Another viewpoint

I deleted my last post because it seems to have triggered several attacks on my computer (unsuccessfully). In its place, I decided to post a commencement address that really got me stoked. While it is directed at American university graduates, it may have value to other young readers of this blog as well. Take a few minutes and read this advice to graduates at Texas A&M University. This Texas lawyer, himself recipient of an Honorary Degree, is obviously opinionated, but to say what he does, in a commencement address not long ago, in front of a class of Texas A&M graduates, and especially the faculty, is amazing. I would have loved to be there just to see the faculty reaction.  It is extremely rare that anyone speaks the truth like this at any College or High School Commencement Address.  
 
“I am honored by the invitation to address you on this August occasion. It’s about time. Be warned, however, that I am not here to impress you; you’ll have enough smoke blown up your bloomers today. And you can bet your tassels I’m not here to impress the faculty and administration. You may not like much of what I have to say, and that’s fine. You will remember it though. Especially after about 10 years out there in the real world. This, it goes without saying, does not apply to those of you who will seek your careers and your fortunes as government employees.

This gowned gaggle behind me is your faculty. You’ve heard the old saying that those who can — do. Those who can’t — teach. That sounds deliciously insensitive. But there is often raw truth in insensitivity, just as you often find feel-good falsehoods and lies in compassion. Say good-bye to your faculty because now you are getting ready to go out there and do. These folks behind me are going to stay right here and teach.

By the way, just because you are leaving this place with a diploma doesn’t mean the learning is over. When an FAA flight examiner handed me my private pilot’s license many years ago, he said, ‘Here, this is your ticket to learn.’ The same can be said for your diploma. Believe me, the learning has just begun.

Now, I realize that most of you consider yourselves Liberals. In fact, you are probably very proud of your liberal views. You care so much. You feel so much. You want to help so much. After all you’re a compassionate and caring person, aren’t you now? Well, isn’t that just so extraordinarily special. Now, at this age, is as good a time as any to be a  liberal; as good a time as any to know absolutely everything. You have plenty of time, starting tomorrow, for the truth to set in. Over the next few years, as you begin to feel the cold breath of reality down your neck, things are going to start changing pretty fast…including your own assessment of just how much you really know.

So here are the first assignments for your initial class in reality: Pay attention to the news, read newspapers, and listen to the words and phrases that proud Liberals use to promote their causes. Then, compare the words of the left to the words and phrases you hear from those evil, heartless, greedy conservatives. From the Left you will hear ‘I feel.’ From the Right you will hear ‘I think.’ From the Liberals you will hear references to groups — The Blacks, the Poor, The Rich, The Disadvantaged, The Less Fortunate. From the Right you will hear references to individuals. On the Left you hear talk of group rights; on the Right, individual rights.

That about sums it up, really: Liberals feel. Liberals care. They are pack animals whose identity is tied up in group dynamics. Conservatives and Libertarians think — and, setting aside the theocracy crowd, their identity is centered on the individual.

Liberals feel that their favored groups have enforceable rights to the property and services of productive individuals. Conservatives and Libertarians, I among them I might add, think that individuals have the right to protect their lives and their property from the plunder of the masses.

In college you developed a group mentality, but if you look closely at your diplomas you will see that they have your individual names on them. Not the name of your school mascot, or of your fraternity or sorority, but your name. Your group identity is going away. Your recognition and appreciation of your individual identity starts now.

If, by the time you reach the age of 30, you do not consider yourself to be a libertarian or a conservative, rush right back here as quickly as you can and apply for a faculty position. These people will welcome you with open arms. They will welcome you, that is, so long as you haven’t developed an individual identity. Once again you will have to be willing to sign on to the group mentality you embraced during the past four years.

Something is going to happen soon that is going to really open your eyes. You’re going to actually get a full time job!

You’re also going to get a lifelong work partner. This partner isn’t going to help you do your job. This partner is just going to sit back and wait for payday. This partner doesn’t want to share in your effort, but in your earnings.

Your new lifelong partner is actually an agent; an agent representing a strange and diverse group of people; an agent for every teenager with an illegitimate child; an agent for a research scientist who wanted to make some cash answering the age-old question of why monkeys grind their teeth. An agent for some poor demented hippie who considers herself to be a meaningful and talented artist, but who just can’t manage to sell any of her artwork on the open market.

Your new partner is an agent for every person with limited, if any, job skills, but who wanted a job at City Hall. An agent for tinhorn dictators in fancy military uniforms grasping for American foreign aid. An agent for multimillion-dollar companies who want someone else to pay for their overseas advertising. An agent for everybody who wants to use the unimaginable power of this agent’s for their personal enrichment and benefit.

That agent is our wonderful, caring, compassionate, oppressive government. Believe me, you will be awed by the unimaginable power this agent has. Power that you do not have A power that no individual has, or will have. This agent has the legal power to use force, deadly force to accomplish its goals.

You have no choice here. Your new friend is just going to walk up to you, introduce itself rather gruffly, hand you a few forms to fill out, and move right on in. Say hello to your own personal one ton gorilla. It will sleep anywhere it wants to.

Now, let me tell you, this agent is not cheap. As you become successful it will seize about 40% of everything you earn. And no, I’m sorry, there just isn’t any way you can fire this agent of plunder, and you can’t decrease its share of your income. That power rests with him, not you.

So, here I am saying negative things to you about government. Well, be clear on this: It is not wrong to distrust government. It is not wrong to fear government. In certain cases it is not even wrong to despise government for government is inherently evil. Yes, … a necessary evil, but dangerous nonetheless … somewhat like a drug. Just as a drug that in the proper dosage can save your life, an overdose of government can be fatal.

Now let’s address a few things that have been crammed into your minds at this university. There are some ideas you need to expunge as soon  as possible. These ideas may work well in academic environment, but they fail miserably out there in the real world.

First is that favorite buzz word of the media, government and academia: Diversity! You have been taught that the real value of any group of people — be it a social group, an employee group, a management group, whatever — is based on diversity. This is a favored liberal ideal because diversity is based not on an individual’s abilities or character, but on a person’s identity and status as a member of a group. Yes, it’s that liberal group identity thing again.

Within the great diversity movement group identification — be it racial, gender based, or some other minority status — means more than the individual’s integrity, character or other qualifications.

