Rod Martin Jr.'s Blog, page 9

9/11 The Crime that was Not Investigated

Moments after one of the towers collapsed. Never before or since has a solid steel frame high-rise building collapsed like this. During 9/11, the crime, it happened 3 times, and one building was not hit by a plane. Photo: Wally Gobetz (CC BY 2.0)

In so many ways, 9/11 the crime was not treated for what it was—a crime. You may think the 9/11 Commission accomplished the investigation, but it didn’t. It was over a year late, under-funded and, according to Co-Chair Lee Hamilton, “set up to fail.”

Here we will look at the startling fact that so much of what happened before, during and after 9/11 has all the earmarks of a false flag, black operation and subsequent cover-up. Take a look at the following information:

The crime scene was scrubbed clean starting on the evening of 9/11.
The president stopped other investigators, but finally gave in to the “squeaky-wheel” families of 9/11 victims by starting the 9/11 Commission more than a year later.
The 9/11 Commission was lied to on more than one occasion, but legal threats against the liars were never carried out.
The Commission’s conclusions were written in advance of the investigation.
The Top Military Brass responsible for the massive security failures on 9/11 were all given promotions instead of courts martial. Instead of a serious investigation into multiple derelictions of duty, these officers were given high honors and rewarded.
Government insiders and the press knew who did it within hours, so it seemed that no investigation was necessary. Like some old western, America had become a lynch mob out for blood to punish someone—anyone—for 9/11 the crime.
Possible suspects and their families were protected from investigation by higher ups in government.
Even the scientific studies were riddled with fraud and incomplete work.
Most of the steel from the buildings was shipped off to China. Evidence removed before it could be thoroughly examined.

Americans Trained Not to Look at 9/11 the Crime

Charles Leidig was one of several top military officers responsible for the massive security failures on 9/11, all of whom received promotions instead of courts martial.

Movies, the news media, advertisements and the government have all worked together to train Americans not to look. Conspiracy? Perhaps. One of the methods used to get Americans not to look was to demonize the idea of conspiracies. The government gives their conspiracy theory, but both Bush and Obama caution Americans not to entertain “outrageous” conspiracy theories. Conspirators love it when you don’t look.

Self-imposed blindness remains a pretty slick invention and Americans bought it willingly. Thus, 9/11, the crime, went without an adequate investigation and with most of the evidence destroyed.

American exceptionalism was part of the key that made the medicine of conspiracy blindness go down more easily. “America the Greatest” is the kind of thing that makes its citizens forgive or ignore a wide range of crimes. This feeds into normalcy bias—the tendency to think that things are not as bad as they seem—that all of this “stuff” is simply a part of “normal” life. Well, it’s not. And calling it “normal” doesn’t make it so, unless it becomes a new norm. We’ve already had legalized murder for more than forty years. Now, euthanasia is worming its way toward acceptability. And with television shows like Kiefer Sutherland’s 24, taking someone else’s life without due process has become heroic. Thus, the murder of Osama bin Laden required celebration, even though the FBI still admits that they have insufficient evidence to link bin Laden to 9/11. If not bin Laden, then who?

Today, I saw a feminism graphic on Twitter. It told of the shocking realization at a feminist picnic that no one made sandwiches. Was making sandwiches too demeaning? Being of service makes you someone’s slave? See? No one had to change the dictionaries. All they had to do was to repeat the insinuation enough times to make people start thinking a certain way.

Don’t take responsibility.
Blame others.
War is a “peacekeeping” action. (Yet, the conquered don’t think so.)
Those who question authority are crackpot conspiracy theorists.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld created a bottleneck and made himself scarce during the 9/11 crime, so the bottleneck would be blocked.

In February, 1981, newly elected President Reagan asked CIA Director William Casey concerning the goal of the clandestine agency. Casey replied, “We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.”

Please read that quote, again, and let it sink in for awhile.

Increasingly, corporations have taken over the American government. The president, Congress and the supreme court no longer work for the people, but for Wall Street. How else could criminal bankers not only get away with multi-Billion dollar scams in the 2008 financial melt-down, but receive $700 Billion in bailouts? Al Capone and Adolph Hitler would’ve loved this kind of scam.

In two articles I wrote earlier this year for Uisio.com, I explore this dark subject in greater detail. In the first article, I focused on lobbyists and how they have infiltrated the legislative process.

Lobbying in the United States — Foxes in the Hen House

In the second article, I dug more deeply into the workings of Wall Street and the frequently illegal, and near-always unethical activities of corporations.

The Silent Coup — How Wall Street Took Over Washington without Firing a Shot

Rudy Giuliani, mayor of New York during the 9/11 crime, was instrumental in scrubbing the crime scene clean before an investigation could be launched. Photo: Jason Bedrick (PD).

The current patriarch of the Rockefeller family, David Rockefeller wrote in his memoirs, “For more than a century, ideological extremists at either end of the political spectrum have seized upon well-publicized incidents such as my encounter with Castro to attack the Rockefeller family for the inordinate influence they claim we wield over American political and economic institutions. Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as ‘internationalists’ and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure—one world, if you will. If that is the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.”

He admits proudly to conspiring against the best interests of the United States. I suppose he thinks their plans are so far along, it doesn’t matter what crimes he admits to—even treason. No one can do anything about it. If that’s his thinking, then he’s wrong. There’s plenty we can do to prevent 9/11 the crime, from ever happening again.

Stop voting. Elections are run by corporations. They’re rigged and so slickly done, they only appear natural evenly balanced. Corporations are very adept at making you see what really isn’t there. That’s marketing. So, stop supporting the corrupt political process.
Boycott all corporations. Find alternatives for everything you buy. Buy local. Bank at your local savings and loan. Forget the convenience of ATMs. Plan ahead.
Stop using dollars. A tough one, I know, but every dollar has debt attached to it. Every Federal Reserve note belongs to the private Federal Reserve bank and their private owners—like the Rockefellers and Rothschilds.
Resist peacefully every government intrusion into your lives.
Spread the word. Let others know that their government no longer works for them. It’s now a corporate monster owned by psychopaths who don’t care about their fellow humans.
Love your enemies. This will throw them for a loop. Unconditional love really does conquer all.

Do you have any other suggestions? Please share them, here.

Now, I need your help

In the meantime, please consider buying my latest books (see below).

One member on Twitter asked how I could even think of selling a book about that horrible tragedy. I suspect he thinks I’m getting rich. So far, I’m running two dozen websites by myself and paying for everything. Not getting rich. Not even close. But let’s look at his motivation for saying that. The subtext seems to be: commerce is evil. Thou shall not make money from honest work.

Why is a book on 9/11 honest work? It can be, if it tells truths that the mainstream media avoids. It can be, if it alerts people to dangers all around them, so they can protect their families from future disasters. And it can be, if it educates us on the patterns of history.

If we follow his logic further, we would stop all sales of books talking about tragedies.

Think about it. That would likely eliminate a third of book sales—books about wars, serial killers, tyrants, crimes and more. But it might also eliminate books which tell you how to avoid such tragedies, including many self-help books. This is part of the ironic state of human emotion and reaction which avoids the uncomfortable, pretends it never happened and hopes it never will again.

Following the unspoken rules of Political Correctness, then we should stop paying for police, firemen, military and even the government. Would be nice, but they have families to support, too.

Both of my books address the possibility that we can stop such things from ever happening again. The answer is simple, but difficult to implement. I stand ready to answer all questions. The meager sales helps to keep me alive long enough to do more research and to produce more thought-provoking books. If you think that’s valuable, then pitch in. Both books, normally $4.99 each, are now only $3.99 each.

Favorable Incompetence book cover

New Book—Favorable Incompetence: Shining a Light on 9/11 the crime
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In this book, 9/11, the crime, gets a fresh look. You’ll not only get to review some of the most potent evidence, but you’ll get a hypothetical look into the thinking processes of the real perpetrators. The 19 Muslims were patsies. The good guys were harassed, fired, penalized or simply ignored. The real culprits were rewarded.

