How You Can Disprove Sarah Palin by Just Looking at the Sky

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Sarah Palin is a "young Earther" who believes in a Biblical young universe, created by God just 6,000 years ago. Much longer ago was the beginning of a vast migration of an African tribe out of Africa, into Asia and eventually across the Bering Straits into Alaska enroute to what is now called the United States. (No --Sarah Palin did not see them coming from her front porch.) It is hard to imagine how they managed to begin or complete this journey if the universe had not yet been created!

As they passed through Sarah Palin's back yard, she was not at home! She may still be "out to lunch". She would not be conceived and born for at least another 30,000 years give or take a thousand. In this period of time, wolves --and nature of which they are a part --did just fine without her, without GOP fairy tales and/or lies about almost everything --science, economics, ethics, the age of the Earth and the greater universe of which Earth is but a tiny, tiny part.

Palin is proven wrong whenever we look up at night and see ANDROMEDA --the nearest Galaxy to Earth. No observatory is required. Andromeda is the only galaxy that may be visible to us via the "naked eye". It is but a mere 2.5 million light-years (2.4×1019 km) from Earth. Every other Galaxy is much farther away.

This is direct, observable, provable evidence that shatters the kooky, fundamentalist belief that God made earth and universe over a period of just six days 6,000 years ago.

Andromeda Galaxy, named for the mythological princess Andromeda, is the nearest spiral galaxy to our own Milky Way. It is the largest galaxy in what is called the "local group" which also contains the Milky Way, the Triangulum Galaxy, and about 30 other smaller galaxies.

The Andromeda Galaxy is the most distant object visible to the naked eye. Merely seeing it disproves Palin. The light from many galaxies seen in this "deep field" photograph began its journey to earth several billion years ago. Each photon from any star in any galaxy that appears in this photo disproves, if not rebukes, Sarah Palin's insistence on a fairy tale if it is not a lie.

Any object more distant than a mere 6,000 light years is enough to disprove Palin and her anti-science, anti-smart, pro-ignorant, pro-stupid sponsors and constituency. Images from our orbiting cameras --like Hubble --are stunning --a vast star field in which almost every object is a galaxy. See the photo at right. Every object in this photo is much, much more distant than Andromeda. Every object in the "deep field" disproves Palin.

Recently, "we" photographed the most distant "object/event" --the "Big Bang" itself! This object is some 13.7 billion light years distant. It has taken light from that "object" 13.7 billion years to reach Earth. This development exposes Palin's psuedo science and/or superstition is MACS0647-JD which may be the farthest known galaxy from Earth at some 13.7 billion light-years distant! The Universe, then, is at least 13.7 billion years old.

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The Day the Earth Stood Still

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

I just watched –again –the Keanu Reeves version of 'The Day the Earth Stood Still', a high tech re-write/re-make of the original with Michael Rennie as Klaato. Both versions are allegorical, high-tech “scripture” in which a “being” from “the heavens” comes to earth where he is presumed to have “died” for our sins. Does this sound familiar?

Klaatu arrives on earth with a message: people of Earth, get a clue, resolve your differences, shut up, get your shit together! In the original, Klaatu (Michael Rennie) assumes the name “Carpenter”. Again –does that sound familiar? What biblical character do you know who was a “carpenter”?

Both film and Bible versions are parables in which are found expressions of our desire to be “saved”, specifically, we seek to be saved from ourselves.

Unlike the King James version, Klaatu does not go around preaching or healing the sick. In the original version, there is a “resurrection” in which Klaatu, is restored to life. Like Jesus, Klaatu appears once again before the “assembled peoples” (disciples?) with a final warning which translated into contemporary American “English” is “this is your last chance to get your shit together!” Then, returning to his spaceship, he leaves the Earth. In Hollywood-speak, it's “the new testament meets Roswell”.

In the first film version, the black and white version, Klaatu leaves us with a warning that ultimately there is no savior but ourselves! But –would he not have been a savior had people listened? Would not the Biblical “Jesus” have been a savior if things had just worked about a bit differently? It seems to me that a “savior” is a cultural-literary icon or archetype. Klaatu, for example, just “laid it on the line”. In so many words, he told “us” to take responsibility for what we have done with our selves and our planet --the only planet on which it is known that we can live! Mere belief or faith is no salvation nor are they a substitute for responsibility and positive action.

