Owl For President

Monday, December 26, 2011

power your stuff from garbage!

Amazing. Garbage turns into electricity. Your waste paper is turned to sugar, which can power your cell phone.

Japanese Tech

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Monday, October 31, 2011

A response to the comment "you liberals only tolerate those you agree with."

Yeah, in fact, we really don't tolerate conservatives, we do, however, forgive the humans that conservatism has zombie-mind controlled. It's not your fault, you are like the Pod-people in Invasion of the Body Snatchers, or the Mad Hatter. You are not fully in possession of your faculties, substituting anger for action, hate for love, disrespect and snide comments for "conversation," insults for reasons, and you think that violence against other Americans who have already associated themselves with a distaste for guns is "ok," while talking out the other side of your mouth about some divine being named Jesus. You reject peer reviewed science in favor of gobbledy gook nonsense spouted off by just recently politically recognized housewives, half of you think that returning to the Gold Standard is going to resolve the problem of compound interest on non-labor produced capital. You are quick to boot everyone who is "illegal" out of states like Georgia, with no thought of the economic consequences to both that state and the rest of us due to increased food prices. Yeah, we HATE that sort of stuff, but, UNLIKE conservatives, we want to CHANGE you, not declare you traitors and put you in "some other place," even though your ideology, full of "bomb them now," "kill them all," "kill our enemies and sort it out later," poppy-cock sounds a lot like the talk of murderers and cutthroats.

Monday, October 24, 2011

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Using the Corporate model to solve our Family issues

Often, when watching Republicans talk, I hear "We need to balance the budget because our family has to live within one, and so should any entity, including the government. Government is a business, and like a family, must live within it's means."

Ok. well, thank you. I was confused as to how to run things in my personal life, which is inevitably influenced by and affected as a result of the government. Having considered it, I now realize that I should treat my family and friends like members of a corporation.

From now on, I will view families as companies and my views shall be radically affected by economic as opposed to humanist theories. As a result, here's some advice for folks with large families:

1.If money is getting tight, rather than scrimping on things like movies for yourselves (and maybe your husbands/wives), instead, give the kids less food for lunch. If you have a lot of kids, and they start complaining, cut off the kid that instigates the complaints the most and simply stop feeding him.

2. Regardless of how much they have done, contributed, acted honestly or done their homework, inform your 16 year olds that you need to streamline the family to obtain "more productive hours" and that they can opt for 100 dollars, leave forever and cease attending family functions, or accept half as much food for now, and pay rent, or find themselves out on the street in the former situation. Remind them that, regardless of what they have done or have agreed to, it is your prerogative to disown them at any time.

3.Demand sex from your husbands/wives based on a contractual obligation, rather then "spiritual communion."

4.When things are getting tight, inform your neighbors you are having a "family investment" meeting, in which they can buy stock in your family. Forget about loans, in this strategy, you simply imply to your neighbors that if they invest 10 bucks right now, they MIGHT make 2 more dollars by the end of a calender year! Or, they might lose 4 dollars: who knows!

5.commit crimes that enrich your family, and when the police come, simply announce, "we all did it." And you will be released and pay no fines personally! some examples:
a.Dump oil into the sewer outside your house, polluting the water with viscus oil. When the cops come, say, "we all did it," and invoke your right to Limited Liability.
b.Steal money from the neighbors' piggy banks, when the cops come, say, "the thefts were made at the behest of a family committee, we were simply following our roles as they had been established by the corporate contract contained within marriage."
c.Having followed #4, take that money and give 60% of it to charity, and then declare that you don't owe any taxes! After all, all that money people "invested" in you is money you EARNED (by your slick talk), and so, you DESERVE to not pay taxes by giving it to some "charity" that actually gets barely 20% to the needy parties, the rest going to the folks that run the place, their landlords, etc.

6.When it looks like it's going to be hard to pay both for food and rent and medical bills for all the kids, inform your kids that from now on, if they are not in the house 18 hours of every day, working harder than their European counterparts at their chores , they lose parental health care benefits. In fact, make them co-pay now, and make sure that it is their allowance PLUS a few dollars from their current job outside the house.

See? If we just apply Corporate philosophies to our families, we may come out with a few fewer kids, some angry ones and a few unfair imbalances in terms of fun and entertainment, but so what? I'm sure the same goes for the reverse: applying family values to corporate financial structures is a valid and efficient formula for economic revitalization. NOT.

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Primary Shmimary...The later the better

Having a primary would give the Right-wing controlled media the ability to make fun of at least four democrats every night. Forget it. The media is controlled by the right in the sense that it does not tend to educate, but to PLAY TO the masses. Since they have no democrats, they have become cannibals, attacking their own candidates. The big, emotion chasing media that is fascinated with Hitler, Nazis, murderers, war and crime thrives also on innuendo, and if you run for office, you are literally offering your name up as a sacrifice to be lied about, demeaned and libeled on. This generally works in the right-controlled media to question the MANHOOD of Democratic candidates. Think about the most visceral images of failed Democratic primary candidates: Mike Dukakis in a tank (subtext: not a real warrior), Kerry in Vietnam: (subtext: not a real warrior), Ted Kennedy (subtext: didn't "own up" to his crime, not a "real" man). Now, without any Democrats to attack, this pathetic attack machine is left with nothing but Republicans, and just look at how they treat them! They are up against the wall...The entire pack of their preferred candidates are so dingbat/wingnut crazy, that just reporting on their antics is an embarrassment. Having to explain/excuse D's in math and econ? Having to directly report on someone announcing that the last storm was an Act of God supporting Republican policies? Having to report that your heroes are denying aid to folks in hurricane zones over ideological mumbo-jumbo? There is just NO democratic anchor to grab onto and to report on that "gives equal balance" to the story. These guys are desperate for a democratic primary; one in which they can report that "candidate B walks his dog a "little too late at night" for my tastes." And other such nonsense. Instead, they follow their inclinations, find as much dirt as they can on their OWN candidates because they have no one else to attack, and they are built around ATTACKING. They don't know any other mode of existence. So, be thankful there is no primary, that Obama/Biden will simply rule for 7.5 years, before they are displaced by even more evil and equally unknown players on the world stage.

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Nazism defined: Not exactly Israeli policy

Nazis: different than authoritarians, democratic centralists, absolute monarchists, and oligarchic narco-lords.

Nazis believe in:
1.Immediate and total annihilation of the sub-human races, starting with those that are crippled, diseased or homosexual, and moving on to the Gypsies and the Jews. Next, the Slavs and the Eastern Europeans, the "mud people," followed up by Africans. Why? For Lebensraum: "Elbow room" for the Superior race: the Germans/Nordic race (Aryan).

2.Complete domination of the Euro-Asian land mass, preferably in one lifetime, in order to establish a 1000 year reign of Aryan Supermen, who's existence trumps reason, morals or religious convictions of any sort.

3.Mechanizing the complete extinguishing of races within MONTHS. Achievements so far with this methodology: .5 million Gypsies, 5 Millions Russians, 1 Million Poles, Six Million Jews, all extinguished to the point of significant %'s within the span of 30 months.

4.Total (totalitarian) domination of EVERY media mechanism in society with transgressions against state information punishable BY DEATH. Complete isolation of radio broadcasts from "foreign" sources, along with all print media. Book burning en mass, and the assassination or imprisonment of artists deemed "corrupt" by the Party.

5.Complete abrogation of elected authority, in favor of dictation from the Fuhrer. Total and complete acceptance of Adolph Hitler as your Lord and Savior, to the point of adopting Teutonic rites in lieu of Christian ones.


‎6.Summary justice for ALL citizens, non jury "trials," without defense or access to witnesses, right up the ladder to the Fuhrer's best friend.

Yes, Israel is by any standard a misguided democratic state, but to bandy about terms like "Nazi" to describe what amounts to a great deal less then what the US has perpetrated on Iraq, seems out of hand. Israel is, like the US, an aggressive democratic state. To try to mix the violence associated with that sort of state with "Nazism" is somewhat simplistic, as there is none of the above occurring within the actual population of Israel, or, for that matter, in Palestine in any appreciable way. Forgive us for parsing words, but I think Nazis have their own very SPECIAL place in hell, and we don't need to be giving them any more air time.

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

A typical Tea Partier:

1.Thinks that 9/11 was an "inside job," but fail to realize, if this is true, the "insiders" were GW and Cheney.

2.Believe that the rich and their wealth (1-3% of the US population), are more important then the Poor and their health (80% of the US population)

3.Receive benefits like Workman's Comp, Medicaid and food stamps (65 million families got them in the US this week), yet call those that fight to keep these programs "socialists."

4.Are jealous of workers that can keep their jobs because of unions, while they fear for their job loss, and can't figure out that that is why they should join a union.

5.Calls earned benefits "entitlements," and refuses to acknowledge that the money is put in their by the same people that receive it through payroll taxes and other government fees. In fact, what TP'r's are really saying is they want to STEAL the government administered savings of the middle and poorer classes, and hand that money to the richest 3%.

6.Thinks that evolution is a crock, science is useless, and that all important questions of science, politics or economics can be resolved with the Bible, while living in a society produced by secularists and agnostics, who's very JOB was to doubt anything they are told, which creates things like flight and radio, both of which were declared impossible and demonic at earlier points in history.

