Happy New Year

Are you taking the right actions to have a happy New Year?

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Patch Of Faith Makes Miracles Happen At Holidays

The results are in and the facts are irrefutable. A patch of faith can make miracles happen. In the beginning many questioned this result, but the skeptics have been silenced. Having faith in God works, especially at the Holidays.

The truth is it works all year long, but many of us only remember our faith at the Holidays or when tragedy hits us.

At times like this we try and patch our faith together so that we can prove to ourselves, and our families that we really are worthwhile people. Well of course we are. Why would you ever question yourself that way?

Why all the attempts to be politically correct and to avoid certain symbols of the Holidays and certain salutary greetings when all that is needed is a patch of faith that let’s you know it’s how you feel and your traditions, not what you say that counts.

Why all the uncertainty about what we should and shouldn’t say and do. We used to know instinctively how to act. We used to have enough faith in ourselves so that we didn’t have to patch ourselves together to get the true spirit of the Holidays.

How about reaching back into our pasts and remembering the Holidays we spent with our parents as we were growing up and how wonderful everything seemed to most of us – how miraculous. We didn’t need anyone to tell us to get in the mood in those days, it was a given.

How about looking around at our family and friends and marveling at how much we have to be thankful for? How about rejoicing at the wonder of it all? Why is it so hard just to relax, enjoy and do what comes naturally?

I guess I’m old fashioned. I always appreciate the gifts God has given us more at the Holidays. I always make a ton of resolutions for the New Year, and I always forgive myself when I break them.


I want to wish you all, as it applies to each and every one of you, a very happy Hanukah, a merry Christmas, and a happy New Year.




You can find out more about a patch of faith and finding inner peace at
http://www.faith-patch.com

Virtual Reality World Becomes Real

It happened gradually as we played the video game over and over. I thought I was making adjustments to what the players looked like and how they acted – making them more ferocious and terrifying. Must have been the Game Master, not me, that was making the changes. In an instant it happened. My virtual characters became real.

I took a Quantum leap of faith and decided that this must be God’s will. When I think back on what happened next, it was really obnoxious of me to think I could influence the game of life even in video form. The truth is, some things are just beyond our human abilities.

When the changes occurred, war turned to peace as the fighting factions laid down their weapons and became peace-loving neighbors. This is a concept I never would have considered. I couldn’t believe how friendly my warriors had become. They actually tried to help people instead of killing them. Why hadn’t I thought of that? I guess growing up in an atmosphere of terrorism and fear, the idea of peace and love thy neighbor eluded my comprehension.

When I thought I was making changes to the video game of life, it never occurred to me to be a good neighbor and try and help others. The thought that God wanted us to live to in harmony with each other and with nature never entered my mind. I thought that religious differences leading to religious wars were a way of life. Thank God the Game Master knew better. Sometimes I think the two of them are one and the same.

Maybe it’s God, the Game Master, who is playing with our lives as in a virtual reality game. Maybe it’s His will that we strive for peace, not war. Maybe if we just let the game of life play out instead of trying to influence the ending, we could reach a better conclusion.

I think it’s time we stopped trying to move our Quantum Qubits around and allow God to shape the essence of our lives. Life is not a video game. We should stop trying to replicate what hasn’t worked in the past. Let’s make peace, not war. Let’s allow the Game Master to show us the way.

Excerpt From Johnny Oops - CHAPTER 20 – SHARING

I watched her from the patio of our glass door poolside apartment in Tory Pines, California not far from the USCD campus as Jody, standing on her toes on a small step stool, cleaned the top of the Venetian blinds. She was wearing a bathing suit top and a pair of pink panties.

I’d finished school early because a professor cancelled my class and I decided to go back to Jody and surprise her. I couldn’t get my mind off her. I stood there watching her clean, imagining the smell of her, her warmth when I hold her, and how she presses up against me with no reserve. I couldn’t take this for long. I was getting too excited.

I quietly slid the patio door open. Entered the living room and said, “Surprise, I’m home.”

She was startled and said, “Lover boy, what are you doing home?”

Pouncing on her, I picked her up from the stool she was on, gently lowered her to the ground for a kiss and said, “My class was canceled. The old professor got the virus that’s going around. I went for coffee and started thinking about you so I cut my afternoon class and came home. Wish you would stop calling me lover boy, honey. I hate that.”

“Let me go, lover boy. I will try. Want to go for a swim?”

“How about a swim in the shower honey?” I cuddled her and started nibbling on her ear. The pure animal scent of her neck was enough to arouse me. She playfully pushed me away.

“Why Johnny Oops, whatever am I going to do with you, you sexed up maniac?”

I was not about to be that easily put off and grabbed her around her waist, pinning her arms to the side and smothered her with kisses. I barely managed to say, “You want to fool around?”

“Yes I do, lover boy. I certainly do.” This time she didn’t pull away. She started to undress me, and now it was she who was nibbling, and not on my ear.

“Do you think it can be this way forever darling? ” I said. By this time we were both in heat and rolling around on the floor of the living room.

“I think so. You know I usually get what I want, Johnny.”

“You are everything to me, Jody. I want to share my whole life with you,” I said as passion took over and I entered her face to face with Jody sprawled out on the leopard print area rug beneath us, grabbing me by my hair, pulling me closer and urging me on.

“Honey, thanks for not calling me, lover boy again,” I mumbled as I gave in to the moment, and exploded, giving way to a grunt of relief.

We stayed locked in each others arms for a few minutes and then Jody sighed and said, “You are my lover boy. You always will be. How about that swim now? You’ve gotten me all hot and sweaty.”

“I’m ready for a swim. I’m ready for anything with you, Jody.”

Life can’t get any better than this. Jody is everything I ever dreamed of in a woman. I don’t want to be with anyone else. This is the only reality I crave. I’m blessed. This is as good as love gets. This is my future. God, I hope things don’t change. I want this to go on forever.

Carbon Tax Cap And Trade Catastrophe -- Excerpt -- Home Grown Terrorist

Driving home John, the number two man in the FBI, felt the power of his new Mercedes as he opened it up on the highway. It leapt to sixty miles an hour in nothing flat. Too fast John thought, too damn fast. He was thinking about what was happening with the Iranians, not his new car.

As he sped to his new temporary hotel apartment home in his new Mercedes, he was shaking his head wondering what was going wrong in America and why? He felt like one of those people one saw interviewed on TV after a tragic school shooting or a murder struck there small community, and they mumbled in a daze that they thought it couldn’t happen here. No, not here in the good old USA: no homegrown terrorists suicide bombings, no dissatisfied underclass, no greedy banks ruining the economy, no Iranian backed junta ready to take over. But it was happening. It was all too real. The shear horror of what was taking place hit John with full force. He had to pull over to the side of the road to compose himself. How could these people possibly make a deal with the Iranians?

As soon as John got home he called his boss Casey, the head of the FBI, and said they had to meet in Philadelphia, that it was urgent. Casey told him to make it the following morning around 10 AM and got off the phone muttering that this better be worth it.

The following morning John met Casey at their favorite Deli as planned. The first words out of his mouth were, “The Iranians gave me a brand new Mercedes for setting up Ross Phalen. I feel like a crook.”

Casey replied, “You mean more like a traitor. What do you expect, you’re a double agent?”

“I’m only doing this because it’s in our National interest.”

“Are you sure?”

John said, “I don’t like the way this conversation is going. I have something urgent to tell you. I feel like I am being set up to take a fall if something goes wrong.”

“Not by me John. Just be sure you aren’t setting yourself up. You are walking a fine line. Now what is this urgent information you have to tell me that forced me to cancel an important meeting with the future Director of Homeland Security?

“I have to tell you, Casey that the Iranians handle things in a more pleasant manner than you do.”

“I am not in the pleasant business, John. What do you have?”

“Okay Casey, you asked for it. This is the down and dirty of it. Dawa and an associate who is a professor of economics at New York University by the name of Alhali Huseini met me for lunch yesterday. After giving me the car for a job well down, they told me they had a new project for me. I was to find a respected reporter for a major newspaper and give him the story that our major banks and investment brokerage houses were hiding off balance sheet losses of about two trillion dollars in CECOFS and it could very likely wreck our economy. I am to get the details from the good professor when I’m ready to talk to a reporter and reveal this monumental scandal.

The Iranians say they are in a conspiracy with the Chinese who will sell a trillion dollars worth of the CECOFS to drive the price down to near zero as they were inflated to more than four times their real worth to begin with by the banks so they could show huge profits and recover from the sub prime disaster of 2007 – 2009, from which they have never really fully recovered. I am also to fill in some of the more aggressive bloggers on the Internet so the story will have legs.

The Iranians figure this could cause our financial institutions to crumble, and out economic system to self destruct leaving them in a position to put a junta of their choosing in control to take advantage of the ensuing chaos without the need to explode another terrorist bomb. There is more, but I can’t remember it all. The Russians are in on this in some way. I have a week to find a reliable reporter and destroy the United States. Do you have any thoughts?

John thought Casey was going to choke on his buttered bagel.

Casey said, “What the hell is a CECOF? How did this happen? Who let the banks and brokers get away with this? Where were the Banking Commission, the SEC, and all these new regulatory agencies Congress created in 2010 when all this phony profit stuff was happening? How could the banks have concocted these financial instrument and priced them at four times what they are worth? What the hell do you expect me to do about this? This could be a catastrophe. It could cause our economy to collapse.”

