This Disconnect May Be Responsible For Many of Society's Problems.

A growing body of psychology research shows that incompetence deprives
people of the ability to recognize their own incompetence. To put it
bluntly, dumb people are too dumb to know it. Similarly, unfunny people
don't have a good enough sense of humor to tell.

The results are uniform across all the knowledge domains: People who
actually did well on the test tend to feel more confident about their
performance than people who didn't do well, but only slightly. Almost
everyone thinks they did better than average. "For people at the bottom
who are really doing badly - those in the bottom 10th or 15th percentile
- they think their work falls in the 60th or 55th percentile, so, above
average," Dunning told Life's Little Mysteries. The same pattern emerges
in tests of people's ability to rate the funniness of jokes, the
correctness of grammar, or even their own performance in a game of
chess.

"People at the bottom still think they're outperforming other
people."

It's not merely optimism, but rather that their total lack of expertise
renders them unable to recognize their deficiency. Even when Dunning and
his colleagues offer study participants a $100 reward if they can rate
themselves accurately, they cannot. "They're really trying to be honest
and impartial," he said... They're delusional.

Along the same lines, people who aren't talented in a given area tend
not to be able to recognize the talents or good ideas of others, from
co-workers to politicians. This may impede the democratic process, which
relies on citizens having the capacity to identify and support the best
candidate or policy.

The ultimate takeaway of the research is the reminder that you really
may not be as great as you think you are. And you might not be right
about the things you believe you're right about. And if you try to joke
about all this, you might not come off as funny as you think.



http://news.yahoo.com/incompetent-people-too-ignorant-know-175402902.htm
l

The Young Universe

The distribution of matter across the cosmos is most easily explained by
inflation, a theory that suggests our universe inflated rapidly - just
like a balloon - shortly after its birth, according to new research.

According to inflation, the universe expanded by a factor of at least
1078 (that's 10 with 78 zeroes after it), all in less than a second.
This stage could have formed the basis for the large-scale structure we
can detect in the distribution of galaxies around us now.

This theory can explain why the universe appears to be about 13.7
billion years old, and why it seems to be nearly flat, say University at
Buffalo physicists Ghazal Geshnizjani, Will Kinney and Azadeh
Moradinezhad Dizgah.

"The takeaway result here is that this idea of inflation turns out to be
the only way to do it within the context of standard physics," Kinney
said in a statement. "I think in many ways it puts the idea of inflation
on a much stronger footing, because the available alternatives have
problems, or weirdnesses, with them."

Inflation suggests that during the first 10 to the minus 34 seconds
(that's 0.0000000000000000000000000000000001 seconds), the universe
doubled its size at least 90 times.

This would have allowed pairs of matter and antimatter particles to
appear out of nothingness, but then move apart from each other so
quickly that they wouldn't have had time to meet and annihilate, as
matter and antimatter usually do.

http://news.yahoo.com/baby-universe-likely-expanded-rapidly-study-sugges
ts-120207339.html

This Is One Example of Many...

 "In the traffic tests, about one-third of
drivers in higher- status cars cut off other drivers at an intersection
watched by the researchers, about double those in less costly cars.
Additionally, almost half of the more expensive cars didn't yield when a
pedestrian entered the crosswalk while all of the lowest-status cars let
the pedestrian cross. These experiments involved 426 vehicles."

Please read the article at the following link-

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/wealthy-more-likely-lie-cheat-200339245.ht
ml

Never Underestimate Israel

'The officials who spoke to The Daily Beast said the doubters weren't
seeing the whole picture. One alluded to advanced technology that Israel
possesses that could not be factored into the analysis of experts
because it remains secret. Others said some skepticism-from analysts or
even from government insiders-always preceded Israel's major operations,
including its 1981 attack on Iraq's nuclear plant.

One former Israeli official, speaking to a group of journalists
recently, also rejected the idea that Iran's response to an Israeli
attack would upend the region.'

"My assessment is that Iran will react but it will be calculated and
according to Iranian means. The Iranians cannot set the Middle East on
fire," the former official said. "It will not be the doomsday promises
of Iran... They do not have the capability to do what they threaten to
do."

Asked if Israel has the capability to deal a serious blow to Iran's
program, he said: "If not, why is everybody worried?"

http://news.yahoo.com/don-t-bet-against-israel-iran-033011537.html

 

Truly We've Outstayed Our Welcome

A protester was shot dead in Logar province south of Kabul on Saturday
after hundreds of protesters, many chanting "Death to America!" - a
slogan heard at protests throughout this week -- charged at police,
local officials said. Two people were wounded.