7.Waves a pistol around, declares that the 2nd is the most important amendment (clearly, the first and 5th amendments are not very interesting to this crowd), produces image after image of gun-sites, targets, lotteries of guns being sold (this week in Maricopa county, where Giffords was shot) that are the same as that that killed their enemies (and other innocents), all the while claiming that democrats are "violent" and yet unable to produce one image or story of a democratic rally in which someone actually even had a gun. In fact, I would challenge TP'r's to produce one image of democrats waving guns around at a rally in the last 20 years.

8.Entirely misses the point of brotherhood, Christianity and national unity in favor of bile-soaked invective directed at old ladies and babies. Has never met a political opponent he/she does not wish to personally insult. Has little knowledge of civility either on forums or in public, and for all their talk about Jesus, would not allow a person into their home unless properly introduced.

Thursday, August 4, 2011

congressional dissatisfaction

When we say we are "dissatisfied" with congress, we are saying we are dissatisfied with parliamentary mechanisms that allow a small minority to threaten and direct the majority into ideologically driven directions. For example, the budget cuts massive amounts, FIVE YEARS from now. So, the Tea Party basically sucks all the money out of government, and then leaves, not even sticking around to take care of the mess. Their agenda is straight up: end the Federal Authority over the States. Their goal, though some may not realize it, is the rebirth of the Confederate States of America, complete with labor laws from 1890 and the deliberate cessation of education for the working classes. This is not some ephemeral enemy, but a real and constant threat, rearranging textbooks so that Joe McCarthy isn't a vampire with blood dripping from his fangs, but rather, an American "hero." ( So what if a lot of innocent people lost their lives or jobs...we had those commies on the run. NO THX.) Or that biology doesn't explain our existence. Or that the best thing that ever happened to the American Indian was Christopher Columbus. These clowns, through massive national and international PAC slush funds, posing as "christians" and "conservatives" are gutting the Nation, getting elected to high office on such platforms as "i'm a housewife," and "I hunt a lot."while tromping around in literally tin-foil hats talking out of one side of their mouth about 911/Bush//Conspiracy and the other side Bush is King! They rationalize Bush holding hands, literally, with the King of Saudi Arabia, a brutal MONARCHY while slamming men who, as teenagers, braved vicious dogs in the South to make it so black men and women were allowed into restaurants! Frankly, such congressmen are repulsive to me, and while I believe in the American system, I am certainly ready to see it work a little better then letting this flotsam and jetsum have it's day warming the congressional benches.

Monday, May 30, 2011

Politics of Medicine changes with Doctors' Jobs

Working for Salaries, Doctors go Left

Inevitably, confronted with corruption and it's impingement on guaranteed salaries, doctors with standardized wages are going to support, like most workers, unlimited torts. Capping Torts is like giving industry a free pass to kill some of us after they figure out the "most" they can lose. Corruption will contribute to a downward spiral on actual doctor's (as opposed to their "managers'") wages. Hence, they will demand that the check of "unknown" tort judgements are the only thing to keep these mega-corporations in line. Once they have a specific amount they have to worry about, they can work around it, at all of our expense.

Sunday, May 29, 2011

The New York Times suggests Making Medical School Free

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/29/opinion/29bach.html

I would add that we should subsidize ALL education so that it is free for the populace at large, and simply educate students based on their abilities.

Friday, May 20, 2011

Pay bankers their Customers' average total income.

Instead of paying bankers by how much they make for the bank, I think a better system would be that they get paid based on an actuarial table related to savings vs income. In other words, I'm guessing that an average salary per customer can be determined via some sort of accounting calculus. Principal bankers would get paid multiples of the average wage: say, no more then 20x the standard wage of the average customer. So, for example, the Bank of America would have an average wage per customer of say...40,000 bucks, so, most of the bankers would get that much, and the CEO might get 800,000 bucks a year. Basically, all salaries would be tied to customer average salaries, and even bonuses could not exceed 2x the base salary of the employee.

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Why I don't believe we will invade Syria, in a nutshell

The reason is far more disheartening then "republican politics" or whatnot. The problem is that Syria is in the heart of the Middle East, and it serves western interests far more effectively to allow a strict dictatorship there than for it to be plunged into civil conflict, like Libya.

The problem is that Syria, like Libya, is filled with discordant factions that are being kept down by dictatorship: Extremist Sunnis, Extremist Shias, Outspoken communists who up until 15 years ago were being paid for by the USSR. Syria was also a Soviet client state, but now is relatively neutral. American involvement would most likely contribute, or succeed, in deposing Assad, but the Baathists are not going to just roll over and die in Syria, as we can clearly see from the present blood bath/detentions that are occurring. Thus, rather then a stable, if thoroughly undemocratic state, a US intervention would simply create more chaos with no resolution in sight, in an area of the world already filled with lawless regions. Syria would become another disaster zone like Iraq quickly.

Recently, Syrian citizens have actually been half-jokingly suggesting that ISRAEL should intervene. I think, in a real way, this sums up the ACTUAL situation on the ground in the Middle East, as opposed to the American view typified by Ladies in Black, that Israel is somehow a devilish Nazi-like state. In fact, the COMMON MAN in the Middle East knows that Israel has a better standard of living, more trustworthy representatives in government, and many of the amenities of the West that none of them have. Rather then "hating the Jews," many Arabs and Persians ENVY them, and that is something the Ladies in Black just don't get. They confuse envy with hate, and "side" with those that are envious!

Despite these glimmerings of real change in the Middle East, the chances of either Israel or America actually entering Syria are nil, as Syria ALREADY represents a hostile power WITH the capability to if not destroy Israel, at least to seriously harm it. Israel has refrained from attacking the nations around it for the main reason that any wars against these powers outside of Israel's borders would be either prosecuted with mass murder, mass deportations (to where?) or both. Israel, while it may be ABLE to do such a thing, is guided by religious and political principles that don't allow it. So, instead, they have built a massive defensive system, and part of that system involves maintaining control of the Golan Heights and at least certain areas of the West Bank and Gaza. But, because these are basically No Man's Lands between warring enemies, those that live there (the Palestinians) get very short shrift from ALL parties involved. Palestinians cannot (at least not until this new wave of chaos) enter Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon or Syria. Like the Israeli checkpoints, Palestinians are abused by the other powers as well.

In conclusion, it is not up to Israel, the US or anyone else, to CONTRIBUTE to the chaos surrounding the VERY poor choices these governments made concerning their own peoples. It is not Israel's, or the US's fault, that 100,000's of folks are dissatisfied with their oppressive governments. It would serve no purpose to rush into Syria with an Israeli/US army, as it would not only bring even more chaos to Syria, but could inspire Iran to military adventurism. We must wait and watch, and grit out teeth, unless, we, as a people, are willing to put ALL of our society's resources to the mettle. If 75 MILLION of us decide that we NEED to save the human race, starting with Syria, then ok, but if anyone is expecting a few 10's of thousands of troops to solve this problem, they are delusional.

Monday, May 9, 2011

New water source!

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090605091856.htm

A fully autonomous (as in, it needs no electricity to work) water absorption and and distribution system! This could mean the end of rainwater collection laws!

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Why a flat tax makes absolutely no sense, and the government is not like our family when it comes to monetary policy

The Republicans are very good at packaging misinformation as truth. For example, they constantly bring up the saw, "well, families have to stay within their budget, why not the government?" A few reasons.

1.Families don't print their own money, set their monetary policy or wage wars on their neighbors.

2.Families don't have to worry that if they don't spend money, their children will die.

3.Families redistribute their wealth without laws to force it. Dad goes out and makes ALL the money (traditionally) and then GIVES it to everyone else in his family. Talk about entitlements! The Government, given it's own perogatives, would NOT give any money to it's "children." Nor does private industry just "give" it's money to it's employees, it must be wrested from them, usually with strikes and union deals.

4.Regressive taxes tax the poor far more then the rich. Here's why. Let's say everyone pays the same tax, and it's only on sales (as opposed to a progressive tax that makes it so the more you have the more you pay). Someone that makes 1000 a month and someone that makes 10,000 go to the store to purchase a doohickey for 100 dollars. There is a 10% flat tax. So, the Rich person pays the same as the the poor person. however, 10$ is 1/100th of person 1's monthly check, and it is only 1/1000th of the other person's income per month. Now, in sales, it would be very complicated to end this sort of regressive taxation of labor, but NOT in the area of INCOME tax, where it is quite easy to avoid such a hyper-unfair system of taxation.

Now, if the economy was set up so there was a relatively even distribution of millionaires to poor folks, this would not be as crucial to maintaining a free, fair and open society. But, that is not the case. Here, 1% owns 48% of the country's wealth, so a flat tax would simply allow this small minority with such vast wealth to just save more of it, spirit it out of the country, and contribute eventually to hyper-inflation, food riots and unemployment (like now). The money is not "theirs" it is the result of worker labor, and when workers are totally alienated and estranged....they revolt.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Education for sale is Education that loses professors

In the old days, the Government of the US, like most governments NOW, supported their best and brightest with free education. Not loaned education. Not bought education. In those days, the SMARTEST students went to the BEST universities. They vied, using tests, to determine who was smartest, and then they were chosen on the merits. But, long ago, state institutions started charging for the "privilege" of education. Instead of the old sensible idea, inspired by the Greeks, that smart people should be paid and nurtured to benefit the state, it became instead a situation in which the RICHEST can get into universities, and the universities are forced to pander to them. Now, instead of those who have proven themselves through tenacity and grit, universities instead school those whose parents have made big money in sales, or developed a very esoteric patent, or work in a high paying desk job with no creativity. Meanwhile, our real geniuses, who are not motivated by money, are of less value to the rest of us, since they are not trained to use their natural talents.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Response to a revisionist view of Southern culpability in the Civil War.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/04/08/civil.war.today/

Gee, I'm sorry, I didn't know that history was now being made up to suit our fancies. Let's look at the basics of this article and why they are dead wrong and filled with research bias.

