serious paranormal researcher, they will dismiss most, if not all, orbs as photographic artifacts. Indeed, many of the web sites dedicated to orbs admit as much. So why do orbs continue to exert such interest?

One reason must be that they are relatively common and easy to produce. For every picture apparently showing a ghost, there must be thousands featuring orbs.

If someone shows you photos with ‘orbs’ and insists they’re angels or some divine phenomena, check the site above.  Or look at the Wikipedia entry.  Hell, just run a Google search and you’ll find dozens of websites not just debunking such photos but showing exactly how anybody can shoot them with nothing more than a cheap digital camera and easy-to-duplicate conditions.

In virtually every instance of people swearing they’ve captured pictures of angels or ghosts or half-phased plasma aliens or whatever, I can just about guarantee the following*:

• The camera is a short focal-length small digital camera (not a D-SLR or 35mm film camera)
• The picture was taken in low light conditions or at night
• There is dust, rain, smoke, or fog in the air (usually it’s dust)
• Flash was used (and on these small cameras, the flash unit is right next to the lens, providing maximum perpendicular reflection)

(*Notes: It is possible to create orb photos without flash, but these are more rare, requiring a strong light source (such as the sun) behind the camera.  Occasionally you can get lens flares or dust reflection images with SLR-style and larger cameras, but it’s harder and the fact it’s just an optical artifact is more patently obvious.  The odd semi-discernible patterns in the small camera-produced orbs are actually caused by the LCD chip and how it translates incoming out-of-focus photons into a recorded digital image; they’re not magical floating Om symbols or sacred geometry yantras.)

Seriously, if you show me a picture with a crowd at night, in the middle of a bark-shred covered field, and a bunch of reflection orbs above them, don’t expect me to dispense with my college-level education in photography, optics, physics, and the simple application of Occam’s Razor.  You’re just shooting a large cloud of dust particles, thrown up in the air by all those people shuffling around.  If it’s a big party or gathering, there will also be moisture from people’s breath and perspiration, rising in the heat generated by dozens of human bodies in close proximity.  The closest dust particles look big because they’re close and the most out-of-focus.

It’s not magic or a miracle — it’s science.  Not just an unproven hypothesis either, but a rational explanation which is demonstrable in a repeatable fashion using rigorous scientific methodology.  I trust the scientist who not only can explain to me why these orb images occur, but also why they have the specific features and visual artifacts they commonly display.

The other day I joked to my spouse that I ought to take my little Olympus digi-cam to the immense cattle pens near Coalinga, California, next to I-5.  Vast acres of bovines raising a cloud of dust so extensive it creates traffic hazards on the nearby highway if the winds are right (or wrong).  (It’s also a place where you really, really want to have your vehicle’s ventilation system set to recirculate… trust me on this.) “Oooh, look! Hundreds of angels for each cow!”  Yeah right…must be morbid angels, because that’s a beef processing facility.

Insisting such photos are full of angels or spirits hugely undermines a person’s credibility with those, like myself, who know how stuff actually works. You might as well be trying to persuade me that a team of giant invisible swans hauls the sun across the sky each day.  You want to believe it, go ahead — but don’t expect me to buy into your fantasy or to act like I’m amazed.

Furthermore, when someone espouses this kind of junk-science / pseudo-spiritualism as evidence supporting their belief systems, I am very unlikely to give credence to anything else this person might say, especially with regard to the rest of their non-scientific philosophical, religious or spiritual ideas, however sensible, enlightened or profound.

Why?  Because if someone insists I accept the miraculous origins of their ‘angel-orb’ pictures, despite the otherwise perfectly rational and scientifically provable explanations, how can I trust anything else they say?  I’ll be asking myself, ‘Are they just as credulous about their beliefs?  How do I know it isn’t all just something ridiculous they chose to believe without question, understanding, or proof?  Or maybe they’re just making it all up to see how much rank foolishness I’ll swallow…’

I can forgive an honest mistake or someone reaching the wrong conclusion because they did not have all the information.  But to continue to insist something is a miracle, magical, or paranormal in the face of obvious, rational evidence of ordinary-world science displays a degree of willful self-ignorance I simply won’t abide or tolerate.  I’ll tell you you’re wrong and why; if afterwards you still insist you’re still right, I’ll conclude you’re an idiot.  I may be kind enough not to tell you so to your face, but I guarantee it will be what I’m thinking.

