To suggest that a social media site could have more impact on the world than the mightiest military force the world has ever known seems, I don’t know, ridiculous.
But facts are facts and the Middle East strong men are being toppled enmasse. People in the region are communicating freely with each other for the first time in their long history courtesy of cell phones and the social media sites facebook and twitter. And they are changing the regions politics overnight.
For the last 40 years the US policy was to prop up Middle East dictators and ignore civil rights issues to insure a steady flow of oil. We deserve credit for setting the bar on hypocrisy so high no other nation could possibly reach it. Instead of helping the poor people in the region we have contributed to their ignorance and subservience to “rulers” who rule their countries like mobsters
rule their mobs.
We need to pepper the middle east nations with cell phones, not bombs, and hope that when these countries turn the corner on democracy they don’t throw us out of the region with the rest of the trash (read former dictators).
Unfortunately our President prefers to wage war. The country continues to suffer with outrageous budget deficits due to a stone age mentality; people dedicated to blowing people up instead of bringing them into an era of peace and prosperity. Phones, not bombs, will do far more and cost far less.
Without the US military fanning fires around the globe the world would be a very peaceful place. The fact that a few disgruntled factions persist and do damage is no excuse for us to squander our nation’s resources trying to exterminate them. Phones and free speech will accomplish what our orgies of waste, death, and destruction have not, can not, and never will .
Our politicians need to face the facts and do the right thing by this country. Either they stop funding wars or they will face facebook, and it won’t be pretty. They will either modernize their thinking or they will face extinction like the dinosaurs they are. War mongers need to die off, and quickly, so the world can get on with the business of saving the planet, not blowing up its citizens.
Monday, February 21, 2011
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Here is where we go wrong with our children.
First of all, what was done to us as children we do to our own children. In my case it started with me as soon as I could speak, or more correctly hear, what was being said around me. In particular, what triggered my BS radar at an early, impressionable age was what I heard versus what I saw, or what I heard when I was not supposed to hear.
I caught on pretty quickly, at least by age 8, that my parents and other adults were pulling the old "do as I say, not as I do" double standard on me. As I grew older, more sophisticated, and a great deal more cynical I might even have said I was outright lied to by the adults in my life. Take smoking or drinking as examples. These products were supposed to be bad for me, and yet mysteriously good for them.
My parents were not saints. Few parents are. I don't criticize mine for their overindulgence in alcohol, for example, but I never forgave them their hypocrisy where the subject was concerned. Drugs would be another example. For some reason they were able to justify pharmaceutical drugs issued on the flimsiest of excuses but pot was considered a serious offense.
Our children aren't stupid. If anything they are far smarter than we were at their age. Their BS detectors are far more sophisticated than ours ever were. They just have a different kind of smarts.
When we try to fool our kids we are only kidding ourselves.
I caught on pretty quickly, at least by age 8, that my parents and other adults were pulling the old "do as I say, not as I do" double standard on me. As I grew older, more sophisticated, and a great deal more cynical I might even have said I was outright lied to by the adults in my life. Take smoking or drinking as examples. These products were supposed to be bad for me, and yet mysteriously good for them.
My parents were not saints. Few parents are. I don't criticize mine for their overindulgence in alcohol, for example, but I never forgave them their hypocrisy where the subject was concerned. Drugs would be another example. For some reason they were able to justify pharmaceutical drugs issued on the flimsiest of excuses but pot was considered a serious offense.
Our children aren't stupid. If anything they are far smarter than we were at their age. Their BS detectors are far more sophisticated than ours ever were. They just have a different kind of smarts.
When we try to fool our kids we are only kidding ourselves.
Monday, January 24, 2011
“Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
The above quote is one of my favorites by Albert Einstein. He spoke this amazing Einsteinism around 100 years ago and look where his imagination has taken mankind since then.
In upcoming issues of PBS's NOVA series Neil deGrasse Tyson will be discussing the future. The possibility that man will be headed toward Mars in the next decade is becoming more and more realistic. The first issue of the new season will be discussing a planned manned space flight to Mars. Although such a trip may result in unimaginable disasters, will require vast sums of money, and although the trip and exploration of Mars could be managed by robotics, men will nevertheless go there.