So many new laws and military actions use 9/11 as an excuse. This makes 9/11 the crime an ongoing, raging inferno. Don’t you think it’s time you learned more about this perpetual tragedy? Find out not only the truth behind 9/11, but also what you can do about possible future occurrences.

Buy Favorable Incompetence, now with a 20% discount, but only from the publisher’s website.

Dirt Ordinary book cover

New Book—Dirt Ordinary: Shining a Light on Conspiracies
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If you’ve ever felt strange when people talk about something controversial, you’re suffering from the Orwellian effects of language manipulation. Conspiracies are as common as ordinary dirt. On average, there are at least 42 Million new conspiracies every day, throughout the year and every year. Read the book and find out just how common they really are.

But you have to ask yourself: Who would want people not to think about conspiracies? Who, indeed!

Buy Dirt Ordinary, now with a 20% discount, but only from the publisher’s website.

The post 9/11 The Crime that was Not Investigated appeared first on Rod Martin Jr.

Climate Change Middle Ground — Proceed with Caution

This little Koala isn’t worried about some “climate change” middle ground. So, long as he has plenty of eucalyptus leaves, he’s happy. Photo: Diliff (CC BY-SA 3.0) via Wikimedia.org

Today, I looked over a climate article I spotted on Twitter and found one of the comments there intriguing. The article’s author, Chris Kenny, summarizes his writing with, “Like a judge turned advocate, or umpire turned player, the ABC’s Media Watch has become a spruiker in one of the nation’s most crucial policy debates — climate change.”

One of the commenters to that article, named Michael, wrote an interesting criticism that calls for a climate change middle ground:

“I quite like reading Chris Kenny’s pieces. However, I wonder if he realises he is making the same mistake he is accusing Media Watch of making. Everyone knows that Media Watch has a political left bias. Chris replies with a political right bias. Neither left nor right are necessarily correct here. Somehow we have to merge the two to get at the facts. The only thing that matters is what the facts are, shorn of any political bias.”

The following is an open reply to that commenter.

Critique on Climate Change Middle Ground

Michael, your climate change middle ground sort of makes sense. But like the IPCC’s insane logic, the average of 100 wrong climate models does not make a right one.

There may be some truth in both sides, but mixing them together without discrimination can prove futile. We need to proceed with caution with such a climate change middle ground, because the middle isn’t always right, either.

Some people are more selfish than others, wouldn’t you agree? Some people who have $Billion$ enjoy the power that goes with it. Some enjoy that power a bit too much. Power plus selfishness can lead to all manner of corruption. This is simple human nature. Because of such selfishness, conspiracies are dirt common. Turning a lie into “truth” is a good marketing trick, and we have lots of expert marketers in recent years.

The “popular” thing these days is that Global Warming is bad and evil “carbon” is the cause of it. They don’t even have the decency to use its real name. It’s not “carbon” (soot), but carbon dioxide (the gas of life). In a subtle sense, they have shown themselves to be anti-life. Harsh? Hold that thought for a moment.

CO2 is not and never has been a pollutant. CO2 does not and never has caused significant global warming. Quite the opposite: significant, prolonged warming causes increases in CO2, with an 800 year lag. Why? Because it takes a long time for all that air warmth to heat up the oceans where the extra CO2 resides. Warmth forces the dissolved CO2 out of the water.

CO2 increases have been fairly linear since the end of WW2, but average global temperatures have been down$2\iҎ#”rԡgwfkagain. Here’s the satellite data uncorrupted by Climate-Gate-style fudging (Spencer and Christy):

http://drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures/

NASA satellite global temperature data. Graph by Dr. Roy Spencer and Dr. John Christy.

Incredibly (compared to popular media bias), Global Warming is good. Warming means more evaporation, more clouds, more rain, more life. During the far warmer Holocene Optimum (~8000 years ago), the Sahara was green.

Cooling down the planet means less evaporation, less rain, failed crops and mass starvation. Yet, governments (including American) have already started programs of geoengineering to cool down the planet. Patents have been filed for years on aluminum, strontium and other particulate spraying to reflect sunlight in order to accomplish just that. Ironic that we’re cooling down the planet while we’re still in an Ice Age. If the Holocene suddenly ends, then we have 80,000 years of glacial conditions that will see Chicago, New York and Paris under a mile of ice and human populations dwindling into the thousands.

Hysteria Based on Delusion

Lord Acton (John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron of Acton). Famous for his quote about power and corruption. (PD) via Wikimedia.org.

This whole “climate change” hysteria is as strange as the “Emperor’s New Clothes.” Once you think through this information, it’s obvious that the Emperor is entirely naked and has been duped by the tailors. Who are these tailors?

Some proponents of the “climate change” hysteria claim that “deniers” are paid by Big Oil. What they never seem to look at is that Biggest Oil Rockefellers are pushing the other side—the warming hysteria. One look on their Foundation website shows this. Corporations are pushing both sides of the debate, but to what end?

Whoever is behind any debate is a non-issue. Argumentum ad populum. Whoever pushes an idea has no bearing on the truth of the idea. It may have something to do with motive, though.

If you look at the history of the Rockefellers, and psychopathic elite like them, they have long had an interest in eugenics and population control (à la Malthus). They have the Scrooge mentality of eliminating the excess population. These excess people (us) are merely ants or cattle that need to be culled—removed from eating up “their” resources.

Some ordinary people have a hard time accepting that such arrogance can exist, but history is full of examples.

Lord Acton once said, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.” He has been frequently misquoted without the word “tends.” Notice also how his statement includes “almost always.” But his carefully worded statement is far more accurate than the misquotations. Power, by itself, is benign. What makes it a force of corruption is the selfishness that individuals bring along. The more selfish the individual, the more the corruption. Someone like Gautama Siddhartha (Buddha) or Yehoshua of Nazareth (Christ) would bring zero selfishness. Thus, Jesus walking on water and stopping the storm did not turn his head toward power madness.

A More Effective Climate Change Middle Ground

Climate has always changed. There’s nothing spooky or scary about this fact. But calmer, friendlier weather exists in warmer climates. Why? Because violent storms are driven by temperature differences—not merely by heat. During an Ice Age, like the one we’ve experienced for 2.6 million years, we have great temperature differences, between poles and equator. Melt the poles and that thermal potential practically disappears.

But science does have a possible answer to climate change. The real driver isn’t CO2. Check out the Svensmark study. Their graph of solar activity has a near-perfect match with global average temperature.

Groups like NASA use Ground-Based data which is highly suspect (Watts). On NASA’s own site, they don’t use the satellite graph! Incredible. But that is, I suppose, being “politically correct,” but scientifically corrupt—far from any climate change middle ground, and far from the truth.

References

Kenny, Chris (Associate Editor). (August 1, 2015). “Media Watch has a climate change obsession.” The Australian. Retrieved on August 2, 2015 from http://theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/media-watch-has-a-climate-change-obsession/story-fn8qlm5e-1227465421784

Spencer, R., and Christy, J. (June, 2015). “Latest Global Average Tropospheric Temperatures.” Retrieved July 26, 2015 from http://drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures/

Svensmark, H., et al. (2011). Svensmark: The Cloud Mystery. Retrieved on March 15, 2015 from https://youtube.com/watch?v=ANMTPF1blpQ&index=40&list=PLnjuwFo2a6mOfPciw85AVmhZIRMiiMrlO

Watts, Anthony. (June 15, 2015). “Climate Fraud – NOAA’s Global Temperature Dataset.” Retrieved on July 27, 2015 from https://youtube.com/watch?v=pjlPvwRP-fM&index=82&list=PLnjuwFo2a6mOfPciw85AVmhZIRMiiMrlO

The post Climate Change Middle Ground — Proceed with Caution appeared first on Rod Martin Jr.

NASA Goes Anti-Science — An Open Letter to Their Global Climate Change Unit

NASA satellite global temperature data showing a distinct cooling over the last 17 years. Graph by Dr. Roy Spencer and Dr. John Christy. Click on the graph to enlarge.

