Poor people, poor decisions

"Poor" person's rationale why bad decisions make sense

I read the afore mentioned article on the Huffington Post and was torn between commenting there or here. Discretion being the better part of valor … and wanting to think a bit before making my comment, I chose here.

There is so much wrong with the young lady’s rationalizations. Where others see a just cause, I see merely excuses.

Ok, life has dealt her a tough hand. Get over it.

Second, own up to the fact that a lot of your choices got you where you are today … things that had you done something differently … like deferred gratification instead of going for moment and instant gratification … then maybe you wouldn’t be in the shoes you are in now.

Third, life is not a picnic. It takes hard word and many long hours of effort … and even then  you are not guaranteed material success. I know, because – I would tell the young lady – I have been there. I know about living on a jar of peanut butter and bread for weeks, because that was all I could afford. I know about celebrating the Kraft dinner* I had one day (made maybe two meals unless I was really, really hungry) because I could afford the box, a quart of milk and a pound of butter because I had a good night driving a cab at night** while going to college in the day and working on the student newspaper in the afternoon and early evening.

* For the uninitiated, Kraft dinner is a box of macaroni with powdered cheese mix … it cost me I think 19 cents back in 1971 and that was a dent in my budget. You need a pot, six cups of water, a dash of salt, 1/3 cup of milk and half a stick of butter to make it … takes maybe 10 minutes.

** I drove a cab in Manhattan, Kansas, for a couple of months in 1971. Not Manhattan, NY. Got 40 percent of the fare … and maybe got two or three fares a night – the Little Apple not being big on running around town in taxis. Average fare probably was less than $2. On a really, really good night (where I was lucky), I might make $15 or $20 but that happened about once every two weeks. My other source of income was my drill pay from my participation in the Navy Reserve … a whopping $16 per month back then for an E-3.

Then I spent my first 30 working years as newspaper journalist. Not that I would complain, but I would point out that unless you work for a Guild paper or one in a major metropolitan market, you basically get paid … crap. You have to love what you did, and tighten your belts, and accept that small newspapers can’t afford to pay people what they do in the big cities. I happened to absolutely love what I did. Probably did my children a great-disservice working 60-70 hours per week (with no overtime) and contributed to the collapse of my first marriage.

So you make choices. Like deferring having kids for years and then spacing them out. Like either not smoking or buying the cheapest cigarettes you can find … and then rationing them. Like not taking that vacation or trip … or buying those beers you wanted.

You think you have it bad, you really ought to study what it was like in the Depression in the 1930s, or what it was like trying to find a job in the 1970s when unemployment was in double digits.

College is not something that also is handed out. Granted a lot of parents put their kids through school or you take out loans to go to school. The latter is your choice, however. No one forces you to do it. I know because way back when I was lucky to go to college. The family bank was broke and I was last in line. Big Brother #1 opted to join the Army. Big Brother #2 was lucky to qualify for a full ride scholarship as was Big Sister. Unfortunately, I was not as talented as smart as they were so I lost that lottery.  That meant working, loans and sometimes pleading.

I spent six weeks in college begging not to be thrown out of the dorm while I waited for my loan to come through. I had $12 that lasted me that whole period and became a terrible bummer of cigarettes.

But as the line from Clint Eastwood said in Heartbreak Ridge: I adapted. I innovated. I overcame.

A lot of times your choices are dictated by your environment. That too is life. Get over it. Where you live can be your choice, once you reach a certain age. Again, it is not easy, but then who said it had to be easy or even was going to be easy.

Note: We all basically are immigrants here. Look back at what the life was for those people and stop taking for granted that you can just stand on their shoulders to get where you want to be.  Sometimes you have to start at the bottom.

Finally, nicotine is not just a stimulant. It also works as a depressant, as people under high stress will tell you. Smoking can help calm the nerves so you can cope with high levels of pressure or stress … or calm down after a high-adrenaline experience. I can personally document such usage.

Still, smoking is a choice.

