Dr. Bruce Greyson, professor of psychiatry and neurobehavioral sciences at the University of Virginia, gives a one hour talk on evidence that consciousness can exist independent of the brain, including deathbed lucidity, patients with little brain tissue, children remembering past lives, and the near death experience. Followed by questions.
From the Cosmology and Consciousness Conference - Mind and Matter in 2011.
Showing posts with label 2011. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2011. Show all posts
Friday, November 13, 2015
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
The Eve of World War Three in Syria
Last Wednesday a chemical attack outside Damascus resulted in the death of over 1000 people. The UN was quick to come in and blame Syrian president Assad without evidence. US Secretary of State John Kerry said this was a moral outrage and requires US intervention (war, or "kinetic action" as the Zero regime likes to call it). Sources claim that attack is immanent, maybe even happening sometime today (Thursday 29 August), if not within a week.
None of this makes any sense. Think about it. Assad has killed fifty times as many people using conventional means. He has the upper hand in the war and the backing of Russia, China, and Iran. The quickest way to destroy his own success and alienate himself from his powerful allies would be to use chemical weapons. There is no sane or logical reason why Assad would have ordered that attack. Assad is an evil man, but he's not stupid. He is focused entirely on holding power, which is something he cannot do if he were to use chemical weapons and have the world turn against him.
BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner shares my suspicion: "the timing is odd, bordering on suspicious. Why would the Assad
government, which has recently been retaking ground from the rebels,
carry out a chemical attack while UN weapons inspectors are in the
country?" He does, however, believe a chemical attack did occur.
UN weapons inspector Rolf Ekeus agrees: "It would be very peculiar if it was the government
to do this at the exact moment the international inspectors come into
the country....at the least, it wouldn't be very clever."
Regarding the attack a US intelligence official commented "We don't know exactly why it happened. We just know it was pretty fucking stupid."
Why would Assad call in UN weapons inspectors then launch a chemical attack in close proximity to where the inspectors would be? That does not make any sense.
And yet we are rushing headlong into another poorly planned war with no exit strategy in mind and no thought as to the consequences of our actions.
Noah Shachtman writing for Foreign Policy states "However, U.S. spy services still have not acquired the evidence traditionally considered to be the gold standard in chemical weapons cases: soil, blood, and other environmental samples that test positive for reactions with nerve agent. That's the kind of proof that America and its allies processed from earlier, small-scale attacks that the White House described in equivocal tones, and declined to muster a military response to in retaliation."
We are rushing into a foolish war that will only end badly with less evidence than there was for WMDs in Iraq a decade earlier! There were years of UN inspector reports and other intelligence that strongly suggested Saddam Hussein had a thriving chemical and biological warfare infrastructure in place and after the invasion nothing was found. With Syria we have precious little evidence that a chemical attack happened at all.
In the immediate aftermath of the attack, the US intercepted panicked phone calls between defense officials in Damascus and the commander of a chemical weapons unit demanding details about the strike, Foreign Policy reported early Wednesday.
The report comes just days after a report in a major German publication claiming that an IDF intelligence unit had listened in on similar conversations between senior Syrian officials discussing the chemical attack.
US intelligence says that these panicked phone calls prove that Assad or someone in his government was behind the attacks. Now I'm no intelligence expert, but I was right about Egypt and Libya, and I did predict the Benghazi attack two full years before it happened, but these guys know what they're talking about, right? I mean, when the Syrian Minister of Defense demands answers regarding who the hell ordered the attack that proves that the Syrian government was behind it, right? When they start panicking about a move that would mean suicide in the world of geopolitical realpolitik, a move that is "pretty fucking stupid," and then immediately begin working on damage control that means they must be responsible, right?
I mean, it's not like we have members of the Free Syrian Army (the Islamist rebels who ate a man's heart and posted it to YouTube - note, this is a mirror, not the original) on video talking about how they intend to use chemical weapons
Oops! Just ignore that. Didn't happen.
There are only two possible alternatives as to who launched that attack: either it was the rebels themselves or it was operatives from the US or some other country looking for a "responsibility to protect," a casus fœderis, for which to intervene.
Russia and China have warned the United States not to intervene, as has Assad himself. Intervention in Syria will spread the conflict to neighboring countries. A relatively contained problem will grow into a full scale war between, basically, the United States versus Russia and China. China holds the lion's share of US debt. They have the power to economically destroy the country immediately if they so choose. Israel and Iran will be drawn in. There may be a nuclear exchange, or at least the use of a nuclear bunker buster to take out Iran's own nuclear program. Of course, the problems with nukes is when one country uses them it sparks other countries to use them too, resulting in the mutually assured destruction that the world has tried to prevent for six decades.
At the very least a million Syrians will die and the US will be out another trillion dollars.
We cannot go to war in Syria. We cannot help the rebels. If the US gets involved this will be WWIII and it won't end until millions are dead.
None of this makes any sense. Think about it. Assad has killed fifty times as many people using conventional means. He has the upper hand in the war and the backing of Russia, China, and Iran. The quickest way to destroy his own success and alienate himself from his powerful allies would be to use chemical weapons. There is no sane or logical reason why Assad would have ordered that attack. Assad is an evil man, but he's not stupid. He is focused entirely on holding power, which is something he cannot do if he were to use chemical weapons and have the world turn against him.
BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner shares my suspicion: "the timing is odd, bordering on suspicious. Why would the Assad
government, which has recently been retaking ground from the rebels,
carry out a chemical attack while UN weapons inspectors are in the
country?" He does, however, believe a chemical attack did occur.
UN weapons inspector Rolf Ekeus agrees: "It would be very peculiar if it was the government
to do this at the exact moment the international inspectors come into
the country....at the least, it wouldn't be very clever."
Regarding the attack a US intelligence official commented "We don't know exactly why it happened. We just know it was pretty fucking stupid."
Why would Assad call in UN weapons inspectors then launch a chemical attack in close proximity to where the inspectors would be? That does not make any sense.
And yet we are rushing headlong into another poorly planned war with no exit strategy in mind and no thought as to the consequences of our actions.
Noah Shachtman writing for Foreign Policy states "However, U.S. spy services still have not acquired the evidence traditionally considered to be the gold standard in chemical weapons cases: soil, blood, and other environmental samples that test positive for reactions with nerve agent. That's the kind of proof that America and its allies processed from earlier, small-scale attacks that the White House described in equivocal tones, and declined to muster a military response to in retaliation."
We are rushing into a foolish war that will only end badly with less evidence than there was for WMDs in Iraq a decade earlier! There were years of UN inspector reports and other intelligence that strongly suggested Saddam Hussein had a thriving chemical and biological warfare infrastructure in place and after the invasion nothing was found. With Syria we have precious little evidence that a chemical attack happened at all.
In the immediate aftermath of the attack, the US intercepted panicked phone calls between defense officials in Damascus and the commander of a chemical weapons unit demanding details about the strike, Foreign Policy reported early Wednesday.
The report comes just days after a report in a major German publication claiming that an IDF intelligence unit had listened in on similar conversations between senior Syrian officials discussing the chemical attack.
US intelligence says that these panicked phone calls prove that Assad or someone in his government was behind the attacks. Now I'm no intelligence expert, but I was right about Egypt and Libya, and I did predict the Benghazi attack two full years before it happened, but these guys know what they're talking about, right? I mean, when the Syrian Minister of Defense demands answers regarding who the hell ordered the attack that proves that the Syrian government was behind it, right? When they start panicking about a move that would mean suicide in the world of geopolitical realpolitik, a move that is "pretty fucking stupid," and then immediately begin working on damage control that means they must be responsible, right?
I mean, it's not like we have members of the Free Syrian Army (the Islamist rebels who ate a man's heart and posted it to YouTube - note, this is a mirror, not the original) on video talking about how they intend to use chemical weapons
Oops! Just ignore that. Didn't happen.
There are only two possible alternatives as to who launched that attack: either it was the rebels themselves or it was operatives from the US or some other country looking for a "responsibility to protect," a casus fœderis, for which to intervene.
Russia and China have warned the United States not to intervene, as has Assad himself. Intervention in Syria will spread the conflict to neighboring countries. A relatively contained problem will grow into a full scale war between, basically, the United States versus Russia and China. China holds the lion's share of US debt. They have the power to economically destroy the country immediately if they so choose. Israel and Iran will be drawn in. There may be a nuclear exchange, or at least the use of a nuclear bunker buster to take out Iran's own nuclear program. Of course, the problems with nukes is when one country uses them it sparks other countries to use them too, resulting in the mutually assured destruction that the world has tried to prevent for six decades.
At the very least a million Syrians will die and the US will be out another trillion dollars.
We cannot go to war in Syria. We cannot help the rebels. If the US gets involved this will be WWIII and it won't end until millions are dead.