If you’ve wandered here and happen to be one of the fervent angel-orb believers, and haven’t turned away in offended anger already, please allow me to pose a few questions to ponder:  First, exactly who told you the orbs were absolute evidence of something supernatural?  Are they an actual authority on the matter and can they prove their claims, or might they too have been misled by bad information and a desperate desire to believe in something ‘magical’ despite ample physical evidence to the contrary?  Secondly, do your deeply held spiritual beliefs truly depend on believing something that is easily debunked by anyone with the curiosity to perform a simple experiment and a willingness to learn a little about the physics of optics & digital cameras?

With so many actual, genuine miraculous events in the world, we really don’t need to make ourselves look foolish, uneducated, and disreputable by ignoring rational, accurate scientific explanations for ordinary, non-miraculous phenomena.  Even if it looks pretty.  Or happened in a place, at a time, when far more subtle and powerful miracles occurred well away from the error-prone reach of cheap digital cameras.

The Brunswick News – Home Page
“Every individual has the right to choose their own doctor and that’s why I’m opposed to universal health care,” (Senator Saxby) Chambliss said. “There will come a point where the right to choose your own doctor will be made by the government and not the individual, and that is fundamentally wrong.”

Apparently Senator Chambliss has never heard of Preferred Provider Networks, HMOs, PPOs or those dreaded words “out of network.”

He still has this quaint notion that insurance companies don’t already tell people which doctors they can and can’t see.

Cheney Offers Sharp Defense of C.I.A. Interrogation Tactics – NYTimes.com
Former Vice President Dick Cheney on Sunday sharply criticized the Obama administration’s decision to investigate the abuse of prisoners held by the Central Intelligence Agency as he delivered a forceful defense of the full range of interrogation techniques used by intelligence officers.

Never mind the fact that what Cheney’s defending — torture — is illegal, felonious, a war crime, and a moral abomination.

I don’t care what the excuse is.  The deliberate inflicting of torture on someone is evil — and worst of all are those who justify and order it.

I would not want that man’s karma, nor wish it upon anyone else.

Via McClatchey today:

Cheney, who strongly opposes the Obama administration’s new probe into alleged detainee abuse, was asked in the Fox News interview whether he was “OK” with interrogations that went beyond Justice’s specific legal authorization.

“I am,” the former vice president replied.

“My sort of overwhelming view is that the enhanced interrogation techniques were absolutely essential in saving thousands of American lives and preventing further attacks,” he said. “It was good policy. It was properly carried out. It worked very, very well.”

“Enhanced interrogation techniques” refers to waterboarding, or simulated drowning, and nine other tactics — some of which are considered torture.

Which, incidentally, is a felony crime under U.S. law and signed treaties.  Numerous laws and treaties.

Torturing someone to death, as happened on many occasions to prisoners in U.S. custody, is a crime that can earn the federal death penalty.

Cheney also said that Obama, who declared at the beginning of his term that he wanted to avoid revisiting Bush-era policies, should’ve been more involved with Holder’s decision. The White House has said the probe, a preliminary review, was properly an independent decision made by Holder.

“The president of the United States is the chief law enforcement officer in the land,” Cheney said. “I think he’s trying to duck the responsibility for what’s going on here. And I think it’s wrong.”

Funny… it used to be George W. Bush’s job to be the chief law enforcement officer in the land, and his administration seemed to spend all of its time writing memos exempting themselves from any responsibility to uphold or adhere to the very laws they were charged to enforce.

Cheney is an evil, evil man.

Just some random wonderings and wanderings in today’s crazy world:

