Monday, October 29, 2012
Police Tactics
The role of the police departments in this country is changing. Originally lawmen were charged with the responsibility of keeping the peace in society. This meant that after some bad act occurred the police would arrive to sort out the mess. Jails were build as needed to accommodate the increase in our slowly growing prison population.
Over the years the police departments began to take a more proactive role in crime. Police agents actively sought out crime organizations to infiltrate and as "gang members" the police were forced into acting like the people they were investigating. As a result of being undercover these policemen were then, technically, just as guilty as the actual gang members who they are trying to catch. (Aiding and abetting?)
The acceleration of the drug wars marked the first major deviation in police tactics. Originally the nature of crime required a crime to occur before police could get involved. The change in police policy now suggested that the best way to prevent crime was to "get out in front of it". Police agents would infiltrate drug gangs by the simple expedient of supplying vital ingredients or equipment to aid in the commission of a crime. The reasoning went like this. Sooner or later the gangs would accomplish their nefarious goals so why not accelerate the process? Police would assist the gangs along the way to, say, producing drugs so they can harvest both the drugs and the gangsters in one tidy bundle.
The increase in arrests was impressive. Of course along the way mistakes were made so drugs and money went missing, and successful drug lords lawyered up and went free. But you can't win them all. There is no way to tell whether society got a net benefit from police assistance in drug manufacturing but the prison system began to swell.
The most recent iteration in police activity in "getting ahead of the crime" involves the Internet. By a strange quirk in the law a shareware service called LimeWire, with over 100 million users worldwide, is providing a virtually unlimited resource for inmate production. The service was originally started as a music club whose members were able to share their favorite music with each other. Members would upload their songs or albums to the server so others could download them. As technology changed video sharing became as popular as audio. Police cyber cops recognized a potentially huge bonanza of fresh inmates.
These new criminals are being harvested as a result of a quirk in the way a law "encouraging child sexual abuse" is interpreted. By some absurdly defective reasoning it is legal to watch anything online your heart desires, including child pornography, but, as incredible as this seems, if you download an illegal video for viewing later you have just committed a crime. This subtle distinction has put every member of LimeWire at risk and here is how.
Let's say you are looking for a classic video called "Lolita" starring James Mason. The LimeWire server performs a search for keywords and produces a list of movies to choose from. In order to see if what you want is in the list you must download the video to view it. Whether the video you got was what you were looking for not, or whether the movie was a Lolita movie starring a child pornography actor makes the commission of a crime possible without the downloader even knowing in advance whether the movie was what he was looking for, or more importantly, illegal. As a result of this absurd police practice thousands of people nationwide are falling victim to and are having their lives destroyed by accident.
It is up to society to decide whether it is better served by a police department actively seeking to add to our prison population by prosecuting nonviolent accidental victims of a shareware service, or not.
One thing is for sure. Affording the 2 billion we spend weekly housing prisoners in this country is busting budgets in every state. Scarce resources are going begging for more socially beneficial projects. Allowing the police department unlimited funds to prosecute "thought crimes" may be the stupidest thing we Americans can do ourselves going forward.
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Global Positioning Accuracy -- WOW!
The Earth is surrounded by satellite network of 31 spacecraft equipped with incredibly accurate clocks. To synchronize these clocks with Earth time an adjustment was necessary because the satellite clocks gain about 1 billionth of a second, when compared with surface clocks, every three days. That means that time travels faster in space than it does here on the Earth's surface. If this time differential was not accounted for and adjustments to global positioning made, the coordinates provided by the satellites would be off by as much as 6 miles per day.
With measurements accurate to the billionths of centimeters and seconds it is difficult for me to imagine how anyone can doubt the conclusions our scientists have reached with regard to the birth of the universe. Taking the simple step from realizing one plus one equals two to measuring the volume and age of the universe only took mankind a few thousand years. And yet…
Accepting global warming, evolution, the "Big Bang" theory, and acknowledging the "God" particle seem to be beyond the imagination or understanding of our religious right. What could go wrong with giving them charge of the country?
Parmsplace
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Welfare
Just about everyone in America understands welfare to be a benefit to the needy. Welfare is kind of a fail safe for those without the means to survive without our government's help. This help usually comes in the form of food stamps and cash to women with children who have no other means of support. What the good and trusting citizens of our country don't realize is that the lion’s share of welfare in the US goes to the greedy, not the needy. Corporate welfare in the form of "loopholes" allows huge chunks of corporate revenue to be ignored for tax purposes, and yet every worker on a payroll in America sees every dime of his or her income taxed. In fact, hundred cent dollars are something the American payroll earner never sees except as a line item in a box.
So are tax benefits to corporate America welfare? Untaxed income to corporations for things like a depletion allowance (this is the oil company welfare program and amounts to billions of dollars annually) and for crop subsidies to our agribusinesses (which amounts to more billions annually) add up to many times what the government spends on food stamps and welfare for women with dependent families. The difference between what is welfare and what is not appears to be that the money given to a “person” is welfare and money generated but untaxed on corporate income is good for business and a job creator.
Another form of federal welfare which goes under the radar is the tax exemption federal workers enjoy. If you get a federal paycheck no federal income taxes are deducted from those earnings. Most people in America earning $50,000 or more annually are obligated to pay federal income taxes of at least $10,000. In addition to that they have to pay all or most of their own health care costs. Free healthcare is another privilege provided to federal employees. If these perks are available to some citizens they should be available to all citizens and considered welfare payments. Everybody should have free healthcare as long as every federal employee does, but for some reason our congressmen don't see it that way.
Clearly what is welfare and who is receiving it is a matter of opinion, but if we look at corporations and federal worker tax subsidies as free income, or at least extraordinary benefits, and are willing to call a spade a spade, that would make our federal employees and corporations the largest welfare recipients in the country. If we look at free healthcare for life for federal employees and look at what the rest of America's expected to live with we begin to realize just what exalted status our federal employees enjoy.
We have created a sector of our society which believes they are entitled to more than the rest. We have put some real low riders on high pedestals and allowed them to dictate policy to us, the peasants, as if they are distributing alms to the poor. What is amazing to me is just how many people in this country, those who are on the low-end of the totem pole, support the policies which keep them firmly in place at the bottom of the barrel.
(Sorry about the mixed metaphor.)
So are tax benefits to corporate America welfare? Untaxed income to corporations for things like a depletion allowance (this is the oil company welfare program and amounts to billions of dollars annually) and for crop subsidies to our agribusinesses (which amounts to more billions annually) add up to many times what the government spends on food stamps and welfare for women with dependent families. The difference between what is welfare and what is not appears to be that the money given to a “person” is welfare and money generated but untaxed on corporate income is good for business and a job creator.
Another form of federal welfare which goes under the radar is the tax exemption federal workers enjoy. If you get a federal paycheck no federal income taxes are deducted from those earnings. Most people in America earning $50,000 or more annually are obligated to pay federal income taxes of at least $10,000. In addition to that they have to pay all or most of their own health care costs. Free healthcare is another privilege provided to federal employees. If these perks are available to some citizens they should be available to all citizens and considered welfare payments. Everybody should have free healthcare as long as every federal employee does, but for some reason our congressmen don't see it that way.
Clearly what is welfare and who is receiving it is a matter of opinion, but if we look at corporations and federal worker tax subsidies as free income, or at least extraordinary benefits, and are willing to call a spade a spade, that would make our federal employees and corporations the largest welfare recipients in the country. If we look at free healthcare for life for federal employees and look at what the rest of America's expected to live with we begin to realize just what exalted status our federal employees enjoy.
We have created a sector of our society which believes they are entitled to more than the rest. We have put some real low riders on high pedestals and allowed them to dictate policy to us, the peasants, as if they are distributing alms to the poor. What is amazing to me is just how many people in this country, those who are on the low-end of the totem pole, support the policies which keep them firmly in place at the bottom of the barrel.
(Sorry about the mixed metaphor.)
Thursday, October 11, 2012
The simple truth about truth
The truth is there is nothing simple about "the truth".
Truth is supposed to embrace reality, to conform to fact and what is accepted as common knowledge, and to fit into the belief systems we have established like those of organized religion. Guess what? All of the above criteria are subject to change without notice. None of the above "standards" which are designed to measure "truth" can withstand the test of time. Therefore, “the truth” is not absolute but subject to modification as new information becomes available.
What people are giving you when they are "telling the truth" is giving you a version of truth from their point of view. Frequently their version of truth is based on nothing more than hearsay, biased news reports, or hand-me-down beliefs regurgitated over the centuries and which may never have been true to begin with. For example…
Every truth the people in the Middle East believed about their life and destiny in year 100 BC was, for the most part, either turned upside down or severely challenged by the year 400 A.D. Everything society thought they knew about the Earth and sun revolving around them in the year 1000 was proven to be false by the year 1500. Everything the entire world had gained in knowledge about itself doubled from 1500 A.D. to 1850 A.D. By the time the year 2000 A.D. rolled around the knowledge base of the planet was doubling every other year. Incredible as it sounds, very little of what we thought was true one thousand years ago, let alone 2100 years ago, turns out to be true today.
A significant amount of what we were taught as children turns out to be false by the time we reach adulthood. For example, when I grew up we had nine planets. My favorite planet was Pluto. A few years ago Pluto was de-planetized and reduced in stature to a gigantic iceberg full of sand and dirt. So it turns out there is very little we know about our world today that can withstand the test of time. We are gaining in knowledge and experience at a ferocious rate. The new information we gain daily paints a different picture than the one we grew up with.
The universe, as it is now understood, is as misrepresented by the traditions of 7 billion people today as it was during the years when the Earth was host to less than 1 billion people and the consensus of opinion was the earth was flat. These distant ancestors of ours were certain their theory was correct; the church guaranteed it! Daily advances in all intellectual disciplines are so astounding anymore that everyone paying attention is gasping for breath.
It now appears as though rivers once ran on Mars! Folks, as we learn more, life just keeps getting better and more mysterious. Can real progress be far behind?
Unfortunately, the answer is yes, some beliefs impede progress. Intelligent people in this country still deny the truth revealed by modern science and insist that fairy tales and hand-me-down beliefs thousands of years old still hold water. There is only room for one correct sequence of events that contains the kernels of truth important for us to utilize going forward. It is important for our future generations to believe in a truth which contains as much factual knowledge as we are capable of developing. Superstition and innuendo offer no help when included in a foundation necessary to build our future. That is about as smart as building a home on a seashore cliff or below flood level. Unfortunately we still do both of those.
Truth may come in more than one variety. People equate “feelings", especially if they come from "the heart", as being the purest form of truth because they believe feelings come straight from the depths of our soul. It is important to note that just because we fervently believe in something, or someone like Jesus, our belief does not automatically convey the property of truth to our belief. Those less romantic believe truth must pass some form of empirical test, like a math test, and a theory must have some scientific verifiability before it can be accepted as truth. Pragmatists reject the "heart felt" component people use to justify their belief system. They believe feelings have no part in the truth behind the universe and "feelings" should be considered irrelevant to any meaningful description of “the truth”.
At any rate, the United States can no longer afford to have its belief system interfere with providing our children a truthful education. Our attempt to build a proper foundation in our colleges and universities for our children going forward must embrace the most current information available. Otherwise, we will continue to fall behind the rest of the planet just as those in the Middle East, stuck in Middle East beliefs, have done for thousands of years.
Truth is supposed to embrace reality, to conform to fact and what is accepted as common knowledge, and to fit into the belief systems we have established like those of organized religion. Guess what? All of the above criteria are subject to change without notice. None of the above "standards" which are designed to measure "truth" can withstand the test of time. Therefore, “the truth” is not absolute but subject to modification as new information becomes available.
