Before I get going here, I want to show a take on my last blog post that was relentlessly attacked by Chinese hackers:
So, now you get to see some of it, and can watch it directly on YouTube. But, I advise you not to download it!
Now, on with the rant here today:
This short video will make anyone see why the Air Force has decided to re-wing these aircraft (a lot of use within rifle range of enemy combatants and the vibration that attends low-level flying has lead to metal fatigue) :
It is the perfect sword of vengeance against mechanized armies such as those of Russia, Iran, China, ISIS, and whoever else thinks they are tough enough.
The USA now has an unbeatable strategic combination-The F-35 for Air Interdiction using extreme range standoff missiles and high-kilowatt laser pods to kill any high performance fighter in existence except for the F-22. Those pesky strike fighters, tanks, etc. that the Russians are stationing in Syria, for example, would be toast in a matter of minutes, even if all of their fighters were airborne and outfitted with the latest weapons. And for those poor combatants of ISIS, see what happened to your fighters, when confronted with the mop-up operation conducted by an AC 130 Gunship:
This aircraft is now being outfitted with an additional huge 150mm cannon and a 40 kilowatt laser!
While the Chinese were able to rip off the plans for the F-35, without the avionics suite and precision long-range standoff missiles of a genuine F-35, their clone is simply a bucket of bolt; fodder for a murderous attack from over the horizon.
Belief in an afterlife has been one of the more destructive features of the Earth’s many organized religions. By living in hopes of a glorious tomorrow, we can conveniently ignore the problems that plague us today. A number of these problems could be lethal for many of the planet’s species, including humans. Most of the problems were created by humans as a by-product of technical civilization, and it is incumbent upon humans to act upon our new knowledge and restore planetary homeostasis. And, we must do it quickly.
As long as we cling to our outmoded dreams for Nirvana after a lifetime of trials and tribulations, nothing will get fixed. Only when we realize that our primary moral directive as a species is to promote the life on Earth of which we are a part, can we bring to bear the emotional urgency to quickly and wisely apply our cleverness to cleaning up the mess, reducing our impact to acceptable levels for the over-all health of life on earth, and controlling our numbers and fixing limits for our consumption of resources.
Earth First! Should be more than just the motto of a radical environmental group; it should be our mantra as humans; one of the basic rules of law that govern all human planetary societies. We must reestablish our spiritual connection with nature, much like the pagan religions from the olden days, and apply our new-found wisdom in the biological and social sciences to integrate ourselves smoothly and seamlessly back into life’s family tree. By submitting ourselves to the cycles of life we ensure its arrival at that final mysterious destination in the distant future. We must be reverent enough about this course of Nature that we do not allow ourselves to derail the process, regardless of human needs or expediency in response to some emergency. Like the dinosaurs, we may simply be a speed bump on the DNA road to the future.
In doing things the way the old religions dictated, we have become a devouring cancer on the planet that threatens to destroy the results of 3.5 billion years of painful evolution from single-celled organisms through all of the genera that ever lived afterwards. And we are carrying the baggage of ancient evils. From our saurian ancestors to the winners of the Neanderthal wars, we have incorporated life’s most venal impulses into the cores of our beings. The Devil lives in our dark side, and has evolved right along with us. God dwells in that part of our cortex that is devoted to music, art, beauty, harmony, poetry, literature and mathematics. He evolved with us as well.
Once we realize that these creations of our imaginations are simply abstractions of basic core human impulses, we can refocus on what really matters: Our husbandry of the Earth and its resources, in a human-dominated world. For the first time in our existence we are confronted with limits on our dreams and desires, needs and wishes. Our new gestalt is humans as passengers on spaceship Earth. Sharing the ride with several million other species, all interdependent, and bound for unfathomable destinations, we now must take responsibility for our actions and do our part as a species to further the common good.