“The CECOF stands for Carbon Emission Credit Option Funds. I don’t know who let these financial institutions get away with this scheme. I don’t know how they manipulated the price of the options. My guess is they now have these computer geeks who make up these crazy formulas, and I’m not even sure the CEOs of the major financial institutions know what kind of a pile of manure they are sitting on top of. These computer geeks get paid fortunes, as I understand it to come up with exotic financial formulas. All they have to do is change a decimal point here and a symbol equaling something else there, and they can inflate the value of whatever phony financial instrument they have created.”

Valuing saving the Nation from pollution and Global Warming is a very subjective thing. These computer guys can have a field day determining what these Carbon Option certificates should trade for. They can raise their value by determining that the underlying Carbon fines they are supposed to protect against are going to go up sharply because Global Warming due to carbon emissions is much more of a problem now than it was six months ago. “

“Who knows what ephemeral nonsense they base their valuations on? The problem is that people and financial institutions have been buying them at these inflated values. It has something to do with the initial Cap and Trade legislation Congress passed in 2010 where certain companies got Carbon Credits verses the new taxes they were supposed to pay as fines for not curbing carbon emissions, and then traded them to other companies that needed them more because they had worse carbon emission problems and fines to pay. It’s all very confusing, and the legislation made it even more difficult to comprehend as politics dictated, which companies got what Cap and Trade credits, not actual need.”

“The problem has been exacerbated because these inflated CEOF’s have gotten into a lot of pension plans whose investment officers thought they were doing the patriotic thing. “

“The heads of these Investment Companies go along because they don’t really understand the underlying liability to their Companies, and they want big bonuses for showing profits phony or not. It is like a giant game of musical chars. Unfortunately it looks like the music is about to stop and our Country is going to be without a seat at the table of credit worthy Nations. As you have told me, greed must have driven them to this. Sounds familiar, sounds like I’ve heard this song before. I don’t have the answers. I’m only speculating based on my limited knowledge. What I expect you to do is to tell me what to do. I need answers from you. I could arrest Dawa, Alhali, and there boss Wady Hussein, but I don’t know how deep their organization is, and this information will probably get out anyway. What do you want me to do?”

Casey frowned and said, ‘Do nothing until you hear from me. I have to see the Secretary of the Treasury, the head of the Federal Reserve, and the President. I can’t make a decision here on my own. This is too big. I can hardly believe it. Wait until you here from me.”

“I only have one week.”

“Just go home and do nothing and say nothing for now. I will get back to you as soon as I can.”

“Why do I have the feeling that either way I’m going to be screwed by you or the Iranians”?

“Look at it this way John. If we screw you at least history will recognize you as a patriot instead of a traitor when the truth eventually comes out if it ever does.”

“Great, but will any one I care about know the truth? What about my family? What about me?”

“Don’t leap to conclusions John. You have been reading too many spy novels.”

“Why do I feel like you wrote them?”

“Go home John.”

As John drove home he noticed that sweat was starting to form on his upper lip again. He tried brushing it away with his sleeve, but the fear wouldn’t go away. He didn’t trust Casey any more. He didn’t trust Wade. He didn’t trust anybody. He felt alone, horribly alone. He missed Alice. He yearned for the good old days when he was a junior officer in the New York office of the FBI, and weekends meant mowing the lawn, ice cold beer, hamburger barbeques, and making love to Alice. He could almost smell the burgers.
*****


Hi, this is Arthur Levine, the author of the novel Homegrown Terrorist. To read other excerpts, or to leave a comment please go to http://johnnyoops.blogspot.com

The Haves And The Have Nots And The Don’t Haves

The current thinking by the Administration and the Democrats in Congress is that it’s time to take money from the people that have an abundance of it and give it to those in need, who are therefore by definition considered poor.

The problems with this is that the Rich and not so rich, want to keep what they have worked for and don’t want to give any part of it to people who may or may not have worked at all, as opposed to living on the public dole. The poor – by definition those who don’t have a gold pot to relieve themselves in – want what all the Rich and almost rich folk (Middle class) have. They want material wealth.

It may be that these two groups will be on opposite sides of the question of capitalism verses socialism or much worse for eternity if we enact any more social welfare legislation. It is almost inevitable that our children will have to pay the bill for the debts we are now creating in the name of social justice, fairness, redistribution of the fruits of your labor to the masses, and the policy of giving more to those of us who have less.

What ever happened to incentives and hard work, and entrepreneurship? What ever happened to the freedom to pursue your dream? What ever happened to the free enterprise system? Will your children have the right to try and become successful on their own as you did?

The irony of all this is that it may well be the children of the Have Nots that will have to pay our National Debt assuming that their parents are successful in getting the bulk of the wealth away from the wealthy and willing. This thought will probably have me laughing in my grave, although I’m not sure which camp or group my grandchildren will fall under of Haves or Have Nots in this game of financial redistribution of the National Wealth.

The big question I guess I have is who is going to want to build a business, hire employees, and try and make a profit, if the government is going to take what you make and give it to those that don’t have it, won’t work for it, can’t create new inventions, and don’t have sufficient incentives to make money? We better find out how this works in Sweden and France because this is the direction we are heading in. Maybe under socialism you don’t need to work. Maybe the government supports everyone, but if this is so, where do they get the profits to tax to pay out to the rest of us – the Don’t Haves.

Where is the social justice in all of this?

What is the sense of having clean air when you can’t breathe free?
*****


Hi, this is Arthur Levine, the author of Johnny Oops and Home Grown Terrorist. To read other articles like this or excerpts from my novels please go to http://johnnyoops.blogspot.com.

CHAPTER 4 – WHY? – Excerpt From Homegrown Terrorist

A series of homegrown terrorist attacks in New York City left the population in a state of panic, and law enforcement straining to contain the situation. One of the first steps in calculating the nature and scope of the homegrown terrorist threats they were facing, was to determine who the known terrorists were and why they’d acted as they did. John Stamper, acting head of the FBI in NYC, enlisted the aid of his two loyal associates Jim and Eric to attempt to build profiles for the eight known bombers. They only had to go through a few files before a common thread became obvious.

These young men and women were not driven for the most part by religious fanaticism. They were propelled in their disastrous actions by an overriding feeling of hopelessness, and a wish to somehow make a statement that would change the social context in which people like them felt trapped. In their desperation, they ‘d made a determination that no life was better then the life they were currently living. If an afterlife could be provided that would be an added bonus, but not the real reason they were willing to become suicide bombers.

Able Knowi was a twenty-three year old Moslem of Iranian decent. His parents had both passed away when he was nineteen in a car accident. They ‘d been hit by a limousine, which was returning from a lush party in the Hamptons on Long Island, NY with a carload full of hookers. Able had received only a pittance from the insurance company for the limousine company. He lived in a hovel of an apartment in Astoria, Queens, one of the outlying boroughs of New York City, where he’d grown up in relative poverty.

Able was not really a practicing Moslem, going to the local Mosque only occasionally to try and make friends. He was basically a loner who had little money, no job, and practically no friends. It was at the Mosque that he started hearing some of the radical jihadist propaganda that certain radical clerics were spouting with impunity under the guise of free speech. Able was convinced he had no future. Somehow and through some medium he became self radicalized – teaching himself how to become a jihadist. After a period of self indoctrination, Able thought he had found the answer, and blew himself up in the Bangles and Bows Toy Store with a home made bomb constructed from blueprints obtained on the Internet and supplies from the local hardware store, killing and injuring many innocent civilians. There were no links as far as the FBI knew to any known terrorist organizations, and as far as they knew, Able operated on his own with no help from any one.

It all seemed so easy. Blowing himself up was going to be the answer to all his problems. He was going to change America and solve his personal problems at the same time. He was going to become a terrorist – a jihadist. He was going to Heaven where he would be treated like a king and have seventy-two virgins at his command. This last part was the bonus benefit to a wasted life with no purpose and no future he could perceive, except to make a statement as a homegrown terrorist. .

The scariest part of all this was the self-radicalization aspect. He had virtually taught himself how to become a terrorist. As far as the FBI knew he had no contact whatsoever with Iranian terrorists or any other terror organization. The question was how did he do it? How did he learn to make a bomb? How did he teach himself to become a jihadist? He must have been receiving instruction from somewhere or someone. What had convinced him to create a holy war or jihad in the name of a Moslem religion he hardly believed in? What had convinced him that Americans were foreign devils when he himself was an American by birth?

Anna Costa was twenty-nine years old and of Puerto Rican decent. She was a fairly homely girl with buckteeth and a crooked nose. She lived in Flushing, New York with her mother. They hadn’t seen or heard from her father in years. They lived on welfare payments. Anna had dropped out of high school in her junior year. She had no skills, no job, and no boyfriend. She felt hopeless. She had been arrested for shoplifting at a local discount store, and had been treated badly by the store security guards who man handled her and strip-searched her in a dressing room. They discovered she had no stolen property on her person and let her go, not even bothering to apologize. Anna felt violated

At a Sunday Church social, to which she had gone in a vain attempt to meet a man, she met another lost soul who convinced her that there was nothing for her in this life: no future, no man. He convinced her that she would find what she was looking for in Heaven. He told her he had found the way to a better world, and would help her find her way there herself. He told her the way was to become a jihadist and exact revenge against America for leaving her in her current circumstance of poverty. He convinced her that her mother would cry for her, but would be proud of her for helping to destroy America whose fault it was that she was so unhappy. He convinced her that she didn’t have to be Moslem to go to Heaven and be welcomed by Allah. All she had to do was to commit Jihad – war against America.