What people are giving you when they are "telling the truth" is giving you a version of truth from their point of view. Frequently their version of truth is based on nothing more than hearsay, biased news reports, or hand-me-down beliefs regurgitated over the centuries and which may never have been true to begin with. For example…
Every truth the people in the Middle East believed about their life and destiny in year 100 BC was, for the most part, either turned upside down or severely challenged by the year 400 A.D. Everything society thought they knew about the Earth and sun revolving around them in the year 1000 was proven to be false by the year 1500. Everything the entire world had gained in knowledge about itself doubled from 1500 A.D. to 1850 A.D. By the time the year 2000 A.D. rolled around the knowledge base of the planet was doubling every other year. Incredible as it sounds, very little of what we thought was true one thousand years ago, let alone 2100 years ago, turns out to be true today.
A significant amount of what we were taught as children turns out to be false by the time we reach adulthood. For example, when I grew up we had nine planets. My favorite planet was Pluto. A few years ago Pluto was de-planetized and reduced in stature to a gigantic iceberg full of sand and dirt. So it turns out there is very little we know about our world today that can withstand the test of time. We are gaining in knowledge and experience at a ferocious rate. The new information we gain daily paints a different picture than the one we grew up with.
The universe, as it is now understood, is as misrepresented by the traditions of 7 billion people today as it was during the years when the Earth was host to less than 1 billion people and the consensus of opinion was the earth was flat. These distant ancestors of ours were certain their theory was correct; the church guaranteed it! Daily advances in all intellectual disciplines are so astounding anymore that everyone paying attention is gasping for breath.
It now appears as though rivers once ran on Mars! Folks, as we learn more, life just keeps getting better and more mysterious. Can real progress be far behind?
Unfortunately, the answer is yes, some beliefs impede progress. Intelligent people in this country still deny the truth revealed by modern science and insist that fairy tales and hand-me-down beliefs thousands of years old still hold water. There is only room for one correct sequence of events that contains the kernels of truth important for us to utilize going forward. It is important for our future generations to believe in a truth which contains as much factual knowledge as we are capable of developing. Superstition and innuendo offer no help when included in a foundation necessary to build our future. That is about as smart as building a home on a seashore cliff or below flood level. Unfortunately we still do both of those.
Truth may come in more than one variety. People equate “feelings", especially if they come from "the heart", as being the purest form of truth because they believe feelings come straight from the depths of our soul. It is important to note that just because we fervently believe in something, or someone like Jesus, our belief does not automatically convey the property of truth to our belief. Those less romantic believe truth must pass some form of empirical test, like a math test, and a theory must have some scientific verifiability before it can be accepted as truth. Pragmatists reject the "heart felt" component people use to justify their belief system. They believe feelings have no part in the truth behind the universe and "feelings" should be considered irrelevant to any meaningful description of “the truth”.
At any rate, the United States can no longer afford to have its belief system interfere with providing our children a truthful education. Our attempt to build a proper foundation in our colleges and universities for our children going forward must embrace the most current information available. Otherwise, we will continue to fall behind the rest of the planet just as those in the Middle East, stuck in Middle East beliefs, have done for thousands of years.
Sunday, October 7, 2012
Prisoner Production Measures
Over the past five decades America has been invested in an ongoing policy aimed at, of all things, cleansing our society of every imagined threat to our 200 year old Victorian-style morality, or to our 2000 year old religious based 10 commandment code of conduct. During the process of cleaning up our society we have made victimless crimes our number one priority. We have built thousands of prisons and jails sufficient to accommodate an influx of millions of new inmates, staffed them with hundreds of thousands of jailers, and then massively increased government payrolls for local and federal law enforcement officers to feed the funnel.
Court officials oblige the need for an ever growing prison population by sending everyone not financially able to afford an adequate defense to jail. If the truth were known, our court-appointed system for defending indigent defendants is a farce. Think about it. Why would any legislative body vote to spend as much money to defend the accused as they do to prosecute the accused? That sounds self defeating to me. They might lose as many or more cases than they win which would be an in our tax payer face obvious huge loss to society and a good reason to stop prosecuting victimless crimes in the first place.
Nationwide statistics on time invested per case by public defenders on behalf of their clients indicates that court-appointed attorneys, on average, provide less than 8 seconds per defendant on any one case; this statistic includes capital murder cases where the death penalty could be in play. Folks, money talks, and most public defenders are dump trucks whose real job is to speed the accused into jail, not to keep them out.
Bottom line, if you are broke you are going to jail.
We could save the taxpayers in this country a fortune if we weren't concerned with providing the appearance of a fair trial. This is one of the best, or worst, arguments in favor of a dictatorship (what I say is what is true!). Image is everything in a democratic society and unless you can control your image by controlling the media you had better appear to be on the right side of law enforcement and the wrong side of crime (even if you are one of its biggest beneficiaries!).
This process seems to be irreversible. At any given time only about 2% of our society is behind bars, or in the system, so most of us feel immune to prosecution. Our society, however, delights in seeing our neighbors go to the gray bar hotel for no better reason than to provide fresh gossip for the coffeehouse. The interesting thing about the prisoner production process is that sooner or later it may expand to the point where it includes everyone.
By any objective world measure we are a jail happy and uniform crazy society. Our solution to the inevitable erosion of an obsolete moral code is to "fight another war" against any and all perceived immoral behavior. Legislators pass laws which they know will statistically slide another slice of our society into jail. Society rolls over on its brothers and sisters and accepts yet another limit to the freedom of expression here in America.
Fellow Americans, we have been so successful at identifying and prosecuting nonviolent victimless offenders of obsolete morality statutes that fully 86% of our prison inmates are in jail for victimless crimes. We are spending 2 billion a week prosecuting and incarcerating, for the most part, pot and sex offenders, whose only crime is sharing a different moral code of conduct than our legislators act like they adhere to.
If you follow the headlines in any given week you could get the very real impression that the lawyers who write the laws don't follow their own laws. If Congress was held to a strict honor code and members were forced to admit to their own law violations I wouldn't care to guess how many congressmen would remain seated, but I can guarantee that the members remaining wouldn't amount to a quorum.
As more and more citizens become outraged by the massive amount of money being squandered by law enforcement officials hypocritically trying to enforce antique moral codes of conduct still on the books, legislators will be forced to find fresh meat (legislate a new class of imagined offenders) to prosecute. Until citizens everywhere realize they are being swindled on a massive nationwide prison scam, more and more of our money will be wasted on harvesting new and different slices of society to feed our prison system.
The next time a politician puts pen to paper it could be your own slice of vice on the line and your own freedom in jeopardy. Beware!
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Bill Nye about the Truth: “Creation Views Threaten US Science”.
Bill Nye, known as the “Science Guy”, has waded into the evolution debate with an online video (Click here to see the video) that urges parents not to hand down their religious based doubts about evolution to their children. Religion is a leading contributor to our decline in world standings in math and science according to tests conducted here in America. We Americans are slipping consistently in science and math rankings worldwide because we teach erroneous theories. This fact is responsible for a growing loss of employment to our society. We, the job creators, are failing to provide our children the next generation education they can use to get the next generation jobs they need to provide for their own families and futures.
The angels we pray to and the demons we fear are figments of our imaginations, nothing more. Like noises in the night, thoughts of angels or demons can cause anxiety and fear but always remember this; while fear feels real and causes great anxiety, fear can never kill you, and neither will an imagined angel or demon. Fear is a reflex reaction hardwired in humans to make life’s hard choices clearer, quicker and easier to make; fight or flight for example. Nothing could be simpler or more necessary to our continued survival than primal fear, and the ability to get out of harm’s way instinctively and immediately.
Where we have trouble as a very diverse society is trying to live together without reconciling our belief systems with our life experiences and education. We can't help being "a little bit jumpy" (this quote from the movie Starman starring Jeff Bridges) since it is in our nature to spook easily. Smart orators learned thousands of years ago that to control a man's mind all that is required is to implant the seed of fear in him. Feed that fear, control the "antidote" to that fear, and you can very easily control the person.
Religion has fulfilled this role in society for thousands of years. Priests, claiming a direct link to those who control the afterlife, kept ever larger numbers of people in fear for their immortal souls and as a direct result, under their, the priests, control. By the simple expedient of offering a place in heaven a gifted orator could manipulate entire civilizations into doing his bidding for the entire duration of their lives on earth.
Take Christianity for example. The premise behind this religion is very simple. First instill the fear of damnation in everyone and next provide the guarantee of everyone spending an eternity surrounded by hellfire and brimstone should damnation befall them and theirs. Next, provide an "antidote" to spending this eternity in "hellfire" by providing another choice. For admission into an eternal life in paradise all that is required by you is for you to accept Jesus as your personal Savior. Presto, your troubles are over! Come on up! The deal is done forever!
(Psst… Don't forget to leave a healthy donation in the collection plate for your ultimate hook-up before you leave, and be sure to renew your connection weekly.)
Where society is having trouble is in reconciling religion and its roots with modern science. Almost 50% of the people in the United States accept creation as a viable theory to the birth of the universe. Bill Nye, in his viral YouTube video referenced above, states that a belief of this nature undermines the value of science and the true facts in our society. What he is suggesting, in my opinion, is that allowing this false belief about creation to continue to circulate in our society is similar to excusing half the adult population in the United States for believing in Christmas myths and never realizing the truth about Santa.
So what difference does it make how old the people in the United States believe the universe to be? The answer to that lies in understanding the nature of truth. Truth is not some flexible silly putty structure capable of being morphed into any theory desired and subsequently treated as fact. The truth is not something to be manipulated to fit any imaginary set of circumstances.
Discoveries revealing the nature of the atom and the math calculations deriving the speed of light are not figments of our collective imagination. Man really did set foot on the moon. Water has been discovered on planets thousands of light years away. Animals have been cloned in labs. All of man's advances in math, science, medicine, etc. are all based on a belief that one plus one equals two. Each discovery is built upon a real foundation of empirical evidence proven beyond a shadow of a doubt…
Except to those who believe in the theory of creation. The route to a creation believer’s belief is not based on facts, mathematics, physics, astrophysics, or a single bit of empirical evidence. It is based on nothing more than faith. Creation theory is based upon a book written thousands of years ago by dozens of different people over the course of hundreds of years. This “theory” was concocted out of erroneous assumptions and,without factual “evidence”, and this "theory" contradicts every scientific discovery made in the last few hundred years.
Unfortunately, to believe in the 10K theory (this theory states that God created the universe, earth and man within the last 10,000 years or so) requires the holder of this belief to ignore everything that points to a different conclusion. Frankly I find it easier to believe in Santa Claus.
Monday, September 17, 2012
Is militarizing our state and local police forces a good thing?
Reality is always uglier than the virtual reality we all spend hours watching on cop TV.Over the last decade shows featuring the police have flourished, and police agencies of all descriptions have been glorified. Since no one dares question the "hero" status our men in blue achieved during the 9/11/2001 crisis, the light shining upon these public servants is positively glowing at all times.
Let's get back to reality. Deaths due to officer involved shootings are at an all-time high countrywide. In fact, a new method of suicide, coined suicide by cop, has become a legitimate reason for police officers to gun down unarmed citizens. For a few horrifying incidents visit this site: http://www.sonomacountyfreepress.com/police/brutality.html
Incidents like those on many college campuses of police abuse of pepper spray, and tazer abuse by law enforcement officers all over the country are spiraling out of control. Tactics employed by the Mayor of New York City to disband the Occupy Wall Street movement were absolutely draconian. Consider this. New York City has the third largest standing army on the planet. The city is under police control and the police are controlled by just one man, the mayor.
