December 21st, 2012: The Day The World WON'T End

(I've taken the unusual step of posting this article both here and on my other blog because I believe this is a developing scam that is going to bilk a lot of people in the coming years, and that sort of thing really annoys me.)

According to many, the world is going to end on December 21, 2012. This is when the Mayan calendar comes to an end. Personally, I always thought the Mayan Calendar came to an end at that point because the Mayans weren't planning on going to anyone's birthday party or attending any business meetings hundreds of years after the collapse of their society, but I could be wrong. And many New Age-y types have decided that this is when civilization is going to collapse, because that's when Nibiru comes back.

"Nibiru comes back?" The miniskirt making a comeback, sure. But what the hell is "Nibiru"?

According to Zecharia Sitchin, who claims to be an expert in Ancient Sumerian studies (but got his degree in Economic History), Nibiru is a giant planet, the size of Jupiter or larger, on an eccentric orbit that brings it into the inner Solar System about once every 3600 years or so. His decoding of ancient Sumerian and Mayan texts apparently confirm this. The story is that Nibiru will be returning soon... making its closest approach to Earth on December 21, 2012.

Those ancient Sumerians and Mayans... they couldn't hold their empires together, but apparently they were waaaay better astronomers than we are.

I'm not fluent in Mayan or Sumerian, so I have no place Sitchin's archaeology. But others have, and there is a fairly exhaustive rundown of Sitchin's errors here. But astronomy and astrophysics? Those are subjects I do know. And I can tell you with great confidence that THERE ARE NO GIANT RAMPAGING PLANETS OUT THERE COMING TO EAT YOU. Honest.

Consider this: everything with mass in the universe has a gravitational field. The greater the mass, the stronger the field. That's why apples fall to Earth, and why the Earth doesn't fall towards apples. The Earth orbits the Sun. If the Earth were travelling faster, it would achieve "escape velocity": the speed needed to fly away from the Sun and off into the Cosmos. If the earth were to slow down, it would fall into the Sun. Every planet in the solar system has a gravitational effect on every other planet, though (relative to the huge mass of the Sun) the pull that, say, Neptune has on Venus is pretty weak.

Put another way: when you were born, the mass of the obstetrician had slightly more influence on you than the planet Mars did... but slightly less than that of Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system.

If two bodies of sufficient mass pass close enough to each other, they will have an effect on each others orbits around the Sun. Many asteroids have had their orbits affected by the occasional(relatively) close brush with Jupiter: picking up speed and moving out into more distant, less circular orbits around the Sun as a result.

Even though Niburu has such a long orbit, given the age of the Solar System (about 4.5 billion years), it would have passed by Earth (and all the other planets) about one and a quarter million times in the life of the Solar System. And yet despite all these close brushes with a giant planet, Mercury through Neptune remain in relatively stable, circular orbits. The odds of that being the case with a Niburu whipping through the neighborhood that many times is comparable to the odds of making your first break in a game of pool by throwing a bowling ball onto the table... and having all the pool balls drift elegantly back into their original triangular configuration. Try it sometime... with someone else's pool table, ideally.

Furthermore... you'd think that with something that big in our own Solar System, there would be some kind of observational clues... after all, we found Pluto, and it's a tiny, insignificant little thing compared to Uranus and Neptune. Uranus, in turn, is much smaller than Nibiru allegedly is; and Uranus was discovered in the 1700s. As far as observational data for Nibiru: there was a misidentified sighting of a distant galaxy by the IRAS satellite in 1984 that has gotten a lot of coverage as being "Nibiru," and the occasional misidentified sun dog.

The primary reason all of this bothers me... other than it being a sign of how damned bad public education really is these days... is that there seem to be a lot of people out there exploiting the fear of Nibiru Doom for profit.

Like these people. Or these people. Or this guy. But most of all: THIS guy.

And regardless of which religious tradition one follows, or which ancient texts on bases one's beliefs on... most faiths agree that hoodwinking the gullible for profit is a bad thing. And I agree.

So: no need to panic. The only threat to the world in 2012... or now... is human nature itself.

Okay, in light of that... maybe you can panic a little.

.


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Astrologyzone.com Didn't See This Coming

Dear Blogger.com:

I love you guys. Really, I do. A lot of us do. But you've recently handed me (and it appears, hundreds of other bloggers) a real pain in the ass in the form of evil, rampaging robots. More specifically, you've apparently unleashed a horde of hungry 'bots designed to weed out the many "splogs" (spam blogs... if you've ever done a Google search for a given term and found a blog that consisted of hundreds of variations on phrases like "Lindsay Lohan Nude Lesbian Astrology Zone Viagra!" then you've seen one).

