In-Intelligent Design

I'm reading Neil DeGrasse Tyson, the eminent astrophysicist. He has supplied the perfect response to the so-called Intelligent Design. He calls it Stupid Design.

For example: "your appendix. It's much better at killing you than it is at anything else. That's definitely a stupid design. What about your pinky toenail? You can barely put nail polish on it; there's no real estate there. How about bad breath, or the fact you breathe and drink through the same hole in your body, causing some fraction of us to choke to death every year? And here's my last one. Ready? Down there between our legs, it's like an entertainment complex in the middle of a sewage system. Who designed that?"

The men's a genius.

Yasser Arafat's Tomb

Ramallah, Palestine

Jerusalem

The city where all the sects, spin-offs, re-interpretations, mutations and permutations of the Abrahamic faiths get together and urinate on each other's shoes.

My Palestinian Haircut

Stopped into a barber shop on the streets of Ramallah. A half hour and 20 shekels ($4) later I looked like the well tonsured gentleman of leisure I aspire to be.

Amman, Jordan to Tel Aviv, Israel

Total distance: maybe 60 miles
Ticket cost, Air Jordanian Airlines: $350
Dollars per mile the most expensive flight I've ever taken.

Despite all the rumors and horror stories about Israeli customs it was a walk. US Customs took longer back before I had Global Entry status.

Airport Run

This is what it looks like when the USEG Tour rolls into town. While everyone is queued up getting their passports stamped the first ones through start snagging bags off the carousel. After two weeks together we know what each other's bags look like. It's how you move 30+ people as quickly as possible.

The next hurdle is hoping the pre-arranged transport is waiting and they have a trolley for all the luggage.

Dead Sea. Jordan

Kempinski Ishtar hotel. A fella could get used to this.

Tomorrow we go into Amman where finally I'll have some excellent shawarma. Not as good as my friend Fatima's, but it'll do.

Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15377#sthash.SiPifPZT.dpuf

Good Morning Doha!

View from my room in the Sheraton here in Qatar. Too bad all we'll be doing here is work.

Puttin' a Dent in My Seattle-based Vitamin D Deficiency

At this intensity it shouldn't take long.