Anna set off a bomb in Grand Central Railroad Station in New York City killing and injuring one hundred and forty people at rush hour in the main terminal building including herself. She was smiling when she set off the bomb and mumbling something unintelligible. She was on her way to Heaven to meet her new husband she thought. In her case the bonus of going to heaven was an important part in her decision to blow herself up, but it wasn’t what caused her to become desperate enough to become a homegrown terrorist; that part was caused by her feeling of total hopelessness. The FBI hadn’t been able to pin down if the new friend she met at Church was a secret Iranian agent working for a specific terrorist cell, but they had their suspicions.

Austin Blake was a feckless young man from a well to do family. He was twenty-two years old and had recently dropped out of college. He was a druggy who had been in and out of drug rehab, disowned by his parents, and currently living on the streets. He was trying to keep warm over a vent on the sidewalk in front of Dales Department store, which he had just been thrown out of for loitering, when the thought struck him that there must be a better way. He had no friends and no hope for the future. He hated America and what he perceived had been done to him. He wanted to make a statement and change things. He knew he was a useless bum who had no future. He felt hopeless.

Two weeks later he blew himself and eighty-nine other people up on the main floor of the same Dales Department Store in New York City on 43rd street and Ninth Avenue, which he had been thrown out of earlier. In his drugged out state, he’d convinced himself that he was going to a better place where everything would be all right, and where he would be loved by his new family and friends. He died smiling and mumbling something unintelligible.

This trend towards self-radicalization scared John more than anything else. Who knew how many of these crazies there were out there who thought they could commit jihad against America and find a better life for themselves in Heaven? The question was how were these people, who had little or no connection to each other all finding the same way to self-radicalize themselves and make the same kind of homemade bombs? Who was teaching these people what to do? Were the Iranians really involved, at least on an organizational level?

John Unridge was perhaps the most disturbing of the group. He was a matriculating student at Downswitch University on a full scholarship who was on Dean’s List and had a bright future in front of him. He came from a middle class Ohio Methodist family, and had never been in trouble of any kind. What could have possessed him to become a suicide bomber? What made him hate his country enough to kill himself and scores of innocent strangers who had never done him any harm?

John had been turned on by one of the Moslem groups who were tolerated if not supported at Downswitch under the guise of free speech and equal rights for all, but this group did not appear to be a terrorist cell or have connections to foreign terrorists. They’d simply put the idea of jihad in Undridge’s head. He had self-radicalized himself. John was the only one who left a note, which said in part that he was sacrificing himself to demonstrate against the social inequities in America that had developed an impoverished underclass for which he felt partially responsible. He also stated that his parents who’d given him everything weren’t to blame for him turning out the way he did. He ended his note by saying, “We are coming.”

John Stamper shook his head in disbelief. He couldn’t understand how any of this was enough to make someone kill himself or herself and innocent people. He couldn’t understand how a bright young man with a great future and good marks in school, who apparently had friends and was popular, could fall for this line of bull from an on campus non confrontational Moslem group. Where was he getting the information on how to become a terrorist? Where had he learned to make a bomb? Why did all the bombs appear to have used a commonly constructed explosive device? Where have we gone wrong? What were these homegrown terrorists mumbling when they exploded their deadly bombs? How many other young men and women were ready to sacrifice their lives for warped principals, and what did the statement “We are coming,” mean? Who’s coming?

John Stamper turned to his assistant Eric and said, “I don’t fathom any of this. It’s beyond me.

Eric shook his head in agreement. “You got me boss. I don’t have a clue.”

This is part of what scared John so. The whole thing didn’t make sense. It wasn’t rational. It defied logic – “We are coming.” Who was coming? Who was we? How do you fight something that makes no sense? How were they going to beat this insidious virus that virtually leapt from the mind of one lost soul to another, constructing a virtual community of dissidents who had practically no physical association with one another?

The profiles the FBI established were based on the most extensive investigation of the terrorist’s actions in the weeks leading up to the bombings, and cell phone videos taken by alert spectators at the various bombings. A pattern of self-radicalization had become obvious in every case investigated. In each case these warped and misguided individuals had taught themselves how to become terrorists and how to make bombs.

Much of the information was gathered from pictures of the terrorists from their embedded microchip identification chips. They were identified by their DNA, and from camera shots of the terrorists. Cameras on most New York City blocks were a given in this day and age, similar to what London had installed years earlier.

We could go on and on analyzing all eight known terrorists, but the pattern was undeniable. All of them felt hopeless and lonely for one reason or another, or committed to some higher calling as radical as it might be. They had all taught themselves how to put the bombs together. The bomb components were readily available at your local hardware store. Most of them thought they were going to Heaven where there dreams would come true, so they had borrowed heavily from Moslem jihadist teachings, and all of them thought they were making a statement against American society.

No one knew what they were mumbling when they died, or how they’d learned how to self-radicalize themselves. Someone had to be pulling their strings. These people weren’t smart enough to do this on their own. Only the lone wasp in the group, John Unridge, had thought to leave a note or make a statement, that was before the videos of some of the suicide bombers started to circulate on Social Networks on the Internet.

Hi, this is Arthur Levine with an excerpt from my recently completed novel – Homegrown Terrorist. To read more excerpts from this novel, or to leave a comment, please go to http://johnnyoops.blogspot.com.

God The Game Master Verses Virtual Reality

I am going stir crazy pacing up and down in my home, with nothing to do, waiting for the scars on my face to heal from my attempted suicide at Harvard as a result of my breakup with the former love of my life, Alice. Tossing around in my bed late one night, unable to sleep, the thought struck me, maybe none of the stuff that happened to me with Alice or trying to commit suicide at Harvard was real.

I sat bolt upright in bed. I felt alive again. I had a new purpose in life. I started thinking how some super genius might have constructed my whole world. Maybe this was a virtual reality world I lived in – not the real thing. Maybe everything that was happening wasn’t my fault. I couldn’t stop thinking. Finally, I had something to occupy myself with, and take my mind off my problems. I decided to put my genius brain to work proving my new theory was correct.

I had to know who had constructed the virtual reality world I fancied I lived in to prove to myself that this was the fact. I had to decide why someone or something had gone to all this trouble and why. I decided to call this alien force the Game Master, calling on my broad knowledge of video computer games.

Figuring out how to create a virtual world was another matter. Then the thought crossed my mind: The Game Master must have used some version of what we know as quantum computing. That’s the only way he could have done this, but why? Was he really what we have come to believe in as God or just some time and space traveler creating a game for his or her own enjoyment? And what about my concept of Dialectic Materialism? How does this virtual world concept fit in with my religious theories? The more I thought, the more confused I got.

Thinking about the concept of a virtual reality world caused more ideas to pop into my head. Hundreds of questions started streaming into my mind – some conscious, some not. I couldn’t stop thinking about this. Now I was glad I had plenty of time. I spent most of the summer in my room attempting to replicate what this genius Game Master must have done. My parents had grounded me anyway, so what better use could I make of my time. Wonder if they are real? The task before me was almost inconceivable, but I wouldn’t stop. I was a genius. I should be able to replicate this program, but trying to implement the concept was an unbelievably daunting task. How am I ever going to figure this out?

How to recreate the senses of sight, smell, touch, sound, taste, and combine these with cognitive capabilities, emotional context, and real time responses was mind boggling. How had the Game Master done all this with the use of artificial intelligence, and still made everything so real? What was his motive? Where did he obtain the historical knowledge base necessary to do a project of this nature, and most important – how did he know how to populate this virtual reality world?

Where did the people come from? Who chose the races and the animals? Who created the scenarios we all play out? Was any of this possible? Was I just letting my over active imagination compensate for my human shortcomings? Was I giving my wild imagination too much credit for the ability to discern fact from fiction? Why approach the problem using Quantum computing? How else could I hope to recreate a virtual reality world? Quantum computing is the only application I can think of advanced enough to do the job of creating all the variables and all the randomness necessary to pass for reality.

I poured over information gleaned from the Internet through Google to try and form an understanding of Quantum computing and how the application could be used to create what was now my virtual reality world. Even with my genius mind, the concept was almost impossible to grasp. There were so many sub concepts like super positioning and windowing. I don’t even understand what they mean. The thought crept intro my mind that maybe a superior form of intelligence was needed to create worlds and universes real or virtual, but I kept on trying. Geniuses don’t give up that easily. Sometimes I feel as if I’m on the verge of great discovery. Other times I get stuck in theory, and can go no further. The harder I try to understand the more confused I became.

Quantum computing is nothing like what I had jokingly described to my childhood friend Billy, and yet in some respects there is great similarity. As best I can figure the theory out, Quantum computing is our best hope of producing a program powerful enough to challenge our understanding of reality. That’s what I’m trying to do.

The theory, I understand, allows us to reduce computer chips to the size of atoms, which have their own quirky characteristics including using 1 and 0 at the same time to mean different things, or to mean the same thing. Boy is this confusing. The worst part is that much of this is still theoretical, and hasn’t been proven to work. How am I going to use this stuff to create a virtual reality world when it’s not actually working yet except in the laboratory? All I know is that this whole process dynamically increases the speed with which we can process information. That makes sense. How else can I possibly hope to program all the different bits and pieces of information necessary to make up a virtual world?