So, if you don’t like the choices you have? Then, make new choices. Change your environment, but accept the fact that the mistakes you have made will encumber you like a load of baggage. You can either own up to them and carry them or dump them.

All too many people these days seem to be turning to the government/society and saying: “Here, carry my baggage.”

Believe me, it is going take us all down if we don’t stop doing that. It is not society’s job to take care of us. Nor the government’s. That is our job. And if others can, and are willing, then helping hands will be there because it is in our own self-interest to help others.

However, don’t complain if they aren’t. Sometimes life is like that. Sometimes you have to carry the baggage of your own choices, rich or poor, bad or good.

Don’t waste time blaming others, or situation or society, for your situation. They don’t really care (ah but we do … bovine scatology). You can get yourself out of it, or at least define yourself by trying.

More rambling thoughts

Go win an election – Obama

President Obama sometimes gives the impression that as president, he is the only one who counts.  Sorry, the US government doesn’t work that way.

Gloating over the capitulation of his opponents in Congress on the issues of  what form of government funding was to be passed and how much debt the federal government would be allowed to take on, he told the losers they “needed to win an election.” The implication here, I suppose, is that the only election that counts is the presidential one. I guess if you think that the government should answer only to the president and be at his beck and call, that would be true but it is not what a democratic federal republic is all about.

You see, Mister President, your opponents on policy issues did win 232 elections in 2012 (out of 435 for seats in the House of Representatives), which means they hold a majority there. Now, if the US was a parliamentary system, it would mean that you would not be the elected leader of the United States … but that is a never-mind.

The point being is that not all power is supposed to reside in the White House and those people who control the other House were doing, essentially, what the people who voted them into office asked them to do.

No, Mister President (and your allies across the aisle in the House and across the hall in the Senate where they have control), that does not mean that those people who oppose you are extremists – despite being repeatedly labeled as such, nor racists – another favorite label being thrown around, nor hostage takers or terrorists or anarchists or arsonists or bombers. Despite your rhetoric to that effect, these people are not out to destroy the government, any more than one would hope you are. These merely are people who have a profound difference of opinion and world view than yours.

To me, it is tragic to see so many news stories and political pundits saying that the shutdown (such as it was) and the resistance to raising the debt ceiling was all the fault of the conservative Republicans and their Tea Party allies.

The shutdown did not have to happen and all the “painful” closures were not necessary. It doesn’t take much critical thinking to realize that the needed legislation had been passed by the House of Representatives but was blocked from passage by the presidential party loyalists in the Senate. It was those Senators who were holding the government hostage until they got what they wanted, not the other way around. Unfortunately, that was not nor will it be the way it was reported in the majority of the news dissemination outlets in the United States.

And now they are gloating over their victory and telling their opponents don’t ever oppose us again.

It is even more distressing to see liberal/progressive web sites like the Huffington Post headlining their page with demands that the loyal opposition bow down in obeisance to the righteousness of the progressives demands. What was it Churchill said about in victory? Something about magnanimity?

I read somewhere about how progressives are looking to create a country where it is the elite (themselves) who will perpetually be in power and those beneath them will just accept the justness of such an arrangement.

As for the other issue at the bar in the shutdown – Obamacare, or as it officially is known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act – I am becoming increasingly of the opinion that it was designed to fail and that has been the intention of its “supporters” all along. I know that is being dreadfully cynical of me, but given the absolute disastrous train wreck the rollout of the “health insurance exchanges” this month, it is hard to believe that even our government and its contractors could be that incredibly incompetent. Those who know me know that I am loath to attribute to conspiracy anything that can be explained by mere incompetence, but this really has been pushing the envelope on that viewpoint.

I mean, nobody read the bill (supposedly) before it was passed and since then it seems that waivers and exceptions to its application have been the rule rather than the other way.

You see, here I tend to agree with the people who have been denigrated as Tea-baggers: I am of the opinion that the law, whatever it is, should be applied without regard to wealth, social status, gender, race, creed, religion, color, parentage or any of the plethora of other things that we use to divide us. In fact, I have feared the Balkanization of the United States for many years.