(I hope I just didn't turn my blog into a splog by talking about splogs, if you're out there reading this now, Blogger.com people...)

But guys, please, I pour out what little is left of my heart and brain into my two blogs, and thanks a lot for unlocking this one... but can I please, please have my other blog that I've poured my soul into back?

Please?

This all goes to prove an important point I made a while ago... ROBOTS SHOULD NOT SMOKE MARIJUANA. It makes them do crazy, irresponsible things.

And hey... ever had a look at my other blog? You really should before I move it away from here...

Are You There, Joseph Farah? It's Me, God

Dear Joe:

Thanks for all the prayers. I'm glad you liked the titanium golf clubs, but you don't need to thank me: they were a business write-off for one of your clients. But thanks for the thought anyway.

Misdirection is actually the reason I'm writing to you today. I read your recent column at World Net Daily about evolution, and I think it's time I cleared up a few things for you.

First of all, biblical literalism: I know how you guys love to bend and stretch things to fit the exact words you see in that Bible in front of you. That's why you folks are constantly pushing the notion that the universe is about 6000 years old, based on Bishop Ussher's interpretation of the Old Testament.

Joe: science has moved on a little since the 1600s. I can prove it, too. You, for example, have a web site ...not a scroll.

I understand that you feel the need to defend your faith. That's great. A lot of good has come from that in its time, even if much of it has been from people like Mother Theresa who secretly doubt Me. And you'd be amazed how many perfectly nice atheists there are out there. Honest!

What I'm trying to say here, Joe, is that you have a brain. Whether you want to blame that fact on Me, or on Evolution, don't you think it's a shame you aren't using it? Again: faith is one thing, but doing crazy intellectual back-flips to justify the letter of the law but not the spirit? That's the sort of thing that pisses me off. It makes me blowing-up-Gomorrah cranky, but of course that's not really my style.

Surprise!

Joe: think. Biblical literalism has its limits. Or are you trying to tell me you don't eat pork and regularly "suffer not a witch to live"?

Seriously, dude. Think about it.

Anyway, I have to go now. There's a planetary nebula in Andromeda that's turning out really nicely, and I want to go watch. Try to be a little smarter and kinder to each other, okay? It would be a terrible disappointment if you guys gave in to your own worst instincts and blew each other up.

Of course, if you do, I have some amazing plans for the bandicoot in about four million years. They'll do me proud at least, I'm sure.

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Ann Coulter Is A Single Female, And Is Therefore Stupid And Shouldn't Vote, According To Ann Coulter

Oh Ann Coulter, you stupid girl.

If you need any more proof of the creeping neuropathy afflicting the American Right, look no further than Ann Coulter. Prepare yourself for more stupidity from the author of "If Democrats Had Any Brains They'd Be Republicans" which hits book store shelves like a big flaming sack of crap today.

Here's the current state of Ann's brain, according to a recent interview with her The New York Observer:

-In the rush to blame Bill Clinton for 9/11, we've overlooked the complicity of History's greatest Monster: Jimmy Carter:

"Jimmy Carter got the whole thing started, Bill Clinton let it build, build, build, build, build. He wouldn't deal with it, because he had no credibility on deploying the military. He was a pot smoking draft dodger, and so when he was presented with credible evidence that this or that country was behind a terrorist attack, he’d just have to look the other way: “No, don't let me hear that. Call in Monica!”

...which raises the question: did Jimmy Carter secretly direct Ronald Reagan's foreign policy for eight years? And if so, why isn't Jimmy taking credit for the fall of the Soviet Union? Oh, right: Jimmy's too busy building hiding places for al-Qaida in Georgia.

-Ann Coulter doesn't trust members of her own (alleged) gender:

"If we took away women's right to vote, we'd never have to worry about another Democrat president. It's kind of a pipe dream, it's a personal fantasy of mine, but I don't think it's going to happen. And it is a good way of making the point that women are voting so stupidly, at least single women."

You're right. All single women are idiots except you, Ann honey. It's utter stupidity to let those left behind most by the US economy in the last decade vote. Well, second most, anyway. Why didn't Ann have the cojones to invoke Jim Crow while we're at it? Of late there's been more noise about using Voter Registration to keep poor folks from voting... why not add a quick, Olympic-style gender test at the polls?