• I truly wonder how stupid and uneducated someone has to be not to know that Medicare is a government-run single payer medical program.  Same goes for the V.A. health system.  And TriCare is a gov’t run health insurance program.  And every single government employee — federal, state, and local — is actually receiving government-provided, mandated, and regulated health insurance.  Yet there are people out there who still think private insurance is suddenly endangered.
• I also wonder why it hasn’t occurred to a smart Congresscritter (but then I probably note my contradiction right there) to introduce a bill that simply says, “Every American citizen and legal resident shall be eligible for Medicare coverage, regardless of age or income.”  How to pay for it?  Just repeal the irresponsible Bush-era tax cuts and remove the upper income cap on SSA taxes.  Ending a couple of wars, both of which have run twice as long as WW2, would also help.
• I’d rather have my government setting insurance benefits, because ultimately it answers to us, the voters.  This, as opposed to an insurance company bureaucrat who gets bonuses based on how many claims they reject and how many policies are canceled.  Let’s face it, the gloried Hand of the Free Market wants (1) to take as much money as possible from healthy people who don’t need much if any actual medical care and (2) for chronically and/or seriously ill people to die quickly so as not to cost them profits.
• Unfortunately, what I fear we’ll get from these latest ‘reform’ efforts is (1) a requirement everybody buy health insurance, but (2) no requirement for companies to actually sell that insurance to a given person, (3) no requirement that insurance cover anything, and (4) no laws to stop private insurance companies from denying coverage, refusing to cover ‘pre-existing conditions’,  or retroactively canceling a policy.  Why?  Because the GOP leadership has gone rabid and far too many of the Dems are utter paid-for shills for the healthcare industry lobbyists.
• The GOP spokesweasels and ‘leaders’ are lying so much about literally everything, like the ’stupid’ I referred to a few weeks ago, the falsehoods threaten to become a singularity of mendacity.  Now, as Michael Steele (GOP party leader) has shown in the last day, he’s had to argue that Medicare must be protected from the evil Dems — and that it’s such a bad program it ought to be privatized ASAP.  The increasing factual dissonance literally makes my fillings hurt.
• For those who think it’s okay to torture and inflict pain on prisoners, including detainees who are merely suspected of committing or contemplating ‘acts of terror’, I wonder if they actually believe such treatment would be acceptable if inflicted on captured American troops or citizens — the waterboarding, the stress positions, the sleep deprivation, the sado-sexual assaults on dignity, all of it.  There are reasons, good ones, why every single treaty and law on the subject forbids torture and mistreatment for any purpose whatsoever…and yet, there are people who think themselves good, just, and ethical, who think it’s fine to threaten a guy with having his mother raped in front of him, and where an ‘accidental death’ due to torture is merely a ‘whoopsie’.  How the hell did we become so bloodthirsty and sadistic as a people?
• I wonder how someone can reasonably be declared “an illegal enemy combatant” when, from their point of view, they are defending their own country against an unwanted invading force.  I’m not saying they should be let go, but what was so inadequate with the tried-and-trusted ‘Prisoner of War’ status?
• Related to that, how can we possibly claim to represent freedom, liberty, justice, presumption of innocence and the rule of law — unless one is accused of being a terrorist, a status which automatically conveys a sentence of indefinite detention and treatment that breaks the mind, body, and soul?  No proof needed, no trial, just an assertion from those who’ve already proven to be liars and scoundrels.  When I grew up, it was always the evil, tyrannical regimes that would snatch someone off the street, disappear them into a dark cell, hide them from the Red Cross and perform unspeakable torments on them.  People were tried and convicted not just for inflicting the torture and illegal detentions, but those who ordered it were held even more responsible.  Look what happened to Pinochet.  Anyone remember the Nuremberg Trials anymore?  Now, America is doing it, and justifying it not with morals or ethics, but through ridiculously solipsistic self-justifying garbage legal memos.   A reminder: “I was following orders” wasn’t a valid defense, and those who wrote such orders received the harshest sentences of all.
• Side thought:  I wonder if Cheney, Yoo, Addington, Gonzales, Bybee, and Rumsfeld know they’re at risk for arrest if they travel abroad.  If we don’t investigate and prosecute, some other nation or international court will eventually.
• A genuine terrorist is just about by definition an evil person.  Yet how we treat them reflects on who and what we are as a people.
• If the imprisonment forever and torture of terrorism suspects becomes accepted and ‘legal’, it is only a matter of time before petty crimes are reclassified as terrorism… as well as posts like this one (dissent).  It might take a generation or two, but it is an almost inevitable progression.  (Already, certain drug-related crimes are being reclassified as terrorist conspiracies.)
• Those who are shouting the loudest now about our government having Nazi policies sure were damned quiet and content back when wearing the wrong t-shirt or having the wrong bumper sticker on your car could get you arrested at GOP political events.  I wonder how those pistol-toting tea-bagger protesters would feel about being herded off to a cyclone-fenced “Free Speech Zone” corral half a mile from Democratic political events.
• Shouting down the opposition is not Free Speech, nor is it winning the debate.  It is the tactic of thugs.
• We Americans are a remarkably gullible and easily manipulated people.   So many of us are led by fear and lies, and we don’t even see for ourselves when those lies are blatant.  Anyone remember Iraq’s ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’, which turned out not to exist at all?  Or this ‘Death Board’ nonsense, when it was the GOP leadership who originally insisted that end-of-life counseling be covered?  Or how poll after poll has shown that 3 out of 4 Americans want a public option healthcare system, and still countless Representatives and Senators (both GOP and Dem) insist we don’t?
• Senator Ted Kennedy:  Rest in Peace.  I’m sorry we didn’t manage to pass real, comprehensive healthcare reform before you passed over to the hallowed shores…
• I know this was kind of a wandering piece, but I was just following a kind of stream-of-consciousness.  I think there is a connection between the lack of empathy we have towards each other, and what seems to have become acceptable behavior from our government and between ourselves.  We, as a people and a a culture, really need to stop feeding on the negativity, the anger, and the fear, else it will one day soon destroy us utterly.