Muslims consider the Koran to be the literal word of God and treat each
copy with deep reverence. Desecration is considered one of the worst
forms of blasphemy.

The Koran burnings underscore the deep cultural divide that still exists
more than 10 years after U.S. troops invaded to oust the Taliban and
have deepened public mistrust of the West.

The protests could dent plans for a strategic pact that Washington is
considering with Kabul, which would allow a sharply reduced number of
Western troops to stay in the country, well beyond their combat exit
deadline.


Please read entire article at the following link-
http://news.yahoo.com/one-killed-fifth-day-afghanistan-protests-07494048
6.html

Another Example Displaying the Definition of Insanity

After fixing what they thought the problem was now it seems as though,
"Neutrinos could move even faster than the speed of light than
previously suggested..." "But rather than invalidating the stunning
superspeed finding, the flaw may have led scientists to underestimate
it."

So, the physicists will do the experiment again, and again.. They do not
like what they have seen, again... How can this be?


http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/02/22/loose-wire-led-to-stunning-fas
ter-than-light-particle-finding/ 

And to quote the good Doctor...

"What I can't understand is why you can't
see (that life started from nothing and) is such a staggering, elegant,
beautiful thing, why would you want to clutter it up with something so
messy as a God," Dawkins told Williams, according to The Daily Telegraph
account.

Richard Dawkins

Can't argue with that logic can you?

Consul Nicholas Moore

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/24/richard-dawkins-famous-atheist-god_n_1299752.html

Why is the human brain shrinking?

"The reduction in brain size may be proof that we have tamed ourselves,
just as we domesticated sheep, pigs, and cattle, all of which are
smaller-brained than their wild ancestors. The more I learn, the more
baffled I become that news of our shrinking brain has been so
underplayed, not just in the media but among scientists. "It's strange,
I agree," says Christopher Stringer, a paleoanthropologist and expert on
human origins at the Natural History Museum in London. "Scientists
haven't given the matter the attention it deserves. Many ignore it or
consider it an insignificant detail."

...an unpleasant possibility. "You may not want to hear this," says
cognitive scientist David Geary of the University of Missouri, "but I
think the best explanation for the decline in our brain size is the
idiocracy theory." Geary is referring to the eponymous 2006 film by Mike
Judge about an ordinary guy who becomes involved in a hibernation
experiment at the dawn of the 21st century. When he wakes up 500 years
later, he is easily the smartest person on the dumbed-down planet. "I
think something a little bit like that happened to us," Geary says. In
other words, idiocracy is where we are now."


http://discovermagazine.com/2010/sep/25-modern-humans-smart-why-brain-sh
rinking/article_view?b_start%3Aint=0&-C

 

Ignorance

"You can't change a thousand years in ten years, and it's not worth the
cost of American lives to try to any longer. Because of some ignorant
service members recently burning some Qurans whatever few inches we had
gained we've now lost... It's well over time our leaders stop being so
stubborn and bring our troops home... But then again should we? This from
Generals and Politicians who confess to having, "dangerously simplistic
mindsets?"

Consul Nicholas Moore

http://news.yahoo.com/quran-burning-u-sparks-afghan-protests-132458731--
abc-news.html

The Smarter We Get The Dumber We Get

During the AAAS meeting, there was a new development abroad in the
controversy over whether research by American and Dutch scientists on a
mutant form of the bird flu virus -- which is potentially capable of
spreading in humans -- should be made public.

Bird flu experts at the World Health Organization meeting in Geneva last
week agreed that the controversial research should be made public at
some time in the future after more risk analysis is done.

In the meantime, a moratorium on further studies has been extended.

Last year, American authorities asked scientists not to publish details
of their research for fear the information could fall into the wrong
hands and unleash a lethal flu pandemic.

"I would not be in favor of stopping the science," Fedoroff said in
Vancouver. "The more we know about something, the better prepared we are
to deal with unexpected outcomes."

http://news.yahoo.com/stark-warning-emerges-science-summit-061441923.htm
l

Iran warships 'enter the Mediterranean'

Iran warships 'enter the Mediterranean'

"Does every day feel like we're drawing closer to a positive outcome?
No? Well then why do people still live with their heads in the clouds?
Everyone should be more alert..."

Consul Nicholas Moore

http://news.yahoo.com/iran-warships-enter-mediterranean-092951653.html

99 Problems

"What's sad is when someone who works a job like a soldier, having to
deploy for a year or more at a time, they can't go home to their
supportive wife at the end of the day. They go back to a room with
someone they were probably working with all day. But even still to have
a supportive wife can mean the difference between life and death for
that soldier at the end of the day, for they have something to look
forward to at the end of the tunnel; a hope on the horizon."