Brace yourself. You are about to move from this academic atmosphere where diversity rules, to a workplace and a culture where individual achievement and excellence actually count. No matter what your professors have taught you over the last four years, you are about to learn that diversity is absolutely no replacement for excellence, ability, and individual hard work. From this day on every single time you hear the word ‘diversity’ you can rest assured that there is someone close by who is determined to rob you of every vestige of individuality you possess.

We also need to address this thing you seem to have about ‘rights.’ We have witnessed an obscene explosion of so-called ‘rights’ in the last few decades, usually emanating from college campuses.You know the mantra: You have the right to a job. The right to a place to live. The right to a living wage. The right to health care. The right to an education. You probably even have your own pet right – the right to a Beemer for instance, or the right to have someone else provide for that child you plan on downloading in a year or so.

Forget it. Forget those rights! I’ll tell you what your rights are! You have a right to live free, and to the results of 60% -75% of your labor. I’ll also tell you have no right to any portion of the life or labor of another.

You may, for instance, think that you have a right to health care. After all, Hillary said so, didn’t she? But you cannot receive healthcare unless some doctor or health practitioner surrenders some of his time – his life — to you. He may be willing to do this for compensation, but that’s his choice. You have no ‘right’ to his time or property. You have no right to his or any other person’s life or to any portion thereof.

You may also think you have some ‘right’ to a job; a job with a living wage, whatever that is. Do you mean to tell me that you have a right to force your services on another person, and then the right to demand that this person compensate you with their money? Sorry, forget it. I am sure you would scream if some urban outdoorsmen (that would be ‘homeless person’ for those of you who don’t want to give these less fortunate people a romantic and adventurous title) came to you and demanded his job and your money.

The people who have been telling you about all the rights you have are simply exercising one of theirs – the right to be imbeciles. Their being imbeciles didn’t cost anyone else either property or time. It’s their right, and they exercise it brilliantly. By the way, did you catch my use of the phrase ‘less fortunate’ a bit ago when I was talking about the urban outdoorsmen? That phrase is a favorite of the Left. Think about it, and you’ll understand why.

To imply that one person is homeless, destitute, dirty, drunk, spaced out on drugs, unemployable, and generally miserable because he is ‘less fortunate’ is to imply that a successful person — one with a job, a home and a future — is in that position because he or she was ‘fortunate.’ The dictionary says that fortunate means ‘having derived good from an unexpected place.’ There is nothing unexpected about deriving good from hard work. There is also nothing unexpected about deriving misery from choosing drugs, alcohol, and the street.

If the Liberal Left can create the common perception that success and failure are simple matters of ‘fortune’ or ‘luck,’ then it is easy to promote and justify their various income redistribution schemes. After all, we are just evening out the odds a little bit. This ‘success equals luck’ idea the liberals like to push is seen everywhere. Former Democratic presidential candidate Richard Gephardt refers to high-achievers as ‘people who have won life’s lottery.’ He wants you to believe they are making the big bucks because they are lucky. It’s not luck, my friends. It’s choice.

One of the greatest lessons I ever learned was in a book by Og Mandino, entitled ‘The Greatest Secret in the World.’ The lesson? Very simple: ‘Use wisely your power of choice.’

That bum sitting on a heating grate, smelling like a wharf rat? He’s there by choice. He is there because of the sum total of the choices he has made in his life. This truism is absolutely the hardest thing for some people to accept, especially those who consider themselves to be victims of something or other — victims of discrimination, bad luck, the system, capitalism, whatever. After all, nobody really wants to accept the blame for his or her position in life. Not when it is so much easier to point and say, ‘Look! He did this to me!’ than it is to look into a mirror and say, ‘You S. O. B.! You did this to me!’

The key to accepting responsibility for your life is to accept the fact that your choices, every one of them, are leading you inexorably to either success or failure, however you define those terms.

Some of the choices are obvious: Whether or not to stay in school Whether or not to get pregnant. Whether or not to hit the bottle. Whether or not to keep this job you hate until you get another better-paying job. Whether or not to save some of your money, or saddle yourself with huge payments for that new car.

Some of the choices are seemingly insignificant: Whom to go to the movies with. Whose car to ride home in? Whether to watch the tube tonight, or read a book on investing. But, and you can be sure of this, each choice counts. Each choice is a building block — some large, some small. But each one is a part of the structure of your life. If you make the right choices, or if you make more right choices than wrong ones, something absolutely terrible may happen to you. Something unthinkable. You, my friend, could become one of the hated, the evil, the ugly, the feared, the filthy, the successful, the rich.

The rich basically serve two purposes in this country. First, they provide the investments, the investment capital, and the brains for the formation of new businesses. Businesses that hire people. Businesses that send millions of paychecks home each week to the UN-rich. Second, the rich are a wonderful object of ridicule, distrust, and hatred. Few things are more valuable to a politician than the envy most Americans feel for the evil rich.

Envy is a powerful emotion. Even more powerful than the emotional minefield that surrounded Bill Clinton when he reviewed his last batch of White House interns. Politicians use envy to get votes and power. And they keep that power by promising the envious that the envied will be punished: The rich will pay their fair share of taxes if I have anything to do with it. The truth is that the top 10% of income earners in this country pays almost 50% of all income taxes collected. I shudder to think what these job
producers would be paying if our tax system were any more ‘fair,’

You have heard, no doubt, that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Interestingly enough, our government’s own numbers show that many of the poor actually get richer, and that quite a few of the rich actually get poorer. But for the rich who do actually get richer, and the poor who remain poor … there’s an explanation — a reason. The rich, you see, keep doing the things that make them rich; while the poor keep doing the things that make them poor.

Speaking of the poor, during your adult life you are going to hear an endless string of politicians bemoaning the plight of the poor So, you need to know that under our government’s definition of ‘poor’ you can have a $5 million net worth, a $300,000 home and a new $90,000 Mercedes, all completely paid for. You can also have a maid, cook, and valet, and $million in your checking account, and you can still be officially defined by our government as ‘living in poverty.’ Now there’s something you haven’t seen on the evening news.

