The Arrow of Time

This may come across as a funny kind of post, not least because it started out as an observation on the future of America but has ended up as much about Professor Brian Cox as it has about about the doomed United States of America.

Why the focus Brian Cox then? Perhaps because he is infinitely more interesting than the alternative, the inevitable demise of the United States as a functioning society, and when it finally goes broke, as the world's number one super power.

For the life of me, I couldn't remember the law of physics that Cox had quoted recently in one of his Wonders of the Universe programs. However, after a mighty search, and gathering much Brian Cox material on the way, I managed to come up trumps. Not only finding the reference that I wanted, but two clips that were custom made as it were.

Although they apply to all things and all nations, the Second Law of Thermodynamics and the Arrow of Time, I thought particularly applicable to the situation in America.

All of its own making, and heading as it is, lemming like towards the precipice, the United States of America is, just like the proverbial lemming, doomed.

One only has to read the article below to realise this, there is no hope for America because there is no saviour for her. It's certainly not another five years of the failed Obama that will reverse the decline, nor is it the batshit crazies of the Republican Party, and it's certainly not going to be Jesus, no matter how much prayin' is done by the ultra batshit hucksters of the South.

I don't know if I would have ever posted on this AlterNet article, had it not been for a Bill Maher clip. Mahers clip wasn't in reply to the article, but it could just has well have. In fact, as outlandish as Maher's clip is, it's almost a tailor made response to the crazies. And by virtue, that is the frightening thing about it.

6 Reasons the Tea Party Is More Dangerous Than McCarthyism

The Tea Party rebellion brings together six major political and economic trends of the last 20 years that are distinct from the anticommunism powering the McCarthy age.
August 4, 2011 |

The power of the Tea Partiers, who refused to raise the US government's debt ceiling this past week despite the pleading of Republican pundits and the powerful, echoes the 1950s when Sen. Joe McCarthy, Fighting Joe, went after those who thought themselves his masters.

It's true; the right-wing lobbies Club for Growth and FreedomWorks both cheered on the 25 or so Tea Partiers who sabotaged an already reactionary bill from passing in the House.

Conservative journalists tell us South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint flexed his Tea Party cred and convinced the South Carolina House delegation to buck House Leader John Boehner and his bill.

But all of this strum and drang had other bankrollers of the Tea Party takeover like the US Chamber of Commerce unhappy. A House aide described the Tea Party freshman as "buckets of crazy" to conservative Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin.

All this reminds me of 1952. more

A picture paints a thousand words.

eta:

America In Decline

By Noam Chomsky

August 06, 2011 "Information Clearing House" --“It is a common theme” that the United States, which “only a few years ago was hailed to stride the world as a colossus with unparalleled power and unmatched appeal is in decline, ominously facing the prospect of its final decay,” Giacomo Chiozza writes in the current Political Science Quarterly.

The theme is indeed widely believed. And with some reason, though a number of qualifications are in order. To start with, the decline has proceeded since the high point of U.S. power after World War II, and the remarkable triumphalism of the post-Gulf War '90s was mostly self-delusion.

Another common theme, at least among those who are not willfully blind, is that American decline is in no small measure self-inflicted. The comic opera in Washington this summer, which disgusts the country and bewilders the world, may have no analogue in the annals of parliamentary democracy. more

Have a piece of Bill Maher and then we can apply the Arrow of Time and the Second Law of Thermodynamics to the situation in the US, (or universally) courtesy of Brian Cox.

''The arrow of time dictates that as each moment passes things change, and once these changes have happened, they are never undone.''

Now the program below wouldn't be everybody's cup of tea, it's ninety minutes long for one thing, just as Brian Cox isn't everybody's favourite beverage, but I might be inclined to put that down to a touch of the green eyed. Nevertheless I thoroughly enjoyed this Professor Al-Khalili (Jim meets) Brian Cox.

Update: Not any more I don't.

Learning as I did along the way, among other things of course, that Coxy, by his own admission, has a foul mouth on him. Which is always nice to know, having a bit of a gob on me myself.





That gob, his not mine, confirmed in this very readable article from the Telegraph. Only unlike the Telegraph, sans censorship.

Brian Cox: 'I'm not anti-religion. I'm anti-maniac'

....He also has an infectious enthusiasm for his subject, an impression compounded by a quirk of his physiognomy: he always seems to be smiling as he talks. There is a wonderful spoof of him on YouTube. It uses footage from Wonders of the Solar System, the critically acclaimed series he made for the BBC last year. It shows him looking up into the night sky and musing: “Sometimes I look at the stars and I wonder: what the fuck is going on?”

Has he seen it? “Yeah, and actually that is not far from the truth. You should see some of the out-takes from our new series. They have one out-takes film which is just me swearing. Five minutes. It would be great to get it out there, but the BBC will never allow it.”

He does have a reputation for plain speaking. The Creationist belief that the world is 6,000 years old is dismissed as “bollocks”, anyone who believes the world is going to end next year because of the Mayan calendar is “a moron”. And people who believe Cern’s Large Hadron Collider will suck the universe into a black hole are “twats”. more