Just because we eventually do what we imagine we can do. Another NOVA issue will be discussing the possibility that man will soon be living much much longer than our present 70 plus years. This presents mankind with an entirely new outlook and possibilities for our species never before considered. It may be possible to figure out what to do with an additional 10 or 20 years of life but imagine what you might do with an extra 150 or 200 years.
Just imagine.
In upcoming issues of PBS's NOVA series Neil deGrasse Tyson will be discussing the future. The possibility that man will be headed toward Mars in the next decade is becoming more and more realistic. The first issue of the new season will be discussing a planned manned space flight to Mars. Although such a trip may result in unimaginable disasters, will require vast sums of money, and although the trip and exploration of Mars could be managed by robotics, men will nevertheless go there.
Just because we eventually do what we imagine we can do. Another NOVA issue will be discussing the possibility that man will soon be living much much longer than our present 70 plus years. This presents mankind with an entirely new outlook and possibilities for our species never before considered. It may be possible to figure out what to do with an additional 10 or 20 years of life but imagine what you might do with an extra 150 or 200 years.
Just imagine.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Water water everywhere but none for free.
Until recently this would have been impossible to believe.
The one thing I have taken for granted all my life was that there would always be access to free and plentiful fresh water. In fact in the northeast part of the country where I'm from we had far too much; rain to the point of flooding in spring and summer and copious amounts of snow late fall and all winter.
But the Times they are a changing. Until the last 40 years or so there wasn't such a thing as acid rain to contend with. Today clean water supplies are dwindling rapidly and agricultural expansion into arid lands is literally sucking lakes and rivers dry, particularly in the Southwest.
As a result water is morphing into a major commodity; a cross between milk and oil. Water rights will become more valuable than mineral rights. Like other commodities water will become the target of monopolistic companies and price manipulation. In fact, T Boone Pickens is already in the process of developing an aquifer on his ranch in Texas which will, in time, drain the water from the surrounding hundreds of thousands of acres. In the not too distant future T Boone will be pickin his neighbor's pockets selling them back their water.
Some people predict that the big bottling companies will attempt to control the world's water resources so eventually everyone will be depending on them for drinking water. The State of Michigan is currently trying to secure the water rights to Lake Michigan. No joke!
An interesting play on water is a company called S2C Global Systems, Inc. (stock ticker STWG). They are developing a freshwater distribution potential. They have managed to gain the water rights to a pristine fresh water river and plan to fill and float huge balloons of water(similar to the balloons of glue which supplied our plywood mills == only thousands of times larger) all over the globe. They anticipate trains of water bags miles long heading to deserts everywhere.
If you have children or grandchildren you might consider giving them the gift of water. Shares in this company can be purchased for about a half a cent apiece,
(.005$), which means you can buy 10,000 shares for $50.
Over the next 20 years those shares may grow into a small fortune, or who knows, maybe a large one. The odds of success are way better than the lottery.
The one thing I have taken for granted all my life was that there would always be access to free and plentiful fresh water. In fact in the northeast part of the country where I'm from we had far too much; rain to the point of flooding in spring and summer and copious amounts of snow late fall and all winter.
But the Times they are a changing. Until the last 40 years or so there wasn't such a thing as acid rain to contend with. Today clean water supplies are dwindling rapidly and agricultural expansion into arid lands is literally sucking lakes and rivers dry, particularly in the Southwest.
As a result water is morphing into a major commodity; a cross between milk and oil. Water rights will become more valuable than mineral rights. Like other commodities water will become the target of monopolistic companies and price manipulation. In fact, T Boone Pickens is already in the process of developing an aquifer on his ranch in Texas which will, in time, drain the water from the surrounding hundreds of thousands of acres. In the not too distant future T Boone will be pickin his neighbor's pockets selling them back their water.
Some people predict that the big bottling companies will attempt to control the world's water resources so eventually everyone will be depending on them for drinking water. The State of Michigan is currently trying to secure the water rights to Lake Michigan. No joke!
An interesting play on water is a company called S2C Global Systems, Inc. (stock ticker STWG). They are developing a freshwater distribution potential. They have managed to gain the water rights to a pristine fresh water river and plan to fill and float huge balloons of water(similar to the balloons of glue which supplied our plywood mills == only thousands of times larger) all over the globe. They anticipate trains of water bags miles long heading to deserts everywhere.
If you have children or grandchildren you might consider giving them the gift of water. Shares in this company can be purchased for about a half a cent apiece,
(.005$), which means you can buy 10,000 shares for $50.
