I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t exactly love it either, although I was greatly moved by the reuniting of lost loves with their shared memories. That was a masterful payoff for the viewers who have been so heavily invested in the lives of those who inhibited the mysterious island for the last six years.

But, in the end, I feel that the “sideways time line as purgatory” reveal was a bit of a cop out. Indeed, one can imagine concluding any number of shows the same way—a bunch of characters meeting up in the afterlife and chewing the fat over old times and shared experiences before “moving on” to their final destination. Thus, while the ending allowed for the main cast of characters to attain ultimate closure, it felt completely detached from the events that were rapidly rushing to a conclusion on the island-based half of the show.

Indeed, I felt that the emotional power of the afterlife time line (to call it what it is) overwhelmed the rest of the show, making the final battle, the final flight, and the final sacrifice all seem rather perfunctory. It certainly made it hard to appreciate the depth of Jack’s sacrifice when you have already seen him being joyously embraced by the ones he cared for. The desperate battle for survival and the constant struggle to do the right thing that made up life on the island was overshadowed by the final group orgasm of happy reunions, and that’s a shame.

And, as many other reviewers have already pointed out, we didn’t get any closure at all relating to the true nature and origin of the island. I am a great fan of ambiguous endings. There is nothing worse than a show that tries to spoon-feed its viewers a happy ending where all the threads are tied up in a neat little bow. But, come on guys, you could have given us something! I guess, given that one of the central conceits of the show was the blatant and incessant non-answering of questions revolving around the central mystery of the island, we should have expected something like this, but it’s still deeply unsatisfying all the same. It certainly leads to the suspicion that the writers really could not figure out a decent back story for the island and decided to take the easy way out.

All in all, I think it’s disappointing that they didn’t try harder to tie the ultimate ending in with the history, nature, and fate of the island. And there was at least one way they could have done that without losing the power of those moments of joint recollection.

The show had already established the power of the island to influence and alter the course of people’s lives, no matter where or when they lived. We saw how Jacob harnessed that power in a life-long effort to draw suitable candidates for his replacement to the island. So, why not have Hurley—as the new “number one’—make use of that vast power to bring about a happy ending for his friends? The alternative time line could be exactly that, an alternative reality—a parallel Earth—in which the Oceanic flight 815 did not crash, but one that Hurley can use power of the island to influence. 

The alternative-reality characters would still be the flawed, purposeless losers that Jacob had sought out, but instead of being transformed by living on the island, Hurley could have “rescued” them by using the island’s power to transfer the memories of their parallel selves into their minds. Thus their lives would be transformed for the better as their shared memories awoke, and their fate would remain coupled with the events as they had played out on the island. It is certainly something a character like Hurley would have done given the chance as protector and guardian of the island.

As a footnote, in a bizarre coincidence, “Lost” was not the only major drama on TV to conclude this weekend by revealing that the show was, at least in part, set in a kind of afterlife purgatory. The BBC drama “Ashes to Ashes,” along with it’s prequel “Life On Mars” concluded a five year arc Friday night with the revelation that all the characters in the show are dead too, and living out their daily lives in a kind of policeman’s version of purgatory, where they can work out their issues in preparation for moving on to their final destination. The ending does make more sense for the British pair of show, because the two stars involved were victims of serious head trauma and were assumed to be hovering between life and death, but it’s still a fascinating coincidence that two completely unrelated teams of writers should have plumped for exactly the same final conclusion of their show several years before they ended on the same weekend.

But then a new radio station hit the airwaves here in Austin, Texas. Relevant Radio came to town, and it turned out to be every bit as rabidly right-wing as the other Christian radio stations. But it was an interesting change from the usual religious fare on local radio, and I still tune in once in a while, when I am driving around town.

One thing that I quickly noticed is how steeped in superstition Catholic conservatives are. While fundamentalists can be just as credulous when it comes to things like demons, evil spirits, and witchcraft (hence the pogrom against poor old Harry Potter), they tend to stop short of integrating specific superstitions into their religious doctrine. Catholics, on the other hand, are quite comfortable doing it, with the cult they have built up surrounding Mary being the prime example, to the point of claiming that she was “immaculately conceived.”  There is no end to the number of apparitions, divine miracles and interventions attributed to her over the years.