Assuming we come up with the moral fiber and determination to limit our numbers drastically, shrink our consumption of resources, and give up cherished habitat to species with whom we have no beneficial or symbiotic relationship, what sort of society should we create? It seems to me that it should be as nonrestrictive as possible. Because we will be living under self-imposed restraints relative to planet earth and its other inhabitants, we should really allow ourselves are much freedom as possible to invent and ‘try on’ new social systems. Freedom of expression in a world bounded by limits on personal wealth and consumption will be required for the general mental health of the population.
One of the marvelous attributes of human beings is our seemingly infinite adaptability. In the past 10,000 years, we have invented almost every kind of society imaginable, many with strange sexual, dietary, and social quirks. We need to nurture and encourage this urge to explore the nature of human relationships, for out of these discoveries will come our maturity as a species. We will become ‘refined’ in the purest sense of the word.
And it will keep us from getting bored. Besides, regional weirdness promotes tourism, cultural and economic exchange. Important virtues for the 21st century. But while cultural diversity will be encouraged, an underlying set of ‘Universal Laws’ will be established and universally applied to all of earth’s inhabitants. These laws will supersede any local or regional laws in effect or enacted.
A world governing body must be assumed. Global management of human activity must be ensured, and global scofflaws and eco-criminals quickly captured and punished. Under an umbrella world government, perhaps a council of highly educated and otherwise qualified elders, local or regional democracies would be allowed to develop in a wide variety of forms. As far as the ‘rule of law’ is concerned, all legislation should be derived from agreed-upon first principles, codified as the global ‘Ten Commandments’ so to speak.In general, it has been shown that the rule of law functions best in a climate of little or no encumbering legislation. The fewer laws, the better, and the least government is the best government. Those laws we choose to enact as ‘First Principles’ must be scrupulously enforced on the entire global citizenry. They should have the same emotional currency that we give to the original ‘Ten Commandments’.
We must slay the beast of politics just as we dealt with religious mythology; ruthlessly crushing or closely controlling the activities of special interest groups who attempt to influence the outcome of governmental decision-making processes. Governments must be staffed by highly educated people with the right qualifications to fit the job description. Bureaucracies must be strengthened such that ‘career employees’ present civil ‘overseers’ with basic choices and parameters for decision-making at the top. And the people at the top should have very limited terms in power. Ideally, these would be uncompensated, voluntary, elective positions.
Whatever the form of this world government and the subsidiary democracies that operate within its confines, the whole business must be organized to adapt with blinding speed. As Ray Kurziweil has pointed out, the next fifty years will see the emergence of a number of technologies that lead to a ‘Singularity’. It is difficult to imagine what ‘killer’ applications develop to transform society. One thing is for sure: The dangers lurking in MEMS, Nanotechnology, Synthetic Biology, and other emerging technologies in human medicine will require continuous scrutiny and approval or disapproval for specific applications of the new technologies. The utility of the application in question will always be weighed against the environmental and human costs of its application prior to first use.
Because it is impossible at present for me to include photos in my blog posts and images in the comments section since the blog engine here on Vivaldi was modified recently, I have decided to suspend making further posts at present. I realize Vivaldi is a work in progress, but unfortunately, I am not.
A decade ago, my ‘trusty’ financial adviser at H&R Block (read ‘broker’) became exercised with my habit of ignoring his ‘advice’ and making my own decisions as to what securities I would hold in my retirement accounts. I later quit him like a bad habit and set up a retirement account with an on-line brokerage. I’m no financial wizard, but my choices have resulted in real returns exceeding 25% since then.
Now, at the beginning of 2015, the market seemed to me to be smelly in the extreme, and I reduced my stock holdings significantly by getting rid of energy stocks and some others I had been holding in biotech outfits. Simple soul that I am, I believe in buying low and selling high, but my basic strategy is to research companies carefully, analyze their financials, read their 10K reports to the SEC, check insider trading and so forth, and then buy and hold for the long-term.
Now, my current position is largely cash in the form of money market holdings that are returning about 0.5%. In my 401K, because of tax-deferred income, the real return is around 1 %. Anyway, my old broker (with a new firm) called me up out of the blue the other day and requested a meeting at his office. I went because at my age you need all of the comic relief that you can get.
