What the United States media is not making popular is that the international news media is not happy with Obama's personal sanctioning of an illegal assassination mission that killed a political and religious leader.
In spite of the media hype and venomous attacks by Democrats against George W. Bush the specific targeting of a political leader is against both international and United States law.
Obama bragged about breaking international and United States law on inter-national television.
This ain't good. In my opinion the BS charge against Clinton and Scooter Libby was crap, yeah, their answers were not exactly the absolute truth but did they deserve to be convicted of a crime? Not in my opinion. Clinton's lies didn't bug me, his calling his lover a "liar and a slut" (approximate quote) pissed me off. I can't believe people were angry at Monica Lewinsky for telling the truth about Clinton.
On the other hand Obama has taken credit for an illegal assassination mission against a political leader.
Imagine the police wanted to arrest someone for being a kiddie molester and child serial killer. The cops bust in a neighbor's door (not the scum bags home) and kill him. How would you feel about that?
Since we (citizens of the United States) were victimized by this scum bag we feel pretty good about "seeing" him dead. On the other hand our neighbors are not feeling very good about the "police".
Personally, I would have reported that Osama Bin Laden was dead, I probably would not have taken credit for "bringing him to justice". I would have just reported that he had been found dead. Good move dumping the body in the ocean. It prevents the creation of a martyr tomb.
What is worse is that the "police" didn't bust in the scum bags door, they busted in a neighbors door without any legal permission and they killed him.
Get the point?
Back in 2003 and 2004 a bunch of us argued about Bush going after Bin Laden, about the legality and the impact. Essentially after a lot of research and discussion we figured out that Bush was taking a reasonable course of action. A lot of people didn't agree. In my opinion Bush made the right call, the specific targeting of a political leader was and is illegal. By waiting until Bin Laden was apprehended during the normal course of military action and with the support of our allies Bush made a call that was legal and reduced allied angst against the United States.
Personally, I would have been happy to pull the trigger on Osama Bib Hiding myself. Personally, I thank the guys who did. Personally I am happy the scum bag is dead.
From an objective political point of view, Obama's murder is an illegal cluster f*ck that will bring a world of justifiable political hurt down on the United States.
There was a pin ball game I used to play in my twenties. When you screwed up it would say, "bad move human". It is a term I have used whenever I see someone make a really bad move.
Hey Obama, bad move human.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Friday, May 06, 2011
The End of the World as We Know IT
I just finished reading a book called “One Second After” by William R. Forstchen. It is a good book and it is well worth reading. The guy does not understand people well and his understanding of technical details is very poor.
Forstchen is a military history guy and those guys typically study leaders because they believe the leaders were important. What a load of crap. When the shit hits the fan the leaders are not going to matter much at all. While good leaders can help pool and distribute resources the most important resource leaders have is the people they lead.
In the book Forstchen talks about some crazy Christian cult growing up in Knoxville Tennessee. That is about as likely to happen as Santa Clause coming to town in a C-130 dropping daisies. Knoxville is a college town. It is the closest large city to Oak Ridge National Laboratory, a place where I have been privileged enough to work. There are so many highly educated, competent engineers and technicians in the Knoxville area that the idea the population would suddenly twist into some perverted Christian cult is ridiculous.
The issues with food in the book are basically accurate, but, there are so many errors that I can't even begin to explain them.
Your basic military ground vehicle does not need to be hardened against a EMP because it does not rely on solid state electronics. The fuel injection system on the common “deuce and a half”, the staple two and a half ton truck of the military is a mechanical system. The solid state electronics in these vehicles are not related to operations. These solid state systems are diagnostic monitoring systems and you can start and run a deuce and a half with them totally fried.
Most radios would not be turned on at the time of an EMP and so would work just fine. Forstchen is right about computers, cars and many other devices though because these devices maintain tiny amounts of power draw. A lot of laptops will end up okay if they are un-plugged and inside though. It has to do with how the EMP travels.
Forstchen is wrong about most home emergency generators though. Most of these will be shut down and will not be turned on.
Most generator systems that are solid state are contained inside of grounded steel housings with louvered vents which would act as basic shielding for an EMP. It is possible that EMP pulses would travel through wiring in a building and blow these, but, unlikely. Because of issues with connecting emergency generators the switches, which are often solid state, are connected in such a way that power is either to the power lines or the generator. The vast majority of correctly connected emergency generators are not connected to the grid. Many of these systems do have solid state systems which are always on which, even though enclosed in housing which act as shielding, may blow. However, these systems are typically not essential to operation and any reasonably good tech can bypass the solid state electronics pretty quickly, in hours.
Not only that, but, the vast majority of lawn mowers out there could be converted into generators producing about 1000 watts of 110V easily and the technical understanding to do that is as far away as the low income, uneducated shop rat who never even spoke to a Phd. More than a few of us have knocked up 12V generators by tossing an alternator on a lawnmower and we could do it again pretty easily. Sticking a washing machine motor on instead and making up some capacitors from plastic and aluminum foil would produce a useable 120V generator. Me and millions of other guys don't need a book to do this, we need some hand tools.