How does the government pull this one off? Very simple, really. To determine whether or not some poor soul is ‘living in poverty,’ the government measures one thing — just one thing. Income. It doesn’t matter one bit how much you have, how much you own, how many cars you drive or how big they are, whether or not your pool is heated, whether you winter in Aspen and spend the summers in the Bahamas, or how much is in your savings account. It only matters how much income you claim in that particular year. This means that if you take a one-year leave of absence from your high-paying job and decide to live off the money in your savings and checking accounts while you write the next great American novel, the government says you are ‘living in poverty,

This isn’t exactly what you had in mind when you heard these gloomy statistics, is it? Do you need more convincing? Try this. The government’s own statistics show that people who are said to be ‘living in poverty’ spend more than $1.50 for each dollar of income they claim. Something is a bit fishy here. Just remember all this the next time Charles Gibson tells you about some hideous new poverty statistics.

Why has the government concocted this phony poverty scam? Because the government needs an excuse to grow and to expand its social welfare programs, which translates into an expansion of its power. If the government can convince you, in all your compassion, that the number of ‘poor’ is increasing, it will have all the excuse it needs to sway an electorate suffering from the advanced stages of Obsessive-Compulsive Compassion Disorder.

I’m about to be stoned by the faculty here. They’ve already changed their minds about that honorary degree I was going to get. That’s OK, though. I still have my Ph.D. in Insensitivity from the Neal Boortz Institute for Insensitivity Training. I learned that, in short, sensitivity sucks. It’s a trap. Think about it — the truth knows no sensitivity. Life can be insensitive Wallow too much in sensitivity and you’ll be unable to deal with life, or the truth So, get over it.

Now, before the dean has me shackled and hauled off, I have a few random thoughts.

* You need to register to vote, unless you are on welfare. If you are living off the efforts of others, please do us the favor of sitting down and shutting up until you are on your own again.

* When you do vote, your votes for the House and the Senate are more important than your vote for president. The House controls the purse strings, so concentrate your awareness there.

* Liars cannot be trusted, even when the liar is the president of the country. If someone can’t deal honestly with you, send them packing.

* Don’t bow to the temptation to use the government as an instrument of plunder. If it is wrong for you to take money from someone else who earned it — to take their money by force for your own needs — then it is certainly just as wrong for you to demand that the government step forward and do this dirty work for you.

* Don’t look in other people’s pockets. You have no business there. What they earn is theirs. What you earn is yours Keep it that way. Nobody owes you anything, except to respect your privacy and your rights, and leave you the hell alone.

* Speaking of earning, the revered 40-hour workweek is for losers Forty hours should be considered the minimum, not the maximum. You don’t see highly successful people clocking out of the office every afternoon at five. The losers are the ones caught up in that afternoon rush hour. The winners drive home in the dark.

* Free speech is meant to protect unpopular speech. Popular speech, by definition, needs no protection.

* Finally (and aren’t you glad to hear that word), as Og Mandino wrote, 

1 . Proclaim your rarity. Each of you is a rare and unique human being. 

2. Use wisely your power of choice.
3. Go the extra mile.Drive home in the dark.

Oh, and put off buying a television set as long as you can. Now, if you have any idea at all what’s good for you, you will get the hell out of here and never come back.

Class dismissed”

 

Where I live

I get asked from time to time where I actually live in Utah, so I decided to respond. I love where I live. It helps to keep me mellow and non-violent, even when I have to suffer the occasional door-to-door sales person or Girl Scouts selling cookies. When I get stressed out, I have immediate relief available in the form of the Lone Peak Wilderness, about eight kilometers from my house, and on the way, some beautiful little fishing lakes at 3100 meters altitude. To get to the lakes, I take a trailhead that starts about two kilometers from my home. The hike to the lakes is about five kilometers of “Walking in beauty”, a Navajo Indian phrase. Here is a nice and short video of the hike to the first of three lakes  you encounter: Red Pine Lake:

There, I can fly-fish for Bonneville Cutthroat Trout or the few larger Mackinaw Lake Trout that lurk in the deeper points of the lake. I practice catch and release fishing so that the poor souls who hike here to go fishing in a wild lake have something to catch. The only danger I have to deal with besides falling down is the occasional Moose or Mountain Lion. Because of my Emphysema, I may have to bring a portable oxygen bottle on the hike some time in the  future. In an emergency, with a cell phone call, I can have a rescue helicopter there within minutes. All in all, it is not a bad way to go. Salt Lake International Airport is only 20 minutes from my home, when I need to expand my horizons.

I’ll be glad when Obama leaves office

It is hard to write this post because first, I hate writing about politics and politicians, and second, I am all in favor of Blacks in America succeeding to be fully integrated into the free society established by Caucasians in 1776. Slavery is an abomination that has no business in an enlightened society; and while the practice of enslaving Blacks captured in Africa for work on White owned farms and plantations was occurring worldwide including South America, the USA (mostly Whites) fought a horrendous civil war over the issue that killed or displaced millions of our citizens on both sides of the conflict.

It is also very interesting that upon liberation, many Black slaves did not want to leave the plantations where they lived, and the many White landowners that actually treated them as family members, enjoying the same status within the household. You seldom see any articles that point out this fun fact, and it is ‘Politically Incorrect’. And, how about his relentless efforts to get gun control legislation? Well, here is an alternate view by Blacks that are !00% American, honest, and are to be commended: Black Americans speak out

As usual, facts are swept under the table or distorted to fit the current political paradigm.

Take Kenya, for example, where Obama is a God-like figure. It’s so-called ‘freedom” was obtained at a horrific cost in lives and social development of the orderly and reasonably ‘fair’ society established by Whites who had created the country in the first place. (tribes do not create nation-states). In Kenya, this revolution was driven by the Mau-Mau and Swahili-speaking tribes, under the slogan “Uhuru”, a Swahili word meaning ‘Freedom’.

If you what to know the straight skinny about this revolution, read a book written in 1961 by one of my favorite authors, Robert Ruark:

 

In his speech yesterday, he called for an end to old tribal and ethnic divisions that he said are “doomed to tear our country apart” and urged Kenya’s leaders, as he did President Uhuru Kenyatta during their meetings on Saturday, to confront the terrorist threat posed by al-Shabab militants. Now, the phrase that I highlighted is semantically loaded, and says a lot about Obama’s inner feelings: He’s not just an American, he is also Kenyan.