He advised me to put my 401K cash into a variable annuity, enthusing that this was a no lose proposition: I could get a predictable monthly income of 5% (on an annualized basis), a guarantee of no loss of principle if the stock market went down, the ability to withdraw my capital if I had an emergency, and the possibility to get even more monthly income if the market went up.
Sound wonderful, doesn’t it? Almost like free money!
But, his allusion to the tax-deferred return raised my hackles. I was already getting that because it was a 401K tax-deferred account! What advantage did I have changing horses in mid-stream, as it were? So, I requested that I take home and study the contract documents that he thrust under my nose. His bit his lip a bit and his hand holding the pen for a signature quivered slightly. I raised the tension in the room by studying his tie and his slicked down hair, like he was a villain in some B movie. He said okay, and handed me the documents. I glanced at them briefly and after a dramatic pause while I scratched my crotch, I told him I would get back to him in a few days. This is what I found out:
These sales reps for what is essentially an insurance product, are paid on average a 10% commission!!!
The ability to withdraw your principle in full is only possible after 8 years—in my case, perhaps an eternity, considering my age. Early withdrawal has a penalty of 7% of your principle!
The management fees turned out to be about 2.5% per year—an outrageous amount—much more that some of the worst mutual funds.
You have no protection whatever if the insurance company issuing the annuity goes belly-up.
The funds you invest can longer be used as collateral, and essentially disappears from your ‘Net Worth’.
I check the NASD website, and sure enough there were many warnings posted about annuities being a bad investment.
So, my advice is to be very skeptical of any advice you are offered by ‘financial advisers’ who make a commission on your trades. If you need an adviser, select one that charges an annual fee for management services, and watch him/her like a hawk!!! Fire him/her quickly if you see losses on your statement. You pay them money to make you money. Better still, do your homework, and make your own choices. No one cares more about your money than you do!
Now, one more thing before I go. I have made a careful study of the price of oil, and guess what? Considering the worldwide reserves and global consumption rates, oil should be trading for about $30 USD per barrel, maximum and not a penny more. Any price difference is entirely due to the activities of traders and speculators. And, as the USA and other countries go ‘Green’ demand is likely to lessen.
And now, a couple of jokes:
ELECTRIC COMPANY
A young husband comes home one night, and his wife throws her arms around his neck: “Darling, I have great news: I’m a month overdue. I think we’re going to have a baby! The doctor gave me a test today, but until we find out for sure, we can’t tell anybody.”
The next day, a guy from the electric company rings the doorbell, because the young couple hasn’t paid their last bill: “Are you Mrs. Smith? You’re a month overdue, you know!”
“How do YOU know?” stammers the young woman.
“Well, ma’am, it’s in our files!” says the man from the electric company.
“What are you saying? It’s in your files?????”
“Absolutely.”
“Well, let me talk to my husband about this tonight.”
That night, she tells her husband about the visit, and he, mad as a bull, rushes to the electric company offices the first thing the next morning “What’s going on here? You have it on file that my wife is a month overdue? What business is that of yours?” the husband shouts.
“Just calm down,” says the clerk, “it’s nothing serious. All you have to do is pay us.”
“PAY you? And if I refuse?”
“Well, in that case, sir, we’d have no option but to cut yours off.”
“And what would my wife do then?” the husband asks.
“I don’t know. I guess she’d have to use a candle.”