-And finally, this twisty bit of non-reasoning as to why "The Left" (read: "living organisms") treat Global Warming like it's their "religion" (read: "an established fact"):

"Because we can't prove them wrong for a thousand years, and I think the other thing about it is, it goes back to Chesterton’s statement: that when people stop believing in God, the problem isn't that they believe in nothing, it's that they'll believe anything. And that's what you constantly see with people who don't believe in God: They're always imitating the most ridiculous, primitive religions. And it is like a primitive religion, thinking if we just change these lightbulbs, we can change the temperature of the ocean. It's the craziest thing! Even primitive people wouldn't believe something that silly."

Funny, I thought "they" had been "proven right" a few years ago. Of course if Global Warming is a religion, then climatologists must be its priests. You can hide a lot of collection plates under those lab coats, you know. I'm just disappointed Ann didn't write us a list of which religions are the ridiculous, primitive ones. I'm guessing "Pentecostal" isn't on her list. Off the top of my head, I'll bet she's referring to voodoo.

You know, the one where you make a false image of something you hate and attack it from the comfort of your own home, rather than confront the issue directly. Ann, of course, knows better than to use pins and dolls, when a word processor is so much less work.

Ideology is one thing, but the American Right is acting more and more all the time like there's an actual neurological issue. Ann has recently lost the ability to understand basic human social behaviour. Rush Limbaugh continues to slander the troops his ass pimple wouldn't let him join, and Bill O'Reilly continues to lie about liars lying about him.

This sort of thing worries me. What if it's contagious? Never mind the Democrats... someone call House!

And isn't it amazing that a stupid girl like Shirley Manson of Garbage could have written a song about stupid girls like stupid Ann Coulter years ago, with hardly any help at all from boys?

What drives you on

Can drive you mad

A million lies to sell yourself

Is all you ever had...

A Message From The Arachnid Ambassadors?

Spiders have been around for a long time, and part of the reason they've been such a success is that what they do, they do very well. Spiders don't normally change their behaviours en masse unless there is a distinct reason for it. When they do, it's usually because pesticides have scrambled their brains, and the new behaviors are simply defective versions of the old ones.

I can't explain it properly, but I've been convinced for a while now that spiders are possessed of something resembling consciousness. Some spiders are actually on a par with humans when it comes to certain intellectual tasks.

I don't know that spiders are "intelligent" in any sense the same way we are... but I've always suspected consciousness in them beyond that of the average bug. Then again, I myself never kill spiders. Not out of reverence or superstition: it's more like an experiment in inter-species communication. We don't screw with you, you don't screw with us. And no, I don't know anyone who isn't at least a little disturbed by the idea of spiders being conscious in any form. I know I certainly am.

So you can imagine how disturbed I am by the sudden, unexplained change in behaviour among the spiders east of Dallas, Texas. The local spiders... the usual, solitary, orb-web-building type... have teamed up to produce something as baffling yet strangely significant as a crop circle. Only no one is doubting that this... whatever the hell it is... is real.

Is this the first contact we've waited for? Is Anansi the Spider God displeased?

Is there something fundamental that has to change, somewhere east of Dallas?

The spiders have me thinking.

***

Then again, maybe it's all Vincent Price's fault that I'm thinking this way. When it comes to deeply ingrained behaviours in humans, never underestimate the power of an old song.

"If I may put forward a slice of personal philosophy, I feel that man has ruled this world as a stumbling, demented child-king long enough! And as his empire crumbles, my precious Black Widow shall rise as his most fitting successor!"

That Settles It... Robots Should Not Smoke Marijuana

(Click the picture for full propaganda-liciousness)

I found this toxic bonbon (along with a lot of others) at Comics With Problems... one of my new favourite locations on the Net for unintentional absurdism.

Make sure you check out the Archie comic written by the FBI, Spider-Man's tale of sexual abuse, and Yogi Bear taking time off from his five "pic-a-nic basket" a day habit to warn kids about drugs.

An Abomination (Or Two, Or Three) Unto The Lord?

Alberta is about to become home to Canada's first permanent "creation science" museum.

As someone who believes in God, I am deeply and profoundly offended by this. I'm not here to pick on Christianity, specifically... based on my reading, Jesus seems like my kinda guy. And (as anyone who voted for a religious pro-war neocon could tell you) there's a huge difference between The Message and The Messenger.

I consider it blasphemous that someone could believe that The Universe was built as-is by a Divine Intelligence who would be cruel enough to give you a well-developed prefrontal cortex and would then expect you to use it to IGNORE the profound wealth of evidence that everything is, in fact, Running According To A Scheme.

