Veritas Google

I Google, and Google sets me free.

Results of some Google Searches, 10/20/2008:

gray: 193,000,000
grey: 183,000,000

potato: 45,700,000
tomato: 41,300,000
eggplant: 9,320,000 - I wouldn't have thought it so high

mccain obama: 110,000,000
biden palin: 21,100,000
mcpalin obiden: 5570
mcbiden opalin: 6

saddam: 25,500,000 - more than biden/palin!
paris hilton: 60,200,000 - that's just shameful

bush nuclear: 3,830,000
bush nucular: 3,810,000 - sad or
bush nuculer: 3,740,000 funny?

Gwinnett County Commissioner Primary July 15

Last evening we had a visit from Gwinnett Co. District 1 Commissioner candidate Bruce LeVell. He's the first candidate to come door-to-door to our house. I was pleased an impressed. One thing I took away from our conversation was that Duluth is still a neighborhood run by small-town politics: everyone knows everyone else. It reminds me of back home in Pine Bush, NY. Just that here, the scale is bigger - what with a million people in Gwinnett Co. now.

Rebuilt Ropeswing

Thanks to my friends, Frank and Kristin Hoffman at http://www.knot4fun.com/, I rebuilt our rope swing over the weekend. I used a swing hitch to secure the rope to a Sweet Gum branch which overhangs our back yard.

I used solid braid, multi-fiber (polypropylene, nylon, polyester) rope, 7/16" diameter (purchased at Home Depot). This has a working load of 300lbs, so I doubled up the rope. I tied a swing hitch at the top, and secured the loose end with a stick so it cannot work out of the knot. I then used overhand knots on the rope all the way down so that the kids can climb up the rope.

At the seat, I use a 2x4 with a single hole drilled through the middle. Thread the rope through the hole & tie an overhand knot under the seat bottom so the 2x4 rests on that knot. I leave a little 'tail' on the rope that I can use as a handle when giving the kids a big push on the swing.

I chose my rope so that it won't stretch with age or use, nor will it shrink after a rain. The swing is about 13 feet high off the ground.

Alkaline Battery Recycling

File this under 'you would think it not so hard'.

I cannot find any place to recycle my spent Alkaline Batteries. Just the regular old Duracell AAs. The best I could find is that the local Whole Foods takes them, but not at this location. But he has heard of the Big Green Box program, and people are asking him to get one for this store.

Excellent reading on Autism

I'm currently reading a book, With the Light: Raising an Autistic Child, written by Keiko Tobe. This is Japanese manga - a right-to-left reading graphic novel. It is an excellent depiction of the struggles faced by families with disabled children, specifically with Autism.

I found myself getting emotionally caught up in the struggles of the parents to raise their Autistic son, Hikaru. I identified with many of the issues they fought against, was hurt when they were hurt, and joyful when Hikaru connected emotionally with his parents.

I found my copy at the Gwinnett County Public Library (Duluth branch).

Numbers of Man and God

The number of God is three. The number of man is four.

God is the Trinity, three-in-one. I visualize this as:

God-Father <-> God-the-Spirit <-> God-the-Son

There is the person of Father, and the person of Son. The relationship between them is the expressed as the person of Spirit. Thus two entities, plus the relationship between them, equals three.

With man, created in the image of God, the two entities are Soul and Body, with the Mind being the expression of the relationship between the two. Then man has an additional relationship, with God, expressed as the Spirit.

God is timeless, existing simultaneously in all time, existing outside of time. But humans are mortal, existing in time. Mortals are in the image of God, operating in a world of three physical dimensions, plus time. Thus our number of dimensions equals our ‘number’ of four.

Perhaps our Spirit is the expression of timeless God into the physical world where time is a dimension: our Spirit is that line segment of linear time that is inhabited by our three-part human nature (soul-mind-body)?

Or here is another picture:

Timeless God is a sphere. Man-in-time is a line, infinite in only one dimension. The intersection of our line with the sphere of God can occur at only a single point. That point is our spirit.

Homo Insensatus

That means 'Irrational Human'. A play on Homo Sapiens - "wise human".


Here's a thought: maybe the defining feature of human beings is not our great thinking power, our 'rational' superiority to other animals. Perhaps our differentiating property is that of being the only animal to act irrationally.

After all - we seem quite able to describe all other animal behavior as part of a grand scheme to further the species, if not the individual. It seems that only humans act to the detriment of the individual and the species.

And I'm not just talking about acting on our emotions - the bane of economics and policemen alike. I'm talking about our tenacity in believing things like Freewill, the Self, God and the concept of "I" without being able to defend them philosophically. Despite the best efforts of the materialists and determinists out there, most people doggedly believe that they actually have the ability to control events, to make choices from among possible alternatives, etc.

How many other animals, once convinced that something is not possible, will keep trying it anyway?



btw - I found only one other relevant web citation of 'homo insensatus' - that for a 2005 Barnard College roundtable discussion.