1.The South attacked the North, not vice-versa. After five years of having hoopla parties in which effigies of Lincoln, and other effigies (as well as real people) were also burned. Drunk on whiskey, these mobs sometimes attacked suspected Northerners. Meanwhile, in the North, it is true they didn't think about fighting the South, or whether it would win, because THEY DIDN'T PLAN A WAR WITH THE SOUTH. Most Northerners could have cared less about war, Southerners, Secession, or slavery for that matter. They just didn't give a damn. The south, on the other hand, was filled with passionate conversations at Cotillions, Debutante Balls and military and political dancing parties about the inevitable war with the North, and the "slight" of the Federal Government in not enforcing Dred Scott in states that would not themselves enforce Federal or state laws concerning the return of slaves (or should I say FREE MEN WHO HAD BEEN SLAVES). The south made it plain that the non-enforcement of the Dred Scott decision was a deciding factor in their determination to secede from the Union (of free men).

2.Re-framing Abolition as some sort of "religious sanctimony," is so beyond the pale, it's hard where to begin. It's like describing the SCBC (Southern Christian Baptist Coalition) as "religious zealots," when they supported ending desegregation and the speeches of Martin Luther King Jr. It's confused mumbo jumbo, and does not strike me as an academically sound proposition, but rather one clouded by research bias. In fact, there were many "religious zealots" who supported slavery in the slave times, but the issue was what FEDERAL AND STATE governments did, not what some kook-ball preachers said or did, that mattered. Yeah, there were Abolitionists who happened to be Fiery-eyed preachers, because being anti-slavery made SENSE. But, on the other hand, there were also fiery-eyed preachers in South Carolina railing against the "do-gooder abolitionists" who they sanctimoniously labeled devil worshipers.

3.Comparing the states, today, pulling out of the Union over abortion or anything else first off, sillly. If a state pulled out of the Union, what exactly would that mean? They are abrogating Federal legal protection from search and seizure laws? They are declaring war on their neighboring state in a desperate contest for resources? How can seceding possibly serve land-locked states? It's just all so pathetically unthoughtful, and would never pass muster in a real vote. Secession in 1860 involved a Whooped up, bloodlusted population FED ON WITNESSING LYNCHINGS, and supported by the disparate states governments of the Pre-Bellum South. Now we have a complacent population, few of whom are land owners, who are told to hide under their desks in school and watch the Cosby show and Reality TV when they are bored.

The entire gist of the article is that the North somehow initiated this war, which in fact is the exact opposite of the truth. McClellan, for example, far from prosecuting the war, did a series of defensive actions, won most of them, yet never pressed his advantage against an aggressive Southern army. Lincoln became so incensed with McClellan's incompetence (or downright treachery) that he replaced him. How does that get turned around into our blundering presence in Libya, or presence in Iraq or anywhere else? In the Former, an aggressor NATION, made up of several separate states, and calling itself The Confederacy, announced and made war upon, in a brutal way, a North that was unprepared for and not expecting an armed conflict. The North's counter attack took nearly 18 months to really get going! It is simply untrue to announce here or in a revisionist history that the North started the war.

Political Parties should pay you out.

Think about it. The officers of political parties are all paid. Large amounts of money are given in huge blocs by individuals and corporations. This money is invested in ads, party officer pay, and other expenses, including, often, slush funds for retiring incumbents to live off of later. Yet, no political party ever mentions this "dirty little secret." In fact, there is often a cadre of "officers" at the local and county level that ARE NOT PAID, giving the illusion that the parties are "volunteer" organizations, when, in fact, they are a mix of volunteers and paid officers.

The dirge we hear is that we should not be "buying votes." That parties are somehow above the baser motives of common man. That ideology is the glue of party organizations, not pecuniary incentives.

But, in our new landscape, where communication is lighting fast, and where many different views exist under the banners of "republican," "democrat," "conservative," and "liberal," Ideology is NOT the reason for party participation, rather, family ties, personal gain and cognitive dissonance are what keep us, generally, in our political camps.

Yet, many of us have very different opinions from our political brethren. As an example from my own life, I am deeply opposed to the Iraq war, yet, I was strongly in favor of the Afghanistan war (at least the way I believed Clinton and the JCoS were planning it), and started wondering in 1996 why the NATO/North Atlantic powers had not attacked it yet. I feel the Iraq war was a diversion of our nation's forces from a critical field of combat in Afghanistan. The failure of our military planning after Iraq is evident in the Taliban's recent successful attack on the Swat Valley in Pakistan, disrupting one of the most peaceful areas on the earth, filled with yogis etc., with a 15,000 man army that beheaded people before it, burned villages and blew up schools and shrines. This sort of multinational mercenary destruction of peaceful people (and the Taliban army is a hodgepodge of multinational mercenaries) is unacceptable, and the direct result of Bush redirecting our forces into Iraq to settle an old family score, instead of fighting our real enemy: A Muslim-based international mercenary force that fields large armies in central Asia, and destroys areas the size of Connecticut (Swat Valley) in two weeks.

But I digress. The matter at hand is the "value" of political affiliation. We talk a lot about "Taxation without Representation," and are disgusted often with how our paid civil servants seem to make decisions against our interests. Yet, we do not question that the "taxes" we pay to political organizations represent us. Victory in politics is usually measured in abstract concepts, like "changing of policy" in some department, or the election of some judge in a close race. Instead, what if victory in a political party was personal? What if getting out the vote, for example, paid out? Or if parties had mutual funds that supported their views and that could be mixed and matched, so that if you supported gun rights, but also a woman's right to choose, you could still be active as an investor in your party, and a profiteer?

For that matter, parties could disintegrate, and economic engines could drive elections, each with a series of special interests, paid members/investors, and effective sales/persuasion forces. Frankly, I think this would be refreshing for liberty and a Democratic Republic's politics. Rather then two monolithic parties, you could have multiple organizations, providing jobs, with passionate and paid operatives, supported by different businesses and individuals' monies. Some could be like my idea, The CoMiCal Hellawenic, others more conservative in presentation.

I firmly believe that political activity can be commercialized to benefit a larger segment of the population financially, without threatening free speech or free assembly. While I will never support making a person's vote "public," and strongly support the secret ballot, I do believe that there is no caveat in the Constitution that makes it illegal for ANY grouping of souls to field candidates for political office, even "independents."

I also believe that an organization that I join to elect someone to higher office should also ask my opinion on matters concerning policy. I do not wish to be just told: "this is how to think." I think an effective political organization can represent more then one position (though not diametrically opposed ones). My political organization, should it form, will introduce regular polls to ALL it's members concerning their ideas and positions.

Political organizations that are fat with cash should have three major programs that are always running:
1.Reason Training. I'll admit, I'm not even the best reasoner. I think Political parties should provide mind strengthening games and pay out the people who show the most aptitude to solving complex problems. Then, we should hire them to help us make systemic decisions for our organizations.
2.Civics Training. Anyone who is involved in politics should be intimately aware of the government mechanisms around them (zoning boards, police oversight, etc.). Political organizations should educate folks about these government departments and invite people to attend their meetings. They should have a reward system for folks that attend these meetings, and it should be ok for more then one group to reward that attendance.
3.Muckraking Agents. Political organizations should be in the business of investigative journalism (as they are in Europe). This would make for more intelligent political actors in general.

If we had an organization like this, we would be getting paid out for our investment of time and money in real time personally, rather then in some abstract "political victory," and I think our Republic would be better off.

Monday, April 4, 2011

Waxing Poetic

For we are but the stuff of stars, cast about in whirlpools with neither bottom nor top, bonded together to observe that which we are made of. Life, and our lives within it, is but another stripe of variegation in the solid existence of all time and space.

Sunday, April 3, 2011

The Hellawenic, and How it works

My campaign organization will start out as a private company, called the CoMiCal Hellawenic. The reasoning is this: The Consolidated Middle Class (CoMiCal) needs the Hellawenic (a halloween/costume party based organization) to represent it in the congress, to the people, and to other organs of power.

The Hellawenic has Several missions:
1.Agitate for a voter holiday in early November
2.Organize a Lobby to protect Middle Class interests
3.Organize Potlach parties in our local regions
4.Educate the populace into civics, making statistics about congressmen as exciting and "tradable" as baseball cards are now, and knowledge about the structure of our local, state and national governments easily accessible to all.
5.Organize tutoring in society, so that those that have can teach those that do not.
6.Create "Libertariums," a sort of library/health spa/digital creation station, privately funded but publicly offered.
7.Recognize and celebrate knowledge of civics, history and social martyrs.

This Private organization, the CoMiCal Hellawenic, will be a for profit company designed to enrich my co-workers, customers and myself in search of an artistic and social ideal that benefits all who participate in it.