Just the other day I was listening to a priest responding to a question about guardian angels, another superstition they have wrapped into official dogma of the Catholic church. A listener had asked whether it was just believers who had a guardian angel watching over them, or everybody. The priest obviously took this question very seriously, because he had taken the time to look up all kinds of Catholic texts to find the answer. And it was clear from the two or three examples he quoted that the correct answer, according to Catholic dogma anyway, was that only believers have guardian angels.

What’s amusing is that he didn’t accept that answer.  Even though the texts he found were quite categorical in their assertions that guardian angels only watch over believers, he seemed to sense that this would not go down too well with those Catholics who have loved ones who don’t share their faith. After all, what loving mother likes the idea of having a personal guardian angel watching over them if her rebellious teenage child is denied the same protection. So, 1000 years of Catholic teaching be damned, the priest’s final answer was that all people must have guardian angels watching over them.

So, it is true what they say about religion. If you don’t like the answer you get, you’re free to make up another one more to your liking.

He concluded the segment by telling the story of how a friend had once fallen 30ft off a ladder—a fall that should have killed him, supposedly, but he had only suffered a couple of broken bones and some bruising. Because he survived, he concluded that his guardian angel must have cushioned his fall (perhaps breaking a couple of wings in the process?) The only thought that went through my mind was the incompetence of the guardian angel. It would have been far easier to prevent his friend from slipping off the ladder in the first place—perhaps by placing a holy finger on his back to steady him, or by adjusting the position of his feet so they didn’t slip off the rung. If I was God, I would have fired that angel for gross negligence!

But that’s the problem with integrating this type of superstitious nonsense into religion. The more specific you get, the easier it is (or should be) for people to see how silly it all is. It’s one thing to attribute your miraculous survival to providence, or Providence, as in God’s will, (it wasn’t your time to die) but it’s quite another to imagine that there is some invisible friend and protector lurking around you at all times, and yet isn’t quite able to do his job properly when the time comes to take action.

Of course, the truth is that whether or not you survive a 30ft fall is down to dumb luck—how you fall and what you land on. You aren’t likely to survive a 30ft fall, but at least one in ten people do, so it is not unheard of, and there is certainly no need to attribute your survival to anything supernatural.

I am not alone in noticing this paradox.  As Christopher Hitchens says, at the beginning of chapter six of his book “God Is Not Great,”

There is a central paradox at the core of religion. The three great monotheisms teach people to think abjectly of themselves, as miserable and guilty sinners prostrate before an angry and jealous god who, according to discrepant accounts, fashioned them either out of dust and clay or a clot of blood. [...] On the other hand, and as if by way of compensation, religion teaches people to be extremely self-centered and conceited. It assures them that god cares for them individually, and it claims that the cosmos was created with them specifically in mind.

Of course, religion’s paradoxical view of humankind’s position in the universe is extremely useful to its adherents. It allows them to assume the aura of extreme abasement and modesty when claiming to be doing things in “God’s name,” while simultaneously allowing them to attack naturalism and atheism as concepts which reduce human beings to nothing better than unthinking farmyard animals.

Since, as unsaved human beings, non-Christians are supposedly deserving to a fate far worse than the one the lowliest of farmyard animals will suffer, it’s hard no to laugh when non-believers are attacked in this manner. I guess using their twisted logic, a special place in Hell is a step up in importance from simple oblivion… somehow.

I am at somewhat of a disadvantage since I’m a hunter and pecker, not a touch-typist, but I can still win the odd 4×4 round when the word count is low (and the real pros aren’t racking up massive totals). As for 5×5, well, if I get on the first page of the scoreboard I am doing well!

One of the interesting aspects of the site is the number of people who use their screen name (which can be changed at any time) to make a political statement. Hence you get the Obama supporters, and the Obama haters, and a fair number of people proclaiming “Jesus Loves You”, “Jesus Is Lord”, or “U Have a Friend In Jesus” and so on. I must admit that occasionally they would prompt me to change my screen name to something like “Jesus, Your Imaginary Friend” — a little petty I know, but it used to irritate me that they would pester the rest of us with their proselytizing when all we want to do is play Boggle for a few minutes. In the end I just used the screen name “Above Us Only Sky” and left it at that.

Another cool aspect of the site is that you can form teams with other players—particularly fun if you’re not one a regular high scorer. Since I started playing the 5×5 board, I have noticed that it’s the religious teams that get the most traction, followed by the usual pro/anti-Obama teams. Thus you will almost always see a “Team JesusIssovereign” (of course it’s got to be more explicit than “Team Christian”), a “Team Atheist,” a “Team Jewish,” and even a “Team Catholic.” Thus the religious divide that exists in society reaches even into Boggleland! The one notable exception is the regular “Team Pirates, Aarrgh!” because you can never have too many pirates playing Boggle.