PERKS OF BEING OVER 50
1. Kidnappers are not very interested in you. 2. In a hostage situation you are likely to be released first. 3. No one expects you to run–anywhere 4. People call at 9 pm and ask, ” Did I wake you ???? “ 5. People no longer view you as a hypochondriac. 6. There is nothing left to learn the hard way. 7. Things you buy now won’t wear out 8. You can eat dinner at 4 pm. 9. You can live without sex but not your glasses. 10. You get into heated arguments about pension plans. 11. You no longer think of speed limits as a challenge. 12. You quit trying to hold your stomach in no matter who walks into the room. 13. You sing along with elevator music. 14. Your eyes won’t get much worse. 15. Your investment in health insurance is finally beginning to pay off. 16. Your joints are more accurate meteorologists than the national weather service. 17. Your secrets are safe with your friends because they can’t remember them either. 18. Your supply of brain cells is finally down to manageable size. 19. You can’t remember who sent you this list
And you notice these are all in Big Print for your convenience.
I knew that sooner or later I must ‘belly up to the bar’ and offer solutions to the crisis that I have been predicting for over 10 years. Now, I don’t see myself as being uniquely enlightened; many others have preceded me in developing realistic foresight, most notably the people of Norway. I know this seems improbable, but consider the Norwegian Svalbard Global Seed Vault; a secure seed bank on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen near Longyearbyen in the remote Arctic Svalbard archipelago, about 1,300 kilometers from the North Pole. It is so remote and secure that it is guarded only by a lot of hungry Polar bears.
Soon, humanity will be forever grateful for the creation of this vital source of biomass for the Earth and food crops for humans. But we must also act fast in other areas, for example, relocating the International Space Station to a very close lunar orbit. This is the perfect habitat for lunar pioneers to rest, recuperate, and coordinate the touchdown of vehicles on the Moon’s surface necessary for the establishment of a human colony that can revitalize and reestablish civilization as we know it back on the Earth’s surface. A new technology is being developed not far from my home that can be adapted to speed up the process of engineering lunar habitats that can endure for the long term on their own. See it here: Virtual Reality
The underlying reality for investing in a lunar habitat is that ‘Spaceship Earth’ will be far easier to Geo-engineer than hollowed out asteroids, or somehow (with the help of aliens) creating giant spaceships that travel at warp speeds to new planets similar to the earth, and so on. The reason we must drop everything and get going on this fast is simple: It is time once again to learn from the lessons of the past. For this, I give you the anomaly of 1200 B.C. It is so similar to the global conflict surrounding the ISIL movement, that it makes me shiver. Here is the definitive example of what can happen and it is 45 minutes long. Perhaps you should view this blog post on a desktop PC to avoid draining the battery on your Smartphone. Now, I give you for your consideration “The Sea Peoples”:
Next, consider this video made by others about the coming extinction. It offers a reasonable and scientific plan for fighting the immediate effects and perhaps stopping the process in its tracks, assuming we survive the modern iteration of the Sea Peoples:
Well, I don’t want to overload you with a lot of new concepts in one sitting. When I get motivated (and you can help by making comments to this post), I will offer other fun facts and solutions for your consideration in some subsequent posts. For now, I’m going to kick back, sip a shot of Jack Daniels, and enjoy the fact that my doctor took me off of my daily pills to control my blood pressure this week. I am fit enough from doing four kilometers on the track every day that I don’t need them any more. At age 75, I’m not doing too badly. I’m also starting on chart five of the Air Force 5BX program of exercise that I did when I was on flying status over 50 years ago……
Fires, fires, everywhere in the Old West, including near my own home! The evacuation order came for me to leave everything I own and run like hell! Here is an image of the inferno that came raging to my street:
Quail Hollow Fire Courtesy of the Salt Lake Tribune
Many of my neighbors rushed out of their homes carrying oil paintings and other valuables, trudging down the street like Syrian refugees. I wrung my hands fitfully, looking right and left for a place to hide and then I realized my bad Karma was due to the fact that I hadn’t visited the old Guru that lives in a cave on the the mountain behind my home in quite a while. So, instead of running with the herd, I decided to climb the mountain to his hideout and see if he was all right.
I put on my crampons and ice-axed up the glacier like an old mountain goat high on loco weed. Braving the howling wind at the summit, I hobbled as fast as I could to the cave’s jagged entrance and stepped inside. It was dark and dank, anda voice from the back of the cave, sounding like James Earl Jones on helium said, “Is that you, Fed Ex guy?”