Being raised in Muslim schools abroad, and having a long-time mentor in the US that is Muslim and a preacher of revolution in America, the USA elected a President with an agenda that may be hidden from direct public view, and may not necessarily be benevolent to all of our country’s citizens; especially Whites. While I’m glad he was elected via a majority of White voters, I would be very glad to see him replaced, except for one disturbing fact: The Republicans can’t seem to come up with at truly ‘Presidential’ candidate. There is no one in the running yet that is suitable for that high office and will represent everyone in an impartial manner.

Now is not the time to play politics. With the potential for total anarchy around the world, the USA needs a leadership group that is believable, trustworthy, selfless, and compassionate. A ‘Community organizer’ is not the sort of background that we need in our chief executive and warlord, nor is a ‘Tea Party’ advocate with little or no experience is managing vast enterprises such as our government. While Donald Trump is the first billionaire to run for office, he’s not the best either, as buying and selling real estate is not the same as building a business from scratch that contributes to the growth and prosperity of the country and the business’s own employees. Frankly, I wish men like former Utah Governor Mike Leavitt would consider running: Mike Leavitt

Major Aspects of the Tactical Battlefield of 2050

Today, I read an unclassified study about the future of modern warfare. To quote from the study:

“The discussion of what major changes we could expect with respect to our ability to see, communicate, think, and decide on the tactical battlefield of 2050 was predicated upon a shared view that this battlefield would be characterized by the vastly increased presence and reliance on: automated processes and decision making; humans with augmented sensing ;and information – related and cognitive capabilities. This breakout group posited that transport (getting capability to the battlefield) would not be a limiting consideration. The group identified and discussed the following 7 interrelated future capabilities that they felt would differentiate the battlefield of the future from current capabilities and engagements:

• Augmented humans

• Automated decision making and autonomous processes

• Misinformation as a weapon

• Micro-targeting

• Large-scale self-organization and collective decision making

• Cognitive modeling of the opponent

• Ability to understand and cope in a contested, imperfect, information

environment.”

This fascinating study neglects an alternate reality that is developing, in my view: The extinction event that I have blogged about here on Vivaldi.net. Now, my disclaimer regarding what follows is that there is evidence that supports the idea of an impending ‘mini-ice age’ such as occurred a few centuries ago (mild), and the Younger Dryas cooling event that occurred in about 14,000 BC (severe-it lasted over 1,000 years). See: Younger Dryas

 

It is likely (in my view) that a mild version will occur if we are successful in limiting carbon emissions globally. On the other hand, if we don’t succeed in limiting carbon emissions substantially and rebuild ocean ecosystems, humanity will be extinct. For the sake of argument, I will assume a more benign outcome based on people and governments coming to the realization that the environmental crisis will envelop and destroy 95% of life on Earth.

If we continue in our ignorance, greed, and cynical consumption of everything edible and drinkable on the planet, we are doomed for sure. “There’s an established body of work that draws a connection between drought, resource scarcity, and conflict in general,” writes Atlantic’s David A. Graham.

See: http://www.defenseone.com/news/2015/07/martin-omalleys-link-between-climate-change-and-isis-isnt-crazy-all/118308/?oref=d_brief_nl

So, here is my version of a likely scenario leading up to the year 2050:

Present through 2020:

Populations globally in increasing numbers flee religious sectarian violence, and lethal heating or environmental degradation in specific regions. Survival camps similar to WWII concentration camps are setup by affected countries and their military establishments, which become very stretched in resources both physical and manpower-wise. Fences and other strict border controls are established.

In 2020 the numbers of displaced people becomes unmanageable, triggering draconian responses by surviving governments. One Billion people will be over the age of 60. Climate change continues unabated as it takes about 200 years for atmospheric methane and carbon dioxide gases to be reabsorbed by the planet in meaningful quantities. In 2020 the world’s oceans are depleted of naturally-occurring fish, crustaceans, seaweed, and so forth that are consumed by human beings. The oceanic Phytoplankton and Cyanobacteria colonies begin a major die-off, and desperate measures commence such as adding iron oxide in the oceans as a fertilizer. Enormous releases of Methane in the Arctic tundra and Methane Hydrates in the world’s oceans begin to be vented into the atmosphere.

2021-2025:

At this point, dreams of national empires, religious domination of the world, universal suffrage, ‘United Nations’, and so forth die as military forces around the world are fully committed to local crises, including stockpiles of nuclear weapons being pilfered by radical groups. At this point, zero dollars are being spent on such things as stealth bombers, and evacuation of coastal populations begin as the melt-off of the world’s icecaps accelerates. On land, glaciers have shrunk to the point that they can no longer feed the major rivers of the world such as the Amazon, Ganges, Mississippi, Congo, Volga, Colorado, Yangtze, and so on, producing only trickles of potable and agricultural water. The tropics become basically uninhabiable, and massive population migrations th cooler climes begins. The Amazon Rainforest and siimiiilar oxygen generators die off. Mass starvation and ensuing controls on food stacks, water, and arable land usage begins. Personal ‘Freedom’ becomes a thing of the past. Oceanic commercial fishing collapses totally and hydroponic gardening and fish farms proliferate.

2026-2030:

Assuming nuclear weapons captured by radical groups are not detonated, National governments around the world collapse, to be replaced by local government, warlords, and dictators. Complex technology such as spaceflight, computing, and medical research can no longer be supported or advanced in any meaningful way. Atmospheric Oxygen drops significantly. Fiefdoms and local aristocracies fight the surviving masses and people wear survival gear and masks when they go outdoors. A few underground cities exist at this point, surviving on pilfered water and food stocks from the surface and home-grown hydroponic systems fed by underground rivers. It is possible that these ‘cities’ will die out  within a few years after birth due to newly-evolved pathogens, a lack of sufficient Oxygen in the atmosphere to support animal life, and engineered diseases inadvertently released from cold war research labs that may have devastated survivors on the surface, and found their way underground.

2031-2040:

The great extinction event begins. High order life forms such as mammals and birds die off (the birds more slowly), leaving the world to cockroaches, termites, and other insect species (these can live a long time, presuming that the atmosphere is not completely toxic).