Thursday, December 20, 2012
The End of the World
In the great film Alexander, Hephaestion, Alexander's life long companion, asks Alexander "What would you do if you ever reached the end of the world?" At the other end of the world, near the International Date Line it is already 2 PM on Friday. Friday, 21 December 2012, the end of the world. According to some people, tomorrow (or today in some places that are already tomorrow) will be the last day ever, or something. To be fair, I had my own story "The L", which I began writing in 2006, have the end of the world begin tomorrow, when The Pinnacle Research Group initiated a global disaster from Bouvet Island. In my story the 21st is only the beginning of the end of the world, with the world not ending completely until fifteen years later after great tribulations have claimed five billion lives and ravaged the surface of the Earth.
It has been six years since I began my mystical career in January 2006, and started writing The Urban Mystic in February that same year (on AOL, which no longer exits, so you cannot access past archives which I have saved). It has been five years since I had my first taste of radical Freedom, One Taste, in January 2007, when the world was on the inside and my eyes were on the outside and my self was blasted across the face of the Kosmos. It has been four years since Christmas 2008 when I had a dream about the end of the world, 21 December 2012, where balls of light came to Earth and began erasing everything they touched. It has been nearly two years since I discovered My Little Pony, something that has really touched me and helped affect my life for the better. I have made predictions: the "Arab Spring", genetically modified viruses that mimic psychotropic drugs, the "Great Winter of 2010", among others. These past six years have been full of ups and downs, but I wouldn't trade them for the life I lived before.
Now, it seems like it is the end of the world. This year I was told that I need to make sacrifices to enter the next phase of my mystical career. The choice is mine, but it is a choice between being a mystic and living a normal life, and it is the greatest choice of my life, and the most difficult. A mirror reflects everything that falls on it, without altering the thing it is reflecting or becoming attached to it. A mirror mind, the mind of enlightenment, is the same. Cutting the fetters of attachment is necessary for enlightenment, and there are a few that seem too well entrenched in my psyche to be cut loose. If I go down this path farther I must deal with the death of the small self and all the little things it has accumulated over the years. What's really interesting is, I was told this would happen in the beginning! I was told in 2006 I would have these choices to make in 2012. I was told what to expect and when to expect it, and I failed to notice until most of the signs already passed and it was too late to prepare, just yesterday. Regardless of what happens in the external world tomorrow, it may well be the end of the world for my little self.
Come what may, it will be for the best. It has been a wonderful time, dear couple of readers (actually about 20 a day). I love you all.
Always Love.
It has been six years since I began my mystical career in January 2006, and started writing The Urban Mystic in February that same year (on AOL, which no longer exits, so you cannot access past archives which I have saved). It has been five years since I had my first taste of radical Freedom, One Taste, in January 2007, when the world was on the inside and my eyes were on the outside and my self was blasted across the face of the Kosmos. It has been four years since Christmas 2008 when I had a dream about the end of the world, 21 December 2012, where balls of light came to Earth and began erasing everything they touched. It has been nearly two years since I discovered My Little Pony, something that has really touched me and helped affect my life for the better. I have made predictions: the "Arab Spring", genetically modified viruses that mimic psychotropic drugs, the "Great Winter of 2010", among others. These past six years have been full of ups and downs, but I wouldn't trade them for the life I lived before.
Now, it seems like it is the end of the world. This year I was told that I need to make sacrifices to enter the next phase of my mystical career. The choice is mine, but it is a choice between being a mystic and living a normal life, and it is the greatest choice of my life, and the most difficult. A mirror reflects everything that falls on it, without altering the thing it is reflecting or becoming attached to it. A mirror mind, the mind of enlightenment, is the same. Cutting the fetters of attachment is necessary for enlightenment, and there are a few that seem too well entrenched in my psyche to be cut loose. If I go down this path farther I must deal with the death of the small self and all the little things it has accumulated over the years. What's really interesting is, I was told this would happen in the beginning! I was told in 2006 I would have these choices to make in 2012. I was told what to expect and when to expect it, and I failed to notice until most of the signs already passed and it was too late to prepare, just yesterday. Regardless of what happens in the external world tomorrow, it may well be the end of the world for my little self.
Come what may, it will be for the best. It has been a wonderful time, dear couple of readers (actually about 20 a day). I love you all.
Always Love.
Sunday, June 10, 2012
Maitreya - A New Perspective (Repost - 25 July 2006)
For centuries hundreds of people have claimed to be Maitreya, the next Buddha to enter into our world. So far none of them have shown any reason for us to believe their claim. They have never exhibited any of the Buddha's transcendental powers or boundless wisdom. Claimants include the laughable, such as L. Ron Hubbard, some guy (he has no name aside from Maitreya) from Share International, Suma Ching Hai, and a whole host of others.
While there are undoubtedly many spiritually advanced people on the Earth at this time and even some fully enlightened beings (until someone comes up with at least some kind of evidence that Sai Baba is a fake I won't even entertain the idea; millions of people say he's the real deal but there are only a few "unconfirmed reports" (the actual words used) of his misdeeds), it doesn't seem as if Maitreya has come yet. There is a slim possibility that a Buddhist monk, Palden Dorje, could possibly be Maitreya awaiting to awaken. The prophecies say that Maitreya will come at a time when the oceans have decreased in size, allowing him to travel across the world quicker (could this be an allusion to jet airplanes?) and that he will come as a bodhisattva who will achieve Buddhahood in seven days. Certainly Palden Dorje exhibits the qualities of a bodhisattva. Between 2005 and 2006 he sat in meditation for six months without eating or drinking or using the head. Scientists sent to study him reported that he breaths only three times an hour. He was bitten by a cobra twice and shows no ill effects and once he burst into flames and burnt his clothes off to prove his powers to doubters. Not too long ago (some time in March I think) he left the spot where he was meditating to venture further into the wilderness because a media circus sprouted around him. He said it will take six years to reach Buddhahood, but with all this distraction could it be seven? This is interesting because I'm not well versed in Pali (the language of the Buddhist canon) and have to rely on the English translations. Noting that Biblical English sometimes uses the word "day" in place of "year" it's no stretch that Maitreya could realize enlightenment in seven days where each day is equal to a year and not a literal day. Admitedly this is a stretch but still, it's an interesting potential correlation. Definitely something to write about. Well, I guess the only way to know is wait until 2011 when Palden Dorje returns. Hopefully the world will be ready for the new Buddha by then, though it would have to take a miracle (further proof of Maitreya's arrival?).
While there are undoubtedly many spiritually advanced people on the Earth at this time and even some fully enlightened beings (until someone comes up with at least some kind of evidence that Sai Baba is a fake I won't even entertain the idea; millions of people say he's the real deal but there are only a few "unconfirmed reports" (the actual words used) of his misdeeds), it doesn't seem as if Maitreya has come yet. There is a slim possibility that a Buddhist monk, Palden Dorje, could possibly be Maitreya awaiting to awaken. The prophecies say that Maitreya will come at a time when the oceans have decreased in size, allowing him to travel across the world quicker (could this be an allusion to jet airplanes?) and that he will come as a bodhisattva who will achieve Buddhahood in seven days. Certainly Palden Dorje exhibits the qualities of a bodhisattva. Between 2005 and 2006 he sat in meditation for six months without eating or drinking or using the head. Scientists sent to study him reported that he breaths only three times an hour. He was bitten by a cobra twice and shows no ill effects and once he burst into flames and burnt his clothes off to prove his powers to doubters. Not too long ago (some time in March I think) he left the spot where he was meditating to venture further into the wilderness because a media circus sprouted around him. He said it will take six years to reach Buddhahood, but with all this distraction could it be seven? This is interesting because I'm not well versed in Pali (the language of the Buddhist canon) and have to rely on the English translations. Noting that Biblical English sometimes uses the word "day" in place of "year" it's no stretch that Maitreya could realize enlightenment in seven days where each day is equal to a year and not a literal day. Admitedly this is a stretch but still, it's an interesting potential correlation. Definitely something to write about. Well, I guess the only way to know is wait until 2011 when Palden Dorje returns. Hopefully the world will be ready for the new Buddha by then, though it would have to take a miracle (further proof of Maitreya's arrival?).
Saturday, May 19, 2012
Nigel Farage Was Right!
Nigel Farage, UK MEP, predicted a lot of things in 2010 and 2011, about the bailouts, about the collapse of Greece and Portugal, about the end of the European Union and the rise of nationalism in member states who are fed up with the debt crisis. He was right. The political party that shows the fastest growth in Greece is the ultra far right nationalist party the Golden Dawn (the website is in Greek). Didn't we see this happen before, 80 years ago? People are pushed to the breaking point by a golbal debt crisis and demand new leadership to rise from within their own people. History is repeating itself, again, all because people are too stupid, to naive, or too lazy to actually learn from the mistakes their ancestors made.