“No, it’s me, master.” I replied as I dusted the snow off of my parka. “I brought you a gift.”
“I told you not to show up here any more, you worthless piece of Llama dung. I still have a bad hack from that rotten Jimson Weed you gave me last time.” He shuffled into the feeble shaft of light that penetrated the mouth of the cave, and grabbed the pouch that I proffered in my frost-bitten hand. He opened the drawstring and peered inside suspiciously.
“What is this crap?”
“Well, it’s the Joni Mitchell CD that you wanted, and some seeds from a Yopo tree that I collected in the Amazon last year.”
Mollified, he sat down and assumed a full lotus position on the cold granite floor. Digging an old corn cob pipe from under the filthy Navaho blanket that draped across his shoulders, he stuffed a few seeds in the bowl and lit up, drawing the pungent smoke deeply into his lungs.
His eyes bugged out like a toad and after a few minutes, he exhaled the greasy green vapor. “That’s more like it”, he squeaked, “ Gimme some of the Tequila in that hip flask you’re hiding under your parka”, he demanded.
“How did you know I had that?” I unzipped the parka and handed him the bottle.
“You are disgustingly predictable.” he replied, chugging the contents. “Now, what do you want?”
I pondered his question for a moment. “Well, beside my house being on fire by now, I have been considering giving my fishing float tube and stuff to my nephew. I love it, but I’m getting too old to use it anymore. The kid doesn’t even have a car to put it in and go somewhere.”
“So what? Maybe it will motivate him to get a job. Besides, things are to be used and people are to be loved.”
I considered this comment while the old man belched and farted contentedly. He was right, of course.
“Whoa!” he exclaimed, “Those seeds are all right! I’m getting tunnel vision!” He scuttled across the floor like a crab and sat back on an old mattress covered with bat droppings. He slipped the CD into a portable player, and a clear sweet voice started the first tune from ‘Shadows and Light’.
“Anything else you’d like to tell me before I go?”
“Yes.” He said, scratching his beard absently. “Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character; Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.”
I pondered this admonition for a minute, and satisfied; I zipped my parka back up and turned to leave. “I’ll see you again, someday.” I called over my shoulder.
“If you see that Fed Ex guy on the way down, tell him the porn he’s delivering had better have some women in it this time.”
“Will do,” I replied.
As I climbed down off of the mountain, I could see hundreds of firemen fighting to contain the fierce flames which were still shooting hundreds of feet into the air, and dozens of fire trucks were spraying water. Two Blackhawk helicopters were swooping down, dumping fire retardant, and the whole effort was being orchestrated by a spotter plane circling well above the scene. It was then that I was glad that I live in the most tax-expensive real estate in Utah. For once, I won’t mind paying my taxes this fall; those people were worth every penny of it.
It tugs on the heartstrings of any caring, compassionate person to see the image making the rounds on the Internet of the immigrant father carrying the dead body of one of his innocent children out of the surf of the Mediterranean. Seeing the stark image made me want to weep as well, although I have hardened myself over the last ten years that I have been predicting mass population displacements in my blog posts. Well, as the Chambers Brothers used to sing, “The Time Has Come Today”; In fact, here it is: https://youtu.be/_zfgoJzOCgg
Now that you’ve had your Acid Trip for the day, what can we do? I have pointed out many times that five billion of us have to go in order for the rest of us to live sustainably. Few are willing to die voluntarily so that many others can live.Trying to think about this dilemma dispassionately is very hard because one must set aside religious beliefs and social value systems such as that of the USA which seeks the ‘greater good’ for everyone. So my only recourse for this discussion is to use reason, science, and non-Aristotelian logic (General Semantics). With all that said, here we go:
The ‘Great Die-off’ has to begin with those who drag everyone else down; the destroyers of resources and civilization, such as ISIL, followed by those who continue to over-breed as a sort of old age social security insurance policy, hoping that their children will take care of them. (I have to admit that this worked well for thousands of years in the past, but that was then and now it’s now).