We happened to be in Santa Cruz CA today, to visit a friend and pick up a few things he’d been keeping for us.

I noticed the smog and distinct aroma of woodsmoke as soon as we drew near to Scotts Valley on Hwy 17.  Down in the city itself, there is no blue sky, just an oppressive, smoky haze thick enough to obscure landmarks.  No doubt, the Lockheed fire was (and still is, although is mostly contained) a huge one.

Thought it might be a good idea to post this here, since a fair number of folks wander in who are students of Sri Kaleshwar Swami or who want to be or who are just curious.

Since returning to the U.S. at the end of March, my spouse and I have helped co-found a new Sai community organization in the greater Albuquerque NM area (including most of New Mexico) — called “Faith and Patience.”  (URL: http://www.faithandpatience.com)

In the last month, a new information ‘bulletin board’ site went online, and is the place to go if you want to know about upcoming events, classes, and weekly spiritual discussion get-togethers.

The following excerpted OpEd piece is written by the CEO of Whole Foods, John Mackey:

John Mackey: The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare – WSJ.com
“The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.” —Margaret Thatcher

The problem with unregulated capitalism is that eventually you run out of citizens. — Becca Morn

With a projected $1.8 trillion deficit for 2009, several trillions more in deficits projected over the next decade, and with both Medicare and Social Security entitlement spending about to ratchet up several notches over the next 15 years as Baby Boomers become eligible for both, we are rapidly running out of other people’s money. These deficits are simply not sustainable. They are either going to result in unprecedented new taxes and inflation, or they will bankrupt us.

Funny, how this simply wasn’t an issue at all when Bush and the GOP racked up over a trillion dollars in off-the-books spending for a couple wars, and another trillion in ill-advised tax cuts geared mainly towards the very wealthy.

Not one peep about the need to raise taxes to match the out-of-control spending.  Or stop spending on the wars.

While we clearly need health-care reform, the last thing our country needs is a massive new health-care entitlement that will create hundreds of billions of dollars of new unfunded deficits and move us much closer to a government takeover of our health-care system. Instead, we should be trying to achieve reforms by moving in the opposite direction—toward less government control and more individual empowerment.

What he neglects to say is that by enacting a ‘massive new health-care entitlement’ we would save both citizens and businesses hundreds of billions of dollars, through cost-controls, negotiated group rates, and sensible regulation.

He also does not acknowledge we could have BOTH more government control and more individual empowerment.  Right now, all the power lies with the health-care insurance industry and the medical conglomerates, all of whom value their profits over the health and well-being of their customers (namely, people).

Remove the legal obstacles that slow the creation of high-deductible health insurance plans and health savings accounts HSAs . The combination of high-deductible health insurance and HSAs is one solution that could solve many of our health-care problems.

Ah, here we go.  People already have extremely crappy insurance that, because of high deductibles and co-pays, encourage them not to see doctors when early intervention could save lots of money later.  Like for mammograms, colonoscopies, skin cancer screening, cholesterol tests, routine dental care, etc.  The diabetic who could benefit from a few early appointments to learn how to control his/her blood sugar instead goes only later when a limb turns gangrenous or their kidneys shut down.

High deductible / high co-pay insurance is incredibly regressive and penalizes those with the lowest incomes, as it chews up a far larger percentage of their income than it does for rich people.

No, Mr. Mackey says our already crappy insurance needs to be crappier.  For our own good.

There is also an unstated implication throughout Mackey’s essay suggesting that those who are sick or have suffered a severe accident ought to be heavily penalized — and perhaps driven into bankruptcy — because it’s their fault.  (For example, he trots out the canard about Americans eating badly and being overweight…conveniently ignoring the high fat cheese displays and entire aisles devoted to cookies and chip snacks in his own stores.  Not to mention all the wine positioned oh-so-conveniently near the checkout lines.)

Equalize the tax laws so that that employer-provided health insurance and individually owned health insurance have the same tax benefits. Now employer health insurance benefits are fully tax deductible, but individual health insurance is not. This is unfair.

Actually this part I agree with.  It is inherently unfair, and pushes us too much towards job-lock serfdom.

Repeal all state laws which prevent insurance companies from competing across state lines. We should all have the legal right to purchase health insurance from any insurance company in any state and we should be able use that insurance wherever we live.

Mackey ignores a lesson we’ve already learned, with respect to consumer credit.  Under this model of his, every single health insurance company will relocate or let themselves be bought by entities incorporating in whichever state has the least regulation and control.