Everything I have learned so far shows me that the theory of Quantum computing allows us to exist in different realities at the same time. That’s perfect for me. If I don’t like one reality, I can just switch to another. The truth is I think I do this already, I just don’t know how I’m performing this trick of nature or mathematics – take your pick, but then I’m a genius, and much of what we know is instinctive on a sub-conscious level.

All of this thinking is getting me more, rather than less confused about what’s reality, and what part God and Quantum computing play in this whole process. I don’t real know any more than when I started this whole experiment. All I know is that a higher power than I is necessary to have formed the universe and shaped our thoughts.

I took a quantum leap of faith and made a determination that would stay with me the rest of my life. I’ve decided that in my final version of reality, God is the Game Master. I pray that is so. This has been a humbling experience. Strange how us humans feel called upon to examine the nature of the world we live in. Why can’t we just accept what is happening to us like other animals? Why must we always question our own existence? I guess that’s what sets the human race apart.

God, if you’re listening, I believe in you. I have my doubts at times, but in my opinion you’re the Game Master. You’re the Man. I just want to be your messenger.

Time has worked wonders. I’ve decided that whatever world I’m living in is the right one for me. My scars are healed. I feel like a new man. No more pensive thinking for me and speculating about the nature of what’s real. I’m ready to come back to the world of the living. That’s the reality I like best. That’s where I do my best work.


I feel good again. The Game Master must be watching over me.
*****



To find out more about virtual reality and the novel Johnny Oops, please go to http://johnnyoops.blogspot.com

The Death Of Character

What ever happened to your word being your bond?

What ever happened to meaning what you say and doing what you mean?

What ever happened to character as a driving force in your life?

Did character mean anything in deciding who are leaders are going to be, or did that requirement die with out parents?

Is it all right to lie as long as you think what you are saying is in the public’s best interest?

Who gets to decide how much the truth can be twisted and when you can misinform the public in the name of patriotism?

What happened to the requirement to tell the truth as best you know it?

When did decision masking stop using principal and a values system as prime ingredients in deciding what to do?

It’s almost scary how we have come to accept that we are not being told the truth and can’t expect that what we hear is what was meant. What happened to the people of character who told us what they believed and believed what they said?

Character has been sacrificed to the bully pulpit of expediency. Our leaders no longer think having high morals and a value system is important in a world beset by terrorism.

Now it’s every man and woman for himself or herself. Forget telling the truth. Forget meaning what you say. Just do what’s expedient, twist the truth to suit your own purposes, and let the devil take the hindmost.

If character isn’t dead, it certainly is on its deathbed and we are at fault because we have become too permissive. We allow people to lie to us and get away with it. We allow people to twist the truth and stand there applauding in the hopes that these mirages and fictions of the mind will somehow magically become real.

What has become of our common sense? When did we start believing in fairytales again? Where will this lead us if not to the destruction of our democracy and all we hold dear? What would our forefathers who fought for our independence have though of how passive and gullible we have become? Is this the beginning of the end of freedom, as we know it?

It’s time for you to stand up, show some character, and answer the questions.

You Can Work At Home

With high unemployment and a bad economy, this is the perfect time for seniors to consider working at home, but beware of scams and get rich quick schemes. If it sounds to good to be true, it probably is.

http://youcanwork-athome.blogspot.com

Who's Writing The Fine Print

When a bill finally gets approved in congress who is writing the actual details of what is going on? How much will it differ from what we are being told? How much pork will be added to the bill to get votes? Is this where government takes control of the health care system, in the details of the bill written by staff or outside consultants or Apollo or Acorn? Is this part of the compromise between the Senate and the house over a Government Option? Are we going to get it no matter what we think is happening? Is it going to silently be put in the bill after the outline is rushed to a vote?

How can we tell we won't be covering illegal immigrants when we don't ask for proof of citizenship when we give out these new health care benefits?

Please remember that the devil is in the details, and when you open the door to the hen house, the fox will come in.

Watch your back. Don't expect any help from the congress unless you make your desires known. They have their own agenda and you the voting public are not number one on their list of priorities.

I'm tired of thinking one thing was voted on and then finding out we got something completely different when the details slowly come out. I'm tired of being outraged. I want congress to do what they say they are going to do.

We are not fools, as many members of congress are going to find out in the next election. Do what we put you in office to do - represent us and what we want, not what you want.

Are We Becoming A Nation Of Zombies?

The government is setting up a bunch of unelected Czars to tell us what to do in our daily lives. They rule supreme in matters of what’s good for our health: What not to eat, drink or smoke, How much we should weigh, How not to take risks in the stock market, What medical treatment we should get or not get depending on your age, How much money we can or can’t make in salary, What kind of carbon emissions we are going to be responsible for, What social behavior is acceptable and what is not. And the list goes on and on in a never-ending expansion of a curb on our liberties and the very freedom our forefathers fought for. Are we being made into a nation of zombies? Has the decision been made by the administration and the congress that we are like a bunch of children and not capable of making our own decisions? Is this the kind of change that we wanted? Are we going to just drift through life without feeling any pain or pleasure – without thinking for ourselves?

In attempting to decide whether this major change in the way we live our lives, the control we have over our actions and how much freedom of choice we are going to be left with, ask yourself these questions and decide for yourself if you are comfortable with the answers you come up with:

What is happening to our spirit America? Are we sacrificing it for a cheap handout, the promise of a living without working for it, or free health benefits and insurance? What about the quality of Care? What about the quality of our lives? What about our right to choose our own destiny? What about our proud history of leading the world in innovation and new medical cures, and new technological invention? What happened to all those things that made America and Americans great and that we don’t have to apologize for? What happened to hope for a bright future for us and our children and grandchildren? Is it all vanishing in a remake of our civilization, a redistribution of wealth, and the creation of an unbearable debt load? What is happening to our democracy?

Is the capitalist system that made us and our citizens the richest nation on the earth being shelved in favor of a socialist type system that has proven itself time after time in other nations not to work well? Is this major change something that we knowingly voted for or were we duped by false promises? Who is leading this move away from freedom and individual choice? Who voted for this to happen? Is a silent, behind our backs, revolution taking place that will take away our rights, and give us rationing of basic health benefits and long lines and waiting periods – more bureaucracy and less efficiency?

Ask yourself these questions and when you do ask yourself if this is what you want. Do you want to be told what to do in every aspect of your life? Do you want to lose your freedom of choice? Do you want to give away your children and grandchildren’s rights in return for a health subsidy? Do you want to be told what to do? Do you want to lose your freedom in exchange for a handout? Do you want the government looking over your shoulder and telling you how to act?

Is this Big Brother reincarnate? Do you want to be told what you can and cannot do in almost every aspect of your life? Are you willing to allow the government and their czars to modify your social behavior? Are you ready for the government to know all your private health conditions through electronic medical records? Are you prepared for the possibility of the government mandating an identity chip embedded in your arm so they can track where you are and what you are doing at all times? How much of your individuality are you prepared to sacrifice? What are you going to do about this? Are you willing to become a zombie, or will you stand up and vote no to an administration and congress that can take away your freedom?

Ask yourself if these questions are just the machinations of some disgruntled individuals who want to maintain the status quo or are they real questions about an impending life changing movement away from capitalism and towards socialism in our society.

Ask yourself if this new reality is something you can live with?


Hi this is Arthur Levine the author of Johnny Oops. To read more about you and your rights please go to http://johnnyoops.blogspot.com

New World Reality Check

Do you feel like you’ve been here and heard this before? Do your dreams seem real? Do you imagine all kinds of crazy things happening?

How do you know you are not living in different realities simultaneously?

Maybe you are living in parallel new worlds taking different paths and reaching different conclusions, all at the same time.

Is it possible that when life comes to an end in one reality, it continues in a different one?

If different realities do exist, is this the Heaven we search for, or just another dimension to our selves?

Do you feel like you are imagining what is happening to you?

If you answered yes to any of the above questions it may be time for a reality check:

1. Do you make your own choices in life or do you feel like someone is pulling your strings, as if you were a puppet, and telling you what to do?
2. Do you feel like you are in control of your life or are circumstances dictating what you do and how you act?
3. Would you rather day dream than deal with the problems of everyday life?
4. Do you have a relationship with your God that is an unbreakable bond of faith?
5. Does your imagination run wild or are you too inhibited to actually imagine novel new thoughts or worlds or realities?
6. Is a master game master creating virtual worlds and populating them with people like you and I?
7. Is quantum computing technology being used to create and populate these different worlds?

If you answered yes to number 4 about having a relationship with God, you can trust that your life is real and that you are a real person. Whether or not we live in different worlds or realities at the same time is beyond our comprehension and having yes or no answers to some questions won’t automatically determine how real we are.

Sometimes we just have to believe in what we cannot see or understand.

Sometimes we have to have faith that what we do and who we are is as real as it gets, and that it counts, and that you count.

Sometimes we just have to have faith in God.

Your answers may be different than mine, but most of the time our questions will be the same. We all want to know what the meaning of life is and if we are real? Do we have choices? Can we make a difference? Is there more than one world that is inhabited by our souls at the same time? Does eternity exist? Are we good people? Will we get to Heaven?

And the reality is that the questions go on and on.
*****

Hi this is Arthur Levine, author of the novel Johnny Oops. You can read other articles about alternate realities, the game master and quantum computing at http://johnnyoops.blogspot.com

Where Oh Where Did My Health Insurance Plan Go?

