I wasn't looking for a mathematical proof. They're scattered all over the web!

Thanks for the help, Hoo Ling Chee, but my question "why?" was directed at why everything from snails to sunflowers to even the galaxy shown above ... and yeh, even to the lengths and widths of credit cards are bursting with the limit to larger and larger ratios of consecutive Fibonacci Numbers (the limit happens to be the Golden Ratio (proof at this site) and a number-theoretic proof is really only a lame answer to a lazy mathematician's "why?" Does God alone know why it's scattered "naturally" throughout the universe--from sub-atomic particles to clusters of galaxies?

So again, I ask ...

Why?

Why? I have been pondering this one for years now ...

As most of you are aware, the ratio of consecutive numbers in the Fibonacci sequence approaches a number known as the golden ratio, or phi (=1.618033989...). The aesthetically appealing ratio is found in much human architecture and plant life. A Golden Spiral formed in a manner similar to the Fibonacci spiral can be found by tracing the seeds of a sunflower from the centre outwards.

My question is simply …

Why?

Michelle and Sarah ... now THERE's the ticket!!

So "Go, Ladies, go!" I only wish the men in Washington had your guts, determination, honesty, and morals. Mediawingnuts rests its case. Only FOOLS listen to the biased media who diss Michelle and Sarah at every opportunity. (And yes, I've been guilty of it myself at times.)

Did we really need this ?

Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R. Texas) yelling out "Baby Killer" at Rep. Bart Stubak, the most anti-abortion Roman Catholic Democrat in the House of Representatives!

In that it was during a Floor Speech, it was a sad "first" for a House Republican and an embarrassment to both major political parties and all Americans.

But in the end, it was an otherwise GREAT DAY for all Americans!

2019 - 2012 !!! Three cheers for the good guys!

The House of Representatives Comes Through!

One little clip that I borrowed from one of the first news reports this evening had the following:

Today's public roll-call vote on the health care bill has every House member vote on these key questions:

Q: end the right of insurance companies to deny someone insurance because of pre-existing conditions?
A: Repubs - NO, Dems - YES

Q: end the practice of insurance companies who cut people's insurance off when they're still sick and starting to cost the insurance company too much money?
A: Repubs - NO, Dems - YES

Q: allow young adults up to age 26 to remain on his or her parent's health insurance?
A: Repubs - NO, Dems - YES

Q: reduce the federal deficit by $138 billion in the next ten years and $1.2 trillion over twenty years?
A: Repubs - NO, Dems - YES

I've never been less proud of our (usually) patriotic and compassionate Republicans in Congress! Several of the Republican House members must have held their stomachs tight knowing that they voted AGAINST a historic bill that follows in the footsteps of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Health, after all, is a civil right too, isn't it?

100% of the House Republicans voted NO!

Chalk one up for Pelosi and Obama! ... And yes, Senator Reid too, of course, as the changes are made in the bill passed earlier by the Senate in accordance with the reconciliations made today!

After the unsuccessful efforts made by Hillary Clinton back in 1992, she too should get some credit too. I'll bet she felt relieved that it finally happened after almost two decades since her courageous stand against the insurance companies and (at that time) Big Pharm. I watched those hearings live way back then and it was largely why I supported her in the primaries.

It was a good day for humanity, but especially for the uninsured and underinsured American citizens.

Some of you think that my kindness to Sarah Palin is due to her good looks, her legs or ... you name it!

Sixteen years of Obamas would do me just fine!

Michelle Obama represents everything an educated woman should aspire to become. She made a path for herself, and is extremely strong; however, she doesn't mind dedicating her efforts to those of her husband, and THAT is what makes her even more amazing. She is the opposite of Sarah Palin in that she didn't grab the first opportunity to take center stage as did Sarah when John McCain chose her to be his running mate a year and a half ago.

And for sure, Sarah Palin's legs DO NOT match up with Michelle Obama's brains. It's as simple as that!

See?

See???

Let's start the ball rolling. We should begin campaigning NOW for Michelle Obama to be nominated and elected in 2016! Sarah will have shot her wad against her own Republican comrades plus P-BO in 2012 as will have Hillary (still my gal for her efforts for Health Care Reform way back in 1992) in the 2012 Democrat primary.

Thus ... let's start putting on those ...

Obama 2016

bumper stickers NOW!

Social Justice and Christianity ... are they related? You decide!

Unfortunately, we will have to wait until May 1, 2010 to buy a copy ... but its timing couldn't have been more perfect! It puts the Beck affair to rest, I think.

But in the meantime, the following tidbits from the Holy Bible taken from an excellent site that I found while Googling about the web might provide a starter:

Leviticus 19:18: "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself". This was quoted with emphasis by our Lord on one occasion (Matt. 22:39), and on another occasion gave rise to the parable of the Good Samaritan. It was also reinforced by both Paul (Romans 13:9 and Galatians 5:14) and James (ch. 2:8). Both our Lord and Paul declared that this commandment summed up the Law. It can therefore be taken to sum up the social duty of the Christian.

