Re-re-evaluating

ALL POSTS BEYOND THIS POINT ARE ARCHIVES OF A DEFUNCT WEBLOG THAT ENDED IN 2014. 

THERE IS NO DISAVOWAL OF PAST WRITINGS. THESE POSTS REFLECT MY BELIEFS AND THOUGHTS DURING THAT PARTICULAR PERIOD OF TIME. 

CW

No, I'm not shouting it's just an unusually long headline!!!

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I brought this blog back to life back in May of 2013. It was an effort to get away from bloviating on the politics of the day. I wanted to concentrate on larger structural, cultural aspects of our society, chronicling the devolution of America. However, I've found that the politics of the day is the largest contributor of this devolution. The forces that are tearing apart our society and culture (in my view) cannot be separated from the personalities and their shenanigans. So I've found that I'm kinda back where I started.

Judging by the massive readership of this blog and the jam packed and electrifying comment section I have come to realize it's just me shouting into the gale forces of the blogosphere yet barely even contributing to the din. Listen, sometimes I was making a great point and even presenting an angle I felt wasn't getting proper attention. But was it worth the electrons used and the synapses expended putting fingers to keyboard? Probably not. Did I feel better afterward? Not really.

I read an interesting piece the other day about a former leftist activist who upon opening her eyes realized that everything she had done up to that point had been motivated by anger and hate. Even after the object of whatever particular hatred she had was dispatched (or retired) she just moved on to the next without skipping a beat. It was when she realized she had no friends or even acquaintances on the "right" that she reached out for the first time in her life. Though she vehemently opposed their views she found many right-wingers were motivated by love and family and church and community and not necessarily hatred and anger like she was. The last straw was when she realized that while she said she hated the war when George Bush was President and protested at the drop of a hat, she never took part in any protest when Barack Obama took war action. Why? She didn't hate Obama. War didn't matter - hatred did.

Why do I bring this up? I guess I question my own motivation for spouting off like this. Since hardly anyone reads this am I doing it for my own good? What good is it? Is it just my anger at the fools, charlatans and con men as I perceive them? Yeah, probably.

On the other hand, not all leftists are like this woman. Many, probably most, are motivated by by love and family and church and community too. I think they are completely wrong on many subjects but I don't think it's pure hatred that motivates most of them. Yes, there are right-wingers that are motivated by hate - though I think the numbers pale in comparison to the left.

The USA has a lot of problems -  fear, envy, anger and hatred are at the top of the list. I don't want any part of these things in my life. Blogging like this can only contribute to these undesirable attributes. In light of this I will be re-re-evaluating the use of this space...

bear with me...


Ugh

Still seeing blue

Well, it was a big day for he GOP everywhere except in Minnesota. Sure the GOP won control of the State House, but that's small comfort in a state where the Governor and the other constitutional officers wield considerable power. All the state wide offices went to the Dems - again.

It is curious only in that the people of Minnesota are by and large conservative people. These passive/aggressive folk are rarely far-out Birkenstock wearing hippy dippy types. Yet despite their personal conservatism they vote Democrat time after time. This speaks to few things, one is a very weak Republican party and another successful anti-conservative poisoning by the hard core liberal action groups that take advantage of that weakness. Face it none of the past Republican office holders with the exception of one-termer Rod Grams could have been called fire-brand conservatives, the kind that would engender the type of aversion we see to all things GOP in this state.

As a state it's hard to find one more consistently Democrat. The state was once a mining mecca that has seen one party block, stall and reject all new mining projects. The Democrats. It's state that is seeing its great reputation for good schools circle the drain and one party has literally controlled the education system for 50 years. The Democrats. Minnesota has the 3rd or 4th highest tax burden in the nation. There's no sign that rank will turn even slightly south, and there's one party that is always willing to raise them further. The Democrats. Still come election day all over the state the good people vote party line - that party? The Democrats.

On the balance sheet it's mostly a well run state, with a relativity low crime and poverty rates and is chalk full of corporate giants. Bad weather keeps out some of the ill effects of big welfare, because we have big welfare up here. The good work ethic of good working stock keeps the corporations humming despite the taxes. That's changing, however. Huge pools of new immigrants and a failing school system will slowly remove the advantage Minnesota has always enjoyed, each sucking more and more resources from state coffers. Add the ridiculous focus on choo choo trains in the transportation arena. Soon the Twin Cities will become a bypass because the neglect of the road systems will reach critical mass. The tax and spending burden the Dems have laid on the rest of us chickens will come home to roost

Of course well run is relative, small business owners would disagree. The folks who signed up for MNSure would most likely disagree. Warehouse owners looking at their new tax  bill would disagree. I disagree.

Why do we stay if the politics is so unbecoming to center/right people? Well, we were born here, our families are here... That's all I can think of... Oh yeah, our six-week summers are awfully nice.



Ugh

Please God, not Jeb Bush

I can already see the establishment in both parties setting up to ram Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush  down our throats. I preface my remarks by stating clearly that Hillary Clinton would be a disaster for this country. She is not a leader, she does not inspire and she does not tell the truth - ever. She will destroy what's ever left of the country after Obama is through with us.

Now, Jeb Bush... I don't disdain the man, I do disagree with him on many topics. I could live with that if I thought he could win, but he cant - he's a Bush for Heaven's sake. I liked G.W. Bush as a human being, but he failed as a President, he just did. Who knows, Jeb might turn out to be a good President, it's possible, I just don't believe the country will vote for another Bush.

We all need something new, something different. Are the Clinton's and the Bushes all this country has to offer? I don't have a wagon to hitch my horse to yet, it's way, way too early, but the media and party establishment are gearing up to give us Jeb and Hillary. In my informal radar scan of conservative and center/right web forums and blogs finds no one is in favor of this, no one. In fact I sense there will be a revolt, enough of a revolt to crush the GOP for another decade. Rank and file conservatives will simply refuse to show up at the polls. Those of us who hale from the center/right and points rightward have got to make it clear we won't support Jeb Bush, we must not vote for him in straw polls or the early primaries. He needs to fade early.

I don't give a rat's ass what the Democrats do. We all know they have but one arrow in their quiver. The left-wing media will crown queen Hillary while they unpleasantly kick any potential rival to the curb. They will push her highness on us ad nauseum for another two years. This means a fresh face coming out the GOP would so be very interesting, particularly if this person can avoid turning off moderates, unmarried woman and young people. Jeb Bush is not that person.

Friends, unless you plan to vote for Hillary join me early on to discourage the establishment form cramming Jeb Bush down our throats.


Ugh

Income Inequality: Yeah, it's a problem, but the solutions are there

When billionaire Nick Hanauer made his case for the $15 an hour minimum wage in Bloomberg's Businessweek back in 2013 and then in his subsequent TED Talks video it had escaped my interest. Here was another 0.1% guilt trip, knowing that such a change wouldn't affect his fortune one iota. It's like Facebook's Zuckerberg or Bill Gates pushing for relaxed immigration in a nation that already has 25 million native-born workers sitting idle. Unfettered immigration is not going to put those two out of a job. The fact is listening to ultra billionaires prattle on about income inequality is almost offensive.