2041-2050:

Lacking humans and other animals on the surface, the insect world begins to evolve to fill the ecological niches that no longer support high-order life such as animals. Human survivors underground (if there are any) will have to deal with a new kind of ‘Spaceship Earth’. Because the absolute number of humans will be so diminished, our long-term survival is in doubt. It will really be an issue of the planet recovering rapidly from the devastation on its surface, and dumping the idea of warfare as a means of resolving disputes.

Viewed from the foregoing perspective, our chances of survival are very low unless we make radical changes in the way humans live and interact with each other and the species with which we share the world. One thing is for sure:

We can no longer tolerate human ignorance and barbarity. Society must change in a way that promotes peace and rational discourse about issues, and allows the individual to excel, and in the process, create and invent better ways of living for the rest of us. In the process, we must deal with our animal impulses by developing a rational approach to being human, After all, as far as we know, we are the first species on the planet to reason and use technology, aren’t we?

 

Guest blogger today while I’m in hiding

I have turned today’s post over to Awesome of the Loose Trucking Company, who appears to be a better writer than I am; therefore, I’m hiding in the closet in a blue funk for now. Here is his email message in reply (finally) to the depraved blog post I made about defeating ISIL; which used a parody of General Patton’s speech made to U.S. troops on entering World War II.

Ravo,

I hear you, brother! And I agree. 

Now, however….just thinking academically, is ISIS any worse than those North Korean dudes hangin’ with Kim Jong-il? Are they any worse than Putin and his gangs of thugs? They are just “nobodies” compared to Joe Stalin and Beria. Or to Pol Pot and his vicious Khmer Rouge (the U.S. supported those assholes when they were fighting against the newly unified, Vietnam. Talk about “sour grapes”). Truly now, are the ISIS any worse than the Latin Americanos of Torture, the militarized drug cartels who are using the terrorism of murders to take over various localities? Those cartel assholes are way more integrated in America than the ISIS. 

All the cataclysmic unrest in the world reminds me of the wild orchestral instrumental leading to the final NOTE in the Beatles song, Day In The Life. 

The integration of terror, the ugly civil unrest, brutality, murder and repression into a society definitely weakens the health, the vibrancy of that society. What is to be done about all the various gangs in America, from the street hoodies to the Russian mobs, the American Mafia, and the Mexican-Sinaloa cartel gangs? Invite them into the mainstream? So, in Iraq, and throughout other areas of the “Islamic world”, there is the spreading “cancer” of “Religious Nihilism” inside the “body” of society that is crippling the body.

Which fire does one put out first with limited amounts of water? This country is 17 trillion dollars in debt, (world’s greatest debtor) with a large percentage of National Budget going toward paying Social Security and Medicare. How badly does The Cost Of War further erode our cultural equanimity? (look what our war in Vietnam cost, and is still costing us) How much time, money and energy do we spend fighting a never-ending war on terrorism at the expense of the health and well-being of our own country? You remember what happened to Brer Rabbit when he got entangled with the Tar Baby. Of course, I have no answers to the endless plethora of questions. 

The War on Terrorism is just getting started, but just as the War on Drugs, begun in 1973, created monumental suffering, massive international proliferation of gangs, thieves, thugs, smuggling and massive ineffective expense by the Federal Government, the U.S. War on Terrorism, now in its “official” 13th year, will continue to spawn more expense, more terror, more chaos, more psychological and physical pollution world-wide. Can Terrorism be killed with violence? Statistically, the U.S. spends more on its military than all other countries combined, and we sell the most weapons of any country in the world. (an interesting conundrum) The U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 was a horrendous blunder. One wonders idly, are Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld the “Founding Fathers” of ISIS?

Thinking of all the indigenous peoples of the “middle east” as “Arabs” is misleading since it is purely a European term.

The entire vast region is really not unified at all, in the sense of “Nation-states”. It is thousands and thousands of square miles sparsely inhabited by various levels of backward repressive, superstitious, vindictive, vengeful, ignorant, barbaric, small-minded peoples living under the edicts of religious despots, and War Lords. Yes, within all that, there are definitely educated open-minded people, but they are a minority and often for the sake of their own lives, a silent minority. The female part of the population has no say whatever in any meaningful way and no way of ever having any kind of self- determination. There is no real “Arab” identity to any “country” as we understand it in the U.S. No “national unity” per-se. Which is why, when confronted with ISIS the “Iraqi” army gets mauled. The “Iraqi” army isn’t really fighting for a Nation.

The European-controlled “balance of power” of “national borders” in the Middle East region (that was established after WW1) was put together purely arbitrarily with European diplomatic wrangling to control what had previously been the fiefdom of the Ottoman Empire. Prior to, and during WW1, (and after) Britain was pouring huge amounts of gold into the hands of a few individuals (ruffians and holy men) in the Middle East that the Brits thought they could use as post-war leaders. Ibn Saud was one of these. The borders we see in the Middle East today weren’t there until about 1920. British involvement in the region, strategic planning, was really about keeping the upper-hand in the up-and-coming “oil game”.

In the Philippines, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Cuba, Iran, Chile, the U.S. “installed” its own “Bully Boys” to create stability. In Iraq, Saddam Hussein eventually murdered his way to the top, and the U.S. (whose dominance had eclipsed the Brits after WW2) embraced him as our own bully boy. And we slapped that boy hard when he got “too big for his britches” and invaded Kuwait, but kept him on as “rascal-in-residence”, not exactly “our boy” any more, but one the planners of these things thought would keep a semblance of stability in that part of the world. The U.S. leadership had to turn a “blind eye” to all the multiple crimes against humanity that their “strongmen” would commit during their long tenures as despotic (but stabilizing) rulers. Joe Stalin (obviously not our “boy”) was a cruel, ruthless psychopathic stabilizing despot. Thirty million innocents murdered and people still want to sanctify that fellow, dear “Uncle Joe”. Never underestimate the human capacity for cruelty. Just when you think humans couldn’t get any worse, they do anyway. Human cruelty seems to have no limit, and is unbearably appalling. One minute “they” are your neighbor, the next minute they are hacking you and your family to death with machetes.