And its Biblical implications are both wide and demanding. The injunctions in both Testaments to be concerned for the poor and needy, and to be upright. just and merciful in all our dealings with others, are written plain for all to see.

Our Lord also summed up social responsibility on another occasion by saying (Matt. 7:12): "All things therefore whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, even so do ye also unto them: for this is the law and the prophets." And the Christian's social responsibility does not end with his fellow-Christian, though this is his first priority.

The example of our Lord Himself, and Paul's remark in Galatians 6:10. make it clear that this responsibility extends to everybody.

Will "No Child Left Behind Law" be finally left behind ?

This pic was taken last October, but seems to fit yesterday's, today's and tomorrow's actions!

Yesterday (almost two days ago, according to the clock next to my computer), President Obama called for a broad overhaul of President George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind law, proposing to reshape a number of numskull provisions that encouraged instructors to teach to tests, narrowed the curriculum, and labeled one in three American schools as failing.

Having only recently having taught a number of the "products" of that law, I can only applaud the new initiatives--and the common sense in leaving in place some of the sensible ideas included in the NCLB Law that were agreed upon by the late Sen. Edward Kennedy and (admittedly and surprisingly true) George W. Bush's NCLB team who worked on the bill for so long.

Still, I couldn't help but notice there was no mention of parent's responsibility. Maybe I'll pick up on that missing element when I read the entire bill on Tuesday or so.

This (parental responsibility) is still the number one problem with our educational system, IMHO. If the parents don't care, the children won't care. Most of the children that drop out of high school here in Ocean Shores do so because their parents allow them to quit. Except for a few limp local laws there seems to be no way to keep children in school.

Another problem (still unaddressed) is a meaningful comparison between rich suburban schools and poor inner city or rural schools. As yet, it appears to me that there is no mention of this in the proposed legislation. If we solve the problems in the poor inner city and rural schools that have the high dropout rates we will not have to worry about the others.

The one bright point on revamping the educational system is that we now have an intelligent president who himself sets the example. If a person with very little knowledge like Mr. "Mission Accomplished" Bush can become president there is no incentive to go to school at all--even to attend Yale University!

Glenn Beck has done it again, but this time he's taking on Jesus Christ! I think I can predict the winner.

Many of you, like me, peek now and then at the funny antics of Glenn Beck on Fox Cable News. Often, he is likable and periodically he says or does something with his plastic face that even makes me laugh.

Then again, he periodically says something or does something that reminds me that I have more than once vowed never to allow his fat face on my screen again. Last week, Fox Cable News played an absolutely horrid broadcast of Beck’s which fell into the "boycott Beck" category during which he (Beck) said.

“I beg you look for the words social justice or economic justice on your church Web site," he said. "If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words. ... Am I advising people to leave their church? Yes! … “"If you have a priest that is pushing social justice, go find another parish," he said. "Go alert your bishop and tell them, 'Excuse me are you down with this whole social justice thing?' If it's my church, I'm alerting the church authorities: 'Excuse me what's this social justice thing?' And if they say, 'Yeah we're all in on this social justice thing,' I am in the wrong place."

Later, Beck held up a picture of a swastika and one of a hammer and sickle, declaring again that "social justice" has the same philosophy as the Nazis and communists and that the phrase is a code word for both. Just browsing about the web, I found several Encyclicals of the Catholic Church (for one group of "Christians") that not only used the words "Social Justice" but went into philosophies that would turn a guy like Beck on his round head.

What he is obviously suggesting is that Christians should leave churches that preach "social justice." And for certain, Mr. Beck clearly equated the desire for a just society with, of all things, Nazism and Communism. Yeesh!!

Well, to draw this to a close (and It took some looking), this is what I found on CNN’s site under LIVING (besides the photo at the top):

An evangelical leader is calling for a boycott of Glenn Beck's television show and challenging the Fox News personality to a public debate after Beck vilified churches that preach economic and social justice.

The Rev. Jim Wallis, president of Sojourners, a network of progressive Christians, says Beck perverted Jesus' message when he urged Christians last week to leave churches that preach social and economic justice.

Wallis says Beck compared those churches to Communists and Nazis.

Wallis says at least 20,000 people have already responded to his call to boycott Beck. He says Beck is confusing his personal philosophy with the Bible.

"He wants us to leave our churches, but we should leave him," Wallis says of Beck. "When your political philosophy is to consistently favor the rich over the poor, you don't want to hear about economic justice."

Wallis says he wants to go on Beck's show to challenge the contention that churches shouldn't preach economic and social justice.

Social and economic justice is at the heart of Jesus' message, Wallis says.
"He's afraid of being challenged on his silly caricatures," Wallis says. "Glenn Beck talks a lot when he doesn't have someone to dialogue with. Is he willing to talk with someone who he doesn't agree with?"

From reading AP, ABC and CNN accounts (and I'm sure there are many others), Beck did not answer numerous requests for an interview.

Let me close with this excerpt from Matthew 25 (NKJV) wherein Jesus says to his disciples (the numbers throughout are simply verse numbers:

31 “When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. 32 All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. 33 And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. 34 Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: 35 for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; 36 I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.’