The law, in my humble opinion, should apply to all or to none at all. Unfortunately, this is not the case with the Obamacare law and its mind-boggling pages of regulations. To me, this is an egregious error, but I guess I am one of those bomb-throwers.

The funny thing to me is that, outside a few notable exceptions, I have met very few health care professionals who are in favor of Obamacare … actually most of them have expressed very negative views about the “reforms”.

As I discussed with one recently, the problem we have in the United States is not with our health care delivery system. It, in fact, is in really good shape, considering all the challenges it faces. Rather, the problem lies in how we are going to ration that delivery because it must be rationed. We have no other choice. Health care is a finite resource. We have only so many doctors, nurses, health care technicians and right on down to the porters and maids (not to mention the clerks and accountants in the billing offices).

To me the problem always has been how do you pay for all of that and who gets to decide who gets what? I am of the opinion that is not the in the purview of the US federal government, but since the bulk of the opinion makers in the US are now allied with national news dissemination organizations, all problems are nationalized (even if national solutions rarely are able to solve all problems).

I mean what would all the Bill O’Reillys, Anderson Coopers, Rachel Maddows, etc., do if they had to address merely local issues (even if they had some national implications) in all the various markets around the nation. They would not be able to cope.

I cite as a for-instance, an issue brewing in southern Maine over the use of the port facilities in South Portland to export Canadian oil. Currently, the facilities are used to pump oil from tankers from other places to Canada to feed its needs for heat, energy and transportation. The people who operate the pipeline, apparently plan to use the same facilities to take Canadian oil and export it to markets elsewhere in the world.

There are those around here are extremely put out that such a plan would be put forth at all. Of course, these people would dearly love to see the Port of Portland closed down, or so I overheard one supporter of a ballot initiative  to place such strict restrictions on the oil facilities that it would force them to close, tell another person today. They said something to the effect that so what if the 10 people working at the terminal were put out of work.

That would not be my point, however. Mine would say something about why should we in Portland be wanting to hurt so many Canadians?

However, I also know that this is not just about oil, but “tar sand” oil which those whose minds are focused on “protecting” the environment are so adamantly opposed to being developed. It doesn’t matter that the Canadians in Alberta are getting a good deal out of selling the oil, we just can’t have that happen, I guess.

And last but not least … I think the internet is a good thing. I think that letting people “blog” their thoughts and views is a good thing.

You see, apparently unlike the President of the United States, I think that blogging is of benefit and the more ideas, thoughts, points of view, etc., competing in the free market of politics the better … and may the better ideas float to the top.

Apparently, President Obama doesn’t agree and thinks that “bloggers” have too much influence. Well, I guess if your goal is to control the flow of information to the vast unwashed masses out there (note all the lengths the current administration has gone to combat leaks to reporters and the news media – which is predominately friendly to the Obama government), then the unrestrained freedom of social media and blogging would be more than disconcerting.

Just another sign that progressives and the president really don’t trust anyone but their fellow travellers.

Well, nuff said and nuff rambling for one post.

Inequality is life

Obama: Inequality is morally wrong

 

President Obama, never my favorite person, just leaves me shaking my head with wonder.

Where did we find this guy?

Look, I think somebody needs to explain the realities of life to him (not that I expect it to happen).

When one speaks of  “equality” in the political/historical sense, we are not talking about equality of outcomes. We are not talking about everyone having the same as everyone else, or even anything approximating equality of what we may or may not possess.

No. what we are – or should be – talking about is equality before the law; with government treating us all equally and not showing favoritism toward any individual or group (or the flip side, persecuting or discriminating against any individual or group). However, it seems that concept has been lost in transition between generations somewhere … or maybe it was in translation.

Granted, the generations that came before us were not perfect, nor were they omniscient or omnipotent. Like us, they were flawed individuals who strove to make a more perfect union. Unfortunately, someone forgot to tell people like President Obama and other progressives, that “union” does not mean people are to be shaped with a cookie-cutter to be exactly the same.