Sure, they may want to "help the situation" out of some sort of sense of altruism, but their kind of help is so blatantly self serving they'd do best to say nothing. Nick Hanauer so much as say's it straight out - it's fear that motivates his views, he sees pitchforks and mobs in his future when the middle-class is reduced to bare sustenance survival. He says:

 "I see pitchforks, as in angry mobs with pitchforks, because while people like us plutocrats are living beyond the dreams of avarice, the other 99 percent of our fellow citizens are falling farther and farther behind."

Certainly Hanauer say's things I can agree with. He says it's time for American plutocrats and zillionaires to start thinking about the American middle class, and the well being of this country, which is one and the same. I also believe it's true when he says:

 "You see, the problem isn't that we have some inequality. Some inequality is necessary for a high-functioning capitalist democracy. The problem is that inequality is at historic highs today and it's getting worse every day. And if wealth, power, and income continue to concentrate at the very tippy top, our society will change from a capitalist democracy to a neo-feudalist rentier society like 18th-century France. That was France before the revolution and the mobs with the pitchforks.

So I have a message for my fellow plutocrats and zillionaires and for anyone who lives in a gated bubble world: Wake up. Wake up. It cannot last. Because if we do not do something to fix the glaring economic inequities in our society, the pitchforks will come for us, for no free and open society can long sustain this kind of rising economic inequality. It has never happened. There are no examples. You show me a highly unequal society, and I will show you a police state or an uprising. The pitchforks will come for us if we do not address this. It's not a matter of if, it's when. And it will be terrible when they come for everyone, but particularly for people like us plutocrats."

I just don't see something like a minimum wage hike as any kind of answer to income inequality - certainly not all by itself, I see it as the last thing in a long list of positive changes.

Without a doubt income inequality has worsened in the past six years. Mostly due to phenomenally high rates of growth in the U.S. money supply. The Federal Reserve has been pumping $85 billion worth of government bonds and mortgage-backed securities into the economy every month for years. The equities as well as other financial markets have soared. This has yielded phenomenal increases in wealth to upper income earners.

Subsequently, the president’s poverty programs have discouraged the bottom 15 percent from even wanting to earn an income. Why would they? He gives them a free ride by providing years of unemployment benefits, free health care, welfare and food stamp benefits - as if that's all policy makers can possibly hope to do. It's false compassion if it's done in an atmosphere of economic warfare against the best interests of the national economy.

Prior to that historically low interest rates had pushed home prices up to such a place as to leave only one possible outcome when the economy finally cooled - a disastrous crash in the housing market. This literally destroyed the one piece of the pie most middle-class families had, their house. One lay off and the house is gone. Six years later interest rates are still near 0%.

There are things, many things, which can be done to encourage economic growth and job growth and most importantly income growth for the middle-class. It will never happen unless politicians - our (so-called) leaders - stand up and reject cronyism and special-interests that are skewing everything toward the ultra rich. Not all the answers are government solutions,  but government needs to act - first. 

Here's my bullet-point list to steer income inequality the other way culled from many different sources including my brain. Mostly common sense stuff that takes courage more than anything else to see it through.

# Restrict Cronyism - break the cycle of business and special interests from funding politics in a vacuum, by law if necessary. End corporate welfare. Make it illegal for in-office politicians to get rich off of legislative "favors". Require total transparency for politicians and lobbyists of all kinds, published for all to see. If it means paying politicians more - then do it

# Quality primary education - push toward local control of schools and school choice, away from Federal mandates and funding. End the monopoly of public schools and education unions 

# Encourage marriage/families - how many studies do we need that tell us that intact two parent households are the best predictor of economic success for the next generation before we as a society stop tearing down families? It's in everyone's interest to encourage marriage and discourage welfare life-styles

# Reasonable/Responsible regulation - reduce unregulated power of government agencies that dictate defacto law without elected law maker involvement. Force time restrictions on environmental and economic impact statements so companies and local governments can plan effectively

# College tuition/debt revamp - force the reform of public university tenure/cronyism/sports/endowment systems to bring down tuition. Restructure debt repayment that factors in the Federal tax liabilities of the graduated student in their repayment schedules, to encourage full time employment and repayment. Allow corporations and businesses to concentrate on mutually beneficial apprenticeships and internships for potential workers through public universities and/or private purpose built schools.

# Profit Sharing - corporations should consider equitable profit sharing as a form of compensation. Government agencies could incentivize budget savings with bonuses of half the "saved" money and the other half toward the next year's departmental budget (which is reduced by the same amount)

# Tax reform - reduce Federal income taxes significantly, do away with payroll taxes altogether

# Tax loophole reform - lower corporate taxes to international averages and remove most loopholes permanently

# Infrastructure - increase spending on infrastructure (not vanity trains), airports, roads, bridges, sewer/sanitation etc etc

# Discourage off-shoring/out sourcing - end all tax benefits and government encouragement for American companies to move work overseas 

# Raise interest rates - return interest rates incrementally to historic norms 

# Minimum Wage - finally, increase minimum wage (if even necessary)

To be honest I know that most of these have a zero percent chance of ever happening. There are tidal forces pushing against change that is impossible to resist short of a nation ending catastrophic disaster. 

The fact is without the first one - ending cronyism - the rest will only be marginally effective. That's not to say it can't be done. Frankly no one in power today has the will to fight the entrenched system of crony capitalism, they realize they will be destroyed politically and/or personally. The vested interests of mega-corporations and defense industries are able to sprinkle gold dust on politicians that stops reform in its tracks.

Any real change is a mighty tough sell, those at the top like it that way, and their political benefactors like the sweet life too much to rock the boat. There are also forces within the American body politic and the inside the government that want the American capitalistic system to fail, to utterly fail so that it can be replaced by a centrally controlled solution (they used to called this communism). The fact that the ultra rich control so much of the wealth is the proof to claim that a new economic system is needed. News flash: totalitarianism has been tried and found to be pitiful. 

To those who say market based capitalism itself is an anathema to good economics is like saying air is an anathema to breathing. There will always be inequality because human beings are unequal. Get off the high horse of so-called social and economic justice by insisting that everyone has an equal right to everything. It's ridiculous.

Indeed, both parties flail against the system they themselves create while they reap massive personal benefits - and the middle class falls further behind. Among them may be righteous patriots that truly believe in market capitalism, or on the other side, government controlled socialism, but they won't be allowed to rise in power among the cronies that believe in nothing but their own fortunes.


And so, Nick Hanauer rightly chides his fellow upper crust elite billionaires to wake up and pay attention to the vast middle, it's high time for the political elites to do the same. 