Although we would like to believe we are in control of our country’s private armies nothing could be further from the truth. That delusion is similar to the delusion that “we the people” control our own military forces. Somehow the right to wage war has been usurped from Congress, which was given the right under the constitution, and has been revested in the office of the President. We avoid a conflict between our government’s branches by no longer declaring war; We just start bombing whoever our President decides is the “enemy”. One man now controls the largest military force in the history of the planet. The last decade of Presidential warfare gives ample proof of concept; and ample proof of abuse of power.
As police departments everywhere gain more power and influence, the abuse of that power by individual people becomes irresistible. We all have causes, and what is the point of accumulating power if you can't use it to further your own causes? Right? If a police officer should have a racial, sex, or religious bias instilled from birth it will be impossible to control. Racial profiling, so rampant in the South, is already an accepted practice and written into law in Arizona. The tendency for geographical regions to propose their own brand of law and social justice recently surfaced when Texas politicians started making succession type noises over immigration policy.
The possibility of a local style civil war occurring over immigration or racial issues is never far from the surface. As local police departments accumulate more and more power regional tensions will increase. The probability of armed conflict or organized military style activity breaking out along our Southern border increases daily.
As we bring home our brainwashed and battle hardened trained soldiers we find it difficult to assimilate these “heros” back into society. They become employed in paramilitary style organizations; the police, the private security industry, bounty hunting organizations, and investigation agencies are a few choices. What is it we expect to happen when millions of people seasoned by war are turned loose in our society? Can more "Rambo" style mass murder situations fail to happen? The suicide rate among returning veterans has never been higher. Is this a good thing?
The truth is war is hell on earth. We have a barbarian practice of subjecting millions of our most highly impressionable youths to military style brainwashing. This is required training to survive a tour of duty ending in incredibly hostile territory, and renders those soldiers unable to cope in a normal society. Life's millions of decisions can overwhelm soldiers not used to having choices. These people have been programmed to follow orders and in the absence of such a controlled environment they are like pool balls caroming around the country without borders to restrict their behavior or to give them direction.
Killing people, even if you are following the direct order of a government, does not make actions of that nature sane, honorable, or even legal. We discovered after World War II that "just following orders" was no excuse for those involved. Everyone captured for war crimes was convicted and hanged. Just how faulty an excuse “murder by following orders” became should have been burned into our psyche forever. Alas, the lesson barely lasted a single generation.
So here in this country our future is certain. We will become an increasingly more violent nation. Civil unrest will rise to levels not seen since the Vietnam era. Budgets will be strained by paranoid state and local governments attempting to protect themselves from civilian unrest by adding ever more people to the government side of the equation. All that additional manpower and waste of money will accomplish will be to increase tensions.
So as our upper crust achieves the excesses of the Roman Empire at its height and glory, our empire, as did the Roman Empire, will continue to crumble. Either we become a peaceful nation without the need for an excessive military and police force, or we will explode under the weight of those forces as all empires before ours have done.
Friday, June 15, 2012
Staring into the face of the future…
And the face that stares back at you is not human! How does this concept grab you?
Star surrounded by a dust cloud
I looked at the likely possibilities the future could hold for us. Of course there will be medical “miracles” and technological improvements. Nanotechnology will shrink electronics to the point where implants in our eyes, ears, and limbs will enhance our engagement with our world. To the expression "better living through chemistry" we can now add the expression “better living through nanotechnology”.
As a result of our continuous wars, advances in prosthetics are giving people new arms and legs. Some people are now able to compete in downhill skiing and long-distance running on these artificial limbs. Soon the government will probably propose the addition of some magnetic ink in the form of a nanobot inserted somewhere under our skin to keep better track of us.
Aimee Mullins Howard Schatz via aimeemullins.com
Much of the debate on the place of advanced prostheses for the disabled in competitive sports often downplays arguably the most important perspective: that of the athletes who couldn't compete without them.
Developments like man/machine interfaces, growing our own replacement organs, and genetically enhancing our own natural abilities are easy to predict. I go one step further though. I predict the big one, the monumental, astronomical, Google to the nth degree biggie. I predict we discover evidence of other life beyond our immediate solar system. I do concede it is likely we are the only living forms of life circling our sun at the moment.
That may not have always been the case. Mars, for example, being much further from the sun, would've cooled off and turned into a water world as many as 1 billion years before Earth cooled to the point where it could sustain life in its most primitive forms.
The more we learn, the more we realize that life might have begun elsewhere and just landed in our solar system, by accident (or by fate if you prefer) after riding on an asteroid from who knows where.
Here are a few photos taken by Hubble. Ours is one beautiful universe!
For a look at the entire photo album follow this link: http://hubblesite.org/gallery/wallpaper/
As science marches forward, Western religions are digging in their heels and, as incredible as it seems, still insisting the universe is only a few thousand years old. In fact, some polls in America indicate that a majority of our citizens believe in the theory of divine creation.
In order to retain these archaic beliefs religion is interfering with politics. Religious leaders are heavily involved in insisting creation be imprinted on our young school-age minds. To accomplish this they seem to have taken control of the content in most school textbooks in use today. Instead of focusing on the future of technology and its impact on civilization, they attempt to brainwash future generations into irrationally clinging to the past.
This may explain why we're falling behind the rest of the world in the important disciplines of math and science. It may explain why we have to import thousands of people to work in our high-tech industries. American schools are failing to provide the education necessary to supply the human capital required to fill these types of jobs. This is shameful policy that needs to be corrected before we fall further behind the rest of the planet in these critical areas.
A recent movie release titled, "Paul", brings us back to the concept that we are not alone in the universe. If you have not yet had a chance to see this movie you should put it on your agenda. The movie points out that if we were the only source of life in the universe it would be the most incredible waste of space imaginable. For those who believe in the "intelligent design" concept this fact alone stands in absolute contradiction to the “intelligent” part of the equation. After all, what would be intelligent about creating billions of galaxies and trillions of solar systems and then allowing life to exist in just one of them?
To my way of thinking that would be the stupidest “intelligent” design possible and the worst utilization of a brand-new universe imaginable. Surely a "God" could and would do better.
http://www.parmsplace.com
Star surrounded by a dust cloud
I looked at the likely possibilities the future could hold for us. Of course there will be medical “miracles” and technological improvements. Nanotechnology will shrink electronics to the point where implants in our eyes, ears, and limbs will enhance our engagement with our world. To the expression "better living through chemistry" we can now add the expression “better living through nanotechnology”.
As a result of our continuous wars, advances in prosthetics are giving people new arms and legs. Some people are now able to compete in downhill skiing and long-distance running on these artificial limbs. Soon the government will probably propose the addition of some magnetic ink in the form of a nanobot inserted somewhere under our skin to keep better track of us.
Aimee Mullins Howard Schatz via aimeemullins.com
Much of the debate on the place of advanced prostheses for the disabled in competitive sports often downplays arguably the most important perspective: that of the athletes who couldn't compete without them.
Developments like man/machine interfaces, growing our own replacement organs, and genetically enhancing our own natural abilities are easy to predict. I go one step further though. I predict the big one, the monumental, astronomical, Google to the nth degree biggie. I predict we discover evidence of other life beyond our immediate solar system. I do concede it is likely we are the only living forms of life circling our sun at the moment.
That may not have always been the case. Mars, for example, being much further from the sun, would've cooled off and turned into a water world as many as 1 billion years before Earth cooled to the point where it could sustain life in its most primitive forms.
The more we learn, the more we realize that life might have begun elsewhere and just landed in our solar system, by accident (or by fate if you prefer) after riding on an asteroid from who knows where.
Here are a few photos taken by Hubble. Ours is one beautiful universe!
For a look at the entire photo album follow this link: http://hubblesite.org/gallery/wallpaper/
As science marches forward, Western religions are digging in their heels and, as incredible as it seems, still insisting the universe is only a few thousand years old. In fact, some polls in America indicate that a majority of our citizens believe in the theory of divine creation.
In order to retain these archaic beliefs religion is interfering with politics. Religious leaders are heavily involved in insisting creation be imprinted on our young school-age minds. To accomplish this they seem to have taken control of the content in most school textbooks in use today. Instead of focusing on the future of technology and its impact on civilization, they attempt to brainwash future generations into irrationally clinging to the past.
This may explain why we're falling behind the rest of the world in the important disciplines of math and science. It may explain why we have to import thousands of people to work in our high-tech industries. American schools are failing to provide the education necessary to supply the human capital required to fill these types of jobs. This is shameful policy that needs to be corrected before we fall further behind the rest of the planet in these critical areas.
A recent movie release titled, "Paul", brings us back to the concept that we are not alone in the universe. If you have not yet had a chance to see this movie you should put it on your agenda. The movie points out that if we were the only source of life in the universe it would be the most incredible waste of space imaginable. For those who believe in the "intelligent design" concept this fact alone stands in absolute contradiction to the “intelligent” part of the equation. After all, what would be intelligent about creating billions of galaxies and trillions of solar systems and then allowing life to exist in just one of them?
To my way of thinking that would be the stupidest “intelligent” design possible and the worst utilization of a brand-new universe imaginable. Surely a "God" could and would do better.
http://www.parmsplace.com
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Fair Game?
Fair Game?
A recent segment on 60 Minutes put a spotlight on an interesting philosophical battle going on between two groups of people supposedly working for the same cause, the conservation of endangered species. The battle is over exotic animals and the battleground is in Texas. On the one side we have 5000 cattle ranchers raising endangered and exotic species. This group, represented by Charly Seale, executive director of the Exotic Wildlife Association of Texas, has been successful at increasing some exotic herds to the point where they are no longer endangered. In the opposite corner, but on the same side of the street supposedly, is the "Friends of Animals", an international animal rights organization led by Priscilla Feral.
What the argument and seven-year legal battle is about is how these animals are being used by the ranchers. Here is the back story.
Three species of African antelopes were in extreme danger of extinction in their own indigenous countries in Africa. Concerned American ranchers, at their own expense, offered to set aside grazing lands from their own property to try to save these species. They got breeding stock from American zoos, the last safe habitat for these rare animals, and hoped for the best. These ranchers just liked the look of a scimitar or African Giselle mingling with their herds of Texas longhorns.
How would you like a rack like mine?
Long story short, the animals thrived. In fact, some of the animals closest to extinction have come back from the brink in spectacular fashion. They've done so well the ranchers figured out a commercial use for these rare animals. Without these ranchers help the world may have lost some of the most beautiful animals on the planet left to extinction in their own home countries. For example, the scimitar oryx once inhabited the whole of North Africa and roamed its plains in vast herds, but was declared extinct in the wild in 2000.
So where is the controversy? Since the goal of conserving many endangered species from extinction has been a resounding success, why would an international animal rights organization be suing the pants off the ranchers doing the conserving?
Well it turns out the problem rests with the word conservation. Over the years the ranchers realized there was a commercial value to raising endangered exotic animals; sport hunting. Rich trophy hunters from all over the globe for generations made treks to the African Safari to bag one of these rare animals… until the supply ran out. Now they take their safaris and spend their money in Texas. The money they spend, up to $50,000 for a water buffalo, goes to the ranchers who raise these animals and helps pay for their upkeep and protection. Raising stock for sale is what ranchers do. Instead of raising a cow worth $1000, they are now raising animals worth tens of thousands of dollars. Sounds like kudos go to the ranchers and American capitalism is in good working order!
Would you pay $50,000 to save me?
Not so fast. Remember Priscilla Feral from the international animal rights organization? Her idea of conservation of a species does not include the harvesting of a single one of them. In spite of the fact that some of these animals would have gone extinct already were not for zoos and the intervention of Texas ranchers, she feels using them for sport is wrong; morally, ethically, and legally wrong. The ranchers limit the amount of permits they sell to hunters to 10% of the herds for each of their exotic species, so as to assure a continuing growth in the herd population. They use the money they make for a good cause, rescuing nearly extinct animals from the dustbin of history, but apparently using an animal as a trophy is simply unacceptable to some people regardless of the successful outcomes from their conservation efforts.