Equivalence of outcome is not the same as equality of opportunity, or – even more importantly – equality before the law.

As the President said in his speech this week, many people are being conditioned to believe: Inequality is wrong.

At first glance, it is hard to argue that “inequality” is wrong, but we have to define what is not being equal. If we are talking about economic outcome, then we are talking about something that is not the Provence of any government.

People are different. Individuals are essentially unique and therefore implicitly and explicitly INEQUAL. Sorry, but it isn’t going to happen. You can not use government to make everyone equal in life … it is impossible.

But our President is decrying the inequality of economic conditions and pledging to use the powers of government to correct this perceived problem … and if Congress doesn’t cooperate, he plans to do it by executive fiat.

If this doesn’t scare you, then you don’t understand that freedom isn’t free, liberty comes at a price and that if you want either then you have to accept that some people are just going to be different.

But no, we can’t have that. We have to resent all that others have.

That is beginning to scare me. I see far too many people, the President included, saying this group is wrong and that group is wrong and it is the federal government’s job to correct all that they define as evil, or wrong or an injustice.

We have lost our way, and unfortunately, the more I look at it, the more it seems that Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” was politically prophetic.

 

This however is so very true:

Life is like a cup of coffee

To my Muslim readers: Why the violence?

Short history of Muslim intolerance
Obama says US has respect for people of all faiths
And then again, maybe not – No one murdered though (NSFW or kids)

I would hope that someone of the Islamic faith would explain to me the reason for the violence – and resultant carnage – every time some obscure person or entity in the “West” does something that criticizes or portrays the Islamic faith in a less than favorable light. Oh, I have my own thoughts, but I would like to hear from some Muslims.
You see, I find it odd that people launch themselves into the streets and attack people, places or things based on what to them is merely a rumor. How many people out there demonstrating and fighting with riot police really have viewed the YouTube videos “Innocence of a Muslim” or its short version trailer? I would hazard a guess, that even with all the publicity, it remains a relatively small number, particularly in countries where internet access is nowhere near as prevalent as it is, let say, in the United States.
You look at the list of incidents over the past decade or so (see first link) and you wonder what really is going on. It really isn’t over the books, films, cartoons, or whatever; it is over something else – local control.
It is, simply put, an effort by local political and religious leaders to incite and then divert the passions of the people they are trying to control away from themselves. Tired people who are angry are less likely to do violence to their leaders if they have some “foreign” devil to blame for their troubles instead of the “known” devils who are ruling them.
This is not new. It is as old as mankind. Tribal leaders, religious leaders, leaders of all shapes, sizes and descriptions always try to find a devil of some type to get the people they want to support them to focus their energy (actually anger) on.
You see, we humans are perpetually angry. We always find someone or something to be angry about. If you don’t agree, stop and think about all the things that aggravated, irritated and angered you just today. It probably be everything from that stupid alarm clock that woke you this morning, to the idiot driving that car that you didn’t like or some crazy politician making a promise you know he (or she) won’t even try to keep (much less have any realistic chance of keeping in today’s world).
That much anger needs to be channeled. It is dangerous but it can be useful. You want to cause fear and to influence the people you want to control as well as to do harm to people who disagree with you. Well, let’s whip up your friendly neighborhood mob and just march them out to do something outrageous … ok, we won’t tell them it is stupid, idiotic and outrageous, we will just get them mad enough to get their emotions to overtake their normal rational selves.
How many times have you done something in a fit of anger or pique that in retrospect that you have asked yourself “WHAT THE HECK WAS I THINKING?” Don’t you worry, we all do it, so you are not alone.
Our president does it at almost every campaign stop when he tries to whip up anger against those evil rich people who don’t pay their fair share of taxes or those evil corporations who are out to steal you blind. Hey, the Republicans are just as bad, saying the president is out to ruin the country, that he really hates the country but he just won’t tell you that. It all is to strike fear into your heart and get you to act in the way that they want you to do.
You see, these political and religious leaders often don’t want you to think for yourself. They don’t want you to look at the options they are offering and decide for yourself if those options really are in your own best interest. Nope, can’t give people that choice, you see, because they will screw things up by not deciding what is in their own best interest … even if they think it is and can tell you why.
So, I look at the rioting and chaos around the world and I wonder “How can those people really think that their actions really are in their own best interest?”
Well, I would say “I haven’t a clue.” But I do. People who want power know the best way to control people is to get them emotional enough to overcome reason. Then there always are the “looters” (those people who want something for nothing) who take advantage of the confusion and chaos to do things that will gratify themselves for the time being.
However, you see this in the way soldiers are indoctrinated and the way “true believers” are indoctrinated. It is all an effort to get the individual to surrender themselves to things that really are alien to themselves (even if sometimes necessary) and get them to overcome their fears and do things that really are not in the individual’s best interest.
For example, running into a hail of bullets really is not in the best interest of an individual soldier, but sometimes it has to be done in order to “advance” the cause, whether it is win the war or just save the life of your buddy.
So, if Islam is such a peaceful religion, and if Islam does not see itself “at war” with other religions (particularly Christianity and Judaism, and sometimes Sunnis versus Shiites), then why the violence?
It is interesting that the web site The Onion, which takes a satirical and irreverent view of the world all the time, can post a rather obscene cartoon, yet no one has been killed over the cartoon (at least yet – I think because no one can figure out a target). I wonder why this is.
I, like most other people in the United States, and much of the “West” merely shake our heads and go “what idiots” and go on with what we are doing. Why does that seem so impossible for so many Muslims in so many countries around the world?