  

Ugh

Border crisis hits home

This was predictable. There has been a giant uptick in serious but rare sicknesses among American school children. In fact I believe I even predicted it in a blog post from July.

http://www.protohuman.blogspot.com/2014/07/invasion-plain-and-simple.html

quoting myself...
This is a crisis in more ways than one. The Obama Administration's response so far has been limited and predictable. He has called for 2 billion dollars to help facilitate the processing of these children. Where ever these immigrants land it will eventually overwhelm the community or state and exceed $2 billion in a heartbeat. The financial crisis aside the health crisis these unvaccinated, unhealthy third world children could spawn is phenomenal. 
...unquote

The Ebola crisis has overwhelmed the news of a deadly outbreak of a rare (rare to America) respiratory illnesses that has hospitalized thousands of children and even killed some. The CDC has confirmed hundreds of cases of EV-D68 an enterovirus that is rare in the U.S. but quite common in Latin America where the child immigrants came from in this year's unprecedented mass border crossing. These kids were quickly distributed to facilities across the country by the Federal Government and allowed to enter public schools.

It has been confirmed that schools where outbreaks have occurred all accept “undocumented children” into their programs, although it was impossible to determine whether or not this included this year’s arrivals. Since school districts are not allowed to ask about a student’s citizenship or immigration status, nor can they inquire of parents’ immigration status it's impossible to know for sure that the newly immigrated are causing this - but it's way too suspicious to reject out of hand.

How rare is EV-D68? Between 1970 and 2005, only 26 cases of EV-D68 were reported in the U.S. Yet this year, in less than two months, the CDC has reported 780 cases in 46 states, and there are likely many more undiagnosed. It began just about the time children began returning to school.

Children’s Mercy Hospital’s division director for Infectious Diseases, Dr. Mary Anne Jackson, called it “unprecedented,” adding that “It’s worse in terms of scope of critically ill children who require intensive care…I’ve practiced for 30 years in pediatrics, and I’ve never seen anything quite like this.”

The information blackout about this very real outbreak in disturbing. At first the national and local media reported on it due to the sheer numbers, more or less in a matter of fact manner. The interest by the "media" has evaporated, not that anyone was doing an exhaustive investigation anyway. As for the officials, the CDC is nearly silent and state and local agencies have been tight lipped - almost as if they've "received orders". The Border Patrol agencies and those charged with caring for the illegal children were also warned - threatened if they made any public statements as their facilities became overwhelmed.

Regardless of how the Ebola mess ends up this EV-D68 outbreak seems to be a direct result of the Obama administration's actions or inactions. People have already died, innocent people. Children have been left paralyzed. This is a scandal that is being glossed over, just like almost all the rest. If Obama's opposition pushes on this scandal then the spotlight will be turned on them - not what they are sounding the alarms about. They will be called racist and that will be the end of it.

The American Devolution continues.


Ugh

Madame Blatant: CBS Clones Hillary

The new CBS drama Madame Secretary starring the sharp looking Tea Leoni is the most bald faced manipulation of the fairer sex by the mainstream entertainment media in recent memory. I sit here with episode 3 playing in the background because my wife can't get enough of it.

Can anyone watch this show and not get that CBS is making (re-making) the term of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State a heroic chapter in American foreign policy. Of course it was nothing of the sort. It was a disaster. This manipulation is so blatant that in the second episode ironically named "Another Bengazi" Hillary - err- Tea Leoni gets a re-do of the Bengazi debacle where her heroic out of the box thinking saves the President's bacon. It gets better... Half way through the episode she even gets a Hillary haircut.

The desired effect is when the women of America step in the voting booth in November 2016 and consider what qualifies Mrs Clinton to run the country it will be the image of Tea Leoni's strength of character and high morals that pops into view. It will make them smile and emphatically pull the lever for Hillary.

Hillary's term as Secretary of State will have been four years in the past and any real memory of it will have been replaced with the antics of Tea Leoni slaying the yes men that surround the President with her quick thinking perfectly executed audibles. The only question remaining is... Are Hillary and her people behind this? Or, as I suspect, the Hollywood worship of the thought of a woman as president is all it took to get this green-lighted.

It's not that it's bad. The acting, the characters, the stories as well as the look a feel is very much like the West Wing, which was a very well done TV fiction. Maybe it's just me, but this seems so blatant and so manipulative I would find it hard to believe that others haven't thought the same thing.

Will it work? Never underestimate the power of emotionally manipulating women. Just by writing this I'm bound to piss off many women - good, it should get them pissed off. If you are offended by this notion then take a step back and think about being offended by the mainstream media. It's CBS and Tea Leoni that are trying bullshit you, pull the wool over your eyes, trick you into voting for fiction over truth. Maybe you think Hillary is qualified and the best "woman" for the job, then she doesn't need this bullshit whitewashing now does she?



Ugh

Planting seeds... for death panels

Citizens, hear this: it is your duty to end your life on the day of your 76th birthday. Failure to comply will be met with harsh and painful action. 

- Minister of Death Ezekiel Emanuel 

Right out of the movies, sci-fi is spooky isn't it? Yes, yes it is spooky, but this isn't sci-fi. Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel argued that living to be 75 years old was long enough for anyone. After 75, Emanuel suggests, “We are no longer remembered as vibrant and engaged but as feeble, ineffectual, even pathetic.”
 

Now the good doctor is not just anybody, he was a chief adviser for President Obama during the run-up to the passing of the ACA, also known as ObamaCare. So why is this even news? The ACA is law, it's done. Not really. Much of the specifics is yet to be written, by design. This is planting seeds of euthanasia in the public discourse. Planting seeds... for death panels. Cry foul all you want - but what else could it be? 


This is the way the leftists do everything. 

Want a minimum wage increase. Plant the seed in a NYT article. Want to unionize day care workers, plant a seed with a public demonstration in the city so the news vans roll. Want to declare amnesty for millions of illegal aliens, plant a seed by fomenting a border crisis involving innocent children. Each seed slowly grows as the initial shock and inevitable condemnation wears thin. Water the seed with armies of minions appearing on cable news shows and articles in the op-ed sections of hundreds of newspapers to normalize the conversation. Prune the growing idea to make it palatable to the fringe of your right-wing enemies. That way their opposition makes it seem like they are the radicals. 

It's a winning strategy. Been working since the 1930's - why stop now?

There are a thousand reasons to condemn Dr. Emanuel's thinly veiled proclamation. I'm sure you can find plenty of  them with a simple Google search. It's simply preposterous to toss this out there from the position this man holds officially and unofficially and not extrapolate the implications. As if age is a barometer of anything. Plenty of young people cost society a lot of money while contributing absolutely nothing - shouldn't we be looking at a extermination policy for them as well? 

This my friends is the real devolution of America in a nutshell. It makes me sick. Good thing I'm not 75...


Ugh 

Short Hiatus...

I'll be tied up with personal matters for a short time.

Please stop by soon for my semi-regular super, super important messages.

Take care my friends,
Ugh

Sinner: Am I the worst?

The tag line of this blog is Surviving the American Devolution, with devolution meaning the picking apart of everything that made this country successful. Picking apart may be too mild, what I mean is the utter destruction of the good in favor of the wicked.

How interesting that I get such inspiration from a blogger from across the ocean. Regular readers (all 16 of you) might be familiar with the name Prof. Bruce Charlton.  He's an educator and scholar with a lot of wisdom to impart. His recent piece called Advocacy of sin is the worst evil: worse than actually sinning really struck a nerve with me. The implications are deep, but the evidence of its truth is so in your face as to be overwhelming.