While I don’t doubt the commercial’s ability to tug at the heartstrings, when you actually analyze what they are saying, it doesn’t really make a terribly good or even honest argument against abortion.

First of all, they claim that 25% of all pregnancies in America end in abortion. That is simply untrue. There are 25 abortions per 100 live births in America, meaning that one in five pregnancies end in abortion, which is only 20%. Now you may argue that 20% is still far too many, but twisting a simple fact like that does not reflect well on the integrity of the anti-abortion activists who put together the ad.

Second, the ad makes the assumption that an abortion rate of 25% means that there will be 25% fewer children growing up in America in the future. That is also a dishonest assertion. The abortion statistics are clear:

• Over 50% of women who have abortions are younger than 25 years old,
• Nearly half of all women having an abortion have not already started a family,
• Almost 80% of women having an abortion earn $10,000/year or less.

Essentially, what this tells us that at least half of all women are having abortions because they are not ready to start a family yet—because they are still in school, or are simply not ready to settle down yet, or are not financially secure enough to start raising a family.

Thus it’s only reasonable to assume that many of these women will indeed go on to start families and have children later, and are likely to end up with the same number of children in total, whether or not they had an abortion first. Indeed, young women who are not struggling to make ends meet while trying to raise a child alone are likely more able to devote more time and effort in attaining a stable long-term relationship, and so it could well be that those who do have abortions end up with slightly more children, on average, than young single mothers.

I can’t find any studies that look into these numbers, but I believe it’s pretty safe to assume that the “net loss” of number of children to America through abortion is far less than the 25% claimed in the ad — perhaps lower than 15% or even 10%.  It is certainly true that there are millions of children alive today only because their mothers did have an abortion before they were born.

Finally, while we all like to believe our children will grow up to be the next great American success story, in reality, there’s just as much chance that they will be one of the nation’s great failures. For every child that grows up to be President, there are hundreds more who grow up to be murderers, muggers, and rapists. And given that the majority of women who have abortions are at or below the poverty line, the sad truth is that there is even less chance that had those children been born, they would have grown up to be the cream of the next generation. So, even though abortion may have denied America of some future heroes, it is equally true—and probably even more so—that abortion has saved America from a great number of future criminals and villains.

Of course, none of this is likely to sway the ardent anti-abortionist, who is just as likely to use thoroughly discredited arguments against abortion—like the non-existent link between abortion and breast cancer—but I think it’s always worth pointing out their half-truths and lies wherever you find them. If abortion was such a terrible blight on society then there would be no need to stoop to these dishonest tactics.

So why have I never discovered an author whose books just keep getting better and better?

I mean, if these amateur scribblers find it so easy to improve their craft book after book after book, then why do the professionals have so much trouble?

I guess that’s the price we pay for our steady diet of scifi thrillers…

In a series for the Discovery Channel the renowned astrophysicist said it was “perfectly rational” to assume intelligent life exists elsewhere. But he warned that aliens might simply raid Earth for resources, then move on.

“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,” he said.

I certainly agree that any extra-terrestrial aliens visiting Earth within the next thousand years or more would almost certainly be light-years ahead of us in terms of technology. And rather than being like Native Americans in relation to Columbus, we could be like ants to are in relation to human beings. Given that the Sun was born more than eight billion years after the Big Bang, there has been more than enough time for alien civilizations to be millions, or even billions of years ahead of us in technological prowess.

Thus Hawking’s concerns that aliens might want to raid Earth for its resources would appear to be misplaced. What does Earth have that isn’t available in abundance elsewhere? Not water, not minerals, not energy sources—they can be all found throughout the Solar System. So there’s really no need to trash our planet to get at stuff that’s freely available in places like the asteroid belt, Mars, or Jupiter and Saturn and their moons.

Now, there is one asset that Earth has that could be of great interest to a passing alien fleet—organic life. But, again, it’s highly unlikely that they are going need to rape the planet in order to get what they want. Why collect and transport whole specimens when millions of tiny samples of DNA from each species would give them everything they need in a much more convenient form? And while slavers are a popular staple of the science fiction genre, it would seem unlikely in the extreme that highly advance aliens would be at all interested in rounding up billions of reluctant and rebellious human beings as slave labor.