Consul Nicholas Moore

http://news.yahoo.com/got-stressful-job-good-spouse-helps-225610009.html

The Answer Is There But They Can't Make Sense Of It

"They don't like what they see, so they'll keep at it till they do... or
till they can fabricate something without the public noticing. They
don't like what science is showing them now because if something travels
faster than the speed of light then cause and effect as we know these to
be is obsolete; and this doesn't make much sense. If the laws of science
can be broken, like in the recent case where a comet went through the
atmosphere of the sun and came out intact, then one must ask if we're in
a simulated reality, and is there an intelligent designer who has the
ability to change the laws of science and nature, as easily as changing
a computer program."

Consul Nicholas Moore


If other experiments like MINOS and T2K also measure neutrinos traveling
faster than light, it doesn't rule out that an error no one thought of
is plaguing all the experiments. However, it makes the likelihood of an
error much more remote, Roser said.

"I don't know which I'm rooting for," Roser told LiveScence. "If three
or four different experiments around the world see the same thing it's
hard not to be convinced."

For evidence that sometimes shocking results are true, Bertolucci
pointed to the famous 1887 experiment by Albert Michelson and Edward
Morley that disproved the notion, popular at the time, that the universe
was filled with a medium that carries light called an ether.

"They found a result totally incompatible with the present theory of the
time, but they were right," Bertolucci said. "We have to just keep an
open mind."


Please read complete article at link provided-
http://news.yahoo.com/answer-shocking-faster-light-particles-expected-so
on-190010031.html

A Scary New Disease With No Known Cause or Cure

Investigations have looked at possible links between the disease and
everything from a parasite that causes river blindness, to malnutrition
and the after-effects of a civil war that ravaged northern Uganda for
decades.

"We looked at all this, but unfortunately we were not able to pinpoint
any significant contributing or risk factors," said Miriam Nanyunja,
disease control and prevention officer at the World Health Organisation
in Kampala.

"The search for the causative agent is still ongoing," she added.

Often the results have thrown up more questions than answers. Scientists
do not know if the disease is linked to similar outbreaks in
neighbouring South Sudan and Tanzania.

Efforts continue to understand if the disease is still spreading or has
peaked -- and why it is seems confined only to certain communities.

Last month, after pressure from lawmakers from affected areas, Uganda's
health ministry produced an emergency response plan to try to identify
and control the disease.

However, Nanyunja says that while the search for the cause and a
possible cure goes on, for now, doctors can only focus on trying to
alleviate the symptoms.

"There are many diseases that we continue to treat symptomatically,
without knowing the exact cause," Nanyunja said


Please read the article in its entirety at the provided link-
http://news.yahoo.com/nodding-disease-confounds-experts-kills-children-1
33016632.html

12 Scary Debt Facts for 2012

As President Obama unveiled the 2013 fiscal year budget, the nation's financial situation came back into sharp focus. Experts say partisan gridlock in Washington means the budget will probably go nowhere.

Considering this is an election year, however, expect politicians to harp on facts, figures and terms that most Americans weren't taught in high school. To help out, it's time to dredge up lots of scary facts to make you pay attention.

Before we get going, a quick primer on the number TRILLION:

• $1 trillion = $1,000 billion or $1,000,000,000,000 (that's 12 zeros)

• How hard is it to spend a trillion dollars? If you spent one dollar every second, you would have spent a million dollars in 12 days. At that same rate, it would take you 32 years to spend a billion dollars. But it would take you more than 31,000 years to spend a trillion dollars.

• And now, some scary facts about the debt and the deficit -- some basics:

• Deficit = money government takes in -- money government spends

• 2012 US deficit = $1.33 trillion

• 2013 Proposed budget deficit = $901 billion

• National debt = Total amount borrowed over time to fund the annual deficit

• Current national debt = $15.3 trillion (or $49,030 per every man, woman and child in the US or $135,773 per taxpayer)

OK, let's get started!

1. The U.S. national debt on Jan. 1, 1791, was just $75 million dollars. Today, the U.S. national debt rises by that amount about once an hour.

2. Our nation began its existence in debt after borrowing money to finance the Revolutionary War. President Andrew Jackson nearly eliminated the debt, calling it a "national curse." Jackson railed against borrowing, spending and even banks, for that matter, and he tried to eliminate all federal debt. By Jan. 1, 1835, under Jackson, the debt was just $33,733.