So, it seems that our efforts to save the ‘Innocent’ masses that are migrating with their children out of regions of conflict, must be focused on those that are educated or have critical skills useful to the ‘survivors’ of humanity. The rest should likely be confined in camps in their countries of origin. Regardless of the firefights, ground wars, religious-based terrorism and so forth going on, this must be done quickly. And the camps must be provisioned adequately, including food and water, and guarded by the rest of us in order for the candidates to be tested and otherwise identified as worthy of salvation. If done in nature this would be called ‘Darwinism’ or ‘Natural Selection’. Unfortunately, this winnowing of the herd by nature usually takes thousands of years, and we no longer have the luxury of time. The candidates that get a ‘passing grade’ get assimilated into our societies carefully.
This kind of ‘testing’ and confinement must also take place within ‘developed’ countries, and ‘western’ or ‘democratic’ societies as well. When the dust settles, the ‘fit’ among us can start the rebuilding process. The new human paradigm will be environmental remediation, with forestry workers and fish& game folks having the same privileges as engineers, teachers, farmers, and physicians. Here is the alternative:
Advanced societies and countries will be quickly overrun and bankrupted, as well as suffer social collapse caused by displaced populations, terrorist infiltrators and fanatics. Feudal groups within the smoldering remains of ‘civilization’ will arise with the wealthy having their own armies, and social disorder will continue while the planet is being rendered uninhabitable by environmental change.
I have written several posts about what I see as a very likely human extinction event in this blog, and you may find it hard to believe, but it was the result of some hasty original research on my part. Seeking verification of my views today by surfing the ‘Net’ I had a real eye-opening gestalt: many others have had the same idea; for example, in among the plethora of doomsday/ alarmist videos on YouTube, there are some that are actually based on scientific data and projections that see a similar timeline as the one I described. I also came across a recently published article that explains in simple terms the content of the National Academy of Sciences report on the matter. You can find it here: Humans could be the next to go
In the most likely (in my view) scenario, if we successfully reduce the human population of the planet by five billion in the next 20 years, we might be able to survive as technically advanced hunter-gatherers or horticulturalists. This also presumes that we preserve natural habitats and predator/prey ratios for the other species with which we share the planet. It will be a true ‘Spaceship Earth’ for a while. I say ‘for a while’ because there are many ways to screw things up and go extinct even after reaching homeostasis with other surviving life forms.
There is much talk going on about creating cities in space or migrating populations to other star systems as a remedy to our demise as a species. However, this may not be feasible, because if the really advanced aliens don’t squash us like bugs, we are presently too ignorant to terraform any habitable planet that we may come across. This is where the emerging science of Chronoastrobiology comes into play. In brief, structures in time are called Chronomes; their mapping in us and around us is called Chronomics. The scientific study of Chronomes is Chronobiology. And the scientific study of all aspects of biology related to the cosmos has been called Astrobiology. Hence we may dub the new study of time structures in biology with regard to influences from cosmo- helio- and geomagnetic rhythms Chronoastrobiology. It will be a necessary discipline for the ‘Spaceship Earth’ scenario as well successful migration to other star systems. Here is a lengthy abstract of the paper that discusses this new discipline: Chronoastrobiology
Elysium Starship/ Habitat—Courtesy of Tristar Pictures
My older and wiser cousin sent me an e-mail that I thought should be passed on. It’s something most of us never hear or think much about…
We see lots of pictures of wounded male veterans but women vets get wounded and maimed too.
You may need to take a second, closer look though… The first thing I saw was a bunch of beautiful smiles.
It is a tragedy of epic proportions that the United States must squander its precious resources including the mothers of our children on the countries of the Middle East, where the dominant religion values men above all, followed by their horses and donkeys, and then their wives and mothers; where rape and pillage are seen as virtues, and where democracy is just another shell game played by men without real values and no vision of the future of mankind.