Where does tolerance end and advocacy begin. Will simply watching the spectacle of evil in my midst as it swirls through my life make me an advocate? Am I supposed to do something? Do I cast judgement on those who do evil, advocate evil? Am I not the worst of sinners if I do?

We are told not to judge, that God is the only judge. We are supposed assign unsurpassable worth to our friends and enemies alike, to acknowledge that we are the worst of sinners and have no right to look down on or feign righteousness over others. This of course is very hard to do. We have an innate sense of right and wrong, good and evil, we know we are "better" than real evil doers. But are we?

Charlton pins a lot of the evil in this world on the mass media - and rightly so. Since the media is not one person but a collective it is safe to pass judgement - or practice discernment if you will.

To Charlton's point it's a class of elites and intellectuals that stay above fray of debauchery, crime and violence while advocating the same from their ivory towers or media empire boardrooms. The devolution of America and the West is a deliberate act with a deliberate cause, but always couched in the language of fairness, equality and tolerance. Not to go along is to be targeted, labeled and intolerant bigot and destroyed - if necessary.

The two passages from the article that bring it home for me are here:

"The creed of the modern intellectual is implied-despair. Not the direct preaching of despair as a principle - but rather preaching of a set of non-beliefs that must lead to despair - because there is nowhere else for them to lead..."

"Having demolished (to their own satisfaction) the objective validity of God; the intellectual elites have recently demolished (to their own satisfaction) the objective good of marriage and family - and they are left only with a life based-on 'work and leisure'..."

We live in a society that calls advocating for fetuses and adoption a war on women. A world that has devalued men and boys, especially black men, to the point where many have checked out, preferring to be neither a husband nor a provider. A culture where white men choose to remain in a state of perpetual adolescence. Today a man can't say an innocuous word like honey or sweetheart in the presence of a woman, but a powerful female politician gets no push back when accusing a male politician of "showing women the back of his hand" and "grabbing her hair and dragging her back to the stone-age" with no evidence that any of it is true. Seems more like a war on men to me.

We see in this country the race baiters, who foment discord at every opportunity, never attempting to build on the tremendous societal progress made over the last 50 years. They support politicians who through destructive policies have done far more damage to minorities that the white majority ever did. The intact black family is a rarity in the United States. It's the intellectuals who have prescribed the replacement of the husband with a welfare check and food stamps. It was the intellectuals and the elites that destroyed public education in the inner city and removed any semblance of God from public discourse. In the process they destroy the hope of millions.

Do we need to ask where this is being driven from? Do we not know how the brainwashing happens? The enemy works through the mass media. In recent decades the facade has been removed. No longer is there any veil over the inversion of good and evil. In fact the inversion is celebrated, the anti-hero reigns.

The news media lies by omission, ignoring any story that belies the narrative they prefer. Good men, decent men like Mitt Romney are sullied by far less evidence than is proven against the media's own political darlings. Any media source that even slightly bucks the trend like Fox News or talk show hosts or certain Internet websites, find themselves slandered and marginalized in every possible discourse whether deserved or not - to the point that most the hatred comes from people who have never watched, listened or read them. Television and movies glorify graphic violence while the stars themselves decry guns and the scary redneck conservatives that venerate them. Family friendly (God friendly) movies often can't get funding, or distribution. If they do make mass distribution they are savaged by media critics while Quentin Tarantino movies are fawned over. Inversion anyone???

The mass media dominates the distribution of information, fads and fashion, it's ubiquitous and overwhelming - and enticing!

Getting to the point (finally) I am just as enticed, dazzled and susceptible to the mass media and cultural proclivities as anyone. I am human and a sinner after all. But am I an advocate for evil? I don't think so - I hope not. I have watched violent and overtly sexual movies and TV shows and enjoyed some of them. I have refused to watch others because they offend me. Does that balance it out? Are their areas in my life where I am inadvertently, unconsciously advocating evil? I work in an industry that many have called evil - I don't necessarily see it that way, but who is to say? It's confusing.

I understand we live life in the fog of war, a cosmic war, a battle of good and evil where the players can be disguised. All we can do in the world awash in evil is to try to not consciously aid it. I don't know what else to do. I can only hope that my loved ones will point out those times I go astray.



Ugh

The Science is Settled: Part II The COLD facts

In a previous post I talked about the phenomenon of how entrenched scientific concepts literally damage science and learning (and truth) by crowding out or holding back new lines of inquiry that potentially contradict established beliefs. If simple prudence and careful vetting of wild supposition was at the root of the scientific community's reticence it might be somewhat understandable. But it's not.

Actually it's usually reputation, money or a political agenda that drives science and its conclusions. It's not just science, but also education, financial systems and even the prevailing entertainment industry that have succumbed to special interest entrenchment.

Quite often in science prevailing "truths" cement all subsequent thought and theories. These facts so fervently celebrated even as their conjurors express doubt -  Einstein and his space-time, Hubble and his redshift and Darwin and his evolution. Each of these men had doubts about the conclusions that were spun out of their theories - theories that are now treated as indisputable fact. Anyone who dares challenge these and many more facts are either treated as charlatans or destroyed.

In the previous article I introduced the notion the the governing force of the universe is not, as it is believed in proper scientific circles, gravity but rather electro-magnatism. When examined this simple theory starts to make sense as it answers the conundrums created by unverifiable convolutions of the gravity-based model. As more and more observable data comes in to validate the Electric Universe theory over the pure speculation and mathematical gymnastics of the relativity/space-time model you would think minds would open to new possibilities. No, in fact the entrenchment and the money grab only intensifies.

As well, in the "Climate Change" "Global Warming" debate the data is turning away from man-caused, CO2 caused global warming to a Solar Minimum caused global cooling. The entrenched scientific community ignores these inconvenient truths because they must follow the money. The money flows out of a political agenda. The danger here is that unlike scientific theory and  the pure knowledge of the Electric Universe model versus the Standard Space/Time model the Climate Change agenda has the potential to ruin industries, societies, the livelihoods and the lives of the least among us while doing absolutely nothing to change the climate one way or the other.

The massive amount of money - billions and billions - could be spent preparing an adaptation strategy that could mean the difference between thriving or societal collapse. As more evidence pours in that cooling, not warming is what's in store for planet Earth the more entrenched and hysterical the Global Warming sirens are wailing.

The SSRC (Space and Science Research Corporation) and its President, Mr. John L. Casey -  a former White House space program advisor, consultant to NASA Headquarters, and space shuttle engineer - sent a letter to the President warning of the coming climate change. So far he has been ignored.

==========================================

President Barack H. Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Washington, D.C.  20500
April 28, 2014
SUBJECT: Request to Prepare the USA for Dangerous Cold Climate.
Dear Mr. President,
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Good morning.
            
This letter is sent to you as a heartfelt request that you take immediate action to ensure that the United States of America is fully prepared for the historic, potentially dangerous, new cold climate that has begun.