Aside from life itself, we do have one other asset that might be of immense value to our passing alien fleet—information. Not scientific data—though they might find a small amount of passing interest—but cultural and historical information. If the evolution of intelligent life is rare in the galaxy, it could be our own history and culture that they prize most highly, since it will likely be the most unique thing about us and our planet.

Even to an alien civilization that has spent millions of years exploring the nature of the Universe, our literature, media, and historical records will seem new and fresh, and the most efficient way to obtain it all is by a free exchange of ideas and information, not violence. Even if they only gave us a fraction of their accumulated knowledge, I’m sure we would be more than ready to part with just about all the cultural and historical information we have.

Prof Hawking thinks that, rather than actively trying to communicate with extra-terrestrials, humans should do everything possible to avoid contact. He explained: “We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet.

In the past probes have been sent into space with engravings of human on board and diagrams showing the location of our planet. Radio beams have been fired into space in the hope of reaching alien civilisations.

Hawking is wrong here too. First, there is nothing we can do that is likely to betray our presence more than the simple fact that we live on an planet with an oxygen-rich atmosphere in the middle of our system’s habitable zone.

For example, NASA Kepler mission is expected to detect extrasolar planets with the same size and orbit of Earth up to several thousand light years away, and we are barely 50 years into our Space Age. Just imagine what a million-year-old space faring alien civilization should be able to do.

Anyone looking our way from up to a thousand light years away (at least) will immediately suspect there is life on Earth, and they might eventually detect signs of industrial activity too by analyzing Earth’s atmosphere for pollutants. Therefore, the odd stray radio signal broadcast into interstellar space is hardly going to add our chances of being discovered.

As for using our own history as a guide, I don’t believe that’s of much use either. Looking back at the worst excesses of our conquering past, we see that they were almost all about gaining control over some type of limited resource—land, people, precious metals, slaves, energy sources, even religious assets.

And as I have already mentioned, there is no reason to expect that visiting aliens will be driven by the same acquisitive desires, or that they will find Earth a particularly juicy target. So, while it is certainly possible to dream up plenty of worst-case scenarios, there is every reason to believe that our first alien encounter, should it ever happen, will be peaceful and mutually rewarding.

Prof Hawking said: “To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational. The real challenge is to work out what aliens might actually be like.”

The programme envisages numerous alien species including two-legged herbivores and yellow, lizard-like predators. But Prof Hawking conceded most life elsewhere in the universe is likely to consist of simple microbes.

Sadly, I agree with Professor Hawking on this last point. If intelligent life was commonplace, then unless there is some kind of real-life Prime Directive in place barring all alien life from contacting Earth, we should probably have heard from someone else by now.

While the Milky Way is a massive place, even at sub-light speeds it should still take an advanced alien civilization less than a million years to expand across the entire galaxy. Perhaps they are watching us from a safe distance—waiting for the right time to come and say “Hello!”—but I suspect not, and it may well be that we are the only intelligent life in the Milky Way right now.

Either way, Stephen Hawking’s concerns are overblown. Even in the highly unlikely event that aliens are heading in our direction and are implacably hostile, there is very little we can do about it. Maintaining radio silence isn’t going to help us remain undetected, and once they get here, they aren’t going to be stopped simply by slipping a computer virus into their mainframe while they aren’t looking.

So really, there just isn’t any point in worrying at all. Were either doomed or we’re not, and there is very little we can do change that.

And not to be outdone by the heavenly chaos in the Carina Nebula above, Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano has been serving up a treat here below:

Clicking on the photos will take you to the original sites and plenty more wonderful full-sized chaotic images to choose from.

Stephen Baldwin of the famous “Baldwin Brothers” Hollywood clan is a veteran actor who has starred in over 60 films and TV shows. He is no stranger to the Hollywood life of glitz, glamour and the public eye.

In 2003, he had an experience that changed his life forever. He became Born Again Christian, giving his life to Jesus Christ. Over the next few years, he became very vocal about his faith, using his spotlight to boldly preach the gospel. However, because of this convictions it has caused him the loss of many jobs and the most recently, a highly publicized bankruptcy.

He has been publicly ridiculed and insulted by people who think that he has been abandoned by God. A simple search through the internet will reveal that people not only mock Stephen, but mock God.

In response to this (with the permission of Stephen’s ministry President Daniel Southern) we have established RestoreStephenBaldwin.org. A privately funded and managed website. Our vision is to see Stephen Baldwin publicly restored in front of millions. Stephen’s platform will increase allowing him to reach even more people with the Gospel and God will get all of the glory. Publicly.

