Entropy always increases

Bad news for Robert A. Heinlein fans:

Besides expounding principles of governance which could arguably be described as fascist, Heinlein was also - again, arguably - a student of the occult, and a familiar of the principals of the Babalon Working: Jack Parsons, L Ron Hubbard and "the Scarlet Woman," Marjorie Cameron.

In the 1993 the essay Whence Came the Stranger: Tracking the Metapattern of Stranger in a Strange Land, "Adam Walks Between Worlds" writes

Cameron and others recall that Heinlein and Parsons were quite close friends. They may have met at the Los Angeles Science Fiction Fan club wich maintained a reading room -- they were certainly seen there together. It was also common for science fiction authors to tour the Pasadena-based Jet Propulsion Laboratories that Parsons co-founded. Heinlein was particularly avid in availing himself of such tours. He used to take years off to study advances in science and often wrote glowing of NASA. So here was Parsons, the wunderkind of the rocket scientist community while Heinlein was its chief PR man and visionary. Space travel was both men's passion and livelihood. They had much in common, including their friendship with L. Ron Hubbard, who must have mentioned one to the other. Heinlein lived within driving distance of Agape Lodge which often performed the Gnostic Mass and, judging from Stranger and other writings, Heinlein was quite familiar with the ritual.

Of course, I'm not sure how seriously I'm supposed to take something written by someone named "Adam Walks Between The Worlds". And I'm not sure it's fair to condemn RAH simply on the basis of who he hung out with. Still... food for thought.

Bad news for Moslems and liberals:

Bush administration and US army preparations to target American citizens and intern them in forced labor camps has vastly accelerated in the past month and commentators from all over the political spectrum are sounding the alarm bells that the round-ups may begin soon.

Once the bane of the media's stereotypical 'tin foil hat wearing' caricatures, concentration camps in America are now serious news and no one is laughing.

Following the news first given wide attention by this website, that Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root had been awarded a $385 million dollar contract by Homeland Security to construct detention and processing facilities in the event of a national emergency, the Alternet website put together an alarming report that collated all the latest information on plans to initiate internment of political subversives and Muslims after the next major terror attack in the US.

The article highlighted the disturbing comments of Sen. Lindsey Graham, who encouraged torture supporting Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to target, "Fifth Columnists" Americans who show disloyalty and sympathize with "the enemy," whoever that enemy may be.

I have no difficulty believing the powers that be are building internment camps, or, even worse, that the general American populace will tolerate them, as long as it's only Muslims, and, you know, Middle Eastern looking people who talk funny, that end up inside the wire. Future generations will weep and wail and rend their garments about our unthinking insensitivity, but as a general rule, people only do that at a safe distance from the actual events, when weeping and wailing is all they'll be required to do about it.

However, I'm not willing to push the panic button yet in terms of, you know, real Americans, by which I mean, white Americans with actual jobs who pay their bills and drive gas guzzling cars, being put into forced labor camps. It's very important to our powers that be that all of us continue to spend all our waking hours working and consuming. And, anyway, it's not like any of us are actually doing anything to inconvenience them in any way. Standing on a street corner once or twice a month with a placard in your hand shaking your fist at traffic isn't exactly leading a revolution -- especially when you get into your SUV afterward and head over to a Starbuck's for a $4 latte.

Frankly, if anyone really does do anything to 'inconvenience' the system, I firmly believe the people living in the shadows just have them killed.

But, yeah... rounding up a small segment of the population that the greater segment of the population couldn't care less about and using them for cheap labor? Sounds like the Dick Cheney way to me.

Bad news for the entire planet:

We're killing our oceans. They're very nearly dead. Go check it out and see, if you don't believe me.

I've got nothing to add here. It's been coming for a very long time. With the Amazon rain forest also on the soon to be extinct list, the odds of large land animals (like human beings) surviving into the 22nd Century are getting pretty slim.

Still, other than bitching about it on this blog, I'm certainly not going to do anything about it.