Only a hunter could love a face like hip’s.
So should American ranchers be allowed to raise exotic animals for profit to preserve a species which would probably go extinct without their intervention? The American government seems to think so. The US Fish and Wildlife Service, a branch of the Department of the Interior, states that “Hunting… provides an economic incentive… for ranchers to continue to breed these species." Further, they state that “…hunting…reduces the threat of the species’ extinction.”
Nevertheless, it would appear the people suing the ranchers would rather a species go extinct than to see them being used like the cattle they are. They expect the ranchers to discontinue the very programs which support the whole conservation effort rather than to permit the harvesting of a few animals for the good of the herds. The sad part is they have already met with a measure of success. After a federal judge rejected a last-minute appeal by ranchers for an injunction in April 2011, hunters in Texas will no longer be able to hunt three endangered species of antelopes without a federal permit.
Absent a financial reason for breeding these animals, ranchers will most certainly turn to other ways to earn their living. It is too bad that such an action will inevitably put these animals back on the road to extinction. These creatures have thrived in Texas, which has the largest population anywhere in the world of these three endangered antelopes. According to the Texas-based Exotic Wildlife Association, the scimitar-horned oryx’s numbers in a captive breeding program in Texas grew from 32 to more than 11,000 today. The dama gazelle, the rarest of these three, numbered only nine in 1979 but there are more than 800 today.
Meanwhile there were only two addax known to exist in Texas in 1971, but there are more than 5,000 of them today.
Those numbers scream conservation of the first order. Priscilla Feral’s “conservation” efforts are a cruel joke on our sensibilities. To suggest that the cows ranchers raised for hundreds of years are in some way suitable for slaughter while their prettier cousins aren’t is juvenile. To suggest that a zebra is something other than a horse with a fancy coat is beyond adult comprehension. To suggest our American buffalos are suitable for hunting but an African buffalo should be off limits is beyond the pale.
I’m just a horse like a Ferrari is just a car!
In this case a misdirected “do-gooder” is doing unimaginable harm by taking the conservation efforts of our American ranchers and making those ranchers subject to federal regulation. John Stossel is apoplectic.
A recent segment on 60 Minutes put a spotlight on an interesting philosophical battle going on between two groups of people supposedly working for the same cause, the conservation of endangered species. The battle is over exotic animals and the battleground is in Texas. On the one side we have 5000 cattle ranchers raising endangered and exotic species. This group, represented by Charly Seale, executive director of the Exotic Wildlife Association of Texas, has been successful at increasing some exotic herds to the point where they are no longer endangered. In the opposite corner, but on the same side of the street supposedly, is the "Friends of Animals", an international animal rights organization led by Priscilla Feral.
What the argument and seven-year legal battle is about is how these animals are being used by the ranchers. Here is the back story.
Three species of African antelopes were in extreme danger of extinction in their own indigenous countries in Africa. Concerned American ranchers, at their own expense, offered to set aside grazing lands from their own property to try to save these species. They got breeding stock from American zoos, the last safe habitat for these rare animals, and hoped for the best. These ranchers just liked the look of a scimitar or African Giselle mingling with their herds of Texas longhorns.
How would you like a rack like mine?
Long story short, the animals thrived. In fact, some of the animals closest to extinction have come back from the brink in spectacular fashion. They've done so well the ranchers figured out a commercial use for these rare animals. Without these ranchers help the world may have lost some of the most beautiful animals on the planet left to extinction in their own home countries. For example, the scimitar oryx once inhabited the whole of North Africa and roamed its plains in vast herds, but was declared extinct in the wild in 2000.
So where is the controversy? Since the goal of conserving many endangered species from extinction has been a resounding success, why would an international animal rights organization be suing the pants off the ranchers doing the conserving?
Well it turns out the problem rests with the word conservation. Over the years the ranchers realized there was a commercial value to raising endangered exotic animals; sport hunting. Rich trophy hunters from all over the globe for generations made treks to the African Safari to bag one of these rare animals… until the supply ran out. Now they take their safaris and spend their money in Texas. The money they spend, up to $50,000 for a water buffalo, goes to the ranchers who raise these animals and helps pay for their upkeep and protection. Raising stock for sale is what ranchers do. Instead of raising a cow worth $1000, they are now raising animals worth tens of thousands of dollars. Sounds like kudos go to the ranchers and American capitalism is in good working order!
Would you pay $50,000 to save me?
Not so fast. Remember Priscilla Feral from the international animal rights organization? Her idea of conservation of a species does not include the harvesting of a single one of them. In spite of the fact that some of these animals would have gone extinct already were not for zoos and the intervention of Texas ranchers, she feels using them for sport is wrong; morally, ethically, and legally wrong. The ranchers limit the amount of permits they sell to hunters to 10% of the herds for each of their exotic species, so as to assure a continuing growth in the herd population. They use the money they make for a good cause, rescuing nearly extinct animals from the dustbin of history, but apparently using an animal as a trophy is simply unacceptable to some people regardless of the successful outcomes from their conservation efforts.
Only a hunter could love a face like hip’s.
So should American ranchers be allowed to raise exotic animals for profit to preserve a species which would probably go extinct without their intervention? The American government seems to think so. The US Fish and Wildlife Service, a branch of the Department of the Interior, states that “Hunting… provides an economic incentive… for ranchers to continue to breed these species." Further, they state that “…hunting…reduces the threat of the species’ extinction.”
Nevertheless, it would appear the people suing the ranchers would rather a species go extinct than to see them being used like the cattle they are. They expect the ranchers to discontinue the very programs which support the whole conservation effort rather than to permit the harvesting of a few animals for the good of the herds. The sad part is they have already met with a measure of success. After a federal judge rejected a last-minute appeal by ranchers for an injunction in April 2011, hunters in Texas will no longer be able to hunt three endangered species of antelopes without a federal permit.
Absent a financial reason for breeding these animals, ranchers will most certainly turn to other ways to earn their living. It is too bad that such an action will inevitably put these animals back on the road to extinction. These creatures have thrived in Texas, which has the largest population anywhere in the world of these three endangered antelopes. According to the Texas-based Exotic Wildlife Association, the scimitar-horned oryx’s numbers in a captive breeding program in Texas grew from 32 to more than 11,000 today. The dama gazelle, the rarest of these three, numbered only nine in 1979 but there are more than 800 today.
Meanwhile there were only two addax known to exist in Texas in 1971, but there are more than 5,000 of them today.
Those numbers scream conservation of the first order. Priscilla Feral’s “conservation” efforts are a cruel joke on our sensibilities. To suggest that the cows ranchers raised for hundreds of years are in some way suitable for slaughter while their prettier cousins aren’t is juvenile. To suggest that a zebra is something other than a horse with a fancy coat is beyond adult comprehension. To suggest our American buffalos are suitable for hunting but an African buffalo should be off limits is beyond the pale.
I’m just a horse like a Ferrari is just a car!
In this case a misdirected “do-gooder” is doing unimaginable harm by taking the conservation efforts of our American ranchers and making those ranchers subject to federal regulation. John Stossel is apoplectic.
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Serious People
Serious people always baffled me. These are the people who walk around with a frown, acting as if the entire world rested unsteadily on their shoulders. Dour is a word I always used to describe serious people; cynical with a serious bias to the negative side would be another, and grave is one of my personal favorites.
Serious people have always had a way of making me feel guilty for some reason. Perhaps it is because I never had a reason to feel very "serious" about anything. I don't mean I am frivolous or ditzy, or that I can't be hurt or feel fear. I just mean that as an eternal optimist I always look at the bright side of life, which automatically squeezes a great deal of the "serious" out.
Here is my question. What good is serious or how much good does it do? Does being "serious" about a problem mean you care more about the income of or outcome from a situation than someone with a more casual attitude would? Does taking your job seriously mean you are automatically better at it than someone with a nonchalant attitude? (Bosses sure seem to think so.) Is being "serious" about someone a good thing? Can you be happy without being serious? Can you be successful or trusted without having a "serious bone" in your body?
Serious is associated with a sign of maturity. Nobody expects kids to be serious. Most people around the world seem to think that a person’s chronological age makes all the difference and as soon as we become adults by law we should become serious about life. It didn't work that way for me. I refused to “grow” up or develop a serious side.
I could never see very far into the future and therefore never saw any reason not to have fun and enjoy whatever I was doing in the present. Some people say "grow a frown", get some worry lines going on and begin to act your age. Having fun and playing are inconsistent with getting serious about life and being responsible. Wipe that smile off your face!
I never felt like I was shouldering more than I could carry and therefore I never felt the weight of the world pressing down on me. I don't mean to suggest I never carried any weight; I ran businesses and had many employees. I just carried the weight with a good attitude so the weight was never hard to bear. I never ran into a problem which couldn’t be better solved with a smile than a frown. I never ran into a situation where a more serious attitude would have improved or affected the outcome one way or another.
So I traded in the worry lines I earned in life for laugh lines and learned to fake being serious, as befitted my station in life. But inside I never grew a serious bone. As I grew older I accumulated some serious baggage but I kept it in the trunk. Sh*t happens but I never saw any reason to allow the bitter ugly in life to ruin my upbeat disposition.
Serious has a place in life, no doubt. It reinforces lessons we need to learn. We should take learning seriously. We should take love and family seriously. But to become a serious person would be entirely too serious a thing for me to do.
Author's note: I wrote this blog in part to encourage people to lighten up a little. I also wrote this blog because many people who have read my blogs have asked how to attract more traffic to their sites. This blog is an example of SEO, otherwise known as search engine optimization.
As you can clearly see, I sprinkled the word serious all over this blog. In no time at all this blog will show up on the front page, if not in the number one position, for the search word “serious”. (At least I think it will. :) To increase your page rank pick a word that relates to what you are trying to sell or say and paste it all over your blog or website. Do this in an intelligent manner, not in nonsense sentences, and the search engines will love you.
At least, that is the theory. Keep an eye on "serious" over the next few weeks to see my results.
PS: And please spread this blog around! :):)
Serious people have always had a way of making me feel guilty for some reason. Perhaps it is because I never had a reason to feel very "serious" about anything. I don't mean I am frivolous or ditzy, or that I can't be hurt or feel fear. I just mean that as an eternal optimist I always look at the bright side of life, which automatically squeezes a great deal of the "serious" out.
Here is my question. What good is serious or how much good does it do? Does being "serious" about a problem mean you care more about the income of or outcome from a situation than someone with a more casual attitude would? Does taking your job seriously mean you are automatically better at it than someone with a nonchalant attitude? (Bosses sure seem to think so.) Is being "serious" about someone a good thing? Can you be happy without being serious? Can you be successful or trusted without having a "serious bone" in your body?
Serious is associated with a sign of maturity. Nobody expects kids to be serious. Most people around the world seem to think that a person’s chronological age makes all the difference and as soon as we become adults by law we should become serious about life. It didn't work that way for me. I refused to “grow” up or develop a serious side.
I could never see very far into the future and therefore never saw any reason not to have fun and enjoy whatever I was doing in the present. Some people say "grow a frown", get some worry lines going on and begin to act your age. Having fun and playing are inconsistent with getting serious about life and being responsible. Wipe that smile off your face!
I never felt like I was shouldering more than I could carry and therefore I never felt the weight of the world pressing down on me. I don't mean to suggest I never carried any weight; I ran businesses and had many employees. I just carried the weight with a good attitude so the weight was never hard to bear. I never ran into a problem which couldn’t be better solved with a smile than a frown. I never ran into a situation where a more serious attitude would have improved or affected the outcome one way or another.
