Food is "renewable" and gasoline is not.

Expense? A hard ride goes about 1000 calories an hour give or take. That's about 20 miles (again give or take). I eat well at about $1-$2 for 1000 calories. Compare that to $4 for the gallon of gas to go 20 miles.

Ethanol is another renewable energy source (well, really the sun is the source, the corn/ethanol is the stored form). But that is being manipulated by profiteers and also it's only an additive.

There are many possibilties for human-powered vehicles -- the upright bicycle is just one. I'd like to see more of them.

Calling something "God" doesn't make it God.

Though, the "God as Universe" is probably a better model to keep in mind than the anthro version.

Umm...
"Our sense of God has evolved from Yahweh in the desert some 4500 years ago..."

Kauffman speak for himself, not *us*. "Yahweh" is a derivative of a Vedic term. *My* sense of God goes back 10,000s of years. Centered in India & Asia.

Seriously (delightfully) quintessentially creepy and not much about it (well the sculpture anyway) qualifies as cute. Truly horrorshow!

So, umm, God... who/what created you?

#39 is right, I admit.

If we are purchasing chips from our enemies, then we deserve what we get.

(Incidentally, I worked for a company that sent its chips out to be fabbed by its competitor. They never worked. Big surprise, that.)

Even if we build em ourselves, there's always the potential for sabotage from within...

It is an interesting idea for a sci-fi book, but in real life, it won't happen.

(1) Even if there were a kill switch, someone's gotta get into the system to activate it. Not generally possible. Remote diagnostic programs do not communicate with vehicles/planes/missiles in motion.

(2) Such a [kill] scenario could exist IF the chip itself can receive and process RF or IR signals. But there's just not a lot of those.

(4) Having worked for a military contractor, I believe that most critical systems are developed "in-house" that is, by American contractors working for the U.S.

(5) Those of you old enough may remember large
computers where you sat at a terminal and typed in commands. If you didn't type in a recognized command the terminal would display "Unrecognized Command" or similar.

Avionic systems are like that: they just won't respond to anything they don't understand. There is no such thing as a "Kill Yourself" commmand and as such an enemy cannot issue one.

[unless of course the enemy has a mole in the software department... AH another story topic.]

Love the trucks! In the S.F. bay area, there are a few that offer Chinese/Thai/Vietnamese too.

Umm.. #13 (Salty) what is "the Gold Line"?

Ref #24

A person decides to walk from San Francisco to New York.

However, setting out from S.F., the person walks west, only to encounter the Pacific. Decent enough ^experience^ but, unless the person takes another approach (such as turning around or taking an airplane) walking west will NEVER get to New York.

So it is with drugs: drug use is "walking west" where God/enlightment/etc is in the east.

The problem for humans is that drug use "seems like you're walking east" when you're actually "going west."

Another problem is that humans, on their own, cannot easily discover that this is so. We need instructions from one who is enlightened. That could be your guru or Buddha or whoever.

(What I'm saying here is nothing new. It has been known for ages.)

Illusion within illusion "explained"...

The universe is just so much smoke (and mirrors). Seems solid and orderly and all, but in fact it is as insubstantial as a dream.

So all of us are experiencing a dream. Within the dream, many of us think like "Hindus good, Muslims bad" or Muslims good, Hindus bad" or recently "Tibet good, China bad" or "China good, Tibet bad".

But there are no such values! Tibet is no more or less good than China. Even the terms "good" and "bad" are wacked.

Thus, there are these delusions (invalid value judgments) in addition to the smoke and mirrors that is the physical universe.

Double-decker illusion, if you will.

True "religion" has always been about finding reality and turning away from illusion.

The world is an illusion. Drug experiences are illusions within illusion. (Althought they might be "fun.") Most people's lives are illusions within illusion.

Drug experiences can NEVER get you God or enlightment or wisdom. Just more and more bondage.

(This point was made in the '60s by Meher Baba, Richard Alpert aka Baba Ram Das, and Allen Cohen, among others.)

I'm reminded of a town (where, I dunno) that had a community supply of bicycles. Anytime you want to go somewhere, you just grab the nearest bike and go.

There were quite a few bikes around. From the reports, they had no problem with theft.

(I don't know how good the bikes were.)

Well, fruit/vegetables at a stand are consumable (and perishable), so there's no sharing or reuse. So my anecdote is a little off subject, but not too far off. Food for thought.