Both Parties are the Enemies of the People

The Republicans are self interested and the party leadership cynically advances business interests and the country club entitlement mentality cynically using social and religious issues to hold together shifting coalitions of the angry.

The Democrats are the party of socialistic reform, trying to wield the power of the state to remake America into an egalitarian society by promoting federal power. They don't appear to realize that power once aggregated is never relinquished and the power once given to a central authority is seldom given back. One day that power may be wielded against them, they will not like it much then....

Both parties chuckle while excluding or minimizing the effect of all 3rd party efforts or co-opting them (the tea-parties). This situation appears resistant to change. An angry impotent and ill-informed electorate throws the bums out at every election, switching like a schizophrenic from one bad strategy to another back and forth over and over.

Many people are fiscally conservative and socially liberal. There is no party for them, and both parties of looters are there to make sure it stays that way.

There does not appear to be an end in sight.

The Tea Party

The tea party is an angry populist movement. Give us a double dip recession and hyperinflation, and the collapse of the economy and there is a real revolution brewing. Revolutions can be peaceful, but this one won't be. These are Americans, and Americans are armed to the teeth. They have also been watching two wars overseas, and understand the limits of modern armed force. They view the government as the enemy and won't hesitate to take up arms against federal authority. They may not win, but the rebellion if crushed will change America forever, turning it into another European nanny state with cameras in every closet.

Heroes not Robots

Recently this piece of drivel was in the NY Times, written by Simon Ramo. Frankly I was incensed when I read it. The cowardice advocated in this piece amazes me that it was written by an American male. Since when was safety more important than heroics or glory? We can all lock ourselves in our houses, barricade the doors and hide measuring out our lives by the teaspoon, or we can go out and LIVE. Who would not want glory, if not for yourself, at least for others? Robots never inspired anybody to become a hero.

-G

Bob Herbert, Blaming the Victim

There was an interesting article by Bob Herbert in which he is fairly accurate in his portrayal of the Republicans. Unfortunately the nuts on the left are guilty of the same excesses which takes all the wind out of the sails of his argument.

While I agree with many of of these points, the Democrats are equally to blame for poisoning the atmosphere of political discourse. The consequence of this from both sides is the outrageous behaviour of some fringe tea party activists. What we have here is two viewpoints that are irreconcilable. Because neither side will give on any points, increases in temperature in the political discourse will result in the pot starting to boil. What we now have are a hard core remnant of Republicans facing a hard core remnant of Democrats, leavened by a handful of Democrats from swing states. Those will be swept from power in the next election replaced with a handful of Republicans from swing states. There is really no middle ground on issues like slavery, abortion or the right of women to vote. And now apparently nationalized healthcare. Americans are AFRAID.

The parties occupy the leftmost and rightmost fringes of the discourse. Everyone in the middle feels disenfranchised. The tea party people, libertarians an technocrats, even scientists are all being used as grist for the mill for one party to gain a temporary advantage of over the other party.

Disenfranchised people get angry. Angry people are easy to manipulate and angry people can become violent.

We need to re-evaluate who we are as a nation, and give those in the center a voice. Otherwise the republic will fail and our liberal democracy will be replaced with a bureaucratic dictatorship with trappings of democracy just like Rome.

Annie Get Your Gun

The House may try to pass the Senate health-care bill without voting on it.

OK, now that's called taxation without representation. I guess if they do that the republic is dead and it's time for a new revolution. Annie get your gun.

There are numerous articles on the internet about how the house may try to pass the Senate health-care bill without voting on it. Now clearly this is unconstitutional and illegal. I guess we'll need some flags and uniforms. I wonder how much bloodshed a new civil war would cause. Hopefully not more than the civil war as a percentage.

618,000 out of 31 million or so, roughly 10 times that today. So the question is:

Is socialized health care worth the lives of 6-10 million Americans (or more)? I would advise Nancy Peolsi to tread carefully. They're called tea parties for a reason.

Chill Out

Some more fun climate related entries:

http://physicsworld.com/blog/2010/02/physicists_are_modellers_too_b.html

http://physicsworld.com/blog/2010/02/would_researchers_entering_the.html

http://people-press.org/report/556/global-warming

More Climate Change

The climate change scandal is not going away.
Peer review of climate change emails (Feb 1st 2010).
Chinese Data (Feb 1st 2010).