Part of that scheme involves what happens when atoms interact and form groups, as they are prone to doing. God designed a marvelously flexible, durable, changeable Universe. Every bit of evidence going seems to point to this kind of thing happening all the time... and if you don't believe me, ask a snowflake.

A lot of people reject evolution because it denies the Literal Truth of The Bible. Which is a shame, because The Bible itself has clearly evolved, from original manuscripts to the Council Of Nicea to King James to today. And the argument that if ONE thing in The Bible is true, it all has to be true doesn't wash with me either. Or, put another way, will the new museum also offer free Witch-Burning service (Exodus 22:18)? Will I be allowed in if I had bacon for breakfast (Leviticus 15)? And is there a display demonstrating that the Earth is, in fact, flat (Job 38:12-14)?

Museum owner Harry Nibourg, according to the Calgary Sun, is having a hard time finding a scientist willing to debate him. Well, Harry, I'm a total scientific amateur, and I'm willing to debate you, here and in public. Also, I'm a professional astrologer, and I can defend the Biblical merits of that, too. A two-for-one deal like that ought to have you salivating.

I'd love to talk about my old buddy Tiktaalik. Or Eohippus. Or Archaeopteryx. Or our common relative, Australopithecus. Or any of the other known, established precursors to you and me and the things running around on your lawn.

In the meantime here's ten things I really doubt you'll see on display at the new museum.

Please rise for today's hymn:

Veterinery Gynaecology And TELUS: A Comparison

This is a duck uterus.

You may recall from high school Biology class or the Discovery Channel or that last Pussycat Dolls video that the human uterus is a smooth, regular shape... kind of like a pear. A duck's uterus, on the other hand, is a twisty labyrinth of dead ends, false leads, and fool's errands for sperm.

Here's a quote from "Coevolution of Male and Female Genital Morphology in Waterfowl"... don't worry, I'll provide a translation afterwards:

"Most birds have simple genitalia; males lack external genitalia and females have simple vaginas. However, male waterfowl have a phallus whose length (1.5–>40 cm) and morphological elaborations vary among species and are positively correlated with the frequency of forced extra-pair copulations among waterfowl species. Here we report morphological complexity in female genital morphology in waterfowl and describe variation vaginal morphology that is unprecedented in birds. This variation comprises two anatomical novelties: (i) dead end sacs, and (ii) clockwise coils. These vaginal structures appear to function to exclude the intromission of the counter-clockwise spiralling male phallus without female cooperation."

In other words, there is a long-standing sexual-evolutionary civil war amongst ducks. Male ducks have developed a distinct taste for forced copulation. Females ducks have become more internally convoluted to help prevent reproduction with rapist ducks. The more rape-prone the species of duck, the more complex the uterus... and the longer and twistier the penis has become in response.

As you may recall from here it took me a long, long time to get my tax forms out of Telus. One thing they still haven't straightened out is the three years or so worth of employee discount that should have been applied to my phone and Internet. And please keep in mind that, as someone who used to work there, I have a better-than-average idea of how the system works there. Nonetheless... no results.

Based on the above information about duck uteruses, I confidently predict that within a few hundred thousand years the average Telus customer's wallet will be twelve feet long and shaped like a nest of garter snakes.

And now you know why every month when I look at my phone bill, I shout "fuck a duck!"

Tony Rosato: A Comedian's Unfunny Fate (Updated)

Former SCTV star Tony Rosato has been in jail for two years without a trial.

Life is full of surprises. Crazy or not, I'm sure Tony didn't expect to be locked in the slammer for this long without a trial. He's in there... supposedly, maybe... because he's mentally ill. Maybe.

Tony Rosato apparently suffers from Capgras Syndrome: a rare but intriguing mental disorder where the sufferer becomes convinced that one or more loved ones or close associates have been replaced by lookalikes, Body Snatchers-style. It reminds me a little of one of my favourite mental disorders: Alien Limb Syndrome, in which a person becomes suddenly convinced that their left arm, for example, belongs to someone else. This is the sort of thing that should be treated in a hospital, by doctors... not prison guards.

Tim Kazurinsky -- proud American -- had this to say about the matter: "Canada: socialized medicine – they really care."

You probably know by know how I hate this... but I have to agree with him.

Why on Earth do we keep putting up with all the bad logic and outright lies about Canadian health care being such a tax burden? We spend 8.5 percent of our GDP on health care... the neighbors spend 11 percent. Our care is as good as theirs. Imagine how much better it would be if we actually gave enough of a rat's ass about our fellow humans to do something about it.