The following is a letter to the Global Climate Change Unit of NASA. This is regarding their scientifically fraudulent support of the Global Climate Change hysteria. What is ironic is that I used to support that very same hysteria myself. I remain thankful that I can admit my mistakes.

A lot of people around the globe saw Al Gore’s pretty documentary when it first came out—An Inconvenient Truth.

That video had a number of things going for it. First, Al Gore is a smooth-talking politician.

Second, I care about our planet and care about reducing the suffering of others—as most of us do. This film spoke to that desire.

Third, Gore had the services of a slick production team and access to lots of money to make this dazzling little film with larger-than-life graphics and lots of exotic travel to places like Greenland.

Fourth, Gore used the word “truth” in the title.

Fifth, Gore’s little film won an Academy Award.

Sixth, Gore himself won a Nobel Prize. Though this may sound impressive, with Obama winning a Nobel Peace Prize, right before becoming America’s most war-mongering president, this says a lot about the Nobel organization.

These six points say a lot about either the film or the state of our society. Years later, when I found out how wrong I had been about Global Warming, I began to wonder about how widespread the corruption had become.

Yesterday, I saw NASA’s “scientific consensus” page:

http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/

Open Letter to NASA

NASA global temperature graph from corrupted ground-based data

Sorry to rain on your parade, but this is all wrong.

I’m appalled that my tax dollars are being spent to promote this questionable idea.

First of all, the use of “climate change” as a meme is dishonest. Climate always changes and always has, ever since the Earth first gained an atmosphere over 4 billion years ago.

Your use of “scientific consensus” is incredibly unscientific, because science is never done by consensus. That approach was supposed to have ended with Copernicus and Galileo. Consensus thinking had stopped science from making progress for more than a thousand years after Aristotle and Ptolemy. I’m ashamed to have ever been an enthusiast of NASA. This garbage is pushing us into a science Dark Age. Shame on you all!

The graph on your scientific consensus page is also ludicrous, because it’s based on ground data and shoddy methods of fill-in and interpolation. Also, it has used disreputable temperature stations—like the thermometer in an Arizona parking lot where the heat will certainly be far greater. Again, for shame!

You ignore global temperature data from your own satellites! Incredible. Fraudulent!

There has been no Global Warming in nearly two decades (unless you include diurnal and annual changes as “warming”).

At least a couple of climate scientists have not become so corrupted by money or by argumentum ad populum:

http://drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures/

What is doubly incredible about the sheer lack of science in all of this “Global Climate Change” hysteria are the two bald facts:

1) Global Warming is good. Wake up! We’re still in an Ice Age. Yet, psychopaths in charge are pushing for measures to cool down the planet. I’m sure if you think long and hard about this, you’ll realize that you really, really, really do not want the Holocene to end just yet.

2) CO2 is good. Plants require it. Earth has had 15x as much CO2 and thrived; the oceans did not boil away. It is not and never has been a pollutant, yet it continues to be treated this way by governments and news media around the planet. They don’t even have the courtesy to use its full name, calling it “carbon” as if it were dirty soot. For shame!

If you have a scientific bone in your body and an ounce of integrity, you will look long and hard at this topic and rethink your position.

I care about our planet. I suspect you do, too, otherwise you wouldn’t be talking about this subject. But you’re headed in the wrong direction.

Ask a real climate scientist—one not so sensitive to funding issues—about the Medieval Warm Period, the Holocene Optimum and similar periods of the past when the Earth was far warmer and prosperity abounded. About 8,000 years ago, the Sahara was green! You won’t get that with the proposed cooling of the Earth.

Cool down the planet and you invite disaster. Cooler oceans means less evaporation, fewer clouds, less rain and more failed crops. Billions will die and their blood will be on your hands. An end to the Holocene means 80,000 years of glacial conditions that will see Chicago under a mountain of ice and the population of Earth dwindle into the thousands.

I hope you will raise the red flag on this issue. I hope NASA will return to sanity and adhere more closely to its original mission.

Sincerely,

Rod Martin, Jr.

Discussion About NASA Distortion

Composite graph of NASA ground-based and satellite data. This shows that NASA preferred to use the warmer, less reliable ground data. Click on the graph to enlarge.

How accurate is the satellite data graph? Follow the link, above, for Dr. Spencer’s discussion of the graph.

This third graph is a combination of NASA’s corrupted data graph and the (UAH: University of Alabama at Huntsville) satellite data.

I lifted the 13-month running average from the satellite graph, compressed the time scale and expanded the temperature scale to match the scales on the questionable ground data graph found on NASA’s Global Climate Change site.

Because it was not clear on the NASA site their basis for the zero temperature axis, I moved the satellite data graph upwards to match the 1979–1983 range on the temperature scale. This gives them the benefit of the doubt at the start of the overlap in 1979. As you can see, the satellite data shows cooler temperatures on all of the troughs (low points). The El Niño spike in 1998 is slightly higher in the satellite data.

Except for the 2010 summer peak, the remainder of the graph after the El Niño event has the satellite data showing cooler temperatures than the ground-based data displayed on NASA’s site.

The fact that NASA would not use the far more consistent satellite data may be an indication of political bias.

Climate Scientist, Dr. John Christy, Discussing the Science, the Corruption and its Impact on the World

The following video is an interview with climate science Professor John Christy. He is responsible for the datasets of the UAH satellite used in the first graph at the start of this article.

Questions

Was my condemnation of NASA too much? What’s your reaction?

Reference

Climate Fraud – NOAA’s Global Temperature Dataset

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Lies We’re Told, GMO Mosquitoes and AIDS

Mosquito from Tasmania. This is not the one used in Florida, but part of the same species. Photo: JJ Harrison (CC BY-SA 3.0) via Wikimedia.org.

In recent news, Florida state officials in the United States announced their plans to release genetically modified mosquitoes into the wild, sometime this year (2015). British biotech firm, Oxitec Why? To reduce the mosquito population. You see, the Franken-bugs are flying time bombs. All the ladies out there will waste their time with these studs, get pregnant with stillborn babies and greatly reduce the next generation of these tiny flies. Sounds good, right. Who doesn’t like the idea of reducing the bug population?

Mosca, in Spanish, means fly. The “-ito” ending makes it the diminutive form—tiny or little fly. Such a big fuss over such a little thing.

The company releasing them, Oxitec, says that they’re all male and that males don’t bite. While this last part is true, the other part remains one of the lies we’re told about this release. The fact remains that a small percentage of females are expected to be amongst those released. You see, sorting mosquitoes by gender is an imperfect business.

So, if one of these genetically modified mosquitoes bites you, then you will become part of the laboratory experiment. If nothing bad happens because of the GMO needle stuck in your body, no problem.

But what if there is a problem? What if the DNA that makes the mosquito babies sick also makes humans sick, or does something entirely unpredictable?

Lies We’re Told About DNA—It’s Not Simple Programming

Most people don’t realize that DNA is simply programming. But simple it is not. Instead of subroutines that can be moved around like modules in a PlayStation, DNA coding is far more complex. Turn on genes 1, 5 and 23, and you might get blue eyes, but only if 98, and 104 are also set to a specific value. Yet, you might get blue eyes with 4, 9, 17 turned on, with 99 and 118 turned to a specific value. Traits are not simple toggle switches. But what if turning on 23 without 1 and 5 makes a person more susceptible to cancer? You get the idea?

Ever since Monsanto bribed their way into GMO approval in the 90s, the world has become increasingly victimized by this Frankenstein experiment. The lies we’re told include their claim that GMOs are perfectly safe. Even the American government agency responsible for approving the release of GMOs recommended far more testing. But the FDA’s scientists were ignored by their agency bosses—executives who used to work for Monsanto. The claim of safety rings hollow, because we simply do not know. Well, actually we do. We know that they lied, because scientists are starting to find problems. Not every scientist has been bought by the corporate corruption.