Ever wonder why all your credit card bills come from South Dakota?  This is why.

Health insurance should be portable.

It should be, but not just across state lines but also from job to job.  Or job to school.  Or job to starting one’s own business.  Or job to joblessness.  Or job to disability.  But it’s damned hard to do any of these things if you’re on the hook for $10k/year or more in premiums, with several thousand more for the kind of high-deductible insurance Mackey thinks we all should have.

In Mackey’s world, if you do not have an income or a whole lot of savings, you are 100% shit-out-of-luck as far as health insurance goes.

Repeal government mandates regarding what insurance companies must cover. These mandates have increased the cost of health insurance by billions of dollars. What is insured and what is not insured should be determined by individual customer preferences and not through special-interest lobbying.

This is where Mr. Mackey leaves the rails and careens off to Wackytown.  He seems to think ‘consumers’ have this huge power to determine what is offered in insurance, rather than seeing the reality, including how it is right now: Too much of the power lies with the insurance companies, which they’ve been abusing shamelessly for the last generation, ever since Nixon pushed through the legislation to allow for-profit insurance companies and HMOs.  (Until the 1980s, when Reagan went for even more deregulation, most were highly regulated non-profit organizations.)

This is how it is:  Insurance company finds out everything that’s wrong with you.  They refuse to sell you a policy covering those ailments.  You are fracked, and get to pay for the privilege of being fracked.

Or worse, you think you’re covered, then find a lump in your breast or a mole goes wonky…and suddenly you find your insurance policy has been retroactively canceled to the point of initiation because you neglected to write down on the application that you were checked out in an emergency room after an auto accident.  Then, you not only get a brand new deluge of bills for procedures you thought had been covered and already paid long ago, the insurance company simply keeps all the premium money you’ve been paying for all those months or years.

By removing the few remaining regulations and unleashing the insurance companies, what would happen would be a nightmare scenario where they’d instantly drop anyone who racked up more than a few hundred bucks in medical bills.  They would refuse to cover any long-term chronic conditions.  They’d also be free to double or triple your premiums at whim.

As an example, let’s say you have insurance.  You go to your doctor and shell out the $120 for an office visit, and then a couple hundred more for a cholesterol test.  (You have to pay it all, because you have crappy high deductible insurance and haven’t hit the $5k mark yet.)  The blood test comes back high.  Your insurance company immediately cancels your policy.   You cannot afford the outrageously overpriced prescription meds, so your arteries slowly clog and, because you still have no insurance, when the inevitable coronary or cranial blockage comes along, you die.

Or your family has a difficult pregnancy and a baby suffering from cerebral palsy.  Say goodbye to your insurance and insurability forever.

Seem implausible?  Click on the link to Mackey’s piece and try to find anything in there that restricts the insurance companies from these parasitic practices or blatant misrepresentation.  There isn’t.  His ideals are of the extreme Libertarian/Randian ilk, the kind which falsely presumes powerful, moneyed interests won’t exploit a vulnerable populace.  And there’s nobody more vulnerable than the injured and the chronically ill.

As I indicated in the title of this post, if this is the kind of cynical, selfish bastard who represents Whole Foods’ philosophies, I am done shopping at their stores.

Investor’s Business Daily — How House Bill Runs Over Grandma
People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn’t have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.

This was written in the Investor’s Business Daily, an editorial which ran a week and a half ago.

Stephen Hawking was born, grew up in, lives and works in the United Kingdom, and is a beneficiary of Britain’s National Health Service.  He’s 67 years old.

Any day now, I expect these blithering idiots to baldly assert something like, “If the sky was up and gravity worked, we wouldn’t be in this mess!”

Conservative Protesters Prepping For Obama N.H. Town Hall – msnbc.com
Pres. Obama holds his own town hall in New Hampshire this Tuesday where the issues of the economy and health care are likely to be the dominant issues. Of course, what many will be watching is to see if this town hall invites the same passion as we’ve witnessed at town halls for members of Congress this last week.

Look for the scenes where these ‘conservative protesters’ scream “No government-run socialist healthcare!  And keep your hands off my Medicare!”

They’re already trotting out the Soylent Green signs.

The stupid has passed beyond mere burning and has become a white-hot singularity of compressed stupidity on the verge of a Big Bang explosion of blind-hate ignorance which, after an inflationary period of exponentially increasing idiocy, creates an entire new universe of rabid dumb, with a mandated “you must have fewer than these many functioning neurons to board this ride” rule.

In this new universe of raw, undistilled, all-pervading Stupid, “You’re dumber than a bag of hammers” will be a compliment.