When this organization has become large enough, I will use it to run first for either governor or senator of the state that needs me most, and then for the Presidency. In the meantime, I shall create a partying, celebratory group of "Hellawenics," or Hellaweens, that have costume parties regularly, culminating in big parties on or around Halloween.

Saturday, April 2, 2011

Thoughts on the symbolic destruction of Religious symbols

If your religion/culture is one of confident and assured convictions, then the need to lash out at folks that besmirch it is at a minimum.

Let's look at this logically:

All day long, every year for decades, certain Muslims have:

a.Called the West and Westerners "decadent."

b.Allowed slavery to exist in their lands

c.Vocally and Physically attacked Christians, Jews and Buddhists and their holy statues.

d.Specifically targeted Christian and Jewish houses of worship

e.Acted in concert with Muslim governments to attack militarily insignificant and unconnected old Jews in Argentina

f.Enforced in their lands restrictions on the press, restrictions on movement and restrictions on the arts.

And now, because some of these people become violent in mobs, you want to limit OUR free speech? Excuse me, but ANY ONE of the above wrongs could have led to extreme, and probably fatal violence in America toward Muslim minorities, and yet...it hasn't. The Koran is a piece of crap, as is the Bible. Just some more know-it-all's with another book. If my saying so causes you to go into a killing frenzy, it's not my rights that need to be limited, it's your freedom.

Thursday, March 31, 2011

Sunday, March 27, 2011

More on Nocera and an oil free future

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-03-debut-artificial-leaf.html

An artificial leaf is here!

More thoughts on the Proto-fascist threat to the Executive and "Exposure Fatigue."

Something that is very important to realize is that lies are not "bad" in politics. This is something the Fascists often capitalize on in democratically elected Republics, and something that the moderates of both the right and left must be vigilant against.

Here's how it works....

1.Corporate/Rotten Gov't Agents mix together in a political or social union. Is this everyone in the corporation? No. Is it everyone in the government? No. In fact, it's the managers of these institutions, the CEO's and the High Level Government officers. Their unions (and that is EXACTLY what they are) are called things like "The Bohemian Club," or "The Bilderberg Group." Or the names are even more innocuous, like a company name such as "Archer Midland Daniels." But here is where they congregate, plot, and do exactly what workers do at their union meetings: figure out how to obtain and hold elected offices with their agents.

2.The group (or compendium of groups) select a Titular Head, a person that will be the standard bearer of their political domination. This person's main job will be to:

a.get elected

b.obtain the group's needs and interests in the Federal system.

c.Help lesser officials get elected.

Their selection must fit four major categories:

a.He must have connections to power already in place, and be jocular with these connections. Reagan, for example, was a good friend of J.Edgar Hoover.

b.He must have lived a life of ease, for at least 20 years, in order to hold out that possibility for the deluded constituency they create.

c.He must be willing to do ANYTHING short of actual criminal activity, to focus the media on himself, because this leads to what I call "Exposure Fatigue," in which no matter what the reason, if even a small percentage of reporters are spinning a positive on it, there is no political downside to being in the media for "negative actions," such as lying or seeming like either an idiot or a Klutz. Part of Carter's original appeal was that his campaign portrayed him as an endlessly smiling Hayseed. That, alone, is a total lie.

d.Feed this candidate a long litany of lies that are so surreal, that it will be impossible for the press NOT to notice the comment, but then PAY hacks, on such outlets as FOX to MISREPORT the reasonable reaction to such outbursts.

This is apparently a SURE FIRE way to attract uneducated temp workers to your cause, and is also attractive to upper middle class and richer interests who don't CARE what the candidate says, and only care about LEGISLATIVE actions, which protect their monied interests. Since the upper classes are not concerned about truth, only about legislation, they have no problem capitalizing on the failure of education in the US, and taking advantage of Exposure Fatigue in the lower middle class and the poor.

Saturday, March 26, 2011

The Gold Standard is idiotic, at least at the state level

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/305062


This is the dumbest thing I've ever seen.

First off, the reason we blew off gold as legal tender was because it was

a.easy to melt down and recast and,
b.could easily be shaved. reducing the real value of coins.

The the ridges on coins are there because in the old days, if the ridges dropped too much, you turned in the coin for a new one, and the government took the loss. Gold is a substandard metal for commerce on so many levels, it's a laugh to think that anyone believes it to be "stable."

The joke of the century.

I can't wait to see the state's face when dimes are worth 20 cents, yet can only purchase a dime's worth of commerce. Are we supposed to go to the "melting machine" at the King Soopers and have two dimes made up of half as much silver? LOL

I will be sure to go to utah on my Presidential Campaign Tour™, exchange as many dollars as possible for "gold currency," and then just start shaving and melting my gold into bricks, and cashing in later when gold's price rises. Poor stupid Utah, giving me their gold at today's prices!

Thoughts on Fascism

It is important to realize that fascists do not believe in the nonsense they preach...their focus is racialist in nature usually, and they believe the ends justify the means. Thus, "truth" is not all that useful in many situations, while lies are. The focus is on the maintenance of either the race (whites in this case), or Ideology (White based American Nationalism). Saying things that are lies, if they further the "race" or the "party," are "justified" under this rubric. Announcing, for example, how hard-hearted you are, even acting hard-hearted, while secretly, inwardly feeling pain and suffering and a sort of hopeless guilt for promulgating such propaganda or actions, is typical of the pre-fascist state's loosely organized militias. Each one of the group feels a sense of shame and desire to hide their actions, but take heart from a group dynamic that justifies their actions in public. For moments when they are not alone with themselves, they can feel actual emotional highs from doing these unhealthy, unsympathetic and passionate-less things, but, when alone, in the dark, these thoughts of their own guilt haunt them, and this dynamic is exploited by fascist propagandists.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Laws are agreed upon contracts, not sent from heaven.

I picked this up from a decidely conservative site, but it is still interesting. I'm going to have to say, I agree with conservatives on this one: Islamic law has no place in a secular society. Laws must be agreed upon in our culture, not dictated, and they are, theoretically, up for review and amendment at all times.

Florida Judge Orders Use of Islamic Law in Mosque Case http://www.newsmax.com/

Florida Judge Orders Use of Islamic Law in Mosque Case

Something that Muslims , and dogmatic people in general, don't get, is that in a constitutional state, Laws are malleable, and not so set in stone that questioning the laws themselves is heresy. You don't go to jail for questioning whether weed should be legal, which you WOULD if you lived in a dogmatically structured law system, like say, Saudi Arabia.

Monday, March 21, 2011

Gun rights vs the odds

honestly, it's hard to argue with this result. There are apparently 2.5 Million "gun defense" events each year, with around 22% believing that something very bad would have ensued had not a gun intervened, which is around, if taken on face value, 400,000 deaths a year that were averted, according to this pro gun source.http://www.pul...pless.com/gunclock/stats.html

Couple recount fatal fray at their Tierra Verde home - St. Petersburg Times www.tampabay.com


WikiPedia, on the other hand, tells us that there are about 75,000 deaths by gun a year, 2/3's of which are deliberate (56,000), and the lions share (ie, more then 23,000) are SUICIDES. So almost 63% of all deaths are suicide or accident. only around 25,000 are deliberate like the story above, or murder. of the "deliberates" i'm going to just warrant a guess that more guns come out to cool things down then to hype things up, so, maybe 15,000 are guns that are being weilded by criminals? So, we have 15,000 criminals committing actual murder a year. another 10,000 stopping crime. that still leaves 50,000 deaths due to the presence of a gun in the environment, per year.

so, the argument boils down to this: are the 50,000 accidents and suicides worth the 10,000 folks that per year halt their own assaults? As I get older, I think I err on the side of the few individuals who have been saved, but I certaily still entertain the idea that the removal of ALL guns in the civic environment would be the most optimal solution.

It strikes me however, as odd, that you can go to jail for 30 years for having some drugs on you, which hurts no one but you, but you can just walk around and think screwed up thoughts with a gun in your pocket, and that's ok.

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Nuclear Power is a dumb Idea, for SO many reasons!

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/303-211/5337-nuclear-nightmare

I worked against the continued use of Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant, which is built on the Ramapo fault. It is mentioned in this article.

I am not "philosophically" opposed to nuclear power, just practically. Until the technology can be dealt with SAFELY, it is too dangerous to use it. The media is not telling us the whole story. Radionucleitides do not "evaporate," nor do they safely "disperse." The stories concerning the food chain are telling: radioactive particles imbed in other life forms (like spinach, eggs and milk), potentially disrupting their dna/rna transmissions, and the dna of the creatures that eat these foods (us), especially during procreation! So, the particle might stick around, attach to the zygotes when having sex, and produce babies without brains or arms, etc.

It has been estimated that ONE uncontrolled nuclear power plant spewing radioactive steam could, in a little over 250 years, ELIMINATE ALL LIFE ON EARTH. I learned that in my science classes in college. Even if 1/20th of all life is threatened, it's still pretty extreme.

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Demanding one's rights vs Corporations makes sense...sometimes.

