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.

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.

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?

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.

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.