Mind Wipes

Apparently there is a new method to prevent people from remembering stressful events and having PTSD afterwards. I find this troubling coming as it does after doctors have found a way to remove painful memories. After all if the concentration camp guards can't remember shoving people into ovens, and shooting the children, how can we ethically punish them? What if we can't remember it even happening? Imagine this technology gradually perfected. The government could commit any horror and make the public forget. This is a slippery slope at the bottom of which is the annihilation of nothing less than the human soul. People need their pain, their fear, their guilt and trauma. Otherwise they aren't people any more.

Lost Premier

Apparently a TV show (LOST)is more important than good governance. Folks you can't make this stuff up. Where are all the adults?

Avatar - B

== SPOILER ALERT ==

10' tall blue smurfs and floating mountains. It was Pocahontas with aliens complete with singing. The corporate human enemy (thank God they weren't wearing US flags on their uniforms) are there to get a mineral they can't find elsewhere and the smurfs are sitting on top of it. I found the plot recycled, and not a single new idea in the whole film, with one dimensional enemies (Mr. Hard Case Soldier, and Mr. Evil Corporate Exploiter made an appearance). Unless you consider golfing into a coffee cup, and a brief I'm a veteran, you're a veteran of such and such back stories. That said the film was visually stunning, probably one of the top 5 films I've ever seen as far as visual spectacle was concerned. The visuals didn't REALLY get in the way of the story, but the floating mountains were a bit hard to take (given the mineral, I'll give that a physics pass, but barely).

If you are bothered by physics or time-lines, 2154 is probably too soon for spaceships with NAFAL to get anywhere except the closest star systems. Given the evident mass shipping of materials too and fro, even granting the base shown was built locally the actual level of technology in the film was disappointing low. We'll assume the corporate types had access to the military equipment of contemporary Nigeria say, but if the mineral is that important, why is there no government oversight?

The biggest problem with the movie is the anti-capitalist anti-corporate anti-technology pro-noble-savage view of the world. Savages are savage. The smurfs don't even use fire. Given the importance of the mineral, the next contact the aliens will have with earthlings is likely to be a few dozen high-yield Cobolt-60 dirty nukes launched from orbit to sterilize the planet, or at least a large swath of it. Hard for flying smurfs to deal with fallout and gamma rays. Of course killing the natives is supposed to "look bad", so perhaps there is oversight after all.

Realistic? Sort of given the content of the movie, and our past contacts with native peoples. Depressing view of mankind, technology and progress? Oh God, yes. That said, the built in neural interfaces for all the critters was cool. I don't plan on unplugging my refrigerator and air-conditioner any time soon, or going to live in the jungle in harmony with the animals. It was a cool view of an alien world, but it was also very preachy.

Festival of Hate

ABC reports that President Obama Names Transgender Appointee to Commerce Department. Now usually this sort of thing would cause me to just roll my eyes and mutter something about the democratic party being a freak show, but I was unprepared for the explosive vitriol heaped on this unknown and apparently hard working (if perhaps regrettably interesting) person. One person shared my view calling it a "festival of hate". It reminded me of the way Jews, Roma and Poles were treated by Nazis before WWII.

"...I can tell you that person who think that their thinking is the only way are doomed themselves to eternal damnation. God created all of us. Not one or the other is inferior...." (quoted in part from Dolores Jones).

My view:
Dolores Jones, as a Christian and a father I can only hope my fellow Americans are as tolerant and open minded as you are. If you believe in liberty you can see that people who embrace others however unusual they are, who are DOING NO HARM are on the right side of history. Angry prigs and psudo-christian-faschist-cum-flag-waving-partiot-wannabees obviously don't know what freedom is FOR, or WHY it's worth defending. What if it was your child? You'd disown them for your religion; you really think that's what a GOOD GOD - THE CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE wants? Idiots.

A photo that could have changed history?

Recently a photo has come to light showing JFK on a yacht doing what young rich powerful men of means and normal levels of testosterone do, married or not, namely enjoying the presence of beautiful young, and in this case naked ladies.

Risqué? You bet. The photo proves nothing other that that JFK is the libertine we all knew him to be. Perhaps if this photo had come out before the Lewinski affair Clinton might have avoided an impeachment? But it is hard to see how such a picture would have seriously altered history. Although perhaps a sexually satisfied Kennedy was a bit slower to draw on a confrontation with the Soviets over their missiles in Cuba. So maybe the event itself was important, but the picture, not so much. Was Kennedy a dog for possibly balling one or more young nubiles while his pregnant wife was waiting to deliver? Of course. But is such behaviour really unexpected, especially among the chattering class? Of course not.