THIS is why you should study history (that project I was working on that was lost with my old computer). You should study history so you can see what is coming in the future if you keep doing the same things and expecting different outcomes. You should study history to avoid the collapse of civilisations and the deaths of millions in unnecessary wars brought on by failed policies.
Watch 14 minutes of Nigel Farage demonstrait why you should study history.
THIS is why you should study history (that project I was working on that was lost with my old computer). You should study history so you can see what is coming in the future if you keep doing the same things and expecting different outcomes. You should study history to avoid the collapse of civilisations and the deaths of millions in unnecessary wars brought on by failed policies.
Watch 14 minutes of Nigel Farage demonstrait why you should study history.
Friday, April 27, 2012
Dietary Disasters
Two new stories about diets going bad.
From the NY Daily News, an unnamed Swiss woman starved to death after watching a documentary about Prahlad Jani in January 2011 (and the news just got released?). The woman watched a documentary called "In The Beginning There Was Light" (the trailer BEGINS with the words "I'm not saying stop eating and drinking"!) about breatharianism, the practice of living off of sunlight instead of food. I have not watched the film but a copy is being tracked down as we speak, but right from the trailer I can see that no one advocated that this woman starve herself to death. Transitioning to living without food, if it's possible at all, is very lengthy and difficult just like transitioning from being a couch potato to an Olympic athelete is very lengthy and difficult. Similarly, most people won't ever become Olympic atheletes just as most people won't ever be able to live without food.
Here is the trailer of the film:
From The Blaze, a North Carolina man Steve Cooksey faces jail time for writing a diet journal online. The gestapo of NC says you need a state-approved license to dispense nutritional advice to anyone or you can spend 120 days in jail. Mr. Cooksey wrote about his experiment with a 30-day "paleo" diet (no dairy, no grain, no eggs, etc.) and some stuff he found online about the diet and the government says that he can't do that. If he wants to write about his diet he can't show it to anyone or tell anyone about it, even his closest friends and family, or that counts as dispensing nutritional advice and must be punished.
One day he went to a seminar at church and the state approved dietary police were feeding the people there propaganda so Cooksey spoke up and forever gained the ire of the state. They investigated him like government does to people it doesn't like and are now making threats. This is big government fascism if ever such a thing existed.
From the NY Daily News, an unnamed Swiss woman starved to death after watching a documentary about Prahlad Jani in January 2011 (and the news just got released?). The woman watched a documentary called "In The Beginning There Was Light" (the trailer BEGINS with the words "I'm not saying stop eating and drinking"!) about breatharianism, the practice of living off of sunlight instead of food. I have not watched the film but a copy is being tracked down as we speak, but right from the trailer I can see that no one advocated that this woman starve herself to death. Transitioning to living without food, if it's possible at all, is very lengthy and difficult just like transitioning from being a couch potato to an Olympic athelete is very lengthy and difficult. Similarly, most people won't ever become Olympic atheletes just as most people won't ever be able to live without food.
Here is the trailer of the film:
From The Blaze, a North Carolina man Steve Cooksey faces jail time for writing a diet journal online. The gestapo of NC says you need a state-approved license to dispense nutritional advice to anyone or you can spend 120 days in jail. Mr. Cooksey wrote about his experiment with a 30-day "paleo" diet (no dairy, no grain, no eggs, etc.) and some stuff he found online about the diet and the government says that he can't do that. If he wants to write about his diet he can't show it to anyone or tell anyone about it, even his closest friends and family, or that counts as dispensing nutritional advice and must be punished.
One day he went to a seminar at church and the state approved dietary police were feeding the people there propaganda so Cooksey spoke up and forever gained the ire of the state. They investigated him like government does to people it doesn't like and are now making threats. This is big government fascism if ever such a thing existed.
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
The Problem With Bombing Iran
How do you get Iran to stop developing the bomb without bombing their facilities? Why should that even be an issue?
Fig. 1: Iran and its Satellites
First, let's look at a Iran's military.
Their navy is crap. It is tiny (less than 30,000 men) and full of badly outdated equipment. Keeping the Persian Gulf secure depends on closing off the Strait of Hormuz. As was seen in the Second World War naval power is useless without airpower. A single plane with a single bomb can destroy the mightiest warship. What does Iran have to protect it's crappy navy? An airforce that's crap and a half. Their planes are 30-year-old hand me downs. An actual fight between US or Israeli and Iranian planes would last a day and be ridiculously lopsided. However, Iran has been testing new missile systems, and while a lot of the videos of those tests are clearly edited to make them look more competant than they really are, the addition of any kind of surface-to-air missiles does put a chinaman in the armour (oh no I didn't!*) of anyone willing to engage in aerial combat with Iran.
Onto ground troops. Iran has two official armies, the regular army and the Revolutionary Guard, and a paramilitary group called Basij. The regular army had 350,000 men in 2009 and the Revolutionary Guard had about 125,000. Basij has an active duty strength of 90,000 with 300,000 in reserve, but these are regular people who are given guns and some training and they'll fall apart and surrender at the first sign of a real fight like their equivalent in Iraq did.
Fig. 2: Operation Desert Storm (by Jeff Dahl)
Remember, the 1991 Gulf War had about 180 days of airstrikes followed by just four days of ground fighting. Saddam Hussein had the fourth largest army on the planet. He promised an attack against Iraq would be the "Mother of All Battles," and it lasted four days.
Fig. 3: Operation Iraqi Freedom (by ADuran)
The 2003 invasion of Iraq lasted 21 days and completely destroyed the Iraqi military and toppled Saddam Hussein. Since then no sane person would contemplate engaging the United States in traditional warfare - it's suicide. Iraq had a larger military than Iran and they lasted less than one month against the might of the US.
So what's the problem?
Look at the first map again. The United States has been waging war since 2001, in which time roughly 7,000 Americans are killed or missing, 47,000 wounded, untold thousands having lost their minds, and a financial cost of around $1 trillion (I remember when a trillion dollars was a lot). There is no question that an all out war between the United States and Iran would last two months tops to completely destroy the Iranian military, but then what? What does victory look like? What is the exit strategy? Will the war go on forever because of an insurgency or a quixotic attempt at nation building? Will war weary troops make mistakes? Will worn out equipment malfunction more frequently, costing lives? Will the public ever go along with it, and will Congress actually declare war this time like the Constitution says they're supposed to, not the UN or some coalition? No one knows the answers to these questions, and that's not even addressing the bigger issue.
China and Russia are very pro-Iran right now. The US can destroy Iran no problem, but China and Russia have armies of millions, state-of-the-art equipment, and nuclear weapons, plus China holds most of the US national debt. What are the odds that China will let the US go to war without crippling the US economy? And that's not even addressing yet another important issue!
Invading Iran will alienate the Iranian people who will lend their support to the Mullahs.
Fig. 4: Mahhhhkmōōd I'm A Dēēnarrr Jakēēt
About 80% of the Iranian people as of now are very pro-US and want to get rid of the Ayatolla, Ak-Ma-Deen-Er-Jad, and the whole rest of the government. They rose up in 2009-10 during the election where millions of votes were "counted" in only two hours to declare I'm A Dinner Jacket the winner by divine grace. They rose up again in 2011. Each time they've begged the United States to help them and the US said some pretty words and then went and killed Qadaffi. What will happen if there is a unilateral bombing of Iranian
So what's the solution?
If the Mullahs get the bomb that is a game changer. They will probably not use it themselves, not at first, but they do have ties to many terrorist groups. They are building up their power, making threats to close the Strait of Hormuz, sending ships to the Suez Canal, launching missiles, and exerting influence in their neighbors. Just last year the leaders of Iran and Turkey, two countries who have been the bitterest of enemies for 600 years, got together and acted all chummy like good buddies - that's scary. It's scary because politicians don't ever put aside their differences and make peace like Jesus, they do it like Al Capone, to strengthen their own power by playing countries off of one another. The leader in stable secular governance in the Islamic world is now good friends with their oldest enemy and one of the most repressive theocracies on the planet. The Mullahs believe that dying in war against infidels is a career promotion. Who's to say they won't use it to kill the Jews? Who's to say they won't give it to Hizbolla or Hamas or someone else who will in turn nuke NYC or London or Jerusalem?
What is the solution?
That's a tough one, but it will have to be one that doesn't provoke China and Russia. It will have to be one to get the Iranian people to start a revolution like in 1979, and overthrow their own government with any and all US aid necessary as long as they the Iranian people ask for it. It will have to be something that someone thinks up quick, before it's too late and the nuclear genie is let out of its bottle.
*Yes, it's an ESPN, Jeremy Lin, Max Bretos, Anthony Federico thing. The word "chink" as a derogatory term for Chinese people was first used in 1890 and the phrase "chink in the armour", which was used 3,000 different times on ESPN without drawing ire, gained widespread usage in the mid 1600s. Of course, all those people in the 1600s were horrible racists and should have been fired from their jobs. I don't watch ESPN anymore, nor will I until they apologize, rehire Federico, give him and Bretos 6000% raises, and then whoever decided to punish them has to commit suicide in proper Japanese fashion, with a dagger to the gut. It's only fitting since they like to inject racism where it doesn't exist.