Scientists have some preliminary understanding about how DNA works, but they are still infants in the complex world of genetics. If they make a big mistake, there is no reset button. The entire planet has to live with their world-changing boo-boo.

What if these new Franken-itas (female GMO mosquitoes) are more susceptible to carrying diseases? A few hundred, out of the millions of males they plan to release, could wreck havoc on the human population.

What if the altered DNA in the GMO mosquitoes causes the DNA of a virus to shift, making it more deadly than Ebola?

The problem is, we don’t know what monkeying around with DNA is going to do.

Far more testing should have been done before Monsanto released its first GMO crops into nature more than a decade ago. But corporate greed combined with government corruption gave Monsanto and other genetics companies carte blanche.

Lies We’re Told About AIDS and Mosquitoes?

Hypodermic syringe Photo: Wellcome Trust (CC BY 4.0) via Wikimedia.org.

Several months ago, at the college where I was teaching, a health worker came to speak to the students and faculty about AIDS.

Naturally inquisitive, I asked a question that had knocked around in my head for several years: What would happen if a mosquito bites someone with AIDS? Will the disease be transferred to the next person that the same mosquito bites?

The health worker said to his audience that mosquitoes cannot transmit AIDS virus because the virus won’t survive outside of the human body. But this is a fallacy. One of the methods touted as a way to spread the virus is through shared needles from illicit drug use. What is a mosquito except a shared needle?

Though I doubt the health worker was consciously lying about the topic, I suspect I’m not the only one to think of this question and to see a problem with the pat answer.

Can mosquitoes be the shared needle that potentially spreads AIDS to everyone? Could AIDS be a genetic experiment of the US government or international corporations? Could we ever trust them to tell us the truth about it? Probably not.

Within the last few years, one Florida judge declared that it is perfectly legal for corporations to lie—and that includes the news media. Ouch!

Problem in Official Circles—Lies and More Lies We’re Told

It remains perfectly understandable that lies would be told. Billions of dollars are at stake. Sometimes a little truth is easy to sacrifice when the money made exceeds your own yearly income by a factor of a thousand or even a million.

Increasingly, scientists, politicians, bureaucrats and others have lied to save their careers, to create opportunities or to confuse or reassure the public. Don’t believe this?

A whistleblower from the CDC came out in recent months to admit that his agency lied about a link between MMR vaccinations and autism.

British Dr. Andrew Wakefield is infamous for declaring a link between MMR and autism and losing his license in England because of it. Protecting his reputation would’ve cost him over a hundred thousand dollars. But his partner in that crime had the money to fight it in court and recently won. Both of these events—the CDC whistleblower and the recent win in British courts—vindicate Wakefield and his research.

Vaccine manufacturers stand to lose a lot of money if vaccines are found to be dangerous, ineffective or both. And money buys influence—influence to change votes, to slander good men and to turn public opinion.

Unbeknownst to most Americans, the AMA has a notorious history of corruption—selling influence to the highest bidders. The problem with corruption is that it becomes difficult to tell all of the lies we’re told. When an agency or organization has long held an aura of respect, then most people remain clueless that any lies have been told.

Advertisements from the 1940s and 50s show doctors recommending one brand of cigarettes over another, implying that smoking is perfectly safe and healthy.

Back in the 50s, radiation was used with far greater recklessness, as if the dangers of radiation had not yet been fully grasped. One advertisement showed a woman putting on radioactive makeup and using the advertisers face cream only on one side. Brand X was used on the other. A Geiger counter told which cleanser did the better job.

Lies and Conspiracies

Too many people these days shrink from the word “conspiracy.” It’s as if they think conspiracies never happen or that they remain some childish fantasy. But conspiracies are dirt common. In fact, there’s likely a conspiracy starting somewhere in the world every fraction of a second, on average. This should not be surprising. People tend to be selfish, and quite often they need help to accomplish their nefarious plans.

The problem with such willful ignorance is that people become blind to the lies we’re told and think everything is okay. The knee-jerk reaction to the word “conspiracy” has just such an effect in America, where it seems to be a most popular scapegoat—a reason to ignore the lies we’re told.

In my first semester teaching at a small four-year college, locally, I discovered twelve separate conspiracies to cheat on exams or quizzes. Ouch! That’s only one small college in the Philippines. An NBC study in America several years ago found that nearly two-thirds of American college students admitted to cheating on exams. Many of those instances involved more than one person. That’s right—conspiracy! From merely American college academia alone, this amounts to one conspiracy every second, on average. Add in all of the other colleges in the world, high schools, grade schools (kindergartens, too?), murders, bank robberies, petty thefts, gang rapes, banking scandals, corporate fraud, scientific fraud, government corruption and more, you have perhaps thousands of new conspiracies starting every second—throughout the year, every year, forever and ever.

So, get real. Conspiracies are so common it’s laughable how people shy away from the topic. Are they hiding from their own crimes? Or are they merely naive or gullible? Who knows!

The Lies We’re Told About GMOs

Patrick Moore, environmentalist. The lies we’re told by corporate reps like him remain an unknown quantity. Photo: Friends of Europe (CC BY 2.0) via Wikimedia.org.

The entire topic of GMOs is fraught with corporate greed, bullying tactics, subterfuge, stealth and clandestine activities worthy of a James Bond novel.

Several weeks ago, I saw a French interview with Patrick Moore—one of the original co-founders of Greenpeace. Because of that interview, I have lost all respect for the guy. He made a big deal about how Monsanto’s glyphosate is perfectly safe to drink. But when the interviewer offered to give him some, Moore said, “Sure, but I’m not stupid.” Then he refused to back up his statement with a demonstration of faith in the safety of the product. This was a public relations fiasco for Monsanto and Moore. It only showed to what lengths people will go to lie about a product which potentially could kill millions of people and which could destroy the ecological stability of the planet. Pure selfishness—pure evil.

In 1997, Tyrone Hayes was paid to do some research by Syngenta (then called Novartis)—a biotech firm now considering a merger with Monsanto. They wanted Hayes, an assistant professor at UC Berkeley, to test their herbicide, atrazine. Their goal was to prove atrazine perfectly safe to the environment. Hayes failed at this task. His research proved atrazine to be extremely toxic and to create damaging side effects in several species of frogs.

Over the next several years, Hayes reported to friends that Syngenta had been harassing him, but few people believed him. They thought he had become paranoid. But it’s not paranoia if the harassment is true. In 2005, a class-action suit against Syngenta revealed corporate emails that proved the company had been plotting against Hayes and several other scientists whose research disagreed with the corporation’s bottom line.

A number of researchers claimed that Hayes research was flawed and that they could not replicate his findings. Other researchers claim that Hayes research is perfect and that they can replicate his findings easily. Who is telling the truth? Who is being paid by the corporations to lie?

This world is not a level playing field. Perhaps it never has been. People can be bought. Corporations remain entirely selfish and self-concerned to an extreme. National leaders have been killed because they wanted to kick out the corporations that were “raping” their countries.

I’m all for business and progress, but only if it remains honorable. Temptation makes honor seem an impossibility.

Solutions to the Lies We’re Told?

Albert Einstein playing violin. His wisdom tells us that the lies we’re told are not part of the solution. Photo: E. O. Hoppe, for Life magazine (PD) via Wikimedia.org.

Are there any solutions to all this madness? First suggestion: pray! But not out of fear, because that won’t work any more than hyperventilating. Real prayer combines perfect confidence, utter humility, 100% responsibility and unconditional love. Yes, this includes love for the perpetrators, too.

Like Einstein once said, “A new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move toward higher levels” (New York Times, May 25, 1946). To paraphrase his statement—You can’t solve a problem by using the same approach that created the problem.

All of the problems we have in the world—every single form of evil—came from self-concern (another name for ego or selfishness).

We cannot solve evil by becoming evil. Jesus said not to resist evil. The reason why should be obvious. Resisting evil is another form of evil. Why? Because it remains self-concerned—the source of all evil.