So I traded in the worry lines I earned in life for laugh lines and learned to fake being serious, as befitted my station in life. But inside I never grew a serious bone. As I grew older I accumulated some serious baggage but I kept it in the trunk. Sh*t happens but I never saw any reason to allow the bitter ugly in life to ruin my upbeat disposition.
Serious has a place in life, no doubt. It reinforces lessons we need to learn. We should take learning seriously. We should take love and family seriously. But to become a serious person would be entirely too serious a thing for me to do.
Author's note: I wrote this blog in part to encourage people to lighten up a little. I also wrote this blog because many people who have read my blogs have asked how to attract more traffic to their sites. This blog is an example of SEO, otherwise known as search engine optimization.
As you can clearly see, I sprinkled the word serious all over this blog. In no time at all this blog will show up on the front page, if not in the number one position, for the search word “serious”. (At least I think it will. :) To increase your page rank pick a word that relates to what you are trying to sell or say and paste it all over your blog or website. Do this in an intelligent manner, not in nonsense sentences, and the search engines will love you.
At least, that is the theory. Keep an eye on "serious" over the next few weeks to see my results.
PS: And please spread this blog around! :):)
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
!! Breaking News !!
Perhaps the most hackneyed expression in the news is “breaking news”.
In years past when I saw the bright red banner "Breaking News" on the screen I would stop what I was doing and pay attention. After all, what was soon to follow was sure to be a real ground trembler, or a tsunami, or any cataclysmic event worthy of my immediate and complete attention, right?
Over the last decade "breaking news" standards have slipped to say the least. Celebrity news like, for example, “Britney blows fresh breath” make instant headlines, but quite frankly I could care less. Disaster news like wildfires rampaging somewhere or 50 car pile ups in a fog somewhere put me to sleep.
It is not that I could care less; it is that I care too much.
The truth is I am shell shocked by the onslaught of "bad" news breaking over me continuously. I know I am suffering from some new, as yet unpublished form of distress syndrome brought about by the continuous bombarding of my senses with heartbreaking news.
By now I am more than ready to hear some "breaking news" that isn’t heartbreaking. My guess is that millions of others are also. So how about a new e-zine called “Good News“? Does anybody want to subscribe?
Didn't think so. (The sad truth is “good news” just doesn’t sell well.)
In years past when I saw the bright red banner "Breaking News" on the screen I would stop what I was doing and pay attention. After all, what was soon to follow was sure to be a real ground trembler, or a tsunami, or any cataclysmic event worthy of my immediate and complete attention, right?
Over the last decade "breaking news" standards have slipped to say the least. Celebrity news like, for example, “Britney blows fresh breath” make instant headlines, but quite frankly I could care less. Disaster news like wildfires rampaging somewhere or 50 car pile ups in a fog somewhere put me to sleep.
It is not that I could care less; it is that I care too much.
The truth is I am shell shocked by the onslaught of "bad" news breaking over me continuously. I know I am suffering from some new, as yet unpublished form of distress syndrome brought about by the continuous bombarding of my senses with heartbreaking news.
By now I am more than ready to hear some "breaking news" that isn’t heartbreaking. My guess is that millions of others are also. So how about a new e-zine called “Good News“? Does anybody want to subscribe?
Didn't think so. (The sad truth is “good news” just doesn’t sell well.)
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Cybercops, The New Breed
Have you heard about the latest police"initiative"?
Apparently there are not enough criminals falling into court on their own to keep the system happy. The punishment sector of society requires ever more public offenders to provide a base for the growth in the share of our national budget dedicated to the penal systems in all 50 states. When the supply of ready offenders falls short, or, in other words, when crime rates fall, state legislators simply make more laws making more things illegal to fill the gap.
Take California's penal system for example. It is California's largest single budget item, larger even than their gigantic health and welfare department and far larger than their entire educational or human services system. The funny thing about this major budget item is it is sacrosanct and gets the full support and backing of both the public and organized crime. When Gov. Schwarzenegger tried to scale the system back to something that made sense given today's tight budget constraints he got slapped down hard. It seems everybody is happy with the numbers of cops and robbers in the system today. It’s just that no one wants to pay for them.
So the legislatures around the country pony up to support an obese bureaucracy dedicated to putting more and more people in jail. We could spend our money trying to correct people's behavior, or by trying to eliminate the reason people find themselves caught up in the system in the first place. NO WAY! In this country we prefer to cage each other like animals rather than to rehabilitate our social misfits.
Since nothing major has occurred in our country in the last decade to keep people frightened and willing to pay up for more security, police departments are under pressure to justify their bloated budgets. They are rising to the challenge in a unique and unusual way. Police departments are creating special task forces who move into the digital world as cyber spies and digital sport hunters. These specialized hunters are setting traps all over the web. However their main focus is in their favorite area of crime investigation, the sexual realm since sex crimes make the best headlines.
What they now do is they set up phony links offering lurid tag lines. These come ons are designed to seduce the unsuspecting public into incriminating themselves by following these phony links. For example, they may attempt to lure a child sexual predator into giving himself away by following a suggestive thread into a private chat room. The next morning the proud owner of that IP address gets a 6 AM cyber SWAT, military style invasion guaranteed to put the rest of his life in a tailspin.
Mind you, this person may have been merely curious, may have been doing research, or may have had dozens of other reasons to follow a lurid link. Heck the person may have even clicked on the link by mistake! This person may have had no history of child sexual abuse throughout his entire life and is now about to be convicted by the press and in the court of public opinion as a child molester. I do not know how anyone could ever expect to recover from public exposure to charges like this. Regardless of guilt or innocence anyone accused of a crime of this nature is ruined for life.
So is this a good idea America? Should we send our excessive police forces forging out into the cyberspace world to create a whole new class of criminal? Should we give up any notion of internet privacy in favor of a dubious good? Is setting traps for Internet users even a morally good, let alone the best, way to manage our resources? Are we now capable of determining when thought crimes are being committed, and should we start putting people in jail for what they may be thinking whether or not they have even done anything wrong? Are we ready to start putting people in jail for what they have looked at online?
We’d better get ready to build a whole bunch more jails since anybody with an iPod or cell phone is a potential criminal in a heartbeat.
Is this America's concept of freedom going forward?
Apparently there are not enough criminals falling into court on their own to keep the system happy. The punishment sector of society requires ever more public offenders to provide a base for the growth in the share of our national budget dedicated to the penal systems in all 50 states. When the supply of ready offenders falls short, or, in other words, when crime rates fall, state legislators simply make more laws making more things illegal to fill the gap.
Take California's penal system for example. It is California's largest single budget item, larger even than their gigantic health and welfare department and far larger than their entire educational or human services system. The funny thing about this major budget item is it is sacrosanct and gets the full support and backing of both the public and organized crime. When Gov. Schwarzenegger tried to scale the system back to something that made sense given today's tight budget constraints he got slapped down hard. It seems everybody is happy with the numbers of cops and robbers in the system today. It’s just that no one wants to pay for them.
So the legislatures around the country pony up to support an obese bureaucracy dedicated to putting more and more people in jail. We could spend our money trying to correct people's behavior, or by trying to eliminate the reason people find themselves caught up in the system in the first place. NO WAY! In this country we prefer to cage each other like animals rather than to rehabilitate our social misfits.
Since nothing major has occurred in our country in the last decade to keep people frightened and willing to pay up for more security, police departments are under pressure to justify their bloated budgets. They are rising to the challenge in a unique and unusual way. Police departments are creating special task forces who move into the digital world as cyber spies and digital sport hunters. These specialized hunters are setting traps all over the web. However their main focus is in their favorite area of crime investigation, the sexual realm since sex crimes make the best headlines.
What they now do is they set up phony links offering lurid tag lines. These come ons are designed to seduce the unsuspecting public into incriminating themselves by following these phony links. For example, they may attempt to lure a child sexual predator into giving himself away by following a suggestive thread into a private chat room. The next morning the proud owner of that IP address gets a 6 AM cyber SWAT, military style invasion guaranteed to put the rest of his life in a tailspin.
Mind you, this person may have been merely curious, may have been doing research, or may have had dozens of other reasons to follow a lurid link. Heck the person may have even clicked on the link by mistake! This person may have had no history of child sexual abuse throughout his entire life and is now about to be convicted by the press and in the court of public opinion as a child molester. I do not know how anyone could ever expect to recover from public exposure to charges like this. Regardless of guilt or innocence anyone accused of a crime of this nature is ruined for life.
So is this a good idea America? Should we send our excessive police forces forging out into the cyberspace world to create a whole new class of criminal? Should we give up any notion of internet privacy in favor of a dubious good? Is setting traps for Internet users even a morally good, let alone the best, way to manage our resources? Are we now capable of determining when thought crimes are being committed, and should we start putting people in jail for what they may be thinking whether or not they have even done anything wrong? Are we ready to start putting people in jail for what they have looked at online?
We’d better get ready to build a whole bunch more jails since anybody with an iPod or cell phone is a potential criminal in a heartbeat.
Is this America's concept of freedom going forward?
Monday, April 2, 2012
People entrusted can't be Trusted.
A good share of responsibility for the condition our country is in belongs to "we the people". People gripe about public official dereliction of duty and then forget that the primary duty of all citizens in this country is to stay informed on issues and vote in elections; after all, we are responsible for electing these people.
By the definition of a citizen's responsibility above, over half of the country is derelict in their duty.
Somewhere along the last half century people became nauseated by endless public disgraces. We had a litany of public disgraces from money to sex rubbed in our noses since the early 80’s. We the public became disgusted and millions of Americans tuned out.
President Clinton didn't help our image with his dick–licious tales of Oval oral Office intrigue. He also didn't advance our language skills with his "depends on your definition of what "is” is crap. Nevertheless, he did more for our country than most Presidents prior to and every President since his administration. Alas, his and America's image will be forever tarnished for no good reason.
George Bush Two ---‘nough said. GWB2 will go down in history as our worst President!
A list of public disgraces we should add to our national legacy are:
1.sexual scandals among our religious leaders starting with the Bakkers, Jerry Falwell, and the Catholic, Baptist, Mormon and other church officials guilty of sexual predation.
2.fanatical ministers like Jim Jones who sped his followers into the afterlife by convincing them to take self administered poisons, or the guy who attached himself and his followers to Haley's Comet.
3.the Church of Scientology who, through benign neglect, has caused the death of Lisa McPherson and misery to many others; the truth is western religion has done more throughout the centuries to arrest the advance of human development than just about anything but voodoo. The widespread practice among the Catholic clergy of prostrating their public (literally) may have castrated that religion permanently.
4.limitless sexual scandals among every stratosphere of public "officialdom” but whose media exploitation is particularly damaging to our National sense of self respect. When our “elites” get frozen in the spotlights red glare we all suffer a death by many cuts.
So is it any wonder why people are tuning out of the very issues that will affect them the most in the future? People, in general, hate politics!
By the definition of a citizen's responsibility above, over half of the country is derelict in their duty.
Somewhere along the last half century people became nauseated by endless public disgraces. We had a litany of public disgraces from money to sex rubbed in our noses since the early 80’s. We the public became disgusted and millions of Americans tuned out.
President Clinton didn't help our image with his dick–licious tales of Oval oral Office intrigue. He also didn't advance our language skills with his "depends on your definition of what "is” is crap. Nevertheless, he did more for our country than most Presidents prior to and every President since his administration. Alas, his and America's image will be forever tarnished for no good reason.
George Bush Two ---‘nough said. GWB2 will go down in history as our worst President!
