If you ever get to drive in Texas you need to be aware of a great threat to you while on the road. It come in several forms, but is very easy to recognize. The first form is slow moving, erratic and appears to move aimlessly invariably in a manner to maximize your frustration and often putting you at risk with unexpected moves. The second form, while physically looking identical to the first moves at maximum speed, will go over just about anything to get to it's destination and could not care about anybody else on the road. Yes I speak of the white pick-up truck. You have been warned! No excuses. (The speed demon white pick-up truck has a close cousin, just as easy to spot, namely the black pick-up truck. While there are much fewer of them, they are just as deadly).

Once again our freedoms are under attach. This time from stealth censorship. Not so stealth actually. Pretty blatant censorship in the form of penalties from the FCC on radio shows. This is yet again the ultra Christian right forcing their views on us. The time has come for us to say enough is enough. We do not want others telling us what to think and say.

Wow three posts in one day, must be that long absence that has bottled up a lot to say.

I attended a conference in CA this week and had 2 similar and interesting experiences that reminded me how important it is to treat people well and respectfully and not to burn bridges as you move forward in your life.

At college I studied Chemistry and did a Masters in Theoretical Chemistry. When I started working it was as a software engineering virtually from day one. So what? Well this conference was the bi-annual American Chemical Society attended mainly by Chemists. I was there selling software that helps them do computation work more effectively.

So what happened?

I met a fellow during one session and we started talking. Turns out he was a member of the team at the University of Arkansas that provided one of the key programs I used to complete my masters and we had corresponded 25 years earlier. Moreover he was still in contact with my advisor from those days! Well thought it was interesting. Second event is even more unlikely. I was scheduled to have lunch with a Prof. Of Chemistry form Oxford on Monday and during our conversation I discovered he had been the best man at the wedding at one of my professors in South Africa where I grew up and studied. Bizarre to say the least. What are the odds of that. (Bear in mind the guy in South Africa had a class of 4 the year he taught me)!

So, lesson re-enforced, treat people with respect and dignity, you never know when or where they will cross your path again in the future.

It has been a while. No I did not fall off the face of the earth, just been too busy.

Flying back from LA last night the person next to me was reading a book called the Sovereignty of God. I could not help but to notice some of the writing this book. By now it must be clear that I am not religious in the traditional sense. That does not mean I m not spiritual. One comment in particular I found irrational is the "wrath of God will come down on the wicked". Well if God is supposed to be all loving and forgiving why must we fear the wrath? More fundamentally I see that most religions in the world (that I am aware of at least) are based on fear of the unknown, and that they are a shameless exploitation of this fear. What is really frightening is that many really intelligent people have fallen for this trap. Blind belief in something all powerful (and wrathful apparently) that there is absolutely no proof of other than a centuries old belief that it exists and is controlling us and all that surrounds us.

Believing in an all powerful controlling being is one thing, but to go out and start killing people who do not believe what you believe is another. That appears to now be a growing issue in the current state of the world. At least 2 fundamental groups who both have a God they believe in, but have drastically different beliefs about that God and appear to be totally willing to kill other who disagree. So this is the rational outcome of irrational thought, based on an irrational belief. Pretty scary that the future stability of the world as we know it is based on such a flimsy and unstable thought.

By the way do not get me started on the mixing of state and religion as is currently practiced by Dubja (George W Bush for those who do not know him by his real name). That leads to even more irrational behavior than you can imagine. This guy is making Victoria (Queen of England that is, not the one with the secret), look liberal and free spirited. (Sorry, but I can't leave Dubja out of the picture, he is always inviting this kind of comment).