Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘Albert Einstein’

No War With Iran!!

Posted in General Comments, History, Philosophy, Politics, Quotes, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 20, 2026| 3 Comments »

Peace cannot be kept by force.  It can only be achieved by understanding.
    —     Albert Einstein
Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war.
    —     Albert Einstein
Let me be clear…  Moving additional U.S. military forces to the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean is an attempt to goad Iran into a situation where they attack (or “appear” to attack) our forces so the President can compel Congress into declaring war with / on Iran.
#47 and his Administration (Republican Party) want to do this in order to:
  —  raise the “support the troops” and “back the flag” issues for voters before the mid-term elections where he appears on course to take a shellacking;
  —  distract his supporters from their demands for open transparency for the Epstein Files;
  —  distract the American people from the slumping economy which is sliding into a complete collapse under his Administration;
  —  use a declared “war” or Congressionally approved military action to justify the suspension of the mid-term elections and promote his path to dictatorship;  and,
  —  promote the short-term interests of Israel and Saudi Arabia by destabilizing the Iranian government.
In June 2025 the Trump Administration bombed the Iran nuclear “weapons” facilities and then claimed the attack had done significant damage to the the Iranian program.  Now, it turns out the damage was “not so much and we need to be able to do it again”.  Further, we want to give the Iranians a deadline of two to three weeks to complete a negotiation on nuclear weapons and missiles or we will do “something” to force them to conclude a deal.
Again, let me be clear…  I have NO doubt the United States military could defeat the Iranian military in a relatively short (a few weeks) span of time.  But, as the invasion of Iraq demonstrated, that is not the same as accomplishing a permanent regime change or pacifying a population the size of Iran’s in a nation the size of Iran.
Iran is larger than Texas and has a population greater than California and Texas put together (over 88 million).  Using the standard / historical basis for pacification, the US would have to devote around two million troops (in country) to pacification.  This is almost the size of ALL of the combined military forces of the United States (roughly 2.2 million).  By comparison, we tried to do this in Iraq with 170,000 (surge level) and failed.  Again, we could (and did) defeat Iraq’s military in short order, but we were never able to impose a permanent government or fully suppress the insurgents.  And it is unlikely we will be able to do so in Iran…
This action (a major attack or an invasion of Iran) would further damage our international reputation and is unlikely to receive ANY real support from our NATO allies…
This President is a KNOWN and proven liar – nationally and internationally.  Even if his Administration were somehow able to demonstrate that Iran attacked US forces first, it is unlikely he would gain ANY ally support for anything more than an “appropriate” level response.
The problem with offending over half of your own population and all of your allies is that when something goes wrong and you need a unified country and allies support – it’s just not going to be there.   AKA:  …Chickens coming home to roost.
Another failed international policy proposal / threat by a man (and Administration) with a long history of failure and losing…
Well America, we FA;  now we FO.  Please tell your political representatives (House and Senate):  Do NOT open Pandora’s Box!!  NO WAR!!!
.
Click here (20 February) to see the posts of prior years.  I started this blog in late 2009.  Daily posting began in late January 2011.  Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.

Read Full Post »

Still Tending To…

Posted in Philosophy, Quotes, tagged , , , , , , on November 30, 2025| Leave a Comment »

I have always loved solitude, a trait which tends to increase with age.
    —     Albert Einstein
.
Click here (30 November) to see the posts of prior years.  I started this blog in late 2009.  Daily posting began in late January 2011.  Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.

Read Full Post »

Two Problems, Actually

Posted in Environment, Philosophy, Quotes, tagged , , , , , , on April 13, 2025| Leave a Comment »

The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem.  It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one.
    —     Albert Einstein
[Atomic energy has at least two big problems – one urgent and one VERY long term.  The “urgent” problem is mankind controlling itself so as not to accidentally engage in mutually assured destruction (or a reasonable facsimile of it);  and, the second is how do we deal with nuclear waste disposal.  There is simply no viable means of long term storage for secondary contamination.  Relatively small amounts of fuel is one thing (and still not a trivial problem).  Irradiated water / fluids and storage containers are several orders of magnitude greater in volume.  Fluids eventually leak into the surrounding (or nearby) aquifers and poisons them.  Humanity wants to deal with today’s problem(s).  Nature works over millennium.  If humanity can barely deal with plastics and other industrial / urban waste, do we really expect to be able to cope with nuclear waste?    —    kmab]
.
Click here (13 April) to see the posts of prior years.  I started this blog in late 2009.  Daily posting began in late January 2011.  Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.

Read Full Post »

Holy Curiosity

Posted in Quotes, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 18, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Be a loner.  That gives you time to wonder, to search for the truth.  Have holy curiosity.  Make your life worth living.
    —     Albert Einstein
.
Click here (18 March) to see the posts of prior years.  I started this blog in late 2009.  Daily posting began in late January 2011.  Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.

Read Full Post »

Why #47DonTheFelon Wants To Rule Not Govern

Posted in Philosophy, Quotes, tagged , , , , , on February 9, 2025| 2 Comments »

Force always attracts men of low morality.
    —     Albert Einstein
.
Click here (9 February) to see the posts of prior years.  I started this blog in late 2009.  Daily posting began in late January 2011.  Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.