Fig. 1: Iran and its Satellites
First, let's look at a Iran's military.
Their navy is crap. It is tiny (less than 30,000 men) and full of badly outdated equipment. Keeping the Persian Gulf secure depends on closing off the Strait of Hormuz. As was seen in the Second World War naval power is useless without airpower. A single plane with a single bomb can destroy the mightiest warship. What does Iran have to protect it's crappy navy? An airforce that's crap and a half. Their planes are 30-year-old hand me downs. An actual fight between US or Israeli and Iranian planes would last a day and be ridiculously lopsided. However, Iran has been testing new missile systems, and while a lot of the videos of those tests are clearly edited to make them look more competant than they really are, the addition of any kind of surface-to-air missiles does put a chinaman in the armour (oh no I didn't!*) of anyone willing to engage in aerial combat with Iran.
Onto ground troops. Iran has two official armies, the regular army and the Revolutionary Guard, and a paramilitary group called Basij. The regular army had 350,000 men in 2009 and the Revolutionary Guard had about 125,000. Basij has an active duty strength of 90,000 with 300,000 in reserve, but these are regular people who are given guns and some training and they'll fall apart and surrender at the first sign of a real fight like their equivalent in Iraq did.
Fig. 2: Operation Desert Storm (by Jeff Dahl)
Remember, the 1991 Gulf War had about 180 days of airstrikes followed by just four days of ground fighting. Saddam Hussein had the fourth largest army on the planet. He promised an attack against Iraq would be the "Mother of All Battles," and it lasted four days.
Fig. 3: Operation Iraqi Freedom (by ADuran)
The 2003 invasion of Iraq lasted 21 days and completely destroyed the Iraqi military and toppled Saddam Hussein. Since then no sane person would contemplate engaging the United States in traditional warfare - it's suicide. Iraq had a larger military than Iran and they lasted less than one month against the might of the US.
So what's the problem?
Look at the first map again. The United States has been waging war since 2001, in which time roughly 7,000 Americans are killed or missing, 47,000 wounded, untold thousands having lost their minds, and a financial cost of around $1 trillion (I remember when a trillion dollars was a lot). There is no question that an all out war between the United States and Iran would last two months tops to completely destroy the Iranian military, but then what? What does victory look like? What is the exit strategy? Will the war go on forever because of an insurgency or a quixotic attempt at nation building? Will war weary troops make mistakes? Will worn out equipment malfunction more frequently, costing lives? Will the public ever go along with it, and will Congress actually declare war this time like the Constitution says they're supposed to, not the UN or some coalition? No one knows the answers to these questions, and that's not even addressing the bigger issue.
China and Russia are very pro-Iran right now. The US can destroy Iran no problem, but China and Russia have armies of millions, state-of-the-art equipment, and nuclear weapons, plus China holds most of the US national debt. What are the odds that China will let the US go to war without crippling the US economy? And that's not even addressing yet another important issue!
Invading Iran will alienate the Iranian people who will lend their support to the Mullahs.
Fig. 4: Mahhhhkmōōd I'm A Dēēnarrr Jakēēt
About 80% of the Iranian people as of now are very pro-US and want to get rid of the Ayatolla, Ak-Ma-Deen-Er-Jad, and the whole rest of the government. They rose up in 2009-10 during the election where millions of votes were "counted" in only two hours to declare I'm A Dinner Jacket the winner by divine grace. They rose up again in 2011. Each time they've begged the United States to help them and the US said some pretty words and then went and killed Qadaffi. What will happen if there is a unilateral bombing of Iranian
̶c̶h̶o̶c̶o̶l̶a̶t̶e̶ ̶c̶h̶i̶p̶ nuclear bomb factories? Chances are the people will see this in light of the previous snubs as a US attack against them and not just the government. This is especially true if it is Israel that launches the attack and not the US.So what's the solution?
If the Mullahs get the bomb that is a game changer. They will probably not use it themselves, not at first, but they do have ties to many terrorist groups. They are building up their power, making threats to close the Strait of Hormuz, sending ships to the Suez Canal, launching missiles, and exerting influence in their neighbors. Just last year the leaders of Iran and Turkey, two countries who have been the bitterest of enemies for 600 years, got together and acted all chummy like good buddies - that's scary. It's scary because politicians don't ever put aside their differences and make peace like Jesus, they do it like Al Capone, to strengthen their own power by playing countries off of one another. The leader in stable secular governance in the Islamic world is now good friends with their oldest enemy and one of the most repressive theocracies on the planet. The Mullahs believe that dying in war against infidels is a career promotion. Who's to say they won't use it to kill the Jews? Who's to say they won't give it to Hizbolla or Hamas or someone else who will in turn nuke NYC or London or Jerusalem?
What is the solution?
That's a tough one, but it will have to be one that doesn't provoke China and Russia. It will have to be one to get the Iranian people to start a revolution like in 1979, and overthrow their own government with any and all US aid necessary as long as they the Iranian people ask for it. It will have to be something that someone thinks up quick, before it's too late and the nuclear genie is let out of its bottle.
*Yes, it's an ESPN, Jeremy Lin, Max Bretos, Anthony Federico thing. The word "chink" as a derogatory term for Chinese people was first used in 1890 and the phrase "chink in the armour", which was used 3,000 different times on ESPN without drawing ire, gained widespread usage in the mid 1600s. Of course, all those people in the 1600s were horrible racists and should have been fired from their jobs. I don't watch ESPN anymore, nor will I until they apologize, rehire Federico, give him and Bretos 6000% raises, and then whoever decided to punish them has to commit suicide in proper Japanese fashion, with a dagger to the gut. It's only fitting since they like to inject racism where it doesn't exist.
Friday, December 16, 2011
Christopher Hitchens In Memoriam
Christopher Hitchens has died 15 December 2011 from pneumonia at the age of 62. The famous outspoken atheist intellectual, author of many articles and the book God Is Not Great, was diagnosed with esophageal cancer last year. Many will remember him as the atheist who was not a liberal (though, as he said many times, he was not conservative either). He attacked Noam Chomsky and Gore Vidal for saying that US foreign policy created al Qaeda and that 9/11 was due punishment for American imperialism. He defended the atomic bombing of Japan at the end of the Second World War, and called out Hitler and Stalin as the two evilest people ever. While an outspoken atheist, Hitchens extended his gratitude toward those who prayed for him during his time of need.
Here is David Berlinski's eulogy.
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Affluence And Apathy, or Why I Love Rarity
I can say with the utmost confidence that, while other ponies and all their special episodes may disappoint, without any question, there has never been nor will there likely ever be a disappointing episode focusing on Rarity. Consistently she remains top notch, above and beyond others in excellence and grace. She stands as a beacon overlooking all the pageantry, bizarre little oddities (Over A Barrel), and endless parades of Dash getting away with absolutely everything like some grand scale karma Houdini. Unlike all the others, who may at times descend into madness (or "go cupcakes"), Rarity manages to hold onto her poise and grace while always finding it in herself to give to her fullest ability to anypony in need.
One need no other example than Sisterhooves Social where she put aside all comfort for the sake of her sister, going so far as to disguise herself as Applejack and get as dirty as possible. She did it all gladly for Sweetie Belle, who was an obnoxious, selfish jackass (like all, or certainly most, little kids). She was able to maintain her grace even among the diamond dogs worst attempts at breaking her. She never lost her head, she never sank to their level, she just bit her lip, bore the discomfort of their imprisonment, and used her wits to extricate herself from captivity.
Time and again Rarity reveals to us that she is no one trick pony like so many others. AJ is still the rough and tumble farmer's daughter, Twi is still the anal nerd, Dash is still the asshole Mary Sue, Pinkie Pie still teeters on the brink of cupcakes, and Fluttershy still warns us to beware the quiet ones. Contrasted against the others Rarity has a depth of personality that is unrivaled by the rest of the mane six put together. She has beauty, brains, and heart, sense and style, cleverness, compassion, and propriety all rolled into one fabulous package. I dare say Rarity is everything anypony could ever want in a girl. She'll go on a quest to slay the dragon and look stunning doing it. She'll work herself to exhaustion for her friends. She'll put others before herself and bear the slings required of the peace keeper. She may go overboard at times, but everypony does and Rarity is certainly not above apologising for her wrongs.
It is for all that that I hold Rarity up as an example for us all, especially in these troubled times.
The problem of the world today is the disease of Affluenza, which isn't really a disease, but neither is ADHD or depression, even though drug companies make billions off of both, so why not add one more, and one that is so troubling to so many millions?
