THE ATLANTIC– Joe Biden was kicked in the balls as he came to Israel with a simultaneous “fuck you” by the Israeli government announcing new settlements – 1600 houses – in East Jerusalem. The immediate spin was that Netanyahu was blindsided by the actions of his Interior Department and was embarrassed. But Haaretz reports today that these 1600 are just the beginning:

Some 50,000 new housing units in Jerusalem neighborhoods beyond the Green Line are in various stages of planning and approval, planning officials told Haaretz. They said Jerusalem’s construction plans for the next few years, even decades, are expected to focus on East Jerusalem.

Most of the housing units will be built in predominantly Jewish neighborhoods beyond the Green Line, while a smaller number of them will be built in Arab neighborhoods. The plans for some 20,000 of the apartments are already in advanced stages of approval and implementation, while plans for the remainder have yet to be submitted to the planning committees.

But Laura Rozen, always worth reading, sees skepticism in Israel:

Many observers were skeptical that Netanyahu was as in the dark about the plan as he claimed to Biden.

“Either one believes Netanyahu and his friends in government (saying it is all misunderstanding and bad timing),” wrote Jerusalem Post blogger Shmuel Rosner. “In such case, one should be concerned by Israel’s chaotic decision-making process on delicate matters.”

“Or, one might choose not to believe,” Rosner continued. “One might think Netanyahu isn’t telling the truth, or that [Interior Minister] Yishai is bluffing. If it’s the former, one will conclude that Netanyahu has no intention of seriously exploring the just-announced peace negotiations. If it’s the latter one will realize that Shas and Yishai are strong enough to toy with Netanyahu as much as they want – as much as embarrassing the American [Vice President]! – without paying a price. Not an encouraging thought.”

I cannot read Netanyahu’s mind. But I can observe Israel’s actions. They intend to occupy and colonize the entire West Bank forever.  They may allow some parceled enclaves for Palestinians, but they will maintain a big military presence on the Eastern border of West Bank, and they will sustain this with raw military power and force. I certainly cannot see any other rationale for their actions these past few years that makes any sense at all. Many Israeli politicians now use the term “apartheid” for this future. 

Map via Juan Cole

© COPYRIGHT THE ATLANTIC, 2010

LA TIMES– Imagine that you’re a science-fiction writer on a tight schedule. You’d like to play in the vast expanses of the universe, but you have too much scientific integrity to conjure up a warp drive or a DeLorean out of thin air.

You’re also concerned that your audience would get bored in the thousands of years that it would take for a spaceship to realistically travel the distances between stars. What you really need is a wormhole — a shortcut through time and space. Best of all, unlike most science-fiction tropes, wormholes might very well be real.

Seventy-five years ago today, Albert Einstein and his collaborator, Nathan Rosen, submitted a paper to the Physical Review with the goal of unifying gravity and electromagnetism. Although they failed to discover a theory of everything, they did something arguably more much important: By creating the first theoretical model of a wormhole, Einstein and Rosen allowed science-fiction writers — including Arthur C. Clarke, Madeleine L’Engle and the writers of “Babylon 5″ and “Doctor Who” — to explore vast stretches of space and time in the blink of an eye.

From the outside, an Einstein-Rosen bridge, as wormholes were originally known, looks a lot like its cousin, the black hole. And I risk having my official Physics Badge revoked if I don’t tell you, ideally in a spooky voice, that “nothing can escape from a black hole — not even light.”

Continue reading about Time Travel? Maybe.

© 2010, Los Angeles Times

Photo by flickr user Uberto

Dave Goldberg is the author, with Jeff Blomquist, of “A User’s Guide to the Universe: Surviving the Perils of Black Holes, Time Paradoxes, and Quantum Uncertainty.” He is an associate professor of Physics at Drexel University. His Web site is usersguidetotheuniverse.com.

DIGITAL JOURNAL– Author of “A Brief History of Time” Stephen Hawking is wrong when it comes to contact with aliens, according to former Canadian Defence Minister Paul Hellyer who believes extraterrestrials have contributed to human technological advancements.

Digital Journal reported last week that Professor Stephen Hawking stated the thought of alien life as “perfectly rational” to him but urged caution seeking out extraterrestrials for fear that they might raid us for our resources, “If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn’t turn out well for the Native Americans.”

According to CNET News, Hawking stated this week that time travel is possible and that one day we will have spaceships that are so fast that 650 million miles per hour would be similar to one year on planet Earth.

Eventually, says Hawking, Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity will one day be obsolete. In theory, humans will be able to “colonize the future” and maybe even repopulate the Earth if a disaster were to occur on the planet and cause the human species to die off, reports the Times Online.

“Time travel was once considered scientific heresy and I used to avoid talking about it for fear of being labelled a crank, but these days I’m not so cautious,” said Hawking.

Continue reading about Canadian Politician Defends Aliens, Says Stephen Hawking is Wrong.

© Digital Journal, 2010

Photo by flickr user Miki Yoshihito

DISCOVERY NEWS– For the past 50 years, scientists have scoured the skies for radio signals from beyond our planet, hoping for some sign of extraterrestrial life. But one physicist says there’s no reason alien life couldn’t already be lurking among us — or maybe even in us.

Paul Davies, an award-winning Arizona State University physicist known for his popular science writing said Tuesday that life may have developed on Earth not once but several times.

Davies said the variant life forms — most likely tiny microbes — could still be hanging around “right under our noses — or even in our noses.”

“How do we know all life on Earth descended from a single origin?” he told a conference at London’s prestigious Royal Society, which serves as Britain’s academy of sciences. “We’ve just scratched the surface of the microbial world.”

The idea that alien micro-organisms could be hiding out here on Earth has been discussed for a while, according to Jill Tarter, the director of the U.S. SETI project, which listens for signals from civilizations based around distant stars.

She said several of the scientists involved in the project were interested in pursuing the notion, which Davies earlier laid out in a 2007 article published in Scientific American in which he asked: “Are aliens among us?”

So far, there’s no answer. And ever finding one would be fraught with difficulties, as Davies himself acknowledged.

Continue reading about Alien Life May Already Be on Earth, Scientist Says. 

© Discovery Communications, LLC, 2010

Photo by flickr user Kaibara87

REALITY SANDWICH– Is Activism a natural outgrowth of yoga? Isn’t yoga all about focusing inward?

When journalists ask me what my message is or what I am teaching, I reply: “Vegetarianism, environmentalism and the need to take political action.” This response is generally met with bewilderment and another question like, “What are the physical benefits of yoga?” I like to answer, “What could be more physical than what you eat, where you live, and what kind of world you share with others?”

I believe that the growing popularity of yoga at this time of global transformation and overall shift in consciousness is not a coincidence. A yogi, by definition, is someone who strives to live harmoniously with the earth. Through that relationship the yogi seeks to purify his or her karmas so that enlightenment arises. Enlightenment is a state in which “Oneness of being” is realized, the interconnection of all beings and things in our world–yoga teaches that we are inseparably woven into the great web of life, matter, and cosmic space.

We are responsible for the health and well being of our world. But even though it seems that the world needs us more than ever before, it is actually we who need the world for our own salvation–not only as physical beings who require air and water and nutrition, but also in a metaphysical sense. Mother Nature does not require us for her existence, but we need her: this earth provides us with life, and, according to yoga teachings, life gives us the opportunity for enlightenment by giving us the means to work out our past karmas.

Continue reading about Yoga as Spiritual Activism.

© Reality Sandwich, 2008

Photo by Rick Pickett