Don’t give up. That’s evil, too. Suggestions?

The post Lies We’re Told, GMO Mosquitoes and AIDS appeared first on Rod Martin Jr.

The Effects of Stress on the Body — What, me worry?

The following article was originally written in October, 2008. It is republished here with a few updates.

Old man worrying. One of the effects of stress on the body is lines on the face. Photo: Highway2783 (CC BY-SA 3.0) via Wikimedia.org.

The effects of stress on the body can be devastating.

A friend of the family recently had a nervous breakdown. He can’t sleep. He can hardly eat. He has lost a great deal of weight and there is the smell of death about him. He has given up.

For someone 73 years young, he had looked trim and dapper. Now, only days later, he looks frail and weak.

His problem is one of extreme attachment and worry. How? He’s holding onto his sins too tightly. He’s feeling a gargantuan guilt for what he has done to others. He feels that God hates him for those things. He is wallowing in a cesspool of worry, self-resentment, guilt, and more.

What triggered this? Only recently did he discover that the project of the last ten years of his life had been a failure. He had wasted thousands of dollars (actually their Philippine peso equivalent) of other people’s money. He had diverted much of those funds to a swindler who had promised much, but had delivered nothing.

What he is feeling now is the impingement of ego. He is now “wrong” on so many levels, it hurts for him to think. It hurts for him even to exist. In giving up, he is sliding toward death. For him, the effects of stress on the body are very apparent—the lost weight, the shaking, the nervous twitches. His decision is an implicit suicide based on selfishness and ego. And ego is that which separates self from God and others. It separates the true, immortal self from the infinite.

My wife and I attempted intervention. We asked him to come stay with us, and he did for a few hours. With love and positive reinforcement, it might have worked. My training in problem solving, confidence-building drills, plus our devout prayers could have helped to pull him away from the brink. His son had other plans.

After his son, “rescued” his father from our attempts, my wife suspected that he had become ashamed that someone else was taking care of his father. Later, I learned that his son was a former drug addict who frequently stole money from his father, and stole property from others to support his former habit. Perhaps we were jeopardizing his “cash cow.” Does that sound cruel to use such a term? Is it cruel for a son to treat his father that way? Whether it was shame or greed that motivated his son, the apparent source of his actions was ego. The son was suffering from the negative end of perhaps several dichotomies—selfishness-selflessness, shame-pride, greed-moderation, and possibly others.

Tracking Down the Source of Stress on the Body — The Source of All Worry

Symbolic dichotomy of Yin and Yang. Source of the stress we feel comes from something similar. Graphic: Kenny Shen (PD).

What does this mean, “dichotomies?” The American Heritage Dictionary defines it as, “Division into two usually contradictory parts or opinions.” Perhaps the earliest dichotomy mentioned in literature was that of the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. This was the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. “Good” and “evil” are the contradictory parts.

As we know, nothing in life is ever so “black and white.” “Good” and “evil” are not perfect poles in opposition. Within the mortal realm, there is always a little evil in every good, and a little good in every evil. Some nice things are more good than others. Some bad things are more evil than others. There are no “digital” jumps from one state to another, but only an analog stream of qualities that are greater and greater “good” in one direction, and greater and greater “evil” in the other.

Good vs. evil is only one example of a dichotomy. There may be countless others. Some of them are, “right-wrong,” “generous-selfish,” “wise-stupid,” and “compassionate-indifferent.”

A special dichotomy is that of the “victim-perpetrator” pair. There is a bit of the perpetrator in every victim, and a bit of the victim in every perpetrator. The vicious cycle of hurt and retribution—of perpetual blood feuds and the like—is an insanity that is hard to rise above. The continuity is self-reinforcing. The only way to break the cycle is to inject something that does not belong to the realm of continuity. We need to inject something that is from the realm of discontinuity—creation. The specific creation for the victim is “forgiveness.” The creation for the perpetrator is “responsibility.” But the victim also has to take responsibility, and the perpetrator also has to forgive.

Our family friend needs to forgive himself and to take responsibility for his actions. The responsibility of which I speak has nothing to do with guilt. Such an emotion or attitude as guilt is only a continuity-based burden, and not worth the paper on which it is written. One of the effects of stress on the body is an increased susceptibility to illness. Another effect of such stress is a perpetual lack of luck. Such a person is the proverbial “jinx.” More than merely coping with stress, they need to stop being self-concerned. How to reduce stress in their situation is to turn their attention on helping others. That’s not easy when the person feels incompetent, unloved and thoroughly unlucky.

Raphael’s painting of St. Michael vanquishing Satan. This symbolizes the fight between good and evil, at the core of all worry.

All of these continuous ranges of dichotomies are part of the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. “Good” and “evil” are only the most obvious of those dichotomies. They help to lock the immortal child of God into the here and now, and separate from the infinite.

Long ago, it was our decision to leave the Garden. What do I mean by “our?” Wasn’t it Adam and Eve who were in the Garden? In the symbolism of Genesis, Adam and Eve are many things. In one verse, Adam is described as a group rather than an individual. But more to the point, Genesis 1:26 states that man was created in God’s image. In other words, we were created as spiritual beings with the power of creation. That means we are immortal. So, yes, we were around during the fall from grace and the departure from the Garden.

Immortal? Now, wait a minute. Everyone dies, right? Bodies do, but not the immortal children of God. We are asleep, spiritually. Once we wake up, we will no longer taste death. The body will still die, but the consciousness will continue. This is the everlasting life of which Jesus spoke.

In the Garden, we chose to ignore. We were selfish in our decision. We chose to become separate from the whole. That is the nature of selfishness. In other words, we turned our back on God. That was the original sin. Only by doing this could we know guilt and shame. Only by our decision could we have ever discovered resentment, victim, perpetrator, lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, pride, and a host of other self-degrading attitudes.

That one act put us to sleep as spiritual beings. We created a pseudo-self (ego) through which we could become aware. We placed our trust in physical continuity and in the senses we received from our bodies, filtered by our egos. Because this false self (ego) is a created object, it is subject to the laws of the physical universe. It is subject to action and reaction (including karma). It is vulnerable. Our attachment to it holds it as important. Anything that tends to make the ego self seem wrong or bad is an attack on the “self.” It is painful, especially when ego is held too tightly. Such grasping only strengthens the effect of karma. The true self behind those constructs (ego, karma, and the dichotomies) knows when it has done “bad.” When the debt comes due, the body may not know the reason, but the true self does.

For those who are not so self-obsessed, the attachment to ego is much looser. There is less vulnerability. The person is healthier both socially and spiritually.

Man is both spirit and flesh. When Jesus said that he who tries to save his life will surely lose it, he was talking about this dual quality of the composite “self.” The physical body is associated with the continuity-based ego self. If someone protects their ego/body, one moves further away from awakening as a spiritual being—Jesus’ everlasting life.

The body and ego are only as valuable as they are useful toward that end. Physical resurrection is not the intent of Christian “salvation,” despite what church dogma may hold to be “true.” One’s body is not going to be exhumed from its grave and reanimated. Our resurrection is all about spiritual reawakening. After all, we were created in the image of God—a spiritual being with the power of creation. The bodies are only secondary, and a distant one at that.

Homo sapiens were created only as a tool to help us wake up. Catatonic spirits in animal bodies would have had no way of discussing spiritual things. This is a key theme in a non-fiction book project I finished in February, 2014: The Bible’s Hidden Wisdom: God’s Reason for Noah’s Flood.

God’s Worry Before the Flood—Neanderthals

Hold on a minute! What’s this about Neanderthal? This requires some explaining, but I’ll give you the short version.

While researching the background for a novel—Edge of Remembrance—I made an outrageous number of discoveries. Many of them were biblical in nature. I had encountered two implausible dates for events found in Genesis. Where they led me is detailed in The Bible’s Hidden Wisdom.