37 “Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? 38 When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? 39 Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ 40 And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’

I can’t improve on Jesus’ own words.

This caricature of Glenn Beck is actually more accurate than his bigoted and disgusting falsehoods!

Go get'm Father Amorth!

Father Gabriele Amorth, the man who has served as the Vatican's chief exorcist for 25 years, says the signs are there -- the devil has infiltrated the Vatican!

I found this piece of no-news on my web's opening page (thanks be to AOL) this afternoon.

Many of Amorth's claims are made in his autobiography, titled "Memoirs of an Exorcist." AOL referred to this as a "new" autobiography, but if you visit Amorth's space on Amazon, you won't find anything newer than 2002.

In a world in which people suffer seemingly needlessly from earthquakes and tsunamis (of late), and in which science cannot provide 100% explanation (or relief), the demonic is as good a archetype as any for understanding the inexplicable. How many of you remember that 1970’s film, The Exorcist? Was anything explained in the end?

Certainly, people should be free to seek relief wherever they can find it, but Amorth’s spooky interpretation of a number of coincidences involving the deaths of a couple of Swiss Guards at the Vatican and the Church’s well-publicized problems with many of its priests worldwide should not divert our (spelled: “you, me and every human on earth”) own sins to being the work of demonic influences.

I won’t take that cop-out and neither should anyone else!

For my own sins, I would be loath to say “the Devil made me do it!” and the Vatican, good, bad or lukewarm is not likely to take the evasive action of a highly publicized exorcism either. My reading of the Good Book suggests that only Jesus (also believed by many of us to be the only begotten Son of God) chased demons (who took refuge in the bellies of pigs, I seem to recall) into a nearby lake.

And fortunately (for me and most of us, I think), that same Jesus of Nazareth died to forgive us of all of our sins ... and the devil can crawl around the musty corners of St. Peter’s Basilica all he wishes as far as I’m concerned.

He’ll get his just rewards without the help of some priest who has been given Papal authority to chase demons out of the Vatican's darker corners with or without the imagination and talents of some Hollywood special effects department. (The DeVinci Code was still fun to watch, though.)

Read the Book of Revelation for starters.

Lest there be any confusion between father's neatness and his namesake son's traits along those lines . ...

Camcorder View of FSU's #1 Work Area

I woud'na have believed it if I hadn't seen it on my laptop's monitor. In at least one way, it's "like father, like son!"

Quick! Plant a Redwood Tree (Sequoia Sempervirens) in your backyard -- NOW!!

Recent Seismological "events" in the Upper Northwest Corner of the US

Horrific earthquakes and tsunamis in Haiti and Chile (not accounting for recent such events in Japan and Taiwan) ought to be a reminder that apocalyptic events don't just take place on the Discovery and National Geographic Channels on your television sets. The current death toll from the massive 8.8-magnitude earthquake in Chile has left about 800 dead, and the 7.0 quake in Haiti is estimated to have killed between 100,000 and 200,000 people.

Western Washington—and particularly low-lying oceanside places like North Ocean Shores, West Ocean Shores, East Ocean Shores, South Ocean Shores and Central Ocean Shores are not immune from major geologic events including volcanoes, earthquakes and (shudder) tsunamis. The ground upon which my kitties and I live has moved many times and our proximity to the Juan De Fuca subduction zone, about 60 to 125 miles from the coast, assures more “events” in the future.

In fact, we’re due!!

And the highest point in our peninsula is roughly twenty feet from sea level.

The U.S. Geological Survey reports an average of more than one major earthquake or tsunami every 550 years or so. Grays Harbor County (Ocean Shores is the tiny peninsula in Grays Harbor County’s westernmost edge—on the ocean as its name suggests) will eventually be shaken by a major quake -- a megaquake -- or be inundated by a massive (50 feet high waves) — just as it has been in previous centuries.

And we can forget emergency services; even well-trained and coordinated disaster response experts can’t outrun a tsunami racing to shore from about fifty miles out at the speed of sound. But of course, we've replaced our only four-way stop on the way off of the peninsula with a confusing round-a-bout to make evacuating Ocean Shores at least more entertaining.

In a word, you need to be prepared to take care of yourself.

Thus, I will be planting a Redwood Tree (Sequoia sempervirens) next weekend in my back yard for my cats and I to climb when

the big one hits!

Now, all I have to do is wait for my Sequoia Sempervirens to grow to 150 feet or so.

Mediawingnuts ain’t gonna be caught with his pants down! Nosiree!

"X" Marks the Spot! (Ocean Shores, Washington)

Doctors say President Obama is "fit for duty," but that doesn't mean he's making all the right lifestyle choices.

A Very Old Picture but a Current and Ongoing Habit

After the president underwent a 90-minute physical exam at the National Naval Medical Center Sunday morning, Navy Capt. Jeffery Kuhlman, the chief White House physician, declared him to be in "excellent health." But he had a few more things to tell both President Obama and the rest of us who depend upon him (Obama) for both leadership and as a role model for our youth--including Mediawingnuts' grandkids!!!

Quit that $#@&#@ smoking!!!