V

"Now is the time for change; and the most beautiful thing about the present...is that it lasts FOREVER.

FOREVER CHANGE"

"A bank is a place that will lend you money if you can prove that you don't need it."

-Bob Hope

The first human who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the founder of civilization.

- Sigmund Freud

The French have launched their own version of Google called Quaero. You just type in the subject you’re interested in, and Quaero refuses to look it up for you.

- Amy Poehler

Below is the foward to the book, "Everything Forever" by Gevin Giorbran. This book describes the timelessness of the universe. As Einstein once said, "this distinction of past, present, and future is only an illusion." The book also divulges heavily into zero and the ultimate quandary of nothing versus something. A good read for the curious mind.

Their website has some good material as well.

"If someone picks up this book and reads only this one page I want them to be left knowing what is to come in the future. In 1998 astrophysicists discovered that the expansion of our universe is accelerating. We all know the universe is accelerating away from the dense and hot conditions of the big bang, but what are we now accelerating towards? Recently physicists are beginning to state openly that time ends in the future with our universe evolving into empty space. Of course empty space is the ultimate zero, the bottom end to all physics. If our universe reaches zero all space will be stretched perfectly flat and no matter will remain. A single unified space will then extend infinitely in all directions. So is this final space the ultimate nothingness? Actually many physicists and mathematicians think of zero as the most ordered state of all possibilities. Zero is balance. Zero is perfect symmetry. But what is this ultimate zero doing in our future? The answer is that zero is timelessness. Absolute zero is the timeless quantum superposition of all the universes that exist. Zero is the great sum of all. An ultimate zero has always existed, and will always exist. Zero is the native state of existence, or what the physicist David Bohm, Einstein’s favorite student, called Implicate order. It sounds odd at first but we are inside zero.

Today in science the second law of thermodynamics suggests our single universe is becoming increasingly disordered with time. Many scientists claim our universe is winding down and dying of disorder. It is certainly true that entropy, the measure of spent energy, is always increasing. However, half of the second law is wrong. Our universe is not becoming increasingly disordered with time. Quite the contrary, we are headed for zero, and zero is a powerful kind of order.

The timeless zero in our future is the internal complexity of everything and the outer simplicity of nothing at the same time. There cannot be the simplicity of the single whole without all the inner complexity of universes that enfold into and create zero. What zero is not, is nonexistence. As Parmenides said, nonexistence cannot be. There is no state more extreme, either less than or more than the perfect zero. Zero is the default setting of reality.

The big mystery of “why is there something rather than nothing?” is answered simply by understanding that nothing still exists. All possible moments of time and all possible universes physically exist simultaneously, because all are merely fragments of a physically real zero. In the same way all colors exist in white light, or just as all positive and negative numbers sum to zero, all the moments of time sum up to construct a greater balanced whole we call zero. Zero is like a whole pie that can be sliced up infinitely many ways, but always remains a single whole. It is a difficult mental switch to adjust to, but everything we know is less than zero, not simply more than nothing. And so our beautiful universe is not dying. The very surprising purely scientific truth, as explained in this book, is that our universe is in the process of merging with the timeless sum of all, with the infinite whole, with everything forever."

The brilliantly hilarious theoretical physicist, Richard Feynman, had a very interesting notion of the universe, which eventually lead to his theory on quantum electrodynamics of which he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1965. The notion I speak of is best stated in a passage from another wonderful theoretical physicist, Michio Kaku, in his book, "The Physics of the Impossible":

...Feynman revealed the true secret of antimatter: it's just ordinary matter going backward in time. This simple observation immediately explained the puzzle that all particles have antiparticle partners: it's because all particles can travel backward in time, and hence masquerade as antimatter. (This interpretation is still the explanation currently accepted today.)
With his thesis advisor, John Wheeler, Feynman then speculated that perhaps the entire universe consisted of just one electron, zigzagging back and and forth in time. Imagine that out of the chaos of the original big bang only a single electron was created. Trillions of years later, this single electron would eventually encounter the cataclysm of Doomsday, where it would make a U-turn and go backward in time, releasing a gamma ray in the process. Then it would go back to the original big bang, and then perform another U-turn. The electron would then make repeated zigzag journeys back and forth, from the big bang to Doomsday. Our universe in the twenty-first century is just a time slice of this electron's journey, in which we see trillions of electron and antielectrons, that is, the visible universe. As strange as this theory may appear, it explains a curious fact from the quantum theory: why all electrons are the same. ...Maybe the reason is that the entire universe consists of thesame electron, just bouncing back and forth in time.

