My stance on coal and environment at this point

There needs to be a balance between protecting our environment and maintaining our energy supply; along with heavily cutting back on dependence on offshore oil and its one-way flow of huge amounts of our money. Coal is our local hydrocarbon energy source burned in the air, but it creates much CO2 and toxic contaminants in air and soil; it needs to be expanded some as clean as feasible while speedily building up wind turbine energy sources and solar panel energy sources. Would also be very wise to carefully examine and begin to implement the "KESTS to GEO" hoop-type electrically powered space transportation system between equatorial ground terminals and GEO so as to quickly and economically start building the long-proposed multi-gigawatt Satellite Solar Power Stations in Geostationary Earth Orbit to beam down plentiful clean electrical energy 24/7 to supply America's power needs and become an energy exporter to the rest of the world, too, the same way. Petrochemicals need to be saved and used only for materials manufacturing for the future's needs, not to be burned for energy production anymore now than absolutely necessary. See http://www.scribd.com/doc/14090674/Carousel-f and http://www.scribd.com/doc/14090616/SpacecraftElectricalLiftUpAroundEarthToGEO for example descriptions of the "KESTS to GEO" project concept, which have references to published technical papers; concept does not use rockets thus not of interest to present day aerospace businesses, so the country is the potential creator of the project, much as was for Apollo project; but this time a space race against time so as to provide abundant clean cheap electrical power derived from the 24/7 solar power in orbit, while also sharply conserving the world ecosystem. KESTS to GEO also paves the way for a new way to clean up our industrial toxic materials by conversion back into their constituent materials in solar powered mass-spectrometer facilities in GEO, all enabled by ultra-low-cost transportation to GEO by the KESTS space escalator carousel structure. Meanwhile, maximum effort to build the wind power and solar panel power along with some increase in coal power with intent to phase it out as soon as possible.

Laughter Yoga utilizes benign imitative laughter that unifies everyone involved

In contrast to the conventional use of adult laughter, which uses laughter as a means of separative derision of the targeted person, while also somewhat unifying those who are simultaneously laughing at the derided victim, Laughter Yoga instead utilizes benign imitative laughter that friendly unifies everyone involved.

This is a socially healthy thing, very much needed nowadays, where the drama of winning conflict has become an unhealthy obsession that has been disrupting opportunities for the good life for all. Laughter Yoga makes everybody a winner through participative belonging, none left out; and imitation is an intrinsic part of that, as pointed out here.

Each Laughter Yoga session requires a Laughter Leader, who leads by having the club members imitate him/her in doing the Laughter Yoga exercises. This use of imitation significantly promotes social bonding among the Laughter Yoga participants.

Also during many of the Laughter Yoga exercises, people are instructed to briefly pair up and clap together or otherwise do a one-on-one imitation of each other in gestures, physical & eye contact and voice during simultaneous ho-ho-ha-ha-ha laughter together: more use of friendly imitation.

This deliberate use of imitation as a social bonding mechanism is especially helpful to those who have difficulty in coping with group social interactions, as it was for me.

The significance of this use of imitation is well described in the following scientific research article:

"Imitation Promotes Social Bonding In Primates"
Science Daily (Aug. 15, 2009)
Adapted from materials provided by NIH/National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/08/090813142133.htm

"... Individuals who match each others' behaviors feel a sense of affinity for each other, making conflicts less likely, and cooperation more likely. Eventually, such connections extend throughout the group...."

(This also is my post at http://www.laughangeles.com/forum/index.php/topic,319.0.html )

Is it health care or is it health insurance money?

The American health care system is still up front much of the time, and it is indeed a thorny issue that can affect the lives of all of us.

The issue includes a lot of special vested financial interests, whose only interest in it all is that of making maximum money, with "health" only being the means of leverage. On the other hand, there are the folks who depend on the health care system to be able to recover from sickness or other injury.

The broader issue ought to be that of "staying healthy" which would include getting help when down with illness or injury, but would bring in a larger set of health means, and would include the prime responsibility for a person's health as being the person him/herself.

Currently this part is done haphazardly: some people deliberately seek ways to be more aware of their physical-emotional-mental-spiritual needs and study and try various means for improving and restoring health on each of those levels; but other people tend to have no deliberate effort in those areas, preferring to just press on with other life issues and when something breaks down, take it to the doctor to get it fixed.

Most likely those who have little awareness of and care for the various parts of themselves, will have more breakdowns that need fixing by somebody else; so part of a better health care system would be to teach these folks something about the being that they are and how to be responsible toward all parts of it. This would increase their quality of life and reduce the cost of health "repairs."