3. When World War II ended, the debt equaled 122 percent of GDP (GDP is a measure of the entire economy). In the 1950s and 1960s, the economy grew at an average rate of 4.3 percent a year and the debt gradually declined to 38 percent of GDP in 1970. This year, the Office of Budget and Management expects that the debt will equal nearly 100 percent of GDP.

4. Since 1938, the national debt has increased at an average annual rate of 8.5 percent. The only exceptions to the constant annual increase over the last 62 years were during the administrations of Clinton and Johnson. (Note that this is the rate of growth; the national debt still existed under both presidents.) During the Clinton presidency, debt growth was almost zero. Johnson averaged 3 percent growth of debt for the six years he served (1963-69).

5. When Ronald Reagan took office, the U.S. national debt was just under $1 trillion. When he left office, it was $2.6 trillion. During the eight Regan years, the US moved from being the world's largest international creditor to the largest debtor nation.

6. The U.S. national debt has more than doubled since the year 2000.
Under President Bush: At the end of calendar year 2000, the debt stood at $5.629 trillion. Eight years later, the federal debt stood at $9.986 trillion.

Under President Obama: The debt started at $9.986 trillion and escalated to $15.3 trillion, a 53 percent increase over three years.


7. FY 2013 budget projects a deficit of $901 billion in 2013, representing 5.5 percent of GDP, down from a deficit of $1.33 trillion in FY 2012, which was the fourth consecutive year of more than $1 trillion dollar deficits.

8. The U.S. national debt rises at an average of approximately $3.8 billion per day.

9. The US government now borrows approximately $5 billion every business day.

10. A trillion $10 bills, if they were taped end to end, would wrap around the globe more than 380 times. That amount of money would still not be enough to pay off the U.S. national debt.

11. The debt ceiling is the maximum amount of debt that Congress allows for the government. The current debt ceiling is $16.394 trillion effective Jan. 30, 2012.

12. The U.S. government has to borrow 43 cents of every dollar that it currently spends, four times the rate in 1980.

You can track the national debt on a daily basis here.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/12-scary-debt-facts-for-2012.html

The System Our Finding Fathers Designed

"It turns out that our founders designed a system that makes it more
difficult to bring about change than I would like sometimes..."

President Obama


If one studies the foundation our nation was built upon they'll discover
a reputable union meant to function for the best interest of the
"people." Our government was meant to be one where the people have the
power more than the leaders whom they choose. Section 2 of the United
States Constitution says "The House of Representatives shall be composed
of Members chosen every second Year by the People..." If positive change
in America today is being hindered then are the political leaders, voted
in by us to blame? Is the system designed by our founding fathers to
blame?

We've had hypocritical politicians for generations, those who didn't
place the people first. Every organization on this earth will have
corruption, because every organization has human beings. If we see
someone we voted into congress is corrupt we have a right to demand he
or she is brought to court so justice could be served. The political
leaders work for us, we don't work for them. At least this is how the
system was meant to function. In our nation's history there have been
horrible tragedies; shameful acts like slavery and the genocide of the
Native American culture; the system is not to blame for these acts. Even
though these embarrassing stains will remain on our nation, these horrific actions were against the spirit of the Constitution of the
United States of America. Such atrocities were contrary to how the
constitution defines our freedom; "to secure the blessings of liberty,
which were to be enjoyed by not only the first generation, but for all
who came after, "our posterity". Yes, we had leaders even back during
the birth of our nation who lived in hypocrisy, and turned a blind eye
to what they knew to be wrong. They had flaws, and some of them lived
contrary to what our government, our system teaches. Like how some
people claim a faith birthed from a pacifist loving teacher, yet they
ironically murder those who don't support their faith; the system our
founding fathers put into place can't be blamed for hindering positive
change anymore then the Nazarene Christ can be blamed for murders done
by Christians during the Crusades. The people and the leaders may hinder
progress but the foundation our government was built upon doesn't.

Because of the liberty our Constitution supports those who stood witness
to the error of their ways, (multiple times in our nation's history),
could not justify themselves. The Emancipation Proclamation came into
being, initiated by the people who voted for a leader who recognized the
hypocrisy. President Lincoln saw the need for change; the government
should not be operating contrarily to the very laws she was built upon.
The best way to win any debate is to use the opponents own teachings
against them, and the people in our nation have won great victories by
attributing this strategy. The minorities in our nation demanded change
during the Human Rights Movement, and because of the system our founding
fathers put into place the people had the right to demand change. Many
others in our nation, those who did not suffer like the minorities; had
to face the truth that in America every person has a right to the same
liberties, and they have a right to demand these liberties. Article XV
of the Constitution says, "The right of citizens of the United States to
vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any
State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude."
The system our founding fathers created does not hinder change, corrupt
humans hinder change. Even when our leaders are faulty the people can
stand on their inalienable rights and demand a change. They can do this
because our government is meant to function in such a manner that the
leaders should not be able to overpower the people. If our president has
a problem with the constitution of the United States of America, and the
foundation our founding fathers built for us, then he has chosen the
wrong occupation. We need to start teaching on the history of America
again in our schools so that the next generation has more pride in their
nation, and so that they may not make the same mistakes those before
them have.