When did I wake up in a world where the Almighty Buck was the driving force behind everything? By my estimation, about twenty years ago. It makes me mad enough that I could hit someone... but I hate the thought of someone bleeding to death while they're sitting around waiting six hours for an emergency-room doctor.

If anyone reading this is taking a trip outside of this Mirror Universe, can I please hitch a ride?

UPDATE August 28/07: Tony is still being jailed for the crime of having a mental illness, or so it seems. However, the wheels of justice are beginning to turn... slowly.

Pineapples From Hell!

Please watch this brief educational film in which Kirk Cameron -- best known as the teenage son and (apparently) Chief Evolutionary Biologist from "Growing Pains" -- has a friend show us why the banana proves the existence of a Supreme Being.

I myself do believe in the existence of God. However, using the same logic presented above, one could prove that since a pineapple isn't easy to open, isn't conveniently shaped, isn't covered by a user-friendly surface, and doesn't fit well in your hand or mouth... that God did not create the pineapple as He did the banana. I knew there was something vaguely unholy about that Hawaiian pizza I had a couple of days ago...

The nifty thing about this is that the banana as we know it today is an excellent example of Intelligent Design. To prove it, I have included a photo of a wild, unmodified banana at the top of this entry. This is what all bananas looked like before hundreds of generations of selective breeding and modification... by humans.

(By the way, a banana is easier to open from the non-stem end. Pulling on the stem is a human convention. Try it yourself. Or watch a gorilla have lunch some time).

The lesson here? Whatever your Dogma is, don't let it become your Truth. At best you may end up being right for the wrong reasons. At worst... you might invade Iraq.

Canary In A Coalmine, Wearing A Tinfoil Hat (Updated)

Meet the electromagnetically over-sensitive.

This is Sarah Dacre of London. She claims to be affected by the electromagnetic noise being generated by modern living. That's not a beekeeper's mask: it's a fine metal mesh designed to block radio-frequency signals.

I admit I'm torn by this story: I'm not a technophobe, but I'm also aware of how technology has affected our lives in ways we didn't anticipate. I'm all but ready to dismiss this woman's story, based (if nothing else) on the notion that she thinks a tinfoil-lined home is going to be letting any signals in at all. These things are pervasive, but unless you live right next to a power station or a cell phone tower, they're pretty weak.

But it would be easy to laugh and dismiss her, and people like her, when the truth is that the overall safety (or lack thereof) of the constant radio-wave bath we're all taking 24/7 hasn't been nearly proved yet.

All I know is that a voice signal on a cell phone takes up a LOT more bandwidth than a text message ever could... and yet I'm still charged for every text message I send, whereas my voice calls are "included". At the risk of sounding like an old fart: people (especially teenagers) really DO have more money than sense these days...

Why haven't you heard more negatives about cell phones? Follow the money. As long as people are just alive enough to keep spending money, everything's gonna be just fine.

Besides, only crazy people wear tinfoil hats, right?

***

UPDATE, August 30/07: Most people seem to agree cellphones are harmless. At least, most people act that way. Maybe not the staff at Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel where a recent study indicates that using a cell phone for as little as ten minutes can trigger changes in the brain leading to cancer.

The News From Sirius

Our world sits inside an ever-expanding ball of electromagnetic noise. Some of it is manufactured by us -- radio, television signals, cell phones -- and some of it is merely the stuff reflecting off of us. All of it travels at a finite speed: the speed of light. Incomprehensibly fast in mundane human terms, but finite nonetheless.

Everything that has ever happened here, from the perspective on an observer elsewhere, is happening right now... provided someone is listening with the right equipment.

On an undiscovered iceball in the Oort Cloud, I am watching an earthworm make his way through the rain. Tau Ceti is just now receiving word of my marriage. Near Epsilon Eridani, it's Grade Six and I'm kissing Julie Raisbeck. Somewhere around Wolf 359 I am being handed my divorce decree. Near Proxima Centauri I am giving my heart away again. Around Capella I am in an incubator.

On Europa the idea to write this is just now occurring to me.

Whenever I start to feel small and sad and alone, I remember that things are going much better for me somewhere else. It's just the "here and now" part that's so challenging sometimes.

I live my life in ever widening circles
that reach out across the world
Perhaps I shall never succeed in reaching
the final circle, but I give myself to it.

I circle around God, that ancient tower.
I have been circling for a thousand years,
and I still do not know: am I a falcon,
a storm, or a great song?

-Reiner Maria Wilke

...and as The Smiths once asked: how soon is now?