First permit me to clarify. I'm not saying that there are not people who actually have ADHD or depression, just that they are not diseases and cannot be cured (or treated, since nothing in psychiatry is ever cured) like diseases with drugs. The psychiatry disease angle is a scam.
Depression is a mental condition in which anger is repressed and turned inward toward one's self. It is overcome by introspecting to uproot the anger (best when done under the auspices of a qualified therapist), not by blocking dopamine or seratonin. Taking drugs to fix depression is like taking drugs to fix an amputated arm. The best course of action for dealing with depression is a combination of cognitive behaviour therapy and lots of physical exercise (one British study showed that walking more than 30 minutes a day was several times more effective than any available drug at fixing depression, and walking alone was more effective than walking while taking drugs, indicating that the drugs actually worsen the symptoms of depression!).
ADHD and all its various permutations (the more types of disorder the psychiatric community can create the more money they can make selling people drugs) are just names for being a boy and not having parents who do their job. The first undeniable truth about the universe everyone learns is that boys and girls are different. It has always been for hundreds of thousands of years that boys and girls think and learn differently, and within the larger categories of boys and girls are a whole spectrum of sub-types. None are wrong or defective or diseased, just different.
Unfortunately, the pussification of America threw that undeniable fact out and replaced it with the idea that everyone is the same and has to be taught the same and if anyone doesn't fit into that narrow mold they must be diseased. Since America was pussified and only girls have pussies, that means that girls are normal. If girls are normal then, by definition, boys must be defective. No longer do boys and girls think differently, needing different modes of learning and discipline. Nope, everyone must be taught the same and they must be taught like girls. Since boys don't learn like girls, since they want to run around and rough house and compete and follow rules and have winners and losers*, then boys must be defective. If boys are no longer allowed to win and lose, if they can't run and shout and mes around then of course they'll look for outlets to their masculinity where it is deemed inappropriate. They don't need drugs, they just need proper masculine discipline and training so they can grow up into proper men. They need parents who get off their fat asses and tell them to sit down and shut up when in public (behavioural training). They need to be told to follow rules begrudgingly and most of all they need a chance to rough house with one another outside and express their natural masculine violent proclivities.
Getting back to the topic at hand, or society is afflicted by the dreaded disease of Affluenza and it is Rarity who can show us the way to overcome this plague.
In the past century, more so the past 50 years, mores the past generation, and the past decade, Western society has become more affluent. We don't have to worry about working for our food, the government gives it to us and the grocery store is always fully stocked. We don't have to have twelve children because eight of them won't die from measles or whooping cough. We don't have to write letters or look for pay phones or wait to see our friends, they are always at hand. Our lives in the West have become so easy that we have become bored and must now look or excuses to complain about things. We have to work to find a reason to bitch and moan about how "unfair" our lives are. Our blessings are so many that we must focus on the few areas of our lives that contain lack for fear of being overwhelmed with gratitude. We are the 1% in all of human history, holding ore wealth and opulence than kings and emperors of years gone by could ever dream of. This is Affluenza.
The problem stems from two unhealthy byproducts of extreme affluence: narcissism and apathy. We literally throw away enough food to feed the entire world many times over. No one ever need go hungry, just kill the warlords and give the starving refugees the garbage we won't eat.
In Sweet and Elite we see Rarity, an affluent pony, stand in stark contrast with a rather uppity fellow from Canterlot, Jet Set, along with his wife Upper Crust. Jet Set and Upper Crust exemplify Affluenza. Against them is Rarity and her new friend (and mentor?) Fancy Pants, both of whom can keep their heads despite their success (though Fancy Pants plays coy to get Rarity to display her good nature, almost as a master would his apprentice). Fancy Pants urges Rarity on to defend her friends at the Canterlot Garden Party, however uncouth, or downright destructive, they may be. Jet Set and Upper Crust, stricken with Affluenza, are appalled at Rarity's display of her loyalty but they are quickly shot down by Fancy Pants coming to her aid.
Rarity exemplifies how to be good affluent. She shows us the way out of Affluenza, minus the occasional theatrics if we may be so inclined. I would advise all of you, myself included, and especially the occupy pussies, to look to Rarity as the inoculation against the dreaded disease of Affluenza. She just may be the one to save our world from self-destruction.
*My friends and I would play space marines and fight aliens with sticks and books, not like we were visiting neighbours, and we accepted the rules of the tames as rules, sucking it up when we lost even if we didn't like it. We didn't demand do overs to boost our self esteem. We ran around and made lots of noise and fell down and got hurt. We may have cried but we knew we were supposed to be men so we got over it.
Friday, November 11, 2011
11.11.11
It comes once every century (twice if you're using a 12 hour clock!): 11:11:11 on 11/11/11. In under 5 minutes I talk about the end of the First World War, the experience and value of the soldier, and what we can learn from them and from history.
P.S. The video was shot on 11 November, and posted here on the 12 @ 1:31 AM, but the time stamp has been changed to reflect the theme of the post.
P.S. The video was shot on 11 November, and posted here on the 12 @ 1:31 AM, but the time stamp has been changed to reflect the theme of the post.
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Europe Dies
Like the Oracle says in the last Matrix film "everything that has a beginning has an end." Seems as if the end has come for the Eurozone (I'm on the record as of May 2008 saying that the Euro sucks and that the success of the Eurozone is a fiction that is artificially propped up by government intervention). Greece, the very place where all this started in 2010 when the world went mad, has crystalised into a stone that is dragging the entire Eurozone with it into destruction.
The very government of Greece is teetering on the edge, their military being decapitated for unknown reasons. Billions around the world were wiped out in the markets as fears of a coup arose. According to the story one Greek official (unnamed) is on the record as saying "It’s all over. The government is about to collapse."
German Chancellor Angela Merkel is pissed at how Germany is carrying the weight of the Eurozone and its endemic bailouts of all the failed countries. Pussies in Greece (which used to be the toughest bunch of people on the planet, producing the Spartans, Socrates, Alexander the Great, and Plotinus, all while wearing skirts no less, before turning into the biggest welfare state on the planet) have made Merkel as Hitler posters because she is the only sane leader in the EU and realises that this whole EU experiment in keeping something huge and complicated going as long as possible for no other reason that to justify the fact that it is very expensive and has been going on for a long time.
From The Independent: "The international economy is on the brink of a deep new economic crisis that could cost millions of jobs around the globe and trigger mass social unrest.... The UN agency warned that it could take until 2016 for global employment to return to the levels of three years ago – and that anger could erupt on the streets of Europe and other continents as a result."
If the Greeks were right (the classical Greeks, not the modern ones) and madness is contagious, and 2011 has been very good evidence that it is, we could be looking at something much worse than the end of the Eurozone. I don't like speculating about these sorts of things, but maybe the Mayans were right and the world will end in 2012. Not from some natural cataclysm, but from humanity's own hubris.
The very government of Greece is teetering on the edge, their military being decapitated for unknown reasons. Billions around the world were wiped out in the markets as fears of a coup arose. According to the story one Greek official (unnamed) is on the record as saying "It’s all over. The government is about to collapse."
German Chancellor Angela Merkel is pissed at how Germany is carrying the weight of the Eurozone and its endemic bailouts of all the failed countries. Pussies in Greece (which used to be the toughest bunch of people on the planet, producing the Spartans, Socrates, Alexander the Great, and Plotinus, all while wearing skirts no less, before turning into the biggest welfare state on the planet) have made Merkel as Hitler posters because she is the only sane leader in the EU and realises that this whole EU experiment in keeping something huge and complicated going as long as possible for no other reason that to justify the fact that it is very expensive and has been going on for a long time.
From The Independent: "The international economy is on the brink of a deep new economic crisis that could cost millions of jobs around the globe and trigger mass social unrest.... The UN agency warned that it could take until 2016 for global employment to return to the levels of three years ago – and that anger could erupt on the streets of Europe and other continents as a result."
If the Greeks were right (the classical Greeks, not the modern ones) and madness is contagious, and 2011 has been very good evidence that it is, we could be looking at something much worse than the end of the Eurozone. I don't like speculating about these sorts of things, but maybe the Mayans were right and the world will end in 2012. Not from some natural cataclysm, but from humanity's own hubris.
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
The Pussification of America
George Carlin did a routine on what he called "the pussification of America," a condition brought on by too much politically correct BS. I got to thinking in the shower, where I do most of my thinking. It started with the obvious paradox: nearly everyone in the country is on some diet all of the time and is more "health-conscious" than ever, yet a full third of all our citizens are obese. Never have I seen this many fat people in my life, and this is in spite of the fact that no one is allowed to eat salt or trans fats, or carbs, or meat, or whole milk. How the hell are they getting that fat then? Do people assume that since food is now low fat that they can eat ten times more?
