Cosmos: The new daguerreotype: For the Midwest.

Video Overview of Earth

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Anthropology: The poignancy of lost humanity.

The first thing to know in understanding humanity is Original Sin and mankind's diversion from his journey to heaven. Because our purpose is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever, God has put a yearning for something greater and transcendent in our hearts. The following video seems to echo this yearning: Iz sings "Over The Rainbow".

Technos & Social Philosophy: Robotics and the Fear of our replacement

My brother has a interesting report from Japan on robots.
His link. You've got to check out the video. Also, check out the song at his link called "The Humans Are Dead".

and of course my favorite song about a robot from ELO: (check out the video in the link just below)

Yours Truly, 2095

2095, 2095, 2095, 2095
I love you, sincerely
Yours truly, yours truly...

I sent a message to another time
But as the days unwind, this I just can't believe
I sent a note across another plane
Maybe its all a game, but this I just can't conceive.

Can you hear me?

I drive the very latest hovercar
I don't know where you are
But I miss you so much till then
I met someone who looks a lot like you
She does the things you do
But she is an IBM.

2095, 2095, 2095, 2095
I love you, sincerely
Yours truly, yours truly...

She's only programmed to be very nice
But she's as cold as ice
Whenever I get too near
She tells me that she likes me very much
But when I try to touch
She makes it all too clear.

She is the latest in technology
Almost mythology
But she has a heart stone
She has an i.q. of 1001
She has a jumpsuit on
And she's also a telephone.

2095, 2095, 2095, 2095
I love you, sincerely
Yours truly, yours truly...

Chorus:
Is that what you want? (is it what you want? )
Is it what you really want? (is it what you really want? )
Is that what you want? (is it what you want? )
Is it what you really want?

I realize that it must seem so strange
That time has rearranged
But time has the final word
She knows I think of you, she reads my mind
She tries to be unkind
She knows nothing of our world

Although her memory banks overflow
No one would ever know
For all she says: is that what you want?
Maybe one day I'll feel her cold embrace
And kiss her interface
'til then, I'll leave her alone.

I love you, sincerely
Yours truly, yours truly...

Repeat chorus:

Is that what you want?

Song Lyrics & Social Philosophy: Rush's The Trees

"The Trees"

There is unrest in the forest
There is trouble with the trees
For the maples want more sunlight
And the oaks ignore their pleas

The trouble with the maples
(And they're quite convinced they're right)
They say the oaks are just too lofty
And they grab up all the light
But the oaks can't help their feelings
If they like the way they're made
And they wonder why the maples
Can't be happy in their shade

There is trouble in the forest
And the creatures all have fled
As the maples scream 'Oppression!'
And the oaks just shake their heads

So the maples formed a union
And demanded equal rights
'The oaks are just too greedy
We will make them give us light'
Now there's no more oak oppression
For they passed a noble law
And the trees are all kept equal
By hatchet, axe and saw.

Historical Philosophy: A Problem for Future Historians

The following post by Peter Leithart is too well written to just put up a link to it; I quote here:

When we read that ancient tyrants hired magicians to perform haruspicy with the entrails of dismembered infants, we immediately discount the record as propaganda. We know without needing to investigate that similar accusations against Jews in the Middle Ages had become a topos of anti-religious rhetoric.

I’m not saying we should believe these accounts, but I wonder: Centuries from now, historians will tell about a civilization that tore apart infants in their mothers’ wombs, or burned them in saline solution. Historians will claim that in the early twenty-first century, the leading citizens of the United States could not decide whether or not piercing the brain of a partially-born baby should be legal.

They will argue that scientists grew embryos in laboratories in the hopes that their genetic material could provide miraculous cures for the sick and dying. Economic historians will trace the sources for the billions of dollars gathered by infant-killers, and the billions more devoted to research on murdered babies.

And I wonder: When historians say all this, will anyone believe it?

posted by Peter J. Leithart on Thursday, November 27, 2008 at 8:35 am

And on another topic for future historians, it will be wondered why a civilization that, though imperfectly, reached the highest levels of personal liberty and prosperity for it's citizens chose to piss it all away and embrace a failed economic system (socialism) and chose to lose to a barbaric group of thugs (radical Islamo-Fascists) who have no regard for culture, liberty, and equitable prosperity for it's citizens.