Political cover for Hillary

Sebelius won’t be punished for Hatch Act “violation”
Office of Special Counsel Advisory on Hatch Act.
Hatch Act of 1939
What part of the following does the Office of the Special Counsel in the Obama Administration not understand?
“(T)the law permits employees who are appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to widely engage in political activity while on duty and in government buildings, even these employees are prohibited from soliciting, accepting or receiving political contributions.”
Office of the Special Counsel – 2/14/2001
The Hatch Act of 1939, officially An Act to Prevent Pernicious Political Activities, is a United States federal law whose main provision is to prohibit employees (civil servants) in the executive branch of the federal government, except the President and certain designated high-level employees of the executive branch, from engaging in partisan political activity.
Wikipedia article
It provides that persons below the policymaking level in the executive branch of the federal government must not only refrain from political practices that would be illegal for any citizen but must abstain from "any active part" in political campaigns, using this language to specify those who are exempt:
(i) an employee paid from an appropriation for the Executive Office of the President; or
(ii) an employee appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, whose position is located within the United States, who determines policies to be pursued by the United States in the nationwide administration of Federal laws.
Fox News may be reporting the news correctly, but the Office of Special Counsel in the Obama Administration is putting out a line of equine manure.
Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, the former governor of Kansas, did not break any federal law when she spoke at a “Human Rights Campaign Event” back earlier in 2012. Sorry, but you idiots at the OSC need to go back and actually look at what the law says: “An employee appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, whose position is located within the United States, who determines polices to be pursued by the United States in the nationwide administration of Federal laws” is specifically exempted from the provisions of the Hatch Act.
The HHS secretary is, at least the last time I looked, an official member of a president’s cabinet and head of a specific executive department, subject to approval (advice and consent) of the Senate. If Sebelius does not fit that description, then why is she called the HHS secretary.
According to the Fox News report:  In her North Carolina remarks that prompted the report, Sebelius urged voters to make sure Obama "continues to be president for another four years." 
Sorry, but that doesn’t rise to the level of  “soliciting, accepting or receiving political contributions.”  The only area that the Hatch Act does apply to cabinet officers.
No, folks, this is the OSC covering up for the State Department’s and the White House’s claim that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton could not legally attend the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte last week. I really wish someone in the national media would get their fricking act together and point out that this OSC statement that Sebelius violated the law, and the subsequent statement, apparently, that all was made good by her changing her status and the campaign paying for the trip, and she would not be prosecuted, is so full of bovine scatology that it isn’t even funny anymore.
Sorry, but the OSC is wrong … and I will continue to say it is wrong, until someone can come up with some specific language in the Hatch Act that unexempts cabinet secretaries from the law.
Doesn’t this tend to make you angry? It makes me angry because this country is supposed to be one of law and when you go about misrepresenting what the law says, then you are doing the country no favors. In fact, you are actively trying to hurt the country and that type of behavior I will oppose to my dying breath.
I may not agree with the law, but I will pledge my life, my wealth and my sacred honor in its defense, of that have no doubt.