This reminded me of something in the book Generation Kill. One of the Marines was a Mexican who liked to go off about how he disliked white people even though all his friends were white. He made a good point when he said that being poor in America was different than being poor elsewhere. Poor people in America have a house, or at least an apartment, a car or two, plasma TV, high-speed Internet, iPhone, iPod, i-whatever else, HD digital camera, etc. Also, poor people in America are obese. Poor people elsewhere are walking skeletons, like in Ethiopia on those Feed the Children commercials, but poor people in America are obese! How does that happen?
When you think about it, for 99% of human history only the tippity top of society could afford to get obese; less than 1%. The poorest people in America are obese, which puts them at the top richest 1% of all people in all of human history. Think about this: Louis XIV of France, the God-Emperor of all the world who built the largest palace on the continent and bathed in champaign and dressed in solid gold never used a toilet. His entire life, Louis XIV, the richest, most powerful man in all of Europe never used a toilet. He had to shit in a box and have someone dump it out a window. Louis XIV didn't have refrigiration in the summer, he didn't have heat in the winter, he didn't have a cure for measles. He had no electricity or motor vehicles. He had no means of keeping famine or war or plague from devastating his country. Louis XIV, the absolute ruler over millions, didn't live as well as poor people do in 21st Century America!
In spite of all this, the pussies at Occupy Wall Street* are still complaining! They claim to be the voice of the 99% against the top 1%, yet they are the top 1%! The people occupying Wall Street are among the top 1% of richest people in all of human history! They got used to getting a free ride from their bottomless mommy-government and when the tap got turned down slightly they started throwing a tantrum. They all have iPhones and iPads and HD digital cameras. They all have adequate nutrition (weren't they eating smoked salmon in their tents?). They have one of the best sanitation systems in human history, no threat of war now that there's an all volunteer military defending a nation protected on two sides by oceans. They have the best healthcare system on the planet, the one responsible for every last major medical advancement in the past thirty years. Think about it. The OWS pussies have it better than my ancestors did when they came to this country 100 years ago to escape being peasant farmers in Italy. There's child labour laws, civil rights, gay rights, womens' rights, free education till your 18th birthday, food stamps so poor people don't go hungry, indoor flush toilets, vaccines that save millions of children from previously fatal diseases that have vanished in the Western world. Hundreds of pages can be written about all the blessings these pussies have and only a couple on the troubles they face, yet they still are not satisfied! The selfishness of these people, shitting in police cars, mating under tarps, trying to keep a third of all employed New Yorkers from working**, assaulting the police to provoke retaliation and win sympathy like wife-beater Rodney King. The selfishness of the OWS pussies is disgusting.
*A group of activists believing that by yelling loudly enough some slogans they don't fully understand about some economic concepts they don't even begin to comprehend, they can change an economic situation they don't really like into a better one that they haven't quite defined yet.
**A third of all people in NYC are employed in some fashion by Wall Street.
This reminded me of something in the book Generation Kill. One of the Marines was a Mexican who liked to go off about how he disliked white people even though all his friends were white. He made a good point when he said that being poor in America was different than being poor elsewhere. Poor people in America have a house, or at least an apartment, a car or two, plasma TV, high-speed Internet, iPhone, iPod, i-whatever else, HD digital camera, etc. Also, poor people in America are obese. Poor people elsewhere are walking skeletons, like in Ethiopia on those Feed the Children commercials, but poor people in America are obese! How does that happen?
When you think about it, for 99% of human history only the tippity top of society could afford to get obese; less than 1%. The poorest people in America are obese, which puts them at the top richest 1% of all people in all of human history. Think about this: Louis XIV of France, the God-Emperor of all the world who built the largest palace on the continent and bathed in champaign and dressed in solid gold never used a toilet. His entire life, Louis XIV, the richest, most powerful man in all of Europe never used a toilet. He had to shit in a box and have someone dump it out a window. Louis XIV didn't have refrigiration in the summer, he didn't have heat in the winter, he didn't have a cure for measles. He had no electricity or motor vehicles. He had no means of keeping famine or war or plague from devastating his country. Louis XIV, the absolute ruler over millions, didn't live as well as poor people do in 21st Century America!
In spite of all this, the pussies at Occupy Wall Street* are still complaining! They claim to be the voice of the 99% against the top 1%, yet they are the top 1%! The people occupying Wall Street are among the top 1% of richest people in all of human history! They got used to getting a free ride from their bottomless mommy-government and when the tap got turned down slightly they started throwing a tantrum. They all have iPhones and iPads and HD digital cameras. They all have adequate nutrition (weren't they eating smoked salmon in their tents?). They have one of the best sanitation systems in human history, no threat of war now that there's an all volunteer military defending a nation protected on two sides by oceans. They have the best healthcare system on the planet, the one responsible for every last major medical advancement in the past thirty years. Think about it. The OWS pussies have it better than my ancestors did when they came to this country 100 years ago to escape being peasant farmers in Italy. There's child labour laws, civil rights, gay rights, womens' rights, free education till your 18th birthday, food stamps so poor people don't go hungry, indoor flush toilets, vaccines that save millions of children from previously fatal diseases that have vanished in the Western world. Hundreds of pages can be written about all the blessings these pussies have and only a couple on the troubles they face, yet they still are not satisfied! The selfishness of these people, shitting in police cars, mating under tarps, trying to keep a third of all employed New Yorkers from working**, assaulting the police to provoke retaliation and win sympathy like wife-beater Rodney King. The selfishness of the OWS pussies is disgusting.
*A group of activists believing that by yelling loudly enough some slogans they don't fully understand about some economic concepts they don't even begin to comprehend, they can change an economic situation they don't really like into a better one that they haven't quite defined yet.
**A third of all people in NYC are employed in some fashion by Wall Street.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
An Incident at a McDonalds
Okay, there's some harpy shouting "STOP!" throughout the video, but ignore her.
Basically a very rowdy customer (a colossal bitch) berrated a McDonalds' cashier for some minor mistake, hit him, jumped the counter and he ran. He returns with a whup-ass stick (it looks like a crowbar) and does something to her her parents forgot to do. Her bitch friend jumps the counter too and she gets what's coming as well. Absolutely, the man was defending himself and the customers got what they deserved. Cashiers take way too much shit from way too many assaholic customers as is. These two bitches went too far and the cashier went Michael Douglass in Falling Down on their asses. Of course the cashier was charged with felony assault. REGARDLESS of his background (he did kill someone once and paid his debt) his actions were self-defense and completely justified. Guaran-damn-tee if the two customers were MEN this wouldn't even be a news story, but because they were women and we live in a gynocracy the big bad man has to be punished. Boo hoo, call the wambulance. Watch the video below and see the whacks of justice being delivered in the name of every cashier who is abused by customers.
Basically a very rowdy customer (a colossal bitch) berrated a McDonalds' cashier for some minor mistake, hit him, jumped the counter and he ran. He returns with a whup-ass stick (it looks like a crowbar) and does something to her her parents forgot to do. Her bitch friend jumps the counter too and she gets what's coming as well. Absolutely, the man was defending himself and the customers got what they deserved. Cashiers take way too much shit from way too many assaholic customers as is. These two bitches went too far and the cashier went Michael Douglass in Falling Down on their asses. Of course the cashier was charged with felony assault. REGARDLESS of his background (he did kill someone once and paid his debt) his actions were self-defense and completely justified. Guaran-damn-tee if the two customers were MEN this wouldn't even be a news story, but because they were women and we live in a gynocracy the big bad man has to be punished. Boo hoo, call the wambulance. Watch the video below and see the whacks of justice being delivered in the name of every cashier who is abused by customers.
Monday, September 19, 2011
Marine Sergeant - A True Hero
On 15 September the President awarded Marine Sergeant Dakota Meyer the Medal of Honor for saving the lives of 36 of his brothers in arms. He disobeyed orders and entered an Afghan kill zone five times to save the lives of 13 Americans and 23 Afghanis, as well as recover the bodies of 4 of his friends. This is truly moving. Words cannot do justice to his brave deeds.
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Swami Kriyananda on the Economic Collapse
Recall earlier how I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Paramhansa Yogananda's disciple Kriyananda's world brotherhood colonies, dubbed "Ananda Villiages", were neither hippie nor communist. Everyone must be fiscially responsible and contribute financially to the community. Now Swami Kriyananda gives an hour talk on the global economic collapse. In summary:
*Using creative energy to help others is like a muscle - it gets stronger the more you use it - and not like a fixed quantity like gold that diminshes the more you use it
*A lot of people care only for money, not for people, and they often play the stock market
*Government is too damn big (though he doesn't say "damn")
*Welfare helps government orders of magnitude more than it helps the needy
*...And it's FDR's fault!
*Deficite spending doesn't work and is killing the world economy
*"Legalise pot and maybe hard drugs so criminals can't make profits off of it and addicts can be given help, not rectal exams
*(Interestingly) Rock music (especially metal) is the vibration of negative dimensions and can cause natural disasters!