A list of public disgraces we should add to our national legacy are:
1.sexual scandals among our religious leaders starting with the Bakkers, Jerry Falwell, and the Catholic, Baptist, Mormon and other church officials guilty of sexual predation.
2.fanatical ministers like Jim Jones who sped his followers into the afterlife by convincing them to take self administered poisons, or the guy who attached himself and his followers to Haley's Comet.
3.the Church of Scientology who, through benign neglect, has caused the death of Lisa McPherson and misery to many others; the truth is western religion has done more throughout the centuries to arrest the advance of human development than just about anything but voodoo. The widespread practice among the Catholic clergy of prostrating their public (literally) may have castrated that religion permanently.
4.limitless sexual scandals among every stratosphere of public "officialdom” but whose media exploitation is particularly damaging to our National sense of self respect. When our “elites” get frozen in the spotlights red glare we all suffer a death by many cuts.
So is it any wonder why people are tuning out of the very issues that will affect them the most in the future? People, in general, hate politics!
Friday, March 16, 2012
Trial Balloons
In an attempt to gain traction in the presidential election Republican candidates have been furiously launching trial balloons. Previous balloons which failed to stay afloat were, for example, challenges to President Obama's citizenship, attempts to associate the president with alleged mob members, and even an attempt to discredit his academic credentials.
The latest trial balloons or hot button topics some Republican candidates are attempting to use to gain traction in the election include, of all things, attacks on women's healthcare, and abortion-rights issues thought settled and buried years ago.
To say these Republican candidates are "pandering" to their base is to use far too weak a word. Groveling is closer, but the most accurate word one could use to describe these people is that they are actually debasing themselves.
Why these candidates feel they need to swing so far out on the extreme right limb is because that is where the money is. Republican candidates, with the sole exception of Ron Paul, have no viable funding sources save one, the fat cat billionaire. Without the infusion of millions of dollars from billionaires only Romney would have the wherewithal to compete in a national election against an incumbent president.
Once the primary process finally spits out a candidate, that candidate will have to convince women to vote against their own self-interest on issues like birth control and abortion. Otherwise, in order to get back in step with the real world, the last man standing will have to cause selective amnesia in over 50% of the voting public as some major flip-flopping over womens' rights issues takes place.
Romney will be that candidate. He is probably the best flip flopper the nation has ever produced.
The latest trial balloons or hot button topics some Republican candidates are attempting to use to gain traction in the election include, of all things, attacks on women's healthcare, and abortion-rights issues thought settled and buried years ago.
To say these Republican candidates are "pandering" to their base is to use far too weak a word. Groveling is closer, but the most accurate word one could use to describe these people is that they are actually debasing themselves.
Why these candidates feel they need to swing so far out on the extreme right limb is because that is where the money is. Republican candidates, with the sole exception of Ron Paul, have no viable funding sources save one, the fat cat billionaire. Without the infusion of millions of dollars from billionaires only Romney would have the wherewithal to compete in a national election against an incumbent president.
Once the primary process finally spits out a candidate, that candidate will have to convince women to vote against their own self-interest on issues like birth control and abortion. Otherwise, in order to get back in step with the real world, the last man standing will have to cause selective amnesia in over 50% of the voting public as some major flip-flopping over womens' rights issues takes place.
Romney will be that candidate. He is probably the best flip flopper the nation has ever produced.
Monday, February 27, 2012
A sign of sanity in an insane world….
People who have had a military background
or who come from a rough neighborhood
frequently associate an attitude of nonviolence
with a personal lack of courage or, even worse,
cowardice.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
I have never met anyone less violent than
myself. I am a blend of vanilla and milk toast.
I have never lost a fight my life either.
My objection to violence in any form is
intellectual in nature; it has nothing to do
with the physical realm.
If I have to defend myself I will do so, and
with vigor, but that solution is always my
last choice. I realized before I was 10 years
old that violence never settled anything really.
As soon as a conflict becomes physical all
reason goes out the window. The question
is no longer who is right or wrong, but who
is stronger or better trained. Unfortunately,
once reason ceases to hold the high ground,
morality also disappears from view.
Brinkmanship used to be an art form among
nations, when saber rattling meant exactly
that. Opposing forces were roughly equivalent
since the technological advantage between
stones and arrows was not that great. With
today's modern weaponry brinkmanship has
lost sway to brute force and military action
has become a euphemism for slaughter.
Today the old warning “you hit me and I'll hit
you back harder” no longer applies. Now if
you hit the US we will hunt you, your friends,
relatives, and fellow countryman down and
send a smart bomb up everyone’s ass.
That's hardly a fair fight.
So now, since US is clearly the biggest fist
on the planet, every other country must go
along to get along or die; either economically,
or we will simply blow them to smithereens.
My question is this. Will a world ruled by
Judeo/Christian theology become less violent
over time, or more? Weigh in on this folks.
Our children's future depends on our getting
the answer right.
or who come from a rough neighborhood
frequently associate an attitude of nonviolence
with a personal lack of courage or, even worse,
cowardice.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
I have never met anyone less violent than
myself. I am a blend of vanilla and milk toast.
I have never lost a fight my life either.
My objection to violence in any form is
intellectual in nature; it has nothing to do
with the physical realm.
If I have to defend myself I will do so, and
with vigor, but that solution is always my
last choice. I realized before I was 10 years
old that violence never settled anything really.
As soon as a conflict becomes physical all
reason goes out the window. The question
is no longer who is right or wrong, but who
is stronger or better trained. Unfortunately,
once reason ceases to hold the high ground,
morality also disappears from view.
Brinkmanship used to be an art form among
nations, when saber rattling meant exactly
that. Opposing forces were roughly equivalent
since the technological advantage between
stones and arrows was not that great. With
today's modern weaponry brinkmanship has
lost sway to brute force and military action
has become a euphemism for slaughter.
Today the old warning “you hit me and I'll hit
you back harder” no longer applies. Now if
you hit the US we will hunt you, your friends,
relatives, and fellow countryman down and
send a smart bomb up everyone’s ass.
That's hardly a fair fight.
So now, since US is clearly the biggest fist
on the planet, every other country must go
along to get along or die; either economically,
or we will simply blow them to smithereens.
My question is this. Will a world ruled by
Judeo/Christian theology become less violent
over time, or more? Weigh in on this folks.
Our children's future depends on our getting
the answer right.
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Gangsters ain't what they used to be...
An amazing modernization has taken place, not just in our country but all over the world among the criminal hierarchy. Just a century or two ago you could see the bandits coming a mile away. They were the guys wearing masks.
Today's gangsters/banksters are likely to be wearing Armani suits and alligator suede shoes while lurking behind designer shades. They would be the guys with the manicured hands, $400 haircuts, and million-dollar smiles.
What is amazing is that the public, in spite of the fact that they are the ones being taken advantage of by these guys, can't help but worship well-dressed crooks. Take John Gotti, the dapper Don, for example. The fact that he led an organization whose members were all murders and hard-core criminals actually added to his appeal.
Ignoring humanity's principles with aplomb, the gangsta groupies fawn over criminal enterprise overlords like self flagellates before a statue of Christ. The bigger the crimes they get credit for the more prestigious these Dark Lords become. Many of our youth today admire and attempt to emulate these bad guys instead of admiring and aspiring to be the President.
I suppose it doesn't really matter whether it is the gangster, bankster, or some branch of government that is exploiting the little guy. In the end we are all treated like the sheep we are taught to be.
Today's gangsters/banksters are likely to be wearing Armani suits and alligator suede shoes while lurking behind designer shades. They would be the guys with the manicured hands, $400 haircuts, and million-dollar smiles.
What is amazing is that the public, in spite of the fact that they are the ones being taken advantage of by these guys, can't help but worship well-dressed crooks. Take John Gotti, the dapper Don, for example. The fact that he led an organization whose members were all murders and hard-core criminals actually added to his appeal.
Ignoring humanity's principles with aplomb, the gangsta groupies fawn over criminal enterprise overlords like self flagellates before a statue of Christ. The bigger the crimes they get credit for the more prestigious these Dark Lords become. Many of our youth today admire and attempt to emulate these bad guys instead of admiring and aspiring to be the President.
I suppose it doesn't really matter whether it is the gangster, bankster, or some branch of government that is exploiting the little guy. In the end we are all treated like the sheep we are taught to be.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Hubble Has Changed The Odds
The new orbiting Hubble telescope has just added an alarming dimension to humanity’s concept of our place in the cosmos. Where we once thought we were all alone in the universe, it now appears that our galaxy must be teeming with life. We just went from being on God's arm to being on the edge of nowhere in a tiny galaxy far from the center of our expanding universe.
Recent Hubble photos of distant stars have revealed the presence of planets in orbit around most of them. That means that among the billions of stars we can currently see there must be hundreds of billions or trillions of planets and moons that we can't yet see. If our planet can support life I guess it would only be fair and make sense to suppose a similar planet or Earth sized moon could do the same.
We just lately identified a planet around a far sun which has a water-based atmosphere similar to our own. The major difference between Earth and that distant planet is it is twice our size and much hotter and wetter. Nevertheless, life forms we have living here in our oceans next to thermal vents and lava flows could probably survive there.
Out of approximately 500 planets recently discovered orbiting suns within our galaxy at least one has been determined to have an organic atmosphere similar to ours here on earth, capable of supporting life similar to or identical to ours. Therefore, the odds of another planet besides our own supporting life of some sort somewhere out in the cosmos just switched from zero to infinite.
Can you imagine the about-face all the pretenders to "sacred truths" and their devout followers of "divine inspiration" will need to make to get back in step with this new reality?
Recent Hubble photos of distant stars have revealed the presence of planets in orbit around most of them. That means that among the billions of stars we can currently see there must be hundreds of billions or trillions of planets and moons that we can't yet see. If our planet can support life I guess it would only be fair and make sense to suppose a similar planet or Earth sized moon could do the same.
We just lately identified a planet around a far sun which has a water-based atmosphere similar to our own. The major difference between Earth and that distant planet is it is twice our size and much hotter and wetter. Nevertheless, life forms we have living here in our oceans next to thermal vents and lava flows could probably survive there.
Out of approximately 500 planets recently discovered orbiting suns within our galaxy at least one has been determined to have an organic atmosphere similar to ours here on earth, capable of supporting life similar to or identical to ours. Therefore, the odds of another planet besides our own supporting life of some sort somewhere out in the cosmos just switched from zero to infinite.
Can you imagine the about-face all the pretenders to "sacred truths" and their devout followers of "divine inspiration" will need to make to get back in step with this new reality?
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
The Grease, er Greece, trap phenomenon.
Talk about an economic coup! When I think about it I realize just what a miracle the tiny little nation of Greece has managed for its citizens over the last half a century.
First of all the country has had free education and free healthcare for all of its citizens for decades. I may be off by a day or two or a country or two, but I believe the Greeks have afforded themselves the longest paid vacations of any country on the planet; and to think they get the spend their vacation on the Mediterranean.
On top of that they have also afforded themselves the smallest income and property tax rates on their continent. As a consequence the Greeks have had the largest growth in personal wealth in the world recently and, per capita, Greek citizens are among the worlds richest.
Now you may ask yourself how the Greeks afforded all these benefits and growth in personal wealth since they manufacture very little, export less than they import, and their only claim to fame is their shipping industry, which they tax at a ridiculously low rate.
Well the answer obvious once you think about it. They borrowed the money.
Talk about brilliant, wow. Greece muscled its way into the top 10 best standards of living on the planet for over half a century on other people's money. Smooth operators! But now what? You can stiff the fiddler but Shylock, the banker, sooner or later will have his pound of flesh.