I found what I needed in Genesis. The code I discovered is simple and elegant. The proof it generated also gave us a new timeline for Genesis—one compatible with science. No longer do biblical literalists have any reason to disrespect science. Their interpretation that Genesis tells them the universe is only six thousand years old is now shown to be wrong, both biblically and scientifically. God and science are in agreement, and this should not surprise anyone, since He created the physical reality that science studies.

This new timeline shows us that Noah’s Flood occurred thirty thousand years ago, and that the beginnings of humanity were ten and a half million years ago. Whoa! Looks like anthropologists have a lot more digging to do.

While comparing this new Genesis timeline to several in found in science, I discovered a crime—one far more sinister than anything in recorded human history. The crime involved the premeditated elimination of an entire species—Neanderthal. You see, Neanderthal disappeared thirty thousand years ago. This is the same date as Noah’s Flood.

How is this more than a mere coincidence? Early in Genesis 6, before God taps Noah on the shoulder, there is some strange wording. It talks about men having lots of daughters. What’s the significance of this? Didn’t they have sons, too? It also talks about the sons of God mating with the daughters of men. This isn’t described as being particularly wicked, but it seems to lead into a wickedness—the very reason to wipe the planet clean with the Flood.

The sons of God are the spiritual children of God wrapped in Homo sapiens flesh. So what does “daughters of men” mean? Besides referring to the fairer sex, the distinction here is between “of God” and “of men.” There have been many conflicting interpretations of these two groups. Here is an interpretation that trumps them all. (Isn’t it arrogant of me to say such a thing? Perhaps. I’ll risk it, because the message is too important.) The “of God” talks of the men made in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2—spirit wrapped in Homo sapiens flesh. The “of men,” then, must not be Homo sapiens. Apparently it refers to another man-like species which was neither so blessed with souls nor possessing such a divine purpose as that held by Homo sapiens. And what is this other species? The Bible doesn’t say much about them, only that their hybrid offspring “became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.” In the next verse, “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Gen. 6:5).

Why would inter-species mating be so wicked? To answer this, perhaps we have to go back to the reason for God creating Homo sapiens. What could that have been?

The implied purpose of the entire Bible is one of awakening the spiritual self and returning to God. So, Homo sapiens was likely created to forward this purpose. As I said, sleeping spirits are incapable of discussing spiritual things. For this, they needed a host body with the capability of intelligent speech. Did Neanderthal have this capability? There is much debate about this in scientific circles. However, if the Bible is a clue here, I suspect Neanderthal did not have the capacity to create civilization. Muddying the genetic pool would have thwarted the purpose of Homo sapiens.

Now, if this sounds racist, I apologize for hurting anyone’s feelings. Yet, the larger purpose of humanity transcends any such issues.

Neanderthal had to go because they stood in the way of our salvation—our great reawakening.

What is that awakening like? I have tasted it (see my blog article, Humble Confidence). With spiritual awakening comes the return of our power over creation. Some may balk at this idea. Some may decry it as blasphemous. That’s sad, because they have missed the point of it all! As children of God, His traits are our birthright. And Jesus said that we could do the miracles he did and even greater things. All we needed was the faith to do them.

Some people worry too much. Our family friend comes to mind. His worry was killing him.

Worry and the Need for Sleep — More Effects of Stress on the Body

Yawning man. Perhaps the reason we need so much sleep comes from the nasty habit of worrying. Sleep may well be one of the effects of stress on the body. Photo: Dmytro Tchystiak (CC BY-SA 3.0) via Wikimedia.org.

I remember reading a report years ago about worry and sleep. It seems that a psychological profile of the rare individual who requires very little sleep shows a very low “worry” quotient. Apparently they have a different attitude about life. Perhaps they see life as filled with possibilities, rather than filled with dangers or inconveniences. A friend of mine in Los Angeles is a restaurateur from India. He told me that he frequently doesn’t sleep at all and only occasionally sleeps a couple of hours. What does he do with his “spare” time? He reads. While his wife and daughter sleep, he enriches his life with education.

When I was in college, I had a full-time job, a 15-hour-a-week commute, and one semester, I took 18 units! Ouch! I could still feel the effects of stress on my body two years later. Getting an average four hours of sleep per night was not healthy for someone who still harbored a vigorous dose of worry.

The effects of stress on the body from worry may well be the reason we seem to need eight hours of sleep every night. But don’t stop sleeping, cold turkey. Instead, start working on greater self-awareness. Listen to your feelings of worry and turn them into opportunities for gratitude and love.

Solutions to the Worry Habit — Curing the Effects of Stress on the Body

I should know better, but sometimes I worry. I can’t help but think of Alfred E. Neuman on the cover of Mad Magazine with his signature line, “What, me worry?” Who is Alfred E. Neuman? He has been the mascot of that magazine for at least half a century.

My wife, Juvy, has helped me overcome some of my irrational concern for the future. On numerous occasions, when we seemed destined to be late for something, we’d always arrive on time or early. She seems to be the original “what, me worry” gal. Just one example: we needed to catch a boat from Cebu Island to Bohol Island in the Philippines, and we had something like twenty minutes before it sailed. We left the house and made our way down to the main street. A taxi spotted us approaching, and stopped to ask with a gesture of head and hand, “Need a ride?”

“Yes, we do, and we’re in a hurry,” I said.

Taxis. When you need one in a hurry, you may feel the effects of stress on the body. Photo: Michal Osmenda (CC BY-SA 2.0) via Wikimedia.org.

With a gleam in his eye, the taxi driver turned his car around, and sped us toward our destination, honking, swerving and accelerating at a mad pace. Not many taxi drivers would accept such a challenge. This one delighted in it. It was the right person at the right time and place.

When we arrived at the ticket counter, the attendant called ahead to stop the boat from sailing. This was only a minute shy of its departure time. Not bad.

What is really wrong with worry? Not only does it have an adverse effect on the body and its health (stress can be a real killer), but it affects what we create in our environment and how we treat others. The effects of stress on the body may be merely secondary. They may have a far more important effect on our spiritual well-being and mental health.

We need to be responsible for what we do to others, what we allow to happen to others, and what we do to ourselves. All of these require being more aware. We even need to take responsibility for what others do to us. Karma (living by the sword and dying by the sword, or sins of the fathers) needs to be paid. For every such payment, we need to be grateful. We need to turn the other cheek in order to rise above the perpetual dichotomy.

When we take time to reflect on such things and to give praise to the source behind the power of creation, we open the door a little more toward our own awakening.

Does any of this seem strange—perhaps a weird fantasy? Why not print out this article and look at it again in ten years. The world will seem differently by then. Truth has a habit of changing the closer you get to it.

More than anything, pay attention to your thoughts and feelings. And the next time you feel the urge to worry, don’t! What you do to accomplish this feat will aid in your own reawakening.

Now, tell me what you’ve done or heard of others doing to overcome this beast called “worry.”

Update: Several days after this was originally published, our elderly friend died from a combination of starvation, emotional agitation and lack of sleep—essentially a nervous breakdown. During his last few days, he found no solace in the things of this world. At his funeral, my wife and I cried. Some of his family members wondered who we were to be so concerned about his passing. Perhaps they did not love him as we did. Even now, I wish him well, no matter where he has gone. If reincarnated, he or she may be six years old, going on seven. As children, we sometimes carry heavy burdens from our past—burdens which occasionally give us nightmares. But in a loving family, children learn not to worry.

Originally published as “What, me worry?” 2008:1014–18:54:26 at blog.ancientsuns.com

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Online Education Bonanza — Celebrating America’s Birthday by Empowering Yourself

Online education is something worth celebrating this July 4th.

Online education has got to be one of the best improvements to civilization in the 21st century. With an internet connection, you can learn cooking, music, computer programming, web development, sewing, engineering and much more. You can even get a degree online, if you need one for your career.

I love to teach and to help others. I love to see their faces light up when they understand. And I love to hear the successes of others when they apply what they’ve learned to solve problems and to create new things to help others. Yeah, I guess you could say I’m a sucker for happy endings.