Would he have been elected had this photo come to light then? Probably. After all, the girls were my brother and the senator's friends, I was embarrassed by being there, but you know we were on a boat in the middle of the ocean. How was I to know, and there wasn't any hanky panky anyway, and Jackie said I could go. What's the big deal? Those inclined to vote for him would have, those not so inclined would not have.

Fool Me Twice

Recently the brakes failed on my Ford F150. That was exciting but not exactly a surprise, they had been acting up for a week, and I meant to get them serviced, but suddenly the caliper on one failed completely, quickly draining the brake system of fluid. Nothing is quite as frightening as that first time the brake pedal goes all they way to the floor. But some quick thinking, a switch to 1st gear and judicious use of the emergency brake enabled me to limp home. However it got me thinking about a few issues that have been bothering me for quite some time.

Apparently drivers have not improved at all since I was a boy. Vehicles themselves are (in general) vastly superior, but it takes a special type of moron to see a driver with their hazards on putting along at 25 mph, and to decide one would like to whip around and then immediately in front of them at a light. Hey bozo, maybe the hazards are on because the car HAS NO BRAKES?

A second point, is that Fords are better in general then GM vehicles still. In fact is they are on par with Toyota cars. And not in reliability in general, but in after market service. The Ford caliper set we had to purchase had EVERYTHING included in the box. New bolts, compression washers, retaining clips, the whole nine yards. And it was an OEM part. The comparable GM OEM part came with a caliper.

And that's why despite a government bailout GM still sucks.

Rahm Emanuel and Compromise

The left is bashing Rahm Emanuel, and lamenting that they don't have Howard "The Scream" Dean in charge. Sorry to disappoint the hard left, but I like my health insurance company thank you very much. And comparing conservative democrats to traitors, these guys are completely off the deep end. Medicare, prescription drugs, welfare reform, were all Republican initiatives (or bipartisan with Republican support).

What has disappeared in America is civility, compromise and searching for a centre as a way forward. Lieberman is a HERO for acting like a senator instead of rubber stamping what the administration proposes the way the Republicans and Democrats have BOTH done over the last two decades. Harry Truman and FDR both understood compromise. He's a real senator like Sam Nunn or Tip O'Neil.

Climategate

At one point I believed in AGW, but I no longer am convinced. Unfortunately who the scientists are is now in question. In my view the entire scientific literature on climate change from 1977 onwards needs to be reviewed again in a modified peer process in which only scientists who had PHD's before 1977, and who were NOT involved in AGW research review AND who do not have a dog in the current debate review the literature. This includes ALL of the PHD dissertations, and peer reviewed journal articles of ALL climate change, assigning each paper a grade between an A, B, C, D or F, and reviewing the raw data that went into each paper.

Papers that are A's or B's could be considered acceptable, and citable by other such papers. Everything else has to be thrown out. If that throws out people's PHD's requiring them to be re-credentialed, that's too bad. We quickly need to know how much of the science can really be trusted.

In my view it is far more likely that this entire branch of science is bogus, and we need to be absolutely sure that people like me are wrong and that people who believe in AGW are right. On the other hand if I am right and they are wrong, we need to re-orient the debate on energy and the environment to reflect that new reality. None of this changes the need for humans to recycle, use energy efficiently, conserve and reuse where appropriate, protect the environment and fragile natural resources, or the need for clean water, sanitation, education or effective health care.

Disturbing Lack Of Reporting

CNN and the NY Times covered climategate, but ABC, NBC and CBS have not, 14 days in. John Stewart did however, in a hillarious skit.



The bias in the news media has never been more obvious, nor has the electorate ever been so divided in modern times.

Power and Women

Recently Tiger Woods is in the news, caught having affair(s?) despite his very attractive wife and three small children. Tonight the TV series Monk ended revealing the judge slept with a student and had a child with her (and then killed her, the nurse who delivered her and the doctor who tried to blackmail them). This got me thinking about strength of character and public and private morality and it's reflection in our marriages and commitments to each other.

It seems that some people are attracted to celebrity no mater what, and will throw themselves at celebrity, or a politician, even one known to be married with children. Temptation when dragged frequently enough in front of many, (perhaps most), people is of course hard to resist, so avoiding opportunities for temptation becomes necessary, but that's not really possible in a political life, or a life of celebrity. Perhaps it's natural for people in positions of power to give in to them from time to time. I'm not saying that that makes it right, but it is very human and understandable. It might be more disturbing to learn of a person who is not tempted by normal urges, after all what deeper desires do some among us have? Perhaps refraining from obvious masks not innocence or morality, but the temptaions of unnatural devils.