Positive or negative changes in Cultural Mindset are rarely won (entirely) by violence, (The Chaos of the Khmer Rouge notwithstanding). Its propaganda, and push (the Nazi Brown Shirts, the KKK, et al, etc. etc. etc.) but more by long-term social influence, the “propaganda” of social conditioning. The Catholic Church was a great example of using both violence and propaganda for centuries as a method of control, of social influence and social conditioning. But the closer one looks at everything, the more complex it all gets. “The closer you look, the bigger it gets, until you see it is infinite.”

Ahhh, the Doors of Perception, we see things as we are and all that is in front of us is only our perception.

Since 2003, over 500,000 war related deaths in Iraq (population about 25,000,000) and still…..it’s only getting worse. “Mission Accomplished”? Maybe, if it was a mission of destruction and destabilization.

So what can we do? Well, vast numbers of nuclear bombs immediately come to mind. Why not just kill everyone? Literally. That would solve the problem of human conflict! Just do away with all the humans. Nuclear Medicine: a bitter pill to swallow.

Barring that, it would be interesting to gather a combined D-Day-type invasion that put together forces from Saudi Arabia, Iran, Jordan, Turkey, Israel, Lebanon, England, USA, China, Russia, France, India, Pakistan, et al. (a Real focused effort) to root out and destroy the cancer of the ISIS, and then march on and occupy Syria and Libya. We’ll kill your cancer with our cancer.

Even if we could just gather a force of 1% of our entire U.S. population (a little over three million, and about twice the total amount of current U.S. armed forces) for an armed invasion of Iraq to stamp out terrorists, I don’t think it would be enough to change the centuries of social conditioning of the various peoples of the region. Perhaps a force of 10 percent of our population (30,000,000) just moving into the region…in a campaign of: ”all the way-we’re here to stay”…could be enough to change, say over a period of a couple of hundred years, the awful repressive mind-set of that “Arabic Region”. (But probably not).

In the Latin American“New World” look how much of the influence of the Spanish (a solid 300 years of occupation) and the Moors (who occupied Spain for over 700 years up until about 1492) are now totally ingrained throughout those lands.

In the U.S. for over a century after the first tentative step of emancipating the slaves in the states in rebellion during the Civil War, the narrow-minded white southern populace (not everyone, but enough) kept the black peoples in conditions of apartheid and economic and social slavery. Lynching was tolerated. Murder was sanctioned by the white supremacy. 

Sixty five years ago bi-racial marriage in America was not only shocking but, in many states, illegal. Disseminating information on birth control and distributing birth control devices was also illegal in many states. Homosexuals were not only anathema, but by their sexual orientation, lawbreakers too. Sixty five years later, things have changed. Birth control is mostly a way of life. “Rubbers” are sold in supermarkets, and free at many medical clinics. There are hundreds of thousands of blended marriages and even more bi-racial children. Homosexuals are getting married legally now. They are merely labeled “Gay”, and often openly kiss in public. (well, maybe not in Texas)…..

So, we live in a kaleidoscopically ever-changing and brutal world. I think that in America there have been many wonderful benefits from Social Progressivism. In England, the world that Charles Dickens so roundly (and rightly) criticized in his written works has gradually “gone away” due to efforts of social progressivism. (and, look at the Struggle, the suffering, the focus, the lifetimes of staying-the-course it takes to implement changes like voting enfranchisement for women, labor unions, child labor laws, birth control, equal rights, the end of segregation, et al). The social empowerment of the One can be a sum-sum (win-win) result for the Whole. Conversely, “Cripple the One, Cripple the Whole.” Yes, we live with the brutal, struggling, domineering masses. We are the struggling, brutal, domineering masses. The basic concept that Control is the essence of all human interaction (for good or bad) is most probably accurate. And while we, the people of means, in America are reaping the benefits of The Struggles that resulted in our Democratic freedoms, in our Republic, and all the benefits from having a large portion of a Rich Continent to Plunder, there are many here in America who are still struggling to just “get by”, who are homeless, who are demonized for their color, and all the Social Progressive programs “in the world” are not going to change the fact that everyone will not ever share an equality in Quality of Life or Thought, or Standard-of-Living here in America or anywhere else. It just ain’t possible. Meanwhile the rapacious plunderers suck the life out of every living thing, and eventually it’ll all be over for both the poor and the rich.

And Thus endeth Awesome’s Musings of The Moment. 

Awesome

An analogous representation of the US empire being overrun by the “Hordes of Change”.

 

 

There is no situation where having more money made it worse.

The title of this post is a quotation attributed to Woody Allen, and it should be taken into consideration by the new, and my favorite, Pope; as he struggles with the concept of unfettered greed in the business world. Sadly though, he wants to throw out the baby with the bathwater. As we all know, capitalism BRINGS PROSPERITY to those countries that engage in it. It’s really a matter of knowing how much is enough. Here is a 10 minute TED lecture that sheds further light on this issue: Rethinking Capitalism

The foregoing led me to think about the problem of nuclear weapons. The current champion record holder for the biggest set of fireballs is Russia, with a 100 megaton ejaculation when the turgid thing is detonated. Here is a 50 second Youtube clip of the explosion: Climatic explosion

Since that blast, it appears that a sort of penis envy over having these weapons has developed in many nations around the world. Being a capitalist myself, I am just foaming at the mouth to serve this developing market.  I have to admit that ever since I was in the Air Force back in the 1960s, I’ve had an urge to drop nuclear weapons on people. You see, once you have become a SAC-trained killer, there is no going back. I have tried to repress this urge by setting off enormous firecrackers on the 4th of July, but it isn’t the same. Even today I get the urge, especially in rush hour traffic. However, while it is legal to own a nuclear weapon in Utah, you can’t set it off. Now, with the scheming Iranians about to bamboozle our government with a bunch of nuclear hogwash and sleight-of-hand moves that would leave a card sharp breathless, I have decided to offer America a solution.

I believe that even at my advanced age there is absolutely nothing wrong with trying to improve your lot in life and make your existence more comfortable by accumulating money and physical assets. And, anyone can do it if they really apply themselves to the task. History is replete with examples of such people lifting themselves by their bootstraps from the muck, mire, and tedium of living . So, I propose serving the low end of the market for nuclear weapons by introducing the Kalashnikov of nukes: The low-yield nuclear grenade. Now, folks, we can do it. We’ve had a nuclear artillery shell in our arsenal since the 1960s, so it isn’t much more effort to reduce it in size somewhat. Here is a two minute Youtube video about it: World’s smallest nuke

We should jump start development & foreign sales of this device quickly; and in the case of Iran and North Korea, give them as many as they like at bargain-basement prices……..