Stem Cells Save The Day, Again

Science marches on!

Okay... why were you opposed to stem cell research again, exactly...?

Oh. Right. You were afraid it was going to lead to THIS...

An Earthworm Spoke To Me

"If worms have the power of acquiring some notion, however rude, of the shape of an object and of their burrows, as seems to be the case, they deserve to be called intelligent; for they can act in a manner as would a man under similar conditions."

-Charles Darwin, "The Formation of Vegetable Mould, through the Action of Worms with Observations on Their Habits" (1881)

It rained in Calgary last night, and the earthworms came out.

I've seen a lot of worms in my time, having spent my first eight years of life in the temperate rain forest climate of British Columbia... and of course the ages of four to eight are The Golden Years Of Invertebrate Studies.

I encountered one particular worm last night... huge by local standards, about 25 centimetres at least in its relaxed state, and fat. This struck me as unusual, because although worms can have a natural lifespan in the wild of four to eight years one doesn't usually see nearly as many big ones here as you would in Kelowna, for example, and I always presumed this was because a prairie winter is hard for a dormant earthworm to survive.

This lead to a lot of worried amateur speculation on my part about global warming.

But even more remarkable was the performance to follow. Please refer to the above diagram. And no, I'm not an artist.

The lot slopes down to the sidewalk and has some drainage issues, as does most of the block. There is one particular step out front that is askew. It is a standard old school 30 inch by 24 inch (76 by 60 cm) cement block, with a drop of 15 centimetres.

I discovered the above described Superworm (whom I immediately dubbed "Shai-Hulud") with his front end at point number two on the diagram. Following his trail, he had emerged from the mud at point one and was headed in a straight line, roughly northwest, towards where I found him.

The worm tested the 15 cm drop by extending himself slowly downwards and feeling around. He came close to touching down, but stopped and retracted. He then slid along the edge to the north a bit and tried it again. I watched the worm repeat this process, and realized that he was following some sort of fairly simple algorithm -- "extend 30 percent of your mass this way, and if you don't find anything pull back, because you might fall otherwise" or something like that.

The rule still applied when Shai-Hulud hit the ledge at point three, which could have been confusing for him. He pressed on to the north end of the step and found the same conditions. So he proceeded along the north edge. Here the slope soon picks up and eventually I thought he'd poke his way along to the first spot he felt comfortable with and take the leap, so to speak.

However, once the worm had made three attempts and had encountered dirt at ever-increasing closeness, he then RAN (by earthworm standards) to point four on the step and climbed down from there. By my very informal calculations, point four is the closest point the worm could have lowered himself to the ground where he could still have more than 30 percent of his total mass on the ground and the rest above.

To summarize: it appears that this earthworm was able not only to hold in his blind, deaf, almost literally brainless head (hell, he doesn't even have a head!) an image of the terrain around him, but also to project the best destination based on incomplete data. He had calculated a slope as surely as a surveyor.

This sent me off to the Internet to look up "earthworm intelligence." As you might expect, there isn't a lot out there. However, I discovered that one of Charles Darwin's lesser-known works was on earthworm intelligence. It seems he was ahead of his time -- again -- with the notion that earthworms partake of a certain intelligence.

I've done some reading about animal intelligence. It's fun stuff, teaching chimps to gamble and such.

Then I got all mystical with it, wondering about whether all living things, or all things with complexity, or all things period partake of some kind of universal consciousness. By this point everyone reading this should be an adult enough to form their own opinions on such things, so I won't bore you with my beliefs. But they're pretty wacky, let me tell you.

There was some comfort in the notion of Shai-Hulud and I both feeling our way along, blessed with the gift of Life Itself, both part of a Grand Design.

Or, of course, the worm and I could simply both be deaf and blind things stumbling along without Clue-Fucking-One, except for our (probably wildly inaccurate) speculations about what the Grand Design is... or whether there is one at all.

Either way, Shai-Hulud and I have questions.

"Freude trinken alle Wesen
An den Brüsten der Natur;
Alle Guten, alle Bösen
Folgen ihrer Rosenspur.
Küsse gab sie uns und Reben,
Einen Freund, geprüft im Tod;
Wollust ward dem Wurm gegeben,
Und der Cherub steht vor Gott"

(All creatures drink joy
At the breasts of nature;
All the good, all the evil
Follow her roses' trail.
Kisses gave she us, and wine,
A friend, proven unto death;
Pleasure was to the worm granted,
And the cherub stands before God.)

-Schiller, Ode To Joy