And just in case you think this is a joke, they have put together a very detailed FAQ to explain how serious they are about this:

Q- Why doesn’t his family help him?
A- His family does not perceive Stephen’s predicament as a matter of spiritual warfare. They see Stephen’s outspoken Christianity as poor choices therefore they will not help.

Boohoo!  Baldwin’s family is rich beyond the dreams of avarice. I am sure that if their little boy Stephen was really in serious trouble, they would be perfectly happy to help him out with the odd thousand or two.

Q- What happened to his wealth?
A- When he became an outspoken Christian in 2002 his income went down by 70% when he refused roles with gratuitous sex and violence.

Yeah, right, that’s got to be it, and nothing to do with the fact that he can’t act his way out of a paper bag. And just think of how many thousands of hard-working Christian actors must be out there who would love to have 30% of Baldwin’s 2002 income.  Perhaps if Baldwin wasn’t too busy prostituting himself on tawdry reality shows like “Help I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here” and “Celebrity Big Brother” then he might actually start making back some of his lost fortune.

And another thing, you don’t get millions of dollars into debt just from being mocked and laughed at. You get that way because you have been living way beyond your means and made some terrible financial decisions.

Q- If Stephen was not involved how did you get permission to do this?
A- Daniel Southern is Stephen’s spiritual advisor and the President of Stephen’s ministries. We contacted Daniel who gave us written permission to build the site .

Then shame on Daniel Southern. He should have said no to this dumb venture as soon as he was approached.

Q- Why does Stephen need personal wealth?
A- Stephen’s influence is in Hollywood. Hollywood worships money and without it you are seen as a loser and cannot be an effective influence to this group.

Utter crap. Baldwin’s family and business connections buy far more access than an extra million or two in his pocket would. This whole venture makes him look like a money-grubbing loser and will likely make it even harder for him to earn a salary in Hollywood.

Q- How much money does he need?
A- From what I read in public court documents Stephen needs several million dollars to pay all of his creditors but he deserves hundreds of millions for his Job like faithfulness in the face of relentless loss and persecution.

Bwahahaha!! This kind of nonsense is typical of the conservative Christian community here in America. Compared with the real persecution Christians (and all kinds of other people) suffer around the world, this conservative Christian persecution complex is absolutely laughable. Baldwin deserves hundreds of millions of dollars just because some people have said mean things about him? The person who created this site is single-handedly turning Stephen Baldwin into the biggest crybaby in America.

Q- What percentage of a gift actually reaches Stephen?
A- 100% goes directly into his bank account through online gifting. The bank account was arranged by Daniel Southern. Daniel was Billy Graham’s Crusade Director for almost 20 years.

If Baldwin accepts a penny of this money, he’s a far bigger fool than I already thought he was. His career is never going to recover from the amount of ridicule this venture is going to get him. And everyone who stuffs money into Baldwin’s bank account are just as big an idiot as he is.  There are thousands of other charities who need the money much more than Baldwin does, many of them run by Christians. They’d be far better off giving their spare change to one of them than lining the pockets of a Baldwin brother.

Q- Was Stephen involved in the movement planning, concept or site development?
A- No

Doesn’t matter in the slightest whether or not  Stephen was personally involved.  The mere fact that Baldwin and this organization have not already shut down this farce is a permanent stain on his reputation.

Q- Who does Stephen try to reach with his ministries?
A- From Hollywood to large arena events in the inner cities drawing troubled youth with motocross jumping and Extreme games.

Then pay him a salary or a fee to perform the work he does for Christian causes. That’s what honest people would do.

Q- What about other people who are hurting in this economy?
A- Those that just came to your mind mail them a token gift also.

Better yet, double the token gift to the charity that springs to mind and forget padding Baldwin’s personal bank account with your money.

Q- Is this about the economy?
A- Like everyone else it is a factor but the economy is not the reason Stephen is in financial trouble.

Several of my friends have lost their jobs in the last few months, some of them Christians, and I’ve yet to see any of them begging for handouts from anonymous fellow believers over the Internet. I’d also wager that none of them was earning anywhere close to what Stephen Baldwin is pulling in this year, despite his financial woes.

So, is Stephen Baldwin really that dumb? I guess we’ll soon see.  If this site isn’t pulled within the next 48 hours then I don’t see how we can come to any other conclusion.