There are more pre-solid state vehicles out there than Forstchen knows about, I count two on my block not including military vehicles.
In the book a little girl who is a type one diabetic dies because she can't get insulin. Insulin is a little more difficult, but, between 1922 and sometime in the 1970's it was extracted from the pancreas of cows and pigs. I am not a medical or biological technician, but, you can bet some low paid person working in some hospital laboratory has a basic idea how to do the job and with some help could put together the equipment (run from generators made with old washing machine motors if need be) to make insulin. I bet there are a few thousand guys who could do this off the cuff, and a million who could do it after a little reading.
Penicillin is the same kind of a problem, and the answer is not with some history professor it is again with some lower income technician that all the leaders ignore and who knows how to make stuff work.
Me, I am just another tool maker and manufacturing engineer. There are millions like me all across the United States who could knock together water filters from sand and charcoal, put together a wind powered water pump, convert an old water cooled engine into a generator with a built in water pump and even make machine guns out of steel fence posts used for chain link fencing.
The leaders will have the problems because they won't know what to do and they will want to be in charge, like the hero of the book. In real life the guys like me, the cops and the tool makers and the technicians will just make things work while “leaders” sit around arguing.
Hungry? Eat tree bark. No kidding, you have some in your kitchen now, people call it cinnamon. Most tree bark is edible. Need some calories? Drink birch syrup. Most tree sap is edible too. Stay away from most soft wood. Yuck.
Got some kite string? Know how to make a square knot? Make a net and string it in a creek or in a tree to catch fish or squirrels or birds. Yeah, it's illegal unless you are a Native American.
Do you know how many kids make potato cannons or tennis ball mortars behind their parents back? My best friend and I once nearly burned down my mother's house because we loved shooting off flaming tennis balls and watching them fly through the air. Ever shoot a beer bottle filled with rocks from a simple pipe mortar? Better watch out here, some nutcase from the government might start trying to chase me down because of something I did when I was eleven or twelve.
I could even leech saltpeter out of dirt by pouring water through it. Yep, it is just that easy. Know the formula for gun powder? 7-3-1 Seven saltpeter, 3 charcoal, 1 sulfur. You could even get it backwards, 7 charcoal, 3 saltpeter and 1 sulfur. Any tech worth his salt peter could do some experiments and figure out the "best" mix. Millions of us have this info floating around in our heads.
Did you know you can shoot bullets with gasoline? Yep, I could explain, but, this ain't about telling you how to make a better gun, it is about how uninformed our leadership really is about technology.
Oh, and typically people who own twenty two rifles and do any shooting buy a box of 500 rounds of twenty two ammo. A box of 500 is called a brick. The ammo is cheaper and the brick will last a couple of years for most shooters. A box of 50 can cost a couple of bucks, typically a box of 500 runs about 30% cheaper and I have shot ammo that is twenty years old.
The truth is that there are more guys like me than there are guys like Forstchen. Gingrich or Capt. Sanders. In reality we don't need these guys, they need us and they don't even understand why. They think we are as technologically inept as they are.
See, we go figure out how things work and we put them to work for us and then we make them work better, then some guy in a suit shows up to take over and pretend they did something. Always happens. Total crap.
Leaders are useful when people need to co-operate on large projects like war. Other than that they just get in the way. All management is local management. All politics are local politics. Read Chesty Puller's biography and learn that it isn't the high level managers who get the job done, they just set some goals.
Guys like me figure out how to do it and we get it done and I am not unique. There are millions of guys just like me out there who can make a net, make a gun, rig up a generator and if we have to figure out how to go back to making insulin and penicillin the way they did in the '30s we can even though we will never make as much money as the smooth talking BS artists who think they run the world.
If the entire US or even a small part of it is disabled by an EMP all these moronic “leaders” just need to stay out of the way like usual and guys like me will kill the bad guys, clean the water and turn the lights back on. Then the morons can take credit for it and build a statue of themselves for themselves.
Like Sam Gamgee, the rest of us will just head for home and enjoy our families after we save the world.
Forstchen is a military history guy and those guys typically study leaders because they believe the leaders were important. What a load of crap. When the shit hits the fan the leaders are not going to matter much at all. While good leaders can help pool and distribute resources the most important resource leaders have is the people they lead.
In the book Forstchen talks about some crazy Christian cult growing up in Knoxville Tennessee. That is about as likely to happen as Santa Clause coming to town in a C-130 dropping daisies. Knoxville is a college town. It is the closest large city to Oak Ridge National Laboratory, a place where I have been privileged enough to work. There are so many highly educated, competent engineers and technicians in the Knoxville area that the idea the population would suddenly twist into some perverted Christian cult is ridiculous.
The issues with food in the book are basically accurate, but, there are so many errors that I can't even begin to explain them.