Generally adults are allowed to do what they want with each other, and except for the special situation where people are in inequitable positions of power any such relationships are tolerated. But is this really good? Clearly in a situation like that of the President and Mrs. Clinton's where the marriage is based on power more than on sex, whatever affairs the other party engages in are unlikely to affect their own marriage, no matter their protestations to the contrary. Also clearly someone in Mrs. Lewinsky's position should never have been under any illusions that she meant more to Mr. Clinton than a pleasant diversion and stress relief. After all is having a sexually frustrated man with his finger on the nuclear button really a good idea?

In all seriousness marriage should mean an exclusive commitment of love between two people, but many fail to live up to that ideal. It's hard to see how the non-cheating member of a relationship can honestly get over such a betrayal, but then perhaps many others don't regard marriage that way. I'm not being judgmental, but am simply asking about human nature, and wondering if we're asking too much of people like politicians and celebrities to expect their personal lives to match their ideals. Of course it is strength of character we are asking for in public office. So maybe for them it's not.

Afghanistan - the 1% effort.

All that is necessary to win the war in Afghanistan is for a medium sized NATO member to match the US or UK contribution to the war effort, shaming other NATO members into a decent contribution.

1000 Italians, less than 1/3 of 1% of the armed forces of a nation freed from fascism are to reinforce the 2700 Italians there already.

Only 4,520 Germans are in Afghanistan. There are 620,000 soldiers in the German armed forces. Less than 1% of those are in Afghanistan. They have orders not to engage the Taliban in the south and east of that nation.

About 1,473,000 Americans serve in the armed forces, of those soon a total of 98,000 will be there, which would bring us forces to about 6.6% up from 4.3%.

10,700 UK soldiers are in Afghanistan, out of a force of 429,500 - that's 2.49%.

There are 28 million Afghanis. There are at least 3.7 million soldiers (both active and reserve) in the EU.

For comparison, there are 90,000 soldiers in the armed forces of Romania.

Our Timeline, and the Taliban’s

Open Letter to the GOP - Liberty and Leadership

The Republican Party is off track.

America stands for freedom, justice and representative government, but our party has betrayed both freedom and justice by failing to prosecute rapists and torturers in Iraq and those who enabled them. These people who failed to uphold United States values of freedom and human dignity shame us all. Coercion and torture like water boarding have destroyed our reputation as a centre of civilization and arguing that this is not so makes us appear to be deluded or liars. Those whose children are in public schools, homosexuals, and homosexual family members, agnostics, atheists and many with non-fundamentalist religious views were excluded from our party. Now those who believe in human rights are as well? This is insanity.

Our scepticism of government and failure to govern responsibly (or even to budget effectively) have castrated Republican arguments that it is the party of small government and fiscal responsibility. No great portions of government were outsourced, no government departments were closed. For energy independence no nuclear plants were put into service, no great hydro power projects were begun. Even the Yucca mountain disposal site was not opened.

While we were in power we handled Russia (our foreign policy forte) poorly and did not achieve any important progress in China or Iran. No progress was made in Palestinian-Israeli relations. Americas science leadership continued to decline. Massive social inequalities and concentration of vast wealth in the hands of fewer and fewer Americans continues to occur, while social upward mobility has begun to break down. Our republic can not survive if gigantic social inequalities are tolerated intergenerationally. The drug war continued to rage while the black family continued its disintegration.

The attack on science by religious elements in the party in evolution and the environment undermined our claim to be a prty of intelligent and rational people. Our support of the death penalty and opposition to abortion were contradictory and morally indefensible. Our failure to regulate the excesses of the executive branch were damning. Knee jerk reactions to gays and minority groups combined with uptight small mindedness have marked us a party of hypocritical busybodies. Republicans must choose freedom, not paternalism. Republicans must choose hope and fortitude not fear and force. Republicans must be the party of Lincoln and Reagan, truly a party of American Americans. If you can recite the pledge and agree to the ethos of America - liberty, representative government and free enterprise, the party should welcome you with open arms. We must be moral if we hope to encourage others. We must participate in government if we hope to govern. America has never been fond of obstructionism or hypocrisy, but has always favoured bold forthright leadership.

We must choose liberty so that we may achieve leadership.

Republicans warn us to WATCH OUT for married Gay Clone Soldiers!