Over the next 20 years those shares may grow into a small fortune, or who knows, maybe a large one. The odds of success are way better than the lottery.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Stop the government union from bankrupting America!
I wish I could take credit for that headline but Larry Kudlow gets the credit.
The truth is bureaucrats have managed to allocate to themselves and their political brethren salaries upwards of a million dollars annually in a few cases, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in salaries and benefits annually in most cases, without the tax paying public paying any attention.
Federal employees enjoy a lifetime of medical benefits and 100% of their last year’s salary, plus cost of living increases for the rest of their lives, once they reach middle management level and beyond.
I worked for MasterBrand for several years. For every year I worked I accumulated a benefit of $20 per month in retirement pay, vested after the first five years of full employment. In other words after 30 years with this company (this company is no different from many others) I would receive upon retirement age $600 per month/no medical benefits.
Had I worked for the government for those 30 years I would be entitled to a minimum of $6,000 per month and full medical benefits for the rest of my life. The average cost to the taxpayer per retired federal public employee currently is (correct me if I've missed my number by much) $125,000 per year.
The conclusion is obvious. We are completely out of our minds. Without realizing it we have put an entire segment of our population, i.e. the government sector, under European-style benefits and care worth far more than their lifetime service ever was. What's worse, the entire cost is being born by the private sector.
So to fill the gap in reason we are borrowing real money, in annual amounts which will sooner rather than later bankrupt every governmental budget nationwide. The next domino to fall will be the country.
Add it up. Would you give up 20 years of your working life as a highly paid public servant entitled to receive a lifetime of retirement pay and a lifetime of first-class medical care? Keep in mind that the cost of equivalent medical care would cost the average private retiree his entire monthly retirement benefit and more.
So don't bother to add up. If you are a private employee you're screwed. And we did it to ourselves.
The truth is bureaucrats have managed to allocate to themselves and their political brethren salaries upwards of a million dollars annually in a few cases, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in salaries and benefits annually in most cases, without the tax paying public paying any attention.
Federal employees enjoy a lifetime of medical benefits and 100% of their last year’s salary, plus cost of living increases for the rest of their lives, once they reach middle management level and beyond.
I worked for MasterBrand for several years. For every year I worked I accumulated a benefit of $20 per month in retirement pay, vested after the first five years of full employment. In other words after 30 years with this company (this company is no different from many others) I would receive upon retirement age $600 per month/no medical benefits.
Had I worked for the government for those 30 years I would be entitled to a minimum of $6,000 per month and full medical benefits for the rest of my life. The average cost to the taxpayer per retired federal public employee currently is (correct me if I've missed my number by much) $125,000 per year.
The conclusion is obvious. We are completely out of our minds. Without realizing it we have put an entire segment of our population, i.e. the government sector, under European-style benefits and care worth far more than their lifetime service ever was. What's worse, the entire cost is being born by the private sector.
So to fill the gap in reason we are borrowing real money, in annual amounts which will sooner rather than later bankrupt every governmental budget nationwide. The next domino to fall will be the country.
Add it up. Would you give up 20 years of your working life as a highly paid public servant entitled to receive a lifetime of retirement pay and a lifetime of first-class medical care? Keep in mind that the cost of equivalent medical care would cost the average private retiree his entire monthly retirement benefit and more.
So don't bother to add up. If you are a private employee you're screwed. And we did it to ourselves.
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Where the confusion in the country begins.
Patriots abound. I suspect that if a box for “are you a patriot” YES ( ) NO ( )
were added to the U.S. Census poll close to 100% percent would check the YES box. Therefore we need to keep in mind that criticism of this country is not unpatriotic unless it is deliberately based on false analysis (manipulation) or outright lie and deception. (the controversy over wiki-leaks comes to mind) Everybody complains; that's patriotic!
Where the confusion begins is when people mistake the person for the office. If someone were to criticize this country in general my hackles will rise. Although statistically speaking the USA is no longer the best country in the world to live in, I would not trade it for another. There is still plenty to love about our country.
On the other hand, if someone were to criticize Dick Cheney I would do my best to pile on. Cheney outright lied to the American people often and bullied others in the administration to bend to his evil will, all for the most ambiguous of reasons. Hunger for power, greed beyond belief, and as a result a severe over-dose of fear and paranoia are my guesses for his behavior. However, I do not hold the office of the Vice President in disrepute because of Dick Cheney's actions. In spite of the fact that he was vice President of this country for eight years, the man was no patriot.