Your basic military ground vehicle does not need to be hardened against a EMP because it does not rely on solid state electronics. The fuel injection system on the common “deuce and a half”, the staple two and a half ton truck of the military is a mechanical system. The solid state electronics in these vehicles are not related to operations. These solid state systems are diagnostic monitoring systems and you can start and run a deuce and a half with them totally fried.
Most radios would not be turned on at the time of an EMP and so would work just fine. Forstchen is right about computers, cars and many other devices though because these devices maintain tiny amounts of power draw. A lot of laptops will end up okay if they are un-plugged and inside though. It has to do with how the EMP travels.
Forstchen is wrong about most home emergency generators though. Most of these will be shut down and will not be turned on.
Most generator systems that are solid state are contained inside of grounded steel housings with louvered vents which would act as basic shielding for an EMP. It is possible that EMP pulses would travel through wiring in a building and blow these, but, unlikely. Because of issues with connecting emergency generators the switches, which are often solid state, are connected in such a way that power is either to the power lines or the generator. The vast majority of correctly connected emergency generators are not connected to the grid. Many of these systems do have solid state systems which are always on which, even though enclosed in housing which act as shielding, may blow. However, these systems are typically not essential to operation and any reasonably good tech can bypass the solid state electronics pretty quickly, in hours.
Not only that, but, the vast majority of lawn mowers out there could be converted into generators producing about 1000 watts of 110V easily and the technical understanding to do that is as far away as the low income, uneducated shop rat who never even spoke to a Phd. More than a few of us have knocked up 12V generators by tossing an alternator on a lawnmower and we could do it again pretty easily. Sticking a washing machine motor on instead and making up some capacitors from plastic and aluminum foil would produce a useable 120V generator. Me and millions of other guys don't need a book to do this, we need some hand tools.
There are more pre-solid state vehicles out there than Forstchen knows about, I count two on my block not including military vehicles.
In the book a little girl who is a type one diabetic dies because she can't get insulin. Insulin is a little more difficult, but, between 1922 and sometime in the 1970's it was extracted from the pancreas of cows and pigs. I am not a medical or biological technician, but, you can bet some low paid person working in some hospital laboratory has a basic idea how to do the job and with some help could put together the equipment (run from generators made with old washing machine motors if need be) to make insulin. I bet there are a few thousand guys who could do this off the cuff, and a million who could do it after a little reading.
Penicillin is the same kind of a problem, and the answer is not with some history professor it is again with some lower income technician that all the leaders ignore and who knows how to make stuff work.
Me, I am just another tool maker and manufacturing engineer. There are millions like me all across the United States who could knock together water filters from sand and charcoal, put together a wind powered water pump, convert an old water cooled engine into a generator with a built in water pump and even make machine guns out of steel fence posts used for chain link fencing.
The leaders will have the problems because they won't know what to do and they will want to be in charge, like the hero of the book. In real life the guys like me, the cops and the tool makers and the technicians will just make things work while “leaders” sit around arguing.
Hungry? Eat tree bark. No kidding, you have some in your kitchen now, people call it cinnamon. Most tree bark is edible. Need some calories? Drink birch syrup. Most tree sap is edible too. Stay away from most soft wood. Yuck.
Got some kite string? Know how to make a square knot? Make a net and string it in a creek or in a tree to catch fish or squirrels or birds. Yeah, it's illegal unless you are a Native American.
Do you know how many kids make potato cannons or tennis ball mortars behind their parents back? My best friend and I once nearly burned down my mother's house because we loved shooting off flaming tennis balls and watching them fly through the air. Ever shoot a beer bottle filled with rocks from a simple pipe mortar? Better watch out here, some nutcase from the government might start trying to chase me down because of something I did when I was eleven or twelve.
I could even leech saltpeter out of dirt by pouring water through it. Yep, it is just that easy. Know the formula for gun powder? 7-3-1 Seven saltpeter, 3 charcoal, 1 sulfur. You could even get it backwards, 7 charcoal, 3 saltpeter and 1 sulfur. Any tech worth his salt peter could do some experiments and figure out the "best" mix. Millions of us have this info floating around in our heads.
Did you know you can shoot bullets with gasoline? Yep, I could explain, but, this ain't about telling you how to make a better gun, it is about how uninformed our leadership really is about technology.
Oh, and typically people who own twenty two rifles and do any shooting buy a box of 500 rounds of twenty two ammo. A box of 500 is called a brick. The ammo is cheaper and the brick will last a couple of years for most shooters. A box of 50 can cost a couple of bucks, typically a box of 500 runs about 30% cheaper and I have shot ammo that is twenty years old.
The truth is that there are more guys like me than there are guys like Forstchen. Gingrich or Capt. Sanders. In reality we don't need these guys, they need us and they don't even understand why. They think we are as technologically inept as they are.
See, we go figure out how things work and we put them to work for us and then we make them work better, then some guy in a suit shows up to take over and pretend they did something. Always happens. Total crap.
Leaders are useful when people need to co-operate on large projects like war. Other than that they just get in the way. All management is local management. All politics are local politics. Read Chesty Puller's biography and learn that it isn't the high level managers who get the job done, they just set some goals.