This request is backed up by research over the past decades into the causes of climate change along with the real status of the Earth’s climate. Key findings of that research are provided here in a partial list of what is either widely accepted or can be easily validated:

1. The past period of global warming, a natural phenomenon produced primarily by the Sun, has ended. We have now had over seventeen years without any effective growth in global atmospheric temperatures in the troposphere. Ironically, this means that for the majority of the time the international community has been dealing with global warming, there wasn’t any! It is therefore important to accept that global warming has ended. There is no global warming!

2. The Earth is actually cooling and has been for years.The world’s oceans have been cooling for eleven years as has the atmosphere for most of that time. Of the twenty-four climate parameters monitored by the Space and Science Research Corporation (SSRC) and recorded in its quarterly Global Climate Status Report (GCSR), eighteen of them show global cooling as the dominant trend. The remaining six are expected to convert to ‘cooling’ status within the next five years. Sea levels have already started to drop where some ocean areas are getting colder. The SSRC has predicted a global sea level reduction lasting thirty years to begin at any time between this year and the 2020’s. If these trends change, the SSRC will be the first to report it. However, based on actual global temperatures and the most reliable climate models, there is only one conclusion to be made about the Earth’s current climate status – a new cold climate has arrived!

3. If this new cold epoch proceeds as past episodes (roughly 200 and 400 years ago), we should expect to see substantial global crop damage, social and political upheaval, and loss of life. These ill-effects are expected to start soon and last at least three decades. We have little time left to prepare. Respected Russian scientists have even gone so far as to say a new “Little Ice Age” will start this year! This means the advancing cold climate is a serious threat to our people!

4. The new cold climate is being brought to the Earth by a repeating 206 year cycle of the Sun. I independently discovered this cycle and announced it in 2007. Though many other researchers have discovered this cycle or predicted a coming cold climate, they have been ignored. The cold phase of this two-century-long cycle is produced by the Sun making dramatic reductions in the energy by which it warms the planet. This Sun-driven cold period is called a “solar hibernation,” by the SSRC. It is important to note that NASA, the US Air Force, and the National Solar Observatory have confirmed the on-going decline in solar activity. This has happened as I predicted. It is also necessary to know that this natural, repeating, and ominous change in the Sun is unstoppable!

5. Research related to these solar hibernations, also shows they occur concurrently with the most destructive earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, the latter of which can add dramatically to an already colder climate.

In addition, I believe African Americans, other minorities, and the poor will suffer the most because of the new cold era and your climate policies. This assertion is supported by the fact that a large percentage of these citizens are largely dependent on the US government for food, which we will start to run short of as the cold starts to damage crops. This means as a result of your climate policies, they may be both unprepared and unable to get food routinely during the worst years of the coming cold climate. Further, your climate policies include making energy costs “skyrocket” to quote you. These energy cost increases will hit minorities and the poor the most.

In summary, the lives of many Americans may be in jeopardy as a consequence of the arrival of the new cold climate, your continued support for the flawed, unreliable manmade global warming theory, and your lack of action to prepare the United States for the next climate change.
Regardless of your stated belief in “accelerating” global warming, (something that does not exist), as President of the United States, you still remain fully responsible and accountable for the welfare of our approximately 317 million citizens.

You therefore deserve to receive this genuine warning about the new cold climate if nothing else, for the record.

Sincerely,
John L. Casey
President

=============================

The age of reality over special interest is long over due. Money trumps everything or so it seems. Curiosity, skepticism and a quest for knowledge - even uncomfortable knowledge - should be driving force behind science. A term like "the science is settled" should never be taken so seriously that doors are slammed and questions never get asked.

Ugh

The Final End of the British Empire: Vile, Disgusting PCism

hat tip Mangan

I call your attention the a BBC article that should shock you, but sadly it probably won't. If any of you have followed what has become of the once proud British Empire you'll find no surprise the depths of the self loathing in the UK. They hate themselves so much that they can't even be bothered to protect their young girls from systematic rape an exploitation.

Rotherham, a city of 260,000 people has had up to 1400 lower class girls, some as young as 11, systematically raped and exploited by Muslim men for well over ten years - with the knowledge of police and other authorities. The reason the authorities said they didn't press the matter is because they didn't want to be accused of racism.

Oh my God, are you kidding me!!!

The Muslims have so deeply entrenched the notion that they are victims in British society that the people of Rotherham were willing to give up their young girls to brutal rapists. Muslim arrogance considers these girls as sub-human because the are white and non-Muslim - and the British authorities apparently agreed.

FTA
The report found: "Several staff described their nervousness about identifying the ethnic origins of perpetrators for fear of being thought as racist; others remembered clear direction from their managers not to do so." 

Failures by those charged with protecting children happened despite three reports between 2002 and 2006 which both the council and police were aware of, and "which could not have been clearer in the description of the situation in Rotherham".

Prof Jay said the first of these reports was "effectively suppressed" because senior officers did not believe the data. The other two were ignored, she said.

The inquiry team found that in the early-2000s when a group of professionals attempted to monitor a number of children believed to be at risk, "managers gave little help or support to their efforts".

The report revealed some people at a senior level in the police and children's social care thought the extent of the problem was being "exaggerated".

Prof Jay said: "The authorities involved have a great deal to answer for."

I'll say. I can't even imagine something like that happening here. I live in a city roughly the same size as Rotherham and can't imagine it would be anything less than a major scandal if 4 young girls were treated like this. What is wrong with the people across the pond? Political Correctness that's what.

These Muslim men should be jailed for their crimes and the authorities should be charged or at least fired and publically shamed. The caste system in Britain is not a thing of the past when the upper class ruling elites can't be bothered to protect the most vulnerable innocents because they simply don't count as worthy.

Lastly - why are we not hearing about this in the U.S.? This is another appalling thing about this story. They've got plenty of time to go on and on about hacked nude photos of a few self centered celebrities, but none for a thousand young girls being raped by Muslim men. The PC crowd in charge of what is news in America is positively ludicrous. I doubt the police, the authorities and especially the people of America would stand for this vile sickness happening here, but our own news media couldn't be bothered if one of their protected classes are the perpetrators and not the victims.


Ugh

The Harvest of Liberalism:Part 2

According to the author and thinker George Gilder knowledge is wealth. What does that mean? It means that someone like me who has the knowledge to architect computer networks has literal wealth at my keyboard worn fingertips. I turn my knowledge into monetary gain by building networks for those who need them. Simple as that.

So, when I have a toothache I seek the person who has the knowledge to extract it (safely) and he or she trades that knowledge for some of my wealth. Econ 101.

Gilder, a capitalism proponent, dismisses the well worn notion that capitalism is an economic system based on incentives and greed. It's not to say these are not part of capitalism, they are, but not unique to capitalism in any way. The communist system had its incentives - in some cases they were do what your told or die. Now that's an incentive. The farmer in the communist collective greedily took the best crops for his family and sold what he could on the black market before the "party" came and took the product of his labor for the greater good. The socialist citizen gladly "sells" his services or expertise off book to avoid paying exorbitant taxes - this is also incentive (and greed) at work.

