Letters to the Editor
tempus
Published Letters: 422 Editor's Choice: 6
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Ugh
[Read the article: We see dead people?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Concerning the use of the First Law of Thermo to claim support for the idea that your consciousness just must survive is utter nonsense. Such an argument, first of all, cleanly ignores the other Laws, in particular, the Second Law of Thermodynamics concerning the inevitable increase in entropy (delta S, order to disorder). The same argument using the First Law applies, by itself, to ALL things, living or not. The Sun is nothing but energy: gravitational energy, heat energy driven by thermonuclear energy. All that energy just HAS to survive beyond the lifespan of the Sun (approximately another 5 billion years)...and indeed it does, as heat energy dispersing forever into the background vacuum of space. The energy is never destroyed but it will never ever retain its former coherent Sun-ness. Your brain uses energy to work too. That energy is forever but it is also lost to entropy as disordered heat. That heat will never completely go away but, with time, it will dilute itself out with all the other random heat noise in the universe. Don't look to the Laws of Thermodynamics to bolster arguments for consciousness continuing after death. You are your brain. Your brain is a chemical heat engine. It is highly ordered while you live and your body is able to constantly maintain it using energy you get from food. When you die, all that maintenance stops and the inevitable result is entropy, decay.
Take heart though. One way or another you WILL continue for the entire existence of the universe. Your many atoms, which themselves derive from a supernova explosion many billions of years in the past, will become part of everything else around you. Some of your atoms will become the building blocks of worms, fungi, cows, birds, etc. Some of your atoms will actually escape the earth's atmosphere and journey through space, mixed into the solar wind. You will become diluted and reused many times until life on earth ceases with the failing of the Sun. You will then reside as atoms with all other atoms in the universe until they all themselves decay into randomized heat energy. We are all ultimately headed the same way but it is a grand journey.
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There IS stopping Alito now
[Read the article: There's no stopping Alito now]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The filibuster is a good weapon that MUST be used. The Dems have been "keeping their powder dry" again and again and again, waiting for "the right time" to light it up. They let Roberts go through to help give cover for what they knew should be a filibuster on the next nominee. It would be a grave error to keep the powder dry just for the sake of keeping it dry.
If they are so afraid of the "nuclear option" that they simply refuse to use the filibuster for fear of losing it, then the nuclear option has already been exercised. This is wrong-headed and cowardly thinking. The GOP is weak. Virtually EVERYONE in the GOP, both houses, is in danger of indictment. They will soon be too busy avoiding process servers to do anything. Play chicken with the filibuster. DARE them to go nuclear. I believe they will blink but even if they don't it is a Dem win. Sure, Alito would get confirmed but that would happen anyway if you didn't try the filibuster. The bonus here is that the Dems are looking to take over one or both houses of Congress in '06 and '08. The Dems will inherit a Senate containing a big nuclear crater in the middle of it. The Dems will then be able to take total control of the judicial nomination processs and act as if the GOP doesn't even exist. The GOP will have NO options at all. This is a good thing. The GOP must both be punished for going nuclear AND they must be instructed in the wrongness of having done so. They must reap what they have sown. They must be made so desperate that they come begging for forgiveness and for mercy. The Dems, only AFTER installing judge after judge after judge to totally reverse the damage done by the GOP, can be merciful and offer the GOP a deal: reinstatement of the filibuster on condition that it forever more be solidly codified into Senate rules such that it can never again be eliminated without a supermajority vote in the Senate. The filibuster must be made sacrosanct. When the GOPers agree, THEN they can be allowed to offer input on judicial picks.
Force them to blink or force them to pull the trigger. There WILL be more competitive seats this Fall than is currently expected. There will be indictments and early retirements so GOP members can "spend more time with their families", seeking to hide from the eyes of prosecutors and the process servers. The entire GOP is burning down with its deep and overwhelming corruption. Now is NOT the time to whimper and whine. It is the time to push them to the wall and beyond. Filibuster Alito. He is a danger to civil liberties. He is a danger to the Constitution. He is a danger to minorities. He is a danger to women. He is a danger to workers. He is a danger to the environment. Filibuster. Stand up and fight. It's now or never.