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2011/03/11/GOP-bill-would-expand-health-plan-waivers/UPI-36281299892894/

How infantile. Corporations are looking for a waver in order to avoid paying more money towards their employees' health. Wavers do not mean that the corporations "don't have health care,": Their employees still have health plans, they are just more expensive. The Congressmen is comparing Apples to Oranges when he suggests that individuals deserve the same "rights" as corporations. What the congressman either fails to understand, or willfully wishes to deny, is that ObamaCare's main effect is on the profit line of corporations, and will have nothing but a beneficial effect on "individuals." More "individuals" (30 Million more) now have access to health care then did two years ago, and your corporate shilling not-withstanding, what would possibly possess a poor person without health care to deny government service? The only reason would be that they had to feed their families first, a sad commentary on the "American dream." But that is a strawman: the law clearly states that if you make under a certain amount, or can show that paying the full fee is onerous, you can have your fees lowered or eliminated. The health care bill is designed to fall up on the rich, for the simple reason that presently, 400 families in the US, combined, control more wealth the the COMBINED WEALTH OF 155,000,000 other families living in the US! Those 400 families, and the 2-3000 other families that have that kind of cash, have money that is way out of proportion to what serves the needs of a civil society. They should be taxed up the yin yang, because even absurd taxation (say 200%!) would take YEARS to affect their living styles, which include jets, palaces, huge yachts, Palatial mansions, and endless vacations at literally amazing, island getaways. Meanwhile, the rest of us work about 1/3 to 1/2 of every day, and we are still juggling whether to buy food, pay the electric bill or go to the impersonal health clinic doctor and pay him 40 bucks for the privilege of getting a prescription I pay another 18 for. The congressman probably has his medicines delivered to him by an aide, free of charge! Before that, he was probably working for some mega-corporation and had high-end health care, PAID FOR by his corporation, through WITHHOLDINGS. But the congressman does not wish to afford the rest of us a similar system eminating from the Federal government, because that would mean that big Pharm and Health Care would be cut out, and all his pals at the money trough would be out of a job.Read more:

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2011/03/11/GOP-bill-would-expand-health-plan-waivers/UPI-36281299892894/#ixzz1Gyd1usHG

Friday, March 11, 2011

A little perspective on Class War

http://jackdean.posterous.com/must-see-chart-this-is-what-class-war-looks-l

Here's a chart showing cuts to programs for the lion's share of the US's citizens, and the tax breaks for the 5% that actually avoid paying taxes through using these loopholes and high powered accountants.

Do you love your town, or love the idea of electing your town officers....?

http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/naomi-klein-wisconsin-assault-democra

Corporations are passing laws that allow them to take over towns completely, dissolving elected authority. This will make it much more difficult for me to become President.

Manning may be guilty of something, but he has not been convicted

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_Manning

A response to a "throw the key away, I don't care about his suffering" kind of comment


Ok folks, time for a reality check.
First: what is it to be an "American," and why do people flee here from other places?

-Habeaus Corpus ("show me the body"). Unlike other countries the US USED to be known for treating accused criminals... as INNOCENT until PROVEN guilty. This is diametrically opposed to the NAPOLEANIC CODE, which posits you are GUILTY until PROVEN innocent. What this means is that UNTIL you are JUDGED a criminal by a JURY of your PEERS, you are INNOCENT, and must be treated as any other INNOCENT person is, even if EVERYONE KNOWS YOUR GUILTY. Apparently, the Defense Department bureaucrats have decided to do away with that annoying American concept.

-Right to Counsel. Unlike TYRANNIES, the US USED to be known for GUARANTEEING access to a lawyer once accused, so that even if you are a moron, SOMEONE WITH KNOWLEDGE can help you. The DoD has decided this RIGHT is some sort of triviality.

Which part of ILLEGAL and IMMORAL do you not understand about torturing a pre-trial defendant?? MAYBE, just MAYBE, AFTER he's judged a criminal he could receive some sort of punishment that was corporal in nature, but BEFORE??? Anyone that supports such actions can immediately discount themselves as "Americans" by any political or social definition of the word. You're as "American" as your local NAZI chapter.

Second, do any of you dolts have any idea of the effects that the release had? All the revolutions occurring right now, in the Middle East, sprung DIRECTLY from the leaks. The security apparatus of NUMEROUS countries are under assault because of the INFORMATION RELEASED ABOUT THEIR CRIMES IN THESE LEAKS. Our own government is coming to terms with, in one case, an attack by nine service men on 24 HOUSES in Iraq and their INNOCENT families, in which only TWO survived, one a nine year old boy, who watched his parents and granny murdered by US SERVICEMEN outside a field of combat!

Listen to yourselves! Evidence of US crimes here and abroad, cooperation with detestable secret police in other countries, and Manning, who by the way, became upset when he saw PROFESSORS AND JOURNALISTS BEING TORTURED FOR REVEALING CORRUPTION IN IRAQ, is now BEING TORTURED HIMSELF! And yet, despite all this, you are calling this young boy a TRAITOR?

We need more such traitors.

Wikipedia's link to Global Climate Change review boards

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change

"No scientific body of national or international standing has maintained a dissenting opinion..."

"It seems that the debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely nonexistent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes.[106]"

A short comment about global warming, with sources

If only there were some way to distinguish between the internal variability of the climate system and external forcings, and moreover to discriminate between different types of natural variability and external forcings in order to identify specific drivers of specific aspects of the climate system. Some sort of detection and attribution, if you will. Oh, wait!The climate system responds to changes in variables like solar variability, greenhouse gases, surface reflectivity/aerosol loading, orbital mechanics, etc. There is also a significant degree of internal variability driven by coupled ocean-atmospheric dynamics (think El Niño). These things can change the globally averaged surface temperature. That there are many possible drivers of surface temperature change might lead people to believe that the "why" of the current multidecadal warming trend is unsettled or in doubt.But this fails from two different directions:First, we know what these variables are doing with a surprisingly high degree of confidence. We've got satellites monitoring solar activity, we can calculate our orbital variations, we can differentiate between anthropogenic and natural sources of GHGs, etc. We can observe that these other drivers of climate are not responsible for the warming because they're of the wrong sign, magnitude, or both. Solar activity contributed to a moderate of the warming in the first half of the 20th century, but all solar trends have been flat or in opposition to temp in recent decades[1][2][3][4]. Orbital forcing not only operates on timescales orders of magnitude too slow to be driving the current warming, it should be cooling the high latitude Northern Hemisphere, which it had been prior to anthropogenic warming[5]. We have a good record of what many of these drivers have been doing not only during the period of instrumental observation, but well before[6][7].Secondly, good science is predictive, and climate science is no exception (despite what AM radio would have one believe). If enhanced greenhouse warming were taking place, this creates testable predictions; enhanced greenhouse warming should have a different "signature" than other drivers. Under enhanced greenhouse warming, we would expect the surface to warm, but not the atmosphere all the way through, as we would under increased solar warming. We'd expect a raising of the tropopause, stratospheric cooling, and contraction of the upper atmosphere. And this is what we observe[8][9][10].Under enhanced greenhouse warming rather than internal ocean-atmosphere heat exchange, we would expect a decrease in outgoing longwave radiation and increase in downwelling longwave radiation as less thermal energy escapes the atmosphere (i.e. a planetary energy imbalance), and warming of all ocean basins simultaneously. And this is what we observe[11][12][13].We know that we're warming, and we know in broad strokes why we're warming. The evidence for attribution is almost entirely absent from the "public" discussion of climate even though we've made enormous strides in the last 10 years, moving beyond global attribution questions to the regional level[14].[1] Lockwood, M., and C. Fröhlich (2007): Recent oppositely directed trends in solar climate forcings and the global mean surface air temperature. Proceedings of the Royal Society: A. 463, 2447- 2460, doi:10.1098/rspa.2007.1880.[2] Lockwood, M., and C. Fröhlich (2008): Recent oppositely directed trends in solar climate forcings and the global mean surface air temperature. II. Different reconstructions of the total solar irradiance variation and dependence on response time scale. Proceedings of the Royal Society: A, 464, 1367-1385, doi:10.1098/rspa.2007.0347.[3] Benestad, R.E., and G.A. Schmidt (2009): Solar trends and global warming. Journal of Geophysical Research, 114, D14101, doi:10.1029/2008JD011639.[4] Gray, L. J., et al. (2010): Solar Influences on Climate. Reviews of Geophysics, 48, RG4001, doi:10.1029/2009RG000282.[5] Kaufman, D. S., et al. (2009): Recent warming reverses long-term arctic cooling. Science 325, 1236-1239, doi:10.1126/science.1173983.[6] Lean, J.L., and D.H. Rind (2008): How natural and anthropogenic influences alter global and regional surface temperatures: 1889 to 2006. Geophysical Research Letters, 35, L18701, doi:10.1029/2008GL034864.[7] Köhler, P., et al. (2010): What caused Earth's temperature variations during the last 800,000 years? Data-based evidence on radiative forcing and constraints on climate sensitivity. Quaternary Science Reviews, 29/1-2, 129-145, doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2009.09.026.[8] Santer, B. D., et al. (2004): Identification of anthropogenic climate change using a second-generation reanalysis. Journal of Geophysical Research, 109, D21104, doi:10.1029/2004JD005075.[9] Schwarzkopf, M. D., and V. Ramaswamy (2008): Evolution of stratospheric temperature in the 20th century. Geophysical Research Letters, 35, L03705, doi:10.1029/2007GL032489.[10] Laštovicka, J., et al. (2008): Emerging pattern of global change in the upper atmosphere and ionosphere. Annales Geophysicae, 26, 1255-1268, doi:10.5194/angeo-26-1255-2008.[11] Hansen, J. E. et al. (2005): Earth's Energy Imbalance: Confirmation and Implications. Science, 208, doi:10.1126/science.1110252.[12] Murphy, D. M., et al. (2009): An observationally based energy balance for the Earth since 1950. Journal of Geophysical Research, 114, D17107, doi:10.1029/2009JD012105.[13] Pierce, D.W., et al. (2006): Anthropogenic Warming of the Oceans: Observations and Model Results. Journal of Climate, 19, 1873-1900, doi:10.1175/JCLI3723.1.[14] Stott, P. A., et al. (2010): Detection and Attribution of Climate Change: A Regional Perspective. WIREs Climate Change. 192-211, doi:10.1002/wcc.34.