Every since first grade, in the 50s, I’ve shared my knowledge with anyone who would listen. In the 90s, I taught busy executives how to use software in their jobs at Control Data Corporation and later Ceridian Payroll Services. In the last year, I taught two semesters at a local college. Those were some of the best moments of my life. And now, I’m developing online education for Udemy.com.

Online Education Marketplace

I’ve already created one course—Creating a Website Made Easy. For a limited time, and for a limited number of students, I’m offering the course for FREE! That may sound crazy, but there’s a small catch. All I ask is that you give the course a 5-star review or give me feedback to help improve the course so it can deserve a 5-star rating. In the course, you learn how to create your first web page in 60 seconds. You learn all about HTML, including the latest HTML5 basics. You also learn CSS, including CSS3 and the dazzling special effects that are possible. You can do the course in under a week or even a single afternoon. So, if you’ve ever dreamed of having your own website, this may be a perfect opportunity to get started—a FREE course in exchange for a few seconds of your honest feedback. Ready? Go for it! Creating a Website Made Easy at Udemy.

Even More Online Education

Online education should appeal to anyone who understands the value of being a perpetual student. If web development isn’t your thing quite yet, there are thousands of other courses available—from cooking to music and from astronomy to learning new languages. These are all available at Udemy.com.

Not only am I a new instructor at Udemy, but I’m also an affiliate. If you buy a course at Udemy through the following link, this helps me keep the website going and to free up my time to give more valuable content. It’s a win-win for everyone.

Over 10,000 courses only $10 for our Fourth of July Sale (up to 95% off)! Starts July 3rd and ends July 7th at midnight.

I’ve been a student of science, history, art, writing, philosophy and spirituality my entire life. I wouldn’t dream of changing that. I plan to keep learning for as long as possible. I hope you will do the same, no matter where you do your learning.

What would you like to learn next? I’d love to know what interests you.

The post Online Education Bonanza — Celebrating America’s Birthday by Empowering Yourself appeared first on Rod Martin Jr.

Creating a Website is Easy — The Nuts and Bolts of HTML5 and CSS3

Creating a Website Made Easy course title artwork. Available at Udemy.com.

All programming is basically simple. It may not look that way at first glance, especially for those who’ve never done any programming. But like any skill, you start out small and build on it. You wouldn’t ask an infant to press 500 pounds of iron, yet one day, that very same infant might grow up to lift that much in weights.

Consider the following:

This is a simple example of
HTML Bold text.

Creating a website is easy and this simple HTML code shows you what I mean. Photo: screen shot from the course Creating a Website Made Easy

When this line of text is shown in a web page, it includes Bold text right where the tags surrounded it. Anyone can do this. It’s easy. The more practice and the greater your familiarity, the easier it all becomes. Some people may lack the understanding, but gain skill in it simply by repetition. So, whatever IQ God gave you should never be a barrier to outstanding accomplishments. Faith can conquer even this. I love teaching, and I love the idea of everyone finding out how true it is that creating a website is easy.

Creating a Website is Easy and a Course to Prove it

This last weekend, I finally finished my first course development for the website, Udemy.com. It has 34 lessons, including about 5 hours of video and 4 handouts packed with resources, plus 2 quizzes to help reinforce what you learn. Each of the main lessons includes hands-on, step-by-step projects to let you create your own web pages. Sound like fun? See, I told you. Creating a website is easy.

Happy because creating a website is easy. Photo: Gratisography.com.

For my loyal fans, this course is available at a discount. Instead of the regular $79, I’m knocking off 75% to give you the course for only $19. Udemy includes printable certificates with all its courses, so you can have a physical record of your accomplishment. There are a few lessons that you can preview just to see if the course is right for you. Udemy even offers a 30-day, money-back guarantee, so your satisfaction is assured. More than that, though, I want your feedback so I can make the course be the best it can possibly be.

Why am I giving such a steep discount? First of all, your loyalty matters to me. I want to reward that. But also, I’m asking something in return—a few seconds of your time to give me either a 5-Star review, telling the world why the course is the best, or Add Discussion to tell me what could be made better. I want the course to prove to any student that creating a website is easy.

Sound good? Then go for it. Here’s the link: Creating a Website Made Easy.

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A Death in the Family — Larry Martin, Beloved Brother

Tres Banditos. From left to right: Rod Martin, Jr., Terry Martin and Larry Martin. Kenneth Martin was in diapers about this time or almost born, circa 1954.

Mourning is never easy. When you lose someone close, it hurts. That comes from attachment and self-concern. Such self-concern is hardwired into us at birth.

My brother Larry Martin was number three of the four Martin boys who grew up in West Texas and then metropolitan Maryland. He died of pneumonia in Phoenix, Arizona, yesterday at 1:43 AM. He was 62, about the same age as my parents when they died a little over two decades ago.

Larry was the kind of guy who made you smile. You couldn’t help it, if you paid any attention at all. He was always ready with his own welcoming smile and a warm handshake. For close family, it was always a kiss—yes, even between brothers. Pure shameless affection.

When we were all still teenagers, we went to work in Los Angeles at the Church of Scientology. That cult? Hmm-m-m, yes. And quite an adventure it was. Spiritually, it was the best thing for all of us Martins. This was before Scientology went crazy in the 80s.

When we first started there, we each took IQ tests. I was shocked and deflated to find that all of my younger brothers had far higher IQs than myself. I barely registered on the genius scale, by some estimations—a paltry 139. Terry came in at 169, Larry at 149 and Ken, the youngest, was off the charts, far above 200 (marked “untestable”). But what Larry lacked in IQ, he made up with an ebullient EQ (emotional quotient). He had empathy figured out. He was your best friend, if you let him be. Early on in our lives, I didn’t know how lucky I was.

A Crazy Feud with Larry Martin

I grew up extremely self-concerned. I had worry figured out to several decimal places. It ruined my biochemical balance. Later, I took vitamin B complex just to restore some of that balance. My nerves were shot by age 4. Not only was I extremely shy, but also extremely touchy. And Larry’s perpetual happiness got on my nerves. I can laugh, now. But then it was painful. My ego lay on a bed of coals and each attempt to put out the fire with love only made the coals explode more painfully.

Larry must have been about one and a half. I remember we were driving from one West Texas town to another to go see a movie at a drive-in theater. We did not yet have television. I think Mom was already pregnant with Kenneth. I remember that evening clearly. As we three banditos sat in the back seat, everything I said, Larry repeated. His playful interruptions were driving me crazy. His innocent love for his big brother was viewed as an attack. That was the start of a five-year feud. My hate for Larry grew with each passing day.

I did not know then that such hatred was only my own insecurity. Too quickly, I mistrusted others and their intentions. I became a monster with few redeeming qualities.

Finding Love Again for My Brother Larry—Martin Family Bliss

At age 9, though, things changed. Our late father had read L. Ron Hubbard’s best-selling book, Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. One day, my late mother came down with an excruciating ear ache. We were far from rich. A trip to the doctor’s office was not an easy thing to include in the family budget. When my father got home, he asked her if she would like the ear ache handled. She looked at him like he had asked the stupidest question ever. “Of course!” But, he told her, it would require using the Dianetics he had learned. Cautiously she agreed.

That evening, Larry and the rest of us made our own dinners—easy sandwiches. When our mother emerged from their bedroom several hours later, she looked like an angel. I had never seen her look so beautiful before. All of us were taken with the change.

The next day, our father called us into the living room. “Front and center. Andalé!” We lined up in a row before him, terrified. Whenever he had called us like this, before, one or more of us would end up with a painful whipping.

Looking at the floor for some borrowed innocence, we wondered what was going to happen after that. What occurred next took us all by surprise.

He apologized.

For the few years of our short lives, he had used violence on our bodies to communicate his displeasure at our mistakes and wrongdoing. He told us that there are several ways to communicate and that he had chosen the wrong one. He had my mother give him the buckleless belt strap, used for the whippings, and promptly dropped it in the living room trash basket. He cautioned us that we could not continue to do badly. He still would not condone misbehaving, but he wanted our agreement that we would do our best and work with him. He promised never again to use violence when communicating with us.