Read Full Post »

A Strange Transposition

Posted in Other Blogs, Philosophy, Quotes, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on January 10, 2025| Leave a Comment »

The strange thing about growing old is that the intimate identification with the here and now is slowly lost;  one feels transposed into infinity, more or less alone, no longer in hope or fear, only observing.
 
    —     Albert Einstein
Letter to Queen Elisabeth of Belgium, 12th Jan 1953
From:  “Einstein:  His Life and Universe“
 
[Found at one of the blogs I follow:  Letters of Note
The specific post is:  https://news.lettersofnote.com/p/i-think-one-of-the-noblest-projects
Please visit the original site and support it if you are able.    —    kmab]
 
.
Click here (10 January) to see the posts of prior years.  I started this blog in late 2009.  Daily posting began in late January 2011.  Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.
 
   

 

Read Full Post »

A Guitar And The Occasional Visit From A Friend

Posted in Philosophy, Quotes, tagged , , , , , , , on September 10, 2024| 2 Comments »

A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin;  what else does a man need to be happy?
    —     Albert Einstein
.
Click here (10 September) to see the posts of prior years.  I started this blog in late 2009.  Daily posting began in late January 2011.  Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.

Read Full Post »

Four Changes

Posted in Philosophy, Quotes, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 8, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Security can only be achieved through constant change, through discarding old ideas that have outlived their usefulness and adapting others to current facts.
    ―     William O. Douglas
Awareness is the greatest agent for change.
    ―     Eckhart Tolle
The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.
    ―    Albert Einstein
Things do not change;  we change.
    ―     Henry David Thoreau
.
Click here (8 May) to see the posts of prior years.  I started this blog in late 2009.  Daily posting began in late January 2011.  Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.

Read Full Post »

Somewhat Different, Anyway

Posted in Philosophy, Quotes, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 9, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Scientists believe that every occurrence, including the affairs of human beings, is due to the laws of nature.  Therefore a scientist cannot be inclined to believe that the course of events can be influenced by prayer, that is, by a supernaturally manifested wish.
…
However, we must concede that our actual knowledge of these forces is imperfect, so that in the end the belief in the existence of a final, ultimate spirit rests on a kind of faith.  Such belief remains widespread even with the current achievements in science.
…
But also, everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that some spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe, one that is vastly superior to that of man.  In this way the pursuit of science leads to a religious feeling of a special sort, which is surely quite different from the religiosity of someone more naive.
    —     Albert Einstein
.
Click here (9 April) to see the posts of prior years.  I started this blog in late 2009.  Daily posting began in late January 2011.  Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.

Read Full Post »

Despite Appearances

Posted in Philosophy, Quotes, Science and Learning, tagged , , , , , , , , on March 22, 2024| Leave a Comment »

When forced to summarize the general theory of relativity in one sentence:  Time and space and gravitation have no separate existence from matter.
    —     Albert Einstein
.
Click here (22 March) to see the posts of prior years.  I started this blog in late 2009.  Daily posting began in late January 2011.  Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.

Read Full Post »

Word Games

Posted in Family and Friends, General Comments, Philosophy, Pictures, Quotes, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 10, 2024| 3 Comments »