Our government may be corrupt today and full of people who have their
own selfish agendas but when our government was created it was the best
there was. We need to go back to the roots of our nation, and remember
what America was supposed to be about. To blame our founding fathers is
pretty pathetic. The Commander and Chief can't rightfully blame George
Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, or any
of our founders - (men far more brilliant then our leaders today) -
because he's unable to fulfill his promises. Perhaps he should have
studied American Government before he gave the impression he'd have the
power to bring about change by himself. Let's be thankful we don't have
dictators ruling over us, preventing us from positive change, and let's
remember the power we have under the system our founding fathers
created. The United States Congress consists of the Senate and the House
of Representatives. Both senators and representatives are chosen through
direct election, which is to say we the people helped create the
congress we have today. The system is not to blame for his unfulfilled
promises, he should have known better than to make them in recognizing
how those in congress had the final say.

The only reason it is "more difficult to bring about change" today in
America is because our political leaders on both sides can't come to an
agreement on any issues, even the most important ones. They may be the
worst congress our nation has ever had, but what does this say about our
generation? Why do we the people allow this?

Article II Section 1 Line 8 of the Constitution of the United States of
America;"Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take
the following Oath or Affirmation: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that
I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States,
and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the
Constitution of the United States." Our government is supposed to be
"for the people and by the people." I suppose this could be "a system
that makes it more difficult to bring about change," but I for one am
thankful for our liberties. If the cost of freedom is the hindrance of
positive change for humanity, well then we never had hope despite
whatever system helps govern our nation. The President and our political
leaders' should always stand in the defense of the Constitution of the
United States, or in the least they better remember that we (the people)
will. Because the day we don't stand for our Constitution is the day our
nation falls, and there will be no one to blame but the people.

The era of bullying nations has passed.

The arrogant powers cannot monopolize nuclear technology. They tried to prevent us by issuing
sanctions and resolutions but failed," President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in a live television broadcast.

"Our nuclear path will continue."


http://news.yahoo.com/iran-trumpets-atom-advances-deepening-standoff-wes
t-121448512.html

China and Russia know exactly what they are doing.

Even as visiting Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping got the red-carpet
treatment from President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, the
White House on Tuesday accused China and Russia of effectively giving
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad a "license to kill" the critics of his
regime by vetoing a United Nations Security Council resolution aimed at
ending bloodshed in Syria.

"China and Russia know exactly what they are doing, and our American
leaders are stupid if they don't see an agenda here... America is losing
its value to these so called allies of ours."

Consul Nicholas Moore


http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/russian-chinese-vetoes-gave-syria-lic
ense-kill-white-213415115.html

Great Minds Unite With Greater Minds…

“Great minds unite with greater minds and the wise value their enemies… But to what avail?”

L.L Brunk

“We’ve all heard the expression, “Birds of a feather flock together,” meaning similar people tend to associate with each other. We are going to make a presumption regarding this old saying; Great minds gather and share great ideas in desperate times, because of an ingrained survival mechanism. Is this true though? Or are we a kind of virus, a species whom will be defined by their addiction to self sabotage? Whether to a better future or our demise and the demise of our planet, ultimately we will flock together.”

Consul Nicholas Moore

Dustin Rubenstein is a behavioral and evolutionary ecologist who studies the causes and consequences of family-living in animals. He wanted to know why some species help each other raise their young while other species that are closely related go it alone. He had research published in the Aug. 21st issue of the journal Current Biology, which strongly suggests that the answer does indeed lie in the environment, or more specifically, the predictability of seasonal weather patterns. Rubenstein collected DNA samples of starlings around the world, and he has studied rainfall patterns across Africa covering nearly 150 years, and all of it points to one conclusion. If you can't count on the rain coming when it's supposed to, thus producing the food you will need for yourself and your young, you're going to need a lot of help from other members of your family.” (One of the first great cities discovered through archeology comes to mind; city-state Ur in ancient Sumer. The people here lived in a land constantly affected by the elements; floods or dry spells, and these tough conditions helped the people evolve intellectually faster. *Seems that when people get too comfortable, or life becomes too easy the random bursts of human insight decrease.) The causes and consequences of family-living in humans are no different than their animal counterparts at the core, although in recent years one may wonder if humanity is losing their primal instinct to survive.)

