A Test of a Lack of Faith: A car accident.

Here is a thought experiment. Take an intersection, a pedestrian, and a car making a left turn. Now, the car hits the pedestrian. If the pedestrian is an atheist and comes out uninjured (except for a small scrape) the atheist will think "I lucked out by being uninjured". Meanwhile, if a Christian fundimentalist in the same case but with both legs broken would think :"Thank God I was not killed".

I actually was involved in a car accident as described above as the hapless pedestrian. I was hit by a car and once I landed beside the car, my first thought was "I lucked out" not "Thank God I lucked out". I had the light, but so did the left turner. The driver failed to divert the car AND SO DID ANY GOD.

To avoid the accident, all it would have taken was for the driver to move the car's "flight yoke" just 2 inches or so to divert it by a foot and a half. Or a god to move the yoke the two inches. You would think that an all-knowing and all-powerful god would be able to move a car's steering wheel 5 centimetres (two inches) to avoid an accident. If there is this god, I'd raqther worship a devil. This god would have to be up to no good. With a god like the one advertised, who needs a devil?

A Christian fundimentalist would likely say I underwent a miracle. I call it a low-probability event. But that doesn't answer why a god would not divert the car from the intended "flight plan". If there is a god trying to get my attention, it sure did not work. The event only made me MORE atheist! Any "good" god willing to allow a driver to 9/11 a pedestrian is not a good god. Period.

The Royal Canadian Air Force inavasion of America!

I work at a place (an airport) that has an infiltration of The Royal Canadian Air Force, Canada Geese. It is of course a part of the Rogue Airwing. If you live in or work at a suburban spot, you know what I mean about these natural aircraft. It's enought to get you to dream up the idea of getting hunters with 12-gauge shotguns to serve as an antiaircraft battery.

When you watch them fly around, it's a nice scene to see, as it's about like a natural airshow. They like to fly in formation, honking all the way. They run to take off, like ducks, but when they land, they flare like a plane but stall out on purpose, to only have to make 3 little steps. They could teach a pilot a few things.

Sea gulls like to glide or ridge-soar near buildings. It's like large birds act like aircraft with an innate "pilot" at the "flight yoke". ( for the non- aviation enthusiast: "drivers seat" or "wheel") A Canada Goose is about like nature's version of a Concorde. When flying, the neck and head are forward but the fusalage is a little nose-up. Swans do similar. Both gulls and geese like areas near bodies of water. Being waterfowl, they can sure do flight ops to and from water. So can ducks. Watching a duck take off from water is hilarious. It looks just like a plane, as it runs, just pulls up a little and gradually climbs to desired altitude.

Due to the fact that it's a little (more than a bit) illegal to station hunters as an anti"aircraft" battery, we need to live with the Royal Canadian Air Force in our midst. It is an air force to be reckoned with! Like us, they want airports too! :) By O'Hare (ORD) they sure got their own airport. If I had farmland, I'd allow geese to set up their own airport on my land, so I could call it "Poulos Internation Airport". I'd also set up runways for the ultralight pilots who show the whooping cranes how to migrate. Who knows? Mayby space aliens would want to land at my airport.

About the funniest things in the world are those crop circles. If I owned several square miles of land, I'd carve a duplication of O'Hare and have Christmas lights so I could allow a UFO to land on my "interstellar spaceport". I would gladly talk the bloke down. This could be good for wayward aviation enthusiasts turned pilots! Imagine a real pilot seeing a "duplicate O"Hare" during a night flight as he flies to OKC! (Oklahoma City)

Steve Fossett"s Latest Joyride

Congratulations to Steve Fossett with his round-the-world joyride flight. Thanks to technology, he had an easier time than Charles Lindbergh. Why? Lindbergh had no auto-pilot to do the "driving" like when Fossett got sleepy! Also, even without an autopilot, Lindbergh did his flight before the invention of methamphetamine. Nowadays, you can go to any rural area and get all the meth you want! The autopilot means that meth was NOT needed.

The plane he used is a real gem, being a Burt Rutan invention. It looks like a cross between two Schweitzer gliders and a Heinkel 162 Volksjager. Everyone who plays Flight Sim will know what a Schweitzer glider is, as it's one of the featured aircraft representations, but not the He-162 VJ.

What does this round-the-world joyride prove? It proves that if you have a planeload of money, you can engage in conspicuous consumption in the grand style. Lindbergh had to "drive" the WHOLE 33 hours to fly scross the Atlantic - without meth. Unless you are a world-class insomniac, that's a decent achievement. Armed with an autopilot, Fossett could sleep at least a little, thus making meth (or any "go pill") unnecessary.

Here's a fun challenge for our intrepid rich fuck: Drive around the world on a FORKLIFT. It will be a lot slower mission, but it would be more impressive, surely for the blue-collar types, than his blowing a pallet of money on a custom jet. Let's see how far he gets on a forklift carrying a pallet of money.

I'm much more impressed by Burt Rutan for having invented the custom jet used by Fossett. The plane would be pretty handy for long-range flights, like to and from Sydney on one load of fuel. Stop off in Venezuela both ways to get your fuel cheap. In Venezuela, gasoline and diesel costs 17 cents a gallon. Fill 'er up with a 50/50 mix. The military could use it as spy plane. The famous U-2 looks similar, but comes in Stealth Aircraft Black. Fossett could recoup the costs by selling the plane to North Korea, where Kim Jung Il could use it as a cruise missile by placing some briefcase nukes in the cockpit after adding an old PC and GPS gizmo to fly it. Just have someone in Bangalore write the software. A nuke delivery plane needs only go HALF WAY around the world to bring ANYWHERE into range as a target. More range means only that you can programme it to fly around other opponent countries toward the target city. Gee, thanks a lot for adding yet another enabler for fuckheads. Even without a nuke, adding fertiliser to some of the tanks can still knock down a building.

If I was ridiculously rich like a Bill Gates or Donald Trump, I'd buy myself a copy of the Global Flyer but name it the Joyrider - and use it as a method of very long range commuting, like to and from Europe and Australia, just to go and party it up at the destination. Go to Nice France for Mardi Gras, or to Benidorm Spain in the summer. In the winter, maybe go to Melbourne Australia just becuse I can. Then, stop off in Sydney to drink up in King's Cross. Then go to Moscow to pick up some bottles of Stoli on my way back. I guess I'd get Burt Rutan to make a few small improvements just to improve fuel economy (the original gets 6mpg) and add luxury avionics like the Lear Jet's dash. If you're going to waste money on a global joyriding plane, you may as well do it right. Don't forget an XM radio receiver for the tunes in your ride!

Sure must be nice to be so rich that when you get bored, you can order up a custom plane like a pizza, then use it for a completely pointless waste of diesel/gasoline like a joyride around the world. Sheesh.