I got this not-so-big idea while working diligently with a fishing rod.

 

Telling a friend “Goodby” for the last time

I had the sad task of driving 300 miles (one way) from my mountainside home to attend the passing of one of my best friends who had been stricken with incurable cancer. He fought a losing battle with this disease for over five years, and had the very best doctors trying treatments beyond the ordinary radiation and chemotherapy; and he suffered with strange symptoms resulting from experimental/ research drugs. All to no avail. My destination was the home of a very close friend (Craig) who had moved Al (the victim) into his home and cared for him diligently throughout the five-year ordeal. What prompted my rush to St. George,Utah, was a late night call from Craig; who said, “Al is now in the terminal stage, and he will be dead in a few days.”

“I’m on my way. I’ll call Rip (another close friend who is a professional musician) and tell him the bad news.”

“Why don’t you come down in the morning. He’s all doped up, and I don’t want you to hit a deer or something else in your headlights, the way you drive”.

“O.K.”, I sighed, “I’ll leave about 5:00 AM. What’s the air temperature in St. George?”

“Well, it topped out at 105 degrees this afternoon, but it will be 111 tomorrow, according to the forecaster.”

“No problem, I’ll see you around 9:00 in the morning. Is Al coherent?”

“He fades in and out, depending on how much Morphine he’s taken. You can probably talk to him and be understood, but don’t expect much in the way of a reply.”

“Okay; See you in the morning.” I hung up and called Rip. Rip said he would hurry down as fast as he could reschedule stuff, and that he would bring his guitar (he’s an excellent  musician).

From different backgrounds and age groups, we were part of a tight knit band of brothers, mostly musicians and artists called “The Loose Trucking Company.” As a group, we had explored the hidden reaches of the Colorado Plateau ‘slickrock’ country, and skied the wild peaks of the Wasatch Mountains. We have been getting together to go exploring for over forty years.

I arrived in the toasty heat of the early morning in St. George. Craig ushered me into his home, which was located beside a long fairway of one of the famous golf courses in the area.

“How is he doing?” I asked.

“He’s downstairs. He’s in full hospice care now and he didn’t take any heavy jolts of the pain killers so he could talk with you.”

I followed Crag down to the lower level of house, where Al was setup in what seemed to be a hospital room complete with a hospital bed, wheelchair, oxygen machine, hospital supplies, etc.  Al was lying on the bed with tubes for a catheter and other stuff emerging from the bed sheets. He was so thin and gaunt that I hardly recognized him, and as I peered intently at his face, his eyes fluttered open and he saw me staring down at him. His lips quivered a little beneath his mustache, and then slowly broke into a smile. “It’s good to see you, Cox; thanks for coming.” he whispered.

I won’t bore the reader with our weepy conversation. I reminded him of the good times we had shared, skiing, hiking, backpacking in the wilderness and so forth. Several women came by while I was visiting with him, and they kissed him goodby tenderly. A little later Rip showed up, talked a bit privately with Al, and then got out his guitar and played a full concert for Al as if he were in a big auditorium. The sweet and complex music filled the room for over two hours. Al had Craig prop him up in bed, and he watched Rip play attentively. Craig’s father, who now lives with him since his wife passed away, came downstairs to listen to the beautiful cords of the guitar. When Rip took a short break, Al motioned me over to his bedside, and croaked in his feeble voice, “You know, Cox, it’s pretty weird listening to your own funeral music…”

In spite of all of his pain, and all that he had been through, he joked around with me once more, because that was Al. The next morning, I drove across the Nevada border and went into a casino where they got me drunk, took all my money, and kicked me to the curb. They weren’t having anything to do with a crying old man slouched over a video poker machine; it was bad for business.

Left to right: Dave, Craig, Al, & Cox golfing in St. George. Rip is not in this image

 

Weaponizing the Internet

There is much consternation in the United States over Cyber attacks from China, Russia, and dissident groups with an agenda. Our paid Cyber-sleuths have the damning evidence in hand, and the political elements in the country are filled with fear and loathing and feel helpless to do anything substantial about it; the main reason being that we have conducted attacks ourselves. An example is the attack on the Iranian centrifuges that were whipping up near weapons-grade enriched Uranium. The problem is that the attacks recently conducted by Russian and Chinese hacker groups have damaged the integrity of our system of democracy and threatened the lives of ordinary citizens. When you add in the disclosures of Edward Snowden, the real-world effects are as big as those created by detonating nuclear weapons on the U.S. Government. Here is a link that supports my thesis: http://www.defenseone.com/threats/2015/06/5-chinese-cyber-attacks-might-be-even-worse-opm-hack/115321/?oref=d_brief_nl

The USA needs to retaliate in kind in a big way, and fast. We need to make it so painful to the parties involved that they never try it again. We also need to isolate North Korea even further by cutting off the access of their hackers to the Internet. The physical servers that connect them up are located in China, and the U.S. knows exactly where they are. We need to demand that the Chinese disconnect them immediately or suffer the consequences.

At the same time, the U.S. Government needs to ‘privatize’ its networks immediately from the inventors at DARPA to the IRS and the Pentagon. There must be no physical links to the Web, wired or optical. The sad truth is that there is NO Way to make the web secure. It is the nature of digital computing; where there are bit streams flowing in and out of a digital/analog processing system, the ‘doors’ in and out cannot be locked and any combination can be tricked into revealing itself and be subject to decoding. The Government network is vital and entrenched in everything the government does. The same applies for power plants, public utilities, and state/local government agencies, including local fire stations, hospitals, traffic lights, railroads, and mass transit systems.

All of these networks must be physically isolated from the world-wide web. The interconnecting wire or fiberoptic lines must be in steel jackets and Tempest-shielded; and they should be buried deeply in the earth. As soon as it is technically possible, such communications should take place via Quantum Entanglement. Until that time, the USA needs to tell the world in the strongest terms that we reserve the right to retaliate on future attacks with cruise missiles or space-based railguns that target the physical location of any hacker groups and network nodes identified by our Cyber Intelligence Corps (when we have one in place). No vital activities of any kind should be connected to either the Web or the Internet of Things.