To assist people in keeping their physical-emotional-mental-spiritual selves in reasonably good functionality and health, there are many protocols and small businesses out there which have developed ways for doing that care for oneself, sometimes also assisting directly with that care. Some of it is done by conventional health medical establishments, but the vast majority of it is done by the folks involved with providing "Complementary Alternative Medicine" and "holistic well-being" protocols which have a huge diversity, enabling best fit for the various kinds of people and situations in which they live. The origins of much of this is from the Asian cultures who have had millennia to find things that actually worked, yet there are many new protocols and technologies originating in Western, American sources.

This seems to be the necessary approach to American health well-being, yet does not seem to be mentioned in the current healthcare debates, which seem to be more of providing insurance to pay for medical "repairs" for all Americans, not just those who currently have employment that pays for such things.

It is analogous to car insurance in some ways, yet we are not cars, not at all. Maybe what is happening is that the public can only understand car insurance type health care, the doctors and hospitals the repairmen for when things break down, but no user's prime responsibility for keeping it in shape and preventing damage in the first place. At best, there is standard medical advise to stop smoking, get more exercise, get your vaccinations, then you're done.

No mention of such things as avoiding foods that have Monosodium Glutamate in them to prevent over-eating's extra weight, or of determining wheat sensitivity so the person can avoid wheat-containing foods before their digestive system is too badly damaged, or learning the simple Emotional Freedom Technique tapping protocol to take care of their own emotional traumas before they can express as stress-related illness in some way.

With all the vested business interests who profit by keeping things just as they have been, keeping hordes of too-often sick people, getting vastly wealthy at the expense of America while public health deteriorates, perhaps the best that can be done now is to have the government provide some basic level of "health insurance" for all those who do not have such "health insurance" through an employer's help. This would raise the level of ability to cope with sickness and injury of the average American, and remove some of the leverage employers have over employees through the health insurance provision as part of the job, thus enabling some employees in intolerable jobs to seek a better job elsewhere, without major fears of loss of "health insurance."

Then becoming a national responsibility, paying for the medical "repairs," there could then be more emphasis on staying healthy in the first place, and putting the prime responsibility for conscious educated personal activities for well-being on the individuals themselves.

On computers, health, and competition

If Windows and Macintosh got together and created a mutual operating system combining their patents and production expertise, might make a good one; but then would no longer have the competition that supposedly drives innovation and improvements. Then we would have another monopolistic tyranny like the current medical system has become, with its virtual franchise over the lives of Americans, to make maximum profit but without concurrent responsibility for maximum health for Americans; it is sick people that make them money, not healthy ones - so guess what, business is business. Without the competition from Apple, the computer system probably then would go the same way, very expensive crummy computers and no options for anything else. I'm no fan of rivalry, but with "normal" people they seem to have to have the stimulation of competition to get them to do anything better. And maybe that is because "normal" people are in relationship with the other people who are grabbing their attention (mirror cells?) instead of being in conscious supportive relationship with the civilization that provides the level of way of life for all of us.

Reviving America by a combined co-located industry with higher education concept

This idea is of reviving American education and industry by closely combining them.

I already have explored the distributed version of that, in my "home manufacturing workstation" concept, where home computer workstations are part-time "teaching machines" including through the internet, and part time manufacturing workstations, where they are linked into manufacturing tooling to produce certain kinds of operations on physical parts for subassemblies, done at home.

But now the almost opposite mode draws from my (incompleted) effort to work my way though college in the New Mexico State University co-op program with White Sands Missile Range in the mid-1950's; and also my highly successful - having a wife at the time - attendance at the FAA Academy in electronics engineering in the early 1960's; both of which, however, were separated as to work and education in months-long time chunks.

In this idea's much more integrated version, it would be where large corporation locations, or co-located conglomerates of small companies, would be intimately combined with higher education facilities. A High School graduate would go to such a location to both work at a formal job and also gain a formal higher education at the same time. The employee-student would work part time each day at some job for the corporation(s) and also each day attend classes toward a formal degree in some field, daily both part-time work and part-time formal higher education.

Such a system would enable the student to gain a higher education in a work-pay-as-you-go means, thus not needing either wealthy parents nor terrible loans for educational expenses. The associated corporations/businesses would gain by having employees who are ever more competent in some field of study and general education credits, while also being each day the industry's employee. The associated higher education institutions could also specialize in degrees most supportive of the industries involved, thus the industries would be more assured of a supply of skilled employees for the future needs of the evolving industries, too.