Guys like me figure out how to do it and we get it done and I am not unique. There are millions of guys just like me out there who can make a net, make a gun, rig up a generator and if we have to figure out how to go back to making insulin and penicillin the way they did in the '30s we can even though we will never make as much money as the smooth talking BS artists who think they run the world.
If the entire US or even a small part of it is disabled by an EMP all these moronic “leaders” just need to stay out of the way like usual and guys like me will kill the bad guys, clean the water and turn the lights back on. Then the morons can take credit for it and build a statue of themselves for themselves.
Like Sam Gamgee, the rest of us will just head for home and enjoy our families after we save the world.
Monday, May 02, 2011
Your Opinion
I like researching issues to develop an opinion. While everyone has a right to their opinion I find that some opinions are more educated than others. I publish things that I believe may encourage people to research issues further and develop their own educated opinions.
Maybe the reason “you” are having an issue publishing is that you don't believe “your” opinion can be useful.
There are a lot of people who will try and make people who have opinions that differ from theirs feel as if they don't matter. I find teachers typically fall into this category,particularly f you ask "to many questions" or if they interpret questions as an attack on their authority.
When I was in school I used to keep trying things over and over again that others claimed were impossible. If a teacher said something that disagreed with something else I had read I questioned them and then researched the issue. This made me a target for a lot of teachers and a lot of kids. People called me stupid for saying things like “Einstein was wrong” or “The US will probably end up becoming friends with Russia” or “Sea level is not the same all over the world, look at Panama”.
I still question everything people say and because my teachers in elementary school taught a lot of incorrect things in, history, politics, economics, science, and other things I have learned not to ever trust what any one person tells me. Sometimes I don't trust what “everyone” tells me is correct like Einstein or Evolution. Theories especially, I do my own research on theories.
When I was in high school a teacher was trying to explain relativity. I said, “so the sun orbits the earth, relativity speaking” which it does. In Einstein's book he described relativity using trains, a person on the train is not moving relative to the train and the ground outside is moving relative to the train. Taking Einstein's example we can replace the train with the Earth and suddenly the Earth is not moving it is the sun that moves. Now Aristotle is not a moron, just someone who understood relative motion even if he could not properly describe it. The teacher became angry with me and told me I was an idiot because I didn't understand that the Earth only revolved around the sun. Obviously the teacher was incapable of understanding the implications of Einstein's relativity and couldn't teach something they couldn't understand.
Now most people would have been embarrassed and I am sure most of my classmates don't remember my specific comments like this, they only remember I was an idiot who argued with the teacher.
I was ecstatic because once a teacher results to ridicule or insults I know I am right and the teacher is wrong and just trying to save their own ignorant butt. I also know most people are too afraid of their peers to rock the boat and even those kids that did agree with me would never admit it because they would be thought to be an idiot.
Teachers are basically well intentioned ignorant people afraid to admit or display their own ignorance. In other words they are no smarter or better educated than you are on most subjects. In fact, because teachers study teaching instead of things like history, math and science you may know much, much more about these subjects than any teacher.
I can count on one hand the times a teacher agreed with me against a class full of kids because teachers operate in a “peer pressure” environment and even when they know they are wrong they are going to change the subject or “attack” the “trouble maker”.
Teachers, parents and other system officials are doing everything they can to train people to submit to authority rather than educate them in how to think and question authority.
Personally I learn from almost everyone, even the stupid teachers who withheld their approval and gave me crappy grades because they thought I wanted the approval.
Not exactly, although like most people I enjoy praise. I would rather learn something than be approved of. I would rather help others learn than be approved of.
Sometimes your track record is more important that approval. If you don't blow your own horn someone else will use it as a spittoon. On the other hand people hate feeling stupid even when they obviously are and they feel even dumber when you keep doing things that they can't or couldn't do.
People will often ignore what is correct for what s popular, just as kids and teachers do in school and our educational system indoctrinates people into this ridiculous idiocy.
Once you understand how stupid and ignorant people can be two things should occur to you.
The first is that you are no better and no worse than any one else. Your opinion is just as important as Einstein's and just as worthless as Charles Manson's.
The second is that the only way to evolve intellectually is to constantly question and discuss even “laws” like gravity or the conservation of energy.
The third thing to remember is that people who laugh at you for questioning things they take for granted, things “everyone knows”, are just brain washed idiots whose ability to think is so compromised that they cannot understand their own ignorance. You should feel sorry for them as you remember that their opinion, as ignorant and brain washed as it is, can be useful.
How can the words of an obviously compromised idiot be useful? The wise man learns even from the child. “From the mouths of babes” is an old saying that is always worth remembering. Sure, they are ignorant morons, but, since “you” (or me or anyone) can not possibly know everything the person “you” are talking to knows things that “you” don't and those things can be useful to “you”.
So if you are an intelligent person on a quest for knowledge and understanding or just a moron blowing off steam your opinions are useful whoever you are.