Recently I received a Republican Strategy Survey for October 2009, (full disclosure, I am a registered Republican in Windermere Florida, District #8). It had a number of fiscal items in it, and some expected red meat.

Some were particularly choice and made me see a bit of red:
#7 My Family and I are benefiting from the tax cuts of 2001 and 2003. - That's a no.

Others were just red meat sops to the ignorant:
#11 I believe special interests have too much interest in Washington. - What else is new?
#12 Democrats are catering to big labour and other liberal interests at my expense. - Seriously?

Some were wrong headed:
#4 I favour a flat fax.

Clearly if that had been THE FAIR tax instead it would have been right on target. Nobody wants regressive taxation.

And so the survey went from health care to foreign policy to the military. Then the survey veered off into cuckoo-land:

#27. I support a ban on human cloning.
#28. I believe gays should not be permitted to openly serve in the military.
#29. There should be a Constitutional Amendment to prevent the desecration of the American flag. (N.B. note caps in Constitutional Amendment, as if the constitution was God).
#30. I support a Constitutional Amendment to protect traditional marriage between a man and a woman. (N.B. Again).
#31. English should be made the official language of the U.S.
#32. I believe the Democrat's efforts to resurrect the Fairness Doctrine would restrict my right to freedom of speech.
#33. I believe our lawmakers and our President have a responsibility to promote traditional moral values.

Apparently spanish speaking happily married gay super-soldier clones are the ultimate Republican fear.

As far as I am aware none of this has really been an issue thus far.

Shenanigans!

The problem with our republic (and any republic) is that politics has become a profession. A political career should be strictly single term in each office, followed by non-political work. None of this leaving office to pursue lobbying. Perhaps only passing a law preventing ex-office holders from communicating with elected officials will work. Obviously stating you had to declare that you were a lobbyist to have the laws applied to your work has not worked. Self regulation is not working, and our republic is suffering for it.

There is something YOU CAN DO to fix this!

NEVER EVER VOTE FOR AN INCUMBENT.

Declare Shenanigans!

Get your broom, and sweep the bums out!

Climate Clowns

The debate on global warming has finally reached a new level. Those who doubt humans are the cause of a warming environment, or who doubt that warming is occurring at all have been granted new life by the release of the emails from the UK recently. These scientists long derided as global warming deniers (as if denying global warming was somehow morally equivalent to being holocaust deniers) finally have a chance to have their voices heard.

The challenge now is to inflame the debate and achieve a consensus that will allow the science to be reviewed by a dispassionate group of non-government scientists who do not have a dog in this race. I propose that hard scientists in other fields like thermodynamics, physics, mechanical engineering and electronic engineering be given access to ALL of the raw data and all of the models. Let them read and examine the data and the first principles that supposedly underlie this scientific debate and once they have had time to examine it, announce their findings.

To achieve this it is necessary that we discredit the buffoons who have engaged in the partisan and political charade that has been going on. These charlatans who have been claiming that what they have been doing is science need to have their clocks cleaned and be thrown out on their asses like the snake oil salesmen they have been proved to be.

Do you want to be part of the solution? Here's what to do. Call them names. Call them "Climate Clowns". That's what they are, and from now on whenever you hear something about AGW or Climate Change or the Green House effect, just roll your eyes and say you don't care what those Climate Clowns say, you don't believe them. Demand to see the raw data, the methodology that was used to gather that data, and demand to see cross referenced assertions reviewed by non-climatologists outside of government before accepting any claim by the Climate Clowns.

Pretending the climate email leak isn't a crisis won't make it go away
George Monboit missing the point - the peer review process IS rigged, and the behaviour in the UK is probably typical not atypical: Global warming rigged? Here's the email I'd need to see
WSJ: The Web Discloses Inconvenient Climate Truths

Family Insanity and Personal Responsibility

My mother in law is schizophrenic. I am afraid if my family didn't let her live with us she would be un-medicated and eventually neglected or maybe even murdered in a adult living facility because of her obnoxious behaviour (when she is medicated she is hard to take, off her medications it's unbelievable).

I think we know how to handle her, but I worry I might be held responsible if when she is out on one of her walks she somehow causes a car accident or something similar. A woman hit her in a cross walk a few years ago, so I'm not unnecessarily worried. I don't want to loose my house and business because of my insane relative, but I don't want her neglected in a mental hospital or a escaping to live under a bridge somewhere. Her whole live revolves around taking long walks and smoking. What should a responsible person do in such a case?