Big fib

Convention but no Hillary

Why no Hillary

Illegal for Hillary to be there

Hatch Act references

The Hatch Act as Amended

The Hatch Act of 1939

Federal employees limited in partisan political activities

Justice Department explains

Sorry, but an unidentified senior Obama administration official needs to go back and check the law before mouthing off.

It is not “illegal” under the so-called Hatch Act for a secretary of state to attend a political function. As a matter of fact, such high-level political policy-making presidential appointees are specifically exempted from the provisions of the Hatch Act.

For those who are not familiar with the “Hatch Act”, it was initially passed in 1939 to prohibit federal government employees from having to work in the political campaigns of their elected masters. Sounds quite reasonable to me; however, the act was amended in 1993 (and went into effect in 1994) to make it easier for those federal employees to express their political views. Those amendments did not bar the secretaries of state and defense or the attorney general from attending political meetings such as the national conventions.

Now, then-President Clinton delegated the authority to those three (but not others) to put out “rules” and guidelines that limited what political activities could be involved in, but did not explicitly say: The Secretary can not participate. Beep! Wrong answer.

So, despite what the senior Obama administration official was saying, there was no law banning her from the Democratic National Convention … and if there is, I wish someone would show me exactly where it says that a secretary of state is barred from attending such a political convention.

No, folks. This unfortunately is a big fib, being pushed along by the reporter at CNN and others.

Good try, though.

Of course it was the weather

Weather forecast forces move indoors

Venue change goes from seating for 74,000 to 21,000

I love politics. If you believe that Thursday night’s big night for President Obama was moved inside to the arena where the rest of the Democratic National Convention is being held, instead of the football stadium where the NFL’s Carolina Panthers play, because it might rain, well … I will leave you to your delusions.

Of course that is not the reason, and yes, of course, the reason is that the Democrats were having a hard time coming up with enough people to fill the stadium to capacity … and every empty seat was going to be pointed out by the Republicans as evidence of the president’s slipping popularity.

This is an argument as old as … I don’t know, but it seems as old as time itself. Politicians always, given the choice, are going to play to a picked and packed house if they can arrange it. It is a matter of perspective.

For example, during World War II, the Germans bombed London, England, and as a result of one of those air raids during the Blitz as it was called, the building that housed Britain’s House of Commons was severely damaged and had to be rebuilt. Under the directions of Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill, probably one of the most astute politicians of his day and a statesman of the first order, when the House chamber was rebuilt for some reason there wasn’t enough room on the benches for all the members of Parliament to sit.

Of course, Americans who watch coverage of its Congress on the CSPAN cable network are used to seeing a sea of empty seats in the chambers when CSPAN is showing what is going on in each house. A lot of Americans, thusly, get the impression that their representatives are being remiss at their jobs and some fail to realize that the great speeches given on the floors of our legislature usually are given to nearly empty audiences.

Churchill, being the clever politician he was, solved this problem. By making it impossible to seat all the members of Parliament at one time (in fact, leaving a vast number stuck outside) he recognized that the movie and television cameras that would be recording events in the chamber always would have the leaders playing to a packed house. Packed houses being better at convincing the viewing public that not only was their business being attended to, but that a rousing debate was being conducted. Actually it was all part of Kabuki Theater to make people believe that was happening.