Sure, the morons who think they know everything will claim you bring nothing to the table. You obviously know things they don't know. The wise man will seek out that knowledge and the moron will ignore it.
The first thing a researcher does when examining an issue is review bibliographies of published works looking for the “expert” everyone else is referencing. Then the researcher reads what the expert has to say. The surface researcher trying for a basic grasp will stop here. The more thorough researcher will read almost everything published on the subject because even if a paper has never been referenced in another paper it can still be a useful and important paper filled with information the researcher can use. Or it can be a ridiculous rant with hardly a shred of information.
In the end, share your thoughts and ideas for wise people who know that even in the worst pages of moronic rant filled with propaganda and ignorance there are gems of knowledge, wisdom and understanding.
Sure, morons will attack you as being worthless when you share your opinion. Some people will open discussions with you and you can learn even more from each other. Others will ignore you.
If writing out your opinion does nothing else, it will accomplish two goals. It will encourage you to think and become a better person. It will allow others to learn from you.
Maybe the reason “you” are having an issue publishing is that you don't believe “your” opinion can be useful.
There are a lot of people who will try and make people who have opinions that differ from theirs feel as if they don't matter. I find teachers typically fall into this category,particularly f you ask "to many questions" or if they interpret questions as an attack on their authority.
When I was in school I used to keep trying things over and over again that others claimed were impossible. If a teacher said something that disagreed with something else I had read I questioned them and then researched the issue. This made me a target for a lot of teachers and a lot of kids. People called me stupid for saying things like “Einstein was wrong” or “The US will probably end up becoming friends with Russia” or “Sea level is not the same all over the world, look at Panama”.
I still question everything people say and because my teachers in elementary school taught a lot of incorrect things in, history, politics, economics, science, and other things I have learned not to ever trust what any one person tells me. Sometimes I don't trust what “everyone” tells me is correct like Einstein or Evolution. Theories especially, I do my own research on theories.
When I was in high school a teacher was trying to explain relativity. I said, “so the sun orbits the earth, relativity speaking” which it does. In Einstein's book he described relativity using trains, a person on the train is not moving relative to the train and the ground outside is moving relative to the train. Taking Einstein's example we can replace the train with the Earth and suddenly the Earth is not moving it is the sun that moves. Now Aristotle is not a moron, just someone who understood relative motion even if he could not properly describe it. The teacher became angry with me and told me I was an idiot because I didn't understand that the Earth only revolved around the sun. Obviously the teacher was incapable of understanding the implications of Einstein's relativity and couldn't teach something they couldn't understand.
Now most people would have been embarrassed and I am sure most of my classmates don't remember my specific comments like this, they only remember I was an idiot who argued with the teacher.
I was ecstatic because once a teacher results to ridicule or insults I know I am right and the teacher is wrong and just trying to save their own ignorant butt. I also know most people are too afraid of their peers to rock the boat and even those kids that did agree with me would never admit it because they would be thought to be an idiot.
Teachers are basically well intentioned ignorant people afraid to admit or display their own ignorance. In other words they are no smarter or better educated than you are on most subjects. In fact, because teachers study teaching instead of things like history, math and science you may know much, much more about these subjects than any teacher.
I can count on one hand the times a teacher agreed with me against a class full of kids because teachers operate in a “peer pressure” environment and even when they know they are wrong they are going to change the subject or “attack” the “trouble maker”.
Teachers, parents and other system officials are doing everything they can to train people to submit to authority rather than educate them in how to think and question authority.
Personally I learn from almost everyone, even the stupid teachers who withheld their approval and gave me crappy grades because they thought I wanted the approval.
Not exactly, although like most people I enjoy praise. I would rather learn something than be approved of. I would rather help others learn than be approved of.
Sometimes your track record is more important that approval. If you don't blow your own horn someone else will use it as a spittoon. On the other hand people hate feeling stupid even when they obviously are and they feel even dumber when you keep doing things that they can't or couldn't do.
People will often ignore what is correct for what s popular, just as kids and teachers do in school and our educational system indoctrinates people into this ridiculous idiocy.
Once you understand how stupid and ignorant people can be two things should occur to you.
The first is that you are no better and no worse than any one else. Your opinion is just as important as Einstein's and just as worthless as Charles Manson's.
The second is that the only way to evolve intellectually is to constantly question and discuss even “laws” like gravity or the conservation of energy.
The third thing to remember is that people who laugh at you for questioning things they take for granted, things “everyone knows”, are just brain washed idiots whose ability to think is so compromised that they cannot understand their own ignorance. You should feel sorry for them as you remember that their opinion, as ignorant and brain washed as it is, can be useful.
How can the words of an obviously compromised idiot be useful? The wise man learns even from the child. “From the mouths of babes” is an old saying that is always worth remembering. Sure, they are ignorant morons, but, since “you” (or me or anyone) can not possibly know everything the person “you” are talking to knows things that “you” don't and those things can be useful to “you”.
So if you are an intelligent person on a quest for knowledge and understanding or just a moron blowing off steam your opinions are useful whoever you are.