*Kindness and generosity can shelter you from economic hardship, though not always immediately, and, consequently, if you apply for enough jobs you'll eventually get one
*The Dollar will collapse, leading to world-wide hyperinflation
*The Euro sucks (too)
*Gold coins are very good to survive the economic apocalypse, but good farm land is the best investment
*Starting small communities in the country with similar minded individuals is the key to saving humanity, because cities will explode with apocalyptic crime
*Using creative energy to help others is like a muscle - it gets stronger the more you use it - and not like a fixed quantity like gold that diminshes the more you use it
*A lot of people care only for money, not for people, and they often play the stock market
*Government is too damn big (though he doesn't say "damn")
*Welfare helps government orders of magnitude more than it helps the needy
*...And it's FDR's fault!
*Deficite spending doesn't work and is killing the world economy
*"Legalise pot and maybe hard drugs so criminals can't make profits off of it and addicts can be given help, not rectal exams
*(Interestingly) Rock music (especially metal) is the vibration of negative dimensions and can cause natural disasters!
*Kindness and generosity can shelter you from economic hardship, though not always immediately, and, consequently, if you apply for enough jobs you'll eventually get one
*The Dollar will collapse, leading to world-wide hyperinflation
*The Euro sucks (too)
*Gold coins are very good to survive the economic apocalypse, but good farm land is the best investment
*Starting small communities in the country with similar minded individuals is the key to saving humanity, because cities will explode with apocalyptic crime
Friday, September 2, 2011
The World Gone Mad: REDUX
Remember the map from The World Gone Mad that displayed countries around the world where various social, economic, political, and military turmoil was going on? Well, someone has now made an interactive version of the map here with story and explanation here. The world gone mad map and the world opinion on intervention in Libya map are both interactive and updated since the one posted on The Urban Mystic back in February.
Monday, August 29, 2011
Rumors of War II
The Sequel. An hour long documentary. Between radical Islam, the Chicoms, and global economic collapse, the end of our way of life is near.
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Imagine No Religion
I'm not sure John Lennon meant "no religion" to mean everyone should be an atheist. He was a lot smarter than that. Just looking at the most horrible acts of the twentieth century make the fact clear that atheism in its various guises (social Darwinism, communism, eugenics) caused more human suffering than anything else besides Smallpox. What I think he meant was that shouldn't have the fierce sectarian divisions that often come with religion. We have such gems of quotes from Lennon on religion as:
“People got the image I was anti-Christ or antireligion,” he said. “I’m not at all. I’m a most religious fellow. I’m religious in the sense of admitting there is more to it than meets the eye. I’m certainly not an atheist.”
He also didn't believe in Darwinism:
“Nor do I think we came from monkeys, by the way,” he insisted. “That’s another piece of garbage. What the hell’s it based on? We couldn’t’ve come from anything—fish, maybe, but not monkeys. I don’t believe in the evolution of fish to monkeys to men. Why aren’t monkeys changing into men now? It’s absolute garbage.”
Unfortunately people do misappropriate Lennon's music and his image. There are those who claim that religion is the root of all evil while ignoring all the good it does (what Ken Wilber calls the conveyor belt; I've also argued a lot about Christianity's integral role in ending slavery). Well, getting on topic, finally, here is the ultimate outcome of a society that has ditched religion, leveled off on flatland narcissism, and believes in nothing: the UK riots.
A country with cradle to craftmatic adjustable bed handouts, where no one has to work because they get government stipends, where everyone gets free (albeit very shitty) health care, could not help but explode when those handouts are taken away. The UK is broke so they decided to cut back on a pittance of the handouts so know-it-all teenagers dediced to smash stuff for no evident reason. Lots of buildings were destroyed and people killed (there may be racist elements involved). Of course you could say if people were allowed to own guns they could defend themselves, their families, and even total strangers, but the UK is ruled by a king (a queen actually; there won't be a king for a while), and kings love to have a control on the possession of weapons. Absent the ability to own guns, sales of baseball bats rose three hundred percent (my estimate) because everyone over 20 was afraid for their lives as know-it-all teenagers with immortality complexes destroyed everything insane.
The author, A. N. Wilson, has some brilliant points to make:
A Christian woman working for British Airways who wears a cross round her neck is asked to remove it for fear of offending other people. A nurse who prays with a patient in hospital is committing an almost criminal act. Catholic adoption agencies which disapprove of gay adoptive parents on religious grounds have their licences taken away.
And all the while, our governing classes and academics and teachers chip away at the fundamental truths of the great religions — truths that have stood the test of time for thousands of years — in their arrogant certainty that there are no moral absolutes and that the human race can make up the rules as it goes along.
At the nuttier fringes of the chattering classes there are those, like the geneticist Richard Dawkins and the journalist Christopher Hitchens, who actually believe that religion is a mental poison responsible for all the evils in the world.
The misguided and vacuous thinking of these so-called intellectuals is compounded by a sordid celebrity-culture which holds up role models who should be despised rather than admired.
Amy Winehouse, a pathetic drug-infused alcoholic girl of very modest talent, is held up as great diva; and when she died, her house was surrounded by fans, laying empty vodka bottles as a ‘tribute’.
What happens when you imagine a world with no religion? I don't have to imagine, I can just look across the pond to see how a society lacking morality and values is faling apart. How long before the madness comes to America? I don't know, but here's something I wrote a few months ago that may help:
In 2008 I said Obama would be like four more terms of Bush.
In 2009 I said I never imagined things could ever get this bad.
In 2010 I wished I was back in 2009.
In 2011 I said the world had gone mad.
Now I'm saying the world will not last till the end of 2012.
If we ever needed to heed Lennon's advice to "give peace a chance" now is that time.
“People got the image I was anti-Christ or antireligion,” he said. “I’m not at all. I’m a most religious fellow. I’m religious in the sense of admitting there is more to it than meets the eye. I’m certainly not an atheist.”
He also didn't believe in Darwinism:
“Nor do I think we came from monkeys, by the way,” he insisted. “That’s another piece of garbage. What the hell’s it based on? We couldn’t’ve come from anything—fish, maybe, but not monkeys. I don’t believe in the evolution of fish to monkeys to men. Why aren’t monkeys changing into men now? It’s absolute garbage.”
Unfortunately people do misappropriate Lennon's music and his image. There are those who claim that religion is the root of all evil while ignoring all the good it does (what Ken Wilber calls the conveyor belt; I've also argued a lot about Christianity's integral role in ending slavery). Well, getting on topic, finally, here is the ultimate outcome of a society that has ditched religion, leveled off on flatland narcissism, and believes in nothing: the UK riots.
A country with cradle to craftmatic adjustable bed handouts, where no one has to work because they get government stipends, where everyone gets free (albeit very shitty) health care, could not help but explode when those handouts are taken away. The UK is broke so they decided to cut back on a pittance of the handouts so know-it-all teenagers dediced to smash stuff for no evident reason. Lots of buildings were destroyed and people killed (there may be racist elements involved). Of course you could say if people were allowed to own guns they could defend themselves, their families, and even total strangers, but the UK is ruled by a king (a queen actually; there won't be a king for a while), and kings love to have a control on the possession of weapons. Absent the ability to own guns, sales of baseball bats rose three hundred percent (my estimate) because everyone over 20 was afraid for their lives as know-it-all teenagers with immortality complexes destroyed everything insane.
The author, A. N. Wilson, has some brilliant points to make:
A Christian woman working for British Airways who wears a cross round her neck is asked to remove it for fear of offending other people. A nurse who prays with a patient in hospital is committing an almost criminal act. Catholic adoption agencies which disapprove of gay adoptive parents on religious grounds have their licences taken away.
And all the while, our governing classes and academics and teachers chip away at the fundamental truths of the great religions — truths that have stood the test of time for thousands of years — in their arrogant certainty that there are no moral absolutes and that the human race can make up the rules as it goes along.
At the nuttier fringes of the chattering classes there are those, like the geneticist Richard Dawkins and the journalist Christopher Hitchens, who actually believe that religion is a mental poison responsible for all the evils in the world.
The misguided and vacuous thinking of these so-called intellectuals is compounded by a sordid celebrity-culture which holds up role models who should be despised rather than admired.
Amy Winehouse, a pathetic drug-infused alcoholic girl of very modest talent, is held up as great diva; and when she died, her house was surrounded by fans, laying empty vodka bottles as a ‘tribute’.
What happens when you imagine a world with no religion? I don't have to imagine, I can just look across the pond to see how a society lacking morality and values is faling apart. How long before the madness comes to America? I don't know, but here's something I wrote a few months ago that may help:
In 2008 I said Obama would be like four more terms of Bush.
In 2009 I said I never imagined things could ever get this bad.
In 2010 I wished I was back in 2009.
In 2011 I said the world had gone mad.
Now I'm saying the world will not last till the end of 2012.