So are the speeches at the Democratic National Convention on Sept. 6. They too are a form of Kabuki Theater. It is better to play to a packed house (even if it is smaller) than to play to a partially empty stadium (even if it has twice as many people there).

Isn’t politics wonderful?

Expert opinions

Organics and nutrition

Weathermen make long term prediction

I would like to discuss human hubris. Well, not really, but it sounds good. What I really want to say is that I find humor in the propensity of people in this era of modern scientific research to place so much faith in the statistical approach.

Now, I am not saying it is bad to rely on statistics, I just rarely think that statistics actually definitively prove your point. You see, often times, people are comparing apples and oranges … or tomatoes or potatoes … and not really realizing it.

For example, it seems, according to the latest scientific study of statistical studies of case histories of a host of individuals that eating organic food does not necessarily do a lot of good, at least in a nutritional sense. Hello, does that come as a surprise to anyone? It really shouldn’t.

The body needs certain nutrients, vitamins, minerals, etc. in certain quantities to be healthy. It needs to come in certain forms, however, but how those forms are grown, per se, really doesn’t matter. Of course the food has to be from a healthy plant/animal for it to be beneficial but how that plant is made healthy really doesn’t matter in determining its nutritional value.

Now, I will agree that some foods have less trace chemicals if they are grown certain ways, and those trace chemicals, if in significant enough quantities, can have a detrimental effect on human health. Unfortunately, growing things organically does not always mean that those trace elements won’t be found in food. The point being that paying significantly higher prices for food labeled “organic” may not be the wisest use of your resources.

However, having said that, I suppose a few years from now, some other scientist will come along and “prove” that eating “organic” is the next best thing to home-made sliced bread.

The same holds for the latest position paper by the American Meteorological Society (i.e.: Mainly those guys who bring you your nightly forecasts for the weather on TV). It seems that they are certain of two things:

One: the global climate is getting warmer.

Two: it is the result of anthropomorphic causes.

Oopsie. Statistically it might seem true, but then again it might be apples and oranges, with the apples being the climate is warming and the oranges being that is caused anthropomorphically.

I will not argue that the climate may be getting warmer but I would advise you to check back in two or three centuries, or even two or three millennia, to make sure. Despite what the doomsayers tell us, we really don’t have enough data to make sweeping statements about the climate and what it is doing. As best we can tell, humans have been sentient for about 15,000 years, give or take 15,000 or 30,000 years. You take that slice of time and see what portion it makes of the overall space of geological time, or even the time that life has been on the planet, and you realize that we are talking about an extraordinary teeny tiny bit of that experience.

So, first and foremost, before you say the sky is falling, make sure it isn’t a rain drop.

So, I am not sure that we are facing a deluge here, folks, and definitely the jury is still out on whether or not we can blame it all on human activities. It might be, and I am not going to say that it can’t be, but I am saying that when you look at the scope of changes over the course of the earth’s history it is entirely possible that these little tiny creatures running around, modifying their environment (as almost every species does to one extent or another), aren’t really the cause of the massive geologic climatological changes that our best and brightest are seeing.

Please, people, remember that we really have only about 30 years of good, solid, hard data on which we are making these sweeping predictions. All the rest of the data maybe good, but it is mostly based on assumptions, suppositions and interpretations of information that we really don’t know if it is valid or not.

And the models? Well, they are models. They are mathematical formulations that we hope mimic reality. But if any weatherman/meteorologist tells you that he or she really can tell you what the weather, or climate, is going to be like at any one point at any given time on the globe more than relatively few hours from now (which on the geological scale would be totally insignificant) with 100 percent accuracy, then they know they have just trashed their own credibility, because it is impossible. There just are too many variables out there, and too many of them that we mere humans don’t even begin to understand, for such predictions to be taken as gospel.

Heck, we don’t even, for the most part it seems, take the gospel as gospel any more.

MAN THE BARRICADES! The minions are planning to overthrow us.

Military terror plot uncovered

When I first read the headline on this story about four soldiers, I thought: My goodness, who in the Army has gone off the deep end this time?