Sure, the morons who think they know everything will claim you bring nothing to the table. You obviously know things they don't know. The wise man will seek out that knowledge and the moron will ignore it.
The first thing a researcher does when examining an issue is review bibliographies of published works looking for the “expert” everyone else is referencing. Then the researcher reads what the expert has to say. The surface researcher trying for a basic grasp will stop here. The more thorough researcher will read almost everything published on the subject because even if a paper has never been referenced in another paper it can still be a useful and important paper filled with information the researcher can use. Or it can be a ridiculous rant with hardly a shred of information.
In the end, share your thoughts and ideas for wise people who know that even in the worst pages of moronic rant filled with propaganda and ignorance there are gems of knowledge, wisdom and understanding.
Sure, morons will attack you as being worthless when you share your opinion. Some people will open discussions with you and you can learn even more from each other. Others will ignore you.
If writing out your opinion does nothing else, it will accomplish two goals. It will encourage you to think and become a better person. It will allow others to learn from you.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Rich Paying their “fair” share of taxes
What does that mean? Typically, in the United States, it means that rich people making more than about $500,000.00 a year pay most of the taxes. How much is most? The top 1% of earners in 2008 ended up paying 38% of the tax income.
How is that fair? They can afford it, oh yeah.
So the government becomes primarily dependent on that rich 1% for most of the government income. Just think, if they doubled the number of people making over $500,000.00 and exponentially increased the number of poverty level families in the US they could increase tax revenue by 38%! Make the rich, richer and make the poor, poorer and increase the tax revenue!
Making the rich, rich and poor, poor is exactly what the current tax strategy in Washington is designed to do.
In order to increase the GNP you have to increase the number of people with disposable incomes who spend money. That is what increases the GNP, people spending money; money that they actually have, not money that they borrow.
Henry Ford did more to improve the standard of living in the United States and increase the GNP than any other historical figure. Ford did it by increasing the wages of unskilled workers to the point where they flooded the economy with money making Ford a billionaire along the way.
The way to increase the GNP and the tax base is not to raise the taxes on the rich. The way to increase the GNP is to increase the amount of money the average person earns.
Congress can do that tomorrow. Double the minimum wage, make all employers provide health insurance for all employees (even part time), make health insurance part of the unemployment package, change SSI to be a retirement plan only and make a bachelor’s degree at any state university free for any citizen student that can earn admittance.
Will they do it? Not a chance because the politicians don’t have the guts or business savvy that Henry Ford had.
How is that fair? They can afford it, oh yeah.
So the government becomes primarily dependent on that rich 1% for most of the government income. Just think, if they doubled the number of people making over $500,000.00 and exponentially increased the number of poverty level families in the US they could increase tax revenue by 38%! Make the rich, richer and make the poor, poorer and increase the tax revenue!
Making the rich, rich and poor, poor is exactly what the current tax strategy in Washington is designed to do.
In order to increase the GNP you have to increase the number of people with disposable incomes who spend money. That is what increases the GNP, people spending money; money that they actually have, not money that they borrow.
Henry Ford did more to improve the standard of living in the United States and increase the GNP than any other historical figure. Ford did it by increasing the wages of unskilled workers to the point where they flooded the economy with money making Ford a billionaire along the way.
The way to increase the GNP and the tax base is not to raise the taxes on the rich. The way to increase the GNP is to increase the amount of money the average person earns.
Congress can do that tomorrow. Double the minimum wage, make all employers provide health insurance for all employees (even part time), make health insurance part of the unemployment package, change SSI to be a retirement plan only and make a bachelor’s degree at any state university free for any citizen student that can earn admittance.
Will they do it? Not a chance because the politicians don’t have the guts or business savvy that Henry Ford had.
Sunday, March 06, 2011
Burn Out and Satying the Course
I just finished reading a book called “Brotherhood of Warriors” written by a former member of an Israeli counter-terrorism special forces unit. The author, Aaron Cohen, was born in Canada, grew up in the States and decided to go to Israel and join an Israeli special forces unit. The process is not as easy as it sounds. Out of hundreds of applicants only a few make it into any special operations units. Cohen made it in, he lasted three years and he was discharged. Cohen started a security company in the States and wrote a book.
I don't believe Israel can last as an independent state. I believe it should last and I believe that if the people have faith in God and maintain their vigilance against their enemies God will maintain Israel.
I don't believe that will happen and Aaron Cohen is a perfect example of why. To do the things that are necessary to survive in the condition Israel is in it takes an extraordinary multi generational commitment.
In the Bible Saul is selected as King, David and Saul fight against the enemies of Israel. Eventually David becomes King and then Solomon becomes king and then Israel falls apart after Solomon's death. The multi generational commitment to the nation of Israel was not there.
People become exhausted with fighting for their survival and they want peace. The people willing to stay the course, to maintain the discipline, to keep fighting after the other guy gives up will succeed.