Also, tying education to work functions brings a reality factor to educational processes that is currently perhaps too loose, more based on past industrial needs no longer always very useful. And would make lifelong learning be a more practical process, with the ratio of work time to education time each day getting larger as time went on after obtaining the first formal degree, but never going to 100% work each day; thus also enabling versatility and ease of re-training when employment job functions come and go as business changes.

It looks like such a concept could jump-start American industry back toward full operational mode far more quickly than possible as is now, as well as concurrently bringing the workforce to a much higher level of competence without major education loans endured by the student.

The employee-students would be free to transfer to different sites of such industry-education, as their experience grows and their interests change, and needed industry jobs change too. The system would need to be also supportive of the employees living as married - or equivalent - lives concurrently, to enable comfortable fulfilled living, while being worker-students.

In summary, the combined co-located industry with higher education concept would enable the high school graduate to go directly into higher education while also having a paying job, and become prepared through the educational institution as well as more specific on-the-job training, for ever more skilled and versatile job functions; while the associated co-located industries would be assisting through the availability of a more highly educated and experience-skilled pool of employees for the future.

Aspie musings abut bugs and bags

Other people talk of taking on a life challenge to do one thing to make themselves better in some particular way; but it seems that I can't remember a time when my life was not like a bug splattered on the windshield, ever trying to pull myself a bit more back together and where are the pieces, what were they.

Remembering down in LA, when I would sometimes ride my bicycle over to a park, Fallbrook Park I think it was called - and lie down on the grass and rest in the sunshine, my hands on my bicycle and daypack so they would not vanish while my eyes were closed. Quite often there would be a bunch of teenagers nearby who would play on their boombox loudly a song popular in that time, which angrily shouted as a group "We will, we will ROB YOU! We will, we will ROB YOU!" as I lay there dreamily trying to recouperate from the daily stresses. It seems their proclamations got written onto me somehow. Goes along with the bug on the windshield feeling. At least when it was time to get up and bicycle back home, I still had a bicycle and daypack.

Apparently building on the "We will, we will ROB YOU!" theme, now focusing on the archetypal Aspie scene called "left holding the bag" where an Aspie, ever seeking some fun game that others will finally allow him to play too, and sensing such a game going on per the exciting energy around it, comes across bank robbers busy hauling bags of money out. The Aspie enjoys all the excitement and asks if he can join in on the fun too, and he gets handed one of the money bags and is told the way to play is when those flashing lights get closer, carry the bag into that open door over there, while we go hide. Overjoyed at the invitation to actually join in on the fun, and of course unable to immediately comprehend all the nuances of the situation, the Aspie obediently waits until the flashing red lights and sirens are about to arrive and then goes toward the bank door, as the cops arrive on the scene, and catch him holding the bag. Apparently it is part of really intelligent gangs to do a setup such that some Aspie will take the rap for the gang's nasties, as part of the preparation and follow through of their gang's big capers.

I wonder what my subconscious is trying to tell me.

My prior short posts re space utilization involving human spaceflight

Per my immediately preceding post here, realizing that I don't seem to have my prior comments put on on Facebook for the "Human Spaceflight" conference here in my blogger jedcstuff blog, here is my summary comment to NASA regarding my efforts to contribute to the "human spaceflight committee" invitation for Facebook comments:

"Probably you have already decided that America's next effort in space is to just be for the adventure of going to Mars and returning with some rock samples, an Apollo for Mars, since Apollo was such an attention-getter, providing immense money to corporate businesses, and so quickly ended, no follow up required.

So I will start with the brief descriptions which I prepared to post on Facebook today in effort to help you, as if you actually really wanted my help:

1) If the purpose is to prepare for a long term connection with Mars, then an initial goal of establishing an outpost on Phobos, the inner moon of Mars, and building a dual pulley anchored tether space elevator there to drop to close to an atmospheric drag area in Mars' atmosphere, then all we have to do is the low delta-vee trip from earth orbit to Phobos, then use its considerable mass and orbital position to have dual-belt pulley space elevator technology to get to the upper atmosphere, so from there down to Mars surface and back is all the propulsion energy requirements, perhaps entirely winged flyable for round trips thereafter, connecting to the low end of the space elevator, from the surface of Mars.

But if there is real interest in the application of space for the benefit of civilization, beyond the stimulation of technology and corporate business, here are some more suggestions which were also prepared per the request by email to do comments, such as on Facebook, which I quickly found had a maximum of 1000 characters for an entry.