Somewhere in the health care proposals circulating in congress I think I lost my health care insurance plan. Where did it go?

Was it sacrificed so I can be forced into a new national health care option that is more of a mandate than an option? I don’t like people telling me You Will or You Have To, do you?

Was it sacrificed so that as a nation we could afford to cover 10 million plus illegal aliens and probably millions more to come as a result?

Did it join the ranks of the elderly and sick as obsolete and unnecessary under the slash Medicare benefits now being considered in congress?

Did my health care plan become a sacrificial lamb to some government cost overrun, budget misestimate, or new tax on the middle class through additional pass through payroll taxes, beverage taxes, or an additional tax on small businesses?

Doesn’t really matter to me how or why I’m about to lose my freedom of choice. What’s important to me is that with all the talk going around by the administration and congress about all the wonderful benefits of their proposed health care reform, the bottom line is I’m going to lose my benefits and probably my doctor. Medicare is going to be decimated switching benefits from the elderly to the poor and uninsured. Millions of people – maybe up to 83 million people are going to be switched against their will to a new government health care plan with less coverage than they have today. A government committee is going to end up deciding who lives and who dies and who gets what operation and what medicine if any and when.


The government is going to end up running my life and yours. The congress will slip the necessary provisions into the final bill that will complete the takeover by government of our lives. Senators won’t have time to read before they vote – strong-armed on party lines into passing whatever bill is before them.

I don’t want a government computer program telling my doctor by electronically delivered guidelines what kind of treatment he can or can’t give me, as is currently contemplated under the government health care plans. I don’t want medical care denied because a patient is old, sick with Parkinson’s disease, or Cancer and is going to die anyway. Who gave the administration or congress the right to decide who lives and who dies? Where is that provision in the constitution?

The bottom line is that the America of freedom of choice that I know and love is going to cease to exist under the health care proposals currently under consideration in congress.

Enough!

Let’s not give away our freedom so easily. Let’s not give away that which our forefathers fought for – our liberty – our freedom to choose our own destiny. Let’s not let big government take over how we think, what we buy, and when we have the right to make our own decision on what kind of medical treatment we get.

What congress hasn’t taken into account is that Americans won’t take this deceitful treatment and loss of freedom lying down. We will vote out of office those that dictate to us what we should do. We want the freedom to decide what we should do. We want to be in charge of our own destiny. We want to tell congress what to do, not have congress treat us like a bunch of unruly children.

We the people may be a little slow to get the message sometimes, but when we grasp the idea that we are being taken advantage of, or treated with less respect then we are due, or that our freedom of choice is being challenged – watch out. Knowing how to defend our own freedom is something genetically instilled in us by our forefathers.

Don’t underestimate the ability of the American citizen to make his or her own decisions including health care decisions.

We don’t want health care rationing, long lines, diminished services, reduced hospital facilities, additional tax burdens, or debts that our children and grandchildren will have to pay.

Let congress sign a pact to take the exact same insurance we are going to end up getting. Not something supposedly similar. The same exact plan. Then we will end up with a health care reform plan we can live with if this can be done in a cost effective manner, which I doubt that it can.

The President has said he personally has a very good insurance plan. Where is ours? Don’t tell us we have options when they are systematically taken away from us, one by one under the reform bills for health care currently circulating in congress. Don’t tell us you’re acting in our best interests when you are taking away our rights.


Hi, this is Arthur Levine, the author of the novel Johnny Oops. To read other articles on health care reform or excerpts from my novel please go to http://johnnyoops.blogspot.com

What The New Health Care Plan Means To You

Young people may be forced into taking health insurance they do not want, old people may lose their benefits and their choice of doctors, and over one hundred million people may be forced out of the private insurance plans they presently enjoy and into a government sponsored health care plan offering lower benefits and coverage and long waiting periods for operations and rationing of medical services based on government decisions.

Is this what you want?

Costs will continue to spiral upwards and out of control as the federal deficit grows dynamically as a result of health care demands forcing us to borrow more and more and eventually raising interest rates and inflation as we as a nation struggle to service the debt.

Is this what you want?

As a nation we will pay for the health care of about twenty million illegal immigrants and their families while saddling our children and grand children with a debt they will be forced to try and repay.

Is this what you want?

A national health care system may make health care decisions including who may live and die for you and yours detailing what medical services you should and shouldn’t be entitled to receive for how long and when life sustaining drugs should be cut off because they are not cost effective and you are going to die anyway.

Is this what you want?

The health care bills now pending in congress details some of these things – check pages 425 – 430 of the current soon to be revised house version of the bill for examples of what I’m talking about.

Now the current administration is trying to rush the bill through congress by August without giving the congressmen and senators the time to read through what will probably be more than one thousand pages.

The current version in the senate says that senators can keep their own top of the line health insurance policies and don’t have to be a party to what the rest of the nation will be forced to take.

Is this what you want?

I say we should vote out of office any member of the house of representatives or senate who cannot prove that they read every page of whatever plan is finally proposed before they vote and any congressman who doesn’t agree to be subject to the same plan and terms and conditions that the rest of us are going to be forced to accept.

What ever happened to freedom in this country? What ever happened to the government representing us rather than telling us what we have to do?

If this is the politics of tomorrow, I want back to the past. This is not the kind of change most of us signed on to. What about you? What about your future, your freedom, your childrens freedom? Don’t give away the rights your forefathers fought so hard to preserve. What kind of a future will that leave you and them with – a future where your opinion doesn’t count – a future where you have no rights?

Dear Senator

Please feel free to send the following letter on to your Senator if you agree with it.


I don't know why you and your fellow senators, plus our so-called Congressional representatives think you can legislate healthcare reform when Congress is unable to balance the nation's budget or refrain from ludicrous legislation such as Cap and Trade, which is really another tax on all of us, and nothing more.

Forcing people to acquire a healthcare plan according to your whims or face a fine is also just another form of taxation.

Before you try to legislate my health insurance or lack thereof, before you impinge on my right to acquire the healthcare insurance I choose or not, I suggest you and the rest of Congress round up the twenty million plus illegal aliens in this country and send them home and see what kind of savings are realized in doing so. California's budget problems might actually get closer to be solved. I also suggest you and Congress get off your lazy assets and close the loophole in the immigration laws that allows an illegal alien to "pop" over the border at the last minute and give birth, thus enabling the immediate family to be eligible for the many free services this country offers to our poorer, yet LEGAL citizens. See what kind of money can be saved by doing this, not only in healthcare but also in educational service, etc., before you and Congress think of taxing the American People yet again with your "healthcare reform."

Another thing I think you and Congress ought to do is make English the national language and thus do away with any state's need to post signage in up to six different languages. Again, California might save some money by not having to print so much signage. Why not stick up for your own country once instead of buying into the "hate America" rhetoric spewing from the White House. I am not ashamed of my country, not in the least. But I am ashamed of its leaders.

I will also tell you I am sick and tired of taxes labeled as something else in the hopes the American People are dumb enough not to see past the subterfuge. I am sick of the games Congress is playing with our money and the wasted time in salaries we and our hard work provide for you. My ROI (return on investment) in Congress and the White House appears to be nil.

I suggest the whole of Congress, and the White House, get its fiscal house in order before attempting yet again to stick its hands in my pockets or legislate my or any other American's behavior through taxation.

You are shooting yourselves in the foot by ignoring the hue and cry of the American People. The Sleeping Giant is waking from its American Dream to this ongoing National Nightmare that Congress is allowing to happen and there will be consequences for you and your Congressional buddies should you persist in taxing and spending our children and their children's future.


Guest Blog by:

Mari L. Bushman
Publisher
http://www.jigsawpress.com

Excerpt Johnny Oops Chapter 11

Quantum Leap

In the midst of my solitude and boredom, a strange thought crept into my mind. I’ve been going stir crazy, pacing up and down in my home, with nothing to do, waiting for my face to heal. Tossing around in my bed late one night, unable to sleep, the thought struck me, maybe none of the stuff that happened to me with Alice, or trying to commit suicide at Harvard is real.

Eureka! I sat bolt upright in bed. I felt alive again. I’ve a new purpose in life. Strange thoughts came tumbling into my mind. I started thinking how some super genius might have constructed my whole world. Maybe this is a virtual reality world I lived in – not the real thing. Maybe everything that is happening isn’t my fault. I couldn’t stop thinking. Finally, I’ve something to occupy myself with, and take my mind off my problems. I decided to put my genius brain to work proving my new theory is correct.

I've got to know who has constructed the virtual reality world I fancy I live in to prove to myself that this is the fact. I’ve to decide why someone or something has gone to all this trouble. I decided to call this alien force the Game Master, calling on my broad knowledge of video computer games.

Figuring out how to create a virtual world was another matter. Then the thought crossed my mind: The Game Master must’ve used some version of what we know as Quantum Computing. That’s the only program powerful enough to allow him to do this, but why? Was he really what we’ve come to believe in as God or just some time and space traveler creating a game for his or her own enjoyment? Am I part of the game? And what about my concept of Dialectic Materialism? How does this virtual world concept fit in with my religious theories? The more I thought, the more confused I got.

Thinking about the concept of a virtual reality world caused more ideas to pop into my head. Hundreds of questions started streaming into my mind – some conscious, some not. I couldn’t stop thinking about this. Now I’m glad I’ve plenty of time. I spent most of the summer in my room attempting to replicate what this genius Game Master must’ve done. What better use could I make of my time? The task before me is almost inconceivable, but I won’t stop. I’m a genius too. I should be able to replicate this program, but trying to implement the concept is an unbelievably daunting task. How am I ever going to figure this out?