The United States does not have that commitment. Lyndon Johnson should never have escalated in Vietnam. If Barry Goldwater had made friends with Martin Luther King Jr and supported the Civil Rights Act the United States would not have escalated the Vietnam War. Of course George Wallace might have been elected in 1972 and I don't even want to think of that can of worms. Lyndon Johnson won in 1964, he signed the Civil Rights Act that the minority Republicans had gotten through Congress and he escalated Vietnam into a full fledged war.
Once the United States committed to Vietnam we should have maintained our commitment. International politics requires that people believe each other will keep their word. The United States makes and has made many commitments that they do not follow through on.
The United States is lucky because it is separated from most of the rest of the world by vast oceans that protect our borders. If the United States were surrounded by enemies the way Israel is the United States would have become an Islamic nation under Sharia law a long time ago.
For the first few generations after the holocaust Israel maintained their commitment. The Palestinians and Arabs who hate Israel have the lessons of history on their side. Israel, like the United States, cannot keep their commitment and eventually they fall apart. If the Palestinians wait long enough Israel will fall and they know it. It takes a few suicide bombers a year, year after year,to wear down the commitment Israeli generations have. Eventually, just as they did in biblical times, they will fall and even the future zealots in Masada will become Martyrs to the lack of generational commitment.
You could compare Israel and the United States to Rome. Eventually a lack of commitment to the goals set by the past Roman leaders led to the destruction of Rome.
“Can't we all just get along!” The answer is no, not as long as there are people willing to use guns to force others to behave a particular way.
People didn't like Randy Weaver on Ruby Ridge and he became a millionaire based on FBI entrapment. People didn't like the Branch Davidians in Waco Texas and a bus filled with children was burned to death. These actions encouraged a couple of guys to bomb a federal building in Oklahoma city.
You may believe Weaver and David Koresch were scum and that society has every right to force them to live a particular way. Not everyone is going to believe that.
As long as people feel they are being forced to do things against their will they will rebel against the authority forcing them. School Shooters, “going postal”, Palestinian Homicide bombers, Al Queda. Hussein gassed rebels who fought against his regime.
People like to say there were no WMD's in Iraq. That is crap. Hussein used them. We know Hussein used them, against Kurds, against Iran. Where did they go? No one knows so they make up stories about how they were never there. I wonder how the family members of those who died in Hussein's chemical warfare attacks feel about that rhetoric?
Chemical WMD's were found in Iraq in very small quantities. What happened to the rest of them? Your guess is as good as mine.
The United States didn't have the resolve the stay the course, to maintain discipline and keep their commitments.
The same thing is happening in Israel. People are calling Israel an Apartheid State. People refuse to support the government of Israel. Some idiot in Iran claims the holocaust never happened and they don't hate the Jewish people, just the State of Israel. How believable is that? Look at how Jews are treated in Iran. When was the last time a Jew was elected to an important political position in Iran? Yeah, the Iranians don't hate Jews, they just want to get rid of them like they get rid of sand fleas.
But people buy into that drivel. They think “hey, if we work with these people we can co-exist”. Bull crap. Jews thought the same thing during Hitler's rise to power and they became National Socialist party members. Trying to work with Hitler and co-exist didn't work out so well for the Jews in Europe.
The reality is that just like you may believe in the right of society to use guns and force David Koresh and Randy Weaver to adapt to a version of society they do not like others believe that they have the right to force you to adapt to their version of society.
Get it. They are not any different than you are. They hear about people living by some disgustingly strange set of rules that they totally disagree with and that gives them the right to charge in, guns blazing and kill whoever gets in their way.
Yeah, I know, you only want to stop people from doing “bad things” and otherwise you just want to live and let live. Al Queda feels the same way, you can live however you want to as long as you don't do “bad things”. Oh, but they don't agree with you on what “bad things” are so they are “wrong”. Yeah, I think David Koresch and Randy Weaver felt the same way about that. Funny how people can have totally different ideas and both believe they are right. Notice the way you felt when I used GWB's “stay the course” line? Yeah, it's like that. I can believe I am right and you can believe you are right and if I pick up a gun and shoot you or if you pick up a gun and shoot David Koresch or if Osama rams a few planes into a couple of buildings, the last person standing is “right”.
God does fit in there, and sometimes I wish he would just make slaves and force everyone to follow his rules universally. That would put an end to conflict, but, then I couldn't make my own decisions.
In the end, the people who stay the course and keep their commitment to their society will succeed. The rest will be killed or burned to death in a bus or executed or imprisoned or become slaves in a society they hate.
Between now and the end people like Aaron Cohen (and me if I am honest) will burn out and want nothing more than to live in peace. Burn out is a key factor in letting the other guy win.
I don't believe Israel can last as an independent state. I believe it should last and I believe that if the people have faith in God and maintain their vigilance against their enemies God will maintain Israel.
I don't believe that will happen and Aaron Cohen is a perfect example of why. To do the things that are necessary to survive in the condition Israel is in it takes an extraordinary multi generational commitment.