Rubenstein roamed across much of Africa, especially Kenya, where there are 26 species -- more than in any other country in the world -- but he paid particular attention to the superb starling, a colorful bird with a very complex social network.

Using DNA analysis, Rubenstein determined that when a new superb starling hatches, all sorts of kinfolk show up to help out. Most are siblings, or at least "first cousins," he said.

The researchers found that one third of all African starlings are cooperative breeders, but here's the key. They all live in the savannas, the semi-arid grasslands scattered across much of Africa. And nearly all the non-cooperative species live in the forests.

Long-term rainfall data collected by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration from more than 2,000 sites across Africa filled in the most important blank. The records showed that rainfall in the savannas is very unpredictable from one year to the next.

"Savannas have a pronounced dry season and a pronounced wet season," Rubenstein said. "But what was surprising was that the variability in each of the seasons is much higher in the savannas than it is in the forests or deserts.

"Everyone's looking out for their own best interest," he said. "If you breed on your own you will be producing offspring that are more related to you than if you are helping someone else. But if you can't go it alone, you can pass on at least a share of your genes by helping to raise relatives."

So in the savanna, where rain and food is less predictable, a smart starling chooses to maintain a close relationship with its kinfolk to ensure propagation of the family lineage. (Like a survival mechanism in animals; seems the greatest minds find each other during the most desperate times. They keep the knowledge growing. Almost as if a desperate attempt by nature to keep intelligence alive; the great minds find each other and intellectually feed from each other.)Please see article “Why Some Birds Flock Together.” http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/DyeHard/story?id=3507145&page=1

If not for Mark Twain and the great minds he crossed paths with, would we have ever heard of Helen Keller?

Twain was an American author and humorist. He is most noted for his novels, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), the latter often called “the Great American Novel. Twain was born during a visit by Halley’s Comet, and he predicted that he would “go out with it” as well. He died the day following the comet’s subsequent return. He was lauded as the “greatest American humorist of his age,” and William Faulkner called Twain “the father of American literature.” Twain moved to San Francisco, California in 1864, still as a journalist. He met writers such as Bret Harte, Artemus Ward, and Dan DeQuille. The young poet Ina Coolbrith may have romanced him. Upon making friends with these writers Twain had his first success as a writer one year later with his humorous tall tale, “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” published in a New York weekly, The Saturday Press, on November 18, 1865. It brought him national attention. A year later, he traveled to the Sandwich Islands (present-day Hawaii) as a reporter for the Sacramento Union. His travelogues were popular and became the basis for his first lectures.

Twain and Olivia Langdon corresponded throughout 1868, but she rejected his first marriage proposal. Two months later, they were engaged and a year later married in February 1870 in Elmira, New York, where he had courted her. She came from a “wealthy but liberal family,” and through her he met abolitionists, “socialists, principled atheists and activists for women’s rights and social equality,” including Harriet Beecher Stowe (his next-door neighbor in Hartford, Connecticut), Frederick Douglass, and the writer and utopian socialist William Dean Howells, who became a long-time friend.

Twain was fascinated with science and scientific inquiry. He developed a close and lasting friendship with Nikola Tesla, (an inventor, physicist, and electro-mechanical engineer, was known as “The Wizard of the West” and was instrumental in developing AC networks; invented the radio.) The two spent much time together in Tesla’s laboratory.

Twain patented three inventions, including an “Improvement in Adjustable and Detachable Straps for Garments” (to replace suspenders) and a history trivia game. Most commercially successful was a self-pasting scrapbook; a dried adhesive on the pages only needed to be moistened before use.

His book A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court features a time traveler from contemporary America, using his knowledge of science to introduce modern technology to Arthurian England. This type of storyline would later become a common feature of a science fiction sub-genre, alternate history.

In 1909, Thomas Edison visited Twain at his home in Redding, Connecticut and filmed him. Part of the footage was used in The Prince and the Pauper (1909), a two-reel short film.