In the mid-00s, I got hooked on the numbers game “Sudoku“.  A colleague was playing it at work and I asked her what it was she was doing.  She explained it was a “numbers” game which you could print out and do on break or while waiting for something (Dr. / Dentist apmt, DMV).  I printed out a couple and I was hooked.  Sometime later, I found the game as an app on my Kindle and was even deeper down the rabbit hole…
In late 2017, I retired and started going on Facebook regularly.  I was contacted by someone I knew back in grammar school days and we “friend”-ed each other.  Several of his posts were comments about how much he was enjoying playing “Wordle“.  I never heard of it, so I Googled it and tried playing…
It was “fun” enough, but I didn’t see why it was so addictive.  I would go along for 5 or 10 days and then error out.  I also didn’t realize that if you skipped a day  – or played on a different system (PC vs tablet vs Kindle), “you” didn’t get credited with your win that day.  In fact, although you simply didn’t play, your count was reset to zero (as if you failed in your guesses).  It’s almost needless to say, but I had multiple times when I got the “correct” answer only to find the next day, I didn’t receive “credit” for my win.
So, using the same hardware was the first thing I “figured out”.  I then decided there had to be a “system” to winning.  I settled on using three unique words which contained all of the vowels(“a”, “e”, “i”, “o”, “u” and “y”) and a good chunk of the consonants (again, trying to keep them unique).
To make a longer story shorter, I quickly shot up into the 80% and then 90% bracket.  From there, it takes a LOT more correct days to improve your percentage correct.
Image of Wordle at 97%
When I last posted about this, I was at 96% and 125 correct answers (days).  Well, I just went up to 97% and, as you can see, I’m at 217 (days).
To tell the truth, it’s now getting all a bit boring…  Even with my OCD, I’m finding it a bit of a drag to continue.  Which means I’ll probably get one wrong, miss a day – or even stop completely.  Either way, I think it’ll drop me back to 96% (or lower), and it’s really not worth the time / effort to work it back up to 97%.
A little over a year ago, a different Facebook friend was posting about “Quordle“, how she’d finally won a game and how much fun it was to play.  And, of course, I had to look into it…
It turns out Quordle is Wordle, but with four words to guess each day and nine tries (instead of 6 tries to get one 5-letter word).
Image of Quordle scores
Is it “more” difficult?  Yes, a little bit.  Is it “more” fun?  Not really.  Why?  Because I’m OCD and I “normally” don’t like “trick” games.
How is this a “trick” game?  Every now and then they throw up a word with four common letters and the first letter being the critical different consonant letter.  If you happen to hit the consonant as one of the other words, you can win – more or less easily.  If you don’t, you can end up with more options than you have remaining guesses.  (See:  “bunny”, “sunny”, “funny”)
A third game which I’ve recently begun playing is “Connections“.  Here you have 16 words and your task is to sort them into four groups of four words – with “something” in common. …And you have four chances to guess the correct “connection”.
I think of this game as the SAT game of “societal” common knowledge.  In the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), if you can eliminate one of the multiple-guess answers, you can greatly increase your chance of getting credit for the question / answer.  Random guess:  25% correct.  Eliminate the “obvious” incorrect response and guess:  33% correct.  Eliminate a second “almost” as obvious incorrect response and guess:  50%.   Of course, if you know (or can workout) the correct answer: 100%.
I find this (“Connections”) an “amusing” game, more than a test of skill / knowledge.  There is a significant amount of recency and cultural bias in this game.  How many of us know four names of women’s professional soccer or basketball teams?  Men’s hockey teams?  Items associated with Wonder Woman’s costume?  Actors with common (shared) first or last names?  Groups of things (a “murder” of crows or a “hand” of bananas)?
At any rate, I get a few correct each week and a few wrong (more often than not).  Since I have no investment in the game or answers, I find the ultimate answers amusing / interesting, but – more often than not – I also don’t care if I get them right or wrong and forget the “connection” almost as soon as I close the browser tab.
It (my reaction to the game) reminds me of the combination saying(s) of Sherlock Homes and Einstein:  “Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before.  It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.” and “Never memorize something that you can look up.”
Note:  my method of solving Wordle and Quordle does not work on the “advanced” level wherein you can only use “new” words which have the correct letters in them and / or in the correct location from words previously guessed.
.
Click here (10 January) to see the posts of prior years.  I started this blog in late 2009.  Daily posting began in late January 2011.  Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.

Read Full Post »

15 Speeds With Big Knobby Tires

Posted in Philosophy, Quotes, tagged , , , , , , on June 7, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Life is like riding a bicycle.  To keep your balance you must keep moving.
    —    Albert Einstein
.
Click here (7 June) to see the posts of prior years.  I started this blog in late 2009.  Daily posting began in late January 2011.  Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.

Read Full Post »

Squeeze Your Opportunity

Posted in Other Blogs, Philosophy, Quotes, tagged , , , , , , , , , on March 29, 2023| 4 Comments »

We cannot predict the value our work will provide to the world.  That’s fine.  It is not our job to judge our own work.  It is our job to create it, to pour ourselves into it, and to master our craft as best we can.
We all have the opportunity to squeeze every ounce of greatness out of ourselves that we can.  We all have the chance to do our share.
    —     Albert Einstein
[This quote was found on one of the blogs I follow:  ram H singhal
The specific post is:  I have done my share | ram H singhal (wordpress.com)
Please visit the original site if you have a few spare minutes.    —    kmab]
.
Click here (29 March) to see the posts of prior years.  I started this blog in late 2009.  Daily posting began in late January 2011.  Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.

Read Full Post »

Sometimes Once Can Be Enough

Posted in Family and Friends, Humor, Philosophy, Quotes, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on March 28, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Kids today don’t know how easy they have it.  When I was young, I had to walk 9 feet through shag pile carpet to change the TV channel.
 
    —     Anonymous
 
I have reached an age when, if someone tells me to wear socks, I don’t have to.
 
    —     Albert Einstein
 
I am old but I am forever young at heart.  …  Each year is special and precious, you can only live it once.
 
    —     Richard Gere
 
[Happy Birthday to me!    —    kmab]
 
.
Click here (28 March) to see the posts of prior years.  I started this blog in late 2009.  Daily posting began in late January 2011.  Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.
 
   

Read Full Post »

In Good Company

Posted in Philosophy, Quotes, tagged , , , , , on March 21, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Most of the time I played by myself.  Even then I was a loner, and I have stayed a loner all my life.  It can make a man seem a little distant or even aloof – but it has helped pull me through some tight spots and hard times.
    —     Roy Wilkins
Be a loner.  That gives you time to wonder, to search for the truth.  Have holy curiosity.  Make your life worth living.
    —     Albert Einstein
.
Click here (21 March) to see the posts of prior years.  I started this blog in late 2009.  Daily posting began in late January 2011.  Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.

Read Full Post »

Older Posts »

Design a site like this with WordPress.com
Get started