How to recreate the senses of sight, smell, touch, sound, taste, and combine these with cognitive capabilities, emotional context, and real time responses is a mind boggling endeavor. How did the Game Master do all this with the use of artificial intelligence, and still make everything appear so real? What was his motive? Where did he obtain the historical knowledge base necessary to do a project of this nature, and most important – how did he know how to populate this virtual reality world?

Where did the people come from? Who chose the races and the animals? Who created the scenarios we all play out? Is any of this possible? Am I just letting my over active imagination compensate for my human shortcomings? Am I giving my wild imagination too much credit for the ability to discern fact from fiction? Why approach the problem using Quantum computing? How else can I hope to recreate a virtual reality world? Quantum computing is the only application I can think of advanced enough to do the job of creating all the variables and all the randomness necessary to pass for reality.

I poured over information gleaned from searching the Internet through Google. What I learned about Quantum Computing was amazing, and made me think creating alternate reality worlds was possible. A Quantum Computer can run 1,000,000,000 times faster than our current silicon based computers. Using the Quantum Computing principals of Superposition, Entanglement, Wave technology and Quantum Teleportation could help make all the things I was hypothesizing about a virtual world possible.

Even with my genius mind, the concept is almost impossible to grasp. There are so many sub concepts. I don’t even understand what they mean. The thought occurred to me that maybe a superior form of intelligence was needed to create worlds and universes real or virtual, but I kept on trying. Geniuses don’t give up that easily. Sometimes I feel as if I’m on the verge of great discovery. Other times I get stuck in theory, and can go no further. The harder I try to understand the more confused I became.

Quantum computing is nothing like what I had jokingly described to my childhood friend, Billy, and yet in some respects there is great similarity. As best I can figure the theory out, Quantum Computing is our best hope of producing a program powerful enough to challenge our understanding of reality. That’s what I’m trying to understand, the theory of reality.

These are some facts about Quantum Computing that astound me:

Quantum Computers are reversible; therefore there is theoretically no net energy consumption. Reversibility allows programs to evolve rather than run, which also means that inputs can be inferred from outputs. How weird is that?

Quantum Computers can simulate true randomness giving veracity to our virtual world. I thought everything I do is random. Now I learn that someone is pulling my strings in this virtual world, which I may or may not be living in.

In terms of speed, if you submitted your name for a search to the Library of Congress in the entire context of unsorted databases, it would take about one hundred years to find, but using Quantum Computing, it would take about half a second.

Superpositioning using Wave Technology allows different electrons to occupy the same space at the same time. The actual wave form in Quantum Computing of two combined waves of a series of numbers is a set of amplitude probabilities. Are you kidding me? What the hell does all this mean?

Then there is more theory on Entanglements, whatever the hell they are, moving faster than the speed of light, which is impossible under current theories, Collapsing Vectors of 0 and 1 Quantum bits or Qubits, and Quantum Teleportation combining to allow the destruction of the original and the creation of an identical duplicate at a different location. I think that is what is happening to me.

All of this was in Einstein’s opinion, “spooky action at a distance” or resulted from some unknown or hidden variables, which produced a philosophy of reality contrary to science, leaving the quantum theory incomplete. Guess he couldn’t figure it out either. How do I expect to fathom all this?

Enough, that’s how I feel – incomplete and divorced from reality. This stuff is driving me nuts. I’m being overrun or evolved by quantum bits, and it’s tearing my thinking processes to pieces. And trying to wrap my head around Quantum Computers utilizing liquid crystal state nuclear magnetic resonance techniques to move molecules around, or Quantum Computers made with Electrons floating on liquid helium, while different elements occupy the same space simultaneously, requires more imagination then I can muster. I never said I was a mathematical genius. I’m a philosopher.

This crazy Quantum theory, as I understand, allows us to reduce new age computer chip replicates to the size of atoms, which have their own quirky characteristics including using 1 and 0 to mean different things at the same time, or to mean the same thing at different times. Boy is this confusing. The worst part is that much of this is still theoretical, and hasn’t been proven to work. How am I going to use this stuff to create a virtual reality world when it’s not actually working yet except in the laboratory? All I know is that this whole process dynamically increases the speed with which we can process information. That makes sense. How else can I possibly hope to program all the different bits and pieces of information necessary to make up a virtual world?

Everything I’ve learned so far shows me that the theory of Quantum Computing allows us to exist in different realities at the same time. That’s perfect for me. If I don’t like one reality, I can just switch to another. The truth is I think I do this already, I just don’t know how I’m performing this trick, but then I’m a genius, and much of what we know is instinctive on a sub-conscious level.

All of this thinking is getting me more, rather than less confused about what’s reality, and what part God and Quantum Computing play in this whole process. I don’t really know any more than when I started this whole experiment. All I know is that a higher power than I is necessary to have formed the universe and shaped our thoughts.

I took a quantum leap of faith and made a determination that would stay with me the rest of my life. I’ve decided that in my version of reality, God is the Game Master. I pray that’s so. This has been a humbling experience. Strange how us humans feel called upon to examine the nature of the world we live in. Why can’t we just accept what’s happening to us like other animals? Why must we always question our own existence? I guess that’s what sets the human race apart. I don’t feel much like a genius now.

God, if You’re listening, I believe in You. I’ve my doubts at times, but in my opinion You’re the Game Master. You’re the Man. I just want to be Your messenger.

Time has worked wonders. I’ve decided that whatever world I’m living in is the right one for me. My face is healed. No more pensive thinking for me, and speculating about the nature of what’s real. I’m ready to come back to the world of the living. That’s the reality I like best. I feel good again. The Game Master must be watching over me.

Thank You, God.

I’m glad I didn’t kill myself. I still don’t know the meaning of life. I still don’t understand the nature of my faith and I still don’t have a plan for the future.

What I do have, as Doctor O’Hara has explained to me, is some time, precious time, to look around and see the beauty in life. He says it’s all around me. All I’ve to do is look. You don’t have to be a genius to keep your eyes open. I’m starting to take a peek. I think I like what I see. Life still sucks, but I’ll hang around and see what happens.

Who ever heard of a bearded young guy with freckles getting the girl? It’s ridiculous. That’s me -- all image and fantasy. Am I just a quirk of nature or the real thing? Who will keep me company and give me love now in my paradox of discovery, as I surge from one reality to another, one quantum bit at a time?



Source: Quantum Computers: What are they and what do they mean to us? – Google – www.carolla.com/quantum/QuantumComputers.htm. Material referenced from Explorations in Quantum Computing by Collin Williams and Scot Clearwater

Concierge Doctors & Private Insurers Versus National Health Care

When the Congress gets through tinkering with our health care system, we will be left with Concierge Doctors who only take patients on a private membership basis for large yearly fees that only the wealthy can afford, high cost private insurance, and a public health care option that provides only minimal health care coverage to the masses – that’s you and me. Who do you think is going to get better care?

The only exceptions will be members of the Congress who are on the best private insurance plans money can buy, paid for at taxpayer expense. In other words, don’t live as I do, take the leavings that Congress gives you and be happy that out of the goodness of their hearts they are bothering to cover you at all.

If you don’t want to endure long lines, and health care service rationing, as in England and Canada, or a decrease in your benefits similar to what Medicare will and won’t pay for in the future, you had better scrounge up the small fortune it’s going to cost you to get a Congress type health care plan. If you don’t, your current doctor will no longer be able to treat you. He or she can’t afford to treat you or spend time with you at the rates the government will eventually dictate they be paid for their services.

There won’t be enough doctors left to treat the general population, who haven’t opted out of the system, so we will probably have to outsource patient care to India, Mexico or Thailand as we currently do with telephone customer service responses for major corporations and some cosmetic surgery operations.

Don’t worry, with the advent of the new Electronic Medical Records, your new long distance doctor will be able to treat you on the phone, if you can understand him or her, or over the Internet. The best part is that you will spend less time in the hospital because many of the hospitals won’t be able to afford to keep you, if they don’t go bankrupt to begin with, from the lower fees the government will allow them to charge.

In the future, do it yourself operations in the comfort of your own home will probably be available in kit form as long as you can read the instructions and individual details in your Electronic Medical Record. That’s assuming the government allows you to view your personal information, and hasn’t sold all the pertinent parts to telephone marketers trying to sell you over-the- counter drugs and herbal remedies that promise to cure what ails you in pill popping form. Don’t believe in miracle cures from telephone marketers or painkillers from members of Congress or the Administration instead of needed operations for you and or the elderly. There is a cost to everything. In this case it may be your good health.

Please be sure to keep a ready supply of sharp knives, painkillers, and surgical gloves on hand in case you need to give yourself an emergency operation, especially if the alternative is getting on a long, around the block, line at the hospital emergency room.

I almost forgot to mention, sooner or later Congress is going to have to form a bipartisan committee to determine if your do-it-yourself medical emergency treatment can be assisted by the support of a spouse, loved one, or significant other. I suppose a lot of thought will have to be given by the committee to what constitutes a loved one or significant other, and whether or not your spouse might have a hidden motive or agenda in volunteering to assist in your self-help operation. Please have your affairs in order before you attempt any of these proposed procedures.

Don’t be upset by any of the aforementioned. This is not a false scenario of the Martians landing. This is simply a warning of what may actually happen in a new health care system if Congress has its way.