(Going to backtrack now slightly to emphasize another connection, since Thomas Edison is being mentioned here; we should elaborate on the connection between Edison and Twains’ close friend Tesla. In 1882 Nikola Tesla moved to Paris, to work as an engineer for the Continental Edison Company, designing improvements to electric equipment brought overseas from Edison’s ideas. According to his autobiography, in the same year he conceived the induction motor and began developing various devices that use rotating magnetic fields for which he received patents in 1888. Going back a little farther to 6 June 1884, Tesla first arrived in the United States, in New York City with little besides a letter of recommendation from Charles Batchelor, a former employer and close associate to Edison-(an inventor also who was involved in some of the greatest inventions and technological developments in history.)-In the letter of recommendation to Thomas Edison, it is claimed that Batchelor wrote, ‘I know two great men and you are one of them; the other is this young man’, but the exact contents of the letter is disputed in McNichol’s book. Edison hired Tesla to work for his Edison Machine Works. Tesla’s work for Edison began with simple electrical engineering and quickly progressed to solving some of the company’s most difficult problems. Tesla was even offered the task of completely redesigning the Edison Company’s direct current generators.

Edison accused Tesla of being ignorant of American Humor after he was offered US$50,000 (~ US$1.1 million in 2007, adjusted for inflation) for redesigning Edison’s inefficient motor and generators, and making an improvement in both service and economy. The insult to injury was in 1885 when Tesla inquired about the payment for his work, Edison replied, “Tesla, you don’t understand our American humor”, thus breaking his word. Earning US$18 per week, Tesla would have had to work for 53 years to earn the amount he was promised. The offer was equal to the initial capital of the company. Tesla immediately resigned when he was refused a raise to US$25 per week. Tesla, in need of work, eventually found himself digging ditches for a short period of time for the Edison Company. He used this time to focus on his AC polyphase system. The irony is that we could expect Tesla did understand American humor because his eventual good friend Mark Twain was many times a featured speaker, performing solo humorous talks similar to what would become stand-up comedy.

While Mark Twain had an upbeat personality and a grand sense of humor, he also had severe debt problems off and on during his life. At one point he credited Henry H. Rogers, a Standard Oil executive, with saving him from financial ruin, their close friendship in their later years was mutually beneficial. When Twain lost three of his four children and his beloved wife, the Rogers family increasingly became a surrogate family for him. He became a frequent guest at their townhouse in New York City, their 48-room summer home in Fairhaven, Massachusetts, and aboard their steam yacht, the Kanawha.

The two men introduced each other to their acquaintances. Twain was an admirer of the remarkable deaf and blind girl Helen Keller. He first met Keller and her teacher Anne Sullivan at a party in the home of Laurence Hutton in New York City in the winter of 1894. Twain introduced them to Rogers, who, with his wife, paid for Keller’s education at Radcliffe College. Twain is credited with labeling Sullivan, Keller’s governess and companion, a “miracle worker.” His choice of words later became inspiration for the title of William Gibson’s play and film adaptation, The Miracle Worker. Twain also introduced Rogers to journalist Ida M. Tarbell, who interviewed him for a muckraking expose that led indirectly to the breakup of the Standard Oil Trust. On cruises aboard the Kanawha, Twain and Rogers were joined at frequent intervals by Booker T. Washington, the famed former slave who had become a leading educator.

Mark Twain was a staunch supporter of women’s rights and an active campaigner for women’s suffrage. His “Votes for Women” speech, in which he pressed for the granting of voting rights to women, is considered one of the most famous in history.

Through Mark Twain’s many paths of inspiration one of the last ones led to Helen Keller. The young Keller benefited from Twain’s support, as she pursued her college education and publishing, despite her disabilities and financial limitations. She was the first deafblind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree. Mark Twain had introduced her to Standard Oil magnate Henry Huttleston Rogers, who, with his wife Abbie, paid for her education. In 1904, at the age of 24, Keller graduated from Radcliffe, becoming the first deaf blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree. She maintained a correspondence with the Austrian philosopher and pedagogue Wilhelm Jerusalem, who was one of the first to discover her literary talent, and from here the paths of inspiration continued to cross.

////

If not for Jules Gabriel Verne and the great minds he inspired, would we have heard of space flight so soon in our history?

Jules Gabriel Verne; One of his teachers was the French inventor Brutus de Villeroi, professor of drawing and mathematics at the college in 1842, and who later became famous for creating the US Navy's first submarine, the USS Alligator. De Villeroi may have inspired Verne's conceptual design for the Nautilus in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, although no direct exchanges between the two men have been recorded.

When Verne's father discovered that his son was writing rather than studying law, he promptly withdrew his financial support. Verne was forced to support himself as a stockbroker, which he hated despite being somewhat successful at it. During this period, he met Victor Hugo; (who’s best-known works are the novels Les Misérables and Notre-Dame de Paris (also known in English as The Hunchback of Notre-Dame), and Alexandre Dumas; (best known for his historical novels of high adventure The Count of Monte Cristo, and The Three Musketeers); these two authors offered Jules Gabriel Verne writing advice.