The heart of capitalism is creativity, competition and the arc of the learning curve. The entrepreneur with the better mouse trap goes through the learning curve process as he perfects the manufacturing of  his product, slowly bringing the unit costs down as his knowledge increases. The material costs, marketing costs and transportation costs are mostly fixed and out of his control, but the knowledge of how to create efficiencies and streamline processes is the difference that gives the him the edge over his competition, therefore turning his knowledge into wealth.

It's a beautiful thing.

For Gilder the true essence of capitalism is surprise. Again, what does that mean? Take the Internet itself. What started as a method for the Defense Department to share knowledge (there's that word again) electronically across the vast expanse of the nation has evolved into the surprising economic engine of the 21st century. In my industry the Internet was at first dismissed and then viewed with suspicion before it was completely embraced as an integral part of the business. A surprising outcome to say the least. Look at the Apple iPod and how this marvel of engineering has transformed music delivery - clearly surprising the entire entertainment industry. We could go on by citing Netflix and Facebook and Amazon.com each through the process of creativity and the arc of the learning curve have transformed entire economies and cultures. These are all fantastic, surprising things, mind blowing really. These things and countless other surprises of the twentieth century were brought forth on a capitalist foundation, not a state controlled economy.

So why would we want to tear this down and install liberalism's system of choice, socialism? I have my theories and all of them boil down to one word - control. The intellectual class with its entitled desire to wield power wants to control everything, including your life and mine. Couldn't the same thing be said of the capitalist oligarchs? Talk about controlling society... I venture to say that the oligarchs are where they are precisely because of the unintended consequences of socialist controlling intervention. They are the byproduct of a kept ruling class.

Control is the goal of liberalism. Platitudes like fairness, equality of outcomes, and my favorite, tolerance are their buzz words, the salve soothing the aggrieved be they real or not. Leftist politicians who spew this rhetoric while guaranteeing economic growth by installing artificial controls via regulations, tax codes, bailouts and stimulus deliver just the opposite. This approach may work for a while, but it is unsustainable without the spontaneous surprise of creativity.

It should come as no surprise then knowing all this that the socialist based countries in Europe and Eurasia are dying. They have lost faith in the future - they have lost faith period. So many have stopped having children, the ultimate expression of hope for the future, that entire ethnic identities risk disappearing by the turn of the next century. They only grow in population and economically by importing millions of young immigrants. Further, by culturally turning being female into a slightly softer version of being male they have effectively killed the family. A man without family reverts to being a brutish thug or a lazy lout and a woman is forced to turn to the government to support her and any children she does have.

Try to deny this happening right here in our own country.

The collapse of the family is a result both continuing socialist welfare policies and and the globalization of the labor force. The two are linked. The social welfare state costs a lot of money. It keeps taxes high which in turn forces wages up. Couple this with failing schools and drive for companies to move low skilled high wage jobs to cheaper labor pools and you see the collapsing of the middle class and with it the destruction of the family.

The liberal stands on his soapbox promoting the very policies that lead to this dire situation, to the point that we have an entrenched and growing welfare state to take care of the women and children and a police state to take care of the young men. The society now exalts independent, self-sufficient women and jails its unwanted, useless men. Unfortunately it will take decades to unwind this. This is the harvest of liberalism.

In America we still see twinkles of creativity and economic growth. We still see new families, new houses and all the economic activity that surrounds a growing family. We still see new companies being born through the haze, but they struggle and often fail needlessly. Everything is being choked. The confluence of a maze of the regulatory rules of government encroachment along with the cronyism of the big business/government cabal is robbing the young of their futures and killing creativity. The cost of participation is becoming prohibitive so that many refuse to even try.

The sad thing is that it doesn't have to be this way. Creativity, knowledge and wealth creation is the American way. The powers that be in government, the environmental crowd, foreign interests and big business refuse to unshackle the dynamo that is America.



Ugh

The Harvest of Liberalism

It was on the radio that I heard a woman named Phyllis Kahn, a Minnesota state representative since 1972, declare that it was the Democrats that offered the best solution for new immigrants concerned about education. The talk show host pointed out that the Democrats have had a monopoly on education in this state for more than 4 decades. The largest district in the heart of liberal land - Minneapolis public schools -  has an embarrassing 50% graduation rate for all students and the worst graduation rate for African-American boys in the nation. The irony of her conjecture was lost on her, she simply wouldn't concede that the Democratic party was anything but "right" on education.

It made me consider the acute blindness of the left. In their closed minds their solutions for everything are simply right, there is no other way. Certainly nothing the right-wing or the libertarians believe should even be considered. Looking at the near total control leftist thought has over various institutions in American society and the condition of said institutions one would think there has to be a better way.

Taking education as previously mentioned, the left has total control over public schools and almost all public universities and colleges. Even private universities and colleges toe the liberal PC line in word and deed. Education is a massive slice of the American economy and vital to the well being of the society. By all accounts it's failing miserably. Public schools are one thing - there is still a small token of local control, but that too is waning under Common Core and Federal carrot and stick funding, but it's the college and university system that has turned into a near criminal enterprise.

Young people are herded into college with a promise of a good career and leave with a mountain of debt and a society that struggles produce a job for them let alone launch a career. The cost of a college education is out of reach for most families and is a direct result of government meddling in the funding. Public universities are nearly as expensive as private. A whole new category of for profit colleges have popped up to exploit the poor to get their hands on government tuition money which is then laid on the backs of those least likely to succeed. Our young - the next generation - are now serfs, beholden to the Federal government by virtue of debt wholly owned by Washington DC. What has happened to college education in the United States is shameful, if not criminal. None of this even speaks to the quality of the education - a whole different story.

None of it can be laid at the feet of conservatives or libertarians, none.

What else in this society is completely controlled by liberals and their leftist agenda's?

• the welfare legacy - poverty is now a higher % than in the 1960's when the war on poverty started
• the Federal bureaucracy - bloated, unaccountable, corrupt - need I go on?
• entertainment/Hollywood - producing one assault on the culture after another, representing America to the rest of the world while it dumbs down (or lies) to itself
• the mainstream news media - other than Fox News and talk radio (both parodies of conservative thought) the left owns all other media narratives
• health insurance - the newly minted ACA brought to you by the Democratic party is driving one nail into the coffin after another of 1/7th of the economy
• the art world - pure trash in art and music is held up as high art, those offended are the ones with the problem
• the race debate - race baiting and false hype drive the debate toward a full scale culture war, promoting victim-hood  instead of building on the real progress
• the environmental debate - a corrupt EPA and external forces conspire with environmental groups to stop American progress and development of its abundant natural resources
• the feminist debate - ditto the race debate
• and most importantly the language - Politically Correct speech stifles free the exchange of thought and ideas, everybody claims to hate PCism but everyone is forced to toe the line or be destroyed by it

None of these are controlled by right-wing or libertarian thought, none. Almost all of these are corrupt, mismanaged or divisive.