Courtesy of Andrew Snow

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Make use of my items

This site is devoted to honing YOUR ability to argue intelligently (and with sources) against silly statements, such as "global warming is a hoax," "Obama was born in Kenya," or "Health Care = Communism." My point here is to gather information that makes it easier to remember what's actually going on. I try to explain things as well as I can, and sometimes, I, too, am wrong. However, I think that this site affords us a place to discuss these items, and the commentary boards last into perpetuity. I might glean the repetitive stuff off the boards, as they fill, but I will attempt to keep all opinions that are well reasoned up. I'm happy to change my mind, in fact, changing one's mind in one's old age is quite thrilling.

Newt Gingrich is a curious character: some responses to a few comments about Gingrich on other sites

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20041100-503544.html

He was effective

Are you kidding? Gingrich launched an impeachment proceeding against the President over stuff he was doing simultaneously himself, shut down the government (which resulted in massive republican losses in 1996), and was generally an incompetent, philandering, ugly and prevaricating orcish troll.

Why isn't Edwards in the news? He's a philanderer also.

Because Edwards didn't drag our nation into the conversation about his infidelities. Edwards didn't say something like: "The Statue of Liberty, with it's message of freedom, moved me to cheat on my spouse," or "After viewing the Liberty Bell, I was consumed with a need to have my scrotum stroked by a hot model." Nor did he make comments tying his philandering infidelity to the slaves struggle for freedom, womens' struggle to vote, the latest immigration bill or WHATEVER. Finally, he didn't flatly admit that he KNEW what he was doing was wrong, but he did it anyway! Does Mr. Gingrich have to turn the volume up on what he has just said for you to understand why it is NEWS??? Let me help you with one more, loud transmission of MR. GINGRICH's OWN WORDS:

""There's no question at times of my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked far too hard and that things happened in my life that were not appropriate...And what I can tell you is that when I did things that were wrong, I wasn't trapped in situation ethics, I was doing things that were wrong, and yet, I was doing it."

So he cheats, so what? Most guys cheat.

It's not a matter of whether or not Gingrich cheated on his wife(s). It's the nature of this communcation he is transmitting to us.
His message implies several things:
1.He was cheating when he wasted millions calling out then President Clinton for infidelity that does not hold a candle to this guy's "indiscretions." Clinton dallied with young women while his wife was also dallying most likely either with other men or women, and both were already in their late 50's. Gingrich, on the other hand, PLOTTED against two of his wives IN HIS EARLY 30s, sleeping around on them while PLANNING DIVORCE, even as they lay sick or dying.

2.His contriteness, and plea for God's forgiveness, ABSOLVES him of his "past" transgressions. He is trying to POSITION himself for the elections, getting his "past" "behind" him. He is not only giving himself, but ANY FINKBALL CHRISTIAN THAT PRETENDS THEY BELIEVE IN JESUS a FREE PASS. In other words, much of his base: uneducated white male republicans from rural states, will feel a KINSHIP with these words, and will use them as a way to absolve THEMSELVES from their own sordid, equally odious and possibly criminal activity.

3.He claims that WORK and "passion" for "America" made him DO INAPPROPRIATE THINGS. In other words, he is excusing his cheating by blaming his drive and determination to HELP US ALL! While he was "helping" all of us by shutting the government down, trying to impeach the President, and cutting off aid to children and schools, he was also "...doing things that were wrong, and yet, I was doing it."

Nothing to do with cheating: everything to do with how he's presenting here, and what he is saying and to who.

How come Edwards is judged irredeemable, yet there is no disgrace associated with Gingrich's treatment of his wives, it seems that the situations are similar?

For one, unlike Mr. Gingrich, he did not understand women. There are no women that angrily call out Mr. Gingrich about how "he done wronged them." Mr. Edwards, on the other hand, had his sick and dying wife maligning him daily and crucifying him in public. This is the result, ironically, of the master scammer that Gingrich is: even while getting slapped with divorce papers while dying, from a guy that looks like an ogre from Grimm's fairy tales, his wife still loved him, and "understood" the divorce. She signed the papers willingly, as he probably told her that his "love for the nation" is what was driving his need (for divorce). Before she had a chance to "feel hurt" about his secret lover, she died. Pure genius.

Compare that to Edwards: his wife sticks around for two more years, slowly expiring, the tossed off, middle-aged lady with cancer, but all the while giving speeches and writing books about what a cad Edwards is. Hmm...between Republicans (who own news outlets) and already dislike Mr. Edwards, middle aged ladies, and wives in general, you have the greatest fear of any woman played out, capitalized on by news media: when they are dying, they're beautiful prince charming dumps them for some hot princess in the next province. Grrreeaaat! ;-(

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

The science of Hydrolysis

http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/21536/?a=f

Check out this short article reviewing the process, and it's founder, Nocera. Then google Nocera for more info.

When someone tells you Oil can't be replaced....

http://www.reuters.com/news/video/story?videoId=84561&rpc=60

Send them this in an email. The Japanese have cars that run, for over an hour at 80km/hr on a LITRE of water!

Comment to an isolationist that believes that we should only fight for "americans'" rights.

William:

the history of civil revolution/liberty generally involves this sequence:
1.people get overly oppressed
2.people attack their government
3.people reach out to third parties to help them
4.Someone fills that void.

Now, you can put your head in the sand and, because of the lackluster record of our military think "we should not get involved." I, on the other hand, think that we SHOULD get involved, PERSONALLY, and we should ALSO help our government to help our allies who believe in Civil Rights EFFECTIVELY, rather then bow out completely, allowing CHINA and other tyrannical states just fill that void. To that end, I raised money for a few years to help girls fleeing honor killings in Iran, through an NGO. I have PERSONALLY taken concrete steps to help girls who are aware enough to flee their insane families. What peeves me is "Americans" who coast on the back of folks like me, who enjoy liberty, because, way back when, "someone" helped the women to their freedom and vote, and "someone" fought a civil war, and "someone" marched in Selma, and "someone" fought against child labor and unregulated hours, and "someone" hid slaves during the Underground Railroad days. And the "someone" is NEVER....YOU. I may not have done all that much, but I've done SOMETHING to alleviate others' suffering and increase their freedoms with my life, I didn't just say "oh, that's their problem, TOO BAD," while I experienced the fruit of others saying "NO MORE!"

Human suffering and tyranny is not "their" problem, it's OUR problem.

Monday, March 7, 2011

Not satisfied with disenfranchising the poor, the GOP now is going after students.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/03/nh-gop-seeks-to-disenfranchise-students-who-just-vote-their-feelings-video.php?ref=fpb

James Bond, and M, explain the inequalities of the workplace

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkp4t5NYzVM&feature=player_embedded

10 worst things about the Republican budget (compare this a year from now if it passes and see if it's true!)

http://pol.moveon.org/soundthealarm/?rc=fb

In a Republican world, a successful government is one that does not exist, regardless of the condition of the citizens under it. We could all be starving, diseased and uneducated, but in Republican calculus, as long as the government isn't bleeding red ink, it's a success.

A letter from a teacher to the Governor of Wisconsin, concerning Collective Bargaining and Salary arguments

