Been Dealing with Authority this week

I have been dealing with Authority & Bureaucracy this week and the email I received sums it all up beautifully.

The sad passing of common sense.
Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was, since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape. He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as:

- Knowing when to come in out of the rain;

- Why the early bird gets the worm;

- Life isn't always fair;

- and maybe it was my fault.

Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more than you can earn) and reliable strategies (adults, not children, are in charge).

His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well-intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a 6-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition.

Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job that they themselves had failed to do in disciplining their unruly children.

It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer sun lotion or an aspirin to a student; but could not inform parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.

Common Sense lost the will to live as the churches became businesses; and criminals received better treatment than their victims.

Common Sense took a beating when you couldn't defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the burglar could sue you for assault.

Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement.

Common Sense was preceded in death, by his parents, Truth and Trust, by his wife, Discretion, by his daughter, Responsibility, and by his son, Reason.

He is survived by his 4 stepbrothers;

I Know My Rights

I Want It Now

Someone Else Is To Blame

I'm A Victim

New Diamond Find?

The recent reports of possible rough diamond shortages due to the fact no major resource discoveries have been made recently may have been premature. A new source may have been found with only one shortcoming, its distance from any manufacturing or processing centre.

That new supply is not in any of the familiar diamond regions, Canada, South Africa, Russia etc. but rather a distant planet. Astronomers recently discovered a planet largely made of crystallized carbon, more commonly called diamond.

"The evolutionary history and amazing density of the planet all suggest it is comprised of carbon, i.e. a massive diamond orbiting a neutron star every two hours in an orbit so tight it would fit inside our own Sun," said Matthew Bailes of Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne.

The planet is 4,000 light years away, or around an eighth of the way toward the centre of the Milky Way from the Earth. The planet is probably the remnant of a once-massive star that has lost its outer layers to the so-called pulsar star it orbits.

Pulsars are highly magnetized, rotating neutron stars, only about 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) in diameter, that spin hundreds of times a second, emitting beams of electromagnetic radiation.

The planet orbits its star every two hours and 10 minutes, has slightly more mass than Jupiter but is 20 times as dense, Bailes and colleagues reported in the Journal Science on Thursday