I don't believe the public will ever be told the whole truth about a whole range of bad acts covered up by the nation's dirty launderers. Some brilliant wordsmith once coined government expressions like “they are protecting us from ourselves”, or better still, “they are lying to us for our own good”. Speaking for myself I don't believe, or at least can't imagine, a single truth the universe could throw at me that I couldn't deal with. Of course, I am broad-minded. Don't ever lie to me and tell me it's for my own good. I am no mushroom.
Public officials, “lying to us for our own good”, are where the confusion begins. Starting with the Kennedy assassination our government has consistently lied to us where matters of national security were deemed to be concerned. Great orators and even greater speechwriters combine to elevate spin doctoring to a fine art and whose combined talents could bring the Mona Lisa to tears.
We the people are not stupid or brain-dead; we are just sorely misled. Until we hold the people who sit in public office accountable for their evil deeds those who follow in their footsteps will continue to push the envelope and abuse us further. Throwing a few bums out of Congress was a good start. Allowing big money to elect their replacements was a huge step backwards. Until our win/loss ratio turns positive this country will continue on its present course.
were added to the U.S. Census poll close to 100% percent would check the YES box. Therefore we need to keep in mind that criticism of this country is not unpatriotic unless it is deliberately based on false analysis (manipulation) or outright lie and deception. (the controversy over wiki-leaks comes to mind) Everybody complains; that's patriotic!
Where the confusion begins is when people mistake the person for the office. If someone were to criticize this country in general my hackles will rise. Although statistically speaking the USA is no longer the best country in the world to live in, I would not trade it for another. There is still plenty to love about our country.
On the other hand, if someone were to criticize Dick Cheney I would do my best to pile on. Cheney outright lied to the American people often and bullied others in the administration to bend to his evil will, all for the most ambiguous of reasons. Hunger for power, greed beyond belief, and as a result a severe over-dose of fear and paranoia are my guesses for his behavior. However, I do not hold the office of the Vice President in disrepute because of Dick Cheney's actions. In spite of the fact that he was vice President of this country for eight years, the man was no patriot.
I don't believe the public will ever be told the whole truth about a whole range of bad acts covered up by the nation's dirty launderers. Some brilliant wordsmith once coined government expressions like “they are protecting us from ourselves”, or better still, “they are lying to us for our own good”. Speaking for myself I don't believe, or at least can't imagine, a single truth the universe could throw at me that I couldn't deal with. Of course, I am broad-minded. Don't ever lie to me and tell me it's for my own good. I am no mushroom.
Public officials, “lying to us for our own good”, are where the confusion begins. Starting with the Kennedy assassination our government has consistently lied to us where matters of national security were deemed to be concerned. Great orators and even greater speechwriters combine to elevate spin doctoring to a fine art and whose combined talents could bring the Mona Lisa to tears.
We the people are not stupid or brain-dead; we are just sorely misled. Until we hold the people who sit in public office accountable for their evil deeds those who follow in their footsteps will continue to push the envelope and abuse us further. Throwing a few bums out of Congress was a good start. Allowing big money to elect their replacements was a huge step backwards. Until our win/loss ratio turns positive this country will continue on its present course.
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Something to think about
The secrets that death holds will never be known by the living.
And why should they be?
When we are born we have no memory of where we came from. Everything in a newborn's universe is brand spanking new to that unique life.
However, looked at from another perspective, all the atoms which comprise that new life are atoms that have been in existence since shortly after the Big Bang. In other words, every life is composed of component parts that are eternal; from bits
and pieces that have been around for as long as the universe itself.
So when we die our eternal atoms get recycled. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. The slate gets wiped clean.
And why shouldn't it be?
And why should they be?
When we are born we have no memory of where we came from. Everything in a newborn's universe is brand spanking new to that unique life.
However, looked at from another perspective, all the atoms which comprise that new life are atoms that have been in existence since shortly after the Big Bang. In other words, every life is composed of component parts that are eternal; from bits
and pieces that have been around for as long as the universe itself.
So when we die our eternal atoms get recycled. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. The slate gets wiped clean.
And why shouldn't it be?
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