Klaatu's message is like that of a stern parent: grow up! Clean up your own room! Don't make life miserable for other people! Respect the environment! Live with it! It is because of this that Klaatu will never be confused with the modern protestant conception of Jesus. Klaatu did not "put on" a phony “sincere face” just before passing the plate. You won't find a Klaatu-Jesus discussed in the huge mega-churches (Lakewood, Houston) which, because of their obsession with amassing vast, very worldly fortunes seems at odds with either Klaatu or that “Jesus” of scripture who performed miracles in order to feed a multitude.

Today, those who support the mega-churches are probably inclined to chalk up your poverty to your wicked ways, your refusal to kiss up to icons and self-appointed prophets (profits?). Did "Jesus" blame the victim as the new "churches" clearly do?

Both films and the New Testament are artifacts of a culture which after some 2,000 years has yet to grow up, has yet to accept responsibility for its own fate, has yet to accept responsibility for taking the world to the brink of nuclear destruction to say nothing of the human war on the natural environment. If we should destroy ourselves in a nuclear holocaust who is to blame but ourselves?
Jean-Paul Sartre said: "A man is nothing else but what he makes of himself!" It is as true to say of the human race that we have nothing to blame but ourselves if we should “choose” to become extinct at the end of a world-wide conflagration of our own making.

Creationist Nonsense Exposed and Debunked

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Creationists believe that the age of both Earth and Universe can be derived by adding up the "begats" in the Old Testament. That is the methodology of latter-day creationists who, like Sarah Palin recently, have concluded that the age of the universe is about six-thousand years.

In fact, any number not in the billions is not even close. As science, the creationist ideology is easily disproved. Any geological period older than Sarah Palin's estimate of the Earth's age disproves her.

The verifiable age of fossils proves Palin wrong. I chose, as an example, the Permian era because I have some personal knowledge of that period having grown up in what is called the 'Permian Basin' in West Texas.

As a child of six, I assembled an interesting collection of fossils that I had found on my own explorations of King Mountain, a long plateau in West Texas, near the town of McCamey. Any ONE of those fossils disproves Sarah Palin. All of them date to a period far, far older than a mere 6,000 years.

A plateau [King Mountain] itself was probably underwater at one time. If you can see King Mountain with Google earth, you have proven Palin both wrong and stupid. Fossils found there are dated to the "Permian period" --a geologic period lasting from about 299.0 million to 251.0 million years ago. It is the last period of the Paleozoic Era. Any one of those fossils disproves Palin. Anyone of them is considerably older that Palin's estimate of some 6,000 years --a mere blink of an eye by comparison.

Two hundred and fifty million years ago, ninety percent of marine species disappeared and life on land suffered greatly during the world's largest mass extinction.
The cause of this great dying-off has baffled scientists for decades. Recent speculations invoke asteroid impacts as a kill mechanism. Yet a new study published in the December issue of Geology provides strong indications that the extinction cause did not come from the heavens but from Earth itself.

--New Evidence Supports Terrestrial Cause Of End-Permian Mass Extinction, Space Daily

It comes down to this: if we can look up at the sky at night and see Andromeda "creationists" are wrong! Andromeda --proven to be over 2 million light years distant --is the only galaxy that can be seen with the naked eye. We see Andromeda as it was over 2 million years ago. Seeing it --with or without a telescope --proves that the universe is exponentially older than the mere several thousand years that Palin ascribes to it. If we can see it at all, creationism is wrong.

Creationism is not science. The distance to Andromeda can be determined precisely.

By comparing the absolute and apparent magnitudes, Ribas's team concluded the Andromeda Galaxy is 2.52±0.14 million light-years from Earth. This agrees perfectly with the Cepheid-based distance to Andromeda: 2.5 million light-years. The newly determined distance, however, does not depend on assuming a distance to the Large Magellanic Cloud. The agreement means astronomers can trust Cepheid distances to more distant galaxies, such as those in the Virgo and Fornax clusters.

--First direct distance to Andromeda...

This alone disproves Palinesque nonsense. We can see Andromeda. We can date the age of rocks as well as the rock of ages.

We can also determine very precisely the distance to stars and galaxies. I found the Andromeda Galaxy as a kid in Odessa, TX. I had nothing more than a good pair of hand-me-down binoculars, a shaky tripod and a star map. It is the only Galaxy visible to the naked eye. Merely seeing it disproves Palin's theory that the earth is but a few thousand years old.

If we had discovered no other object but Andromeda --the only Galaxy visible to the naked eye --we must conclude, therefore, that the universe is very, very old. Most scientists are agreed that the age of the universe is some 13.7 billion years. Palin is utterly refuted by impeccable science conducted by reputable scientists and confirmed countless times in many ways by the world-wide scientific community.

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