This letter was sent by a teacher from Endeavor, WI to Governor Walker. I forward it not only because it is a really good read, but also because it provides some data/talking points that may be helpful to you as you have conversations with friends and family.
To the Duly-Elected Governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker (and anyone else who gives a hoot):
It has only been a week, and I grow weary of the political struggle that your Budget Repair Bill has caused. I am tired of watching the news, though I have seen many of the faces of those I hold dear as they march on the Capitol. I am tired of defending myself to those who disagree with me, and even a bit tired of fist-bumping those who do. I am tired of having to choose a side in this issue, when both sides make a certain degree of sense. And so I offer you this desultory (aimless or rambling) philippic (angry long-winded speech), because at the end of the day I find that though this issue has been talked to death, there is more that could be said. And so, without further ado, here are my points and/or questions, in no particular order.
1. You can have my money, but…. Ask any number of my students, who have heard me publicly proclaim that a proper solution to this fiscal crisis is to raise taxes. I will pay them. I have the great good fortune to live in a nation where opportunity is nearly limitless, and I am willing to pay for the honor of calling myself an American. Incidentally, Warren Buffett, the second richest man in the nation (and a Democrat) agrees with me. Your proposed Budget Repair Bill will cost me just under $3000 per year at my current salary, with the stated goal of saving $30 million this year on the state budget. I say, take it. You can have it. It will hurt me financially, but if it will balance the budget of the state that has been my home since birth, take it with my blessing. But if I may, before you do, I have some questions.
•According to the 2009 estimate for the U.S. Census, 5,654,774 people live in the state of Wisconsin. Of those, 23.2% are under the age of 18, and presumably are not subject to much in the way of income tax. That still leaves about 4,342,867 taxpayers in the state of Wisconsin. If you wished to trim $30 million off of the budget, that works out to about $6.91 per Wisconsin
taxpayer. So I must ask: Is it fair that you ask $3000 of me, but you fail to ask $6.91 of everyone? I know that times are tough, but would it not be more equitable to ask that each taxpayer in the state contribute an extra 13 cents a week?
•Would you please, kindly, explain exactly how collective bargaining is a fiscal issue? I fancy myself to be a fairly intelligent person. I have heard it reported in the news that unless the collective bargaining portion of this bill is passed, severe amounts of layoffs will occur in the state. I have heard that figure given as 6,000 jobs. But then again, you’ve reportedly said it was 10,000 jobs. But then again, it’s been reported to be as high as 12,000 jobs. Regardless of the figure, one thing that hasn’t been explained to my satisfaction is exactly how or why allowing a union to bargain collectively will cost so much money or so many jobs. Am I missing something? Isn’t collective bargaining essentially sitting in a room and discussing something, collectively? Is there now a price tag on conversation? How much does the average conversation cost? I feel your office has been eager to provide doomsday scenarios regarding lost jobs, but less than willing to provide actual insight as to why that is the case. I would welcome an explanation.
•Why does your concern over collective bargaining, pensions, and healthcare costs only extend to certain unions, but not all? Why do snow plow drivers and child care providers and teachers and prison guards find themselves in “bad” unions, but firefighters and state police and local police find themselves in unions that do not need to be effected by your bill? The left wing news organizations, of course, state that this is because these are unions that supported your election bid, while you seek to punish those unions that did not; I would welcome your response to such a charge. You have stated that the state and local police are too vital to the state to be affected. Can I ask how child care, or prison guards, or nurses or teachers are not vital? Again, I would welcome a response.
•Though you are a state employee, I have seen no provision in your bill to cut your own pension or healthcare costs. The governor’s salary in Wisconsin was about $137,000 per year, last I checked. By contrast, I make about $38,000 per year. Somewhere in that extra $99,000 that you make, are you sure you couldn’t find some money to fund the state recovery which you seem to hold so dear? As you have been duly elected by the voters of Wisconsin
, you will receive that salary as a pension for the rest of your life. I don’t mean to cut too deeply into your lifestyle, but are you sure you couldn’t live off $128,000 per year so that you could have the same 7% salary reduction you are asking certain other public employees to take?
2. Regarding teachers being overpaid and underworked. I don’t really have many questions in this regard, but I do have a couple of statements. If you haven’t already figured it out, I am a teacher, so you may examine my statement for bias as you see fit. I admit I find it somewhat suspect that teachers are mentioned so prominently in your rhetoric; those protesting at the Capitol are indeed teachers. But they are also students, and nurses, and prison guards, and plumbers, and firefighters, and a variety of other professions. If you could go back to “public sector employees,” I would appreciate it. But as far as being overpaid and underworked … I grant you, I have a week’s vacation around Christmas. I have a week off for Spring Break. I have about 10 weeks off for summer. With sick days and personal days and national holidays and the like, I work about 8.5 months out of every year. So perhaps I am underworked. But before you take that as a given, a couple of points in my own defense.
•The average full-time worker puts in 40 hours per week, 50 weeks per year, with two weeks’ vacation time. That makes for a grand total of 2000 hours per year. Part of the teachers’ arguments regarding their time is that no one sees how many hours they work at home to grade papers, or create lesson plans, or things of that nature. I am in a rare state, in that I am not one of those teachers. I work an hour from where I live, and I like to keep my work at work. I, therefore, do not bring work home with me, but rather stay at school, or come in early, so that I can grade papers or create lesson plans while at school. So I am more prepared than most to explain the hours it takes to do my job. I also supervise an extra-curricular activity (as many teachers do), in that I serve as the Drama Coach for my school. The school year, so far, has lasted for 24 weeks. I have, in that time, averaged 78 hours per week either going to school, being at school, or coming home from school. If you remove my commute, of course, I still average 68 hours per week, thus far. That means I have put in 1,632 hours of work time this year, which works out to over 80% of what your average full time worker does in a calendar year. If you include my commute, I’m over 90%. If ikeep going at my current pace, I will work 2,720 hours this school year (or 3,120 hours if you include my commute). That means I work 136% to 156% as much as your average hourly worker.
•As to underpaid — I’m not sure I am underpaid in general, though I do believe I am underpaid in terms of the educational level expected to do my job. I have two Bachelor’s Degrees, and will be beginning work toward my Master’s this summer. By comparison, sir, you never completed college, and yet, as previously stated, you outearn me by almost $100,000 per year. Perhaps that is an argument that I made the wrong career choice. But it is perhaps an argument that we need to discuss whether you and others like you are overpaid, and not whether teachers are.
3. Regarding the notion that teachers that are protesting, or legislators currently in Illinois , are hurting the state. Very briefly, if I may:
•Teachers have been accused of shirking their duties by protesting for what they believe to be their rights instead of being in school. The argument has been, of course, that no lessons have been taught when classes aren’t in session. I must submit that lessons in protest, in exercise of the First Amendment right to peaceable assembly, in getting involved as a citizen in political affairs, have been taught these past few days. The fact that they haven’t been taught in the classroom is irrelevant. Ultimately a very strong duty of the school system is to help students become citizens — I think that has clearly happened this week.
•As to the legislators, it seems to me as though they feel their constituents deserve to have a length of time to examine the proposed bill on its merits, not vote it straight up or down three days after it was presented. As the current budget does not expire until June, this seems to me like the only response left them in light of your decision to fast-track the bill without discussion. Give them another option, and perhaps they will come back. I can’t say that I agree with their decision, but I can say that I understand it.
4. Regarding the notion that protestors at the Capitol are rabble-rousers and/or thugs. Such name-calling on the part of conservatives in the state and the conservative media could be severely curtailed if you would speak out against it. True, most of the people protesting, if not all, are liberals. Historically, liberals have always tended to think that they have far more support than they actually do. They also (in my opinion) have a tendency to get extremely organized about three months too late, if at all. So you can fault them for their decision-making, but I would ask you to speak out against the notion of thuggery. Again, very briefly:
•So far, 12 arrests have been made. Estimates say there were about 25,000 people at the Capitol today, and about 20,000 yesterday. Let’s be conservative (mathematically) and say that 40,000 people protested over two days. That would mean that officers arrested .0003% of all protestors. By almost any definition, that is an extremely peaceful demonstration, and of course you are aware that the U.S. Constitution guarantees the right of peaceable assembly for a redress of grievances. So in the main, these people have done nothing wrong.
5. If I may provide you with a sense of history. You work in the largest and most magnificiently appointed state capitol in the nation, built by Bob LaFollette (a Republican). You work in the same building where Phil LaFollette (a Republican) helped guide Wisconsin
out of the Great Depression. You work in the same building where Gaylord Nelson (a Democrat) was the first in the nation to offer rights to unions of state employees, rights that you now seek to overturn. And you work in the same building where Tommy Thompson (a Republican) provided more state funding to education than any other governor before or since. Are your current actions truly how you would choose to be remembered?
6. Finally, Governor, a note of thanks. Whatever the outcome of the next several days, you deserve a certain degree of credit. As an educator, I understand how difficult it can be to get young people interested in politics. You have managed to do this in the space of one week. A number of Wisconsin’s youth support you. A number of them do not. But whatever else can be said of you, you have them paying attention, and thinking about voting, and walking around the Capitol, and turning out to be involved. You have taught your own lessons this week, Governor, and that has its own value.
Thank you for your time,
Eric Brehm

Here's his Blog:


http://bangthebuckets.com/

Being misinformed is a bonus

A lot of folks get confused as to why politicians are often wrong on the facts. From trees that pollute the atmosphere, to Presidents that haven't used a scanner, to McCain last week telling us, incorrectly, that iPads are made in the US, right wing politicians often make "misstatements."

It rarely occurs to their opponents that these mistakes are either deliberate or by design (in otherwords, the make up of the person is this way to start, and they don't even have to think about lying, as they do it congenitally). Reagan was constantly mistating statistics, as was Bush I and II, and they were being called on it. In fact, at least in Reagan's case, it would not be too much to suggest that the majority of news items about Reagan concerned his gaffs. And here is the rub: this is exactly what he wanted.

Many folks, especially those with less education, feel a direct kinship with a liar, since a liar uses false logic to elevate himself, something the less educated are not as prepared to withstand. More to the point, they feel more comfortable with folks that are often wrong, and demonstrably so, because it makes them feel superior, especially if that person is abstract, like a Sarah Palin or a Ronald Reagan, someone that can seem "like them" from afar, but they never have to meet.

because the less educated are entranced by ENDS not by reason, they are more likely to follow a person or persons who promise "the moon," without delivering complicated (and error riddled) solutions.

The zeitgeist is this for the Right: "follow a person that believes in a golden future, but is as uneducated as I am, because intelligent people can always explain to us why we are going to fail, and I don't want to hear that: I want the Golden Future. My lack of reason solves the conundrum of science repudiating my opinions."

400 families have more stock and assets then 155,000,000 Americans combined.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgNuSEZ8CDw&feature=player_embedded

I'd rather not think about this, but there it is.