If worse comes to worse, you can treat most of your ailments yourself with information gleaned from the Internet. The most important thing to keep in mind is the best plan is to prevent disease before you get it. That way you will be safe from any medical malpractice you may foster on yourself or your loved ones while attempting to cure yourself from what ails you. No wonder a big part of the Administrations plan for a new and improved health care system is centered on Disease Prevention. It’s probably the only hope we have left to live a long, happy, and healthier life at practically no cost. You don’t want to be a burden to the government, do you?

Otherwise, I think we are going to have to let Congress form another committee to decide how long it is economically viable to allow you and I to live. Strange, I thought they were doing that already. Maybe they are, and no one has had the time to read the four thousand page document that will, or has been supplied to members of Congress as an amendment to the new proposed health care bill twenty-four minutes before the final vote is taken, or was it taken or agreed to behind closed doors already. I get confused.

But this is no time for you to get confused. Sometimes I find all this so frightening that I wonder if any of it is really happening. I think that is what members of Congress are counting on: that you and I are weak and confused, and won’t do anything to protect our rights. You know what to do. Voice your opinion. Get out and vote for people that will represent your individual rights. We want the same type of insurance policy that members of Congress have, or we want Congressmen to have to convert to the same national health care plan they offer us. We want freedom of choice. Tell Congress and the Administration to stop trying to control our lives. We want our constitutional freedoms preserved.
*****


Hi, this is Arthur Levine, private citizen. I am also the author of the novel Johnny Oops about a young man who doesn’t know whether he is a prophet or a charlatan or if in fact he is real. Read more about Johnny at http://johnnyoops.blogspot.com.

Mind Meld of The Magic Genies.

Sometimes it takes a little fantasy to help us understand that the conflict between different religious beliefs in the East and the West has reached critical proportions



“Stretched across the vast ineptitude of my soul, I see the ever present temptation of resurrection. I can take no more of new beginnings. Can you not see how vague is our horizon? Doesn’t the glare of mankind’s failure wrench you from your thoughts of a better tomorrow? Glorious, my irascible Magic Genie brother, where are we in the cosmic theme of things? What is there left for us to do? Standing here on a transparent cloud of nature’s quirky design, what can we hope to find in the future? When will God tell us what to do?”

“My old friend Gali, my magical soul mate, my Magic Genie brother, you are as ever the old world philosopher. We can try again. We can search for a better time. We have less than nothing else to do. We can put our minds together and deduce a new beginning, if not at the very beginning, at least not at the end of humanity. Let’s meld our purpose and share the provisions of our hearts and minds to reinstate the possible. God will give us guidance.”

“I see nothing but shadows Glorious. My thoughts are too disheartened for a meeting of our minds to do any good. Woe is me, where has all the magic gone?”

“It has left us at the entranceway of a new beginning my dear friend Gali if we can only find our way. We must try again. It is God’s will.”

“But they are all gone Glorious, all our friends, their culture, their very humanity. We cannot expect to resuscitate civilization with our own shaky salvation.”

“ I guess Gali there is nothing left to do but have faith. What else is left to us?”

“Maybe you are right Glorious. What else can we do but have faith. I will try again with you. Come, join your thoughts with mine and we will try to begin again. Together we will resonate as one voice; one thought in our attempt with God’s help to resurrect humanity.”

“That’s the spirit Gali. After all, we are nothing if not free spirits.”

“This mind meld must be working Glorious. You are starting to sound like me.”

“And you Gali are starting to think like me. Isn’t it wonderful? Together we shall find the power for humanity’s salvation, and maybe even our own redemption. I can feel it, can’t you? The old magic is coming back. A new future is in the making. May we find a better way to be civilization’s guardians this time under God’s good grace. May we begin again.”

“Can you perceive it Glorious? Can you sense the strength returning to our spirit? Can you not see the vale of despair lifting? Where shall we start my old friend?”

“We must start before the final bombs fall Gali. We must go back in time. We must change the ending to find a new beginning.”

“I see, would that it were ever thus. Can we do this Glorious?”


“Do we have a choice Gali? “What are they waiting for?”

“They are waiting for final instructions Glorious. Here on the frozen Tundra of Siberia they are waiting for the command to let loose the final bombs that will end the world.

“Where will the orders come from Gali? What can we do to stop them? Why are they fighting?”

“They are fighting for different ways of life. They are fighting for religious principals. The orders will come from bunkers buried deep in the earth far from here where men of fanatical endeavor will give the orders. We can only stop them if we can show them that there is no one right way. We must show them that there has got to be a better way than destroying humanity to prove whose way is right. We must reinvigorate them with the possibility of a better tomorrow. We must give them hope Glorious. And we must do so quickly. Time my old friend is not on our side this day. We will have to split up. You must go to the West. I will go to the East. We must get them to stand down. Hurry, we are almost out of time. They are about to destroy the world. There will be nothing again - no humanity, no civilization, no hope for the future. I do not believe this is how God would have it.”

“How will I know what to say Gali?”

“Remember we are of one mind Glorious. We shall know each others thoughts. We shall speak as one mind. Hurry, we must find a better way. God will give us the words.”

Excerpt - Husband Hunding

CHAPTER 8 – IF HE DOES CALL


OK so he called again. It took a week. He says he desperately wants to see you again. He can’t live without seeing you again. If this is how he reacts when he’s desperate can you image how long it’s going to take to get him to the alter? Be of good faith. These things take time. He is just moving more like an elephant than a tiger. You should have no trouble keeping up. Here’s what to do and what not to do on your second date.

• All the dos and don’ts from the first date are still in effect.
• Do not act like he is doing you a favor by asking you out again.
• Do act like you’re happy he did ask you out again.
• Don’t ask Mr. Coward why it took him so long to call.
• On the basis of your current history with him, don’t expect him to make the first move. He is not even sure why he called you again.
• Try and make him think this is a natural thing and help him to relax. He is not naturally an initiator of social interactions.
• What you want to accomplish on this date is to make him feel that this is the way things are supposed to be. He is supposed to want to be with you.
• At this stage don’t worry too much about frequency. It is going to take time to get him into the groove of dating you on a regular basis.
• Just to be safe, it’s OK to get Mr. Bravehart’s telephone number this time in case he loses his courage and you have to call him.
• Please try and remember that at this point he doesn’t know why he is dating you, but he is starting to get a nagging feeling that he is getting too involved.
• You must make him feel that this is natural – no big deal.
• Do not mention long-term commitments.
• Do not act too serious. Act like as much of a birdbrain as he is. This will make him relax. Then you can move in

… “No honey, I didn’t mean into his apartment. Take is easy. Don’t rush things.”

To find out more about Husband Hunting please leave your e-mail address in the comment section with a short message.
*****

Thanks,
Arthur Levine

Consumers Are Alive And Well And Hiding

Except for a small group of people – maybe five percent of the population – consumers are alive and well and spending about as much as they usually do, but they are hiding what they are doing from a critical and disgruntled public scared about high unemployment and a weak economy, and tired of being taken advantage of by the rich.

It has become fashionable to wear last years gown to the charitable ball, but that doesn’t mean the dowager in question doesn’t have the recently purchased latest in fashion from Paris sitting in her closet waiting for the appropriate opportunity. The problem is that when she finally wears the new frock, it may be next year, and last years gown that she is wearing.

Buying habits die hard. Yes there is much token switching from high price brands to private labels, and those that do buy new cars are opting in some cases for smaller and Ford or Toyota over Cadillac or Mercedes. The days of ostentatious show are over at least for a while.

Reminds me of many splendid villas in Mexico. What you see from the road is a crumbling gatehouse, but when you get past the high walls ad tall shrubs you will find a magnificent, freshly painted villa with tennis court and swimming pool and hordes of servants beckoning to the owners every whim.

The big spenders are still there. What has been eliminated is the fringe element that tried to live beyond their means with borrowed money. Those with inherited wealth are still spending just as they always were. They of course were never ostentatious about their spending habits to begin with. Their household checking accounts are not affected by reduced credit card debt limits, or a decline in the value of their multiple dwellings. As long as their monthly trust fund checks come in, they don’t care or count. They don’t have mortgages anyway.

The people who are really in the middle are the new middle class. They were squeezed by a past administration hell bent on favoring the rich and eliminating regulation, and now they are being over taxed and over regulated by a new administration hell bent on favoring the blue collar worker and the poor at their expense. They don’t know whether to try and maintain their spending habits to impress their neighbors or become frugal to save for the coming winter of their financial discontent.

Most people faced with these conflicting circumstances, and a faltering economy, are hiding what they spend. They don’t want the public to know that they are still all right economically lest the government try and take away what they have left in a massive redistribution of the wealth scenario.

It’s an economic and social anomaly brought on by the times we live in. The dream isn’t dead. It is only in hiding. Our innate desire to consume is still there. Our instincts are unchanged. We’re just scared, but we’re still big spenders. It’s our nature just like tax and spend is the government’s.

What are you hiding? Please remember to keep that forty-dollar pound box of chocolates in the back of the refrigerator, right next to the caviar and that special bottle of Champagne you’ve been hording for a special occasion, or the candies might melt. While you’re at it stop hiding that two hundred dollar pair of brand new running sneakers at the back of your closet. You have nothing to be ashamed of. Who are you running from – yourself?
*******

Homegrown Terrorist

CHAPTER 1 – IT’S A BOMB


A short, thin young man, in a dirty khaki colored raincoat and badly scuffed faded brown shoes pushed his way through the crowd propelling a baby carriage in front of him like a weapon. He was sweating profusely.