 

Image courtesy of prepperbroadcasting.com

Total ecosystem collapse overview

In my last post I discussed a pending extinction event, and one of my valued readers (MoonDawg) asked me to elaborate on my analysis that led to this alarming conclusion. I tried to summarize my thinking in a few words, but later, I realized that I needed to make an iron-clad analysis that supports my view available to all of my readers. So, here it is, presented by many others besides myself. The only question in my mind is if I got the timeframe correct (2040). I don’t think it is far off the mark. So, here are some very short videos that support my conclusion. I will follow up soon with a post detailing my ideas for a fix. First of all, read this: http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/5/e1400253

The oceans:

Worldwide deaths of coral reefs:

The impact of overfishing:

The Amazon Rainforest:

 Greenland Ice melting:

Recent ice melting in Antarctica:

 A Planetary Perspective:

The global water crisis:

Depletion of soils due to industrial agriculture:

 Overpopulation crisis:

See full article: Risk to life on Earth

I hope Mr. Vladimir Putin reads this. It is my hope that he stops threatening the USA with nuclear warfare if he doesn’t get his way in Eastern Europe, and starts contributing to the survival of humanity by removing all of the nuclear waste, reactors, and decrepit nuclear submarines that Russia has been secretly dumping haphazardly in the Kara Sea, the Barrets Sea, and Northern Pacific. And Russia is not the only country that did this. It is a time bomb that will guarantee the demise of much remaining oceanic life as it migrates to the cooler waters in order to survive. The greatest impact of this trashing of the ocean will be on the Russians who depend on fishing there to feed the people of the country.

See:http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/09/russia-dumped-19-radioactive-ships-plus-14-nuclear-reactors-into-the-ocean.html

The pending extinction event might be avoided

The fact is, the Earth can only support eight hundred million to one billion humans in a sustainable fashion. This leaves room for the rest of the planet’s non-human species to thrive and continue on their own evolutionary path. You can check out this factoid for yourself. Many studies support this notion. Now imagine an international group of governments getting together in secrecy to develop a plan to reduce the human population by about five billion people before 2040. They may decide that to avoid global warfare, the best way is to get all of the ignorant populations around the world fighting and killing one another with weapons from ancient times where possible and more modern weapons when necessary; donated in secrecy by their technically advanced ‘friends’ around the world. At the same time, these ‘friends’ introduce viruses that are untreatable without the use of high technology, such as Ebola, H5N1 Bird Flu, and so forth. In addition, they keep the fighting and killing going going on by making the issues religious, or based on control of water & food resources.

Far fetched, you say? Well, think about the alternatives. Right now, Putin and the Russians are flying nuclear bombers around, annexing territory from neighboring countries, and colluding with like-minded friends from the Cold War past to create an ‘Us vs.Them’ scenario. They long for the past of the Soviet Union, and are making an open grab for land and resources under the misguided belief that the more they have, the better off they will be. This is the one thing that makes me think that the forgoing secret meetings may not have taken place yet. A lot of conspiracy theories already abound on the Internet. Wikipedia highlights one of the most important here:

New World Order

Soon, the depletion of natural resources and the massive breakdown of the oceanic food chain will add to the misery of resource-poor countries whose populations are fleeing to anyplace that provides a safe haven to survive and raise their children. Sadly, these havens only exist in the minds of the refugees. Even America, the so-called breadbasket of the world and refuge of the downtrodden is under stress, both physically and financially from overpopulation; and millions of unemployed and ‘undocumented’ immigrants are breaking the hearts and backs of the citizens who are trying to assimilate them into our Western cultures.

We no longer have the luxury of tolerating any human activity in the world that exacerbates this global misery. Recent history has shown that at least 80% of the planetary human population is incapable of making any positive contribution to reducing the impact of our disparate societies on global ecosystems and human-induced climate change. As we know, these issues must be confronted and dealt with now. And, any individual, organization, or social system that cannot or will not contribute to the effort to save us all must be coerced into helping in some measurable way or suffer being confined to controlled settings where they cannot disrupt the efforts to change our human societies in a way that is beneficial to our global ecosystem and human survival as soon as possible

This harsh assessment holds regardless of one’s religious bent, political philosophy, or humanitarian impulses. Tough situations usually demand harsh responses, and the gathering storm of social, economic, and religious issues are converging too fast to allow leisurely debate of the issues and their consequences. In general, while we all agree that something must be done; there is little agreement as to what we should do. As an example, the people of Beijing are often seen in photos wearing surgical masks when they go out of doors to conduct the business of their daily lives; yet the Chinese government wants special treatment in climate change discussions that will allow the country to continue to consume more resources and emit more pollutants in order to achieve ‘parity’ with industrialized societies in the ‘Western World’.

This is a recipe for disaster. Now, I am not putting the spotlight on the Chinese people alone. The United States of America has just as much ennui, and the people are not presently willing to make the tough choices and take the tough steps to ensure that humans survive for a few hundred years more. We won’t do it, if no one else does.

The second order of business would be for the UN to ensure that food and potable water resources are distributed equably without preference to religion, politics or skin color, with one caveat: Recipient countries must demonstrate that all members of their society are employed in some fashion for the betterment of humanity and/or environmental remediation. No slackers allowed. This means no crack-smoking indigents lurking on the street corner, no violent criminals, and no terrorists. Redemption is the province of God, if He/She exists; for the rest of us, the best way to deal with our problems is to eliminate those who oppose us. We cannot afford to put them in cages for the rest of their miserable lives and try to ‘rehabilitate’ them.

In conclusion, the only benign alternative that I can see to ‘Death by Design’, is to enact strict global control of births through sterilization/contraception, and deaths by controlling the use of life extension techniques in old age, and the limiting of antibiotics, etc. to control disease outbreaks. Only agreed upon regions of the planet would remain ‘sanitized’ by application of medical technologies. I think it may be the most humane approach to the problem, and I would be very interested in your ideas for reducing the human population fast enough to forestall ecosystem collapses and massive die-offs of many classes of life on Earth.