Hiding under your bed is not very inspiring

Sarah Palin's Parents say they need a gun to protect themselves:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20040085-503544.html

This entire thing is a charade designed to troll "democrats," i.e., anyone that takes the bait and says something like "yeah, I hope so and so does x, y, z," and then claim "look how vile THEY are." In fact, "democrats" believe in representative government, minority representation and legal elections, UNLIKE Ms. Palin, who constantly suggests "aiming" at her opponents, shoots things from helicopters, and has not completed a term of office without scandal or embarassment. "Democratic" candidates don't suggest shooting people, hunting opponents, or "locking and loading" as a method of political discourse.

What these folks do is rope folks into a false sense of paranoia. By suggesting their "lives are at risk," the Palins deflect media attention from those whose lives ARE at risk: democratic lawmakers. The Palins have deftly assumed the position of fearful victim, while their REAL victim, Ms. Giffords, is still languishing at a hospital, shot by someone with Sarah Palin's face on the front page of their website on FaceBook. Ms. Giffords, three months before her assault, had made a point of calling out Sarah Palin, SPECIFICALLY, concerning one of her ads that suggested shooting opposing candidates. The irony here is that the real targets DON'T HIDE UNDER THEIR BED CLUTCHING RIFLES, THEY WALK FREE, WITH THEIR HEADS IN THE AIR.

And they have the courage to walk that freedom without a concealed weapon under their jacket.

Sunday, March 6, 2011

State taxation and contributions to the Federal Government

http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxdata/show/22685.html

Ironically, the redder states take more then they give to the Federal Government.

If you treat your workers well, they will bring in customers

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7358608n

We need more businessmen like this: folks who get that it's the worker that drives the economy, not the consumer.

Some Opinions and my response to them

Here are two folks with ideas that are very divergent from my own.

First, the Xenophobe/compartmentalist:

"Cut 100% of all foreign aid, entitlements, public unions, DOE, NAFTA, CAFTA, Homeland Security, all wars, all foreign bases, etc etc. Also around 30% of the defense budget. Force all homeless and low-income immigrants out of the USA along... with all illegal aliens. Make all outsourced companies return to American soil or face high taxes and tariffs to sell in the USA. The companies that return get a tax break to stay in the USA that's equal to the one they get for outsourcing. The companies that return and stay need to be required to hire legal Born Americans only, no foreigners or illegal aliens allowed."

Then and only then will there be a positive change in the USA and Our economy.

Let's see:

-cut half of foreign aid. "foreign aid" is mostly us maintaining military bases in other countries and bribing officials in other countries to accept american, as opposed to chinese, goods. What you are suggesting is giving up our assets around the world on some pipe-dream about American production capabilities to make us all happy.
-cut all entitlements. "Entitlements" include aid to dependent families, old people, orphans, disabled. You'd just cut the rug out from under them and "hope for the best." Then, I imagine, you'd be surprised (or maybe pleased) when they physically assaulted you and stole your stuff.
-cut public unions. So, here you are saying you don't care to protect public workers, you think folks that go into government work are "greedy," and consider the public sector "jackals."
-cut the DOE. So what, you can teach kids that the earth is 6000 years old at home? So you can reframe public history to what you wished it was as opposed to what it is?
-cut NAFTA/CAFTA. Well, here, amazingly, we agree, at least in the sense that I want a NAFTA that does not include a WTO court.
-cut the defense budget: well, sure, but not while your FORCING all illegal immigrants out of the US
-Make outsourcers an offer they can't refuse. Here we have a "takings" issue that could easily be abused. We are supposed to believe in the "net losses" that the company claims from "not" hiring slaves across the sea? The whole thing breaks down when you forget that companies have offices overseas, and don't care about us AT ALL. Until we have an internationally ELECTED authority that overseas them, they will continue to finance and support tyrants both here and abroad.
-only hire americans. What made this nation great was the incorporating of FOREIGNERS into our sciences and our large science and engineering departments and companies. Your ideas limit our industry to Americans, who are presently 64th in math on international levels. good job. I assume you failed math class yourself.

and the other guy, the "reform government to something unrecognizable" as it stands now.

"We need to make some serious Budget Cuts, starting with Congress. We need Term Limits, Line Item Veto, Congress on Social Security and with the same retirement as taxpayers. WE also need to change the way the directors of government agencies are paid. They are now paid based on the amount of taxpayer money they spend, not on how well they do what they are paid to do."

-Term limits increase the power of corporate paid lobbyists, who shill for large corporations. Congressmen tell us anecdotally that it takes about 6 years to FIGURE OUT congress, and some Lobbyists have been there 30 years or MORE! They get paid more then the congresssmen and have more time to focus on their specific special interest. We already have term limits: THEY'RE CALLED ELECTIONS.
-Line item Veto. Sure, if you're sick of living under an elected form of government, and want to see so much power concentrated in the Executive that elections become moot. If ONE MAN can just, with the flick of his pen, CHANGE LEGISLATION ALREADY PASSED???? You don't find that SCARY AND TYRANNICAL?
-"same pay as taxpayers??" WHICH ONES? Some "taxpayers" get 50,000,000 a year. Others get 0. Most taxpayers, unlike congressmen, aren't LAWYERS, DOCTORS AND PHD'S. Why, exactly, should the representatives of our Republic take a major paycut, when, in actuality, they get paid FAR LESS then their actual worth to private industry NOW. Unlike "Joe the Plumber," who actually has no real job, has no education, and has no real accomplishments, MOST congressmen have full post graduate educations, have contributed a great deal to their society before getting elected, and generally, are TAKING A PAY CUT to serve!
-merit based pay. Sure, i'm sure everyone in the government is an incompetent fool, unlike the poster.

Big Oil subsidies don't make sense

Arthur Woodson
■Tax subsidies for oil companies don’t decrease our reliance on foreign oil. Oil companies often argue that without subsidies, domestic production will decline and our reliance on foreign oil will increase. Yet U.S. production has steadily ......declined since its 1970s peak. We produce about the same amount of oil now that we produced in the 1950s despite billions in subsidies over the past 30 years.Subsidies do little to change the fact that limited domestic supplies contribute to the United States importing about 60 percent of its oil. In fact, the Treasury Department estimates that ending subsidies will affect domestic production by less than one half of 1 percent. If we’re serious about ending oil imports we need to transition away from oil as a fuel supply.President George W. Bush himself noted in 2005 that the profit potential in the oil industry drives company behaviors and not the subsidies. “With $55 oil we don’t need incentives to the oil and gas companies to explore. There are plenty of incentives.”■Oil subsidies don’t save jobs. Oil companies and lobbyists also argue that ending subsidies will kill jobs. But this doesn’t make sense since eliminating oil subsidies minimally impacts domestic production (as explained above).It’s also important to note that the oil and gas industry is about 10 times more capital intensive than the U.S. economy as a whole. Consequently, subsidizing oil industry production to create jobs isn’t a good use of taxpayer dollars. Any decrease in production will likely affect capital investment in machinery, not the number of jobs created.■Oil subsidies don’t help consumers at the pump. Finally, oil companies are fond of saying that ending tax subsidies will cause disastrous price hikes. But the tax subsidies Sanders, the president’s budget, and other lawmakers propose for elimination pay companies to find and produce oil. Eliminating them will have little, if any, effect on consumer prices. A Joint Economic Committee report states, “the removal or modification of [one of these subsidies] is unlikely to have any effect on consumer prices for oil and gas.” The committee found that subsidies do not affect production decisions in the near term. And in the long term the Energy Information Administration explains that the major factors affecting oil prices include the production limits set by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and global disruptions in supply. Moreover, the minimal impact of tax subsidies on domestic production (as discussed above) underscores that eliminating tax subsidies will have little, if any, effect

I agree with those that fear for our nation.

Like every "real" American since July 5, 1776, I know that AMERICA IS DOOMED, and it's because NO ONE KNOWS WHAT'S GOING ON. Except of course, for myself. I mean, come on, they've totally screwed it up: First Marbury vs Madison messed up states rights, validating the idea that some court could invalidate laws! The Idea! Marbury vs Madison established that a law COULD be declared "unconstitutional," something that had NEVER BEFORE BEEN DECIDED IN HUMAN HISTORY by ANY court. Talk about activist judges! Then the whole "let's get rid of slavery" thing. Wow, talk about inconvenient and socialist! A lot of good businessmen got wiped out when the Supreme Court finally made a GOOD decision which WASN'T RESPECTED by the northern states: that decision was Dred Scott, which established that slaves (basically all black) that fled to the north MUST BE RETURNED. Then those Proto-socio/commies in the North had the TEMERITY to tell the Supreme Court that they WOULD NOT respect that Federal Court decision, that blacks that made it North became freemen, and could not again be bought or sold, which resulted in BIG losses for honest slave owning businessmen. What an excellent reason for war from the Freedom loving/Slavery-loving South (they enunciated it in their articles of succession)! Then the screw up with ending the 3/5's of a vote for each black man, then later, allowing blacks to read! Next was the idea of getting off gold in the late 1800's, after that, GIVING WOMEN THE RIGHT TO VOTE, talk about craziness! Can you say "we're doomed" one hundred times? Then ending the South's Jim Crow laws through FORCE??? Just to make 12% of our population happier??? Talk about pandering to selfishness! And making Education compulsory and based on empirical evidence? DOOM DOOM DOOM. Vaccines? Doomed. Wireless phones? Brain cancer. The Beatles? Our civilization has ended.