Maybe it's just me, but every road traveled in science tends to lead toward the notion of a singularity.

"Despite the appearance of being separate individuals, we are all connected to patterns of intelligence governing the cosmos."

- Deepak Chopra

"If there were no debts in our money system, there wouldn't be any money."

- Marriner Eccles, Governor of the Federal Reserve, 1941

Those who educate children well are more to be honored than parents, for these only gave life, those the art of living well.

- Aristotle

We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.

- Buddha

"I think that only daring speculation can lead us further and not accumulation of facts."

- Albert Einstein

Beyond the iris captures all
All with whom light shares its power
Power concentrated in form of flower
Flower arranged like atoms of ours
Our selves left curious connected in strains
Strained to wonder if all will remain
The same in repeat or repeated defeat

The answer lay beneath the eyes
Within every tear of joyous cries
Reflecting eternity in love's return
Encapsulating the sea's roar with yearn
As the heart beats' strength brought her to me
The winds of Autumn carried sensuously
A seed of Heaven that rooted Your Humble
Our pasts burst forth another path for each other
Looking back at the future we outlasted our dreams
Our hearts mended minds' past memories
And when time returned entranced and paired
We spent every moment eternally shared

"The greatest achievement is selflessness. The greatest worth is self-mastery. The greatest quality is seeking to serve others. The greatest precept is continual awareness. The greatest medicine is the emptiness of everything. The greatest action is not conforming with the worlds ways. The greatest magic is transmuting the passions. The greatest generosity is non-attachment. The greatest goodness is a peaceful mind. The greatest patience is humility. The greatest effort is not concerned with results. The greatest meditation is a mind that lets go. The greatest wisdom is seeing through appearances."

- Atisha

It seems like yesterday that the U.S. government decided to provision its' citizens with a nation-wide tax refund. Literally, the Federal Reserve printed money and gave it to people that had given them money through taxes. This in turn devalued the global U.S. dollar; in other words, the amount of money in your bank account is now worth less so that the nation can receive a check for few hundred bucks. However, not EVERYONE in the U.S. received a check. There were many people whom had owed back-taxes; thus their refund check was returned to the Federal Reserve. Many found their check in an endless route of the U.S. mail system with the constant message of, "it's on the way," drilled in their ear by a "friendly" I.R.S. spokesman.

Then came the "surprise" failure of the Bear Stearns investment bank. Purportedly due to a failed approach to sub-prime mortgage investments. Few have really talked about their partnership with the Citic Securities, a Chinese company, in the fall of 2007 in which they swapped shares.

Shortly thereafter, in March of 2008, the Federal Reserve lent $30 billion to JPMorgan Chase to acquire Bear Stearns. Just days after this line of credit was approved by the Federal Reserve, JPMorgan Chase bought out Bear Stearns for one-tenth of the firm's market price.

Next comes yet another "surprise." The U.S. government's take-over of the previously government owned, now "sponsored," home loan banks: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The result of this take-over was quite odd. In exchange for $1 billion worth of equity in each of the institutions, the US government has allowed itself to infuse as much as $200 billion of American tax payers money. That's right. You didn't read that wrong. That 30-50% portion of your paycheck that is ripped from your grasp with little effort nor choice is being used to give 2 privately owned banks $100 billion a piece for simply bad business. Christopher Dodd, the Connecticut Senator and head of the Senate Banking Committee, raises some very intriguing questions in this NPR interview.

Now the current turmoil of the banking industry has brought more trouble to the American People. Three other private banks are now seeking "help" from the fed for their failed interests in the sub-prime market. The proposed solution by top government officials? A $700 billion bailout to cover the banks losses!? Supposedly to help "recover" the financial markets to prevent a "world-wide depression." I certainly hope the FBI's investigation turns up with some juicy truths of scandalous proportions so that those whom have caused this mess are rightfully jailed instead of given money and a gag-order.

Rep. Marcy Kaptur talks about the bail-out plan and the recent state of the financial markets. In the end, it all seems to be a game that you play once you reach a certain tax bracket.