“Get out of my way,” he shouted. “I have to get through. Get away, move out of my way, damn people. It’s your fault,” he cursed in a hoarse voice. The smell of liqueur reeked from his breath as he continued up an entrance ramp spewing saliva and curses.

The two security guards, lounging against the railing on the far wall of the entryway, started to move toward him to see what the commotion was about. Then the bomb went off.

The bomb blast killed thirty-two children and their parents on the way to an in store miniature Merry Go Round. Another one hundred and twenty four, many of whom were children, were injured as the blast slammed its way full of shrapnel and nails to the fourth floor. Eventually, the sheer force of the bomb, blew a five foot wide hole in the roof as acrid black smoke forced its way out into a cold rainy night at the Times Square branch of the Bangles and Bows Toy Store in New York City.

It was the first suicide bomb detonated in New York City by homegrown terrorists, and things would never be the same.

You could see it in the rapid blinking eyes of the people. Fear griped the inhabitants of the City of New York and the Nation as a wave of copycat bombings took place in retail department stores, malls, sports arenas, railroad and bus terminals, and anywhere else these terrorists could strike terror into the hearts of the people.

The first attacks were designed to scare the population, and convince them that no one was safe and nobody was sacred -- not even the children. Sometimes the bombers blew themselves up with the bomb, and sometimes a remote triggering devise was used, but in all the cases where a suicide bomber caused the explosion, the police and the FBI had determined that the terrorists were homegrown natives and citizens of the USA. It was almost too much to fathom.

Who were these horrible ingrates that hated this Country so that they would sacrifice their own lives to kill innocent strangers and children? What had we done to create such hatred for our Country by people who grew up and lived here? How could we fight terrorists who didn’t even value their own lives? Who would be next on the terrorists list? Where and when would they strike again? Did they all belong to one terrorist network or were they working in individual cells or alone? How did they communicate with each other? Who or what organization was teaching them how to make bombs? Who was in charge?


Hi, this is Arthur Levine. To read more about the new novel, Homegrown Terrorist please visit http://johnnyoops.blogspot.com

The Debt Riots Of 2020

Hordes of young people in their twenties were storming the barricades erected outside of Congress. They were protesting a special personal income tax equal to seventy percent of their incomes that both houses of the legislature had just approved on poor and rich alike in an attempt to solve the economic crisis that was sweeping the Country, and forcing America ever closer to the brink of declaring bankruptcy.

Signs and placards bearing the slogans – It’s Not Our Debt. We Didn’t Create The Problem, Stop The Big Spenders, No More Taxes, and Bring Capitalism Back, were being stabbed in the air by grungy looking bearded young men and tattooed young women with a preponderance of nose, eye, and mouth piercing. These people looked unwashed and unfed, and were absolutely hysterical. They had no jobs, and no hope for a better future.

The police, backed by a large contingent of National guard troops flanked by tanks were using water cannon, tear gas, and dummy bullets to try and turn back the rabid crowd numbering over one hundred thousand.

Eight years of one party control of both houses of Congress and the Presidency had created spending levels that were unsustainable. The Country was being crippled economically by the cost of a national health care system exceeding forty percent of our shrinking gross domestic product, and socially by wave after wave of inhibiting regulation that stifled incentive.

Cap and Trade Carbon Taxes were making us unable to compete in the international arena as our cost of goods sky rocketed. Our government bonds had lost their triple A rating due to the fact that our annual deficit and borrowings were now more than equal to our GDP. The ranks of the unemployed swelled to more than twenty-five percent as business retrenched and downsized, unable to prosper in an era of fifty percent corporate taxes and thirty percent capital gains taxes.

Inflation was running at over ten percent a year and interest rates showed no sign of peaking at nine percent as the government scrambled to sell more and more bonds to pay for an ever widening federal deficit. Interest payments on Government debt alone were now more than seventeen percent of GDP.

The building of new roads and infrastructure had come to a standstill. There was simply no money to pay for it with entitlements growing at an annual rate of eighteen percent.

Everyone was effected by the cycle of tax and spend that had taken on a multiplier effect of its own. The consumer was on a constant spending strike in fear of their economic ruin by a nation hell bent on trying to spend their way out of their problems, and in love with the creeping socialism that had overtaken the will of the people to live free.

Everyone was hoarding the few dollars they had stashed away in the form of gold, mostly under the mattress. The banks couldn’t be trusted. They were stuffed full of toxic assets, both old mortgage bonds and new ones from Cap and Trade Carbon Certificates that were mostly worthless. The value of the dollar was now worth less than twenty percent of a Euro, and Countries like China were desperately trying to unload their US government bonds even at a fifty percent discount to face value. We no longer traded with China or Japan or India. We couldn’t afford to and they wouldn’t finance our out of control spending any more. And the price of gas had surged to seven dollars a gallon as Saudi Arabia and other oil producers adjusted their pricing to the decreased value of the dollar.

Financial markets were breaking down, hedge funds and private equity firms were a thing of the past as speculation became a no, no, and capital formation shrank. The Dow Jones Averages had retraced to less then 6000. Credit in the form of credit card debt or home mortgages had been legislated nearly out of existence as Congress fell over themselves trying to protect an unwitting public from themselves. They had just about succeeded in regulating them and protecting them out of their very way of life. America had become a third rate Country in just ten years – an international laughing stock.

The public was out of hope, desperate for an end of changes that were protecting them out of everything they owned, and wanted a return to the old days of Capitalism, individual initiative, and prosperity based on hard work and innovation. Government sponsored salary caps had driven most of our financial services industries overseas, and many wealthy people were taking out duel citizenship in England, Canada, and France for protection. Many were taking up residence in Mexico where rules and regulation were often a matter of what you paid for and how close you were to the Ruling party. The influx of illegal immigrants had reversed as the US unemployment rate rose.

The crowds, disregarding the potential of harm to their own lives, stormed the barricades, overwhelming the police and national guard and rampaged into the buildings destroying furniture, overturning statues, cutting up rare paintings, and physically attacking Senators and Congressman alike. More than a dozen were seriously injured. Those that survived unhurt were forced to sign a pledge of no more taxes and no new spending before they were released stripped naked into the streets and the ever-watchful eyes of the TV cameras.

Older citizens, hunkered down in their homes, awaiting needed medical care that never seemed to come in time, commiserated with each other over the good old days, and what they had lost, and watched the TV in horror as the scenes of the Debt Riots unfolded.

All but a power hungry few fanatics had stopped voting at national elections, convinced that it was hopeless and that democracy was dead. A small group of party faithful determined the fate of the Nation.

How could this have happened in so short a time? Why had good intentions gone so astray? Were the intentions really good to begin with, or were we just sold a bill of goods? One thing was for sure – the change we got was not what we counted on.

Riots and Anarchy and Debt Riots had come to America.

A Whole New Country

It’s a whole new Country we are living in here in America, and I don’t like the changes.

The freedoms our forefathers fought for are giving way to supervised doled out living by the Federal Government.

A new Federal monster called National Healthcare is on the way, which will become the largest government agency; swiftly outgrowing social security, and reducing benefits to the elderly under Medicare.

Capitalism is almost dead, creeping socialism is on the way, and life as we know it may never be the same.

Freedom of choice is quickly becoming obsolete. The age of big brother is upon us. Soon we will probably all be embedded with a federal ID chip, and our movements will no longer be private.

For those of us who need supervision and cannot make it in our lives on their own, these changes may be welcome.

For those of us who prefer to rely on our own abilities, these changes spell the death knell to our dreams and hopes.

Quality doctors will opt out of the system, preferring to treat only private patients rather than be told what they can and cannot charge.

Waiting up to six months for a heart operation as in England will become the norm, but Congress won’t give up their excellent health care coverage to join the masses in this boondoggle of bureaucracy.

Clerks that can hardly speak or write English or Spanish properly will be in charge of the forms you have to submit to get medical care. Mistakes can be appealed in an endless futile procedure.

Our banks will be downsized, eliminating moral hazard, and our ability to compete effectively internationally.

Credit card debt will be constricted. Home ownership will be restricted, and savings will rise as inflation and interest rates become seven percent and seven percent within three years as a result of the federal reserves massive injections of money into the system and the Federal Government’s deficit creation, and huge spending splurges that go on and on, as wealth is redistributed from rich to poor to pay for the expenditures. There will never be enough.

Employment will be permanently downsized, as small business sees no incentive, or reason to expand. Staying under $250,000 in earnings to limit tax liability will become more important.

By the time the younger generation wakes up to the fact that change they counted on has turned us into a third rate economic power with no ability to produce anything worthwhile, it will be too late. The damage will have been done, and the economic horrors that will be wrought on their children who will inherit an unsustainable debt, will lead to the possibility of anarchy.

It’s a whole new Country we are becoming, and I don’t like the direction it is taking one bit. I cherish freedom of choice. I love the ability to make my own decisions. I like it the way we had it, but for now I’m in the minority.

As more and more Americans become aware of the freedoms we are losing, the picture may change. I wonder if we will come into reality in time to stop a catastrophe from happening. I prey that we do.

Don’t take away our incentive to live free. The Country will be the loser if you do. Don’t take away our freedom of choice.

If this is the new reality we are living in, I’d rather be in a virtual reality world.