Then I read it was about three privates and a sergeant and I broke out in giggles. Obviously the folks who were putting that story out with all sorts of fears of a military coup in the US have little if no knowledge of the military. You might take a sergeant and three-member work deal and get a job done like moving something or cleaning a vehicle, but overthrow the nation? Somebody needs a reality check.

So they spent $87,000 buying arms and equipment. So what? Apparently they got the money from an insurance policy on someone they killed. Like that has never happened before?

I guess what gets me is some people go into hyperdrive anytime anybody in uniform does something wacko. Now, I know it is pretty much de rigor that Americans are distrustful of a large standing Army. It has been that way since the founding of the republic. Even now, the size of our military, in proportion to our population, is approaching the smallest it has been in three-quarters of a century and probably is fixing to get even smaller. But soldiers are humans too and the country of 300 million-plus can send some pretty strange people to serve.

Still, three privates and a sergeant? A great military coup that is going to make. The blind leading the blind is more like it.

An E-5 sergeant basically is the first rung on the non-commissioned officer ladder, while E-3 privates first class are the basic cannon-fodder of any army. We are not really talking about highly trained or highly skilled and educated soldiers here. We are talking about soldiers who have mastered the basic fundamentals of the art of war, mostly from a tactical perspective and definitely not from either the strategic or logistical perspectives.

Now, if it had a O-6 or two, then it might have been a little threat, but if you want real threat, then the people involved have to be flag officers (O-7 and above). They know where all the keys are hidden.

Mounting a military overthrow of the nation, while maybe a soaring dream to some people, is an exercise that would take a lot more planning and effort to pull off than you are going to find in four snuffies.

The whole affair made me think of John Brown’s raid on the federal arsenal in Harpers Ferry in 1859. For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, John Brown, a raving abolitionist (against slavery person), took about 20 people and seized the arsenal (which made rifles and such) on the Maryland-Virginia border (it is now in West Virginia, but that is another story) with the hope of sparking an uprising among slaves in the area. The raid lasted long enough for a bunch of troops, under a colonel by the name of Robert E. Lee, to make the trip from Washington, D.C., to Harpers Ferry and storm the arsenal. In less than 5 minutes the raid was over.

Harpers Ferry raid

Mister Brown was hanged and two years later, the Civil War started to decide the issue of whether, as Mister Lincoln said, to determine whether the nation could live half free and half slave.

If these snuffies really had tried to do anything, it would have taken maybe a squad (10-men) of MPs to break it up.

The sad thing is that stories like this reflect a propaganda that tarnishes the actual professionalism, honor and courage that really imbues today’s American military. These four yahoos will get what they deserve, if not in civilian court, then in military court after the civilians get through with them.

Fairy tales?

Real Life Sleeping Beauties

What was that song that Frank Sinatra used to sing about fairy tales.  Sinatra sings Young at Heart 

Well, it seems that some young ladies and young men in the Ukraine are feeling very young at heart … or at least they believe in the Sleepy Beauty fairy tale.

Tale of Sleeping Beauty

There must be an awful lot of hopeless romantics out there (shyly raising my hand because I prefer the Disney version) because this deal in the art museum in Kiev, Ukraine, has got to be out there. I mean who would sign a contract pledging to marry someone based on a kiss while they are allegedly asleep … and who would sign a contract pledging to marry someone if your kiss woke them up. I can see all sorts of problems here.

But, as Frank says, fairy tales can come true; they can happen to you; if … well, if you want to believe.

I hope these young people find their fairy tales coming true. I guess it is little different that the reality series in the U.S. called The Bachelor and The Bachelorette. I really am not sure I would want my “courtship” played out before television cameras. It would rather freak me out, to tell the truth. But that is because I am not the most suave and debonair person that you are going to see (far from it) although I am quite romantic in my own way (I think, you need to ask my beautiful, wonderful, talented and special wife if that really is true, however).

Anyway, who says fairy tales can’t come true? Just look at any political campaign in the US.