Now the entire continent is forced to share in Grecian deflation and they are not pleased about it. Greece is like a close friend or relative who invites everybody to dinner at a really classy restaurant and then slips away before paying the tab, or leaving a tip.
On the other hand, the whole continent, with a few exceptions, primarily in the North, has been treating itself to the best that socialism can offer at the bequest of the best that capitalism can offer. Humm. So, have the European peasants finally managed to slip it to their gold plated masters?
Ironically, it is the richest in Europe who'll end up standing good for the largess the entire citizenry has enjoyed. People with little stand to lose little, but the poor have still enjoyed the benefits provided by their most generous leaders over these past decades.
The common, middle-class man will have gotten away with a far greater standard of living than he could've afforded for himself and yet he has no worry about future recourse since it is not possible to place a claim on past healthcare, educational, and other social benefits.
How it will all play out is hard to say. If the truth be told all countries have been borrowing to provide a better standard of living for their citizens. In Europe the whole structure of the euro community trembles at the first sign of a leak in the dyke, AKA the Greece default trap, for good reason. My bet is that the stronger European countries will have to bail out the weaker ones for their own good; it is also their cheapest alternative by far. No country, let alone an entire continent, can afford a deep depression without a revolution.
So just how bad is a Greece default? When you put it into perspective, just one of our companies, Apple, has more cash in the bank than the entire Greek default debt. Apple could buy Greece lock stock and barrel. So a default is not that tragic really. AIG, Lehman Brothers, and a few national banks have had far more impact than the entire Greek debacle ever could. Ireland survived, and so will Greece.
What scares Europeans most is that the Greek debt problem exposes the entire continent to Greek style belt tightening measures since they all have been living beyond their means. No one wants to give up steak for beans.
First of all the country has had free education and free healthcare for all of its citizens for decades. I may be off by a day or two or a country or two, but I believe the Greeks have afforded themselves the longest paid vacations of any country on the planet; and to think they get the spend their vacation on the Mediterranean.
On top of that they have also afforded themselves the smallest income and property tax rates on their continent. As a consequence the Greeks have had the largest growth in personal wealth in the world recently and, per capita, Greek citizens are among the worlds richest.
Now you may ask yourself how the Greeks afforded all these benefits and growth in personal wealth since they manufacture very little, export less than they import, and their only claim to fame is their shipping industry, which they tax at a ridiculously low rate.
Well the answer obvious once you think about it. They borrowed the money.
Talk about brilliant, wow. Greece muscled its way into the top 10 best standards of living on the planet for over half a century on other people's money. Smooth operators! But now what? You can stiff the fiddler but Shylock, the banker, sooner or later will have his pound of flesh.
Now the entire continent is forced to share in Grecian deflation and they are not pleased about it. Greece is like a close friend or relative who invites everybody to dinner at a really classy restaurant and then slips away before paying the tab, or leaving a tip.
On the other hand, the whole continent, with a few exceptions, primarily in the North, has been treating itself to the best that socialism can offer at the bequest of the best that capitalism can offer. Humm. So, have the European peasants finally managed to slip it to their gold plated masters?
Ironically, it is the richest in Europe who'll end up standing good for the largess the entire citizenry has enjoyed. People with little stand to lose little, but the poor have still enjoyed the benefits provided by their most generous leaders over these past decades.
The common, middle-class man will have gotten away with a far greater standard of living than he could've afforded for himself and yet he has no worry about future recourse since it is not possible to place a claim on past healthcare, educational, and other social benefits.
How it will all play out is hard to say. If the truth be told all countries have been borrowing to provide a better standard of living for their citizens. In Europe the whole structure of the euro community trembles at the first sign of a leak in the dyke, AKA the Greece default trap, for good reason. My bet is that the stronger European countries will have to bail out the weaker ones for their own good; it is also their cheapest alternative by far. No country, let alone an entire continent, can afford a deep depression without a revolution.
So just how bad is a Greece default? When you put it into perspective, just one of our companies, Apple, has more cash in the bank than the entire Greek default debt. Apple could buy Greece lock stock and barrel. So a default is not that tragic really. AIG, Lehman Brothers, and a few national banks have had far more impact than the entire Greek debacle ever could. Ireland survived, and so will Greece.
What scares Europeans most is that the Greek debt problem exposes the entire continent to Greek style belt tightening measures since they all have been living beyond their means. No one wants to give up steak for beans.
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Consider doing the devil's work.
This is not a topic for the table, but...
From what I can gather the pay is fantastic! In fact, it is whatever your heart desires. The perks for doing the devil's work are, for all intents and purposes, infinite, and more to the point, immediate. You do what you want when you want, to whom you want, and all you need to do is to pay a little tribute; that is, until Judgment Day.
(Caution: don't cross anyone already doing the devil's work in your area. You may find your judgment day comes sooner rather than later.)
The tribute you pay is a percentage of your take. You donate to the right church (the right church being any group of influential people dedicated to their own interests and who will grease your wheels in exchange for you facilitating their cause) and you can do whatever you want without fear of interference, or if it comes down to it, fear of prosecution. The worst that can happen to you is that maybe you are forced to relocate; oh well, once busted soon harvested so it's time to move along anyway.
God fearing people can rationalize being used and exploited all their lives by believing that sooner or later those doing the devil's work will get their just desserts -- and they would be right. The biggest criminals and cretins get their just (or unjust) rewards day after day, year after year. You can try to convince yourself they will pay the ultimate price come judgment day; eternal damnation.
The master criminals' universal response to the claim they will get their "just rewards", eternal damnation, is "so prove it"; kinda like the show me or shove it digital finger response. Personally speaking, I'm still waiting for proof of punishment of any of the devil's advocates today before I can believe in the afterlife taking care of today's bad actors; otherwise, living by the rules and playing the game fairly is for fools.
From what I can gather the pay is fantastic! In fact, it is whatever your heart desires. The perks for doing the devil's work are, for all intents and purposes, infinite, and more to the point, immediate. You do what you want when you want, to whom you want, and all you need to do is to pay a little tribute; that is, until Judgment Day.
(Caution: don't cross anyone already doing the devil's work in your area. You may find your judgment day comes sooner rather than later.)
The tribute you pay is a percentage of your take. You donate to the right church (the right church being any group of influential people dedicated to their own interests and who will grease your wheels in exchange for you facilitating their cause) and you can do whatever you want without fear of interference, or if it comes down to it, fear of prosecution. The worst that can happen to you is that maybe you are forced to relocate; oh well, once busted soon harvested so it's time to move along anyway.
God fearing people can rationalize being used and exploited all their lives by believing that sooner or later those doing the devil's work will get their just desserts -- and they would be right. The biggest criminals and cretins get their just (or unjust) rewards day after day, year after year. You can try to convince yourself they will pay the ultimate price come judgment day; eternal damnation.
The master criminals' universal response to the claim they will get their "just rewards", eternal damnation, is "so prove it"; kinda like the show me or shove it digital finger response. Personally speaking, I'm still waiting for proof of punishment of any of the devil's advocates today before I can believe in the afterlife taking care of today's bad actors; otherwise, living by the rules and playing the game fairly is for fools.
Monday, January 23, 2012
Death is not complicated…
Death is not complicated; it is simply the antidote to life.
In physics it goes like this:
For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Birth, sooner or later, leads to death. You can't fight it;
it is a fact of nature as eternal as night and day.
So why do some world religions, and in particular
those religions whose roots sprang to life in the Middle
East, seem to promote the concept of a life after death
with such ferocity? After all, most people around the
world don't worry one bit about life after death. Life
is tough enough without that additional burden to carry.
I suspect the answer can be found within the concept
that, according to those religions,everyone will be
judged, and punished, by some
Dark Lord/earth and mankind creator who we manage,
by our very existence, to offend.
By supersuasion 100 generations of descendents of
these Middle Eastern religions, members of the Christian,
Muslim and Jewish faiths, have successfully transferred
the concept of guilt to their heirs. They have been so
successful at passing on their hand-me-down beliefs
they have completely distorted their own reality. In fact,
their reality is so disturbed they produce one of the rarest
creatures on the planet; one capable of self-destruction
for an imagined cause and a promised reward redeemable
in the afterlife.
Once having become enveloped in this particular brand
of mass delusion, where life after death takes on bizarre
dimensions, people can be managed easily. In all
descriptions of an afterlife, a perfect utopia, behavior
takes on human rather than godlike attributes. Everything
we missed out on while living we get to enjoy once we are
dead, as soon as we get to Heaven.
Right?
While in this malleable state our putty minds can be
shaped or warped into psychic manifestations more
animal than human; regressed into primal states. We
can be frightened into believing, and subsequently
following and doing, the most despicable acts
imaginable. I myself cannot imagine the horror of
living within a population where human beings daily
turn themselves into human bombs. Further,I can't
imagine believing in a religion so distorted it could
promote that kind of thinking and behavior.
And then I realized, eureka moment, it is not the
people of the Middle East that need to be ethnicly
cleansed and their residue flushed down the toilet.
It is the religions themselves.
In physics it goes like this:
For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Birth, sooner or later, leads to death. You can't fight it;
it is a fact of nature as eternal as night and day.
So why do some world religions, and in particular
those religions whose roots sprang to life in the Middle
East, seem to promote the concept of a life after death
with such ferocity? After all, most people around the
world don't worry one bit about life after death. Life
is tough enough without that additional burden to carry.
I suspect the answer can be found within the concept
that, according to those religions,everyone will be
judged, and punished, by some
Dark Lord/earth and mankind creator who we manage,
by our very existence, to offend.
By supersuasion 100 generations of descendents of
these Middle Eastern religions, members of the Christian,
Muslim and Jewish faiths, have successfully transferred
the concept of guilt to their heirs. They have been so
successful at passing on their hand-me-down beliefs
they have completely distorted their own reality. In fact,
their reality is so disturbed they produce one of the rarest
creatures on the planet; one capable of self-destruction
for an imagined cause and a promised reward redeemable
in the afterlife.
Once having become enveloped in this particular brand
of mass delusion, where life after death takes on bizarre
dimensions, people can be managed easily. In all
descriptions of an afterlife, a perfect utopia, behavior
takes on human rather than godlike attributes. Everything
we missed out on while living we get to enjoy once we are
dead, as soon as we get to Heaven.
Right?
While in this malleable state our putty minds can be
shaped or warped into psychic manifestations more
animal than human; regressed into primal states. We
can be frightened into believing, and subsequently
following and doing, the most despicable acts
imaginable. I myself cannot imagine the horror of
living within a population where human beings daily
turn themselves into human bombs. Further,I can't
imagine believing in a religion so distorted it could
promote that kind of thinking and behavior.
And then I realized, eureka moment, it is not the
people of the Middle East that need to be ethnicly
cleansed and their residue flushed down the toilet.
It is the religions themselves.
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Flawed Thinking
As a result of the 9/11 terrorist attacks our country has been in a continual state of fear; bouncing between yellow and orange, whatever that might mean. State and municipal law enforcement recruitment is at an all-time high; so high, in fact, municipalities and even some states are breaking their budgets trying to afford their swollen departments. In stark contrast, on a national level, Homeland Security’s secretary Janet Napolitano has virtually unlimited funds to use to upgrade and increase our national security forces. She actually has more money to spend than places to spend it.
As a result of all the money spent since 9/11 we should be as secure as a baby in a crib. What do you think? Are we? According to members of Congress we aren't. In fact, our war against Muslims has produced record numbers of recruits dedicated to our destruction.
As a direct result of the additional troops in blue all over our country, crime should be down everywhere, so conventional theory claims. In fact, crime at the street level is. However crimes committed by members of the upper echelons of society have never been greater, affected more people, or done more damage.