You can say then that big business, the banksters and corporate America is controlled by a right-wing agenda, but that's a mighty stretch. The biggest crony capitalists of the past 40 years have been Democrats, it's not even close. There is no truth to the lie that the Democrats are for the little guy and the Republicans are for big business. There isn't a dimes worth of difference any more. Big Business loves Big Government and its regulation and the stacking of the deck in their favor - who wouldn't? It keeps internal competition down. Neither has been bigger than it is today.

Every honest survey taken shows that the public thinks the country is headed in the wrong direction, that America is in decline. Education, culture and increasingly our finances are controlled by a leftist agenda bent on denuding America. In all its manifestations this is the harvest of liberalism. Seems pretty clear to me it's a rotten crop.

Who is to blame? I blame the conservatives, right-wingers and the libertarians. They offer nothing but leftism-lite. They can't articulate the virtues of freedom and liberty in a way that counters falsifiable nanny-state promises. Either they don't actually believe in individual liberty and self-determination or they are so beholden to their own cronies that they can only say so much, go so far before the lies are trotted out.

The truth is the elites on either side don't care what the public thinks or wants. The right-wingers can survive by pretending to stand up to the leftist agenda, fighting the good fight. The way things stand they have a pretty sweet life too. The left, whether they can or will admit it, are destroyers - destroyers of goodness and beauty in favor of ugliness and corruption.

Obviously America can be great and strong and thriving again. All the parts are in place. We have to be almost  ready to break free from leftist smiling liars and right-wing lying panty-waists. We have to be almost ready to crush political correctness and corporate cronyism. We have to be almost ready to scale back government intrusion into every nook and cranny of our lives.

We have to be that camel that can hold no more straw on its back.


Ugh

Turmoil Amid the Chaos: a corrupt world

The international headlines are horrific. The national headlines are just depressing. It's enough to make you want to bury your head in the sand. I can only thank God I haven't become gadgetized to a point where I understand the "twitterverse" or what "trending" means. If I was that superficial I may not actually care what was going on in Iraq or Ukraine or the conditions for Latin American children on our border.

Or maybe I'd care too much...

The world - the human world -  has always been messy. Most of us can't imagine what it must have been like to be a Jew or a Gypsy in 1930-40s Germany. Being herded into train cars to be carried off the a gas chamber and a mass grave had to be equally as abhorrent as the crimes the butchers of ISIS  are committing in Iraq today. Back then it took years before it was common knowledge, now it's damn near being broadcast live. Or how you say, tweeted live?

The horrors of  the 20th century's two world wars and the communist expansion throughout Asia and Europe are clear because we have pictures and actual participants still alive that can tells us about it. The rest of human history was just as brutal. There never really was the good 'ol days.

What makes it all so depressing is that our modern technological world has created a basis to end so much human suffering. Poverty has decreased massively in the last 30 years worldwide. As of 2008 that progress has stopped.  As well, we have the know how to be good stewards of the Earth, using, not abusing the riches the planet has to offer. The West has cleaned-up it's environment remarkably since the ecological awakening of the 1960's. The rest of the world no so much. Going further we have the ability to reach out from this tiny planet and explore the great expanse of the galaxy and even the universe. America is now handing over access to space to private business - for better of for worse.


Instead of seeing the progress our human abilities demand here in the year 2014 the world is unraveling before our eyes? Why is this happening? Why such turmoil, why such misery? Two words: Special Interests.

By special interests I don't necessary want to conjure images of corporate fat cats or greasy lobbyists - only. Special interests come in every stripe and color, motivated by greed, pride, gluttony, lust, envy, sloth and wrath. Hmmm, where have we seen these seven words strung together like that?

The least respected people in America are politicians and criminals, but then I risk being redundant with statements like that. We used to believe or at least we've read that like the priesthood going into politics to serve was a higher calling. Consider how that all turned out, one serves God and the other is celibate. OK, I joke, this would be true if "money" is God and buggering children didn't count as sexually active.

 My guess is that both politicians and priests enter their respective worlds with good intentions, wanting to serve, to make a difference, but quickly become corrupted by the system. To some degree this happens to all of us. It's human nature to self-serve, we are all individuals after all.

It's the capacity to harm that takes corruption, institutional or personal, to the next level. Cronyism and stacking the deck is the MO of politicians. To be sure there are always two sides to cronyism so don't think I'm singling out our beleaguered public servants. Big business can make political corruption look like a petty crime. Protected by their benefactors mega corporations plow ahead, in many cases destroying as much as they create, all perfectly on the up and up legally, of course. Since we don't vote for corporations - directly - we tend not to vent our anger at them as much. If you are supposed to rely on mass media to alert us to truth about corruption you are in for a long wait. Corruption to the media often comes with gigantic blinders.

Still this is America, we're the good guys, right? Because the so-called rule of law applies to most of us regular folk we tend to think we live in a less corrupt society than most. I'm not so sure.

The U.S. ranks 19th of 175 countries on the "corruption" scale. The Arab world, Latin America and Africa are way down there at the bottom - not surprising. This is seriously misleading when you consider that the American economy at 16 trillion dollars a year absolutely dwarfs everything else on the planet. The corruption scale is simply apples to oranges. Like I said it's the capacity to do harm and money magnifies this ability exponentially.

On the other end of the scale often the people with the least are looking hardest for every angle to game the system. This mentality of something for nothing starts at the top and washes all the way down to the poorest. The demotivating character of handouts and programs (all offered with the best of intentions) corrupts millions of Americans who then never even try for something better. It's beyond sad.

Corruption chokes the very progress we seek. Constantly gnawing away at the very heart of positive development. It undercuts everything that's been set up to promote the good. It leads to turmoil among the chaos as everyone rationalizes (or hides) their own corrupt behavior. Government corruption leads to higher taxes, robs average people of their wealth as it covers for corporate corruption who continue the thievery. The one/two punch of government regulation and corporate protection discourages investment in new enterprises, encourages the disenfranchised into dealings with the 'black market', thereby promoting conflict and destroying confidence in all institutions.

So much for the Captain Obvious portion of show. Solutions?

Defeat evil, simple...




Ugh

The Science is Settled - Is It?

I speak not of Global Warming or Climate Change. I purposely chose this title to help demonstrate that the statement is completely preposterous. To be clear I am not a scientist, but I am awake and aware and that's all it takes to come to grips with this concept. The very essence of a good scientist is skepticism, always questioning, always ready to shoot holes in your own theories. Indeed any human being who has lived for even 2 or 3 decades knows that our understanding of life - of everything - changes as we grow, learn and gain experience. The phrase - if I knew then what I know now I'd have done things differently - isn't a universal idiom for no reason. It only means that our understanding of things changes - usually based on new evidence. Surely this concept is not too hard to comprehend.


I've had a growing interest something called the "Electric Universe". (watch the movie here) It is direct a challenge to the settled science of the Standard Cosmological Theory. The Standard theory is what we've all been taught. It is largely based on Eisenstein's General and Special Relativity and Hubble's red shift discovery that led to expanding universe theory and to what we lovingly call the Big Bang Theory.