In the Bible Saul is selected as King, David and Saul fight against the enemies of Israel. Eventually David becomes King and then Solomon becomes king and then Israel falls apart after Solomon's death. The multi generational commitment to the nation of Israel was not there.
People become exhausted with fighting for their survival and they want peace. The people willing to stay the course, to maintain the discipline, to keep fighting after the other guy gives up will succeed.
The United States does not have that commitment. Lyndon Johnson should never have escalated in Vietnam. If Barry Goldwater had made friends with Martin Luther King Jr and supported the Civil Rights Act the United States would not have escalated the Vietnam War. Of course George Wallace might have been elected in 1972 and I don't even want to think of that can of worms. Lyndon Johnson won in 1964, he signed the Civil Rights Act that the minority Republicans had gotten through Congress and he escalated Vietnam into a full fledged war.
Once the United States committed to Vietnam we should have maintained our commitment. International politics requires that people believe each other will keep their word. The United States makes and has made many commitments that they do not follow through on.
The United States is lucky because it is separated from most of the rest of the world by vast oceans that protect our borders. If the United States were surrounded by enemies the way Israel is the United States would have become an Islamic nation under Sharia law a long time ago.
For the first few generations after the holocaust Israel maintained their commitment. The Palestinians and Arabs who hate Israel have the lessons of history on their side. Israel, like the United States, cannot keep their commitment and eventually they fall apart. If the Palestinians wait long enough Israel will fall and they know it. It takes a few suicide bombers a year, year after year,to wear down the commitment Israeli generations have. Eventually, just as they did in biblical times, they will fall and even the future zealots in Masada will become Martyrs to the lack of generational commitment.
You could compare Israel and the United States to Rome. Eventually a lack of commitment to the goals set by the past Roman leaders led to the destruction of Rome.
“Can't we all just get along!” The answer is no, not as long as there are people willing to use guns to force others to behave a particular way.
People didn't like Randy Weaver on Ruby Ridge and he became a millionaire based on FBI entrapment. People didn't like the Branch Davidians in Waco Texas and a bus filled with children was burned to death. These actions encouraged a couple of guys to bomb a federal building in Oklahoma city.
You may believe Weaver and David Koresch were scum and that society has every right to force them to live a particular way. Not everyone is going to believe that.
As long as people feel they are being forced to do things against their will they will rebel against the authority forcing them. School Shooters, “going postal”, Palestinian Homicide bombers, Al Queda. Hussein gassed rebels who fought against his regime.
People like to say there were no WMD's in Iraq. That is crap. Hussein used them. We know Hussein used them, against Kurds, against Iran. Where did they go? No one knows so they make up stories about how they were never there. I wonder how the family members of those who died in Hussein's chemical warfare attacks feel about that rhetoric?
Chemical WMD's were found in Iraq in very small quantities. What happened to the rest of them? Your guess is as good as mine.
The United States didn't have the resolve the stay the course, to maintain discipline and keep their commitments.
The same thing is happening in Israel. People are calling Israel an Apartheid State. People refuse to support the government of Israel. Some idiot in Iran claims the holocaust never happened and they don't hate the Jewish people, just the State of Israel. How believable is that? Look at how Jews are treated in Iran. When was the last time a Jew was elected to an important political position in Iran? Yeah, the Iranians don't hate Jews, they just want to get rid of them like they get rid of sand fleas.
But people buy into that drivel. They think “hey, if we work with these people we can co-exist”. Bull crap. Jews thought the same thing during Hitler's rise to power and they became National Socialist party members. Trying to work with Hitler and co-exist didn't work out so well for the Jews in Europe.
The reality is that just like you may believe in the right of society to use guns and force David Koresh and Randy Weaver to adapt to a version of society they do not like others believe that they have the right to force you to adapt to their version of society.
Get it. They are not any different than you are. They hear about people living by some disgustingly strange set of rules that they totally disagree with and that gives them the right to charge in, guns blazing and kill whoever gets in their way.
Yeah, I know, you only want to stop people from doing “bad things” and otherwise you just want to live and let live. Al Queda feels the same way, you can live however you want to as long as you don't do “bad things”. Oh, but they don't agree with you on what “bad things” are so they are “wrong”. Yeah, I think David Koresch and Randy Weaver felt the same way about that. Funny how people can have totally different ideas and both believe they are right. Notice the way you felt when I used GWB's “stay the course” line? Yeah, it's like that. I can believe I am right and you can believe you are right and if I pick up a gun and shoot you or if you pick up a gun and shoot David Koresch or if Osama rams a few planes into a couple of buildings, the last person standing is “right”.
God does fit in there, and sometimes I wish he would just make slaves and force everyone to follow his rules universally. That would put an end to conflict, but, then I couldn't make my own decisions.
In the end, the people who stay the course and keep their commitment to their society will succeed. The rest will be killed or burned to death in a bus or executed or imprisoned or become slaves in a society they hate.
Between now and the end people like Aaron Cohen (and me if I am honest) will burn out and want nothing more than to live in peace. Burn out is a key factor in letting the other guy win.
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