Upon reading Verne’s novel “From the Earth to the Moon”; in his 1903 publication on space travel, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky refuted Verne's idea of using a cannon for space travel. He concluded that a gun would have to be impossibly long. The gun in the story would subject the payload to about 22000 g of acceleration. However, Konstantin was nevertheless inspired by the story and developed the theory of spaceflight. (He was considered to be one of the founding fathers of rocketry and astronautics, and the father of space flight.)

////

If not for H.G Wells and the great minds he inspired, would we have ever heard of the Atom Bomb and Nuclear Warfare?

In H. G. Wells' 1901 The First Men in the Moon (also relating to the first voyagers to the Moon) the protagonist, Mr. Bedford, mentions Verne's novel to his companion, Professor Cavor, who replies (in a possible dig at Verne) that he does not know what Bedford is referring to. Verne returned the dig later when he pointed out that he used guncotton to send his men to the moon, and one could see it any day. "Can Mr. Wells show me some "cavourite"?", he asked archly.

In 1889–90 Wells managed to find a post as a teacher at Henley House School where he taught and admired A. A. Milne, the author of Winnie-the-Pooh.

In C. S. Lewis's novel That Hideous Strength, the character Jules is a caricature of Wells, and much of Lewis's science fiction was written both under the influence of Wells and as an antithesis to his work (or, as he put it, an "exorcism" of the influence it had on him).

Radioactive decay plays a large role in H.G Wells, The World Set Free (1914). This book contains what is surely his biggest prophetic "hit". Scientists of the day were well aware that the natural decay of radium releases energy at a slow rate over thousands of years. The rate of release is too slow to have practical utility, but the total amount released is huge. Wells's novel revolves around an (unspecified) invention that accelerates the process of radioactive decay, producing bombs that explode with no more than the force of ordinary high explosive—but which "continue to explode" for days on end. "Nothing could have been more obvious to the people of the earlier twentieth century", he wrote, "than the rapidity with which war was becoming impossible [but] they did not see it until the atomic bombs burst in their fumbling hands". Leó Szilárd acknowledged that the book inspired him to theorise the nuclear chain reaction. He wrote the letter for Albert Einstein's signature that resulted in the Manhattan Project that built the atomic bomb. (He also conceived three revolutionary devices: the electron microscope, the linear accelerator and the cyclotron.)

////

On a positive note please see the following connections which didn’t seem to lead to more bad than good down the line.

John Ernst Steinbeck, Jr.; was an American writer. He is widely known for the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath (1939) and East of Eden (1952) and the novella Of Mice and Men (1937). Steinbeck was a close associate of playwright Arthur Miller. According to John Steinbeck’s eldest son Thomas, a true artist is one who "without a thought for self, stands up against the stones of condemnation, and speaks for those who are given no real voice in the halls of justice, or the halls of government. By doing so these people will naturally become the enemies of the political status quo."

Ernest Miller Hemingway; was an American author and journalist. His economical and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations… In Chicago he worked as an associate editor of the monthly journal Cooperative Commonwealth, where he met novelist Sherwood Anderson; (was an American novelist and short story writer. His most enduring work is the short story sequence Winesburg, Ohio. Writers he has influenced other than Ernest Hemingway, were William Faulkner, John Steinbeck, J. D. Salinger, and Amos Oz.

In Paris, Hemingway met writers such as Gertrude Stein, James Joyce and Ezra Pound who "could help a young writer up the rungs of a career". Hemingway met influential painters such as Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, and Juan Gris. (All these acquaintances he had before writing his greatest novels, and being recognized in the mainstream.) Hemingway met F. Scott Fitzgerald, and the pair formed a friendship of "admiration and hostility". Fitzgerald had published The Great Gatsby the same year: Hemingway read it, liked it, and decided his next work had to be a novel.

J.D Salinger met Hemmingway during WW2. During the campaign from Normandy into Germany, Salinger arranged to meet with Ernest Hemingway, a writer who had influenced him and was working as a war correspondent in Paris. Salinger was impressed with Hemingway's friendliness and modesty, finding him more "soft" than his gruff public persona. Hemingway was impressed by Salinger's writing, and remarked: "Jesus, he has a helluva talent." The two writers began corresponding; Salinger wrote Hemingway in July 1946 that their talks were among his few positive memories of the war.

“Birds of a feather flock together.” The question is; are we flocking towards a better future? Or are we ultimately destructive by nature, even when we don’t try to be? Will are species be defined by our revolutionary thinkers in a positive light? Or will we be defined by our addiction to self sabotage? Whether to a better future or our demise and the demise of our planet… ultimately we will flock together.”

Consul Nicholas Moore