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Although
I did arrive at this mystery independently and entirely on my own, I'm
not the first man ever to have done so. A very brief bit of research
led me to Bertil Lindblad. His concerns were identical to mine.
I, and presumably Lindblad as well, accepted the idea that if a thing exists, then the thing must be possible, however improbable it might seem. Furthermore, if the thing is plentiful, then it must be more than possible. It must be probable. There are a lot of spiral galaxies. Actually, the simple solar system type of gravitational model is inapplicable to a galaxy. That simple model relies on the assumption that orbiting masses can be approximated as point sources of gravity. Also, a planet doesn't orbit about a sun. They both orbit about their common center of mass. With three bodies, it gets more complicated. The location of the common center of mass, relative to any one of the three bodies, continues to change with their relative positions. The center of mass of a galaxy is probably a lot easier to locate, at least as an average. The problem with a galaxy is the point source assumption. A star near the center of a galaxy will receive almost no net gravitational force because the source is widely distributed. The gravitational force doesn't come from a point. It comes from all of the surrounding stars. Near the center, the vectors cancel, at least approximately. Stars near the center of a galaxy might not be orbiting at all. They might just be "floating" in a region of near zero net gravitational force. All of that aside, the problem of the spirals remains unresolved. Wikipedia presents theories and more references than anybody is ever likely to read. I didn't even try to read them because I was already considering a theory of my own. I call it The Really Scary Theory because it's a really scary theory. I don't necessarily believe it but it is interesting, in addition to being really scary. Also, speculation comes easily to me. Here's the speculation. One way that I can imagine that a spiral galaxy could exist is if it started out with the stars arranged as spokes, extending straight from the galactic center to the galactic rim. If such a galaxy existed, then within a short time the rotation of the galaxy would stretch the spokes into spirals. It's an interesting speculation about a possible starting configuration for a spiral galaxy. How could such a thing happen? Here's The really Scary Theory. Suppose that all of the stars in our galaxy appeared at the same instant, arranged as spokes extending from the galactic center to the galactic rim, all at their proper distances from the galactic center, all moving in their correct directions, and all moving at their correct speeds. After spinning for a while, our galaxy would have spirals which, indeed, it does. Suppose further that all of the other stars that we can see, throughout all of the universe that's visible to us, appeared at the same instant, each in its proper location, each moving in the correct direction, each moving at the correct speed, and each at its proper age in the lifetime sequence of stars. Suppose finally that all of the light that's traveling across the part of the universe that we can see appeared at the same instant, each bit of it moving in the correct direction and at the right location, as if it had spent the past millions of years travelling, so that we could see the distant stars, so recently arrived upon the scene, as if they'd existed for millions of years. If such a thing was done correctly, if it was done with infinite skill, then how could we know the difference? The universe would appear the same to us, either way. Maybe that's what really happened, and the spirals are a clue. As I mentioned previously, this is a really scary theory but it does explain the spirals. Maybe, just maybe, God really did create the universe in its entirety, all in a single instant, a mere 4,000 years ago. Thus, the spirals.
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Slavery
Without the Guilt
Robert H. Outman Through the millennia, mankind has enslaved fellow humans to do another's labor. Pharaohs' desires and ambitions were met through the tears and sweat of whipped slaves. Roman conquerors benefited from the cheap labor of their defeated enemies. The ugly historic side of the deep south reminds us that, more recently, slaves have labored for their masters. History has repeatedly shown that not all humans share freedom and liberty. Slavery can take many forms. With the negative connotations of the word today, modern slavery achieves political correctness by such terms as laborer, worker, field hand, servant, and inmate. Justification for slave exploitation has always been easy: they are not like us, they are enemies, they are less deserving than we are, they broke our laws, they owe us, and a multitude of other reasons. Dehumanizing people makes it easier to believe that they are unworthy of liberty. Their privilege is to serve their masters and overlords. Prisons are exceptionally masterful in such dehumanization and exploitation. California operates the Prison Industry Authority (PIA), a multimillion dollar Leviathan that produces and sells a broad variety of product's, from sausages to office furniture. Under the guise of "rehabilitation" and "vocational training", PIA has a captive, cheap labor force. Prison authorities adamantly defend their exploitation as "rehabilitation" and "vocational education", yet there are no statistics as to their success. However, there is a 70% prisoner recidivism rate, which would suggest failure of rehabilitation to any reasoning person. Once in servitude to the state, inmate/slaves must work. Most receive no compensation. The highest level of compensation is one dollar an hour, from which the state takes 55% in restitution pay, plus the costs of any medical or other charges incurred. Can you imagine making 18¢ an hour with your master taking 10+¢ of that hour's pay and then telling you that you stink because you can't afford to buy deodorant from the company store? Prison officials will swear that there is no exploitation of prisoners and that every prisoner's rights are respected. Court records do not agree. The United States Supreme Court found that California violated prisoners' constitutional rights with cruel and unusual punishment by overcrowding. Like a child being dragged to the dentist, California continued to oppose and resist prison population reduction, citing justice and public safety as justification. On September 30, 2014, the ugly truth showed itself in a filing by California, opposing a motion that the state had not kept its promise to reduce draconian long sentences, giving non-violent level 1 & 2 prisoners their liberty.
California's plea to the federal court had nothing to do with justice or public safety. The state's federal court filing shows that level 1 & 2 inmates are valuable resources, so much so that the state is building two new billion dollar facilities to house them. The state was justifying to the court why it should be allowed to continue keeping a large workforce of inmate/slaves in servitude. Mankind's need to punish wrongdoers has become perverted into a vehicle for the dehumanization of our fellow man and the use of prisoners as mere beasts of burden.
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Acknowledgments My thanks to the following: SantaClara Bob; Lady Jan the Voluptuous; my mother; Dewey and Betty; Robert O., of Ione, California; Sir Donald the Elusive; and Steve, of Waipahu, Hawaii. — editor
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Puns
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