If we ever needed to heed Lennon's advice to "give peace a chance" now is that time.
Friday, August 19, 2011
Five Reasons I Like Rick Perry
And two that don't really do it for me.
Note: my commentary will be in [square brackets]. The rest of the text is directly from the Yahoo News story.
1. Abolish lifetime tenure for federal judges by amending Article III, Section I of the Constitution.
[Couldn't agree more. Kings serve for life, and we fought two wars to rid ourselves of the yoke of a king (the Revolution and War of 1812, when Britain fought back). By giving the judges lifetime tenure it divorces them from reality and from the people, the concent of whom is from whence they derive their power.]
2. Congress should have the power to override Supreme Court decisions with a two-thirds vote.
[Maybe not a two-thirds vote, maybe something stronger, but nothing in government should be final. Even the Constitution can be amended, so should the Supreme Court, lest they become absolutist.]
3. Scrap the federal income tax by repealing the Sixteenth Amendment.
[Last year this was one of two BIG things I said needed to be done to fix the country. If not possible to achieve a repeal I did propose an alternate income tax scheme.]
4. End the direct election of senators by repealing the Seventeenth Amendment.
Overturning this amendment would restore the original language of the Constitution, which gave state legislators the power to appoint the members of the Senate.
Ratified during the Progressive Era in 1913 , the same year as the Sixteenth Amendment, the Seventeenth Amendment gives citizens the ability to elect senators on their own. Perry writes that supporters of the amendment at the time were "mistakenly" propelled by "a fit of populist rage."
"The American people mistakenly empowered the federal government during a fit of populist rage in the early twentieth century by giving it an unlimited source of income (the Sixteenth Amendment) and by changing the way senators are elected (the Seventeenth Amendment)," he writes.
[This is even more important than getting rid of the tax. When the Constitution was written it was decided that the two houses of Congress would be populated in two different ways: Representatives are chosen by the people and Senators are chosen by the state legislatures. This was one of the most brilliant decisions in all of world history. The whole point of the Constitution was to maximise the power of the States, but reign them in just enough so the Union could stick together, which wasn't possible under the Articles of Confederation. Representatives were elected by popular vote and each state got a number of Representatives proportional to total population, this way we the people get our say. Senators were chosen by the state legislatures and each state got two so that the power held by big states and small states would be equal where it really counted. Having Senators chosen by the state legislatures was a guarantee to states' rights. The Senators represented the will of the states whereas the Representatives represented the will of the people. This was a brilliant balancing act to protect everyone from each other. Then along came the populists who wanted to turn the United States into a mobocracy and changed the Constitution to say the Senators are elected by the people too, taking power away from the states and giving it to whoever had the deepest pockets and the Federal government, as the two are one and the same.]
5. Require the federal government to balance its budget every year.
Of all his proposed ideas, Perry calls this one "the most important," and of all the plans, a balanced budget amendment likely has the best chance of passage.
"The most important thing we could do is amend the Constitution--now--to restrict federal spending," Perry writes in his book. "There are generally thought to be two options: the traditional 'balanced budget amendment' or a straightforward 'spending limit amendment,' either of which would be a significant improvement. I prefer the latter . . . . Let's use the people's document--the Constitution--to put an actual spending limit in place to control the beast in Washington."
A campaign to pass a balanced budget amendment through Congress fell short by just one vote in the Senate in the 1990s.
Last year, House Republicans proposed a spending-limit amendment that would limit federal spending to 20 percent of the economy. According to the amendment's language, the restriction could be overridden by a two-thirds vote in both Houses of Congress or by a declaration of war.
[I want to scream in orgasmic delight at the thought of a balanced budget. I even like the provision that special circumstances, like war, can call for extra spending, because Hitler had to die whatever the cost in treasure.]
And the two I'm not too thrilled about:
6. The federal Constitution should define marriage as between one man and one woman in all 50 states.
[I don't think government has the power to make this decision. The government, including state governments, should stay as far away from marriage as possible.]
7. Abortion should be made illegal throughout the country.
[I lean toward states rights on this one, but not entirely. There are circumstances where I think abortion is justified (e.g. certain congenital abnormalities that are always fatal, often with the baby surviving only a few hours or days), or even required (situations that lead to maternal death). Is Perry saying he would rather have the mother die to preserve "the soul of this country and to the traditional values [of] our founding fathers"?]
Note: my commentary will be in [square brackets]. The rest of the text is directly from the Yahoo News story.
1. Abolish lifetime tenure for federal judges by amending Article III, Section I of the Constitution.
[Couldn't agree more. Kings serve for life, and we fought two wars to rid ourselves of the yoke of a king (the Revolution and War of 1812, when Britain fought back). By giving the judges lifetime tenure it divorces them from reality and from the people, the concent of whom is from whence they derive their power.]
2. Congress should have the power to override Supreme Court decisions with a two-thirds vote.
[Maybe not a two-thirds vote, maybe something stronger, but nothing in government should be final. Even the Constitution can be amended, so should the Supreme Court, lest they become absolutist.]
3. Scrap the federal income tax by repealing the Sixteenth Amendment.
[Last year this was one of two BIG things I said needed to be done to fix the country. If not possible to achieve a repeal I did propose an alternate income tax scheme.]
4. End the direct election of senators by repealing the Seventeenth Amendment.
Overturning this amendment would restore the original language of the Constitution, which gave state legislators the power to appoint the members of the Senate.
Ratified during the Progressive Era in 1913 , the same year as the Sixteenth Amendment, the Seventeenth Amendment gives citizens the ability to elect senators on their own. Perry writes that supporters of the amendment at the time were "mistakenly" propelled by "a fit of populist rage."
"The American people mistakenly empowered the federal government during a fit of populist rage in the early twentieth century by giving it an unlimited source of income (the Sixteenth Amendment) and by changing the way senators are elected (the Seventeenth Amendment)," he writes.
[This is even more important than getting rid of the tax. When the Constitution was written it was decided that the two houses of Congress would be populated in two different ways: Representatives are chosen by the people and Senators are chosen by the state legislatures. This was one of the most brilliant decisions in all of world history. The whole point of the Constitution was to maximise the power of the States, but reign them in just enough so the Union could stick together, which wasn't possible under the Articles of Confederation. Representatives were elected by popular vote and each state got a number of Representatives proportional to total population, this way we the people get our say. Senators were chosen by the state legislatures and each state got two so that the power held by big states and small states would be equal where it really counted. Having Senators chosen by the state legislatures was a guarantee to states' rights. The Senators represented the will of the states whereas the Representatives represented the will of the people. This was a brilliant balancing act to protect everyone from each other. Then along came the populists who wanted to turn the United States into a mobocracy and changed the Constitution to say the Senators are elected by the people too, taking power away from the states and giving it to whoever had the deepest pockets and the Federal government, as the two are one and the same.]
5. Require the federal government to balance its budget every year.
Of all his proposed ideas, Perry calls this one "the most important," and of all the plans, a balanced budget amendment likely has the best chance of passage.
"The most important thing we could do is amend the Constitution--now--to restrict federal spending," Perry writes in his book. "There are generally thought to be two options: the traditional 'balanced budget amendment' or a straightforward 'spending limit amendment,' either of which would be a significant improvement. I prefer the latter . . . . Let's use the people's document--the Constitution--to put an actual spending limit in place to control the beast in Washington."
A campaign to pass a balanced budget amendment through Congress fell short by just one vote in the Senate in the 1990s.
Last year, House Republicans proposed a spending-limit amendment that would limit federal spending to 20 percent of the economy. According to the amendment's language, the restriction could be overridden by a two-thirds vote in both Houses of Congress or by a declaration of war.
[I want to scream in orgasmic delight at the thought of a balanced budget. I even like the provision that special circumstances, like war, can call for extra spending, because Hitler had to die whatever the cost in treasure.]
And the two I'm not too thrilled about:
6. The federal Constitution should define marriage as between one man and one woman in all 50 states.
[I don't think government has the power to make this decision. The government, including state governments, should stay as far away from marriage as possible.]
7. Abortion should be made illegal throughout the country.
[I lean toward states rights on this one, but not entirely. There are circumstances where I think abortion is justified (e.g. certain congenital abnormalities that are always fatal, often with the baby surviving only a few hours or days), or even required (situations that lead to maternal death). Is Perry saying he would rather have the mother die to preserve "the soul of this country and to the traditional values [of] our founding fathers"?]
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Barney Frank
Barney Frank (the guy whose speech no one can understand) is on MSNBC on the Rachel Maddow Show, being watched by all of ten people, when he lifts his cheek and lets out an atomic fart, without excusing himself, without even pausing. Thanks to the video being posted on the Internet something produced by MSNBC is getting more viewers than I have fingers and toes. This made my day. This is easily the funniest thing I have seen in months and probably one of the funniest things ever. In this world gone mad it's nice to have something good like this to report about.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