Those few moments changed me forever. A part of me grew up. I woke up to compassion and forgiveness.

As soon as my father had finished, I grabbed Larry’s arm and asked him to come with me into the back yard.

There, under the brilliant blue, West Texas sky, dotted with a cottony flock of cumulus clouds, I apologized to him and asked his forgiveness for the longstanding feud I had started. He gave me a hug and thanked me, which was his way. Standing there, I felt my 9 years was going on 90, and I wept.

Thank you, Larry, for living your life with love and friendship. I miss you already.

The post A Death in the Family — Larry Martin, Beloved Brother appeared first on Rod Martin Jr.

Replacing Javascript with CSS for Multi-level Mouseovers

Multi-level mouseovers? Yes, it’s pretty cool. Imagine moving your mouse over a picture and having it change. I’m sure you’ve seen that plenty of times. But having your mouse move to a certain spot on the picture and have it change yet again? That’s an extra dimension of interactivity with your visitor. To see an example of this effect, check out Multi-level Mouseovers Example.

I’m self-taught when it comes to web development. I’m sure I’m not the only one to use a technique like this. I read a lot, experiment and research online. My first website was AncientSuns.com, established 14 years ago, last month. Back then, I only knew a little HTML and developed the layout using tables. Yeah, right, I know. That’s so “old school,” but you have to start somewhere.

I couldn’t find any articles on doing this, so I created my own method in Javascript. The problem with Javascript is that some people turn it off.

Now, older and wiser, I have fallen in love with CSS. I’ve been using it for years, but keep learning more and more about it. My newest websites use CSS and the tag to handle layout for a better experience and easier management.

For my AncientSuns.com website, I used Javascript to create a number of special effects, especially for mouseovers. But I have been concerned that because some people turn off their Javascript, they won’t get the benefit of the mouseover effect. What kind of effect? It’s relatively easy to have a mouseover change from one picture to another. Javascript has done it. CSS does it. But I needed something more than a simple mouseover. I needed to have the picture change to a third image when the visitor moused over a specific region of the picture. And above is an example of that, done in CSS. I call it multi-level mouseovers.

It works just like the Javascript. The visitor won’t know the difference, unless they turn off Javascript. What’s cool about this, the user can’t turn off CSS, so everyone gets to experience the effect. Javascript is great for other things that CSS can’t do, so don’t give up on that technology. We still need it.

How It’s Done—Step-by-Step

The old method I’ve used for years involved the tag, Javascript mouseovers and 3 pictures. This method uses only the 3 pictures and some CSS. No more tag and no more Javascript. Let’s say we have 3 pictures in a folder called “pix.”

First, here are the 3 pictures, separately.

First, we set up our style by creating a container class for the big event. This will flow with the rest of the page by being set to a relative position. There are many other ways we could’ve handled this. For instance, we could’ve made it the width of the pictures and made it float: right.

.cu {

position: relative;

top: 0px;

left: 0px;

width: 750px;

}

The next container will hold our first picture. Instead of using the [image error] tag, we make the picture the background of our ID division.

#pic1a {

position: absolute;

background-image: url("pix/sky1a.gif");

width: 360px;

height: 360px;

top: 30px;

left: 30px;

}

This is set to an absolute position within our relative container, allowing us greater control. The width and height, of course, are the dimensions of the picture so we don’t have to worry about background-repeat issues. Regrettably, this doesn’t have an alt attribute, so be sure to put all the appropriate information in the picture caption.

The next style gives us the first level of mouseover effect.

#pic1a:hover {

background-image: url("pix/sky1b.gif");

}

Preparing for the Third Level of Multi-level Mouseover Action

Now, it starts to get interesting. We need the exact location of our “hotspot” within the picture. Where do we want the third picture to be triggered? If we open the second picture in a picture editor, we can find the location of the desired star. Then, we need to determine how wide and high our targeted “hotspot” area should be. Half of this width should be to the left of the targeted location. When we establish the left and top properties, the width and height will have the targeted point at its center.

#hotspot1 {

position: absolute;

width: 16px;

height: 16px;

left: 200px;

top: 121px;

/* border: 2px solid magenta; */

z-index: 100;

}

I chose to have the hotspot be 16 pixels wide and high. The z-index of 100 puts the hotspot on top of everything, unless I choose a higher number for something else.

Notice the commented-out border. I used this to ensure I got the location correct. But be warned. The thickness of the border (even 1 pixel) will throw it off a tiny amount, so this is only for close approximation.

Next, we insert the container for the third picture. Again, this will receive a background-image property, instead of an [image error] tag. This will happen when the mouse hovers over the hotspot, defined above.

#pic1c {

position: absolute;

width: 360px;

height: 360px;

top: 0px;

left: 0px;

z-index: 99;

}

Again, the dimensions are the width and height of the picture. For the last of our style, we create a hotspot:hover pseudo ID and adjacent sibling selector combinator. If you don’t know about combinators, that okay. I didn’t until recently, either. As a part-time programmer and web developer, I’m frequently looking at other topics. Glad I discovered this gem. For more on CSS Combinators, check out the article at W3Schools.com.

#hotspot1:hover + #pic1c {

background-image: url("pix/sky1c.gif");

}

I could’ve used a general sibling selector combinator, instead of the adjacent sibling, but I had only one background which needed changing. The general is for more than one, but it works in this case, too.

The HTML to Go with It All

Now, for the HTML which puts all that style programming to work. Even with the comments, it looks deceptively simple. But that’s the power of CSS.

Again, be sure to check out the multi-level mouseovers demonstration example.

I’d love to hear what you think about multi-level mouseovers. And, of course, if you have any questions, please let me know. Part of learning is sharing. Every time I teach someone something, I learn, too. So, don’t be shy.

The post Replacing Javascript with CSS for Multi-level Mouseovers appeared first on Rod Martin Jr.

3D Space Software — A Dream Machine for the Explorer in Me

Space software screen shot showing the left panel viewing cube and dozens of stars tagged as “garden spots” of the galaxy. Red orbit markers indicate planets known to have planets.

I’ve had a mixed up life, and that’s a good thing. I’ve had talents in multiple areas and a burning hunger to express those talents. I’ve been a Hollywood artist with screen credit, a science fiction author with two novels published, a software engineer with a degree summa cum laude, and a college professor to a wonderful bunch of teens and young adults.

One of my lifelong dreams has been to explore the stars. Without my own interstellar starship, I resorted to painting the scenes I imagined. I wrote about them in science fiction novels. And I created 3D space software, Stars in the NeighborHood.

As space software goes, it may not be the flashiest, the most refined or most elegant, but it’s a handy tool for exploring out region of the Milky Way galaxy. Other space software may be free or cost $60 or more, but none of them are like this space software.

Stars in the NeighborHood allows you to see the stars both in 3D and night sky views. It also allows you to see Alien Sky views, showing you what the night skies look like from thousands of different star systems.

When I first developed it, I merely wanted to see what the stars looked like in 3D. I wanted to see how close they were to one another and if there was any interesting closeness that might tempt inhabitants of one of those systems to jump the gap separating them. After I completed the core of the software, I added on the night sky view. Then, I wondered how alien skies might look. In order to keep track of the stars I was investigating, I created a method for tagging those stars. Soon, I ended up with a fully-featured software package.

Recently, I created a YouTube video for my new Space Software channel. In the video, I explore the reasons and inspiration behind this space software that I created more than 15 years ago. Some of my customers have written me about how much they like it and still use it.

Let me know what you think of it.

Limited Time Offer!

Part of the fun in life is learning new things. For a limited time, Stars in the NeighborHood 3D space software will be available at half-off—$9.95 (regularly $19.95). Be your own explorer and start your adventure, today. Buy your copy now!

Offer expires Saturday, May 23, 2015, midnight (Pacific Daylight).

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