The greatest crimes in the history of mankind have been committed during the last 10 years. Incredibly, not a single person has gone to jail, and none of the wizards behind the scene have even been indicted. The greatest crimes in our history that I am referring to are, 1) the invasion of Iraq and, 2) the looting of the savings and pension funds of tens of millions of Americans.
Perhaps the greatest gangster to have ever lived is our former vice president, Dick Cheney. He almost single-handedly manipulated the country, through lies and bullysuasion, into an unprovoked war which cost the country $1 trillion and the world hundreds of thousands of lives. He then was able to manipulate Congress into designating his company, Halliburton, the ONLY American company with security clearance approval high enough to do business in the country of the war he created, Iraq. All the money flowing into Iraq flowed through Halliburton. When word of outrageous price gouging and death causing faulty workmanship in military barracks built by Halliburton contractors surfaced, Halliburton spun its KBR division offshore to avoid US prosecution. During this war Cheney broke international treaties and countless American laws by encouraging torture and other war crimes. Dick Cheney will most certainly go down in history as the most successful evil gangster of all time.
The other major crime committed during the first decade of a brand-new century was the credit default swap fiasco engineered by Wall Street and facilitated by the government mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Mortgage bankers throughout the country granted everybody who wanted a loan on a home a mortgage, whether they qualified or not. Those mortgage bankers made huge fortunes in commissions on what were later to become known as liars loans. Mortgage brokers bundled up these worthless mortgages, put what turned out to be phony insurance on them, and then sold them at what appeared to be stiff discounts to other greedy bankers. To close the loop on those toxic assets these worthless mortgages were finally sold, again at enormous profits, to the final guppies in the pond, the less sophisticated pension funds and financial institutions managing the IRAs of tens of millions of Americans. Although none of the millions of Americans who were invested in these retirement plans had anything to do with the scam of the century, they bore the brunt of the losses while those responsible for the crash walked away with billions, indictment free.
So where is that flawed thinking I mentioned earlier? It is in the same place our war philosophy is; stuck in the Stone Age by our military-industrial complex. For example, while we have the technology to wage war with equipment which causes no death or property destruction, we continued to wage war with people against people in what can only be described as a frenzy of bloodlust. By our doing so we sacrifice lives, property, any claim to the high moral ground, or any sense of pride or national honor. We could, if we weren't being mislead by Washington gangsters and war profiteers, be inspiring worldwide peace and prosperity by using more humane methods to deal with the poorest among the world’s citizens. Imagine what world opinion of America would be if we started to build our world's poorest nations up instead of blowing them up.
On our state and local levels our flawed thinking is that more "men in blue" will deter crime. While it's true that crime on the streets of America is declining and today is statisticly at historically low levels, the types of crimes hurting most people today are "white-collar" crimes which armies of men in blue are powerless to prevent.
Regardless of how many cops we put on the beat, nothing can be done about the back street boys or politician plotting the next big American swindle behind closed doors.
So the truth about our nation is that in spite of the massive amounts of money spent on police and security during the years following 9/11, no amount of money or men in blue could have prevented the biggest crimes in our nation's history. Crimes which resulted in the looting of America. Crimes which resulted in the carnage inflicted on the Iraq nation. The looting of America's middle class was accomplished by our own upper-class, which has outstripped the world's most notorious crime lords in scope, audacity, and the massive amount of theft and destruction.
To think we can prevent the continued looting of America by adding more uniforms to an already over policed society is the real flaw in our nation's thinking, the real fly in the ointment. All we will accomplish is to bankrupt ourselves. Re-instating the "rule of law" in our country instead of "rule by the elite" is the only way to secure the future of America.
As a result of all the money spent since 9/11 we should be as secure as a baby in a crib. What do you think? Are we? According to members of Congress we aren't. In fact, our war against Muslims has produced record numbers of recruits dedicated to our destruction.
As a direct result of the additional troops in blue all over our country, crime should be down everywhere, so conventional theory claims. In fact, crime at the street level is. However crimes committed by members of the upper echelons of society have never been greater, affected more people, or done more damage.
The greatest crimes in the history of mankind have been committed during the last 10 years. Incredibly, not a single person has gone to jail, and none of the wizards behind the scene have even been indicted. The greatest crimes in our history that I am referring to are, 1) the invasion of Iraq and, 2) the looting of the savings and pension funds of tens of millions of Americans.
Perhaps the greatest gangster to have ever lived is our former vice president, Dick Cheney. He almost single-handedly manipulated the country, through lies and bullysuasion, into an unprovoked war which cost the country $1 trillion and the world hundreds of thousands of lives. He then was able to manipulate Congress into designating his company, Halliburton, the ONLY American company with security clearance approval high enough to do business in the country of the war he created, Iraq. All the money flowing into Iraq flowed through Halliburton. When word of outrageous price gouging and death causing faulty workmanship in military barracks built by Halliburton contractors surfaced, Halliburton spun its KBR division offshore to avoid US prosecution. During this war Cheney broke international treaties and countless American laws by encouraging torture and other war crimes. Dick Cheney will most certainly go down in history as the most successful evil gangster of all time.
The other major crime committed during the first decade of a brand-new century was the credit default swap fiasco engineered by Wall Street and facilitated by the government mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Mortgage bankers throughout the country granted everybody who wanted a loan on a home a mortgage, whether they qualified or not. Those mortgage bankers made huge fortunes in commissions on what were later to become known as liars loans. Mortgage brokers bundled up these worthless mortgages, put what turned out to be phony insurance on them, and then sold them at what appeared to be stiff discounts to other greedy bankers. To close the loop on those toxic assets these worthless mortgages were finally sold, again at enormous profits, to the final guppies in the pond, the less sophisticated pension funds and financial institutions managing the IRAs of tens of millions of Americans. Although none of the millions of Americans who were invested in these retirement plans had anything to do with the scam of the century, they bore the brunt of the losses while those responsible for the crash walked away with billions, indictment free.
So where is that flawed thinking I mentioned earlier? It is in the same place our war philosophy is; stuck in the Stone Age by our military-industrial complex. For example, while we have the technology to wage war with equipment which causes no death or property destruction, we continued to wage war with people against people in what can only be described as a frenzy of bloodlust. By our doing so we sacrifice lives, property, any claim to the high moral ground, or any sense of pride or national honor. We could, if we weren't being mislead by Washington gangsters and war profiteers, be inspiring worldwide peace and prosperity by using more humane methods to deal with the poorest among the world’s citizens. Imagine what world opinion of America would be if we started to build our world's poorest nations up instead of blowing them up.
On our state and local levels our flawed thinking is that more "men in blue" will deter crime. While it's true that crime on the streets of America is declining and today is statisticly at historically low levels, the types of crimes hurting most people today are "white-collar" crimes which armies of men in blue are powerless to prevent.
Regardless of how many cops we put on the beat, nothing can be done about the back street boys or politician plotting the next big American swindle behind closed doors.
So the truth about our nation is that in spite of the massive amounts of money spent on police and security during the years following 9/11, no amount of money or men in blue could have prevented the biggest crimes in our nation's history. Crimes which resulted in the looting of America. Crimes which resulted in the carnage inflicted on the Iraq nation. The looting of America's middle class was accomplished by our own upper-class, which has outstripped the world's most notorious crime lords in scope, audacity, and the massive amount of theft and destruction.
To think we can prevent the continued looting of America by adding more uniforms to an already over policed society is the real flaw in our nation's thinking, the real fly in the ointment. All we will accomplish is to bankrupt ourselves. Re-instating the "rule of law" in our country instead of "rule by the elite" is the only way to secure the future of America.
Friday, January 20, 2012
We need a foreign-policy geared for the 21st century, not the 12th.
We have been one of the world's worst aggressors for over half a century. We seem to be stuck in the bully mode, incapable of switching to a more civilized national persona based upon compassion, not aggression; aggression,in spite of our rhetoric, is actually our national policy.
As the continuing Middle East revolutions clearly demonstrate, more revolutionary progress can be made overnight with cell phones than we have been able to make in, for example, Afghanistan, in over a decade. People talking to people are bringing about rapid change for the first time in thousands of years in the world's most backward region. In a matter of months, not years, a few countries in the Middle East have been able to become less fearful and more democratic countries. This is occurring not because the US is investing heavily in nation rebuilding by invasion, but because the people within these Stone Age civilizations are demanding change in a coordinated, organized fashion.
In other words, we can finally butt out of everybody else's business. We can leave the world’s country rebuilding to each country's own next generation to accomplish by themselves -- by phone, and begin to rebuild our own tattered country. Sure we can continue to help our poorer nations out, but with schools, hospitals, roads and infrastructure. The idea of blowing an entire region back into the Stone Age, at a cost of countless lives and trillions of dollars, just so a few of our country’s warmongers can make more billions, is barbarian at best, and just plain illegal, counter productive and stupid policy.
Folks, we can do better, and we can do it almost overnight. We simply need to replace the greediest, most corrupt members of our Congress with a better class of people. However, with big-money influencing elections all over the country, that is not likely to happen. We are a nation of sheep people, easily misled or misdirected by the best advertising campaigns money can buy. Instead of strengthening our freedoms and liberties we are ceding them to the rich and powerful en masse.
Millions of our young are being conditioned to believe war is a necessary and desirable part of our nation's ongoing military history, instead of the deplorable, mindless, murderous business it is. By moving millions and millions of our young people through our war machine our nation is becoming more barbarian by the year, not more civilized, particularly when combined with our nation's declining intellectual capacity. Heaven forbid our misguided leaders should be encouraged to use our own trained military muscle on ourselves. Whoops, too late!
We claim to be the world’s leading example of democracy, but our policies are backward and inhumane. Can anybody seriously doubt that the world's poorest nations would appreciate us infinitely more if we helped build them up, instead of blowing them up?
As the continuing Middle East revolutions clearly demonstrate, more revolutionary progress can be made overnight with cell phones than we have been able to make in, for example, Afghanistan, in over a decade. People talking to people are bringing about rapid change for the first time in thousands of years in the world's most backward region. In a matter of months, not years, a few countries in the Middle East have been able to become less fearful and more democratic countries. This is occurring not because the US is investing heavily in nation rebuilding by invasion, but because the people within these Stone Age civilizations are demanding change in a coordinated, organized fashion.
In other words, we can finally butt out of everybody else's business. We can leave the world’s country rebuilding to each country's own next generation to accomplish by themselves -- by phone, and begin to rebuild our own tattered country. Sure we can continue to help our poorer nations out, but with schools, hospitals, roads and infrastructure. The idea of blowing an entire region back into the Stone Age, at a cost of countless lives and trillions of dollars, just so a few of our country’s warmongers can make more billions, is barbarian at best, and just plain illegal, counter productive and stupid policy.
Folks, we can do better, and we can do it almost overnight. We simply need to replace the greediest, most corrupt members of our Congress with a better class of people. However, with big-money influencing elections all over the country, that is not likely to happen. We are a nation of sheep people, easily misled or misdirected by the best advertising campaigns money can buy. Instead of strengthening our freedoms and liberties we are ceding them to the rich and powerful en masse.
Millions of our young are being conditioned to believe war is a necessary and desirable part of our nation's ongoing military history, instead of the deplorable, mindless, murderous business it is. By moving millions and millions of our young people through our war machine our nation is becoming more barbarian by the year, not more civilized, particularly when combined with our nation's declining intellectual capacity. Heaven forbid our misguided leaders should be encouraged to use our own trained military muscle on ourselves. Whoops, too late!
We claim to be the world’s leading example of democracy, but our policies are backward and inhumane. Can anybody seriously doubt that the world's poorest nations would appreciate us infinitely more if we helped build them up, instead of blowing them up?
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