The Electric Universe theory is not new. It has been growing for decades as new observed evidence simply didn't fit the Standard model. Even Einstein questioned his own equations later in life, dissatisfied that the space warping gravitational force of his theory was at all adequate to explain anything. The fact that gravitational force could never be reconciled with the quantum physics of the strong and weak nuclear forces and electro/magnetism is clear evidence that the science is not settled. Sadly, the proponents of this elegant Electric Universe theory are shoved to the side and made out to be the crazy uncle of the sciences because they dare challenge the "settled" science of the mother of science itself, cosmology.

The Electric Universe (go to this website for more info) is primarily based in plasma theory, more specifically electric transmission in a plasma field. Of course initially much of this seemed beyond my ability to comprehend when applied on a galactic scale. However, the very fact that I understand how electricity works means I only needed to consider what know about capacitance, resistance, current and the action of free electrons under applied voltage for me to see the big picture. The very filaments of plasma seen in galactic spirals and galactic nebulae even resemble the twisted wires we use in the transmission of electricity.

Over the years any new evidence that didn't fit the Standard model was either shoehorned in or subjected to crazy conjecture that could never be verified (like black holes). The Electric Universe is testable, observable and neatly fits into what has actually been observed in the heavens, especially since the dawn of the space age.

In a sense the theory's main conjecture is that the solar system, the galaxy and even the universe is connected in a sort of electrical grid with plasma being the conduit of electrical transmission. The sun and the stars are made up of plasma and are connected by the charged particles of the plasma between them. The theory takes to task long held beliefs in the nature of quasars, pulsars, comets and those mysterious black holes. Black holes are by their (purported) nature unobservable. They are detected by the "flashes" that are given off as light itself is digested. Strangely the flashes look exactly like electrical plasma discharges. The notion that a fantastical phenomenon of a massive gravitational sink hole exists in the center of the galaxy drawing everything to the center is so much better explained by a massive plasma bowl at the center of the galaxy holding it together through electro/magnetic energy. It's a far simpler and more logical explanation than massively super dense gravity.

Consider that gravity is the weakest of all the forces. Electro/magnetism is 10³⁹ more powerful than gravity. One way the above mentioned movie on this subject explained just how weak gravity is was to picture a small ball bearing sitting on a plate. It takes the gravitational mass of the entire planet to hold that ball bearing down. All it takes is a child's tiny horseshoe magnet to defy all the earth's gravity. Based on this sort of knowledge alone EU Theory disputes that gravity alone is the principle organizing force of the universe.

 More to the point, since I can't adequately describe the all the evidence behind the theory, is the sad state of affairs of entrenched institutions. In this case it's the science/academic paradigm that is so static in its make up that any new theory, no matter how plausible is shunned - if it challenges the money or the prestige of those in charge. It's not new, obviously, wars have been fought over less. It's hardly any different that the established financial theories that greatly enrich a select few or the education/union cabal that holds our children back from actual learning in favor of overt indoctrination.

These scientists have for years been shunned or outright fired for positing such crazy theories as the the Electric Universe. (see this youtube video for more on this subject). I don't think it's likely to be unleashed any time soon, but it is utterly fascinating and deserves consideration as much as the "deniers" of anthropogenic global warming theory deserve scientific respect. The science is never settled!



Ugh

Life's Little Irritations

Life's Little Irritations...

Yes, they are many. In a country where there's more than enough to be thankful for, and plenty of things to complain about it's the littlest irritations that really get to you. I start with those necessary rooms called public restrooms - but first answer me this:

Which one of these devices would you call hands free or touchless?

That's right they both are! So why when we finish our business in the public restroom are we now being forced to wave our hands around at the paper towel dispenser like fools. Who's bright idea was this? What exactly was wrong with pulling out the towel all by yourself? Somehow this is progress... Besides being completely unnecessary the damn things either 1) don't work or 2) spit out such tiny little towels that you are forced to wave your hands at it two or three times just to get enough dry you hands. Don't even get me started on those lousy air dryer things. Haven't we all been forced to wipe our hands on our pants enough already.

The modern high-tech public restroom is a study in the art of "just because you can, doesn't mean you should." I understand the very real need for those spring loaded or sensor controlled faucets. Most of them actually work and probably save countless gallons of water. OK, chalk those things up as winners. 

All you men will surely track with this one - ladies too for that matter. For us men standing at the urinal, one of those touchless, self-flushing urinals, we are supposed to be protected from actually having to touch that germ laden flusher when we finish up. The system is supposed to detect that you are not standing there anymore and flush automatically. Marvelous. Except when you're standing there daydreaming or just enjoying a good pee and the damn thing flushes prematurely spraying you with filthy bacteria from every Tom, Dick and Harry that peed before you. Besides getting all over your clothes and hands it sprays all over that private part too. How are you supposed to wash that in public and still keep your dignity. Ladies, I'm sure the very same thing happens with those good 'ol automatic toilets too. What a mess. If you are planning to wash your hands anyway, can't you just push the flusher all by yourself? 

Automatic doors are another marvel of modernity. These can be extremely helpful in situations where your hands are full, or you are pushing a cart. When they work it is a seamless transition from inside to outside. In the old days when the sensors were built into the mat and the door opened outward away from the direction you were going it was the aforementioned seamless transition. Today with the marvel of infrared or radio wave technology the door senses you coming and is supposed to open. In fact most of the time they do. Yet, they never seem to be calibrated to match your stride so you have to stop and wait, a little irritation yes. Except today both doors open the same direction and quite often they bash into you or your cart if you fail to break stride. Progress.

How about those pay-at-the-pump gas stations. In general this is a great idea and wonderful time saver. Since we all use debit or credit cards the automated at the pump payment system is a marvelous modern enhancement. Except... If you consider the whole point is to save you time then why are we forced to answer a half a dozen questions? No I don't want a car wash today. No I don't have a rewards card. No I don't want to give you my zip code. No I don't want a receipt. NO I DON'T WANT TO DONATE TO YOUR FAVORITE CHARITY!!! OK, I made that one up. As my older brother once said why can't they add a "Just Gas" button.

The king of modern automation that everyone of us has dealt with to the point of vein popping frustration is the merry-go-round of interactive voice response machines. Nothing has hurt customer relations and brand loyalty more than "Press 1 for this Press 2 for that and Press 3 for the other thing". Unless you require something very basic these things almost never satisfy. If you are lucky you can press "0" or "#" and get directed to an actual human. Nine times out of ten that person can actually help you. Sometimes this is not an option since the final option they give sends you back to the beginning. Arrrggghh!!!

Now, if you are calling a government entity a human on the other end of the line guarantees you nothing. Have you ever been put into the call center merry-go-round? This is where one department tells you you'll need to call the other department. They give you a number to call and that department tells you you need to call another department - or worse - the department that told you to call them. Maximum frustration ensues when department one gladly transfers the call for you... click... dial-tone... Start over. Eventually you know all the "options" by heart and immediately start yelling at the person who answers the call. Now corporate call center agents are trained to be exceeding polite and calm (which can further enrage you) but a government worker is indifferent and will do anything just to get rid of you. "You have to call Department Two, would you like me to transfer the call?"

Arrrggghhh!!!

Ugh

PS have a nice day