2) If the purpose is to go to the Moon, then we need a better purpose than last time, which was to be able to set up missile launch bases there too if the Russians were doing that. That was a tremendous technology stimulant and was a lot more fun than throwing bombs at each other, too. The Moon is a potential high source of construction materials for things in Earth orbit, from GEO to L-5, takes much less energy to lift from the Moon to those places than to lift from the Earth's surface. So early return to the Moon might be for establishing experimental materials collection and processing facilities, particularly destined for processing in zero-gee enroute to points of construction usage. For lots of ideas read in the easy form of sci fi adventure, see The Ark of 1984's Future https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/2824 and The Torus Cities Ice Shields Returning Home https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/2499

3) If the purpose is to develop long term nearly fully self sustainable habitation technology for space, support conventional automated launch vehicles, and support private development of conventional technology manned medium scale access to LEO, then we might consider the completely automated launch and basic assembly of the classical mile-diameter wheel type space station for 200-1,000 people, built of modules designed as both specialized prefab habitat modules and for use as their own fuel tank during launch by a reusable flyback engine module and supported by an airbreathing flyback booster, all teleoperated launch and docking into the circle, before the first person arrives, thus a low risk and cost activity. For technical descriptions see http://www.scribd.com/doc/14091376/Wet-Launch-of-Prefab-Habitat-Modules and http://www.scribd.com/doc/14099702/CentristatIon-WetLaunch-Space-Station-Wheel-Concept and as sci fi see http://www.scribd.com/doc/14776925/Building-Up

4) If the purpose is to explore potential means for accessing space resources in a full scale way, then it makes sense to explore the long ignored "space escalator" type concept for continuous ground to GEO high efficiency electrically powered transportation, resembling a filled-in Orbital Transfer Trajectory shape synchronous electrical motor between equatorial earth surface and GEO above the opposite side of the planet, the quasi-elliptical structure enclosing hard vacuum and inductive tracks along which motor armature mass segments travel at twice the orbital velocity to centrifugally press outward on the structure to support the equal stationary structural mass of the motor's stator elliptical perimeter, and use inductive drag against the upward armatures to drag captive spacecraft from ground to GEO, by which Solar Power Satellites are built in GEO, along with Total Recycling Plants and GEO spaceports for very large scale rocket vehicles to Mars and elsewhere. http://www.scribd.com/doc/14090773/The-Space-Escalators-Unique-Potentials

I doubt you will carefully consider what I have to say any more than the National Commission on Space did when I testified before them on a similar subject in 1985. It is easy to continue to ignore me into oblivion, won't take much longer. But I have done my best here in the few words allowed. Anyway, this is easier than giving a speech in front of all those people, wearing my best interview suit, like in 1985 in Golden Gate Park in the museum's huge auditorium, now torn down and something else built there.

There is a big difference between playing a political-business game, vs going toward that which helps mankind and civilization's best interests. The kind of pay they provide is quite different, too. Whatever, I wish you the best of luck.

Jim Cline"

Another of my comments on human spaceflight

I have recently also opened up a Facebook account, and contributed several of the necessarily very brief items to the ongoing "Human Space Flight Plans Committee" blogging there. While that asociated conference looked like just another business sponsored conference actually only promoting a very specific launch and space enterprise scenario, instead of the titled claim to be promoting space access and utilization itself by any means, I contributed comments anyway.

(Over the past 14 years of space conferences, I have ruefully found that it has been a bit like seeing conferences titled "Transportation in America" and so I take my Ford to participate, but find it is actually a conference put on by GM to promote only their cars, not cars in general; and even resents even bicycles, trains or elevators being mentioned.)

So anyway, here is what I posted this morning as a comment to the departing post of the "Human Space Flight Plans Committee" which asked for comments on human spaceflight:

NASA was born in the cold war space race to the Moon. Yet the then opened opportunity for space utilization for civilization became absolutely tremendous. But compromising with all the special interests bogs NASA down. If NASA were to fully serve the interests of the American people instead of mere political business, then, instead of continuing its suppression, it could truly look into the centrifugal-supported-structure "Space Escalator Carousel" concept, freeing from the limits of rocket launch from the ground, instead letting rockets ply to and from GEO to the solar system sites, with very low cost electrical lift up to GEO from the equatorial ground. SPS construction would be easy then, among many other ways to massively utilize nearby space, to the great benefit of civilization and profit to business. And expeditions to Mars would then be very easy, too. The vision for space utilization thus could become wide indeed, and in our time.